Jim Tracy Baseball Quotations

Obviously, he helped make us a good baseball team two years ago.

I am a firm believer in the fact that a group of guys needs to understand the importance of 90 feet, that it makes the difference in a baseball game. These players will gain a strong realization of that.

He's a great athlete and a heck of a baseball player. You've got to like his future.

He's been terrific. He looks to me like a very good baseball player and a very good number two hitter.

I think it's very safe to say that Ryan is not a finished product defensively. I also feel that, when you look at a major-league baseball team that has 25 active members and half of that is your pitching staff, it's pretty imperative that that stuff back there behind the plate gets taken care of.

Pitching and defense has been the name of the game in baseball forever. I don't care what level you're playing at. My philosophy since I started managing has been that, before you can look at any other phases, you've got to feel fairly comfortable that you've got some people who can pitch and you've got to be able to catch the ball. If you can't do either one, your chances of being very good are slim.

That was his game to determine. It was his baseball game at that point. You have to give him the opportunity to finish it.

We have the better part of five months of baseball to play.

There's no closer in baseball that's perfect, though we lost one (Gagne) who's as close to being one as there is. Brazoban has done a great job.

I started to fall in love with the game of baseball when my dad gave me my first set of baseball cards, ... I kept the ones I recognized. The guys I didn't were the ones I put in the spokes of my bicycle with clothes pins.

No question in my mind. You are talking about people who have great baseball minds and are tireless workers.

A little thing like that can end up winning you a baseball game.

They put constant pressure on the other team, ... It's a very difficult style of baseball to compete against.

There's a lot of baseball to be played.

The best way to approach a player with his type of ability and talent is to feel like you've developed a type of environment to allow his development to continue on its natural course. With what we have done this winter, we have put this young man in a position to where his natural progression as a Major League Baseball player has a genuine opportunity to take place without heaping any unexpected expectations on him.

I mean, how do you play winning baseball that way? I challenge players to understand how the game's played.

If you have them, great. If not, there are people in every clubhouse in baseball that every player in the room identifies with. I don't think that he necessarily needs a 'C' on his shoulder or anything like that.

I think a group of players has to understand the type of baseball you have to play to play winning baseball. You have to realize the importance of the intangibles, the little things.

He's an excellent baseball player, that's what he has shown me. He's very intriguing to me.

You want this whole environment to be fun for them. You want the game of baseball to be fun. You can have fun and also be involved in a businesslike manner and continue to utilize the techniques that we have been talking about over the course of these four days. You can get something done and have people going into the clubhouse with a good feeling about themselves.