Motivation Quote by Ron Fairly

Fairly’s line has the breezy certainty of a ballplayer who’s watched a thousand at-bats and noticed the same cheat code keep working. Calling speed the "number one asset" isn’t just scouting talk; it’s a worldview about how athletic advantage survives slumps, bad luck, and even imperfect technique. You can’t talk your way out of a strikeout, but you can outrun it.

The barb is in the second sentence: "all a guy with speed has to do is make contact". That phrasing downshifts the most difficult task in baseball into something almost casual, and that’s the point. Fairly is arguing that speed rewrites the sport’s math. A routine grounder becomes a bang-bang play. A weak poke turns into an infield single. A walk isn’t a pause in the action; it’s the start of a threat. Speed compresses the defense’s time, forces rushed throws, creates errors that never show up in a hitter’s swing analysis. It also pressures pitchers psychologically: slide steps, distraction, and fastballs left over the plate because the runner is already living in their head.

Context matters. Fairly played and broadcast through eras that prized "the five tools" and later became obsessed with power and launch angle. His quote reads like a pushback against the modern temptation to treat baseball as a home run contest. It’s not anti-skill; it’s pro-chaos. Speed is the one tool that turns ordinary contact into offense, and Fairly is reminding you that baseball still rewards the player who can make the game hurry.