Motivation Quote by David Wells

There is a specific kind of honesty athletes reach for when the box score is ugly: not poetic, not strategic, just blunt. David Wells, a pitcher who built a career on swagger, savvy, and a famously unpolished vibe, lands on the perfect locker-room sentence. “I’m not making any excuses” is the ritual opening, the preemptive strike against fans, reporters, and teammates who can smell a rationalization coming. Then he swerves into the plainest possible admission: “I got my butt kicked.” It’s self-deprecation with teeth.

The intent is accountability, but the subtext is control. By choosing the phrasing and the level of detail (“certain games,” not “the season” or “my mechanics”), Wells frames failure as contained, not defining. He owns the outcome while quietly protecting his broader narrative: I’m still that guy; I just took some lumps. The casual, slightly comic language does important work, too. “Butt kicked” drains the moment of melodrama and denies the media an easy headline about crisis or collapse. It’s a way of conceding without groveling.

Context matters: pitchers are evaluated in public, nightly, with a win-loss record that can turn a bad inning into a character flaw. Wells’ line is a veteran’s answer to that exposure: accept the embarrassment, refuse the excuse economy, and keep moving. It’s toughness, yes, but also media literacy.