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Motivation Quote by Dizzy Dean

"Son, what kind of pitch would you like to miss"

About this Quote

It lands like a joke, but it’s really a power move: a pitcher offering a hitter the illusion of choice while making clear the outcome is fixed. Dizzy Dean’s line turns the usual batter-pitcher duel into a rigged menu. Go ahead, pick your poison. The charm is in the folksy “Son,” which sounds paternal and casual, yet drips with hierarchy. Dean isn’t just confident; he’s casting himself as the adult in the room, the batter as a kid playing at the big-league table.

The intent is psychological warfare disguised as hospitality. By phrasing it as a question, Dean forces the hitter to imagine failure before the pitch is even thrown. That’s the subtext: I control the pace, the terms, and your self-belief. Baseball thrives on fractions of an inch and the tremor of doubt; Dean is trying to plant doubt like a splinter under the fingernail. It also telegraphs showmanship. Dean, a celebrated talker in an era when sports mythmaking traveled by newspaper and radio, understood that dominance isn’t only measured in strikeouts. It’s measured in story.

Context matters: this is the swagger of pre-free-agency, pre-sports-science baseball, when personality was part of the arsenal and intimidation was practically a skill position. Dean’s bravado reads today like vintage trash talk, but it’s also an old-school thesis on competition: if you can make your opponent participate in your confidence, you’ve already stolen a strike.

Quote Details

TopicWitty One-Liners
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Dean, Dizzy. (2026, January 15). Son, what kind of pitch would you like to miss. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/son-what-kind-of-pitch-would-you-like-to-miss-147702/

Chicago Style
Dean, Dizzy. "Son, what kind of pitch would you like to miss." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/son-what-kind-of-pitch-would-you-like-to-miss-147702/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Son, what kind of pitch would you like to miss." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/son-what-kind-of-pitch-would-you-like-to-miss-147702/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Dizzy Dean (January 16, 1910 - July 17, 1974) was a Athlete from USA.

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