Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The kids look at me, 'Ah, you're my hero.' I want to teach those kids. 'Hey listen, God is my hero. He died on the cross for my sins, and He's the one. That's how I wanna live - like Him - and I want you guys to do the same thing.
People ask me if I believe how quickly my career has taken off. I just tell them that Jesus Christ is my strength. God has blessed me and I will continue to do my best for him. That is more important than anything I could ever do in baseball.
I thought about it a lot (losing the 2002 NLCS). It's something you have to go home and wrap it up because if you keep thinking about it, you're going to take that to Spring Training and you're not going to be able to concentrate on your work.
I'm a really smart player. If you tell me something, I get it quickly. If there is something wrong with my hitting, tell me what's wrong and I'll pick it up right away. That's the best thing I have going for me, my ability to listen to a coach and fix what I'm doing wrong.
It doesn't matter what the scoreboard says. I'm always having fun, talking to other guys. They even come to first base and ask me about hitting. I try to help them out as much as I can in the 30 seconds before the pitcher throws the next pitch. That's me. I don't think I will ever change that.
St. Louis is still a special place for me. I still have my home there. I live there in the offseason. I enjoyed playing in front of 40,000 people every day. I tried to do my best to help the organization win. I had success there. We won two World Series. We went to three. That's something you can't take from me.
I like to eat Wheaties Fuel for breakfast with fresh fruit and egg whites. For lunch, I like to eat my wife's 'homerun chicken,' which is chicken, rice and vegetables, and for dinner I eat grilled steak or a couple of chicken breasts with rice and vegetables. During the day, I drink OhYeah! protein shakes as a snack.
He means as much as Roberto Clemente does to Latin people. Thank God I had the opportunity to know him. I wish my kids had the opportunity to be around him, because that's how I want my kids to live their lives. I want them to be like Stan Musial. Not the baseball player. The person. That's the respect I have for that man.
Do I want to be in St. Louis forever? Of course. People from other teams want to play in St. Louis, and they're jealous that we're in St. Louis because the fans are unbelievable. So why would you want to leave a place like St. Louis to go somewhere else and make $3 million or $4 more million a year? It's not about the money.
I'm thankful God has given us the technology where we can see each other through Skype on the computer. It's not the same thing, but at least we can see each other. Imagine the time before when that wasn't available and people had to go defend our country. It's really hard. I go two weeks without seeing my family and I go crazy.
There's three things that as a professional athlete you want. You want to get to the big leagues, and I accomplished that. Winning a World Series ring, I got that. And then getting to the Hall of Fame. That's everybody's dream. Every athlete, they want to be up there in the Hall of Fame, mentioned with the greatest players to ever play this game.
People from other teams want to play in St. Louis and they're jealous that we're in St. Louis because the fans are unbelievable. So why would you want to leave a place like St. Louis to go somewhere else and make $3 or $4 more million a year? It's not about the money. I already got my money. It's about winning and that's it. It's about accomplishing my goal and my goal is to try to win. If this organization shifts the other way then I have to go the other way.
If they don't know the Lord, I encourage them to search for and open their hearts and their eyes. If something happens to me tomorrow, I'm going to go to heaven and that's for sure because God's promised to us in the Bible. I want to make sure that those people out there feel the same. At the end of the day as long as I glorify him and those 45,000 people know who I represent out there every time I step out on the field, that's what it's about. It's about representing God.