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I'm a firm believer that the wild-card teams, because they're grinding it out until the final days, have a tremendous amount of excitement. That excitement carries over into the playoffs and really helps.
Wives of ballplayers, when they teach their children their prayers, should instruct them to say: God bless mommy, God bless daddy, and God bless Babe Ruth! He's upped daddy's paycheck by 15 to 40 percent!
I'm not the most powerful. I'm not the fastest. I don't have the best arm. I don't have any of that, but put it all together and do the little details well, and you're going to be a very productive player.
You used to be taught to let the ball go as far as possible and then drop it on the runner, whereas now it might be even more advantageous to direct the ball in front of the bag and get the guy on the leg.
All the stuff about who's hitting behind you and who's hitting in front of you-it plays a little bit of a part. But you can't just base your approach off that because you'll end up getting beat in the end.
I had never been to the playoffs, and it was exciting. The fans went through the roof. They were excited about the whole team. It was great to be traded to a city like Chicago, which was a lot like Boston.
The one thing I didn't understand was the Minor Leagues, how that part of the business works. I'd see Todd Hollandsworth out there one game, and the next game he wouldn't be there, and I didn't understand.
If you want to get to know me, you have to get off the baseball field. Because when I'm on the field, and in the clubhouse, I'm doing what I'm paid to do, what I love to do, and man, I hate it when I fail.
Being in the clubhouse, talking to the veterans, talking to guys who have been here, getting to know everybody, getting the personalities, you can actually learn a lot from the other players in the league.
I don't care what the situation was, how high the stakes were - the bases could be loaded and the pennant riding on every pitch, it never bothered Whitey. He pitched his game. Cool. Craft. Nerves of steel.
He (Buck Showaleter) never even smelled a jock in the big leagues. Mr. Baseball never even got a hit in Triple-A. I was a better player than him, I have more money than him and I'm better looking than him.
With all the great products that are apparently out there that are undetectable, for me to take something like that... when people take things that now aren't even being tested for, does it make any sense?
It really gets into your system. All baseball players have this internal clock around February when it starts to kick in and the juices start to flow. I think underestimated how much I was going to miss it.
This is the place to be. Baseball town. The intimacy of Fenway, the toughness of it. I like that. I'm used to it. I need it. If I went somewhere else, it might have been a bit of a letdown. I like the edge.
A lot of baseball players think baseball is cool, and the audience that we have think it's cool. It might not hit every audience, but I don't think there's a single sport that's going to hit every audience.
There were probably a few games I played where I should not have played, because of some nagging injuries or something. I used to always talk the managers into playing me, because I wanted to play so badly.
Are we to say that any individual who's on steroids that has an angry moment is due to steroids? What about the individual who gets angry and kills someone who's not on steroids? What do we blame it on now?
Sometimes things go wrong, even when you're doing your best. That just shows that none of us are perfect. So I keep trying with all of my heart, and if that's not good enough, I'm not going to hang my head.
Sliding headfirst is the safest way to get to the next base, I think, and the fastest. You don't lose your momentum, and there's one more important reason I slide headfirst, it gets my picture in the paper.
I met Gerald Ford. I met Richard Nixon. I met Jimmy Carter. I met Dwight Eisenhower when he was a general. George Bush senior. I haven't met Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, although I got a letter from him.
I think everything comes together. I think it's me being more comfortable with what I am trying to do in terms of how I pitch, in using the curveball and stuff like that. It all brings the package together.
You know, I'd actually say Lionel Messi. He's so remarkable, watching him play he's probably still undervalued. When you're scoring five goals in one Champions League match, there's no value that's too high.
Leadership isn't about simply being in charge and treating your people like soldiers and barking orders. Leadership is sharing your knowledge and your direction so that others grow and reach their potential.
I've felt some great feelings on the baseball field... in front of 50,000 people and millions on TV... but the feeling you get when you give a kid a chance, that is a hundred times greater than that feeling.
I had one of my best years in 1991; I was 31. I made a renewed effort to work harder. I got better at my diet. I paid attention to how much sleep I got. I was always someone of routine. I became more strict.
I used to think it would be neat to play my whole career with one team. But as a baseball player you want to come to the ballpark every day knowing you have a chance to win and that the games mean something.
The dumber a pitcher is, the better. When he gets smart and begins to experiment with a lot of different pitches, he's in trouble. All I ever had was a fastball, a curve and a changeup and I did pretty good.
The game of baseball is a game of failure because it's so difficult to play. A 300 hitter, a superstar fails seven out of ten times at the plate. So what does that tell you about the game and its difficulty?
Maybe the day will come when I can sit back and be content....But until that day comes, I intend to stay in the batter's box - I don't let the big guys push me out of there anymore - and keep hammering away.
It kills me to lose. If I'm a troublemaker, and I don't think that my temper makes me one, then it's because I can't stand losing. That's the way I am about winning, all I ever wanted to do was finish first.
Blacks have had to learn to protect themselves by being cynical but not cynical enough to slam the door on potential opportunities. We go through life walking a tightrope to prevent too much disillusionment.
We need some remedial training on how to live as subjects in a kingdom. We may be justified in rejecting the divine right of kings to rule but we cannot be justified if we reject the rule of our divine king.
I played football in the fall when I was in high school. Then basketball, a different conditioning - you're running up and down the courts. Then you come into baseball, you're doing a sprint to hit a triple.
Talk to people. Go another way. Don't kill yourself. It ain't worth it and I'm a great example. No matter how bad it seems at the time, work your way through it. Who knows how your life is going to turn out?
I know my Dad's a National League guy. I'm an American League guy. I tell him all the time we got better hitters. He's like well we got better pitchers. I'm like cause you all got those easy outs at the end.
I usually don't look at at-bats where I get out. I look at my hits. I look at good swings I put on balls. Because of that good swing or good at-bat, I can see what I need to continue to work on and recreate.
I told him (Pete Rose, Jr.) who to watch. I said if you want to be a catcher, watch Johnny Bench. If you want to be a right-handed power hitter, watch Mike Schmidt. If you just want to be a hitter, watch me.
I am grateful that I live in a nation where most believe that one's punishment should fit their wrongdoing and that ours is a nation that judges an individual by both what he has done and how he has changed.
When people think of me, they think about me knocking catchers down and knocking second basemen down and yelling at pitchers. But when I took the spikes off after the game, I was a nice guy when I went home.
I would think flying would be pretty cool. You would be able to fly away from all your enemies and get where you're going much faster. But being invisible? You probably wouldn't use that for the good of man.
You know, when I was a young boy I used to play baseball in my back yard or in the street with my brothers or the neighborhood kids. We used broken bats and plastic golf balls and played for hours and hours.
I didn't know who was on the team, but I saw every eye as I walked down the aisle. It looked like a thousand eyes were staring right at me saying, 'Who is this young punk?' I just kept my eyes straight ahead.
A lot of families with kids with autism can't afford speech therapy for their children and can't afford to get them in the best schools for autism. We're trying to help make a difference in those communities.
Making the Hall of Fame, would it be something that's gratifying because of what I've sacrificed? Sure. Baseball has been a big part of our lives. We've sacrificed our bodies. It's the way we made our living.
I'm an expert in baseball and I don't even have a job. I'm an expert, more so than a lot of people out there. It should be my career until I'm dead. I should be one of the instructors. I think I've earned it.
I'm a pitcher, so the glove is my only accessory. The hitters get to have all the fun. They have batting helmets, the actual bats, gloves, elbow guards - all this cool stuff to wear. And all I get is a glove.
I knew it was gonna go out. It was just a question of it being fair or foul. The wind must have carried it 15 feet toward the foul pole. I just stood there and watched. I didn't want to miss seeing it go out.
Growing up, I kind of liked the way he (Thurman Munson) played. I didn't see much of him, but I remember him being a leader. I remember him really standing up for his teammates, and that really caught my eye.
Nobody likes to lose. I'm not going to be happy and excited about that, but I'm still going to be me because I know from the bottom of my heart there's going to be a next game; maybe try to win the next game.
You never know what's going to happen the rest of the way. You can't predict. You don't know what Montreal is going to do to us this weekend, and you don't know what the Cubs are going to do to the Cardinals.