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I used to get made fun of in the minor leagues. I'd be 0 for 2, and then in my last at-bat I'd hit a chopper that wouldn't even reach the shortstop, and I'd get a hit out of it. The guys would be all over me, but a hit's a hit. I'll take 3,000 of 'em.
My first season with Pittsburgh was 1969. We were still in the old NFL. My second year, we moved to the AFC when the leagues merged. I went to the Pro Bowl that season, and there must have been nine Raiders and nine Chiefs. I got to know all those guys.
If you seriously aspire to be a manager in the big leagues, there is a baseball 'book' that one must learn. Alongside that book, you must practice Spanish. Of 25 players on each roster, sometimes there are between eight and 15 players who speak Spanish.
It's been a big flaw of ours in the soccer department that a lot of our best athletes go and play other sports. But I think young players have seen me, and others, go over to Europe and play in some of the best leagues - and MLS is improving so much, too.
The Nautilus was piercing the water with its sharp spur, after having accomplished nearly ten thousand leagues in three months and a half, a distance greater than the great circle of the earth. Where were we going now, and what was reserved for the future?
If you reach a point where your entire farm system is in the big leagues, you've traded a couple guys for players who are now in the big leagues, you know what you do? You start over in your farm system, and you keep developing the talented players you have.
In any football I have played in - and I have played in League One and as an international at the World Cup - the bare minimum is running around and showing the desire for the shirt. Then, the higher you go up the leagues, your football takes control of that.
The situation was, the team I was on when I got injured went down to the lower leagues. In America, they don't have that relegation, so when the team went down to the lower region, every player has his value, and they went off and sold any player who had value.
The families of many athletes - incensed at the sports leagues and hoping to make games safer overall - are increasingly making the brains of players who die prematurely and suspiciously available for study. Some athletes are even making the bequest themselves.
As you can probably tell, the push to develop talent in Africa is personal. I grew up there. I played there. I know how much talent there is. We have to concentrate on building facilities, establishing successful leagues and finding investors to help young players.
Because of the standing in society, because women's basketball does not draw the interest that major professional sports leagues or men's college basketball draw, Geno Auriemma is never going to be recited by the sports fan at-large as the greatest coach in history.
When you're a kid, you just hope you make it to the big leagues. So to get to go say you're going to play in the World Series, it's an incredibly special moment. Up there with getting married and having kids, it's right up there with one of the best days of my life.
The right wing has had a radio apparatus for years and years, so they've had minor leagues - they've had local rightwing guys who've become national rightwing guys, and who build slowly, and that's how it goes. We haven't had that. It isn't like we have a farm team.
If democracy is to survive Facebook, that company must realize the outsized role it now plays as both the public forum where our strident democratic drama unfolds and as the vehicle for those who aspire to control that drama's course. Facebook, welcome to the big leagues.
For clubs, free movement plays a big role in transfers and players' contracts. Players from the E.U. can sign for U.K. clubs without needing a visa or special work permit, making it quicker and easier to secure top talent from across Europe to come and play in our leagues.
When I got traded to the California Angels, I really wasn't that excited about going to the Angels because it meant changing leagues and also a whole new set of teammates. But shortly after I got there I realized that it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
A significant piece of the wealth that the NFL owners garner is a result of the enormous TV revenues they get - and those revenues are supported by a legislatively granted exemption from the antitrust laws that has been made applicable to sports leagues, primarily the NFL.
Stood off and on during the night, determining not to come to anchor till morning, fearing to meet with shoals; continued our course in the morning; and as the island was found to be six or seven leagues distant, and the tide was against us, it was noon when we arrived there.
No matter how little we think anatomy should matter to one's social and political rights, surely we can't pretend biology doesn't matter in sports. Surely there's a reason we don't let adults play in the t-ball leagues, and a reason most women athletes want their own leagues.
I was captain in Atletico at 19, playing in the same team as Demetrio Albertini, who won three Champions Leagues, and Sergi Barjuan from Barcelona, who had won everything, and they were 32, 33. I was a kid as captain, so I wasn't the real captain, just a kid learning from them.
When people say 'American soccer,' they think of the U.S. national team. But American soccer also includes Major League Soccer, and until we have a league that produces players at the rate other leagues around the world do, I don't believe we'll ever get to where we want to be.
It's good that we have good managers like Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger in this countr,y but I think we should be trying to send out some of our managers to other countries to help not just the development of themselves but the leagues over here. It can enhance their careers.
I knew I'd never make it back to the major leagues as a player. Lee MacPhail came to me and asked if I wanted to manage the Yankees' Fort Lauderdale club. I thought about it for a day or two and decided to take the job. That was the turning point. I knew it was what I wanted to do.
For me, and I've been on record saying it, let's create two leagues: one for players who want the college football experience, and another for those that want to get paid, have the NFL help fund it, whatever. Guys who don't want to go to school to get an education, let them go to work.
Too bad integration didn't come sooner, because there were so many ballplayers that could have made the major leagues. That's why, you look back, and - not to take away anything from Babe Ruth or some of those other guys - they didn't play against the greatest ballplayers in the world.
The leagues in the countries around us are probably more interesting and played at a higher level, but in general, we are happy with the way we have moved things forward with Ajax, together with Marc Overmars as technical director, to establish a squad that can compete at the highest level.
Group events like cricket, football and kabaddi have private leagues, which are all being played for money. There are no such events in athletics. Everything is run by the government bodies, there's less money involved in our game, and we are not even paid as well as people in other sports.
Marlins Park is what I call my office in Miami, because I work for the Venezuelan Museum of Baseball and Hall of Fame. My job is to go to all the MLB stadiums and to talk to and collect articles from all the Venezuelan players in the big leagues and those Americans that played in Venezuela.
At least two or three of the leagues in Europe over the last few months have said to us, 'We hope you go to the Olympics,' and I looked at them, and I said, 'Why?' and they go, 'Because if you don't send NHL players, we have to send our players, and that's way too disruptive to our season.'
Football will always be part of my life. I've taken an interest in it since I was a young boy; my father played, as did I, and I never miss the chance to organise a little match with my friends when my schedule permits it. I also follow the results of the major European leagues quite closely.
For me, there was nothing like my time with the Eagles - ever. We were young, and the world was new to us. It was the happiest time of our lives. They wouldn't let us play in their big leagues, but we had this game of ours... this marvelous, blessed game... and we just went out and played it.
Shaquille and I kind of joke we were the Christopher Columbus of social media. We're kind of out on a boat by ourselves going through these uncharted waters. But it's become more understood, embraced and accepted, and now it's pretty much expected by fans for athletes, leagues and teams to be there.
We've got two semi-professional leagues; we've got many other leagues, more coaching opportunities for youngsters. You never had that when I was younger. You had to go and join in with the boys - that helped me as a player, but I think girls feel more confident playing with other girls of the same age.
We in the Negro leagues felt like we were contributing something to baseball, too, when we were playing. We played with a round ball, and we played with a round bat. And we wore baseball uniforms, and we thought that we were making a contribution to baseball. We loved the game, and we liked to play it.
If not the biggest, the Premier League is one of the biggest leagues in the world. It's very competitive, and I find that exciting. I like challenges. I came here because it will be a great challenge for me at a very high level of football and be among these great players in a great team like Liverpool.
The work that launched Snohetta into the architectural big leagues was their Oslo Opera House, which will certainly rank among the firm's highlights whatever else they may do. Although this is by any measure a triumph of city planning, the building itself is not quite a masterpiece, though very fine indeed.
When you get to the big leagues, the talent pool is on such a level playing field, you have to find a way to separate yourself from incredibly talented guys. Especially when you go through the injuries that I've had, you come back, and you might not physically be able to do some of the things you used to do.
Even after I played ten years of ball, I still felt like I had to play well or somebody might take my place. They had plenty of players in the minor leagues who were good enough to come up and take your job, and I think that kept us going all of the time. I hustled and put that extra effort in all of the time.
If you become their property it is much clearer for you, for the club, for everything. It was a great experience to play in three different teams, different leagues, different experiences, but if I wanted to improve I had to break this cycle and make my own way. That's why I signed this contract to come to Stoke.
At nineteen I was pretty sure I was going to be a professional soccer player. At that time I played for one of the Norwegian premier leagues. But I tore ligaments in both knees, so I started studying business administration and economics and became a financial analyst, and I worked at a brokerage firm as a stockbroker.
The way football has evolved in some of the bigger leagues in the world, you'd have to say there has become a bigger distance between the contact that you have, for everybody really. It's quite refreshing actually to experience something as simplistic as enjoying winning a game, and the players and the fans being together.
I think a lot of people look at athletes in general and think they have everything figured out. They made it to the big leagues... We're battling and going through the same stuff everyone else is going through, but just in a different way. Maybe it can be comforting knowing that we have to battle through some of the same stuff.
I think every league is good. Every league is pretty much the same: You got your top teams that are all very good, you got middle of the road teams that are really good and then you got your bottom of leagues that are all kind if fighting to get really good. I think it's pretty much the same across the board; I've said that for a long time.
The fact that guys adjusted really quickly to the big leagues, developed really quickly, faced adversity under the brightest spotlights, played great baseball, overcame so much, overcame centuries worth of issues and won a World Series, I guess it doesn't necessarily mean we're still not just prone to the laws of nature and reality and baseball.
You know, I spent parts of six seasons in the minor leagues and I dealt with some injuries there, I saw a lot of things. I had the safety net of being a first-round pick, so I didn't maybe necessarily experience some of that hardship firsthand, but I watched it break a lot of guys. The strain that it puts on you and your family, it's really tough.
During the years I was still playing, I would go to Puerto Rico in the winter and manage. When the day came, I had the experience without having to go to the minor leagues for four or five years and then wait for an opportunity. Still, there's a double standard. Some whites, like Pete Rose, Joe Torre and Ted Williams, never had to go to the minors.