I feel like I have reached the stage where I can no longer produce for my club, my manager, and my teammates.
You know, a lot of people say they didn't want to die until the Red Sox won the World Series. Well, there could be a lot of busy ambulances tomorrow.
People have the right to say what they want, but as long as I can go to bed at night and look myself in the mirror, I'll be all right.
At least, in this situation, I know my chances of coming back could be slim because of the young talent the Yankees do have.
The Baltimore boys only defend themselves when playing against teams that treat us mean, especially that bunch from Cincinnati.
When I first came in the league, I thought Jack Clark and Steve Garvey were big. Then all of sudden it seemed like everyone was that big.
Usually during the regular season, if you're starting pitcher, you're kind of walking back and forth from the clubhouse to the dugout and not really paying attention to what's going on.
Pitchers really don't deal with the managers a whole lot. When we come in the clubhouse, we see him, we say, 'Hey.' That's really it.
I kept giving up runs. It was, for sure, a rough road and a very rocky one. I enjoyed my time there, but not as much as I could have if I would have pitched well.
I've got a fastball, change-up, forkball, curve, slider, knuckle-slider, knuckle-curve, I had about seven pitches I could have used at any time.
The toughest thing in hitting shouldn't be deciding when to swing. It is, for me, deciding when not to swing. You should be swinging from the time you get into the batter's box until something says don't swing.
The bigger the game, the better I liked it. Not that I was about to let anybody know I was excited. I approached every game the same way. One pitch, one hitter at a time.
The three-thousand hitting thing was the first time I let individual pressure get to me. I was uptight about it. When I saw the hit going through, I had a sigh of relief more than anything.
Every time I sit with our general manager at a baseball game, and there's number-cruncher and statistician guy - I'm sitting around - they start talking about stuff, and I say, 'What's that? I've never heard of that one before.'
We all pulled together at the right time, unfortunately, we were down 3-0 to the Yankees when we decided to do it, but we did it. And we shocked the world.
I learned this a long time ago. If you call a guy into your office and shut the door, if there's media around, it sends up a red flag. I never wanted to embarrass a player.
Growing up, it was mainly just players I followed more than teams, with the exception of the Mariners. I never really had time to follow a team throughout a season.
Cobb would have to play center field on my all time team. But where would that put Speaker? In left. If I had them both, I would certainly play them that way.
I didn't want to go on the DL. I want to keep pitching and competing. They decided it's better for me to take some time off and that's what we're going to do.
Every time I pull somebody out of the bullpen, I believe he can do the job. I have to believe it. If he doesn't, hopefully he will do it the next time.
Scott Boras, I've known for a long time. We were both in the Cardinals organization. I'm a lot older than Scott. He's a very tough man, very tough agent.
