My feelings, as the last ball travelled over the net, and as I realized that the final match was mine, I cannot describe. I felt that here was a prize for all the games I had ever played.
Some of these guys wear beards to make them look intimidating, but they don't look so tough when they have to deliver the ball. Their abilities and their attitudes don't back up their beards.
People are talking of his susceptibility to the rising delivery, but let me tell you that when you are out of form, every ball looks like a hand grenade.
Balls and strikes are the basic tenet to everything in baseball. From the perspective of hitting, pitching, offense and defense, it's all about the strike zone and how the battle is waged there between the pitcher and hitter.
The U.S. won the majors 29-11 in the 1980s. That's when Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus were carrying the ball, and when Seve Ballesteros was becoming a Brit in the minds of English and Scottish journalists.
I remember going from rookie ball to A, to double A, then to triple A. At every level it seemed like the game was faster. The bigger the situation, the more the game speeds up. That's all mental. It messes people up.
I'm just a ballplayer with one ambition, and that is to give all I've got to help my ball club win. I've never played any other way.
In my own case I have frequently faced the pitcher when I had no desire whatever to hit. I wanted to get a base on balls.
I always dreamt that I would marry in the Piazza Del Campo in Siena and go on my honeymoon down the Amazon, up the Nile, on a gallop through the pyramids, to Nepal and Kerala, on a safari and finally to Lake Titicaca in Peru.
I don't believe in diets, as I always put whatever I lost right back on again. I think we should all just eat healthily and get as much exercise as we can.
People have been to jail when they're innocent. I knew I would never miss a single ball on a snooker table on purpose and, until then, I was sure the evidence would support me.
I also want to try acting - give it a shot - maybe take some lessons, I think that could be fun. I feel like that could even help me with modeling, because in a way you have to act.
They thought that athletes that worked out with my system wouldn't be able to throw a ball because they'd be too muscle bound. Those are the misconceptions I had to go through for about 40 years.
I just try to play as hard as I can every possession. If you're aware and you're high-energy, the ball will eventually bounce your way and you'll be able to make plays.
I live a very different life now, with incredible privileges, but looking back I realise that growing up in Russia gave me tools that other people don't necessarily have - such as the will to push that bit further, to make things happen, to succeed.
I get kind of bored on the treadmill, but I do it. And I do a little bit of weight training. I'm really into the BOSU ball. You have to balance on it, and I do weights and squats on it. I'm pretty good at it, I feel sort of like a Karate Kid.
I used to come up with these crazy jobs to try and provoke my parents but they said, 'You can be anything you want.' So I was like, 'I want to be a garbage man' and they were like 'That's OK, we'll still love you!'
Jazz is all about improvisation and it's about the moment in time, doing it this way now, and you'll never do it this way twice. I've studied the masters. Why would I want to play ball after the guys who sit on a bench? I want to play like Michael Jo...
Well, you know, it's been interesting because an album is just a snapshot of where you are at that time. Not all pictures of everybody are just in jeans and a 'T' shirt, or a ball gown. You have many different sides and this is a snapshot of where yo...
There is a definite loneliness in the game. Most people stay away from you since they think they're intruding upon your time. And after the ball game, when it's 11 o'clock and you want to eat dinner some place, the restaurants are closed.
If I really had to pinpoint my happiest days out of the United States, I'd choose those Fifties military days in Britain, particularly my time in South Ruislip. I had a ball.
