I’ll convert a school desk into a tricycle, because how else am I supposed to learn to love? It’s not like baseball gloves are very effective oven mitts.
I was able to get operated on four days after I was diagnosed. It was just a matter of getting this baseball-sized tumor out of me. I reflect now on how lucky I was to be in the situation where I could get the best possible help and treatment.
I played football in high school, I played baseball when I was younger, things like that, but I think it was the passion I had for track where you want to do an individual sport and be the best, I think - there's nothing that can replace that.
Arizona was the best place. I like the competition in baseball, and the football program has been great for the past five years. I think I'll be playing as a freshman in both sports, and I think I can play with them.
I don't think I do look like an A-Lister. I'm more interested in being comfortable in my own skin than trying to be somebody I'm not. Gimme jeans, an old T-shirt, cowboy boots and a baseball cap any day.
Toledo is better than exciting, it's happy. Because nothing is more conducive to unhappiness than taking yourself seriously, and taking yourself seriously is difficult when you're baseball team is the Mud Hens.
I bet on the game of baseball and I bet on my team, even the mistakes I made, I have to take a different look at someone betting against their own team... that's throwing the game.
I've been lucky. I've met a lot of baseball people, and I've learned to value people who talk - people who talk well and in long sentences and even long paragraphs.
I enjoy baseball more than anything and would like to be involved with it forever, but the reality is your survival is determined by how well you compete, not by your fondness for the game.
I don't know where the loyalty lies in baseball. You really don't have to protect each other much, unless there's like a bench-clearing brawl. In hockey, it's important that they look out for each other.
I'm not devastated over a baseball game. If somebody came to me and said, 'Your wife is terminally ill.' Or, if my kids and wife get on a plane and I got a call that said, 'Something happened with the plane,' that's devastating.
I still dream about everything I achieved. I dream about my career, dream about playing baseball, meeting so many people, traveling so much.
How do you combat a man with a firearm? You don't combat him with a golf club, baseball bat or a knife. You combat him with another firearm.
I don't do stuff to be a star. I do it because I feel it's important for kids, African American kids, to see an African American face that plays baseball.
Casey knew his baseball. He only made it look like he was fooling around. He knew every move that was ever invented and some that we haven't even caught on to yet.
They say baseball is a slow game. It sure doesn't seem that way when you're in the dugout. You think you have it figured out, but things come up quick.
I did 'Kidulthood' and 'Adulthood,' and that's what people wanted and expect me to always do. They want me to do 'hood films and be the guy swinging baseball bats and saying 'Yo Blood' and beating up others in the street.
I wish that they had the freedoms like the Japanese and the Koreans and the Mexicans and everybody else that has that freedom to come over here and play the game, because I know Cuba has a very strong baseball history.
The real beauty of it - key to my life was playing key chords on a banjo. For somebody else it may be a golf club that mom and dad put in their hands or a baseball or ballet lessons. Real gift to give to me and put it in writing.
I used to go to the comic store all the time. I was into comic cards, which are essentially baseball cards for comic book heroes. They have these cool stats on the back. I had collections of these things. I still have a lot of my collection at home.
Traditionally, baseball punishes preening. In a society increasingly tolerant of exhibitionism, it is splendid when a hitter is knocked down because in his last at bat he lingered at the plate to admire his home run.
