You look around baseball and when things go south, that type of fan apathy happens.
I had the pleasure, as Robin said, to live a childhood dream as many young Americans and Puerto Rican children live that play youth baseball. And I feel honored and very thankful for that opportunity.
Going out and playing football or baseball with the boys, when I was a tomboy, was a great way to learn about winning and losing, and most girls didn't have that experience.
If newspapers were a baseball team, they would be the Mets - without the hope for those folks at the very pinnacle of the financial food chain - who average nearly $24 million a year in income - 'next year.'
Like baseball, food will never go out of style; we will always need to eat and we will always find it entertaining. I think of food TV this way - all the fun and none of the calories.
I do have a family, and obviously I spend as much time as I can with them. Though even when I'm with my family, my mind tends to drift toward baseball.
What's odd is that nobody in my family is an artist. My cousins are, like, secretaries at law firms or nurses or just more blue collar. And I was in a baseball team. I used to be, like, a really big tomboy.
One thing I know in baseball is you should never be comfortable where you are. It doesn't matter who you are. It's a business. If I got traded tomorrow, no hard feelings; it's a business.
And then came the nineties, when management, suddenly frightened that they had ceded control to the players, sought to restore baseball's profitability by 'running the game like a business.'
When I started playing the game of baseball, the more I played and the better numbers I got, the more I started thinking about the Hall of Fame. But I never thought I had a chance to be there.
I had a chance to play for the Cuban national team during the 2009 World Baseball Classic, but at the time I never thought about leaving Cuba.
Despite the situation in Cuba, I had a chance to play on the national team; and compared to other baseball players and other people in Cuba, I had the opportunity to live at a level that was not very high class but in the middle.
We have an obligation to spread amateur baseball both at home and abroad. Building up the game at all levels - Little League, Babe Ruth Leagues, the colleges - is in our own self-interest. That's where the pool of talent is - and also of fans.
As a supporter of the Prostate Cancer Foundation and their Home Run Challenge program, I am extremely grateful for the valuable partnerships and relationships built with Major League Baseball and our affiliates.
In baseball you hit your home run over the right-field fence, the left-field fence, the center-field fence. Nobody cares. In golf everything has got to be right over second base.
Baseball is meant to be a contemplative game. They play music to draw young people to the game. If young people can't come to the game without music, then they should stay home.
American history and the history of baseball are bound up together: our racial politics can be described and traced through it.
After Jackie Robinson the most important black in baseball history is Reggie Jackson, I really mean that.
I'm not defined by baseball. I'd love for the Hall of Fame to happen, but if it doesn't, my life won't change. I'll still be coaching my boy's games.
When I was a little boy, I didn't know what the Hall of Fame was. I was just playing the game of baseball, and I wanted to be just like my dad.
College baseball, I love it. I love to work with the younger kids who are trying to live out their dreams, if in fact that's what they plan on doing after college to take the next step.
