I was very, very shocked about Cooperstown. I thought my chances were fairly good, but I tried to stay low key about it, not too high and not too low. That was the way I played, too.
I guess when you have that one monster season, it's good because you're recognized. If it weren't for that season, not as many people would know about my career. But it also kind of diminishes what I did in other years.
I like to have my hand on every single plate that goes out. It's really a good feeling when someone compliments your meal, and you had everything to do with making it. It's very rewarding.
I went on inactive duty in August 1945, and since I had stayed in such good shape and had played ball on military teams, I was ready to start for the Indians just two days later, against the Tigers.
All I can tell them is pick a good one and sock it. I get back to the dugout and they ask me what it was I hit and I tell them I don't know except it looked good.
In '05, '06, '07 and '08, I wasn't throwing any changeups at all. Maybe two or three per game. In '09, I started playing with the grip, started throwing it in the bullpen and playing catch. It came out really good.
John Wetteland had a very good curveball. He threw it for a strike, too, in any count, any situation. But, he really didn't use it much. He didn't want to throw it. He wanted to throw fastball-slider.
What are you going to do? Admit to yourself that the pitchers have you on the point of surrender? You can't do that. You must make yourself think that the pitchers are just as good as they always have been or just as bad.
You know no one ever accomplishes something like this without a lot of help from good people along the way. And this is certainly true in my case, and I would like to thank some of those people.
The great thing about baseball is when you're done, you'll only tell your grandchildren the good things. If they ask me about 1989, I'll tell them I had amnesia.
No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are, you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference.
Sometimes you've just got to let an umpire know that you're not satisfied with his decision. That they've missed the play in your opinion. Not that it's going to do you any good, but you've got to let them know.
By virtue of some of the ways the game is played, in terms of message discipline, in terms of access for reporters, and especially in the way that sources and subjects, especially famous subjects, treat the media, almost by default there's more news ...
In figure skating, your body can only last for so long. I can't be 50 and trying to skate but I can be 50 and be in fashion, so I have to look to my future and what I want to achieve.
When I was interviewed after I got hired to replace Walter Alston, a future Hall of Famer, I was asked: 'Don't you feel pressure on you?' I said: 'Want to know something? I'm worried about the guy who's going to have to replace me.'
It's funny. Some people remember that a lot more than I do. I remember certain parts of it, and if everybody who mentioned that to me had been to the game who said they were at the game, there'd be 800,000 people at that game, I think.
It's funny, because when I went down to the combine for the interviews with teams, Charles Haley is the name that came up a lot as a comparison to the way I play. A lot of people said that I reminded them of him, and that's a great honor.
I loved Omar Vizquel. He tells some really long jokes, and he has his own way of telling them, but he can make every joke very funny. He would always come up with jokes on the loudspeaker on the bus.
There's only person in the world you can't see - yourself. But, God created - or whoever created us, we don't even have to argue that point - created us so perfect because we can actually see ourselves in other people.
Leadership is getting players to believe in you. If you tell a teammate you're ready to play as tough as you're able to, you'd better go out there and do it. Players will see right through a phony. And they can tell when you're not giving it all you'...
You can stretch yourself to the moon and back to make someone feel needed and loved. Just remember, finding someone who will do the same for you is nearly impossible." -Casey King, Fingerlike
