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 was a baseball player and a football player at Stanford, so I didn't play a lot of golf in college. I really started playing a lot after I turned pro and I had some time in the off-season.
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.
We've got to decide, how much replay do we want? Because if you start doing it from the first inning to the ninth inning, you may have to time the game with a calendar.
Time is very precious to me. I don't know how much I have left and I have some things that I would like to say. Hopefully, at the end, I will have said something that will be important to other people too.
There are kids don't want to do something because they're afraid of looking stupid to their peers. There comes a time when they start protecting themselves, instead of extending. I want to make sure that they're always trying to extend themselves.
When I went to high school, an all-boys' school, a Catholic school, I tried out for football, and I didn't make it. It was the first time, athletically, that I was knocked down.
From the time I went into baseball, I have always been handicapped by my hands, which are too small. I never saw the day yet when I was able to span an ordinary baseball.
I have a rule on my team: when we talk to one another, we look each other right in the eye, because I think it's tough to lie to somebody. You give respect to somebody.
Harmon Killebrew was a gem. I can never thank him enough for all I learned from him. He was a consummate professional who treated everyone from the brashest of rookies to the groundskeepers to the ushers in the stadium with the utmost of respect.
When I was coming up, I just wanted to play baseball and I'm doing what I love to do most. How can I feel pressure doing what I love to do?
I bet on my team to win every night because I love my team; I believe in my team. I did everything in my power every night to win that game.
