I look at my career and it's still hard for me to believe the way things turned out and how things happened. I've been so blessed.
No matter what players say or people say, you want to be liked and appreciated, even if you've had a downfall.
I'm a football guy at heart; maybe I should have played football for a living instead, because I play a lot of football videogames; I'm really into them.
People in West Virginia do have cars. We have indoor plumbing. We even use knives and forks.
For my children, they spent 15 to 20 years of their life in baseball. And Ruth and I spent so many years of our married life that that was our life. We knew nothing else.
When you're not at the top of your game and you feel like the other team is laughing and embarrassing you by doing certain things, it's time to retaliate.
The Capone era. That was my time. Capone was a big baseball fan. He'd walk into the ballpark like the president walking in today, with bodyguards all around him.
I've taken up golf in the past five or six years, and most of the time there aren't too many people out there that can drive a ball further than I can.
It's a pretty sure thing that the player's bat is what speaks loudest when it's contract time, but there are moments when the glove has the last word.
I have always loved the Bay Area. I spent a lot of time in the Bay Area. I started my career there. That's a huge part of the excitement for me.
I was a professional baseball player from the time I was drafted out of high school in 1981 until the time I retired in 2003.
Honestly, at one time I though Babe Ruth was a cartoon character. I really did, I mean I wasn't born until 1961 and I grew up in Indiana.
Hitting .400 is something you can do by yourself. But you have to rely on guys getting on base at the right time to drive in that many runs.
That no-hitter stuff was a long time ago; I don't think that has anything to do with it. I'm just going through a tough time.
I'm taking my time. I feel much more confident, and every day I feel like I'm getting better.
When I was growing up, there weren't any Little Leagues in the city. Parents worked all the time. They didn't have time to take their kids out to play baseball and football.
And when I went to Houston, they had a conditioning coach by the name of Gene Coleman. And that was the first time I had gone to an organization that had a program with a weight room and designed specifically for pitchers.
I keep active because I have not announced my retirement, because that is something that takes time and you have to plan it. Plus, it is something that the Dominican people expected.
I spend more time in New York than the Dominican. I play here, I live here, so why not become a citizen?
Yes, but I - you know, it's been such a long time, I'm sure that I've got cousins and uncles that I've never met before, you know, that I've left behind.
It's critical that the manager has the respect of players so he can make the moves that he feels is appropriate without having somebody go to the papers. They respect you. So you respect them back.
