My parents- they've been my biggest influences and supporters since day one. They teach me every day that happiness comes from within and not from something outside of your heart.
We all have experiences in our lives that change us, and we all learn from people, like my dad, but at the end of the day, it's only us. And we're only responsible to make ourselves happy.
My goal is for Gunnar to outlive me. That's the way it should be. My dream is for him to be a dad himself one day, so he can find out all the anxiety that kids bring to their dads.
Even though my dad was a manager in the minor leagues, I still traveled around with him and saw it from the field out. Now, as an owner, you're kind of looking from the whole baseball activity from outside in, from a fan's perspective.
You can tell your uncle stuff that you could not tell your dad. That is kind of the role of an uncle. I feel very much like a father sometimes but sometimes I feel like a teammate.
On stage, I'm me. I'm a husband, I'm a dad, I'm a guy, I'm a mess - but I am a cohesive thing that you recognize as one human entity saying these things that he generally believes.
I grew up in northern California, where it was consistently in the hundreds in the summertime. My dad didn't think he should have to turn on the air conditioning when we had a swimming pool in our backyard; it was our built-in air conditioner.
When I was a kid, man, my dad used to buy me the Ted Williams glove at Sears with the Ted Williams shoes with the eight stripes on 'em. I used to play Little League, and I was Ted Williams-ed out.
And I remember leaving my place in L.A. and - my father is a big fight fan - and I said, 'Dad, I got a couple of days off and I'm getting ready to go to Houston to sign to fight Muhammad Ali.
Nowadays young people have great choice of occupations, hobbies, etc, so chess is experiencing difficulties because of the high competition. Now it's hard to make living in chess, so our profession does attract young people.
We're still a great team. In your mind you can understand that but, emotionally, we needed to express the same belief. We came out full of fire and scored two early goals, two really beautiful goals, and that changed everything.
I had never been to the playoffs, and it was exciting. The fans went through the roof. They were excited about the whole team. It was great to be traded to a city like Chicago, which was a lot like Boston.
The great triumph of the Sixties was to dramatize just how arbitrary and constructed the seeming normality of the Fifties had been. We rose up from our maple-wood twin beds and fell onto the great squishy, heated water bed of the Sixties.
There isn't a single player I would pay to watch. You can say Thierry Henry, he's a fabulous striker, with pace and power, but a great entertainer needs to have charisma, too. Does he have charisma? No.
Joe Mauer's the real deal. He is absolutely wonderful. Not only is he a great player, but he's a great human being. He's the kind of guy you'd like to see... be your son.
As a person, to inspire some young girls and give them something to look at and give them something to play for, I think is such a great position to be in. I'm glad that I can follow all of the great Korean players' footsteps.
You know, when you can play with the greatest players of that particular era, you look forward to going to the ballpark. I mean, you thought it was great to be there in the clubhouse. You thought it was great to be on the field.
With all the great products that are apparently out there that are undetectable, for me to take something like that... when people take things that now aren't even being tested for, does it make any sense?
Even during my career, when I read all those great things about me, it's almost like I was reading about someone else. It's almost like there was another person.
When my mother tells me to do something, I'll do my own thing. A strong character can be good, but sometimes it is not good. I hope it's good in my case.
The only reason we make good role models is because you guys look up to athletes and we can influence you in positive ways. But the real role models should be your parents and teachers!
