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.
Back in my day, we didn't think about money as much. We enjoyed playing the game. We loved baseball. I didn't think about anybody else but the Cardinals.
There's a bigger difference now than when I first got into professional baseball because that was before guaranteed contracts, before there was a lot of money, so it was mostly survival. You had more competition.
They will look at my career as the guy who gave it all but at the same time did it with integrity. That's what we all aim for - the respect of the game as well as the honesty that's played a part of that game.
I think some of the pressure comes from the expectations of other people. Like if your father played baseball, they expect you to be the big lifesaver or something when you play a sport.
I was a pretty normal high school kid. I just loved to play sports and had opportunities, and the Lord blessed me with talent, and I just tried to take advantage of it.
I won't have any competitive instincts in any sports, other than golf. I can't see being competitive in sports any more.
At ten I was playing against 18-year-old guys. At 15 I was playing professional ball with the Birmingham Black Barons, so I really came very quickly in all sports.
I give everything I have every time I take the ball. With that, I also know that there will always be a risk of injury when playing this game that I love.
I could not bear to think that I wrote a five-hundred page novel just because I needed to love my father.
I always believed no matter where you are, as long as you're doing what you love doing, you're going to be happy.
Again, like I said, I went out to play the game of baseball because I love to play it. I did it right. I did it the right way. I worked hard doing it.
I use Twitter as a tool to get involved with people, to sell tickets to gigs where I can stand in a room and smell the audience - and I love that!
I love both sports, but the deciding factor was, being a left-handed pitcher, I had a huge advantage in baseball because of that, and I didn't have that type of advantage in hockey.
I see a lot of people who love their jobs. I see some garbage collectors smiling as they go about their work.
Everybody says we hated the Yankees. We didn't hate the Yankees. We just hated the way they beat us.
Whatever happens at the end of the day, as long as I glorify His name, that's what it's all about.
I think the two most important parts of any athlete's workouts are his leg workouts and his core training.
Anaheim is not like Los Angeles, where there are more people and more paparazzi. You don't have that in Anaheim. It's more laid-back.
