No matter how much technology changes scouting, no matter how much free agency and big TV contracts change the business of baseball, I hope and pray that the heart of the game will never change.
I have a hard time believing athletes are overpriced. If an owner is losing money, give it up. It's a business. I have trouble figuring out why owners would stay in if they're losing money.
I missed a lot of decisions. At the time of making such a decision, there was no doubt in my mind as to its correctness. However, a second or two later I felt that I erred and wished I could change my original ruling.
I'll also say, yes, I think the change in black consciuosness in recent years has made me more sensitive to injustice in every area of my life.
I wanted to create a multibillion dollar company that lets me go out and let us go out and change the world and create a Skin Cancer Awareness Center that costs a quarter a billion dollars.
I think today the players are too nice to one another, but that might change with the unbalanced schedule, with teams playing each other more and more. When you face each other that much, with that much at stake, something's bound to happen.
The reason I think I'm a good pitcher is I locate my fastball and I change speeds. Period. That's what you do to pitch. That's what pitchers have to do to win games.
You see people who have been very heavy in their life who have taken that body, trimmed it down, firmed it up through discipline, exercise and being able to say no. Eating properly, that all comes into it.
Yes, I was in that game where George Brett hit that home run. Billy saw there was too much pine tar on the bat and he went to the umpire, the next thing we knew they were fighting about it.
I'd get 3-4 cheap home runs every year. You know, little 'wood shots' down either line. They would be pop flies in any other park. But, goodness me, they didn't count the number of long outs!
The first time I picked up a bat in a professional game, I hit a ball hard left-handed, and my first home run was so effortless, it surprised me.
I am through with baseball forever. I have my farm and my home and enough to take care of me, so why should I work and worry any longer?
It was not me failing that I was scared of. It was failing those people back home who believe in you. They only delivered the newspaper once a week where I lived in Oklahoma, and those people lived and died with the box score of my games.
I had a job on college campus. I lost that job, but on my way home I heard an inner voice that said go out for the baseball team. I was a walk-on, and I was actually petrified as a walk-on because you're not an athlete.
No one hit home runs the way Babe did. They were something special. They were like homing pigeons. The ball would leave the bat, pause briefly, suddenly gain its bearings, then take off for the stands.
What a perfect way to end the home stand, by hitting sixty-two for the city of St. Louis and all the fans. I truly wanted to do it here and I did. Thank you St. Louis.
After I hit a home run I had a habit of running the bases with my head down. I figured the pitcher already felt bad enough without me showing him up rounding the bases.
Willie Mays could throw better, and Hank Aaron could hit more home runs. But I've got enthusiasm. I've got desire. I've got hustle. Those are God-given talents, too.
When people think of me, they think about me knocking catchers down and knocking second basemen down and yelling at pitchers. But when I took the spikes off after the game, I was a nice guy when I went home.
One day there were two out in the ninth, and I hit a pop fly so high that the fans got tired of waiting for it to come down. So they all went home and listened to it drop by turning on the radio.
I've always had a connection here in the city from the first day I arrived. I stayed in the city. I made San Francisco my home. I was seen in the offseason at a lot of different functions, and people liked that.
