I've been able to do what I love and what I'm passionate about my entire life. I made, you know, an insane amount of money playing baseball.
What kind of influence did my parents have on my life? Well, they had the most influence. These are the people who are closest to me. My parents are very positive people. They've been supportive. They're always there.
I never doubted my ability, but when you hear all your life you're inferior, it makes you wonder if the other guys have something you've never seen before. If they do, I'm still looking for it.
I don't think some athletes understand how big it is to be an athlete, what they can do with just a simple gesture of shaking a kid's hand. It can make a fan's day. It can make a fan's life.
The student body was huge at UT and you had to mature pretty quick, very quick actually. I enjoyed it and it helped me a lot in my life in general - not only in the classroom but on the baseball field as well.
I'm not sure. I did not set it up. I have never done a polygraph test in my life. I didn't know what to expect. I was just there to answer the questions that they put in front of me.
My grandmother was the type of woman who always smiled and said, 'Treat people like you want to be treated, and life is so much easier.' My mom is the same way.
The players get no respect around here. They give you money, that's it, not respect. We get constantly dogged and players from other teams love to see that. That's why nobody wants to play here.
We played for the love of the game; there were few holdouts. We wanted to pitch every day; to win more games than the other guy - not for the money, but for the glory of winning.
Place hitting is, in a sense, glorified bunting. I only take a half swing at the ball, and the weight of the bat rather than my swing is what drives it.
A manager's job is simple. For one hundred sixty-two games you try not to screw up all that smart stuff your organization did last December.
Nobody likes to hear it, because it's dull, but the reason you win or lose is darn near always the same - pitching.
Ball parks are smaller and baseballs are livelier. They've practically got pitchers wearing straitjackets. Bah! They still allow the knuckleball, and that is three times as hard to control.
The fan is the one who suffers. He cheers a guy to a .350 season then watches that player sign with another team. When you destroy fan loyalties, you destroy everything.
That's what every young kid thinks about when they first put on a uniform - is to play in the Major League and then, ultimately, play in a World Series. To me, that was the ultimate, winning in '86.
You fool around with different pitches playing catch, but it's not the same when you've got to face some guy with a bat in his hand.
I've been on teams that lost a hundred games in a season. I've been on teams that had a shot to make the playoffs and fizzled out at the end.
It all comes down to when spring training comes. Do you want to go or don't you? If you want to go, you go.
Every Autumn now my thoughts return to snow. Snow is something I identify myself with. Like my father, I am a snow person.
But I want you to know that what I'm doing here I'm doing as a ballplayer, a major league ballplayer.
Customary though it may be to write about that institutionalized pastime as though it existed apart from the general environment, my story does not lend itself to such treatment.
