Whatever I contributed to the unique morale of the Cardinals was part of this growth, and so, of course, was my decision to have it out in public with the owners of organized baseball.
I am pleased God made my skin black. I only wish He had to made it thicker.
I worked on a farm. Played ball and loafed along the fishing and swimming holes of the White River, and my boyhood was not a lot different from that of other youngsters.
A boy cannot begin playing ball too early. I might almost say that while he is still creeping on all fours he should have a bouncing rubber ball.
I guess more players lick themselves that are ever licked by an opposing team. The first thing any man has to know is how to handle himself.
Your job as a baseball player is to come to the park ready to play every day, and the manager, it's his job to make those decisions about who plays.
You learn as a player not to listen to the criticism. Many of the people who put out that criticism might not be as accomplished, might not understand the game as well from the inside-out.
I had aches and pains when I played. No player is ever 100 percent, 80 percent, 85 percent. Guys that play 158 or 162 or 145, we are all in the same boat.
I've been asked to interview for many managing jobs, and I never said yes because I was never serious about it, and I thought it would be wrong to go through that process.
Whether it was Little League or playing with your brothers or sisters, that was always a problem. If I would lose - because I very rarely lost - then everything would go crazy.
You don't project yourself in the Hall of Fame as a player. It's only during that five-year period where people start asking about it, and it doesn't seem real until it happens.
I've always been big. I'm never going to be an underwear model. But I am who I am, and that has its advantages and disadvantages.
In my mind, I never doubted whether I was going to achieve what I wanted to do. I just had to decide what it is I wanted to do.
I had three jobs my junior and senior year of high school. I worked for the gas station and worked for a pizza place.
It is all about rehab. Most doctors can make you 100 percent well physically. I would tell you that it is 25 percent about the surgery and 75 percent about the rehab.
So every dollar of income that I have that is potentially taxed away is a dollar I can't put in my company to create a job. My entire company is around job creation.
I wanted to create jobs and create something that had a very longstanding world-changing effect. We were close. We were close to getting there. It just fell apart.
There are many kids in and out of baseball who think that just because they have some natural talent, they have the world by the tail.
I heard that in the United States the level of baseball was the highest in the world. So it was only natural that I would want to go there, as a baseball player.
A ballplayer spends a good piece of his life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.
You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.
