“But I love baseball and I love to play hard.”

No more excuses about being young.

Byrd has always been that kind of pitcher.

2004 has to be my year. No more excuses.

He threw hard, but a good fastball.

My only worry was that he didn’t throw me a sinker.

I work hard on my defense.

When you go to home plate with a lot of confidence,

I want to be consistent from the first day of the season to the last.

I love hitting-that’s my favorite part of the game.

I’m an immigrant myself.

I don’t like to play slow or softly.

You feel that you can hit any pitch.

I’m confident, but not so confident that I’m cocky.

It’s something I take pride in, but it’s nothing that I want to brag about. It’s part of my game.

Trying to trick you, keep the ball low, in and out.

I have to get better, but I can’t change the way I play.

Every baseball crowd, like every theatre audience, has its own distinctive attitude and atmosphere.

The two most important things in life are good friends and a strong bullpen.

I would change policy, bring back natural grass and nickel beer. Baseball is the belly-button of our society. Straighten out baseball, and you straighten out the rest of the world.

I always wanted to do a baseball book; I love baseball. The problem is that a very large part of my following is in non-baseball playing countries.

Writing is like anything – baseball playing, piano playing, sewing, hammering nails. The more you work on it, the better you get. But it seems to take a longer time to get better at writing than hammering nails.

A game of great charm in the adoption of mathematical measurements to the timing of human movements, the exactitudes and adjustments of physical ability to hazardous chance.

I love the MLB app, because I’m a pretty obsessed baseball fan.

I have played professional baseball for over half my life. From the time I picked up a baseball glove, I did not want to put it down.