“I view my pitching on how confident I was out there, period. And if I lose that confidence, I can become a prisoner of my own mind.”

I hadn’t focused on mechanics since I signed professionally.

I can relate to anyone. I can hang out with stoners, skaters, surfers, stockbrokers, lawyers, athletes, rappers. I feel I can hang out with any group of people and find common ground to talk with them.

I’m OK being the veteran, but I’m still just a kid.

I can count my friends on one hand.

I’m so secure in myself I couldn’t care less what people think of me.

The outfield is solid, so is the catching and the infield.

I was this 5-7 pudgy kid in high school… I wasn’t a popular kid. I was an outcast.

Some people pray to a totem pole, some people pray to a sun, some people pray to a god. It all works for them. It all comes back to what you think.

I do look forward to keeping in touch with the guys because we’ll always be connected in people’s minds.

I just write mechanical things.

When someone becomes successful or rich and famous, people perceive that person as being different. But I’m the same guy I’ve always been.

There’s a part of me that wants to go streak and run outside and jump around and go swim in the ocean and do everything. The other part of me wants to bear down and repeat this kind of performance next year and in the years to come.

I think in the bullpen you can tell during your warmups, if you have a good feel for it. But anything can happen once you get into a game. Sometimes you just wind up throwing it better than ever before one day without knowing why.

The only person who ever stops me from achieving something is me.

I refuse to be molded into some stereotypical ballplayer that has no interests, really, no life, no depth, no intelligence.

We’re all physical bodies, but basically everything we do is determined by what goes on in our heads.

Sympathy is something that shouldn’t be bestowed on the Yankees. Apparently it angers them.

I want to stay around longer than the pitchers who were at the top when I came into the big leagues. I don’t want to be gone and have all the old guys – Seaver, Carlton, Ryan and Sutton – still pitching. I got rid of Palmer, now I want to outlast the rest of them.

When I gave up a grand slam to Pete LaCock, I knew it was time to quit.

My pitching philosophy is simpe. I believe in getting the ball over the plate and not walking a lot of men.

The 16 years have gone so fast. I came to Minnesota as a 19-year-old kid. Marv Grissom was the pitching coach, an old-timer who taught me quite a bit.