“I was very nervous, excited, and happy to be given the opportunity to even be in the major leagues.”

Barack Obama likes to point to General Motors as the poster child for the job creation success of his economic policies.

My dad and my mom had to sacrifice so much, and had to teach us and show us the way of going about things, how to be humble, all those things. They helped us stay on track for what we wanted to do.

You have to have a lot of motivation, a lot of heart and be able to work hard. You can never be down on yourself because baseball is a sport that will bring you down [at times].

When I got to the stadium, one of my biggest things was watching video of hitters.

I liked playing with David Eckstein (former Angels shortstop). I’m not talking about players with top skills, I’m sure there were players with way more skill than him, but there were very few people in the league that had the heart like him.

I think my mom and dad did a great job with that, because we [with brother] never had any competition in baseball. We always tried to help each other.

If you’re a pitcher and strike me out and show me respect and you don’t show me up, when I get a homer or a hit, I’m not going to show you up. That’s what I believe.

There’s a lot of disrespect in the major leagues. I believe that the disrespect in the major leagues is at a high rate and is really bad for the gam

If anyone wants to know why three kids in one family made it to the big leagues they just had to know how we helped each other and how much we practiced back then. We did it every minute we could.

Too many kids today are playing major league ball and don’t belong there.

After I got that hit off Satchel (Paige), I knew I was ready for the big leagues.

All this stuff is kind of surreal to me – Ididn’t think I’d be in the league or none of that. It was making it to college. That’s about it.

You know when I played, you had me and Kevin (McHale) and some others throughout the league.

My dream was to become a rec league coach. I love basketball so much,

I’m ready to go. As big men in the league, there are two who have done something special during this millennium. I’m one and Tim Duncan is the other.

I’ve heard a few times, in three or four years, this league is going to be yours. I don’t like that. Because I think I’m established now.