“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.”

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.

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.

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

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

How can you not be romantic about baseball?

You can talk about teamwork on a baseball team, but I’ll tell you, it takes teamwork when you have 2,900 men stationed on the U.S.S. Alabama in the South Pacific.

So you have to be more mentally focused in baseball.

There are only two seasons – winter and Baseball.

The violence on the field must bounce off a lot of people. But you can go to a ball park on a quiet Tuesday afternoon with only a few thousand people in the place and thoroughly enjoy a one-sided game. Baseball has an aesthetic, intellectual appeal found in no other team sport.

Nowadays, they have more trouble packing hair dryers than baseball equipment.

To me, baseball is not a game, but a religion.

Not everybody will become a baseball star and not everybody will make the money I’m making.