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

I’m not perfect. Nobody’s perfect.

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.

Talking to Yogi Berra about baseball is like talking to Homer about the Gods.

On matters of race, on matters of decency, baseball should lead the way.

You count on it, you rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then, just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.

Baseball has undergone and absorbed a whole set of dislocations.

There are a lot of people who know me who can’t understand for the life of them why I would got to work on something as unserious as baseball. If they only knew.

I thank heaven we have had baseball in this world,the kids, our national pastime.

That last one sounded kinda high to me.

To my sick little pal. I will try to knock you another homer, maybe two today.