“I’d like to help educate kids about the Major Leagues – what to anticipate, what to expect, what they’ll need to do to prepare themselves.”

When I finish playing, I think I’d like to coach college baseball.

I like to be against the odds. I’m not afraid to be lonely at the top. With me, it’s just the satisfaction of the game. Just performance.

Every pitcher can beat you, it doesn’t matter how good you are.

I don’t know if steroids are going to help you in baseball. I just don’t believe it. I don’t believe steroids can help eye-hand coordination and technically hit a baseball.

My career is an open book, but my life is not.

I don’t know if the record is going to happen. I don’t really think about the record. There are other things I worry about.

Serra High school, to me, was my most enjoyable time for me in my entire life. That was the only time I was free. We just played baseball because it was fun.

There is nothing better than walking out and hitting a home run.

Sometimes I surprise my own damn self.

I have a chef who makes sure that I’m getting the right amounts of carbs, proteins and fats throughout the day to keep me at my max performance level.

I think everyone needs to be a role model, period.

If you want to be on top, you’ve got to have broad shoulders, because as fast as you get there, the faster they try to knock you down.

I think some of the pressure comes from the expectations of other people. Like if your father played baseball, they expect you to be the big lifesaver or something when you play a sport.

I like to be against the odds.

I never stop looking for things to try and make myself better.

Those boos really motivate me to make something happen.

The idea of kids helping other kids is such a great way to introduce children to being involved in charitable causes and volunteer work, setting them on the path to doing good for others throughout their lives.

I spar with 18-year-old kids that try to kick my ass all the time. As far as going in and doing a wrestling match, I think that pales in comparison, but it’s a totally different thing. It’s completely different. You have to condition your body.

All the years I coached, we sent a card to every professor for each kid I had, and I was able to keep track on a daily basis who cut class or who was dropping a grade average.

So I had the great advantage of being able to play up to the older kids and play down to the younger kids and I think that’s part of what propelled me to become a teacher at some point in my life. But it was a comfortable childhood. It was a privileged childhood.

I was just your average hockey mom, and signed up for the PTA because I wanted to make my kids’ public education better.

When I was a kid my primary goal in life was to find a book that was alive. Not alive in the human sense, but like a thing that would send me to a place not otherwise accessible on Earth.

Take this rifle, kid. Gimme that guitar.

I can take $15,000 a year and raise kids on that. Later, they’ll figure out I’ve got millions, but hopefully they’ll have the values to say, ‘So what?