“I just grew the hair on my back. Facial hair just wasn’t appealing to me. I liked it on my back, though.”

Before broadcasting for 50-some years, I did TV, played 10 years in the big leagues, won a world championship – and played a big part in that, too, letting the Cardinals inject me with hepatitis. Takes a big man to do that.

Sure, women sportswriters look when they’re in the clubhouse. Read their stories. How else do you explain a capital letter in the middle of a word?

I spent three of the best years of my life in 10th grade.

I had chances to do that stuff, but I like baseball, I really do.

I had been playing for a while, and I asked Louisville Slugger to send me a dozen flame treated bats. But when I got it, I realized they had sent me a box of ashes.

I think my top salary was maybe in 1966. I made $17,000 and 11 of that came from selling other players’ equipment.

I make fun of situations and try and find the humor in things, but it’s never at the expense of the other guy.

Let’s face it. Umpiring is not an easy or happy way to make a living. In the abuse they suffer, and the pay they get for it, you see an imbalance that can only be explained by their need to stay close to a game they can’t resist.

I had a great shoe contract and glove contract with a company who paid me a lot of money never to be seen using their stuff.

Not bragging by any means, but I could have done a lot of other stuff as far as working in films go and working in television…

I set records that will never be equaled. In fact, I hope 90% of them don’t even get printed.

On TV the people can see it. On radio you’ve got to create it.

Career highlights? I had two – I got an intentional walk from Sandy Koufax and I got out of a rundown against the Mets.

Any teammate of mine that had a kid and a boy that was capable of playing baseball.

I did stand-up, weird and ignorant stuff about my career – anything for a laugh.

Anybody with ability can play in the big leagues. But to be able to trick people year in and year out the way I did, I think that was a much greater feat.

1992 is not a year I shall look back on with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it hasturned out to be an Annus Horribilis.

[On dishonest business methods:] … frequently the defender of the practice falls back on the Christian doctrine of charity, and points out that we are erring mortals and must allow for each other’s weaknesses!.

If you want a candidate who is led the fight against Obamacare, who will lift the burdens on small businesses and bring back jobs, I’m the only candidate in the race with that proven record.

Millions of Americans are standing up and saying, ‘We want our country back!’ Republicans, Democrats, Independents, will not go down the path of Greece, we will not go quietly into the night.

I would never turn my back on my fellow citizens.

I had a back-and-forth where I asked Donald Trump, is it true or false that he said the government should pay for everyone’s health care? He said it’s false. Listen, within minutes, we put out a video just contrasting what he said there with video of him just a few months earlier saying exactly the opposite.

My father was a bartender. And the journey from the back of that bar to the [election 2016], to me, that is the essence of the American dream.

I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.