I love what I do on the field and that takes a lot of my time. But I also make time to help other people because a lot are not as fortunate as I am.

I'm a fastball hitter. It's no secret I'm looking for a fastball every pitch. I think it's one of the hardest things to do in sports-to hit a moving baseball.

If you hit, they're going to like you. If you don't hit, they're not going to like you.

I'm blessed with health and energy and passion for the game of baseball, and also to help children.

You've got to be smart to stay in this game. The quicker you learn, the quicker you succeed. You can't make the same mistakes over and over again.

I'm a simple guy. There's nothing fancy about my life.

I'm a baseball player, I'm not a political activist.

Work is not a drag for me. I like to get here early, hang out, catch up with the boys. I'll go in the cage and hit, do my exercises. I try to keep it fun and find ways to enjoy it.

You probably don't call home and say, 'Hi, mom. I am facing Pete Schourek tonight.' Names and stats don't do it. You have to do it out on the field.

Let us not be needlessly bitter certain failures are sometimes fruitful.

Writers are as jealous as pigeons.

The pleasures of spring are available to everybody and cost nothing.

I never want to position myself where I seem like an ambassador of anti-racism. I am fortunate enough to say that I've never experienced extreme amounts of racism, but a lot of my friends do.

I began to ration my writing, for fear I would dream through life as my father had done. I was afraid I had inherited a poisoned gene from him, a vocation without a gift.

I also feel that I have been very honest with my friends, my family and also with the public about the mistakes that I've made and the challenges that I've gone through.

If the state is strong, it crushes us. If it is weak, we perish.

Like so many addicts, I'd thought that if I could only sort out my life, I could then sort out my drinking. It was a revelation to see that it would be simpler the other way around

You know when civilization began? With the invention of the mirror.