You know, it's a different deal - throwing a football as opposed to throwing a baseball.

I kind of picked up the game at an early age. The way that other kids would learn what a fork or a spoon is.

You know, it's a different deal - throwing a football as opposed to throwing a baseball.

The amount of work and the amount of both physical and emotional investment it takes to get to the top.

It is the best feeling in the world to have a close game come down to just a couple of plays and you are able to do it.

That's the only reason I'm here. I don't need to play the game for any other reason than to win a championship.

Coming back in that AFC Championship Game against the Steelers, that was a poignant moment for me for a lot of reasons - the magnitude of the game and having not been able to play for quite a while and to be able to get on the field for that game. That one stands out.

Fairly early in my career, I had a passion for wine just as a consumer, and I started to learn about the whole process, starting with a piece of raw ground, and ending up with a work of art in a bottle.

Getting hurt and watching Tom Brady take over and beginning what's been just a spectacular run of his, and to come back and play in the AFC Championship Game against the Steelers in Pittsburgh, and help us win that game, is a memory that stands out very clearly.

I feel pretty good when I get out of bed in the morning. I don't feel all beat up, which is nice.

I feel so fortunate, so honored, to have played this game that I love for so long, with so many great players, and in front of so many wonderful fans. I fulfilled a childhood dream the first time I stepped on an NFL field, and the league did not let me down one time.

I had a great career and I enjoyed all of it, with the exception of losing.

I retire with a smile on my face, in good health, and ready to spend autumns at my kids' games instead of my own. I'm excited to start the next chapter of my life.

It's a really interesting and diverse business. You're a farmer first, then a winemaker, then you're onto marketing and distribution. So it's multi-faceted and really engaging. I've learned more in the last couple years than in the ten prior to that, so it's been pretty interesting.

Our very long-term prospective hinges on making the best possible wine we can.

Playing in New England and the Boston area, the fans are so passionate about their sports if you don't play well, they'll let you know so I know it's not something that they take lightly.

The game against the Vikings back in my second year stands out. It was kind of a turnaround for us. It allowed us to make a run at the playoffs for the first time in quite a while. The memories are so many it's hard to pin one down.

The positives of retiring outweighed the positives of returning and my desire to still play.

We started seven years ago and finally released our first vintage in March. It's an '07 vintage from Walla Walla, which is my old hometown. It also happens to be a world-class wine region that's just exploding on the scene right now.

We're phenomenally blessed in the Walla Walla Valley. We have great, complex soil that's nutrient-rich but fairly porous.

When you look at facing retirement in your mid-30s, and all of a sudden the outlet for that passion and work ethic goes away, you can't just sit back in a rocking chair and be retired at 35. I'm not a good enough golfer to play golf every day.

You want hot days to get your fruit ripe but then you want it to cool off nicely at night so that the grapes stay on the vine longer and develop complexity.

The student body was huge at UT and you had to mature pretty quick, very quick actually. I enjoyed it and it helped me a lot in my life in general - not only in the classroom but on the baseball field as well.

Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The intervals are the tough things.

Do what you love to do and give it your very best. Whether it's business or baseball, or the theater, or any field. If you don't love what you're doing and you can't give it your best, get out of it. Life is too short. You'll be an old man before you know it.

These old ballparks are like cathedrals in America. We don't have big old Gothic cathedrals like they do in Europe. But we got baseball parks.

Whenever I wasn't watching the planes, I was playing community baseball, football, or something like that.

Baseball hasn't been the national pastime for many years now - no sport is. The national pastime, like it or not, is watching television.

Baseball is a team game.

I never ride just to ride. I ride to catch a fox. I play baseball to make the team.

Baseball is a game where a curve is an optical illusion, a screwball can be a pitch or a person, stealing is legal and you can spit anywhere you like except in the umpire's eye or on the ball.

I wish that they had the freedoms like the Japanese and the Koreans and the Mexicans and everybody else that has that freedom to come over here and play the game, because I know Cuba has a very strong baseball history.

I knew I wasn't a baseball writer. I was scared to death. I really was afraid to talk to players, and I didn't want to go into the press box because I thought I was faking it.

Baseball is almost the only orderly thing in a very unorderly world. If you get three strikes, even the best lawyer in the world can't get you off.

Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?

After Jackie Robinson the most important black in baseball history is Reggie Jackson, I really mean that.

The great thing about baseball is when you're done, you'll only tell your grandchildren the good things. If they ask me about 1989, I'll tell them I had amnesia.

You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.

A baseball game is simply a nervous breakdown divided into nine innings.

Baseball is like church. Many attend few understand.

I don't know what you guys say, but at home, life is way different from baseball.

Let the teachers teach English and I will teach baseball. There is a lot of people in the United States who say isn't, and they ain't eating.

Words can be like baseball bats when used maliciously.

I don't know anything about baseball.

I was born to hit a baseball. I can hit a baseball.

Richard Schiff is a really good baseball player. It's surprising because he looks exhausted.

It's very warm there, so we were outdoors all the time. The local people had programs for us year-round, where as kids we had the opportunity to play football, basketball, baseball, track and field - we just went from one sport to the next, year-round.

I'm proud to be here as a man that has played first base more than anybody in the game of baseball.

I always thought that there was going to be life after baseball, and so I designed that in my life I would have other interests after baseball that I would be able to step into. And I didn't realize the grip that baseball had on me and on my family.