You know, when I was a young boy I used to play baseball in my back yard or in the street with my brothers or the neighborhood kids. We used broken bats and plastic golf balls and played for hours and hours.

You know raising a family in the lifestyle of a professional athlete can be very difficult.

My brother Larry. He taught me how hard work and dedication to the game was the only way to make it. He's taken care of all my business activities for me and my family for many years, and I thank him for that.

My high school coach was Ray O'Conner. He has coached a lot of players that have signed professional contracts, and many of those have gone on to play in the major leagues.

I had dreams of catching the ball for the final out in the World Series and being mobbed by my teammates. Well, I guess all my dreams didn't come true.

And George Brett. I think most people know that George and I have become pretty good friends over the years.

I never faced a pitcher with better stuff than Nolan Ryan.

I was also very lucky to be a teammate of two of the greatest players to have ever played the game. I learned very early on by playing for Frank Robinson and with Henry Aaron that even the greatest players in the game were just one of the guys.

You know no one ever accomplishes something like this without a lot of help from good people along the way. And this is certainly true in my case, and I would like to thank some of those people.

But what I'd really like to tell you is I never dreamed of being in the Hall of Fame. Standing here with all these great players was beyond any of my dreams.

You know over 20 years I played for a number of managers and dozens of coaches. I don't know any of them that I didn't learn something from to help make me a better player.

You know, when I was a young boy I used to play baseball in my back yard or in the street with my brothers or the neighborhood kids. We used broken bats and plastic golf balls and played for hours and hours.

I was also lucky to play for an owner, Bud Selig, who truly cared about his players. He'd call me into his office once in a while when he knew things weren't going so well. And it's funny. Every time I left there I always felt like something good was about to happen.

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.

People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.

Well, my favorite sport as a kid was clearly baseball.

God knows I gave my best in baseball at all times and no man on earth can truthfully judge me otherwise.

Baseball is more than a game to me, it's a religion.

Baseball people, and that includes myself, are slow to change and accept new ideas. I remember that it took years to persuade them to put numbers on uniforms.

Cricket is basically baseball on valium.

I know it's tough. Everybody in baseball knows its tough. I'm just going to give it my best shot.

These days baseball is different. You come to spring training, you get your legs ready, you arms loose, your agents ready, your lawyer lined up.

I think we have our sports within our own culture that are huge with baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. Those are the sports in America that we grow up with and soccer isn't really there yet.