Never give up and don’t ask why because every situation does not need an answer. I’m a firm believer that I don’t worry about anything I can’t control.
Most of the places I’ve been, I’ve been a main piece of the puzzle.
When you get back on the field and do things, any doubts you’ve developed leave. The more consistent you become, the fewer doubts you have.
Baseball is not what I love. It’s my job.
Blessings can come in a number of ways. The Lord doesn’t give you what you want, the Lord gives you what you need.
Circulating through the children’s ward and seeing terminally ill kids, heads shaved, smiling and having a ball despite the tubes and needles sticking into them, I thought: What do I have to worry about? If God takes me, at least I’ve lived for 35 years.
I think we now come to the park expecting to win instead of playing not to lose.
I ate while I was taking chemo. The doctors didn’t know. I really didn’t get any nausea. I didn’t have side effects. I would be drained for a day and a half.
If you don’t believe in something, you’ll fall for anything. I believe everything happens for a reason. If you are strong from within, you can will anything. I’m a firm believer that where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Nothing I did contributed to me having cancer, so I can’t sit back and say, ‘Oh why me.’ Why not me? Why does tragedy always have to hit someone else?
I’d never heard of colon cancer. Baseball wasn’t even important to me. I have a wife and two girls. That’s what was important. The doctors told me and all I could say was, ‘When are we going to get this thing out?’
I could’ve played basketball, but my mind was on baseball. I didn’t know what I was in for. In high school it was a matter of talent. No one told you what to do.
I love the game, it’s the greatest game on earth, that’s why I can’t understand all of this talk about trying to make the game better. People talk about the high strike zone and changing this and that. Why? To speed up the game? That’s the beauty of baseball. There is no time element.
Come on, when does it come to the point where your name can’t come up in trade talks? Willie Mays got traded. Pedro Martinez got traded. So what? That’s part of the game.
Not being re-signed in Baltimore was probably the lowest point, mentally, of my career. That city was the only place where I wanted to be at the time, based on everything that had transpired.
The kids competed for a full 32 minutes. We want the kids to compete on every possession.
You can’t shelter it. You can’t hide it. You have to let people know what you’re going through, what you’re feeling, what you think you have that’s a problem.
You don’t protect Mark McGwire. The only way to protect him is hit 70 homers yourself.
People always ask me how I can hit the ball so far, and I say, ‘I just swing.’ It’s the coaches who first told me I had good bat speed. I was just swinging, and I guess it was fast. I’m pretty fast at everything.
I was disappointed in everything – my start and the team’s start. People got down on me, but I never got down on myself. I still believed I could be the type of player everyone, including me, thought I was going to be.