Nobody wanted me. Scouts told me to go to school, to forget baseball. Coaches said, ‘You’re never going to make it.’ I appreciated their honesty, because I think when someone tells you something you may not like, you have to use that as fuel for motivation.
It’s easy for me not to go to Mass on the road. But I’ve made a fundamental decision. I’m going to be dedicated. I’m going to make the time. I’m going to get up, if that means getting up at seven on a Sunday morning before a day game and do it, I’m going to do it.
I’m not trying to prove anybody wrong, I’m just trying to prove something to myself.
I feel pretty good. My body actually looks like an old banana, but it’s fine.
I’m playing baseball because I love it, not because I need the money or attention. That is why I’ve been so dedicated. I’ve accomplished a lot of things no one ever thought I could, and I’ve done it from hard work.
I long for the days when athletes were revered. I want to see the romance return to sports, to see people enjoy the game purely for the game and the players.
I found it hugely insulting that people believed I’d go so far out of my way – living with Playmates, vacationing with actresses, showing up at nightclubs – to act out a lifestyle that would amount to a charade. If I was gay, I’d be gay all the way.
One thing anyone can go through is a slump. Unless you’re Greg Maddux, it’s going to happen to everybody.
A pitcher never gets me out. I get myself out. That’s no disrespect to the pitcher, but there should be no excuse for failure. You can’t have an excuse to fail.
Please don’t quote me.
Never let your dreams go away.
Yes, hard is good. When I was in high school, I spent a lot of time on my knees playing with balls. I guess it was only natural that I became a catcher.
You can’t get real happy or real depressed when you play baseball. Baseball is a great sport in that it offers a player a lot of opportunities for atonement.
I have gone from a player who thought he would spend his whole career with one organization to a player who’s been with three organizations in a week. It’s like rotisserie baseball.
When you’re 25, you can eat hamburgers and pizza and drink beer and stay out all night and come out the next day and drink a couple cups of coffee and just play. If I did that today, my heart would stop and I’d need a stretcher and an IV.
I was a last round draft pick. Nobody wanted me. I could count the amount of scouts that told me to go to school, to forget baseball.