The first time I picked up a bat in a professional game, I hit a ball hard left-handed, and my first home run was so effortless, it surprised me.
Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.
Professionalism is not sportsmanship. If you don’t succeed, you won’t be in your profession for long. In our society, it’s not about good or bad. It’s about who’s on top.
The toughest thing in hitting shouldn’t be deciding when to swing. It is, for me, deciding when not to swing. You should be swinging from the time you get into the batter’s box until something says don’t swing.
I don’t think much about whether fans will remember me.
I think hitting is more a mentality than a philosophy. A philosophy is somebody telling you the way they think it should be. Well, different people believe in different things. My thing is this: Be ready to hit.
When you go to other parks, they hang banners for the wild-card or Eastern Division or Western Division champions. Around here, they don’t hang anything unless its for being world champions.
I used to lead off when I was a rookie. I’ve always been able to bunt.
Individual statistics, plate time and everything tend to come, but the most enjoyment I get out of baseball is actually winning.
I’m at the point in my career where to be a winner is more important than any individual things.
You fool around with different pitches playing catch, but it’s not the same when you’ve got to face some guy with a bat in his hand.
There are certain things I can’t do, certain pitches I can’t hit. You stay away from them. You try to wait for pitches you can hit. The bat speed isn’t what it used to be. You make up for it by using your head, working counts, getting ahead in counts and getting pitches to hit and hitting them hard.
You don’t get old being stupid.
For me, I tend to sit back sometimes and just count my blessings because of how long I’ve played.
I’ve got a fastball, change-up, forkball, curve, slider, knuckle-slider, knuckle-curve, I had about seven pitches I could have used at any time.
I’ve been on teams that lost a hundred games in a season. I’ve been on teams that had a shot to make the playoffs and fizzled out at the end.
I’ve always favored kids as a player. If I walked out of the locker room and there were 100 people there and 50 of them were kids, I’d sign the 50 kids before anything else.
I have always loved the Bay Area. I spent a lot of time in the Bay Area. I started my career there. That’s a huge part of the excitement for me.
It’s good to know you’re working for someone you’re familiar with, who’s a friend and he has your back and you have his back also.