Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You don't get old being stupid.
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.
My dad gave me a haircut... and it wasn't a very good one. When I went out of the house, my friends got on my case and said it looked like someone put a chili bowl over my head and cut around it.
You know, the other day I gave all of my old Angels gear to Goodwill...and Goodwill gave it back.
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.
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.
For me, I tend to sit back sometimes and just count my blessings because of how long I've played.
I used to lead off when I was a rookie. I've always been able to bunt.
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.
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.
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'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.
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.
