In my opinion I really haven't done anything yet. I still have a lot to prove. I just want to prove to myself that I can play at the highest level of baseball in the world every day.
We try to exert a Ted Williams kind of discipline. In his book The Science of Hitting, Ted explains that he carved the strike zone into 77 cells, each the size of a baseball. Swinging only at balls in his "best" cell, he knew, would allow him to bat .400; reaching for balls in his "worst" spot, the low outside corner of the strike zone, would reduce him to .230. In other words, waiting for the fat pitch would mean a trip to the Hall of Fame; swinging indiscriminately would mean a ticket to the minors.
That's why I've gotten so much experience at my age. You have three teachers next to you every game, and if I'm not playing, I'm watching baseball. You pick up little things here and there.
In baseball, it's tough to get up for every single game, every single moment. In football, you have 90,000 fans screaming and the band's playing. I do miss that adrenaline rush.
We have an obligation to spread amateur baseball both at home and abroad. Building up the game at all levels - Little League, Babe Ruth Leagues, the colleges - is in our own self-interest. That's where the pool of talent is - and also of fans.
Baseball, more than any other sport, has a magical way of connecting fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, grandparents and grandchildren and ancestors back down the line. - From The Brooklyn Nine