It gives me great peace to know that no matter how good or how bad I do, the Lord loves me. That's all that really matters to me. Baseball isn't what everything is about. It's about the way I'm being a Christian husband, a Christian father, or the way I'm living my life and trying to be a Christian testimony to people.

You've got to have camaraderie or togetherness on a baseball team if you want to win.

I've pitched in a lot of big games.

I try to sit down at night before they go to bed and read the Bible with them and do little devotionals and pray with them. I think if you instill it in them when they are young, they'll remember when they grow up. I raise them in church. When the doors are open, I want to be there. My kids love to go. So does my wife.

He (Tommy Pettitte [father] coached me as kid. He bought all the books and videos and tried to learn as much about pitching as he could. But once I was in high school, he never tried to be my coach.

Your pitching coach is almost like your spouse. He's someone to go to when you want to gripe and complain. The big thing for me with Mel (Stottlemyre) is that we've been through so much together. He's been through everything I've been through on the mound. He was a Yankee who won twenty games in New York and a Yankee who didn't win twenty games in New York. For me, he's been there and that's what makes a good pitching coach. He's a good man, too.

Whenever someone has the ability to impact people's lives, I think that's one of the greatest things that God gives us as individuals.