Nobody lives forever and I've had a blessed life.

I went on inactive duty in August 1945, and since I had stayed in such good shape and had played ball on military teams, I was ready to start for the Indians just two days later, against the Tigers.

Baseball in the Navy always was much more fun than it had been in the major leagues.

There was great leadership in this country at the time of World War II. There was also unrelenting resolve at home, in America's factories and on the farms, in the cities and the country.

I was only a gun captain on the battleship Alabama for 34 months. People have called me a hero for that, but I'll tell you this - heroes don't come home. Survivors come home.

I needed to join the Navy. If you ask the people in Europe who won World War II, they don't say the Allies, they say the United States won the war and saved the world.

Where the ball went was up to heaven. Sometimes I threw the ball clean up into the stands.