Trying to sneak a fastball by Ted Williams was like trying to sneak a sunbeam by a rooster in the morning.

Baseball is only a game, a game of inches and a lot of luck. During a time of all-out war, sports are very insignificant.

I'm no hero. Heroes don't come back. Survivors return home. Heroes never come home. If anyone thinks I'm a hero, I'm not.

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.

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 just reared back and let them go.

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.