When I pick up the ball and it feels nice and light and small I know I'm going to have a good day. But if I picked it up and it's big and heavy, I know I'm liable to get into a little trouble.

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.

My father kept me busy from dawn to dusk when I was a kid. When I wasn't pitching hay, hauling corn or running a tractor, I was heaving a baseball into his mitt behind the barn... If all the parents in the country followed his rule, juvenile delinquency would be cut in half in a year's time.

I did what any American could and should do: serve his country in its time of need.

Cooperstown is the greatest place on Earth.

I spent 34 months on the battleship Alabama, South Dakota-class. I was a gun captain. First we went to Russia for about 11 months with the British convoys. Then we were up in Norway and Scandinavia.

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.