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.

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

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.

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.

You figure they cheat at the ballpark, they'll cheat on the golf course, they'll cheat in business, and anything else in life. Players may laugh about it and say it's funny, but right down in their heart, they don't think it's funny at all, and they have no respect for a person who cheats.

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.