Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is.

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.

Ted Williams was the greatest hitter I ever saw, but DiMaggio was the greatest all around player.

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

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 would rather beat the Yankees regularly than pitch a no hit game.

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.