I think baseball has moved on in many ways and the focus on the competitions on the field is really what the game is all about. It seems to be healthy. It seems more people are watching it.

We consider ourselves the luckiest fans on the face of the Earth.

So many good things have happened to me in the game of baseball. When I do allow myself a chance to think about it, it's almost like a storybook career. You feel so blessed to have been able to compete this long.

As long as I can compete, I won't quit. Reaching three-thousand is not the finish line as long as I can contribute.

Get in the game. Do the best you can. Try to make a contribution. Learn from today. Apply it to tomorrow.

I'd like to be remembered. I'd like to think that someday two guys will be talking in a bar and one of them will say something like, 'Yeah, he's a good shortstop, but he's not as good as ole Ripken was.'

A lot of people think I had such a rosy career, but I wanted to identify that one of the things that helps you have a long career is learning how to deal with adversity, how to get past it. Once I learned how to get through that, others things didn't seem so hard.