I always thought being a gamer and someone who had a sense of responsibility to the game and to my teammates was the honorable thing.

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.

When things happen to you in the worst way, you live with it, you go over it, you think, 'What else could I have done?

I take pride in the fact that you are able to make some good contributions to the sport at certain times.

I haven't given it (achieving 3,000 hits) much thought. I was taught a certain approach, how to come to the ballpark. I try not to do too much thinking about things like that. In this society we measure success in different ways. Three thousand (hits) represents success over a career, not a season. It'll be nice to get to that point.

All I really try and do is live up to my potential and do as well as I possibly could and to bring to the ballpark each and every day a good effort and do the best that I could each and every day.

Disadvantaged kids many times don't have the support network that we all have. I know how important my parents were in my life and many of these kids don't have that support network.