The best thing you can do in the whole world is to play baseball. That's a lucky job... The passion for baseball is always going to be there.

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

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.

I think Nick Markakis is a perennial All-Star, and nobody knows about him. I think people are learning about how good he is.

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?

The best thing you can do in the whole world is to play baseball. That's a lucky job... The passion for baseball is always going to be there.

I've felt some great feelings on the baseball field... in front of 50,000 people and millions on TV... but the feeling you get when you give a kid a chance, that is a hundred times greater than that feeling.