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.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, you couldn't say you were better than the other person because you knew you had a secret. You knew you had cheated.

I had a marvelous baseball career and after my baseball career, there is an abundance of opportunity out there.

The last thing you want to do is go down in the history of All-Star game competition as the only injury (his nose was broken by Roberto Hernandez) sustained during the team picture.

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.

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