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'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.

I think the cloud of suspicion has been hanging over baseball for a while. I think there has been some positive things that have come out of that. There has been a drug test policy that was been implemented that got the blessings of both the Players Association and MLB. They are trying to maintain the integrity of this sport and trying to get it back, but that cloud I think will hang over a little longer.

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.'

The streak has become my identity; it's who I've become.

The reality is that players can't play forever.