I think hitting is more a mentality than a philosophy. A philosophy is somebody telling you the way they think it should be. Well, different people believe in different things. My thing is this: Be ready to hit.

It's good to know you're working for someone you're familiar with, who's a friend and he has your back and you have his back also.

I've always favored kids as a player. If I walked out of the locker room and there were 100 people there and 50 of them were kids, I'd sign the 50 kids before anything else.

I have always loved the Bay Area. I spent a lot of time in the Bay Area. I started my career there. That's a huge part of the excitement for me.

You know, the other day I gave all of my old Angels gear to Goodwill...and Goodwill gave it back.

There are certain things I can't do, certain pitches I can't hit. You stay away from them. You try to wait for pitches you can hit. The bat speed isn't what it used to be. You make up for it by using your head, working counts, getting ahead in counts and getting pitches to hit and hitting them hard.

I've got a fastball, change-up, forkball, curve, slider, knuckle-slider, knuckle-curve, I had about seven pitches I could have used at any time.