I am pleased that God made my skin black - but I wish He had made it thicker.

And I'd be lying if I told you that as a black man in baseball I hadn't gone through worse times than my teammates.

I'll also say, yes, I think the change in black consciuosness in recent years has made me more sensitive to injustice in every area of my life.

I'm a human being. I'm not a piece of property. I'm not a consignment of goods.

People try to make a Greek tragedy of my life, and they can't do it. I'm too happy.

Everybody thinks of baseball as a sacred cow. When you have the nerve to challenge it, people look down their noses at you. There are a lot of things wrong with a lot of industries....baseball is one of them.

I was told by the general manager that a white player had received a higher raise than me. Because white people required more money to live than black people. That is why I wasn't going to get a raise.