I like to think of the world's greatest athlete coming up to bat against me - Tiger Woods, Wayne Gretzky, I don't care who it is - and I'm looking at him thinking, you have no chance.

Part of what makes you great as a young player can hurt you at the end of your career, in terms of you need a certain amount of ego, a certain amount of arrogance to be able to play well and to push yourself and trick yourself into thinking you're better than you really are.

I have far too many skeletons in my closet to think about any sort of serious mention of public office.

A major league pitching coach is a really difficult job. It takes a big commitment in terms of time, travel and workload.

At nighttime, you just try to keep him out of jail.

We played hard and we partied hard. I'm not ashamed of that. I was no angel - I did some things I shouldn't have done, lived a lifestyle I shouldn't have lived. I had a blast at times; other times, I probably compromised my job, my duty to do my job, to be ready as a professional.

It really gets into your system. All baseball players have this internal clock around February when it starts to kick in and the juices start to flow. I think underestimated how much I was going to miss it.