I think if you look at the friends, the kinds of relationships I have, I am not the kind of guy who has many shallow relationships. I think you could say I am the kind of guy who has a few relationships, but those are very deep.

I'm not a big guy and hopefully kids could look at me and see that I'm not muscular and not physically imposing, that I'm just a regular guy. So if somebody with a regular body can get into the record books, kids can look at that. That would make me happy.

In baseball, even the best hitters fail seven of ten times, and of those seven failures there are different reasons why. Some are personal failures, others are losses to the pitcher. You just get beat. In those personal failures, I felt I could have done better.

You should seek approval from yourself.

I want to be the first player to show what Japanese batters can do in the major league.

I've always prided myself in not reveling in past accomplishments and focusing on future achievement, instead. That's been my career motto.

As professionals we have a responsibility of providing a good show for the fans. Getting hits and home runs is what they want to see.