If I ever saw myself saying I'm excited going to Cleveland, I'd punch myself in the face, because I'm lying.

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.

When I look at the records and see where my place in the history of the game (in Japan with Orix) might be, I guess you could say it was a good decision to come here. It's not just me. Maybe I'll have an effect on others in the international part of the game.

I heard that in the United States the level of baseball was the highest in the world. So it was only natural that I would want to go there, as a baseball player.

Personally, I don't like the term 'success.' It's too arbitrary and too relative a thing. It's usually someone else's definition, not yours.

I played on the 2001 team, the team that won the most games in the history of Major League Baseball and also I played on one of the worst teams of Major League Baseball.

I wanted the challenge of competing against the best players in the world.