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.

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.

Everybody in the states is so relaxed, and everybody in Japan is so uptight.

I'm anxious to face them (major league pitchers) all, but in reality I'm looking forward most to (Boston's) Pedro Martinez. He was with the major league team that came to Japan in 1996, just before he became a superstar. I'm anxious to see how much he's improved. And I'm anxious to see how much I've improved against him.

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

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.

Baseball has been the greatest things in my life, but the cameras and the media surrounding baseball have not been fun. It's unnecessary. How many times do they see me stretch? How many times do they see me walk? It is a big concern. If it affected the team in a negative way, I don't know what I would do.