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.

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.

The more that Japanese players go to the big leagues to play and succeed, the more that will serve to inspire young kids in Japan to want to become baseball players when they grow up.

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.

I love baseball, but being here (in the United States), I've been able to play golf every day. I can't play in Japan because every course has caddies, and the caddies all want autographs and don't want to let me golf.

Some people enjoy taking a light stroll in the morning and that gives them relief and that sort of feeling. That is what I gain by practicing, by swinging the bat.

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.