In the wintertime, in the snow country, citrus fruit was so rare, and if you got one, it was better than ambrosia.

Once you begin to explain or excuse all events on racial grounds, you begin to indulge in the perilous mythology of race.

The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and what could be again.

The goal wasn't to be a millionaire or to be a Hollywood star. That was not the goal. The goal was something about - the goal was to find the goal, but I knew where it was.

So by the time I got to Michigan I was a stutterer. I couldn't talk. So my first year of school was my first mute year and then those mute years continued until I got to high school.

I was an adopted child of my grandparents, and I don’t know how I can ever express my gratitude for that because my parents would have been a mess.

I think stutterers are funny. And I know it's rude and politically incorrect to laugh at stutterers. But I think it is okay because I know why they're funny. They make people nervous. People think, when on earth are they going to get the word out, so they start laughing out of their own nervousness.