I've always enjoyed baseball, but even when I was a kid I can remember viewing it with a businesslike approach.

If you gave me a choice between being married and being a baseball player, that's a no-brainer. I would be married any day. I just love it.

My father always told me that to be successful at anything, whether it was baseball or tiddlywinks, you have to be willing to pay the price. You have to be willing to do more than the kid down the street if you want to be better than he is.

The overriding thing has to be a love for people. If you don't love people, you don't care if we live in a morally degrading society. Christ is about love, and that's what we want to be about as well.

I want to play every game of my career in an Astros uniform.

Living the Christian life is also challenging but for different reasons. The same desire to do well exists - to live a consistent life that honors and pleases the Lord. The big difference is that God isn't evaluating my actions and basing His love on how well I 'perform'. His love for me is unconditional. Even when I mess up He doesn't threaten to trade me off His team.

When I started to play consistently and produce consistently, that's when I knew that I could compete and do well in the big leagues.