I study pitchers. I visualize pitches. That gives me a better chance every time I step into the box. That doesn't mean I'm going to get a hit every game, but that's one of the reasons I've come a long way as a hitter.

To be the first player to do it three consecutive years (fifty or more home runs), you go back through the thousands of power hitters who played this game and nobody has ever done it, and I can sit here and say I'm the first. I'm pretty proud of that.

"The War on Consciousness" is really all physical manifestations and all those problems are ultimately just a war on your way of thinking. Especially now, when we're involved in the war on terror. Terror is a psychological term. Terrorism is a political term. Terrorist is a sociopolitical term. But terror is a psychological thing.

I've been thinking about the record since I reached the fifty plateau. But you think about it and then you let it go because you can't waste many brain cells on hours thinking about it.

What he (Sammy Sosa) and I have been doing is fantastic. What we've done nobody in the game has done for thirty-seven years. I'm pretty happy with the way things have been going.

I think it puts baseball back on the map as a sport. It's America's pastime and just look at everyone coming out to the ballpark. It has been an exciting year.

I think back and I really feel for what he (Roger Maris) went through, for all the negative stuff that was going on in his life. I wish it didn't happen.