I wish that every player could feel what I've felt in visiting ballparks. The receptions I've received, it's blown me away. It's absolutely remarkable.

The thing I sort of get tired of hearing is if I don't hit home runs or don't get hits, that the pressure of the media is getting to me. Absolutely not. Believe me, it's not getting to me.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Performance-enhancing drugs are an illusion. I wish I had never gotten involved with steroids. It was wrong. It was stupid.