I'm half-Italian and my name is Portuguese. Michael Young is half-Mexican. There are players from the United States that have heritage elsewhere and it's a great thing to have a world cup to celebrate the whole world. It shows the world that baseball is important and how great the game is.

I really expect a lot of myself.

Home runs come in bunches. You can go two weeks without one or hit four in a week. Sometimes, you just feel that stroke for a week or two weeks straight.

My dad and all my family were into baseball. His brothers, my mom's brothers, my mom's father. Baseball was just always a part of our family.

I expected to be in the big leagues soon. I didn't know exactly how soon, but I wanted to be here soon, and I wanted to make a difference soon.

I was always a neat kid. I never wanted my hands dirty. I wasn't a dirty kid. A lot of kids like to run around. If I was rolling around the dirt, I went home and took a shower. That's just the way I was. I'm not sure. I might have been born with it.

To be able to play baseball for those nine innings in front of a major league crowd is a special privilege.