My dad taught me to switch-hit. He and my grandfather, who was left-handed, pitched to me every day after school in the back yard. I batted lefty against my dad and righty against my granddad.

I expected him to say, 'Hang in there' or something like that. It took me an hour to talk him into giving me another chance!

He said to play louder. He can't hear you.

You don't realize how easy this game is until you get up in that broadcasting booth.

He foresaw the platooning that managers like Casey Stengel used years before it happened. He told me I had to be a switch-hitter if I was going to play.

I've often wondered how a man who knew he was going to die could stand here and say he was the luckiest man on the face of the earth, but now I guess I know how he felt.

The best team I ever saw, and I really mean this, was the '61 Yankees.