We really had baseball in the family. Even that little habit I've got of chewing tobacco on the ball field sort of comes from my dad.

All small men, all non-power hitters, must learn to bunt well. It's half your game.

You don't have to be big to be a big leaguer. Look at Phil Rizzuto. He's really small and he's been one of the greatest that ever was.

We won (the pennant) because we've got a superior ball club. Not many stars perhaps, but the kind of team that always plays well together.

(Doc) Cramer told me I was hitting too much off the front foot and that I wasn't using the right kind of bat. I had been using a long, skinny stick and Cramer got me a thicker one.

(Al) Lopez is a great believer in speed and hustle, in the go-go style of baseball. No other manager is so determined a foe of stodgy baseball, lack of hustle and slipshod practices and so powerful an advocate of the unexpected.

On October 19, 1949, I got a telephone call from the Philadelphia (A's) front office informing me I had been traded to the White Sox for Joe Tipton. I was surprised and hurt.