Every time I look at my pocketbook, I see Jackie Robinson.

Yes, I had to learn how to live life outside, but I had so many people help me.

I remember the last season I played. I went home after a ballgame one day, lay down on my bed, and tears came to my eyes. How can you explain that? It's like crying for your mother after she's gone. You cry because you love her. I cried, I guess, because I loved baseball, and I knew I had to leave it.

I would try and help everybody, because the game was so easy for me. It was just like walking in the park.

I'm a very lucky guy. I had so many people help me over the years that I never had many problems. If I had a problem, I could sit down with someone and they would explain the problem to me, and the problem become like a baseball game

I think I was programmed to do good things when I came into the majors. I knew how to play.

"And my father didn't have money for me to go to college. And at that particular time they didn't have black quarterbacks, and I don't think I could have made it in basketball, because I was only 5′ 11". So I just picked baseball."