I don't rate them, I just hit them.

"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."

What's tough is being good every day.

When I got to professional ball I used to play 150 games every year. It depends on how many games there was.

Baseball is a game, yes. It is also a business. But what is most truly is is disguised combat. For all its gentility, its almost leisurely pace, baseball is violence under wraps.

I'm not the type of guy to go out and just say, 'Hey, I'm raising my fist to do this and do that.' I don't think I'm that type of guy. I wasn't a leader the way other people may have wanted me to be.

I played with the Birmingham Black Barons. I was making 500 at 14. That was a lot of money in those days.