My dad hit 152 home runs and that's the person I wanted to be like. My hero growing up.

A franchise player, to me, is a guy like Kirby Puckett, Cal Ripken, a guy who's been in one organization through their entire career.

I don't think it's the intent of baseball not to have black ballplayers, but we have to find a way to get these kids back. We lost them to football. We lost them to basketball. We lost them to golf. People don't see how cool and exciting this game is.

I didn't start playing golf until '94, when the strike cut the season short. Never having played as a kid definitely makes it a challenge.

A young musician plays scales in his room and only bores his family. A beginning writer, on the other hand, sometimes has the misfortune of getting into print.

I have Italian heritage, so I'm keen to go over for a few months with the girls and soak up the culture and the food. I'd like us all to learn Italian together as a family - it's something I've been saying for years.

My mother has been the greatest influence on my life, morally. When I get right down to it, my mother and father are two people I can count on no matter what.

Despite my career, so much of my life has been dictated by what I'm afraid of: fear that I am not talented. Fear that people will finally realize that I am a boring individual who doesn't have many ambitions beyond starting a family 'at a good time' in life.