This is something I've wanted to do my whole life is play baseball, and I think just the opportunity to put on a big-league uniform every day is just... you know, people dream of it, but not everybody gets to do it. I'm thankful every day I get to do it.

I'm very thankful to the Yankees and to Major League Baseball for allowing me to play this game.

The Atlanta Braves are really all that our children know about this crazy baseball life, and we are so thankful for this upbringing for them.

I had the pleasure, as Robin said, to live a childhood dream as many young Americans and Puerto Rican children live that play youth baseball. And I feel honored and very thankful for that opportunity.

I was all-state in four sports in New Jersey, but sometimes I couldn't get served at a restaurant two blocks from my high school. There were no job opportunities then... the only thing a black youth could aspire to be was a bellboy or a pullman or an elevator operator, or, maybe, a teacher. There was a time when all we had was black baseball.

And I found out, the other part of it is that I found out and in my desire to life successfully, that baseball fit very well into my life. It's been a great teacher, trainer, mentor and you'll see what I mean in the next few minutes that I have to speak.

In America, we have three major sports - baseball, football and basketball. They get the most coverage. Then there's things like golf which mop up most of what is left. But track and field? We are way at the bottom of the totem pole.

I think we have our sports within our own culture that are huge with baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. Those are the sports in America that we grow up with and soccer isn't really there yet.

As a kid I was fascinated with sports, and I loved sports more than anything else. The first books I read were about sports, like books about Baseball Joe, as one baseball hero was called.

That's what Major League Baseball's steroid scandal was all about, the hidden harm in competitive sports that sends the wrong message to the young.

What sets baseball apart from other sports is the array of skills that every player needs: the speed, the power, the agility.

Ethnic prejudice has no place in sports, and baseball must recognize that truth if it is to maintain stature as a national game.

My introduction to sports was through baseball. That's all I knew.

When I was a kid, I was always an athlete. I played a lot of sports. I played football, basketball, baseball and soccer.

I think flexibility in general is something that needs to be reinforced, and not only baseball players but all sports.

Trip Hawkins - and this was the early 1980s - was saying there's going to be a day when everyone has a computer and they're going to want to do more on it, including playing games. So he started up a company, EA Sports, and he was going to have three games, football, basketball and baseball. So I was the football game.

February is always a bad month for TV sports. Football is gone, basketball is plodding along in the annual midseason doldrums, and baseball is not even mentioned.

Baseball is called 'America's Pastime,' but you could argue WWE and wrestling is very similar. We've been around since the carnival days. People want to be entertained. It's obviously two different sports, but everyone appreciates the athleticism of another sport.

I'm a big sports guy - golf, tennis, baseball, basketball, snowboarding - and I love games.

I tried golf for a while, but I wasn't very good at it, so I didn't play a lot of golf. I enjoy all sports, not just football. I like basketball, baseball, and I got into the World Cup. So really, sports in general are my life, and football specifically.

I tried to get a baseball movie made a couple of years ago and I don't think it didn't happen because I was a woman, but because sports movie don't sell internationally.

People who think they know what they are talking about when they talk about baseball include the announcers and all of the sports press - no matter how much evidence you present them to the contrary they will continue to think that what they think is right.

Whenever I think of baseball, the first name that comes to mind is Babe Ruth. What the Babe was to baseball, Shula is to football coaching. There are certain figures in sports who are larger than the games they play or coach, and Don Shula is one of those.

I always played sports when I was young. I played football and baseball for eight years. I loved football.