You could be a kid for as long as you want when you play baseball.
— Cal Ripken, Jr.
I had aches and pains when I played. No player is ever 100 percent, 80 percent, 85 percent. Guys that play 158 or 162 or 145, we are all in the same boat.
I kept thinking, 'this must be the coolest job - I'd like to be a professional baseball player.' They were getting paid to play a game, and what a cool lifestyle that was.
Even though my dad was a manager in the minor leagues, I still traveled around with him and saw it from the field out. Now, as an owner, you're kind of looking from the whole baseball activity from outside in, from a fan's perspective.
By far, the best moment of my big league career was when I caught the last out at the World Series.
Quite frankly, I don't miss standing in the box or standing on the field playing.
You can keep going on and on about the interactions of people, which makes it a great drama and great event, and you'll always hold that special, but if you're looking at a baseball moment, the feeling you get when you win the World Series by far exceeds anything else in the game that you're able to do.
I think Nick Markakis is a perennial All-Star, and nobody knows about him. I think people are learning about how good he is.
Your job as a baseball player is to come to the park ready to play every day, and the manager, it's his job to make those decisions about who plays.
Whether it was Little League or playing with your brothers or sisters, that was always a problem. If I would lose - because I very rarely lost - then everything would go crazy.
There have been times in my life when I felt compelled to write things down as a matter of therapy, but whatever I kept about those days, I shredded. It was too personal.
I've been asked to interview for many managing jobs, and I never said yes because I was never serious about it, and I thought it would be wrong to go through that process.
I don't mind being described as vanilla in certain ways.
My dad had premature gray. I was always the one with the most energy, the one who continued to practice longer. I ran up and down the stairs of different stadiums. I didn't feel the need to cover up the fact that I was losing my hair or it was graying. When you're on a team, age is only a factor when you're talking in the locker room.
I see myself as extremely lucky.
Baseball can be slow in many ways. The action starts with when the pitcher delivers the ball. But the action really starts when the crack of the bat happens.
I'm always flattered when someone thinks of me as a potential commissioner of baseball.
I have goals and ambitions, and I see myself as a lifelong baseball student. I have certain philosophies that I'd like to test at some point at the big league level. The job of manager appeals to me, a coach appeals to me, at a different time frame.
One person's going to win, and everybody else is going to not win. So let's not feel like we're losers. Let's utilize the cultural opportunities, get to know the other players on the other team, look around you, enjoy your world series.
Being elected to the Hall of Fame is about your career pretty much and your impact on the game.
I stayed attached to baseball through the kids and through minor league baseball, and I'm very satisfied with the schedule it allows me to have, which means I'm home until my kids go off to college. I value that time.
Normally, some people think about 50 as a big moment in life. I kind of think 30 because in your baseball career, 30 was considered on top kind of looking at the end of your career. So I remember thinking about 30 in different ways, but 50 just seems like another step right now.
I lived the baseball life as a kid, with my dad in it. And I lived the baseball life as an adult, because I was in it. When I retired, I wanted the opportunity to be a little bit more flexible and home-based for my kids.
My approach to every game was to try to erase the games that were before and try to focus on the game at hand.
I had trouble with my temper all the way through the minor leagues.
A lot of people think I had such a rosy career, but I wanted to identify that one of the things that helps you have a long career is learning how to deal with adversity, how to get past it. Once I learned how to get through that, others things didn't seem so hard.
Sometimes I think sportsmanship is a little bit forgotten in place of the individual attention.
I'm not trying to be a star on TV. I am who I am, which I hope comes out. I have a little bit of a different sense than most people know, and it takes a while to get used to it.
I had one of my best years in 1991; I was 31. I made a renewed effort to work harder. I got better at my diet. I paid attention to how much sleep I got. I was always someone of routine. I became more strict.
I love baseball. The game allowed me the influence to impact kids in a positive way. This gives me a chance to talk to some social issues.
I never understood that when I heard people retire - they said they missed being around the guys. I don't have a need to make a play in the ninth inning of a game anymore. But being on the inside and being part of a team is something that you really do value and you really do miss.
My dad was part of the Oriole way. I think he was there 14 years in the minor leagues; I think seven of those years, they had the same people in place. So it was about continuity. It was about stability.
You don't project yourself in the Hall of Fame as a player. It's only during that five-year period where people start asking about it, and it doesn't seem real until it happens.
All I really try and do is live up to my potential and do as well as I possibly could and to bring to the ballpark each and every day a good effort and do the best that I could each and every day.
When you're in the day-to-day grind, it just seems like it's another step along the way. But I find joy in the actual process, the journey, the work. It's not the end. It's not the end event.
You learn as a player not to listen to the criticism. Many of the people who put out that criticism might not be as accomplished, might not understand the game as well from the inside-out.
I always thought being a gamer and someone who had a sense of responsibility to the game and to my teammates was the honorable thing.
I never set out to do this; I never set out to say, 'Can I break this record?' Then all of a sudden, the preparations made for the celebration put pressure on me. I said, 'Okay, I have to get there.' After 2,130, there was sort of a realization it was a foregone conclusion you're going to play tomorrow.
When things happen to you in the worst way, you live with it, you go over it, you think, 'What else could I have done?'
I did make a choice when I got away from baseball to be there to get my kids off to college.
The older you get, the things that you thought you wanted to do when you were younger, you're checking them off your list because you no longer want to them.
When you are away from the game and busy with other areas, you realize that the world does not revolve around baseball.
When you're an athlete and you play every day and are conditioning yourself every year, the aging is gradual.
