You're going to fail. It's how you respond to that failure that kind of defines you as a person, as an athlete.

There's a fine line between playing through things and sitting out. I was always on the side of, 'I'm going to play through it.' It's probably good at times, bad at times, but for an athlete to always try to be there and play through things, from a teammate's perspective, it speaks volumes. Now that I look back, mentally it makes you tougher.

I got to the big leagues when I was 20. I thought I had it all figured out. Went to spring training that next year and started off well, got sent down, and I pouted pretty much all of 2000. And it wasn't the right way to handle it.

Vernon Wells Quotes