That's how easy baseball was for me. I'm not trying to brag or anything, but I had the knowledge before I became a professional baseball player to do all these things and know what each guy would hit.
Judging ballplayers and turning in reports, giving my opinion of who will get to the big leagues and who will not... I think my baseball judgment was really good.
That whole thing about, 'Hey, ex-catchers are the best managers.' Listen, pitching coaches have some brains, too. Sometimes they're not all there, but sometimes they are.
You never really know baseball until you put on a pair of cleats and get out and play it; and if you play for five years, you still don't really know what it's about.
I've said this: If Jim Leyland had been in my place, he'd have the 2,000 wins and I'd have 1,000. Leyland is the greatest.
I'm an expert in baseball and I don't even have a job. I'm an expert, more so than a lot of people out there. It should be my career until I'm dead. I should be one of the instructors. I think I've earned it.
I knew how to read box scores and who the baseball heroes were before I had ever seen or even heard much of a game.
I have discovered in 20 years of moving around a ballpark, that the knowledge of the game is usually in inverse proportion to the price of the seats.
I guess I'm the only guy old enough to figure him (Nolan Ryan, 1-Hitter Game in 1991) out.
Everything I learned about the game of baseball, I learned from my dad.
If you seriously aspire to be a manager in the big leagues, there is a baseball 'book' that one must learn. Alongside that book, you must practice Spanish. Of 25 players on each roster, sometimes there are between eight and 15 players who speak Spanish.
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.
I didn't play baseball my entire life, so I do bring something a little more unique to the telecast and I get really excited about stuff that, maybe if I had been around baseball my whole life, I would just say, 'Come on. Everybody knows that. Its not a big deal.'
I've been lucky. I've met a lot of baseball people, and I've learned to value people who talk - people who talk well and in long sentences and even long paragraphs.
I think sometimes Hall of Famers might get labeled as guys who aren't suited for a coaching job or to be back at the Major League level.
John Henry Lloyd is the man I gave the credit to for polishing my skills. He taught me how to play third base and how to protect myself. John taught me more baseball than anyone else.
I think I've tried to have a platform to speak and to help kids understand learning about baseball.
You can ask every coach from Ron Gardenhire to Dave Clark, anyone who has seen me play, they don't know why they say I'm a bad defender.
I always liked Casey Stengel as a manager because he seemed to have a grasp of so many things.
The rest of what I learned about baseball came from Peter Gammons, the Boston Globe's best baseball writer when I was in high school.
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.
I enjoy talking pitching and talking baseball. And I don't have all the answers. I don't claim to, but I'm more than happy to share my beliefs.
I don't know anything about baseball.
If you're a baseball fan and you don't know what BP is, you're working in a mine without one of those helmets with the lights on it.
Correct thinkers think that 'baseball trivia' is an oxymoron: nothing about baseball is trivial.
