I liked Jackie Robinson because he was cool to watch, not because he was black. Every time you turned around, he was hitting a triple or making a great play in the field or, best of all, stealing home.
I used to tell Jackie (Robinson) sometimes when they were throwing at him, 'Jackie, they aren't throwing at you because you are black. They are throwing at you because they don't like you.
If I was the Jackie Robinson of golf, I sure didn't do a very good job of it. Jackie was followed by hundreds of great black ballplayers who have transformed their sport... But there are hardly any black kids coming up through the ranks of golf today.
People look at black pride in America and sport's impact on it. In the major cities it took off the first time Jackie Robinson stole home. In the deep South, it started with Eddie Robinson, who took a small college in northern Louisiana with little or no funds and sent the first black to the pros and made everyone look at him and Grambling.
All the courage and competitiveness of Jackie Robinson affects me to this day. If I patterned my life after anyone it was him, not because he was the first black baseball player in the majors but because he was a hero.
The martial arts that I got into was because of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, because of all of the animal styles at the time. It was around about the time when Jackie was doing 'Drunken Master,' and, like, Snake versus this and that.
I loved when my dad was home. He liked to sit in the living room and watch boxing and baseball on TV. Or he'd be tinkering around or listening to records by his musician buddies - George Shearing, Oscar Peterson and the Jackie Gleason Orchestra.
Every time I look at my pocketbook, I see Jackie Robinson.
We used to have an all-Black baseball team, all Black stars and when White folks took Jackie Robinson and brought him into the major league that was the beginning of the crushing of Black baseball teams and leagues.
Some day I'm going to have to stand before God, and if He asks me why I didn't let that [Jackie] Robinson fellow play ball, I don't think saying 'because of the color of his skin' would be a good enough answer.
You have to believe you're great. You have to have an air about you. My success wasn't because I was a great talent, but because I wanted it more than anybody else. Every minute I step on that field, I want to prove I'm the best player in the league.
Some of the best quarterback play is when you're able to move in the pocket and still make throws down the field because it's not going to be clean every time.
I started getting seriously into music when I was a kid. 1978 was my big year. It just hit home. That was before real metal. There was Black Sabbath and that kind of stuff, but the real underground, hard stuff wasn't even around yet. It was cool to watch that happen and latch onto the next edge of things every time that progression happened.
Even if Scrabble had been invented then, I wouldn't have wanted to play Scrabble, because the highest triple word score in the world would not have expressed how much I liked the game Natalie and I played every afternoon.
I don't like walking around with people thinking I'm doing uncool s--, because there's nothing I'm doing that's uncool. It's all innovative. You just might not understand it yet. But it's cool. Family is super cool. Going home to one girl every night is super cool. Just going home and getting on the floor and playing with your child is super cool. Not wearing a red leather jacket, and just looking like a dad and s--, is like super cool. Having someone that I can call Mom again. That s-- is super cool.
I think I'm bad luck for Tiger because he missed the cut in Charlotte with me. But yeah, those are two of the best players of all time. Tiger's the best player of all time in my opinion, so when he's not in the field, it's a relief because he's such a great player.
After Jackie Robinson the most important black in baseball history is Reggie Jackson, I really mean that.