When you're up there and everything feels good and you're competing against the pitcher and the pitcher strikes you out, you're like, 'OK, yeah, I struck out, but that's OK.'
I've always noticed how the Fenway fans get behind the pitcher, especially late in the game if you're having a good game, or if you have two strikes on a hitter, they really start to chant and anticipate a strikeout. And that's the best part about playing in Boston and at Fenway. There are knowledgeable fans who anticipate the flow of the game and they can really help out the pitcher.
I'm always amazed when a pitcher becomes angry at a hitter for hitting a home run off him. When I strike out, I don't get angry at the pitcher, I get angry at myself. I would think that if a pitcher threw up a home run ball, he should be angry at himself.
Byrd has always been that kind of pitcher, trying to trick you, keep the ball low, in and out. He threw a lot of strikes, worked it inside and out, threw breaking balls for strikes behind in the count.
For me, the most important thing is running a good clubhouse. The X's and the O's - you sit up in the stands and, for the most part, a lot of fans go to the game and they know what's going to happen. You're going to hit and run, steal, put a pitcher in, take a pitcher out.
A pitcher never gets me out. I get myself out. That's no disrespect to the pitcher, but there should be no excuse for failure. You can't have an excuse to fail.
If I'm a pitcher, my only point would be that if I'm a relief pitcher, I think I like the idea of warming up on the field.
I think about how a guy mentally prepared himself to do battle, to go out and face the pitcher. I think so many hitters do not know how to get themselves prepared to play or hit against a pitcher. You have to mentally be prepared to hit against all pitchers.
The rain washed away my pitcher's mound... I'm a pitcher without a mound... I'm a lost soul... I'm like a politician out of office." "Or a sailor without an ocean..." "Or a boy without a girl.
When people ask me, "Who was the toughest pitcher you ever faced?", I have to say that there has never been a pitcher who over-impressed me. That's not meant to be a bragging statement. It's just that I get up for good pitchers.
There are peaks, there are valleys. But they're all kind of carved and smoothed out, and it feels like a low level of despair you live in. Where you're not getting any answers, but you're living OK. And you can smile at the office. You know? But it's a low level of despair. I was on Prozac for a long time. It may have helped me out of a jam for a little bit, but people stay on it forever. I had to get off at a certain point because I realized that, you know, everything's just OK.
It is ok to err, but it is not ok to stop playing; it is ok to lose, but it is not ok to give up.
Greg Maddux is probably the best pitcher in all of baseball along with Roger Clemens. He's much more intelligent than I am because he doesn't have a 95 or 98 mph fastball. I would tell any pitcher who wants to be successful to watch him, because he's the true definition of a pitcher.
In ten minutes, I'm thinking, 'OK, you know what? I love these guys. They're really smart, they're really good, they've got a good sense of comedy, under their guidance, I think maybe this could come out OK.' But I didn't like the part.
Right now what's in my mind is going up there and being disciplined. I was swinging at so many pitches out of the strike zone, and when you do that, you're not going to get a chance to hit strikes. It makes it easier for the pitcher every time I do that.
It's OK to want to look and feel your best. It's OK to work at being attractive, whatever that means to you. And it's also OK to not expect to be defined by that. It's OK to be powerful in every way: to be big, to take up space. To breathe and thrive.
If you're a pitcher, and you're pitching and you strike me out and you start celebrating on the mound and showing me off, whenever I get a hit off you, I'm going to go and celebrate, and you shouldn't get mad. If you're a pitcher and strike me out and show me respect and you don't show me up, when I get a homer or a hit, I'm not going to show you up. That's what I believe.