I heard Tony Bennett say that when you're a big deal early on, you have to maintain that level forever, and it's very scary. You have to keep hitting those home runs, turning out hits.
Pop was initially ignored as a moneymaker by the recording industry. In the seventies they were still relying on Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett for their big hits. You know, most of the budget for the record companies in those days went to the classical department - and those were big budget albums.
I'm very pleased and very proud of my accomplishments, but I'm most proud of that (hitting four-hundred home runs and three-thousand hits). Not (Ted) Williams, not (Lou) Gehrig, not (Joe) DiMaggio did that. They were Cadillacs and I'm a Chevrolet.
Out of ten swings at the bat, you get maybe seven strikeouts, two base hits, and if you are lucky, one home run. The base hits and the home runs pay for all the strikeouts
As a first baseman, hitting home runs is what's expected of me. But I don't really try to hit home runs.
If you give a guy 1,000 opportunities and he hits 30 home runs or 500 opportunities and he hits 30 home runs, it's not the same thing. I know. This is what I do for a living, and I know who is better at what I do.
Chicks who dig home runs aren't the ones who appeal to me. I think there's sexiness in infield hits because they require technique. I'd rather impress the chicks with my technique than with my brute strength. Then, every now and then, just to show I can do that, too, I might flirt a little by hitting one out.
I have had stalkers over the years. The police deal with it but it is very scary. One man kept turning up where we filmed 'Countdown in Leeds,' which was scary. It was sad as he'd been sectioned and thought I was talking to him through the TV.
This year I'd rather lead the league in home runs, runs batted in and hitting.
I want to be the player who hits home runs, drives in runs.
I don't really set personal goals for home runs or anything like that. However many I hit, I hit. If I'm making consistent contact and hitting the ball hard, then I will hit home runs.
I have many hits, big hits, that have been written by people I don't know. In almost all my shows, people say, 'Chente, here's a CD.' When I get home, I listen to them all, and what I like, I record.
I had been watching the Emmys since I was probably 5 years old. Those shows, when you're a kid, it all seems like such a big, big deal, and only special certain people would win one of these big things like a Tony or an Emmy or an Oscar.
The thing to keep in mind is that we're still in the very early days when it comes to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Saying there's a silence is a bit like if Columbus, looking to discover a new continent, only sailed 10 miles off the coast of Spain before turning back to say, 'Nothing out there!'
You look at Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Bob Seger. All they ever wanted to do was go out there and entertain, and I'm the same way.
And that's the one thing that people do not understand is that we have very low interest rates and if those go back to historical levels or even go back to scary thoughts that they're back in the late '70s, early '80s, then that's going to really be hard to actually pay off those debts. It's going to be a - it's going to be a very big problem.
When Sinatra said, 'For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer I've ever heard,' it changed my career completely. He was my best friend, and I was his best friend... but I was never part of the Rat Pack.