“I dedicate all my time to baseball, because when you come from where I come from, you don't want to risk anything."

"What I do is see the ball, hit the ball."

"When we are youths in the Dominican, we pick up bats and balls because baseball is part of what we grow up with. The fun feeling you get playing keeps your head up when you encounter difficult times."

"I don’t think about how many people are watching me. I’m just happy to play baseball for myself."

"I don’t have to get a pitch down the middle. If I like the pitch—even if it’s 15 inches off the plate, and that’s the pitch I wanted—I’m swinging."

"I tried to use batting gloves at the beginning of every spring training up until 1999. It just didn't feel good."

"I’m not as good as I want to be."