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You know, when I was a young boy I used to play baseball in my back yard or in the street with my brothers or the neighborhood kids. We used broken bats and plastic golf balls and played for hours and hours.

I had 10 to 12 close buddies who I played ball with all the way from elementary to high school. That is where I learned to compete.

I was the kid who always liked to take the ball down to the school even in my free time, kick it against the wall, juggle it in the front yard and so it was kind of a perpetual state of playing soccer for me.

I had a lot of friends who were boys. I played ball with them, but we didn't date. They didn't ask me that much because I wasn't cute enough or because I didn't drink or party.

When I joined a baseball club, the boys of my own age, and a little older, played in the first nine, those younger than myself played in the second, and those still younger in the third, and I played with them.

Prior to high school, I played a lot of neighborhood football.

In my neighborhood in Springfield, Ohio, there were a lot of young kids. We all played tackle football after school, but I knew very early on that I was not an athlete.

We lived near a playground that had four baseball diamonds on it, and when I got to be 11, 12 years old, I was always over at the ballpark practicing or playing or doing something pertaining to baseball. And when I wasn't doing that, I was bouncing a rubber ball off the steps of my front porch at home.

I have three younger siblings, so the four of us were outside all the time after school playing games, making up games. My sister made up a game called 'roof ball.' We'd play that constantly. She always beat me in it, and it made me very mad. But we were outside all the time.

I had two older brothers, so I was always competing with them. The guys I grew up with on the golf course, when I was 13, they were 15 or 16, and I was always trying to beat them.