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I've put in 63 years now in the big leagues as a player, coach, manager. And now just being around these young guys, it keeps you going pretty good.

With me, baseball will never grow old. In my own estimation, it may not have improved so much as many believe, but regardless of everything, it is the same good old game. If I have contributed to its success, I do not refer to this in the sense of boasting. I had to or fall out of the ranks.

I had 12 years under my belt of baseball at the amateur level before I got to the big leagues.

Baseball has changed dramatically since I began my tenure with the Yankees.

Finally, for all of us but a lucky few, the dream of playing big-time baseball is relinquished so we can get on with grown-up things.

I can honestly say it took two full years for me to get over the fact that I was no longer a baseball player.

People know more about baseball players' contracts than they do about the policies that govern the fate of our children's lives in twenty years. Think about it. People used to say, the whole time I was growing up, 'Do you want to bring a child into this world?' That's pretty dire.

For my children, they spent 15 to 20 years of their life in baseball. And Ruth and I spent so many years of our married life that that was our life. We knew nothing else.

I was a professional baseball player from the time I was drafted out of high school in 1981 until the time I retired in 2003.