And then when I went to stay in '68, I can honestly say that I was not focused on my career and on what it took to be a major league pitcher and to be a starting pitcher.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
My career spanned the era when relievers started to become more important.
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.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a baseball player.
When I was 12, I had a coach tell me I would never be a championship pitcher. That devastated me. I was crushed.
Before, if I wasn't in baseball, I wanted to become a doctor.
When I started playing the game of baseball, the more I played and the better numbers I got, the more I started thinking about the Hall of Fame. But I never thought I had a chance to be there.
I always thought that there was going to be life after baseball, and so I designed that in my life I would have other interests after baseball that I would be able to step into. And I didn't realize the grip that baseball had on me and on my family.
I wasn't ever good enough to be on the baseball team and that sort of stuff.
It was all I lived for, to play baseball.
I always wanted to be a major-league baseball player.