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I always wanted to be a major-league baseball player.

When I began my career, I was constantly referred to as the kid who could play the blues.

I thought I was a pretty good shortstop, but I also wanted to play in the major leagues.

I was a ballplayer, but only for a limited time. I grew up playing in Wisconsin. It's a very sports-centric part of the country that I grew up in and I played a lot of sports, but baseball first and foremost. I played through high school. I was a middle-infielder.

I don't feel I could've played major league baseball.

I was considered as a jazz man rather than as a blues player. There were no blues players-you played one sort of jazz of another sort of jazz.

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

I knew I'd never make it back to the major leagues as a player. Lee MacPhail came to me and asked if I wanted to manage the Yankees' Fort Lauderdale club. I thought about it for a day or two and decided to take the job. That was the turning point. I knew it was what I wanted to do.