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As great a public speaker as I am, I don't know have - I don't - I don't have the words to describe Cub fans who welcomed me as a rookie, were patient through my 1-for-32 start, and took me into their homes and into their hearts and treated me like a member of their family. You picked me up when I was down.

It was so difficult for the fans to understand my problems with baseball.

People ask me a lot about the values I got from playing for the Cubs for so many years. The value I got out of it was patience. A lot of people these days are not very patient.

I have great memories of being a Cub, and I'm happy building new ones with the Phillies.

I'm a Cubbie. I'll always be a Cubbie.

I really want to see the Cubs in the World Series. I really do.

Protect yourself like you would your cubs - as a grown woman, you're no one's cub anymore.

Baseball fans are collectively the '10th man' and needed most when team performance is shaky. When mistakes are made, there's no need to heckle your team - that's what the other side is for!

I know I'm appreciated by how fans treat me, and the best way to treat them is play every day, hard. I sign autographs, but if I'm with someone I don't know who doesn't start the conversation, there won't be a conversation. That's just me, living my life. But I'll loosen up after baseball.

You can keep going on and on about the interactions of people, which makes it a great drama and great event, and you'll always hold that special, but if you're looking at a baseball moment, the feeling you get when you win the World Series by far exceeds anything else in the game that you're able to do.