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Ted Williams is one of the best hitters ever to play the game, and I didn't get a chance to see him play, so all I could do was read books and look at pictures.

A man has to have goals - for a day, for a lifetime - and that was mine, to have people say, 'There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived.'

Relaxing at home in his 55th-floor condominium before a game, Sammy Sosa is the same as at the ball park: focused but funny, exuberant but reserved. He is in a strange country, conversing in two languages, but his every movement displays a combination of confidence and humility.

One-third of all professional baseball players come from Latin America, and Sosa is following role models such as the late Roberto Clemente, a Puerto Rican, from whom he adopted the No. 21. Now he is a model for others.

Ted Williams was the greatest hitter I ever saw, but DiMaggio was the greatest all around player.

Fans love Sosa for his exuberance, for the kisses he blows to his mother, wife and four children. He is Slammin' Sammy, a fairy-tale figure rising from poverty in the Dominican Republic to the 55th floor above Chicago's Lake Shore Drive.

It's funny what a few no-hitters do for a body.

I threw my best to every hitter I faced, and I found I had the strength to go all the way.

Sammy Sosa? Everybody knew who Sammy was, paid attention to Sammy. I had already signed in pro ball when he had the great homer year with Mark McGwire in '98. But I followed it, and I was proud of him because he was my countryman. There are a lot of great ballplayers from the Dominican, and he's one of the best.

Few men try for best ever, and Ted Williams is one of those.