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There's no doubt my having been a ballplayer made me feel a special sense of responsibility to Joe Jackson's life.

People cried nepotism every time I was on the field. But I played for a lot of coaches before I played for my father, and I started for everybody. He wasn't the first person who all the sudden put me in the starting lineup.

At Tiger Stadium, the dugouts are so low that you walk in and hit your head on the ceiling. People would say, 'Don't feel bad. Ty Cobb did the same thing.'

I think I'm telling the truth. I sat by Ray Perkins at the Hall of Fame dinner in New York, and at that time he didn't know he was our coach and I didn't either.

When I have the urge to get back to coaching, I lie down and wait until it passes.

Obviously it happens very fast on the field during the game; if anything, it's more of a feel. You feel when the pocket is collapsing around you. You feel when someone is close to you. It is a split-second decision.

You know, when you can play with the greatest players of that particular era, you look forward to going to the ballpark. I mean, you thought it was great to be there in the clubhouse. You thought it was great to be on the field.

I owe a large part of my success to Joe Brown, who helped me both as a player and a person.

There's a picture of the real Coach Gary Gaines in the book and he's sitting in the locker room after a game, and he just looks so much like Billy Bob, that we went to him.