I had 12 years under my belt of baseball at the amateur level before I got to the big leagues.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I had a great time with baseball growing up. I was lucky to grow up with it and to learn.
Well, I wanted to play twenty years in the major leagues. I never made it twenty though. I played nineteen.
I started in the lowest league in baseball, and I worked my way all the way up to Triple A and then to the big leagues. I never reached the level that I thought I would reach as a player. But that's the way it goes. So then I started from the bottom as a manager, and I worked my way up to managing the Dodgers for 20 years.
As a youngster, I played in Little League, Pony League, and all sorts of amateur baseball programs growing up.
I wasn't ever good enough to be on the baseball team and that sort of stuff.
When I was 16 years old, my brother Frank said, 'You'd better become a catcher, because you're too big and fat to do anything else.' Well, I took his advice. It was a quick way to get to the big leagues, and I've never regretted it.
I can honestly say it took two full years for me to get over the fact that I was no longer a baseball player.
I've put in 63 years now in the big leagues as a player, coach, manager. And now just being around these young guys, it keeps you going pretty good.
I wanted to play baseball ever since I was 5 years old.
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.