"No wonder you're all mixed up. You got a white man's first name, a Spanish man's second name, and a black man's third name."

“Every hitter likes fastballs just like everybody likes ice cream. But you don't like it when someone's stuffing it into you by the gallon. That's how you feel when's throwing balls by you. You just hope to mix in a walk so you can have a good night and only go 0-for-3.”

“I was 'colored' until I was 14, a Negro until I was 21 and a black man ever since.”

“Now, when we go into a park on the road people start booing me. You don't know how good that makes me feel. To me it means the fans recognize who I am and what I mean to my ball club. Fans don't boo nobodies.”

“I did very little against two lefties, Mike Caldwell and Scott McGregor, for a few years anyway. Eventually, I caught up with both of them, though. It was really Jim Palmer who stands out in this context; I had some success against him overall, but he was so good in clutch situations that I never really hurt him when the game was on the line.”