I thought I was a pretty good shortstop, but I also wanted to play in the major leagues.
When I was a minor league player, my goal was to be a major leaguer. It's no different as a minor league manager.
Football, I thought, would be a tough sport to make a living in. There is no minor league. You either make it to the NFL or you don't.
I got into pro ball at 18 and played until I was almost 39, non-stop.
I played high school football at a hundred and eighty-five pounds and played big league baseball at a hundred and eighty-two. I'd get up to maybe 188 in the off-season because every summer I'd lose eight to ten pounds.
I'm not thinking about records. Just winning the pennant would be exciting.
I was taught coming up in the Phillies organization to be seen and not heard by people like Pete Rose, my hero growing up, and players like Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton and Manny Trillo.
Time and time again, I see former teammates, and we talk about it. It feels like we are all on the same page: We enjoyed the regular season, but we were disappointed in not making the World Series.
I had to prepare physically every day, and I didn't leave many scraps for the writers.
I'm not a sportswriter. I don't get to vote. I don't get the ballot in the mail, so it's out of my hands either way. I can say that in the history of the Hall of Fame, there are no suspicions about guys who are in the Hall of Fame.
It's an elite group. And once you're in the Hall, you're in the Hall. Up until now, I think the voting system has handled things very well. And like I said before, there are no suspicions in the Hall of Fame.
'The Sandberg Game' comes up all the time. Fans tell me where they were. They were driving down the highway, they were in the bleachers, they were downtown listening on the radio, they were on the farm on a tractor. I've heard all the stories where people have been. They're just amazed by the ending of the game and the thrill of it.
I was a baseball player at North Central High School in Spokane, Washington even though I was all-city in basketball, even when I signed a letter of intent to play quarterback at Washington State.
Steve Bartman was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
