My high school coach was Ray O'Conner. He has coached a lot of players that have signed professional contracts, and many of those have gone on to play in the major leagues.
I don't expect any red carpet to the big leagues. If the opportunity comes, then it comes. But I don't think I'm owed anything.
I would love to see as many of the black players as possible in today's Major League Baseball make every effort to go to the Negro Leagues Museum and get a first-hand view of how it all started.
When I got traded to the California Angels, I really wasn't that excited about going to the Angels because it meant changing leagues and also a whole new set of teammates. But shortly after I got there I realized that it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
No matter how little we think anatomy should matter to one's social and political rights, surely we can't pretend biology doesn't matter in sports. Surely there's a reason we don't let adults play in the t-ball leagues, and a reason most women athletes want their own leagues.
It's up to the national associations and their leagues to limit the entry of foreign players.
I'm sure Putnam is right that there's been a decline in certain kinds of organizations like bowling leagues. But people participate in communities in other ways.
At my growing years of 18 to 21 years old in the Minor Leagues, I dreamed of being a Philadelphia Phillie.
I offer a proven track record in the big leagues that can hit left-handers or right-handers.
The situation was, the team I was on when I got injured went down to the lower leagues. In America, they don't have that relegation, so when the team went down to the lower region, every player has his value, and they went off and sold any player who had value.
I started in for the ball but I just couldn't get it. I should have caught it because I was used to catching everything on the sandlots. But they hit the ball a lot harder in the major leagues and I just couldn't reach the ball this time.
Anyone interested in becoming a professional umpire and becoming eligible to work in the minor leagues must attend one of the two umpire schools sanctioned by Major League Baseball.
In the Negro Leagues, I played every day.
That was a very aha moment. It was, 'I'm in the big leagues.'
If I don't make the team out of spring training, I'll keep a good attitude. I'll just go polish up the parts of my game that made me not stay in the big leagues.
If you are used to going five innings and then go six or seven, you won't have your good stuff. They need to start that from the minor leagues and give pitchers strong arms.
Minor league umpires are evaluated in their respective leagues each year and rated numerically. This enables umpires to know where they stand and helps them make prudent career decisions.
England really is the birthplace, the heart and soul of football. If Barcelona had Liverpool's fans, or Arsenal's, or United's, we'd have won 20 Champions Leagues, hahaha!
I was such a screwup when I got to the big leagues. I was a total idiot.
Anybody with ability can play in the big leagues. But to be able to trick people year in and year out the way I did, I think that was a much greater feat.
I hated baseball. I really didn't like baseball at all until someone decided they were going to pay me... Every year I played in the big leagues, the day the season ended, I called my buddies in West Virginia and said, 'I'll be home tomorrow.'
Sailed this day nineteen leagues, and determined to count less than the true number, that the crew might not be dismayed if the voyage should prove long.
I was glad to play in the Negro Leagues. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
The Nautilus was piercing the water with its sharp spur, after having accomplished nearly ten thousand leagues in three months and a half, a distance greater than the great circle of the earth. Where were we going now, and what was reserved for the future?
I'm very, very amateur, which is funny because I'm not in the amateur leagues.
I would have been about seven years old when the formative years of my competitive football education began. I was playing in the local leagues around Manchester, playing against lads from tough areas who had been taught they had to fight for everything.
All of a sudden I'm in the major leagues and we're traveling from town to town. I see the other players dressing different every day. I've got only one suit and I keep wearing it over and over. I'm really embarrassed.
Well, my hand never fell off, and within no time, I was bowling competitively in leagues and tournaments.
If you're in the minor leagues, you want to get to the majors.
If I could do it over, I'd want to come up to the big leagues like Mike Trout. He's exciting and I like watching him.
It's one of the best leagues in Europe in football. Benfica in my opinion is one of the top 10 biggest clubs in the world.
My dad was part of the Oriole way. I think he was there 14 years in the minor leagues; I think seven of those years, they had the same people in place. So it was about continuity. It was about stability.
I came into the game when I broke into the major leagues, the minimum salary was seven thousand dollars, and I'd have to go home in the wintertime and get a job.
But the reason that women's football is still unknown is because it's not on television and not widely publicised for a wide majority of the leagues in the world.
In 1916, Universal Studios released the first filmed adaptation of Jules Verne's novel '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.' Georges Melies made a film by that name in 1907, but, unlike his earlier adaptations of Verne, Melies' version bears no resemblance to the book.
I learned a lot in the Minor Leagues, spending six years there. I honed my skills, as far as coaching goes. I was able to work with the players in a lot of facets of the game.
