I played a little basketball. Some football in junior high.

When I came up to bat with three men on and two outs in the ninth, I looked in the other team’s dugout and they were already in street clothes.

When I am playing baseball, I give it all that I have on the ball field. When the ball game is over, I certainly don’t take it home. My little girl who is sitting out there wouldn’t know the difference between a third strike and a foul ball. We don’t talk about baseball at home.

When I look back at what I had to go through in black baseball, I can only marvel at the many black players who stuck it out for years in the Jim Crow leagues because they had nowhere else to go.

The more minutes you play and the more grind and physical play you endure through the course of a season, you have to re-charge and get your body right for the next season. Be in that weight room and conditioning and that kind of deal.

I make impact plays. I make game-changing plays.

Cobb is a prick. But he sure can hit. God Almighty, that man can hit.

I played football for a team called the East Dragons on the east side of town. We only had six regular season games. And six games I played tail back and I had 18 touchdowns in six games. That’s when I knew I had some athletic ability.

Every quarterback can throw a ball; every running back can run; every receiver is fast; but that mental toughness that you talk about translates into competitiveness.

Joe Frazier got hit more than me – and he doesn’t have Parkinson’s.

You know, God gave me a gift to do other things besides play the game of basketball.

I like sports, and I enjoy playing basketball and lifting weights.

Some of the stuff I do on the court is what most people think they can do.

I’m not gonna be bad at anything, and I want to actually be the best at anything I’m doing. So if I’m playing basketball, if I’m taking the SATs, like, there’s a competitive spirit behind it. With production, it’s the same thing.

I like playing. I wouldn’t be a good coach. I don’t have the patience to be a coach.

David Beckham has never impressed me.

If you watch me during the game, I celebrate when we press the ball and it goes out.

One reason I don’t want to play in England again is because we don’t have any personalities.

Sports are basically our way of feeling sorry for ourselves. Most men can’t become athletes. We’re watching guys who actually made it. We see them dunking and making touchdowns. Then we think about ourselves when we were younger.

They’ll forget all the rubbish when I’ve gone, and they’ll remember the football. If only one person thinks I’m the best player in the world, that’s good enough for me.

Duke is an ugly word in Kentucky. Nothing in the world compares to the joy of beating those hateful swine from Duke.

I was the one who took football off the back pages and put it on to page one.

An agent won’t help you get drafted higher, won’t make you win more games, and won’t make you faster or stronger.

I love soccer, love tennis… Roger Federer has been a favourite for a long, long time. The kind of consistency he has shown, 16 Grand Slam titles… The way he handles himself in pressure situations is admirable… He is so calm… In soccer, I’m a huge fan of Barcelona… I like watching Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and David Villa.

In 1962 I was named Minor League Player of the Year. It was my second season in the bigs.

Derbies are always difficult to play because you have to handle the pressure. There’s no advantage or disadvantage for either side.

If you watch any good player, they’re using different parts of their body and working with instruments that respond to those movements. They’re moving in many dimensions at once.

I was a Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan fan growing up.

Most home teams have chapels, so when I’m on the road I’ll probably go to their services.

In Boston, they love their sports celebrities. And it’s great.

I used to play a lot of different sports. Now when I look back, I understand that it really helped with my hand-eye coordination.

Men like a ref decision because they just want to get back to the game.

In football, I don’t have a lot of friends. The people who I really trust, there are not many… Most of the time, I’m alone.

If I went out to play basketball with other kids, when I came home I’d shower and go right back to the computer again. If there was a birthday party or a family activity, I would take my laptop and spend the whole day there.

To all the positions, I just bring the determination to win. Me being an unselfish player, I think that can carry on to my teammates. When you have one of the best players on the court being unselfish, I think that transfers to the other players.

When I was a kid, I never thought much about football. I thought about following in my family’s footsteps and going into professional wrestling.

If I said I would knock out Sonny Liston in 1 minute and 49 seconds of the first round, that would hurt the gate.

Well, I mean, to me, I think my ultimate – my ultimate goal is winning championships and – and I understand that me going down as one of the greats will not happen until I, you know, win a championship.

‚Rocky‘ and ‚Rocky III‘ were the best.

At the end of the day, we started playing football because we loved it.

Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world.

A coach, especially at a college level – much more at a college or high school level, than at a pro level – you’re more of a teacher than an actual coach.

Yes, it is one of my ultimate aims – it is the ultimate sense of football: to make the people happy, to let them live some emotions that you usually can’t get.

You can’t score if you’re turning it over. It’s like a punt. If you go out and you punt 12 times, you’re not scoring points. That’s not good. So, when you turn the ball over and throw interceptions, you’re giving the other team more opportunities and your team less opportunities.

I’m a golfer, and what are the two sports you can do till you drop? Golf and surfing. They’re great for you limber-wise, they’re great for you health-wise, and they put you in sweet locations.

The old Dodgers were something special, but of my teammates overall, there was nobody like Pee Wee Reese for me.

I love watching track and field – the 4×100 relay, the 100-(meter) dash, the 200-(meter) dash. To see what they’re able to do, I love watching that.

I don’t want to be the next Michael Jordan, I only want to be Kobe Bryant.

I signed for Mohun Bagan and then I got the news that Bhaichung also joined the club. The first day he met me he told me that I have heard about you and you are doing well. I told everyone in my family and friends that Bhaichung told me that.

Personally yes I want our country to have one league. When it’s going to be one league, which we all are hearing, it has to be abiding by AFC rules.

I am not a dreamer. I am a football romantic.

Without football, my life is worth nothing.

Sectional football games have the glory and the despair of war, and when a Texas team takes the field against a foreign state, it is an army with banners.

When you play sports like tennis, you’re alone, and that’s a good school for life, but it’s also a good school for life to bring your best and make those around you better, too – helping others in difficult moments.

But sports carried me away from being in a gang, or being associated with drugs. Sports was my way out.

People have to understand one thing: at the age of 18, I arrived at a dream club like Manchester United. It was a dream come true. But, even at that moment, I was thinking about playing in England for some years and then going to play in Spain. Even at that time I was thinking that way, and I always gave 100% everything.

We knew sports was important to us and our family, but there are priorities in life.Obviously, faith is foremost; how we did in school is important. If we didn’t handle that business then there were no privileges.

When I step forward on the floor, I have the confidence that I’m the best player playing that night and that I am the most prepared at what I need to be doing.

In football, it’s the job of the player to play, the coach to coach, the official to officiate. Each guy is charged with upholding his end, nothing more. In golf, the player, coach and official are rolled into one, and they overlap completely. Golf really is the best microcosm of life – or at least the way life should be.

Lot of players lose hope because of lack of motivation.

As soon as I got out there I felt a strange relationship with the pitcher’s mound. It was as if I’d been born out there. Pitching just felt like the most natural thing in the world. Striking out batters was easy.