I had no future with the Dodgers, because I was too closely identified with Branch Rickey. After the club was taken over by Walter O’Malley, you couldn’t even mention Mr. Rickey’s name in front of him. I considered Mr. Rickey the greatest human being I had ever known.

When I looked at the third base coach, he turned his back on me.

My grandfather was one of the very, very first, if not the first, Samoan wrestlers to become known on a worldwide basis.

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

All the top players in the world play 45-50-60 games. You need that many games, even the strikers need that many games.

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.

Fighting football, not serenity football – that is what I like.

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

I had practiced with the team, and the first scheduled game was with the University of Missouri. They made it quite clear to the Army that they would not play a team with a black player on it. Instead of telling me the truth, the Army gave me leave to go home.

If Tiger Woods had played football, he would have been a quarterback.

I had a good time boxing. I enjoyed it – and I may come back.

I noticed that when I touched the ball on the field, you could hear this shrill noise in the crowd with all the birds screaming like at a Beatles concert.

On the field, aggression can sometimes be a positive emotion. It boosts performance and can lift your game. But over the years, I have learnt that restrained aggression is a better animal. That way, you will conserve your energy and won’t spend yourself quickly.

In my heart, I am always a Raider.

Everyone needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.

My first win feels better than a draw!

I look at athletes in all sports and try to picture what kind of football player they’d be, what position they’d play and so on.

Ordinarily, players fine-tune their match-fitness during the pre-season.

When I won the Golden Gloves in 1960, that made me realize I had a chance. And when I won at the Olympics, that sealed it: I was the champ.

I rate Fabien Barthez and played with two great keepers in Alex Stepney and Harry Gregg.

To share the dressing room of club and country with Bhai was an amazing experience. I learnt a lot from him and other senior players like Renedy Singh.

ESPN is a great organization to work for.

I just want to do well with the national team.

I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.

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.

Football is a game you cannot play without making mistakes.

I didn’t mean to hit the umpire with the dirt, but I did mean to hit that bastard in the stands.

Whoever the coach is, my job is to talk to him, understand him and be a better player under him and give my best.

Football is a sad game.

Serious sport is war minus the shooting.

I support Real Madrid. I’m a big fan of Cristiano Ronaldo.

Phil Niekro and his brother were pitching against each other in Atlanta. Their parents were sitting right behind home plate. I saw their folks more that day than they did the whole weekend.

The worst thing is for a player to come to a club and not be able to play.

Every time I get in the McLaren I feel more comfortable, my confidence increases and I feel more at home with the team.

Hey, I think it’s easy for guys to hit .300 and stay in the big leagues. Hit .200 and try to stick around as long as I did; I think it’s a much greater accomplishment. That’s hard.

As an athlete, you’d better laugh at yourself when you slip in the mud.

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

I won’t be happy until we have every boy in America between the ages of six and sixteen wearing a glove and swinging a bat.

Football is big business – you can’t get away from it. But you have to separate that side from the playing.

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

I am pretty chill before games. Have a go-to routine that keeps me busy until we are ready to take the court so I’m not just sitting around anxious for the game.

I hit a grand slam off Ron Herbel and when his manager Herman Franks came out to get him, he was bringing Herbel’s suitcase.

I don’t really focus on these things – on what tags are given to me or what people think of me off the field – stuff like that. My main focus is always to do well on the field for the Indian cricket team. When people say good things about me off the field, I am more than happy to accept them.

The Paralympic Games is about transforming our perception of the world.

My priority is cricket. Everything that I get apart from it is a result of the effort on the field. Everything else follows. I am pretty aware of my priorities, and I don’t really focus on things that are not as important to me as cricket.

I try to encourage all my teammates, and I sure hope that some day all athletes – my kids, high school kids – get the same level of care I get. Because you can play for a long period of time without having knee replacements, without having all the major head trauma that people are dealing with.

I hope to play until I’m, like, 38 or something, and that’s a lot of years in the game and a lot of travel and a lot of sacrifice on my family’s part.

That’s what you live for as a sportsman. You have to put up a fight.

Talking to a player helps, but in our sport the majority of learning happens from watching another player. You pick up things like being punctual, being nice to everyone, making sure you give your 100 per cent even in training.

You can say that 2016 was my finest. It went well for the national team, started by winning the SAFF Cup, we reached the finals of AFC Cup, we reached the semis of ISL. I think it was a fruitful season.

I’ve played with IVs before, during and after games. I’ve played with a broken hand, a sprained ankle, a torn shoulder, a fractured tooth, a severed lip, and a knee the size of a softball. I don’t miss 15 games because of a toe injury that everybody knows wasn’t that serious in the first place.

I played a great horse yesterday! It took seven horses to beat him.

Golf is a good walk spoiled.

Every night on the court I give my all, and if I’m not giving 100 percent, I criticize myself.

Today, Negroes play on every big league club and in every minor league. With millions of other Negroes in other walks of life, we are willing to stand up and be counted for what we believe in. In baseball or out, we are no longer willing to wait until Judgment Day for equality – we want it here on earth as well as in Heaven.

I was acting when I was playing baseball.

I love football and the intensity of football in Liverpool, this is what is very good for me.

I can remember earning £5,000 a game playing for Hibs at the end of the Seventies. They let me commute from London, train on the Friday and play on Saturday. That lasted until my friends at the Inland Revenue decided to take two-thirds. That wasn’t very entertaining for me.

When I signed up for BFC, then-coach Ashley Westwood wanted me to play on the left as an attacking midfielder. I was not sure initially but I believed in his vision. For the first six-seven games, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was like a headless chicken. But he kept backing me.

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

Cage Warriors is a brilliant organisation. They’re doing great things for European MMA, and they’re giving the platform for guys like me who came through. They’re vital. I’m forever grateful for the opportunities I got.