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.

Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.

In an individual sport, yes, you have to win titles. Baseball’s different. But basketball, hockey? One person can control the tempo of a game, can completely alter the momentum of a series. There’s a lot of great individual talent.

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.

There have been so many great players that I’ve played with, that I’ve played against over the years.

All I can tell them is pick a good one and sock it. I get back to the dugout and they ask me what it was I hit and I tell them I don’t know except it looked good.

There’s many ups and downs in the fight game.

I admire people who destroy themselves.

To be honest, there are no problems between me and Messi. People have their own opinions about who they think is the better player. It is what it is, but there is no rivalry beyond games and what happens on the pitch.

I can say that out of 365 days, I manage to do yoga on at least 300 days.

Golf is a good walk spoiled.

Louis van Gaal is one of the most successful managers in the world.

When I was playing, there were always lots of teams in contention for the league – Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool, Leeds. Every week was a big game and a big battle.

I only change things where I know about a situation. I’d never change just for change.

When I look at acting careers that I really admire, I see that it’s been a precise decision-making process for these people. They make decisions based on what they love, and they do only the things that they are passionate about. They play only characters that they can’t stop thinking about.

I get a little bit emotional during a game!

Lots of young players have triumphed at United, so why can’t it happen to me? I’m not worried I’m young – it’s an incentive to do the best I can.

My dad was a big admirer of Sergeant York stories from the First World War.

Until you have cultivated the habit of saying some kind word of those whom you do not admire, you will be neither successful nor happy.

Admiration is the daughter of ignorance.

People have asked me a lot of times, because I didn’t hit a lot, how long a dozen bats would last me. Depending on the weight and model I was using at that time – I would say eight to 10 cookouts.

I love wisdom. And you can never be great at anything unless you love it. Not be in love with it, but love the thing, admire the thing. And it seems that if you love the thing, and you don’t just want to possess it, it will find you.

I think Pat Robertson is a terrific fellow.

We all know what flopping is when we see it. The stuff that you see is where guys aren’t really getting hit at all and are just flailing around like a fish out of water.

I like playing for the purple and gold. This is where I want to finish up.

My goal is to be number one in MMA.

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 have learned, in my life and work as a sportswriter, that big-time Sports and big-time Politics are not so far apart in America. They are both a means to the same end, which is victory… And why not? Victory is good for you, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

All ballplayers should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill.

I sleep seven hours. If I go to bed at two, I wake up at nine. If I go to bed at midnight, I wake up at seven. I don’t wake up before – the house can fall apart, but I sleep for seven hours.

In college, a loss is pretty devastating. That feeling kind of goes away in an 82-game season. You hate to lose, but you also have a lot more games to make up for it.

I don’t want to be called a point guard, but I can’t stop it.

When the NBA adopted their uniform that they had to wear, I thought that was very interesting. And you see the way NBA players dress: It’s very cool.

I saw MotoGP on TV first, before I saw F1 and other types of car racing. It’s what I got more into. It was cool, there was good, exciting racing.

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.

After the 12th class exam results, I got a call from Mohun Bagan. They saw me at Durand Cup when I was playing for City Club of Delhi. I thought they might want me for SAIL Academy. Never ever I thought Mohun Bagan is calling me for Mohun Bagan!

First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness. I admired and respected her – for her energy and commitment to others, and especially for her devotion to her two boys.

Baseball changes through the years. It gets milder.

No boxer in the history of boxing has had Parkinson’s. There’s no injury in my brain that suggests that the illness came from boxing.

There’s been a lot of talk about Jack White wanting to work with me, and I’ve always admired him, and of course, he lives in Nashville, too.

Put your leaders in stressful scenarios. Make them figure out solutions under pressure. See if you can make them frustrated, angry, and flustered, and then demand decisive leadership from them. They will be challenged at first, but they will get better over time.

If a guy hits .300 every year, what does he have to look forward to? I always tried to stay around .190, with three or four RBI. And I tried to get them all in September. That way I always had something to talk about during the winter.

The first time I stepped on an NBA court I became a businessman.

My mom was a great tennis player, and I remember being six or seven years old watching Steffi Graf and Monica Seles in Wimbledon in my house. I’ve always been a tennis fan.

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.

I used to dream about taking the ball ‚round the keeper, stopping it on the line, and then getting on my hands and knees and heading it into the net. When I scored against Benfica in the 1968 European Cup final, I nearly did it. I left the keeper for dead, but then I chickened out.

There are two bowlers who I think are very tough to play against – Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel.

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

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.

Players who are not from the U.K. have to get used to the winds. I have to adapt my style as a result as well. Often, you are forced to keep things simple.

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.

You always admire what you really don’t understand.

You can sometimes play some really good football and not score.

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.

I don’t care if people I admire criticize me because their opinion is valuable to me.

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.

Oh, I can’t play soccer, and I’m not a great swimmer. I won’t drown, but you won’t see me doing laps in a pool.

The bat is not a toy, it’s a weapon. It gives me everything in life, which helps me to do everything on the field.

It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.

David Beckham has never impressed me.

The only thing is, people have to develop courage. It is most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtues consistently.