I can't say enough good things about him. He has a great heart and he loves the game of baseball.

We're coming into this year with a new ball club, a new approach, and a new attitude. We expect a campaign resembling the team's 1999 season.

He's as big a surprise as there is in baseball this year.

There are several insights at the heart of the A's system that I think are wonderful for baseball. One, that it's a team game. That no one player is going to make that much of a difference to your team, so for god's sake don't go blow a quarter of your budget on one guy.

We've still got to go out there, play these out, play hard and try to bring some playoff-type baseball into the dugout. We need to step it up and bring some passion.

Any time you think about Atlanta Braves baseball, you think about the postseason and success, ... Coming over here, I knew that they were going to have a shot to do something special. It's been a little bit of a roller-coaster ride this year, but we're here right now. We feel like we have a good team that's going to be able to go out there and win and put up a championship for the city of Atlanta.