I want to get it over with. Our team is in first place [the Orioles have since fallen back], and I want that to be our focus. I don't like this 3,000-hit business right now. I want to move on with it.

Nobody is more frustrated and disappointed in me than I am. ... All my accomplishments are now tainted.

I've been on a lot of good infields. I played on a good one in Baltimore, ... But this one has the potential to be the best.

I've never been in a situation where I'm getting booed so badly and I just don't really know how to handle it,

[Reliever Josh Fogg , the Pirates' representative with the MLB Players Association, applauded the union's offer yesterday to increase the penalty to first-time steroids policy offenders from 10 days to 20 games:] Everybody in baseball wants to clean it up. ... With Palmeiro, from what we've seen on TV, it doesn't look like it's working out very well for him. I think there are pretty much a lot of guys who have been scared off.

I'm not going to sit here and crucify him. The one thing I'm going to do is stand by him. He supported me and I'm going to do the same for him.