If there's a black cat that crosses the street in my path, I will turn around and walk 20 minutes out of my way to not cross it. You know how in New York there's a lot of scaffolding? I won't walk under scaffolding or under ladders. I wear things like a baseball player wears things that are supposed to have luck.

[And Jack Curry of the New York Times said:] The trendy fall color in baseball is white, not red, ... And the painful year looming over the proud organization is 1917, not 1918. But, while the magical squad is the Chicago White Sox instead of the Boston Red Sox, and the drought without a championship is 88 years, not 86, the mission has not changed: win a World Series title. Finally.

I'm not an athlete, I'm a baseball player.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a baseball player.

I always wanted to be a major-league baseball player.

I wanted to be a professional baseball player.