I'm bad at golf.
I was kind of at the turning point in my career with my knee. I was dealing with the struggles of trying to make the transition back on the court consistently and not a game here, then sit a game.
Athletes are sort of part of the community at large. They have to be dedicated to what they do, and go through lots of peaks and valleys. And there's a lot of training that goes into their careers. It's a struggle. Very dramatic.
The knee just isn't 100 percent. It's hard to be out there when you know that you can't play at your best and could potentially make it worse.
The game of baseball is a game of failure because it's so difficult to play. A 300 hitter, a superstar fails seven out of ten times at the plate. So what does that tell you about the game and its difficulty?
I can't shoot straight-up. I've always played crooked. One of my coaches says I play backwards. I do everything backwards. I don't have coordination. It's weird to watch me play.
I had no trainers to play, so I went barefoot. Everyone else had trainers. I also remember running 9 km. to training one day with ripped trainers. The sock kept coming out of the shoe, so I'd have to stop and tuck it in.
Baseball is a game, yes. It is also a business. But what is most truly is is disguised combat. For all its gentility, its almost leisurely pace, baseball is violence under wraps.
I've never met a fighter who said, 'I love cutting weight.'
I think I bit off more than I could chew. I thought the marathon would be easier. For the level of condition that I have now... that was without a doubt the hardest physical thing I have ever done.
I have tried to be that player who plays within himself, but I just can't do that.
My biggest benching was before the 2012 Olympics. It kind of came out of nowhere. I just kind of had one bad half, 45 minutes, and it pretty much cost me my starting spot.
I wish there was a season where I was playing and didn't have no aches, no pains, no bruises, no nothing.
I've had such a tough time making weight at 155 all the time. I'd make the weight, but I don't feel like the same kind of Sage. My power in my punches, my explosion, my speed - it just doesn't feel the same.
They always say baseball is 90 percent mental, 10 percent physical, whatever that saying is. I don't even think I know it. But this game is already a game of failure. Going into it not feeling good, battling whatever injuries, tests you even more.
The Orioles' Dick Hall comes off the mound like a drunk kangaroo on roller skates.
The mist was so challenging and the winds hit me, definitely more than I expected. It was definitely those winds, you can't re-enact them, you can't recreate them. Then my forearms started to tense up and you feel like running.
I was still part of that trend where it was see how low you can get, get as small as you can get, be the biggest guy in your weight class, and it started to burn me out.
I had to have running training because I'm not a very good runner. I run weird. ... The hardest stunt is probably basic running. And trying not to hit myself in the face with my bow, are my two greatest challenges.
I always loved the game, but when my legs weren't hurting it was a lot easier to love.
I'm a big guy, right? But I began to realize that by actually using my body like a big guy, I couldn't control my pitches the way I wanted to.
And then, looking back at my first Olympics, and when the pressure was on, in '94 and '98, and looking back and going, wow. I sensed and felt what Brian had gone through.
I might have been able to make it as a pitcher except for one thing: I had a rather awkward motion and every time I brought my left arm forward I hit myself in the ear.
I don't think I could ever make 155. I made 163 for the Olympics, and that is a super low weight for me. I'm a fairly big person, and for me to make 163 was incredibly difficult.
Being an athlete in a cold-weather sport is really difficult to deal with the asthma.
