But hitting is so crazy. You feel great today and get three hits. And the next day you show up and it's, 'What happened to my mechanics? Where's my swing?' Sometimes I even Google it and the search comes up with no results.
I don't know of one player who is happy on the bench, especially when you don't understand the reason.
I became a starter in Portland, and then I lost my spot, but for what reason? It wasn't explained to me. I thought it was unfair.
An angry player can't argue with the back of an umpire who is walking away.
Whoever is on the bench always says he isn't playing enough. I work hard and try to do my best. And I try to show on the pitch, even when I only get five minutes, that I can do something.
In baseball, I was a pitcher, which I hated because there was no action there.
As a basketball player, you want to play. There's only so much stuff I can go over doing one-on-one drills in practice and watching the team and watching film.
I have no real desire to play Test cricket, and the reason I lost this desire was because I was not selected consistently for Test matches.
When I started playing basketball, they always would have me at the block, and I'm like, 'Yo, I don't want to play down here. I want to do something else.' This is not entertaining to me, and whatever the guards do, I wanted to do.
It's possible at any time during a player's career to get into top physical shape or to try to win every game! But you can't teach skills to an old player. Youth coaches should keep in mind that individual skills need to be nurtured at an early age. Players who haven't mastered the fundamental skills become frustrated because the game gets too difficult for them as they move into higher levels.
I'm the classic case of a great player on a bad team, and it stinks.
Chelsea was the most difficult time. In the middle of the season, I already knew that I wouldn't play again, because the club had decided I wouldn't play. It was a frustrating decision because I felt rather good, and I thought that I could contribute something.
Since I've been in the NBA, I've played for four different people. I don't know how much more you can go.
Golf is the one game I know which becomes more and more difficult the longer one plays it.
I've read the poker books, but at this point, everybody who's playing has read the poker books. I feel like I'm knowledgeable enough to understand what's going on in the game, and I understand why I suck. And I'm not sure if I'll ever rise beyond that to the level where I don't suck.
You can't be happy, taking away something I've worked on all my life to do and help my teammates and help my defense, ... It's just part of me, playing the puck. So, definitely, you can't be happy.
And it hurts as a player, that you put a lot of hard work in during the week, and at the end of the week, Sunday, when you get on the field, that's when they acknowledge about the hard work that you put in throughout the week. That's actually a disappointment.
I initially found it difficult with my role as a substitute, sometimes sitting in the stands at Spurs, but I learned to deal with it.
I'm the first player in history that doesn't want to play defense and still gets in foul trouble.
It is frustrating when you go all that way, you train, and you just don't turn up. It does happen. If you play 100-odd Test matches, there's going to be little periods when you don't score the runs.
I feel relief after the transfer window is closed. I got tired of reading and listening every day about me leaving or staying at Liverpool. Everyone wrote 'Dejan is here, Dejan is there,' and they knew nothing!
I had quite a tumultuous start to my career. I used to have two really good games but then my form would dip. I don't think people really understood me and I ended up dropping to the bench.
It's a weird league in the sense that sometimes you get goals when they definitely shouldn't have gone in, and sometimes you're doing everything right and it's just not going in. It's the way it goes. I think every player who's ever played in this league has gone through it.
It's the same for everyone - when they are being played out of position, they don't really like it.
The most frustrating thing at Villa was the perceived view fans had of me, that certain people at the club painted. That of a mercenary who was happy sitting on the sidelines taking his wages.
