Chipper Jones

I think any athlete will tell you that season-ending losses stay with you for a long time. If you are one of the main reasons for a season-ending loss, it sticks with you longer.

I love the solitude of being in a tree with a bow and arrow.

If Todd Van Poppel doesn't want to play for the Atlanta Braves, I'll be more than happy to take his place.

I've got no meniscus in the right knee.

I used to spend a lot of time worrying about my defense.

My knees are shot, man.

Going into the Hall of Fame is going to be the biggest present I could ever give my parents.

I wouldn't have wanted to play anywhere else but for Braves Country.

I played a kid's game and I've got people walking up and saying thank you for entertaining us for two decades.

I have no problem with hunting rifles and shotguns and pistols and what-not.

I believe in our Constitutional right to bear arms and protect ourselves. But I do not believe there is any need for civilians to own assault rifles. I just don't.

Kerry Wood had the best fastball. He threw one at my kneecaps once. I don't know how I jackknifed away. He might not have thrown 100, but it looked like it.

Baseball was important to me - don't get me wrong. But at the end of my career, it wasn't as important as four or five years before.

I think just because of my natural abilities I was good in all other sports. But when it came to baseball season, I wasn't just good in baseball.

I think baseball has such a way of humbling you. You can go 20-for-20, and before you know it, you're going to go through an 0-for-30. It has that way of knocking you back down to earth.

You know, win with class, lose with class. Just keep your mouth shut and go play your game.

Golf is a great substitute for satisfying some of those competitive juices, and you can't play baseball for as long as I did and just shut it off. You've got to have an outlet or else I'd probably shrivel up and... I don't know.

As good a hand-eye coordination I have playing the game of baseball, it is completely different out here, completely different style of swing. The golf ball is just sitting there waiting for you to hit it and it frustrates me I can't make it go where I want it to go.

I think you need to go to Triple-A for a while and experience big league pitching on the way down and prospects who are right on the cusp.

Tearing it up in A ball and tearing it up in the big leagues are completely different. For that matter, tearing it up at Double-A and tearing it up in the big leagues are completely different.

When I was coming up through the minors, the Braves believed in taking their time, letting kids mature - and succeed and fail - at the minor league level.

I just hate to see people look down their nose at our game when there's a very small percentage of players who are cheating.

Every time I walk to the plate I feel like I can dominate a game with my bat if I'm right.

There's backspin when I'm swinging the bat good.

I can tell when I'm swinging the bat good.

I went through some craziness in my life. I got knocked down quite a few pegs.

There are a lot of times I'd much rather be at third base than left field. It's a little boring out there at times, a little harder to get into the flow of the game.

The first day of spring training is like the first day of school.

You hear some of the vulgar things that come out of people's mouths and you realize how anger fuels the whole world.

Yeah, I've got regrets off the field. I can't really say that I have all that many regrets professionally.

I think I could don a baseball uniform and play with anybody who ever played the game and be successful. That's just me saying, 'I'm a baseball player.' And, gosh darn it, if I have to make adjustments, I'm going to make adjustments in order to be successful.

I certainly think I've given people a lot to think about as to whether I'm worthy of standing next to the greats.

I've had seven knee surgeries, so it feels like somebody is jabbing me with a knife in the knee joint with every step.

1999 was just a crazy year.

You know, 1997 and '98 really taught me how to compartmentalize. I didn't live a very peaceful life during the daytime, but from about 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon until midnight, I forgot about all that. I was almost as if baseball was therapy for me.

A lot of people know that I'm a big outdoorsman.

When people think of the Tony Gwynns and Cal Ripkens and those players who've spent 20 years in one organization, I can be lumped in with them.

I really respected the New York teams and the city of New York and some of the things that they themselves went through during my playing days.

The game is not fun to me when I'm not playing up to my standards.

I'm going to lead by example, and when kids have a question I'll answer it.

Maybe I wasn't the outward leader that everybody wanted me to be, but most of my teammates would tell you if they came up and asked me a question or came up and said, hey, can we go to the cage, that I'd be their guy.

I feel I got kind of a bad rap because people say I wasn't vocal, didn't talk. I was kind of in my own little world. If I'm watching a game and I'm trying to pick up every little advantage - see if the guy is actually tipping pitches - and I don't want to be bothered, then so be it. That's what made me the player that I was.

Our society is a forgiving one.

I wouldn't say I was a perennial Gold Glover, but I should have won one or two by the numbers.

I don't get the whole bobblehead phenomenon.

I came into quite a bit of fame and money at an early age. Quite frankly, I didn't handle it all that well.

One of the ways to make people forgive you is stand up like a man, admit your mistakes and move forward.

People are going to respect you a lot more when you own up to the mistakes you made.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I'm always picking at what's wrong and trying to correct it so that my game will be flawless.

Most guys, when their mom suggests something, roll their eyes. When my mom does, I listen.