You're going to fail. It's how you respond to that failure that kind of defines you as a person, as an athlete.

I got to the big leagues when I was 20. I thought I had it all figured out. Went to spring training that next year and started off well, got sent down, and I pouted pretty much all of 2000. And it wasn't the right way to handle it.

There's a fine line between playing through things and sitting out. I was always on the side of, 'I'm going to play through it.' It's probably good at times, bad at times, but for an athlete to always try to be there and play through things, from a teammate's perspective, it speaks volumes. Now that I look back, mentally it makes you tougher.

If I could go the ballpark and play the game for three hours and then go home? It would be awesome. But that's not the case.

If I'm going to wind up playing left, I want to be the best left fielder in the game. I'll work to be that.

My dad was a designer for Upper Deck, and I had hundreds of Ken Griffey Jr. cards. Hundreds. I could have paid for college with them.