I was 10 when I realised I couldn't stand football. I'd tried, obviously, before this - no one wants to give in to social pariah-hood without a fight. I had stood frozen on pitches, done some running about and shouted a lot, as though I cared.
I will say that I wasn't susceptible to Tony Robbins-like pitches, even as a younger man.
I guess my earliest football memories are of playing in the street and also the little pitches at school. I joined the local football team in my village when I was small, but we would play only once or twice a week. I honed my skills just by playing for fun with friends after school.
Things happen on football pitches. Once the game is finished, you don't need to talk afterwards. That's just how it is.
In the minor leagues, previous to 2008, I took a lot of pitches. I prided myself on on-base percentage. I made sure that I made the pitcher work.
You see certain guys enough, and you recognize pitches and stuff. Some guys you see better than others.
Pitchers are going to break. You can limit their pitches and limit their innings, and they're still going to blow out. Pitching is hard on the arm.
There are certain things I can't do, certain pitches I can't hit. You stay away from them. You try to wait for pitches you can hit. The bat speed isn't what it used to be. You make up for it by using your head, working counts, getting ahead in counts and getting pitches to hit and hitting them hard.
You fool around with different pitches playing catch, but it's not the same when you've got to face some guy with a bat in his hand.
I've got a fastball, change-up, forkball, curve, slider, knuckle-slider, knuckle-curve, I had about seven pitches I could have used at any time.
