Nomar Garciaparra Quotes

• "Back then, my idol was Bugs Bunny, because I saw a cartoon of him playing ball - you know, the one where he plays every position himself with nobody else on the field but him? Now that I think of it, Bugs is still my idol. You have to love a ballplayer like that."
• "Every year I have just one goal in mind and that's to win the World Series."
• "Former players like Johnny Pesky have helped me realize what it's all about. He's helped me understand the game and he's also helped me understand Boston and I think that in itself is key."
• "I can just say I played bad because I was horrible today and I've got to work on it tomorrow or do something to get myself better."
• "I didn't have a passion for any one team."
• "I don't even know who the toughest pitchers in the league are."
• "I don't like having excuses."
• "I don't really know pitchers."
• "I don't want to have to make any excuse for playing bad."
• "I enjoyed going to games, but I didn't like watching them on TV. I wanted to go early to watch batting practice, to see how players prepared themselves."
• "I focus on myself day in and day out."
• "I guess my theory is that God put a bat in my hand for a reason and it wasn't there to look pretty so I might as well swing it."
• "I have a great family and my success is due to them."
• "I have some pitchers who are friends and they make fun of me as they are about to pitch, but they also know my routine doesn't take that long."
• "I hit and I play the game on a lot of feeling."
• "I kind of just go do it rather than think about every little aspect of where my hands and feet are."
• "I learned to play every single position in baseball."
• "I love the game of baseball."
• "I never had a hero. Never had someone I looked up to. Never followed anybody as I was growing up as a kid. I never had that."
• "I never modeled myself after anyone as a kid."
• "I really don't know Red Sox history. I hear a lot about it and I've always known it was a club rich in tradition and I've learned more as I've been here."
• "I really feel that if I stayed away or wasn't ready or prepared I'm really doing them a huge injustice."
• "I think Jeter is a great player, an absolutely phenomenal player to watch."
• "I truly believe I'm just like everyone else and I'm just lucky enough to play the game."
• "I truly believe that baseball is such a repetitive game."
• "I truly believe that I get into the routine because I expect to perform well every day."
• "I was answering the questions but it was funny because I never break down hitting that much."
• "I'm going up against the best every day. There's no room to slack off."
• "If I'm swinging well, I don't care who's on the hill. If I'm swinging bad I don't care because they can all get me out."
• "It's an honor to have Ted Williams speak so highly of me. I can't even find the right word to describe it."
• "It's great that fans have people they can enjoy and watch play."
• "John Valentin: I love the guy. He's one guy who's taught me so much about my game, about my position - being a former shortstop himself."
• "Listen I don't know what you're talking about. I play for the Red Sox now. We're going to start our own tradition here. And you can talk about us in years to come."
• "My attitude is that I don't pay any attention to pitchers."
• "My feeling is if I'm swinging well I'm going to hit anybody; if I'm swinging poorly anyone is going to get me out."
• "My inspiration was the game itself, not any individual player in it."
• "Often times, I'm kind of waiting for the pitcher to pitch. I don't try to do it to throw their timing off."
• "People are going to make comparisons and they can do that but I'm definitely not going to compare myself to Derek Jeter."
• "People ask me if my shoes were too small when I was a kid and I say it wouldn't matter how fight my shoes were, I just liked that feeling of them being in there. That's how I started tapping my toes."
• "People expect me to go out there and play my best. They pay their money to see that."
• "People expect you to play your best, so I go through a routine to prepare myself so that I know I'm physically and mentally ready - prepared for the game."
• "So I had to know everything. I wanted to know everything. I needed to know everything. There's so much to learn in this game."
• "That's basically what I'm doing when I'm tapping them - getting my toes to the end of my shoes."
• "The toe-tapping thing and the glove tightening I've done as far back as I can remember."
• "They may be great players or whatever but maybe they get caught up in certain things and don't realize what it means to put on that Red Sox uniform."
• "When I first talked to Ted, it was for about 45 minutes and it was just question after question after question. He wants to see how much you actually know about hitting."
• "When I go home my mother still makes me take out the garbage."
• "When I put my gloves on, I have to pull them at the end. When I pull my gloves, I'm pulling down to get my hands to the end of the gloves so that it feels tight."
• "When I step out of the box, it's important how my feet feel and the way my hands feel."
• "When Pedro is pitching and striking out a lot of hitters, it's amazing to watch."
• "When you have Ted Williams asking about those things you start really thinking about them. I'm sure not going to tell him I don't know, so I answered every question."
• "When you put on that jersey, you'd better put it on with pride because you're coming from a tradition that's been handed down to you. It means something."
• "You know it as soon as you walk in Yankee Stadium. The electricity is there every time, every day."
• "You play this game every day and people ask me how you get better at it. Well, you take a lot of ground balls and you take a lot of swings, over and over and over."
• "You're not only playing for the team - you're playing for the city and there's a lot you have to learn about this place."

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