Tim Salmon Quotations

All we can do is play ball. Every time we go out on the field, we do what we do in America - live in the freedom that our country affords us.

Since then, I've dealt with it and if I have to move on, I'm ready. It'll be sad to leave the comforts of home out there, all the family and friends, the fans, the community, but from the standpoint of playing, you have to realize people move on.

But as much bashing as we've taken, yeah, we might have given up a 10-game lead, but we won five in a row and came back from (three) down in the last week,

I have been encouraged. I was concerned about certain aspects of the game -- how my body would respond. But I have been encouraged. Would I want to be further along? Sure. Am I further along than some would have expected? Sure. I don't think I've done anything to put myself behind.

He was definitely fired up those first few innings, the way he was throwing the ball.

He's (Kenny Rogers) tough. He gives you a lot of looks. I just had one of those nights. He made a couple of mistakes. The home run was a change of speed pitch, it wasn't his fastball. I guessed right a couple of times.

I feel good right now. It was a little stiff yesterday. I can still feel a little bit of it.

He got me fired up. The key was my knee and if it could hold up well enough to play on it every day.

Just the fact that it was a goal of mine to come in here and feel like I could compete, I feel I've done that. I don't know if I've done enough yet or not, but some of those things are out of my hands.

Look at him. He's the first one on the field, just a total pro. From the day he got here, he didn't have a big-league attitude. I expected maybe a Barry Bonds kind of scene, with the hype and the entourage, but Vlad is all about business. He would have fit in perfectly in that clubhouse over there.

I think that is going to be a big step along in my scenario. I hate to sit back and try and figure what they're going to do. I can only control what I do out there.

It feels like Spring Training again, ... That first week of spring when everything feels great and you wake up the next day sore.

It didn't matter what we would do, win or lose, we were going home from the ballpark dejected because Seattle was so hot,

The Angels basically told me there's not a job to win. The team is moving on without Tim Salmon. I understand it. I don't blame them. I look around and, yeah, I'd like to think I fit into their plans, but from their standpoint, I'm probably not the first guy they're going to plug in.

You kept telling yourself to not look over your shoulder, but the Mariners were making so much noise. That's how Cleveland is right now. Everybody is talking about them. You've got to find a way to stop it -- whether that means taking the televisions out of the clubhouse, stopping newspaper delivery, whatever. You've got to do it.

We were totally in Chicago's position. We led the whole way, and for a long time, it was just assumed that we were going to play in the postseason.

When we were coming up, it was kind of a retooling thing and we were filling in with whatever you could fill in with. (Now) you've got a good ownership that's not only going to allow those guys to play, but they're going to bring in the pieces and make it competitive and allow them to win.

I've been around a lot, but can appreciate things a little differently. It's a different Opening Day just because of what I've been through.

They said they hadn't been out together this year, ... When I'm playing, we'd do that every other road trip. The guys said, 'That was awesome.' I said, 'Oh, you haven't been doing that?' The team dynamics are just different than in the past.

You run out of adjectives to describe him because he does things you've never seen before.

In a lot of ways, I've been pleasantly surprised about where I'm at, but I'm still rough around the edges. There's still some rust I have to work off. I feel I've shown I'm relatively healthy, but it's going to be their call, and it's going to depend on what their needs are.

I've found myself able to do a few things that I wasn't able to do over the past several years. There have definitely been some times that I've been real excited about the possibilities, what my performance could be like, with some of the health issues resolved.

I guarantee you, T.C. has looked back on the situation here and thought about what lessons he can take from that. You probably wouldn't see the same personality you saw here.

I'm more excited than I've been in many, many years. I can do some things that I haven't been able to do in 4-5 years. In some ways, I feel like a kid. My knee feels great, I'm running great. But I'm not going to blow smoke. You just don't know what it's going to be like over the course of a season.

The last couple years for them to be in the position they've been in winning wise, it's been tough on me being injured, ... You want to be part of that. At the same time, it's a family in here and I'm still part of it. You don't have that emotional attachment, you haven't spent that time grinding it out. It's kind of like I've been the long lost relative, kind of been out of the country for a while.

I'll see what kind of luck I bring,

He's just a good guy. A solid, solid player and person.

It was a big whirlwind; everything happened so fast. I kinda felt like a kid in a candy store.

The difference is that I'm on the back end of this (career). I've been fortunate. If I have to go home, it's not a bad thing. I try to balance it with that, too.

It's official. I don't want to come off as cocky, but I kind of halfway expected it. When I actually heard it for the first time, it was just relief.

It's a great experience. It's an opportunity for the fans to get close to the players and it's great for the players to relax and interact with the fans because they usually don't get to during the season.

I'm a firm believer that the wild-card teams, because they're grinding it out until the final days, have a tremendous amount of excitement. That excitement carries over into the playoffs and really helps.

I'm trying to keep a good spin on it...But at some point you have to look at a guy like me and ask, 'How effective can I be if I'm not playing on a regular basis?'

I have always been determined to never compromise my faith or my principles. I always relied on my God-given talent when I took the field. So the idea of using PED's to enhance my performance was a line I chose not to cross.

When we have an understanding that the Lord is all powerful, then we know that we need to trust Him each and every day. This understanding allows us to lay our worries in the Lord's hands. In return, we can focus everything that we do into glorifying Jesus.