Eric Davis

I was fortunate to play for Pete Rose and have teammates like Ken Griffey Sr., Tony Perez and Dave Concepcion. I grew up in the game with a mature attitude. I've always known it was better to be seen and not heard.

I was disappointed in everything - my start and the team's start. People got down on me, but I never got down on myself. I still believed I could be the type of player everyone, including me, thought I was going to be.

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.

Every time I see documentaries or infomercials about little kids with cancer, I just freak out. It affects me on the highest emotional level... Anytime I think about it, it makes me sadder than anything I can think of.

What cracks me up is people who think I don't take baseball seriously. It's the most important thing in my life. They don't know how hard it is for me to get a bad game out of my mind. I still can't, but I'm getting better.