Larry MacPhail

The only way you can obtain brood mares on a basis you can afford is to buy two or three yearling fillies every year and race them. The good ones, the ones that show potentialities, you keep, and the others you get rid of. In that way, you have a chance to build up a good brood mare band.

The danger in a brood mare band is that your mares become antiquated, and you wake up some day and realize that the average age of your band is 15 or 16 and that in another year they won't be producing offspring. I think the ideal average age for a brood mare band is about 10.

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.

I keep saying I am an auto-didact, but I have a lot of outside influences. One I could cite is juggler Francis Brunn, who was the first man to throw ten rings in the air; he was really an amazing juggler who showed onstage the quest for perfection.