Gary Gaetti Quotations

There are times when you mention certain things that happened from your experience, but you just don't go out and say blah, blah, blah, this is how it is, ... I've told them that we were not very good on the road, and we were very good at home, especially late in ballgames. We weren't the best team in baseball. We weren't the best team in the American League, but we got into the tournament, and we got hot. That's exactly what this team has done here.

Maybe a 'good morning' when he walked by once.

Only he really knows how he feels at the plate. Until he wants to really open up to me and wants to maybe go to a different place, there's not a whole lot I can do. I can just encourage him.

I can't fathom the destruction. It's the scope of the loss. It's knowing how long it's going to take to get things back to normal. There are parts of New Orleans that will never be the same.

I can't help think about the guy's smile. He had an infectious personality. That's what I'll remember.

He has a knack of making a really big pitch at the right time. He had the bases loaded, came up and threw a curveball -- it wasn't a great curveball -- and got the guy to hit it to second base hard.

He has a knack of making a really big pitch at the right time, ... He had the bases loaded, came up and threw a curveball -- it wasn't a great curveball -- and got the guy to hit it to second base hard.

He's got some serious power. I'm talking big power.

His smile was just infectious, and that's how he played, too. He was one of those guys that it was always good to see him.

He was everybody's everybody. It's easy to say what a great player he was. What I remember most was his infectious smile. He was fun to be around. My kids loved him. Everybody loved him.

People named their dogs and their kids Kirby. You name streets after guys like that, and they did that, he's just a special guy.

I think everybody's feeling better today. But there's still a feeling of your town is getting crushed and nobody knows what's going on.

That was the first World Series in an indoor stadium, so it was kind of a novelty. It was extremely loud. We've had very, very similar moments here where you can actually feel it on your body.

Either you're not seeing it out of the pitcher's hand, or you're moving your head when you're swinging. You're doing something mechanically wrong that's causing you to do that.

It's just a weird, sad feeling. Every time I saw him, he was the same guy. He made me smile. He made me laugh. He made me feel good. I was always glad to see him.

It's a sad day, but you can't help but smile when you think of Kirby Puckett. You really appreciate his baseball ability. But this is a time to reflect on him as a person. I'm in between whether I should cry or laugh.

It might have been a little different if he'd gone out on his own terms. I know something changed in him. He kept the smile on . . . probably somewhere deep in his heart he was hurting.

It's not like I'd call him at home or anything like that, but I saw him different places around the country and he was always the same old Puck to me. He was always smiling, and he'd make you smile.

It's not like the Championship Series, where you're so close to getting there. Now that you're here, you can relax.

It's man to man now. Let's see what you've got.

It's been a great ballpark for everybody the fans and players yet it's probably time for something new when you see it the way we see it. There's a lot of great memories here.

The noise is comparable. The advantage we have here is not the advantage we had in the dome. In the dome, opponents tended to lose the ball in the roof and lights. That's not the case here.

In that regard, it's very important for him to take as close to a full speed batting practice as he can. It looks like he's able to do that now, and I've never seen that before from him.

I don't know if the at-bats are as important as just standing out there in the outfield for the whole game. That's how you get your legs back.

I'd say he's well on his way to coming back in September and helping us. It all depends on how he feels. I think he can probably step in there right now and hit. That's how it is for Major Leaguers. He seems to be far ahead of where he was before he had his surgery, but I'm only basing that on batting practice.

You know that the true test comes when things are not going good. He went through that here.

The beer tastes better when you win

It's hard to field the ball when you have both hands around your throat.