“In the seventies we had to make it acceptable for people to accept girls and women as athletes. We had to make it okay for them to be active. Those were much scarier times for females in sports.”

“The triple is the most exciting play in baseball. Home runs win a lot of games, but I never understood why fans are so obsessed with them.”

“In the field of sports you are more or less accepted for what you do rather than what you are.”

“The water cooler conversation in every job I've had is sports, it's what did you do this weekend, it's 'How are your parents doing?'”

“Sports are one of the main cultural activities on the face of the earth.”

“Honestly, I don't listen to nobody else's music but my own. It's kind of like sports to me. You don't see Kobe Bryant at a LeBron James game - he just works on his own game. And that's what I do. I only listen to me, so I can criticize and analyze and all those things.”

“In sports, teams win and individuals don't.”

“If you look at things that really affect people's lives - sport, the arts, charities - they were always at the back of the queue for government money - health, social security, defence, pensions were all way ahead. And each of those areas - sports, the arts, the lottery - got relatively petty cash from the government.”

“It's a little bit in the genes because my brother is a journalist and my father was a sports writer.”