The circus has been around longer than baseball, but every year it's a different show. We're really revising it, bringing it up to date and keeping it current. There's something in the show for everyone.

Best of all, everyone gets a red nose.

Our agencies have been telling us that in the last year they've seen an 11 percent increase in need. They're seeing a lot more working poor families, husbands and wives who are both employed but just don't earn enough or people who were laid off a few years ago who got jobs again but don't make as much as they used to. When your income is strapped, food is one of the first things to go.

I was a hyper kid, so I didn't want to play baseball and wait for the ball to come to me. I wanted to play a sport where I could go get the ball.

I'm glad that I just played baseball, because I'm sure I had a much longer baseball career than I would've had a football career. I did miss football, but I didn't miss some of the injuries from football.

My message to a lot of guys is, if you like school and you like education, baseball is gonna be there, and you can get some of the same great competition in college that you do in the low minor leagues.