Thank you. Thank you all. From the bottom of my heart.
Today, I'm thinking of a lot of things. I'm thinking of my old playground director in San Diego, California. Rodney Luscombe. My old high school coach Woz Caldwell. My managers who had such patience with me and helped me so much. Those like Frank Shellenback, my first manager in San Diego, 1936, Donny Bush, who was my manager after Red Sox, bought me and farmed me out to Minneapolis. Joe Kronman, who I can't say enough wonderful things about, and he knows, and I know how important he was to me. I'm thinking of Tom Yarky and I've always said it and I'd like to repeat it again today. That to me, Tom Yarky is the greatest owner in baseball. And I was lucky to have played on the club he owned. And I'm grateful here for his being here today. But I'm not, not belittling if I'd have left it at that, because ball players are not born great.
They're not born hitters or pitchers or managers. And luck isn't the key factor. No one has come up for a substitute for hard work. I've never met a great baseball player who didn't have to work harder at learning to play baseball than anything else he ever did.
To me, it was the greatest fun I ever had, which probably explains why today I feel both humility and pride because God let me play the game and to learn to be good at it. Proud because I've spent most of my life in the company of so many wonderful people. There are plaques dedicated to baseball men of all generations, and I'm privileged to join them.
Baseball gives every American boy a chance to excel, not just to be as good as someone else, but to be better than someone else. This is the nature of man and the name of the game, and I've always been a very lucky guy to have worn a baseball uniform, to have struck out or hit a tape major home run. And I hope that someday the names of Satchell Page and Josh Gibson in some way can be added as a symbol, the great Negro players that are not here, only because they were not given a chance. And I know Casey Stengel feels the same way, and I'm awfully glad to be with him on this big day. I also know I'll lose a dear friend if I don't stop.
And that is unforgettable. So in closing, I'm grateful and I know how lucky I was to have been born in America and had a chance to play the game I loved. The greatest game of them all. Baseball.
