"He's one of the best teammates and one of the nicest guys I've ever been around. It's such a shock, especially for a strong guy like him. But he didn't let it drag him down. He always came to the ballpark with a smile on his face. He enjoys life, enjoys what he does and has an infectious personality. If he's healthy, he's a great asset for a club."
--Glavine on Andres Galarraga.

"It was not a question anymore if that [previous] agreement was going to be enough. It was ... to address some of the new issues that came to light and get our fans to believe we were doing everything we could to make the problem go away 100 percent."
-Glavine on baseball's new drug policy.

"GTF is dedicated to helping transplant recipients and their families. The Foundation's work changes the lives of those recovering from a transplant by the extensive resources it provides. I'm looking forward to another successful Spring Training for the transplant community in Georgia, and a chance to play with some great athletes that come out annually to support the event."
--Glavine on his Spring Training event (scheduled for Jan. 27th) to benefit the Georgia Transplant Foundation

"My wife, Chris, and I continue to be amazed by the challenges and triumphs of families affected by transplantation and the life-changing support they receive through GTF. As parents, it’s an awesome feeling to be in the presence of the many children who are alive today because of transplantation. I am humbled by the number of lives enriched by GTF and am thrilled that this event has been successful in both promoting the importance of organ donation and continuing to increase the dollars raised."
-Glavine on the Georgia Transplant Foundation and his Spring Training event, in its' 13th year.

"Baseball players are no different than fans. We try and keep up on the moves and trades during the offseason. I was really excited about what the Mets have done this offseason. They went ahead and really addressed some of our weaknesses. I think this is a team easy to get excited about."
-Glavine on the Mets offseason moves.

"We have a good group of guys here. Even with the new guys we have, it's an easy atmosphere to fit into. It's the kind of thing, where we -- the guys who have been here -- make those guys as welcome as we can. When they decided to go in a different direction, you wanted to see who was going to come in here. I think the choices they made were as good as they could be, beginning with Willie. He certainly has everyone's respect. He has good schooling. Everyone anticipates him being in charge and getting to know him."
--Glavine on the Mets offseason moves.

"There's nothing better than taking the mound knowing that your team can score five or six runs for you. "Every pitcher wants to be in that position. The more hitters we can add to the lineup, the better."
--Glavine on the Mets' offseason additions

"I remember the shock of hearing about it. "Watching him go through it and seeing what a great attitude he had, the day he finally made it back, it was emotional for everybody. You see somebody who is such a specimen of a man, with a teddy-bear kind of personality, you feel so bad about everything he had to go through. When he came back, it was remarkable."
--Glavine on Andres Galarraga being diagnozed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and battling back from it.

"He's a great guy to have in the clubhouse. He's going to be a great influence on all of the Latin players, and even a greater influence on the younger guys. There's no better guy for Jose Reyes to see than Andres Galarraga. He's the epitome of class. Latin players, American players, veteran players, young players. It doesn't take you long to see what he's about and have a tremendous amount of respect for him."
--Glavine on Andres Galarraga

"Some of it amazes me. I'm just old school, I guess. Why someone would want to start pointing fingers like he is now, I don't know. We know people have used them. It's not new news. But it's the accusations and throwing the names out of guys he doesn't know. What does it do to these guys? Maybe they didn't do what he said. They didn't do anything and now they have to defend themselves. To suggest you have a group of guys skipping off to the bathroom to stick needles in themselves; that just isn't happening. It's hard to believe, and if they are doing it, they are very discreet."
--Glavine on on the accusations from Jose Canseco regarding alleged rampant steroid abuse in baseball.

"Center. A left-handed shot. Scored a lot of goals. Didn't get in the corners and muck it up too much if I didn't have to. Tried to stay out of all that. Then I lost my teeth in a cab (accident). Goes to show you."
--Glavine on the position he played in hockey

"He's excited and this is a great opportunity for him. He's really been setting the tone that we're here to work and get ready in an enthusiastic, professional fashion. From his days as a player and a coach with the Yankees, he knows that this is part of turning things around. And this is how he goes about his business. Bobby is the same way -- very professional. He does things a certain way with the emphasis on being professional. There is a lot of energy around here. There is a lot more fire and a lot more enthusiasm and electricity. There's a big-time difference from last year for everybody."
--Glavine on Willie Randolph's similarities to Bobby Cox

"I feel great, "It's probably a little different when you're facing hitters for the first time. It's part of the process when you're trying to get comfortable. Your location isn't always great, but if you see the right spin and right movement on your pitches, that's what you're looking for, and I felt really good about that. The location will get better, but I felt the action on my pitches was real good."
--Glavine, on throwing his first live batting practice of the spring.

"I was pleasantly surprised with how I felt with my mechanics. That's always the biggest concern the first time out, if you're going to be able to throw the ball near where you want to. And I felt pretty good about that."
--Glavine on his first Spring Training game, where he pitched two scoreless innings.

"There are a handful of times when I'm not sure if my next bite is going to be my teeth or my food. That's really the only thing I'm worried about."
--Glavine on his temporary teeth falling out while he eats.  He won't have his permanent replacement teeth inserted until after the season.

"He was a great guy, a great teammate. I talked to him a lot about pitching when I first came up. He was a big help, especially for a young guy who was struggling."
-- Glavine on Rick Mahler, pitching coach for the Class-A St. Lucie Mets and a former major league pitcher, who died of a heart attack Mar. 2. Glavine played with Mahler while he was with the Braves.

"He's already got all the credentials right now, even if he never threw another pitch. He's in. It's 100 percent sure. Absolutely no doubt."
--Braves manager Bobby Cox on Tom Glavine's Hall of Fame chances.

"Just beautiful to watch, really. He knows how to do it. I love the way he changes speeds. That's the way he pitches. It's amazing to see how he keeps hitters off balance."
--Manager Willie Randolph on Glavine's pitching performance in ST 3/12/05

"I had a chance to impress him but I didn't do it."
-- Glavine, after manager Willie Randolph allowed him to stay in yesterday's game and hit even though he was finished pitching. Glavine, who grounded to short in his first at-bat, popped to left.

"From the standpoint of my own personal goals, I haven't given up on that. It might take me a year longer to do it than I had hoped. But who knows? Maybe I can win 20 (for) two years and be done."
--Glavine, who is 38 victories shy of 300.

"I'm going to pay attention to his games. Not because I want to see who he can throw a fastball by, but I'm going to see what guys are doing on certain locations, what guys are doing on his off-speed pitches. Following Greg [Maddux] in Atlanta, it was the same thing. It wasn't that I was going to go out there and have the same game plan. But it was very helpful to me to see locations and sequences of pitches and how hitters approached that."
--Glavine on Pedro Martinez

"My circle got blown to pieces. It's making me make new friends. I'm working on it. My wife tells me I need to work on my social skills."
-Glavine on the Mets clubhouse, where he's third on the team in seniority and virtually all of his friends are gone (David Weathers traded last season, Al Leiter and John Franco also gone.)

"I'm not concerned at all really. Tom Glavine is struggling right now, but he's a guy that I still trust. I feel confident that he's going to get himself straightened out."
--Mets manager Willie Randolph on Glavine's struggles this season.

"I think it gets to the point where you start trying and thinking too much and you start outdoing yourself. I think it's just a natural human instinct [that] when something is not right, you start trying to make changes and they're not necessarily the right changes, but you have to go through it to convince yourself there's something you need to get back to. I can pitch inside all I want. If I don't locate my sinker down and away and I don't locate my change-up down and away, then I'm not going to be successful."
--Glavine on his struggles this season.

"She was the glue that held everything together. From her I learned about respect, the value of hard work, and to be focused on the enjoyment of what I was playing."
--Glavine on his mom, Mildred and the influence she's had on his life (In honor of Mother's Day)

"I had a similar thing happen in I think '99. I got off to a horrible start. It was the same thing - I'm doing this, doing that, not doing this, change that, fix this. Inevitably, I remember I got to a point where I was like, 'You know, screw it. Go on the mound, get the ball and make a pitch as good as you can, as naturally as you can, and whatever happens happens.' And then you try to make the next one. That's what it ends up, getting back to a point where you just try to bring it back to a process of being as natural as you can be."
--Glavine on his struggles this season.

"It's respect. I admire him so much. I've learned some of the things I know from him. He's a Hall of Famer. As a player, I don't want him to feel I'm trying to impose on him."
--Pedro Martinez on noticing a glitch in Glavine's delivery and feeling unworthy to offer advice.

"It's been an adjustment because I don't trust myself as well on the inside part of the plate as I do on the outside part of the plate. That's just from pitching a certain way for 16 years. I don't know what to compare it to. Maybe if you're a golfer and you're used to playing a fade, and all of a sudden you've got to play a draw. Sometimes it's hard to get out of that, especially for me, because I've had such success doing it. You're reluctant to say, 'I can't do it that way anymore.' And you're reluctant, to a degree, to trust yourself to do it. It's a constant adjustment right now."
--Glavine on having to adjust and pitch to both sides of the plate since the introduction of QuesTec.

"You locate pitches and your confidence builds. Sometimes, you've got to turn your brain off and trust yourself to pitch, getting back to what you've always done well. It seems so simple."
-- Tom Glavine on his gem of a pitching performance 5/13/05

"There are times I haven't trusted myself as much against these guys as other teams. I have tried to pitch differently against them and I've gone overboard. I have to have the same plan as I do against other teams."
--Glavine on facing the Braves

"It would be nice if we could beat him, 1-0. I can't pull for the Mets, but when he pitches, I have a tendency to say, "This one time it'd be nice to see them win."
-- Bobby Cox on whether he has ever rooted for Glavine (since he's joined the Mets)

"When I didn't feel good about my ability to make the pitches that I wanted to make, I was making pitches to avoid mistakes. Now I'm not. I'm being aggressive and making pitches to get outs or at least throw strikes. It makes all the difference in the world."
--Glavine on his recent run of success.

"It was nice. It's much better than the alternative. I feel good about what I'm doing right now and hopefully, I'll continue to stay that way and have many more moments like I had today."
--Glavine about getting a standing ovation from the Shea crowd after his 7 2/3 innings of work 6/4/05

It's so typical. You tell a baseball player something will make him feel better, and he'll take it. I tried it when I pitched on Sunday and I lost, so needless to say, I'll never wear it again."
--Glavine on the new fad in baseball -- titanium necklaces

"I've thought about it. Obviously there's a real short list of teams I would even consider. I have no intention of wanting that to happen, but if they came to me and said look, 'We feel like we're better without you or whatever,' I'm not going to be like, 'Absolutely not.' Especially if it's a team I could see myself going to."
--Glavine on the possibility of being traded before the July 31st deadline.

"I have concerns beyond just being traded for this year. If I'm going to be traded and spend two more years somewhere then it's real important as to where that is. "So much of it depends on how I feel. A lot can change obviously, but from my standpoint, I haven't really made up my mind beyond pitching next year."
--Glavine on the possibility of being traded before the July 31st deadline

"You can't print the word I would use. If we're waiting for the front office to do something to make us better, we are here for the wrong reasons. We have enough talent to win our division or the wild card right now. But we've been like this all year long. Good series, bad series. Win some games and lose some games. That's why we're .500."
--Glavine on how he felt after the 7/30 game, in which he pitched 7 innings of 1 run ball against the Astros, losing 2-0.

After Glavine wondered aloud before the 7/30 game if he would really be starting, or if he would be on his way to Boston, Mike Piazza asked, "Where am I going? Trade me to . . . "
"Bangladesh."
--Glavine said, filling in the blank.

"We have enough talent here to win. We have the people here to win the Wild Card, [even] the division. But we're not getting it done. I know we want to win. It would help if we had more guys who got mad when we didn't."
--Glavine, after the 7/30 game to the Astros, where he pitched 7 innings, giving up 1 run (The Mets lost 2-0, collecting only 3 hits in the game)

"You don't always expect them to get excited about anything to do with school, but they do. It's kind of their thing. They have concern for it and they're proud of how it looks. It's kind of an extension of their personality. They want it to be cool like they are."
--Tom Glavine on "Operation Backpack," and how much a simple backpack can mean to a child.

"We're going to get the guy who did that to him"
--Glavine on David Wright's new buzzcut.

"I know he's a big-time golfer, so I asked him, 'Did you ever play in one of those tournaments where they use only one club and a putter? Was it fun?' He said, 'I like to use all my clubs.' The same goes for his pitches. I told him, 'You've got a whole bunch of good clubs. Use them all.'"
--Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson on Glavine's increased use of a curveball.

"I'm just in a place right now where I'm comfortable with my mechanics, and I'm real happy with my game plan. ...Everything feels good right now, and when you feel comfortable out there physically and you're comfortable with your game plan then you should pitch well. Right now, those two things are clicking for me."
--Glavine after his 4-1 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks (8/22/05)

"I'm just comfortable on that mound. There's something about that stripe from the mound to home plate that locks me in, makes me feel good about my target and where I'm trying to go, and where I'm trying to step with my pitches. It kind of gives you a little sense of tunnel vision, so that's good. I just might have them cut that stripe at Shea."
--Glavine talking about the pitcher's mound at Bank One Ballpark in Arizona.

"Tommy was outstanding, vintage Glavine. He's been coming on steady for us since the early season shaky starts."
-Mets manager Willie Randolph on Glavine's 4-1 win over the Diamondbacks (8/22/05)

"I'm starting to get a complex."
--Glavine on the lack of runs scored in his starts. The Mets have scored one or no runs in five of his last 10 starts and Glavine has allowed only eight runs in those five games -- all losses.

"It would be nice to do this every time out, but that's why complete games are rare and special. Everything has to break right for that to happen. So anytime that happens, it's a special day, especially against a team like theirs. It's a special day for me."
--Glavine on his 4-1 complete game victory over the Braves Sept. 18

"He really wanted to finish that game today. You could see he was focused and that he really wanted to finish his business."
--Catcher Mike Piazza on Glavine's 4-1 complete game win over the Braves Sept. 18.

"It's the most comfortable I ever felt, using all my pitches. It's probably as balanced a spread of pitches as I've had in my career. Everything came together for the first time."
--Glavine on his 4-1 complete game victory over the Braves Sept. 18

"Am I a stronger person? Absolutely. I think I've learned much better to go out there and focus on the events of the game and less on what people around me think. There's no question I'm a better player for a lot of reasons right now than when I first got here. Adversity teaches you a lot about yourself, and being able to deal with that, helps you become a better, more complete player."
--Glavine on dealing with adversity in New York.

"I think for me, it was just a determination of knowing that I could do better. You want to prove to yourself you can do it, and you want to prove to everybody here. Any of us who put on a uniform, we have pride in what we do, and we're going to be determined to try to turn things around."
--Glavine on dealing with adversity in New York.

"As a team, I'd like us to finish above .500. Individually, I'd like to even my record at 13-13. I've got two more starts to do it. Outside of the record, it's important to close things out right. I've made a lot of changes to my approach this season. I'd like to think I'm a less predictable pitcher -- now using both sides of the plate. So now is a chance to get that really settled in. Have a foundation to build upon for next year. Besides, I'd like to think I've got a chance at 300 career wins. I'm not about to turn down any starts."
--Glavine on continuing to pitch despite the Mets being out of the playoff hunt

"Ten runs and nine innings."
--Glavine, the Mets' starting pitcher Saturday night (9/24), when asked by a clubhouse attendant, "You need anything?" He ended up being back by five runs in the first.

"It's a nice way to end the year, you know? Your last start of the year, you certainly want to try and win, obviously. And to win it the way I was able to win it, yeah, I mean, it's going to give me a real good one to remember all off-season."
-Tom after his last start of the season Sept. 29, when he defeated the Rockies 11-0 on a 2-hit complete game shutout.

"I think it was important for us to finish strong. We've certainly turned things around from that terrible road trip we had. And we want to finish above .500, no question about that. It's important for us as a team, and it's important for us as an organization. If we're going to try and attract people this winter to come here and play, you certainly want to give them an indication that you're moving in the right direction. And we're certainly doing that."
--Glavine on the Mets ending the season on a high note.

"He's fun to watch. The way he works, you look at the radar gun and he doesn't break 86 [mph] -- and he makes guys look foolish. It's unbelievable seeing the thought process that goes behind each pitch. He has a meaning for every pitch. The catcher sets up back there and doesn't move his mitt the whole game."
-- Third baseman David Wright on Glavine.

"I was lost. I'm out there with a bunch of kids and I'm 40. Or 60. I had no idea what handshake they were using."
-- Glavine on the handshakes, high fives and other forms of congratulations the team used after their 11-0 victory over the Rockies Sept. 29th.

"It was a bunch of third, fourth, and fifth graders. We had to do the electric slide. Not very good. I thought I had it, then I watched the guys next to me, and I got completely lost."
-- Glavine, recalling a father-daughter outing with his then 9-year-old daughter, Amber, last year.

"He's as good as it gets as far as being the whole package. He can beat you with base hits, he can beat you with home runs. He's your prototypical cleanup guy. He makes any lineup better. Most of us thought last year our team would have been a whole lot different if we had Carlos. Now we do have him."
--Glavine on the Mets' acquisition of Carlos Delgado

"So far it looks good. If we can land Billy [Wagner], a catcher, and a little more bullpen help, it will be great. There's no question, though, getting Carlos today, it increases your standing and it's a great start to the winter."
--Glavine on the Met's acquisition of Carlos Delgado.

"He's certainly a good example for everyone in terms of working hard and staying in shape. You're not going to get a better example of taking care of yourself. He's a quiet guy, but he commands respect, especially from the Latin American guys. He adds that veteran presence. Those types of personalities are good to have in the clubhouse when you're trying to build a winning mentality."
--Glavine on Julio Franco

"If he was 50 he would have gotten a one-year deal."
--Glavine on the Mets offering 47-year-old Julio Franco a two-year deal