Media Day: Brandon Laird

On making his Double-A debut: “I’m excited.  I had a good spring, and I’m just getting ready for the season.  I heard this is a great place to play with good fans.  I’m excited to see what happens.”

On how he’d describe his style of play: “I’m a player that loves playing the game.  I play hard each and every day and when things aren’t going well, I’m still playing the game hard and trying to help my team.  Whatever I can do to help my team win, that’s what I’m trying to do.”

On the off-field incident that put him in the headlines this off-season: “It was something that shouldn’t have happened.  Something that was blown out of proportion.  I wanted to get it behind me as quick as possible and I did, I took care of it.  I wanted to come into this season and concentrate on baseball…that’s now what I do.  I was at the wrong place at the wrong time.  It shouldn’t affect what I do on the baseball field, that’s a whole separate issue.  People should just look at me for how I play the game and go from there.”

On A-Rod holding down third base in the Bronx: “You can’t worry about that.  Alex is a great player.  Every day, I come out here and just worry about myself and try to get better each and every day.  My goal is to try to get to the major leagues…if they think I’m ready, they’ll give me the phone call, but if something comes down the road where I go to another team or something happens, any way I’m going to get to the big leagues, that’s my goal.”

On his 2010 goals: “The goal for this season is just to get more professional at-bats under me.  Become more of a professional player each and every day and just play hard and see where it takes me.”

Mike Ashmore, mashmore98 At gmail.com