Rage - Peter Golenbock

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I thought about my previous offers to play.

      Several months earlier, the Chicago Cubs had offered to sign me for $75,000. Another prospect was involved. In short, he got the job and the money, and I didn’t.

      The Boston Red Sox had offered me $25,000, much lower than I expected. For some reason, I never felt a connection with the Red Sox. If only Bots Nekola had followed through. My Aunt Jody, a die-hard Red Sox fan, was heartbroken. Until the day she died, Aunt Jody wanted me to be a Red Sox.

      I turned down Boston because several of their starting players did not take the field for infield practice before a game against the Yankees. I was in the Red Sox clubhouse when it was time for the Sox to take infield practice. First baseman Dick Stuart, the worst-fielding first baseman I ever saw, should have taken infield practice every day, but that’s not the kind of player he was. I had the impression that the Red Sox didn’t care about winning. And since winning was an important part of my psyche, it was easy to cross the Red Sox off my list.

      Harry Hesse, the head New England scout for the Yankees, came in with an even lower offer—$15,000—and he wouldn’t go any higher.

      Harry told me, “You’re going to get a World Series check every year.” Harry turned out to be very wrong about that. This was the fall of 1964, and the Yankees, having just been purchased by CBS, wouldn’t see the World Series again until 1976.

      The Mets offered me $22,500. Two days later I signed the deal. I had great expectations. The downside of having great expectations is that when they don’t come to fruition, you’re left feeling angry and disappointed.

      My dad and I had agreed that if I signed with a team, any team, that team had to send me to the Instructional League. When my dad proposed that to Wid Matthews, the Mets’ head of scouting, Wid tried to convince us that I would be in way over my head, and that they didn’t want me to start my pro career on a negative note.

      Matthews then asked Len Zanke, who was also in the room with us, “Can he pitch down there?”

      “Absolutely,” said Zanke.

      My dad told Matthews, “We want Bill to be ready for the next full season. The instructional season will help him learn the tricks of the trade that might help him pitch better in pro ball. It’s important to us that this is part of the offer.”

      I was the only player in winter ball with zero professional experience.

      At the time I signed, I couldn’t understand why my signing bonus wasn’t higher. The Cubs were going to offer me $75,000 and that seemed about right.

      Looking back now, my family and I made a mistake in dealing with the ball clubs. We thought if we used the threat of my going to college to play basketball against my signing a professional baseball contract, we could get more money. I told the baseball scouts all through the summer that I was considering going to college, and I suspect that some organizations questioned whether I was really serious about playing baseball.

      It haunted me that my signing bonus was so low. Why? I kept asking myself. I had a great summer, a great year. What reason could it be? I pitched two no-hitters my junior year in American Legion. It was a full year of great pitching.

       It isn’t fair. I’m not appreciated. Coach Sullivan didn’t appreciate me, and now the Mets weren’t showing me much appreciation for my skills with their middling offer.

      Despite my deep disappointment, I still had a world of confidence in my ability. I was eighteen years old and I was on my way to the big leagues. When I arrived at the Mets’ Instructional League camp, I had a chip on my shoulder the size of a boulder. I asked myself, Why couldn’t I pitch tomorrow with the Mets?

      You motherfuckers, I thought to myself, I’ll show all of you.

       SUPERSTAR IN THE MAKING

      I WAS A STARRY-EYED EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD FLYING FROM Middletown, Connecticut, to St. Petersburg, Florida, for the two and a half months of Instructional League play in September of 1964. I had never been on an airplane before. I was a little anxious and didn’t know what to expect. A couple of friends told me that when they flew from Hawaii to Vietnam, they imagined what was going to happen when they hit the ground. I figured that going to Instructional League had to be easier than going to Vietnam.

      The purpose of the Instructional League was severalfold: A young pitcher on a major league roster might go down there to learn another pitch; a young major league hitter might go down there to learn to hit to the opposite field; and for top prospects in the minor leagues, it was a chance to get some excellent instruction and compete against high-caliber players.

      Because my father insisted that the Instructional League be put in my contract, I would be the only player without a single inning of pro experience.

      When I got there, I was surprised and shocked to see that there were several pitchers who could throw as hard as, if not harder, than I could. And they had more polish, because they had played some Single-A ball.

      When I walked into the clubhouse, I was met by Eddie Stanky, the head of the minor leagues for the Mets. Eddie had been a star second baseman for the New York Giants under another shit-stirrer manager, Leo Durocher. Stanky took one look at me, and the first thing he said to me was “You’re fat.”

      I had spent the summer eating hot fudge sundaes and drinking milk shakes, adding weight, because I was told that I should bulk up before going to camp. What no one told me was that the added weight should be made of muscle, not flab.

      “First thing we have to do,” Stanky said to me, “we have to get you in shape.”

      Stanky gave me a nylon shirt with a rubber inner lining, and he put me through an exhausting regimen of sprints and pickups. Day after day, Stanky, or another coach, made me field 100 balls in the Florida heat while wearing that goddamn rubber shirt. Slowly, but surely, my weight dropped from 220 pounds down to 180.

      Stanky was a great, great instructor, but he was also a ballbuster. One time he took me to dinner. I thought, Great, free food. We got in his car and he drove us to downtown St. Pete, where we stopped at Morrison’s Cafeteria.

      I walked down an aisle of food past hundreds of different items, and as I pushed my tray along, I figured I’d order a couple of hamburgers, some ham, and a little potato salad, but then Stanky stopped me.

      “I’m going to order for you,” he said, and he ordered me a plain piece of chicken and a salad, and for dessert he said I could have a little cup of Jell-O or a little cup of fruit. That was my dinner with Eddie Stanky. And I hadn’t yet pitched a game.

       Where were the mashed potatoes? Where was my chocolate cake?

      Eddie had been a firebrand, and in one of the first pieces of advice he gave me, he told me, “When you look at pitching, consider a loaf of bread. If you get the hitter out, then that loaf of bread goes to your family. If you don’t get him out, the batter’s family gets the loaf of bread.”

      Stanky also told me I would never become a major leaguer unless I learned to throw a batter a first-pitch breaking ball for a strike.

      “And you have to learn how to pitch under pressure,” he said.

      I was warming up just before I was scheduled to start a game. Eddie walked up to me and said, “Okay, first pitch, curveball.” He squatted down beside me. I threw a curve; it was way out of the strike zone.

      Later in the season when I was playing in the minors for Single-A Auburn, Eddie visited, and he asked me, “Have you gotten any better throwing first-pitch breaking balls for strikes?”

      “Yeah,

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