LITMIR.BIZ

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to come to Springfield, Massachusetts, to work out with the Springfield Giants, the Double-A farm club of the San Francisco Giants. Carl Hubbell, one of the greatest left-handed pitchers of all time and the head of minor league development for the Giants, asked me to try out. In the 1934 All-Star Game, Hubbell had struck out in succession Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, and Joe Cronin—five of the best hitters of their era. Ruth, Gehrig, and Foxx were three of the greatest hitters of all time.

      My father called Hubbell and told him, “We’re supposed to play Rockville. You can come and see Bill pitch on Sunday against a real team.”

      Hubbell agreed to come to the game.

      On that day I had a live, crackling fastball. My adrenaline was flowing, and I struck out twenty-four of the twenty-seven batters I faced. Afterward, I wondered why I couldn’t have that kind of stuff all the time. But that day I had it. I was throwing pitches to a left-handed batter on the outside part of the plate, waist high or cock high. I wasn’t on the black.

      I thought, Here it comes. See if you can hit it. You can’t fucking touch it.

      I don’t know if I was hyped up because I knew Carl Hubbell was coming to see me or what, but I just had an exceptional fastball that day, and I had it throughout the entire game. I was throwing just as hard in the ninth inning as I was in the first.

      I thought, Take a deep breath, because here it comes, baby.

      After the game I was on a high, waiting to hear what Carl Hubbell had to say about my performance. I waited.

      Carl Hubbell never showed up. I was crushed. I felt let down like the cast in the movie Waiting for Guffman. I later heard from another scout that Hubbell hadn’t made it to the game that day because he was playing golf.

      My success against Rockville wasn’t a fluke. In a game against Niantic, the score was 0–0 for fifteen innings. We won on a squeeze bunt in the top of the fifteenth.

      In the American Legion tournament, my Middletown team lost the opener and we had to start from the loser’s bracket. I think we would have won if I had pitched the opener. We played Rockville in game two, and in that game I struck out fourteen of the eighteen batters I faced.

      The next night John Hudak started for us against East Haven. He was pitching well when he was hit on the elbow with a pitch and had to come out of the game. I relieved John and struck out thirteen of the fifteen batters I faced. In eleven innings, I had struck out twenty-seven batters, which, to this day, is still the Connecticut state tournament American Legion record. Unfortunately, the legion tournament imposed an inning limit, and I was only allowed to pitch one more inning. We lost to Bristol, who went on to represent Connecticut in the New England tournament.

      I was hoping to sign with the Yankees, and I had that opportunity. John DeNunzio, the baseball coach of Middletown High School, was a bird dog for the Yankees. If John found a prospect, and that prospect was signed by the Yankees, he got some money. John told the Yankees about me, and I was invited to come to Yankee Stadium for a look-see.

      I visited Yankee Stadium with my dad, and it was a good bonding experience. I brought my spikes and gloves and wore a red undershirt, the color of our legion team. I was met at the press door and taken down into the Yankee clubhouse. The equipment guy asked me what size pants I wore, and I told him a thirty-six waist, and the only pants they had with a thirty-six-inch waist were Yogi Berra’s. I wore Yogi’s pants and a Yankee uniform top. I walked around the corner to the trainer’s room and saw a Yankee player standing on top of the trainer’s table. I could only see him from the waist down.

      He has the most pathetic-looking legs I ever saw, I thought.

      He was getting big rolls of elastic bandages wrapped around him. I was escorted back to the clubhouse, to dress in the ball boys’ stall. Then I was told, “We made a mistake. You’re not supposed to dress back here. We’re going to move you.”

      They took me to the locker closest to the trainer’s room in the Yankee clubhouse, which belonged to Mickey Mantle.

      “You’re going to get dressed here,” I was told.

      “Are you sure?” I asked.

      “Yeah, Mickey wants you to dress here.”

      “Mickey?”

      “Yeah, he’s in the trainer’s room. He saw you coming in.”

      That’s when I realized the player standing on the trainer’s table with the gimpy legs was Mickey Mantle.

      I was dressing when Ralph Terry, who pitched for the Yankees, walked over to me and introduced himself. He said, “Listen, if you’re going to dress here, you have to look like a Yankee. We don’t have red undershirts on here. Put on one of mine.” He gave me a navy-blue-and-white undershirt to wear.

      I was then introduced to Bill Dickey and Whitey Ford, two legendary Yankees. Dickey was going to catch for me. Whitey, one of the greatest Yankee pitchers ever and the Yankee pitching coach for that year, was coming along for a look-see.

      The three of us went out to warm up. Bill Dickey had caught for the Yankees for twenty years and was elected to the Hall of Fame, and here he was, catching me. I wondered whether Dickey would be able to catch me. I was eighteen years old. What did I know? And Dickey caught me like I was throwing butter. I was throwing real hard, but he had great hands, and caught everything so easily.

      I threw my fastball from a windup, and then threw my fastball from the stretch. Whitey wanted to know whether I had any other pitches.

      “Yeah, I have a slider,” I said.

      “Oh, he has a slider,” Whitey said sarcastically. “The kid has a slider. Let me see it.”

      I threw it, and Whitey said, “Holy shit, you do have a slider.” I had learned a slider through reading an instruction book written by pitching great Sal Maglie.

      I threw a little more. I was concentrating, throwing strikes and hitting Bill Dickey’s target, and without my noticing him, a batter had wandered toward the plate.

      “Do you mind if I step in here?” he asked.

      It was Mickey Mantle. Aw, fuck. I thought, All I need to do is hit Mickey Mantle with a pitch, and I’m in serious trouble.

      As Mickey stood there, I threw a half dozen pitches. Mickey never said a word, and when I was done, I went back inside the clubhouse. My father was in the stands, and while I was throwing, an usher walked up to him and asked who I was. He must have been one of reporter Dick Young’s stool pigeons, because the next day a story about my workout appeared in the New York Daily News.

      “Congratulations,” said Whitey. “It looks like you have a good arm. I hope you sign with the Yankees.” I was waiting for a visit from someone from the Yankee front office, but no one said a word to me before I left.

      Toward the end of my American Legion season, Len Zanke, a scout for the New York Mets, asked me to try out. I drove down from Middletown to Shea Stadium. I was having my tryout, warming up on a mound between the visiting dugout and home plate, while the visiting team, the San Francisco Giants, took batting practice.

      Two Giants players, Willie Mays and Willie McCovey, took a particular interest in me. I wanted to say to them, “If you like what you see, you could have had me. I had one of the best games of my life, and your scout Carl Hubbell didn’t bother to show up.” But I didn’t say it.

      Every time the catcher would throw the ball back to me, I’d turn around and go back to the mound, and I could see Mays and McCovey moving from the batting cage, getting closer and closer.

      After I was finished throwing, I went into the Mets clubhouse, and I got to meet Mets manager Casey Stengel, who talked so fast I couldn’t understand most of what he said. He was chattering away, and I was nodding and thinking, What the fuck is this guy saying?

      Casey was talking a mile a minute and shuffling his feet; he was funny and entertaining. I was only able to understand,

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