Hank Workman recalls the overlooked talents of Yogi Berra

Hank Workman was just a wide-eyed rookie with the New York Yankees when he was called up in September 1950. The University of Southern California star only played two games for the eventual World Series Champions, spending most of his time watching Yankees legends Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Mize, and Phil Rizzuto lead the Yankees to the pennant. Despite being surrounded by those established veterans, the player he was most impressed with was their upstart catcher, Yogi Berra.

The famous catcher was a sportswriter’s dream. His quick and witty takes on life and baseball lightened up the often serious accounts of a long season. For almost seventy years, his famous quotations have endured and transcended the sport. Sadly, there will no more new “Yogi-isms” to add to the lexicon. Berra passed away Tuesday evening in New Jersey at the age of 90.

Standing 5’8” and weighing 190 lbs. in his playing days, Berra didn’t fit the typical physical profile of a major leaguer. Come to think about it, most of what Berra did on the field was atypical. A notorious “bad ball,” hitter, Berra broke all convention when it came to managing the strike zone. If a pitch was anywhere within reach, it was in Berra’s wheelhouse.

Save for nine at-bats with the New York Mets in 1965, Berra spent his 19-year Hall of Fame playing career with the New York Yankees starting in 1946. One of baseball’s most celebrated champions, Berra helped to lead the Yankees to 10 World Series victories in 14 appearances.

Playing alongside the likes of Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, Berra’s skill and accomplishments were often overshadowed by their iconic status. Yet for those that played with Berra, there was a keen sense of his heightened acumen on the field that truly elevated his abilities.

Hank Workman

Hank Workman was a teammate of Berra’s on the 1950 Yankees. Despite only playing with him for one month that season, Workman gained a tremendous appreciation for the breadth of Berra’s skill set. Speaking with Workman in 2008, he was quick to acknowledge the nuances of Berra’s talents that put him in the upper echelon of baseball royalty.

“That guy was a great ballplayer,” Workman said. “He was built like a middleweight prize fighter. He was very athletic and he had great baseball sense. He always knew what to do and the right base to throw to. He could play third base and outfield; he didn’t that often, but he could. He was one of the best late-inning hitters. Nobody says anything about that. He didn’t have a super high average, but he never struck out much; he swung at everything. He was a guy you wanted up there in the clutch in the late innings. He was a fabulous ballplayer, the best catcher I think.”

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How one baseball card pack ignited a writer's quest to discover the afterlife of a major league career

Opening a pack of baseball cards for a child in the 1980s brought feelings of tremendous anticipation not only for the cards that were hidden beneath the sealed wax paper, but also the stale piece of gum that was pressed up against hopefully the worst one in the bunch. For many, those images on the front of each card and the stats on the back were burned into memory after spending hours poring over their contents. Well before the advent of widespread availability through cable television and the internet, these cards were often one's only visions of the players we followed in newspaper box scores. These men stood as heroes to an entire generation, frozen in time due to a picture on a baseball card; however, what happens when that fame melts and the players are left to deal with the closing of their careers at an age when most of their peers are just establishing theirs? 

Author Brad Balukjian cracked open a pack of his favorite 1986 Topps and after sorting out the players, he set out to find the next world for a ballplayer after an entire generation has passed since they ended their career. Engaging in a cross-country trek starting from his home in California, he put over 10,000 miles in seven weeks on his 2002 Honda Accord to meet with and examine the lives of the 14 players in one pack of 1986 Topps baseball cards for a book cleverly entitled “Wax Pack.”

1986 Topps Wax Pack (WaxPackBook.com)

Fast forward thirty years and every statistic that can be measured or imagined exists a mouse click away on the internet. While seemingly every bit of data exists about their effectiveness on the field, for most of the players in the 792 card set, little is written about what happened to them after they put their gloves away and hung up their spikes. The idea for breathing life to the stories of each of the men in this singular pack of baseball cards was spawned from Balukjian and a friend reminiscing about their childhood.

“One of my best friends and I were talking about growing up in that era and how we really felt like some of the best stories could be told from some of the players who were not superstars,” Balukjian said during a July 2015 stop in Brooklyn. “These guys maybe have not been asked as often about their careers and their lives. We started to think about what would be a project that would allow us to start to explore those stories from those guys who were not the superstars. I had the idea that what was really fun about buying a pack of baseball cards as a kid was the random factor, you don’t know what you’re going to get in the pack.”

After opening a few packs to get one with a mix of players that were attainable to reach, Balukjian settled on a collection that included 14 players and one checklist. Once he had his pack laid out in front of him, he decided how he was going to string together this group who all shared one thing in common, their presence on the eerily familiar black bordered 1986 Topps baseball card.

“Being a random selection of players, most of the guys are not going to be the superstars,” he said. “I thought there are 15 cards in a pack, 15 chapters in a book, it sort of lends itself to that format to make a book about that single pack. Initially we talked about doing a book pack about the 1985 season told from the varying perspectives of whatever 15 players we got in the pack. As we tried to figure out how to do that, it got a little bit difficult because there might not be a cohesive narrative from 15 random guys, so we decided it would be better to focus on the journey of trying to track down the 15 guys in the pack, telling the story of the journey, and each of the individual players.”

Now that Balukjian had a plan, he set out to track down the men in his pack of baseball cards. They ranged from the highly recognized (Carlton Fisk and Doc Gooden), to the controversial (Vince Coleman), to the relative unknown (Jaime Cocanower). Spread out across the country, the author filled his summer with appointments stretched out from coast to coast.

“Most guys were pretty receptive,” he said. “Garry Templeton and Steve Yeager both were guys that on the first phone call, they seemed like they would cooperative. They may not have fully understood the project, but when I said, ‘Hey I’m going to be in your town on this date,’ they said, ‘I could do that.’ With a couple of exceptions, most of the guys were pretty easy to work with.”

Garry Templeton with the Wax Pack / (WaxPackBook.com)

Of course the story wouldn’t be so interesting if all of the players fell in line. It turned out that the highest profile players in Balukjian’s pack turned out to be the most elusive. Using tactics that could serve him well as a private investigator, he turned to covert methods to try to track down the likes of Fisk and Coleman, which he kept running tabs of in his blog.

“In a way those failures makes the book better,” he said. “I think it is better that I don’t get all 14 players. The story of sneaking my way into an exclusive golf course in Sarasota, Florida to try to ambush Carlton Fisk after he plays a round of golf is going to be really fun. Tracking down Vince Coleman’s childhood home, his high school in Jacksonville, and the story of how he told me basically to ‘f-off,’ those stories would be kind of more fun — the quest aspect.” 

As close as the author would get to Fisk in Cooperstown (WaxPackBook.com)

As Balukjian continued to survey the players in his pack of baseball cards while spending endless hours on the road counting off whether Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts had a grip on each locale, he found a consistent theme with each of the retired athletes. They no longer basked in their glory days the way fans romanticize their on-field accomplishments.

“There is a disconnect between the fans’ enthusiasm for some of the stuff in baseball history and the players that were actually part of that history,” he noted. “As fans we tend to glorify and get really enthusiastic about our memories. The guys that actually lived through that stuff, even the really positive moments, I found a lot of the guys kind of had the attitude of being not too excited to talk about or relive those moments. 

“I think there are a couple of reasons why that may be. It may be painful; relieving those glory days is a reminder to them that they will never be that athlete again. You are dredging up a lot of feelings and memories about a time when their entire lives were dedicated to achieving this goal. Once you are past your prime, you know you will never win another World Series or hit another home run. It could be kind of painful to have to talk about that.”

Many of the players had difficulty replacing the highly regimented major league baseball player's schedule and the adulation that comes with playing in front of 30,000 fans every night. Their struggles transitioning to a regular civilian caused problems in many facets of their lives, including their relationships and what vices they sought to cope.

“It was hard for all of them,” he said. “It’s no coincidence that some major life changes happened in those years right after they retired. Some guys started drinking, some guys got divorced, and some tried some other professions where they didn’t catch on. I think they all had a hard time letting go of playing. Even if they were going into coaching, Randy Ready said something like, ‘Putting the player inside to bed, letting that person go is a very hard thing to do.’ They all spoke to the competitive nature they needed to have to get to the major leagues, and how hard it is to know that you’ll never be able to do that again.”

This isn’t to say that all of these men are disgruntled ex-athletes, rather Balukjian’s odyssey revealed how human these ballplayers are. While most only get to know them from their baseball cards and television highlights, he was fortunate enough to be able to engage them in some deep conversations that had nothing to do with stepping in between the lines.

“A lot of the time we haven’t talked about baseball directly,” he said. “It’s been about relationships — really candid, really powerful and emotional stuff about relationships with their fathers, relationships with their kids, with spouses, and the game itself. Some stuff that comes up has been very traumatic that they’ve talked about.” 

These deeply guarded layers are ones that he intends to reveal in his book. He hoped that by peeling back the curtain on their lives, he will appeal to a group wider than just baseball fans.

“I’m more interested in understanding these guys as people and men,” he stated. “I’m less interested in asking about their favorite memory in their baseball career was or how they felt when they won the World Series; they’ve been asked that a million times. I’m more interested in what they did the day after they retired, or how did being on the road for all those years affected their marriages — things of broader interest than baseball.”

One such player that he connected with beyond balls and strikes was former Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Don Carman, who was Balukjian’s favorite player growing up. Carman is now a sports psychologist that works for super agent Scott Boras, whose clientele includes New York Mets ace Matt Harvey.

“I felt like after spending a couple of days with him, it sounds cheesy, but it almost was like I was meant to have him as a favorite player,” he said. “Getting to know him personally I really identified with who he is as a person. He told me a lot of stories about growing up in Western Oklahoma in a difficult family situation. He said his dad never spoke to him directly ever. His dad died of a heart attack when he was 15, so there’s a lot of pain there. I couldn’t relate to that because I had a good relationship with my dad, but Don described sort of being sort of an outside as a kid, always being a little bit different. That’s something I could relate to. When you make these human connections with a guy that was literally my idol as a kid, it is a really unique thing. It’s no longer, ‘I’m a fan and he’s my favorite player,’ it’s sort of a relationship between two people.”

Balukjian with Don Carman (r.) / (WaxPackBook.com)

At 34 years old, Balukjian is about the same age as when many of his subjects ended their professional baseball careers. This journey allowed him to examine many questions about his own life, taking bits of wisdom from each interview to help him gain perspective on his own direction.

“Frankly, it’s not even about baseball,” he said. “Really it’s a story about growing up. I am now the age these guys were when these guys had to retire and stop playing the game for a living. I’m a single guy, 34, no kids, nowhere near married. I’m sort of facing my own questions in life; do I need to grow up? I always bucked against the trend of getting married, settling down, and doing the traditional thing career wise. This book is giving me an opportunity to think out loud about myself and also learn from the lives of 14 other men that had to grow up themselves when they could no longer play baseball.”

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Fritz Peterson revisits the Horace Clarke Era in his new book

Fritz Peterson spent almost nine seasons with the New York Yankees playing alongside the likes of Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Whitey Ford. Surely playing with those legends would have guaranteed the lefty pitcher a shot of making the playoffs at least once in his career, right? Think again.

Playing with the Yankees from 1966-1974, Peterson endured one of the roughest stretches in Yankees history, as the bulk of his time included pairings with offensive juggernauts such Jerry Kenney, Gene Michael, and Horace Clarke. The latter served as the inspiration for the title of Peterson’s newest book, “When the Yankees Were on the Fritz: Revisiting the Horace Clarke Era.”

Peterson tells the good, the bad, and often the ugly about the myriad of teammates that went through the Yankees revolving doors of the late 60s and early 70s. The book is dotted with often hilarious nuggets about his Yankee brethren ranging from the aforementioned Hall of Famers to obscurities including Alan Closter, Bill Burbach, and Cecil Perkins. These inside baseball stories that he shares gives a glimpse into the hi-jinks that ballplayers often engage in without revealing the personal clubhouse matters that his former mound mate Jim Bouton exposed in “Ball Four.”

Fritz Peterson signing a copy of his new book / N. Diunte

Each chapter is set up neatly for each of the nine “innings,” that he played with the Yankees. His offseason tales of his job as an adjunct professor at his alma mater Northern Illinois University, his contract negotiations with the Yankees front office, and his foray into hockey broadcasting serve as digestible buffers in between his narratives about the hodgepodge collection of teammates that comprised the “Horace Clarke Era.”

Listen below to hear Peterson discussing his new book and the likes of teammates Thurman Munson and Mel Stottlemyre.

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Anthony Iapoce returns home to Queens roots as a member of the Chicago Cubs

Anthony Iapoce, the current special assistant to Chicago Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer, returned to his Queens roots in a major league uniform just prior to the All-Star break at Citi Field. Iapoce was in the dugout sporting a major league uniform to keep an eye on the Cubs prospect rich lineup that included Kris Bryant, Addison Russell, and Jorge Soler.

Anthony Iapoce / N. Diunte

 

The 1991 Monsignor McClancy graduate and Hall of Famer took a few minutes to sit down with me to discuss his current role with the Cubs and what it meant for him to be on the major league field so close to where he grew up.

"Astoria native Iapoce hits the big leagues." - TimesLedger Newspapers

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Catching up with Brooklyn Dodger Don Demeter

Don Demeter was just 21 years old when he made his debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1956. Called up in September after hitting 41 home runs at Fort Worth in the Texas League, Walter Alston sent Demeter to the plate as a pinch hitter on September 18th. Overwhelmed by the experience, Demeter went right back to the dugout after three pitches.

"I didn't even take a swing," he said in Jonathan Arnold's SABR biography.

Determined not to repeat his statuesque figure at the plate, he told himself that he would swing at the first offering the next time he was up. The next day, the Dodgers were routing the St. Louis Cardinals 15-2 by the 8th inning. Alston went to his bench and inserted him in center field. At the bottom of the inning, he led off against Don Liddle. With the count 2-1, Demeter took a mighty swing at a fastball and deposited it in the stands. 

"The next night I got to pinch hit again and the first swing I took, I hit a home run," he said. "They put me in the Ebbets Hall of Fame because I have a .500 average in Ebbets Field."

Demeter made one more appearance for Brooklyn as a pinch hitter against the Pirates. It would be his last in a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform. He had another stellar season in the minors in 1957, but with his St. Paul club going deep in the playoffs, there were only a few days left in the major league season when he finished. There would not be enough time for Demeter to play again in Brooklyn before they headed to California.

Starting in 1958, Demeter played the next 10 seasons in the majors, also spending time with the Phillies, Tigers, Red Sox, and Indians. He retired in 1967 with 163 home runs in 1109 games. Upon his return to Oklahoma City, Demeter entered the ministry, where he is now a pastor at the Grace Community Baptist Church.

Don Demeter (l.) with Tommy Lasorda (r.) in 2014 - David Greenwell

In 2014, he appeared with Tommy Lasorda to announce the Los Angeles Dodgers moving their Triple-A team to Oklahoma City. At the time of this writing, he's the third youngest living Brooklyn Dodger, with only Brooklyn natives Sandy Koufax and Bob Aspromonte (who ironically debuted in Demeter's home run game) as his juniors.

Great news about Dodgers. Here are two Dodger greats Don Demeter (CHHS - '53 State Champs) and Tommy Lasorda. pic.twitter.com/aZXJOJ5wyL

— David Greenwell (@GreenwellOKC) September 17, 2014

Below is a video with Demeter from grandson Kendrick, where he discusses his major league career and his transition to a man of the faith.

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Baseball Happenings Podcast: Fritz Peterson

Former New York Yankees pitcher Fritz Peterson was recently in New York at Carmine's Pizzeria in Brooklyn promoting his book, "When the Yankees Were on the Fritz: Revisiting the Horace Clarke Years." Peterson sat down with the Baseball Happenings Podcast to discuss his inspiration for writing the book, as well as his memories of playing alongside Thurman Munson, Mel Stottlemyre, and yes, Horace Clarke.


Follow Fritz on social media 
Twitter
Facebook
via his website - Fritzpeterson.org

Fritz Peterson / N. Diunte

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Baseball Happenings Podcast: Charlton Jimerson discusses his new book, 'Against All Odds'

Charlton Jimerson, former major league outfielder with the Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners, discusses in the latest Baseball Happenings Podcast episde, the motivation for writing his autobiography, "Against All Odds: A Success Story." Jimerson tells how he rose up from a a childhood dominated by instability that would have defeated most future ballplayers before they ever took the field.

Connect with Charlton Jimerson on social media -
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram 

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Ed Charles honors the memory of Gil Hodges at the 2015 Queens Baseball Convention

Ed Charles received the Gil Hodges Unforgettable Fire Award at the 2015 Queens Baseball Convention.

The ceremony was led by Greg Prince of Faith and Fear in Flushing, who presented Charles with the award in honor of his former manager. Once Prince finished introducing "The Glider," Charles needed little help capturing the attention of the crowd. The 81-year-old Charles thrilled the listeners with stories of how Hodges' arrival in Flushing turned the tide for the New York Mets, running the club with a firm grasp that quickly shaped up a struggling franchise.

Ed Charles at the 2015 QBC / N. Diunte

At approximately 35 minutes into the interview, I posed a question to Charles about playing with Satchel Paige on the 1965 Kansas City Athletics. He told not one, but two different stories about playing both with Satchel in his last game in the majors, but also against him in 1961 in Portland (which he told to me during this 2013 interview).

It is always a treat not only to hear stories about the ageless Satchel Paige, but to hear Charles speak, as he holds a key to a lot of baseball's history as the elder statesman from the 1969 team.

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Bernard Fernandez, 96, pitched ten seasons in Negro Leagues

Bernard Fernandez, a pitcher in the Negro Leagues with the Philadelphia Stars, New York Black Yankees, Atlanta Black Crackers and Richmond Giants from 1938-1948, passed away in Las Vegas on November 19, 2014 at the age of 96.

Bernard Fernandez / Philadelphia Stars

In 2007, I had the opportunity to interview Fernandez at his home in Philadelphia, where we spoke for over an hour about his lengthy baseball career. He discussed his entry into the Negro Leagues and how he had to face the mighty Homestead Grays with Hall of Famers Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard in his Negro League debut. Fernandez went on to play ten seasons in the Negro Leagues, missing some time during World War II when he worked in a war defense job.

Parts of the interview were used for a full career retrospective published for Medium.com in their sports section, "The Cauldron."

"Everyone couldn't be Satchel Paige, but I enjoyed what I did." The tale of Bernard Fernandez. https://t.co/RqMkP7tAul pic.twitter.com/2giE934hEe
— N. Diunte (@ExamineBaseball) January 2, 2015

Fernandez was also interviewed at length in Brent P. Kelley's "The Negro Leagues Revisited," which includes in-depth interviews with 66 different Negro League ballplayers, many of whom are sadly deceased.

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Russ Kemmerer, 84, former Major League pitcher was a master storyteller

Russ Kemmerer was one of the first retired major league players that I interviewed in my quest to put together a book about playing through baseball’s integration of the 1950s. What started out as a discussion of his early years in the Red Sox minor league system, turned into a two-day, hour-and-a-half phone conversation that ended with him sending me a copy of his book, “Ted Williams: Hey Kid, Just Get It Over the Plate,” just because he knew I would enjoy it from our talk.

I was saddened to receive the news that Kemmerer passed away on December 8, 2014 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He was 84. (Ed. Note - His funeral announcement lists his birthday as November 1, 1930, not November 1, 1931 as previously listed.)

Kemmerer was a standout high school athlete in the Pittsburgh area at Peabody High School, earning All-City honors in baseball, basketball, and football. His talents earned him a scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh, where he played freshman baseball and basketball.

Russ Kemmerer / Baseball-Almanac.com

After one year at Pittsburgh, he signed with the Boston Red Sox in 1950 after an offer of $3,000 by scout Socko McCarey. He spent the summer playing semi-pro ball in his hometown before officially entering the Red Sox organization in 1951. It was there he encountered a minor league system overflowing with talent.

“They had so many of us that they didn’t know which ones to keep,” he said to me during a 2008 phone interview. “Ironically, most of us, like myself, they traded to someone [else], and they stayed in the majors longer than the guys they kept. It was a hit and miss thing. You didn’t know which guys were going to be [productive].”

He made his debut with the Red Sox in 1954 and narrowly missed a no-hitter in his first start. In the seventh inning on July 18, 1954, Sam Mele hit a shot to left-field that barely evaded the outstretched arm of Ted Williams.

“My first game as a starter with Boston was against Baltimore and I just missed pitching a no-hitter,” he said. “I threw a one-hitter. Williams played left-field that game. That was one of the first games he played after breaking his collarbone. That was one of the highlights of my career. They got one hit that game. If he would have jumped a little higher, he would have probably caught the damn thing off of Sam Mele.”

Kemmerer played until 1957 with the Red Sox until he suffered an arm injury while playing winter ball in Puerto Rico right before the start of the 1957 season. The Red Sox instead of waiting for his arm to heal, traded him to the Washington Senators. 

“One morning, I got up and couldn’t raise my arm,” he said. “You didn’t want to tell anybody you were hurt because they had so many guys waiting. They didn’t fool with you, send you to the doctor or do anything; they would just call somebody else. They thought I had lost my fastball. So I was available to be traded to the Senators at that time. They called me in and told me I was traded.”

Kemmerer ended up playing nine seasons in the majors, also spending time with the Chicago White Sox and the expansion Houston Colt 45’s. He recalled the follies of playing for the formative years of what is now the Astros franchise.

“It was a funny experience,” he said. “They did so many things. One of the things we learned to hate, they bought traveling outfits for us. They were royal blue suits and Texan boots that were blue with an orange design in them. You wore a white shirt that had blue stripes with an orange tie and a ten gallon hat. You wore it on the road. When we went to New York, they said, ‘Hey, the rodeo is in town!' The first thing we’d do, to the man, we’d throw them things down and put on regular clothes when were in public. We only had to wear them when we traveled.”

He took his experiences from the big leagues and used them to help shape the lives of the next generation, working for over 20 years as a high school English teacher, as well as a baseball and football coach at Lawrence Central High School in Indianapolis. In retirement, Kemmerer married both of his careers with his 2002 memoir with the title containing a tribute to his most famous teammate.

“The title came from an incident when I was senior in high school in Pittsburgh and the Red Sox came to Forbes Field to play in the Green Pennant Game to raise funds for something,” he said. “The Red Sox had been scouting me since I was a sophomore in high school, so they wanted me to come in and throw batting practice. … I learned later that major league players didn’t like to hit wild high school kids. I pitched through the reserve batting order. I turned around and [Ted] Williams looked up in the batter’s box and oh damn, he pointed the bat out to me and said, ‘Hey kid, just get it over the plate, you’re doing a good job.’ … I remembered that when I was looking for the title of the book.”

Kemmerer forged a relationship with Williams that lasted until his 2002 death, appearing at annual gatherings at Williams’ museum in Tampa. He appreciated the humility of Williams and the other stars of his era.

“One thing I realized about all of these guys that I played with and against,” he said, “they respected you for the fact that you stayed up there ten years or so. There was none of this, ‘I’m a Hall of Famer and you’re not’. I was always pleased that guys admired you because you were one of them.”

Speaking with him in 2008, I was most impressed with how willing he was to talk about the game and the many travels of his career. He relished the opportunity to interact with his fans whether it was by talking on the phone or responding to autograph requests in the mail.

“I never refuse anybody,” he said. “I think it’s a great honor that they even remember you. … I’ll talk all day about baseball if someone wants to talk.”

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For ex-major leaguer Bob Tufts, the 2014 World Series was one of dual devotions

Former major league pitcher Bob Tufts watched the 2014 World Series between the Kansas City Royals and San Francisco Giants with great anticipation as his two former clubs squared off in what was an epic series. While it has been over 30 years since he threw a pitch professionally, Tufts still follows the game closely and is not shy about sharing his opinions on the current state of the sport.

I recently caught up with the Princeton graduate to talk about his feeling on this year's World Series and where he made his allegiances as the playoffs progressed.

"World Series tugs at both sides for Forest Hills resident."- TimesLedger.com

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Jean-Pierre Roy, former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher and master storyteller dies at 94

Often a major league baseball player’s statistics do not even come close to telling their baseball career in its entirety. Looking at Jean-Pierre Roy's three major league appearances and 9.95 ERA, one might assume it was a career short on depth and substance. Those who passed over his career as a mere cup of coffee missed a truly fabulous journey. The Montreal native died Friday at a hospital in Pompano Beach, Florida, taking his fabulous stories of playing all throughout North America, Central America, and the Caribbean with him. He was 94.

Jean-Pierre Roy w/ Nicholas Diunte in 2011 - M. Lemieux

In February 2011, I had the opportunity to visit Mr. Roy at his home in Florida and spend a glorious afternoon discussing a baseball career that started in 1940 and lasted over 40 years. Knowing that he played in a variety of countries like Cuba, Mexico, and Panama, in addition to the United States and Canada, I expected that he had a few hidden gems to unravel. What I did not expect from the 91-year-old Roy, was a raconteur in the essence of Buck O’Neil; a man who could deliver his memories not only with clarity and precision but with an elegance that drew you in from the first words and left you feeling that you had been long lost friends.

A short meeting arranged by a Canadian reporter Michel Lemieux turned into a three-hour long history lesson, with Roy pulling out meticulous scrapbooks along the way. He evoked the names of baseball legends from the 1930s through the 1950s, coming up with a story or an encounter for virtually every significant baseball figure from that era.

I could regale you with details of his minor league triumphs, a map of all of the places he played, or a list of all of the superstars he befriended; however, telling those details wouldn’t do justice to the essence of Jean-Pierre Roy. To meet him was to know him, and I can’t say that about every ballplayer I’ve interviewed. He immediately expressed an excitement about his career from the start of our talk, most evident from his recall of what hooked him into the prospects of a professional career.

Jean-Pierre Roy shares a laugh - M. Lemieux

“The reason why I enjoyed playing ball and going away from the city of Montreal to travel—I got to learn part of the language,” Roy said during our 2011 interview. “You meet all kinds of people, you do all kinds of things that you shouldn’t be doing. I tried them all! I met people that I wouldn’t dare associate with if I were a ballplayer today. I was so happy to play the game; I loved the game. I put things aside for baseball. Of course, today, I regret some of them. I missed the opportunity in certain other fields. That’s what I had in mind, play the game, travel and meet people and everything, so that satisfied me.”

Playing in the Brooklyn Dodgers organization, one of the most eccentric characters Roy met was Branch Rickey. Throughout his many dealings with Mr. Rickey, he was most impressed with the executive's ability to read people.

“He was a very intelligent man,” he said. “He was a university product. He had been a teacher, manager, and player. He had a good knowledge of humanity. A human for Mr. Rickey could have been a ballplayer, hockey player, a raconteur; he knew each one and why they would make an excellent selection.”

Roy had the reputation of being a ladies' man, which didn't sit well with Mr. Rickey. He fondly recalled an exchange between the two of them where Rickey offered him a bonus if he would get married. It wasn’t until much later that he understood why Rickey made the request.

“One time he wanted me to get married,” he said. “It was 1944. I wasn’t the marrying type. I wanted to meet girls, yes I did. That wasn’t on my mind. He said, ‘Jean (with his eyebrows going down this way and his cigar in the corner), I’m going to give you $2,000 if you get married before or on the first of November.’ Before or on the first of November, why not the second or the fourth? That boggled my mind. Of course, I didn’t get married. I didn’t tell him why.”

Branch Rickey's insistence to marry before the first of the month weighed heavily on his conscience. Roy chose to remain single but felt compelled to inquire as to why Rickey gave him a deadline.

“Why did he say this, on the first or before,” Roy asked. “He wanted me to get married before. It wasn’t the $2,000. He knew if I did, I’d get paid after, not before. Mr. Rickey was very selective in his own way. This is very vivid in my mind. Later on, I had the audacity to ask him, ‘Why did you say the first?’ He said, ‘What do you mean Jean? What did I say?’ So I told him, ‘You wanted me to get married on the first of November. Why the first?’ He said, ‘If I said, about the first, that wouldn’t change anything, because I wanted you to get married. That was the first thing, not to play ball, but to play better ball, to understand the game better and yourself. You cannot play well when you have several things on your mind at once, and you have that. You were not the ballplayer that I wanted. You had the ability that I wanted, but you had to do so much more to make yourself available not only to me but to other people.’ That was Mr. Rickey.”

If he adhered to Rickey's request to get married, he might have gone to the big leagues sooner than his 1946 debut. He started the season on Brooklyn’s roster, but it was almost a month before he saw action in a major league game. Even though he only appeared in three contests, he viewed it as an honor just to be there.

“It was thrilling,” he said. “My big fault … if I had established myself as a human being, if I listened to things I heard and Mr. Rickey, I could have done much better than I did. Not only for one particular game but for several games.”

Soured by his performance with Brooklyn and Leo Durocher’s seemingly quick hook, Roy contemplated going south for greater riches. Jorge Pasquel, who knew Roy from his days in Cuba, attempted to lure the Canadian to Mexico for his fledgling baseball league.

“I did not go,” he said. “[Pasquel] was a friend of mine because he used to come to Cuba. If it pleased him, he’d take us out to eat together and give me a watch. I was close to him. He comes to New York and tells me, ‘I’m going to bring you to Mexico City. You are going to play for our club and our league. I’m going to send you the money.’ He offered $3,500 for the trip. I went down and the money was $15,000, big money at the time. I was not worth $15,000 as a pitcher in Mexico. Today I say I wasn’t, but at the time it touched me.”

Roy followed the money, hoping to earn his riches in front of the Mexico City crowds. Once he set foot on Mexican soil, he discovered that Pasquel had a different destination in mind.

“He was a friend,” he said. “Of course, I needed the money. My mother was not well and I had my mother on my mind. I jumped and as soon as I got to Mexico, I went to Jorge and said, ‘Jorge, I do not see anybody.’ He’s sitting on a bench facing the window. He says, ‘I send you to San Luis Potosi.’ That was a little city he was sending me to. At the time, the commissioner of baseball in Cuba was a guy named Pittman. He told me I was going there. That’s not what I wanted; I thought it was Mexico City. I came back and went to Montreal.”

He returned to the Montreal right in the middle of Jackie Robinson’s historic debut season. On April 18, 1946, Robinson broke the color line in the minor leagues when he played in Montreal’s season opener against the Jersey City Giants. Roy spent the rest of the season with him and built together a kinship that lasted the remainder of his time in the Dodgers organization. This relationship allowed him to gain insight into Robinson’s character both on and off the field.

“He’s everything that has been recommended,” he said, “a complete ballplayer. [He was] a fellow who can create according to his ability and put it together at the right time to help somehow. That’s something that I remember about him … Jackie used to do it on his own. He was so strong, mentally, that I still believe, he died from this—he got hurt so badly by not being recognized as a future manager. He wanted to be a manager; that he told me.”

Throughout his global baseball travels, Roy had many opportunities to play against the stars of the Negro Leagues in their prime. He shared vivid stories about all of the greats who were held back and excluded due to segregation. What he admired most was their ability to play the game despite the harsh conditions they faced.

“They didn’t care,” he said. “They played the game and that was it. I spoke with them very often. They would say, ‘We’re playing the game. We get paid for it because we’ve got to eat. Take this apart, it doesn’t matter. We want to play.’”

Roy never returned to the major leagues, bouncing around minor league teams everywhere in places like Ottawa, Hollywood, and Mexico City. He hung his spikes up for good in 1955 while playing for Sherbrooke in the Provincial League. At 35, he knew it was time to move on.

“I was too old for that organization,” he said. “I didn’t care too much for it because when you are through, you are through.”

Jean-Pierre Roy comfortable behind the microphone - M. Lemieux

However, he didn’t stay removed for too long, as Montreal Expos executive John McHale selected Roy to do radio and television analysis when the franchise started in 1969. He remained involved as part of their broadcast team until 1983.

“I was there from day one,” he said. “This is it in Montreal. This is a childish dream. I played in Montreal; I knew they would accept it. In that ballpark, that Double-A ballpark. Mr. John McHale, I owe him a great deal of recognizance. He was the type like Branch Rickey, but there is only one Branch Rickey as far as I am concerned.”

Broadcasting in an era far away from the reach of the hypersensitive media outlets of today, Roy said that the on-air personnel face far greater challenges with what they can say and how the fans interpret their words.

“They’ve gotta be very careful because you have many writers who are knowledgeable and they have friends,” he said. “Today’s sports are so influential on people. It is a big business to start with. Big business means big dollars, and when you have big dollars, you have everything else that is big or will become big. You’ve gotta be careful how you say your ideas whenever it comes up.

“That doesn’t mean being transparent doesn’t mean having to say the truth; you have to be careful. You have to say the truth in a certain way. It’s said in a business way. At the same time, you have to communicate to who is listening to you. You have to communicate honestly and show you have the knowledge. Having all this is a plus and a minus. You know, they used to say ‘off the cover,’ but that doesn’t exist anymore. … Everything is seen by the listener as a truthful communication. It might not be complete as the communication is concerned. You cannot say everything that is on your mind to millions of people at once. This is something very fascinating to me.”

As our interview progressed during that sunny Florida winter afternoon in 2011, Roy assumed the role of a broadcaster during a rain delay, detailing his vast baseball experiences with tremendous pride. I listened with wide ears as he professed his love affair with the game.

“My pleasure and the best memory I have of the game is what I know about it,” he said. “The little I know about it, the people I have known, and the people I see on television. Today it’s baseball to me.

“It’s the answer I would have given you yesterday and the day before yesterday. What I like about baseball is not the players; it’s the life, the life of a human being. This is how you should accept it. Do the best you can in the things our boss has asked us to do. By boss, you can call it God, the manager, the Lord, but that’s it. This is what I want, what I like to see.”

At the end of our conversation, we thumbed through scrapbooks of sixty-year-old photos that depicted the travels of a young handsome pitcher. As we reviewed the images, Roy expressed contrition for the transgressions of his earlier days.

“Why should I go back 50 years and regret things that happened at that time?” he asked. “I made mistakes in baseball, made more mistakes than I was allowed to. That was my choice; let it be, it’s my fault. That’s the part I have to read to the public. If they want to know the rest, they can. If they like me now for what I can express as far as the game myself, I hope they accept it.

“Baseball is a great game. If we can take advantage of all of the ingredients of the game and the minds that commanded the game for years like Mr. Rickey. … He is the God of baseball as far as I’m concerned. There are so many names took birth with that gentlemen. [By] birth, I say the first day they played the game was an account of Mr. Rickey. That’s a gift from him.”

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Frank Howard emphatically endorses Gil Hodges Hall of Fame candidacy

While a statue of Frank Howard towers over spectators at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., the 6’7” slugger is also a well known figure in New York, where he was a coach for both the Yankees and Mets (serving as a manager for the latter in 1983). On Saturday, the 78-year-old Howard returned to New York as a guest at the JP Sports Long Island National Card Show at Hofstra University, signing autographs for a few hundred fans that waited patiently to greet one of the most feared power hitters in baseball history.

Frank Howard signing autographs / N. Diunte

Reflecting on his return to New York, Howard drummed up a lot of positive memories, including when he played basketball for Ohio State at Madison Square Garden in 1956. He set a Garden Festival tournament record with 32 rebounds in one game.

 

“You know, [playing] in the old Madison Square Garden, the ten years I coached here, six with the Mets, four with the Yankees, [were] really ten of the greatest years of my life,” Howard said on Saturday. “The ball clubs we had really weren’t real strong contending clubs, but they were clubs that were entertaining and fun to watch.”

Howard made his mark in New York as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers during the 1963 World Series when they squared off against the New York Yankees. He hit two monstrous shots off of Whitey Ford in Games 1 and 4 en route to a Dodgers sweep that are still talked about amongst New York baseball fans. He chose to very humbly tip his cap to the Hall of Fame pitcher, rather than relive the glory of his tape-measure blasts.

“Whitey Ford is the professional’s professional, he’s the pro’s pro,” Howard said. "He’s in the Hall of Fame for one reason: besides having outstanding equipment, [he had] a great baseball mind, a big Yankee heart and fire in his belly every time he went to the mound. That’s the reason why they’re in the Hall of Fame; that kind of talent only comes around every 25-30 years in baseball."

Caught in the midst of this year’s World Series match-up between the Kansas City Royals and the San Francisco Giants, Howard remarked upon his experiences as a World Series champion. He found tremendous pride in being part of a winning team.

“It’s America, they love winners,” he said. “You’ll get more recognition being on a World Championship club than you will in all of the individual accomplishments that you might set or do. Recognition comes from being on a winner.”

Later in his career, Howard continued in the lineage of his former teammate and manager Gil Hodges, serving as interim manager for the New York Mets in 1983, replacing George Bamberger midway through the season. He recalled Hodges as one of the best baseball men he’s ever met.

Frank Howard watching Gil Hodges in spring training

“[He] knows the game of baseball from A-to-Z,” he said. “[He was] probably the most fundamentally sound, or as fundamentally a sound manager and player that has ever played in the big leagues. The epitome of presence, class, charisma … he would walk into a room and the room would light up.”

Hodges’ candidacy for the Hall of Fame is always a passionate topic, as his combined accomplishments as a player and manager warrant strong consideration from the Veterans Committee. While Howard does not have a Hall of Fame vote, he is certainly in support for his induction.

“That’s up to the writers. … I’m a little biased, but I think he does.”

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Pat McGlothin, Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher who once pitched a 19 inning game, dies at 94

Ezra Malachi “Pat” McGlothin, who pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1949-50, passed away on Friday October 24, 2014 in Knoxville, Tennessee, just a few days after his 94th birthday. McGlothin, a lifelong resident of Tennessee, was also a World War II veteran and a University of Tennessee alumnus.

During his two brief stints with Brooklyn, he made eight relief appearances over the course of two seasons, a position that was unfamiliar to him before he hit the big leagues.

"The Dodgers wanted to use me as a relief pitcher,” McGlothin said during a 2008 phone interview, “but that wasn't my forte. I didn't have that kind of arm to make the adjustment. I had a pretty good arm and I could throw every fifth day, but I couldn't relieve."

While much acclaim has gone to Tim Hudson of the San Francisco Giants for his involvement in two separate 18-inning playoff games, McGlothin had a herculean feat of his own that will be difficult for any modern era pitcher to match. On September 24, 1944, he pitched for the Corpus Christi NATB team, taking on the Pensacola NATB All-Stars led by Ted Williams. In a back and forth contest, Williams’ club knotted the score at four in the ninth inning, and the score stayed that way until the 17th inning when both clubs scored a run. Despite throwing over 200 pitches, McGlothin refused to come out. He forged his way through 19 innings, knocking in three runs, including the game winner in the bottom of the 19th. As for the legendary Williams, he had no answer for McGlothin, going hitless in seven trips to the plate. McGlothin took the legendary accomplishment in stride.

“I just stayed in there that's all and won the game,” he said.

After wrapping up his baseball playing days in 1954 as a player-manager for the Knoxville Smokies, he made a career change to selling insurance that would last him the next 60 years. McGlothin worked for the Mutual Insurance Agency, eventually buying the company. He remained their CEO until the time of his death, spending a few hours each day at the office with the help of a ride from an employee when he could no longer drive.

McGlothin played alongside all of the famed "Boys of Summer," including Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella, and Duke Snider. While he isn't as revered as some of his Hall of Fame teammates, he humbly acknowledged his position in the game.

"I didn't necessarily think I was part of history, I just played hoping I would stay," he said in a 2011 interview with television station WBIR.

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Mickey Rivers video interview from the 2014 Harrison Apar Foundation Golf Classic

Mickey Rivers, the starting center fielder for the New York Yankees World Series championship teams in 1977 and 1978, sat down with us at the 2014 Harrison Apar Foundation Golf Classic to talk about Yankee baseball, including both captains Thurman Munson and Derek Jeter, as well as his enjoyment of being out with the people at various charity events.

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Earl Smith, last player to wear 21 on Pirates before Clemente, dies at 87

Pittsburgh Pirates fans can hardly remember a day when number 21 wasn’t worn by Roberto Clemente, but for the first month of Clemente’s 1955 rookie season, the famed number was on the back of another upstart Pirates outfielder, Earl Smith. The Fresno State graduate who challenged for the Pirates center field spot alongside Clemente that season, passed away September 27, 2014 in Fresno, California. He was 87.

Smith signed with the Pirates in 1949 and hit .324 during his first two minor league campaigns, driving in 100 runs with Modesto in 1950; however, it wasn’t until 1954 that he garnered the full attention of the Pirates front office. He hit an astonishing .387 with 32 home runs, 195 RBIs and 42 stolen bases for Phoenix, which earned him an invite to spring training in 1955.

Earl Smith  -  Kevin Baskin

Coming from one of the lowest levels of minor league ball at the time, he was facing an uphill battle going into spring training. Despite the long odds, he was excited to get the chance to compete for a major league roster spot after six seasons in the depths of their minor league system.

“It was something that you strive for,” Smith said during our 2011 phone interview. “You think you deserve a chance after a while. … I don’t know all of the politics of it, but I was real happy to have the opportunity to get the chance to go there.”

Most observers felt that Smith was going to be sent down for more seasoning after a trial in front of the big wigs, but Smith persisted. In an outfield that was only returning one starter in Frank Thomas, Branch Rickey was looking to fill the rest of the lineup with promising young talent. Smith batted over .400 during spring training to earn his place with Pittsburgh when they broke camp.

Smith was pegged to platoon with Tom Saffell in center field to handle the National League's left-handed pitchers. He made his debut in Pittsburgh’s second game of the season against the Philadelphia Phillies, going 0-3 against Herm Wehmeier. The road continued to get rougher for Smith. He played in four of the Pirates first six games, going 1-12 with only a single off of the Giants’ Don Liddle. He sensed his window of opportunity closing faster than expected.

“I was supposedly alternating with Tom Saffell,” Smith said. “He came from the Pacific Coast League. He was left-handed and I was right. I didn’t get too much of a chance; I had 12 [sic] at-bats or something. What I’m telling you is probably speculation; the facts I didn’t know because we weren’t told that much of anything really.”

Pirates manager Fred Haney put him in the lineup only one more time, starting in a 5-0 loss to the Cincinnati Reds on April 29, 1955. His 0-4 performance left him with a career batting average of .063 (1-16). He never returned to the major leagues.

“When [Branch] Rickey took over, he brought his own fellows in,” he said. “We were the last of the guys to be from the old regime so to speak before he took over Pittsburgh. … He knew what he wanted and we didn’t fit the mold.”

His departure allowed Clemente to drop number 13 in favor of Smith’s 21. It was the last time anyone else in a Pirates uniform wore the number. Even though their time together was brief, Smith could see Clemente’s talent and the backing he had from management.

“Without a doubt, he was one of the better up and coming young guys,” he said. “He had the full support of all the staff and that made the big difference.”

Smith last just one more season in professional baseball, calling it quits at the end of the 1956 season after bouncing around different farm clubs. The toll on his family became too great to bear.

“I look back on it, and that was probably my fault a little bit because they weren’t playing me too much in New Orleans because they had their team set,” he said. “I wanted to play more and I didn’t produce like I should have when I got in, so they moved me to Lincoln and that was sort of the downfall. ... I had a family and we were traveling. One year my wife traveled five or six-thousand miles just to keep up with me. … It was a tough go for the dough in those days so to speak.”

Back home in Fresno after hanging up his spikes, Smith entered a completely different line of work than what he prepared for at Fresno State. He studied to work in the athletic coaching field, but one of his baseball contacts swayed him into running a grocery store.

“When I was here and I played for the Cardinals, one of the backers had a grocery store chain,” he said. “I had gone to college to become a coach, but at that time coaching didn’t pay very much. A grocery job paid more, so that’s what I went into and stayed 40 years.”

Long removed from his playing days, Smith said enjoyed the correspondence from the Pirates semi-annual Black and Gold alumni newsletter, which allowed him to keep up with his former teammates.

“They send me information quite often and schedules for different things,” he said. “I haven’t been one to join up with some of the things they wanted, but I’m still interested in seeing the facts of the guys I played with.”

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A candid Willie Mays talking baseball with Billy Sample

Willie Mays

Billy Sample, former major league outfielder of nine major league seasons, talked shop with the legendary Willie Mays in the spring of 2004.

In this 15-minute interview, Mays is rather lucid as they discuss his career from humble beginnings in Alabama, making his way from the Negro Leagues all the way to the Hall of Fame.
 

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Bob Wiesler, climbed the Yankee ranks with Mantle, passes away at 83

Bob Wiesler wasn't even 21 years old when he first stepped on the mound at Yankee Stadium on August, 3, 1951. Looking up at the large crowd, Wiesler admitted that his nerves had set in before he threw his first pitch.

“[I was nervous] in front of all of those people!” Wiesler said to Kenneth Hogan in Batting 10th for the Yankees. “We used to have 1,000 in the minors. In Kansas City, we‘d usually have about 4,000. In Yankee Stadium they used to almost have full houses.”

Wiesler, who went on to enjoy six seasons in front of those packed crowds with the Yankees and Washington Senators in the 1950s, passed away August 10, 2014 at his home in Florissant, Missouri, just three days shy of his 84th birthday.

Bob Wiesler / Lonecadaver.net

The 6’3” lefty pitcher was a star at Beaumont High School in St. Louis, the same school that also spawned major leaguers Roy Sievers, Bobby Hofman, and future Hall of Fame manager Earl Weaver. Many clubs aggressively pursued Wiesler in high school, but his admiration for Lou Gehrig drew him to the famous pinstripes.

“I read the book Pride of the Yankees and from that point Lou Gehrig was my idol,” he said. “I had the same kind of deal with each [team] so I picked the Yankees.”

He was assigned to their Class D team in Independence, Kansas, and was joined by another local sensation, Mickey Mantle. They played together for two seasons, working their way up the ladder of the Yankees system.

“He came out of high school in 1949 and joined us in Independence,” he told me in a 2008 interview. “He had a pretty good year, but in Joplin, he was tearing the ball up. [He] hit like .380 or .390, something like that and had a fabulous year.”

Wiesler did well himself at Joplin in 1950, going 15-7 with a 2.35 ERA. His performance attracted the attention of the Yankees management, earning him an invite to a special rookie school with Mantle for further development.

“Mantle and I, and quite a few others that they called prospects were down there in Arizona,” he said. “I impressed them that much to go to spring training in Kansas City and I stayed with them.”

With only two years under his belt, Wiesler was one step away from the major leagues in AAA with Kansas City. He continued to harness his control while in AAA, testing his stuff against those who had major league experience.

“There were some good ballplayers there,” he said. “There were a lot of veterans that were up.”

About halfway through the 1951 season, Mantle and another young pitcher Tom Morgan were not progressing fast enough at the Major League level as the Yankees desired. Looking for a change, the Yankees recalled Wiesler who was among the league leaders in strikeouts.

Playing for the division leaders, Wiesler only had the opportunity to pitch in four games, including an 8-0 loss in his debut against the St. Louis Browns. Forcing the Yankees hand was Mantle, who hit .364 in 40 games with 11 home runs. The two switched places again on August 21st.

“They sent me back down in August,” he said to Hogan, “but they did send me a little check at the end of the year after they split the World Series money.”

Wiesler had little time to enjoy his World Series share, as he was activated from his National Guard service in November. He was sent to Fort Allen, Vermont, where he spent the entire 1952 season on active duty.

After working his way back into playing shape with a full season in at AAA in 1953, the Yankees gave Wiesler another shot in 1954. Just as he was getting his footing in the major leagues, the rug was abruptly pulled from beneath him.

“I had won three games for them,” he said, “and I was supposed to pitch on a Sunday [against Baltimore]. They signed Ralph Branca who was released; he traveled with us and threw batting practice. George Weiss decided to sign him and sent me back down. I wasn't too happy about that.”

Displeased with the decision, Wiesler begrudgingly accepted his demotion. He worked his way back to the Yankees in 1955 and lasted the entire season, en route to a World Series showdown with the Brooklyn Dodgers. He did not pitch in the World Series, but was on the roster to unfortunately witness Johnny Podres help the Dodgers take Brooklyn’s only championship.

Wiesler was selected to go on a tour of Japan with the Yankees after the season, playing in Hawaii and Manila en route to the Land of the Rising Sun. That trip was the last time he wore a Yankee uniform. Early in spring training, he was involved in a seven-player trade with the Washington Senators that included Whitey Herzog. He took the baseball elevator all the way to the proverbial basement.

“I went from a first-place club to a last-place club. It was kind of disappointing,” he said; however, the move did have a small advantage. “I got to pitch more at Washington— I got to start every fourth day.”

He did the bulk of his pitching with Washington in 1956, appearing in 37 games, starting 21, but was plagued by a lack of control. He walked 112 batters in 123 innings on his way to a 3-12 record. It was his last season as a regular in the major leagues, save for cups of coffee in 1957 and 1958.

He finished his playing career in 1961 with Dallas Fort-Worth, ending with a 7-19 record in 70 major league games. He went to work for Anheuser-Busch, and stayed involved with baseball by pitching batting practice for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1964-1968. It didn’t take long for him to reconnect with his Yankee roots.

“I started throwing batting practice for the Cardinals in 1964 and here I am pitching for them and they’re playing the Yankees in the World Series!”


* Note - Wiesler played in Independence, Kansas, in 1949, not Missouri as originally reported.

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