Whack!

“Go ahead, ask me your questions.”

“OK, first, why do you hit the ball like that?”

“Like what?”  Whack! 

She gestures as though directing traffic. “Your arms go one way and your legs go another.”

“See this is why I don’t bring you out here.”

“I’m not criticizing.  I’m just asking.  Your legs are –“

Whack!  “Leave my legs alone.  You aren’t doing an expose on my golf swing.  It’s bad enough you’re doing an investigation about baseball.”

“I’m not doing “an expose,” makes air quotes with fingers, ”or investigation on baseball.  I love this story.  If only you’d cooperate.  You give more information to sportswriters than your own wife.”

 “What do you want to know?”   He takes out another club.

“I want to know about your uncle.  There’s a connection between the two of you.  You both” Whack! “were signed by major league ball clubs, you were both pitchers.  You said you think he was left handed, too.  You were drafted by the Red Sox, he was signed by the Yankees, the greatest rivalry in sports.”

“Thank you Major League Baseball.  I have a question.”  Whack!

“Yeah?”

“Were you going to ask me a question any time soon.”

“You’re such a butt.”

 “Keep talking.”

“Do you think that you were groomed by your dad to be a ball player like your uncle?”  She pauses.   “You’ve stopped swinging.”

“Doing this is so much more fun than playing golf.”

“Go ahead.  Swing and then talk.”

Whack!  “#@%@#” 

“Dad taught me to throw overhand, not side armed or three quarters.  It’s not a natural throw for the body.  Uh, Dad didn’t want to replace his brother with me, but he did want me to be a big league pitcher.”  He looks over his left shoulder.   ”What?  What does that mean?”

“Swing.  You’re happier when you swing!”

“I’m happier when I come out here with old farts who look just like me and cuss worse.”  Leans against the golf cart.

“I’m sorry I wagged my finger at you.  Swing.”  Whack!

 “I was good with it.  I enjoyed playing ball.   Dad was on the board of directors of my Little League.  Mom and Dad came to my games.”

“Yes.”  She drops her pencil on the ground.  “Go ahead.”  Whack!  “And when you signed with the Pirates after high school.  How did your folks feel about that?”

“It was 1963.  I got a $30,000 signing bonus.  Were you and I even making minimum wage then?   I had been a box boy.  I bought a Pontiac Grand Prix and then made a down payment on a house for my parents.  That’s how much $30,000 got you in 1963.  Yeah, my parents were pretty happy when I signed.”

 “Hit.  Swing.  Whatever.”

“You continue to impress me with how little you know about golf, baseball, any sport that doesn’t’ require a pommel horse.  Jeez.!”  Whack!  Waits.  Whack!

 “I won’t let you distract me.  You and your uncle had similar backgrounds, and I’d probably find more if there is anyone alive to tell me.”

“They’re all dead!”

“Well that was kind of surly.  I was speaking abstractly.”  Whack!

“Abstract me this, Little Goose.  Are we close to the end of the questions.  I never thought I would say this:  I want to leave the driving range.”

 “Ahmmm, you had similar backgrounds.  Both signed with major league clubs.  And then?”  Whack!

“You’re repeating yourself.  George was 19 years old, 14 years younger than Dad.  Yes, he was Dad’s baby brother.  He was signed by the Yankees and was going to report to spring training 1942.  In December 1941 he was in the Army Air Corps on Ford Island.  Know where that is?  Middle of Pearl Harbor.  On December 7, the Japanese Empire bombed.   George and his buddies got in what was left of their planes and—” Whack! “went after the Japanese Fleet.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the end of our program.”

“And what happened to –”

“No, that’s all.”

 “Wait, I have one more question.  Whose idea–”

 “Couldn’t tell you.”

  The Red Sox home opener crowd cheered politely as the visiting Seattle Mariners were introduced and took their places between third base and home plate.  Then the 2007 Red Sox team was  introduced one by one, and the fans cheered  as if they knew how the season was going to end.  The PA  called out each of the names:  “Batting second, No. 20 First Base Kevin Youkilis. “   “Batting fourth, No 34 Designated Hitter Big Papi David Ortiz.”  “Batting Seventh, Catcher and Captain Jason Varichek. “  “Batting ninth, rookie Second Base Dustin Pedroia.”  They slapped hands and high 5’d each other as they formed a line between home plate and first base. 

Twenty guys  in their 60s and 70s stood behind a huge piece of canvas that hung from the top of the Green Monster, the left field wall in Fenway Park.  The canvas almost touched the brick red dirt that met the base of the wall.   They had been led from a service door to walk single file between the canvas and the wall.  They waited.

The Green Monster was part of the original construction in 1912, but wasn’t painted green until 1947.  It stands at 37 feet—and two inches.  It’s the two inches that get batters.  Hits that would be home runs in any other park are doubles in Fenway.  Red Sox outfielders are masters at jai alai-like movements. Seats were added above the wall in 2002 and 2005.  A ticket for a seat in a section of the Green Monster sells for about $160.  That’s per game.  Hot dogs from Monster concessions are extra.  In comparison, seats in other areas of the park sell for an average of $50.  Just as with real estate, it’s location, location, location.

USA Today polled readers asking, “If you could sit anywhere at any ballpark in the major leagues, where would it be.”  The enthusiastic response:  

Fenway Park’s Green Monster seat, Section M6, Row 1, Seat 12. This seat atop Fenway’s 37-foot high, 231-foot long left-field wall puts you on top of the action. Home runs rise up into your face. You can hear the thwack of doubles bouncing off the wall below you. But the first thing that grabs you is the elevation. The Monster is four stories high. You feel like you’re on a ledge looking down on new Red Sox left fielder Jason Bay.

Jason Bay came to the Red Sox in 2008 from the Pirates.  He has been batting over .300 and is called the “new Yankee killer.” He hits  over the Green Monster and defensively has proved that at left field he neutralizes opponents’ hits that come to the wall.

YOU CAN BET WE’LL FIGHT THE FIRST CHANCE WE GET

Bay continues a long tradition:  Red Sox-Yankees rivalry.  The Boston Red Sox-New York Yankees inter-murals is one of the oldest and most intense rivalries in American sports.   The teams have played and fought on each others’ fields and in the press.   The trade of George H. Ruth from the Red Sox to the Yankees is seen as the cause of the reversal of fortunes and the creation of the phrase that has let to brawls, “Curse of the Bambino.”

Carl Yastrzemski, a proud defender of the Green Monster for 23 years, said, “I respected the Yankees.  Respected ‘em, but didn’t like ‘em. You wanted to beat the Yankees more than any other team. Not only did you want to win, but you wanted to grind ‘em into the ground.”

 “You can bet we’ll fight the first chance we get,” said Yankee Bernie Williams. “It’s not like we want to, but deep down we are all entertainers. Us not fighting would be like Lynard Skynard doing a show and not doing ‘Freebird’ or the Stones not performing ‘Satisfaction.’ It’s just not right for the fans. They pay good money to come see us kick the shit out of each other, and we won’t disappoint..”

THE YANKEES WERE LIKE A BUNCH OF HOOKERS SWINGING THEIR PURSES

 It never ends.  It is rivalry personified in players, managers and the fans.  The way batters stand at the plate, point the bat at the pitcher, the speed at which they run around the bases.  The way the pitchers zing a pitch past a batting helmet.  Turf wars.

In the fourth inning at Fenway Park on October 11, 2003, Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martínez hit Yankee batter outfielder Karim Garcia.  That lead to an argument between the two players, which ended with both teams emptying the dugouts. In the bottom half of the inning, a pitch from Roger Clemens to Manny Ramirez  was high, and the benches cleared with both sides brawling. Yankee bench coach Don Zimmer charged at Martinez, who then grabbed Zimmer’s head and swung him to the ground.  Stuff of World Wrestling Federation.

Later, midway through the ninth inning, Garcia and Yankee pitcher Jeff Nelson  fought with Fenway Park groundskeeper Williams.  Apparently, Williams was cheering for the Red Sox while he was in the Yankee bullpen.  Nelson said he was waving a “rally” flag.  Williams said it was a white towel.  Nelson asked him to leave, and Nelson said Williams took a swing at him.  At that point, Garcia, still with some fight in him from the fourth inning brawl, climbed over the bullpen wall.  Police got involved, and Williams was taken to the hospital.  He had cleat marks on his back and one arm.  A spokesperson for the Yankees was appalled at the “lawlessness in Boston.”  Garcia and Nelson later agreed to perform 50 hours of community service.  Hopefully, not in Boston.

In another rout on July 24, 2004, there was a long rain delay to start the game.  Yankee Alex Rodríguez and Red Sox catcher  Jason Varitek  started a fight that cleared the benches after Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo hit Rodríguez with a pitch.  Varitek positioned himself in front of Rodriguez and then, while wearing his catcher’s mask, pushed Rodriguez.  Both players were ejected from the game, as were Sox outfielders Gabe Kapler and Trot Nixon for their participation in the secondary fight with Yankees pitcher Tanyon Sturtze, making themselves eligible for end-of-year best supporting performance award.   Some Yankees, badly miscalculating the day, assumed the game would be called because of rain and had showered before the festivities began.

THE OLD FASHIONED PITCHER, THE IRON-ARMED PITCHER, THE STOUT-HEARTED PITCHER

There was a fight between the Red Sox and Yankees in 1967 that gets points for creativity.  On June 21 Yankee pitcher Thad Tillotson hit Joe Foy in the helmet.  In the second inning Red Sox pitcher Jim Lonborg hit Tillotson between the shoulder blades.  As Tillotson trotted to first base, he pointed his bat at Lonborg.  Foy, at third base, came out of the chute, yelling, “If you want to fight, fight me!” Both benches and bullpens emptied.  Red Sox Reggie Smith slammed Tillotson to the ground, beginning the first of many massage treatments of the day.

Giving groundskeepers legitimate grievances, Brooklyn brawlers on both teams threw dirt and grass at each other.   Three guys pulled on Smith as though he were a Christmas turkey.  There should have been a 15-yard penalty for piling on.  Twelve special cops working security broke up the fight.

 In the next inning Tillotson hit Lonborg, and the benches emptied again.  This time the boys just shoved each other. Probably too tired to wrestle. Lonborg brushed a batter back in the fourth inning and hit a batter in the fifth.  He later said, “The pitch just slipped.” He got the last word that day.

At the beginning of the 1967 season, the Red Sox organization brought in a new manager, Dick Williams.  He looked like a drill sergeant, with a requisite crew cut.  He was sixty percent entertainer. Whatever else he was didn’t keep the team from winning.    Nineteen sixty-seven became the year of the Impossible Dream, when the Red Sox won the most hotly contested and surprising pennant race in history.  New York finished next to last that year.  Boston showed New York how it was done in 1967.  It was Boston’s time.  Boston had more fight and more heart than New York.

Did Boston fans believe in the Impossible Dream?  Boston hadn’t won a pennant since 1946 and hadn’t won the World Series since 1918.  When the numbers started adding up in the Win column, the sportswriters and New England fans sat up and paid attention.  And then got interested.  And then excited.

Thirty-eight guys in 1967 became heroes for a lifetime, for a moment, for eternity.  They played a boy’s game that men want to play, and they did it magically.

At the Sox’ home opener, April 10, 2007, twenty guys stood behind the canvas, waiting.  A camera rolled back onto the field to reveal that the canvas was an American flag that covered the entire width and height of the Green Monster. 231’ x 37’2”. With all of the 2007 team on the field, Harry Connick, Jr., sang “America the Beautiful.” 

The guys stood, waiting.   There was a flyover by The Green Mountain Boys of the 158th Fighter Wing from the Vermont Air National Guard, four planes.

The announcer said that we will always remember the team that is unforgettable, that in 1967 there hadn’t been a pennant in Boston in 20 years, and that this team believed in itself.  In 2007 twenty members of the Impossible Dream Team stood behind the flag.  As their names were called and Robert Goulet sang “The Impossible Dream” from Man Of La Mancha, they walked from the Green Monster to the infield.   They all threw ceremonial first pitches to 2007 team members.

They were magical.

The third thing I noticed about my husband when I met him was the huge ring he wears on the ring finger of his right hand.  It’s gold with one small red ruby inside each half circle of a gold etched “B” on top of the ring.  Lettering goes around the “B” in a rounded square.  You can’t read the letters when he’s wearing the ring.  It’s difficult not to stare at it, out of curiosity, jealousy, or transferred pride.  When he’s asked about the ring, Bill looks at his finger in such a way that you think he hasn’t seen it before that moment.  He’s been wearing it for 42 years. 

             So you can see the details on the ring, it has to come off.  That only happens at night.  It clunks on the counter with authority.   The letters spell “BOSTON RED SOX AL CHAMPIONS.” On one side of the ring are the numbers 1967, and there are two socks, with the toes pointing to the right, etched on top of a baseball with two bats behind the ball.  On the other side is a etched baseball inside the mitt, a cap with a “B” in the bill of the cap, and two bats behind the cap (The way the bats  are positioned they look like horns).  On a banner is etched “ROHR,” my husband’s last name.  Quite a lot of detail.

            There is so much more detail that isn’t etched on that ring.

            At the beginning of the 1967 season, the new Red Sox manager Dick Williams announced that the club would “win more games than we lose.”  It seemed like a bold and perhaps foolish statement considering that the Sox ended the 1966 season in ninth place, half a game out of last place.  Ninth.  No one got an AL championship ring that season.  Odds makers had the Sox at 100-1 to win the American League championship in 1967.  They hadn’t won since 1946.  Fans didn’t buy tickets to their games.

            We went to a Red Sox game at Angel Stadium in Anaheim one year.  A father and young son were sitting next to us, and the father saw the ring.  He asked Bill if it was a World Series ring.  Bill said “No, it’s an American League championship ring.  We went to the World Series.”    That’s what he always says when asked.  I can’t imagine that he thinks that is useful information.   People continue the conversation as though he had just confirmed it’s a World Series ring.  St. Louis beat the Red Sox in the 1967 World Series. 

The father put his hand out, reaching toward Bill, and I thought, “You can’t be asking him to let you hold the ring.”  His hand just hung in the air.  Bill took the ring off and handed it to him.  He did it as casually as handing him a pen.  A disposable pen.  I had never seen him hand his ring to anyone.  The father looked at the ring and turned it over as though he was studying it for the answer to a secret.  Then he handed the ring to his son, who had been eating a hotdog.  What is he got mustard on the rubies? 

I watched every movement of father and son.  I imagined one of them, probably the son because he would have been faster, bolting across the row and then up the concrete steps of the aisle, then gone.  They would have had championship and World Series ring action that they ran out of their Fleetwood RV in the parking lot.  Trading, selling, and stealing.  Auctions on eBay.  Where do bidders think the sellers get the rings?

The 1967 AL championship rings were given out on Red Sox opening day 1968.   Bill wasn’t in Boston.  He had been traded to Cleveland.  As he describes it, he was pitching at the Mistake by the Lake, Cleveland Municipal Stadium.  Heywood Sullivan, the Red Sox general manager, delivered his ring to the clubhouse. His Indians teammates crowded around to look at it.   Bill put it in the valuables locker and went to the dugout.    He was on a different team now, and it was a new year.

The son handed the ring to his father, and the father handed it back to Bill.  I looked at it.  There wasn’t any mustard on it.  Bill put it back on, and I was able to concentrate on the game.  The Red Sox won.

BASEBALL IS A GAME THAT KIDS DREAM  ABOUT NO MATTER HOW OLD THEY ARE

Bill was born in the summer, nine days before the major league All-Star Game was scheduled to be held at Fenway Park.  It was cancelled—the only time it has been since its inception–because of World War II.

His dad gave him a real baseball when he was two years old.  He threw that ball to his dad:  all his fingers wrapped around the ball, overhand, wrist cocked back, arm high in the air, elbow straight.  Every day after his dad got home from work Bill threw the ball.   Every . . . day. 

Bill is a lefty.  He learned to pull his arm across his chest, his forearm extended, at the same time looking to see where the ball was going, release.  He began to hold a pitcher’s glove in his right hand, and his body became more coordinated, his throwing more skilled.  Wherever his dad held the mitt, Bill threw the ball.  Dad was a lefty, too.  He had to special order his Rawlings catcher’s mitt for $80.  He made $125 a week. 

When Bill was 10 years old he wore a uniform just like the big guys.  He played Little League and he wore a jersey, pants, cap, sanis, leggings, and rubber spikes.  He pitched in an All Star game.  He played PONY League in junior high school.  His father crouched and caught every night after work.  The two of them out in the yard. 

He was scouted by colleges and major league teams beginning his sophomore year at Bellflower High School.   Bill was on the freshman team and then on the varsity squad where he pitched four no-hitters. He was named most valuable player, first all league, was San Gabriel Valley League’s Player of the Year, and was three-year letterman.  (We were in the same league in high school, but didn’t know each other.  I probably sat in the bleachers at game he pitched.  We went to different high schools together.)  In the off-season, he played varsity basketball, because teenagers don’t need to rest.  

He was never interested in school politics, but was popular, and became senior class president.  He acted surprised and indifferent, but knew how it occurred.   He was chosen for Boys State and was supposed to go to Sacramento to study state government with other boys throughout the state, but he had baseball games to play.    

Bill paid attention to more than the strike zone.  He was a California Scholarship Federation seal bearer at graduation.

When he graduated from high school, he had choices among a full Stanford scholarship, the Naval Academy and signing with major league teams.  Of these choices he obviously could play baseball with the majors and with Stanford, and could also fly jets with the Navy.  The only person who wanted Bill to play baseball more than Bill was his dad.  No one looked beyond the dream of playing ball or flying jets.  He was going to play forever. 

AND IT’S RUN FOR THE ROSES AS FAST AS YOU CAN  YOUR FATE IS DELIVERED  YOUR MOMENT’S AT HAND[4]

 The day after Bill graduated from high school, he signed to play rookie league with the Pittsburg Pirates.  He got a $30,000 signing bonus and bought a red Pontiac Grand Prix, except that when he picked it up it was pink,   It should have concerned the Pirates that their new pitcher couldn’t differentiate between red and pink. 

A “Bonus Baby” was a new player who received a large signing bonus. He was called “baby” because he was signed right after high school or college.  The Bonus Baby Rule began in 1947 to prevent rich franchises from signing the best players and keeping them down on the farm.  The rule ended in 1965. 

The Pirates bonus baby got a plane ticket to Kingsport, Tennessee, where he was added to the roster of the Appalachian League.  He was picked up at the airport by the nephew of Branch Rickey.  His name was Branch Rickey III, and he was the General Manager.  To hide Bill from scouts, the team kept him on the disabled list, even though he was healthy.  He sat in the stands.  He never got to throw a pitch in a game!  Tough for a ballplayer who simply wanted to play ball.

The front office’s plan didn’t work.  Bill was drafted in November 1963 by the Red Sox.  It was the off-season, and Bill was back home, working at Miller’s Men’s Store.   He was helping businessmen who were in a hurry to try on suits.   He heard the news on the radio.  He went to spring training with The Bigs, and he moved on to Wellsville, New York for Class A ball.  Riding in buses.  Living out of suitcases.   Pitching every five days as a starter.   Icing his arm.  Sitting in the dugout, spitting out sunflower seed shells.  Meeting girls.  

The next season he went to Winston-Salem in the Carolina league.  He was only there for two months.  He went on a road trip to Rocky Mounts where his roommate spent an evening imbibing and then mistook his suitcase for the bathroom, while his clothes were still in it.   On the same trip a trainer, a former Olympian marathon walker, heeled and toed around the bungalows where the team was staying.   The team teased him, and he took the bait,  He decided to walk to the stadium.  He heeled and toed into the ballpark and dropped dead. 

 Bill changed climates, moving onto Triple A in Toronto., where he stayed for the season.  He kept throwing the ball.

Gotta throw every pitch in the strike zone, which is a moving target.  Its dimensions depend on the height of the batter:   the top of the strike zone is halfway between the batter’s shoulder and the top of his pants. The bottom is the hollow of the knee. The right and left edges correspond to the corners of home plate.    The umpire, standing behind the catcher and wearing a face mask—or as Bill says “wearing an obstructed mind”–makes the call whether a pitch is in the zone. 

A KID CAN HAVE ALL THE AMMUNITION, JUST NOT KNOW WHERE TO AIM IT 

 By 1965, Vietnam and Cambodia made young guys pay attention to other zones, drafts, and uniforms.   U.S. soldiers were added to body counts.  Bill joined the Army Reserves for six-month active duty in the off-season.  

More road trips, this time in the Army.  He went to Ft. Dix, New Jersey, for basic training, then down to Ft. Sam Houston, Texas.  He wasn’t a pitcher.  He was a clerk typist.   First time in his life he wasn’t throwing a baseball.  His job was to handle personnel records for soldiers who were transitioning in and out of Brook Army Medical Center.  Boring stuff.  No strategy.  No communication with the catcher.   No crowd to cheer or boo. 

A doctor who was impatiently awaiting his file from another base confronted Bill every day for weeks.  The doctor couldn’t get paid without the file that contained his entire military record:  promotions, employment, and payroll.  Without it, the doctor didn’t exist.    Bill had no control over when files were sent to BAMC. The doctor continued to pester Bill, and Bill continued to tell him the file hadn’t come in.  Bill was fed up with the guy, but couldn’t stand on the mound and hit him with a baseball.  The records arrived on Bill’s last day of active duty.  Bill put the records—the doctor’s entire military life—into an envelope and sent them to Ft. Richardson, Alaska, which hadn’t been populated in 40 years.   He intentionally hit the batter.

There are well-established rules in the war of baseball.  In 1985 major league baseball instituted a rule prohibiting pitchers from hitting batters.   However, pitchers have their own rules.  Bill has identified a few, which have then been defined.

       “Pitchers intentionally hit batters to send a message that ‘you’ve hit one of ours, so we’re going to hit one of yours.’”  If a pitcher, intentionally or otherwise, hits a batter, then the pitcher on the opposing team, must—to save face—or, who cares why, hit a batter on the first pitcher’s team.

       “You’re hanging over the plate, and I own the plate.”   The pitcher has an ownership interest in home plate.  The batter, at the risk of being beaned, cannot crowd it.   

       “The last time you were at bat you hit a home run and took too long to run around the bases.”  This sounds like the person on the mound has his own  issue.

       “You were chirping from the dugout.”  Pitchers don’t like to hear noise from the opposing team’s dugout, apparently concluding that only their team should make it.  

       He concluded “there are just some folks in those stadiums that need killing.”  This statement is self-explanatory.

Bill didn’t kill anyone, in the Army or on the field.  He went back to Toronto for the entire 1966 season.  A different roommate.  More motels.  More ballparks. 

Bill Rohr was 1967

April 14, 1967 was the home opener at Yankee Stadium, and the Red Sox went up for a visit.   Bill was scheduled to pitch in his maiden start at The Bigs.  He was pitching on the home turf of New York, the club that, along with Boston, perpetuates enmity like that between Arab tribes. 

He shook off nervousness in the first inning.  In the second inning Bill had his first major league at-bat.  He ground out.   He retired the Yankees in order in the second and third innings.  During the fourth inning, Russ Gibson, the Red Sox catcher, said he and Bill knew they had the beginnings of a no-hitter.

By the end of the sixth inning, as he sat on the bench by himself in the dugout, none of his teammates would talk to him.  It’s a baseball superstition:  no player talks to a pitcher throwing a no-hitter, for fear that he will jinx it.  

Eighth inning Mickey Mantle pinch hitted to prolonged applause from the hometown fans.  And then more applause when he flied out.   At the bottom of the ninth inning, Tom Tresh lined a good hit to deep left field.  Everyone assumed Carl Yastrzemski could not catch it.  Everyone, except Yaz.   The Yankee crowd rooted for him to catch the ball. He made a catch that caused the Sox announcer, Ken Coleman, to scream into the microphone:  “Fly ball, to deep left . .. Yastrzemski is going hard . . . way back . . . way back and he dives and makes a tremendous catch!  One of the greatest catches I’ve ever seen! . . . Everybody in Yankee Stadium on their feet.”  

Amazing that Yaz caught the ball.  Amazing that the Yankee fans wanted him to catch it.  Amazing that they all kept the no-hitter alive. 

Next player flied out.  Elston Howard was the batter.  Dick Williams went to the mound to talk to Bill, who then got Howard to a full count.  Howard looped a shot over the second baseman’s head.  It landed in front of the right fielder.  Howard ran to first base, and the Yankee fans booed him.  The next hitter flied out.  Game over.  The Red Sox dugout and field converged onto the pitcher’s mound.   While his teammates jumped around him, Bill walked quietly away as though he had just realized he had lost his airline ticket to Chicago.

Bill had won his first game at The Show in Yankee Stadium 3-0.   Later he was introduced to Jacqueline and John-John Kennedy who were in the stands.  He autographed a ball for John-John.  He went on the Ed Sullivan Show.   A really big show.

Dick Williams second-guessed his decision to go out to the mound.  If I had known Bill that day, I wouldn’t have talked to Williams after the game.  When he was interviewed, Howard said he had never been booed in Yankee Stadium for getting a hit.  Later that year he was traded to . . . the Red Sox.

Imagine the two-year-old boy standing on that little hill in front of Yankee fans.   Think of the number of times that Bill threw the ball every day for 19 years before taking the mound that day.   He had not pitched before in the big leagues and was within one strike of pitching a no hitter.  There were about 14,000 fans in the stands that day.  Bill says that if all the people who have told him that they were at the game really were at the game there would have been 175,000 people in attendance.

He almost pitched a shutout against the Yankees on April 23.  It was broken up in the eighth inning by Elston Howard again.  If only the Red Sox had signed him earlier.

I WAS NOT DONE WHEN I WAS DONE

A month later Bill’s career as a starter for the Red Sox was over.  He went back on active duty with the Army Reserves.  He returned to the team and was put on the roster as a reliever.  Then he was traded to the Cleveland Indians where he pitched a dozen and a half games.  His numbers weren’t good.  During his career, he earned a total of three major league victories. 

He was sent down to the minors.  Over the next few years he went on the road with several teams.  He retired in 1972 with a rotator cuff injury.  

Bill was 26 years old.  He had prepared 24 of those 26 years to do only one thing.  “It took a long time to get [baseball] out of my system.   It was a good three years before I could watch a game on television .”  He thought about his options.  He still wanted to fly jets.   He couldn’t do that with his shoulder.  He was probably too old!  He got information about the FBI and learned that he would have to go to law school.    And so he did. 

 Every year on April 14 sportswriters call Bill to talk about the game and to put him on the air with their callers.    Kids from New England whose parents followed the Sox in 1967 call in as excited as if they were talking to a rock star.  One year he was a Sports Illustrated annual Flash in the Pan. Bill gets letters every week asking him to autograph his card.  The letters are always polite.  An 8 x 10 black & white photo of him pitching with an original autograph sells on eBay for $19.99.  A month ago a fan sent him an original reel to reel tape of the April 14, 1967 game.  The fan had held a microphone up to a radio speaker.  He was 13 years old in 1967 and had kept the tape for 42 years. 

Bill didn’t go into the FBI after law school.   When Boston sportswriter Steve Buckley called to tell Bill that he wanted to include him in a book he was writing called Red Sox Where Have You Gone, Bill was less than enthusiastic.  He thought the title sounded depressing.  Buckley clarified that the book would tell the reader what Bill had done after leaving baseball.  During the interview, Bill brought Buckley up-to-date, “’Neither [my wife nor I] could get honest work when we got out of prison . . . So we both became lawyers.’”  

I own the plate; don’t crowd me.