Читать книгу Rage. The Legend of "Baseball Bill" Denehy онлайн

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Holy shit! I thought to myself. I just threw three fastballs past Pete Rose. Wow! This is easy.

Before my three innings were over, I had struck out six of the nine Reds batters I faced, and we’re talking about some great hitters: Tony Pérez, Vada Pinson, Lee May, Leo Cárdenas, Tommy Helms, and Pete Rose.

Westrum, who didn’t talk much to his players, came up to me after the game and said, “That was impressive. Let’s see if you can do it again.” I gave up exactly one run in the twenty innings I pitched during spring training. I led all Mets pitchers in strikeouts and ERA, and that included all of the Mets starters and the rookies Seaver and Koosman.

There was a game against the Kansas City A’s (before the Athletics moved to Oakland) in which Tom and I split the pitching duties. Tom pitched the first five innings. I pitched the final four. We held Kansas City to five hits and won the game 8–1.

When I read the papers the next day, Westrum was quoted by Dick Young, the influential but not easily impressed New York Daily News reporter, as saying that both Tom and I had made the team.