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

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All the while, my father was saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” and finally he said, “Willie, can you teach him how to box?”

“I can get him into the ring and teach him how to box,” said Pep. “I’m trying to teach him how to survive.”

It was a lesson that I would never forget. One afternoon I was taking my usual beating when I decided I wasn’t going to take it any longer. I realized that I was just a pissed-off, angry, abused kid. And I decided that I wasn’t going to be abused again. I picked up a tree limb, struck the first kid who came after me, and kept beating him and beating him until the kid was pleading for mercy. After that day, I didn’t have to fight that kid again.

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MY ADOLESCENCE WAS FURTHER FILLED WITH FRUSTRATION,

I could throw the heck out of a baseball, but my first love was basketball. As a sophomore I was six feet tall, a solid 180 pounds, and I could shoot and dribble the ball like Meadowlark Lemon.

My sophomore year I started on the Woodrow Wilson High School varsity team.