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

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Before my first game, my father, who himself had been a basketball star, wanted to talk to me in private. He told my mom he wanted to take me to the game. Dad and I drove the five miles to the high school, and as I started to get out of the car, he grabbed me by the arm and said, “Son, I’m only going to give you one piece of advice: If somebody whacks you, whack him back harder.”

I took his words to heart.

My junior year, against New Britain High School, one of the New Britain players stole the ball from me and drove in for a layup. On the next play a pass came to me close to the basket, and a New Britain player by the name of Dave Rybczyk slammed me into the padding three feet beyond the end of the court. I grabbed him, and we started swinging before cooler heads broke up the fight.

Another of my dad’s sayings was “Don’t get mad. Get even.”

I did both.

I’ll get even, I swore to myself at the time.

When baseball season came around I was on the mound facing New Britain, and in the first inning, who should come to bat but Dave Rybczyk. My first pitch was a fastball that hit him squarely in the head. Rybczyk went down. I had no remorse. My feeling was that since he had started the fight in basketball the previous season, he had it coming to him. It was part of my Catholic upbringing, because it says in the Bible, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” I settled for a broken helmet and a concussion. I stood over him and shouted, “I told you I’d get you, you son of a bitch.”