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

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I threw real, real hard, and I didn’t let up; but I was wild. If anyone was going to see potential in me, it was from pure velocity.

In my first high school game, as a sophomore, I pitched against New Britain. I faced nine batters; seven walked and the other two batters got hit.

Against Middlefield that same year I faced five batters; two batters walked and the other three got hit. My coach came to the mound and asked my catcher, “What kind of fastball does he have?”

My catcher, Tom Serra, who would later become mayor of Middletown, replied, “I really don’t know. Every one he’s thrown has either hit the backstop or he’s drilled someone with it.”

Serra saw I was having trouble focusing. He told me, “I’m going to hold my glove over the middle of the plate. Just throw the ball to me, and we’ll win.”

And that’s what I did. In the summer of my sophomore year, pitching in an American Legion game, I struck out nineteen batters and walked seventeen. That’s a lot of batters where nobody hits the ball. It made for very boring—and frustrating—baseball.