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

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My coaches and my catchers would tell me, “Just throw it over the plate. Just let them hit it,” but I wasn’t able to do that, and it was killing me. The culprit was bad mechanics, but either the coaches didn’t know how to fix it or I was too stubborn to adapt. I didn’t know what the word mechanics meant. I certainly never heard of it when I was in high school.

I threw straight overhand, and I pitched great on a high mound with a steep pitch, but too often when the mound wasn’t high, I wasn’t able to get on top of the ball and throw it over the plate. On a flat mound I was high and wild inside to a right-hander. Righty batters were taking their lives in their hands against me.

Still, I threw a mean fastball at over ninety miles an hour, and even though I didn’t know it at the time, major league scouts were paying attention. They came to my games trying to be anonymous, but I learned to spot them because they’d huddle together in the stands with their clipboards and speed guns. The speed guns were kind of a giveaway.