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

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“Bots is really high on you,” said Yaz. “We’d like you to be part of the organization.”

The Red Sox showed a lot of interest in me. With that interest, and my being Irish, I really should have signed with them. But I was strangely noncommittal, in part because my favorite team was the New York Yankees, and because my heart was actually set on becoming an NBA basketball star.

My secret goal was to be a shooting guard for the Boston Celtics. All I had to do was beat out Sam Jones. I had been so wild on the mound that baseball wasn’t fun for me yet. I also thought, despite the attention of the Red Sox, that I couldn’t really believe anyone would be interested in signing me as a pro baseball player.

As a guard on the Woodrow Wilson High School basketball team I was a brawny, six-foot-three 180-pounder. I was a magician with the ball who could dribble between my legs and behind my back, pass, and stuff the ball into the basket two-handed. I just loved the game of basketball.

When I was a junior in high school, we played a basketball game at the Waterbury Arena against powerful Wilby High School, which was among the top five schools in the state. We had no business getting within fifteen points of Wilby, but somehow at the end of regulation play, the score was tied.