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

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After my senior baseball season was over, I was asked to come to Springfield, Massachusetts, to work out with the Springfield Giants, the Double-A farm club of the San Francisco Giants. Carl Hubbell, one of the greatest left-handed pitchers of all time and the head of minor league development for the Giants, asked me to try out. In the 1934 All-Star Game, Hubbell had struck out in succession Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, and Joe Cronin—five of the best hitters of their era. Ruth, Gehrig, and Foxx were three of the greatest hitters of all time.

My father called Hubbell and told him, “We’re supposed to play Rockville. You can come and see Bill pitch on Sunday against a real team.”

Hubbell agreed to come to the game.

On that day I had a live, crackling fastball. My adrenaline was flowing, and I struck out twenty-four of the twenty-seven batters I faced. Afterward, I wondered why I couldn’t have that kind of stuff all the time. But that day I had it. I was throwing pitches to a left-handed batter on the outside part of the plate, waist high or cock high. I wasn’t on the black.