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

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I would experience one more brief moment of fame that was very unusual at that particular time. The Mets traded me to the Washington Senators for their manager Gil Hodges. The Cleveland Indians had once swapped managers by trading Joe Gordon to the Detroit Tigers for Jimmy Dykes. However, no player in baseball had ever been traded for a manager. That trade was a first. Mets fans who remember me ask, “Oh, Bill Denehy. You’re the guy who was traded for Gil Hodges, aren’t you?”

“I am,” I tell them with great pride.

I spent the next five years trying to hang on. For a short while I played for Ted Williams. I sat by his side in the dugout and learned about pitching from perhaps the greatest hitter who ever lived. Later I acted as Billy Martin’s hatchet man in Detroit. Billy wanted me to come into a game and hit a batter. To keep my job, and because I was something of a sadist, I was only too willing to do so.

I then pitched in the minor leagues, hoping beyond all hope that I’d be struck by lightning and my arm would come back. I never was, and it never did. You hear all the time how an athlete dies twice. The first time is when his athletic career comes to an end, and the second is when he leaves this world. Sometimes I think that the second death would have been preferable to what I went through.