Ball Four (RosettaBooks Sports Classics) Read Online Free PDF Page A

didn’t know what they meant. In 1965 I figured it out. It was my first sore arm. It was my only sore arm. And it made me what I am today, an aging knuckleballer.
    My record that year was 4–15, and we finished sixth. It wasn’t all my fault. I needed lots of help and got it. Nevertheless my spirits were high waiting for my contract because of something Houk had said. He’d been painted into a corner with Roger Maris. There was a story around that after Maris hit the 61 home runs he got a five-year, no-cut contract. But he’d had a series of bad years and should have been cut. So to take himself off the hook with Maris, Houk said that anybody who had a poor year because of injuries would not be cut. Fabulous, man, I thought. That’s me.
    When I got my contract it called for $23,000, a $7,000 cut.
    “But, Ralph, I was injured and you said…”
    “You weren’t injured.”
    “The hell I wasn’t.”
    “Then how come you pitched 150 innings?”
    “I was trying to do what I could, build my arm up, trying to help the team.”
    Somehow he remained unmoved. I guessed it was my turn to be humble. “Look, Ralph, I know that people think you lost the battle with me last year and I know some of the players are upset that I got $30,000. So I know there are reasons you have to cut me. Tell you what. Even though I could stand firm on the injury thing if I wanted to, I’ll make a deal with you. Cut me $3,000 and we can both be happy.” He said okay.
    After that, it was all downhill. Which is how come I was happy to be making $22,000 with the Seattle Pilots.

Part 2
“My Arm Isn’t Sore, It’s Just a Little Stiff”
     

FEBRUARY
26
    Tempe
    Reported to spring camp in Tempe, Arizona, today, six days late. I was on strike. I’m not sure anybody knew it, but I was.
    I had signed my contract before I knew there was going to be a players’ strike and I was obligated to report on time. I found that out at the big meeting the players had with Marvin Miller, the players’ union leader, at the Biltmore in New York earlier this month. I’m much in sympathy with what Miller is doing and I think, given the circumstances, he won a great victory. I think the owners understand now that we’re going to stick together—even the big stars, who don’t have that much at stake. Still, I was going to live up to my contract and report on time. What made me change my mind was a phone call I made to Lou Piniella, a twenty-six-year-old rookie who’d been in the Baltimore and Cleveland organizations.
    Since the Pilots were not a team yet we had no player representative, so the three or four Pilots at the meeting in the Biltmore were asked to call four or five teammates each to tell them what happened. I reached Lou in Florida and he said that his impulse was to report, that he was scared it would count against him if he didn’t, that he was just a rookie looking to make the big leagues and didn’t want anybody to get angry at him. But also that he’d thought it over carefully and decided he should support the other players and the strike. So he was not reporting.
    That impressed the hell out of me. Here’s a kid with a lot more at stake than I, a kid risking a once-in-a-lifetime shot. And suddenly I felt a moral obligation to the players. I decided not to go down.
    The reason nobody knew I was on strike, though, was that I’d asked the Pilots to find a place for me and my family in Tempe. They couldn’t. So I said that as long as there were no accommodations I couldn’t report. I sort of took it both ways. You take your edges where you can. I learned that playing baseball.
    As soon as I got to the park I went right over to Marvin Milkes’ office and we shook hands and he asked me if I had a nice flight. He also said, “There’s been a lot of things said about the strike and I know you’ve said some things about it, but we’re going to forget all that and start fresh. We have a new team and everybody starts with a clean slate. I’m