Ball Four (RosettaBooks Sports Classics) Read Online Free PDF

giving some people a new opportunity. I’ve got a man in the organization who is a former alcoholic. I’ve even got a moral degenerate that I know of. But as far as I’m concerned we’re going to let bygones be bygones and whatever has been said in the past—and I know you’ve said a lot of things—we’ll forget all about it and start fresh.”
    I said thanks. I also wondered where, on a scale of one to ten, a guy who talks too much falls between a former alcoholic and a moral degenerate.
    I know a lot of guys on the club. Greg Goossen is one. He’s a catcher, a New York Met castoff, and is up out of Triple-A. Two years ago I was playing against Goose in the International League. There was a bunt back toward the pitcher and Goose came running out from behind the plate yelling, “First base! First base!” at the top of his lungs. Everyone in the ballpark heard him. The pitcher picked up the ball and threw it to second. Everybody safe. And as Goose walked back behind the plate, looking disgusted, I shouted at him from the dugout, “Goose, he had to consider the source.”
    I guess I got to him, because the first time he saw me—two years later—he said, “Consider the source, huh?”
    The only thing separating my locker from the boiler in the clubhouse is Roland Sheldon’s. Rollie said it had only exploded once this spring, fortunately while the clubhouse was empty. Reminded me of my first Yankees spring training in St. Petersburg. I was just there for a look and shared a broom closet with Jim Pisoni, an outfielder. I think my number was 129 1/2. The higher the number, the worse chance they think you have of making the club.
    The year I was given 56 was the year I made the club. Toward the end of spring training, Big Pete, the No. 1 Yankee clubhouse man, Pete Sheehy, said, “Listen, I got a better number for you. I can give you 27.” I told him I’d keep 56 because I wanted it to remind me of how close I was to not making the club. I still wear 56. I’m still close to not making the club.
    Sal Maglie is the pitching coach—Sal the Barber of the New York Giants, my boyhood hero. He still looks like he’d knock down his grandmother. He’s got those big evil-looking black eyes. Looks something like Snoopy doing the vulture bit. He told me I’d be pitching five minutes of batting practice today and that I’d be the last pitcher.
    That might mean something. It’s one of the tiny things you look for all during spring training. You watch who you follow in batting practice, try to find out how many minutes you’ve pitched compared with other pitchers, decide whether you’re with the good squad or the bad squad, whether the morning workout is more important than the afternoon workout. The Yankees would divide the squad into morning and afternoon groups and they’d always say it didn’t mean a thing, just two groups for convenience. Except that the morning group always had Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Elston Howard, Whitey Ford and guys like that. The afternoon group would have a bunch of guys named Dick Berardino. I never saw a guy hit or pitch himself off the afternoon list.
    I’m not sure it’s going to be that way here, though. They seem to have strung us all out pretty well. I can’t really read anything into the way it’s broken up. And that makes me nervous.
    Before the first workout, Joe Schultz, the manager (he’s out of the old school, I think, because he
looks
like he’s out of the old school—short, portly, bald, ruddy-faced, twinkly eyed), stopped by while I was having a catch. “How you feeling, Jim?” he asked. I wonder what he meant by that.

FEBRUARY
27
    This is the first time I’ve trained in Arizona. I think I’m going to like it. The park is in a beautiful setting—the center of a desolate area, flat, empty, plowed fields in all directions. And then, suddenly, a tremendous rocky crag rises abruptly to look down over the park. At any moment you expect to see a row of Indians on