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pressure was off that day, because I had already made up my mind that I was quitting after the game. I could never do the pressure thing. Remember the time I had to face you when you were pitching? That was pressure. You threw me lobs, tried to let me get a hit, and I still struck out. But that last game, when I knew I was quitting, I finally didn’t give a crap; and all of a sudden I’m playing good baseball. I had the game of my life.”
    • • •
    In 1980, my man, Mike Schmidt, hit forty-eight home runs on his way to the first of two straight Most Valuable Player awards, and my team, the Phillies, beat the Kansas City Royals in six games to win the World Series. Also, Tommy Lasorda sent shimmering, cheesy, satiny blue Dodger jackets to me and Vince.
    Tommy was great to us, and he always kind of straddled that line between thrilling and embarrassing me. The jacket managed to do both. Of course, we had to wear them to school—Phoenixville Junior High—and of course, we got abused: “The Phillies are the world champions! Why are you wearing a fucking Dodgers jacket? What’s wrong with you guys?” I told mydad he might as well slap a kick-me sign on my back. We were in seventh grade, and I couldn’t tell you how many times I had to put up with ninth graders yelling, “Dodgers suck! Dodgers suck!” The ninth graders used to crush me. One time, when I’d had enough, this freshman rushed by me and as he did I pushed him. He punched me right in the face. The next year, the Dodgers won the World Series, and I’m thinking, all right, finally we get our vindication; now we can wear our Dodger jackets with pride. And as soon as we get off the bus, everybody starts in again: “Dodgers suck! Dodgers suck!” Classic Philadelphia fans. We were lucky we didn’t get our asses kicked.
    It was the following season that I became the batboy for the Dodgers whenever they played in Philadelphia. My first game, I showed up in a pair of really crappy Pro-Keds and desperately wanted some spikes. I put in a request to Nobe Kawano, the Dodgers’ equipment manager, and he told me, no, kid, your shoes are fine. I felt like a goof but forgot about it pretty quickly. At that time, the batboy would kneel next to the on-deck circle. When I took my place, I was struck by an electrifying pulse of energy from the lights and the crowd and the game and the fastballs hitting the catcher’s mitt . . . it was euphoric to me. Even better: by the second time the Dodgers came around, my dad had bought me some Mizuno spikes.
    Before one of the games, I took some swings in the cage underneath the tunnel, with Manny Mota, the Dodgers’ batting coach, pitching to me. Mota was throwing right over the top, like a machine, and I was just crushing the ball. My dad called Tommy to come down and take a look, and some of the coaches gathered around, and they were astounded. They were like, What the fuck?
    (Mota was even throwing me curveballs, and I actually had a clue. For all my work with batting-cage fastballs, it wasn’t as though I was completely foreign to the curve. For me, the really tough pitch, when I first saw it, was the slider. That was when I thought, what the hell was that ? But Mota helped me hit the curveball. The first thing he told me was, “Once you recognize the curveball, wait.” Most guys get out in front of an off-speed breaking pitch because their head goes down. The key is to be patient, keep your head in there, and pick up the spin. It’s eyesight—locking in quickly on the ball and determining if it’s going to be in the strike zone. Most good curves are out of the strike zone. When they’re in the zone, they’re probably hanging. People say that certain guys can’t hit the curveball, but what’s really happening, generally, is that they can’t hit the off-speed pitch.)
    The only problem with being a batboy was that it meant I had to occasionally miss one of my Babe Ruth games back in Phoenixville. I wasdown at the Vet