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Subject:  Re: baseball |
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Author: Michael Cole | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 08:19:13 03/06/05 Sun In reply to: Greg Carlton 's message, "baseball" on 19:33:16 03/05/05 Sat I have always wondered, how did you get to be a batboy? [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: Re: baseball | |
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Author: Greg Carlton [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 13:33:40 03/06/05 Sun Well Michael, it's kind of a long story. In 1964, the year the Cardinals beat the Yankees in the World Series, I attended spring training in Arizona that year with my grandparents and my mother. As we were walking in the gate of the ballpark where the Cubs trained, a official with the opposing team, the Los Angeles Angels, came up to me and aked me "Do you want a batboy." He was using the term loosely as a verb meaning "do you want to be a batboy for us." I thought he was saying "Do you want a bat, boy." So, of course I wanted a bat. So I said yes and my mother nodded approval and I proceeded to follow him into the visitors clubhouse. As soon as I entered I knew I didn't understand what was going on because a coach came up to me and told me to "suit up" and get out on the field. Of course being only nine at the time, I misconstrued this as meaning I was going to have to play and I knew at nine that I couldn't hit major league pitching. So I became scared and left the clubhouse and said I don't want to do it and appeared up in the stands by my mother with a tear in my eye. I told her I just couldn't hit that fast pitching. She then pointed out to me what a batboy was and I agreed to do it the next day (like it was an easy job to get with a major league baseball team.) Sure enough, the next day I arrived at the ballpark and my mother asked some coaches if they needed a batboy. Several minutes later the equipment manager for the Chicago Cubs came and got me, offered me a cup of soup, showed me what to do, and the rest is history. With the exception of 1965 I attended spring training for two weeks every year and was the Cub's batboy and would also travel to do the same thing for them in St. Louis during the regular season. The neat thing about that is the most heated rivalry in the National League is between the Cardinals and the Cubs and the games were always packed with people from Chicago and St. Louis. I continued doing this through my senior year in high school, for nine years, and met everybody from DiMaggio to Mays from Brock to Gibson and many more. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |