Burt Saxon

In 1958 I was a tall, awkward left-handed eleven-year-old four-eyed doofus who could not hit a baseball at all.  My problem was that I was addicted to the sport. So I spent the entire summer throwing baseballs at a strike zone painted on the local high school fence.  To this day my left hand is longer than my right. 

My plan worked.  Eventually I could put most every pitch inside the painted area.

For the next seven years I watched every left-hander I could on television.  My favorites were Warren Spahn, Billy Pierce, Whitey Ford, Tommy John, Jim Kaat, and the underrated Gary Peters. 

Why would a Jewish boy in a small town not have Sandy Koufax as his favorite?  Not that complicated.  It was hard to identify with a guy who could throw a ball through a brick wall and also had an un-hittable overhand curve to complement his fastball.

In the summer of 1965, I met my all-time favorite lefty.  Larry Gura was my teammate on the Washers of the Joliet (IL) Connie Mack League.  Larry had led Joliet to the National Colt League Championship in 1964, but his senior year he had no run support and no defensive support.  He was slated to go to St. Francis College, a local Division II powerhouse, but he was virtually unbeatable on the Washers. 

He would pitch against a tough pitcher and we would win 3 to 1. I would pitch against a second line pitcher and we would win 10 to 5.  Larry taught me how to move to first base, how to field the position, and how to grip a breaking ball.  He had learned all this from Don Reed, who had learned from the great Johnny Sain.

Our coach Elmer Bell got Larry a scholarship to Arizona State at the last minute.  There he used isometric training to increase his fastball from 78 to 85 mph.  In his senior year, Larry led Arizona State to the NCAA championship.  He signed with the Cubs, but soon was traded to the Yankees, where his manager was his fellow Italian American Billy Martin.

 Believe it or not, I may have played a small role in getting Larry traded to the Kansas City Royals. During the summer of 1965, I suggested to him that  he would be really good at tennis, too. Apparently manager Martin saw him wearing tennis whites in the hotel lobby the day after Larry had pitched.  Mr. Martin referred to tennis as a (bleeper) game. The New York sportswriters refused to say which of two possible words Mr. Martin used because all the writers worked for family newspapers.

Billy, so the story goes, demanded that Larry be traded.  Larry went to Kansas City for a backup catcher named Fran Healy, who became a good broadcaster.  Larry went on to win 126 big league games, while the Yankees could never find a reliable number three or number four starting pitcher.  

 I went on to pitch with no distinction whatsoever for the Knights of Carleton College. My high school tennis coaching career was not so hot, either.  But I never lost one of my aces.