I loved catching - I had whole game in front of me. I could see everything. Placing fielders was my job. Seeing whether long fly balls were fair or foul. What pitcher had or lacked, I saw, as well. Did pitcher need a break in action because he was tired? If he did I would pay a little visit to mound. The general on field is what I was. A direct link to coach.

I had a friend’s wife tell me once that we can remember every play in a game we watched or played in but why is it that we can not remember a simple grocery list that is given to us. Some of us can recite stats for their teams 50 years ago. We can tell who played in what World Series and who winning pitcher was and who hit game winning homerun, off of whom and what pitch. Why is that?

A lot of my childhood memories are tied to baseball. I remember spending hours hitting a rock in front of my house pretending to be my idol Rod Carew. I used to mimic his stance and his loose wrists. I wanted to be just like him. I made myself into a switch hitter because of him. As I grew older demise of my professional career was that I could not hit breaking ball. I could sit on that fastball and hit it out of park but as soon as they took something off or put a break on it I could not hit it. So there went my dream of a professional career but not my passion for game.