pure science with a splash of black cat

Both Whitey [Herzog] and Dick [Williams] are excellent managers, but the Angels at that time just didn’t have the talent. We had a bunch of young and inexperienced players and some others who were veterans, just playing out their careers. It made for a situation where I went out there each time trying to shut out everybody. It seemed we were always mathematically eliminated by August. Our teams had some trouble catching the ball. They couldn’t hit too much either, and that made for a lot of jokes.

Once our catcher Tom Egan was hit by a line drive during batting practice. “Thank God it was one of our guys who hit the ball,” Dick Williams said, “or else Tom would’ve been hurt bad.”

Bill Lee, a pitcher for Boston, was quoted as saying to Dick, “Your team has such a bunch of weak hitters that you can get them to take batting practice in a hotel lobby and they won’t break anything.” Dick followed Bill’s suggestion and staged a little batting drill in the Sheraton-Boston Hotel. Bill was right. Nothing was broken.

And then there was Bill Melton, the third baseman for the Chicago White Sox, who bobbled a few balls hit at him by Angels batters. “Don’t get on me for my fielding,” he told reporters later. “Those Angels never hit the ball hard enough for it to be fielded cleanly.”