If I were sitting down with George Steinbrenner (to discuss a salary) and based on what Dave Winfield got for his statistics, I’d have to say, ‘George, you and I are about to become partners.’
You always get a special kick on opening day, no matter how many you go through. You look forward to it like a birthday party when you’re a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen.
When you have five or six potential hall of famers on your team … that’s when you win penants and championships. The only thing you have to be concerned about is getting the ballplayers to bed on time.
You start chasing a ball and your brain immediately commands your body to ‘Run forward, bend, scoop up the ball, peg it to the infield,’ then your body says, ‘Who me?’
Now this is over thirty years later and the guy said he was that cab driver. He apologized and he was serious. I felt awful. He might have been spending his whole life thinking he had jinxed me, but I told him he hadn’t. My number was up.
If anyone wants to know why three kids in one family made it to the big leagues they just had to know how we helped each other and how much we practiced back then. We did it every minute we could.
