More About Ted Kluszewski and Me

“Earl’s not gonna like that mustache.”  Earl was Earl Smith, head baseball coach at East Carolina University.  The mustache was mine.  Tim Bayless was a starting pitcher for the ECU Pirates and he knew I soon was headed to the school with the intention of becoming a Pirate.  On this particular day, however, Tim picked […]

A Picture Worth Almost Two Thousand Words: Ted Kluszewski and Me

It was a moment that now seems almost as if I imagined it.  It was the summer of 1972, I was seventeen years old, freshly graduated from high school, away from home, somewhere in Ohio, and Iron Mike was hurling baseballs at me in a batting cage.  Having spent considerable time in this same situation […]