Biology Reference
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went out to Stanford the general level, the sort of overall level of people out there was so
good. First of all, the athleticism general level was very high and then, secondly, there were
kids who had done whatever they did all year round and so they were really very good
players.”
Who were some of the people who went on to become famous?
“When I had my very modest career playing for Stanford when I was a sophomore Tom
Sever was pitching for USC in those days, I think he was a junior when I was a sophomore,
and I think he is in the Hall of Fame. He was obviously good then, but there were people who
seemed as good, maybe not quite as good. I mean, he was not just far and away better than
everybody else. There were other people that for whatever reason just didn't quite have what
it takes, although he certainly did. There were a number of other people that played in the
major leagues. Andy Messersmith was pitching for CAL at that time and he ended up having
actually a very important major league career because his free agency issues that ended up
being one of the things that established the pattern of free agency. One of my Stanford
teammates was a young man named Steve Hovely who played in the major leagues for 4 or 5
years and was one of the people that Jim Boulten talked about in some of his topics about
major league baseball. One of the things I learned about playing both baseball and football at
that level was the difference between being good and being really good. I learned that at those
things there were other people that were just better than I was. It did help me to understand the
different levels. I enjoyed very much the extent to which I participated and realized, I think,
very early that I really could not compete in that area at the highest level and so I figure I better
find something where I could.”
That is an interesting issue, of course. All kids want to grow up being great players and top
of his sport and maybe make a profession out of it and yet only one in about ten thousand kids
in the United States makes it professionally and I think your point is well taken. Study hard and
play hard because you never know if the plan is going to work out or not and you need
something to fall back on.
“The other thing that I learned from all of that was, first of all, there were many, many
players that I played with that seemed to me to be extremely good and for whatever reason
didn't make it. I think in some cases that they had some weakness that they just couldn't
compete at that level.”
Do you think it was mental or physical?
“I think a lot of it was physical. I mean, I certainly knew some people that were very
competitive and very bright and everything but they just may not have had quite as good enough
throwing arm to be able to play a major league position or their bats may be just fine as long as
there were 90 mile/hour fast balls but if they were 94 mile/hour fast balls they just were not
quite good enough. Almost nobody has no weaknesses and, honestly, some of it was just, I
wouldn't say bad luck, but the situation just didn't work out. At various times when I was
playing baseball I played with two guys, one at Stanford who was a catcher, who was really
an excellent player, and he was drafted and he played in the Cincinnati farm system. But at that
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