Let me say right off the bat I love sports, but never was big on the organized kind. I played with my friends and at school during recess or P.E., but not much more than than. Tried Little League Baseball for a year, 8th grade football in junior high, and B-Team football in high school. Other activities held my interest. Working in my dad's store, the CAP, DeMolay, and politics seemed more important. Plus, I wasn't the greatest athlete being fat and slow most of my early years.(Just as I am, now.) And, my experience with a Little League coach didn't help start my sports career. I was 8 years old, but he did little teaching. I was a pitcher(not bad if do say so myself), but when I wasn't pitching I played in the twilight zone. In those days, if you were slow, you played right field. Since there were few left handed batters, not much happened out there. If you weren't a great hitter, he told you not to swing and try for a walk. The summer of my senior year of high school, DeMolay organized a slow-pitch softball team to play in a city church league. It was the same old story. If I played, it was in right field. That was until one faithful night when our catcher went on vacation without any notice. Desperate, our team leader asked, "Innybody wanna catch?" I yelled, "Yes". I'd do anything to get in the game. I'd never caught before, but I had a catcher's mitt.(I was letting the team use it.) The first game wasn't too bad and I learned I could distract the batters with endless chatter. My batting needed a lot of improvement. I was so desperate, I was chasing foul balls all over the place. I grabbed a swinging bunt and threw the guy out at first. The umpire said it would have been foul if I'd let it go. Just didn't want to make a mistake. The batting improved, but I had to hit a double to make a single, so I learned to hit it long. One night, I really got on one guy's nerves after talking him into 2 strikeouts. He was calling me everything but a Child of God. He got a hit his third time, a double. The next guy up got a hit and the other guy rounded third yelling he was going to run me over. I got the throw and ran halfway up the third base line,,him coming at full blast. We collided with me with the ball in his gut. I looked at him and said, "I got you on strikeouts and now you're out again." I got up and ran. He was really mad and was chasing me. I made it back to the dugout before he could catch me. Catching and talking,,,not a bad combination.