In my “year of growing dangerously”—I think I was twelve—I sprouted six inches so quickly, I had to stay in bed for over a week to recover. Suddenly, I was five foot eleven and going on six feet in a hurry. I became a scary Little League pitcher, a center on the CYO basketball team, the tallest kid in my class.
I bet my father a dollar that I would be six feet by year’s end. I never got to six feet. And I reneged on the bet.
Playing sports got me through the Newburgh years. Later in life, I took up the diabolical game of golf. I now have nine holes in one. The ninth came this year—on my birthday. A good friend told me that should be the opening line of this book. Obviously, I didn’t agree. But I was definitely tempted.
As a kid, I played stickball, baseball, basketball, flag football. I was pretty good—of course, most guys say that, so, fine, let’s go to the highlight reel.
The summer between my junior and senior years in high school, I dunked a basketball a dozen times. Honest. I don’t care what my asshole friends say. In baseball, I had a good fastball and a slider.
When I was ten, I didn’t get picked for any Little League team and I was crushed. Absolutely heartbroken. I’m not kidding. I cried walking off the field that day. The next year, at eleven, I’d become a good hitter and pitcher and wound up as Little League home-run champ two years in a row.
At twelve, I was really big for a Little League pitcher. I was also scary-fast—and scary-wild. I even had a little peach fuzz on my chin.
Speaking of peach fuzz, there was a variety store near our school—Jockey Joe’s—that sold beer to underage kids. Since I had the chin fuzz, I was the one who got to buy the beer.
Jockey Joe was this mean little bugger who reportedly had a gun and definitely kept a baseball bat behind the counter at his corner store. He was also a small-time, small-town bookie.
But he sold us beer. No problem with it. The only ID “proof” we needed was a dollar bill. Four quarters would do fine.
Sometimes I’d mumble, “It’s for my dad.” Jockey Joe wouldn’t have cared if the beer was for my baby sister.
After I made the buy, my pals and I—I’m not going to rat them out here—would head up to Downing Park and down the beers, two to a man.
Back to sports. My friend Mickey Fescoe was a very good high-school athlete. He finally admitted, at age seventy, that back in the day, he’d been scared to hit against me because I was so big and fast and as wild as the old Yankees reliever Ryne Duren, who was the model for Charlie Sheen’s character in Major League.
When I was fourteen, we had a strong Pony League team, the Orioles. I was a pitcher, and the catcher was a kid named Pudge. He and his brother, who was two years older, came from Wallkill, a nearby farm town. Pudge was a good catcher who was crazy-competitive and a major ball-breaker. We were fourteen years old and he was already chewing tobacco. He’d be behind home plate, chewing his tobacco wad, spitting the brown goop into the dirt between pitches.
The first time Pudge and I met, Pudge talked at me between tobacco chews. “I’ll catch you bare-handed, Jim Patterson. Don’t even need a glove. My brother throws harder than you with his left hand—and he’s right-handed.” Pudge and I went on to become friendly—not friends, but we tolerated one another and we won a lot of baseball games.
I was one of the better pitchers in the league and Mickey Fescoe was definitely the best hitter. But neither of us got picked for the all-star team—which pissed the hell out of Mickey. Yeah, and me too.
Pretty dejected, the two of us were sitting in the stands, squinty-eyed, watching an infield drill before our all-star team played a team from another county. The kid pitching for us, Mickey Scott, was a year younger than Fescoe and I. He wasn’t that great in Pony League—but Mickey Scott wound up playing for the Yankees. So I guess Bo Gill, who ran the league and was also the sportswriter for the Newburgh News, could spot talent better than we could.
Bo Gill was bald as a cue ball and kind of a dumpy, funny-looking guy. The day of the all-star game, he wanted everything to look picture-perfect. As he was bent over, dusting off home plate, an infielder threw a ball and it hit Bo on the crown of his head. Knocked him right on his butt.
Fescoe and I couldn’t stop laughing. It was a Keystone Cops physical-comedy scene—very funny. Until we spotted Bo Gill’s wife. Mrs. Gill was sitting directly behind us, watching us laugh as her husband went tumbling onto his rear.
The very cool thing was, she started laughing too.
Bo, if you’re reading this in “the good place,” here’s to you—but this is definitely sweet revenge for keeping me and Fescoe off your all-star team. You know the saying: Revenge is a dish best served cold. I have to admit, it is a tasty dish.