GEORGE UHLE: We were playing the Red Sox one Sunday in Boston. We couldn't play in the American League ballpark because of the church regulations in those days, so we played in the Braves' National League park. Their mound was way different from anything else in the American League. It was way high -- I'd say two or three feet high, and graduated. It was built for their pitchers. Me, being an overhand pitcher, why, my fastball was high all day long. I was always in trouble, which meant that I threw an awful lot of pitches that day.

I had 'em, 4-1, going into the ninth inning. Bucky came out to the mound when he saw that I was having trouble putting anything on the ball and they were starting to hit it. He said, "How about it?"

Lil Stoner was in the bullpen. He'd relieved in my twenty-one-inning game in Chicago. I don't know, different stories that Heilmann and other players told me, but Stoner liked to get credit for games if he possibly could.* I know that when two balls were hit back to him in the twenty-first inning, he threw them in the dirt to Heilmann at first. Heilmann came up with both of them, we got out of it all right, and I got credit for the game. In this game in Boston, Stoner was the only guy we had in the bullpen.

» It wasn't until the 1940s that the bullpen gained universal acceptance as a strategic option in its own right instead of just a repository for failed starters. Even after saves became an official statistic in 1969, most pitchers still depended largely on their won-lost record when negotiating new contracts.

I said, "Well, with that little guy down in the bullpen, I'd just as soon win it or lose it myself even if I can hardly get the ball up to the plate."

Bucky said to me, "I feel the same way."

Well, with each ball I threw, it hurt twice as much under my shoulder blade. Severe pain of some kind. I couldn't imagine what it was. So Boston wound up beating me. Instead of me winning ten straight and getting decent relief, I staggered through and got beat. My next ball game was in New York. Lost that game. The Yankees scored right off because I could hardly throw. So, Dugan kept on stretching my arm after that until, one day, it finally left. I wound up having a decent year.

The same thing happened to me the next season at spring training in California. One day Mark Koenig wanted to visit his home and asked me if I wouldn't like to ride with him. It was an open car and a cold day, and the next day I couldn't even throw in batting practice. I immediately got on the train to see Dr. Spencer. He said, "Well, you've caught a good cold under there." Same thing as in Boston. Stretching took it out again, and I never had it come back after that.

I thought Bucky was a very good manager. Bucky know what he was doing and I'm telling you, he was a good, smart manager. He made it a point to look into a fellow's eyes if he was going to send him up to pinch-hit. He wanted to check and see if they were blurry from being out late the night before.

I had good luck pinch-hitting for Bucky. I recall one game in particular. We beat Wes Ferrell of Cleveland the first game of a doubleheader, I believe it was the Fourth of July. I was going to pitch the afternoon game. I was at home, listening on the radio. The morning game went on, no score. Finally Cleveland got one run. I said to the Missus, "Well, I'm going to head down to the park. Maybe I can help out in some way."

I got to Navin Field about the eighth inning, got dressed, and went out to the bench. Ferrell was a real good pitcher and he had us beat, 1-0. I happened to be sitting close to Bucky and in the ninth inning he said, "How about pinch-hitting?"

I said, "Okay." I pinch-hit with two men out. With two strikes on me, I got a curveball that wasn't eight or ten inches off the ground and hit it to left field for a base hit. The next two balls Ferrell pitched went for a single and a double, two runs scored, and we beat him, 2-1. Ferrell was so mad -- three base hits on three straight pitches and he loses -- that he took the glove in his mouth and pulled the webbing out with his teeth.

But Ferrell was a very good pitcher and a great competitor. Don't think he wasn't. Pretty good hitter, too. He hit that long ball. I wasn't a long-ball hitter because I choked up. I didn't swing from the end of the bat. I protected home plate. They didn't strike me out very often. I used a light bat, about as light as they came -- thirty-three, thirty-four ounces. A Billy Rogell model.

I loved to hit the curveball. Instead of guessing back and forth, I'd wait for it right down the line and eventually I'd get it. Speaker and I once had an argument about this business of guessing pitches, and I told him, "You're not guessing when you're waiting on one type of pitch." Until you get two strikes, of course. Then you look for anything. But you still have to favor the pitch that that pitcher throws most often. If he's a fastball pitcher, you're more apt to get the fastball, so you favor that.

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