GEORGE UHLE: Detroit sold me over to the New York Giants in 1933. Bill Terry wanted a pinch hitter. I went over there with that purpose, but my back was so bad I could hardly move. I didn't last very long with the Giants. When they released me, I went to an osteopath by the name of Dr. Fields in Lakewood. Dr. Fields found out what was wrong right off the rail. My sacroiliac was out. He worked on me for about ten days. I worked out with a fellow down in one of the city parks, to find out if it was all right to pitch. It was coming along fine and I got a call from the Yankees. So I reported three or four days later, and I think I won six straight ball games for them.

Then the next year they wanted me to be the long relief man, and I was never able to do that. You know: get up, warm up, sit down. I was always able to throw a dozen balls, get into a game, and I'd be fine. just like I used to for Bucky Harris. I remember saving two ball games in a row for him one season in Detroit, and in bad situations -- bases filled, a two and zero count on the batter. Then the very next day, New York is in town, and the same trouble in the ninth inning. This time it was a tie ball game. So instead of getting out of it in the ninth, I pitched until the sixteenth. All of these relief appearances were after taking my regular turn. Finally Bucky said to me, "Go on and go fishing for a couple of days. Every time I look up, I have to use you." That's the only vacation I ever got in baseball.

But I had a lot of fun. In fact, I've got to tell you kind of a cute story. At the end of one summer in Detroit, the club had these contests on the last Sunday of the season to draw people to the ball park. Fungo-hitting, circling the bases, fastest hundred-yard dash, four or five contests like that.

Bucky Harris came up to me and said, "Let's win at least one of these contests. Take a dozen balls home and bake them overnight. We'll win the fungo-hitting contest." Baking the baseballs made them lighter, so they'd go further when they were hit. As it turned out, that was the only contest we didn't win. No kidding. Joe Vosmik won it for Cleveland.

Anyway, the following year, the Missus was out at Navin Field with our daughter, who was about six or seven years old at the time. We were playing Boston. I went up to pinch-hit. I hit a line drive to right field, and at the last moment it curved away from the outfielder. It broke so fast, it went off his glove and they gave me a three-base hit.

My daughter turned to Helen and said, "Will they give Daddy a hit on that?"

"Sure," said Helen. "It was too hot to handle."

"Oh," said my daughter. "Did they bake that ball, too?"

--July 1982

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