I I could catch anybody's fastball bare-handed. I did that as a dare in 1949 with a pitcher by the name of Bill Pierro. We were in the outfield, and he was popping off, saying how hard he could throw, and I said, "I'll catch your fastball bare-handed," and he said, "No, you can't."

I said, "Well, let's get 60 feet six inches. But what I want you to do first is go down to the bullpen first and warm up, 'cause I don't want you to-"

He said, "No, you can't catch it even if I don't warm up." So I caught two, and he said, "I'm not warm."

I said, "Well, I knew you'd say that. Go down to the bullpen and warm up."

So he did that, and I caught five in a row, and that kind of deflated his ego a little bit. And that's the reason why I did it. I did it more on a dare because of that. [Pierro came up to the Pirates the next year, but pitched only 12 big-league games, losing his only two decisions.] I look back now and say, "I was kind of crazy for doing it." But when I was a kid, everybody used to have a glove, and I used to play shortstop in fast-pitch softball without a glove because I couldn't afford one. So my hands were toughened up, and I knew what I was doing. If I thought there was a chance of my getting hurt, I wouldn't have done it. I said to everybody who wanted to throw hard that I would catch it. "You throw the ball across the seams, and you throw it as hard as you can." Because when you throw the ball across the seams, the ball is going to stay straight. I told them I would catch the fastest ball that they could throw.

Probably the toughest one I had to catch was Don Zimmer. He drew a line 60 feet six inches, went back about 20 feet, ran up to the line and threw me a spitter. When I caught it, he threw his glove up in the air and said, "You made a believer out of me." He probably threw as fast as anybody I ever caught. [Zimmer was a big-league infielder for 12 years, before becoming a longtime major league manager and coach.]

So I was crazy for doing it, but I knew what I was doing.

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