Nick Testa is a New Yorker through and through. He was born and raised in New York City. He went to high school and college there; he taught school there. He spent most of his professional baseball life with a team in New York. He lives there today and pitches batting practice for both the New York Yankees and the New York Mets. And he still speaks with an accent that sounds as if he never left the Big Apple.

But the baseball career of this native New Yorker reads like a world travelogue.

The youngest of four children (two girls and two boys), Testa is the son of an Italian immigrant who came to the United States in 1917, in the middle of World War I. "They put him in the army and sent him right back to Europe," Testa laughs. "That's how he got his citizenship." Nick was born June 29, 1928.

At Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx, Testa was a catcher on the baseball team. "Because I was short and stocky, five-foot-eight and 180 pounds," he explains, "they put me back there and I got beat up for a while." In 1943, when he was fifteen years old, Testa went to a New York Giants tryout at the Polo Grounds. "It rained that day, so they wouldn't let us go on the field, so we had the tryout outside, under where the elevated trains ran. They had us run and throw on the sidewalk."

Testa was signed by the Giants to play on their "Eddie Grant Team," which was composed of top high school prospects from around the city. The team played exhibition games at the Polo Grounds against other traveling teams when the Giants were away. "When the Giants were home, I caught batting practice," he says. He was still just fifteen or sixteen years old.

As a direct result of a play he made at the plate in one of the exhibition games, Testa was offered a college football scholarship.

"One time, a guy who was a football player tried to score from second on a hit to the outfield and came barreling into me at home plate. I was fine, but they had to revive him. After the game, a scout named Bob Trocolar, who used to punt for the New York Giants football team, asked me if I played football, and I said no, just sandlot stuff. My high school didn't have a football team. But he got me a football scholarship to the University of Florida."

After graduating from high school in 1945, Testa went to school in Florida for a little over a year and played blocking back. During that time, he was extremely active in the classroom. "I doubled up on courses and finished two years' worth of credits in one and received an associate of arts degree."

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