Word: pitcher
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Bouton, at age 22, was the finest young pitcher in baseball, a star on the '63 world champion New York Yankees. He wore his blonde hair short, and T.V. advertising executives begged for his services to plug their latest masculinity-producing hair tonics. Then two things happened to Jim Bouton: he lost his fastball, and the owners and other players discovered that he was a flake...
...supposed to be best exemplified in the national past-time. If Americans are supposedly perfect Christians, then the athlete must be the perfect perfect Christian. If we, in our national mythology, are supposed to be rugged, steely individuals battling the frontier for survival, then the match-up of pitcher and batter, catcher and base-runner, steely-eyed individuals all, is the nonviolent equivalent of the duel between sheriff and gunfighter. The language of sportswriting reflects the popular mythology well. Pitchers "tame" hitters, runners are cut down "stealing" bases, and a crucial is a "duel." But who can imagine a classic...
...crowd of 2,000 collected to watch. The contest was highlighted by charges of police brutality when a line drive from a cop's bat stung the pitcher. The kids tried to get the cops' crew-cut pitcher ejected for throwing a greaseball, and the police puffed on imaginary marijuana cigarettes and floated around the base paths. Law-and-order prevailed 24-5, but a rematch was scheduled, and there is talk of having the competitors join an amateur softball league...
...radical. Valeri also was neither a student or, by his background, a radical. Although enrolled in Northeastern during the Fall under the prison STEP program, Gilday and Valeri never attended a class there. Gilday had been in and out of prison nine times since 1947. A former pitcher in the Washington Senators farm system in 1964, Gilday was known as a hard-drinking, fast-talking, impulsive...
...curving batting practice offerings. Mailer, reading them as clever change-ups, lunged, missed, or popped to the infield. "What the hell," he complained, "I thought you Nieman Fellows were tough." One was reminded of a 300 hitter who, going 0-for-5 on a given night, charges the opposing pitcher with dealing in junkstuff: Mailer wanted a high, hard one he could rip over the Nieman fence. Nobody threw...