Long Shot by Mike Piazza, Lonnie Wheeler Read Free Book Online

could really do it.
    When I was about thirteen—which would have made Danny eleven—I put him in head scissors one day and got kind of carried away. I didn’t really choke him, I don’t think, but I went a little too far and he started freaking out. Then I heard my dad coming. I ran outside and tried to take cover by the woodpile, but Dad walked up and just slugged me in the face. I rolled clear over the woodpile. He yanked me up and said, “Boy, don’t you ever fight with your brothers. You’ve got to fight with them, not against them. If there’s ever a problem, you better step up and help them because you’re the guy who can get it done.”
    Not long afterward, there was an incident on the school bus when some kid hit Vince in the stomach as we were walking down the aisle. Instinctively, I reached back and clobbered the guy. That time, Dad wasn’t even upset with me. I had done as he’d said. A day or two later, the kid’s father approached my dad and started to make an issue of it. My dad said, “You don’t want to go there, do you?”
    • • •
    Dad would occasionally take me to Flyers and 76ers games. Doctor J, to me, was bigger than life. You know the famous rock-a-bye dunk he made against the Lakers? It was right in front of me.
    We were sitting on the floor , on the same sideline where Doctor J raced Michael Cooper for the loose ball at midcourt, jabbed it in the right direction, then picked it up, took one humongous dribble, cradled it as he soared through the air, and swung it down right on top of Cooper. You can actually see me on the video of that play, right around the spot where Doctor J snatched the ball and took off. I’m wearing a red Alligator shirt, blue jeans, and Pony shoes. When I was with the Dodgers, Eric Davis was watching that video on the plane one night and I said, “Hey, that’s me, right there!” It was a fun time to be a sports fan in Philly.
    But I have to say, I sucked at basketball. I mean, it’s almost incomprehensible how bad I was at basketball—and still am. Mom signed us up for little-kid basketball at the YMCA, along with diving lessons, and I had maybe two baskets my whole career. One time I stole the ball and I was coming up the court with it and the coach was yelling at me, “Give the ball to the point guard!” I didn’t understand the concept. Naturally, I had it stolen back from me. I once fell down and cried about it, and the coach gave me a towel and said, “You get back in there and you get that fucking ball!” He actually cussed at me. My mom had a cow, as we used to say. The f-bomb wasn’t heard much around our house. With my dad, it was always “Jesus Christmas!”
    Golf was more up my alley. Dad would take me on Sundays to Woods Golf Center in Norristown and teach me the fundamentals. He thought I had some potential in golf, which I did. Mom and Dad became members of the Phoenixville Country Club so that I could practice there. The club had a one-armed pro, Joe Banyacskay, who was always smoking a cigar and cursing his head off. It was a hell of a walk from our house, carrying golf clubs, but for a few years I’d make that walk just about every day of the summer with my friend Marc Deye.
    There was a time when I thought I might want to pursue golf, but I didn’t have the mentality for it. One weekend I was playing with my dad, and playing like shit, and I had a bad attitude going on, which wasn’t particularly unusual. The thing was, he was allowing me to play golf while my brothers were working. So he lit me up. “You’re out here jerking off! You’re done! Get out of here! Jesus Christmas!”
    I made the Phoenixville High School golf team in the ninth grade, which was cool because I was able to catch rides from the older guys and no longer had to call my mom all the time to pick me up in the minivan. My golf game was long on power, but short on poise. That became obvious my junior year, when, after sixteen holes, I was leading the