...or opening day. Depending on how you feel about it.

I got a wire from Toots Shor in Anahiem before the game. It said, "Good luck, Jim. I hope you pitch often and win many games." Who says Toots never talks to has beens?

Actually, I don't know Toots that well. I've been in his place a few times and once when I was going bad he told me my whole problem was that I was striding three inches too far and if I just shortened up on the stride by those three inches everything would be fine. I was so desperate I actually tried it. It didn't help.

Everyone works out pregame nervousness in his own way. Tommy Davis was standing in the middle of the clubhouse taking a hitting stance with no bat in his hands, anticipating the pitching, striding into it, checking his swing, and then going back and doing it all over again. It reminded me of a guy going over his notes just before a final exam knowing all the time that it wasn't going to do any good. If you don't have it by now, Tommy, you're never going to.

There was a lot of grousing about th uniforms. It isn't only that they don't fit (no baseball uniforms fit, possibly because you are carefully measured for them). Its thats they're so gaudy. I guess thats because we're the Pilots and we have to have captain's uniforms. They have stripes on the sleeves, scrambled eggs eggs on the peak of the cap, and blue socks with yellow stripes. Also, there are blue and yellow stripes down the sides of the pants. We look like goddam clowns. There only worse looking uniforms are the ones they wear in Vancouver.

Naturally, we won our first game. Beat the Angels 4-3. Mike Hegan hit the first home run for the Pilots and Joe Schultz, jumping up and down in the dugout, clapped his hands and actually yelled, "Hurray for our team."

When we came into the clubhouse, all of us yelling and screaming like a bunch of high school kids, Joe Schultz said, "Stomp on 'em. That-a-way to stomp on 'em. Kick 'em when they're down. Shitfuck. Fuckshit. Now go out and pound the ol' Budweiser and stomp 'em tommorow. Stomp 'em good."

Already we're better than the Mets.

-Jim Bouton, Ball Four pp. 103-4

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