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In 2005 I was privileged to be able to spend a couple of days interviewing Jimmy Piersall at his summer home in suburban Wheaton. It was an incredible experience and I only wish I could repeat many of the amazing anecdotes he shared with me. The following is the article I wrote that appeared in "Midwest Outdoors" and a few other publications.
I have had the opportunity to interview a number of notable people who enjoy the outdoors, but are famous for other reasons. With the end of the 2006 baseball season soon drawing to a close, I fondly remember being able to spend time with baseball legend, Jimmy Piersall. Piersall is a one-of-a-kind individual. I most remember that Jimmy provided me with one of the best quotes I have ever heard about the world of the outdoors. We’ll get to that later.
Piersall was born in 1929 in Connecticut. He was a natural athlete, competing in many sports. He led his high school’s basketball team to the New England championship in front of 15,000 spectators. In his first football game, Jimmy had a 102-yard touchdown run. Baseball, though, was the sport that captured Piersall’s heart.
Piersall could hit and he had blazing speed, but his ability as a centerfield ballhawk was what drew the scouts to his games. A tireless worker, Jimmy, shagged fly balls by the thousand in practice. If it didn’t carry over the fence, the ball usually ended up securely in Piersall’s mitt. He turned down larger dollar offers to go to the major leagues with his beloved Boston Red Sox.
He quickly ascended through the minor leagues and earned his shot with the big club in 1952. He was slated to open the season as the starting centerfielder, flanked by Ted Williams and Dom DiMaggio.
The plant went awry when someone in management figured that with Jimmy’s speed and magic glove, that he could be converted to a shortstop. Piersall was a perfectionist. He had always worked extremely hard to be the best at any undertaking he attempted. The self-imposed pressure that Jimmy Piersall put on himself was overwhelming. Piersall was living in a world of panic, fearful of failing at an unfamiliar position. His fears eventually manifested themselves in an incredible way.
Piersall’s 1952 season was dotted with bizarre antics and odd incidents. He fought with the fans. He fought with his own teammates. He fought with opponents. He’d go through wild and crazy routines pantomiming the gestures of some of the umpires and even mocking the moves of some of his Red Sox teammates. Although he never climbed the backstop, as portrayed in the movie, “Fear Strikes Out,” Jimmy Piersall was making a mockery of America’s National pastime.
In August of 1952, Piersall woke up in a Massachusetts hospital room. He was totally unaware of any of his actions over the previous seven months. All the fights, all the attention, all the wild and crazy behavior, none of it was stored in Jimmy Piersall’s memory bank. When his wife showed him a scrapbook of what had transpired during the season, he was astonished that he had done any of the things that were chronicled by the press.
At the tender age of 22, Jimmy Piersall had suffered a complete and utter mental breakdown. He was operating on a different plane, his actions disconnected from his consciousness, like a drunk walking his way through a blackout. Intensive therapy, doctor upon doctor, shock treatments and endless drugs were able to buy back a life for Piersall that was somewhat normal.
Piersall came back the next year and went on to an illustrious career crowned by multiple Gold Glove awards and hitting over 100 home runs. Of course, the unconventional Piersall is often remembered celebrating the accomplishment of that hundredth homer by running the bases backwards. At least at this time, Jimmy knew what he was doing.
He continued to undergo drug therapy and counseling. He says he still felt like “a walking time bomb” until being medicated with Lithium, a mood-altering drug in 1975.
After many years as a player, a broadcaster and a coach, Piersall works part-time as a baseball analyst for a Chicago radio station. He and his lovely wife, Jan, spend the ball season living in Chicago’s Western Suburbs and then becomes a “snowbird,” moving to Arizona’s warmth for the winter.
His passion is fishing and Jimmy spends 200 days a year casting into ponds trying to outsmart his gilled opponents. In Phoenix, he loves chasing the wily rainbow trout. Back to Illinois, Piersall becomes the nemesis of the area’s carp population.
Jimmy took up fishing because he had heard that it was a good form of relaxation. During one spring training he gave it a whirl. He’d fish off the piers and enjoyed battling feisty ladyfish and sheepshead. On occasion, he’d rent a boat and hit the deep. He recalled a time when he ran aground on an offshore sandbar while out with his wife. “We were stranded for seven hours before anybody found us. I was angry at first and then I realized that it was nice to have some quiet time with my wife,” he said with a wink.
He tried fishing for billfish in Mexican waters but wasn’t impressed. “It was too much darned work,” he howled. “I had a big sailfish on for 45 minutes and it seemed like ten days of hard work. All of the time the captain was shouting orders at me. I told him to shut up and that was the end of my deep-sea fishing career.”
In Arizona he says, “All of my buddies call me constantly for tips, because they know that I know how and where to catch them. This season I landed 310 trout measuring up to 21 inches. I keep meticulous records about my fishing. I’ve got tons of logbooks telling me about every single day I’ve spent fishing. This is what you need to do to be a success. I’ve kept logs about everything I have ever done. I’ve till got boxes of books where I’ve kept notes on pitchers from my baseball days.” That is good advice, Jim!
In Illinois, Piersall hauls out his carp gear. “The thing I like about carp is that they catch you, you don’t catch them. I love the way that they battle. Pound for pound, they give you the best fight of any fish you catch. Personally, I think that I am as good a carp fisherman as there is around. I study these fish and try to anticipate what they will do, where they are and what they want to eat. I love to go after them in the early morning. I think carp are a smart fish and they are easy to spook. I use bread, corn or dough balls for bait. The thing I’ve learned over the years is to use good quality hooks.”
Once, Jimmy laid his rod down on the bank and in short order, saw it being dragged into the lake by a feisty carp. Always the perfectionist, Jimmy attacked the lake the next morning. “By the end of the day, believe it or not, I hooked the carp that had stolen my rod. I dragged him in and he had a hook in his mouth. I took the hook out and started to pull in the line that the hook was connected to and, what do you know, there was the rod that this fellow had taken from me the day before.”
His best catch was in Scottsdale, Arizona. “I was fishing for trout. All of a sudden, my rod doubled over. I knew it was a big carp. The fish took off running and so did I. The lake was about a half-mile long and the carp pulled me from one end to the other. All the time I am screaming at the top of my lungs for the other fishermen to reel in and get out of the way.” After 30 minutes, Jimmy was photographed holding up a 30-pound monster, released as is always his practice.
My afternoon with Piersall was memorable. My head spun as he reeled off baseball story after baseball story. He is animated and leaps out of his chair when he wants to make a point. If he’s talking about a catcher, he quickly squats in a catcher’s stance to accentuate his tale. He is a unique man.
Oh yes, that memorable quote. “Steve, I truly believe that fishing has been a bigger help to me than all of the lithium that I’ve taken in the last 25 years. I’ve always been hyper and tense and ready to explode, but fishing has given me a way to relax. There’s no rush involved in fishing. There’s a lot of concentration and you need to learn how to have patience. I love fishing and love what fishing has done for me.” Aren’t those truly powerful words about the powers of outdoors recreation?
_________________ Host of the weekly "We Fish ASA" podcast Weekly columnist for the Northwest Herald Bi-monthly columnist for Illinois Outdoor News magazine Former host of The Outdoors Experience on WIND and The Great Outdoors on CLTV http://www.wefishasa.com
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Probably the best thing that happened to me was going nuts. Nobody knew who I was until that happened.
