Ball boy

I grew up in a small town, Salem, Virginia, and they had an A-ball team.

At the time, this is back in the mid-70s, I was a ball boy, bat boy for the Salem Pirates.

It's a class A club for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the ballpark was literally in my backyard, so all the kids hung out around the ballpark, and I used to shag home run balls and sell them back to the GM for 25 cents a ball.

And I got really good at that.

But as we're in the game.

One of the things that starts happening is my oldest, he notices that the foul balls, because we got there early enough, like the foul balls and the balls that kind of went to the side, the ball boy was actually giving away balls.

And so, Like we're close enough.

And so my son's thinking to himself, wow, I really like baseball a lot.

And I'd love to have one of those baseballs.

But he kind of says something to me at the beginning of the game.

And I just kind of like, yeah, you know, the ball boys, you know, they're over there and they, they, they get the balls and you know, they're giving away.

And my, my son, right.

And we are rounding out the Asian swing that has delivered some frightfully good results, some terrifying tour developments, and some horrifying number ones that honestly feel a little bit more like number two.

And we'll be talking about which players are ending the year cursed, and of course covering that one player who is literally cursing out a ball boy.

But not too much, because we do not stand for that over here on The Ball Boys.

But let's be frank, and Stein, both tours are limping to the season finale.

Look, the boys have been flailing around since the US Open, but even on the women's side, after a year of steady results, it was their time to tumble out of Wuhan, leaving a surprising final girl.

And you can see the full Bay TP over on our Instagram, which is at TBB Tennis.

That's at TBB Tennis.

The TBB stands for the Ball Boys.

The other penalty goal to Michael Lynagh.

Millsy was running ball boy down the, uh-

[laughs]

...

Let that one slide, 'cause I'll lead from the front.

The ...

Obviously, you know, transitioning from an old school leather style ball to a new synthetic model would be extremely difficult for the goal kicker, but obviously not only them went through the transition, it was also the ball boys.

So how did that affect your performance when it comes to-

And let's go back to the first chapter, which is obviously the Goldstone.

Now, yourself and I have got a little bit of a shared history there, as we were both, we're probably actually both ball boys at the same time, at the same games sometimes.

Yeah, I started ball boying.

I started going to games.

Yeah.

got you sorry so anyway we're jumping around yeah i just want to go back

because i mean we were talking about i mean those days at the goldsmith being ball boys because i mean there was it was a special thing to do it because we used to what used to turn up used to go through the player's entrance he used to be met by uh jock riddell who used to like see you through to the tiny little hole wasn't it we have to go through into the into the thing and then then we'd be met by um keith cuss um now keith was he used to look after all the ball boys at the goldstone about them and you know for for the all the all the games reserve games and the first team games but um there's quite a lot about keith in the book isn't there

Yeah, there's one chapter in particular about Keith where he – because he used to – I mean, I don't know how old Keith was.