[laughs]

Oh.

Not, not until I stepped on that field at Shea.

I take that back.

You know, I, I had, I thought I had a chance when I got drafted, uh, to play.

And, and that was the opportunity that, uh, that, that, uh, you know, I had grown up dreaming about, to play professional baseball and to eventually play in the Major Leagues.

And I, and, you know, I, I say never, but, uh, I, I, I, I didn't wanna ever feel entitled that, you know, the game owed me anything, that I had to work for everything I had.

Tell me about your encounter with Tom Seaver.

At, at what point did you think, and did you know that you were gonna get drafted and have a chance at, you know, the next level in baseball?

Well, I got, [laughs] I gotta tell you, I mean, it w- it wasn't, uh...

You know, you look back at the record books, and, and Kip Young, he won, like, 30 games, um, in college.

And I was, I think, three and four my first year as a freshman, four and five my second year, and either four and three or five and three as a junior.

Um, so I really didn't, uh, you know, put up big numbers, uh, from the college standpoint.

I think more than anything that, uh, I...

when I went away to play in Peoria in the Central Illinois College baseball league, um, and got to play with guys from all over the country, um, that were tops in their program.

Is there gonna be a celebration coming up in August in, in New York for you guys?

A legend, yes.

He, he's, he's, he's been everywhere, he's done everything, and he knows everybody.

So anyway, he connected us.

And, uh, and Doug was writing a book.

Uh, Doug Feldman, the co-author, he was writing a book on the St. Louis Cardinals and the Mets rivalry during the mid-'80s.

And so he wanted to talk to me, so we had a conversation, and over probably a, a month of two or three conversations, uh, it was just an easy, easy conversation.

Um, and I could tell he was a, a- a baseball fan.

Yeah

I mean, talk about the pressure of pitching under those circumstances.

Well, as we related in the book, it was an opportunity for me to hopefully keep our team in the game, which hopefully was what I did all year, is giving our team an opportunity to win the ballgame.

That game six, we knew what we were up against if we lost that game six.

And that was Mike Scott.

And he'd already pretty much dominated us for two games.

Actually, I believe he was the MVP of that series.

And so we knew what we were going to be up against.

Yeah.