The Art of Russell Pierce

Professional Baseball Player

Growing up in Long Island, New York my friends and I loved to play baseball and worship some of the players as heroes. There’s a lot more than just these three but Mickey, Sandy and Willie were at the top of the list for me. When we weren’t playing ball in the sandlot we’d jump on our Stingrays and head downtown to buy a pack of baseball cards that came with a piece of gum that tasted like cardboard. We developed games of skill where we could win cards off of each other. At one point I got so good at these games, my friends refused to play with me so I would head downtown and hustle kids I didn’t know. I’d buy two or three packs of cards and come home with 40 or 50 cards.

 

Sandy Koufax played for the Dodgers both in Brooklyn and when they moved to Los Angeles. I was only 1 years old when the Dodgers moved to LA but I remember older guys still cursing them many years later. Sandy didn’t start off as a great player but he worked hard and became a stand out. The youngest player ever elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, an All Star for six seasons and he won three Cy Young awards. Koufax was the first major league pitcher to pitch four no-hitters and the eighth pitcher to pitch a perfect game in baseball history. That should tell you how good he was.