A Pilot, A Brewer and a Harvard Man

In keeping with my oft-stated opinion that some of your best autograph responses come from players who get to the Big Show "just for a cup of coffee," I got a great response to my request asking Ray Peters to sign an index card for my son and me. Mr. Peters writes such a kind and interesting letter that I'm going to go ahead and print it in its entirety. The following is the reply that I received along with my signed index cards.

"Over the years I have been receiving requests for autographs and I never had any baseball cards to send anyone, so I wrote TOPPS and asked for the negative of the photo they took of me back in 1970. (In the old days the player received, to the best of my recollection, $75 for allowing TOPPS to use his picture: I have no idea what it is now with all the different card companies.) Back in the old days (1970 again!) TOPPS photographed all 40 men in the major league roster, but basically only printed cards on the25 players who broke spring training with the "big" club. Since I wasn't called up to the majors until June and wasn't on the big league roster in 1971 (traded to the Phillies-Pete Koegel and me for Johnny Briggs), they never printed my card. However, what I have sent you is the TOPPS photo, which would have been my card had they printed it! I had a friend do the art work so it looks like a 1971 Brewers card and I looked up the stats for the back.

I played with and against some interesting guys: one of my first roomies in pro ball was Tom Kelly, manager of the Twins and a very nice guy; my catcher at Portland was John Felske, former manager of the Phillies; my catcher at Eugene in 1971 was "Stump" Merrill, former manager of the Yankees; I gave up the hit that allowed Bobby Valentine, manager of the Mets and formerly of the Rangers, to break the AAA Pacific Coast League record for hits in a season; Greg Luzinsky was my first baseman at Eugene in 1971 (Bob Boone and Mike Schmidt were only in AA Reading, PA with the Philies that year!!!) Lots of great memories. One of the best is that the great Jimmy Reese, one of Babe Ruth's roommates, was our batting coach in Portland in 1970. What great stories he told! The 1968 SPORTING NEWS ALL-AMERICA TEAM has me as right handed pitcher, some guy named Garvey (Steve) was at third base and another named Paciorek (Tom) was in the outfield, and the catcher was named Thurman Munson; I feel I was in pretty good company back then! I - a pitcher - even hit a grand slam homerun to beat Phoenix the week before I got married in 1970!! Though my major league career was a matter of days, I was fortunate to pitch against my hitting heroes when I was growing up - Al Kaline was my favorite right-handed batter and Vada Pinson was my favorite left-handed hitter. I walked Kaline and got Pinson (who should be in the Hall of Fame) to ground out. LUCK plays a great part in sports. In my 2 innings I gave up only singles, 4 of which were broken bat bloops. Against Detroit I walked 2 and one batter got a single; I was taken out and the reliever gave up a grand slam homerun and I'm sent back to the minors!!!

That's life.

I don't know how old you are but if you're young, my parting line is: "Get as good an education as you can. Do not count on being a professional athlete; if you make it, great!" Thirty years ago a Harvard or Ivy League as a pro-athlete was considered very odd. (Bill Bradley from Princeton certainly stands out as a Hall of Fame basketball player.) Today there are still only a few. As for major league baseball players, Pete Varney, Mike Stenhouse, and Jeff Musselman, all from Harvard, played in the "bigs" in the 70s, 80s and early 90s respectively. Of course, Harvard's greatest rival - Yale - has produced Ron Darling of the Mets/A's.

Got to go. Best of luck.

Ray Peters #41, Milwaukee Brewers, 1970."

A great letter from a guy who appreciates his time in the game. Responses like this are what keep me writing. I'll toss in a trivia question as well, this month, so, with that, have fun with the hobby. I sure do.

~ Rich Hanson