It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I played golf for 25 years before I made a hole-in-one of any kind. I was on the tour for years before it finally happened. Eventually I made 23, but boy, that first one was a long time coming. It was the price I paid for not shooting at every flag.
I was kind of a slap hitter, trying to get base hits, hit line drives, stay below a certain trajectory with my ball.
I'm so bad at baseball, I can't even hit now.
At ten I was playing against 18-year-old guys. At 15 I was playing professional ball with the Birmingham Black Barons, so I really came very quickly in all sports.
I started playing golf at about four years old.
It was in 1942 and I flew from St. Louis to Mexico City. I had just gotten married and we were on our honeymoon. I hit .397 and led the Mexican League with 20 home runs and was named the MVP of the league. It's when I realized I could compete with anyone at any level.
I was always the kind of hitter that if you threw it 92 miles per hour at me, I'd hit it right back at you.
I had 12 years under my belt of baseball at the amateur level before I got to the big leagues.
The fall of 1912 my fielding was above the average, but my hitting was not so good. However, I was the talk of the town because of my peculiar way of catching a fly ball. They later named it the Vest-Pocket Catch.
I found out early in life that I could hit a baseball farther than most players, and that's what I tried to do.