by Jim Piersall
In September, I hit the jackpot at Yankee Stadium. One day I took an extra-base hit from Irv Noren of the Yankees with a diving catch. The next day, I hoisted myself up on the edge of the bull pen with one hand and speared a long wallop by Joe Collins with the other, depriving him of a homer. On the day after, Hank Bauer hit one in the same general spot. Susce and Kinder, who were in the bull pen, were so sure that it was going in for a home run that they yelled, “No, no, Jimmy!” as I went after it. But when I made a stab for it anyhow, the ball landed in my glove, and it was just another out for Bauer. I guess it was that series that convinced Stengel.
When I took successive hits away from Al Rosen and Bob Lemon of the Indians in Cleveland the day I shut that heckler up, Bill McKechnie, our coach, said, “That kid gets balls Speaker wouldn’t have reached.” That was truly praise from Caesar, for McKechnie was a member of the old school of baseball men and Tris Speaker had been hailed for forty years as the greatest outfielder who ever lived.
Before the season was over, Boudreau told the writers one day, “I don’t care if Piersall doesn’t hit .240. He can play right field for me on his fielding alone.”
Actually, I had a good year at the plate, ending up with a respectable, if not sensational, .272 batting average. I was satisfied. Between my opportunities to make miraculous catches and the very fact that I came back at all, I was the talk of baseball that year.
When the season was over, I was selected the outstanding Red Sox player of the year in a poll conducted by Leo Egan, sports announcer for Boston’s radio station WBZ. He had set up a new award in Ted Williams’s name, consisting of a silver bowl and a new Nash automobile. At the time, Williams had just returned from a second tour of duty in the United States Marine Air Corps. With Williams standing by, Egan made the presentation to me just before the season ended, and that was one of the thrills of my life. Later, to add frosting to the cake, the Associated Press, after conducting a poll among the nation’s sports writers, named me as the outstanding sophomore player in the American League.
In his column, “Sports of the Times,” Arthur Daly of the New York Times wrote:
“Piersall steals things. He steals singles, doubles, triples and homers from other ballplayers in the most blatant manner imaginable. Even when you see him do it, you think your eyes have been performing tricks on you. The youngster is incredible. He scales fences, swings on bullpen gates and teeters on low walls. But he always makes his catch.
“Piersall is a phenomenon in modern baseball, where the home-run hitter hitherto has ruled in solitary splendor as the gate attraction. The kid from Waterbury, Connecticut, packs ’em in just so they can watch him catch and throw a ball.”
It was heartwarming to read words like that. Even more heartwarming was a line in Harold Kaese’s sports column in the Boston Globe, for it hit right home. Kaese wrote one day:
“More than any other player, the comeback big leaguer of 1953 is Jim Piersall, twenty-three-year-old Red Sox right fielder. He came from farther back than any of them.”
I guess I had come from farther back than any of them and, perhaps, in a shorter time. But I still couldn’t be really certain I had this thing licked until I had proved two things to myself. One was my ability to weather any real storm of adversity. The other was my ability to face the past in a manner that might help others.
The 1953 season was a remarkable one for me, but there was no particular reason why it shouldn’t have been. Everything went my way. I was surrounded by people who wanted to help me. Mary, Dr. Brown, my close friends, Yawkey, Cronin, Susce, my own teammates, opposing players, umpires, writers, fans—everyone I could think of—had their hands out ready to pull me over the bumps and the hurdles. But the hurdles were very small. The highest was the little heckling I got in Cleveland, once the others had me all straightened out. I didn’t get hurt, I didn’t get into any fights, I didn’t have to argue with the umpires and I didn’t have to worry about what would appear in the newspapers.
I made some remarkable catches, but I couldn’t have made them unless the ball was hit in my general direction. I made some good catches in 1954, but I didn’t have half the chances that I had the previous year. But 1953 was the big year for me. That was the season everyone was watching me to see if I could come back. That was the big year for me, and once it was over, I didn’t have to worry about chances for great plays.
There was another factor in 1953 that didn’t exist a year later. Our big guy was Ted Williams, and, shortly after we came North in 1952, Williams left to go back into the service. He didn’t return until late in the 1953 season. Without Williams, the Red Sox had no big drawing card, no one to talk or write about. In his absence, fans and writers turned to me, and after a while every unusual catch or throw I made was big news. Then, when Williams returned, he naturally took over the spotlight, but not until he had loaned it to me at the precise time I needed it most—when encouragement and help from press and fans meant more than it ever could either earlier or later.
So I didn’t have to meet the test of adversity at all in 1953—there wasn’t any adversity. Not until spring training in 1954 did I have to face an unpleasant reality. Then one day I ran into the fence and chipped a bone in my right wrist. It wasn’t serious and I stayed out for only ten days, returning in time to open the season, but it would have worried me to death two years before. I took it in stride. Instead of thinking about the remote possibility that it might cause later complications, I calmly accepted the probability that the wrist would be as good as ever after the chip had healed.
But something happened in August that worried everybody who was interested in my future. We played an exhibition game with the New York Giants at Fenway Park, and one of the pregame features was a throwing contest between Willie Mays and me. Mays, the Giants’ center fielder, was the most exciting young ballplayer of the 1954 season, a kid who could hit and throw and make out-of-this-world catches. Baseball followers often compared us as fielders, but never had a chance to see us in action at the same time, since the Giants are in the National League and the Red Sox in the American. So, for purposes of settling arguments for the moment, at least, this throwing contest was given a great deal of advance publicity.
There was a sellout crowd at Fenway Park, and I was anxious to make a good impression. We both stood in right center field, taking alternate fly balls, hit to us by Willard Nixon, one of our pitchers. We could throw to the plate from any angle, as long as we didn’t go any closer than a point marked off by red stakes.
After I had made three or four throws, I ran in close to the stakes to take a shallow fly ball. It dropped in and out of my glove. In a hurry to get the ball away, I stopped, picked it up and threw it, all in the same motion. The minute the ball left my hand, I felt a twinge in the upper part of my back, just below my right shoulder. That was the end of the contest for me. I ran into the dugout.
I thought I had nothing more wrong with me than a tired shoulder, so I decided to play in the game, although the weather was threatening and a light rain was falling at the start. I went to right field wearing a rubber jacket over my uniform. In one of the early innings, I made a routine throw, and that time I felt a sharp pain. I got out of the game, went into the locker room for a heat treatment and hoped for the best. The next morning I woke up with a ballplayer’s walking nightmare—a sore arm.
For nearly a month, I was plagued with the miseries in my arm. It was much more serious for me than it might be for other outfielders, since fielding rather than hitting was my long suit. A ball club can stand a light-hitting catcher or infielder, but normally, outfielders are expected to provide punch. As Arthur Daley had pointed out, I was a rare bird—an outfielder who attracted fans on his fielding alone. If I were a .300 hitter or a home-run slugger, I could get by with a poor arm. Not being either, a bad arm could knock me right out of the big leagues.
Now I really had something to worry about—but I didn’t worry. At first, I hardly realized how casually
I was taking what could be a major tragedy. I read a few stories labeled, “Is Piersall through?” and they didn’t bother me in the least. I was certain that my arm would come around sooner or later. I worked out, rested it, played a little, and did everything the club doctor told me to. Just before the season ended, I knew my arm was all right again. I was throwing as well as ever and I suffered no twinges.
“If you can take that without worrying yourself to death, you can take anything,” Mary remarked.
She was right. Once I had recovered from the arm ailment, I was confident that nothing would ever really bother me again.
EARLY IN THE 1953 season, I was faced with the prospect of being in a prime position to help others, but I wasn’t sure whether I could handle it or not. When we arrived in Chicago on our first trip West, a man named Don Slovin phoned me at the Del Prado Hotel and asked to see me on a personal matter. We made arrangements to meet the next day. He turned out to be a fellow about my own age.
“I have recovered from a breakdown similar to the one you had,” Slovin explained. “I now belong to a small group, all of whose members are in the same boat. They have either recovered from or have been threatened with a nervous or mental collapse. We call ourselves ‘Fight Against Fears’ and we meet periodically.
“We help each other just by letting down our hair and talking frankly about our troubles,” he went on. “We don’t have formal speeches or anything. We just get together, and when anyone has anything to say he says it. Sometimes somebody is very close to the line and desperately needs help, so we try to give it to him on the spot.
“There are about forty or fifty in our group. People who have had breakdowns aren’t in a hurry to advertise it, so we know we only represent a small percentage of the recovered mental patients who live in the Chicago area. But we have succeeded pretty well in helping each other, and we think we can help a lot more people if they knew about the work we’re doing.
“Now, Jimmy, you’re the most famous former mental patient in the country, I guess—at least, I’ve never heard of anyone more famous who is willing to admit that he’s been a mental patient. If you would come and talk to our group, you could not only help some of its members keep themselves from going off again, but you could help us find others who need us. What do you say?”
“What makes you think I’m willing to admit in public that I’m a graduate of a mental institution?” I asked.
“Well, everyone knows that you are. Are you sensitive about it? Have I said the wrong thing? If I have, please accept my apologies.”
He got up to go, but I stopped him.
“No,” I said, a little doubtfully. “You haven’t said the wrong thing at all. You’re a former mental patient yourself, so you must know how I feel.”
“I think I do.”
“Well, I haven’t mentioned a word about my mental illness, except to members of my family and a few others who have helped me. I’ve been playing big-league ball and getting plenty of publicity on the sports pages, but everyone has studiously avoided the subject of my sickness. It never occurred to me that I could help anyone by talking about it, although I have felt that there are times when I’d like to discuss it with someone.”
“We’re a ready-made organization for you then,” Slovin said. “You can help our people and yourself as well then by talking frankly. But I’ll tell you this, Jimmy—you can give a great deal more help than you’ll get. You have had very special problems to face, and by telling our members how you’ve faced them, you’ll be contributing heavily towards their peace of mind. I don’t know how much they can contribute to yours.”
“Let me think about it, Don,” I said. “This is only our first trip into Chicago. We’ll be in again soon. I’ll give you an answer then.”
I did a lot of thinking on the way around the circuit and then talked things over with Mary when I got home.
“Why shouldn’t you do it?” she urged. “You’re perfectly all right and maybe you really can be a help to people who are still shaky about their nerves. You’ve been through the wringer and it hasn’t hurt you any. If you can help others, I think you should.”
I wrote Slovin that I’d like to help his “Fight Against Fears” group, and he arranged a meeting to coincide with the Red Sox’s next trip to Chicago. The moment I arrived at the meeting, I felt a warm glow in my heart. These men and women were my kind of people, for they had been where I had been, and knew exactly what I had gone through. They looked up to me, too, I found, because I could whip my problems while performing my daily work in a fishbowl of publicity and before thousands of people every day. It helped them to feel that they could perform theirs in the comparative privacy of their homes or their places of business.
I stood up and told them how everyone around me seemed anxious to help me come back, and that my fight was half won as soon as I learned to accept that fact. I told them that only a few were whispering behind my back and pointing a figurative finger of scorn at me, and that those few were lost in the shuffle.
“If you don’t worry about the guy you think might hurt you, you’ll find that he can’t hurt you,” I said. “I was a little afraid at first, but I found there was nothing to be afraid of. As soon as I realized that those fears were all in my head, I knew they really didn’t exist at all. Now I don’t have them any more.”
After my talk, I sat around for a couple of hours while people fired questions at me, and I found that I could bring my own thoughts into sharp focus by trying to answer them. For example, a lady asked, “What do you do when things go badly for you?”
“I try to keep my temper,” I replied.
“What if you feel yourself losing it?”
“I can stop myself before it goes too far.”
“But what if you can’t stop yourself?”
“If it gets that bad,” I said, “I pray that I’ll stop myself. That always works.”
“Then you never lost your faith in God?”
“Never. God helped me face this situation and He led me out of it. I know He’ll keep me out of it. Just telling Him my troubles is enough to relax me.”
“Don’t you ever get butterflies in your stomach?” a man asked.
“Sure I do. Everyone does at one time or another. You can get butterflies in your stomach doing anything.”
“But what if they get so bad that you can’t make them go away?”
“They’ll go away if you face your problem squarely.”
“But what if you can’t make yourself face it?”
“There’s no situation you can’t face if you make up your mind to face it,” I said.
On the way back to the hotel, Don said, “Jimmy, you were great. You were a real inspiration. Now how would you like to be an inspiration to people who don’t know about ‘Fight Against Fears’?”
“How?”
“By telling your story in public to Herb Kupcinet.”
Kupcinet is a Chicago newspaper columnist who also conducts a local television program. I had heard of him and had watched his show, and I knew he was tremendously popular.
“Do you really think it will help?” I asked Don.
“I know it will.”
“O.K. You arrange it.”
The interview was short, but frank. I told Kupcinet’s audience that I had been a victim of mental illness and had spent nearly two months in an institution, and that I was now completely cured. I pointed out the need for coming into the open and letting the world know that there were thousands like me, who could be cured if people would try to understand them. I also said that I was a member of “Fight Against Fears,” and that we could help others if they wanted to join us. I added that I’d be personally glad to help anyone I could, and invited people with mental or emotional disturbances to write and tell me about them.
The result was instantaneous. The studio telephone lines were jammed before we went off the air. Scores of people wanted to know about “Fight Against Fears” and where they could go to join it
. Kupcinet was still getting inquiries about it a year later.
My own mail became so heavy that I had to get a secretary to help me answer it. Much of Kupcinet’s mail was addressed to me in his care, and when I returned to Boston, I had over a hundred letters from Chicago people, nearly all of whom had been victims of some sort of mental illness. But one letter—not from a mental patient—made me particularly proud. It read, in part:
“Undoubtedly, you proved to be a source of inspiration to anyone who has gone through an experience similar to yours. But I might also suggest that you were also an inspiration to those who have other troubles and are finding difficulty in solving them. Like the philosopher who said something akin to, ‘I must face the facts even though they may slay me,’ you have faced the facts and slain them. And in the stark reality of day, you have gained the greatest of all victories—man’s victory over himself.
“You resolved a possible tragedy into this ultimate victory. And though I shamefacedly admit little knowledge of your baseball ability, you have my deepest respect as one of the most courageous individuals about whom I have ever heard.”
When I returned to Chicago for the first Western trip of 1954, “Fight Against Fears” had grown to five hundred in membership, all from the Greater Chicago area. They still meet regularly, still helping each other, and I enjoy meeting with them when I can. I spend all my spare time with these people whenever I’m in Chicago, and just being with them is a heartwarming experience for me.
You can therefore imagine my pleasure when, on our first trip into Chicago last year, Kupcinet presented a plaque to me on his television show, in the name of the “Fight Against Fears” organization. It was the first of what will be an annual award to someone who contributes help to the group. The inscription reads:
“Presented to Jimmy Piersall for outstanding recovery and being inspirational example to others that they also may rise above their illness to become happier and more accomplished in their lives.”
