BASEBALL DIGEST
  WORLD SERIES EDITION  
A Special Publication of Arnall Golden Gregory LLP
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By Abe J. Schear
October 2010
My good friend Jay Epstien suggested
that I interview Michael Meyer and I
usually do what Jay suggests. He told
me that Michael has a nice little baseball
collection which, as it turned out, was
like saying that a few good players have
played for the Yankees.
I spent the best part of the day with
Michael, quietly looking around his
museum like office, listening to his
wonderful stories, going to see the
Dodgers. I had high expectations and
they were greatly exceeded.
Yes, Michael likely has one of the most
amazing sports collections anyone might
care to have in the office (or anywhere)
and each piece of his collection comes
with a story, however, it is his memories
which are most special, those of his mom
and dad and grandfather, those with his
brother, those of getting autographs.
These memories help to explain how and
why baseball was so intertwined with
Americans so many years ago.
Like me, you will thoroughly enjoy
Michael’s stories and it is stories like these
which make oral histories so special.
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Abe J. Schear is an attorney with Arnall
Golden Gregory LLP. He is the chairman
of the firm’s Leasing Practice Group
as well as the Cross-Border Group.
Contact Abe at 404.873.8752 or
[email protected].
I Remember When, a book which includes
the first 35 interviews in this series, is
available for $20. A check should be made
payable to Abe Schear and mailed to him at
Arnall Golden Gregory.
Michael Meyer
“Me and My Memories”
Abe: I’m visiting my friend Michael
Meyer who has the most amazing
baseball memories and baseball office
probably in the history of the world. I
can’t even begin to describe the office,
the balls and everything else that is
around here, in particular the picture
of your grandfather. Tell me, what are
your first memories of baseball?
They go back to when I was just a little
kid and they’re kind of mixed, always
going to opening day with my grandfather
and my father. Every year I would look
forward to going to opening day, which
is special in and of itself, and to go with
my grandfather and my dad made it really
extra special. They grew up on the south
side of Chicago and so they were avid
White Sox fans and we would always go
to Comiskey Park. When I was born, my
parents moved to the north side and, of
course, they remained White Sox fans,
but most people on the north side were
Cubs fans, and so I’m one of the very few
people in Chicago who likes both teams
and I’ve never been a hater.
When I was growing up listening to
baseball, the Cubs and the White Sox never
played because there was never interleague play at that time, so I remember
listening on the radio, going to bed at
night, to the White Sox radio announcer
who was a gentleman by the name of Bob
Elson, and then I would listen to the Cubs
games with Jack Quinlan and, when TV
came in, I just couldn’t wait to watch the
game and they were all in black and white.
In Chicago, WGN carried both the White
Sox and the Cubs and they carried only
their home games. Every once in a while,
you’d see the Game of the Week and
you’d get to see another stadium which
you had always heard about on radio and
now you get to see it for the first time.
I remember listening on the radio all
the time to every game. If we were in
the car, it would always be a Cubs game
or a White Sox game. Then going to the
games with my grandpa and my dad really
made it special.
My most vivid memory is when I was
somewhere around 10. I grew up about
6 blocks from Wrigley Field and all the
kids, after school, would run to Wrigley
Field and they’d let you into the game
because we’d get there about 3:00 and by
that time the game was in the 7th inning
and the Cubs were drawing 6,000-7,000
people to the ballpark. They would let the
kids clean up the ballpark. It was long
before they had the high powered water
hoses or the high powered air hoses that
would wash away stuff. You would clean
the ballpark by starting at the left field line
with a broom which was my job, and my
brother who was a couple years younger
than me, he would lift up the seat. You
start on the left field line and my brother
would lift up every seat and then I would
sweep. When you got to the right field
line, you would get 35 cents and a pass for
the next game. And 35 cents obviously
doesn’t sound like a lot of money in 2010,
but in 1952, 35 cents meant 7 packs of
baseball cards. You’d go out and get
your 35 cents and buy 7 packs of baseball
cards. I remember that vividly.
If you don’t mind me rambling, what
we would do after we’d sweep up the
ballpark and get our 35 cents and a pass to
A r n a l l Go l d e n G r e g o r y L L P | October 2010
the next game, we’d run and we’d wait for
the players to go to the buses. The visiting
team would come down – they’d always
go out a certain way – and the odd thing in
1952’ish was the players would all wear
suits, ties and hats actually. I remember
the Dodgers and Jackie Robinson, Roy
Campanella, Duke Snider, Pee Wee
Reese and Gil Hodges and a couple of
other guys who were particularly nice.
Jackie Robinson, for whatever reason,
was my favorite ball player, because he
was nicest to the kids. We’d go to the bus
and we actually had autograph books, we
didn’t have baseballs because we couldn’t
afford baseballs. He would make us all
line up and he’d say “I’m gonna sign
everybody’s autograph book before I go
on the bus.” There would only be like 8
I thought it was a joke.” He said, “Why
would you think that?” I said “Well, I play
a lot of jokes on people.” He said “Well,
I’m in Los Angeles.” I said “Really?”
He said “I’d like to talk to you. I need a
lawyer.” I said “Well, where’d you get
my name?” He said “Well, I asked around
and everybody said that you’re the best
contract lawyer in town.” I said “Well, all
I do is commercial real estate leases.” He
said “They just say I could trust you and
that you’re a great lawyer. I want to see
you.” I told him okay, when do you want
to see me? He said “How about now?
I’m downstairs in the lobby.”
I didn’t know anything about
endorsement contracts, which is what
I assumed he was coming to see me
about, but Pat Haden, who had played
“Michael, it’s Ernie Banks on the line.”
of us. There was no memorabilia at that
time. Memorabilia didn’t even exist and
the idea of having a baseball signed, it
really didn’t exist. He’d sign it and he
would look us in the eye and say “What’s
your name?” And, I said “I’m Michael
Meyer.” He said, “Hi Michael Meyer, I’m
Jackie Robinson.” I said “I know you’re
Jackie Robinson.” But the fact that he
asked me my name and shook my hand
and then he would thank me for asking
for his autograph. It just really made an
indelible impression on me as to how to
treat people.
Many, many, many years later I was
sitting in my office and I got a call from
somebody and my secretary picked up
the phone and I hear her talking and she
comes and says, “Michael, it’s Ernie
Banks on the line.” This is in 1975, I’m
gonna guess. I’m a great practical joker,
so I’m assuming that it’s not Ernie Banks,
but it’s somebody pretending to be Ernie
Banks. “Tell him I’m too busy to talk to
him, to call back,” I said. So she does, but
she comes back and says he really insists
he’s Ernie Banks and he would like to talk
to you. I said, “It’s not Ernie Banks, but
okay.” So I picked up the phone and he
says “Michael, this is Ernie Banks.” I
know his voice. I said “Oh my God, it’s
Ernie. I’m so sorry to keep you waiting.
quarterback for USC and played for the
Los Angeles Rams was in our office as
a young lawyer. I walked into his office
and said, “Pat, it’s Ernie Banks, he’s like
my lifelong hero. He’s here to see me
and I know he’s gonna ask me to do some
legal work. I don’t know anything about
endorsement contracts, could you help me
out?” “Oh, absolutely,” he said. So I sit
down and I say, okay, I’ll call you when
he comes up and literally 2 minutes later
my secretary says Ernie Banks is here to
see me and I put on my coat and I just
had my yellow pad and I just wanted to be
really serious and professional and I said,
“Mr. Banks, I’m Michael Meyer.” He
said “I know who you are.” And we’re
talking. He said he’d really like me to
handle his legal work. It involved some
endorsement contracts and things like
that. I said, fine. Then about 5 minutes
later, there’s a knock on the door and
it’s Pat Haden. I said “Here’s the young
lawyer who’s going to help me.” He said,
“Mr. Banks, I’m Pat Haden. I’m a great
fan of yours. I just went downstairs and
bought 3 baseballs. Would you sign them
for me?” And so here’s a guy who’s a
Rhodes Scholar, played for USC, played
in Rose Bowls, played in the NFL and
he’s gushing over Ernie Banks. And so,
Ernie says, “Oh, Pat! I know you! You’re
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a great football player.”
From that point on, I actually became
good friends with Ernie and handled a lot
of his endorsement contracts and he lived
actually in Marina del Rey, where I lived.
At that time his cable company didn’t get
WGN. Mine did. He lived in Encino at the
time. Sometimes he’d come over to my
house to watch the baseball game. And
I’m thinking, how cool is this, you know,
he just is a nice guy and the odd thing
about Ernie is that, we’d go out for dinner
sometimes and there’s no short dinner.
You could be in Los Angeles and we’d
sit down at Spago and he’s sitting there
and maybe 25 people came up to him, in
Spago, in Los Angeles, in 19 probably 82.
Every time somebody came up to him,
he took the time to say hi. Thanks for
remembering me. Thanks for coming up.
I’m happy to sign. Would you like me to
make it personalized to you? You want
to take a picture with me? Oh, yeah, that
would be great, thank you so much. And
he made them feel like a million dollars. I
said “Ernie, how do you have the patience
to do this?” He says “It only takes me
2 minutes to make somebody feel really
good, and everybody’s done so much for
me, I always made up my mind, I’ll always
take the time to be nice to people.”
That reminded me so much of my
grandpa. I have a picture of him in my
office in front of a pushcart. He came
over here from Russia. He couldn’t speak
English and he had no money. He saved
up his money to bring over his wife and his
brothers and sisters. Sometimes people
say to me “Michael, how do you deal with
the pressure of representing Fortune 500
companies on 500,000 square foot leases?
How do you deal with it?” I say, I don’t
have any pressure. My grandfather came
over here, had no money, couldn’t speak
English, saved up his money to bring
over his wife and his brothers and sisters.
That’s pressure. My day is a walk in the
park. And my grandpa, after he had his
pushcart, became a janitor and a great
janitor. Then he saved his money and
started buying buildings and fixing them
up. He became a successful business
man. He always told me “Michael, watch
how people treat janitors. It says so much
about the person, and make sure you
always remember that your grandpa came
over here, couldn’t speak English and
BASEBALL DIGEST by Abe J. Schear
was a janitor. And that’s where you came
from.” That piece of advice has really
helped me throughout my life.
How did your grandfather learn to
follow baseball?
I have no idea. I remember the White
Sox at that time had Minnie Minoso.
They never had a good first baseman,
but they would get people who were just
kind of off their prime so we’d have Walt
Dropo, Ferris Fain, Ted Kluszewski for a
little while, and Ron Jackson. They had
a 3rd basemen, Bubba Phillips, and Chico
Carrasquel. Then we had Luis Aparicio.
And we always had Nellie Fox at second
base and I could never remember catchers
other than Sherman Lollar. I remember
Billy Pierce, Turk Lown and Saul Rogovin,
and in the outfield, we had Gus Zernial at
one time and we had Jim Landis, and I’ve
probably forgotten the question, but it was
how did my grandfather get interested in
baseball? He was always interested in
baseball and as a young kid I never was
smart enough to think of asking grandpa
how did he get interested.
Baseball, I think 60 years ago, in
1950, was really was America’s game.
It’s always seemed to me, perhaps
it’s true for your grandfather, that
following baseball made him a part of
something in America that was part of
every day life in Chicago.
I think that’s a great analysis and I bet
that is part of the reason. He loved the
White Sox and he didn’t hate the Cubs.
I love the Cubs and I love the White
Sox. In the morning, we couldn’t wait
to get the Chicago Sun Times and the
Chicago Tribune, and I’d read both sports
sections, check the box scores, talk with
my grandpa about what they were doing,
about who was pitching that night. It
made us closer because there was a lot
of things we didn’t have in common. I
mean, he was a working man and I was
a little kid. Baseball – we could talk as
equals. In fact, I thought I knew as much
as my grandpa. Sometimes on pitchers
he was very critical. We had some good
managers in Chicago – Al Lopez, Paul
Richards – and he’d always say “Take him
out, take the bum out”. And at that time,
pitchers pitched a lot longer. There was
no such thing as a quality start – you’d go
6 innings and only give up 3 runs. It was
different then.
I’ve gotten to know Don Newcombe
quite well.
He is the consummate
gentleman. We had dinner the other
night and he was telling me that he loved
They’d open up the gates that separated
the bleachers from the grandstand in the
sixth or seventh inning and we’d kind
of go down there and if people weren’t
“Michael, watch how people treat janitors. It
says so much about the person.”
pitching and that he had, in one season,
17 complete games. That’s unheard of. I
had to go back into the record book and
check and sure enough he had 17 complete
games. He said “You can also look it up
and see that I pitched both games of a
double header. I started the first game,
went 9 innings and won. Pitched the
second game, went 7 innings and left for a
pinch hitter which made me mad because
I was a pretty good hitting pitcher, and we
won that game too.” He loves baseball.
He went through, with Jackie Robinson,
Roy Campanella, some very tough times.
I want to go back to your grandfather
for one more second. I’ll bet that your
grandfather and your father, kept score
at the ballgame.
Right! I saved every program from
the games and my dad taught me how
to keep score. I liked baseball because
it gave me time to be with my grandpa
and my dad, and we could talk about it as
equals. During the game, we would talk
about whether a guy should take a pitch.
Those were times when the players really
played for the team and they would take a
pitch, or get hit by a pitch, and they would
always hustle. They’d always take the
extra base. We were talking about whether
he should have gone from first to third or
whether he should have done this or that.
Players would hit behind the runner and
advance him to second. I think the fans
then were much more knowledgeable.
Where did your family like to sit in
the ballpark?
Well, in Comiskey Park we would sit
sometimes in the lower boxes more often
than in the upper boxes. We’d always sit
between first and third behind the White
Sox dugout. Sometimes when we would
go to Wrigley Field, we’d usually try to
sit in the bleachers. I like the bleachers.
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looking, we’d sneak down to get real
close. We’d always know who the soft
ushers were because they were the ones
who wouldn’t kick us out. I became an
usher. As an usher, they would pay me $4
a game. Guaranteed. And if I stayed to
7th inning, I’d get $7. They’d give you the
hat and jacket. I wish I would have stolen
the hat because it would have reminded
me of things I did as a kid. A lawyer I
know actually did send me a hat like the
one I wore. That hat is hanging up over
there and I love looking at it. When I look
at it, it brings a smile to my face.
After Chicago, what was the first
major league ballpark you went to?
Yankee Stadium. My dad took me on
the train, the Twentieth Century Limited
to New York. We stayed at a hotel called
the Concourse Plaza.
You were how old?
Seven. And, we’re sitting in the coffee
shop of the Concourse Plaza and sitting at
the table next to us is Dr. Bobby Brown
who played 3rd base for the Yankees,
Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle and Hank
Bauer. So, of course being 7, I walked over
there to get an autograph. And they said,
sure, do you have a pen? And I said “No”.
“Okay, do you have a piece of paper?”. I
said “No”. So, I think it was Mantle who
said “How old are you?” I said “7.” And
he said, wait a second. And he goes up to
his room and brings me a baseball. He
said “What if I sign this baseball?” I said
“Oh, that’s terrific”. There’s a park right
outside the Concourse Plaza and I played
catch with the signed ball. As kids, you
never thought you would keep it or it
would be valuable or anything like that.
It gets scuffed, you know what happens to
baseballs as a kid. I remember how nice
they were to me.
They really were nice, and so speed
A r n a l l Go l d e n G r e g o r y L L P | October 2010
ahead 30 – 40 years, maybe 50 years. I
go to Yankee Stadium by myself. It was
still the old Yankee Stadium, they hadn’t
redone it. I said “I’m gonna walk to the
Concourse Plaza, just for the memory.”
About 2/3 of the way there and a cop car
comes up to me and stops me and says
“What are you doing?” I said “What do
you mean what am I doing?” He said
“What are you doing around here?” I said
“I went to the baseball game in Yankee
Stadium.” He asks me what I am doing
now? I said “I’m walking to Concourse
Plaza.” He said “You don’t look the type.
Why are you walking around here? So
I told the story about my dad taking me
with my mom to Yankee Stadium. He
says “Concourse Plaza is a relief welfare
hotel. The only people that are there
are hookers and dope addicts. It’s very
dangerous neighborhood for you. Why
don’t you hop in the car and we’re gonna
flag down a cab and you go wherever
you want to go. But it’s not safe for you
to walk around here.” I said “Oh gee, I
didn’t know that.”
Your mother was a fan of baseball?
Or a tolerant wife?
I’d say she is a tolerant wife. She
loved my father. Loved her father-inlaw. She loved the kids. She never really
could understand what the fascination
was for us. My mom was all about family
and cooking. I’m sure there were worse
cooks in the world, but I put her up against
almost anybody.
I may leave this out of the interview.
I don’t want to do that. Who taught
you to play baseball?
Well, I was reading some of the articles
that you wrote about other people and I
was hoping you wouldn’t ask me that
question. I think I always knew how to
play baseball. I don’t remember when,
but I must have been born with a bat and
a ball and a glove because I remember
always playing. After school we would
just go and there were no organized
leagues at that time. We’d always go to
the park and we didn’t have coaches, we
didn’t have anybody else. We’d bring our
bats and our gloves and our balls and we’d
play. Usually we didn’t play 9 people to
a side, so you’d have to call your field.
So, we might not have had enough for a
second baseman and a right fielder, but
then you couldn’t hit to right or it would
be an automatic out, unless you called
right field. I was never the very best. I
thought I was really good until I started
playing with some major league players
and realized that I was hallucinating.
Did you play on teams as a
youngster?
leagues. I could even, for the White
Sox, go down to Indianapolis and tell
you who played for Indianapolis Indians
or Clowns, I forgot which team it was. I
was following the minor league players
because I would get The Sporting News.
“Well, I’ve never thrown anything out.”
I played in the Babe Ruth League when
I got into 7th, 8th grade. I remember
playing baseball since I can remember.
In fact, one of the things that really
bothered me is that my parents wanted to
send me to camp, and I said I don’t want
to go to camp. I wanted to stay and play
baseball. They said there was archery,
trampoline and volley ball. I said I didn’t
want volleyball, I didn’t want archery. I
didn’t do leather belts, and arts and crafts.
I said, I’m not doing arts and crafts. So
they said, I had to try it and they sent me
to YMCA camp and I was miserable. I
remember to this day my mom came to
pick me up after two weeks with my dad
and he said, “So where’s your locker?”
You had a trunk which was huge. It was
bigger than a suitcase. They opened it up
and it was just perfectly packed. I never
took any of the clothes out. I had the
same clothes on for 2 weeks. And mom
said she’d burn them when we got home,
she was so embarrassed. I hated camp
because they played baseball like 3 times
a week and everything else was archery
or arts and crafts or swimming and things
like that. All I wanted to do was play
baseball.
I’m looking around your office and
you’ve got hundreds of balls, dozens of
bats, hundreds of pictures. I can’t do
justice to what you’ve got. What about
the baseball cards? Did you really
collect cards? Do you collect cards
today?
No. I remember collecting for maybe
a couple years when I was in grammar
school. They were 5 cents a pack and
you’d get 5 cards and some bubble gum.
Topps was the card then and I think they
had Bowman. I remember sorting them
out. I’d try to sort them out by position
and team.
At that time I think there were only 8
teams in each league. I could name the
starting players on all 8 teams in both
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My news came from the Chicago Tribune,
Chicago Sun Times, and there were two
other newspapers, the Chicago Daily
News and the Chicago American. Both
those, the American and the Daily News
were afternoon papers, and they were all
like a nickel. I’d read them all. I just
couldn’t get enough and then I’d read
every sport magazine. There was no
Sports Illustrated at that time.
I look around your office, though,
and you’re a great collector. Now I
may be wrong, I’ll bet your mother was
a collector maybe of something. Or
maybe she never threw anything out.
Well, I’ve never thrown anything out.
Mom was all about family, so she would
save everything for the kids. She was
very insistent that we would go to every
Bat Mitzvah, Bar Mitzvah, confirmation,
somebody who was a second cousin, fine.
She would invite everybody over for
dinner and there would always be gefilte
fish, which I hated. Borscht, which I hated.
I never became an alcoholic because she
would serve Manischevitz wine, which I
thought was the worst.
Maybe your office is the best of both of
your parents. Maybe it’s your father’s
love for baseball and your mother’s
love for collecting good memories.
Yes. And she was always about family
and memories. Almost all the pictures, a
good many of the pictures have my kids
with me and my wife with me.
It would be fair to say that your office
is a one of a kind. It’s probably even
beyond one of a kind. Of all the things
that you have collected, what would be
the one thing that makes you smile the
most?
That picture of my grandfather.
It’s not a baseball picture.
No, but I mean it’s me.
You see it as you walk in and out of
your office?
I see it all the time. I went to University
BASEBALL DIGEST by Abe J. Schear
of Wisconsin for undergraduate, the
University of Chicago for law school.
I was studying hard, but I think what
separates the average lawyers from very
good lawyers are instincts and street
smarts. I got that from my grandfather and
my dad and from the jobs I had growing up
as a kid, just interacting with people. The
others that I enjoy the most are pictures of
my family. I’ve been friends with general
managers and people that would just get
you to go on the field and do things. Ernie
Banks has been especially nice and he’s
come to almost all the events where I have
been honored. There is a picture taken 18
years ago with my daughter Molly and
Ernie Banks. There’s another picture of
Ernie over there sitting between me and
John Cushman of Cushman & Wakefield.
When I look at the pictures of people I’ve
become friends with, it just makes me
smile.
Let me ask you a few more questions.
What is it about baseball that you like
the most?
Well, that there’s no time limit. It’s a
team game and the people who play as a
team normally do a lot better than people
guy will be a 220 hitter, the pitcher walked
the first two guys and is ball 2 on this guy,
and the 220 hitter hits it back to the pitcher
for a double play. You just sit there and
say, how can a manager not give a guy a
take sign?
I’m gonna digress for a second, but
I’m very active in the Jackie Robinson
Foundation, a great charity. They target
inner city kids and they give them balls,
bats, gloves, uniforms. All we ask that you
do is stay clean and keep your grades up.
If you keep your grades up, we’ll provide
tutoring. The guy who started RBI is a
gentleman by the name of John Young who
played for the Detroit Tigers and was the
assistant general manager of the Cubs. We
made an arrangement with him that when
the National League teams come to Los
Angeles, their managers would come to
our office. So we’ll invite the managers
and we’ll charge our clients and friends
$50 a person for lunch. The firm will
buy the lunch and we’ll take all the $50
and give it to RBI and the managers were
very gracious with their time, they’d come
over to talk for an hour about baseball and
answer questions. I was so surprised by
“I’d like to find out from Jackie and Sandy
and Greenberg what kind of things that they
had to go through.”
who play as individuals, how people resist
temptation to try to do what’s best for them
as contrasted to what’s best for the team.
I think if you follow baseball as long as I
have, one of the disappointing things now
is that players in all sports have a tendency
to play more for themselves than for the
team. That’s very true in basketball where
they’re always concerned about minutes
and things like that. In baseball, it’s slow
enough that if you are a selfish player,
you’ll find you get traded a lot, and that
your teammates will get on you. The team
will know if you’re playing for the team or
for yourself, and I’ll know. I enjoy being
able to sit at a game and be able to talk to
somebody and there’s a situation and I’ll
say, if ever a guy should take a pitch this is
the pitch he should take. And of course the
how nice the managers are and I always
ask them the same question, just like you
might have your set of questions, I’ll have
one question. It’s one question that boggles
my mind: “When you’re in the dugout,
you’ve got a 3 run lead and the pitcher
takes the mound, in the last of the 9th,
your closer, and he walks the first batter
on 4 pitches, what does your stomach feel
like? How do you tolerate that?” And
they all have different answers, but it feels
like mine as a fan. I’m sitting there, 3
run lead, put the ball on a frigging tee! If
you ever watch Home Run Derby, they
don’t hit a home run even when they’re
trying to lob the ball in there. You never
walk anybody with a 3-run lead in the 9th
inning. All the managers will smile and
each one of them will tell you in front of
5
people it drives them crazy, but they tell
the pitchers to throw a strike. Strike 1 is
the most important pitch. Don’t ever walk
anybody in the 9th inning and they’ll say
“Michael, we tell them, they know, they
feel like crap when they do it. They get
in a rhythm and even though we tell them
not to nibble, they do it.” I’ll try to watch
the manager’s face because TV’s good in
that respect. They’ll pan the managers’
faces and the managers know they’re on
TV and they do everything in their power
to not show their emotion. But they will
all tell you privately it just tears them up
inside when it happens because they know
that you shouldn’t do it. Tony LaRussa ,
he came over and I always had this image
of him being a really intense kind of a
guy. But when I got to know him over the
hour and a half that he was here, he was
just a generous, nice man, a regular guy,
a lawyer actually, who I don’t think ever
practiced law a day in his life. He loves
baseball and when you look at the players
from way back when, they did play for the
love of the game.
What is your favorite baseball
movie?
Mine was The Love of the Game, with
Kevin Costner. I love that movie. I could
watch it 10 times, drives my wife crazy. I
thought it had the most realistic baseball
scenes. Most of the other baseball movies,
the scenes don’t capture the game.
If you watch one pitcher pitch,
forgetting the era, who would you like
to watch pitch one game?
It would be 2 pitchers. One would be
Don Newcombe because I have gotten to
know him and respect him as a person so
much and I looked at his record and, you
may not know this, but he’s the only major
league player to have won the Cy Young
Award, the MVP Award and the Rookie
of the Year Award, only player in baseball
history. For him to talk about pitching 17
complete games and what it was like to
break-in in that color barrier and all those
things. I wish I could have seen him pitch
cause I know he would have been a horse.
The other one would be Sandy Koufax. I
play golf with Tommy Davis, a friend of
mine, and one time we ran into Wes Parker.
He asked me if I’d mind him sitting down
with me and Tommy. I’m like “Hello.”.
Then he sat down, he started reminiscing
and I was like one of the guys smiling like
a cheshire cat. I asked about where they
A r n a l l Go l d e n G r e g o r y L L P | October 2010
was Bob Hendley on the other side. He
pitched a one hitter.
Lou Johnson got on base on an error.
He stole 2nd, went to 3rd, I think on a
passed ball.
Nobody left on base in the game, on
either team, and then, five days later,
Bob Hendley beat Koufax in Chicago.
Those were two phenomenal games.
There’s been a lot written about that
perfect game. Mike, if you could have
dinner with 3 players, who they be?
Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax and
Hank Greenberg. They all went through
a lot of discrimination because of their
religion and their skin color and, you know,
it’s just hard to imagine that we live in a
society today in 2010 that, in 1947, it was
the first time they ever let someone with
dark skin play baseball with everybody
else. It’s a tragedy. You think back that it
wasn’t until 1927 that women could vote.
We haven’t been a perfect country, and
I’d like to find out from Jackie and Sandy
and Greenberg what kind of things that
they had to go through. I know they did
have to go through a lot.
My last question is, if you had 4
hours and you could wander around
your office looking at all the things
you’ve collected and enjoy thinking
about them, OR you could go to the
Hall of Fame for the day, which would
you do?
Spend the 4 hours here.
There are a lot of memories.
Each piece. I could tell a story about
each piece.
I’m out of questions. I’ve got a
perfect interview. Thanks so much.
Michael Meyer
“Me and My
Memories”
52nd EDITION 

BASEBALL DIGEST
171 17th Street NW
Suite 2100
Atlanta, Georgia 30363
were playing when Koufax pitched his
perfect game against the Cubs. Parker
was playing first base and was the Golden
Glove winner. I said “Wes, Koufax is on
the mound and he has a perfect game.
You go out in the 9th inning, were you
just saying hit it to me?” He said “Hell
no, I don’t want to mess up. Please don’t
hit it to me.” He said Koufax must have
looked around and saw the look on all of
our faces and struck out the side. Tommy
Davis said one time he was brought
in to play 3rd base and Koufax threw a
change up to some guy and the guy hit
a one hopper that hit Davis in the chest.
Davis says “I got the ball, couldn’t talk
cause it knocked the wind out of him and
I told Koufax “I’m gonna kill you if throw
another changeup.”
That was a great game. Koufax won
the game 1 to nothing. The pitcher