I would have been grateful. I was a terrible player. I was afraid of the ball and fell down a lot, sometimes during the ``National Anthem.'' So in 1960, I hung up my Little League uniform for good (it immediately fell down), and I had no contact with organized baseball for the next 40 years.

When I was a boy, playing Little League baseball, I dreamed - as most boys did back then - of someday getting a call from the Major Leagues.