When there were just eight teams in each of the big leagues, I was always told, 'It's hard to come up, but it's just hard to stay in the big leagues.' That's because there's always somebody. The Cardinals had so many minor league clubs and had so many good ballplayers.
I knew I'd never make it back to the major leagues as a player. Lee MacPhail came to me and asked if I wanted to manage the Yankees' Fort Lauderdale club. I thought about it for a day or two and decided to take the job. That was the turning point. I knew it was what I wanted to do.
I played with the Birmingham Black Barons. I was making 500 at 14. That was a lot of money in those days.
There are only two seasons - winter and Baseball.
When I was growing up, I always had the dream of being an analyst for a minor league baseball team or something like that.
American history and the history of baseball are bound up together: our racial politics can be described and traced through it.
Baseball's future? Bigger and bigger, better and better! No question about it, it's the greatest game there is!
My father was an outfielder in the Milwaukee system before he hurt his elbow.
I need to eat a large meal before I play, and the one thing that was kind of consistent in every single clubhouse at least in the minors was a roast beef sandwich. So that kind of stuck there, and it just kind of stuck in the big leagues as well.
There were a lot of places, including Los Angeles, that didn't have major league baseball. There were other really large cities that had no major league teams, but at least they had college football.
I am involved in minor league baseball. I go around the country speaking to troubled youths, trying to help them understand that whatever path they choose, they'll need to really pay attention to it.
Everybody in the minor leagues - if you're a player, an announcer, whatever - wants to be in the big leagues.
If you go back to the minors, you have to start swinging and hitting the ball again. I've been in the minors since the '70s semipros, let's put it that way.
The last thing I wanted to do was get buried in Triple-A behind prospects.
Once you make the majors, it's never a great feeling to go back to the minors - no matter what the circumstances.
I don't know how the 'Richie' started. My name is Richard, and they called me Dick in the minor leagues.
In 1957, I was a 16-year-old office boy for the Dodgers.
Even though I play a professional sport now, I love college baseball.
I kept listening in the minor leagues, and even earlier than that, people would say, 'If you don't hit the fastball, you're not going to get to the big leagues.' Every game, you're going to get a fastball.
I wasn't ready for the majors when I joined the Pirates in 1955. I was too young and didn't know my way around.
When I was a minor league player, my goal was to be a major leaguer. It's no different as a minor league manager.
I mean, in A ball, there were five of us in a two-bedroom apartment. In Double-A, I think there were like eight of us in a four-bedroom house. There's a lot of that going on so that guys can... and the whole time, you're sleeping on air mattresses and you're using Rubbermaid bins as furniture.
I can remember going to see the minor league Orioles. Until I was 15 years old, we'd go down with 3,000 people to watch them play the Syracuse Chiefs or the Jersey City Little Giants. That's what passed for Baltimore sports.
The Florida State League was considered the top A-league back then. You played in the spring training parks of major league teams, traveled throughout some great cities in Florida, and the pay was the best in A-ball.
Going back down to the minors is the toughest thing to handle in baseball.
