Here it is 1964 WS walk offBouton: I was sitting on the bench near the bat rack and Mickey was standing on the dugout steps watching Barney Schultz throw his knuckleball. and Barney Schultz’ knuckleball was dropping about a foot–knee high, drop to the ankles. Mickey had been batting right-handed against Simmons and he has a tomahawk swing, these vicious line drive home runs with overspin on it, but left-handed he had an uppercut. He always upper-cut, so here’s Barney Schultz throwing this knuckleball into Mickey’s uppercut stroke. He’s watching Barney’s warmup throw, and he says to the trainer maybe–Joe Sauros–and I overheard it–not a big announcement, he wasn’t the type to be a big shot or make predictions, it was just a statement of fact. So he walked up to the plate, Barney threw his first pitch, and Mickey hit a seven iron into the upper deck.
The minute he hit it we all knew it was gone, the only question was would it clear the roof? He actually hit it higher than the facade but it then dropped down into the stands. When they run it on Classic Sports you see a guy running in from the left in a pitcher’s jacket. That was me, greeting him at home plate.
CT: What were you thinking then?
Bouton: That was great because otherwise I’d have to go out and pitch the tenth. Nobody was warmed up. Starters almost never go into the tenth inning now. There was no thought of taking me out.
https://youtu.be/R6Na4FfusJM?si=37L1TEvhbnrWPl8e
On not being concerned about the team behind him
CT: Did it concern you at all that the team was a little banged up? Kubek’s wrist, etc…?
Bouton: I never had the sense when I pitched for the Yankees “uh oh we don’t have our best guys in there.” That thought never crossed my mind. To me, all of my thinking about a game had to do with my preparation and what I was thinking about, my mental preparation and my physical preparation. It could have been a high school team running out there behind me.
That was the summer when I developed my double warm up. If I had any trouble it was in the first inning, so that meant I wasn’t into the game yet mentally. So I would warm up twice, to try to simulate an inning, pitching, resting, then pitching, so by the time I went out there it felt like the second or third inning. It was a matter of not being totally focused.
There’s a level of concentration you can arrive at that is almost zen-like.
