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Dave ReyI've talked with a few, but my favorite was Jim Dyck, who was a journeyman third baseman with the Brownies and Orioles in the 1950s.
After baseball he ran a bowling alley here in Cheney, Wash. until he died the day after my birthday in 1999. I wrote his obituary for the newspaper.
I spent several different times talking to him about his days in baseball.
My favorite stories were about his seasons with Satchel Paige on the 1951-53 St. Louis Browns. He told me how Satchel would drive his Cadillac to all sorts of places where the white folks didn't approve and about how Satchel always had a piece of wisdom for anybody that sought it out.
He also recounted how one time a Mickey Mantle line drive just missed removing his manhood by a millimeter. He said the rope got there so fast he hadn't even hardly twitched when he heard the hiss and felt the brush of the ball whisk the crotch of his loose pants.
Jim said from that point on, he played Mantle especially deep when there was a lefty on the mound -- even though his manager, Marty Marion, would yell at him all the time to play closer in case Mantle laid down a bunt for a hit. Against righties you still had to play at least even with the bag against Mickey then, because he was still blazingly fast during those early years of his career and he would lay down bunts from the left side of the plate, Jim said.
He told me lots more stories and was never too busy to talk about his playing days and he signed four of his 50s Bowman cards for me. He was a classy guy and i was glad I got to give him a worthy sendoff in his obit.