Imperfect: An Improbable Life (37 page)

The Freeway Series at Dodger Stadium, 1990. Sometimes, swinging the bat was the easy part.
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They came with baseball cards, balls, and photos. Some came with stories a lot like mine.
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While the rhythms of the big leagues were becoming familiar at the start of my second season, the attention could still be overwhelming. I’m glad the mullet didn’t scare off the younger fans.
Mike Proebsting

Lach once told Angels management, “You send this kid out, you send me with him.”
Courtesy of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

First spring training with Marcel Lachemann, my first professional pitching coach. I made the team.
Courtesy of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

About the only thing Doug Rader enjoyed more than a good ballgame was a good laugh, and he had plenty of both.
Courtesy of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

Rader used to say that Jimmie Reese and I were put on the earth to meet each other.
Courtesy of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

A no-hitter is not a solitary effort, as Mike Gallego (top), Wade Boggs (left), and Matt Nokes would attest.
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Groundskeeper Frank Albohn, in the white shirt, and his crew the morning after the no-hitter. They must have worked all night getting that pitching rubber out of the ground.
Courtesy of the New York Yankees

On June 30, 1999, at Wrigley Field, this is how a career .095 hitter handles the bat. An inning later, I singled home two runs, accounting for two of the three RBIs in my career.
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On my way back to the big leagues in 1998. First I’d have to be a (Winston-Salem) Warthog, among other things.
Bill Setliff Photography

My first Old-Timer’s Day at Yankee Stadium, with Don Larsen and Robin Ventura, in 2003. I was thirty-five, feeling a bit young to be an old-timer.
Courtesy of the New York Yankees