I made my first trip onto the field, and it’s really weird when you look at my career, you would have never guessed this, my major league debut was as a pinch runner for Ken Singleton at second base, like, in the twelfth inning of a game. So Earl Weaver sent me out of the dugout and said, “Go run for Singleton.” So I went out…
I was 20 years old, turning 21 later that month, but that was before my 21st birthday, and when you ran out on the field for the first time in a real game, like I had taken batting practice, and tried get used to the stadium, now all of sudden people are in the stands, it’s a real game, and the lights are on you. I went out, looking around, and I was in awe, I mean, I was thinking, “Gah!” And then I was so nervous, ‘Don’t mess up, don’t mess up.”
And that was in Baltimore. And Frank White, the second baseman for the Kansas City Royals, he put a pickoff play on the very first play that I was on second base, and I got back safely, and he tagged me, and he laughed, and he laughed, he goes, “Just checking, kid.” You know, he was gauging whether I was too scared to do the right thing. So there was a base hit down the right-field line, and I scored the winning run in that game.