In that gravelly, Mafioso-style voice I'd come to know so well, my old sports editor rasped, "I'd give five years off my life to manage the [New York] Mets for just one season." He meant it, too. My reply equally was in earnest. "I'm a lot younger than you; I'd give 10 years for a shot at the [San Francisco] Giants' job." That was almost 25 years ago. Luckily—or perhaps not—the Devil did not appear that day to cut us a deal the way he did with Joe Hardy of "Damn Yankees" fame. Ron grew up a Brooklyn Dodger fan. His first job was as a shoe-shine boy outside of Ebbets Field during those glorious "Boys of Summer" years. During my job interview, we talked for hours about the national pastime's distant past. I was all of 22, but I knew my stuff. (Both my grandfathers were die-hard Brooklyn fans and I had been nurtured by an endless and fascinating series of tales about the old Giants-Dodgers rivalry.) Finally, Ron asked me who the most under-rated player was on those great Dodger teams of the '50s. "Third baseman Billy Cox," I answered without hesitation. "You're hired," he shot back. The fact that we both loathed the Yankees hadn't hurt my chances, either.
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