The following is an excerpt from a conversation I had with Glen Rosenbaum who played and worked in the White Sox organization for 42 years.
“I pitched against a lot of guys in the minors—D league, Triple A ball, Pacific Coast League—who went to the big leagues. Orlando Cepeda was the best hitter I ever faced. I was at Dubuque and he was playing in Kokomo at the time (1955). He attacked the ball. Oh man. You threw it to him and just hoped he hit it to one of the guys behind ya’. That’s all you could do really. Haha!
“Only one guy I was ever afraid to pitch to—Frank Howard. All the guys I ever pitched against, he was the only one who scared me. I was afraid he’d get ahold of one and knock me on my ass before I could react. I didn’t want to catch one of his line drives in the head. Heck no!
“Years later, when I was throwing batting practice with the White Sox, we traveled to the Senators and Nellie Fox was with the team. Nellie told me, ‘Rosie, no human being should be able to hit a ball that hard.’ During the game, I was in the bullpen. Frank got ahold of one—people don’t believe this and I swear to God if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it either—but I saw it, I witnessed it, and I’ll never forget it. Frank hit a line drive and Luis Aparacio jumped in the air to try to catch it. It kept going. That ball cleared the outfield fence, hit a concrete wall in back of the bullpen – WHACK – and bounced back over the fence and out into the outfield. Left fielder jogged over and picked it up. It was right in my line of sight. Man! That was a shot! Never seen anything like it.
“6’7, 6’8—huge guy. Nicest guy in the world. A gentle giant. Always friendly and nice to everybody. When I’d see him, he’d say, ‘Hey Rosie! How ya’ doing? Good to see ya!’ I guess he could get pushed too far sometimes, though. I heard some guys in the clubhouse kept pushing his buttons and he got pissed off. He went into the shower room and he was hollering, ‘Oh yeah! Screw you guys! This will teach you! Do you think this is funny?’ He turned on all of the showers as hot as they’d go, scalding hot water, and turned it into a steam room. He cranked them so hard nobody could turn them off. They had to call a maintenance guy with a pipe wrench to turn the handles and shut them off. Ha! I guess it shows—everybody has their breaking point.”
Glen Rosenbaum
To read more about Glen, get a copy of A White Sox Life: From Hoosier farm boy to 42 years in Major League Baseball.
