It’s more than time for pitchers and catchers! Spring always brings back baseball memories. The memory of Bob Tillman has stuck with me over the years for some reason. I doubt if more than a handful of people reading this article ever heard of Bob Tillman. In 1962 Bob was a very promising 6’ 4” 2015 rookie catcher for the Boston Red Sox. A superb athlete. He arrived with a bang by accomplishing the rare feat of hitting a home run in his first official major league at bat. He could hit a ball a mile as they say. He went on to hit 9 home runs in his first 24 at bats. Bob lit up the Boston baseball world with rare excitement. As young kids we would set up in the batter’s box and imagine we would hit one just like Bob Tillman.
Then something happened that put stop to the party, shocked his young fans and taught me one of my first life lessons. After a couple months of Bob Tillman’s home run show, major league pitchers stopped through Bob their screeching fastballs and began throwing him curve balls. And that was the end of Bob Tillman’s challenge to Babe Ruth. The mighty Bob Tillman couldn’t hit the curve ball and he ended that year with only 14 home runs. In fact, he only got 79 homeruns and batted .232 during the remaining 775 games of his career.
You’ve got to make adjustments and changes to hit a major league curve ball – and in about two tenths of a second. Mickey Mantle was the greatest curve ball hitter I ever saw. You could actually see him moving and adjusting his arms and legs in the batter’s box as the pitch was coming at him – often just before he smacked it for a hit or a homer. Actually hitting curves is more of a mental than a physical talent.
In law school, Professor Byse was my first year contracts professor. He is considered by many to be the model for the law school professor in the movie Paper Chase. Professor Byse was well known for his rigorous questioning. He would ask us a legal question – if you answered it correctly he would then follow up with the same question after changing the facts. If you got that right he would again follow up but with variations and changes in the fact pattern. Very few students lasted beyond a variation or two. He was throwing rookie law students curveballs and very few students could keep up. Frankly, at the time, I thought we were being tortured by the mean old law Professor Kingsfield from the Paper Chase. Over time I realized he was carefully and skillfully training our minds.
At the very end the term, usually the last day, our first year law professors often paused from the regular curriculum to impart a thought or two of wisdom or general reflection on law and life itself. In Professor Byse’s nugget he told his young law students to always remember that life is like a giant wave – it goes up and it goes down. I can see him waving his arms now. His counsel was that when things are going great to remember that life will often turn and then things won’t seem very great at all. But he advised us to always remember that things change over time and never to get too excited and carried away with yourself when you are on top and as well don’t get too depressed or upset when things go bad. Life changes but it usually evens out so relax and enjoy the ride. Words of wisdom that by that time in my life I recognized and knew to be true. I remember wondering if my fellow younger students were listening carefully for I knew they were going to experience the flux and flow of life that Professor Byse was talking about.
So my lessons in hitting curve balls didn’t end with Bob Tillman. In hindsight those lessons began with Bob Tillman. I don’t always hit life’s curve balls the way I wish but it helps a lot to know they are coming and that they are an unavoidable part of human life. Change is inevitable and the best laid plans of men and mice often come to folly (thank you R. Burns). And while it is good in many ways to calculate the best way to live your life or to be guided by certain firm reasoned principles it is wise to remember that things change or may be very different than the way we perceive them from a particular perspective or at a particular time.
A little flexibility in the joints of our assumed truths or expectations often leads to a more pleasant journey through life. Or as Shakespeare better put it: “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Kevin McCarthy can be reached at: mccart9@gmail.com. Kevin is also a member of the Cohasset Board of Selectman (BoS) but his above comments are his own personal views and are not attributable to the BoS.
