Former baseball player Jimmy Piersall turns 83 today.

Ten Notes on Jimmy Piersall.

1. Jimmy Piersall is most known for the film biography on his life “Fear Strikes Out” the 1957 movie starring Tony Perkins and Karl Malden that dealt with Jimmy’s comeback from mental illness. I remember seeing the movie first when I was a kid and thinking that Tony Perkins was a piss poor ballplayer. It wasn’t a very good movie but it made an impression on me. Over the years I’ve coached baseball and basketball and I’ve seen fathers who resembled Karl Malden in the movie. Karl Malden was the star of this film as the pressuring, hard-driving father.

2. Jimmy Piersall has said that probably the best thing that ever happened was going nuts.

3. In the years since the movie Piersall has disowned the film. He has said that they over did the blaming of his father for his problems and they distorted the facts.

4.  Jimmy played 17 seasons in the big leagues. He was an excellent defensive center fielder. His career average was .272. He played with 5 teams but was most known as a member of the Red Sox.

5. He teamed with the great Harry Caray in the broadcast booth for the Chicago White Sox in the last 1970’s -early 1980’s. To say that was a controversial pair is an understatement.  Piersall was famous for being critical of the White Sox which didn’t go over well with management. Sadly, we will never hear another Harry Carey again.

6. Jimmy Piersall made 2 All- Star games and won 2 Gold Glove Awards.

7. When Jimmy hit his 100th career home run [he ended up with 104 career homers} he ran around the bases the correct way but backwards the entire way.

8. Jimmy Piersall’s problems that had him institutionalized occurred in his rookie season. In late May he got in a fist fight with Billy Martin. Nothing remarkable there didn’t everyone get in a fight sometime or another with Billy Martin? After that fight he got into a brief scuffle with a teammate Mickey McDermott in the Boston clubhouse. The last straw was when Piersall spanked Vern Stephens four-year old son in the Red Sox clubhouse during a game. He was sent to the minor leagues after that. In less than three weeks he was ejected from four games. He sprayed  a water pistol on home plate after a teammate hit a home run then he went up to the grandstand roof to heckle the home plate umpire. He would then spend seven weeks in the hospital for ‘mental exhaustion” and miss the rest of the season. He bounced back the next year and finished 9th in the American League MVP balloting.

9. One time he came up to bat in a “Beatle wig” and played air guitar. He would lead cheers for himself in the outfield during breaks in the game.

10. He didn’t really settle down that much after his hospitalization. He was always a combative personality. It was rare that a season didn’t go by without incident… Piersall and his first wife had 9 children. I thought I should throw that in. They divorced in the late 1960’s.