Baseball is a game, yes. It is also a business. But what is most truly is is disguised combat. For all its gentility, its almost leisurely pace, baseball is violence under wraps.

That's how easy baseball was for me. I'm not trying to brag or anything, but I had the knowledge before I became a professional baseball player to do all these things and know what each guy would hit.

Maybe I was born to play ball. Maybe I truly was.

I don't mean to be bashful, but I was

I played with the Birmingham Black Barons. I was making 500 at 14. That was a lot of money in those days.

I would try and help everybody, because the game was so easy for me. It was just like walking in the park.

In 1950, when the Giants signed me, they gave me $15,000. I bought a 1950 Mercury. I couldn't drive, but I had it in the parking lot there, and everybody that could drive would drive the car. So it was like a community thing