This Pitcher May Need Relief

"Advertise," I said. "Advertise, man."

I knew the proper medium for my selling message. The Sporting News had already chided Short, and everybody in baseball reads The Sporting News . Or they're supposed to. Writing good merchandising copy is a baffling job for the most skillful wordsmith. My problem was: How do you sell a pitching arm? Hoping for a laugh, if not a job, I wrote an ad (see page 24).

The mail brought an offer from the Italian Baseball Federation saying that Italy could use an experienced baseball man to coach that nation's entry in the European championships in September. "Bring your typewriter and write about Florence," the federation suggested. I was tempted.

A club owner in Kyoto, Japan, suggested that I come to Nippon and pitch for his team this summer. Bob Lemon, ex- Cleveland pitcher and an American contact for the Kyoto club, phoned me from Los Angeles and said, "They're offering good money, Broz, and they'll fly you and your family over and back and provide you with a house and all. I'll tell them you're interested."

"Sushi is better than sirloin," I told my wife. "If you like raw fish."

My wife, with Occidental charm, said, "Nuts."

From Kansas City, Charles O. Finley, who more or less automatically goes in the opposite direction from all other baseball owners, indicated that he was interested in the pitching arm I was trying to sell. He wasn't too keen on my asking price, however.

I was prepared to wait. Pitching staffs look their best at the very beginning of spring training, when everybody is a 20-game winner. Later on, when sore arms and failures develop, my ad in The Sporting News might read better.

Meanwhile, I was still waiting for my official release, a document that would mean that for the first time in 17 years I was not an employed baseball player. The red tape that binds player to club in professional baseball unwinds slowly. I could not reasonably expect it to reach me for at least a week. Ed Short promised to get around to it right after the Clay-Liston fight.

Liston pleaded arm trouble, Clay won, and Short got back to work. The postman rang again. This was it, I thought to myself, a serious moment in a man's life, a moment to remember.