He always told the truth. If you asked him a question, he was going to give you the answer. You might not have liked the answer; a few times I didn't like the answer. But I understood his point. He took his time to tell you why he thought that way or why you should do certain things. |
He pushed me to another way. I ended up being a businessman for like 15 years after that. He always watched out for me. He wanted to know what I was doing and how I was doing it and if I needed any help. I called him for advice, and if I needed to borrow some money he'd lend me the money. He was better than a bank. |
He's my mentor. I love that man. He was probably the first guy that really took an interest in me. I was kind of a hard-nosed player at the time. I didn't care about what anybody thought. He taught me that you're supposed to pay attention, and it changed the way I perceived different things. I was on the way to destruction. He pushed me another way. |
It was bad. We flew commercial flights, and we'd fly the day of the game to play doubleheaders. Before he bought it, we were just in limbo. We didn't know who was going to be the owner. All of a sudden he jumped up and bought it in '79. He brought a class to it. He changed our environment, the way we were perceived because we were owned by credit companies. He changed it to a first-class organization. |