The Baseball Game
The Baseball Game at El Paso
By Bob Stille
Back when I was on probation in El Paso...1959...someone in our group swung an exhibition baseball game with the El Paso AA team. I believe they were called The El Paso Suns. These were all professional ball players, some of whom probably went on to the major leagues. We were just a bunch of P.I.s in doubtful condition. Although most of our team had recently graduated from the Academy in El Paso and were in reasonably good shape and young. So, the day came and we lined up to play the Suns. Our pitcher was Teddy Giorgetti. Now Ted was the most naturally gifted athlete I had ever seen. And as we found out he had a blazing fast ball. Ted was in his late twenties at that time, as I remember. Anyway, we played 9 innings against the Suns and were doing very well for a bunch of amateur P.I.s. The main reason we did so well was that the Suns found out that they had difficulty hitting Teddy's pitches. He threw fast ball after fast ball, and probably some curves and other stuff, too and was striking out these minor league pros one after another. Well, at the end of the day, they did beat us but by a very narrow margin. After the game, the manager of the Suns came to Teddy and offered him a contract right there on the spot to pitch for them. Fortunately for the Border Patrol and later the INS Teddy stayed with us and went on to a great career, retiring as ADDI at Chicago. Great memories...great recuerdos of times gone by.
Bob Stille -----------------------------------------------------------------