After that, Shadow and I played often and were responsible
for many hits and some great saves.
So
many wonderful memories of my baseball season with the Red Sox! Cheering for Shadow
as he ran the bases and made double plays! John Farrell sharing his rib bones
with me. The day the squirrel got loose in the bleachers!
David
Ortiz and I formed a very close friendship. I tried his chewing tobacco, and he
tried my pig's ear, but neither one of us switched. (There's no accounting for
taste.)
We
were a team, first, last and always. We had each other's backs. We cheered for
the wins and consoled each other through the dry streaks. We hung out together
at a place where everybody knows your name, drinking beer and talking about the
women and the dogs we had loved.
As Shadow and I made play after play,
our names became known, and the fan mail poured in. I was thrilled to receive a
letter from Caesar, the police dog. He said he remembered our brief encounter at
the court house, and that he and his human have been following my career with
interest.
But
my fan mail was nothing compared to Shadow's. He received bags of mail every
day, and all kinds of presents from
squeaky toys to tennis balls. One fan even sent him a large bucket of liver
snacks which he did not share.
And
the baseball groupies! In every city we came
to, Shadow was met by a pack of admirers sniffing around and licking his nose. There's no denying it - Shadow is an amazing
ball-catcher, and one handsome dude - and I fear it all went to his head.
They
say that there's always love on the road, and in Shadow's case it was
absolutely true. Many was the night when
Shadow hung a tie on the knob of his hotel room door indicating that he did not
want to be disturbed.
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