"Letters From Lefty" was a series of satirical columns written by one of
the great sportswriters of our time, Mickey Herskowitz, when he was
covering the Astros for the Houston Post in the 1960's.  The format is
taken from the old Ring Lardner series, "You Know Me, Al", in which a
rookie wrote home to a friend.  I hope you enjoy these very funny looks at
the Colts/Astros.

      Ring Lardner's Rookie Wouldn't Recognize Spring Training Now 

Apache Junction,Ariz
March 19,1962

Dear Alice,
     Well, we started our practice games this week and none too soon, as I
was getting mighty tired of the routine around here.  We would spend all
morning running and doing knee bends, and then in the afternoon we would
sit outside the hotel and watch the cracks in the ground widen.
     One of the coaches, Jim Busby, leads us in exercises every day for an
hour.  No kidding.  Busby is the only man I ever saw who looked as though
he enjoyed touching his toes while keeping the knees straight.  You have
to like the feel of your toes a good deal for this.
     Alice, you wanted to know what us big league baseball heroes did in
our spare time, and I'm going to tell you.  Mostly we complain.  You have
heard of towns where they roll up the sidewalks at 7 PM?  Well, there ARE
no sidewalks in Apache Junction.  This place just doesn't swing.
     We are far removed from the simple pleasures of life, such as a
drive-in movie (18 miles away) or a dog track (35 miles).  You have to go
to Phoenix to see the greyhounds run, but a bunch of us are going tomorra
night.  It will be the first time for me and I am certainly looking
forward to it.  As I understand it they turn a rabbit loose and the dogs
chase it around the track.  For many years the rabbits have tried to
arbitrate this dispute, but to no avail.
     It is even a 45-minute drive from here to the statue of Tom Mix on
the highway to Tucson, in case you would like to stop and pray.
     What I am trying to say is that there isn't a whole lot to do around
here.  Many moons ago Geronimo and his fierce braves roamed the
neighborhood, in the days when this was nothing more than a junction of
Apache trails.  Five years ago a town began to rise out of the desert, and
after a great deal of research and thought the townspeople decided to name
it Apache Junction.
     Now I'm not knocking the place, understand, but you can sit on the
doorstep of our hotel, the Superstition Ho, and see the entire town
including suburbs.  They tell me the population has tripled in less than a
year to over 5,000, but I suspect that they must have counted all the
burros.
     Apache Junction has one drugstore, two gas stations, a laundromat, a
supermarket, 33 real estate offices and one saloon, the Red Garter, where
some of the Colt .45s do their serious training.  The baseball field-named
Geronimo Park after you-know-who-is built in the shadow of Superstition
Mountain.  Out here everything is built in the shadow of a mountain, even
other mountains.
     Legend has it that the famous Lost Dutchman gold mine is still hidden
away in those mysterious hills beyond right field.  Since 1900 at least 50
persons have died violent deaths there-in the mountains, that is, not
right field, though we have had one or two close calls this spring.  The
50 croaked while searching for the Dutchman's gold.
     Alice, you remember the movie in which Humphrey Bogart was a grizzled
old prospector, and in one scene he was crawling on his hands and knees in
the desert, with an empty canteen in one hand and his lips chapped?  Well,
that's what Apache Junction is like.
     They got eight varieties of cactus out here, which is the sort of
information that doesn't help you much if you sit on one.  The land is dry
and pebbly and thick with sagebrush and you run across a lot of bleached
bones.  Cows, I think.  So far I have heard only one fellow speak kindly
of the place and that was Clint Courtney, the hard-bitten old catcher who
is on our minor league coaching staff.  "I lak it heah," he said the other
day, while picking his teeth with a cactus needle.  "A man orter be able
to keep his mind on baseball."
     Courtney killed a rattlesnake one afternoon in front of the clubhouse
at Geronimo Park, beating it to death with a fungo stick.  What a way to
go.
     The ball park is a mile from our hotel, and Dick Farrell, who used to
pitch for the Phillies, always takes the short cut across the sage and
underbrush.  Along the way he shoots at various objects with a .22 pistol.

I predict Farrell will be the first guy in camp to lose a toe.
     So far Turk, as we call him, has shot four jackrabbits, two lizards,
one snake, one quail and over 100 beer and whiskey bottles.  "That's a lot
of bottles," chortled Farrell.  Our manager, Harry Craft, said the same
thing, only in a suspicious tone of voice.
     Apache Junction grows on you though, Alice, like some sort of fungus.

They had a parade out here for us, and it was really something.  You
remember the one they had in New York for John Glenn, the astronaut, with
the confetti knee deep and people jammed together like suits in a closet? 
Well, this one had more folks in the parade than watching it.
     They say if you can play ball here you can do it anywhere, including
the deck of an aircraft carrier in a tropical storm.  The Arizona desert
has the highest, bluest, sky in the world, and some of our outfielders
complained that they could not follow the ball.  Tut, tut, said Al
Spangler, who majored in math at Duke.  He would merely allow for the
force of the impact and the rate of descent and he would catch the ball
while making change for a $20 bill.  So the first game we play one fly
drops at Al's feet and another falls behind him.  He explained later that
he forgot to figure on the curvature of the earth.
     Well, Alice, it is too early to get nervous and I do not want to
upset you, but I don't think I am going to make the club.  Luman Harris,
one of our coaches, came by my room yestiddy and suggested that I not send
my laundry out.  I think he was trying to tell me something.  
     Wish I had Wally Wolf's money.  I would tell them to go fly a kite in
an electrical storm.  Wally is the pitcher from Southern Cal who got a
hundred grand for signing.  Wally says he is going to give it one more
year and if he doesn't make the Colt .45s he is going to buy the club and
hire himself as general manager.
     I guess you read about me pitching in the intrasquad game the other
day.  I threw a curve ball to Pidge Brown and he hit it 500 feet.  The
ball didn't break much, but I got great distance on it.
     A very dramatic thing happened on my first day in camp, Alice.  You
know how it is in the story books.  A young kid my age, 19 or 20, I forget
which, goes to a big league training camp and he ends up with a locker
right next to some famous ball player that was his boyhood hero.  Well,
guess what happened to me?  I walked into the clubhouse and looked at the
name tags over the lockers, and I never heard of ANY of these guys.
     Have to stop for now.  Dave Giusti is almost through at the ping pong
table and it's my turn.  That's how it goes, here in big leaguesville.

                                            You Know Me, Alice.
                                            Lefty.