Billy Pierce interview...

[Lipman 1]

Just put up (with photos coming soon as part of it) my interview with the great, late Billy Pierce. It was the start of a friendship that I miss terribly to this day with his passing. A great player, and even better person. And when you read the interview I've listed just a small part of what he had collected over his remarkable career that was in his basement. It left me agog. When I asked if I could feel his game worn 1959 World Series uniform (it was wool and I had never felt one like that before) Billy readily agreed.

He took it out for me, I felt it, then said, "You know Bill I don't mean to be sacrilegious but to me feeling this is like a Catholic feeling the Shroud of Turin!" Bill got a laugh out of that one.

He was one of a kind on and off the field.

I hope you enjoy the interview. Any comment, questions or memories of Bill, please post them in this thread.

[BigKlu59]

Great piece Lip. And yes, if Billy starts Game 2 The Sox win the series going away.

BK59

[voodoochile]

Lip asked me to add some images to the interview, but I can't seem to figure out how to get them all in. There's a limit per post and so far no luck figuring out how to increase it, here are the images I decided to post here instead.

From Left to right:

1957 20-win game balls
1959 game worn World Series uniform
1962 Candlestick Park pitching rubber

[LITTLE NELL]

Great piece Lip. And yes, if Billy starts Game 2 The Sox win the series going away.

BK59

Correct, a crime and it broke my 13 year old heart that Billy didn't start game 2, if anyone ever deserved a start in a World Series game, it was Billy the Kid. I was in attendance and the Sox still should have won that game if not for 3rd base coach Tony Cuccinello sending Sherm Lollar home trying to score the tying run in the bottom of the 8th with no outs. Lollar was tagged out on a play that wasn't even close, he didn't even bother to slide. Sherm was an outstanding catcher and a very good hitter but he was the slowest player in the Majors and what was on Cuccinello's mind is still one of the great mysteries of the 20th century. Sox still had Al Smith in scoring position with 1 out but failed to get him in as Larry Sherry shut us down the rest of the game.

[Tommy John]

Great piece Lip. And yes, if Billy starts Game 2 The Sox win the series going away.

BK59

Assuming, of course, that the Dodgers didn’t win the game.

[LITTLE NELL]

Assuming, of course, that the Dodgers didn’t win the game.

Read post #4 and it will explain why the Sox should have won that game, of course it boils down to shoulda, coulda, woulda.

[BigKlu59]

Read post #4 and it will explain why the Sox should have won that game, of course it boils down to shoulda, coulda, woulda.

And as Sox fans we are all so familiar with Shoulda, Coulda and their cousin Woulda

[LITTLE NELL]

And as Sox fans we are all so familiar with Shoulda, Coulda and their cousin Woulda

Ain't that the truth, we've had tons of them down through the years.

[BigKlu59]

Lip asked me to add some images to the interview, but I can't seem to figure out how to get them all in. There's a limit per post and so far no luck figuring out how to increase it, here are the images I decided to post here instead.

From Left to right:

1957 20-win game balls
1959 game worn World Series uniform
1962 Candlestick Park pitching rubber

Nice work Voodoo and Lip. Youze guys are Aces.

[Paulwny]

After reading many years ago about Al Lopez not voting for Fox to the HOF I felt Lopez was also not a fan of Pierce.

[BigKlu59]

After reading many years ago about Al Lopez not voting for Fox to the HOF I felt Lopez was also not a fan of Pierce.

Don’t know what was up Al’s butt in dissing Billy. Billy only was a corner piece of this 50’s Sox teams and he had no problem handing him the ball when he needed a no doubt about it against any team or the Yanks and Whitey. That 59 series was surreal in a lot of ways. One of the idiosyncratic things being playing in that bastardized Coliseum where you had to hit the ball into the Pacific Ocean in right field yet duck snort one to left. I’m sure Klu hated those 3 in LA where even his bulging biceps only crushed cans of corn.

BK59

[Mohoney]

After reading many years ago about Al Lopez not voting for Fox to the HOF I felt Lopez was also not a fan of Pierce.

Most of what I have heard suggests that Al Lopez was an epic piece of ****, and not just to Fox. Can anybody verify or refute this? Maybe Lip?

[Lipman 1]

Most of what I have heard suggests that Al Lopez was an epic piece of ****, and not just to Fox. Can anybody verify or refute this? Maybe Lip?

Al got along great with the public and especially the media whom he understood had a job to do and was always professional.

He did have differences with players and could be pretty harsh about it, Fox and Jim Landis were two targets from time to time but there were others. He wouldn't tolerate "baseball-stupidity" much like Eddie Stanky. If you couldn't execute what you were supposed to do, you didn't play it was that simple.

Al was a catcher and a good one for a long time in the bigs and one issue he had with Nellie was that on a steal of second Nellie always tried to catch the ball in front of the base and reach to tag the runner. That drove Al nuts, he wanted Nellie to take the throw around the bag. Of course Nellie being a smaller player usually didn't want to be in the crosshairs of guys much bigger than him.

But as Bill said in the interview everyone respected Al's managerial ability. He was arguably the best Sox manager ever.

[LITTLE NELL]

Al got along great with the public and especially the media whom he understood had a job to do and was always professional.

He did have differences with players and could be pretty harsh about it, Fox and Jim Landis were two targets from time to time but there were others. He wouldn't tolerate "baseball-stupidity" much like Eddie Stanky. If you couldn't execute what you were supposed to do, you didn't play it was that simple.

Al was a catcher and a good one for a long time in the bigs and one issue he had with Nellie was that on a steal of second Nellie always tried to catch the ball in front of the base and reach to tag the runner. That drove Al nuts, he wanted Nellie to take the throw around the bag. Of course Nellie being a smaller player usually didn't want to be in the crosshairs of guys much bigger than him.

But as Bill said in the interview everyone respected Al's managerial ability. He was arguably the best Sox manager ever.

Correct on Nellie with issues around 2nd base, Jimmy Piersall told me more than a few times that Nellie hated guys sliding hard into him at the bag but that didn't stop me from Nellie being my all time favorite. Jimmy also told me that Nellie was overrated and that's when I would argue with him and say "how can a guy be overrated if he played in 14 All Star games", argument over.

[BigKlu59]

Correct on Nellie with issues around 2nd base, Jimmy Piersall told me more than a few times that Nellie hated guys sliding hard into him at the bag but that didn't stop me from Nellie being my all time favorite. Jimmy also told me that Nellie was overrated and that's when I would argue with him and say "how can a guy be overrated if he played in 14 All Star games", argument over.

Good comeback Nell… probably left him slack jawed with that one. I guess it worked for Nelllie. He lasted as long as he did “By Not” becoming a crash test dummy.

BK59