BillyBall 2009
The Road to the Phillies-Yankees World Series
by
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Braves’ Greg Norton No Stranger to Adversity October 16, 2009 There may be no role in baseball more difficult than pinch hitter. Hitting a round ball with a round bat squarely is vexing as it is. As the pitcher goes into his motion, a proficient batter’s outside world begins to shut down, leaving only a 60-foot, 6-inch long cylinder. If he is to be successful, crowd noise, scoreboard images, and what a pop out will do to his average fall off the face of the Earth. For a pinch hitter, the situation is even more severe. His first turn at the plate isn’t a warm-up. It isn’t a chance to check out the pitcher’s stuff and think about driving a pitch in the next at-bat, because there is no next at-bat. For a good number of years, Greg Norton of the White Sox, Rockies, Tigers, Rays, Mariners, and most recently the Atlanta Braves has been one of the premier pinch hitters in Major League Baseball. Among current players, his lifetime 13 pinch hit homeruns are second only to Matt Stairs. Norton is tied for eleventh all-time on that same list. Playing for the Braves in 2008, Norton hit .316 in 74 pinch hitting plate appearances and compiled a Barry Bonds-like .473 on-base percentage. One might think Greg Norton’s success as a pinch hitter is a gift life bestowed on him. Nothing could be further from the truth. Norton grew up in the scenic Montclair district of Oakland, California in the 1980s. Like a lot of athletically talented kids, he skipped T-ball and played Little League with the older kids. By his early teens, Norton learned that the best competition was offered by the racially mixed areas of downtown Oakland. So his father, Jerry, who once played in the Pirates organization and trained in jungle warfare during the Vietnam era, drove Greg to where the action was every game he could. Life was good for Greg Norton. His older brother, Tim, a journeyman college football quarterback, had experienced more of his parents’ early economic struggle than Greg. By the time Greg came of age, his father was a successful CPA and his mother owned and operated two well regarded day schools. The Nortons lived in an attractive four-story house up on a hill. Greg was a good natured kid with a mischievous side and was even a little spoiled. A brush fire he set in the rear yard resulted in the taking away of his BMX bike, but his sports life remained intact. On the morning of Saturday, May 6, 1989, Greg Norton arose early to take the SAT. He felt a little uneasy and self-conscious, but not so much because of the exam. He would probably be playing ball in a couple of years at a Division I college, and a combined math and verbal score of 1000 or so would be more than enough to open any door. Strangely, a different door—the one to the front of the house— happened to be open slightly, and he gently closed it. He had come in past curfew from a date the night before and probably disturbed his parents by punching in the alarm code on the keypad by the garage. Before going out, he had argued briefly with his mother about a shirt she declined to iron for him, and now in the morning he owed it to his folks to let them sleep. Still, he had a strange feeling he needed to climb the stairs to their bedroom on the fourth floor. When he got there and looked into the bedroom there was no sound, and something wasn’t quite right. When he checked on his mom, she was motionless. Greg looked for his dad, but he was nowhere to be found. Life changed drastically for Greg Norton on that day. By the afternoon the police had interrogated him. By early evening he was informed that his mother had been murdered. By nightfall he had moved in with his friend’s parents. By 1 AM the police had called to say they were charging his father with the crime. How Greg Norton resumed his high school baseball career, bounced from college to college, reconnected with his brother, and finally landed in the big leagues is worthy of a book, and at least one is in the pipeline. However, a single salient detail that sticks in our heads after talking with Norton is how during those make-or-break years when he became distracted and overwhelmed, he would just get in the car, put on some music, and drive for hours. For reasons no one has completely figured out, pinch hitter extraordinaire Greg Norton struggled at the plate this year, hovering around a buck-fifty and feeling he disappointed a team that fought till the end for a wild card spot. But wherever he lands next season, Greg Norton knows his fourteen-year Major League career is a small miracle and his solid marriage and two wonderful kids a much larger one. And for those who look at the numbers and say this is the roughest year of Greg Norton’s life, it is not. Not even close.
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About the Book
When authors Billy Staples and Rich Herschlag are asked to write a baseball column for The Trentonian, they decide to put their own stamp on it. Covering primarily Philadelphia and New York, they forego the dirt and seek out baseball’s role models, well known and not so well known. They sidestep the steroids and find the stories of courage, dedication and humanity the mainstream press so often misses. Shortly after the All-Star break, another storyline develops. In Philadelphia, the 2008 World Champions are beginning to reemerge. Up the turnpike in New York, the Yankees are showing shades of their former selves from a decade earlier. One by one, division rivals fall by the wayside, and on October 25 only the Yanks and Phils remain standing. The Phillies-Yankees World Series is a battle of baseball titans. For Staples and Herschlag—who in their first full year get to cover it from field level—it is the ultimate reward for doing it their way.
About the Author
Billy Staples After a childhood spent on sandlots and in Major League clubhouses, in 1993 Billy Staples graduated Phi Beta Kappa from East Stroudsburg University and became an inner city English teacher in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Over the next 13 years he used his friendships with ballplayers and their willingness to sign autographs as a motivational technique to get his students to come to school, behave, and do their work. Billy told each student, “I don’t teach Monday through Friday or September through June. I’ll teach you nights, weekends, summers and the rest of your life if you are willing to learn.” Billy was twice nominated for Disney’s National Teacher of the Year award. His groundbreaking work helping troubled kids fix their lives and make it to college was featured in a five-part series on CNN. Staples sits on the board of BEST, a college scholarship organization he helped start under the guidance of Linny Fowler and Jack Canfield, author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series. BEST has helped over forty at-risk, financially challenged students from the Lehigh Valley, PA/ Phillipsburg, NJ area to attend and pay for college. Staples’s friendship with Jack Canfield has also helped what was once just an idea for a motivational book series to come to fruition as Before the Glory, the book he and Rich Herschlag completed in 2007. In the foreword to the book Canfield wrote, “Billy is a living example of The Success Principles and The Secret,” both of which have sold millions of copies. Since then, Billy has toured the U.S. and several Latin American countries to spread his positive message. He and Rich Herschlag have, meanwhile, extended their range by co-writing an inspirational baseball column. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Billy completed his master’s degree in education and administration at East Stroudsburg University. Billy Staples can be reached for personal appearances at www.billystaples.com or on Facebook. Rich Herschlag Rich Herschlag’s published books include Jack of All Trades (Northwest, 1994), Lay Low and Don't Make the Big Mistake (Simon & Schuster, 1997), The Interceptor (Ballantine, 1998), Women Are From Manhattan, Men Are From Brooklyn (Black Maverick, 2002), and Before the Glory (HCI, 2007). Lay Low, a humorous but practical guide to gliding through corporate America on minimal effort, resulted in over 175 radio and TV interviews across the country. The book was the subject of a feature article in USA Today, highlighted in Reader’s Digest, and quoted on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Lay Low was also translated into Chinese. The Interceptor, a political and environmental thriller set above and below the streets of New York, was reviewed favorably by numerous publications including the New York Times, the New York Daily News, and the New York Post. Herschlag’s forthcoming book, Sinatra, Gotti and Me, co-written with Tony Delvecchio, is a firsthand account of Delvecchio’s tumultuous years running Jilly’s, the legendary New York nightclub. Rich Herschlag earned a bachelor’s degree in science and engineering from Princeton University in 1984. In 1991 he received his license as a professional engineer from the State of New York and went to work as Chief Borough Engineer for the Office of the Manhattan Borough President, where he stayed until early 1995. Since then he has run a consulting business, Turnkey Structural, that specializes in the rehabilitation of older residential and commercial buildings. The website is www.turnkeystructural.com Herschlag lives in Easton, PA, with Susan, his wife of twenty-two years, and their daughters Rachel, 17, and Elise, 12.