In honor of pitcher and catchers reporting and hope springing eternal...

“In 1969, we [the Minnesota Twins] started the season 0-4. We're in Anaheim for a series against the Angels and I'm sound asleep in my hotel room when the phone rings at 3:30 a.m. It's Ted Uhlaender, and he says: 'We've got an unbelievable party going on. You've got to come down to room 203.' I could hear women and music and laughter in the background. I was 22 years old and single at the time, but there was no way I was going down to that party. It was the middle of the night, we'd just lost our first four games and I wasn't going to do anything that might get me sent to the minors. I told Ted I wasn't coming down and he tells me to hang on because someone wants to talk to me. Another guy gets on the phone and says, 'Hey Big Shooter, this is Billy. You've got five minutes to get your ass down here.' It was Billy Martin, our manager. I said, 'I'll be right down.'

”I get dressed and go down to the party. Half of our ballclub is there with a bunch of Hollywood types. Billy comes over and asks what I'm drinking and I say, 'Billy, I just got up. I'll have what you're having.' So he give me a scotch and I have a seat. I remember thinking: 'This is the big leagues.' I left the room at 6 a.m. and the party was still going on.

“We won our next seven games.”

—Charley Walters, as recounted in the book “The Twins at the Met,” by Bob Showers