A Hazard on the Mound

<p>In September of 1961, as a devastating Category 4 hurricane barreled toward the Texas coast, an entrepreneurial 14-year-old boy was desperate to save his backyard business. He managed to pull off a miracle in his family's garage, but it wasn't long before a new storm arrived: high school coaches demanding he trade his cowboy boots for cleats. </p><p>He had an ungodly, blistering velocity that hissed through the air, terrifying opposing batters and regularly breaking his own catchers' bones. Yet, major league scouts completely wrote him off as a wild thrower who would never see the Hall of Fame without a ticket. </p>