Well, spring training is now a week old and already the stories are being written about the many pitchers who have sore arms. Of course there are various stages, when talking about sore arms. I still remember my first spring training after having just signed with New York Yankees. (A professional contract on January 2, 1960 in Toledo, Ohio.). One month later I arrived in a sleeply and charming town called Lake Wales, Florida.

It was the spring training site for the Yankees AAA (International League) Richmond Virginians. For the remainder of my 11-year career I spent every spring training with a major league team, where the atmosphere is different. (But that’s another story.)

And it wasn’t too far along while down in Lake Wales before my arm ached a bit, as I was firing every pitch as hard as I could to impress the manager Steve Soucheck, coaches, and of course my peers. Soucheck liked me, respected the scout that had signed me, a grizzled old baseball veteran named Pat Patterson. (He lived in Cincinnati but came north to Toledo to see me pitch in six starts for the University of Toledo as well as that summer of ‘59 in a local semi-pro league.)

Patterson’s two previous signings had been Tom Tresh and Jim Bouton. Both went on to star with the Yankees. And in those days before the baseball draft, each league having just 8 teams, the professional baseball scouts were really responsible for the teams infrastructure. It really was a whole different era.

My arm aches were really nothing that spring, in that with a day or two of rest I’d be back firing away. It would e a few years later before I would know what a real sore arm felt like.

Actually, as I look back that first spring training was almost magical.

Our entire team stayed in the Lake Wales hotel and the food buffet was really incredible, with several choices of steaks, lobster, etc. With the “all-you-can-eat” aspect being the frosting on the cake. (Yes, we had dozens of dessert choices too.) Being 6′2″ and weighing 155 pounds back then gaining weight wasn’t a problem for me. And I looked forward with anticipation to meal time.

The song from the movie Summer Place was played continually that spring. The movie, starring Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee, about their summer romance during a carefree summer time, had been a really big hit. To this day, when I hear that song my mind takes me back, instantly, to Lake Wales and that magical spring of 1960.

And it was down there that I first came across the famed “red hot” Capslun. Ask any ex-professional pitcher about Capslun and you’ll hear some stories. Capslun is a paste made of red hot chili peppers that smelled bad and would turn one’s skin a bright red–it was really irritating, unless you had an arm so sore you could hardly throw. Then it was like a miracle treatment, in that it was so hot you didn’t feel any pain from the sore arm!

And I saw a half-dozen guys (guys in their late 20’s or early 30’s) using it to hang on…hoping to make the cut. Just 20, I saw them as “old men.”

Later on, five years later, in my career every game I pitched I had the trainer apply a generous amount of Capslun to my left shoulder. The greatest left-hander to ever pitch, Sandy Koufax, also used it most generously every time he toed the rubber.

I have no idea what they’re using these days. Maybe Capslun is still popular. I know that with todays salaries a pitcher will do just about anything they can to get in another year or two…you can bet your house on that.

But back in the prehistoric 1960s Capslun, and the use of ice on the pitching arm immediately after the game, were the answer to the soreness problems.

And, oh, one more item was used. It was rather hush-hush as it wasn’t approved by the FDA for use on humans, but it was available from veterinary supply sources. Used to ease the pain of rare horses and racing greyhound dogs…and, professional baseball pitchers. See, I told you we’d do just about anything.

In my next posting on professional athletics I’ll share with you the scoop on this item. To read other posts previously written about athletics, see the “Categories” section to the right.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 8:01 am and is filed under Professional Athletics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.