In 7th grade a pretty little Hispanic girl started flirting with Tony, he did not encourage her but he was not rude. Unfortunately, her boyfriend got upset at her and upset at Tony. Turns out he was 6 inches taller than Tony. He had only recently immigrated to the United States from Africa. He was a bad ass and he told Tony that he was going to kill him! Damn! Tony and I discussed the predicament and decided that if we went to the school principal or to the kids' mother that it would only make things worse. So, I bought Tony a couple big bags of candy, Snickers, Peanut M&M's etc. and I told him to go sit at the table where all of the biggest, toughest black kids ate lunch together every day. Tony sat with them and made new friends as he gave out the candy. He did that every day for a couple of weeks. It worked, he made new and lifetime friends who very firmly told the troublemaker kid to go away and leave their friend Tony alone. Tony and I hate racists! My second wife, Marlene is a Cuban immigrant. Asela is from the Muslim country of Kazakhstan, Gabriel is a Mayan Indian and Mikey is African American!
We love and respect all cultures and every race!
So back to baseball!
College Days at the University of Florida Then off to MLB
His Junior year Tony made the UF Academic Honor Roll and he was a perfect 5-0 and led the Gator pitching staff with a 2.25 earned run average… In 32 appearances, the southpaw limited foes to a .190 batting average.
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