Dontrelle Willis rocked on the mound at RFK Stadium in Washington D.C., kicked his right leg high in the air, and whipped his left arm around to deliver the first pitch of the season for the Florida Marlins. It's one of the most distinctive, and most effective deliveries in Major League Baseball and, we learn in a new book, Willis developed it, playing for fun against his childhood friends in Alameda, Calif.
The story is just one of many collected by Alan Schwarz in Once Upon A Game, where he asks a lot of stars and a few celebrity fans for their most vivid baseball memory, which involve dramatic moments in game seven of the World Series and others... pitching to a target spray painted on the side of the house.
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