In case you’re wondering what Ray’s comment about Major League Baseball players means, here’s the story:

Our family dairy farm was across the street from a slaughter house (a fact that terrified my dad’s cows into giving prodigious amounts of milk every day). The owner of the slaughterhouse had a grandson a couple years younger than I, and we were great friends despite the fact that we only saw each other when he visited his grandparents.

I was a baseball fanatic. I played every day at lunch and after school and listened to Dodgers games on the radio every night. One day my pal came across the street and asked me, a guy who in his mind was older and wiser and a baseball expert, if I thought he was good enough to try out for Little League.

It was painful, but I told him the truth — that I did not believe he was good enough to play even at this basic level.

Long story short:

Just as with Jimmy Webb, my assessment of this kid’s talent was off the mark a bit. His name was Wayne Gross and he went on to have a ten year career playing Major League Baseball for the Oakland A’s and the Baltimore Orioles back in the ’70s and ’80s.

The bottom line: If I say you suck at something, you will probably go on to make millions of dollars doing that very thing.

I had not seen Wayne in about thirty years when, much to my surprise, I discovered that he now lives in Northern California and that Ray’s brother is his next door neighbor. Ray and I called him and we had a great reunion. He didn’t remember the horrible advice I had given him, and laughed heartily at the story.