BY RED MULCAHY Special to Beacon Athletics — Baseball is a game of breaks. Dale got one early in his first season, after he’d been sent from Janesville to the class D Rutherford County Owls in North Carolina.

“I was rounding second, and got my foot caught on the base,” he recalls. “I twisted my knee, and that knocked me out for four weeks.” Manager Rube Wilson had an idea. “We want you to start throwing batting practice,” he told Dale, who already had the ideal pitcher’s nickname: Lefty.

“I’d horsed around with pitching,” says Dale. “Being left-handed, my ball had natural movement to it, more so than a right-hander’s would have. And I’d always been able to get the ball over.”