I forgot someone asked when in little league did he ever make all stars. Yes he was a county all star every year in Dizzy Dean baseball. When they started pitching at age 9 he threw his first no hitter against other all star teams at the Dizzy Dean state championship that year. He threw 3 all together another one was also against travel ball competition and he should have had a fourth at age 12 his last year but another coach who was friend of his father tried to help him by teaching him to throw a cut fastball that day. He could throw anything you taught him, went out and used it in the game that day and finally gave up the one hard hit ball of the day off of it. I often wonder if he had thrown one of his regular pitches at that moment would he have had a fourth. He didn't need any help. He was doing fine with what he had developed.
He experimented with a lot of stuff. Even had a knuckle change up he could get over. But then a good hitter reloaded on his approach to the ball when he saw it wasn't going to be a fast pitch and drove it into right field. We learned a lesson that just because you can get a strange pitch over doesn't mean it is going to fool anybody and he put that pitch on the ash heap.....and later the cut fast ball after it cost him another no hitter. We kept book on ratio of batters to hard hit balls of the pitches he threw and when a pitch would begin to slip into poorer ratios off it or too many balls off it rather than strikes he would discard it. That's how he always kept sharp and ahead of his game.