This morning I attended a monthly breakfast dubbed “Austin Athletes Breakfast” by its organizer Rudy Alvarez. Rudy was the youngest of four Alvarez boys who were baseball royalty in Austin during the 50s and 60s. They all played at Travis HS, and Rudy later coached baseball at Travis and at Bowie. Great family, and the number 3 brother, Amador, is my age, and he and I had some epic pitching matchups in HS.
My table mate this morning, much to my great pleasure, was Bill Bethea who is 80 and a bit frail; his son Scott was there with him. Bill was a very good UT SS 3-4 years ahead of me, had a cup of coffee in MLB with the Twins, and was Cliff Gustafson’s assistant coach at UT for 20+ years. Bill and Coach G. recruited some players I coached so I knew him pretty well.
We started talking/telling stories about Bibb Falk, and Scott said “Get him to tell you about his recruiting lunch with Falk.” So he did:
Bill: He took me to a small cafe over by the dorm, and I was very nervous.
Falk: What would you like for lunch, Lefty?
Bill: I’ll have what you are having, Coach.
Bill to me: What I got on my big recruiting lunch was split pea soup and buttermilk!