SCOTTSDALE, AZ - John Wooden recruited him to play basketball at UCLA while Branch Rickey wanted him to play baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
He was teammates with Hall of Famers Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Willie McCovey, Ernie Banks and Larry Doby during his playing career. He managed Hall of Famers Billy Williams and Bruce Sutter.
He worked for Charlie Finley. And he hung out with Sadaharu Oh.
Welcome to the beautiful life of Jim Marshall.
Marshall is an original member of the infamous 1962 New York Mets, and will be honored Monday night as the oldest living Met before their game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field.
"I worked in baseball for 70 years," said Marshall, who turns 94 later in May, "and as a baseball player or manager, we always dream of being No. 1.
His greatest memory of that historic season where the Mets went 40-120 and produced the most losses in a single season until the Chicago White Sox toppled it last year?
"Opening Day at the Polo Grounds," Marshall says. "They were doing the player introductions, and when they got to me, they booed the hell out of me because Gil Hodges wasn't playing. He was hurt, but they just buried me.
Rufus James Marshall, who has gone by his middle name since attending Compton High School, spent five years in the major leagues as a first baseman and pinch-hitter. He played three years in Japan for the Chunichi Dragons. He managed the Chicago Cubs for three years and Oakland Athletics for a season. He scouted nearly 25 years for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
He spent two hours with USA TODAY Sports talking about his life, his fondest memories and favorite funny moments from his 70-year professional baseball career.
"Casey was so bad with names, and when I was playing for the Mets, he kept calling me Blanchard. There was a [Johnny] Blanchard with the Yankees where he managed before. He kept calling me Blanchard, so I just let him do it.
"One day I'm in the batter's box at the Polo Grounds, and here comes Casey out of the dugout. I step out and he says to me, 'Shoot for the lines. Shoot for the lines.' I say, "What the hell does that mean?' He says, 'All of the players are in the middle of the so shoot for the lines.' I guess it made sense.
"He didn't know the players' names, but I'll tell you one thing, he was magic with the press."
"I'm facing Bob Gibson. The batter ahead of me had dug a pretty good hole in the batter's box, so I'm just filling in the hole, brushing dirt into it. Gibson sees me and says, 'Make it nice and comfortable because that's where you're going to be [expletive] laying.
"I thought, 'Holy [smokes], I think he means it.' Sure enough he knocked me down on my [butt]. He went right at my head. That ball just missed me. If it hit me, I wouldn't be sitting here today."
"When I was scouting the Pacific Rim, I saw Ichiro [Suzuki] a lot, and he told me that his dad was a huge Chunichi Dragons fans and actually has a picture of me in their house. Ichiro was such a great guy, a great kid. He would always call me gaijin, which means foreigner in Japanese. So, the first time I see him when he gets to Seattle, I walk into their clubhouse and say, "Well, you're the gaijin now.' He says, 'Oh, grandfather, don't tease me.'
"I remember how he wanted to come to America so bad, and he used to come and swing the bat right in front of me, and then we'd go have dinner together. He was my favorite player, my absolute favorite player. The dedication. The discipline. The speed. The arm. My God, he had it all.
"I knew Ichiro would be a great player, but not a Hall of Famer. He could run, he could play defense, and he could spray the ball. The crazy thing is he could have been a great home run hitter if he wanted to, but chose to be a batting champion. That's how talented he was."
In 1963, Marshall was the first American-born player to go from the major leagues to Japan.
"I was playing in Pittsburgh, the season is over, and Joe Brown, the general manager, calls me into his office. He says, 'You don't have a chance of making this team next year. We got two first basemen. If I were you, I'd go to Japan and make good money. I want you and your wife to fly over, see if you feel comfortable, and see if you want to do it.'
"It changed my life. I loved the people there. I made some good money, played every day. They had such a love for baseball and nobody ever talked about the war. The only trouble was when we went to places like Osaka and Hiroshima, and the crowd chanted, 'Go Home White Monkey,' in Japanese - but the players protected me."
"People always ask me how many home runs Sadaharu Oh would have hit in this country. I don't know, but I do know that there were some players that would have been stars over here. I'll never forget seeing [Shigeo] Nagashima. He was an unbelievable player. He and Oh were such great guys. They would always come over to the stands and say hello to my wife whenever they saw her. They were superstars, and great, great friends. They definitely could have been stars over here.
"But after spending so many years there as a player and a scout, I never imagined we'd see someone that big and strong coming out of Japan like [Shohei] Ohtani."
Piper Davis, his teammate with the Oakland Oaks in the Pacific Coast League.
"I was in the Pacific Coast League and Piper took me under his wing. We would go to each other's room and talk baseball almost every night, which was unusual back in the day. He would tell me so much about Willie Mays and how he helped develop him and protect him from outside influence. I loved the man. What a special person.''
Davis played for the Birmingham Black Barons and the Homestead Grays in the Negro Leagues, and later managed Birmingham. He was most famous for getting Willie Mays to play for the Black Barons in 1947 when Mays was just 16. Mays credits him in his early development into becoming one of the greatest players in history. Davis nearly joined Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby breaking the color barrier in 1947 when he was signed by the St. Louis Browns and the Boston Red Sox for 1950, but never got to play in the majors.
"That was such a shame because he was such a fabulous man," Marshall said. "I would have loved to have seen that.''
"It's tough to separate, but I've got to say Rick Monday is on the top of the list when I managed the Cubs. He was such a great, young kid. I was there the day he grabbed the American flag when those kids were about to burn it. That was the greatest play of his career.
"I told Rick, 'You owe me money, man. I put you in the lineup so you could do that, now you have a lifetime job with the Dodgers! So now he gives me $1 every time he sees me."
"Hank Aaron, oh my goodness, I couldn't believe that wrist action. Those are the days you got knocked down quite a bit, I'm telling. But he'd get right back up and hit. He was quiet about it, too. I never saw him get emotional. He was one special player.
"I did remember outdoing him in something. I played in Memphis and they had a sign for steamed laundry. If you hit that sign, you get $