You Can’t Invent This Stuff!: Amazin’ True Tales From Baseball Diamonds to 41,000 Feet

This unique memoir is the lifetime story of Bill Sablesak, a semi retired airline Captain, Line Check Airman, and Air Carrier Instructor Pilot, with a graduate MBA degree, and 48+ years (25,000+ hours) of safe, accident, incident free flying. He is also a former Bat Boy for a Major League Baseball (MLB) Team and a former Minor League Baseball Player. Now Pilot In Command (PIC) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a MLB box seat, he has just about seen it all, a lot of which you, nor anyone else, can invent!During his 40+ year airline career Bill often threatened to “put it in the book”! And he wasn’t just talking about the Aircraft Maintenance Logbook! After Bill retired from United Airlines in 2023, his wife, retired Delta Air Lines Airbus Captain Susie Thornton Sablesak, insisted that Bill keep his lifetime promise. This memoir is the result of that promise!His story stands out for its unique combination of professional baseball, nearly five decades in aviation, and the incredible experiences and stories accumulated along the way. From serving as a New York Yankees bat boy and minor league player to flying presidents, governors, celebrities, and major airliners around the world, this memoir offers a fascinating look at a life defined by dedication, adventure, focus, and perseverance.From growing up and watching airliners fly overhead above the hard scrabble sandlot baseball fields and streets of Bayside, Queens and Great Neck, New York; to attending Stuyvesant High School, a specialized math and science public school located amongst the towering Manhattan, New York City skyscrapers; to spending a year as a Bat Boy for the New York Yankees; to attending college and graduate school in Miami, Florida; to playing one season of professional minor league baseball in Boise, Idaho; to working and flying as a Captain for Eastern Air Lines, Gulfstream International Airlines, Express One International Airlines, Continental Airlines, and United Airlines; this is an amazing story of hard work, perseverance, laser focus, dedication, loyalty, and adventure. A little adversity, danger, excitement, good luck, and humor are also included along the way.Bill Sablesak had the privilege of meeting and or working with many baseball standouts including Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Billy Martin, Tom Seaver, and Willie Mays, as well as airline industry legends Colonel Frank Borman, Gordon Bethune, Scott Kirby, Oscar Munoz, and Frank Lorenzo. Actor/Director Tim Robbins was a high school classmate and Pulitzer Prize winning author Frank McCourt was his teacher. He learned from them all.Bill also slept overnight in a Major League Baseball (MLB) Club House; test flew airliners after major maintenance and repairs; got shot at with live ammunition while test flying those airliners; flew engine inoperative airline maintenance ferry flights; flew above airplanes while they were simultaneously and tragically getting shot down beneath him; landed his airliner on a Havana, Cuba runway with railroad tracks running across it; took off and landed his airliner on a runway with tombstones and gravesites embedded in it; had the honor of flying former United States President Jimmy Carter, former US Senator George McGovern, former Governors Jeb Bush and Phil Murphy, as well as numerous celebrities and their families. Along the way over the many years Bill, of course, also experienced a few inflight mechanical failures, as well as passenger, customer, and flight crew medical emergency issues.Airline carrier hard landings, bankruptcies, strikes, shutdowns, and finally success, are all covered in glorious, and sometimes not so glorious, detail.So, as they say, “Welcome Aboard, Sit Back, Relax, and Fasten Your Seat Belt” because this is going to get interesting. We’re about to “Play Ball” and go flying!