Ball Four (RosettaBooks Sports Classics) (54 page)

Los Angeles

When I landed at Los Angeles after flying in from Michigan, I promptly took the limousine for Anaheim. I got out at the Grand Hotel and couldn’t figure out why none of the guys were around the lobby. Suddenly there was this little click in my head. The Houston Astros do not play the Los Angeles Angels. They play the Dodgers. So it was into a taxicab to Chavez Ravine, and I barely got there in time for batting practice. The whole thing cost me $17 and some nasty comments from my teammates about the size of my brainpan.

We beat the Dodgers and now have an 81–79 record with two games to go. Can’t go below .500, and if we beat them twice we’ll tie them for fourth. It could have been worse.

We played bocci with my iron ball in the bullpen during the game, and stickball, and I beat Dierker in a word game, which I consider an accomplishment. The kid has a helluva vocabulary. The most interesting part of the baseball game came when Norm Miller threw his helmet in the dugout and it bounced up and hit Hector Torres in the eye and Harry fined Miller $50 on the spot. Next time up Norm hit a home run.

Johnny Edwards asked me if I planned to bring my family to spring training. I said sure, why?

“If you don’t you have to stay in the barracks and they padlock the doors at midnight,” he said. “If you don’t make it in, you have to pound on the door and that’s the way they catch you.”

The
New York Post
has asked me to cover the World Series for them if the Mets get into it. They said they couldn’t pay me for the articles, but might, just might, be able to pay some, only
some
, of my expenses—like, maybe hotel, but not travel. That’s very similar to the arrangement that Tom Sawyer had with his friends on painting the fence. The more they painted, the more it cost them. I guess they figured I’d enjoy it because I’d get to watch some baseball games for free.

I said no, thanks.

The last day of the season and I’m looking forward to being home again. It’s convenient to travel with a ballclub. Your suitcases are picked up at the hotel and your equipment at the ballpark and you never see anything again until you get to the next hotel, the next ballpark. On the last day you carry your own suitcase, and you carry your equipment bag and somehow the weight feels good. On the bus out to the airport I thought about my season; 73 outings, and I graded 50 of them either good or excellent, and for the first time since 1964 I felt no gnawing emptiness at the end of a season. Only quiet fulfillment, the cool of the evening.

It’s good that the season is over. And let’s see, spring training should start about February 22.

In the winter I always find myself remembering more good things than bad. And in many ways 1969 was a great season. I began it as a minor-leaguer trying a new style and a new pitch and finished as a genuine gold-plated, guaranteed-not-to-tarnish-major-leaguer again. My 73 appearances for Seattle and Houston were fifth in the majors, and my two wins, three losses and two saves say something—although I’m not sure what.

The pettiness and stupidity were exasperating, sometimes damaging. And it’s going to be a long winter before I can enjoy having had my shoes nailed to the clubhouse floor. New levels of noncommunication were reached. Still, there were rewards. There were enough laughs in the bullpen and in the back of the bus to make me eager for a new season. I met a lot of people I’ll feel warmly toward for the rest of my life. Observing and recording my experiences for this book taught me a great deal not only about others but about myself. (I’m not sure I liked everything I learned, but learning is often a painful experience.)

I lucked out with five great roommates: Gary Bell, Bob Lasko, Mike Marshall, Steve Hovley and Norm Miller. I went the whole season without an injury. I traveled the country in both leagues. And I saw the look in my son Mike’s face when I came back from a road trip and he turned his big eyes up at me and said shyly, “Hey Dad, you’re Jim Bouton, aren’t you?”

I enjoyed living in the Great Northwest for most of a season and I’m sad that Seattle didn’t keep its franchise. A city that seems to care more for its art museums than its ballpark can’t be all bad.

The team will play in Milwaukee next season and it will be a new team in every respect. Even before the franchise could be shifted, Marvin Milkes, operating on the theory that when you make a mistake you make a change, made a lot of changes. Joe Schultz was fired and signed on as a coach in Kansas City, moving in considerably below Lou Piniella in the team’s pecking order. Piniella, groomed for oblivion in the first weeks of spring training with Seattle, became Rookie of the Year in Kansas City, hitting .282. Sal Maglie, Ron Plaza, Eddie O’Brien and Frank Crosetti were also fired. As this is written only Crosetti has hooked on—with Minnesota.

Fred Talbot, Diego Segui, Ray Oyler, George Brunet, Don Mincher and Ron Clark were all traded to Oakland for some warm bodies. Dooley Womack was released, Merritt Ranew was sent to the minors and Mike Marshall, sold to Houston, will be back with me this spring. Gary Bell, released by the White Sox, was signed by Hawaii. Hope he can handle
mai tais
.

Houston traded Curt Blefary to the Yankees for Joe Pepitone, and we will have all spring to practice Joe’s pick-off sign. Wade Blasingame was sent to the minors. Ted Williams of the MFL was Manager of the Year and the Fat Kid won Most Valuable Player.

I did not win Comeback of the Year, but I went to a local sports banquet the other night and took a bow from the audience. As I watched the trophies being handed out, my mind wandered and I saw myself being called up to the dais and accepting the Fireman of the Year award for 1970.

And then I thought of Jim O’Toole and I felt both strange and sad. When I took the cab to the airport in Cincinnati I got into a conversation with the driver and he said he’d played ball that summer against Jim O’Toole. He said O’Toole was pitching for the Ross Eversoles in the Kentucky Industrial League. He said O’Toole is all washed up. He doesn’t have his fastball anymore but his control seems better than when he was with Cincinnati. I had to laugh at that. O’Toole won’t be trying to sneak one over the corner on Willie Mays in the Kentucky Industrial League.

Jim O’Toole and I started out even in the spring. He wound up with the Ross Eversoles and I with a new lease on life. And as I daydreamed of being Fireman of the Year in 1970 I wondered what the dreams of Jim O’Toole are like these days. Then I thought, would I do that? When it’s over for me, would I be hanging on with the Ross Eversoles? I went down deep and the answer I came up with was yes.

Yes, I would. You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.

THE BOYS OF BALL FOUR

A lot has happened in ten years. The Seattle Pilots have become the Milwaukee Brewers and Sicks Stadium is now a parking lot. Only one member of the Pilots, Marty Pattin (Kansas City), is still playing in the major leagues. From the Houston Astros, only Tom Griffin (Giants), Bob Watson (Yankees), and Joe Morgan (free agent) are still active.

The wisdom and foresight of the Seattle Pilot management has been reconfirmed several times. That hot-tempered rookie who was sent to the minors because Joe Schultz didn’t like him became “sweet” Lou Piniella. And Mike Marshall, who would “never make it” with his screwball, made it as a Cy Young award winner and one of the game’s greatest pitchers.

The lot of all players has improved dramatically under the leadership of Marvin Miller. Since winning their free agency, many players have become millionaires, and they all have agents, more security, and some control over their destinies.

On the personal side, my editor and best friend, Lenny Shecter, passed away. Former teammates Elston Howard and Don Wilson have died. And I’m divorced.

I still keep in touch with some of the guys, like Gary “Ding Dong” Bell. I call him on the phone once in awhile and he sends me letters addressed to “Ass Eyes.” One year Gary sent me a note saying that since
Ball Four
nobody in baseball would give him a coaching job. He figures they didn’t want a coach whose only advice would be to “smoke ’em inside.”

Instead, Gary became a restaurateur near his home in Phoenix, Arizona. Actually he was a short order cook at his own fast food joint called the Chinese Paisan (I’m not kidding). It catered to people who wanted a choice between Italian and Chinese food. I invested a few thousand dollars and the place promptly went bankrupt. Gary said it failed because the customers could never make up their minds. I told him he should have read some of those real-estate books.

A few years after he left baseball Gary got divorced from Nan. Theirs had been a true baseball marriage. Once the road trips ended it couldn’t withstand all that togetherness. Gary is remarried now and very happy working in a sporting goods store. I wonder if he says, “ding dong” every time he sells someone a protective cup.

I still exchange Christmas cards with Steve Hovley. After the Brewers let him go, old “tennis-ball head” was picked up by Kansas City where he had good years in 1972 and ’73. In ’74 he was sold to Baltimore, missed six weeks with an injury and was released. Now living in Ojai, California, Hovley says he has no interest in baseball whatsoever. “It wouldn’t be a part of my life at all,” he explains, “except that people keep bringing it up.”

Hovley says he doesn’t understand why he was portrayed in
Ball Four
as an intellectual and somehow different from other players. He insists he was just one of the boys. After he left baseball, Hovley chose to work as a janitor at his daughter’s grade school and then became a plumber, just like any other former major-leaguer who went to Stanford and read Dostoyevsky in the clubhouse.

I speak to Mike Marshall once in awhile. He tells me about his latest battles with the establishment. Marshall is always interesting to watch, whether he’s suing the Michigan State Athletic Department (and winning), or filing a grievance against baseball for unfair labor practices. Marshall was the Minnesota Twins player representative before he was released last year with two years remaining on his contract. Why would the Twins release a guy they still had to pay for two more years, who had won or saved 31 games for them as recently as 1978? And why hasn’t any other team signed this 39-year-old physical fitness expert who could probably pitch for another five years?

Well, because baseball hasn’t changed
that
much. Everybody but the Baseball Commissioner suspects the owners want to keep Marshall, a militant leader, out of the Players Association. His release keeps him off the very important joint study committee working on the question of free agent compensation. Also, Marshall has been heard to say that when Marvin Miller retires, he would like a shot at Marvin’s job. If there’s anyone the owners fear more than Marvin, it’s Mike.

It’s interesting that Mike went from a clubhouse weirdo to a clubhouse leader in the time it took to become a great pitcher. There’s another thing that hasn’t changed about baseball: You’re still just as smart as your earned run average.

Another roommate of mine, Norm Miller, is alive and well in Houston, Texas. I had lunch with Norm a few years ago when I came into town during my comeback with the Atlanta Braves in 1978. Norm recalled those hectic days we spent together right after
Ball Four
came out. “Howard Cosell came banging on the door at seven in the morning screaming, ‘Let me in, let me in!’ You were on the phone doing one of your hundred interviews,” he reminded me. “I was buck naked as Cosell shoved his way in the door, grabbed the phone out of your hand and said into it, ‘This interview is terminated!’ I couldn’t believe this guy.” Norm said it was exciting being my secretary for a couple of weeks.

Today, when he’s not pitching batting practice for the Houston Astros, Norm is an executive with Monterey House restaurants. It’s better than being a Jewish pirate or sitting all alone in a laundry bag.