Bamboozled (9 page)

Joey saw on ESPN that Len Bias and Don Rogers had died of cocaine overdoes—two young athletes whose lives hadn't really yet begun. Joey had an idea to help young athletes from the inner city to deal with the drug epidemic. He says he loved working with Stacy Nadel and talking to kids in trouble.

Boxers Against Drugs (BAD) was officially created that evening. Joey called his attorney for advice and direction. Joey met with Warden Luster, and within three weeks, they presented a list of visitors for this boxing exhibition. It began
with Boom Boom Mancini and went on to include three pages of important figures in the sports and entertainment world. Eric Davis and Darryl Strawberry would drop in on fight night. Joey hired a secretary to keep up with requests from parents and celebrities who sought his help. He remembered Carlos Palomino and called Mr. Nadel, who ran a story about Carlos and Joey. The story went on the news wire, and Joey blew up. The phone kept ringing and ringing.

Joey called Mr. Palomino and asked if he remembered him asking for a shot at his title. Carlos laughed, and Joey told him about his situation. Joey asked Carlos to come to the promotion at the prison and help with the B.A.D. program. Carlos showed up on the first day of his first promotion, explaining, “I wanted to look in his eyes and see if I was hearing the truth or getting conned. We talked for a couple of hours and I felt like he was real.” Miguel Diaz brought in five boxers—one Joey was following was Antifoshi, from Nigeria, who was on his way to a title shot.

From Joey's prison cell, B.A.D. reached many children over the next decade with their sports heroes reinforcing the power of family and staying in school. This message was seen worldwide on television, cleverly blending the B.A.D. pitch with that of Joey's innocence. In order to fund the operation, Joey began selling portraits, including one of Darryl Strawberry. With Strawberry's mother, Joey created a t-shirt that her church would sell. Joey claims that he made six figures from selling artwork and reproduction rights from prison that year.

Joey began calling Strawberry and Davis at their homes or hotels on the road. Daryll's brother Ronnie was having drug problems so Joey reached out to him. Darryl himself was partying pretty hard and about to head down a dark road too.

Over the next three years Joey created a network through his relationships with Davis and Strawberry. One of them would either know the player he was trying to get in touch with or Joey could sweet talk them into working with him on the basis of his existing relationships with “Straw” and “E.” Joey successfully convinced player after player to sign ten dozen baseballs for him to sell. Joey would have Ana Luisa buy a
dozen baseballs for $60, which he had already pre-sold to collectors for $2,000 per dozen.

Joey says he did this everyday—with five to ten players per week. It was 1986, now known as the hottest time in history for sports memoribilia. Joey would coordinate moving cars for players down to Florida for them to use during spring training. Eventually Davis would be calling Joey from Atlanta to ask for help getting a breakaway back board installed in his backyard. Joey claims he would call Reebok, convince them to pay for it, and pocket all of the cash. If he has no qualms admitting that he was performing these relatively sketchy moves on his rich “friends,” one might wonder what kind of books were cooking in the B.A.D. accounting.

When Carlos Palomino visited Joey during this period he described that it felt like the guards were working for Joey, coming by to check in on them periodically, asking if either of them needed anything else. He says it didn't feel like prison.

In 1998 Joey was again summoned to the warden's office. There, he found his father looking old and forlorn. His clothes hung loosely, like they belonged to someone else. The warden walked out and Joey's father informed him that both he and Joey's mother had cancer. His father had lung cancer and his mother had cancer of the blood.

Supposedly, his father told him about watching his fights and wanting Joey to lose, “You were the fighter that I could never be and a father should not be jealous of his own son, but I was.”

Joey's father moved to Vegas and Joey tried to be closer to both parents. He had baseball players call his dad, mail him signed bats and balls, and had Darryl and Eric invite him to a Dodgers' game.

Joey's mother remained in the hospital with a rare blood disorder. The doctor did not expect her to live more than three or four days. Joey called Carlos Palomino who contacted the California Department of Corrections. Joey explained to director Jim Gomez's secretary, “I am in another state for saving the life of a correctional officer and I want a chance to kiss my mother before she passes.” Finally, hours later, Joey claims Gomez allowed him to visit his mother with the warning,
“I am letting you go free for the day but if you run I will hunt you down!” And to his credit, it was one of the only opportunities to flee the authorities that Joey did not take.

This is quite an exception as the law stated, “no convicted murderer will be released into society for any reason.” Joey headed to LA with Palomino where he found his mother in a coma distressingly hooked into numerous machines. She passed away the next day after Joey had returned to prison.

Joey claims he began producing the TV show
Rapamania
as a coping mechanism for his mother's death. He claims an attorney named Steve Shiffman, Carlos, and Harold Lipton asked him to promote the pay per view show where the country's top hip hop artists performed. Joey claims he made a million dollars in 1988 and spent it all on clothes for other people's kids.

If the Reds were in New York Joey would call the Mets public relations department and claim to represent Eric Davis, requesting his hotel number. He'd ask Eric to tell Bobby Bonilla to expect his call. He convinced Eric to collect all the broken bats and equipment he could gather and leave it at the front desk where Joey would have FedEx pick it up the next day to send to a baseball shop that Joey had already sold it to that morning. If someone needed cars moved, tickets obtained, or jewelry bought, Davis would send them to Joey.

Joey claims he was taking bets from Pete Rose, who would bet with the bookie, sending the money back to Jimmy Sacco. Joey claims Pete, as the Reds' coach, would also connect him with players who needed tasks performed.

A week after the holidays of 1988 when Carlos Palomino was asked about Joey's prison cell management operation, Joey was featured on the
George Michael Sports Machine, Fox Television, The Reporters,
and
A Current Affair.
Joey started receiving bags of mail and was introduced to Youth Development, Inc. (YDI) in Albuquerque—a model of what a national program could be. They worked with gang kids, found jobs, did education, and housed single mothers. Joey spent the next few years working under director Chris Baca, who became something of a mentor.

Joey claims he was paying $3,000 per month in phone bills, callling Japan to get card show appearances for players he
represented, calling players daily for bats and balls, and calling his dad to cheer him up.

Joey managed to “befriend” Edward James Olmos shortly after his Oscar-winning performance in
Stand and Deliver,
who also came to vocally defend Joey's “right” to be released.

Joey was making “so much money” that he sent 200 kids to Magic Mountain, sent bikes to a Christmas program, and hired a new appeals attorney, Cheryl Lutz. Melvin Belli was pursuing a governor's pardon from governor Pete Wilson, which went downhill after Belli began telling the media that the governor should be put into the bay on a boat without paddles. So Joey began reading law books at the end of his work day.

Joey's dad mentioned that Paul Molitor of the Baseball Hall of Fame was Puerto Rican. Joey tracked him down and he happened to see the
Sports Machine
episode about Joey but explained that he was actually French Canadian.

Joey found that the players who grew up in poverty surrounded by a gang climate tended to cling to him better than those who were born better off. Eric Davis, interviewed during Joey's roughest period, said simply “Joey is my friend.”

Joey became so close with Paul Molitor that he was credited with help talking Paul through a hitting slump.

But in another seemingly fickle spate of leaving his girlfriend and life behind, Joey decided to request a transfer to New Mexico to be closer to YDI. It was 1990 by the time Carlos let him know his transfer was approved. Joey owed Sacco $50,000, who reportedly laughed it off and let it go, so Joey says he sent Sacco a “donation” every week thereafter.

And so when Mr. Lipton attempted not to pay Joey for
Rapamania,
he and Quimby Jones were supposedly visited by Mr. Gambino, who “made them see Jesus,” whatever that might mean, since they were still alive.

Joey found the state pen in Santa Fe to be like a John Wayne movie. The former gas chamber room was intact and there remained burn marks from efforts to burn out the last inmate during a riot. It is also where
Dig's Town
and
The Longest Yard
were filmed.

Athletes remained willing to travel to Albuquerque in support of Joey's message of hope for kids. Joey says he convinced Emmitt Smith to make a personal appearance for YDI after obtaining some $2,000/case of rare Upper Deck
cards for Emmitt's father. Emmitt flew out, did a fundraiser for YDI, and signed hundreds of iron-on number “2”s and 8xio”s, which Joey sold for $400 each as his own fundraiser. Since Albuquerque had no sports teams, the Dallas Cowboys were treated like a local.

Joey created a radio show from the prison station called
Sports Talk with Joey T.
His first interview was with Eric Davis and Daryl in rehab.

Joey says he worked producing the rap group Lynch Mob, who supposedly asked him to sell cases of glock 9mm handguns and hand grenades that they had stolen during the LA riots to pay for their recording time. Apparently, in Joey's identity, that didn't contradict the image he had built up with B.A.D., but he does claim there was some matter of conscience. When the California Department of Corrections refused to pay him for the weapons, he handed them over to the ATF. Again, he says he expected this would put a gold star on his record and help him get out of prison, which it did not. Joey's self-image remained complicated and seemingly incongrous. Even when he re-tells the stories now, he seems to be creating contradictory and revisionist history as he goes.