Becoming Mr. October (9780385533126) (18 page)

Bill Campbell came on in the sixth, though, and he was trouble. The Red Sox worked him like an old horse that year. He was their closer, but they brought him in in the sixth inning, as if they were playing a World Series game. He’d pitched a lot of innings the year before in Minnesota, and it seemed like he could take it. He’d been saving or winning the game almost every night for them during their win streak.

Most managers then didn’t have a set system for working relievers the way they do today. They didn’t designate them for certain innings, the way Tony LaRussa came up with—a man for the seventh inning, a setup man in the eighth, and your shutdown guy in the
ninth. Dick Williams was much more fluid about how he worked his bullpen. He’d throw in guys at all different times, particularly in the playoffs—though he never overworked them.

It didn’t look like you
could
overwork Bill Campbell. He came in with men on second and third, nobody out, and got three straight pop flies, just like that. He breezed through the seventh, the eighth, into the ninth, throwing that big screwball of his, and all you could do was hit it straight up in the air.

Billy finally put me up to pinch-hit in the ninth, with one out and nobody on. He sent me up to hit for Bucky, which was perfect for him, a chance to show up two guys he hated with just one at-bat. The crowd booed me, of course. They’d given Billy a standing ovation when he brought the lineup card out before the game.

I just had to ignore it and stay within myself. Campbell didn’t throw me screwballs, because you don’t throw screwballs to a left-hander. (Don’t ask me why, ’cause I don’t know.) Instead, he threw me everything but the kitchen sink, fastball, changeup, curve. I hung in there, but Campbell got me to ground to first, and I thought that was it for us.

Everybody booed again, and I know Billy must’ve been pleased. It seemed to me it was almost a death wish he had by then. I wonder if everything would’ve exploded again if he’d lost that game without starting me. We would’ve been six games back then, and George would’ve been … well, you tell me! I wonder if Billy would’ve finally got himself fired.

I wonder if he cared. Or if winning whatever game he was playing with me took first priority. I didn’t know what he was doing. It seemed crazy to me.

But instead of us going down to a loss that night, Willie Randolph sliced a triple into left-center that got past Yaz. Next pitch, Campbell left a screwball up, and Roy White, who was a great clutch player, turned on it and just buried it in the upper deck.

Two pitches, two big hits, just like that. The game was tied, and Billy was off the hook.

I stayed in the game. Sparky pitched a couple great innings of relief and outlasted Bill Campbell. They finally pulled him for the eleventh.
Remember, this guy was their closer! He came in in the sixth inning, and he stayed till the
eleventh
.

I came up against Ramón Hernández with guys on first and second. Besides my eyes, the reason Billy said he didn’t start me was that we were facing a lefty, Bill Lee, who I was five for nine against. Hernández is a lefty. I pounded a ball down the right-field line, and the game was over. We won.

Afterward, the press was all around, but I wasn’t going to bite. I told them I was just lucky to get the hit. They asked me what my emotions were like, and I said, “I try to forget my emotions these days.” They asked me how my eyes were, and I just said they were fine. When they asked me about being taken out of the lineup, I had no comment.

They asked me how I felt before the game, and I told them, “I forget how I felt. I forget a lot of things lately. I can’t say anything. If you were in my water for a week, you’d understand why. It’s cold over here.”

That was as much as they were going to get from me. At least on this day.

T
HE NEXT AFTERNOON
, Mike Torrez came out, and he wasn’t taking any nonsense. He shut the Sox down, beat ’em, 5–1, and we beat them again in the ninth inning the following day. All of a sudden we were only two games down, and everything was right with the world again. The Yankees win, the Yankees win.

But of course it wasn’t over. It never really was with Billy. We played a little better for a while, got back into first place in early July. But then we started to struggle again. We just couldn’t seem to sustain anything.

Thurman was in a bad mood. He was a typical catcher; catchers are always nicked up. I got to say, most of your catchers are underpaid—it’s the toughest position on the field. Try putting an extra fifteen to twenty pounds of equipment on before you sit down at your desk in the morning. He kept getting hurt: He got cut over his eyes; he needed seven stitches in his hand. He kept playing, because that’s who Thurman was. But he wasn’t happy. He was still fuming about his contract. He started ripping Steinbrenner for interfering with Billy and dictating the lineup.

When we fell behind the Orioles in the standings, George started ripping Billy, saying Earl Weaver should be manager of the year, telling the press he’d got Billy everything he wanted and he still couldn’t win. Billy started telling the writers he just ignored all the notes George sent down.

And then, of course, Billy brought the whole merry-go-round back to me, telling the reporters that what the players were thinking is that “the whole club lineup has been changed since we got Reggie.”

Now, here we go again. This was about Thurman’s contract, Billy, and George. Now Billy has me back in the mix. Uh-oh, maybe I
am
the straw stirring the drink again!

Yes, the lineup changed. I was playing right field and hitting fifth or sixth. Instead of Carlos May, who hit .227 for us with two home runs, before Gabe sold him to the Angels. That was one terrible change. I could see why that would upset everything.

It went on and on like that, all the pettiness and the silliness. It wasn’t just me, either. I would get down to first base sometimes in a game, and guys would say to me, “Man, I don’t see how you can be here.” As in, “I don’t see how you can put up with all that crap.” Billy. Everybody talking to the press but never putting their names on it. I didn’t operate like that. Everything I said, I put my name on. People knew right where to come and find me.

The worst was a series we had out in Kansas City in mid-July, just before the All-Star Game. It was the tail end of a long road trip for us. We were playing bad and had fallen a couple games out of first place.

Everybody was tired and on edge, and of course there was another big controversy going on over nothing. Mr. Steinbrenner called a meeting while we were in Milwaukee and gave all of us who were going to the All-Star Game $300 so we could bring our wives and girlfriends and families. He gave everybody else $300, too, so they could get out of town for a couple days.

I thought it was a very generous thing to do, and I told people so. I told some of the writers, “I mean, how nice can you be?”

Wrong thing to say. Believe it or not, I even got in trouble for that. It seemed there might or might not have been some rule about giving guys money like that, so the league announced it was going to look into it. Some of the guys started worrying they were going to lose their money, so they blamed it on me, of course.

Why not? It’s like throwing dirt on a guy’s grave. Other players going around ripping everybody anonymously—that was okay. Me thanking the owner for giving us all a bonus he didn’t have to give us … that was a crime.

When we got to Kansas City for our next series against the Royals, everybody was mad at me for not keeping my mouth shut about their $300. I had another bad series in the field. In the second game, Hal McRae hit a ball deep to right-center. I ran into Mickey Rivers going after it, and it rolled all the way to the wall. I tried to pick it up there, but I dropped it.

Picked it up again. Dropped it again. Before I could get it in, McRae had gone all the way around the bases for an inside-the-park home run.

I would take the blame for that, because I’m the right fielder. Mickey’s the center fielder; he’s in charge of everything out there. He was calling for the ball, but I just didn’t hear him. I accept the blame, no question.

But then it just turned out to be an excuse to get on me.

The end of that inning, I came back to the dugout, and Sparky Lyle, who was pitching, was standing on the top step. He looked right at me and said, “Get your head out of your ass and play the game right!” And I looked back at him like, “What are you talking about?”

I really didn’t understand. I was still a little dazed from running into Mickey. It wasn’t like I had dropped the ball or made some bone-head play on purpose. I was embarrassed by what happened—though it also didn’t make a damned bit of difference in the game. We were already behind by 4–1 in the seventh, and it only meant that we lost 5–1.

Sparky, I felt, was making a grandstand play and putting on a show, talking down to me like that: “Get your head out of your ass!”

I just looked at him, and I didn’t know what to say. I went in and sat down. I felt like, “I just ran into a guy, and screwed up a ball, don’t tell me that.” I wondered where his reaction came from. You’re supposed to pick up a teammate. I wouldn’t run in to the mound right after Sparky gave up a dinger and say, “Get your head out of your ass!”

I thought, “Why would you say that to me?” It pierced me. It hurt. I felt bad. I wasn’t prepared for a player to almost challenge me with fighting words like that. And nobody said a thing; nobody came to my defense. It was a lonely feeling.

Things just kept getting worse. Billy would sit me whenever he could, come up with some new way to insult me. That July alone, I was booed, benched, and sued.

The suit came after the All-Star Game, which was in Yankee Stadium that year. After the game I was going to the parking lot with George Scott, who was an old friend and was staying at my place while he was in town. Along the way to the lot, I was signing autographs for a bunch of the kids out there, but finally I said all right, I had to go.

One of these kids—no more than maybe ten, twelve years old—he calls me one of the vilest names I’ve ever heard. I started toward him, just to chase him away, and he takes off running and falls down. The next day, his family files suit against me. Nice, huh?

The kid wasn’t hurt, and the suit got dismissed. But nothing else seemed like it was ever going to change. That was when Phil Pepe called to ask me about the whole incident with the kid. I just told him, “I don’t want to play in New York. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

That’s how bad it really felt. I don’t know what I would’ve done, I don’t know what I could’ve done, if it hadn’t been for faith and family and the friends I had.

I usually had good support from George Steinbrenner. I said it at the time, “I love that man. He treats me like I’m somebody. The rest of them, they treat me like I’m dirt.” It was true, too. I could go into his office at any time, he’d listen to me, and I’d cry on his shoulder a bit. I had support from my agent, Gary Walker. He would read the Bible to me over the phone from Arizona on a daily basis, whenever I’d listen. He didn’t travel, but he would get on the phone with me and read me passages, things of support. He would stress, “Get personal desires out of the way.” He would say, “Stop thinking of yourself.”

He would tell me, “Always remember, when God reaches out and grabs your right hand, He never lets go.” He used to say, “Reggie, behold. That is, ‘be whole.’ You know that God made all of those things around you. Enjoy them. Put your manly thoughts out of your mind, and do not create clutter. Appreciate. Be grateful. Be humble. Ask God to help you clear your mind.” That’s all I was asking God: “Help me stay with it. Stay with me now. Stay with me.”

Once I did that with Gary, I was good to go. I was good to compete with whatever the world was bringing me. But I needed that every day.

Fran Healy was a tremendous help, as always. There was a guy here in New York, Tony Rolfe, he was very supportive. He was one of George’s very close friends who became my friend. Also the Fisher brothers, Larry and Zach, who’ve both passed. A guy named Ralph Destino, who was chairman of Cartier, the elegant jewelry company, he was always there for me. And of course my dear friend and agent, Matt Merola.