Ball Four (RosettaBooks Sports Classics) (61 page)

Ball Four
has changed my life. But going back even earlier than that, my life was changed when I first picked up a baseball. And it was changed again after I put it away.

“How ya doin’ Dickhead?”

“Just great,” I replied. It was Gary Bell on the phone from his home in San Antonio, Texas.

“I saw your old buddy, Mickey Mantle, the other day at a golf tournament. Heh heh heh.”

“Was any beer consumed out on the golf course?” I asked.

“I set an all-time record on the front nine.”

Gary runs his own sporting goods business in San Antonio, selling uniforms and equipment to local schools and teams. Gary says his other job is defending me for having written
Ball Four
. “I have to go around telling everybody that you’re not fuckin’ Adolf Hitler.”

“But, to be honest with you,” said Gary, “I loved the book. People remember me more for
Ball Four
than for pitching. Guys come up to me and say, ‘Gary Bell, right?
Ball Four
.’”

Gary says his wife is feeling a little left out. “Rhonda says
she
wants to be in the book this time,” said Gary. “But don’t get her mixed up with all the others.”

Gary said that he ran into Dick Radatz recently at a Red Sox fantasy camp and Radatz wants me to print a retraction about a story I told in
I’m Glad You Didn’t Take It Personally
(the sequel to
Ball Four
, published in 1971). This was right after
Ball Four
came out, and Radatz and I had been comparing bizarre baseball stories. Radatz told me that some guy once paid him $100 to throw oranges at his bare ass. “And this was when I could really bring it,” said Radatz.

Gary said Radatz now claims it wasn’t him, but Mickey McDermott who threw the oranges. I said I believed Radatz the first time because it sounded like something he’d do. “Hell, for 100 bucks, I would too,” said Gary. “Wouldn’t you? Maybe we could get somebody out for a change.”

“Hey, did you hear about Darrell Brandon?” said Gary. “He’s going down to play in that damn Seniors League in Florida. He’s like a new man again now, with all those road trips.”

I asked Gary why he didn’t go down there and give it a shot.

“’Cause my shit’s a little weak.”

We spoke for a while longer and made tentative plans to get together in the spring. I told Gary it would be great to see him. “Yeah,” said Gary, “and we can talk about beyond the universe again.”

Talking to Gary brought back memories of the Seattle Pilots. It’s been twenty years and we’ve never had an Old-Timers’ Day. The problem is, where would we play it? As Gary says, “We’re a team without a damn city.” Still, it seems that we ought to do something on our twentieth anniversary.

“We should celebrate,” said Tommy Davis. “You can’t forget that group. They were unreal.”

Tommy was speaking from his home in Los Angeles. He said he’s not coaching for the Dodgers anymore because they went with young guys. “I’m working for myself now. I sell premiums, give batting clinics. I’m going to open up my own batting cage. I wear several hats. You know, hustling.”

We got to talking about the old Pilots. Tommy recalled how big Gene Brabender would scare guys to death by shooting a dart into the wall above their heads with a homemade blowgun. “Oh, Brabender, would you please stop that?” we’d ask politely in deference to Brabender’s size.

Tommy said he recently spoke to Steve Hovley on the phone. “It was great to hear his voice again,” said Tommy. “He… still… talks… two… miles… an… hour.”

Then Tommy remembered Steve Hovley’s travel gear. “All he had was a paper bag with a shirt and a pair of pants, a toothbrush and toothpaste,” remembered Tommy. “And this was for a two-week road trip!”

Speaking of Hovley, he’s still living in Ojai, California, and he’s still in the plumbing business. I can understand that. Hovley is one of the few people left in America who still gets pleasure and satisfaction from doing a good day’s work, apart from the title that comes with it.

“I keep getting these calls from writers asking me about the Pilots,” said Hovley. “It’s all your fault.

“They always ask me whether you should have written the book or not. I give them a different answer each time to make it interesting.

“The other thing is,” said Hovley, “I got a call from Tommy Davis. Some guy I played ball with in high school is working on this development in Oxnard; you know, we’re not just another pretty name. Anyway, they got Tommy Davis as a celebrity promoter for this development. And they’re all drunk one night, so they call me.

“What Tommy said was, there’s a new league in Florida and it’s a chance for a comeback. But I told him I was retired.”

Hovley asked what I was doing these days. I told him about Big League Chew, that shredded bubble gum invented in the bullpen during my comeback in ’78. It’s still selling pretty well. And I just invented something called Collect-A-Books, which are little books the size of baseball cards, coming out in 1990. There’s also a picnic plate I invented called Table-To-Go.

“You see how you continue to piss these people off,” said Hovley, “by taking all the opportunities and running with them yourself?”

Then I asked Hovley how he feels about having been a member of one of the most forlorn teams in baseball history.

“The way I like to think about the Pilots,” said Hovley, “it’s like the upside-down postage stamp. The most important one is the one they screwed up.”

And what’s become of my other roommate, Mike Marshall?

“I’m still pitching,” said Mike. “I’m an associate professor and head baseball coach down here in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.”

Arkadelphia? Sounds like a happenin’ place.

“I love it down here, even though they don’t understand a bleeding-heart liberal. I enjoy coaching. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve learned about the mechanics of pitching. I’ve sent fifteen pitchers into pro baseball so far. And I personally am throwing the dog doo-doo out of the baseball.”

So why don’t you go down and play in that Seniors League?

“I might if they get their act together,” said Mike.

I reminded Mike that this was the anniversary of our wonderful year together in Seattle. And did he have any thoughts on the old Pilots or that book that guy wrote?

“The Pilots were a joke,” said Mike. “
Ball Four
was funny because it was true. And, baseball hasn’t changed that much. There are still guys drilling holes in doors and fighting to get laid. I thought it was an excellent book.”

The truth is, however, that not many Pilots liked
Ball Four
. Sad to say, a lot of them are still pretty angry about it. A Seattle newspaper did a big article recently and called players to get their reactions. Here’s what they said:

“If you’re going to do a story about that book, I’d just as soon you leave me out of it,” said Don Mincher, who now runs a sporting goods store in Huntsville, Alabama.

“I don’t want to talk about him,” said Frank Crosetti, who is retired and living in Stockton, California. “It’s terrible to write a thing like that.”

“What offended me more than anything was that no one was aware what he was writing,” said Rich Rollins, now an executive with the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team.

“Even today you won’t find many guys who would cross the street for him,” said Mike Hegan, who broadcasts road games for the Cleveland Indians.

And the saddest quote of all came from my main man, Joe Schultz. “Roger Maris told me that with the Yankees, when Bouton was taken out of the game he’d dress and go in the stands behind third base. He’d then holler at (Yankee) coach Frank Crosetti until everyone was booing him. Then he’d leave.”

Now, just imagine me up there in section 23 rallying a bunch of Yankee fans to boo Frank Crosetti. Boo him for what? For giving a batter the wrong sign? Say it ain’t so, Joe.

I must admit that it pains me to hear that some former teammates are still angry about
Ball Four
. But I’m not surprised. They see the book as an invasion of their privacy. And maybe they’re embarrassed by something they said or did.

What those players don’t realize is that nobody thinks badly of them, no matter what they said or did, especially after twenty years. But they just don’t have that perspective.

And it’s not because they’re ballplayers. Last year the state of Kansas refused to join the rest of the country in celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of
The Wizard of Oz
. The people out there are still pretty upset about the movie, which showed Kansas as a place Dorothy dreams of escaping. As Dick Busby, publisher of
The Hutchison News
, wrote: “All the nasty things that happen to Dorothy are in Kansas. The moment she gets out of Kansas she’s in color.” Welcome to Munchkin Land.

And then there are the Houston Astros. Last winter I got a call from the team’s public relations director, actually inviting me to write a story for their yearbook. It would be a look back at the ’69 Astros on their twentieth anniversary. They gave me a bunch of phone numbers and I started calling.

It was wonderful to hear those familiar voices again. Especially my old roommate, Norm Miller, who now works for the Astros in TV spot sales. Norm said he enjoys being back in baseball again, but he doesn’t understand the modern players.

“These guys are very religious,” said Norm. “They don’t cut up like we did. They actually have Bible readings in the clubhouse before games. I don’t know how they can relax.”

I spoke to Larry Dierker, the ace of the staff that set a National League record for strikeouts (1221) that still stands today. Dierker, who’s been a radio and TV broadcaster for the Astros during the past thirteen years, remarked on his two careers. “It’s strange,” said Dierker. “More people know me today as the TV announcer than the guy who pitched for the Astros.” Pretty degrading for the legendary songwriter who penned the immortal “Proud to Be an Astro.”

Music fans will be glad to hear that Dierker’s talents have not withered with time. Larry revealed a few of his latest songs to me, which include such epics as “Home Run King,” “The Manager,” “Baseball Wives,” “Utility Man,” and my personal favorite, “Lost on the Road.”

A couple of other pitchers, Fred Gladding and Jack Billingham, worked for the Astros last year as coaches. And they still rag on each other today, except in a different way. Billingham, who was skinny, used to belittle Gladding, whose ample girth contributed to his nickname of “Fred Flintstone.” Today Gladding gets on Billingham, who weighs 250 pounds.

According to Dierker, Gladding almost looks trim today. “You know how he always had an old man’s body?” says Dierker. “Well, it’s still the same body but he’s aged into it.”

It was good to talk to Johnny Edwards again. He still has that reassuring quality in his voice that I remembered from those meetings on the mound. John is the operations manager for Cameron Oil and Gas Supply Company in Houston. “I got completely out of baseball,” said John. “I try to make my way as an engineer rather than an ex-ballplayer.”

This did not prevent John from having a few memories. Like the time Doug Rader slugged a game warden in spring training the year after
Ball Four
. “He was fishing in the middle of some river without a license,” said Edwards, “and they came after him in one of those air-boats. So Rader threw his fishing stuff in the bushes, dove underwater and breathed through a reed. And he might have made it too, but he kept hearing the boat getting closer and closer and he didn’t want to get Osterized by the propeller. He came right to training camp from jail,” said Edwards. “No shoes. Hadn’t changed his clothes in three days. He looked like hell.”

Dierker and Norm Miller remembered how Rader liked to use the Astros locker room as a driving range. “He’d tee up a golf ball while guys would dive for cover in their lockers, behind trunks and under the whirlpool,” says Dierker. “Then he’d hit the ball—real hard too—and it would ricochet around the room while the players prayed it wouldn’t hit them.”

At this writing, Rader is the manager of the California Angels and he tries to play down his image as a wild man. Rader said recently that he only teed off in the clubhouse when nobody was in there. Yeah, surrre! He probably doesn’t want any of his California Angels players pulling that same stunt today.

However, Rader does remember a TV interview where he gave advice to Little Leaguers. “They should eat bubble gum cards,” said Rader. “When I was a kid I accidently ate a bubble gum card, but unfortunately, it wasn’t a very good player. Kids should make sure they eat the bubble gum card of a good player, like Willie Mays.”

Norm Miller says the strange thing about Rader is that he’s really smart. “It’s dangerous to have someone like him have a brain,” says Norm. “He has no fear. He’s like the Tasmanian devil.”

Speaking of characters, Dierker recalled the Astros’ best Dominican utility man, Julio Gotay. It was Gotay who provided the service of carrying a dead fish on plane trips to ward off evil spirits. Don’t laugh, the team never crashed.

Gotay was also famous for having a cheese sandwich fall out of his back pocket. While he was sliding into second base.

And I enjoyed speaking with Bob Watson again. He was the rookie who was never afraid to catch my knuckleball. Right up until the time I broke his finger with a real beauty. Watson was also a kid who couldn’t believe the lifestyle of a major-league ballplayer. He was always going around saying, “Gee whiz.” Today, Watson’s finger and his mind are still permanently bent.

Watson is now the Astros assistant general manager. We got to talking about Spec Richardson, the old Astros GM who threw nickels around like manhole covers. Spec once offered Watson a $1,000 raise to $11,000. “But the minimum salary just went up from $10,000 to $11,000,” Watson pointed out. “That’s your raise,” said Spec.

The best part about writing that story for the Astros yearbook was discovering that most of the guys aren’t upset about
Ball Four
. Here’s what some of them had to say:

Larry Dierker: “As a writer myself, I understand what you had to do.”