The Wrong Stuff

by Bill Lee

  Smith had a lot of problems in Boston. He was a black man playing for an organization that, in a scouting report written in the late fifties, had called pitcher Earl Wilson “a nice colored boy.” The Red Sox had also been the last organization in major-league baseball to break the color line. The racial philosphy of the club reflected the philosophy of a very large, vocal segment of the town’s population. Reggie received some hate mail, the sort that started “Dear Nigger,” and then got nasty. The letters could only hurt his psyche. That wasn’t enough for some crazies. They took to throwing hard objects at him in the outfield, forcing him to wear a batting helmet while playing out there. Not all these objects were tossed at him because he was black. Reggie could be less than friendly to fans, and he was not a popular figure on counts other than race. This treatment, understandably, made him insecure and might explain why Reggie took great pains to become a carbon copy of Yaz. Carl—despite the booing he heard in ’69 and ’71—had become an institution in Boston, a status Reggie wanted to attain but one he knew he could never reach. He tried, though. He started parroting everything Carl said. His stand on the strike was a good example. He was just going along with Yaz. After a while he earned himself a nickname: Carl Reggie Smith. Reggie did his best to act like a white man trapped in a black man’s body. It was a strange and sad thing to watch.

  I had been on to Reggie for a long time, but it wasn’t until the club received a new double-knit uniform that I realized the extent of his insecurity. In April of 1973 a company sent us the uniform for demonstration purposes, but they sent only two sets, one home and one away. Both had the same number on the back: Carl’s number eight. This was an example of an elitist mentality, using the resident superstar’s number for the test run. Yaz tried on the home uniform. The company was anxious to get his opinion on it. I thought it made him look like a Shriner. I also thought that getting Carl’s opinion on fashion was not the brightest idea in the world, either. I mean, hadn’t these people ever seen that raincoat? Moments after Carl came out in his new threads, Reggie walked into the clubhouse. One look was all it took. He went over to where the away version of the uniform was, got undressed, and put it on. This had to be his ultimate fantasy, wearing the Boston uniform with Carl’s name and number on the back. When I saw him, I nearly died. It was just too much for me to handle. I started singing, “Me and my Shadow . . .” Spinning around, Reggie fixed me with a glare and told me to shut my fucking mouth. He didn’t like being kicked in the identity problem.

  From that day on there was an undercurrent of violence whenever we were in a room together. In Cleveland I hit four home runs in batting practice, and he started yelling at me, “You couldn’t hit the ball like that in a game!” He was serious, so I answered, “No shit, Sherlock. I’m not paid to hit the ball in a game. You are.” That seemed to get to him. He ran over to the batting cage and came up in my face, asking, “You think I can’t? Do you think I can’t?” I thought he was being a bit too intense, so I kept my distance after that as best I could, but he eventually caught up to me.

  It was a May 24 game against the Brewers in Boston that brought things to a head. I was pitching for the good guys, and Billy Champion was throwing for Milwaukee. In the first inning Champion nailed Doug Griffin with a slider, breaking his left hand. Reggie out of the lineup that day with a hangnail or some other crippling injury, turned to me in the dugout, yelling, “You got to hit somebody. Deck them. You got to protect your hitters.” I said, “Look, Reggie, it’s early in the game and there’s no score. Let’s get a lead or wait until we’re way behind. Then I’ll get them.” He nodded. It was the most civil exchange we had had in months.

  In the bottom of the second we scored two runs. As I took the mound for the top of the third, I figured now was the time for some retaliation. I turned to face the hitter, and guess who it was? Ellie Rodriguez. I thought, No. This is unbelievable! I drilled him on the left shoulder with my second pitch, knocking him sprawling to the ground. Jumping up, Ellie looked as though he was about to launch into his charge-the-mound routine. My catcher, Bob Montgomery, headed him off. Grabbing him around the waist, Bob held him until he cooled down. After he was released, Rodriguez walked to first and took his lead. And I tried to pick him off. The umpire called him safe on a close play, but Ellie was so pissed he screamed at me for the rest of the inning. I’m certain he wanted to mug me again, but he didn’t have any relatives with him.

  Later in the game, I was pitching to Brewer second baseman Pedro Garcia. A dead pull hitter. I threw him my slow curve and he hit a line shot into the visiting team’s dugout. It caught Rodriguez in the ribs. I thought, You got to be kidding me! Is this fate? He who lives by the sword, dies by same. Rodriguez, a man who brought violence with him to the stadium, was getting the shit kicked out of him by this little ball. It was just extraordinary.

  After retiring the Brewers in the third, I went back to our dugout and found Reggie waiting for me. I figured he was going to congratulate me for the hit. Instead he climbed all over me, saying, “So, you finally hit somebody and naturally you pick on a black guy.” I explained to him that I had my own personal vendetta against Rodriguez and that he should get off my case. Reggie didn’t want to hear it, so I advised him to go soak his pinky.

  I should explain that throughout the game, in between appearances on the mound, I had been drinking cough syrup. I had a terrible cold that day, was sick as a dog, and needed the stuff to get through the game. By the third inning I had downed two-thirds of a bottle of Cheracol. That stuff must be pure codeine, the exact opposite of greenies. It got me hammered. Within no time I was standing on the mound having a hell of a time. I would throw the ball and think, Hey, far out. Look at that slow curve. That fucker can’t hit that pitch. After the top of the eighth. I went back to the clubhouse in order to do another hit. Smith was waiting for me as I came in. He jumped out of his chair and took a swing at me. I ducked. Reggie nailed a guy who was following me, carrying my warm-up jacket. Ignoring the fact that he had almost broken the gentleman’s teeth, Reggie grabbed me, picked me up, and dropped me on my head. Before he could do any more damage, a couple of stadium guards ran in and pulled him off of me. I was dazed. Between the codeine and the beating, I didn’t know where I was. Somehow I managed to come out for the ninth and get the Brewers in order. When the game ended I went back into the clubhouse and found Reggie sitting in his chair with his head down. I thought he was making an act of contrition. I walked past him into the trainer’s room to put some ice on my head. The next thing I know, I’m being bounced off the team bulletin board. Reggie had jumped out of his chair and nailed me again. Some players and coaches came over and grabbed him and managed to get the both of us out of there before the reporters showed up. Afterward, in the shower, Reggie came over to me and said, “Bill, you’re a better man than me.” Great. My head was out to Mars, and I looked like the grounds crew had used me to rake the infield. If he believed I was a better man than he was, I sure wished he could have realized it sooner.

  The only satisfaction I got that day—besides nailing Rodriguez—was in picking up another win. That made me 4–1, starting a tear that had me 12–4 by the All-Star break. That mark was good enough to get me named to the All-Star team. Dick Williams, the American League manager, called me with the news on July 16, and the next day I received a letter from league president Joe Cronin, officially informing me of my selection. On the bottom of the notice, right beneath Cronin’s signature, was the handwritten plea, “Play To Win!” The American League had lost nine of the last ten All-Star confrontations. That postscript was Cronin’s way of letting us know that we were supposed to approach this event with our game faces on. Joe was sick of getting trounced by the National League year after year.

  The game was being held in Royals Stadium, Kansas City, and when I got there I thought it was really neat. It was like being in Disneyland. I didn’t think about what an honor it was to have been named to the squad. I was too busy getting off on meet
ing Rose, Aaron, Stargell, and all the other great players I never got to compete against. The National League lineup was awesome. Prior to the game, Williams made a fiery speech, declaring that our team was just as good as their and how we were going to “beat those cocksuckers.” It was very rousing. He concluded his talk by announcing the starting lineups for both squads. Upon finishing, he called his pitchers together and asked, “Are any of you physically unable to throw tonight?” I raised my hand. Dick said, “But Bill, you pitched three days ago. That’s plenty of rest. You should be able to go at least a couple of innings.” I said, “Not against these guys.” I wasn’t stupid.

  I never did get into the game that night. Good thing, too. Every time we sent a pitcher into the game the National League acted like his only purpose was to throw batting practice. It was raining baseballs all night long. Sitting out in the bullpen, I felt like I was watching the game from a foxhole. At one point Nolan Ryan came in to face Willie Davis. The sequence of pitches Nolan threw was fantastic. High fastball, 110 miles an hour. Ball one. High fastball, 105 miles an hour. Ball two. Low fastball down the chute, 100 miles an hour. Vaya con dios. Davis hit that pitch over the right-field wall, 425 feet on a line. Turning to watch it as it shot out of the ballpark, I thought; Jesus, I guess he got all of that one. They beat us, 7–1. I think the only way we could have won would have been to erect a mechanized steel wall around the field and raise it every time their side got up.

  Fisk played in that game. He was the starting catcher, going 0 for 2 and being charged with a passed ball that really wasn’t his fault. He was catching Bill Singer of the Angels at the time. Singer had a spitball that could croon “God Save the Queen” in forty different languages. He uncorked a hellacious one in the fourth inning with Pete Rose at the plate. It rolled off the table, eluded Fisk, and bounced all the way back to the screen. Looking down at Fisk, Pete shook his head and said, “He surprised you more than he did me.” It shouldn’t have been that alarming. The entire pitching staff of the Angels—with the exception of Ryan—was throwing spitballs. If K-Y jelly went out of business, they all would have been pitching in Double-A ball.

  A pitcher will use anything to hang on, and saliva provides a good medium for his survival. Ron Kline had a great spitter. He tried teaching it to me, but I couldn’t get it to do very much. Many guys throw it their entire career and others only use it while their arms are sore, dropping it when they get healed. One of our pitchers, Dick Pole, tinkered with it, but he found that his sinker had a better drop. The best spitballer I ever saw was a little kid out of Dade Junior College by the name of Joe Arnold. He pitched for the Alaska Panhandlers. He could make the ball tap dance. It ended up blowing out his arm, though. That happens a lot. The spitter is very tough on the arm; it’s not a cure-all, and not everyone can master it.

  I’ve thrown two spitballs in my entire career, both to Tony Taylor in a 1973 game against the Tigers. They were thrown to protest the fining of Jim Merritt, a left-handed pitcher with the Texas Rangers. Merritt had an arm problem similar to the one that incapacitated Tommy John, but doctors hadn’t yet perfected the surgical method that would later make John as good as new. Jim had to wear a nylon sock on his left arm in order to pitch. After winning a game, he confessed to using the spitball to get some crucial outs. Joe Cronin fined Merritt a thousand dollars for the admission. That was unfair. Gaylord Perry had admitted the same thing in his autobiography. All that happened to him was that he went on to make a lot of money in book royalties. The day after the fine was announced, I admitted I had thrown spitters to Taylor. The first one broke straight down for strike three. Later I threw him another one, but it stayed up. Tony hit the dry side, and the ball ended up killing a cosmonaut. After admitting my guilt to the press, I challenged Cronin to fine me. I would have taken him to the Supreme Court for discrimination against lefthanders. He didn’t do a thing. A writer later asked me why I had picked on Tony with both pitches. I don’t know that I was picking on him; he went one for two with a dinger. But I suppose the reporter was right. I should have thrown at least one of them to Al Kaline.

  I didn’t like pitching to Kaline. Nothing against Al. He was a hell of a guy. I just hated the way umpires gave him the benefit of the doubt on almost every close pitch late in his career. I once threw him five straight strikes and walked him. He took a three-and-two slider that started on the outside corner and finished down the middle of the plate. The ump gave it to him. As Kaline made his way to first, I yelled at him, “Swing the bat, for Christ’s sake. You’re not a statue until you have pigeon shit on your shoulders.” Al laughed at me. After the game I complained about the call to the home-plate umpire. He said, “Son, Mr. Kaline will let you know it’s a strike by doubling off the wall.” Umpires do make allowances for established veterans. If the pitch is close they figure if the star didn’t swing, then it must have been a ball. With age come certain privileges. All things considered, it was a good thing I didn’t throw Al a spitball. They probably would have deported me to Estonia.

  I received more media attention as a starter than I had as a reliever. I always had something to say, and the reporters seemed to think of me as good copy. I enjoyed the byplay between us. I wasn’t crazy about their calling me Spaceman. I’m not sure who first hung the nickname on me. Pete Gammons took to calling me the Ace From Space early in my career. And George Kimball referred to me as Space Cowboy. But I think it was a teammate, John Kennedy, who hung the Spaceman label on me. A reporter had mentioned something to him about one of the latest lunar launches. Kennedy pointed to me and said, “We don’t need to watch that. We have our own spaceman right over there.”

  The name never offended me; I just thought it was off the mark. I would have preferred to be known as Earth Man. When you’re out in space, you’re drifting and are at the mercy of a life support system that can be cut off at any time. I had developed a way of answering questions that often had little to do with the question being asked. Early in my career, I had been misunderstood by the press. That might have been my fault; English is not my trump card. But I thought the press was at least partially to blame. So I started to lead them down a verbal primrose path. They would ask why I threw a certain pitch, and I would do five minutes on Einstein’s theory of curved space. I wasn’t yanking anybody around. I was trying to make a comment on the game: “Let’s not take any of this too seriously. The game is supposed to be fun.”

  The hipper writers—Kimball, Gammons, Leigh Montville and a few others—cued into that, and we had fun with it. Others just couldn’t read between the lines. They took everything I said and ran with it as if it was gospel. That didn’t bother me much. What did bother me was seeing the facts of a story completely distorted. In 1973 there was a hot tale being written that Fisk and I were feuding. Montgomery had caught me a few times, and the rumor circulated that I had refused to work with Fisk, or that Fisk had refused to catch me. The truth was the Red Sox were just getting Monty some work. Since I threw easy and was always around the plate, the feeling was that Bob, who didn’t have the quickest reactions in the world, would have less trouble with me than say a Roger Moret. Fisk never begged off catching me. Carlton wouldn’t ask out of a game if he had both his legs cut off. And I wanted him behind the plate. He may have worked slowly, but he was a great receiver and the best clutch hitter on the club.

  We did have our disagreements. I would shake him off, and that would drive him nuts. I didn’t care. I believe a pitcher should never throw a pitch that he doesn’t feel a commitment to. If you don’t believe in a pitch, ninety-nine times out of a hundred it’s going to get nailed. Then you spend the rest of the game second-guessing yourself. Whenever Carlton came out to the mound to chastise me for shaking him off, I would ask him who knew better than I what kind of stuff I had. He would answer, “Your catcher.” Then we would yell at each other for five minutes. By the time we finished and he had returned to his crouch, it was forgotten.

  There were other times when he would get
on my case during a game in which I needed it. Once, against the Orioles, I was trying to get Aparicio to get ready for a pickoff attempt at second. Luis wouldn’t go for it, yelling that I should concentrate on the hitter at the plate instead of fooling around with a trick play. That ticked me off. It showed me up, and it also told Baltimore what I was planning to do. I screamed back at him, and Fisk came running out to the mound. He jumped on me for showing emotion. He believed I should be more stoic out on the playing field. I agreed, but I had those moments when I bugged out. Carlton calmed me down. By screaming at me. He yelled, “Don’t worry about these fucking guys! Cut the shit, bear down, and we’ll get two.” More times than not, we would. Writers who couldn’t see past their pencils took these exchanges seriously, blowing them up into a Fisk-Lee feud. Fisk was my best friend in the game. We may have argued with each other, but he could never lose my respect or friendship.

  I faded after the All-Star game. I blew some ballgames and the team stopped scoring runs for me. I was weak with what turned out to be tonsillitis. When the season was over, Moret and I both underwent tonsillectomies. The surgery was performed the same day in the same hospital. I came out of the anesthetic haze before he did. Looking over at his bed, I saw that he was just lying there like a corpse. I shook him and said, “Roger, are you still alive? Speak to me.” He let out a groan. A nurse came in and tried to force ginger ale and ice cream down my throat. That shit wasn’t making it. I had three-quarter-inch T-bone steaks brought in. When I left the hospital, a reporter asked me if I was disappointed in my season.

  We had finished second and I had won only seventeen after bagging twelve wins by mid-season. He thought I was upset that I hadn’t won twenty. I didn’t mind. Being a twenty-game winner wasn’t something I fantasized about. I was more interested in setting obscure records, like most consecutive shutouts while allowing twelve or more hits in each game. I was disappointed that we had finished second, but I viewed my season as a personal success. Going into spring training, I would have bet one thousand dollars that I was about to be traded or shipped back to the minors. Instead, I had a good year and outlasted Kasko. He was fired on the last day of the season and was replaced by Darrell Johnson.