by Bill Lee
Once, the Buffalo Heads were sitting in a hotel room at two o’clock in the morning. There were beer cans stacked to the ceiling, lending a certain ambience to the occasion. Willow was holding court. Speaking in a quiet, almost meditative tone, he told us about an experience he had had in Phoenix. He was with the Giants in spring training and had gotten ripped with several of his teammates. They went driving up and around the mountains just outside the city. They drove onto a point, got out and watched as the sun came up over a mountain ridge. Just beyond the sunrise, a group of clouds appeared in the sky. The first cloud was shaped like the letter G. The second was shaped like an O, and the third took the form of a D. GOD. Willoughby was moved by this recollection; I thought he was on the verge of tears. Wise couldn’t figure out why Jim was getting so carried away. He looked at Jim and said, “Big fucking deal! Some clown on the other side of the mountain saw DOG.” That blew Willoughby away. Wise never opened his mouth much, but when he did a pearl was sure to drop out.
I was with Willoughby hours before pitching my first major league game under the influence of a controlled substance. Actually, that’s not true. If THC is fat-soluble, then I have pitched my entire major league career under its influence. We were playing Seattle in Boston, and I had stopped off to pick Willoughby up at his room in the Fenway Motor Inn, not far from the ballpark. It was too early to head for the clubhouse, so we sat in his room and I smoked three bowls of hash. THC is a short-term depressant. It acts on you like heavy gravity, pulling you closer to the earth. Your lights go out right away. The metabolism is slowed to the extent that you are no longer burning anything up inside. Your organs come to a halt, and you’re put in a yogalike trance. You emerge from that state with a tremendous surge of energy. I hadn’t expected to pitch that day. Wise started and got hammered early. I was sitting in the bullpen, just starting to rush out of my trance when . . . boom! I was in the ballgame.
It was quite an experience. I could see every play in my mind moments before it actually occurred. My concentration was centered only on home plate and the catcher’s glove. The whole game became a cardiovascular dance. The faster I pitched, the more perfect my pitches became as each strike fed off the preceding one. I felt no pain in my shoulder or elbow, and my concentration was so intense that there were no fans present and no hitters at the plate. It was just me, my catcher, and his signs. Fisk was using Greek signals that day. Two omega was a slider low and away. I pitched five and two-thirds innings that day and gave up only two runs. I was still recovering from my shoulder problems, but the THC relaxed my muscles so they couldn’t bite me. It also relieved whatever fear I had that throwing might cause me pain. When you’re healthy, you’re in a pure state without worry. But when your shoulder is hurt, you’ll do anything to anesthetize yourself. You can only take so much Butazolidin before your blood thins out. Then you have to reach into your metaphysical grab bag.
Zimmer was intent on breaking up the Loyal Order. He took after me, sticking me in the bullpen and telling me it was for my own good. Don claimed that pitching in relief would give me a chance to build my arm back up. Then he did his best to make sure that I couldn’t get into a ballgame.
When I finally did make an appearance, it was completely against his wishes. Ramon Hernandez, a left-handed reliever, had been told to warm up because Zimmer was about to bring him into a ballgame. He tried, but he couldn’t get loose. He kept throwing, shrugging after each pitch and saying, “I’m not ready, I’m not ready.” Zimmer came to the mound and signaled for the lefthander, but Ramon just could not answer the bell. Champing at the bit for some action, I jumped up, threw two pitches, and raced out to the mound. Zimmer went nuts, yelling, “I didn’t call for you. I want it to be known that I did not want you out there. If you hurt yourself, it’s not my fault!” I told him, “Relax, I’m just coming out to help Ramon. He can’t make it today. You need a lefthander, and I’m going to prove to you that my arm is sound.” He stormed off into the dugout. I had good stuff that day. I threw the batter three deuces and said, “See you later.” A few more appearances like that, and I was able to get back into Zimmer’s twelve-man rotation. I pitched well during the last six weeks of the season.
The fate of the Loyal Order of the Buffalo Heads was sealed on September 18, 1977—Brooks Robinson Day in Baltimore. Its members had done some heavy-duty partying the evening before. Fergie and I had polished off the last bottle of wine at five in the morning. By the time we got to the park that afternoon, we all looked as if we had rolled out of the same trash can. I felt terrible. I went outside the ballpark and jogged five miles around a nearby lake. Upon returning to the clubhouse, I found Bernie asleep behind an ultrasound machine. Willow and Wise were in the trainer’s room, tending to their shattered skulls. I could not find Fergie. It wasn’t until the game started that I finally found him out in the bullpen, asleep in the cart used to haul relievers out to the mound. Our starting pitcher was getting mauled that day, and, by the third inning, the call came down to warm up Jenkins. Walt Hrinak, the bullpen coach, told Zimmer that Fergie wasn’t around. Walt was five foot eleven, and he was not about to try to wake up this six-foot-six giant who was growling in his sleep. He did his best to cover for him, but he finally had to admit that Fergie was visiting the Land of Nod.
Jenkins caught hell for that. He was reprimanded and fined. Zimmer was so angry he told the front office that he wanted our whole group shipped out. All of us except for Bernie. I guess Zimmer figured that Carbo was an innocent whom we had led astray. Or maybe Jenkins was right about him. Maybe he just didn’t like pitchers. On the last day of the season, Zimmer asked individual players into his office in order to thank them for their contribution to the team. None of the Buffalo Heads were invited. That was a bush move, designed to show us up. On that same afternoon Fergie, Wise, Willow, Bernie, and I posed together for a photo. No one had to tell us anything. We knew it would be the last time the five musketeers would be together in a Red Sox uniform.
8
In the months leading up to the 1978 season, I had felt like I was starring in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Every morning, I would wake up and another friend had vanished. Fergie was traded to Texas for a couple of used baseballs and an autographed picture of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Willoughby was sold to the White Sox. We didn’t get anybody for him. All we got was money, and a dollar bill never struck out anyone. I led a silent protest when that deal was announced, leaving a lit candle on Zimmer’s desk as part of a novena for a departed friend. I thought Wise would survive the purge. He was our best pitcher in Winter Haven, and the front office was worried about Tiant’s arm. No chance. Rick was shipped to Cleveland in a deal for Dennis Eckersley. After that trade, every time I came into the clubhouse, the first thing I would do was to check to see if Bernie was still with us. We’d look at each other, smile, and shake our heads without saying a word. We were the only Buffalo Heads left, and we knew it wouldn’t last for long.
Eckersley had the world’s greatest vernacular. He knew more words that weren’t in the dictionary than ones that were. If he threw a “yakker for your coolu,” it meant you were going to get nailed in the ass with a fastball. “Cheese for your kitchen” was a fastball up and in. We never went out partying. Instead, we went out to “get oiled.” The first time we went to a bar together, I asked him what he drank. He said, “I oil on eighty weight.” That meant he preferred Jack Daniels. Dennis called me Sherwin-Williams, claiming that I was the greatest painter of home plate that had ever lived. I said, “Well, then why don’t you call me Picasso or Renoir?” But, no, Sherwin-Williams was his idea of a great painter. I guess it was because Sherwin had made more money than the other two. Eckersley also named me Salad Master, as in “Bill, you sure do throw a lot of salad up there.” He called himself either Cheese Master or Style Master.
Dennis and I had a brotherly relationship. He told me the story about losing his wife to his best friend, Rick Manning, the Cleveland center fielder. It was sad. He wou
ld turn to me and ask, “What went wrong? Why did this happen?”
I told him that his life had been passing him by too quickly and that he wasn’t prepared for everything that was coming down. I told him that eventually, when he stopped looking for it, he would find the answer. The first time we faced Cleveland, he talked about his broken marriage intensely. He spent an entire evening getting angry at his wife, Manning, and himself. I thought to myself, Uh-oh, he’s going to decapitate Manning tomorrow.”
The next afternoon, he threw Rick nothing but fastballs down the chute, and Manning got two base hits. After the game, I asked Dennis, “Why didn’t you hit him? I was sure you were going to nail him today.” He just shook his head and got a faraway look in his eyes while telling me, “No, that’s all in the past.”
I realized at that moment that we now had a real pitcher on our hands. That afternoon, he proved to himself that he was above his personal problems. He had acquired the maturity he needed to become a big winner. The bust-up of his marriage did not hurt him anymore, although being separated from his daughter still ripped him up. He dedicated his twentieth win of that season to her. I’ll tell you something, he was great for us. Dennis just blew people away. He handled left-handed hitters well and, with his kick and delivery and the way he came around from third base, no right-handed hitter claiming sanity was happy about facing him.
I tried to be a technician on the mound; Eckersley was more of a manic dancing master. He was a pitching Reggie Jackson, putting pressure on himself and then coming through. He would go nuts between the lines, yelling at hitters and challenging them to hit his fastball. He’d tell batters on their way up to the plate that there was no way they were going to hit him, and then he’d strike them out. It was as if Dizzy Dean had been reincarnated. Dennis lived on a diet of prime steaks and Jack Daniels, and he threw severe heat. While he was still an Indian, he pitched a no-hitter against the California Angels. He had two men out in the ninth and the last hitter was taking his time getting to the batter’s box. Eck came halfway in from the mound and shouted, “Stalling won’t help. There’s one more out to go, and you’re it.” Then he reared back and blew the sucker away. I loved that confidence of his.
We pounded a lot of pavement together. Once, we went into a late-night place in Texas. It featured a beautiful strobe light that flickered through a prism onto the dance floor, and it had a great band. We were there with about six of our teammates, and none of us realized when we first walked in that it was a gay bar. Gays drove Eckersley crazy. We hadn’t been in the place five minutes before a guy came over to Dennis and lisped, “Hi, can I help you? I haven’t seen you here before.” Eckersley was paralyzed. His drink dropped from his hand as if he’d been jolted by an electric current. Falling to the floor, it landed straight up without spilling a drop. Most amazing thing I ever saw. I thought to myself, “Wow, that’s what I call shock!” Eckersley started screaming, “Get me out of here!” Dick Drago walked over to him and said, “Calm down. They’re just fags.” Drago never passed judgments on anybody, and he was totally fearless. A couple of clubhouse boys who were doing the town with us were petrified, though. One of them grabbed me and said, “Lee, don’t get out of my sight. If you leave me here, I swear I’ll get you. If it takes me the rest of my life, and if I have to hunt you down halfway across the universe, I will. I’ll find you and then I’ll kill you.”
The places you end up in on the road can be unbelievable. During one trip to New York, everybody on the team was trying to decide which places we were going to check out. We came up with a small list, but some people in our hotel said, “Those places ain’t nothin’. If you want to see New York, you have got to go to Xenon.” We went there, and the moment we walked in, I said, “God damn, this is outrageous! I mean this is really outrageous! And people think I’m bizarre?” There was a girl there walking around with giant paper clips stuck through her nipples. She was dressed in velvet and chains and she was talking to a guy who had emblazoned on his shirt a big dick that glowed in the dark. Dancing nearby were two coneheads. Their bodies had been painted sterling silver, and that was all they wore. That evening, I came in touch with religion, thinking, “It really would be easier for the camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to pass through the gates of heaven. But, let’s see how they stack up when they both try to get into Studio 54!”
In Milwaukee, we always made it a point to visit The Safe House. There, walking into what appeared to be an old bookstore, you were greeted by a receptionist sitting at a desk. She would ask you what you were looking for, and you were supposed to reply, “I’m looking for a safe house.” She would push a lever, and one of the bookshelves would slide open, permitting you to walk into a huge bar that had tables surrounded by bullet-proof glass, and a separate room with a see-through mirror that permitted you to watch out for enemy agents without being seen yourself. Some of the ballplayers especially liked the phone booth located in the rear of the bar. Dialing 876 on the phone would cause the back of the booth to slide open, exposing a stairway that served as an exit to the street. It was convenient to know about that little trick if you were stuck with a woman you wanted to get rid of. You just sent her to the phone and told her to dial the number. Adios!
I loved Kansas City. It had the best steaks in the league and the best beer. Yaz used to smuggle ten cases of Coors beer out of K.C. every time we played there, sneaking it onto the team flight. I thought eventually he would get caught and that we would all be arrested for transporting alcohol across state lines for immoral purposes. But he never got nabbed. Yaz is blessed. I believe that is one of the reasons he was able to play so well for so long. The other reason is his uniform number. Yaz wore number eight. I had noticed that, starting in 1975, Carl was taking catnaps in the trainer’s room. With his uniform on. When laid on its side the number 8 resembles the symbol for infinity. That symbol was recharging Yaz’s batteries. If he had just worn his uniform while he slept at night, I am convinced he could have played forever.
We stayed at a hotel in Kansas City that had a giant leather baseball glove in its lobby. I loved that glove. You could crawl up inside its pocket and cuddle up in it. The glove would cradle you as if you were a caught fly ball. It was a very secure place to be during a hangover.
There was a woman in Kansas City whose ex-husband was a member of the local symphony orchestra. She had a thing for ballplayers. She once went on a date with one of our outfielders, taking him, me, and one of her girlfriends out to dinner. It was not a romantic evening. After finishing his meal, the outfielder said to her, “Let’s go.” It was as if he figured, “Okay, I’ve been fed. What’s next?” She suggested they go to her apartment, adding that she first had to call her ex to make sure he wouldn’t be dropping in. When her former husband found out who she was bringing over there, he asked if he could come by anyway. He wanted to get an autograph. It was unbelievable! I was surprised he didn’t offer to watch their lovemaking while accompanying them on the vibes.
There are some rambunctious ladies in Kansas City. I recall one in particular who got hammered during a game and somehow made her way into our clubhouse. Tiant and I were the only players in there. Luis was sitting at his locker, bare-assed. She took one look at him and her little eyes nearly popped out of her head. It was love at first sight. Luis, you see, is a giant both on and off the field. She started sputtering, but before she could get anything out, our traveling secretary came in and chased her out of there. Luis just sat back with a big grin on his face, watching the whole episode.
Every time we came in to play against the Royals, I looked forward to seeing George Brett. I could not get over how much like me he was, always taking care of business on the field, but also always having a good time while doing it. He would throw the greatest parties at his house. Eckersley, Carbo, and I got invited to one of his bashes, but by the time we got there, George was nowhere to be found. Someone suggested that he might be unconscious under the couch, but no one b
othered to lift it to find out. Andy Hassler, a left-handed pitcher who had just come over to Boston from the Royals, was there, and he kept telling us that we couldn’t stay. But, we had just gotten there and hadn’t had a drink yet. We were, therefore, in no hurry to leave. Hassler and his fellow revelers had to throw us out bodily. That pissed off Bernie and Dennis, and they decided to turn over a Corvette that was parked in the driveway. I thought that was a good idea, but we realized that the car was made out of fiberglass, and none of us wanted to risk cracking it. We turned our attention to a giant Lincoln Continental parked nearby, with its windows all fogged up. With mayhem dancing in his eyes, Bernie opened up its door and found a member of the Royals getting it on with some lady. Bernie didn’t miss a beat. He just stuck out a cigarette and said, “Oh, excuse me. I was looking for a match.”
The Red Sox started spring training with a new second baseman, Jerry Remy, who had come over from the Angels in a winter trade. That was a good pickup for us. Remy had more range than Doyle, and he gave us speed at the top of our lineup. He fit in right away. The first time we played the Yankees he said, “I hate every one of those pinstriped sons of bitches.” We had also gotten Mike Torrez away from New York in the free-agent draft. He had been the Yankees’ best pitcher in September and I figured that losing him was bound to hurt them. They had picked up Goose Gossage. That scared me. I don’t usually think much of one-pitch relievers. Their use and success is another step forward for the age of the specialist. But Gossage’s one pitch was a fastball that could only be heard, never seen. I knew he would make the Yankees tough.
Sometimes, getting new guys on a club, despite their talent, can present problems. It can take awhile to click as a team. The new people have to get used to new surroundings and establish new loyalties. But in ’78, we gelled right away, jumping out of the chute like we were the 1927 Yankees. We had all the usual hitting we had become famous for, and we matched it up with good pitching. Eckersley, Torrez, Tiant, rookie Jim Wright, and I gave the Red Sox their best starting rotation in years. I had won my first six decisions and was feeling great, when my arm began to tire. The muscles weren’t properly built up yet; they were still hurting from the Nettles fight. My left arm was dropping lower with each start, making it difficult for me to get anything on the ball. I tried lifting Nautilus, but found that my pitching arm could barely lift ten pounds. This forced me to throw even more junk than I had before, and it reduced my effectiveness. But it didn’t stop us from winning ballgames.
