by Bill Lee
I explained that coffee and amphetamines weren’t being used for kicks, they were being used to sober up. A player did not gulp down greenies with the expectation that it would enhance his performance. He did it to get his pulse going on the morning after the night before. The reporter wasn’t satisfied that his question had been answered, so he said, “No, I don’t mean coffee or greenies. I was wondering if the club had a problem with marijuana?”
I said, “Hell, no. How could they. I’ve been using that stuff since 1968, and I’ve never had a problem with it.” Twenty pencils hit the floor simultaneously.
You could see the news flashes shooting through the writers’ heads: DATELINE, DAYTONA BEACH—SPACEMAN IS GONE. HAS BEEN GONE SINCE ’68. They got very excited. One of them asked if I had used it lately, and I replied that I had, explaining that all pot did was make you more aware of the environment and allowed your life to revolve around a peaceful lunar cycle, something that was preferable to living within the confines of the more aggressive sun cycle. Noticing that they were feverishly writing my words down, I launched into a soliloquy on marijuana, pointing out its use in alleviating the nausea experienced by cancer patients after chemotherapy and how it enabled a smoker to reach a sublime state of meditation. My purpose was to prove to them that marijuana could blend in with our culture and be a productive force. I also figured that this would take their minds off any other questions they had about drug taking on the Red Sox.
The next day, the headlines across North America read LEE ADMITS SMOKING MARIJUANA.
Commissioner Kuhn did not like that. Bowie sent three guys in a late-model Ford to see me. When they arrived at our camp, our general manager, John McHale, came into the clubhouse, pale as death, and said, “God, Bill. There are some people here from the commissioner’s office, and they want to talk to you. Use this back room. When they get here, just keep your head. Relax and cooperate with them, and everything will be fine.”
I could see McHale was upset. He must have thought, Jesus, we got this guy, and he looks as if he might be able to win for us, and now this. I knew we shouldn’t have taken Lee. God damn Dick Williams. How could I let him talk me into getting this guy? Despite what had to be going through his mind, John didn’t come down on me, which was more than decent of him.
I went into the back room, and one of the three agents introduced himself, saying, “Hello, I’m Art Fuss. We are with the Commissioner’s office, and we’d like to hear more about your smoking marijuana.”
I told him, “Look, if you check that story with the writers who were present, I believe you’ll find that I never claimed to have smoked anything. I only said I had used it.”
Art wanted me to clarify that statement, wondering, “How do you actually use it, if you don’t smoke it? We know there are various other ways it can get into the body.”
I answered, “Well, Art, every morning I run five miles to the ballpark. After first waking up, I prepare myself for this arduous task by eating a big plate of organic buckwheat pancakes for breakfast. I sprinkle the marijuana on the pancakes while they are cooking. The moisture of the batter soaks down the pot, enabling the THC to be absorbed by the pancakes during the frying process. That THC makes me impervious to all the toxic bus fumes and other forms of air pollution I may encounter while running.”
Fuss’s assistant was writing all this down, and Art was nodding his head yes, saying, “Sure. I can see that. I think Bowie will buy this.”
I thought, “God, ask him if he wants to buy a bridge, too.”
That was the last I saw of Mr. Fuss. I later learned that he had been an FBI drug-enforcement officer and had worked closely with the Nixon administration. Good thing I wasn’t wearing my “Lick Dick” T-shirt during the interrogation. Art would have left the clubhouse with my ass in his briefcase.
A couple of weeks after his visit I got a letter from Bowie. It read, “We have seen your statements and consider them to be contrary to the best interests of baseball. This is to inform you that you are never to make statements like that again. It is also to inform you that you are being fined two hundred fifty dollars. Make the check payable to my office, and we will donate it to charity.”
I knew if I sent it to his office it would probably end up in a “Let’s Bring Back Richard Nixon” fund. So I sent him a check made out to St. Mary’s Mission in Alaska, knowing that twofifty would keep the missionaries in moose meat all winter. When news of the fine was made public, members of the ACLU called me, informing me that my first amendment rights of free speech had been violated. They threatened Kuhn with a grievance hearing on my behalf. A few weeks later I received another notice from his office, telling me that the fine had been rescinded, and that they were letting me off with a reprimand.
If asked today, I would honestly have to answer that there is a drug problem in baseball. For people who allow it to get in the way of their work. I believe fifteen percent of major league ballplayers have a serious drug addiction, forty-five percent are occasional heavy partyers, and the remaining forty percent play golf. The addicts are into some deep shit, but the occasional user is in such good shape, he just burns the chemicals up and they have no lasting effect. A guy who guzzles a bottle of VO in an evening is much worse off than a guy who does a few joints. Drugs are less of a problem in baseball than alcohol. THC never did anything but good things for me. It gave my body another voice, one that would remind me, “Bill, you’re hungry. Let’s eat,” or “Bill, it’s time to take a shit.” The first few times I smoked reefer in college, I would be carrying on a conversation with a beer in my hand, and the brew would actually get warm before I had a chance to consume a drop. My thoughts would be racing at me so quickly, that I couldn’t take time for a sip. The drug had postponed my ingestion of alochol.
The difference between alcohol and marijuana is that alcohol is an aggressive drug that hampers the raising of consciousness. Initially alcohol stimulates you, but then it becomes a depressant. Drink becomes dangerous when used in conjunction with amphetamines or coke. Often an athlete will get hammered at night, filling his body with poisonous spirits. He wakes up a near corpse the next day. Nothing on him works; he is unofficially brain-dead. But he has a game that afternoon and has to get out of bed. So, he hits a little speed or a little coke to get his pump going. Coke sprinkled over hot cereal in the morning is rapidly becoming the breakfast of champions. This leads to a dangerous cycle. Later on in the evening, after speeding the day away, your brain is buzzing. You want to put it to sleep. Enter Jack Daniel’s, ready to play the part of the Sand-man. When you wake up in the morning you’re hungover again, and the cycle starts once more.
There are no specific pushers dealing to ballplayers. When you’re a famous athlete, everybody is a pusher: doctors, lawyers, accountants, stockbrokers, agents, and ex-jocks. People who get their thrills being with ballplayers will come up to them and say, “That was a great play you made today. I’ve got some good shit here. Let me lay some on you.” They don’t charge the player a nickel. They do it only to be part of what they perceive to be the athlete’s special world.
Drugs also serve as tokens of appreciation. While coming off the field in Montreal after throwing a good game, I would often find my path littered with small packets of hash. The stuff would come flying out of the stands as if they were the ears and tail of a just-killed bull. People would approach me as I left the ballpark, saying, “Great game,” while slipping something into my hand. It was widely believed that whenever I tipped my hat to the crowd as I came walking in off the mound I was acknowledging their applause. Hell, no. I was using my cap to catch their gifts. You do have to be careful when you accept something, though; you can’t always be sure what someone might be giving you. You may think you’re laying down lines of coke, but it might be Drano. If it is, hasta la vista.
I didn’t care much for coke. Pepsi was as far as I wanted to go. I’ve tried it, though. I’ll try almost anything. The problem with coke is that it gets out of hand e
conomically. Also, it’s not much of a high. All it does it keep you awake and chattering. I’m already like that naturally. It does have a way of energizing you, and that’s its main attraction. Baseball is trying to solve its drug problems, but it’s going about it the wrong way. As long as there is night baseball, 162-game schedules, and long, boring road trips, there are going to be drugs in the game. Players need something to keep them going. If we all go to Chicago and play the ultimate baseball game in the sunshine of Wrigley Field, we will be able to be home by five, have a small barbecue, eat tofu burgers, and live in a perpetual state of grace. But, until that time, there will always be that girl at the bar who will entice you with the pipe she has in her bag, and the lungs she’s carrying on her chest. And, after six VOs, you will not want to go home. If it’s not an exotic creature murmuring in your ear, then it’s the song of Mescalito that will lead you astray.
Mescaline was the cause of my first truly psychedelic experience. I did some in Minnesota and spent the rest of the afternoon running around the drops of a raging rainstorm. When I reached my destination I was bone dry. Not a drop had touched my body. My mind was brought to its most finite level of understanding. I thought, We should tie Zimmer to a chair and drop about four tabs of this stuff down his gullet. Then we’ll talk to him for sixteen hours. That will straighten him out. But then I decided, No, why share it with him. He’ll only want to talk about baseball or horse racing. He’ll drive us nuts.
Many people have made a fortune selling drugs. Ewing Kauffman was able to buy the Kansas City Royals with part of the profits earned by his pharmaceutical company. I can think of a lot worse things in baseball than marijuana or peyote, if used in moderation. Things such as walks, designated hitters, and Astroturf.
I tried to balance out any drugs I put into my system with a rigorous training program. I started running in 1973, shortly after I had my tonsils out. It induced me to quit smoking cigarettes and to radically change my eating habits. I became very scrupulous when it came to food, reading books like Diet for a Small Planet. I cut down my intake of animal protein. When I did eat meat, I wanted to know as much about it as I could. For instance, if I was planning to have duck, I wanted to meet the bird several weeks before it was served to me. I wanted an opportunity to take it out to dinner, and to find out what it ate. I needed to know if he smoked or if he drank. If he did, did he do it in moderation? I felt it was important that we get to know our meal.
I also learned the value of not wasting any potential foodstuffs. That’s a lesson I carry with me to this day. While driving the back roads outside of Montreal, I have, on occasion, had the misfortune of hitting a flying grouse with my van. He would die instantly. Rather than leave him for the worms, I would take him home, pluck him, and cook him up for dinner. Some may be grossed out by that, but I would ask them to remember that one man’s accident is often another man’s meal.
In perfecting my own training program, I came to realize that there are a lot of questions about conditioning in baseball that must be answered. Maybe a few priorities have to be more closely examined, also. Ballplayers, especially pitchers, are constantly playing in pain, and most drugs do little to repair the cause of it. They only deaden the hurt. The season is much too long. There should be fewer games spread out over a longer period of time. The brand of baseball played would improve, and careers would last longer. But the owners won’t touch that proposition, fearing the loss of gate receipts. That is short-term thinking on their part.
Attitudes toward sports medicine, however, are changing for the better. Denny McLain tore up his arm pitching for the Tigers in 1969. The doctors kept pumping him up with cortisone. After a while the arm didn’t hurt anymore, but it hadn’t been helped, either. The day came when Denny tried to throw a slider, but his shoulder arrived at home plate before the ball did. He was out of baseball within three years, and now I understand he weighs over three hundred pounds. That’s another problem with cortisone. Like pot, it can give you a severe case of the munchies.
Baseball has cut back on the use of this type of drug, but it must still develop more of a Chinese mentality in dealing with the body. It must examine the issue of preventive medicine. Montreal has concentrated on flexibility exercises as a safety measure against the occurrence of muscle pulls. They’ve done this with much success, and the rest of baseball should follow their lead. I think the next steps taken should involve diet (there’s still too much junk food in the clubhouse), mental approach, and the use of yoga as a relaxant. The game will get there. Baseball has made quantum leaps in the area of conditioning since 1969. The collective consciousness has been raised.
Playing in Montreal was a trip. The National League seems to favor a more dangerous brand of ball than I was used to seeing. Everybody in the league runs, and the NL team rosters are made up of a greater number of carnivores than the rosters in the AL. It is a very aggressive brand of ball; second basemen have a hard time buying life insurance because all their opponents know how to break up the double play, and they do so with a vengeance.
Gary Carter is a typical National Leaguer. The first time I saw him was in an exhibition game against the Red Sox in 1976. He wasn’t catching that day; he was playing left field. Watching him, I was reminded of a giant Pete Rose. Carter was like a Greenie Master, naturally wired without the use of amphetamines. It was as though he drank three cups of coffee before each pitch. He kept running into things that day, and finally got knocked unconscious trying to break through a stone wall while chasing a fly ball. Holding the gate open as they carried him off the field, I thought, “Gee, those walls sure can slow a guy up.”
I’m positive that Gary’s the only man in baseball history who was put behind the plate so he wouldn’t get hurt. He was amazing to pitch to. Carter is always in the game and never gives less than 100 percent of his concentration whenever he’s behind the plate. He was a good hitter when I joined the club, but he wasn’t much in the clutch. His intensity kicked back on him, and he tried too hard. Gary became a much better hitter with men on base as he matured. Tony Perez was the clutch hitter on that ’79 team. I hated his hitting that home run off me in the Series, but I loved having him on my side. He was a super guy in the clubhouse. Always even tempered, he never got too high or too low. Tony was always ready to give advice when asked, and he was the best hitter with men on base that I had ever seen.
I won sixteen games my first year with the Expos, and I thought I had never pitched better. My best game of the season was a 3–0 shutout of the Dodgers. Since I was no longer in the American League, I had decided that the Dodgers would become my NL version of the Yankees. There were a lot of similarities. Like New York, they were an elitist organization that assumed the baseball sun rose and set solely on them. As an added incentive, one of their big honchos was Al Campanis, the scout who told me I would never make it in the big leagues. Somebody should have told him that no matter how many brain cells an Irishman burns out with his drinking, he never forgets. I had a fire in my belly when I first faced them, a sure sign that I was going to pitch well.
But I surprised even myself with the shutout. Normally, everything I throw—when I’m going good—is down, and I get a lot of ground balls. That day everything was up, but the Dodgers could hit only harmless fly balls and pop-ups. I discovered the reason for this unusual occurrence after the game. I had jogged to the ballpark, wearing a heavy back pack that pulled down on me with each step. By the time I had reached the stadium, I was four inches shorter than usual. That’s why my ball was up. I was too short to get on top of it. By the late innings, I had attained my normal height and started getting ground balls again. That shocked the Dodgers. They thought a relief pitcher had been brought in without their realizing it. After that game, they were so baffled, I owned them.
Steve Garvey epitomized the Dodgers for me. Clean-cut and laid back, he’s a man with his future laid out for him. In a magazine interview, I was once quoted as saying, “Steve Garvey is called Mr. America
, but he’s pushing sugar down the throats of this nation’s children by promoting the cause of Coca-Cola.”
The first time we played the Dodgers, Steve came into our locker room and said, “Bill, I read that interview in which you said that I was promoting Coca-Cola and that it was bad for kids? Well, you have it all wrong. I don’t do any advertising for Coca-Cola. I work for Pepsi Cola.”
He was serious. He said it as if he thought Pepsi was some sort of wonderful new health food that would end the problems of world malnutrition. It just blew me away. Another conversation I had with him took place during a ballgame. I had singled off Sutton and was leading off first, when I caught Garvey looking at me in the most bizarre way. I asked him if anything was wrong, and he said, “Gee, Bill. I’ve been thinking about this the whole game, and I still can’t make up my mind. I can’t decide if you look better with the beard or without the beard.”
I just nodded at him and thought, “This guy is either shitting me, or he’s Alex in Wonderland.” Based on later discussions, I would have to say he is for real, and I respect that.
His manager, Tommy LaSorda, once made a statement to the effect that the Expos didn’t belong on the same field with a club like the Dodgers. The next time we played them, I retaliated. I came out for infield practice with my zipper undone, my pants halfway down to my knees, my socks askew, and my shirt unbuttoned. I went to the shortstop’s position and dived for balls for fifteen minutes, getting as filthy as I could. When I had finished, I strolled over to Tommy and asked, “Why can’t we play on the same field as the Dodgers? Is it because of the way we dress?”
LaSorda stared at me as if I had just flown over the cuckoo’s nest and had landed in his lap. Before I could say another word, somebody rescued him, handing him a baby from the stands. Tommy walked over to the cameramen assembled near the dugout. He wanted to make sure they got a shot of him kissing the child. I thought that was a good move on his part. It was good public relations and it got him away from me. Sometimes, the best way to deal with me is to ignore me completely.
