The Wrong Stuff

by Bill Lee

  My jogging program suffered a slight setback in the middle of the 1979 season. Nothing too serious. While running to the ballpark, I got hit by a cab. It happened on a rainy Saturday morning in Montreal. Sunday is usually a good day to run because there is very little traffic. I was moving along the highway, and the only vehicle I noticed was a florist’s truck traveling in the slow lane. What I couldn’t see was the taxi following behind him. It came around the truck on the inside. Hearing him make his move, I put one foot on the sidewalk curb in an attempt to get out of his way. That’s as far as I got. The cab clipped me on the left leg, knocking me to the side.

  When I came to, I discovered my entire left side was numb. X-rays later showed that I had almost cracked my upper leg, but that my overdeveloped leg muscles had provided my bones with protection. I only missed my next two starts, but I think that collision cost me a shot at twenty wins; it took me several starts to reestablish my pitching rhythm. I suppose the accident could have been Fate once again telling me that I was not destined to win twenty. But, I’m not so sure. That cab driver’s face bore an uncanny resemblance to Zimmer.

  I went through a four-year stretch of pennant races and second place finishes that was remarkable: one and a half games out of first in 1977; one game out in 1978; two games behind in 1979, and one game out in 1980. In four years, the teams I had played on had finished a total of six and a half games out of first place. It was frustrating in one sense, but rewarding in another. Coming close to the top year after year without winning is a character builder. Of course, by the third consecutive year of this nonsense, I was thinking, “Fuck character, let’s get into the Series.”

  I have no idea why we couldn’t finish first. The Expos had so much talent. Maybe our stadium was built on top of an Indian graveyard, and we were paying the price for desecrating it. If I had to put my finger on one reason for our inability to win the pennant, I couldn’t. There were twenty-five reasons. They were called the Pittsburgh Pirates, and we could not beat them. Our club was in awe of the Pirates; half the team idolized Willie Stargell. Everytime we played against them, I thought they were going to run over and ask Willie for his autograph.

  In Pittsburgh, late in the baseball season, the football Steelers’ cheerleaders would work out in a room next to the visiting baseball team’s clubhouse. One enterprising Expo found a hole in the wall, an imperceptible one that allowed us a view of their shower. Twenty-five of us would line up to check out the action. This activity was not without its risks. Occasionally someone would yell a warning that the writers were coming in, and a player would get spiked while running out to his locker with the rest of the mob. I was always certain that the peephole had been drilled by someone in the Pittsburgh organization. It was one of the major reasons why we could never beat the Pirates in their own ballpark. Every time we took the field there, we were leaving our minds back in the clubhouse.

  We did have a great lineup, and the Expo outfield was phenomenal: Andre Dawson, Warren Cromartie, and Ellis Valentine. Dawson is going to win the Triple Crown some day, and Cro is an excellent line-drive hitter, but Valentine was the guy I thought would end up in the Hall of Fame. He looked like the second coming of Willie Mays when I played with him. He had great speed, power, and an arm that was as strong as Reggie Smith’s, only more accurate. But he seemed haunted by a fear of failure, despite projecting a loosey-goosey image that was false. Ellis was sensitive. I had the feeling he was carrying around a lot of stuff from his childhood. He spoke with his mother quite often, and I got the impression that he never felt he could please her completely.

  His career fell apart after he got hit in the face with a fastball. Ellis had tried to block the pitch with his hand, but it slipped through his shield of invulnerability. That freaked Ellis out. He started questioning himself. When he came off the disabled list, he tried to come back wearing a helmet to the plate. It made him look like a helicopter pilot. Ellis hit well while wearing it, but then he slumped, took it off, and was gun-shy again. His teammates got upset with him because we felt he was becoming a malingerer. Ellis became paranoid, accusing people of talking about him behind his back. He got into many heated arguments, especially with Cromartie. Ellis and Warren had been the best of friends, but they gradually became arch-enemies.

  Unlike the Red Sox, the Expos had a knack for developing impressive young pitchers. Boston wasn’t good at doing that; the Monster chewed up too many psyches before they had a chance to develop. Montreal didn’t have any obstacles such as that to overcome. I had never seen so many good young arms. They brought up Scott Sarderson, Bill Gullickson, David Palmer, Dan Schatzaeder, and Charlie Lea. When I got a good look at that group, I wanted to give all of them a good stiff bite on the elbow. Palmer had the best stuff of that bunch, but I thought Charlie Lea would become the best pitcher.

  Charlie joined the club on the road, pitched one game in relief, and flew back with us to Montreal. During the flight Charlie, celebrating his promotion to the big time, had a couple of drinks and they went right to his head. Walking behind him as we disembarked from the plane and walked through the airport terminal, I watched as he jabbered away about how great it was to be in the majors. Charlie was so busy talking, he didn’t notice an “I” beam that was standing in the middle of the corridor, minding its own business. Walking into it, Charlie managed to split himself wide open. I caught him before he hit the ground. I said, “Welcome to Montreal. I will take you to see the historic Queen Elizabeth Hospital.” I felt that we Lees had to stick together, even if he did spell his last name the wrong way.

  Ross Grimsley was supposed to be the ace of our ballclub; he had won twenty games in 1978. But he had lost his velocity. That was not good. There had previously been a line of demarcation between his fastball and his change. One was slow; the other was slower. But in ’79, everything he threw came up to the plate at a steady fifty miles an hour. Those weren’t baseballs; they were meatballs. He had been throwing a very moist sinker, but the opposing batters were hitting the dry side. Our ace in hiding was Steve Rogers. Steve had great stuff, but he didn’t win a lot of games for us, despite having a low ERA. He didn’t get much support from his teammates, at the plate or in the field. I blamed that on his nickname.

  Steve answers to Cy, as in Cy Young. That was a mistake. If you go around calling yourself that, pretty soon your teammates believe you don’t need any help from them. They assume that if you’re Cy Young, you can win ballgames all by yourself. That was my theory. One of our relievers had another. He once said, “Steve doesn’t have any balls.” Despite the anatomical location, he was questioning Rogers’ heart. I disagree. It wasn’t that Steve didn’t have any heart. It was that he was too inside himself. If he made a good pitch, one that got the job done, he would still be unsatisfied. He always felt he could have made an even better pitch. Steve was never really pleased with himself. He was also too much of a primper out on the mound, taking too much time and disturbing his fielders’ ebb and flow. Some of his mannerisms on the pitching rubber are those of an asshole.

  Elias Sosa was in our bullpen, and he was a totally open and honest man. He would question things like the mysteries of electricity, speculating on where it came from. Elias was curious about the things lesser minds took for granted. He was also an easy mark. Guys would leave messages for him at our hotel, asking him to get in touch with G. Raff or Elly Fant. He would always return the call. Rogers thought he was odd, so he named him Lights as in “the lights are on but nobody’s home.” That was funny because if anybody was Lights it was Steve. I recall a game in which he had a 1–0 lead. Rogers was hitting with the bases loaded, nobody out, and a count of three balls and no strikes. He looked down to the third-base coach for a sign, and naturally the coach signaled that he should be taking. So what does our resident genius do? He bunts the ball to the pitcher who starts a home-to-first double play. After the game, Steve said, “I thought the coach gave me the bunt sign.”

  Oh, I see, Steve. And you thin
k Sosa’s not all there? Rogers did start winning big after Williams left the club. That’s not surprising. I don’t think his ego was strong enough to thrive under a manager who could be as acerbic in his criticism as Dick is.

  Rodney Scott was the key to our infield. He would mess up a play, and the rest of the team would start to piss and moan about how he couldn’t throw. But with two men out and runners on second and third, he’d go into the hole, backhand the ball, and throw the runner out by a step and a half. A play like that would save us two runs. Rodney was the Tony Perez of fielders. Real clutch. He was a hard worker and he eventually became excellent at making the double play. At bat, he only hit .230, but he walked a lot and stole a ton of bases. He could bunt and hit the ball the other way, talents that made him the perfect man to bat behind Ron LeFlore and, later, Tim Raines. I loved the way Rodney played behind me. As a ground-ball pitcher, I thought he was indispensable on a club that never emphasized the importance of defense.

  LeFlore hooked up with the Expos and Rodney in 1980. They batted at the top of the lineup and were awesome, stealing 160 bases between them. The three of us ran around together. I got along well with Ron. He kept coming over to talk to me when he first joined the club. I couldn’t figure out why, but I think he felt an affinity between us. We both had defiant natures.

  Ron had been in prison; the Detroit Tigers had discovered him playing on a penitentiary baseball team. He told me about his life, explaining that he had learned about heroin and hookers before he had even heard about reading, writing, and arithmetic. During his incarceration, nothing could break him down. He was like a Steve McQueen character, sitting in solitary, bouncing a ball off the door and doing thousands of push-ups, hoping to reach a point of exhaustion so he could fall asleep. He dealt with the prison experience on a totally physical level and came out in animal condition. Some of the players were wary of him. They assumed he might be dangerous. Ron was very sensitive, and I think he came to me because he instinctively knew that I had no prejudices. I didn’t give a shit about his past, and I admired the way he dealt with it. He would kid that he had gotten his diploma from Jackson State, and that, while it was a different kind of institution, it was just as tough as USC in its own way.

  Ron was one tough piece of work, but he was not the toughest person I met in baseball. The toughest person I ever met in the game wasn’t even a player; it was a player’s wife. She would come into whatever town we happened to be in on the road, completely without warning. Then she would wait in front of her husband’s hotel room with a gun. She would just sit in the hall, waiting to make sure he was coming in alone. I have no idea why she brought the gun; she sure didn’t need it. This woman had one of the best right uppercuts in North America. She put it on display one evening in a Montreal watering hole. She was in there with her husband when a woman, unaware that Mrs. was at the table, came over, put her arms around the startled star, and told him, “It’s been so long since we’ve seen you here. We really missed you.” Pecking him on the cheek, she started to leave when the player’s spouse grabbed her gently by the elbow and asked, “Excuse me, do you know this man?” The woman said, “Oh, yes. I know him very well.” That was all the Mrs. needed to hear. She grabbed the lady by the back of the head and pulled her face down into a right hand, and then said, “Well, now you know his wife!” I don’t think that woman regained full consciousness for ten minutes. I mean, she was smoked. After hearing about that exhibition, I thought, “God damn, I hope Mary Lou never learns to throw a punch that well.”

  The fans in Montreal were marvelous, very much like the fans in Boston. They really turned us on during the pennant races, coming out in large numbers, screaming themselves hoarse. The team used them as an extra source of energy and strength. They deserve a big winner because they place so little emphasis on winning. All they care about is watching a good effort and having fun. I loved playing for them.

  They were also protective of their heroes. Once, an Expo outfielder had played a particularly great game—a home run and a couple of circus catches to preserve a win—and he had decided to celebrate. Nothing heavy, he just went out to have a good time. During the course of the evening, he wound up in a local tavern where he met a young lady. He was smitten. After a few drinks and some light conversation, they both agreed it would be an excellent idea if they were to continue the celebration in the privacy of her apartment. The bar was not well lit, and when they got outside it was pitch black, so he had no idea what she looked like. Some fan who had watched them leave, came tearing out of the bar. Blocking the path to the outfielder’s car, he got down on his hands and knees and begged the player not to take her home without first looking at her. He pleaded, “I know this woman. She is a dog! If you take her home, you will embarrass yourself, the team, the city, and the entire country!” But the outfielder would not be dissuaded. It was three a.m., and Miss Canada wasn’t coming in that morning.

  My contract would have been up at the end of the 1979 season, but there was no way I would even consider becoming a free agent. I didn’t believe in peddling my services to the highest bidder. I had fallen in love with Montreal and did not want to play anywhere else. I had never had a contract hassle; money didn’t mean very much to me. I thought I had tons of money. There was twenty thousand dollars in my savings account, and that seemed like a lot. I had always figured that when I was through as a major-leaguer I would go to work on my grandfather’s walnut ranch. I wasn’t concerned about the future. The future might not get here. I viewed free agency as a corruption of the game, putting too much emphasis on things monetary. That view was verified by the number of under-the-table offers I received from parties who wanted me to leave Montreal.

  One of these offers came from Atlanta. It did not come from Ted Turner or anyone in his organization; that would have been blatant tampering. The offer was made over dinner in an Atlanta restaurant by a group of local businessmen. They had come over to my table, uninvited, and had bought me a drink. We started talking baseball, and they asked me where I thought I would be playing the following season. After telling them I hoped to stay in Montreal, they got all whispery, and one of them said, “We have a lot of pull around here. We’re all interested in Atlanta; we all do a lot of business in the city. We are quite certain that if you declared for free agency, the Braves would make you a substantial offer. Much better than the one you’ll get from the Expos. And, of course, with endorsements and commercials, we could see to it that you do very well off the field, also. The money is there.”

  I thanked them and forgot about it. That sort of thing happens to free agents all the time. Organizations are forbidden to talk to you because of tampering, so some highly influential member of the community extols the virtues of playing in their city. They always choose their words carefully.

  There are some forms of tampering that are blatant. I know of a shortstop who was going to declare free agency, but didn’t. He signed with his old ballclub. But before he did, he went to a dinner where a rival team’s front office representative made it quite clear that his club would beat any offer his current team made to him.

  I never got involved in that crap. It went in one ear and out the other. At the end of the 1979 season, John McHale asked me what I wanted. I said, “Give me a three-year, no-cut contract at $300,000 a year with $200,000 of the total package deferred over the next ten years.” John said, “Done.” Nothing to it. I didn’t have an agent or a lawyer. I wanted to stay in Montreal, and we made what I thought was a fair deal. It was the only thing I could do. My principles told me that when you tied yourself to the economic god of free-agent greed, the spirit of Abner Doubleday was bound to turn his back on you. So, why—since I hadn’t fallen victim to the lure of the dollar—did 1980 see me slide into the toilet?

  I wasn’t throwing well when the season started, but I was getting untracked and had pitched eight great innings against St. Louis when I decided to celebrate. I dragged myself home that night and made the mistake of pus
hing myself out of the door the next morning in order to get my running in. It was 8 a.m. when I passed a friend’s house and decided to see if she was in. Rather than risk waking her by ringing the doorbell, I thought it best to climb up the facade of the house’s outer gate, grab on to its awning, and gently tap on her window. It was an older building, and when I pushed up to grab the awning, a brick broke and I began to fall. I grabbed a piece of wrought-iron trim to support myself, but it snapped. Falling over ten feet, I caught my left hip on a small iron fence below. I lay on the floor, curled in a little ball, unable to breathe.

  When I finally rose, I found I was bleeding like a stuck pig. I sat down, allowed myself time to hyperventilate, and got my act together. There were no cabs in sight, so I walked three-quarters of a mile to the nearest hospital. I was examined there, and the diagnosis was that I had chipped the crest of my pelvis and had completely ruptured my hip muscles. The nurses had to drain eight hundred cc. of blood off my hip on three separate occasions. My body was black and blue from the crack of my behind to an area just below my navel. That was scary; the color camouflaged my dick. It appeared as if it had been cut off. The following morning I was sore all over. I felt like I had been hit by a giant fungo bat. The nurses packed me in ice for three days, and I couldn’t rejoin the club for four weeks. I couldn’t find my pitching rhythm, and the team had so much pitching by then they hardly used me. I felt like the world’s biggest asshole. It was really a stupid accident. It screwed up my entire season.

  My anguish at the time was more than just physical. Mary Lou and I were going through hard times. We weren’t getting along at all. Right after I injured my hip, she took the kids with her to our home in Washington and refused to return to Montreal. When the season was over, I joined her, and we spent an off-again, on-again winter together. When spring training time rolled around in 1981, she said, “See you later.”