by Bill Lee
I attended a great many sporting events in the months immediately following my release, more than I ever had before. I came away with some eye-popping insights. There was a heavy air of violence in the stands at many of the games I attended. I sensed that a new philosophy had sprouted amongst the fans: “If we can’t beat them, let’s kill them.” It was scary. I attended a basketball game at the Boston Garden, during which a spectator jumped out of the stands and decked a referee. And got a standing ovation. Another fan kept running along the perimeter of the court, screaming, “Oh God, don’t let them get the ball! Please don’t let them get the ball!” He was gone. I kept thinking, “Boy, I hope he has a big bet on this game, or he is really overreacting.” You could have cut this guy’s leg off, and he would have never felt it.
Eventually, I stopped watching the game and sat back to watch the fans. It was like watching a Fassbinder film, depicting mankind at its most berserk. The experience made me wonder if we’re not breeding a society that lacks self-esteem. I don’t think we pat people on the back enough, letting them know that being able to fix a sink is just as much a skill as being able to get Rod Carew out with the bases loaded. And more worthwhile, if you were to ask me. People must be made to feel their value. Otherwise, when they discover they can’t find any thrills in religion or in cults, they head out to the ballpark, seeking a vicarious sense of fulfillment. They’re tired of long-term reality; they don’t recognize what it has to offer them. All they want is one good fantasy. Realizing that really shook me up.
I spent the winter of ’82 getting into top physical shape. I had decided to give the majors one more shot. I ran five miles every day and played full-court basketball religiously. When spring training time rolled around, I was in the best shape of my life.
I worked out at USC for a couple of days, pitching to their junior varsity team. I was unaware that some scouts from the Atlanta Braves were watching me throw. Apparently impressed with what they saw, they called Henry Aaron, the Braves’ director of player development, and told him I was worth taking a look at. Henry called me at my father’s home in California. He told me that the Braves were interested in possibly having me come to spring training with them and that they would reach a final decision on the matter after discussing it at a meeting of the team hierarchy. Henry was very cordial, assuring me that he would call back within a few days. There had to be something wrong with the telephone system in Atlanta because he never got back to us.
After a week of waiting for his call, I decided to go to Phoenix, Arizona. I wanted to see if I could hook up with Dick Williams and the San Diego Padres. The day after I left, my father called Henry to ask why we hadn’t heard from him. When he reached him, he found Henry was not quite as friendly as he had been in our earlier conversation. He said, “We told Bill we’d get back to him.” My dad reminded him that ten days had passed since that phone call. That’s when Henry got tough, saying, “The Braves don’t owe Bill Lee anything.” When I heard that, I flipped out. I mean, Jesus, they were the ones who called me! Henry’s last line was the topper. My father had told him that he realized the Braves might be a bit leery of singing someone with my reputation. Henry replied, “I don’t know anything about that. That’s something Bill will have to talk over with baseball.”
Talk over with baseball! What did that mean? Was someone going to lead me into the royal court of the Emerald Palace and bring me before a giant baseball perched on a throne? What would I talk to it about? I guess I could bow down before it and ask, Gee, baseball, what did I do to make you angry at me? Did I let you get hit over the fence too often, or squeeze you too hard on the mound? What’s your problem?
That was the last I heard from Henry Aaron, and it convinced me more than anything else that the fix was in. I was certain that someone had gotten to the Braves. I called a few other teams. Steve Boros, the manager of the Oakland A’s, told me they wanted to go with their young pitchers. Then they signed left-handed Tom Burgmeier, a young pitcher who is two years older than I am.
I did call on Dick Williams in Phoenix. I didn’t come away with a job, but I did catch a glimpse of the truth. Dick took me in his office, sat me down, and said, “Bill, I want you on this team. I told our general manager that you can help us. But he said we can’t touch you. Now that’s the way it is. If you tell anybody I told you that, I’ll have to deny it.” I thanked him and didn’t tell anybody what he had said. Until now.
I guess it’s over. I think I knew it in my guts the day I walked out of the Expos’ clubhouse. A chapter of my life had been closed. I’ve thought about what I might do with the rest of my life, and the prospects are exhilarating. I’ll either go back to college and get my doctorate in political science, or head up a mountain and shoot myself. There’s no middle of the road with me. Just kidding. Actually, I might just yet become the forest ranger I wanted to become twenty years ago. I’d like that. I’d work to preserve the salmon. I’ll combine modern technology with forestry, creating a bionic fish that will destroy the nets cast by poachers. It would be able to launch a small sea-to-air missile at anybody it caught poaching a salmon.
I am also considering playing in Japan or Venezuela. That appeals to the gypsy in my soul. Of course, you never know when a major league team might need a lefthander so desperately that they might ignore the steel curtain that’s been placed around me. Even a team like the Expos. Just the other day, they signed a veteran second baseman to a minor league contract. Fellow by the name of Rodney Scott. It’s taking a long time, but they may be learning.
But I don’t think I’ll be back. I’ll still play ball wherever I can, participating in an organized league or competing in whatever sandlot games I can get into. It’s always a fun way to spend an afternoon, and it’s a great way to stay in shape. It sure beats splitting wood. I also have to admit I can’t stay away from it. I have an addiction to resin, and I love the feel of the warm sun on my face as I stand out on the mound, trying to fool yet another hitter. Like Peter Pan, I’ll never stop enjoying my games.
The question is often asked of athletes, “How would you like to be remembered when your career is over?” I never really gave it any thought. If I accomplished anything as a player, I hope it’s that I proved you could exist as a dual personality in the game. I had to pass through the looking glass every time I went out on the field. Away from the ballpark, I tried to care about the earth, and I wasn’t concerned with getting ahead of the “other guy.” On the mound, I was a different person, highly competitive and always out to win. Who I was off the field fed the person I became on it. I had to make the stands I did. To be silent in the face of injustice would have made my life and my pitching meaningless. If I was able to keep my compassion while retaining my competitive senses, then I would judge my career a success. I hope I was able to make more than just a few fans smile, while showing them that the game shouldn’t be taken too seriously. If I am remembered by anyone, I would want it to be as a guy who cared about the planet and the welfare of his fellow man.
And who would take you out at second if the game were on the line.
And who would. . . .
EXCERPT FROM THE PROLOGUE OF HAVE GLOVE, WILL TRAVEL
It is a November night in 1984. My name is Bill Lee, and I used to play professional baseball with the Boston Red Sox and Montreal Expos. I just unpacked my bags in a chilly, narrow locker room. Now I stare at a spot. Well, bigger than a spot actually, it is a stain, a dark inverted triangle of damp seeping through the ceiling directly above me and trailing midway down the wall of my locker. If you call this a locker: a concrete cubicle, stark and bare with metal hooks to hang my clothes on. We do not have a clubhouse boy to pick up after us.
I rest my feet on a worn rubber mat, coal black in parts but faded to dusky gray at the edges. Dull wooden slats lead out the door to a colorless hallway. This room smells of stale sweat and camphor. I sit on a wobbly red bench whose legs some large razor-clawed beast must have recently used for a scratching post.
My uniform clings to my body even though we have yet to play. Perspiration has soaked through these double knits. Our team has appeared in thirteen towns in the last fourteen days; we live out of a bus and must cram our clothes into duffel bags immediately after each game and the fabrics never get an opportunity to completely dry. As I walked from the shower a few days ago, a teammate pointed out a growth on my left calf. It resembled a small chanterelle. A closer look revealed that I had contracted a body fungus, the price for continually playing in a mildewed uniform. A doctor prescribed Lamisil tablets for this condition. The fungus uses them for after dinner mints.
Breath hovers above me in a wreath of fog. It felt so cold when I walked through the door, I expected to find a side of beef hanging from one of the clothes hooks. Except it could never fit in here. Unlike the spacious big-league clubhouses that allow players to spread out, this room is cramped. My teammates and I sit huddled in front of our lockers, facing each other as if we were attending a consciousness-raising group. All we need to complete the setting is for Tony Rob-bins to appear clapping those big ham hands of his and exhorting us to go for it. With the mood I’m in, though, the only thing I would go for is his throat.
Actually, the close confines count as a plus, since the body heat we generate staves off frostbite. Some of the older players sitting near me claim we are lucky. They recall how as teenagers they sat around smudge pots to keep warm when they played in outdoor venues farther north of here. That comes as a surprise. I didn’t think you could get any farther north of here without being south.
Clearly, this is not the major leagues.
We are visiting the town of Port Hawkesbury on Cape Breton, an island separated by the Strait of Canso from the Nova Scotia mainland. The locker room sits in the back of an old minor-league hockey arena the community built during the 1950s. It resembles an oversized Quonset hut constructed from concrete rather than aluminum.
A Canadian promoter arranged this event for the Tour de Hockey Legends Team. No, I have not adopted a second sport. You might say I act as the team’s halftime show or mascot. It was the promoter’s idea to stick me on the bill, his way of increasing ticket sales. I have never played hockey and have no connection with the game in the public mind. That does not matter. This promoter would have booked acrobats to soar above the rink while a SWAT team took potshots at them if he thought people would pay money to watch.
In an hour or so, the team will trot me out between periods of tonight’s charity hockey match between the Legends and a club composed of players from the 1978 Junior League champions of Nova Scotia. I might skate a bit at first. Not a particular skill of mine. Maintaining my feet on the ice while standing or moving at moderate speed hardly presents a challenge, but once I accelerate, stopping poses a problem. The only sure way I can halt is to slam into a wall.
Shortly after the collision, I will remove my skates and wobble up a long red carpet to a portable plywood mound at the center of the rink to demonstrate “trick” pitches— curveballs, sliders, palm balls, screwballs, knuckle curves, perhaps a spitter if my saliva has not frosted over to ice—for an arena filled with ravening hockey carnivores who consider baseball to be as macho an athletic endeavor as knitting.
It should all be quite classy, like a minstrel show at a KKK rally. I will perform the same function as some carny geek who bites off the heads of live chickens for the deranged amusement of the paying customers, most of whom will be wearing plaid.
You are wondering how I got here. Funny, I just asked myself that question.
We could blame any number of people for my predicament— Jim Fanning and John McHale immediately come to mind— but let’s face it, I screwed up, albeit with the best intentions. It all started more than two years ago on the night when the Montreal Expos’ front offce released Rodney Scott.
Rodney had started at second base for Montreal since 1979. Cool Breeze impressed me as a wide-ranging fielder who routinely saved our groundball-throwing pitching staff with his jaw-dropping, rally-killing plays. Rodney rarely hit much more than .235, but he walked frequently enough to contribute on offense and ranked among the best percentage base stealers in the major leagues. Our manager, Dick Williams, named him our MVP three years running even though such Hall of Fame–quality players as Gary Carter, Tim Raines, and Andre Dawson also appeared on our roster.
The Expos’ front office did not share Williams’s high opinion of Scott. As soon as Dick left the organization in the middle of the 1981 season, his successor, Jim Fanning, began searching for an alternative at second base. The quest bordered on an obsession for Jim. After the 1981 season ended, Fanning and I occasionally ran into each other in the Olympic Stadium Nautilus room. He knew I considered Rodney my best friend on the team and I guess he wanted to send a message. No matter where our conversations started, they invariably ended in the middle of the Expos diamond. I might say, “Jim, did you see where the price of gold dropped again?” and Fanning would reply, “Yes, but can we afford to keep Rodney at second base next season?”
My answer was always the same emphatic yes. Rodney had established himself as the Expos’ most reliable infielder, an important consideration for a team that played its home games in Olympic Stadium, a park that suppresses run scoring. We also depended on our second baseman to jump-start our offense. Whenever Rodney worked his way on base, the threat his base-stealing skills represented so distracted pitchers, they often forgot to concentrate on the hitter. As Ken Griffey Sr. once said to a sportswriter, “No one in baseball can drive a pitcher crazy like the Breeze.” I also pointed to the team’s record over the last few years. Montreal did not emerge as a bona fide contender until Rodney entered our lineup as a regular.
Fanning usually nodded and tried to look thoughtful, as if my arguments just might sway him. Then he would change the subject. Apparently nothing I nor any other player said in support of Rodney exerted any impact. The Expos started the 1982 season with rookie Wallace Johnson playing second base.
Wallace had flashed some skills the few times I saw him play. A line drive hitter. Good power to the gaps. Excellent speed. The flip side: Johnson possessed little aptitude for defense. He reacted slowly to balls off the bat and lacked the delicate rhythm and footwork a second baseman needs to consistently turn the double play. Once Wallace stopped hitting, his weak glove forced Fanning to remove him from the lineup. In Johnson’s place, he used every infielder on our roster. Everyone except Rodney. I think even Margaret Trudeau took a turn at second. Rodney stayed the good soldier. He did not complain or demand more playing time, just came to the park every night ready to help us win.
Scott’s professionalism did not persuade Fanning to return him to the regular lineup. On the evening of May 8 I entered our clubhouse after a pregame workout to find Rodney at his locker packing his bags. His movements appeared slow and disoriented. He looked around the room through car-crash-victim eyes. He did not say a word. He was not Rodney. Someone asked what he was doing.
“Leaving. Fanning just released me.”
All right, you don’t want Rodney starting for the team, fine. But he still could have made significant contributions to the Expos as the perfect utility player: a switch-hitter who could get on base and a versatile fielder equally adept at second, short, or third. Rodney even had enough talent to play the outfield in an emergency, and no manager could ever find a better pinch runner. Releasing him for no good reason struck me as pure vendetta, a move so mean-spirited and idiotic, I had to protest. When the trainer brought over my game uniform for that night, I ripped it down the middle and draped it over Fanning’s desk. I scribbled a note, informing the manager that one of his pitchers had just gone AWOL. “I cannot put up with this bullshit,” I wrote. “Going over to the bar at Brasserie 77. If you want to, come and get me.”
Read those words as a deliberate challenge. That very morning Fanning had made a clubhouse speech before the entire team. We had lost to the Dodgers the night before in a sloppily pla
yed game, and he thought we needed a kick in the rump. Fanning did not pull a Knute Rockne, imploring us to win one for the Gipper. Instead, he adopted a tough-love approach. He told us we did not deserve to be on the field with Los Angeles. We were not as classy as the Dodgers. We did not execute plays as well as they did. Even their uniforms looked better than ours. We were an embarrassment to the organization. A disgrace to the city.
Fanning had finished his tirade by going weirdly John Wayne on us. He recalled how his father had once given him a pair of white boxing gloves for Christmas, and he told us he knew how to lace them on again should anyone care to challenge his authority. Why he needed to wave his macho before a roomful of powerful young athletes—any one of whom could have stuffed him in the nearest wastepaper basket—I will leave for the armchair psychiatrists among you to analyze. Remembering his words pushed enough of my own silly buttons to inspire the addition of this P.S. to my note: “Bring along those lily-white gloves your dad gave you.”
Fanning never appeared. I watched the Expos’ game on the bar’s TV while drinking beers with the political cartoonist Terry Mosher and playing pool with a quiet gentleman whose cerebral palsy made his hands shake violently except when he held a cue stick. Then his fingers turned so rock-steady, he ran the table on us. By the sixth inning the Dodgers were once again shellacking us, and I realized our team was about to run out of pitchers. The walkout immediately ended. I wanted to stick it to Fanning and the front office, not my teammates. My friends hustled me back to Olympic Stadium.
I reached the ballpark just before the bottom of the seventh inning. Fanning refused to put me in the game, and we tangled in his office afterward. He accused me of deserting the team; I accused him of lying to Rodney. He sputtered. He fumed. His face swelled red. But his boxing gloves stayed locked away. He pointed me back into the clubhouse and said, “[Montreal general manager] John McHale wants to see you in his office tomorrow. Bright and early. This is between you and him now.”