FOREWORD
Once in a while a sport produces a larger-than-life performer, that can’t-miss athlete who seems destined for greatness. And sometimes that expectation becomes as much a burden as it does a virtue.
Standing 6 foot 5 inches, with an intimidating fastball and knee-buckling curve, Sam McDowell had a piercing look that had the batter behind 0–2 in the count before he even threw a pitch. I know because I faced him. It was never a comfortable at-bat. It was high anxiety because of that 100 mph fastball that wasn’t always in the strike zone. You see, Sam was erratic enough to win twenty games and lead the league in strikeouts five times but also to lead the league in walks and wild pitches!
Sudden Sam was expected to be a Hall of Famer like Sandy Koufax or Don Drysdale, even Bob Gibson or Juan Marichal. It turned out he was a very good Sam McDowell, but that was better than 90 percent of the pitchers of his era.
The challenge of potential is that it is usually most celebrated by those who are invested in judging talent. They do not have to perform. They have no responsibility for failure or to live up to levels reached by only a few in history. In Sam’s case, trying to live up to the expectations of others led to mental strain and a pressure to perform that was beyond reality. With these demands came fragility and insecurity, and that led to the need to escape.
Sam succumbed to depression and addiction, those two dreaded impostors that drain the life and career of a good man. It was a steep fall, and then a long climb back, but he had that deep-down soulful strength that takes courage—the courage to ask for help, to trust in others, and to realize you have a problem.
My favorite saying is “Life is God’s gift to us; what we do with it is our gift to God.” Sam fought his way back to being a voice for not giving up and for giving back. By sharing his life with those who might relate to it, and by successfully using tools similar to the ones that made him a star on the field, Sam McDowell has lived a life well worth living.
—Steve Garvey
1
Iwas gripped by a sense of hopelessness. So I gripped my chrome-plated.38-caliber revolver. Then I placed it to my head. I had concluded that suicide was the only escape from my despair.
The date of my attempt to blow my brains out remains as hazy as the alcoholic fog that controlled my life for years. This chilling moment occurred in the chilly winter after a 1963 baseball season during which I experienced my first bouts with drunkenness and continued failures on the mound as a prized pitching prospect for the Cleveland Indians. My wife Carol Ann had left me and taken our baby daughter Debbie with her. I could not live like that so I decided to die.
My self-absorbed personality would not allow me to consider the consequences. I never reflected upon the anguish my death would have brought my family, friends, and fans. I did not realize that addiction is a disease of escapism that negatively affects the part of the brain that deals with fear, logic, decision making, and chance taking. Feelings of loneliness and misery perpetuated by what I perceived as abandonment by Carol rather than a departure justified by my behavior sent dangerous ideas swirling through my mind. So I pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
In loading the gun after cleaning it, I had unknowingly inserted a dead shell along with live loads. The gun clicked on the dead shell and never fired. I cashed in on a 17 percent survival rate. To this day I do not know why I did not try again. Perhaps my will to live proved stronger than my desire to perish. Perhaps the attempt to take my life was so traumatic that it scared me straight. I recall a vague sense that maybe I could figure out the problem. I believed it just enough to not try again. I just sat there in amazement, stunned. The introspection began. I remember thinking that I could not even do this right.
Whatever the reason, I am today very thankful that fate stepped in. The cost of my ignorance and immaturity was my marriage, career, and years of depression that I could not even identify as depression. But decades after my suicide attempt I finally gained self-actualization that brought happiness and contentment into my life. And I understood the disease that motivated me to try to end my life.
I would not have been alone and miserable that day had I heeded the warnings from Carol Ann, who was, along with her parents, a non-drinker. She had grown wary of my drinking and verbal abuse even though neither had become pronounced. I was only a periodic drinker at that time though I must admit I usually drank to get drunk. Not until the early 1970s did I deteriorate into what I identified many years later as the worst drunk in baseball. I never physically harmed her, though not treating her like a queen as she deserved I would call a form of mistreatment.
But I did not care when she spoke about a relative whose alcoholism and cruelty as a husband put fear in her own heart and mind about me. I did not listen when she questioned my desire to booze it up with neighbors and return a bit more than tipsy. I did not show any tenderness and compassion when she worried aloud about the dynamic of having a professional athlete on the road constantly as a life partner. And I did not try to recognize her overwhelming task as mother, father, mentor, teacher, provider, and disciplinarian before trying in vain to turn some of those roles over to a narcissist like me during the winter. I lived the creed “What I Want, When I Want, How I Want.” That would eventually apply to my intoxicated trysts with other women.
Instead of seeking to understand her anxieties, I rebelled against them. I convinced myself that her concerns about me deteriorating into someone like her alcoholic relative were pure paranoia. My irrational thoughts turned into action. I persuaded myself that she had left me unduly and that my misery was inescapable. I could no longer fight it.
I was wrong, of course. I needed to show Carol Ann love. But in addicts there is no capacity for true, genuine love. They do not understand it. They are consumed by personal, base desires. I had been as contented as an alcoholic could be with the high school sweetheart who had become my wife and mother of my child. Fortunately God protected them because I could not do so, at least emotionally. To have what most people dream about—a home, family, and athletic career—and destroy it all? That is alcoholism.
The ultimate deed against myself occurred three days after Carol Ann had packed her bags and bolted to the Pittsburgh home of her parents. I had come home drunk on a couple occasions and she felt that her fears were being realized. Her departure made me feel for the first time in my life that something was wrong. That recognition mushroomed in my head to a belief that all hope was lost. I angrily thought, “What’s so bad about getting drunk once in a while? Why does my wife not understand me? I’m only drinking once or twice a month.” There was no way out but leaving this earth. Carol Ann must have had an inkling that I might do something desperate because she asked a neighbor to come over and check up on me. I had yet to attempt the suicide but it must have been at least a bit frightening when my neighbor arrived to find me cleaning all my guns.
I had an impressive collection that included handguns, rifles, and one shotgun. I had begun to purchase firearms in spring training 1963 when my team-mate and future Indians manager Joe Adcock asked me to accompany him on a coyote hunt. I immediately bought a rifle and bullets to go along with western boots. We only hunted twice during that camp but for the next eight springs I arrived early in Tucson to hunt and drink. I then started to hunt in my native Pennsylvania during the offseason and bought a 30/30 rifle for heavily wooded areas as opposed to the wide-open spaces of Arizona. I later began accumulating specialty, collector guns. But it is interesting that as I started to recover from my alcoholism and depression I no longer felt the desire to hunt. I even gave away or sold my guns, though I must admit that before my emotional breakthrough I had hawked guns to get money to pay for booze.
My alcoholism during the winter in which I attempted suicide had not advanced enough for me to understand it as alcoholism. That was not the only problem with which I was afflicted that I did not comprehend—though they were all tied together. Another was depression. It is hard to imagine, given that I had just placed a gun to my head and pulled the trigger, that I did not realize I suffered from clinical depression.
You have to consider the times. Such a term, “depression,” did not exist then especially in the athletic arena. The number of athletes who realized they were depressed and admitted it publicly could be found by looking in the middle of a doughnut. Back then, depression and other mental or emotional disorders were not openly discussed. Addiction was also considered a mental illness until the 1970s when research proved it to be a disease. Such issues are more openly examined today—athletes have revealed their personal battle against depression in recent years. But even today most people, including athletes, continue to hide it. And they believe there is no light at the end of the tunnel, not realizing there is a solution. That is why the suicide rate remains tragically high.
One problem with which I am painfully familiar and that certainly played a role in preventing me from finding and getting help for my alcoholism and depression in the early 1960s was that families rarely intervened to that extent. The only solution embraced by society years ago was to see a psychiatrist. That is what my boss in the insurance industry after my retirement from baseball suggested. Nobody urged me to check into a rehabilitation center because they did not know of any. And many of those who contemplated or attempted suicide felt too ashamed or frightened to share the experience with loved ones. I did not tell anyone about my own attempt until I informed Carol Ann years later.
My parents and siblings simply implored me to “get help.” They never offered where to get that help. They complained that I was a drunk, and I hated that word. I despised it because it inspired thoughts within me that I might indeed have a drinking problem. I did not want to think about that. I preferred to see myself as living an accepted celebrity lifestyle. I would convince myself that I was fine by regaling my inner thoughts with stories about the legendary Babe Ruth and other sports superstars and their drunken escapades. Among those whose alcoholism famously became public knowledge was Mickey Mantle, another immortal Yankees slugger and my hero during my playing days. Little could I have imagined when I was going mano y mano against Mantle on American League mounds that he would eventually admit that alcoholism had destroyed his life. He died tragically young at sixty-three, though it must be cited that he passed away sober, back with his family and loving wife.
I had yet to begin binge drinking during the winter of 1963. I would get drunk maybe two or three times a month. But that was enough, given the fears of Carol Ann, to threaten our marriage as well as friendships and other relationships. Everyone—not just my wife, parents, and siblings—began confronting me about my drinking. After my bouts with booze I would make promises to Carol Ann that I was incapable of keeping. I took steps to placate her and followed through but they proved worthless because I had not come to grips with my real problems—narcissism, addiction, and depression (which is a part of addiction and not a separate malady like clinical depression). I simply did not understand why I could not take a social drink and stop before reaching the point of drunkenness. I then promised myself that the next time I would stop before getting drunk. It did not happen. Not only did I fail to stop drinking in excess, I began boozing more often. Since I did not get inebriated on every occasion, I fooled myself into thinking I was a simply a social drinker.
One of my attempts at sobriety involved sports psychology. I had befriended the director of the Psychology Department at Duquesne University and my former Catholic parish priest who expressed a desire and willingness to help me. One of the interesting aspects of my vain efforts was that I carried out my mission without telling Carol Ann. Logically one would think I would want her to know that I was working to improve myself.
My personality disorders, including denial, prevented me from admitting to others that I had a problem. Because of the prevailing thoughts on addiction, I did not want anyone to think I was weak or had a mental illness. So I carried out my mission without informing any friends or family members. I told my wife that I had to attend a banquet or made up some other appointment before visiting the psychologist or priest—and of course have a few drinks on the way home. But I requested from them that we focus on sports psychology as I had convinced myself that was my issue.
We didn’t delve into alcoholism. I took courses in sports psychology that I later learned were all theoretical, not applied. I read books on the subject. I would purchase and listen repeatedly to motivational tapes, particularly during road trips. Though I refused to admit it to those close to me, I knew there was something wrong. But I convinced myself that it could not be addiction. My research into sports psychology and denial of my real problems continued for years. My baseball colleagues scoffed at me for delving into the subject. I recall one teammate and roommate making fun of me after he had been drinking for reading a book on sports psychology. He badgered me about it for several days.
Indians manager Birdie Tebbetts—a nice man whom I had deep philosophical differences with as time passed about how to maximize my effectiveness as a pitcher—also chastised me. On one occasion as I listened to a tape on sports psychology, he exclaimed, “You don’t need that shit; just listen to me.” He added that he had taken a psychology course in college and it did nothing for him. Our coach Joe Lis, who boasted a college degree and whose locker was next to mine, enjoyed sitting and hearing some of my tapes. He had taken a lot of psychology in college and loved it. When Tebbetts saw him listening with me, he chewed Joe’s ass off loudly with his office door open so that all of us could hear.
Sports psychology helped me but only professionally. My exploration sharpened my focus and concentration while helping me relax on the mound. It also helped me get rid of fears, transforming me into an aggressive, positive pitcher instead of a defensive one. The problem was it would not stick and periodically I would forget it and have to begin all over again. My addiction played a significant role in these breakdowns. But sports psychology eventually aided me in my future work as a counselor.
There came a point during my baseball career when I knew deep down that something was still wrong, and I eventually turned into an angry drunk who engaged in barroom brawls and landed in jail. But it was not until five years after I had drunk myself out of baseball that I began to learn that only an education in addiction and depression rather than sports psychology would allow me to forge a path to happiness and fulfillment.
My budding addiction had not yet destroyed my life that fateful winter of 1963. But the fog I was living in perpetuated by my alcoholic personality and coupled with the miserable reality of my wife leaving me was wrecking everything. Fortunately, Carol Ann returned to me then as she did on several other occasions after she’d bolted, having been overwhelmed every time by my inability to feel genuine love and unwillingness to provide emotional support. I would feel more secure when she came back but could not change my behavior. I was simply incapable of this until I gained an education in the 1980s that allowed me to learn about and rid myself of my disease.
It all seems so strange looking back on my career. Even though I was doing nothing to improve myself as a person and was actually descending deeper and deeper into depression, alcoholism, and depravity, I thought constantly about Carol Ann, Debbie, and my son Tim (who was born in August 1965). When the team was on the road I called home every night to talk to all of them. That would have made most individuals feel good about their marriage. But I would immediately start blaming Carol Ann in my mind for what I perceived as her misunderstanding me.
I do not want to give the impression that I had bad intentions as a husband and father or that I provided nothing but my earnings to the household. My obsessive-compulsive disorder made me a control freak and I had no clue about how to be a husband and father. I truly believed that taking care of the finances and tinkering around the house made me a good husband and that Carol Ann should be responsible for cooking and cleaning and for nurturing the children. This was very old-school—I was mimicking my father. So I was strict with the kids. If my angry voice did not inspire the right reaction from my children I resorted to spanking. That, however, was rare. I can vaguely recall doing this once or twice.
My relationship to my children had of course evolved by the late 1960s and early 1970s as my alcoholism became more pronounced and forced me to wind down my baseball career. There was no disciplining necessary before Tim was born and Debbie was still an infant. Between the periods when an angry and frustrated Carol Ann left me, I felt contented just knowing she was there. I made myself believe that I was loving my family the best I could. And given my narcissism coupled with my alcoholic personality, I suppose I did. That is why I felt so trapped during the winter of my discontent. It had finally dawned on me that something was wrong and my disorders would not allow me to blame myself. My mind told me there was no escape but suicide.
I was a creature of habit, and Carol Ann’s departures made me feel like my entire universe had been thrown off course. Suddenly I felt a profound sense of emptiness. When Carol Ann was with me, everything seemed complete. I had little to think about or do. She took care of me at home and the team took care of me during spring training and the regular season at Cleveland Stadium and on the road. I even had an offseason job working in the sporting goods department at Gimbels, a major retail department store, even though the family was capable of stretching my baseball salary year-round. Every so often I would stop at a neighborhood bar with my coworkers to down some beers. Then during the season I began drinking more on the road. I did not booze it up often but when I did I often could not stop until I was plastered.
And I did not care. I had convinced myself that I was simply embracing a celebrity lifestyle. And being drunk brought me a sense of normalcy and social confidence that I did not feel when I was sober. Eventually my drunkenness became so frequent and out of control that it resulted in massive instability in my personal and professional life. That was dangerous for someone such as me who required a stable existence. But I could not stop. I was an alcoholic.
It was too bad I could not revert to my mindless periodic drinking days of the early 1960s. I had at that time a comfort level that did not require me to think much. That was the mindset I needed. Any deep thought into my narcissistic motivations would have resulted in turmoil. I was simply too ignorant and immature to turn such realizations into positive changes as a person. In some ways I was still the same joyless, robotic child growing up in Pittsburgh who could not recognize his negative personality traits or summon any enthusiasm for the career path his talents demanded.