11
Gabe Paul had not turned any cartwheels over my behavior and downfall in Cleveland when he was general manager of the Indians. I had done nothing in San Francisco to convince anyone in baseball that my life or career were headed back in the right direction. Yet as spring was about to turn to summer in 1973, I reunited with Paul, who along with Yankees manager Ralph Houk believed I remained viable enough to stick in the rotation during the early stages of a pennant race. Go figure.
I have always suspected that the Giants talked Paul into taking me back with the claim that he had knowingly traded them damaged goods after the 1971 season. I barely spoke with Paul after the deal was consummated between the Giants and Yankees. He told me on the phone that I was getting a chance to start over, gave me some details about meeting the Yankees in Oakland, and that was it. I never said a word after Hello. And I did not talk to him after I arrived because Paul did not hang around the clubhouse. New Yankees owner George Steinbrenner was far more visible to the players. (Steinbrenner had been on the verge of buying the Indians in 1972, and many have speculated whether the club would have remained terrible for another two decades if the deal had gone through.)
The Yankees did not require a sizzling start to embark on a battle for first place in what was an incredibly balanced Eastern Division. They were only a few games over.500 but a half-game out of first place when I arrived. The club made it easy for me. It required just a short trip across the bay from San Francisco to Oakland to join them for a series against the Athletics. And I showed up drunk.
I had flown to Oakland to join the club but remained in my hotel room guzzling for three days rather than going to the ballpark. Among my curious visitors was new teammate Ron Blomberg, who that year earned the distinction as the first designated hitter in baseball history—the American League adopted the designated hitter for that season, and he happened to be the first to come to the plate. Blomberg could scarcely believe his eyes when he entered. My room was littered with liquor bottles and beer cans.
He wrote about that experience in his 2021 book that revolved around his relationship with legendary Yankees catcher Thurman Munson, who was killed in 1979 practicing take offs and landings in a plane he’d bought to fly to his beloved hometown of Canton, Ohio. Blomberg opined that I threw harder than Nolan Ryan, no small feat given that the Express fired fastballs consistently at or above 100 mph.
That is not what Blomberg remembered most about my ill-fated stint in the Big Apple. He related a story in his book about he and Munson spotting me wearing a fluorescent-orange suit and sleeping drunk in a gutter on Boyleston Street at 1:30 a.m. in cold, rainy Boston. He recalled that they dragged me several blocks to the hotel in which the Yankees were staying, but his story is a bit off. What Blomberg did not know was that I had been thrown out of a bar that night for fighting and was so drunk that I failed to give my taxi driver a destination. He pulled over to the side of the road and dumped me out of the cab. That is where Blomberg and Munson found me. And they did not drag me to the hotel. I managed to stumble alongside them as they helped me to my room. Blomberg otherwise had a perfect memory. As he also remembered in his book, I arrived at Fenway Park the next day with two black eyes, courtesy of my combatant the night before.
I can imagine what Blomberg feared his team was getting as the seeds of a pennant race were being planted around the time he visited my room in Oakland. But the Yankees’ faith in me appeared justified when I resembled vintage Sam McDowell early in my return to the familiar role of a starting pitcher after serving mostly in the bullpen that year with the Giants. My walks remained concerning and my strikeouts were down but I was missing bats and inducing weak contact. I allowed just 7 earned runs on 23 hits over my first 40 2/3 innings with the Yankees to win 5 of 6 starts. I was still firing my fastball in the 100 mph range. I pitched shutout ball against Chicago and Kansas City in the last of those outings to help catapult the club to the top of the standings.
Then I collapsed—and so did the team. It was not a complete coincidence. I had since joining the Yankees overcome my physical ailments with focus and concentration on the mound. But my worsening alcoholism and the poor self-esteem that had plagued me throughout my life had affected my brain to such as extent that maintaining that level of mental strength proved impossible. One night in Minnesota I was out drinking and tripped on a curb outside a nightclub, resulting in a severely sprained ankle. I lied to Houk about how I sustained the injury then could not pitch for three weeks.
The Yankees would soon have been better off without me the way I performed. I began after my return an epic ten-game losing streak to end the season. I pitched horribly in most starts though it must be cited that the hitting support I received during that stretch reminded me unfavorably of my time in Cleveland. These were not the Yankees of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, or Mantle. During that horrific period they scored two runs or fewer for me seven times.
I hated New York. I felt lost there. Most players loved it because there was so much to do and the advertising and marketing possibilities seemed endless. Perhaps such opportunities would have been viable during my peak and comparatively sober years but not as I hit thirty years old as a drunken has-been. I took a bite out of the Big Apple and did not like the taste. I was not even trying to adapt. I just yearned to escape.
Only two forms of escape were open to me at the time. One, typically, came with beers in a bar. Another was nostalgia. Yankees pitching coach Whitey Ford would hold court on the bench before games and regale us by reliving his playing days. He would entertain everyone with stories about working with catcher Elston Howard to disfigure baseballs and give them late movement. Ford was not a hard thrower and later in his career he needed to cheat to win. So he had Howard rub the ball against his shin-guard clasps or dip it into a puddle of tobacco juice behind home plate then throw it back to Ford, who fired it to the plate and made it dance.
Ford was not the only engaging storyteller. I would arrive early to hear clubhouse manager Pete Sheehy talk about serving in that same role during the days of Ruth and Gehrig and then DiMaggio. Sheehy recalled being responsible for sobering up the Great Bambino after nights on the town and bringing him to the ballpark when he had fallen asleep in police stations. Nobody dared disturb the great Babe Ruth. The tales told by Sheehy sounded eerily similar to my own escapades—I too required team representatives to release me from the grips of the law after nights of inebriated adventures. In my sick mind at the time I justified my drunkenness by comparing myself to Ruth. Never mind that he could produce and I could not.
Though I had cemented my standing as the worst drunk in baseball as the mid-1970s approached, many ballplayers in that era and beyond could share first-hand stories about overdrinking. Among them was Mickey Mantle, who would show up at spring training and tell tales of his playing career, which ended right before the 1969 season. Among his recollections was his fear of facing me when I was scheduled to pitch for the Indians. He surprised me by revealing his knowledge that I was a big drinker, saying that as a player he’d wondered if I would be tipsy on the mound. Ignorant of the fact that I always performed sober, Mantle had been scared that a drunken Sam with already shaky control who preferred to pitch him high and tight would accidentally fire a fastball at his noggin. The fact is I never knocked down Mantle.
I lived in Manhattan early in my first season with the Yankees. I had no car so I learned to navigate the subway system, which transported me to and from games. I frequented the bars two or three times a week. Upon the arrival of my family we moved to a hotel with a pool in New Jersey, just a short ride across the George Washington Bridge to the stadium.
By 1974 my career was hanging by a thread. I showed up drunk one day in spring training, raising the concern of new Yankees manager Bill Virdon. The club placed me in the hospital for three days to dry out. But I just got wet again. Virdon decided to use me only in relief and as a spot starter. I often that season arrived at the ballpark in an inebriated state.
That did not prevent me from achieving one last hurrah on July 29, 1974, in Boston, a team against which I performed well even as my career was collapsing. My control remained a mess but I was inducing weak contact all night before a big crowd at Fenway Park. I was mowing down a damn good lineup that featured fine hitters such as Carl Yastrzemski, Dwight Evans, and Rick Burleson. The Sox led the American League in runs scored that season but I did not allow a hit until Evans led off the sixth inning with a single. I maintained a 1–0 lead into the eighth when I hung a curve to Evans that he blasted for a home run. After I walked Yastrzemski, I received a visit from Virdon and catcher Thurman Munson, who told his manager that I was still strong and throwing as well as I had in the first inning. Why Virdon even asked Munson about me I will never know—he removed me from the game in favor of super reliever Sparky Lyle, who went on to take a rare defeat.
Munson defended me on that occasion but he had long since grown tired of my act. Even in 1973 I was defiantly ignoring his signs. He insisted to Houk that I be removed because I was not even looking for what he was putting down behind the plate. Houk and Munson yelled at me but I simply continued to throw whatever I wanted. I had lost my motivation to work with my catcher. I had reverted to the old Sam who tried to outguess hitters, which made me care less about the science of pitching and exacerbated my fears.
I had simply stopped caring by then. Playing baseball had become a nuisance, an interruption of my increasingly destructive lifestyle, and my pride as a pitcher had long since dissipated. Among the hassles in 1974 was that the team had moved to Shea Stadium while Yankee Stadium was being renovated. The result was a long trip without a car from my Manhattan hotel to the ballpark. So I moved to a motel across from LaGuardia Airport, from which I took a van to and from games. I spent a disturbing amount of time in the motel bar getting drunk two or three times a week. My drinking binges stopped for a couple of months after my family arrived (though periodically I’d stop at a bar on my way home from the stadium), but when school bells called the kids to return, I was back to getting smashed more often than ever before.
As one might imagine, that was not helping my performance on the mound. I bounced between the bullpen and the rotation like a yo-yo. And how could anyone expect me to schedule my drunks with that setup? My focus and, consequently, my control drifted in and out. My stuff remained viable but neither I nor my opposing hitters could predict where my pitches were headed. I walked seven batters in three innings yet did not allow a run during one wild relief stint against the Red Sox in Fenway Park. The descent from pitcher to thrower that took hold in San Francisco returned in 1974. I was lost and I did not care. The Yankees were more than happy to place me on the disabled list in late May with a slipped disc. There I stayed for two months, which until my family arrived gave me an opportunity to sink further into my depravity.
My lack of control off the field and on the mound remained destructive after I returned late that season. I walked nearly a batter an inning in three starts that resulted in two losses then I completely fell apart. Other pitchers might have felt a strong desire to perform well against a former team but I felt no remorse when the Indians clobbered me twice that year. I finished the season with a 1–6 record, 41 walks in just 49 innings, and a 4.69 ERA.
In reality I did not finish the season at all. I called Paul on September 13 and told him I quit. I decided that I would rather go to the bar and get drunk. The club sent three officials to my hotel to try to convince me to return, though given the way I was pitching and behaving I am not sure why. I defiantly brought out a bottle of Chivas Regal and began drinking it. My guests left and I continued to pour down the scotch until I passed out in mid-afternoon. I remained in the sack for twenty-four hours.
Like George Costanza in an early episode of Seinfeld, I returned to work the next day as if nothing had happened. Virdon emerged from his office after a security guard alerted him of my presence in the clubhouse. He sidled up next to me an hour later with word that Paul wanted to meet with me in his trailer office behind the stadium. What followed was meant to be a come-to-Jesus conversation with Paul, who arranged a program during which I would see a psychiatrist once a week in New York then return home to Pittsburgh. What the Yankees did not know was that after seeing the shrink completely sober I would ride the elevator down to the bar and get drunk or head over to LaGuardia to booze it up before flying back to my hometown. That lasted a month. The Yankees had at one point even dispatched their batting practice pitcher to accompany me on road trips to ensure my good behavior. Bad idea. He joined me in a bar in Chicago and got drunk while I stayed sober.
Drinking and drunkenness always progress. Mine did for seventeen years from my first drink to the last but at a pace so subtle that like other alcoholics I could not recognize it and accepted it as normal. I had the added excuse of living a celebrity lifestyle. I could tell myself that Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle imbibed and they were among the best players in baseball history.
I was full of excuses. I cited infrequent outings and bouncing from starter to reliever to blame my lousy season on Virdon. But looking back one might wonder why he even started me or summoned me from the bullpen in 1974. Aside from my out-of-nowhere gem in Boston, I never performed up to the capabilities of a sober and healthy Sam. I suppose Virdon could not completely ignore anyone wearing the iconic pinstripes, which most donned with reverence but not me. He pretty much did ignore me down the stretch in 1974 and I definitely could not blame him. His team was in a nip-and-tuck battle with Baltimore for the division crown, and I was pitching terribly. As another example of my alcoholic fog, during this time when the Yankees were in a struggle to win the pennant, I had no conscious idea of the struggle or where we were in the standings. I was called upon just once from August 20 forward and that was another poor effort in a loss to Detroit on September 8 that had long been decided by the time I arrived on the mound. My departure from the team came five days later.
I was finished in New York. Yet despite the fact that I hated my experience there and had lost any semblance of intensity for pitching, I reacted defensively and arrogantly after receiving a letter stating I had been released by the team. It was the typical response of an alcoholic. I tried to convince myself it did not matter.
From a practical standpoint, it certainly mattered. About a month went by and I began asking myself what was next for me. Reality had set in. I sensed that the end of my career was coming. I had continued the previous two winters to take courses at Duquesne University and had attended workshops to earn licenses in real estate, insurance, and securities. But the fact remained I could not expect to gain success in any professional endeavor until I sobered up. And I was not ready for that. I was lucky that I continued to get paid by the Yankees until my contract officially ran out on December 31.
The uncertainty of my future caused sleepless nights. I decided to continue my playing career—if any team would take me. The most logical choice was my hometown Pirates. I set up a meeting with general manager Joe Brown, who wasted no time in asking about what he termed “my drinking problem” and added that he preferred not to deal with it. To claim I never had trouble stopping after a beer or two at that point in my career would have been ludicrous. I acknowledged the problem but defended my current status by lying. I claimed I had addressed the issue by working with a priest and was no longer partaking. He told me he would think about it. It had become obvious to me that every team in baseball knew I was a drunk. The question whether any team would take a chance on me was answered when I worked out a deal with the Pirates.
It was not exactly an arrangement that had me jumping for joy. Only if I promised not to drink and performed well enough to land a job in spring training would I be offered a contract. So what did this alcoholic do? He got drunk on the way to camp and created a scene at the motel in Bradenton upon his arrival. I could have easily been dispatched from the club before I threw my first pitch but I pulled an explanation out of my butt, telling Brown that our agreement stated I could not drink during spring training, which had yet to begin, and I was merely celebrating my last day of drinking. I supposed he believed I had him on a technicality, so he accepted my bullshit and allowed me to continue.
There were no other open doors. I performed or I was out of baseball. What would win—my addiction or my dedication? For a while it was the latter. I worked my ass off and focused well enough to outpitch the competition. And just before the final cutdown the Pirates signed me to a contract for the 1975 season. I was upset at being relegated to a bullpen role with the likelihood of an occasional spot start but even that was a tall order given the talent and depth on the Pittsburgh staff that included veterans such as Bruce Kison, Jerry Reuss, Dock Ellis, and Jim Rooker as well as talented rookie and eventual twenty-game-winner John Candelaria.
I was in no position to complain. That I felt I deserved to knock any of them out of the rotation was the basic arrogance of an alcoholic. I should have felt fortunate just to be wearing the uniform of my hometown team and receiving an opportunity to pitch for a club that boasted one of the premier lineups in the sport. Stars such as Manny Sanguillen, Willie Stargell, Richie Zisk, Al Oliver, and Dave Parker could transform any mediocre outing for a hurler into a victory.
But I certainly performed better in Pittsburgh than I had at any time since I left Cleveland. Early in my stint with the Pirates I nearly eliminated my drinking. That helped me focus on the mound. Another major factor was that my role as a long reliever and spot starter provided more time for my shoulder to heal between appearances. The same was true when I received extra days off after outings with San Francisco.
All remained fine until our first road trip to Los Angeles in mid-May. I had a friend there with whom I would traditionally down some alcohol after every game. We arrived early in the afternoon on an off day. I was feeling a little sick but I was not about to skip an opportunity to drink. My buddy Bob picked me up and we began boozing. I got so smashed that he needed to carry me back to my hotel room. He tucked me in around 10 p.m., and twice during the early morning I vomited. At noon I was sweating profusely. I called my friend, returned to bed, then awoke for another round of barfing. By that time I was supposed to be on the team bus headed for the stadium.
I called Bob begging him to find a doctor—any doctor—who would make a special trip to the hotel to take care of me. Bob also sent a note to Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh explaining I was very sick and would not be there for the game. The doctor arrived around 9 p.m. and determined that my temperature had reached 103. He provided some antibiotics and instructed me to drink plenty of liquids and soups. I went back to sleep and awoke at eight the next morning. Bob even delivered the doctor’s note to Murtaugh.
I stayed in bed until the next day. Soon Brown paid me a visit. He told me to shower and accompany the team to San Francisco for a series against my old teammates. I remained so weak I could barely stand up when I was called into a lost-cause second game, yet I worked my way out of jams to pitch shutout ball.
All remained well from a pitching standpoint. I even won a spot start against the eventual world champion Cincinnati Reds. But I could not stop drinking on the road. Living with my family presented me with few opportunities during home stands so I really cut loose away from Pittsburgh. Soon thereafter we visited New York for a series against the Mets, where I performed as I did during my peak with four shutout innings and four strikeouts. I then embarked on a celebration that marked the beginning of the end of my career. I got so hammered at a club that I was still feeling the effects in the locker room the next day. I was so unsteady warming up that day that my pitches landed in another zip code. Bullpen catcher Don Leppert took me by the arm to keep me from falling and escorted me to the clubhouse whirlpool where an hour-long soak helped me sweat it out. I then sat on the bus and waited for the players to arrive. They said nothing to me but management certainly took notice. The Pirates were in first place with a deep and talented pitching staff. They did not need a drunk among them no matter how well he was pitching.
Soon we were flying to Philadelphia. Our pitching coach called upon me for an eighty-minute running session in the outfield. I was next summoned into the second game of a doubleheader and again pitched well. I allowed just one run in four innings. Little did I know that would be my swan song in major league baseball. I had yet to be reprimanded for my hangover in New York so I thought perhaps I had dodged a bullet.
No such luck. Brown tapped me on the shoulder during our flight home the next day and said he wanted to see me early the following morning in his office. The jig was up. The meeting lasted about three minutes. “Sam, you know what this is all about,” he said. I did. I had been released.
News travels fast. That afternoon I received a call from old Cleveland teammate Dick Howser, who was now managing the Kansas City Royals. He offered to sign me for the same salary but start me out at Triple-A. He received a typically arrogant response from an alcoholic: Thanks but no thanks. He was a friend, so I confided in him. I told him I was through with baseball and that I enjoyed playing but not “the other.” What was the other? I did not know. All I knew was that I could not understand or control what was going on in my life.
I would eventually learn, but not before I suffered a breakdown so severe and traumatic that I nearly did not survive.
Sam’s 1960 high school senior-year photo
The McDowell siblings in 2001 (Sam upper right)
Publicity photo with the great Sandy Koufax during spring training, 1964
Publicity photo with future teammate Dean Chance in spring training, 1965
Sam collecting his thoughts before a start in 1965
Indians catcher Del Crandall and Sam in a meeting of the minds on the mound, 1966
Fireballing Sam on the cover of the 1966 Indians yearbook
Sam signing autographs for Indians fans in Cleveland, 1968
Sam (second from right) with (from left) Steve Hargan, Sonny Siebert, and Luis Tiant, one of the finest rotations in baseball history, 1968
Sam in action on the mound, 1970
Family Day at Municipal Stadium with first wife Carol Ann and kids Debbie and Tim
Sam about to unleash a pitch for the Indians, 1971
Sam in his first year with the San Francisco Giants, 1972
Family Day with the Yankees in 1973 alongside son Tim
Looking thoughtful in pin-stripes, 1974
Sam in action in his only season with the hometown Pirates, 1975
Matching Pirates uniforms: Sam in 1975 and son Tim in 1988
Sam speaking at a drug and alcohol convention, 2001
Sam playing golf with former NFL players, 2002
Taking it easy on his Clermont golf course, 2002
Sam receiving an award for his efforts in creating a drug-free-school program in Florida, 2004
Modern-day Sam and his smile of contentment