9
His name was Tony Horton. He was a teammate of mine in Cleveland. We both had psychological problems, but they were as dissimilar as a baseball and a telephone pole.
Horton was neurotically tense; I was brazen. He gripped his bat as if trying to turn it into sawdust; I was accused of not taking my career seriously enough. He never tried to enjoy life; I tried so hard to enjoy life that I nearly ruined it. He had such an insatiable drive to succeed; I was not greatly impacted by professional success or failure. But we did have two things in common. We were both tremendously talented baseball players, and we both tried to kill ourselves.
I became familiar with Horton when he was traded to the Indians from Boston early in Boston’s Impossible Dream season of 1967. The Red Sox boasted a slugging first baseman in George “Boomer” Scott, and he made Horton expendable. Nobody I met during my career worked harder at his craft than Horton. He was so determined to achieve greatness that in his own mind there was no ceiling to his potential. He could not even crack a smile rounding the bases after slugging a home run. He took extra batting practice until his hands bled. It seemed every out—and even the best hitters are retired seven out of ten times at the plate—was destined to cause him spontaneous combustion. He could have been satisfied as a very productive young contributor to an offense desperately needing the talent he could provide. He could spray line drives around the field with enough power to pile up home runs.
He began to show symptoms of a serious mental illness by 1970. I will never forget the day it all came crashing down. It was August 28, 1970. We were playing a Friday home doubleheader against the Angels. Horton was going from player to player asking them their definition of a man and if they considered him one.
Horton had held out for more money early that year, raising the ire of Indians fans who were unaware of his issues. They booed him, and it destroyed his already fragile mental and emotional state. He became so distraught that he left the team in the middle of the second game that day. Published reports claim he returned to the motel in which he was staying (though I recall him living in an apartment), got into his car that evening, and tried to slit his wrist. My understanding is that he was escorted to the airport after his departure from the team and his suicide attempt in the bathroom of his plane was thwarted by an air marshal.
I remember vividly that Horton did not leave Cleveland immediately because he asked Dark if he could speak with me before the game I was scheduled to pitch the following day. Dark informed me that Horton was experiencing severe emotional problems, which was an understatement. It was actually a breakdown. But to counsel him I had to break my usual rule of talking to nobody before a start. (Not talking to anyone allowed me to focus on the strengths and weaknesses of the hitters I’d soon be facing.)
We sat on the bench, me in my baseball underclothing and him in his street clothes (I do not recall any damage to his wrist, which leads me to believe that he had not attempted suicide the previous night) and he asked me if I thought there was anything seriously wrong with him. I said no. He kept insisting that I tell him how I handled the pressure of pitching in the big leagues—me of all people. I finally answered that even if a hitter was better than me I wanted to avoid being embarrassed. I told him I just tried to do the best I could. He sadly said he was letting everyone down. He repeated that assertion throughout our conversation.
Either way, it was fortunate he survived. But at age twenty-seven he was done with baseball. The pressure had overwhelmed him. He moved in with his father in California and never played again. I later met Tony at a restaurant when I visited Anaheim in 1971. He seemed fine. He laughed often during our conversation. It might have been the first time I’d heard him laugh.
Horton was recuperating. Meanwhile I was deteriorating. There is no exact timetable for those fortunate enough to recover from serious psychological problems. Though I had since childhood been plagued by an alcoholic personality, around the same time I dined with Horton I was realizing undeniably that I was in a losing battle with addiction. I had previously controlled it well enough to prevent it from wrecking my career, but in 1971 I began drinking myself out of baseball, out of my marriage, and into an oblivion from which I would not escape for nearly a decade.
The beginning of the end arrived with the departure of Jack Sanford as my pitching coach and confidante. He had become a very special friend who understood my issues and helped me navigate them well enough to keep me performing well. The financially strapped Indians had low-balled him in contract talks, motivating him to leave for a job managing a golf course. I offered to pay him out of my own salary, but to no avail.
Sanford was gone. He had been a guardrail that prevented me from swerving into a worsening drinking problem that threatened to endanger my career. Soon a typical alcoholic progression sent me reeling to the point of no return. I engaged in epic bouts of drunkenness that often resulted in fights and arrests that the Indians scrambled to resolve and keep secret from the media. In most cases I was the perpetrator in barroom brawls. I cannot even to this day provide a reason aside from simply wanting to be left alone to get drunk. And when someone interrupted that pursuit, I became violent.
One confrontation during that tumultuous period in my life could have been followed by my funeral. I was in a bar near the old Cleveland Arena on Euclid Avenue itching for a fight. Most often nothing came of my self-destructive tendencies during my drunken escapades but on this night I had raised the ire of the owner before I had begun to drink. During a brawl two weeks earlier I had broken most of the glassware used by the waitresses to fill drinks. The owner stood near the door that night and placed his hand firmly on my chest as I walked by. I figured he was just kidding around and continued to walk. Soon he pulled out a gun and threatened me with it. I grabbed him around the collar but he didn’t pull the trigger. Quite fortunately, I proved lucky again. We eventually cooled off and sat down to talk. I did not get drunk that time but most often by 1971 I did. People told me I had a drinking problem. No! I had a stopping problem.
I put myself in dangerous situations even when I was not to blame for some kind of catastrophe. I remained naïve about the world around me, which combined with drunkenness sometimes resulted in disaster. One summer evening after a ballgame in Cleveland, I stopped at a bar and proceeded to (surprise!) get drunk. I made some rude comments to the wife of a man sitting nearby and a fight ensued. I looked up as the brawl ended and saw the bar owner pointing a gun at my stomach. He told me to get the hell out and never come back.
I thought little of the incident until the following winter when I received a phone call from two Cleveland cops with whom I was familiar. They asked to meet me in a bar near my Pittsburgh home, where they informed me that the joint in which that fight had occurred burned to the ground and witnesses claimed I was the perpetrator. The officers suggested I meet with the bar owner. I said nothing. I returned home to check my schedule and discovered that I had been back in Pittsburgh for a sports banquet on the evening of the fire. I remained in a state of shock over the whole thing so I called a friend who told me he would take care of it. He did not detail his plans but assured me that I had nothing to worry about. He was right—but I sure worried like crazy about it until then.
More than two years later after an autograph session in Youngstown somebody approached me out of the blue and asked me whatever happened regarding me and that fire. He knew something but he did not tell me much. All I understood and really cared about was that my name was never again associated with that event. To this day I do not know all the motivations but I suspect blackmail.
One could not accuse the Indians of any shady dealings during that time but I certainly struggled to find common ground in contract negotiations, particularly before the 1970 season. As usual the organization was in flux. Gabe Paul remained in an administrative capacity behind owner Vernon Stouffer but had handed general manager duties over to Alvin Dark. That Dark was being paid as manager and general manager certainly spotlighted the financial situation of a club that perennially finished near the bottom of the American League not only in the standings but in attendance.
I had problems with Paul well before 1971. He embraced a philosophy held by many team executives in the reserve-clause era during which players remained powerless and had no choice but to play through pain. Former Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton wrote humorously in his controversial 1970 book Ball Four about how trainers figuratively pushed players onto the field no matter what injury or level of agony they were experiencing. It was true. The idea was emphasized to players by general managers, managers, trainers, and team doctors. Paul even sent me a letter around midseason stating that major league hurlers needed to pitch through pain. He added that I was no different and it was about time I grew up and learned to push through. The mandate did not surprise me. It was his proven mantra.
During my career I sustained a variety of painful injuries common to pitchers, including strains and pulled muscles and ligaments. There were times I felt I needed to take some time off but the only solution offered to me was a cortisone shot. The pain at times reached near-excruciating levels. But the only time I was allowed to rest and heal was during the offseason. In most cases I was sent back to the mound to pitch in pain and at around 75 percent effectiveness. The problem with that scenario for me and hundreds of other players was that reduced production due to playing through pain was used in contract negotiations to cut salary.
Haggling over money was particularly stressful for Cleveland players. The Indians suffered so mightily that until Nick Mileti bought the club from Stouffer after the 1971 season, we were on the verge of being moved to New Orleans. The threat of taking the club elsewhere had been hanging over the heads of Indians fans for a decade and it was certainly not their fault. The team simply had not put a product on the field that inspired them to attend games. The result was that extracting a raise from Paul was like pulling a tooth from an enraged tiger. Never mind that I was coming off my only twenty-win season—he insisted that the team could not afford any significant raise. But I was not about to settle for a lousy contract simply because the team claimed it had no money.
So I staged a holdout into spring training. Three weeks after my teammates arrived in Tucson, I still could not convince Paul to budge. Dark called to tell me that ready or not he was penciling me in as the opening day starter because I drew the most fans. The Indians needed a big crowd for the opener since they drew very little thereafter, especially when their team was as bad as it was destined to be in 1971. Paul claimed I would ruin my arm trying to get ready for the season if I held out any longer. He convinced me that he would work out a contract with which I would be satisfied so I packed my bags, told Carol that I was leaving, and flew to Tucson to connect with Paul.
We met at the Pioneer Hotel, which just two months earlier had been devastated by a fire that killed twenty-nine people but had since been refurbished on two floors only. Later hotel personnel showed us some of the burned out floor, which was untouched to the degree you could see the chalk outlines of the different bodies from the fire. It was kind of eerie sleeping there. Later during spring training while I was asleep a fire alarm went off because of a small fire in the kitchen.
Anyway, Paul had indeed negotiated a deal by the time I arrived. He stated that he had been able to get me the $100,000 I wanted, not mentioning that it was the media that claimed $100,000 was my asking price. I had never done so. Anyway, the raise was not a raise at all. I would earn more only if I reached certain goals in walks, strikeouts, and ERA based on my 1970 season. I realized that my 1970 season would be tough to match or improve upon, but I signed. In addition, I was to receive a dime for every fan who paid to come into the stadium above my average of the previous year. That did not bode well.
There was another problem beyond the difficulty of achieving those goals: the contract was illegal (performance-based contracts were disallowed by the league). He admitted as much but (wink, wink) added that no one would find out as the contract would remain in his office safe, which he showed me. So I signed and went to work.
Soon I began experiencing an unusually high level of pain in my shoulder. I pitched seven strong innings in a victory against the defending world champion Orioles in the season opener and attributed the pain to the comparatively short amount of time I’d had to prepare for the season following the holdout. I figured my shoulder would loosen up eventually but it never did. I pitched with tremendous discomfort that entire year.
Then there was another form of discomfort. I received a call during the season from Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn. He asked me to meet him the next day in his New York office. To my surprise, when I checked into the hotel I saw teammates Graig Nettles and Vada Pinson. It turned out they too had signed performance-based contracts. Kuhn withheld punishment but forced us to accept only our base salaries. The bottom line? I’d won twenty games in 1970 but did not receive a raise in 1971.
I was incensed. Indians management knew all along that the contract was against the rules—Paul admitted as much—and I suspected that he made certain the league office voided it just when the raise was about to kick in. But I could not be sure. Though Kuhn fined the Indians $5,000 for the violation, that amount paled in comparison to what the Indians saved in bonus payments. My resulting trade demand became big news. My anger at the organization proved stronger than my love for Cleveland and all the friends I had made in that city since joining the team a decade earlier. My anger at Paul was so intense, I was not thinking at all about all the friends and fans I had enjoyed throughout my career.
So I quit three days after I pitched the Indians to a defeat of California in late July, then I got suspended. Pinson and Nettles had agreed to join me in the walkout but they caved quickly for financial reasons. Though I was earning $72,000 at the time I could also not afford to sit out the rest of the season, especially if I were going to live the celebrity lifestyle to which I had grown accustomed. So I returned ten days later. But players union head Marvin Miller sided with me. He protested the comparatively measly penalty slapped on the Indians by major league baseball.
Another wrench was thrown into the works that summer. My shoulder problem worsened considerably in July. Today my injury would be treated with minor surgery or a long rest, especially given that the Indians were playing for nothing but pride by that time while compiling their worst record in eighty-seven years. But I missed just two starts and was forced right back on the mound.
Shoulder pain had been an issue since 1966. Dark informed me during spring training in 1971 that a Japanese ball club was soon arriving to play American teams during a two-week stint. I expressed an interest in receiving a treatment that I had heard about called acupuncture. Dark explained to me that the procedure entailed little needles placed in the skin. I was all for it. The trainer of the Japanese team agreed to perform acupuncture on my shoulder. I was surprised at the immediate benefits. I pitched with little pain two days later. But the departure of our visitors precluded further acupuncture treatment and the shoulder pain eventually worsened, hampering my effectiveness that season.
One might think, examining my performance in 1971, that Dark, who was fired in late July and replaced by my old minor league manager Johnny Lipon, would have preferred I take a break and allow a young pitcher to earn some big-league experience. All the issues that stemmed from my holdout combined with my shoulder injury and an alcoholic lifestyle to negatively impact my performance, resulting in my worst year since 1963.
I failed to focus. My control deteriorated. My walk totals soared and strikeout numbers dropped. Hitters wore out a path to first base. I walked nine in successive starts in April and fell to 0–4 for the season. I walked 10 and somehow beat Washington in mid-May. I walked 33 batters over one 32-inning stretch yet won each of those starts. Such success was not sustainable. After I returned from my short absence to nurse my ailing shoulder and beat Chicago, improving my record to 12–10, I lost seven of the next eight decisions and finished the year by taking a pounding against powerful Baltimore.
During that season I had received more than twenty cortisone shots as well as lidocaine, which deadened my shoulder for short periods. I often could not tolerate the pain for more than five or six innings and was forced to leave games. Our trainer gave me extra massages and rubdowns with hot and cold towels.
Many factors contributed to my struggles on the mound in 1971. One cannot pitch hurt and angry and maintain the focus necessary to retire big-league hitters. The pain forced me to release the ball from different angles. And my alcohol addiction had worsened. I probably got drunk more often in 1971 than at any point in my career, which is quite a claim considering many of my worst moments were yet to come. It would not take a baseball savant to know, examining my 13–17 record and career-high 153 walks, that something was seriously wrong. But I remained far too immature a person to deal with any of it constructively. I had begun to lose the ability to overcome the growing number of obstacles the outside world and my own immaturity placed in my path to success. For the first time, Bad Sam was winning.