Jim Bouton / Illustrations by Andrew Kahn

Right now, Major League Baseball is like a beach ball floating around in the Fenway bleachers, circa 1984 -- kept alive by the faithful but, with a suicidal mind of its own, making its leisurely way to the Sox bullpen, where Bob Stanley awaits it with a sharp rake.

Perhaps you've heard this story: half of today's MLB players take performance-enhancing drugs that will eventually turn them into Powerpuff Girls. But for the time being, these multimillionaires of the diamond have big enough cajones to threaten knocking off a little early this season. Meanwhile, every multibillionaire owner whose name isn't George Steinbrenner claims he's losing money faster than your 401(k). And commissioner/used-car dealer Bud Selig is too damn biased to declare this battle between players and owners a nice, fair tie. Yep, it's enough to make one yearn for an old-fashioned pine-tar incident.

Unfortunately, scientists say it may be years before Ted Williams will be able to return and set the game straight. In the meantime, we sought out the wisdom of three former idiosyncratic pitchers: Bill "Spaceman" Lee, Jim Bouton, and Mark "the Bird" Fidrych, legends who remember how the game was played in less complicated times (though there is a question as to whether Lee remembers much at all about his Major League days).

The Spaceman spent 10 seasons in a Red Sox uniform, winning 17 games in three consecutive years (1973-'75), but the southpaw was best known for having his head in the cosmos. He once said: "Do you realize that even as we sit here, we are hurtling through space at a tremendous rate of speed. . . . Our world is just a hanging curveball."

Bouton's career started off strong with the Yankees (he won 21 games in 1963, his second season), but arm troubles changed him into a knuckleball pitcher and a member of the expansion Seattle Pilots. In 1970, Bouton wrote an exposé titled Ball Four, a hilarious and, at that time, shocking book that revealed what really went on behind the scenes in the Major Leagues: the women, the pep pills, and all the glorious immaturity.

And then there's the Detroit Tiger's Fidrych, from Northborough, Massachusetts, who talked to the baseball, did his own groundskeeping on the mound, and wouldn't pitch a ball with which he'd given up a hit. ("I want it to get back in the ball bag and goof around with the other balls in there. Maybe it'll learn some sense and come out as a pop-out next time.") Fidrych was Rookie of the Year in 1976 but was hampered by injuries the rest of his short, albeit colorful, stint in the Majors.

All three of these players had something far more remarkable in their careers than Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak: They didn't talk in sports clichés. And they still don't. We tracked them down for interviews on the game's current issues and complexities. We weren't disappointed.

Steroids and other drugs

Mark Fidrych

Q: In his book, Ball Four, Bouton wrote that many players took a speed-like drug known as "greenies." Can a comparison be made between those and steroids?
Bouton: No, because a lot of guys who were taking greenies weren't doing that well. I don't think it was an effective performance-enhancing drug. . . . What I said in Ball Four was that if there were a pill that you could take and it would guarantee that you win 20 games but it'd take five years off your life, players would still take it. I didn't know then what the name of the pill would be: steroids. . . . But greenies were mostly taken as a hangover remedy.
Lee: Hell, you had to stay up and play, didn't ya? Shoot, you stay up all night, you better take some help. Goddamn, think we're going to go out [on the field] by ourselves?

Q: What about steroids today? What should be done about the problem? Do you believe in mandatory testing?
Lee: No, I tested them all, and I don't think it should be mandatory. Once [players] explode on the field, then you can go find their body parts. . . . Anything that makes my nuts smaller, I'm not touching. They're small enough as it is.
Fidrych: As far as I'm concerned, it's to each his own. When I read about it in Sports Illustrated, I went, "Wow." When they questioned McGuire, I went, "Wow." But he's saying he's getting his stuff at GN-whatever-that's-called. But when I read that stuff, I start laughing. Because what's next? I mean, we had corked bats. And then they said the baseball was juiced up. . . . We never lifted weights. In '76, we didn't have a weight room. Yeah, the weight room was a couple of dumbbells next to your locker. It's a different society, so I can't really dwell on that society because I'm not in it.

A potential strike

Bill Lee

Q: Should the fans pay attention to the details of the labor dispute?
Bouton: I think that would be a good idea. I think it's a good economic exercise for people. They need to become more economically literate. And one of the ways they can do that is to follow very closely the labor battles between the owners and the players. We are currently a nation of economically illiterate people, and here's a chance for people to understand a little more clearly how things work. . . . It's also a good chance for fans to learn about the media, how the media works, how they frame things, for example. The current battle is framed over whether the players are going to strike or not. I have yet to read that there's a question over whether the owners will unilaterally implement new work rules. That's never the question. The question is whether the players will strike. But of course they would only strike to prevent the unilateral implementation of new work rules. But strike makes a better headline.
Lee: The fans have to exert their pressure by not going to ballgames, by all organizing together. They can't be for the players, and they can't be for the owners. . . . The commissioner has to abdicate his throne, and he has to give it to the fans. The fans have to run everything, and then there will be neutrality. It's exactly like a molecule. You have your atoms floating around, your electrons, you have your protons in the middle, and if you don't have neutrons in there, you don't have any stability. And that's what's wrong: There's no stability in this atom. You've got a lot of radical electrons that are out there that are trying to do this and that, and you've got too many protons in there. Now you've got a radioactive substance, and that's very volatile.

Q: One argument fans and owners seem to agree with is that so-called small-market teams can't compete with cash-rich teams like the Yankees. Is this argument valid?
Bouton: I always find it interesting that when people say the small-market teams don't have a chance, they go to the newspaper and they look at the standings, and they pick the teams that are in last place, and they say, "See, they didn't have a chance." But if they had tried to pick at the beginning of the year who wouldn't have a chance, they would have picked the Minnesota Twins, and they would have been wrong. Last year, they would have picked the Philadelphia Phillies, and they would have been wrong. . . . And look what the Texas Rangers got with virtually the same payroll as the Yankees. They're in dead-last place. So it's not just money. It's money and brains. Or just brains.

And what prevents an extremely wealthy guy from buying a franchise and simply saying, "This is my hobby. I've got billions of dollars. I sold my stock before the company crashed, and I've been able to avoid the regulators, and now I've got all this money in the bank, and I'd like to have a $200 million baseball payroll just because I'd like to have a winning team, and I'd like to bring this team to Brill, Wisconsin." So he's got a small-market team, but is he a small-market player? No, he's a guy that's got a lot of money.
Fidrych: We're from a town that doesn't have that much revenue, and they're from a city that does. That's called economics. I don't know the numbers, I don't know why, never got involved in that. Just worried about what was going to go on with the Tigers, you know? That's what I worried about. But, okay, let me ask you a question. Now that I'm out of the game, I see, jeez, I'm getting all these new baseball cards that are put out by Upper Deck and all that. Why don't I get any revenue from that today? It's called economics, and it's the way they run things.

Q: Why, in your mind, is the looming strike mostly the owner's fault?
Bouton: Let me say that I'm speaking here as a businessman, not a former baseball player. These are a bunch of guys who became multimillionaires in a free-market system, and now they want to deny the free market to other people. They don't want to play by the same rules that got them to where they are.
Lee: The way to solve the whole problem, if you can't do it [by getting the fans to boycott] is . . . to eliminate one of these unstable elements. And my theory is: eliminate the owners, because they can't fuckin' play a lick. . . . In '81, I proposed that to the union. I believed in not striking; I believed in not coming back. I believed in walking out for the whole year and forming our own league. And George Kimball, the writer for the Herald, said, "We'll do it." He said, "I'll run the ball club. We'll have organic food. We'll have free parking. We'll have Ladies' Day on Wednesday. We'll have Family Day on the weekend, kids get in free." I said, "This is it, George. This is the way to go." And he says, "And my first job as general manager: I'm going to trade your ass to Cleveland." Thanks, George.

Q: What about the claims by owners that they can't afford to pay their players?
Bouton: I say, let them go bankrupt. It's a very orderly process, bankruptcy, actually. A team goes bankrupt. And a judge says, "Well, you still have players, you still have contracts, you still have uniforms, you got balls and bats, so you, sir, Mr. Bankrupt Owner, need to put your team up for sale. You need to sell your assets -- your house, your car and your baseball team. And by the way, there are nine guys waiting outside the door here who would like to bid on your bankrupt franchise, and I'll hold an auction, just like I hold an auction for any piece of property that belongs to any bankrupt owner." And the new owner can come in and he can say, "Well, I can whine about the system or I can establish a budget that I can live with." They say that there needs to be a salary cap. It's called a budget. Every other industry uses it -- why not baseball?
Lee: Do these owners actually have a gun to their heads forcing them to pay these large contracts? I don't think so. Let them go. Let 'em go somewhere else. That's not collusion. Jesus Christ, I mean, you pay all this for a long-term player. Pay [players] for one year and one year only. Big deal. I don't understand it. I had a one-year contract all the time, and when I finally got a three-year contract, I sucked.

The All-Star Game
Q: The sports media and the talk-show callers had a field day with the tie in the All-Star Game. What were your thoughts on the outcome?
Fidrych: Eleven innings, a nice hit, a nice catch -- the people got what they came there to see. And, hey, leave it as a tie because it goes in the record books. . . . Now, there's been many times in a regular season game when you say [to the position players], "Okay, who wants to throw?" But this is one game, and it's for the fans. I look at Canseco when he always wanted to pitch. And what did he do? He went out and pitched and hurt his arm.
Lee: I watched the whole damn thing, and I loved it. I loved the tie. It put egg on the face of the commissioner, and I wanted it to be that way. . . . But they could have played forever. They structured it right: you had Padilla on rotation, you had Garcia on rotation. They're both starters. Jesus Christ, my guy threw two innings. [Editors' note: we have no idea who Lee's guy is.] He's a goddamn starter. His name ain't Milt Pappas "Five and Fly." It just upset me. That's when you could hear Ted Williams trying to get out of that beer cooler.

Q: Had you been on the mound at the end of the game, would you have wanted to keep pitching?
Lee: Sure, I would have kept going. [I'd have] had a chance to win that game. I'm going to be the winning pitcher in the All-Star Game. I've got the ball in my hand, and I'm going to beat [the other pitcher] because I can out-hit him. I'm going to get a chance to hit against him, and I'm going to hit a two-run homer in the 16th inning. . . . I liked the tie from a fan's point of view, but I didn't like it from a player's point of view. If I was playing, I'd say, "Goddamn, you ain't taking that ball out of their goddamn hands. You'd have to pry it out of my cold, dead hand." I would have dropped drawers and mooned everybody.
Bouton: I would have said, "Let me pitch until I drop." I was always willing to risk my career for one more inning. I was stupid. The players today are smarter. And they're worth more. They've got an investment in their body. We didn't have any investment at all. We weren't that far away from hanging shingles.

Ted Williams
Q: What are your thoughts on the Ted-Williams-being-frozen controversy?
Lee: I think it's hilarious. I can see him there. He's in with the full body of Walt Disney and the head of Jayne Mansfield, since she was decapitated.
Fidrych: If he wanted his remains burned up in ashes and thrown over the ocean or that place where he used to fish a lot is, you do that. It's the man's spot. It's the man's wishes. When you've got in your will that you want your ashes scattered over the ocean or whatever it was . . . well, that's where he should be. If there had been any changes, there would have been a new will.

He was a beautiful man. To me, he was the godfather of baseball. He helped me out one day when my father and one of his best friends came to visit me, and Ted was there. I said, "Ted, my father's here and blah, blah, blah." "Hey, hey, Mr. Fidrych. How ya' doing? Paul, that's right, your name is Paul." And those guys took two pictures with Paul. And my father had a ball, and he got it signed. And they had a great conversation. And afterward, my father and Red both said, "My life's complete."

Jose Canseco's tell-all book
Q: The recently retired Jose Canseco is writing what he says is a tell-all book about drugs, women, and other savory parts of the game. He says he's going to "name names," and that "it's going to blow Ball Four out of the water." Your thoughts?
Bouton: I think it's going to be impossible for Canseco to write a tell-all book because the newspapers are already doing their job of [telling] what's happening, pretty much. When I said players used greenies, everybody said, "Greenies? What are greenies? Oh, my God." Canseco's going to say players are using steroids, and everyone's going to go, "Oh, we heard that all ready." . . . [As for naming names], I don't think that's a book. Sounds like a magazine article. A list of players? Okay, that's one page. What's he going to do on page two?
Lee: Shoot, he should come out with it. Then I could have something to fall asleep with. I guarantee reading that'd put me to fucking sleep. Wow. Alert the media. Talk about a shitty fucking book. You can put that on the cover.

The end?
Q: If there's a strike, will that be the final nail in the coffin for baseball?
Bouton: No, because new people will come along who don't recall the strike or weren't interested in baseball at that time. They'll turn on the television set or go to a ballgame, and they'll say, gee, this is a great game. Look at this. You have a pitcher and you have a batter, and there's a moment of tension every single pitch -- something could happen. And then a ball gets hit. Everyone's running. It involves a nice distance. Action could take place 400 feet away from home plate or it could take place two feet in front of home plate. It's not confined to a place like basketball. There's no clock; it's not confined to that. It's a marvelous game. And that's why it won't die out.
Fidrych: I wouldn't say it'd be the end. That's like back in the '60s or whatever, when they said California's going to fall off the map. Know what I'm saying?

Mark Bazer can be reached at mebazer@yahoo.com.

Issue Date: August 16 - 22, 2002