Addiction: It Hits MLB Players Too

                     Since baseball began, there have been many players whose addiction to drugs or alcohol has shortened or impacted their careers. The Dodgers have had their share of these. All sports have had some very famous athletes who battled these addictions. Because of the PED use, baseball got more than its share of bad press. Times have changed a lot since the birth of the game. Baseball has had a problem with players who drank and sometimes drank heavily since the major leagues were first begun.

                  Teams have had breweries as sponsors and also owners for many years. One of the founders of the National League, William Hulburt. Hulburt was appalled by the alcoholic antics and gambling of his players. He banned gambling and alcoholic beverages in ballparks. The American Association, which would later become the AL, was created in response to the NL’s ban on alcohol. The AL’s rules were the exact opposite of the NL’s. This included alcohol sold in ball parks and games on Sunday. The AL was the blue-collar league.

                Depending on what you believe, perhaps the biggest partier of all was Babe Ruth. Stories of his excessive alcohol use are legendary. How true are these tales? Ruth was a national icon; the slugger saved the game after the Black Sox scandal. Insiders probably knew more than the public because writers tended to protect the games stars, if they were well liked. Ruth was everybody’s hero.

                 Grover Alexander, Old Pete, had a drinking problem exacerbated by the fact that he had epilepsy. It did not really rear its head until he came back from WWI. The epilepsy was triggered by his being exposed to mustard gas while in France. This caused a partial hearing loss also. He also suffered from what was called back then, shell shock. Today it is more commonly referred to as PTSD. He still holds the record for most wins in a rookie season with 28. After prohibition ended, he owned a tavern along with former teammate, Hughie Miller in St. Louis. Alexander toured with his House of David team after he retired and pitched many times against the Kansas City Monarchs. 

                Ruth once quipped that his nickname, Babe, actually stood for Booze, Alcohol, Broads to Excess. One of the more amazing stories about his drinking came in Chicago and was documented on HBO’s Babe Ruth. The White Sox took him out before a game and got him loaded on punch mixed by a sympathetic Sox bartender. They figured there was no way he would be in playing shape the next day. Ruth came in with no sleep and dominated the game for a Yankees win. After the game, he shocked the Sox players by asking where they were going to go drinking that evening. 

                 Beer was readily available in clubhouses for years. Players would imbibe after games, sometimes to excess. There was even a case of beer on busses during spring training. Badger’s favorite player growing up, Mickey Mantle, struggled with his alcoholism for years. He, Whitey Ford and Billy Martin, went on some serious benders during their time with the Yankees. Fans usually knew nothing about this because the reporters who followed the team, protected the stars from bad press. Martin would end up getting traded to the A’s simply to get him away from Mantle and Ford. 

                 One time they went on a scotch fueled fireworks spree, setting off roman candles all over the Shoreham Hotel in Washington DC. Another time, they went to the Copacabana with Yogi Berra to celebrate Billy Martin’s 29th birthday. The night ended with a drunken brawl with some hurling racial slurs at Sammy Davis Jr. Mantle later admitted to consuming a self-styled “breakfast of champions”, consisting of brandy, Kahlua and cream in a large shot glass. 

                The 1986 Mets had their own version. Strawberry, Hernandez, Mookie Wilson and Lenny Dykstra, would get hammered and trash planes, get into fistfights with police officers outside of Houston nightclubs, and pour champagne over each other to celebrate wins. As the 90’s rolled around, the boys will be boys mentality went down a notch behind the scenes and in the public eye. One reason was the death of Billy Martin, who was killed when a drunken friend went over a 300-foot cliff. 

                Mantle entered rehab in 1994. He lamented his years spent in a drunken fog. He said he did not remember much of the prior 10 years, but from what he had been told, he really did not want to remember. The Cubs Hall of Fame announcer, Harry Carey was noted for his love of beer. He once opened up a broadcast by telling Bill Murray, “This Bud’s for you, and then handing him an already koozied can of beer on the air.

                Any of you ever heard of Rollie Hemsley? Probably not. But his story is amazing. Hemsley was a catcher. His career in the majors would span 19 years with 7 different teams. In those 19 seasons, he played more than 100 games exactly 7 times. In those days, reporters depended on access to players for their stories. So, some of the more salacious exploits never made it to the public. Hemsley though had so many exploits that were ridiculous and legendary in the 30’s, that everyone knew his reputation. 

               There is a happy ending. Hemsley would eventually beat his addiction, and along the way, he was a major reason for the explosion of Alcoholics Anonymous. He debuted with the Pirates in 1928. He was skillful enough to be kept on major league rosters, but his propensity for drinking kept him out of many games. He was kicked off of four major league clubs before he gained his sobriety and ended his career with dignity and success. His nicknames tell pretty much how he was viewed by his teammates. Rollicker and Rollicking Rollie.

              He played several seasons with the Pirates before being traded to the Cubs, then the Reds and finally the St. Louis Browns in quick succession. While with the Browns, he started to spiral out of control. He drank constantly, and when intoxicated, no one was immune from his impact. He once sprayed seltzer water on a group of women who refused his offer to go out for drinks. One a team having trouble drawing fans, that was taboo. 

              His time with the Browns was when he first started paying for his indiscretions. His manager was Rogers Hornsby, famously sober and intolerant of those who did not live life and play baseball to his rigid expectations. Hornsby had banned reading the papers in the clubhouse and drinking on trains. Those measures were aimed mainly at Hemsley. But not even a disciplinarian like Hornsby could change Hemsley. 

              In August of 1934, Hemsley got into a fight with a Philadelphia policeman who tried to question him in a bar. The punch missed, but in the process of getting arrested, Hemsley was roughed up. Hornsby suspended him. He got out of the jail the next day and told the arresting officer, ” I am more afraid of Hornsby than I am of the magistrate.” He ended up getting out of the scrape unscathed, but that just incensed Hornsby more. The Browns put up with him until 1937, then they traded him to the Indians.

               Cleveland knew what they were getting, but the trade was made because Bob Feller had him as a catcher during a barnstorming All-Star game, and he liked how he handled his heater. He said Hemsley was a better catcher drunk than many catchers were sober. He once got hit in the head by a ball while trying to steal second base. When the trainer tried to convince him to leave the game he refused, saying, “I have started games dizzier than this.” 

               What turned him around was his devotion to his young daughter, who most certainly was affected by his behavior. She would become Miss Missouri and would die of cancer at a young age. Hemsley finally decided he needed to stop drinking and the GM of the Indians, Cy Slapnicka, arranged for him to meet with some members of AA. He experienced a transformation in the offseason before the 1940 season. On opening day, he caught a no-hitter by Feller and won the game 1-0 with his triple. After the games he called a press conference and informed them of his association with AA. He thus became the first member to do so on a national level. It brought the group a lot of publicity, and into the spotlight.

            Amazing story. The Dodgers have had their share of players with problems with addiction. The three most of us remember are Darryl Strawberry, Steve Howe and Bob Welch. Howe and Strawberry had problems with drugs. Welch was felled by drinking. Howe is tragic because of the fact he got off of drugs and then relapsed and ended up dying in a crash in the desert. Howe was suspended 7 times by MLB for drugs. He was suspended for the entire 1984 season by the Dodgers. 

           Because of relapsing in 1988, he would miss the next 3 seasons, 88-90. He was reinstated in 90, but only for minor league play. The Yankees signed him in 1991. He went to AAA first but earned a quick call-up. He pitched effectively and had a 1.68 ERA before an elbow injury in August ended his year. He signed an incentive laded deal for 1992. But he got into trouble in December when he was arrested on felony cocaine possession. Later he crashed his car into a light pole and fled the scene, resulting in a fine. Unlike his other teams, the Yankees stood by him. 

          He pitched effectively while his legal cases were pending. He was able to get his possession charge reduced to a misdemeanor. That happened in May. But in June, Commissioner Fay Vincent gave him baseball’s version of the death penalty, banning him for life. He became the second player banned for drugs, the first was Ferguson Jenkins, whose ban was overturned by an arbiter. Like Jenkins, his ban was overturned. But one of the conditions was that he submit to drug tests every other day, which he did until his career ended. 

         He would last with the Yankees until 1996, by then the abuse and baseball was taking a toll on his body. After his release by the Yankees, he was arrested at JFK airport for carrying a handgun. He tried coming back in an independent league in 1997, but that failed, and he retired. Later that summer he was in a motorcycle accident that landed him in intensive care with a collapsed lung. He was charged with drunk driving. 

          He opened a contracting company in Arizona but maintained his home in Valencia. He was driving between work and home on April 28th, 2006, when his truck, according to authorities left the highway for unknown reasons. It entered the median and rolled several times ending up on its roof. Howe was killed in the accident; it was estimated that his truck was traveling at 70 MPH at the time. The toxicology report revealed he had methamphetamine in his body at the time of the crash. Howe was 48 years old at the time. 

        Many famous people have had their problems with addiction. Myself, I have seen it with some friends, and a couple of relatives. While never really falling into that trap, I had my moments of weakness when I went just too far while drinking. I finally had enough and quit drinking altogether in 1990. I know how much of a struggle it can be. When it affects those, we have come to admire, it strikes home.