I had a bizarre conversation with a man who called me at the station Saturday night.

"I'm Whitey Ford," he said. "And I'm dying."

For the benefit of the person with whom I had been talking before being interrupted by this cucko caller, I repeated, "You're Whitey Ford. And you're dying. Alright."

"That's alright?" he asked.

"No, I don't mean that." I mean he might have been just some wacko or he might have been the real life former New York Yankee pitching hero but either way I didn't want to sound like I was dismissing his life as worthless. I had no way to tell if he was the genuine Whitey Ford but he did sound like he was genuinely dying. And genuinely drunk.

"That Rodman," he said referring to the colorful and controverial NBA player without a segue. "I don't like him. I used to try to be a role model. We need role models."

"Me and Mickey Mantle were good friends," he said. I couldn't help but think that if he was as sick as he sounded, he would soon see his friend. Maybe he had the same thought because he broke down in tears and begged me not to hang up on him.

"I'm here," I said. And I listened to him tell me how he and Mickey used to drink a lot and about one time Mickey was so hung over after a night out that he didn’t feel up to playing that day’s game. So in his first at bat, Whitey says, Mickey takes a strike right down the middle of the plate. Mickey turns to the umpire and says, "That was no strike." The ump tells Mickey, "That pitch was right down the middle." Mickey begins arguing with the ump, gets himself thrown out of the game and goes back to his apartment for a full night's rest.

He told me he knew he'd become a drunk. He would start to talk and have to stop. "Give me a minute so I can breathe," he said as he gasped to catch his breath.

"Let me tell you one thing," he would say and then he would tell me ten more things. "Let me tell you one thing. Ted Williams is a friend of mine." He said Ted and he would talk about how today’s ballplayers "couldn't compare" with the ones of his or Williams’ days.

He decried baseball's rapid expansion. "When I played there were eight teams in each league," he said. "We used to see each other (other teams) two or three times a month, now they see each other four times a year" because there are too many teams. As I often did, I had trouble figuring out what his point was. I presumed that the problem was that either you never got to make friends with players on the other teams or you never saw them enough build enough hate to fuel a good rivalry.

He told me he was a friend of OJ Simpson's and said he didn't believe OJ killed his ex-wife. "She was a whore," Whitey said, "but he loved his kids and he wouldn't want his kids not to have a mother." He then told a confusing story about how OJ supplied his teammates with drugs when he played for the Buffalo Bills and continued to have drug connections after his playing days ended. He said Ron Goldman used to hand around with Nicole Brown Simpson because she could get him drugs. Whitey says the "story behind the story" is that Goldman wanted drugs the night Nicole died and that she had told him, "I can't get them anymore." Somehow that was supposed to mean that OJ couldn't have killed his ex-wife.

That may not prove OJ's innocence but it should prove that I'm not making this story up.

After a few more stories which were too incoherent for me to follow he had finally said enough. "Let me tell you one thing."

"What's that?"

"I had a good curveball."

"Yes, you did."

"Thanks, pal. Goodbye."

"You're welcome. Good night."

I'll probably never know if the sick, drunk old man I spoke to happened also to be a Hall of Fame baseball player. I do think that my sitting there and listening to him pour his heart out made him feel better.

Like Whitey's stories, this one doesn't seem to have a point. I just thought you might want to hear it.

Take care,
John McQ John

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