An
All-Star reliever with the New York Yankees, Duren had been traded the month
before to the expansion Los Angeles Angels when his off-the-field behavior
became increasingly erratic. His new manager, Bill Rigney, saw enough potential
to convert him to a starter.
For a
while, the experiment worked splendidly. Three weeks later, he earned some
revenge against the Bronx Bombers, not only fanning a career-high 12 batters in
eight innings on his way to a 5-3 victory but even uncharacteristically
contributing to his own cause by singling in two runs.
But the
emotional vulnerability afflicting Duren even when batters feared his fastball
returned when he was at his zenith in 1961, while getting ready to play in his third
All-Star game in four years. The news that his two-week old infant son Craig
had died sent Duren on an alcoholic spree that ended his marriage and, four
years and three teams later, his professional career.
In a way, Duren’s notoriously poor eyesight (his Yankee catcher, Yogi Berra, observed, “he had several pair of glasses, but it didn’t seem like he saw good in any of them”) was symbolic.
An alcoholic in deep denial, he did not see how much his drinking
was endangering his performance, his livelihood, his teammates, and his family
for too long. Out of baseball after 1965, he was reduced to a series of
dead-end jobs and living in a flophouse and made two suicide attempts.
Fortunately,
the story of Ryne Duren doesn’t end there. After a 22-month treatment in DePaul
Hospital in Milwaukee, he became sober, and from 1968 to his death at age 81 in 2011, served
as an addiction counselor, advising not only youths about how to avoid or
forsake alcohol and drugs but also many current and former major leaguers.
One, Yankee
teammate Mickey Mantle, was in denial when Duren initially tried to coax him
into recognizing his problem. But when the slugger finally embraced sobriety in
1994, his decision to publicly reveal his registration at the Betty Ford Clinic
was influenced by his fellow ex-carouser’s public example.
“That guy
[Duren] when he was playing ball, was a wreck and he whipped it,” he told
friend Bill Hooten, according to Jane Leavy’s Mantle biography, The Last Boy. “He got around talking, and he does a lot of good. If I can go out
there and come back and the fact that I’ve whipped the drinking can help
somebody else, then sure, I want that known.”
Duren was
one of a small but significant group of ex-ballplayers who, after recognizing
their problem, went on to help others as substance abuse counselors, including,
most prominently, Don Newcombe of the Brooklyn Dodgers, “Sudden Sam” McDowell
of the Cleveland Indians, Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and 1970s
journeyman Michael Jackson. I am sure there are others who played different positions, but all of the people I just mentioned were pitchers.
I became
interested in this subject for several reasons: a couple of friends who are
substance abuse counselors, my long-time fascination with everything related to
the New York Yankees, and my interest in baseball history.
In the case of the latter, I have thought often about another friend who, through his career, has become a mother lode of baseball history. He told me once that the incidence of alcoholism in America’s pastime was high. It was possible, he thought, that as many as one out of four Baseball Hall of Famers had drinking problems.
One, “Big Ed Delahanty,” died from a fall into the Niagara River
after a drunk-and-disorderly incident; other past members, such as Mantle, Babe
Ruth, and Hack Wilson (whom I profiled in this 2010 post), are well known; and more recent ones have not been
publicized, so to protect their privacy I will leave that to disclosures by themselves or their eventual
biographers.
Quantifying substance abuse among past ballplayers is difficult, but my reading indicates that the problem was common.
Any genetic susceptibility to
alcohol was worsened by the environment of past decades: clubhouse drinking as
a means of celebrating or even simply unwinding after games; late-night games
followed by after-hours companionship; travel and isolation from family and
friends on the part of young men who still feel invulnerable; and stressed-out managers in no condition to preach after leaving their own difficulties in the bar.
Today’s
players struggling with addiction, though, benefit from changes in the game and
society since Duren’s time in baseball:
*Alcoholics
Anonymous has become a better known and recognized form of help;
*Awareness
of fitness and nutrition includes substance abuse prevention and recovery, as
well as liquid alternatives such as cherry juice, smoothies, and protein
shakes;
*Baseball’s
collective bargaining agreement has formalized the process of evaluation,
treatment and recovery;
*High
payrolls have increased the incentive for owners and general managers to become
proactive about abuse, including some teams that have banned alcohol use in
clubhouses and on planes;
*Social
media decreases the likelihood that alcohol-fueled indiscretions will be hushed
up and perpetuated;
*The
stigma of admitting to substance abuse has lowered;
*Many
players see marijuana as an acceptable alternative to alcohol.
Other
Yankees had longer, more consequential careers than Duren, but even while
playing—well before his great contributions to substance abuse awareness among
athletes—he had impacted the game as a pitcher.
When he entered
games, the slang used for his position was “fireman,” the relief pitcher
designated to prevent or contain the damage from mound emergencies. Nowadays, with
the use and responsibility of these hurlers refined and defined, they are
called “closers.”
After
being acquired from the Kansas City A’s midseason in 1957, Duren took over the
fireman/closer niche that Joe Page had once occupied for the Yankees. He soon became
a fan favorite, with his routine recounted vividly in Marty Appel’s Yankee
history, Pinstripe Empire:
“…scaling
the low right-field bullpen fence, glancing at the auxiliary scoreboard to
check the situation, tossing the warm-up jacket to the waiting batboy, kicking
the dirt off his spikes against the rubber, and then firing his first warm-up
pitch into the backstop (to frighten the waiting hitter).”
