Have Glove, Will Travel_ Adventures of a Baseball Vagabond - Bill Lee [21]
Pam and I had flown to Caracas after Ozzie Virgil invited me to play for the Tiburones de La Guaira, a team he managed in the Venezuela League. Ozzie had coached third base for Dick Williams when I pitched for the Expos. He was a shrewd baseball man who acted as liaison between the players and their manager. Williams could not have functioned long without Ozzie’s assistance. Dick possessed all the talents of a great manager. He knew how to utilize the strengths of every player on his roster and was a master at getting the advantage during key pitcher-hitter matchups in the late innings of a ballgame.
What he did not know was how to tactfully deal with people. When a player screwed up, Dick thought nothing of humiliating him in front of the entire team. I remember a game during the 1980 season when John D’Acquisto, a relief pitcher the Expos had just acquired from the San Diego Padres, could not find his control. He fell behind in the count to nearly every batter he faced. We lost that day, and Dick raged for hours afterward. He berated John in the dugout, in the clubhouse, on the team bus. I think he tailed D’Acquisto into the bathroom to remind him of his shortcomings.
John sat mute throughout the roving tirade, and his passivity galled Williams all the more. The Expos had to catch a flight following the game for the start of a road trip. As we boarded our plane, Dick intensified his attack. “Jesus Christ,” he growled in a voice that carried down the aisles, “you come out of the bullpen, you’re supposed to throw strikes. You afraid to put the ball over the plate? We should have traded for your fucking wife. She’s probably the only one with any balls in your family.”
He called John “Mrs. D’Acquisto,” a taunt he continued until the pitcher ran to the rear of the plane to escape. We found John in the galley a few minutes later. He refused to return to his seat. If he could have opened a door, I think he would have stepped out. We were only thirty-two thousand feet in the air at the time.
Whenever Williams reamed a player that ferociously, Ozzie commiserated with the victim afterward and applied a much-needed ego massage. We could bring our grievances to him knowing he would present them to Dick without creating a rumpus or inviting retribution. Ozzie also kept our team entertained during games with his singular style for flashing signs. He would sashay down the coach’s box, his hands flowing with all the rhythm of a mambo king. Ozzie would finish his signals by swinging his hips and tossing his arms to the side like Jackie Gleason exiting from the stage with “Away we go!” Our coach exhibited so much versatility, he could call for a bunt while simultaneously flirting with any attractive women sitting in the box seats.
Ozzie and I respected each other, and he knew what a stint in the Venezuela League could mean for me: a way back. Many top players from the American major leagues competed in the VL. If I could distinguish myself pitching against them, perhaps some freethinking general manager in the States would ignore my past and offer me a contract. My next birthday would make me thirty-six. This would probably be my last chance.
Pam and I arrived in Venezuela the third week of November 1983. The Tiburones had agreed to pay me $2,000 a month plus living expenses. We should have asked the team to include air-conditioned clothing among the perks. Our plane left Montreal in an ice storm. When the passengers disembarked in Maiquetia Airport on the north shore of Venezuela, we stepped into a microwave—104 degrees that pressed down on the city with the force of 140. A column of heat trapped the jet fuel fumes close to the ground; I could smell the threat of combustion. Whole sections of the tarmac had puddled into black ooze. If you did not watch where you stepped, you could wind