For Wills, Basepaths Led To Private Hell -- Life After Baseball, Says Maury Wills, Is The Real Big Leagues

LOS ANGELES - Maury Wills was about to tee off at Los Coyotes Golf Course when he saw a camera crew trudging toward him.

It was Dodger Day at the Buena Park course, that October day in 1972. So Wills thought the camera crew was coming to interview him, to get a look at his swing. You know, do one of those cute features.

Wills hit a strong drive down the middle of the fairway and when he looked up, the camera was rolling. Feeling proud, he strode to the microphone.

``Maury,'' the reporter said, ``you've just been released by the Dodgers. Do you have any comments?''

Wills was shaken. He said all of the right things, but the words didn't come from the heart.

This was exactly the way Wills had not wanted it to happen.

Hadn't the Los Angeles Dodgers assured him they would tell him in advance, that he wouldn't find out from the media, or from a car radio? Maybe he would even have a news conference, as Willie Mays and other players had. Hadn't the Dodgers assured him of that?

And then, resentment set in.

``The best years of my life, genetically speaking, were when I was young, productive and strong, performing away at life and trying to perfect something,'' Wills said of being released.

``But for the amount of time I really enjoyed, the rewards are very few. And now, I'm on my way down, going through hell, trying to hold on as an older player. And now, I'm out of the game and I'm trying to make this transition, and they don't need me anymore.

``Some baseball players, after their career, go on to have nice, normal, productive lives, but a lot of us fall prey to disaster, because (life after baseball) is the (real) big leagues.''

Wills spent 8 1/2 years in the minor leagues before he made it to the majors. In 1959, he was called up by the Dodgers to replace injured shortstop Don Zimmer, now the Chicago Cubs' manager. The Dodgers traded him to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1967, and he also played 47 games for the Montreal Expos before returning to the Dodgers in 1969.

For as hard as Wills worked at being a player, however, he has struggled far more since his playing days. Mainly, merely trying to deal with life.

Sometimes, merely trying to get through a day.

``If I could do it all over again I might change it and be something else. If I could look in a crystal ball, maybe I wouldn't have worked so hard to be as good as I was. Maybe it wouldn't have been so important to me to win. Because the reward of the ring and the World Series share does not measure up to the disaster that I have been through.''

- Maury Wills, Jan. 18, 1990.

It wasn't as though he became impoverished, unless poverty is measured as a lack of contentment. By 1981, Maury Wills had none.

As a ballplayer, Wills had been the most exciting thing on the base paths since Jackie Robinson. In 1962, Wills won the league's Most Valuable Player award when he stole 104 bases, breaking Ty Cobb's record of 96 set in 1915. Most baseball experts agree that Wills' baserunning style revived base stealing as a major offensive weapon in the game and made him a legend in the sport.

His next endeavor, as a broadcaster, was also successful. He was a baseball commentator with NBC for six years and then spent another year as the co-host for his own show on HBO.

And in 1980, his boyhood dream of being a manager came true, with the Seattle Mariners. This time, however, Wills was not a success. And when he was fired by Seattle after 82 games, on May 6, 1981, Wills says he became a drug user.

For 3 1/2 years, Wills rarely ventured from his bedroom, the master suite in his 14-room house in Playa Del Rey. He sat alone, day after day, in darkness, using drugs and alcohol. Somehow, cocaine made him feel right, and made everybody else wrong.

At night, he stared at the Pacific Ocean through the big bay window in his bedroom until he saw imaginary people looking in on him. Then he put the blankets up, leaving them there all day to keep the sunshine out.

Sometimes, when things got real bad, he would find some old black and white photographs of himself as a ballplayer, and, in the stillness of the night, he could even hear the cheers.

But the cheers had long since turned to jeers and criticism. As a manager, he had not only failed in the won-lost column, but in his ability to communicate with his players, coaches and the media. He had been erratic and troubled, and it reflected on his performance.

Wills now says his troubles were triggered by a broken romance. He says the love of his life, whom he declined to identify, broke up with him and ran off with another ballplayer, someone Wills had introduced her to. It made him crazy. He couldn't concentrate, and he was obsessed by it.

``I'll never forget,'' Wills said. ``I was in Milwaukee in this big suite in the hotel. There were rooms all over the place and I'm the major league manager, and I cried myself to sleep all night long. Everyone I called back here in California that I needed to talk to, I couldn't reach. I couldn't reach her.

``This is a time when my disease is surfacing, I'm getting into depression now . . . and my irregular behavior is beginning to develop and is coming on.''

``So now I go back (to Los Angeles) and the season is over and I can't find her, and I went crazy all winter.''

Shortly after spring training began, in 1981, Wills learned that the woman had run off with the ballplayer. He says that pushed him over the edge.

Wills says he also became ``acquainted'' with the drug scene that winter before spring training. But he says he did not start using drugs until after he was fired by Seattle, three weeks into the regular season.

Humiliated and embarrassed, Wills locked himself up in his house.

Then in August 1983, Fred Claire, executive vice president of the Dodgers, and Don Newcombe, former Dodger pitcher, took Wills to a substance-abuse center. Wills didn't want to be recognized, so he registered under an assumed name, Donald Claire.

``I had been there about 10 days, and I wasn't really participating, I was just there,'' Wills said. ``The first time that I was in a group discussion with other patients, I wouldn't look the leader in the eye, because I didn't want to talk.

``Well, it was finally my turn to talk. I got a lump in my throat and tears welled up in my eyes and I stood up and said, `First of all, I have to admit to you that my name really isn't Donald Claire.' And the whole group looked up and said, `No kidding, Maury!' ''

It was a 28-day program, but Wills lasted only 25. He went back to his house and locked himself up. And when he ventured out, he got into trouble.

On Dec. 27, 1983, Wills, driving a car that had been reported as stolen, was stopped and arrested for possessing an estimated $7 worth of cocaine. The auto theft charge was dropped by the car's owner, reportedly a friend of Wills, who said she had not known that Wills had borrowed her car.

On April 7, 1984, the drug-possession charge was dismissed because of insufficient evidence. But the damage was done.

``People say, `Oh yeah, he's OK now. Well, how long is that going to last?' That is so cruel. There are no guarantees. I am fighting the greatest battle of my life now, and maybe it's what I need to keep me busy. It's an every-day, all-day job. I'll never get well, I'll only get better.

- Maury Wills

Maury Wills says he is clean today, clean as in drug- and alcohol-free, and he says he has been clean for six consecutive months. He says that is the longest time he has been clean since he started using drugs in 1981.

That first trip to the care center was the beginning of many such trips for Wills, who is now tested weekly at the Community Health Projects clinic and is in therapy with Dr. Joan Elvidge. The Dodgers pay Wills' rehabilitation expenses, and weekly reports are sent to Claire.

Wills is working as a public relations agent for Cellular Dynamics Telephone Company in Inglewood. He plays golf, has lunch and sign autographs for clients. He says he feels a part of the work team, the first time he has ever felt a part of any group.

``I never felt a part of it as a major league baseball star, '' Wills said. ``I had 90,000 people in the Coliseum cheering, `Go! Go! Go!' and at Dodger Stadium there were 56,000 and another 2,000 in the parking lot waiting for my autograph after the game. And I've gone home and cried myself to sleep.

``That's why it's so important to me to show I am really involved with this company. I'm not somebody they (the company) are exploiting, putting out there and pasting up like with so many athletes - with car dealerships and such. It's not like that here at all.''

Wills, along with Mike Celizic, a writer for the Bergen (N.J.) Record, is also writing a book that is expected to be published in June.

At 57, Wills appears to be as fit as ever. He still has that gray patch of hair in front, but now it blends in better.

More important, Wills says, for maybe the first time in his life, he is finding happiness.

``Somewhere along the line, I left God, He didn't leave me,'' said Wills, whose father was a Baptist minister. ``When I played, I used to thank God for every stolen base, every hit.

``Now, as long as I have God with me, to guide me and love me, as long as I stay in contact with God, I will love myself and be good to myself this time, and not let myself fall prey to things again.

``I know how to recognize danger signs of things that are not good for me and I don't involve myself with it. I go into things now with my partner, my higher power.''