Blue Skies Again? : After Ordeal, Ex-Pitching Star, 35, Tries to Regain Control of His Life and Career

He wears uniform No. 61, signifying that he was the last player invited to the San Francisco Giants’ training camp.

It also seems to reflect the possibility that this is a last chance, a final opportunity to resume a major league career that began in 1970, when he was 21.

Now 35 and the winner of 191 games, Vida Blue understands the situation, accepts it and seems happy to get a crack at it.

He is happy to be alive really, although he is taking that, too, a day at a time.

Vida Blue last won a major league game in September, 1982.

He last pitched a major league game in August, 1983. He was released later that month by the Kansas City Royals. His record that season was 0-5.

Seven months later--in late March, 1984--he drew a release of another type.

Blue left a minimum security prison at Fort Worth after serving a 90-day sentence for cocaine possession.

Between the time of his dismissal by the Royals and his late winter sentencing, the culmination of a grand jury investigation, Blue had admitted to himself that he had a problem and had entered Orange County’s CareUnit Hospital for treatment of cocaine and alcohol addictions.

“People talk about hitting rock bottom,” Blue said as he sat at his locker the other day. “I hit it when I was released by the Royals. It may have been the shock treatment that helped lead me to deal with the disease I had.

“I still felt I could pitch, but I recognized the fact that I wouldn’t be of use to any team or myself unless I got better control of my life.

“It was simply a matter of what I was going to do to save it. Chemical abuse is a progressive disease. I didn’t know that then, but I do now. I went to CareUnit because of its reputation. It was a life saver.”

Now, still complying with the requirements of his probation and the program initiated at CareUnit, Blue seems to be saving a career.

He has allowed just one run, five hits and two walks in nine exhibition innings.

Jim Davenport, the new San Francisco manager, said the other day that only a catastrophe could prevent Blue from joining the pitching staff of a team that lost 96 games last year, when it was last in the National League in earned-run average.

General Manager Tom Haller said a decision will probably be made today, when Blue starts against the San Diego Padres.

“He’s pitched well and worked hard,” Haller said. “His chances at this point in time are very good.”

Primarily a starter throughout his career, Blue would be employed in long relief and spot starts.

His goal is to be employed, period.

He has a letter of agreement with the Giants regarding salary, but he has no contract.

“I’m going through all this because I didn’t want to wake up five years from now not knowing if I could have come back,” Blue said. “Getting that contract will be a big thing for me. It’ll be step one. Step two will be going out and doing the job. I can’t worry about what the job is.

“I have to apply the things I’ve learned and deal with life on life’s terms. There’s a trivia question that says a lot about the way it can be.

“It goes like this: ‘Who was the only switch-hitting MVP and Cy Young Award winner who pitched in three consecutive World Series, never won a Series game and was 0-5 one season?’ ”

The living, breathing answer sat in a corner of the Giants’ clubhouse and said:

“I felt my ability was still there when the Royals released me, but I now know that I’ve got to be a better physical specimen because I’m not putting chemicals into my body. My system is still cleaning itself out.

“My attitude then was that I had time to clean up and sober up (between assignments). I had stomach cramps every day. I was slowly destroying all my organs.”

Blue said that he would not discuss the depth or longevity of his drug involvement and that he could only speculate on why he became involved.

He said he was saving all that for a book, or maybe a movie, starring Billy Dee Williams.

“I’ve got to be humble and let somebody else play Vida,” he said.

The truth, of course, is that nobody plays Vida like Vida. He has always been part actor, gliding easily between the worlds of fact and fantasy, wearing his put-on persona.

This spring alone he has told tales of becoming a licensed balloon pilot, of wrestling rattlesnakes on his Northern California ranch, of becoming a complete pitcher by mastering a combination screwball-knuckler-changeup.

Frequently in the past--during nine years as Charlie Finley’s star and whipping boy in Oakland, four more as a valuable starter with the Giants and a final two as a struggling survivor with the Royals--Blue’s acting seemed to be accompanied by dark moods and an intimidating temperament.

Now he seems more open, cheerful, gregarious. He attends group therapy sessions twice a week and seems determined to continue the therapy on the field and in the clubhouse.

He poses for pictures with gray-haired women and wide-eyed youngsters. He chats incessantly while signing autographs. He is consistently accessible to the media, pleasantly answering the same questions over and over, making it seem as if he is filling out his monthly probation report every hour and filing it with ABC, CBS, NBC and ESPN.

In a group interview the other morning with writers from Los Angeles, New York, Cleveland, Indianapolis, San Jose and San Francisco, Blue weaved between fact and fantasy, saying:

--”If this was a nuisance, do you really think I’d tell you to screw off or would I continue using you?”

--”I missed baseball so much last year that I even missed Cleveland.”

--”The response from fans and players has been very positive. I know there are a lot of chemically dependant people out there pulling for me.

“Even opposing players have wished me well. I don’t know whether the whole thing is a farce or they’re genuinely showing their human side. It’s a rare thing for opposing players to wish you good luck. Maybe it’s because they know I’m the guy who keeps throwing them fastballs, fastballs and more fastballs.”

--”If I didn’t feel good about myself physically and mentally, I wouldn’t be out there. If you think you can, you can. Who said that, Confucius or the ayatollah?”

--”Yes, I’m a little surprised at how well I’m throwing because I usually don’t have good springs. What am I throwing? I’m throwing BBs, which are a little bigger than what I threw when I was what they called a 21-year-old phenom. I throw BBs now but I threw periods then.”

--”I did an interview with Jerome Holtzman of the Chicago Tribune. Charlie Finley saw it and called, leaving a message for me to call collect. I called a couple times, but the line was busy. Did I call collect? Definitely. You can’t pass up an opportunity to take advantage of that dude.”

Asked his reaction when he learns of involvement with drugs by other athletes, Blue shook his head and said:

“I have none. I watch the news, and when the news goes off I watch “Jeopardy.” I can’t get involved with other people’s lives. This is a selfish-type program. We’re told that you can’t take another person’s inventory.

“I’m not here to preach. I’m not here to condone or condemn. I did what any intelligent person would do. I sought and received help. I don’t know what the relapse rate is, but I feel that my own problem is under control. I’m involved in recovery. I cope with it every day. I’ve got to worry about Vida Blue Jr.”

Vida Blue Jr. went to jail with Kansas City teammates Willie Aikens, Willie Wilson and Jerry Martin. Aikens, Wilson and Martin had been charged with attempting to buy an illegal substance.

“Don’t make this sound as if we were taken handcuffed into a cold, gray building and the big steel doors clanged shut behind us,” Blue said. “There were no guns, no cells, no spotlights, no watchtowers. It wasn’t a place where you’d find murderers or hardened criminals. It was simply a place where they took away your freedom. I have a better appreciation of what that means now.”

The players there lifted weights and jogged together. Wilson ultimately returned to the Royals. Aikens went to Toronto, Martin to the New York Mets. Thursday was the first anniversary of Blue’s release.

He went from prison to Northern California and a public relations job with a company that produces corrugated cartons. He continued his therapy sessions, worked out twice a week with college or semipro players at Laney College, and attended an occasional game in Oakland or San Francisco. In midsummer, he accepted an invitation to a tryout by the Giants.

At that point, then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn told the Giants and Blue that he was under suspension for the year and could not use major league facilities. Blue said he considered legal action against Kuhn but did not pursue it.

“The other three were playing but I couldn’t,” he said. “It didn’t make sense. How could he suspend a player who wasn’t even officially in the game at that point? It was very frustrating.”

The Giants told him they would call again in the spring and asked him to consider pitching in a winter league. Blue went to Puerto Rico in November.

“I didn’t pitch that well, but I did shake out some of the cobwebs,” he said.

He returned to Northern California in late January. He returned to a phone that was painfully silent and he had to deal with anxieties that were dangerous to his recovery.

Finally, in mid-February, about a week before the opening of camp, the Giants made good on their promise. It was Blue’s only invitation, from any team.

“I consider it beneath me some to have to come on a tryout basis, but I have to be humble about the opportunity,” he said. “Most of the other clubs were too worried about their image to give me a chance.”

Said Haller: “We had liked what we saw last summer and we were satisfied that Vida was complying with the obligations put on him by his probation.”

In his job hunt, Blue has the added security of a recent court decision awarding him about $1.4 million in salary from the Royals, who argued that Blue’s performance had suffered because of drug involvement and that they weren’t liable for the final two years of his contract.

Now Blue hopes to do something about the number on his uniform. He smiled and said: “The number doesn’t hurt. It’s what’s inside the number that counts.”