Hoyt Opens Up About Alcoholism : Says He Is Happy and Ready to Pitch

As he sat in the clubhouse Wednesday, LaMarr Hoyt sipped a soda, not a beer.

He said: “Are there a lot of people out there waiting for me?”

There were.

So he got up and did what he didn’t really want to do: Talk for the first time publicly about being an alcoholic.

But, in this new LaMarr Hoyt era, the theme is “Be open with your feelings.” He walked outside to the dugout, to a group of 30 writers and broadcasters, and he handled the issues with ease.

He spoke:

About alcoholism.

“The more I’ve learned about it, it’s basically a hereditary problem,” he said. “If you’ve ever had anybody in your own family, whether it be your father, your grandfather, your great grandfather or your mother. It’s in the genes.”

And it is in Hoyt’s genes. His parents were divorced when he was 6 months old. His father, Dewey, was awarded custody, but his mother, Norma, kidnapped the baby and took him with her to California. Dewey eventually stole LaMarr back, but he quit his job in the meantime and dropped LaMarr off to live with his sister, Margaret Hiller.

Dewey became an alcoholic.

“Like I said, it’s in your genes,” LaMarr Hoyt said Wednesday. “If you ever get drunk in your life once, you’re considered an alcoholic. . . . My first drink? When I was 18 years old. See, that’s the thing I’ve found out also. I had carried and harbored a lot of resentment and anger toward my father. He had given me over to my aunt to live with, and I kind of didn’t like that.

“And the hardest thing for me probably was coming up on the first day of school every year. . . . We had to stand up, tell everybody your name and what your mother and father did. It was a rather difficult situation for me. I found I had a way of keeping a lot of things inside of me as far as feeling and emotions.”

About recovery.

He told of how he was persuaded to enter the Hazelden Foundation in Minnesota. He’d been detained at the San Ysidro border for possession of Valium tablets, Quaaludes and marijuana, and the news got back to the Padres. Team President Ballard Smith told him not to do such a thing again.

But he did. That very night, Feb. 18, he was arrested for possession of marijuana and a switchblade knife. Suddenly, the Padres and Hoyt’s attorney, Ron Shapiro, began telling him to get help.

Hoyt thought that was silly.

“Denial? I was the No. 1 prospect as far as denial (of a drinking problem) was concerned.”

Shapiro was calling him every day. He told Hoyt that he’d have his own private room at Hazelden, his own private phone, access to athletic facilities.

It wasn’t true.

But they had to get him in there.

Eventually, Shapiro just told Hoyt to leave spring training in Yuma and go home to San Diego. That was on Feb. 27. Hours after he returned home, Bob Fredricks of owner Joan Kroc’s Operation CORK, was knocking on his door. They left then for the airport.

“That was probably the best way to handle someone like me, to get me there before I realized what was going on,” Hoyt said.”

Smith met them at the airport.

“It was right outside the gate,” Hoyt said. “He (Smith) told that the policy of the organization is that once (you’re involved in substance abuse), you’re allowed to go through a treatment center. And the second time, you will be dealt with in a more harsh manner. He said they had a policy here. You can’t mess up again. And I think that’s only fair.”

It took him 10 to 12 days to realize it was all worthwhile.

“Well, when you have a drinking problem . . . you don’t think your problem is to the degree of a lot of others,” Hoyt said. “To me, I always thought of an alcoholic like the guy you see on the street. But then when you’re in there and in that type of situation, you understand it can happen to anybody. I was in there with lots of doctors and lawyers. There was a judge in there, people from Great Britain, Sweden . . .”

About the reality that he could suffer a relapse.

“Oh, I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” he said. “I’m not going to go back (on alcohol). . . I guess, I can’t say I will or I won’t. Again, that’s something in the future. But I know, myself, that this the first time in my life I feel like I’ve had the opportunity to be in touch with my true emotions and feelings. I like myself right now. I’m happy for the first time I can ever remember, and I’d like to stay this way.”

Not about personal problems that may have led him to alcohol.

Hoyt would not discuss his pending divorce, or his upcoming court case involving the possession charges or why he had all those Valium tablets with him.

But he did say that a serious shoulder injury (tendinitis of the right rotator cuff) he suffered last year played with his psyche.

“I’d say it had a great deal (of impact), because I’d never had an injury before. I didn’t know if I’d ever pitch again in the manner that I was used to. . . . I didn’t know how it was going to react over the winter. The last three games I pitched in the season last year, I pitched in a great deal of pain.”

About Peter Ueberroth.

“I was told to talk to the commissioner (Ueberroth),” he said. “. . . And we do have a meeting set up for the first time he’s here or when we go through New York.”

About pitching.

He is having no problem with fastballs, but his breaking balls are a little wild. He’s scheduled to pitch in one of the Padres’ exhibition games this weekend in Las Vegas.

“I’m throwing the ball about as well as I ever have,” he said.

About his teammates.

“I was concerned at first,” Hoyt said. “. . . The one thing they kept telling me (at Hazelden) was that I’d find out who my true friends were once I left. And I’m happy to say I’ve found out I have 24 friends on this team.”

About taking it slowly.

“It’s just a simple matter of taking it one day at a time--maybe an hour at a time or a minute at a time if that’s necessary,” he said. “The only thing I’m concerned with today is getting today over with and keeping myself straight throughout the rest of the day.”

About opening up to his fellow man.

“I have a tendency to be a bit of an introvert, keep things stuffed down. It’s been a consistent pattern with me since I was 6 months old. Now, that pattern’s over. . . . If you let things build inside, you’re asking for problems. If not right then, later on.”

Like a volcano about to burst?

“Exactly,” Hoyt said. “That’s kind of the way I was most of my life.”

About drinking no beer.

“I find you can substitute different things--a Seven-Up or a lemonade,” he said.

He went inside and had another soda.