It’s a Long, Long Way to San Jose : Sconiers Not Only Put Drugs Behind Him but Maybe Major Leagues

Daryl Sconiers said he has a fear of flying, but there is no such thing. What Sconiers and a lot of other nervous airline passengers actually have is a fear of crashing.

The good news for Sconiers is that he hasn’t been forced to fly in several months. That, however, is also the bad news. Sconiers, the former Angel first baseman, is a Bee. A San Jose Bee. But these Bees don’t fly, they travel by bus.

“I don’t miss all those plane trips at all,” Sconiers said recently before a Class-A California League game. “But I miss everything else.”

Sconiers, whose smooth swing prompted Reggie Jackson to once call him “maybe even a better pure hitter than Bill Madlock,” batted .274 with eight home runs as a rookie in 1983 after hitting .370 and .354 in two Triple-A seasons. Madlock is a two-time National League batting champion.

Sconiers, who suffered knee and back injuries in 1984 with the Angels limiting him to just 57 games, showed up 17 days late to training camp in 1985. He and the Angels hastily called a news conference and identified Sconiers’ troubles as a “substance problem.” Neither would elaborate.

He missed the first two months of the season while he underwent treatment at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center at the Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood. He played sparingly behind veteran Rod Carew when he rejoined the team, but finished with a .286 batting average.

Then, in December, the Angels gave him the boot.

Today, “Wally World” banners decorate Anaheim Stadium in tribute to sensational rookie first baseman Wally Joyner. Three hours up the freeway, at Ventura College Stadium, Sconiers, 27, is informed by a public address announcer that he or any other Bee will win a free meal if they can hit a ball over the Santino’s Pizza sign painted on the left-field fence.

He said no major league teams have contacted him. And so he waits. And waits.

“When I first got to San Jose I said I’d give it a month,” he said. “Then I said I’d give it a month and a half. It’s been two months now and I’m still here. I try not to think about it, but that’s not easy. I haven’t perfected that yet.”

Sconiers was among a group of former major league players who signed this season with the Bees, a non-affiliated team. Others were former Dodgers Steve Howe and Derrel Thomas, former Oakland A’s pitcher Mike Norris and former St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Ken Reitz. Of that group, only Reitz and Sconiers remain with the Bees. The others have either quit, been released, or suspended.

Sconiers was in the Bees’ lineup less than a week after arriving in San Jose. With no spring training, he got off to a slow start. But in the last two weeks he has been hitting the ball hard and has lifted his batting average to .303 in 33 games.

“I think it’s obvious that Daryl is different than most of these guys,” Bees’ Manager and President Harry Steve said. “All you have to do is watch that swing. It’s easy to tell that he’s a major leaguer. Real easy.”

Sconiers wonders, if it is so easy to tell that, why he is still a San Jose Bee, forced to wear a gray uniform with bright yellow letters and numbers that make each player appear to have collided with a hot dog, heavy on the mustard.

“This is not a good feeling,” he said. “I think about it every day. People look at me and say, ‘It’s the drugs,’ but they don’t know what’s going on with me. I know.”

Sconiers said he’s through with drugs and alcohol, but that another problem still lingers. It is a personal problem, he said, and he will not discuss it. Before admitting to substance problems in 1985, Sconiers endured a stressful divorce, according to teammates. He hints that his current feelings may still contain some of that hurt.

Additionally, his brother, Mike, 29, died two weeks ago. He drowned in a swimming pool in Los Angeles. Daryl returned for the funeral.

“My own family won’t talk to me since the drug thing,” he said. “I’m dirt cheap to them. I don’t blame them. They warned me. They told me when I was young that if I ever got into that kind of problem, not to expect people to have any mercy or to understand. They warned me. They were right.”

And he waits.

“No one has called. No offers. Nothing,” he said. “Not even Triple-A. Maybe they’re punishing me. If they are, they’ve made their point.”

Sconiers was named earlier this year by Major League Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth as one of several major league players with “well-documented” evidence of drug use during their playing careers. Ueberroth divided players suspected of drug use during previous years in three groups, with the first group having the most evidence against them and the third having little or none. Sconiers, along with Vida Blue, Dickie Noles, Rod Scurry, Tim Raines and Alan Wiggins appeared in the third group. They were not suspended or fined, but required to participate in drug testing. Harry Steve confirmed that Sconiers has been drug-tested this season.

Sconiers, who stepped forward with his problem last spring, has not failed to notice that others such as group one offenders, Joaquin Andujar and Keith Hernandez, and others like them, are alive and well in the major leagues. And they did not come forward of their own free will.

“If I knew then what I know now, I probably wouldn’t have stepped forward like I did. I asked for help, and I got it. But then I got this,” Sconiers said as he motioned toward the minor league field on the college campus.

“I didn’t know what to do. I knew I needed help. I felt I did the best thing at the time. Now I’m not so sure.”

Said Manager-President Steve: “At this point, it’s just a matter of anyone wanting to take a chance on him. Really, it’s not much of a chance, in my opinion. His troubles are behind him, and they know he can play major league baseball. He’s the same Daryl Sconiers that he was three or four or five years ago. He just had some personal problems. But he’s over them.”

Sconiers spent the 1979 season in this same California League, playing for Salinas. Six seasons have passed, and he’s seeing many of the same ballparks again.

“The guys on this team are very serious,” he said. “It’s do or die for them. They want to play in the major leagues so bad. I look at them and I look back. I see a lot of me.

“I guess I’m paying the price for my mistake. If I never make it back to the majors, then I’ve paid a pretty severe price, haven’t I?”