Fountain Valley : Ex-Pitcher Odom Begins Serving 90-Day Sentence

Former Major League pitcher John (Blue Moon) Odom on Thursday began serving his 90-day sentence at the county’s Theo Lacy jail facility in Orange, a jail spokeswoman said.

The 41-year-old former Oakland A’s pitcher was originally booked into the main men’s jail in downtown Santa Ana, but later was transferred to the facility in Orange at his request.

The Fountain Valley man was sentenced Sept. 5 for selling two grams of cocaine to a fellow worker more than 15 months earlier.

Odom did not immediately begin serving his jail term because Superior Court Judge David H. Brickner gave him 30 days to seek help for a drinking problem first.

Odom was convicted July 31 of selling cocaine twice--on May 17 and May 24, 1985--to Willie Harris, a co-worker at a now-defunct Xerox computer plant in Irvine. Odom lost his job at the plant after his arrest and has not been employed since.

At the sentencing, a distraught and sobbing Odom told the judge that he was innocent and pleaded for leniency before his sentence was announced. Odom could have received up to six years in prison for the two counts of selling cocaine.

“I’d like to get on with my life,” he told Brickner at the time.

Odom, who pitched in the World Series in 1972, 1973 and 1974, will be on probation for five years after he completes the 90-day jail term.