Big City, Big Troubles : For Padre Pitching Ace Whitson, 18 Months in New York Was a ‘Living Hell’

The San Diego Padres are here to play the Pirates, but the subject is New York, and Ed Whitson has difficulty formulating the proper words to describe the experience.

This is a time in his life that he has longed to forget, a time in which he became closer than anyone would know to quitting baseball.

Sunday was the three-year anniversary of the day he escaped the shackles of playing for the New York Yankees, and for the first time since being traded back to the Padres, Whitson spoke extensively about the 18 months that he described as a “living hell.”

Speaking ever so softly, almost in a whisper, Whitson said: “There wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t fear for my life, or the safety of my family. Every day I went out that door I wondered what would happen to me. I didn’t know if I’d be shot. I didn’t know if somebody’d blow up my car. I didn’t know if somebody’d run me off the road.

“I felt like I was carrying a bull’s-eye on my back, waiting for someone to take that first shot.”

Bizarre as it sounds, Whitson says that if not for his days in Yankee pinstripes, this fantasy season he’s living might not have been possible.

He enters the All-Star break with an 11-6 record, three victories shy of his career best in 1984 and on pace to become the Padres’ first 20-game winner since Gaylord Perry in 1978.

“It’s crazy, isn’t it?” Whitson said in his Tennessee drawl. “The worst time in my life might be responsible for the best time in my life.

“Boy, who would have ever figured?”

It’s the day after Christmas, 1984. Whitson is driving to his Dublin, Ohio, home from the Columbus International Airport, thinking about an offer from Yankee owner George Steinbrenner.

A five-year contract that would guarantee him $4.4 million.

Shoot, the most money he’d ever seen in his life while growing up was the $5,000 the Pittsburgh Pirates offered him out of high school. And now someone wants to provide him financial security for life?

When he reaches home, he tells his wife, Kathleen, of the offer. He knows it sounds crazy to be talking about living in New York, but even a person like himself from the back hills of Tennessee can figure out that $4.4 million over five years is a whole heck of a lot better than the $2.8 million over four years that the Padres are offering to keep him.

In a matter of an hour, he telephones his agent, Tom Reich, who is on a skiing vacation in Utah. The next afternoon, he is a member of the New York Yankees.

Whitson got off to a 1-6 start with the Yankees and was receiving death threats at his home and in the clubhouse. But his real troubles began in the wee hours of the morning of Sept. 22, 1985, when he and Yankee Manager Billy Martin got into a barroom brawl.

The fight started in a hotel bar in Baltimore, went into the lobby, carried into the parking lot and concluded on the fourth floor of their hotel. It remains in Yankee folklore as one of the best knock-down-drag-out fights in team history.

Martin came away with a broken arm.

Whitson was terrified over what Yankee fans would now do to him.

He already was taking every necessary precaution for his family, sending them home to Ohio one day before every trip and having them return one day after he returned, but now he envisioned the worst.

Randy Whitson, Ed’s youngest brother who had been laid off from work at the nuclear plant back in Tennessee for 11 1/2 months and was struggling just to put food on the table, telephoned Eddie the moment he put down the paper. They must have talked for hours, he said, but it was of no use. He had never heard Eddie sound so depressed in all his life.

“I was having problems at the time, plenty of ‘em,” Randy Whitson said. “But mine weren’t . . . compared to Eddie’s. To tell you the truth, I was scared for him.”

Doug Harrison, Whitson’s longtime buddy from Erwin, Tenn., flew to New York.

“All I tried to do was take his mind off it as much as I could,” Harrison said. “But he was pretty miserable. I told him, ‘Look how far you’ve gotten in life. Come on, don’t let something like this stop you.’

“I reminded him that he’s his own person, and there hasn’t been a Whitson that I’ve met yet who isn’t tougher than nails. I remember growing up, you could be walking around town feeling kind of tough, and then all of a sudden you’d have some rocks coming out of nowhere at you. Right away you knew that was one of the Whitson boys from Rock Creek.”

New York is a long way from Rock Creek, though, and the way of life in the Big Apple was something that Whitson never had experienced--and, he vows, he never again will.

Whitson said he could have tolerated the boos night after night. Maybe he could have even overlooked the tacks and nails from irate fans that littered his driveway on occasion. But those threats. Those ugly phone calls. He could not take any more.

“We had guys, FBI agents, in our locker room, in the tunnel and in the dugout,” Whitson said. “Lord knows the game of baseball is big business, but it wasn’t worth risking your life over.

“I was struggling, and I could understand why people were upset, but I refused to take my life in my own hands every time I went out there.”

Whitson’s emotions were in such disarray that Lou Piniella, who became the Yankee manager in 1986, had to completely juggle his pitching staff. Whitson would start only in road games; he’d pitch at Yankee Stadium strictly in relief.

“Even then, it didn’t do any good,” Piniella said. “When he walked to the bullpen, he wouldn’t even walk across the field. He always walked under the stands.

“He just became useless here. Even when I called for him in the bullpen, he’d get real fidgety. He was worrying about everything except getting batters out.

“He got off to a bad start with the fans anyway because he was struggling, and then when they found out they were getting to him, it just snowballed. And once he had the problem with Billy Martin, well, what can I say, he became a basket case.”

Whitson, with no other recourse, turned to Steinbrenner. He asked out. Trade me, he pleaded, please trade me.

“When I signed Ed, I promised him that if things don’t work out, I’d do my damnedest to send him to where he wanted,” Steinbrenner said. “I knew what he was going through. He had problems with Billy Martin, but lots of guys here have had problems with Billy. But all of the other things he was going through, I couldn’t keep him here.

“I know things didn’t work out here for Ed, but never once did he complain. He took his share of slings and arrows, believe me.

“I’ll always respect Ed because he was a real man. He never whimpered to me or made excuses like a lot of these guys do nowadays. He took it all without saying a word.

“I know we didn’t get what we should have in return for Ed, but he’s a tremendous person. Whatever good things come to him in this game he deserves.”

Said Whitson: “A lot of people thought George Steinbrenner was a bad man, but I’ll tell you right now, I’ll respect him to the day. He’s as honest as any man I’ve ever met.”