Even in Prison, He Can’t Get the Game Out of His System : Drugs: Bill Simpson was a baseball star at Lakewood High, but he failed to make the big leagues and was jailed for selling cocaine. Now he wants to serve his time doing community service.

Veterans Field is a dusty, wind-swept softball field at the Federal Prison Camp here in the Mojave Desert--about as far removed from the major leagues as one can get.

But for Bill Simpson, once a No. 1 draft pick of the Texas Rangers, it is the only link he has left.

Players come and go in the camp softball league here, as most of the 500 inmates serve short sentences. Simpson, however, began his fourth softball season recently. At 32, he is serving a 10-year sentence for drug trafficking in what a federal prosecutor called “one of the biggest cocaine importation rings in the United States.”

“Ball,” as he calls it, once was his future. Now he lives for it.

“It kills a good six months quick,” he said.

When he was signed out of Lakewood High School in 1976, Simpson, at 6 feet 2 and 175 pounds, fit the mold of the modern outfielder: good speed and range, strong arm.

The Rangers offered him what was believed to be one of the largest bonuses given to a prep player after he helped lead the Lancers to the CIF Southern Section 4-A championship his senior year. But in two seasons in the club’s farm system, he never hit more than .206.

Simpson has become a fixture in this all-dirt outfield, a sort of folk hero to both inmates and staff. That is of little consequence, he said.

“Freedom is the most precious thing in life,” he said. “This has been a rude awakening.”

Simpson says it would be better if he served his time doing community service, speaking out against drug use. He plans to tell the state parole board that at his next hearing in November.

“Education is the only way you can win this drug war,” he said. “This interdiction thing just isn’t going to do a thing.”

Simpson refused to cooperate with authorities in their investigation of the smuggling ring, and because of that he said he believes he is being used as an example. He could be jailed for another four years, even though the presiding judge acknowledged Simpson’s “lack of prior criminal history” before sentencing him.

By all accounts, Simpson never used cocaine. But he did help sell it.

The drug ring imported several tons of cocaine into the United States from 1983 to 1986. When the government broke the case, the Sacramento Bee called the 30-count indictment, “a scenario worthy of TV’s ‘Miami Vice.’ ”

It’s a tale of fancy cars and suitcases full of money, an addiction to nice clothes, beautiful women and the feeling that comes with handling hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single transaction.

It’s also the saga of failure by what Simpson’s high school baseball coach called a “Walter Mitty type,” a player from a blue-collar neighborhood thrust into the spotlight by a professional baseball system that is not sensitive to immaturity.

“Being the No. 1 draft choice, he had farther to fall,” said former Lakewood Coach John Herbold, now at Cal State Los Angeles. “Bill had a lot of tools. He was at the top of the Empire State Building. That’s a long way down.”

The morning after he graduated from high school, Simpson and his parents were flown to Texas. He was introduced to the media and signed a contract at a news conference. That afternoon, he was issued a uniform and worked out with the major league club. He spent three more weeks there, but did not play in a game. He was sent to the Rangers’ double-A club in Sarasota, Fla., and never made it back.

Three years of anemic minor league statistics led to releases from the Rangers, Mets and Padres.

Simpson’s reported 1976 signing bonus, estimated to be worth between $70,000 and $125,000, depending on incentive clauses, was squandered on poor investments.

Other personal problems plagued him. In October of 1976, his mother left his father. He has not seen her since. Two years later, his girlfriend, whom he wanted to marry, left him. And when he returned from 1979 spring training with the Padres, he was virtually broke.

But Simpson, according to a probation report, was “a young, immature individual accustomed to a fast, easy lifestyle.”

He moved into a house overlooking the water in South Laguna and solicited part-time jobs with high-profile land developers. He told friends he was in the real estate business, but in reality he was mostly a gofer. He studied for, but never took, the test for his state real estate exam.

He said he smoked marijuana and played a lot of golf. Golf kept him hobnobbing with developers, bankers and businessmen, yet it failed to land him the high-paying job he sorely wanted.

Four years later, Simpson became a money courier for an international drug ring.

Said Milwaukee Brewer scout Tony Muser, who befriended Simpson when Simpson was a teen-ager in Lakewood: “Bill got money from baseball at an early stage in his life and he had seen a high level of living. It was a grinding necessity for him to maintain that level when he left baseball. He needed something to keep him going and he made a mistake.”

When Simpson showed up at a signing ceremony with the Rangers, Herbold noticed that Simpson was more dapper than ever.

“Clothes were always important to him. At the signing, he had on this fancy suit and he had just hired an agent,” he said.

Herbold said he expected something like that.

“Bill had a tendency to live in a dream world. He would have been better off if he had been picked in the 10th round. It was too much pressure for him to take.”

Simpson’s probation report described him as a better-than-average student at Lakewood. However, Simpson said, “When there were (girls) and baseball, there wasn’t much time for anything else.”

Lakewood defeated Long Beach Jordan, 5-3, for the Southern Section title at Anaheim Stadium in June, 1976, on a controversial play involving Simpson, who collided with the Jordan catcher at the plate on a relay throw from the outfield. Simpson’s jarring slide impressed pro scouts and irritated the Jordan coach, who claimed runner’s interference. It occurred in the top of the seventh inning and broke a 3-3 tie. It made front-page headlines in a Long Beach paper, along with a series of photos showing Simpson plowing into home plate.

What most people didn’t realize, however, was that when Simpson rounded third base, coach Matty Lampson told him to stop. Simpson ignored him.

“I just ran right through the stop sign,” Simpson said.

Simpson contends his fast-paced lifestyle was frowned upon by some of baseball’s old guard, and that contributed to his downfall more than anything else.

Perhaps the expectations of both major league baseball and Simpson were too high from the start. Although Simpson batted .326 and was named All-Southern Section in 1976, he was not well-known until his senior season. In fact, he played on the junior varsity team the two previous years.

When Simpson arrived at the Rangers’ double-A club at Sarasota, Fla., in 1976, Coach Joe Klein, now the assistant farm director for the Kansas City Royals, discovered that he had “the typical high school rookie problems. . . . (He didn’t know the strike zone), and it was his first time away from home.”

Simpson’s statistics weren’t impressive. He hit .130 in 44 games that year with Sarasota. In 1977 the Rangers sent him to their Class-A affiliate in Asheville, N.C., where he hit .206 in 25 games. He was recalled to Sarasota but in 31 games batted .141.

“He had better-than-average ability,” Klein said. “He never played anywhere near his potential.”

The Texas farm system was intolerable, Simpson said.

“The coaching staff made me feel insecure. . . . We had an on-going verbal battle. At my age, it was very disturbing. There was a lot of back-stabbing going on.”

Simpson was traded to the Mets, but a year later, after a brief stop in Tidewater, Va., he was released. The Padres signed him but also released him.

Simpson returned home and played slow-pitch softball with friends. According to friends, he often smoked marijuana before games. He was involved in several fights. In one bench-clearing brawl broken up by the police, Simpson had to be restrained by a teammate.

“I’m not making any excuses for the way I used to be,” Simpson said. “I wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination.”

Simpson said he regrets not having realized the potential harm he caused by selling drugs.

“I never thought about the other end of it,” he said.

Michael Dawson loved to fly. He bought a fleet of jet helicopters, a seaplane and a Lear jet. He loved yachts and fancy cars. He had homes in Dallas, Key Biscayne, Fla., and a ranch in Oroville, Calif.

And he liked Bill Simpson, because, according to a presentencing report, Dawson found it easy to manipulate Simpson.

Simpson, in turn, liked Dawson’s flashy lifestyle.

In late 1983, Dawson invited Simpson to cruise the coast off Santa Barbara in one of his yachts, where Simpson agreed to become a partner in a cocaine ring.

Simpson traveled the world with Dawson, but his business dealings, he says, were limited strictly to the United States and no evidence in court was presented to contradict him. Simpson claims that he never transported money outside the United States, which could have led to a stiffer sentence.

Said Simpson’s attorney, Robert Wilson of Sacramento: “I’m not aware of anything that made him more than a casual acquaintence of Dawson. He was part time at best. If, for nothing more, Dawson liked to have Bill around because Bill could attract women.”

Dawson received 70 years in prison without possibility of parole. On April 2, his motion to reduce his sentence was denied by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. He is being held at a prison in Phoenix.

According to U.S. Attorney Thomas Couris and the probation report, Simpson would pick up money at various locations in the country, hop a plane and buy stashes of cocaine that he would deliver to Dawson. Dawson often flew one of his planes into airports in Long Beach or Orange County to meet with Simpson and transact business.

In his long-distance travels with Dawson, who usually piloted a Lear jet, Simpson claims to have seen cocaine labs in operation in the jungles of Colombia and bags of the drug being loaded on planes headed for the United States from air bases in Nicaragua.

There were also sordid nights in sunken-living room hot tubs and parties in some of Key Biscayne’s most posh homes, according to Simpson. It was Dawson’s passion for flying that brought the smuggling ring down. In September of 1985, while carrying a cache that included $2 million in cash, 17 kilos of cocaine, a hand weapon and silencer, Dawson’s jet helicopter crashed in the desert near Las Vegas. Dawson and a female passenger, described by Simpson as a prostitute, were hospitalized, but survived.

In July of 1986, a 30-count indictment was issued, naming 11 people, including Simpson, who had fled to Ireland when hearing about the Dawson crash.

Simpson, according to his attorney, had long since left the ring. He had no criminal history and was difficult for the DEA to locate.

When Simpson returned to the United States in the spring of 1986, he moved from place to place.

“I had a different phone number on him each week,” said a friend.

When Simpson finally surrendered to authorities in Sacramento in September of 1986, he said he passed DEA agents in the hall of the federal building who were assigned to find him.

They almost caught him a year earlier. While carrying $20,000 in a satchel, Simpson was stopped at Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport by DEA agents. They found a marijuana cigarette in his shirt pocket, which led them to search his belongings.

Simpson told authorities he was carrying the cash to buy goods for a clothing business in which he had a part interest. According to Wilson, Simpson was cited for possessing a small amount of marijuana and released, but the money was later used as evidence against him.

Simpson and Dawson had had a falling out by then. Dawson, according to court documents, claims Simpson owed him money and threatened harm to Simpson and members of his family. In the probation report, Simpson claims a pair of “Colombian guys” followed him for weeks, then told him in a bar that “they had been instructed to tell me that I was either to pay up in seven days or they were to ‘collect’ me.”

When Simpson was arrested in Dallas, the $20,000 he was carrying was supposed to be a payoff to Dawson. According to court documents: “Simpson advises he wanted out, but Dawson would not let him out, saying he owed him money.”

In December of 1986, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Garcia accepted Simpson’s guilty plea to one count of conspiring to distribute cocaine and two counts of illegal use of a telephone to further a conspiracy.

Because the government said he handled somewhere between five and 10 kilograms of cocaine, Simpson could have been sentenced to 23 years in a maximum security prison and a $750,000 fine. Couris said 19 years would do. Simpson, who listed a car worth $10,000 as his only asset, thought he might get probation.

Garcia, according to newspaper reports, admitted Simpson’s lack of criminal history, but then sentenced him to a 10-year prison term.

This isn’t a prison, it’s a camp carved out of a former military radar installation. There are no cells, just old barracks scaling the foothills of the Eastern Sierra with a pristine view of the Mojave to the east.

Inmates, of which 80% are white, have a lot of freedom. Many are kept here in protective custody because they turned state’s evidence. Simpson, who refused to cooperate with the government, says he stays away from those inmates.

During the week, Simpson works at a Marine golf course near Barstow, for which he is paid 11 cents an hour. When he isn’t playing softball on the weekends, he is a lifeguard at the camp pool.

“This isn’t a picnic,” he said. “But it could be a whole lot worse.”

More than half the inmates in Boron are serving time for drug-related offenses. The remainder are here on fraud, larceny or tax violations. Many, like Simpson, work somewhere other than the camp during the day. All are required to take monthly drug tests.

Visiting rights are fairly loose. On weekends the visiting area, which includes a playground and sand box, is crawling with kids.

Simpson met his fiancee, Toni Marlow, here, while she was on a visit to see her father, who was serving time for phone fraud. She says she plans to marry Simpson at the prison if he is not released in the next two years. Simpson calls that “doubtful.”

“I have better plans than walking down the aisle of a prison chapel,” he said.

Simpson argues that he has done his time and that the war on drugs would be better served if he were paroled to speak against drug use.

“I’ve learned my lesson,” he said. “Being here is a warehouse effect. They’re just holding onto me. I think I could be used in a different capacity.”

He has much support, including baseball people, such as Muser, and law enforcement officer Mike White, who say that Simpson, has a natural gift of being able to work with children, one that the government should put to its use.

“(The government’s reason for keeping Simpson) is naive-type philosophy,” said White, a 20-year veteran of the Long Beach Police Department. He met Simpson while playing softball in Seal Beach a decade ago. “They have a chance to use him to their advantage. Here’s a guy that could stand up in front of a group of kids and (tell it like it is about drugs).”

Simpson demonstrated that ability while on a prison work detail in Nevada where he was befriended by an Air Force lieutenant colonel, who asked him to teach his teen-age sons to play baseball.

Said James McEvoy: “I was very apprehensive at first about having a convict work with my kids, but the first day out he pulled my kids aside and gave them an anti-drug lecture. I don’t know if he did it for effect or what, but I appreciate what he did for my kids (with baseball).”

Simpson’s supporters think major league baseball is to blame for Simpson’s problem and they say friends should speak up in his behalf.

“I wouldn’t hesitate to take him under my wing, said White, who socialized with Simpson after softball games. “I doubt he ever saw or touched a vile of cocaine. He got all that money (from baseball). . . . I think he was fairly naive and (smuggling) was just a fairly quick way to get money. I’m sure he never gave it a second thought as to the consequences of what he was doing.”

Muser would like to see a professional baseball team, perhaps the Rangers, hire Simpson as an anti-drug spokesman. “He is very valuable to baseball and to society.”

It was only recently that Simpson agreed to talk at all. Previously, he refused interview requests. He spent five months in a maximum security cell two years ago while the government tried to get him to turn state’s evidence in an unrelated marijuana smuggling case. He refused to talk there, too, fearing he would be killed by drug interests.

It is a much different Bill Simpson who stepped to the plate at the camp’s all-star softball game recently.

He has grown another inch and added 50 pounds, the result of weightlifting in prison.

Simpson is prematurely graying. It clashes somewhat with his well-tanned face, but gives him a more stately look in his softball outfit of yellow shorts and black T-shirt.

Rows of bleachers on a rise behind the outfield fences were full of inmates as the game began. Simpson made several spectacular catches on the all-dirt field, which is adjacent to the camp’s open sewage pool. He made three perfect throws to home plate from left-center field. The catcher could hold onto only one for an out.

He also went four for five with a home run and five runs batted in.

Simpson’s temper never flared. He high-fived his teammates and he was quiet for most of the contest, which ended after nine innings in a 12-12 tie.

“Hey Simpson,” shouted an inmate from the bleachers after the game was over. “Did that home run get you early release?”

Muser, who has visited Simpson here on other occasions, hopes that will be the case when Simpson meets with the parole board.

“I hope he gets out. He’s ready. I don’t know if it’s necessary to punish him any more. He needs to get his life together. A full term won’t help him more.”

Simpson says he fears a longer stay will merely make him grow bitter, but for now he is resigned to patrolling the outfield of the inmate softball field. He can live with his mistakes and failures, he said, but he will never get ball out of his system.