Bad Boys of the 1960s

When you live in a town like Portland taht doesn't have a MLB team, you don't get the good stuff about the players. I mean, we get all that crap about who's doing steriods or who isn't, etc etc. but not what bars they're busting up or what dames they're running around with.

In my Golden Youth, that's what Bad Boys did. Like Sudden Sam McDowell. Every spring, the reporters would send back these stories about Sam from Tucson that you knew were about Sam being drunk in Tucson. I especially remember one about him being out in the desert with a handgun, allegedly trying to hunt those wild pigs they have out there. Wink wink--Sam got drunk and went shootin in the desert!

Then there were the Bo Belinsky stories. You had to love Bo. He had the hottest babes, top shelf liquor, flashy new clothes. Mediocre pitcher at best, but you didn't love him for his game. Hell, he was in the National League anyway, so why would we care?

Now Billy Martin was a different story. It was one thing for Mickey and Whitey to go out on the town, raise a little hell, grab some ass. But where Mick and Whitey were playful, Billy was an angry drunk. As much as he loved Billy, the Ol Perfesser had to trade him. Orders from above and so on. Can't have a mean street fightin banjo hitter out there getting the expensive boys in trouble.

But this was as bad as it got back then. There were no drugs to abuse. No steriods to take (or not take, no that was my wife taking those, not me). Dudes didn't get paid $10 million a year, so they didn't have lavish coke-infused lifestyles with dozens of hangers-on to suck them dry.The worst Mickey and Whitey had was Billy. And he got traded cuz he was just too bad for Mr. Topping's liking.