Team Chemistry: The History of Drugs and Alcohol in Major League Baseball

249 Pages·2016·5.3 MB·English

by  Nathan Michael Corzine

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NNAATTHHAANN MMIICCHHAAEELL CCOORRZZIINNEE
Team Chemistry

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sport and society
Series Editors
Randy Roberts
Aram Goudsouzian
Founding Editors
Benjamin G. Rader
Randy Roberts
A list of books in the series appears at the end of this book.

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Team Chemistry
The History of Drugs and Alcohol
in Major League Baseball
NathaN Michael corziNe
UniversiTy of iLLinois Press
Urbana, Chicago, and springfield

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© 2016 by the Board of Trustees
of the University of Illinois
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 c p 5 4 3 2 1
∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015954827
isbn 978-0-252-03979-9 (hardcover)
isbn 978-0-252-08133-0 (paperback)
isbn 978-0-252-09789-8 (e-book)

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For Gwendolyn and Eleanor

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You don’t play this game on ginger-snaps.
—Leo Durocher, 1966
Integrity has no need of rules.
—Albert Camus

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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction. The Last Pure Place 1
part 1. this is your game
1 Time in a Bottle 11
2 Tobacco Road 31
3 Where’s the Dexamyl, Doc? 54
part 2. this is your game on drugs
4 Pitching around the Problem 79
5 This Is Not Just a Test 110
6 Summers of the Long Ball Frauds 142
Epilogue. Brave New Game 175
Notes 187
Bibliography 207
Index 223

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Acknowledgments
On many days history is a lonely endeavor, a solitary trek along a
twisting paper trail through archives, memoirs, and other printed materials.
But not always. This has been, as they say, a team effort. Its failings are mine
and mine alone. Its strengths are the product of contributions for which even
the smallest I am eternally grateful. Thanks, firstly, to the staff at the Uni-
versity of Illinois Press, my copyeditor Jane Curran, Jennifer Comeau, and
especially Willis G. Regier, for their patience and faith in this project. Among
others to whom I would like to extend my gratitude are the archivists and
staff of the various libraries I visited during my extended baseball tour: the
A. Bartlett Giamatti Research Center at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in
Cooperstown, New York, the Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York
University’s Tamiment Library, and the Joyce Sports Research Collection at
the University of Notre Dame. Also indispensable was the contribution of
the staff of the Purdue University Library System who aided me in tracking
down hard-to-find memoirs and various government document collections.
The faculty in the Department of History at Purdue University is an amaz-
ing group of scholars and teachers. I was blessed to learn the craft of history
under their guidance. This book owes a great deal to their teaching, and I
am especially grateful to Michael Morrison, Darren Dochuk, and James Farr,
three whose enthusiasm and insight were so appreciated and whose criti-
cisms and suggestions were tempered with kindness and humanity. I also
had the benefit of my graduate student colleagues—Eric Hall, Andrew Smith,
and Jamal Ratchford—whose input, even in informal conversation, was so
valuable. In this arena I want to extend special thanks to Johnny Smith, a

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