Baby Boomer

Wells autobiography includes flap, no spine

You can bail out on a hanging curve ball, beg off a bench-clearing brawl or shy away from contact on a futile jaunt to home plate. But if you are a major league baseball player, you would have a hard time pulling a wimpier move than David Wells' act of submission earlier this week.

When Wells, in the wake of a controversy fueled by remarks contained in his soon-to-be-released autobiography, agreed to pay a $100,000 fine to his employer for tarnishing the Yankees image, he needlessly penalized more than his spineless self. In the future, any athletes who are aspiring authors will embrace juicy material as enthusiastically as they would a romantic interlude with Marge Schott -- and anyone who dares read their books will be bored to tears.

I've never met Wells, but until a week ago he seemed like a likeable chap -- beefy, bawdy and brash; armed with a big fastball and a bigger personality. When I heard about some of the revelations contained in advance copies of his book, Perfect I'm Not! Boomer on Beer, Brawls, Backaches and Baseball, it appeared to confirm my suspicion that he's the rare athlete who can laugh at himself and stay true to his convictions.

Man, was I wrong. This guy may be fun to hang out with, but deep down inside, he's a wuss.

First Wells backed away from virtually every sexy quote in the book, from the assertion that he was "half-drunk" while pitching his perfect game to the claim that 25 to 40 percent of baseball players take steroids. It's pretty sketchy to moan that you've been misquoted in your own book, but ever since Charles Barkley opened the floodgates a decade ago, athletes have felt comfortable insisting they aren't responsible for the words that appear under their byline.

(Actually, it's not a bad strategy. If I ever meet up with Wells at, say, a Manhattan hot spot at 3 a.m., and he wants to know why I called him a wuss, my defense will be, "Dude, that is SO not what I wrote.")

It's a hell of a promotional strategy, disavowing the authenticity of one's own material, but then Wells managed to do something 20 times more lame. Faced with the wrath of his bosses -- New York general manager Brian Cashman said the book "did tarnish the Yankee image" -- Wells made a deal that cost him $100,000, or a fifth of the advance he reportedly received for writing the autobiography. He also meekly agreed not to discuss the book on radio or television, and gave the team the right to approve any signings. Why write the thing in the first place?

Reports said the Yankees wanted to fine Wells $163,000, which would suggest that the pitcher actually got off easy. In reality, the guy surrendered more than a six-figure sum; he also lost his dignity.

Unless you are a lottery winner, an employer's scorn is nothing to scoff at -- but what Wells did, plain and simple, was panic. The man has a two-year, guaranteed contract with a no-trade clause, and at 38, this is likely to be his last deal. Sure, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner -- whose public silence on the issue was certainly conspicuous -- could have made Wells' life difficult, but would the outspoken Boss really care about this crap once the season began?

The guy who seemed the most worked up was Cashman, who said, "The New York Yankees have 100 years of history and a sacred tradition. We guard that tradition vigilantly."

Excuse me while I come out of my windup, stick a finger down my throat and HURL!

The Yankee image? Hmm, let's see. The most decorated player in the team's history, relentless carouser Babe Ruth, made Wells look like a couch potato. Mickey Mantle, perhaps the second-most celebrated Yankee, admittedly drank himself to an early death. Billy Martin, one of Mantle's ex-teammates and later the franchise's most colorful manager of the past few decades, died, after a day of drinking, on Christmas evening in 1989 when the friend driving his pickup lost control on an icy road and slid into a concrete culvert.

Next thing you know, aspiring autobiographical author Pete Townshend will be fined for tarnishing the Who's image -- and Keith Moon will roll over and vomit in his grave.

Aside from the fact that the premise for imposing the fine was preposterous, Wells could have fought it on legal grounds. Though our current attorney general and some of his cohorts might have you believe otherwise, we have this cool thing in our country called free speech, and I have a hard time envisioning even the most conservative of judges upholding a six-figure fine for speaking one's mind. Chances are, it wouldn't have come to that. The players' union would have appealed the fine, and logic dictates that it probably would have been discarded or greatly reduced when all was said and done.

That the portly Wells didn't have the stomach for this fight is the troubling part. The guy could have been a First Amendment crusader, and instead he exposed himself as someone who lacks constitutional fortitude. Perhaps he merely wanted to put it behind him. Maybe he thinks $100,000 isn't that big a price to pay.

For the rest of us, however, the psychic cost is chilling. I've co-authored several books with athletes, and I hope to do a few more. But now that Wells has set this perilous precedent, I can only imagine how blandly active sports figures will feel compelled to tell their stories.

When our Pro Bowl center went A.W.O.L. the day before the Super Bowl, some of us were mildly annoyed by his absence. But we sucked it up and decided to stay within ourselves and take it one play at a time, and even though we lost the game rather decisively, we harbored no grudges. We were merely proud, as he undoubtedly was, to be employed by the greatest organization in sports.

If subjectively tarnishing a team's image is a taxable offense, how many athletes will risk being outspoken -- in any context? In theory, players could be docked hefty sums for anything they utter anywhere to anyone, meaning the only smart solutions will be to clam up or tone down one's opinions.

I'm not suggesting that public figures' words don't carry consequences. Just ask Cleveland Indians infielder Omar Vizquel, who so riled ex-teammate Jose Mesa with a passage in his autobiography, Omar! My Life On and Off the Field, (Holy Moly! What Is It With These Exclamation Point-Laden Titles?!!!) that Mesa on Monday threatened, among other things, to "kill" him. Now the MLB commissioner's office is investigating Mesa, who currently pitches for the Phillies, for his public threats.

Ultimately, however, these men will be judged by their deeds, which makes it a very good thing that the Indians and Phillies aren't scheduled to play one another until the 2005 regular season. Wells, too, will have a chance to pitch his way out of his employers' doghouse, though no amount of mastery on the mound -- sober or otherwise -- will erase this act of cowardice from his legacy.

From where I sit, the book on Wells will always be this: He can bring the heat, but he obviously can't handle it.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Michael Silver sounds off weekly on SI.com.

 

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