Dennis Boyd - They Call Me Oil Can: Baseball, Drugs, and Life on the Edge

Foreword by Rich Gedman

My relationship with Can was a pitcher/catcher relationship.

What I loved about him was that the guy could pitch. He had a good idea what he wanted; he had great instincts, touch, and feel for his pitches; and he had great weapons to get people out. He thinks like a champion. He saw stuff that a lot of people didnt. He saw swings coming through the zone and he knew when to throw a change-up and when to throw a breaking ball, when to mix in a fastball, when to cut a pitch. He could slow a guys bat down or speed it upall the planning in his own head. Its a beautiful picture when you do that stuff.

Thats the way I saw him pitch; and he had great confidence. My job was just to make sure to keep him focused. It really wasnt that hard to do. You just had to kind of remind him how to channel his energy.

Because of that, we had a wonderful relationship. He knew that I cared about him and I cared about the team and I was going to help him to do what he wanted to do, which was find a way to win.

He called his own pitches. Thats fine. Pitchersthats the way they think. He did what he wanted to do. He could live with it. He was a man. He knew himself. He knew his strengths and weaknesses. The only thing that I tried to do was make sure he didnt get distracted. I think sometimes he got to an edge, he went a little overboard, and my job was to keep it at the right level. I think we did that well together.

Id say, Well, what do you want to do here? And hed come right out with it. I didnt disagree, because I believed that if youre 100 percent sticking with what you want to do and you believe in it, its going to work, somehow. And not only that, but if it doesnt work you can live with it and you can learn from it.

He didnt have many doubts when he was out there throwing a baseball, I can tell you that!

Off the field, I never had a problem with Can. It took a while to get to know each other, respect each other, earn each others respect. Its not like we went out partying or whatever. I didnt see him much away from the field and when I did see him Id say hello. We were very cordial to each other. He became a good teammate. Id do anything for him that I could. I think thats the way we all were about each other.

I still see him from time to time at functions. I think the game of baseball, its something that you get to do, and the times that you get to play games and have some success together are times you dont forget. Theyre your most trying times. There were times when things didnt work and youre very vulnerable and you needed somebody to be there with you and for you, and I think we were there for each other. When he had success, so did I. When he failed, I failed with him. Thats the way it goes.

You want to know how competitive Oil Can was? Look at Eddie Murray. Oil Can frustrated Eddie Murray. Murray was a Hall of Famer and I think he might have hit one home run off of Canand when he did it took him two minutes to get around the bases. It was obvious that Can frustrated him.

Can was excitable on the mound. He was very passionate about what he didespecially if he got a big out in a big situation, he didnt hide the way he felt about it. With that, you create some enemies who want to beat you. Not that we didnt want to beat each other as it was, but sometimes when you get a little excessive, or a little excited, people dont like that stuff. All in all, though, I think he was well respected by his opposition and his teammates on the field.

If I had to sum up Oil Can Boyd in one word, it would be special. Thats the way I see him!

Rich Gedman, former Red Sox catcher

7. Mexico, Mississippi, and Fort Dix

Id want to beat up my wife and kids, go smoke some dope, get a gun, and want to kill every banker that I saw that day.

After the tryout with the Indians I was just sitting at home in Winter Haven in 1993, hoping that somebody would give me a chance. I had been out of the game a year and a half, but I was only 33 years old. I was looking for an opportunity to get back on the field and I got this call from a man by the name of Carlos Paz to come play ball down in Mexico. I had gotten a call from Jorge Orta to come to Mexico in 1992, but I didnt go down. I was still hoping that somebody was going to give me a chance. But the previous year, nothing happened.

So I went to Mexico in 93 and played in Monterrey for Industriales. I went down there in early May. The season had started already and they needed a closer. I had never closed games before, but I told them, Yeah, Ill do it.

I got off the plane and I thought I was going to at least get a day of being able to get ready and stretch myself out. But as soon as I got there I went straight to the pitchers mound. I set a record down there as a closer. I pitched 11 consecutive days and saved 11 games. I blew my 12 th save and gave up a grand slam in Mexico City.

I pitched real well down there, but it didnt matter. I got released all the same.

It happened because of the difference in the way the game is played down there. In Mexicolike in Japanits not an aggressive game. They dont play it like we do in the United States. We pitch inside and hit people and charge the mound. We fight over here. In Mexico, they dont charge the mound. In Japan, they dont charge the mound when they get hit, whether youre trying to or not. Theres no retaliation.

I wasnt used to playing like that. One night, one of our pitcherswho was a pretty good ballplayerwas getting killed. We were playing in Laredo, Texas, and he gave up like five home runs that night. I mean, they were banging the ball. Nothing inside, they were just free swinging up there. At one point they even hit back-to-back-to-back home runs. We pulled him and it was more of the same. I was getting kind of pissed because nobody had gotten knocked down. We gave up like seven that night, and we got beat 183. It was like batting practice.

So here we were, the very next night, playing the same team, but this games being played across the border in Laredo, Mexico, which is called Nuevo Laredo. Were winning this game. Now, I was doing two- and three-inning saves down there, so I was used to going into the game in the seventh or eighth inning. This kid had pitched a good game, but in the seventh he gives up back-to-back home runsand its to two guys who had hit back-to-back home runs the night before!

I hollered from the dugout, Man, knock somebody down! That was like nine home runs in two ballgames. We done gave up. I said, Man, somebody has to get knocked down, theyre free swinging! The language barrier was there but there were a few guys on the bench who were bilingual.

So the manager came to me and asked me to go into the ballgame. I said No, and he got mad. He went and got an interpreter, one of the coaches on the team, and he said, I want you to go get loose in the bullpen.

I said, No, Im not pitching unless the very next pitch he throws up there knocks this guy down.

He said, We dont play like that.

Im not going out there unless this guy shows some balls and knocks this guy down. I said. Even if he hits him or walks him, I dont give a fuck! Tell him thats what I said.

So, the very next day, since I wouldnt go in the ballgame, he got in my face. We had a little shoving match and he got tough with me, like he was going to make me pitch. I just said to him, Youre not making me pitch. So the very next day they released me.

I came home, kept myself in shape, and went back to waiting.

In 94, I got another call from Carlos Paz asking me to come play in Mexico, but in a different city. I played this time in the Yucatan, in Leoni. I pitched really well that year. I was 20, but still I got released. They thought that I was going to ask for more money in my contract because I was pitching so well and I was an ex-major league ballplayer. They knew that I thought that there shouldnt be anybody down there making more than me. Hell, Im a premier player and if anybody down there is making eight or nine grand a month, then I should be, too.