Baseball aches for flakes: the game has had a history of "different" personalities, something missing in today's era of players

Baseball Digest, August, 2003 by Dave Joseph

LEGEND HAS IT THAT JACKIE Brandt, who played for five teams between 1956-1967, was the first ballplayer to officially be called a "flake." A teammate once noticed that things seemed to "flake" off Brandt's mind.

You know, like playing 27 holes of golf in 101 degree heat because he forgot about the afternoon doubleheader. Or saying, "I'm going to play with harder nonchalance this year."

But who am I to call Brandt or anyone else a flake? Is Dock Ellis a flake for pitching on LSD while throwing a no-hitter?

How about Flint Rhem, who played from 1924-1936. After disappearing from the Phillies for several days, he showed up at the clubhouse, said he was kidnapped by gangsters and forced to drink hard liquor. You telling me he doesn't deserve points for creativity?

Sadly, there are fewer creative thinkers these days in baseball. There are fewer flakes, if you will, who break up the monotony of an endless season played, for the most part, by robotic athletes afraid to express opinion or originality. Someone said new Marlins pitcher Tim Spooneybarger could be a flake because he has more tattoos than shoes. But if this is the new wave of flake, then you've been asleep for 30 years.

It's not enough simply to be a flake to join flakedom. You need talent. You need smarts. You need to have a mind of your own and give something to the game. Was Bill Lee a flake, or a bold individual who was and still is the only modern pro athlete to speak up for the legalization of marijuana?

I tend to think the following five people were more than flakes. They were, five distinct voices--five unique people in a game that is searching for its soul.

THE SOUL: Mark Fidrych

I remember him playing one night in Pawtucket toward the end of his career, a little beat up and never to be the same. But the energy he created in that Triple-A ballpark was amazing. On his hands and knees wiping off the pitching rubber, circling the mound while talking to the baseball. Still gangly, still innocent, still vulnerable.

The Bird was the best: a 21-year-old kid who brought a smile to baseball as soon as he made his major league debut with the Tigers on May 15, 1976. He went 19-9 that year with a 2.34 earned run average. He pitched 24 complete games, and it's a good thing, too, because the sold-out houses that went to see the Bird never wanted him to leave. And he never wanted to leave, either.

He would take curtain calls and sign autographs for hours. He seemed to be as awestruck about his fame as anyone else. He once asked President Ford if his son, Jack, then acting on a soap opera, could fix him up on a date. What's a favor between you and the president?

Fidrych came at the right time: when baseball was dealing with free agency and Reggie Jackson was selling himself to the highest bidder. The game needed a bit of innocence. It needed Fidrych. He was honest and real. He never sold himself to the highest bidder, never took advantage of endorsing the crap big leaguers do today. He loved the game. He was the most human of ballplayers ever to stand in the middle of the diamond. It really was that simple.

THE PLAYBOY: Bo Belinsky

He was living on the Hawaiian island of Molokai when I spoke to him, some 20 miles from the leper colony Father Damian built in the 1800s, and he said plainly; "I got more publicity out of (28 victories) than most guys do for winning 300 games."

Belinsky was a sensation in 1962 when, as a 26-year-old rookie, he won seven of his first eight starts and pitched the franchise's first no-hitter for the then-Los Angeles Angels. He ended the 1962 season with 10 wins and was the next big thing. Unfortunately, in the words of Angel scout Tuffy Hashem, Belinsky had a "$1 million arm and a 10 cent head."

Instead of working on his curveball, Belinsky wined and dined Hollywood starlets such as Ann Margaret, Tina Louise, Connie Stevens and Playboy centerfolds Mamie Van Doren and Jo Collins. He even brought Van Doren to spring training one year, calling her his physical therapist. He was in the entertainment section of newspapers as often as he was in the sports section. He was Joe Namath before Joe Namath. He helped put the Angels on the map when the team was stagnant.

But the partying killed Belinsky's career, and by 1970 he was out of the game after just 18 more wins in his final seven seasons. "I would have loved to have been more dedicated," he said. But he wasn't, and he couldn't. After he left baseball, Belinsky became an alcoholic. But before passing away last year at 64, he was sober for more than two decades.

THE HEART: Bill Lee

There was a group of people who used to stand outside Fenway Park when the Red Sox were in town to catch a glimpse of Bill Lee as he arrived at the stadium, to exchange ideas and hear his opinions. And Lee had ideas.

He once said the secret to life was "at Fernwood Court in Topanga Canyon."

The reason?

"That's where the dragon lives." When the Red Sox switched to a two-tone baseball cap, he protested by wearing a propeller atop his. He was fined 8250 for admitting he sprinkled marijuana on his pancakes. He made the commissioner's office angry when he endorsed the legalization of pot. In 1979, he went on a banana diet. "Did you ever see a monkey with a cramp?" he asked. He was even the presidential candidate for the Rhinoceros Party. His platform: no guns, no butter.