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Major League Notebook: 'Oil Can' says he used cocaine with Sox

The Associated Press

FORT MYERS, Fla. - Former Red Sox pitcher Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd says he probably pitched under the influence of cocaine "at every ballpark" during his 10-year career.

"There wasn't one ballpark that I probably didn't stay up all night, until 4 or 5 in the morning, and the same thing is in your system," Boyd said in an interview with Jon Miller of WBZ radio in Boston. "It ain't like you had time to go and do it while you were in the game, which I have (done) that."

Boyd, 52, was 78-77 with a 4.04 ERA in his career. In eight seasons with the Red Sox, from 1982-89, he was 60-56. In his last two seasons, he was 18-21 with Montreal and Texas.

"Some of the best games that I've ever, ever pitched in the major leagues, I stayed up all night. I'd say two-thirds of them," he said Wednesday at JetBlue Park, where Boston holds spring training, "and if I had went to bed, I would have won 150 ballgames in the time span that I played and ... I felt like my career was cut short for a lot of reasons."

One of them, he said, was "bigotry."

Boyd said he "wasn't doing anything that hundreds of ballplayers weren't doing at the time, because that's how I learned it and I just caught the deep end of it. And the reason, too, also, that I caught the deep end of it (is) I'm black and the bottom line was that the game carries a lot of bigotry and that was just an easy way for them to do it."

He said that "If I wasn't outspoken and so-called 'a proud, proud black man' maybe I would have got empathy and sympathy like other ballplayers got that I didn't get; like a Darryl Strawberry or Dwight Gooden, Steve Howe. I can name 50 people that got third and fourth chances all because they weren't outspoken black individuals."

An autobiography of Boyd, "They Call Me Oil Can: My Life in Baseball," is scheduled for release in June.

ROYALS: Kansas City and outfielder Alex Gordon avoided arbitration by agreeing to a one-year contract worth $4,775,000.

GIANTS: San Francisco finalized a $1 million, one-year contract with free-agent reliever Guillermo Mota to bring him back for a third season.

RANGERS: Texas avoided arbitration with another of its core players, agreeing to a $16 million, two-year contract with AL championship series MVP Nelson Cruz.

ORIOLES: Baltimore defeated Brad Bergesen in salary arbitration, giving clubs a 3-2 lead over players this year.

Bergesen will receive an $800,000 salary this year rather than his request for $1.2 million.

DIAMONDBACKS: Left-handed reliever Craig Breslow and Arizona agreed to a one-year contract worth $1,795,000, a deal that avoided salary arbitration.

The agreement was $5,000 below the midpoint between the $2.1 million he had asked for last month and the $1.5 million Arizona had offered.

ATHLETICS: Phil Garner says he has agreed to stay on with Oakland in a part-time special adviser role.

Garner, who had contemplated retirement, will be with the team throughout spring training.

PHILLIES: Center fielder Shane Victorino, nicknamed the "Flyin' Hawaiian," will be a guest star on Monday's episode of "Hawaii Five-0."

Victorino plays a business executive on a company retreat, CBS said, during an episode involving the murder of a man dressed as a Hawaiian NaKoa warrior.

Speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno, winner of two Olympic gold medals, also appears as a Hawaiian history buff.