Tonight on E:60, the ESPN Emmy Award-winning newsmagazine focuses on Major League Baseball with three profiles, one on New York Mets knuckleball pitcher R.A. Dickey, another on St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Carlos Beltran and another on former Boston Red Sox pitcher Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd.
Now the profile on Boyd done by ESPN MLB insider Buster Olney is interesting on several levels. First, Boyd is a rather colorful character. But then it gets dark as Boyd reveals that he regularly smoked pot at the ballpark even on days when he was pitching.
We have a brief preview with a transcription and also a couple of videos. This is amazing.
ESPN’s E:60 Profiles Beltran, Boyd, Dickey
“Oil Can:” “I’ve smoked pot my whole life.”ESPN’s award-winning news magazine, E:60, will focus on Major League Baseball with profiles on the Mets’ knuckleball pitcher R.A. Dickey, former Red Sox pitcher Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd, and Cardinals outfielder Carlos Beltran tonight (Tuesday, May 1) at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN.
Excerpts from the April 19 conversation between Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd and ESPN’s Buster Olney in the home locker room of the Red Sox’ AAA Pawtucket’s McCoy Stadium:
“I’ve smoked pot my whole life, and never been a ball game that I wasn’t high on some marijuana from (expletive) Little League all the way through college.” – Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd
“I had said to myself that if I wasn’t pitching by the sixth inning of the ballgame, I wouldn’t pitch — and didn’t care if we won or lost.” – Boyd, on not starting Game 7 of the 1986 World Series
“I ain’t talked to him since. I mean, I love Bruce Hurst to death, but nobody can outpitch me, I’m sorry. And then When John McNamara tell me that I’m not pitching, I run right down the street to the crack house.” – Boyd, on manager John McNamara telling him he wouldn’t start Game 6 of the 1986 World Series
“Why’d you do this? I don’t really think that Negro League baseball should have been broken up.” – Boyd, on what he’d tell Jackie Robinson if he met him
“I can remember going and locking myself up in the bathroom and smoking some dope right there at the ballpark. And I had it under the bib of my cap, inside the crease inside of the cap. And when I was warming up in the ballgame it fell off my head. I jumped at the plate, and the hat fly off. Every other pitch I pick it up, put it on. So one time, I’m so into what I’m doing, I’d forgot that the dope is under my hat. So I look on the ground and I’m like, ‘Damn, there’s little rocks everywhere, man.’ So, as I’m walking back, I pick it up like dirt…” — Boyd
Here is a two minute preview of the piece that will air tonight at 7 Eastern time on ESPN.
And E:60 producer Frank Saraceno, photographer Rich Arden and Buster Olney talk about the interview that airs tonight on E:60.
This should be quite the interesting interview.
