Oil Can interview on ESPN tonight
Former Red Sox pitcher Dennis "Oil Can Boyd" who has a book coming out later this month, had some interesting things to say to ESPN's Buster Olney this evening on E:60 tonight at 7 p.m. ET. on ESPN.
On pitching in Oakland in 1986 after having smoked cocaine prior to the game
“I can remember-- goin' and lockin' myself up in the bathroom and smokin' 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 warmin' up in the ballgame-- third, fourth innin'-- it fell off my head…”
On not starting Game 7 of the 1986 World Series
“I had said to myself that if I wasn't pitchin' by the sixth innin' of the ballgame, I wouldn't pitch. And didn't care if we won or lost…”
On what he did after hearing he wouldn’t be starting Game 6 of the 1986 World Series
“…when John McNamara tell me that I'm not pitchin', I run right down the street to the (PU) crack house."
Olney asked, "If you were to meet Jackie Robinson in another life, what would you say to him?
Boyd: “Why'd you do this? I don't really think that Negro league baseball shoulda been broken up.”
Olney: "How come?
Boyd: “Because it was -- it was individuality … I'm not real thankful to Jackie at all because I'm me - my style of baseball, the way I played it in the major league transpired from the Negro leagues. So that's why people found that I was a hot dog or I was flamboyant.”