Vida Blue, who died at 73, deserved more than what he got

He was once born too quickly. And when he died Saturday at 73, Blue didn’t have thousands and thousands within the financial institution. He as soon as owned a area within the Oakland Hills, however at the top he didn’t have a house of his personal. He left right here with little in subject material possessions, even supposing he had given such a lot of himself away.

With a reputation corresponding to that and a left arm that labored miracles, naturally he changed into a fan favourite. Decades after his profession had ended and the peak of his famous person had light, he attempted his very best to reside as much as the recollections. When he autographed memorabilia, he would signal his identify in conjunction with, “Thank you for being a fan,” which he concept they’d get a kick out of. When he shook palms, he would linger and switch small communicate into an artwork shape. They say you must by no means meet your idols, however that wasn’t true for the ones fortunate sufficient to have known as Vida Blue their early life hero. He would ensure that there was once house for 2 at the pedestal.

From 2021: Vida Blue wears his combat scars

For a while, he were paid to be a type of player-ambassador varieties for the San Francisco Giants: “All I do is go around, freeloading, drinking free beer and kissing babies and s—,” Blue as soon as informed me. He was once both joking or being brutally fair — I couldn’t inform which. Certainly he was once downplaying his function, restricting the have an effect on he had on other people. He steadily did that once we mentioned his lifestyles for a 2021 profile. Maybe that was once his protection mechanism — to play the a part of the ex-ballplayer humbled via his personal transgressions. Or perhaps he was once used to talking that means as a result of he got here of age at a time when a small-town boy from Louisiana knew higher than to make a fuss.

When Blue was once a boy, race wasn’t mentioned. It was once simply identified. He by no means requested his folks why he couldn’t swim within the Mansfield town pool; he simply understood. When he was once rising up, choosing cotton was once nonetheless an choice Black kids thought to be in the event that they sought after to make some cash on their very own. So as a result of his mom wiped clean the houses of White households at the different facet of city and his father labored at a metal mill — the paintings that may lead him to an early grave — Blue couldn’t dare ask for the posh of a baseball glove. If he sought after to shop for one, he must earn it at the cotton fields. He was once by no means taught about cash — best that he needed to paintings for his.

He can have long gone to university for soccer, however he selected baseball since the circle of relatives — his widowed mom and 5 siblings — wanted the $25,000 signing bonus confident to him after being drafted. He was once only a nation boy and just a little sq.: When a spring coaching roommate lit up a joint, he would yell at him to crack a window. He knew teammates within the minor leagues who smoked pot, however he didn’t partake. All he sought after to do was once make a dwelling. The best means he knew how was once to grow to be probably the most dominant pitcher on the planet.

By 1971, he did. But when a boy grows up with the lesson that arduous paintings results in rewards, best to find that equity doesn’t at all times apply that very same logical trail, sadness follows.

Certain sides of American lifestyles had been force-fed to minorities. That your paintings must discuss for you. That when you’re just right sufficient, you’ll wedge open the doorways of alternative and privilege. Blue purchased into that dream. And after his breakout season, he went to the negotiating desk with A’s proprietor Charlie Finley and let his achievements discuss for him. Years later, when Blue recalled the reminiscence to me, he nonetheless appeared harm. He stated Finley quoted his statistics again to him … 24-8 file … 1.82 ERA … 24 whole video games … 8 shutouts … and none of it mattered.

“He says this, almost to my face: ‘I don’t have to pay you nothing.’ And that’s like a dagger, man, in the heart,” Blue stated.

He may just by no means perceive why his paintings wasn’t just right sufficient. Those wounds by no means healed, no longer even 50 years later. That duration in his lifestyles looked as if it would exchange Blue. He wasn’t such an blameless anymore. He got into medicine and was once swept up in baseball’s cocaine dragnet of the Eighties. He went to federal jail and spent the rest years of his profession seeking to blank up his popularity and believing as soon as once more that if best he labored arduous sufficient, he would get what he was once price.

“You fight like hell to reestablish your name in a credible way because when you’re late for a game, [people say,] ‘Oh, he must be on the pipe,’ ” Blue informed me. “You can’t be late for s—. If you’re 10 minutes early, you’re still late.

“It’s the baggage,” he stated. “The baggage will always be with this.”

Baseball is confronting a decline in African American gamers. The tales of those 9 athletes display why.

And it adopted him all through his lifestyles. Blue by no means made it to the Hall of Fame, in part as a result of the medicine that interrupted his profession. He was once so fair when he shared that sadness with me. The other people who beloved him maximum have been heartbroken, too. Last summer season, his longtime good friend Michelle Lewis known as me for recommendation to find ways in which she may just get Blue again at the poll. Her reason was once an pressing one as a result of she knew he didn’t have lengthy.

Lewis is the founding father of Oakland’s Northern Light School, which objectives to offer underserved scholars with a non-public faculty schooling. Back in 2008, Blue got here to the varsity as a speaker as a part of his baseball ambassador gig, however then he got here again two weeks afterward his personal — and he stored coming again. He served sizzling lunches, tutored in social research categories, mentored any lefties who sought after to pitch and helped elevate cash for the varsity via going round, ingesting beer and kissing young children all the way through his namesake famous person golfing match. When Blue wanted a spot to stick a couple of years again, Lewis and her daughter, Caitlin Alegre, took him in as a roommate.

“He was for real,” Lewis stated. “He was a people person, and he went out of his way to be there for others.”

When Blue died, Lewis was once just about 3,000 miles away. Northern Light’s annual eighth-grade go back and forth to D.C. was once at the time table. Blue most often accompanied the scholars at the go back and forth, as he did a 12 months in the past. This time, alternatively, Lewis needed to move with out him.

Lewis spent Sunday wandering across the National Museum of African American History and Culture in a daze however as soon as once more decided. She’s looking for some option to get certainly one of Blue’s artifacts into the museum. To her, and the folks who beloved him, he’s more than only a few man who threw a baseball. He’s a person who deserved more than what he got.