Saturday, August 12, 2006

Oil Can Update: Really bad outing in 87

Oil Can Boyd’s hopes of returning to a baseball diamond as a pro player were dashed earlier this year when ongoing legal problems resulting from threats he made to a former business partner that the “authorities” deemed “highly credible” voided a contract he had signed with the Nashua, NH, Pride. Evidently, Pride ownership insisted on a special Can clause in Oil Can’s contract which stipulated the Can must remain out of jail for lengthy stretches of the season. Once again the lawyers ruin all our fun with senseless detail and frivolity.

However, amazingly, The Can managed to get in the August 3 addition of the Boston Glob in an interview with a man named John Orrico. Orrico was the bat boy for the visiting teams in the Kingdom from 1986-1987. Why the Orrico interview was published the August 3, 2006 addition of the Globe remains unclear. However Orrico does recount the following incident:

“He [Oil Can Boyd] was a piece of work," according to Orrico. "He was this wiry, crazy guy, and he's out tossing the ball. Then he came in, and there was these wood lockers and he started biting them. I don't know why, but if the Kingdome was still there, you'd see a full impression of his teeth in those mahogany-stained lockers. You could have taken dental records off them."

Twenty years later, The Can instantly remembers the incident. "Yeah, it happened," he said on a recent visit to Fenway Park. "Bad outing. Really bad outing."

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