Maury Wills - News

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Wills speaks on getting life back

By ANGEL H. VERDEJO
FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
https://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/sports/baseball/14705808.htm

Former Dodgers All-Star and Fort Worth Cat Maury Wills tells his audience how he has maintained his sobriety for 18 years.Since the age of 8, former Dodgers great Maury Wills knew he wanted to play professional baseball.

Soon thereafter, when word of Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers reached his housing project in Washington, D.C., Wills decided he also wanted to play for the Dodgers.

"From that moment on, I had a direction," said Wills, the featured speaker at the 18th annual Luncheon Stars in Recovery, a benefit for the Tarrant Council on Alcoholism & Drug Abuse held at the downtown Renaissance Worthington.

More than 630 attended, including former broadcaster Pat Summerall.

Wills, who spent more than eight seasons in the Dodgers' minor league system, was a five-time All-Star and the 1962 National League Most Valuable Player. He stole a major league record 104 bases record in 1962.

His post-baseball career life wasn't as stellar. Though wanting to manage, the offers didn't come as quickly as Wills thought, he said.

Wills managed the Seattle Mariners briefly (1980-81), but couldn't turn around the slumping franchise and was fired. Wills turned to alcohol and drugs and became hooked, including an episode where he blew $20,000 in a four-day stretch. He made repeated trips in and out of rehabilitation centers.

"I let everybody down," Wills said. "At this time, I'm so alone and so afraid."

One event after another led Wills to near rock bottom in 1989, when, after countless attempts to shake the addiction, he made the personal move to stop.

"The ground didn't shake," Wills said. "Nobody dangled anything in front of me. For the first time in my life, I said, 'God help me.' I don't know how to, but I'll do it.

"I'm willing."

Wills, who still attends recovery sessions, will mark his 18th year of sobriety in August and is also a sponsor.

Also during the luncheon, the TCADA, which serves 14 counties and provides programs in more than 160 schools, announced a name and logo change. The renamed Recovery Resource Council "will tell people what we do," said Eric Niedermayer, the agency executive director.

Tarrant County Commissioner Glen Whitley received the second annual Pat Summerall Award.

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Did you know Maury

-was the first person to steal over 100 bases in a season, with 104 in 1962

-was the 1961 & 1962 winner of the Gold Glove Award

-was the 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, & 1965 leader in stolen bases

-was the 1962 National League Most Valuable Player