The damned are still there. Those who fall into the hole, who make it bigger, who don’t re-emerge. Too many scares, so much fragility, no place to hold on.
Scott Spiezio in America he was a baseball hero, one of those that children like, he was playing for the Anaheim Angels when he hit a comeback three-run home run in the sixth game of the World Series 2002 against the San Francisco Giants, making his team win. An all-American boy. The boy next door, bat and glove, zero alcohol, no transgressions, reluctant even to take headache pills, married to high school sweetheart Amy and with two sons, Tyler and Cody. Spiezio had achieved the feat: in his hometown, Joliet, Illinois, an hour from Chicago, he had become a hometown hero. His name was everywhere: on posters, on banners, in newspaper headlines. And everyone celebrated it: “You represent every child in this community.”
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In 2006 Scott wins a second ring with the St. Louis Cardinals, but the atmosphere has changed, it is no longer one of celebration, he is not the same either, his friends are no longer there or they are not the right ones, in 2004 an injury on his back in training it put him out of the team. According to the doctors, he risks never walking again and being paralyzed. He is afraid that his career might end: he is tense, nervous, insecure. What if they discarded it? He starts drinking, up to a liter of vodka a day, even during matches, someone suggests another remedy, why doesn’t he try cocaine? “And the bad thing is that I liked it.” In short, he falls for it. A few sobriety breaks, you call them detox tests, for the rest a lot of cigarettes, even two packs a day. “I felt like I could get out of everything, but there was a part of me that thought I deserved that crap.”
Alcohol and drugs together produce psychosis, he is ashamed, he lets himself go, his parents don’t live far away, but they interrupt all relationships, especially his father Ed stops speaking to himalso a former player, who won the World Series with the same team (the Cardinals) and jersey number 26.
Scott divorces twice, loses parental rights and the possibility of seeing his children, friends, so to speak, who visit him are only those who bring him bottles. Cheers. Too bad it’s never just one glass, but twenty. “When you’ve played in front of 50,000 people, full of adrenaline, it’s hard to find yourself in a small town doing nothing. Drinking took away my energy, the few times I was allowed to see my children I remained very groggy, lying on the sofa.”
When you tell yourself that tomorrow you’ll fix everything, but in the meantime you close your eyes to your misery today. At his house the walls are full of marks and holes, from the things Scott throws in his many moments of anger. The trouble begins: in December 2007 he drunkenly crashes his BMW into a fence and runs away, in April he is found guilty of two other crimes and sentenced to three years’ probation and 80 hours of community service. He goes to therapy, he doesn’t believe in it, sport never wins against depression. In 2013, he smashed his fist through the window of the apartment where he lives with his new wife and newborn son. He injures himself with glass, he is violent, out of his mind, he pulls the girl’s hair and throws her to the ground. Charged again with drunk driving, he waits in his car for the police to arrive, drinking vodka from a Gatorade bottle.
They find him unconscious, the keys on the dashboard, and handcuff him. In April 2015 at half past two in the morning the police in Ottawa, Illinois responded to an emergency call: Spiezio freaked out, destroyed the TV, broke a door and another window with his fist. He runs away, hides, the police find him and arrest him, while he is on the ground they warn him: if you even try to get up, we will shoot you. He challenges them, gets back up, they hit him with the taser, the electric stun gun. He still has the scar. He loses his affections: his children no longer call him dad, nor do they bear his surname anymore.
He may be a drug addict, with no more money, but he understands certain things, especially his failure: “I felt that everyone was disappointed in me, I was missing many family events, I was missing out on the most important part of my children’s lives.” She feels guilty for being a destructive force in their existence. And how does he solve the problem? She increases the glasses. She gets stunned. In 2017 she has physical and mental problems and ends up in intensive care. In 2018 she is very itchy, her skin takes on a yellowish hue, the scars bruise from alcohol. She has jaundice from cirrhosis. Liver at risk. A transplant would require six months of sobriety. A doctor tells him: either you change your life or you will have little left to tell. At 5.30pm on 5 April 2018 the last sip. Accept hospitalization. “I was tired of being sick. I wanted to be a presence in my children’s lives again.”
120 consecutive meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous, the friendship of a woman, Tonia Boyer, who helps him stop answering calls from certain friends, a little forgiveness for his weight gain, more understanding from his parents , Ed and Verna, who also undergo therapy sessions to try to understand how a son who didn’t even take an aspirin had become an addict (“We never gave up on him, it’s just that there was no more communication ”), some old teammates who find the time and words to keep him company, his children who stop by to visit him and show him their progress on the guitar. He has changed, but so has the gaze of others. Spiezio agrees to tell his story in his old school, in 2022 he participates in the anniversary party of his first World Series when he was an Angel who had not yet descended into hell. 20 years have passed, 13 of addiction, 12 rehabs, 25 months without drinking, a few tears. But it’s a good shot. He stops drowning and begins his ascent.
At 52 he has returned to live in Morris in a garage-gym, gives baseball lessons to children, helps his parents in their furniture shop, he would like to find a house where he can stay with his four children and perhaps start a musical band with them . The father says that Scott did something incredible, much crazier than winning a championship: get his life back, reconcile, reintegrate. Broken champions exist. But also those who try to mend the cracks. Without being afraid of losing anymore.
2024-01-07 13:34:03
#Angels #demons #Republic
