If Blue Moon Is Forced to Sit Behind Bars, Who Is Served?

There never has been nor will there ever be a good time to be convicted of selling cocaine.

Anyone able to read a newspaper headline can see how a nation is effectively being ripped apart at its seams. Anyone who knew Len Bias or Don Rogers could tell you. Or anyone who knew John Belushi. Or anyone who knew the neighborhood kid around the corner.

So understand that few tears were shed on Aug. 1 when former big league pitcher John (Blue Moon) Odom was convicted in Orange County Superior Court for twice selling $100 worth of cocaine to a fellow worker at Xerox Corp. in Irvine.

Forget for a moment the pettiness of his sale, even in a day when drug seizures are measured by the ton. Forget the scarcity of evidence against Odom or the 14 painful months it took to get his case to trial. Forget the undue publicity afforded a man who became best known for his nickname.

The fact remains that Odom was found guilty by a jury of his peers. We have found no better way of settling such things, so Odom is guilty.

On Aug. 29, he will stand before a judge for sentencing, facing a maximum jail term of six years for his first offense.

It will be difficult to look into Odom’s eyes and not remember the faces of Bias and Rogers. It will be difficult to find remorse for a man that the public may judge no better than the creeps who fill athletes’ noses with so much cocaine that it takes their breaths away.

As a nation, we love to lump people into groups, and there is no more wretched being in society than the cocaine dealer. He’s a faceless, godless, gutless creature, devoid of soul and compassion.

Yet it is after knowing and accepting this that I hope John Odom is not sentenced to jail.

His timing couldn’t have been worse. He stood trial in the wake of a rage of cocaine madness, but to lump him with the rest would be the greatest of crimes.

John Odom is no saint. He has known trouble before. In the past year, he battled with liquor and his wife. He has fought with emotion and sanity.

But he is not a man who belongs behind bars. He is not your local cocaine dealer.

There is no Mercedes in his parking lot, no condo at the beach. No gold chains. His case was nickel-and-dime stuff, hardly worth all the newsprint.

Odom, who pitched in three World Series for the Oakland A’s, has spent his years out of baseball in seclusion, eeking out a living as a computer maintenance man, living in a modest Fountain Valley apartment complex.

Anyone who knows the whole story of Odom would agree that his sentence was served long before he stepped foot in court.

In the end, his tiresome case transcended guilt or innocence.

John Odom was arrested in May, 1985, for allegedly selling a half-gram of cocaine to a co-worker. His trial began in July, 1986--14 months later. Fair, perhaps, but certainly not speedy.

While his case crawled through our judicial system, Odom’s life fell apart. He lost his job as a result of his arrest and still hasn’t found steady work.

His case, minor even in the eyes of his prosecutors, was postponed five times for reasons that still can’t be sensibly explained. Odom ran out of money fast, his patience soon after.

As he watched his story unfold in the papers, he grew to despise the fame that came with his name.

Each court postponement was another kick in the gut. Unable to work and support his wife, Odom began losing control.

He sought refuge in a bottle of rum, and one day in December, 1985, he finally cracked. He was as down and drunk as a man could be when he pulled out a shotgun and put it to his wife’s head.

Police surrounded Odom’s apartment and, hours later, forced him out with tear gas. Gayle, his wife, was unharmed, and later she talked to John as he sobbed over the phone.

He went through psychiatric evaluation and is trying to fight back. January, February and March passed with every new trial date.

Odom crawled into a shell, afraid even to leave his home.

During a recent interview he seemed a man strafed with emotional scars, as defensive as a cat backed into a corner. Paranoid and distrusting. It was hard to blame him.

Yet, deep beneath the mess that was his life, he seemed a gentle man.

Odom wanted only to get on with his life. He wanted only for his trial to be over.

And now it finally is, and soon Odom will stand in court again.

And if there is justice to be served, Odom should be ordered not to jail but to every elementary school from Brea to Balboa. He should be forced to put on his Oakland A’s uniform once again and lecture about the evils of drugs. Blue Moon should talk about cocaine until he’s blue in the face.

Odom should work every Little League barbecue in Orange County, retelling the story of the swell time he and cocaine shared together.

He should be sentenced to wear out five pair of shoes of year, the result of walking from one youth center to another.

What good is John Odom behind bars?