themselves established. Annette began sending them $5 and $10 a week, just in case they needed help with the bills. The little supplements stopped when Patty called and explained that Ron was using the money for beer, something she did not approve of.
There was friction. Annette was worried because he was drinking again. She knew little, though, of what was happening in the marriage. Patty was very private and shy by nature, and never really relaxed around the Williamsons. Annette and her husband visited the couple once a year.
When Ron was passed over for a promotion, he quit Bell and began selling life insurance for Equitable. It was 1975, and he still had no baseball contract, still no inquiries from teams looking for neglected talent.
But with his athletic confidence and outgoing personality, he sold a lot of life insurance. Selling came naturally, and he found himself enjoying the success and the money. He was also enjoying late hours in bars and clubs. Patty hated the drinking and couldn't tolerate the carousing. His pot smoking was now a habit and she detested it. His mood swings were becoming more radical. The nice young man she'd married was changing. Ron called his parents one night in the spring of 1976, crying and hysterical with the news that he and Patty had fought bitterly and separated. Roy and Juanita, as well as Annette and Renee, were shocked at the news and hopeful that the marriage could be saved. All young couples weather a few storms. Any day now Ronnie would get the phone call, get back in a uniform, and resume his career. Their lives would be on track; the marriage would survive a few dark days.
But it was beyond repair. Whatever their problems, Ron and Patty chose not to talk about them. They quietly filed for divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. The separation was complete. The marriage lasted less than three years.
Roy Williamson had a childhood friend named Harry Brecheen, or Harry the Cat, as he was known in his baseball days. Both had grown up in Francis, Oklahoma. Harry was scouting for the Yankees. Roy tracked him down and passed along his phone number to his son.
Ron's powers of persuasion paid off in June 1976, when he convinced the Yankees that his arm was fully healed and better than ever. After seeing enough good pitching to realize he couldn't hit it, Ron decided to play to his strength-his right arm. It had always caught the attention of the scouts. Oakland had continually talked of converting him to a pitcher.
He signed a contract with the Oneonta Yankees of the New York-Penn League, Class A, and couldn't wait to get out of Tulsa. The dream was alive again.
He could certainly throw hard, but oftentimes had little idea where the ball was going. His breaking stuff was unpolished; he'd simply not had enough experience. Throwing too hard too quick, the soreness came back, slowly at first, then practically a full-blown limpness. The two-year layoff took its toll, and when the season was over, he was cut again.
Again avoiding Ada, he returned to Tulsa and sold insurance. Annette dropped by to check on him, and when the conversation shifted to baseball and his failures, he began crying hysterically and couldn't stop. He admitted to her that he had long, dark bouts of depression.
Once more accustomed to life in the minors, he fell into his old habits, hanging around bars, chasing women, and drinking a lot of beer. To pass the time, he joined a Softball team and enjoyed being the big star on a small stage. During a game, on a cool night, he fired a throw to first base and something snapped in his shoulder. He quit the team and gave up softball, but the damage was done. He saw a doctor and put himself through a strenuous rehab program, but felt little improvement.
And he kept the injury quiet, hoping once again that a good rest would have things healed by spring.
Ron's final sally into professional baseball came the following spring, in 1977. He again talked his way into a Yankee uniform. He survived spring training, still as a pitcher, and was assigned to Fort Lauderdale in the Florida State League. There he endured his final season, all 140 games, half of them on the road, on the buses, as the months dragged by and he was used as sparingly as possible. He pitched in only fourteen games, thirty-three innings. He was