He was named after Hall of Famer Willie Mays…
The man would become the hitting star of the 1980 World Series for the Kansas City Royals. He would also spend nearly a lifetime in prison for selling a small amount of cocaine.
Willie Mays Aikens – mostly because he was not too bright – ended up getting run over by a truck.
The truck’s name: Federal Law Enforcement, in this case the D.E.A.
Aikens just had a book written about his life titled, SAFE AT HOME. Reviews have been good. Willie was a solid hitter with the Kansas City Royals from 1980-83. He’s best known for the four home runs hit in a losing cause against the Philly’s in the 1980 World Series.
Yes sir, it was quite a year, maybe the best ever in Royals’ history.
I know, we won it all in ’85, but in 1980 everything was fresh. George Brett nearly hit .400 (ending up at .390 and becoming a true baseball icon). Brett hit the shot against the New York Yankees in the playoffs that sent KC to the World Series and sent everyone in Kansas City to their feet, cheering, screaming, even crying….what a year!
And Willie Mays Aikens was a big part of the winning. He was always around 20 plus homers and batted around .280 each year. A big man.
Problem was it was the time of celebrity COCAINE use.
The 1980’s were the cornerstone of the snorting coke era. Believe me, a boatload of ball players went to that party – way more than just Willie and his little gang. A gang that included Willie Wilson and others.
Names that might shock you, but we can let that all of that go now.
Sure glad they arrested Roger Clemens for using steroids and lying about it. We’ll all be safer if Rog goes to prison, right? Lets make an example of baseball’s best pitcher since Sandy Koufax or Nolan Ryan. Sure.
After Aikens career slowed down, he ended up in the Mexican baseball world. And more coke.
He said" "I would do three lines and a shot of vodka and be high for 24 hours..I loved it."
This while he hit .280 and jacked 23 homers in KC. Maybe we should get some of today’s…nah..forget it.
So poor Willie hit bottom, got a low level bust in the early 90’s, did some rehab time, got out and was right back at it.
But this time a girl got him destroyed.
Aikens was not a dealer, he was a user. Users often sell small amounts of dope to buy theirs. The feds are WELL AWARE OF THIS. Dealers, real ones, try and make millions, not hundreds or a couple g’s.
Aikens just wanted sex and to get high in his hotel room.
It was 1994, he still had a bit of a name and a female KC cop decided to make hay with Willie’s life.
It might help her career. So she sets the poor schmuck up. He sells her a small amount of coke turned to rock – as in crack – so you can smoke it instead of snorting it. The feds at the time were on a witch hunt for crack dealers. SEND THEM TO HELL!!!
And Aikens, the cop said had a gun in his room, lots of players probably did at times. Didn’t the Dallas Cowboy’s coach go to the airport with a handgun?
So he gets busted, is offered a plea deal, rat out the guys above you. And it’s likely they weren’t too big anyway, so maybe he could just get 5-10 years. Clearly he was entrapped because he was not a dealer per se, just a junkie.
But on the new federal guidelines, he was facing 15 years and the gun added five more.
Willie had just an okay lawyer. Nobody really helped him and he got the full boat.
Was it fair? Of course not. He was a nobody who once played some pro ball and still had a bit of a name.
LET’S MAKE AN EXAMPLE OF THE GUY…ruin his life…and we can all sleep better at night.
I know in those days you could get a 2/3 time served, but they even changed that to 85%. Damn, this poor s.o.b. got jacked and hard. Sammy the Bull got zero time for ratting Big John Gotti out. Sammy admitted to killing at least 14 men – hits – no big deal, I guess. But that couple of grams of blow and 20 years, baby. We’ll show you.
Today Willie has a job with the Royals as a coach. Thank you, Kansas City Royals.
Where were you though when they took this man’s life?
I think a year or two at a drug prison camp would have been more than enough, huh?
The lesson here is this…do not screw with United States Federal Law Groups.
THEY HAVE NO RULES…NONE…THEY NEED NO EVIDENCE TO PUT YOU AWAY…NONE…NONE…JUST THEIR SAY SO.
This is just a small example of how unfair our system works.
I know, if you don’t like it, try Russia. I get it, but we are better than this, aren’t we?
Over crowded prisons with 90% low level drug cases…enough already. Violent crime is the key, busting up gangs. We all know the right thing to do – we just don’t care. Until it happens to us or a family member. And too often, in time it does just that.
I wish Willie Mays Aikens well, he deserves a chance, and lord knows he got royally screwed.
Yes, he made his bed, but the punishment was way, way over the top.
Beretta says
Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. Thousands of people, of all races, got, and still get pinched, over small time deals like this. Is it fair? No! Is it within the law and sentencing guidelines? Hell yes! Actions have consequences and most times those consequences are way out of proportion to the action. No different then hooking up for an innocent one stand of boom-boom-pow and getting AIDS or HERPES. Better for him to get busted here than in Turkey or Singapore.
Rule number one. Don’t do drugs. If you forget that, go to rule number two. Don’t buy drugs from or use drugs with strangers.
As for three lines of blow and a shot of vodka keeping him high for 24 hours; bullshit! More like 3 grams and a bottle! Andl that would have to be straight flake off the rock with no cut. Peruvian Pink………ah the good old days. Cocaine makes you feel like a new man. Problem is the new man wants to do some too!
All in all his life turned out ok. So no tears or empathy from me.
Yup to bad you didn’t get the same deal as ole Willie. Thats the only unfair thing I see that happened to Willie. I mean all us law abiding citizens never cry about how much time is done by law breakers only the current and ex convicts do.
Boo hoo.
A cokehead gets busted and gets a stiff sentence. Who cares. No sympathy from me. Here’s an idea….DON’T SNORT COKE.
Hey kids…
Drugs are bad, you shouldn’t do drugs, mkay? If you do them, you’re bad, cuz drugs are bad, mkay?
I’ve led a hell of a wild life, so no bricks outta my
glass house will ever hit anyone popped for drugs.
smartman and Super Dave, I am usually in lock step with you guys, but I gotta go with Glaze on this.
And NOT just because I have occasionally found myself drunker than Hoot Gibson in a swimming pool full of blow.
The War On Drugs is a failure that even Pat Buchanan says has failed, continues to fail and will NEVER be won.
Criminalizing our neighbors and fellow citizens for character flaws is illogical and in this economy unsustainable. Were we to just release the “Hippie Lettuce” pot heads outta prison and free up space for violent offenders, then tax the pot, we as a nation would be a lot better off in my opinion.
At this point, I don’t believe that even the folks who want to continue The War On drugs think that war is winnable, they just believe it is a necessary war of attrition. A Pyrrhic victory is now the goal. That victory, bought on the backs and blood of our fellow Americans, who are in turn marginalized, criminalized and then economically crippled by these policies, should, one would think, disabuse even the most stalwart advocates of this endeavor, that the cost is prohibitive.
I think Glaze’s use of Willie Aikens as an example of the high cost and misguided policies that do such great damage to our citizens, is brilliant.
Aikens is and was an eminently likable guy, that we as taxpayers, spent, at, for example in California, $47,102.00 per year (I don’t know where they had him….?) around $706,530.00 for, if he did 15 years.
I have a good friend (Shutup.) who’s wife’s brother was married to this hot chick back in the 80’s. She was from Oklahoma and had three kids with her husband. Standard Oklahoma chick, smoked ciggs, drank beer out of a can, worked at some 12.00 an hour job, liked her pot and occasionally did some blow back in the day. I am in no way excusing he character flaws, or my own. But the dumbass got popped a third time (She was turned in by a ‘friend’) and did 15 fuckin years. Unfuckinbelievable.
She was never gonna cure cancer, but Jesus was she harmless. Destroyed the family, the kids had problems, the husband (Really great guy.) stuck by her all 15 years, I could go on, but what a fuckin waste of money and lives.
I get it, you are gonna say don’t do the crime etc.
I respect the opinion, I really do, but the draconian-break-the-butterfly-on-the-wheel sentences and penalties are fuckin crazy.
One of your best efforts Glaze.
Oh yeah, forgot,
smartman is right about one thing, “I would do three lines and a shot of vodka and be high for 24 hours..I loved it.”
Bullshit–at least an 8 Ball and a Bottle for 24 hours of uninterupted debauchery.
That is one comment you would think Glaze could have edited himself.
🙂
… hold on while I get my violin …
I stressed only 2 things when my kids were growning up … and as young adults, I hope they remember it;
1) Life isn’t fair…
2) Your actions have consequences …
Willie learned that the hard way …
Damn, I can’t find that violin…
Quid Pro Blow
Fucked up as drug laws and sentencing guidelines may be the reality is if we don’t incarcerate these people that does not eliminate the potential or real financial cost or burden on society. If not incarcerated these people will, most likely, wind up on public assistance, welfare, food stamps, housing, Medicare, Medicaid. They will pose a greater risk to friends, family, children and society vis-a-vis their behavior. At least in prison it’s harder for these fucks to procreate.
As a country we won wars when the objective was to break things and kill people. Fuck this hearts and minds bullshit. Same for the war on drugs. Incarceration does not work. Rehab is a joke. This is just some more Great Society chickenshit coming home to roost. What would China do? They’d kill these repeat offenders off on the third strike. Other than the Incarceration Industrial Complex no one benefits from a lifetime behind bars. That, to me, is cruel and unusual punishment. Let’s just punch some tickets to that better life up in the sky where Jesus loves saints and sinners equally. Those fuckers from PETA are worried about chickens and cows and pigs being penned up. Two prisoners in 6′ by 10′ have less space.
This fine social experiment called the USA has failed the first clinical trial. So let’s do what the drug companies do. Fuck all the data and facts gathered so far. Throw it all away. Pretend it never happened. Start over. Let’s find a new drug that’ll give us a 40 year economic boner so we can all sit side by side in cast iron tubs on the peak of that shining city on a hill.
Great article Craig! And I don’t like you OR sports!!
Smart, Super, I’m not disagreeing with either of you, in fact, I
Bowing down at the alter of the Law Establishment
Willie was setup so his “girlfriend” could get a career boost. He was guilty of criminal stupidity but his sentence was harsher than most real dealers get when popped. Willie’s little head was doing the thinking and the undercover cop did a lot of suspect things during the relationship.
Had he sold powder, he would have been in-and-out but Law Enforcement had spoken, crack was so bad you had to do ten-times the time.
Square Groupers is what Florida folks called bales of pot they found on the beaches. A documentary about the smuggling shows how the DEA used bogus data and made death threats to a judge appear out of thin air. Turned two average smugglers into The Smugglers.
I remember a coworkers reaction after his kid totaled his car drunk, 17-years-old, thank God it wasn’t drugs.
Drugs can be some bad shit. So can politics and religion.
?
If Aikens had not gone to jail and been allowed to keep doing his cocaine unfettered for all these years, where would he be now? Would he still be alive and if so, what kind of condition would he be in? I agree that the sentences for addicts are often overly harsh as they are mainly harming themselves, but what is the solution? An addict is imprisoned by their habit even when not behind bars.
I absolutely respect your opinion smartman,
but I just don’t agree with this-
“Fucked up as drug laws and sentencing guidelines may be the reality is if we don’t incarcerate these people that does not eliminate the potential or real financial cost or burden on society. If not incarcerated these people will, most likely, wind up on public assistance, welfare, food stamps, housing, Medicare, Medicaid.”
There is no way to know for sure, until drugs are legalized, but I don’t think the cost would be anywhere near what we as a nation spend now. The cost of incarceration. The inability to aquire employment after release probably exaberates recidivism stats. Criminalization for drug use is, I think, counterproductive for us all.
The War On Drugs is lost, fait accompli. That fact, which flies in the face of our incessant efforts to win that same war, destroys respect for the Rule of Law in my opinion.
Just sayin…
🙂
Orphan, I just watched that “Square Grouper”
documentary.
Great flick!
Mike,
you mke a great point, where would he be now?
I just think, in the face of the galactic failure of the War On Drugs, that it is way past time to find out, just where he would be.
There is no war on drugs…..
..thats just a line to make us feel better. Its full of corruption and money all the way to the top.
I have a friend in Scottsdale. He’s been a contract pilot for years doing charter work. One of his big clients is “an arm of the government”. You know how that goes down? He’s told where to go in the Scottsdale/Phoenix airport and told where to pick up a plane thats waiting for him. In the plane are instructions that tell him where to go next. Then, he has directions on where to go, land, and find a biz jet in a hanger, and what time he is to board. In the cockpit are his intructions for whats next, how many people will be on board and whether or not cargo will be loaded. Usually, the instructions included a request that he not engage them in conversation.
Next step? He pulls it out on the ramp and the set time, cars pull up, men in suits get on board. He flies to South America and lands on a well groomed dirt runway…. lined with jeeps in foreign military with guns. The men get off, exchange pleasantries, Out of the cargo hold somes brief cases and stuff…..
Now, I ask you, whats the chance of that being anything clean?
Thats our government.
Paul,
a long time ago, I think Glaze did another article similar to this one, and, at the time, he said that he thought the War On Drugs made so much money for the Government, Federal, State and Local, that the Goverrnment had no, and has no interest in ending that same war.
Maybe?
Can’t keep the boy on the Pharma
Who benefits if we legalize drugs? BIG PHARMA, that’s who. Pfizer, Merck, Bayer, Sanofi Aventis. You think the drug cartels are gonna abide that? No fucking way. You want a war on drugs? That’ll do it. La Emme and MS-13 will be whacking Pharma execs and employees left and right. You think the average Barney Fife copper wants to go to work every day knowing he’s gonna be involved in a shoot out where he is out gunned and out manned?
And it’s not like BIG PHARMA along with the federal government and the FDA aren’t already approving and producing enough nasty addictive shit to kill us already. Fucking kids are drinking hand sanitizer to get a buzz. Holy Kitty Dukakis!
Now I would be intrigued by a cocaine product with viagra and something to keep my heart and hard on from exploding so I could have sex far beyond my partners ability to lubricate, literally making my penis a weapon of ass destruction.
I still vote on a civil war to cull the mentally and morally deficient from the herd followed by a Patton style invasion of Mexico.
I don’t know smartman,
if ya actually promised white people that they wouldn’t so to jail for shooting gangbangers, well…
Where did I put that Mossberg?
@chuck
I think black people and brown people and yellow people should be allowed to shoot gangbangers too. Let’s call it Pussy Comatatis.
Smart, Chuck, Guy, SD, Orphan… you’re sick MoFo’s
Thanks for making me want to come read this digital rag-fest every day!! My life wouldn’t be the same without you guys.
Do you notice the oder has gone down and the quality of conversation has gone up since Asshat is hidden in the Panic Room in his McMansion somewhere?
Ahhhhhh…. now if I only had a view of the water from my office……
Thanks for pointing out something else Craig really IS correct about, thats why I said; The War On Drugs…. ISN’T! Its just another game. If we knew how many games there were, our heads would spin.
In the words of that illustrious MN wrestler turned Governor, I sure hope they DONT build that wall along the border. Some day we may ALL WANNA GET OUT OF HERE!! I dont want anything blocking my path!!
@ smartman
I don’t really think the street gangs would be able to go after big pharma sucessfully. After prohibition was abolished, I didn’t see the Mafia going after the legal alcohol suppliers.
First of all, legalize marijuana and decriminalize hard drugs and treat them as a medical problem.
Secondly, I have no sympathy for Willie Aikens. He dodged a bullet in ’80 with the Willie Wilson and pals coke party bust. He then managed to get in trouble a second time. Then the third time, when he was trading drugs for sex, was caught with crack cocaine and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Naturally, Craig blames his lawyers.
Maybe I Wasn’t Clear
Nobody said Willie was a great guy or didn’t do anything wrong…he isn’t and he did do some bad things…but 20 years for those acts is way over the top…he wasn’t a danger and he wasn’t a dealer, he was a dumb ass junkie..the broad wanted some job action over a nobody…thats all….our system is very unfair and you think cause I am an ex con is why I am on his side…hey I deserved my seven year sentence. I did…that was about right for my life of robbing drug dealers and doing stings, for me it all ended in 83/84 on that arrest…since I have only used drugs as most have for fun, not profit, and I was never an addict…I think many of you who said WHO CARES, used dope, and even sold it here and there when you were younger…maybe to get yours cheep, free or for some pocket dough..so you are no better than Aikens, if you can’t do the crime…what a bunch of crap…so he gets 20 years, guess a traffic ticket is 10…well in Johnson County it might be…
The Glaze Haze
I’ve had two friends do stints in Hutch and Jeff. Could have easily been me. Yeah, WE, a group of five of us, bought pounds of blow, cut it, sold it and got high on our own supply. We knew the risks, never really considered them, but we knew. We had a captive market, laid low and did our business. The two pinches were quite accidental. One at a party that got busted and the other during a routine traffic stop for suspicion of DUI. Not during the normal course of “business”. Neither guy squealed or ratted. Both had competent attorney’s. Both got bad deals. It’s not a bunch of crap. It is what it is. Actions have consequences and real men suffer those consequences with eyes wide open and mouths closed shut.
@Mike: Billions of dollars are at stake supplying currenty illegal drugs in the US. The Mexican cartels control about 70% of the market. They will dispatch their minions in the US to slaughter executives and even low level manufacturing employee’s of Pharma companies in order to get them to stop manufacturing drugs. If we legalize drugs the BIG PHARMA guys will get in the game. They already have the sales, manufacturing, tracking and secure distribution capabilities that will be required. It’s not like the Feds are gonna just license every Tyrone, Ricardo and Harry that are currently controlling turf. The Mexican cartels are far more brutal than the American or even Sicilian Mafia ever thought about being. Just take a look at what is currently happening in Mexico. That level of violence and corruption will be exported here.
@ balboni
I agree that in some cases drug and alcohol addiction are true medical problems. More often than not it’s just lazy undisciplined fuckers that can’t say NO. How do you separate the two? Taking your point one step further to illogical conclusion as I tend to do; can we tell fatties they are no longer allowed at Golden Corral? Food is an addiction for some people too. What about me jerking off five times a day? What’s in it for me? The porns already free. At some point I should theoretically start to suffer from pornography induced erectile dysfunction. The misses is bound to use the safe word one of these nights when she feels uncomfortable in the harness, cause my freak meter is starting to approach snuff film level, or what Craig calls foreplay. What then? Sex counseling? Last time we did that we ended up in a three way with the damn counselor?
The Entire Drug War/Busts Is Overdone
Look as I wrote awhile back, the drug busts/arrests are just a money biz, to both sides….there is no reality, the government and the law enforcement never gave a shit what you did or didn’t do, its a job and the easiest arrests are drugs, cause everyone and I mean everyone at one time or another does them…what 95% of America….at some point…so there it is…oh yeah including ALL LAW ENFORCEMENT..HOW MANY HAVE SAT ON JURIES AND SENT YOUNG PEOPLE TO JAIL FOR DOING WHAT THEY THEMSELVES DID…INSANE…hey I was part of it..on both sides….I was wrong…it was money, glory and fame…and yeah sex….Aikens is a sad sideshow of a disturbed law enforcement going ‘whack’ over something they really don’t care about in the first place….like “buckle up” they don’t care…its just another way to write you up…period….same as drugs just another way to get a brownie point…a fact….Willie is a case in point of extreme hate and over Zealous mean spirited Nazi mentality we all too often have right here in the U.S. sorry to say…look at how far Johnson County has taken small ‘ticket cases’ with pre-trial probation and drug dropes on “tresspassing” no less, insane…and what 10,000 kids on pre probation for being AROUND A BEER OR A PARTY..wtf….insane, hey they aren’t even guilty…yet…wow.
jimmy crack corn
The enhacement for crack over powder is the most retarded law on the books. That said, if you look at your average crack dealing teen / 20 something gangsta the lengthy sentence kind of made sense when crack was at its peak. The down side is when that 43 year old knucklehead gets out after a couple of dimes in the joint. If you thought he was a menace at 20, you aint seen shit. Im not saying he is the victim, but HE Thinks he is. Feeling like you have been dealt a stacked hand gives you a bad case of maditis, deserved or not. Legalize / decriminalize and the drug problem just gets replaced by a different hustle. Since Im known to smoke a little medicinal hippy lettuce as a preventitive for gluacoma, I say legalize it, tax it.
various incoherent ramblings followed by generalized insult
The enhacement for crack over powder is the most retarded law on the books.
——
You will be happy to know it is no longer on the books then, at least federally.
As for Glazer, you keep saying that people who got caught dealing small amounts “weren’t a dealer” or something. You dont need a minimum to be a dealer. Hell, you don’t even need to take money to be a dealer.
I do agree 100% that 20 years is too long, but that was his third cocaine charge and throw in the gun and it isn’t out of this world, albeit harsh.
Smartman, considering we should all be on a single payer health care plan (or even not) I’d certainly support lap band surgery for the fatty. Even in your joke the sex addicted person could get help for his addiction. Why? Because you are less of a drain on society if you are 175 lbs and working rather than 450lbs and taking a disability check. Same thing goes for johnny spanko. If you jerk off 10 times a day you can’t hold down a job and contribute even a bit to the collective whole. If you jerk off 11 times a day, you are a KCC commenter!
BAZINGA, TIP YOUR WAITRESSES, HAVE THE SAMOSAS, gimme a 4/4 and take it for a walk…
The war on drugs was and still is totally bogus,
when our prisons are filled with mostly nonviolent drug offenders. When the CI freaking A is flying in plane loads of cocaine through Mena, Arkansas back when Bubba was governor and they (CIA)creates the bloods and crips, the war on drugs becomed a literal joke.
Fortunately we still have time to reverse this idiotic stance on recreational drugs.
@ the dude
Careful about Slick Willie and all the drug running and White Water stuff. The New World Order can have you placed in Vince Foster-Care. Visit joelskousen.com and read his bit on the Vince Foster ” suicide”. Evil bastard puppet masters at the NWO always seem to get their way. They even got Dick Cheney a new heart so he can advise Mitt Romney on foreign policy.
Could respect glaze someday but….
It’s damned unlikely. Perhaps if you, glaze, a dreg on society, started referring to your armed robberies as “armed robberies” instead of the spin name “stings” some of us will believe you are no longer proud and have indeed changed your thoughts and ways. Until then, you will be dismissed as an armed-robber-has been.