Street Slip Version #4

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How does a hometown hero who rises to a champagne life skid to the streets??

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Words: Blaine Spence, Bleacher Report (reprinted)

The Street Slip is distributed by and The amazing thing about J.R. Richard was that he could throw a baseball hard, really hard. One of Richard’s pitches was once clocked at 98 miles for PLEASE the HomelessONLY and Disadvantaged BUY FROM per hour. Oh, did I fail to mention that this particular pitch was his slider? His fastball was regularly gunned in the triple digits, and on more than one of St. Louis, Missouri urban issues+ + entertainment + homeless resources occasion reachedsocial 103 mph.awareness It didn’t take long for James Rodney Richard to figure out he liked sports. It also didn’t take long for him, and the surrounding BADGED VENDORS SUGGESTED communities, to realize he excelled at them. As a pitcher, imagine not losing a single high school game for your career, and not giving up a single run in DONATION REAL VENDORS your senior year. How about hitting four consecutive jacks, and in the same game pitching your team to a 48-0 shellacking of your opponent?

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DON’T SOLICIT His basketball prowess was such that Richard entertained offers of scholarships from nearly every elite college program in the country. He turned every DONATIONS ABOVE one of them down flat. Instead, he would sign an offer from the Houston Astros to play professional baseball. The Astros were enamored enough with COVER PRICE Richard’s high school production, as well as his physical tools (Richard stood 6’8’’ and weighed 220 pounds as a senior in high school), to make him the PLEASE ONLY BUY FROM BADGED VENDORS

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from unhittable to homeless Words: Blaine Spence

How does a hometown hero who rises to a champagne life skid to the streets?

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second overall selection in baseball’s amateur draft held in 1969. Like many young pitchers, Richard spent the better part of the next two years toiling in the minors. The strikeouts were amassing quickly, but also like many young pitchers, mechanics had to be perfected and control had to be tamed.

Richard made his Major League debut with the Astros on Sept. 6, 1971 at the tender age of 21. He was asked to take the mound for the second game of a doubleheader against the San Francisco Giants—a team that included Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and Bobby Bonds. All Richard did was strike out 15 Giants, including Willie Mays thrice. He picked up the win, and tied a 17-year-old record for strikeouts in a debut for a starting pitcher. After Richard’s auspicious debut, he found himself again contending with control problems. While winning 20 games in 1976, and 18 games in each season from 1977 thorough 1979, Richard became a strikeout machine. Using his blistering fastball and his equally effective slider, he won the single season strikeout title in both 1978 and 1979, ringing up 303 and 313 batters, respectively. In the 1980 season, Richard was named to his first All-Star Game. Before the break he was just flat-out gas—three straight complete-game shutouts, 10 victories, 110 strikeouts, and an ERA of 1.96.

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INSP A4 EN.pdf 1 23/08/2010 15:21

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Soreness in his shoulder and back would limit Richard to only two innings pitched in the All-Star Game however; foreboding of things to come. As Richard’s complaints of dizziness, blurred vision, and arm “deadness” escalated, so did the zetetic position of the Houston Astros organization, as well as that of the media. Rumors of a lackadaisical attitude, drug use, and even jealousy of Nolan Ryan began to swirl about. Richard made one start after the All-Star Game, against the Atlanta Braves; he was pulled in the fourth inning after not being able to see his catcher’s signs due to blurred vision. On July 30, 1980, while tossing a ball around in the outfield prior to a game, Richard collapsed from what would later be identified as a stroke. Blood flow in the major arteries in the right side of Richard’s neck had been completely restricted. A few hours later, life-saving emergency surgery was performed to restore blood flow to his brain. To make matters worse, it was later discovered Richard had suffered no less than three strokes; he still suffered from arterial blockages in his right arm. Doctors now advised Richard the risk of further complications were so great, that pitching again was out of the question. It was also apparent to many that Richard’s physical abilities had diminished. The Astros released Richard in the spring of 1984, and the downward spiral of J.R. Richard’s life hit overdrive. Richard lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in bad business investments, was divorced twice, lost his home, and in the winter of 1994, was found living under a Houston freeway underpass.

Enter Reverend Floyd Lewis of the New Testament Church of South Houston. With Lewis’s help, guidance, and understanding, as well as a deeply rooted faith in God, Richard overcame homelessness and despair. In time, Richard himself became a minister in the church. He and Lewis now spend countless hours helping the homeless and mentoring the area’s youth that need a guiding hand. Richard is also involved in raising funds to help establish youth baseball leagues around the city of Houston. He firmly believes if kids are playing baseball, they won’t be joining gangs. Of his many accomplishments, one of them he is most proud of is his membership in the exclusive club known as, “The 12 Black Aces.” The group is comprised of the 12 African-American pitchers that have achieved 20 or more victories in a single season..Others in the group include Don Newcombe, Bob Gibson, Vida Blue, and the founder of the group, James Timothy “Mudcat” Grant. After all the man has been through, he does not dwell on the bad things that have befallen him.

“That’s hindsight, and that doesn’t do any good to sit here and dwell on what could (have) been,” said Richard. “It’s part of my past, and I’m trying to go further in life. I try to leave that alone and look at what’s in front of me.” This philosophy is the foundation of his message when he serves as a motivational speaker around the country. With that said, he still firmly believes if his career wasn’t cut short, he would be the all-time strikeout leader.

With 1,493 in his shortened career, who can blame him?

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YES, THEY CAN GET COVERED Words: Aaron Burkhalter, Real Change USA

Millions of homeless people across America will now qualify for healthcare under controversial legislation called the Affordable Care Act. Dubbed ‘Obamacare’, the act will allow Americans living on less than $15,000 a year to receive free medical aid. Not-for-profit community clinics, like HealthPoint in King County, Washington, have been reaching out to homeless people to get them to sign up for Medicaid cards.

Whitney Walker, an outreach specialist with the nonprofit community clinic HealthPoint, helps David Chapman fill out a form to get Medicaid coverage. Photo: Katia Roberts

David Chapman, 31, hasn’t had health insurance since he was 18, when he aged out of his parents’ plan. For the past 13 years Chapman has lived in shelters and tent camps and spent some time in jail. Whenever he needed medical care he went to the emergency room.

In 2004, he tore a rotator cuff and walked out of ER with pain killers, his arm in a sling. In 2010, after he fell off a skateboard and got a hernia, he ended up in the ER again. Another time, it was a 104-degree temperature, he said. One thing remained the same: on each visit, emergency room doctors sent him away with a prescription he couldn’t fill, or a referral to a specialist that he couldn’t afford. In January 2014, that could change. Chapman is one of an estimated 7,000 homeless people in King County, Washington, and 8.7 million people across America who could qualify for Medicaid beginning on Jan. 1, all thanks to the Affordable Care Act. If he manages to get a Medicaid card, Chapman will pay nothing for his health care.

The Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, expands Medicaid coverage to anyone living at 138 percent of the federal poverty level, about $15,000 a year for a single adult. Beginning Oct. 1st 2013, staff and volunteers at Seattle-King County Public Health and a number of nonprofits serving homeless people, fanned out to foodbanks, day centers and meal programs looking for other people like Chapman. Chapman arrived at Transform Burien’s hot-meal program on a recent Wednesday, intending to eat some casserole in the community center while his girlfriend had a dental appointment outside, at King County’s Mobile Medical Clinic. Instead, he found himself meeting with Whitney Walker, an outreach specialist for HealthPoint, a nonprofit community clinic, who was there to find new Medicaid clients.

computer, Walker pulled out a nine-page paper application. She and another HealthPoint outreach worker met with about a dozen people, slowly writing out the forms, which they would later input into a computer.

They expect most of the people they meet will qualify for the program and have a Medicaid card by Jan. 1. “I wish everything was working 100 percent, but I know we’re going to get there,” said John Gilvar, SeattleKing County Public Health’s high-risk populations coordinator. “It hasn’t really dampened our enthusiasm.”

WHATSUP VENDORS WHATS UP MAGAZINE MISSION STATEMENT To empower men and women who are homeless or at risk of becoming so, as they work toward gainful employment and self-sufficiency.Whats Up organizes, educates, and alliances to connect community-based solutions to the problems of hunger and homelessness leading readers to understanding and activism. The paper’s mission aims to alleviate miscommunication between communities by educating the public about housing and poverty issues, and by giving the homeless a voice in the public forum.Whats Up also informs the homeless of shelter and occupational assistance, and acts as a creative self-help opportunity for those individuals who wish to participate.

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Chapman, by contrast, was nonchalant. He lives with constant back pain, he said, and needs surgery. “It was going to cost thousands of dollars without insurance,” he said. He will use Medicaid to have surgery, “if I can get the cost down,” he said.

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Walker will spend the next three months helping people fill out Medicaid applications. She said she was so excited about the work that she couldn’t sleep the night before: “This is what I’ve been waiting for the last year.” The Washington Health Care Authority, which is overseeing the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion in Washington, allocated $6 million to train outreach workers like Walker to assist people in filling out their applications. Dozens of others around the county are doing the same. The Downtown Emergency Services Center trained 28 of its staff members to help the organization’s more than 2,000 clients sign up. Staff at Evergreen Treatment Center were also trained to engage the 500 clients it serves.

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Outreach workers got off to a slow start. The state’s computer system was overloaded with people signing up for insurance. So instead of using a

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