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Two weeks ago, when the Kansas City Royals scored five runs and shelled him out of a game that the A's eventually won 7-5, Blue could only sit in front of his locker, shaking his head and muttering, "Mercy, mercy, mercy me. I'm almost crazy from the pressure." When, as always, the newsmen crowded around him, he pointed to his teammates and said, "Why don't you go talk to them? They won the game. 1 didn't do anything." Though accommodating to the press, Blue objects to being hounded constantly for interviews. "It's a weird scene. You win a few baseball games, and all of a sudden you're surrounded by reporters and TV men with cameras, asking things about Viet Nam and race relations and stuff about yourself. Man, I'm only a kid. I don't know exactly who I am. I don't have a whole philosophy of life set down."
When he is annoyed by being asked the same questions ("Who is your hero?" "What's your biggest thrill?" "Will you win 30 games?"), Blue tends to go into his shufflin', put-on routine: "It sholy is nice to have you fellas come an' talk to a po' boy lak me. Now some of you may not be aware of what sholy means. That's something we say down home. It's almost the same as surely." Hounded as he is, Blue is still very conscious of what he calls "Bogartin'." The way he tells it, "Bogartin' is when a guy walks around like he owns the world, or acts superior or pushes other people around. I keep telling myself, 'Don't get bigheaded. Be good to the writers. Talk to the kids. Sign autographs. Don't brag. Throw a ball into the stands once in a while.' " Blue is especially careful not to appear "hot-doggish" to his teammates. When a group of airline executives asked him to appear at their banquet, he said, "Invite the rest of the team and I 'll be happy to come." On another occasion, when a TV interviewer complimented him on his poise, he drawled: "Well, I'm not Sidney Poitier yet."
Then there are "all these friends I didn't know I had. They're from my home town, my home state, people I meet in the meat market. Yeah, there are a lot of girls, too. They might be impressed with me, but I'm not impressed with them. I guess you could call me a square. I usually don't go out more than three or four times during a road trip. I do okay with women. But most of the time I'd just rather get me a bottle of soda and a paper, watch some TV and go to bed."
Bachelor Blue lives with Teammate Tommy Davis in a modest apartment in a middle-class black section of Oakland. Davis, 32, a two-time National League batting champion, screens Vida's telephone calls and advises him on everything from hitters' weaknesses to handling the press. "I try to guide Vida," says Davis, "but I don't have to do that much. He's a 22-year-old who acts like a man of 30. The only thing I don't like about him is that he starts cussing and runs out of the apartment when I play my flute."
Cutting Up and Cringing