Free Bamboozled by Joe Biel

Sports Machine, Fox Television, The Reporters,
and
A Current Affair.
Joey started receiving bags of mail and was introduced to Youth Development, Inc. (YDI) in Albuquerque—a model of what a national program could be. They worked with gang kids, found jobs, did education, and housed single mothers. Joey spent the next few years working under director Chris Baca, who became something of a mentor.
    Joey claims he was paying $3,000 per month in phone bills, callling Japan to get card show appearances for players herepresented, calling players daily for bats and balls, and calling his dad to cheer him up.
    Joey managed to “befriend” Edward James Olmos shortly after his Oscar-winning performance in
Stand and Deliver,
who also came to vocally defend Joey’s “right” to be released.
    Joey was making “so much money” that he sent 200 kids to Magic Mountain, sent bikes to a Christmas program, and hired a new appeals attorney, Cheryl Lutz. Melvin Belli was pursuing a governor’s pardon from governor Pete Wilson, which went downhill after Belli began telling the media that the governor should be put into the bay on a boat without paddles. So Joey began reading law books at the end of his work day.
    Joey’s dad mentioned that Paul Molitor of the Baseball Hall of Fame was Puerto Rican. Joey tracked him down and he happened to see the
Sports Machine
episode about Joey but explained that he was actually French Canadian.
    Joey found that the players who grew up in poverty surrounded by a gang climate tended to cling to him better than those who were born better off. Eric Davis, interviewed during Joey’s roughest period, said simply “Joey is my friend.”
    Joey became so close with Paul Molitor that he was credited with help talking Paul through a hitting slump.
    But in another seemingly fickle spate of leaving his girlfriend and life behind, Joey decided to request a transfer to New Mexico to be closer to YDI. It was 1990 by the time Carlos let him know his transfer was approved. Joey owed Sacco $50,000, who reportedly laughed it off and let it go, so Joey says he sent Sacco a “donation” every week thereafter.
    And so when Mr. Lipton attempted not to pay Joey for
Rapamania,
he and Quimby Jones were supposedly visited by Mr. Gambino, who “made them see Jesus,” whatever that might mean, since they were still alive.
    Joey found the state pen in Santa Fe to be like a John Wayne movie. The former gas chamber room was intact and there remained burn marks from efforts to burn out the last inmate during a riot. It is also where
Dig’s Town
and
The Longest Yard
were filmed.
    Athletes remained willing to travel to Albuquerque in support of Joey’s message of hope for kids. Joey says he convinced Emmitt Smith to make a personal appearance for YDI after obtaining some $2,000/case of rare Upper Deckcards for Emmitt’s father. Emmitt flew out, did a fundraiser for YDI, and signed hundreds of iron-on number “2”s and 8xio”s, which Joey sold for $400 each as his own fundraiser. Since Albuquerque had no sports teams, the Dallas Cowboys were treated like a local.
    Joey created a radio show from the prison station called
Sports Talk with Joey T.
His first interview was with Eric Davis and Daryl in rehab.
    Joey says he worked producing the rap group Lynch Mob, who supposedly asked him to sell cases of glock 9mm handguns and hand grenades that they had stolen during the LA riots to pay for their recording time. Apparently, in Joey’s identity, that didn’t contradict the image he had built up with B.A.D., but he does claim there was some matter of conscience. When the California Department of Corrections refused to pay him for the weapons, he handed them over to the ATF. Again, he says he expected this would put a gold star on his record and help him get out of prison, which it did not. Joey’s self-image remained complicated and seemingly