Scott Spiezio Delivers Best Old Timers Baseball Speech Ever: Slocum

JOLIET ? On a cold winter night, over 600 people, all baseball fans, packed into the Clarion Hotel near I-80 and Larkin Avenue to hear Scott Spiezio deliver what later was described as the best guest speaker performance ever, according to long-time emcee Scott Slocum of the WJOL AM-1340 news radio station.

Also at the head table, Dick Goss, the retired sports editor of The Joliet-Herald News, compiled a lengthy feature story for the Old Timers banquet program called, "Hometown Boy Makes Good Scott Spiezio- Guest Speaker." The Morris High School baseball star, just like his father, Ed, played Major League Baseball and won two World Series rings ? just like his dad.

Scott played for the Oakland A's from 1996 through 1999, then four years and a World Series ring for the Anaheim Angels, then two seasons with the Seattle Mariners and two more years with the St. Louis Cardinals, where he achieved his second World Series ring. He had 996 hits, 119 home runs, 549 RBIs, a .255 batting average and in the 2002 World Series, hit what Goss called "perhaps the biggest home run in Angels history."

Spiezio's speech, which left him quite emotional at several times during his talk to the crowd of more than 600 people, was also covered extensively in Goss' excellent write-up contained on the inside page of the Old Timers Baseball program:

"I went through 11 rehabs in a 10-year period, with some sober periods in there. The drug period did not last as long as the alcohol period. At the end, I drank so much that I got jaundiced, and I was given a 20-percent chance to live. I asked God to take my cravings away."

As Goss wrote about and Spiezio told the Old Timers crowd, Spiezio has remained sober since April 6, 2018. Spiezio credits a sermon at the Pulse Village Christian Church in Minooka from 2017 as being his lifesaver.

"I felt like that pastor's message was written just for me," Spiezio shared. "Now I want to share my story as vulnerably as I can about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, motivated by Christian values."

The Old Timers profile reminded baseball fans,"But there is much more to the Scott Spiezio story, from addictions, to rehab institutions, to jails to near-death to now more than six years of sobriety. That's why he is so busy these days making appearances before youth groups, school teams, church groups, alumni functions, fantasy camps, etc. ... and let's not forget, he also is a baseball instructor for kids on a regular basis at his warehouse facility in Morris."