by Bill Eberly
Includes photo of Bill Eberly.
I was born on September 25, 1921, in Toledo, Ohio. In 1928, I developed all the symptoms of diabetes. Excessive thirst and wetting the bed were the most obvious. I spoiled more mattresses for my mother and dad than you can shake a stick at. Finally they took me to the doctor; my uncle, Dr. Karl Eberly, who was a physician in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He quickly determined I was a type 1, insulin-dependent diabetic.
After a week or two of closely regulating my insulin and diet, Uncle Karl walked me through the diabetes ward at a local hospital. Remember, this was 1928. He said, "Billy, if you take your insulin, exercise, and eat the proper diet, you can avoid this; you can have a productive life," as he took me down a ward of diabetic patients who were blind, had gangrene, and had feet and legs amputated. It made a lasting impression on this seven-year-old.
I had always wanted to be a professional baseball player, and I got lots and lots of exercise playing baseball and softball. During my growing-up period, I had a newspaper route, cut lawns, and did other things to raise a little money.
I was taking one or two shots of insulin each day, contingent upon how I felt and what exercise I got. Of course blood glucose testing, the only real way to tell where your sugars are, would be decades in the future.
In any event, I went to high school, then graduated from the University of Toledo, in 1943. Ineligible to serve in the armed forces because I was diabetic, I went straight into Major League baseball--not as a player but an administrator. In early 1944, I had an interview with President of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey. He's in the Baseball Hall of Fame; he's a famous baseball executive (and by the way, his son, Branch, Jr., has diabetes, as I discovered during my final interview). I asked him for a job--and I got it.
I started work with the Dodgers, and was associated in various business activities, from February, 1944 through August, 1953. I was a scout, a minor-league business manager, and troubleshooter for the franchise. I worked with their "farm teams, "and in 1950, became "concession and promotion manager" for all 24 Dodger farm teams.
Jackie Robinson was the most famous baseball player I met. He was with the Dodgers. He's in the Hall of Fame. He was the first black player, he broke the color-line the first time. Branch Rickey, the man who hired me, signed him.
In 1953, I left the Dodgers, and joined the Milwaukee Braves. They were a big-league ball club in the National League. They'd just been moved from Boston to Milwaukee. I was the business manager. I stayed with them until 1965, when they moved to Atlanta. Yes, I have two World Series rings, one from the Dodgers, one from the Milwaukee Braves--1947 from the Dodgers, and 1957 from the Milwaukee Braves.
One little incident during my time with the Dodgers: I was arrested in a Buffalo, New York Railroad Station, in about 1949 or so, for taking my insulin shot in the men's room. I finally proved that I was diabetic, and that the syringe contained insulin rather than cocaine.
Since 1966, I have been a financial consultant with various firms on the New York Stock Exchange, and I am currently associated with Smith Barney.
As an avocation, I give a baseball talk: "The Evolution of the Big League Baseball Business," to civic and business groups. This keeps me in touch with our national pastime. And, I'm a frequent speaker at diabetic educational and fund-raising functions.
I now take four shots of insulin a day. Three of them are Humalog, one before each meal. I take a shot of Lantus, before I go to bed. I would guess my total number of insulin injections has been somewhere above 70,000.
Even today, I have a lot of hypoglycemia, so I test my blood sugar eight times a day. Back in the old days, testing your blood was a major problem. You had to go to the doctor and they would draw out blood, and send it to the lab. It could take days to get a result. (Editor's Note: That's why, for decades, urine testing was the rule; it was less accurate, but more or less immediate--there were no home blood glucose monitors 'til the late 1960s.) I used "test tapes" to check my urine for sugar.
The old "reusable" insulin syringes were like ice picks. You had to sterilize and check them, which was not very pleasant. Diabetes self-care is far better today, with the new devices, testing equipment, and so forth.
I'm grateful to Drs. Best and Banting, who developed insulin, to the diabetes associations, to the dedicated research teams that develop new procedures and products to make diabetes care more productive and less painful. Here I am, 81-plus-years-old, having taken over 70,000 insulin shots, I test my blood glucose six to eight times a day, and I am still working full time.
I'm one lucky guy. I know I've "beaten the odds," to stay healthy so long, 75 years as a brittle type 1 diabetic, but, though part of it is luck, much of it goes back to the support I've had all these years--loving care from parents, empathy with brothers and sisters, wives, and children. All have helped me learn how to do things right, and helped me keep on doing them. And, Uncle Karl's remarks helped me tremendously, as he meant to do, by getting my attention, and making clear it was up to me to take my insulin, eat right, and exercise. And I never forgot the lesson.