Donna Lyons Interviews Willie Mays Aikens From Major League Baseball

 Willie Mays Aikens, former first baseman for the Kansas City Royals, made baseball history when he became the first player to hit a pair of two-homer games in the 1980 World Series. Years later he made another kind of history, when a longstanding addiction to cocaine ended his baseball career and ultimately led to a nearly 20 year sentence for selling crack cocaine to an undercover officer.

And in 2008, he made headlines yet again when a federal judge reduced his lengthy prison term to 14 years as a result of the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s adjustment to the crack cocaine sentencing guidelines. Aikens was released in June 2008.

Aikens also kept in contact with his former teammates, coaches and friends including Cal Ripken, Jr., legendary baseball Hall of Famer, who, in November 2005, urged the Pardon Attorney at the Department of Justice to grant Aikens.

On February 1, 2011, the Royals announced that they had hired Aikens as a minor league coach who will be based at the franchise's complex at Surprise, Arizona. He also speaks and gives testimony on his faith that helped him be the man he is today.

Willie has written a book “Safe At Home” An intimate portrait of a tortured player, this biography culls interviews, letters, and the personal account of baseball legend Willie Mays Aikens. Touted from a young age as the next Reggie Jackson, Aikens' promising career quickly turned disastrous when he fell into drug abuse and was ultimately sentenced to the longest prison sentence ever given to a professional athlete in a drug case. Not only an exploration of baseball and culture in the 1980s, this book also delves into the United States justice and penal systems.