A Reporters Worst Nightmare...My Own at Least with the Late Great Herb Brooks

It came one night at Madison Square Garden during the 1983-84 season. Herb Brooks was the Rangers head coach. As you may recall, Herb coached the 1980 U.S. Men's Olympic Hockey Team to a tremendous upset victory over the Soviet Union en route to the gold medal at Lake Placid. He was in his third season as coach of the New York Rangers and was doing a good job turning a group of talented and semi-talented individuals into a team capable of upsetting the top teams in the NHL on any given night.

Now I can't tell you about his lockeroom demeanor, but I can tell you Herb was a very personable man off the ice. Sometimes on an off-night, he would go to an Islanders or Devils home game to scout the opposition on his own. And for whatever reason, he seemed to take a liking to me even though (he didn't know) during my free time I was a fan of the hated rival Islanders. We would often sit in the media room before the game and casually chat about hockey and other things.

On this night at the Garden, the Rangers offense couldn't get untracked. They lost a low scoring game and the team was in the middle of a scoring slump.

I was standing in front and to the right of Herb as he answered a reporter's question about the lack of offense (or OH-fense as he would pronounce it). He was giving his explanation in coach-speak...lots of technical x's and o's; good for newspaper reporters, very boring for radio listeners. He went on for a couple of minutes, and as he did my mind wandered on things like "will there be any food left in the press room when I go back for my coat," and "I hope I don't miss my train." As Herb finished, I figured I'd jump right in and ask him about the Rangers lack of offense.

"Herb, what about the lack of offense?"

Cackles, gaffaws, and laughter of all kinds erupted from the group of newspaper and television reporters seated behind us. Herb looked down at me, paused, and grabbed my thin leather tie (popular at the time) from the bottom and slowly rolled it up in his fist into a ball.

"What did I just finish saying?"

The laughter grew louder. I turned beet red. Herb smiled gently and let go of my tie. He could've screamed, thrown something, called me a name or embarrassed me in front of my peers in any number of ways. Instead, he paused and gave a shorter more radio-friendly answer. This on a night where his Rangers lost a tough one. I slithered out of the press conference with a wet shirt on a very cold night.

I learned a simple yet very important lesson that night- always listen to what the person you're interviewing is saying. And thanks Herb, wherever you are, for being a gentleman.

What A Mess in Dodgertown

I normally wouldn't feel bad for Dodgers fans. I'm still hurting from the '81 World Series when my Yankees had a 2-0 series lead but lost four straight after playing without an injured Reggie Jackson and playing with Dave Winfield and his impotent bat. Not to mention Aurielio Rodriguez at third instead of Graig Nettles and the unforgettable image of Fernando Valenzuela's eyeballs rolling up to the heavens during each pitch as if to say, "Thank you God for letting me get these guys out with this Mexican League crap."

Anyway, today's a new day. California's a beautiful place, and with former Yankee great Donnie Baseball getting his managerial feet wet, I gotta have at least some sympathy for the Dodger faithful.

This War of the Roses-like courtroom fight over control of the franchise bewteen Frank and Jamie McCourt has strangled the ability of the front office to spend money to improve the team.

Because my own mom royally screwed my dad in an ugly divorce when I was a kid, I usually side with the guy in such matters. But this one's different. He was a cab driver.

I see Frank McCourt as Dennis Kozlowski wearing a Dodgers hat. You know, the former CEO of Tyco, now a convicted thief who "misappropriated" $400 million in company funds, and allegedly had the company pay $30 million for his NYC apartment and spent $1 million for his wife's 40th birthday party on the Italian island of Sardinia.

McCourt has apparently double-talked his way into bleeding this storied franchise dry. And now Jamie is asking a judge to order the sale of the team because her ex-husband has brought the team "to the brink of financial ruin."

Of course she's no angel either. She wants top dollar and a quick sale, probably so she can take her loot and make off with some office intern to her own Italian island. Her lawyers say the Dodgers and its properties could be worth more than $2 billion.

Less than a month ago, baseball commish Bud Selig appointed former Texas Rangers President Tom Schieffer to oversee the team's finances. Baseball officials say McCourt wasn't able to make the May 31st player payroll. He says everything would work out fine if only Selig would let his television deal with Fox, that he says could be worth more than $3 billion,  go through.

It looks like MLB didn't do enough due dilligence when deciding whether Frank McCourt would be a financially stable owner. And because of that dark rain clouds will continue to hover over Dodger Stadium.

A $30,000 umbrella stand anyone?

He Spoke When Spoken To



The 1980's weren't pretty for the New York Yankees. It was the first decade since the 1910's they didn't win a World Series. The Dark Ages of Yankees baseball picked up where it left off in in the mid 1970's prior to the Billy Martin, Reggie Jackson, Thurman Munson regime. Bad trades and poor free agent signings (Steve Kemp, Ed Whitson, Ken Griffey and Roy Smalley to name a few) along with George Steinbrenner's 15 managerial changes made going to the "ball orchard in the South Bronx" as much fun as a stroll in Central Park with Robert Chambers.

In mid-1990 a reporter friend of mine asked if I could cover the game for him and send the sound bites to his radio network. It was the first Yankees game I ever covered and I was learning the do's and don't's on the fly. The Yankees were well on their way to a 67-win season under Stump Merrill (that pretty much says it all- a team run by a guy nicknamed "Stump." What comes to mind? I think of the remains of a dead tree with no hope for life) and later by Bucky Dent.

The Yankees won big that night and Claudell Washington had three or four hits, drove in a few runs, so of course he was on my short list of interview subjects. When the cramped Yankees clubhouse opened I saw a bunch of players relaxing on couches and chairs, some playing cards, some eating, others heading to the shower. Washington was at the far side of the room and I noticed that he was sitting by himself with no reporter within 40 feet of him. I bolted from the pack of reporters, turned on my tape recorder and walked over to him. He gave me kind of a surprised look. I asked him four of five questions and he politely answered them all. I thanked him and walked back to Bob, my reporter friend who regularly covered most of the team's home games. Bob gave me a strange look.

"Did you just talk to Washington?"

"Yeah...why?"

Bob laughed. "Because he doesn't talk to the media."

I laughed back. "Well he just talked to me."

I let Bob dub the interview so he could feed the stations he was stringing for, and then headed back to the press room.

A lesson was learned that night even though it was through pure ignorance on my part. The old saying is true after all..."It never hurts to ask."

The Day I Nearly Killed Joe Dimaggio

Aside from former baseball legends like Bob Feller and other pitchers who faced the great Joe D. from the 1930's through the early '50's, there aren't many people who could say they did what I did on that late summer day in 1987.

It was the first Sunday in August. My friend Mike, who worked as an auditor for The Bowery Savings Bank invited me to their annual corporate summer outing in Connecticut. Plenty of burgers, dogs, beer and bank teller cuties to indulge in so it was a no brainer. But there was going to be a very special guest - none other than Joltin' Joe Dimaggio who at that time also served as a tv pitchman for the now defunct Savings and Loan.

Dimaggio appeared at Mike's branch earlier that week and being the thoughtful friend he is had Dimaggio sign my baseball. I had Ted Williams sign the same ball a few years earlier, but it was stolen from my home in 2004 - that's another story.

I was still playing Stan Musial baseball, and although my control was erratic to say the least, I could still bring it. So getting a chance to see Joe D. in person and maybe getting a picture of him would make quite a memory.

Whenever I could, I'd pitch to Mike, just to keep sharp. Although he was an accomplished martial artist, Mike wasn't the most gifted catcher I ever threw to. Slow reflexes. Kind of an amateur Jorge Posada as far as balls getting past him.

So here we were having a catch in this wonderfully wooded park on a lazy, hazy summer afternoon. I started loosening up, feeling like a poor man's version of Goose Gossage, and I felt it was time to let it fly. A high hard one that I can still see clear as day 24 years later. Sure enough, Mike couldn't get his glove up in time and the slick white ball went zipping past him, ricocheting off a tree about 20 feet behind him. It then took a detour at the exact moment a group of business suits emerged from the thicket. Holy sh*t! It just missed Dimaggio by inches! He had his head down while he was talking to the corporate yes men and never even saw it. Mike and I froze for a moment with petrified grins before thanking the powers that be that he wasn't going to get fired and I wasn't going to join Bernie Getz on the front page of The New York Post.

Dimaggio and his group walked to a grassy spot and stopped, completely unaware of what nearly happened. Out of curiosity, Mike and I walked up to them. There we were standing right next to the man voted "The Greatest Living Ballplayer" and here he was, the guy who was the idol of hundreds of millions worldwide, who actually brought Chicken Delight back home to Marilyn Monroe (for a short time), and who looked me right in the eye and continued to say whatever he was saying to the suits, just like I was a close personal friend. I still get goose bumps just thinking about it.

Joe D. and me. Go figure.

Later that afternoon Mike and I played in the company softball game. I smoked not one, but two pitches over the left field fence, both over 340 feet away on the regulation baseball field. I actually won a trophy for being the star of the game. But the real trophy will always be the picture in my mind of the legendary Joe Dimaggio walking, head down, completely oblivious to the heater that nearly made me a Trivial Pursuit legend.