Hello, this is Jim Bickel portfolio filling in for JG Preston today. Who's that? Take a little vacation on portfolio. Today. We're going to be talking about the sports fans. Bring talking to some sports fans downtown how they got interested in sports and why and what kinds of things that they they get out of sports. I guess like to invite you to call in with your comments and questions a pickle a interested in anybody who has an interesting anecdote about something that really got them interested in sports a particular event or something like that. If you'd like to do that. The number to call is 2276 thousandths to 276 thousand. If you're outside the 612 area code you can call the 612-227-6040 call going to have to guess this afternoon first Joanne Troyer. She's married to one of the most amazing sports fans I've ever met will you'll know who that is, and I just a second andTalk to her about how she got interested in sports and from a woman's perspective little bit about sports fandom and we talkin to Christopher lehmann-haupt. He's the author of a book called me and DiMaggio book basically an account of what happens when a baseball fan gets to spend a year with his favorite team and meet at idle and a he likes and comments on his year with the New York Yankees and sort of being in the world of the beat reporters where we do that though. I'd like to talk a little bit about a piece of baseball history that the also involves fans on this date, June 4th, 1974 the Texas Rangers play the Indians in Cleveland, and it was Ten Cent beer night that night as the game went on the fans got router and router eventually there was a small riot in the game was forfeited by the Indians Chuck Eaton has been a sports writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer for the last 30 years. He covered that game for the paperwork off at the team made the mistake of not hiring any extra police to help control.Crowd of about twenty-five thousand a week before and out of trouble brawl during one of the games and Texas the week before and and there was other work that was some animosity. It's hard to start building that was a manager at Texas team when they came in and it's not a build-up during the week. There was some radio announcement said, let's sit on this team this week. And so I think the crowd did get a little bit aroused coming to the before the game and I seen a few people that ran on the field in the middle of the game table be a couple of guys with their shirts off and on across the feelings which happens. Sometimes it's that has games in the summertime.That it happened a few times during the game and it began the has began to build up a little bit in the late Innings doll with the chance. You could get that the crowd was beginning to get a little unruly and fights in the stands and things like that. They had to evacuate the Texas Bullpen 7th inning cuz fans were throwing rock and roll guy and he was a voice thing back the fans a dollar damage motion back with him. And I think he thumbs his nose at him a couple of times and we chatted to the irritation in the ninth inning. The score is five to five at there's two outs and a Indians are in a position to know the guy runners in scoring position to win the game and fans run on the field and rivet active.Jeff Burroughs write to me then. He saw price them off and I got all that nasty and more more fans came out on the field at the time and it was in the right field area. He was playing right field and Texas team came out of their dog out to to help him out. And then more fans came on the field over and the police and then the Cleveland Indians Blood by Dave Duncan quite a few of their players went out to help him. So I just became a general melee on the field and then more more fans became began to speak and it led the police were just there was an addict with the number of police there to take care of the crowd and they were swarming all over the field and saw them.Was the Empire and probably should have you probably missed out early in the game by not the warning the morning the players of wanting the crowd that they they could forfeit the game those responsibilities the home team to keep route order and he should have made the announcement. I think that's telling the crowd at the game could be forfeited to Texas if the brass of the Indians and do much to help it either because they they want to get out of the area before they get out before all the drunken drivers, Anyway to add Bondo was the chief executive officer of team of the time and feel sick.Is the general manager left before the incident started before the field and you're looking at that from the Press Box? Is it a scary sight out there believe what was happening the Rangers and the picture of a pitching for the Rangers at that time and leave when the game was call is deep folk off and he was really he was really upset and I think it's a game at continue. If you need of course they would have wanted to go I don't think you could even throw in the mall across the plate and thankfully Martin is it life picture was scared? I couldn't I couldn't get anybody to warm up in the bullpen because they couldn't get out get out in front of people. Come on up on the bullpen to warm up. So I think it wasJustice for justifiable 4th of the game truck heating of the Cleveland Plain Dealer talking about Ten Cent beer night 14 years ago today in Cleveland game that the Indians forfeited to the Texas Rangers that by the way, I believe was the last a cheap beer night ever held in the baseball not the brightest idea ever thought of as a promotion for it for sports all the fans that went a little little crazy in in that game. But of course fans are the lifeblood of professional sports. It's what makes the money and working to be talking about why people get interested in sports today on sportfolio. The number to call is 2276 thousand if you got something to add to our conversation, that's to 276 thousand.First of all, like welcome by Dwayne Shroyer to the sporkful Leo Studio hear Joann is married to JG Preston the normal regular hose normal probably the wrong word answer with your regular host of this program and I have asked her to come in just to talk about the process of becoming a sports fan. JG. I first met him reminded me a lot of big through the guys. I used to talk to you in homeroom back in junior high and high school. There's a friend of mine named Jim Billow. Who is that behind me in homeroom? Cuz they alphabetized and and everyday it we would come in and they would be just hums piece of sports trivia that had happened the night before. I mean you're thinking about they were always just a seemingly uninteresting things most people but we would just think that was the greatest thing and we would bring AJ hear the Knicks are thinking about going to another a 3 guard at I don't know anything and so it wouldYeah, it is JG the same way to see who's always someone to talk to you about anything that happened in sports it say yeah common language that. I'm sure many of our listeners know we were talking about fanaticism for the game that took four games in a baseball in particular that the shared before you met. JG what how long how long do I think five years before you met him? What was your interested in sports at? All? In fact, I had all the classic prejudices Again Sports inSo I think if JJ had been a fanatic he's really not, you know, if he if he had been a fanatic I wouldn't have gone near him because he would have been boring to me. I think we would have had no level upon which to meet and and talk. Fanaticism is it it's different mean there are we were talking earlier about football widows and you know, just a real interest in in the things that go on in the World of Sports. And that's the day I discovered in the JG and I share and now you're interested in sports. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I really am a baseball fan and I really didn't like baseball at all before I met JJ. I didn't know anything about baseball and he really introduced me to that sport. I really actually hated a lot about sports. I had a terrible prejudice against it and what did you see the movie Hoosiers? It's it's it's about life in a small town and how the basketball team is really the central thing is what drives the town in many ways and it's very realistic. And I can identify with that very much because I grew up in a small town in which really athletic Pursuits were these things to do and if you weren't involved in athletics or interested in sport, you were sort of a second class citizen achiever and I really resented that because I was interested in the Arts and they always got sort of short shrift and in our town and so that because of my own Teenage prejudices. I started carry those with me for a time and then put in my time as a football with her lien in my adult life. And so well JG was a hardcore sports fan. I was a hardcore Sports hater for things that really had nothing to do with sports. They were in a social thing or change. What what what did you find interesting about baseball? the things I found interesting about baseball where the stories and I think that's how JJ and I I met on a common ground because he would talk about the history of of baseball and talk about the black leagues and you'd show me pictures of players and tell all the fascinating stories about them and Little by little I became more interested in this thing. That is it has depth that has a lot of a rich history and I'm still not interested in statistics. I can't I can't look at a little piece of paper. Numbers and get anything out of it. Where is JG can look at a card with you know, what? I mean is his numbers and see he can he can feel the Sunshine and smell the grass and hear the crack of the bat, you know by looking at these numbers. I don't get anything out of that. I actually have to experience it really in the ballpark and I don't know enough about it that I can watch it out of the corner of my eye like he doesn't know exactly what's going on. I have to put all my attention on it if he weren't interested. He'd be a baseball Widow it into the whole world onto itself. I mean, there are no people that gained you're interested in just all kinds of when you when you become somewhat privileged privileged to what's going on in a wrecking. That's what I like about it. There's they're all these personalities and and emotions and things going on in in history in the end. It's it's just fun to follow. This is her separate little world is going on and even try. That's that's what I like to see if any of our listeners have some comments or questions that something you'd like to add to our conversation. Again. The number to call is 227-6000. If you're outside the 612 area code you can call us collect it that 612-227-6000 from a woman's perspective getting getting involved in sports. I murder my sister telling the story of how she she went to a to a law school and at Duke North Carolina, right when they were at the peak of their basketball rain, it was quite an exciting time and she got really wrapped up in the Duke basketball team and has been a it's been a big Duke fan ever since and is and if she's really fanatical know about it to the point where you can't, you know, talk to. Turn the night of a do came in that thing a little far but you know, she talks about how that was really exciting to find out about it, but that it it seems that it's harder for women are less likely to be exposed to that kind of fanaticism than men or do you think that's the case you think that's changing or I mean, I know all the people in homeroom that I talked to her guys and maybe I'll just cuz I was a guy but he went from a woman's perspective. What do you think? I am still surprised when I run into someone a woman who is a real fan. And I guess I shouldn't be because there are many many women who are real fans, but of perhaps particular team's I don't and I don't know many women who have a bra interest in background in a lot of different sports and statistics. I mean, it may be just a stupid assumption on my part, but I'm still my interest is not in baseball generally, but I'm a a twins fan and I get all of that identify with the team and I'm glad when they win and all of that sort of thing, but I couldn't tell you anything about the Yankees are the Cubs or anyone else and I don't have a rich folklore from which to draw some most of mine is an emotional Focus you get tied up in it. It would be interesting to hear other women comment about what it means to be a fan and if they are interested in something generically baseball generically, or if it is a team identify. Patient because you don't grow up that way I girls certainly in my generation didn't grow up absorbing all of that stuff. That was a voice thing daughter who who play sports but is she is she interested in following Sports really closely of the twins or anything. I mean this last year we were all glued to what the Twins were doing and only a couple of us in the house are still paying attention to something so she's not she's not deeply interested nor does she have a background historic background? Insports her participation in sports is is personal. We know she's athletic. Yeah. Okay. Well, I just I just like to sum up. Do you see any other visit just baseball primarily or do you think you know what you're becoming more and more interested in the sports that other Sports volleyball and there's something it did two things like this that intriguing to you or is it and is once I overcame my superficial prejudices I became open to learning more about other sport that just happened to be baseball because JD is most interested in baseball and we'd go to things and I pay attention. I am learning gradually more about other sports and I'm interested in them. I don't know if I'll ever be. I have the time to invest in acquiring the knowledge in the background and don't have the Deep interest, but I'm at least open to it and and don't have knee-jerk reactions to athletes or two sports in general. I actually read the sports page now and never did before so I think overcoming that initial prejudices is the important thing and then I feel Like there might be all kinds of wonderful things out there to become interested in its like baseball season. Now, I really feel that excitement when spring is coming and and in baseball is coming back from you. Maybe that will happen for something else. Probably not ever for football though. I don't like football. I can't relate to it. And did you call any kind of a pointer a game of particular incident something that did really triggered say? Wow, this is this is exciting. This is something that they they captured you or is it kind of sort of a gradual thing to be interested in baseball. Is there a flamethrower to a point that you really there's something really struck you as exciting happen for me was going to games and in being there and I admit at first I was interested in and watching because we sat in the peanut gallery all the time, you know in the back watching Mickey Hatcher playing to the crowd and then I got to meet him and I just I gradually became interested in this team in a person away in the individuals and their outcomes and their fortune and I and I think that happened because I actually went there and and also I experienced that that's social phenomenon of being in a crowd watching the game when that was really exciting for me. I've never really done that think if you are participating in sports only through television You missed a whole lot in terms of real experience. I mean it it really killed me one time when I missed an important home run cuz I was out trying to find a hot pretzel and he will find a way she's become a fan of your fandom. Well, I thank you very much for for coming in and talking with us about your experience as it will be back in just a few minutes with just a minute. I guess with Christopher lehmann-haupt. He is the author of me and DiMaggio book of spending a year with the New York. Yankees is traveling around the team getting to getting a behind-the-scenes. Look at their baseball team. I need to know Adams from Minnesota good evening comes along again on Saturday and this week singer and Hills joined us from Pennsylvania from San Francisco the modern mandolin quartet and from fly fishing country in Montana, right or David quammen. It's good evening Saturday live from the world theater in St. Paul. John is tonight at 7 right here on ksjn 1330 Minneapolis-Saint Paul. Good evening tonight at 7. It's time to get out the balloons in the straw hats the State political conventions are about to get underway. And once again this year ksjn 1330 will be providing live coverage from both the dfl and I are State conventions in Rochester. There are US Senate candidates to be endorsed presidential delegates to be elected speech has to be given the hoopla color and controversy begins Friday morning here on ksjn 1330. Welcome back to sports folio. This is the Jim Bickel. I'm filling in for JG Preston this week and our topic is sports and sports fans and how people got interested in sports and those kinds of topics number to call his to 276 thousand. If you got a question or a comment or an anecdote to tell about to why you are sports fan or some particular event that got you hooked on Sports my guests in this half of the program will be Christopher lehmann-haupt. He is a book reviewer for the New York Times and a few years back set out to write a book about to about baseball. It's called me and DiMaggio subtitle. Are you a baseball fan goes in search of his gods that spent the 1979 season with the New York Yankees and the Mets Joe DiMaggio one of his idols and wrote about an AA book Kira published by Simon Schuster Christopher you there? Hello. We seem to okay, we seem to have lost him but that's alright. We'll get him back. Anyways the book. Hello, Christopher. Hello. All right. We're on the air here. Thank you for spending a little of your Sanford Saturday afternoon with us. Okay. Well, I was read your book with us some personal interest. I had to serve a similar experience last year in terms of the getting behind the scenes of the baseball team the twins as you know, we got in the World Series last year and we at the Minnesota Public Radio kind of jumped on the bandwagon a late the last couple weeks of the regular season. I became a sort of the instant beat reporter Ferrara are stationed here in the head some similar kinds of encounters with the players and getting to know the ins-and-outs of talking to them and trying to talk baseball so I could relate to some of your experience especially early on in the in the book of how to how to deal with the ball players, which is the times that kind of a triangle experience. What's the central part of your the book is there is your discovery of of of of the Wonder baseball at you do talk about that too early. I could you relate to to our audience. What what that the game that that really got you interested. Having grown up. Both of my parents are immigrants and Europeans. I had no it's my mother being Scottish preferred cricket and my father who is Drummond just like baseball quite actively factor used to refer to the picture is looking like a dog at a hydrant sure that they wore knickers with him and his childhood. Where was what the children were. So he's got the whole game was silly and I I consequently had no interest in baseball as a major leagues. I'd love to play it but and I felt somewhat deprived since all the kids around me were passionately involved and they were always talking about it and I could never understand and even when I try to listen to a game I couldn't follow it. Mostly cuz I wasn't interested but there was a when I was about 14 years old 13 On a Sunday afternoon. When I was sort of wandering around the apartment, my mother had rented out a room to a Canadian couple of a couple of who were Canadian dancers and they had to open the door and they were kind of getting the day started and listening to the game and being at loose ends and kind of lonely and also intrigued by them. I I came to the door and he invited me in and said I said why who's playing and he said the Indians and the Yankees and I said who's up and he said I guess Charlie Keller Tommy Henrich. But Joe DiMaggio would be up at heard of Joe DiMaggio until I wandered in and I listened and Joe DiMaggio proceeded to hit a homerun and I actually understood what Mel Allen who was the announcer was saying and thrilled that I could understand. I'm thrilled by the homerun. I listen to the rest of the game and DiMaggio proceeded to hit three home runs up to a feller and Wendt off the relief pitcher and Govan 66 run. Play I can't 165 and I was permanently hooked. How well how big of Fannin were you for the as a kid that how avidly that you talk a lot? And since they won a good deal. I was probably a happier fan than most although every baseball team loses half of its games at least and so my days are unhappy but I would follow it mostly on the radio. And first of all, we didn't have television or only a few of the wealthiest kids did so and also I was in the areas where they just weren't television there wasn't television reception. I would be out for the summer as they working on a farm up in Vermont. So he's always by radio and listening by following the game by radio is still up the most Magic Five ways to follow baseball because you followed mostly in your imagination. You have only the sound of the announcer's voice to stimulate you until you just kind of play it out of your head and they become the football players become truly mythical character is in the most part of you instead of part of reality and I think that enhances a certain kind of rooting the game on the radio out here because the Metrodome is not my favorite to play stove to watch a game in the end of radio seems to a you can pretend that they're playing in a in a real baseball environment that a little better than watching television go over to cable and I'm just not bothering to subscribe to the old days. Is is Rizzuto still doing the games on the radio or that's a network, but there are fewer and fewer of those. I remember your telling the the book about the having rig up the radio going through all these contortions to get it to work when you're out of the farm. I guess it's dead as evidence of your Devotion to the Yankees. and I went with one hand would have to hold one of the wires to the connection to keep the radio going and with the other hand that it was no knob you had to manipulate the the the station selector by hand and I thought I would at some point in the evening. I would I always shock myself if and I living in central New Jersey and and then leave the Yankees run wmca 570 on the am dial and fortunately on 560 on the am dial out of Philadelphia was wfil, which was the top 40 station with a much stronger signal into to listen to what I have to turn up the radio incredibly loud and hear the pounding disco BackBeat of whatever was on wfil to pick up barely pick up the Yankee broadcast of my Prince Royce amazing moment. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about the writing the the book. How did you how did you come to take to get this assignment? And I had no intention of writing a book in an editor called me up and said I have an idea for a book and I said well, there's no way I can write a book Because I had at that point. I still do have a very full-time job and he said well I said what's the idea and he said well if I tell you the idea at least I'm going to tell you we have to get together. So I agreed to have a drink with him and he said I want you to write a baseball book because you want many years ago. Really, right? We do the first edition of the baseball encyclopedia and said it was a book that I would take the prison with me. I don't know why I thought if I was going to prison but it was a variation on a desert Island theme true that up and he said I said I didn't have what kind of book about baseball he said anything you want and I said well that three conditions convinced that he would finally turn me down. I will get out of it. I said I said a very high fan and I said he had to get me Kart launched into any place. I wanted to go and also that they would have to pay my expenses and they agreed to all three so I can put my clothes stock. I couldn't say no. So I signed a contract in and I sat down actually wrote the first chapter about that. I just described to you about that. First game how I became a fan before I even started any research whatsoever. Then we went down to spring training at whole bunch was originally was going to be a photographic book Adventures at the Yankee camp and they went to do the Dodgers and a number of other end of the season was underway. And what was interesting was that I had to drive that. In the first chapter and describe that game where DiMaggio hit three home runs in that game kept coming back to me all season long night as I traveled around. I met some of the major participants including Mel Allen who denounced it build back who owned the Indians at that point and DiMaggio and Feller. I met together amazingly enough at an All-Star Game in Oregon and and then at the end when I thought I'd finish my research. I went to a New Year's Day party and someone told me a story about the night before that. That game with the start of the climax of the book. It's at you kind of Astoria kind of an inside and not particularly positive story about DiMaggio, but the point was not to expose him as being less than the hero that he was but it was such a coincidence and I had to in order to describe it I had to track it down and it and it got me involved with DiMaggio in a way that was a hamster and a Time funny and it sounds kind of upsetting what them what was it? Like, you know, you viewed DiMaggio is your your your idol when you finally met him. Was that of a Bazaar circular? I met him in a gun to I've met with Jim Bowden and he had told me that there was going to be his Old-Timers All-Star game at Oregon for the I can't remember. It's there were two teams a minor league teams in Portland. When was the Mavericks and one was a bavers and one was kind of outlawed and about and have been on my team and the the whatever the functioning team was. I believe the Beavers had invited Fountain Fountain said I'm going to be there but no one else will be there and I had said it would be a good idea. We were going to be in that year that the All-Star game was in Seattle and we had decided we would stop by Portland anyway, and maybe would be good to see a minor league plus a wonderful minor-league town is always had a long tradition. And so we decided we would go there even if there was nobody to meet so we arrive there on a miserably hot afternoon. Adam kind of unreal. I mean it was so hot and and they have a very dusty field in the wind was blowing and it was easy. It was just the most a really minor league operation, but it was it was almost like a strange nightmare because they were these when we got there there were these there was a funny version of Maury Wills and I look closer and I realized it really was Maury Wills only because he was a little older than when he played in the little stouter and I looked around and there was I can't remember the people but Hank Aaron, and there was Whitey Ford and I thought about it. I said I thought you said it was not going to be anybody here and he wanted to go into the locker room and see who's there and I went in there and it was Willie Mays in about four other tell major all stars and I kept asking them why they were there and they kept kind of being embarrassed cuz obviously they had been they had been paid a handsome fee for wandering around the locker room because it's old decrepit kind of falling down Shack almost I turn the corner and found myself in the trainer's room and they are alone sitting on the trainers table signing autograph baseball was DiMaggio himself and I almost felt I felt as if I did true did you know where the Christmas presents for hidden before Christmas? I felt kind of guilty and then I should have got myself together and introduced myself and unlike all the other players. He was very gracious to me and kind of Polite and pretended to be delighted to meet me and took me under his wing and that was that the climactic moment in the book. I met the some Old-Timers that I had an Old-Timers function here and Vella as a rule seemed much more grace gracious than the than the the current players that had to talk to. You add. Perhaps thinking back on their careers. It's you know, they they recognize what a special thing. It is to be able to play baseball for a living. I am a get lonely for the the players. It's it's good too complicated to get to the bottom of this and it's part of what the book is about if the players that the active players are extremely suspicious because First of all, they were suspicious of me because it's the only way they can develop a relationship with a reporter is to see as you know, what they going to put the reporters are going to write about them. And of course if you're writing a book they have no way to get a fix on you. So they tended to regard you as suspicious oil. They've been in the spotlight. They think they're all dead and so many of them treat the press as if the Press were a threat to them. Once they retire they discover what a wonderful Joyride they've had in many of the Mythic Dave and it to tell the wonderful story about wanting to meet with Leo durocher and drug drug tested. Call me up when you're in LA and when Dave did get out there he gave durocher a ring and Drug son. Very busy. I'm very busy. I can't see you in and they said will you know, you asked me to call you in drugs to know? Yeah. He said I can give you 10 minutes. Come out of such a time and we'll Dave did it was Midday and he did not get away until late in the evening to throw. She was so hungry to talk by Luis Tiant in this mother crazy guys who were around for this of Old-Timers their function to believe it got a caller on the line. Just went to call her yet. What's the number to call again? If you've got a question or a comment is a 2276 thousand and I'll let's go can your question please? Hello. Yeah your question and you were talking about sports writers in relationships with suppliers and it struck me. I wonder if I did a little of this to end up and ignore the beginning of the book Christopher runs into Al Rosen on the plane and he's talking to him until Rose in this is really nice guy and then later and spring training you a rose in a game and it's like he doesn't know who you are or in or what you're doing and I was wondering if it's part of it is not so much that they retire but it's just kind of mindset that the players and the executives have to adopt it's almost like the other part of their game face and we always talk about a guy puts on his game face to go out on the field and it ignores everything and it was kind of mentality. They all have to adopt in order to feel like a professional baseball player in its the US vs them and the other question I've been thinking about I remember when Dick Young guide they said that dick young was the first repo Adopted a kind of the style of going into the locker room talking to the players in the managers and such and it seems like such an incredibly unuseful experience because you're asking questions that the questions they want to answer are you know, what does a fastball you hit and how do you feel today? If you ask anything more complicated unless you've been around for 10 or 15 years. It's just kind of a list experience and even more hostile towards you and I think that's really all I had. Thank you. I think your point about the game places is very well taken that I should say that I tried very hard to make myself a character in the book and they the character who who I was was very much over sensitive to the kind. I have been completely from a different. I'm book reviewing. Where are the people that I meet know who I am. So it was a real shock to go into this world where they couldn't have cared less about me. And I I kind of try to poke fun at myself. And of course Road Ocean in the Yankee camp at year was tense in any case it always is when you working for George Steinbrenner or not. I subsequently found out that Rosen was under tremendous pressure and crosscurrents of pressure and he had more than two look after ego and I try to make that point that I think it's also true that once you find them in different situations it on the airplane. He was one person but in The Dugout having to deal with all these all these pressure is Bob lemon who was really in morning sun has been killed in an accident and bucket and who was holding out and all sorts of things were going on. I I should have been more sensitive to the things that were on roses mind rather than whether he weigh. How much you cared about me and I mean to make fun of myself in that respect. What about you? You have the good that questions there, they having difficulty of interviewing athletes. What were your experiences there? Yeah, that's that's in any case. It's very hard. I miss you know, if your book review on a reader You Are by Nature retiring person and have to go in there. And these people are going about their business and decided to stick a microphone in their face or a notebook or a tape recorder, whatever and start asking them questions, which go but, you know, go beyond the ordinary was it a curveball at your head or whatever takes a tremendous amount of reporters by Nature aggressive inquisitive person. I am not I found that I found it the situation of standing with a human being I was naked and trying to get changed her dressed very disconcerting and then to the kind of probe is private life equally that much more so thick you fight the aggressive, terrific reporter and I think it's terrific Rider although tremendously opinionated and he destroyed people out sometimes against them, but he was a wonderful Country Reporter very good at that get in there and end in m probe a little bit about their emotions and feelings and personal lives. And you think that has that should be as much a part of the story and what these guys are good at is playing sports and you know, what they have to say. Most of the time is not all that interesting and it just seems often to be superfluous. It's it's I have to have mixed feelings about this site. There are people who think that the princes Bill back feels that they shouldn't be anything except just the game. You know, I know questions or no reporting except about the game, but that can also get I mean there are reported you've done. Very amusing and entertaining things and sometimes even to get behind the scenes and see what is going on in the player's mind and particularly intense in a rug situations. And I think it's all depends on how I handled. I think that's when it becomes I have to do if an admirer of Jim Bowden football for it because I think that it was important to know what what goes on behind the scenes and I don't play ball players should be heroes should be made to be heroes if they're not really here also putting them on pedestals and then not revealing with what goes on in Philly on the other hand. I think that they can be carried too far and becomes all so silly when it's not relevant to the game. I'd like a reminder. This was once again number to call if you've got a question or comment is 227-6000 area code six one two can call us collect. If you're outside that area code yeah, it is easy to to to infuriate the athletes in the manager that you know, I'd I discovered that they Incredibly touchy about certain things are called your story about the Tony kubek in the book ahead of the game. They they won by it by scoring on a check swing single Bach and then a single that was misplayed into the inside the park homerun knows the only runs the Twins, and I went up to Kelly and I said that Tommy, you know the real well out there today with that and but do you ever get the feeling that there's some you know some luck involved with how well the twins are doing and he he just turned into spit into a garbage can and so that's it. I'm not answering your questions though. I said that the magic and the bread which was luck which I guess the baseball players don't like to hear and and if I think about you Steve the proper jargon, which is that you guys got some breaks out there which it which is what everybody else says. Let it go to bed. Okay, but the lock is it just too too scary a concept. I guess the guys that that play a game for a for a living and it's their livelihood brought up with a touchy subject with him that recall. Yeah, well that was that was very funny because he later I asked him we were standing up in Toronto and we were standing on it, you know, they're artificial and I found myself. I haven't gone up to him. He was we just as suddenly were standing beside each other and almost to make conversation. It occurred to me to ask him remembering him as having been really his career was ended by a bad bouncing on a pebble or uneven piece of Journey. I guess it was at Pittsburgh and he was hit in the in the neck. And so I asked him I said what what what do with your career been like if you've been playing on this and he he trying anything stupid question and he swore at me and then Strode off and later on. He sees Annie broadcast a game in which he talked about that. There are just as much Funny bounces on artificial turf had been a game that actually had one when the ball I think in Montreal in the ball hit the cement bounce those did first baseman couldn't feel it and he spoke about that which is a sensible answer. He is also a tremendously winning guy and everywhere. I went out with until people at the door that that's so unlike him, but nevertheless it how it happened. I have it on tape and I wanted to illustrate it. As much as as a reflection on me is on him, but he now denies it and the people have written me and said it was an invasion of privacy to report this, I mean we were both working he was working and I was working and it happened at the players that you know, what that's worth a lot of players today want to play mind games with the people that are interviewing them. Are there seem to be a lot of players who really wanted to kind of test you and Myself, I think that you see evidence of it in the papers and the person who the one person who was doing that the the year that I was finally 1979 was Thurman Munson who was very thoroughly to the press and was very silly dogs cuz he was annoyed by a my partner in the early part of the research. Was it a very aggressive fashion photographer named Francesco scavullo with the camera and you're one of his techniques with it shoot off his picture while you weren't looking at the ball players with hear the sound of his motor driving the film and they would turn and give him an irritated look and he was quickly snap another picture and get that scowl and he did that 2 months and months and was Furious about it months and had a policy of not talking to the press the more you hear about much as the ball players you played with heaven. And they're now retiring and they talked about him. I think it was an interview with with Ron Guidry. The other day was not retiring. I hope who talked about what what month is mental and he was apparently a wonderful person and a wonderful guy to play with and as much as the players loved him and he was gracious with them. He seems to have presented an entirely opposite face to the Press seems to go on a lot. I'm not sure what you mean by mine games. Do you know well, it's just a yeah, they don't you know, they want to just to try to catch you in some kind of a know that you're accusing them of something by Gary guy Eddie for the twins actually seemed to enjoy playing games are in the world series ever call. It was one time. There was a huge group of reporters is a gas around in St. Louis May lost a game and and he some reporter asked him. Yeah, Mark Littell what kind of what kind of pistol throw you in case it was a slow curve and so we got to talk in a little while then that reporter left and then another reports that teeth. I thought why I was just just throwing fastballs in and got it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was really a fast while I was just trying to screw that guy up scrap all your stories. They get a little I think driven a little By all the attention, especially if present World Series situation is only so much you can say about it one picture to happen to have had but you know some of them I mean, they're really wonderful interviews that you can have. I think particularly of of Earl Weaver who had the same patients with the with the reporters that Kelly seems to have had with you but he turned it into a game and he would yell at them and he would get stubborn about some kind of hold transcript in my book, which is one of the I think one of the funniest interviews I ever heard was where they were trying to find out. Why Weaver is left a certain picture in and he he wouldn't come out with the with the obvious answer. He kept repeating the same phrase and he would get mad at them and he would tell him I look just write this down because if you guys don't understand that your readers certainly will and he was he was just as funny and feisty and colorful as he could be it was it was like a circus even though he's just acting himself. I had an interview with Jim Palmer the pitcher for the Orioles who is a tremendously articulate guy and he did an analysis of a particular game. To the Pirates in the 79 World Series that was spellbinding. I've never heard at that point. This is that the announcers are doing it more and more as they tell you these amazingly. Institute infinitesimally small details about the game which is different from the way it used to be in the old days. But this was the first I'd ever heard. It was really a revelation and I repeated it to three or four different people, but it was interesting enough. I think so that it kept him engaged as well as the reporters talk game last year against the twins where he got the picked off third in which was the turning point of that game and he was he was it was pretty amazing to watch him in the clubhouse after work cuz he stayed longer than all the other tiger players talking to everybody that wanted to talk to him and he was cordial and answer the questions and you know, it was showing up there an amazing amount of dial Linda. Never let you know in a situation where he could have just been Surly and hit in the Indian trainers room. What do you think? You've what what did you learn about baseball players, I guess coming deal with this experience behind the scenes there. Did you do any any fundamental kinds of things just about the way their their lives are at the D come out of this with the main thing you learn is that the business like anyting else it's and it's it's one thing is it's show business. So it's important and it and they should realize that you know, that's really the source of these huge salaries are people who are coming to the ballpark to see them playing thing dollars to see them returning to television sets on to see them and it is publicity in the press that That's the nicest possible and I think that it would be and it is important that they realize that so that's like a traveling circus in a sense and they I think have a responsibility of the public. That's what I would say to these early ones that insist on don't line up red, but for me that you know, the Magic in the fantasy disappear as gradually and it became like following a group of people who who are like a huge business families families in the business and The more I did it the more that's the way it became a kind of. And it has lost its magic and I'm glad to say that now that that's over and I've kind of retreated back to my old relationship with baseball. And Magic is come back if it has it hasn't ruined it for a while. But as time as fast as I said earlier is I listen to it more and more on the radio. It's the old magic returns It's a Wonderful game. Would you add you think it you say you probably wouldn't want to be a beat writer for a for a newspaper covering baseball. It can be wonderful but I'm not built that way when we got another caller on the line. Go ahead with your question for I have two quick questions. That one was you mentioned that what was Young's first name though? I think he were wrote the New York supposed to feel like a dick and I didn't know he had passed away. I know he's a man in his late sixties or something. Is it fairly recently that he But about a year ago, I think it was some like that. Yeah. Daily news for many many years and then it it was some question as to whether the Daily News was going to survive and that's right in the middle of a crisis the post came to him and made him an offer. He couldn't refuse so he went over that was about I say 5 years ago and he kept riding right up to the end will he was really from the old school there of sportswriters. I'm just being infuriated occasionally with some of the some of the things he would say is really reactionary views about sports. He actually wants got into a fist fight with somebody in the locker room. Yeah. Afraid to mix it up not afraid to say what he thought it must have been that you were mentioning a Thurman Munson being a difficult to talk to and then of course, he was killed them in the middle of that season. I remember that clearly is is that that time I my favorite player and that was just that it really changed the way I thought about baseball than two. I mean to hit, you know yet you sort of thought about it is a game onto itself. That was just a separate little world that wasn't a place that way. I thought it wasn't affected by the real world as much and here was suddenly months and was just taken it seems seemingly. I remember Bob Cummings the stadium that the night of the month at the tribute to him and just being really And then of course and then there's that we had the sportswriters put the odd position a lot of them who really dislike him I guess because he was too hard to deal with having to write these tributes to him. But I think we're about to her about a time here. I'd like to thank you very much for coming on coming on the shore. Do you plan to do a ride anymore or a Sportster book right away. So I think I'll move on to different fields down on the book. I should demand that is quite a bit of fishing in it. So are you going to let some authors the review it for you there and give them a chance to get back at you, and DiMaggio book heart will thank you very much for DiMaggio by Christopher lehmann-haupt and published by Simon & Schuster. My name is Jim Bickel next week at JG Preston will be back in his chair as the regular host of Sports polio-like. Thank Jeff Walker and David O'Neill and Sue winking for setting things up. And we'll see you later. Approaching one year on ksjn coming up at 1 we'll be having an AP news and a following them to the weekend review with Mark. I stood you listening to ksjn Minneapolis-Saint Paul. AP Network news on a sea lion rescue teams in brick in West Germany have pulled another body from what's left of a coalmont that raises the death toll to 37, but the workers have been revived by discovery made earlier in the day 6 miners trapped in a