How about Thursday? I'm just not sure

Remember when Christopher took all the Ledgers out of the box?

In my final semester of college in 1986, I was offered a full-time job as a news clerk with the Associated Press in Raleigh.

I told the bureau chief I was going to accept the offer. And then I asked him when he would want me to start. I still had about two months left before graduation.

My thinking was that maybe I'd take a month off after college to travel, have some fun, blow off steam...

"How about Thursday?" was the answer. And so it began, my career in journalism. Working nights in the A.P. bureau in Raleigh, typing in the data for the North Carolina hog markets, taking dictation from Division III Sports Information Directors, changing ribbons on what we called "printers."

Other duties included making runs to Char-Grill for the staff, filing papers, making sure the coffee was fresh and hot.

Basically, I learned to take a punch.

Fast forward 27 years to last Wednesday morning around 9 a.m. My home phone rings and the caller ID says "Newark." On the other end of the line is my boss, Kevin Whitmer, the editor of the Star-Ledger. I don't want to misquote Kevin here, but he said something like, "This is not the type of phone call I enjoy making...you need to come to Human Resources tonight at 5:45 and there's a story on NJ.com that will shed some light..."

"I'm losing my job?" I asked.

 "Legally, I'm not allowed to tell you anything more," Kevin said. "Read NJ.com."

And then, I addressed my boss in a way I'd never address a boss. "See ya later, brother," I said.

I read the NJ.com story about 34 layoffs at the Star-Ledger, including 18 in the newsroom.

I texted my wife, a schoolteacher and typed, "I just got laid off."

Around 5:30 p.m. that night, after I was told "legally" that I wasn't supposed to be in the newsroom, I was ushered into the HR office where I got my packet. Three weeks severance plus the two of weeks vacation I'd never used.

And just like that, for the first time since I walked through the doors of the A.P. office in Raleigh, I was an unemployed American.

 A TALENT ISSUE

It's not the first time I've lost a job. I accepted the baseball columnist job at the Ledger because in 2011, ESPN The Magazine did not pick up my contract after I'd worked for them for 13 years, 10 months. They had offered me a new three-year deal after the 2010 World Cup, but pulled it off the table about 10 days later and changed it to a one-year contract with a bleak outlook for the future.

When I asked if I could discuss a reduced contract with more security in terms of years, I was told, "It's not really a money issue. It's a talent issue."

What do you say to that?

I said nothing, partly because I knew I was about to cry.

I loved writing at the Magazine so much because I was so invested in the product. John Papanek, the first Editor in Chief of The Mag, had hired me in December of 1997, three months before it was launched. I started as an editor and slowly moved into a position as a senior writer. It was the job I had always dreamed of having, dating back to college. And now it was gone.

"A talent issue," was the reason. So funny, because I'd never considered myself "talented." One of the things I loved about The Mag was that, for years, the people in charge seemed to like me even though I wasn't talented. I was a sports writer. I liked writing about sports. I didn't quote French authors or feel the need to use a thesaurus (or send my readers to dictionary.com).

That's why The Mag was heaven for me, a self-described hack.

Now what was I going to do?

Thankfully, the Ledger, the paper I grew up reading, was there for me. Even though it had been 16 years since I'd written for a daily, they hired me to be their baseball columnist.

The day of my first column, with my mug shot on Page One, I joked to people that, like Christopher Moltisanti on the Sopranos, I drove to a box on Bloomfield Ave., put four quarters in the slot and took every copy. It wasn't true, but that's how good it felt.

I cannot pretend that I was a good or even a mediocre columnist for the Ledger. I was thoroughly challenged by the deadlines.

I often questioned myself. I tried my best, but I'd be lying if I said the pressure of producing day after day didn't rattle me. It did.

And then came last August, when our skillful, hard-working Yankee beat writer Marc Carig was offered a great job at Newsday.  

MARCHING TO THE BEAT

The Ledger's financial issues were very public at that point, so I knew what was going to happen, and it did. I was told "another writer is not walking through the door" and so I was no longer a columnist, I was the Yankee beat writer.

I was not happy. I have two teenage sons who like having a dad to make them breakfast in the morning. I have a wife who works full-time.

When I was the columnist, I'd often walk through the door after 2 a.m. after covering a game in the Bronx or Flushing. But at least I'd be home. A baseball beat writer spends about 150-170 nights per year in a hotel room between the months of February and October.

Had the Ledger been looking for a Yankee beat writer when I was on my way out at ESPN The Magazine, I would not have even filled out an application. I wouldn't have done that to my family.

But now, I knew I had no choice but to accept the job-switch because the alternative was to be unemployed. So I went on the beat and, really, the rest is a blur.

 I don't remember much of what I wrote in August, September and October. I just know I wrote a lot. I didn't miss any deadlines. That's the good thing.

But when it comes to remembering anything I typed, I can come up with only one lede that stayed with me.

Here it is. From the Yankees-A's game on September 22.  

NEW YORK — In the five hours and 43 minutes it took to play the game, it seemed day turned into night, summer turned into fall, and 36 Yankees turned into one.

What's funny is I didn't realize that summer officially did turn into fall that day.

It was pure luck.

Fittingly, it wasn't talent that came up with those words. It was luck.
  
BETTER TO BE LUCKY

And I've been lucky. Lucky to go nearly three decades without ever having to beg for work. Lucky to have done exactly what I set out to do when I enrolled in Journalism School as a college junior back in the Fall of 1984. Lucky to have worked at Sports Illustrated, The New York Daily News, ESPN The Magazine and the Star-Ledger.

And lucky to have learned how to take a punch at the A.P.

 As I walked into the streets of Newark, packet in hand, I did not feel any anger or sadness. I'm not sure what I felt, probably because I'd never felt unemployment before.

 I realize I'm not alone. So many friends from my past have reached out and told me how they handled unemployment. By taking on projects around the house. By committing to a crazy workout routine. By cooking dinner for the family every night.

 I've also heard from some talented (and I don't just throw that word around) writers who are also looking for work. It's so humbling. These are hard times in the only business I've ever known.

It's too early to say what I'm going to do. It's only been a week.

Today, if someone were to say, "How about Thursday?" I don't know what I'd do.

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An Ode to one of my Heroes

These were the first couple of post-college years. I was living in Boston, in a studio on fashionable Newbury St. no less, while making $17,000 a year, working 90-100 hours per week as the assistant sports information director at Harvard.

Time of my life.

My daily commute, Green Line to Red Line, from Copley Square to Harvard Square, always began with the purchase of the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald from the street vendor who sat on his stack of papers outside the steps down to the T.

When I left Boston for New York in 1989, as much as anything in Boston, including Fenway Park, Beanpot hockey and The Sevens on Charles St., I missed those two papers.

Remember, kids, this was before there was the internet, much less an app for that. There was something about the writing talent those papers had...and still have to this day. Names like Leigh Montville and Charlie Pierce come to mind. They were the columnists of note back then, at the Globe and Herald respectively. But there were also writers like Steve Fainaru, who covered the Red Sox for the Globe. And Mike Globetti, who wrote about college footbal (and hunting and fishing) for the Herald.

These guys could make you think and make you laugh.

And the one guy who always managed to make me think and laugh is still at it to this day, delivering columns on all things related to Boston sports. I'm talking about the one and only Dan Shaughnessy, who finds a way to capture what's going through the hearts and minds of Boston sports fans and articulate it in a manner that makes you feel like you know the guy from, I don't know, the hardware store.

His column on the Patriots securing their spot in the Super Bowl is just another example. He ties history and emotion and one-liners into a neat package like no one else. Having gotten to know Dan professionally over the last 20 years there's another thing I admire about him. When he delivers lines that he knows might pierce the skin of the athletes he's covering, he's always there in the clubhouse or lockerroom the next day, just in case there's an athlete who wants to "address it."

In the world of non-stop snark we live in today. Snark without accountability, I might add. That's a trait that still helps set Shaughnessy apart.

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Going back

Tonight, I turn back the clock.

I'm going with Mike Jedziniak, one of my oldest and dearest friends, to see Southside Johnny and (not the Asbury Jukes but) the Poor Fools, at a church in Pennington.

Now, according to Wikipedia, Southside Johnny Lyon turned 63 years old on December 4th. That means the first time I saw him and the Jukes perform he was 31 years old.

It was November of 1980, my junior year in high school. Bob had graduated Princeton the previous spring, but was living at home and still going back to Princeton to hang with friends on a semi-regular basis. He scored the tickets, which seemed like a big deal to me a the time. It was my first concert of any kind, so I was pretty excited.

Understand, this was around the same time Bruce Springsteen was on his River Tour. And back in 1980, getting a Springsteen ticket was about as easy as getting a Super Bowl ticket. It was not like the post Born in the USA years when Bruce would play 10 shows at Giants Stadium, or do a run of shows at the Brendan Byrne/Continental Airlines Area/IZOD Center. He'd blow into town for two shows and be gone, on the wind.



Southside was the next best thing, though as I learned that night at Dillon Gym, his shows were as furious as they were unpredictable. Johnny would forget lyrics, disappear back stage from time to time and drink brown liquor like it was Snapple.

In my senior year of high school, empowered with a driver's license, my friends and I set out to follow Southside to all the local venues. Drew University. the Meadowlands Race Track, South Mountain Arena, The Pier in New York. So many good times.

It really wasn't until college that I began to appreciate what a great and soulful vocalist Johnny was and is. With a Walkman and headphones I'd sit in my dorm room late at night listening to his covers of Springsteen's "The Fever" and "Hearts of Stone."

When Bruce released these songs later on (Johnny did them first as they were castaways from Springsteen's marathon recording sessions for Darkness on the Edge of Town), for me, it was incredibly unnecessary. Johnny and the Jukes, with the full horn section providing the perfect background texture, did these songs so well, there was nothing, nothing that Bruce could do. Nothing he could do to make these songs better.

I introduced many friends to Southside during my days in North Carolina (Jedziniak being from Toms River, needed no introduction), and we even got "I Don't Wanna Go Home" into a regular late night rotation at Purdy's, a Chapel Hill club that would be best-described as a disco. I had a roommate named "Skee" who played the trumpet. During songs like "Talk to Me" and "I'm So Anxious," we'd talk Skee into playing along. Later on, Skee didn't even need coercing. He'd stand, trumpet at the ready, doing the back-and-forth dance steps like a real Juke, then join in on cue.

It's got to be five or six years since I last saw Johnny. It was at Bar A in Belmar. A hot afternoon and Johnny was playing the outdoor bar. He didn't have a whole lot of voice. Years and years of singing from deep in his soul (and presumably some hard living) seemed to have taken its toll. At the time, I figured that would be it.

Last year, when Springsteen released The Promise, it was simply amazing how many of the songs sounded like they were written for Southside. Listen to "One Way Street" and "Spanish Eyes" and tell me you can't imagine Johnny laying down those vocals. One day, after listening to the album in my car, I actually sent an email to Johnny. He lists an email address on SouthsideJohnny.com and someone told me he answered letters.

Basically, I thanked him for helping to form my taste in music. But mostly, I thanked him for the brotherhood I was able to form with so many great people while enjoying the sound of his voice. He didn't answer my email. Oh well.

I'll thank him again tonight.

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Nostalgic? Or correct?

I threw a status update up on Facebook yesterday and it drew an interesting reaction from friends of a certain age. On Tuesday, I'd gotten geared up to watch the Carolina-Miami basketball game, almost trying to will myself to care about the Tar Heels the way I cared about them when I was a student, oh, 30 years ago.

Around halftime, when I found it impossible to fake it any longer, I wrote:

"I'm becoming an old fart, for sure, because the way the Tar Heels play basketball bores me. I miss the days when folks cared about winning the ACC and the regular season didn't seem like spring training."

Am I being nostalgic? Or am I on to something?

Probably a bit of both. While my older friends seem to agree with me, that college basketball in the 80s was a lot more interesting, my younger friends (those in their 30s) seem to think the current game is fine the way it is.

I'm sure the business of college basketball has never been better. The number of games on television and the success of March Madness speak to that. But from a romantic point of view, I can't help but feel the game has taken a hit over the past 20 years.

Way back when, you threw up a year, 1977 or 1982, and you remembered big games for Carolina, and big plays, and where you were and what you said to your friend. Now, and I don't think it's just me who feels this way, with players coming into the program and moving on a year or two later, you just lose track of who did what and when.

The Carolina hoops game was not the only sporting event of late that's made me long for the good, old days. The Major League Baseball postseason is another thing that, for me, a guy who loves the game as much as anyone, has lost its..."unforgettableness."

In the years before 1996 and the extra round of playoffs, even a mid-level fan could remember what teams played in the League Championship Series and World Series. They could probably tell you who was the MVP. Who was the goat. In the years since '96, with three rounds of playoffs every season, I've simply lost track.

Bring up a player, especially if they're Yankees or Red Sox players, and ask me how he did in the ALDS or ALCS in a certain year and I'll shrug my shoulders. Long gone are the days when you associated names with moments and the years were indelible.

Again, I'm sure the business of baseball has never been better. Baseball is about to add another wild card for each league next year, which will create another layer.

More money, for sure. But more memories? I don't think so.

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Coming Home

I have to laugh.

For the last 13 and a half years, I've written for ESPN The Magazine, and lived pretty much in anonymity. And then last week, I started writing a column for the Star-Ledger and, suddenly, it was like I'd become an overnight celebrity.

Old friends from high school, relatives I had not spoken to in years, basically a bunch of folks I'd crossed paths with during my lifetime as Jersey Kid now felt like I'd reached the pinnacle. And let me tell you, it's a good feeling. It's good to be home.

I grew up as Ledger kid, reading the words of Moss Klein and Dan Castellano every day with my Fruit Loops. A baseball-loving kid in the 70s and 80s loved the Ledger for Moss and Dan, but also for the full AP game story and box score with every MLB game. I know times have changed and all the boxes go on one page now, but as a kid who grew up loving Robin Yount and George Brett, I loved that I could read their game stories and see their stat line without having to turn the page. The Ledger was the paper of choice for a baseball fan. It was the only paper I'd ever need until the day I left for college.

Ironically, my first job in newspapers was writing for the Daily News, covering the Yankees in 1992. I always did my best, but I don't think I was ever viewed as a great, or even good tabloid beat reporter. My interest was never so much in trying to find out what George Steinbrenner was going to say, or what players (usually asking for anonymity) wanted to say something critical. My interest was always on the field, inside the game. And at times, I know my colleagues mocked me for that.

I'd miss out on some natural tabloid angle (sources say Danny Tartabull is miffed that he's playing left field and not right field) because I was talking to a pitcher about some grip-change he'd made, or to a hitter about something he was working on in the cage, and maybe I'd have a good story for the so-called seamheads, but I'd cost the News a headline. I would be the first to admit I was not a natural on that beat.

A lot of years have past since those days, 16 to be exact, and I have landed at the Ledger with the hopes that their readers are still the same as this Jersey Kid, oh, 35-40 years ago. Folks interested in reading about the game, the players, the characters. I hope they share my love of the good baseball story, because that's what I'm going try to bring them. If a kid could fall more in love with baseball the way I fell in love with baseball... because I wrote a memorable story, that would be pretty cool. About as cool as all the attention I've been getting this week.

It's good to finally be home.

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A Short Piece of Fiction about Hamburgers

I used to work at a burger place. The restaurant came about because this really big company with a really big name wanted to get into the burger business because they felt their patrons were burger people who would buy...you guessed it...their burgers.

We made very good burgers. We weren't the biggest or best burger place in the country, but we were pretty good. We were set up to provide burgers to burger-eaters. Nuf said.

Well, of course, times being as they are, we also had some salads on the menu. You know, even burger eaters, occasionally want some salad before they dig into their burgers. Not too much, mind you, but a little taste of something different can be nice.

The guy in charge of salad was not a burger eater. He was a salad guy through and through. Wore a beret, spoke in a language the burger people couldn't understand. A smart guy, but a salad guy.

Salad guy got good reviews from the folks in charge of the bigger company, and it started to go to his head. Suddenly, salad guy had opinions on burgers, even though he didn't like or know much about burgers. I mean, the guy never made a burger and rarely bit into a burger. How much could he know about burgers?

So anyway, the day came when the folks upstairs thought, "Hey, Salad Guy is smart and full of fresh ideas. I mean, he comes up with new salads all the time. Did you taste that Mango-Thai thing? Maybe Salad Guy should run the burger restaurant."

And so Salad Guy got his chance to run the show and what did he do? He turned a good burger place into a salad place. He'd have Avocado Mondays and Caesar Sunday. Some people thought the salad was great, but the people who loved the burgers, the people who were the reason for the restaurant in the first place, they didn't get it.

Some of the burger-makers became pretty good salad makers, but not me. My heart was still into ground beef and cheese and sesame seed buns.

And so I was told I wasn't needed or wanted any more.

The End.

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Lost in Translation

It was 1993 and I was working for the New York Daily News.

Part of the drill each day was a phone call from our sports editor Barry Werner, who would always greet you with the same two-word question. "What's doin'?" Every day. Same two words.

My answer was usually one word, "Same." And then we'd begin to talk ideas. Normally those ideas pertained to New York baseball, which was my beat, but Barry was definitely not averse to big ideas. He actually liked to think outside the box and I think he knew I was a captive audience.

So after "What's doin'?" and "Same" were exchanged, Barry said, "How would you like to go to Japan?" My answer was quick. "I'd love to." Seriously, it's funny to say after the last 10 years have taken me all over the world, but in '93 I'd not traveled much, so the thought of a Far East adventure was very appealing. The thought of getting away from the Yankees and Mets for a week was even more appealing. Barry explained that he wanted a series of stories on baseball in Japan that would include stories on a couple of Yankees (Mel Hall and Jesse Barfield) who were playing over there. Barry said that he'd offered the idea to a more senior member of the staff, but when that guy said he'd go only if he got to fly a certain airline (for frequent flier miles) and stay at a certain hotel (for points), Barry figured it was time to call Bradley.

"If you can stay on budget, be my guest," Barry said. I can't remember what the budget was, but it wasn't a lot. He then gave me the address of Japan Airlines in the city and the name of their public relations director. I swung by the JAL office, met with the guy and things were in the works. Turns out the PR guy was a baseball fan and he immediately told me he could get me an upgrade to business class. He gave me a list of reasonably priced hotels and a book on everything an American would need to know when traveling to Japan.

But it turned out the most important thing he gave me was a number to the Foreign Press office in Tokyo. Didn't realize it at the time, but without that number I'd have been lost.

You'll soon see why.

NOBODY ON, NOBODY OUT

I was 100-percent solo on this trip.

In subsequent years, as more and more of my colleagues have made their way to Japan as part of American groups going over to cover games between Major League teams and Japanese teams, I've often scoffed at them and told my tale of 10 days in Japan on my own.

My hotel room in Tokyo was slightly bigger than a twin bed. The bathroom was no bigger than a phone booth. The sink was inside the shower. The toilet was just outside. I never figured out how to take a shower without completely flooding the place.

The only people I could find in Tokyo with any English speaking skills were school kids. They could say a few words. Adults basically knew nothing.

In and around Tokyo, at least I could read street signs because they were written out phonetically in our alphabet. But about 20 miles outside Tokyo, there were no phonetics.

I think it was on Day 2 that I looked down at my tip sheet and saw the number of the Foreign Press office and decided to dial it up. When I started speaking in English, there was dead silence for a few seconds and then there was a voice saying, "Can I help you?"

NO STRINGS ATTACHED

We complain a lot (don't we?) about all the things that keep us wired 24-hours a day. The internet and email and Facebook and Twitter and TXT messaging.

In '93, we had none of that. And I wish we did.

Because I don't remember his name. And I really don't remember what he looked like. All I remember is he made my trip to Japan work.

I called him "Sonny."

I called him "Sonny" because when we met at his office and he asked where I was from, I told him "New Jersey" and he immediately told me, "I'm a big Bruce Springsteen fan."

But that wasn't it. He told me how, in his early 30s, he felt such a connection to Springsteen's lyrics. That he was just a guy who got up every morning and went to work each day.

He was a die-hard.

And when I asked him what his favorite Springsteen song was, he said, "Racing in the Street," which happens to be my favorite all-time song (live, of course). So I began to call him "Sonny," as in "Me and my partner Sonny." He loved the name, and he called me "Boss."

Sonny loved Racing for the same reasons I love it. Because it speaks to man's need to have something in his life that makes him feel alive. Even in times when everything else around you seems wrong, there's got to be one thing that feels right. He was married with kids. I was engaged and getting ready to begin the next phase of my life. We shared a number of meals together, and a few Kirins. He wasn't much of a baseball fan, and that didn't really matter.

Sonny had a handful of friends who could speak English and he made sure I met them all during my stay. He made sure whenever I went to a ballpark I had "an appointment." In Japan, you just don't show up at the ballpark and expect to get your interviews. "You need an appointment, Boss." And so Sonny would make all the necessary phone calls. Send all the faxes.

And my trip was great. I wrote a series for the Daily News on baseball in Japan and it was picked up by a number of papers across the country. In my years at the News, it's probably the work of which I am most proud. Without Sonny, I'd have had no chance.

SUMMER'S GONE

I have no way of figuring out his name. I've never been much of a hoarder. I throw out old notebooks. Got rid of my clip files years ago. I wouldn't know where to begin.

Friends come in so many different forms. There are lifelong friends and fair weather friends and friends of convenience. But Sonny, he really had no reason to be my friend.

Yet for those 10 days in Tokyo, I can't imagine I've ever had a better friend.

And I can't stop thinking about him.

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