On Deck with Commissioner Bud Selig

Onward/Upward Bud

Warming Up for July 10 MLB All-Star Game in Kansas City!

In 1982, as a wandering neophyte lost in a fascinating and not-too-unfriendly world, I did research for consulting firm CTM to develop something wild called "SSN, the SuperSportsNetwork."

In those days of proliferating cable networks, SSN was to be a confederated joint venture of MLB team owners that would satellite-deliver a program of out-of-market baseball games to cable subscribers: you'd see your home team all season long except on nights when they played at home and had not sold out the park; on those nights you'd tap the exchange and receive the best game from around the league.

We got 23 of the 26 owner groups to convene at the O'Hare Hilton for a huge confab - two or three folks from each team.  The Cubs (WGN), Braves (WTBS) and Mets (WOR) had already cast their lot with new "cable superstations" and would not/could not participate.

Why HIM?  Why not ME ???

2008 MLB All-Star Game - Bud and SJP at Yankee Stadium (4-3 A.L.)

Well, I've worked in finance and television, and had unhealthy immersion in politics and academia - all rife with big, needy, overblown egos - but never have I been in a room with more blustering, braying, domineering jackasses at one time (well, I attended a U.N. General Assembly proceeding once, but that's another story).  Many of the club owners were also very charming in a back-slapping way, but every single one of these grand-standers was cruelly suspicious of his confreres.

The meeting was a riot.  My glamorous job?  Running laps of the giant horseshoe table where the 65 primo donno participants were seated, and handing out papers.

Beer Keg Swings Bat - COOL!

Oy!  One character who was well-behaved, and lingered late to chew the fat with my boss Bob Schmidt, was Milwaukee Brewers owner (later to become MLB Commissioner) Bud Selig. He was genuinely interested in the proposition, and would visit us in McLean VA later that year following the Brewers' heroic October appearance in the "Suds Series" (Brewers lost in seven).

As we swept up the room and prepared to vacate for a late plane back east, I spotted Bud pull a bright white baseball from the pocket of his brown corduroy suit jacket, take a Bic pen right out of Bob's shirt pocket, and scribble his autograph: "Good luck, Bob! Bud Selig"

The ball occupied a place of honor on Bob's desk and I admired it until something else happened to it...

to be continued.

Grabbing Lunch with Sam Donaldson

Unabashed Texan Sam Donaldson

When I visited Washington DC to tour Georgetown Univesity and GWU with my father in 1975, we stayed at the grand and stately Mayflower Hotel.  As a rube in the big city, I was amazed at the size of this hotel - a full city block long: one could enter on Connecticut Ave. and exit on 17th street.

The northern edge of the hotel was bounded by DeSales Street, NW, a one block long mid-block connector between the two avenues.  And opposite the Mayflower (just outside our window), across DeSales Street at mid-block, was ABC News' Washington DC bureau.  How cool - people making television, right there!

Ten years later, I was working 1/2 block away on 17th Street at the National Geographic Society, and we usd to graze around the neighborhood, picking off a number of researchers from NPR and ABC News when we were staffing up NG EXPLORER.

ABC sits chock-a-block with a parking garage and there was a small, greasy spoon lunch counter there in the mid-80's.  I don't remember the name of it but one day we were all piled in there, jockeying at the counter, when a loud, bold and insistently-recognizable voice cut through the din: "Ham and Swiss!  Right Here!! - That's Mine!!!"  He reached above and across the throng, grabbed the bag, threw a $5 bill at the counter guy who laughed, and he bolted.

"People ask me about my relationship with President Reagan. I say it was a case of two 'hams' discovering each other. Only I played the 'straight man' and he always had the last word."

One of his most widely remembered questions during his tenure at the White House came during the Reagan administration: "Mr. President, in talking about the continuing recession tonight, you have blamed Congress and mistakes in the past. Does any of the blame belong to you?" To which Reagan retorted: "Yes, for many years I was a Democrat!"

On a Wild Nantucket Sleighride with Roy Bailey

Time to dream, and dream, and daydream again about Nantucket Island summers.

Happy Father's Day to my Dad, and here's a Nantucket reprise in honor of my parents spending the week now in Wauwinet...

In the Bailey Studio...

In the 1960's, one of Nantucket's great artists-in-residence was Roy Bailey, whose upstairs gallery above Miltimore's Dress Shop was on the corner of Orange Street and South Main Street, just up from where Mitchell's Bookshop now sits, and below Murray's Toggery.

Gorgeous

My parents knew Roy through some good mutual friends - natives, I'm obliged to point out - and collected a few of his pieces.

James Dean-esque and seductively dashing, Bailey was active in the art and performing arts community, and a regular in the Opera House, where a good martini could always be had, and a Coke at the bar would cost you $1 in 1968 (at the time, it was $.10 or .15 everywhere else on the island!).

Sixties island hoi-polloi would congregate in the Opera House after sailing, for evenings of tale-telling and tail-chasing.  It was a swinging scene among the yacht club set, up-and-comers, and Snopeses of all stripes.

Porters' Quarters, 59 Fair

At the time, we had a place on Fair Street, a short stroll away.

Now, if you read your Melville, you know that a Nantucket Sleighride is local (early 19th century) slang for the ride you and your (possibly doomed) friends took once the leashed harpoon you'd hurled found its mark in the whale's flesh and he took you for a long and rough ride, sometimes for hours... sometimes to the bottom of the sea.  Reference Captain Ahab.

Gentlemen of a certain age know well, also, that "Nantucket Sleighride" refers to a 5:50 rock classic (blended ballad/dirge and riff-rock roarer) from the 1971 album of the same name by monumental heavy/dinosaur band Mountain (alternately, to its 32-minute cousin from the live "Twin Peaks" album, much and painfully inferior).  As Mountain were preparing to release the great (I think their best) album Nantucket Sleighride, the band either selected - or commissioned anew - an etching by Bailey to illustrate the inner album spread.

I'd stared at this illustration ['Drawing of a Nantucket Sleighride'] many times - but only years later, after college, did I notice the attribution and realize it was ol' Roy who'd 'drawn' it.

"Three years sailing on bended knee ..."

So when in 1998 while biking into town now on Vestal Street I spotted Bailey's shingle, I hustled in to find him, aging and a bit brittle.

We introduced ourselves and chatted about the 'golden age' of Nantucket for ten minutes or so.  Then I revealed my real interest - to buy a print of the Nantucket Sleighride key art.

"Wow!" he shouted - "it's been years and years since anyone has even mentioned that piece to me!  I didn't think anyone remembered.  I barely remember it myself!"

Visit the Nantucket Whaling Museum

He did not have the print to sell - for all he knew, it had gone ages ago to Davy Jones' locker.  We reminisced and he let me know the connection had come about through a Nantucket fellow - "young man, don't remember his name now, but might have been a Coffin descendant" - who was friendly with the band and knew of their fascination with Nantucket, whaling, and the story of the whaleship Essex, all inspirations for the album.

Here is a nice Father's Day themed article about Roy Bailey.

Roy passed away in 2002 but he lives on in the memory of many a Nantucket "Golden-Ager' . . . as does this particular work of his in the hearts and minds of many I'd venture utterly unwitting rock fans of 40 years ago!!

John Edwards - A Painful Fall From Grace

"While I do not believe I did anything illegal, or ever thought I was doing anything illegal, I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong and there is no one else responsible for my sins.  I am responsible, and if I want to find the person who should be held accountable for my sins, honestly I don't have to go any further than the mirror.  It's me.  It is me and me alone."

Sunshine, Go Away Today - Don't Feel Much Like Smilin'

When John Edwards ran for president in 2004 he lamented with passion about "the two America's, ... where some attend the public schools in the good neighborhoods, with the well stocked library, and the nice athletic fields, and the clean classrooms... while others sit in crumbling buildings, with no books to study, and no opportunity to ever get ahead ..."  What he never remembered to mention was the third America - where his kids and mine went to private school and enjoyed excellent teaching and attention, with all the amenities.

Edwards came to town following election in November 1998 as Senator for North Carolina.  He later smartly enrolled his young children in St. Patrick's Episcopal Day School, where my daughter also attended.

"President Edwards"

It wasn't unusual to see a 'public servant' like Ken Bentsen, Jr. (D, TX 25th) or media politicos like Tucker Carlson and Cokie Roberts around the corridors.  But there was definitely a buzz around Mr. Edwards, a dapper barrister rumored to have Presidential ambitions.

You are correct if you imagine that Elizabeth Edwards was a much, much, much beloved woman in the school. Very involved, and very full of life.  She is deeply missed by the staff and many friends she made among the parent/volunteer tribe, and when we worked together on the annual fundraising auction she made a point to contribute a week at the Edwardses' North Carolina beach house.  Separately, we arranged to offer a luncheon in Washington with John, for the high bidder and ten guests.  The private meal was hosted at Sen. Edwards' next door neighbor's very beautiful home in what had been until 1959 the Cuban Embassy on 30th Street, N.W.

That particular prize went for the high bid of the evening, over $20,000, purchased by the wife of a lobbyist.  Welcome to Washington!

Beloved Alma Mater: St. Patrick's

On Family Fun Day in spring 2003, there was Senator John Edwards, on campus.  We passed each other in the hallway between the church nave and the school development office at St. Patrick's Episcopal Day School.  Holding hands with his young children Emma Claire and Jack, he looked kind and fatherly, but intensely focused at the same time - he was thinking about something.  "Hello, Senator!" I ventured, and in response he smiled gently, nodded in my direction and kept moving.

I was struck by his height - maybe my height at best - 5'6".  He's listed as 5'11" but on this day he was 5'6" - or else on that day I was 5'11"! In this sense, I guess, I was uplifted by his presence.

That was nine years ago this month.  Much water has passed under the Edwards bridge.  John launched his own 2004 Presidential run resulting in selection as Sen. John Kerry's Vice President.  Edwards later made an aborted attempt for the 2008 nomination as well, but by then was mired already in a terrible cascade of family betrayal & loss, and personal, political and ethical scandal.  Some might say today that, under Ponte Edouard, justice has rolled down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.  But in the end, none of us - saints and sinners alike - really know.

There has been precious little Family Fun for John Edwards lately.  I despair for his children, and miss his wife, and I hope that time is kind to all concerned.

Heat Wave: My Ice-Cream Eating Marathon with Ben & Jerry

I Scream, You Scream - We ALL Scream for Ice Cream!

I got to crash a weekend-long confab of Ben & Jerry's "Scoop Shop" Operators, with ice cream for breakfast, lunch, dinner and every possible between-meal snack.

Irresistible Delight, served up by Dynamic Duo

Ben & Jerry were rewarding the operators for their hard work by taking over a conference facility near Phoenix, gathering the scoopers to celebrate their success, preview the coming new flavors and "novelties," exchange tips, and discuss all things ice cream.

The ticket? My piece of the multi-front effort to launch Animal Planet cable network was the development and publishing of Animal Planet CD-ROM, an animal encyclopedia and one of the first ever "internet-linked!" titles (animal video profiles on the disc connected to MS Encarta entries).  We'd cut a fun cross promotion deal with Ben & Jerry - they'd promote Animal Planet and give a $5-off coupon for the CD-ROM on the lid of every carton of Rain Forest Crunch (2 million units) and we'd promote Ben & Jery's by advertising a "free pint" coupon inside every CD-ROM package.

Save Rainforest by Eating

Usually I'd send the project manager on the road to do these previews.  In this special case, I pulled rank and went west to do the demo myself.

Those days and nights in Phoenix were long, and filled with ice cream.  The guys by then were fairly rotund (occupational hazard) and jolly (I'd be too), and Jerry in particular was genuinely interested in where we planned to go with the television network.  We discussed at length over Peace Pops - at the time, Animal Planet was envisioned to be a nature documentary and human/animal interest channel, and a strong advertising play.  Of course now it has become nothing but exploitative "reality"....  A violation?  Perhaps we were meant for each other (read on).

My afternoon demo followed the Marketing presentation:

Remember, Ben and Jerry's' well-earned brand promise is rich-tasting deliciousness based on innovative flavor combinations and mix-in's.  No one was ever going to look to B&J for vanilla (though their vanilla is unquestionably delicious).  But in spring 1996, the Marketing department had the idea that vanilla was the future for B&J.  Marketing Girl's logic? "People buy our pints, but we need market share of Ice Cream 'Occasions' - nobody's going to buy pints of NY Super Fudge Chunk to serve with the Thanksgiving pie, or at junior's 10th birthday party."

Ben & Jerry - Young Idealists

Well, that idea never panned out.  People don't look to Ben & Jerry's for vanilla (and if they do want a gallon of vanilla, they won't visit the scoop shop and stand in line to see it hand-packed).

Talk about following your bliss: here are a couple of ice-cream loving best friends from Merrick, NY who conquered the world of ice cream.

Cool Like a Brain-Freeze:
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were so "cool" they could, in corporate life, violate their socially-minded/counterculture identification with moves like the hiring of expert CEO Perry Odak from U.S. Repeating Arms Corporation (manufacturer of Winchester rifles), and ultimately the $326M exit sale to corporate megalith  Unilever.  Both were the right move, btw.

But now the duo are "Occupy Wall-Streeters" ...

Credit Where Due:

Come to Northampton MA, visit Herrell's, and meet Steve - the Albert Einstein behind the mix-in.  He selflessly schooled Ben and Jerry and they took the concept all the way to the bank.  But only Steve has the Hostess Cupcake Ice Cream Sundae...!

On-Stage with Tony Goldwyn

Tony Goldwyn ... presently President Fitz ... formerly Crow

He's the President of the United States now - on Scandal, that is - but in 1978 he was just a fresh-faced lad landing the second lead in a campus production of Sam Shepard's "Tooth of Crime," and we became friends.

Lights, Camera, Beer... in the Pub

My roommate and fraternity brother Chris Walsh played the aging and decidedly Jagger-esque rock star Hoss, who is challenged and ultimately unseated by the up-and-coming rock star Crow, played by freshman Tony Goldwyn.  This play was cast during the early autumn and produced that semester.

7 Truly Bold Plays by Master Sam

Four of us - Dave Scofield, Dave Schleifer, John S. Keim, and yours truly - comprised the band.  Billed as the "Overhead Lifters," the band was on-stage and the music was an up-front element of the play, particularly during Becky's soliloquy, and the scene when the two rockers square off inside a boxing ring as the Rolling Stones' "Sister Morphine" plays.

In another scene, Crow warms up for a confrontation by singing Cream's "I'm So Glad."

Following this exposure to Sam Shepard, I became a fan - and particularly loved seeing the Quaid brothers tear up the stage in "True West" at the Cherry Lane theater in 1984.  As for Tooth of Crime, I can recite every word of dialog in this fantastic play.

What I most vividly remember about our little Minor Theater production at Hamilton College are two mesmerizing, invigorating vignettes: Tony warming up behind stage using bizarre impressive and in-your-face method acting technique, and - in the second act, night after night - "Becky" taking her shirt off ten feet away on-stage, while delivering a bitter monologue.

Have a "Futchnerf's" Summer

Chris and I tried unsuccessfully to rush Tony for Psi Upsilon, but he went to Sigma Phi instead, and ultimately left Hamilton early.  Next stop was Brandeis University and I don't believe he even admits to having attended Hamilton, now.

I ran into Tony on the street in NYC the summer of 1980, and since then I've seen him as you have: a cad in Ghost, a lawyer in The Pelican Brief, behind camera (as Director) with the tremendous A Walk on the Moon, and now - his star turn on TV as Fitzgerald Grant, President of the USA, in Scandal.

I suppose that Tooth of Crime - the zenith of my own stage career, as I never auditioned for anything else, before or after - was a small but wildly interesting steppingstone on Mr. Goldwyn's path to craft mastery.  I remember Tony well as a genuinely nice guy,  unassuming - even quiet, while also full of energy and intensity - a totally committed thespian.

And he's really knocking it out of the park on Scandal!

"I'll develop my own image. I'm an original man. A one and only. I just need some help."

... as Crow, in Tooth of Crime

Titanic Discoverer Bob Ballard Asked ME For Directions...

Captain Fantastic, Bob Ballard

For a guy who found a needle in a haystack, a mile below the surface and hundreds of miles out in the dark and desolate northern Atlantic ocean, Bob Ballard was clueless on land.

The Titanic went down 100 years ago tonight.  Yours truly was "present" - on the very fringes - at its rediscovery in 1986 and this was a huge, huge thrill!  I was working at National Geographic Television while Ballard's research and exploration grant was in effect, and during 1984 and 1985 we'd get news of hopeful progress that Captain Ballard and his crew were zeroing in - "vectoring" - and that the discovery was close, close, close at hand.  We had film coverage on board, in case he struck gold.

Ballard: "The actual ship was much, much bigger than this!"

The Holy Grail.  Noah's Ark.  The Titanic.  In 20th Century popular ambition, no lost object loomed larger, nor seemed more of an impossible dream.  In all the vast, deep sea, could one man and his team possibly find something so elusive?  The mind boggled to imagine it.

Well, you know the rest: the discovery, later the romantic movie.  In between Bob Ballard became popularized as a hero on par with Edmund Hillary and Howard Carter.  He went on to locate the Bismarck, and to found the Jason project that has educated and engaged thousands and thousands of schoolchildren to be budding scientists and researchers.

We rushed our National Geographic EXPLORER Special onto the air in December 1986 and earned the highest-ever ratings for a basic-cable TV show, with 1 in 8 Americans tuning in that Sunday night.  Later we hired Bob to host National Geographic EXPLORER and he did pretty well for himself - handled the on-air work with charisma for a few seasons, and ended up marrying a young colleague of mine.  Ultimately popularized by James Cameron and depicted by Bill Paxton in the blockbuster "Titanic," Bob is now a permanent icon of Neil Armstrong magnitude.

So, the funny thing was, one sunny day in the summer of 1987 when my UCSB '81 fiancee and I were knocking around Montecito in Santa Barbara, a block inland from the beautiful Biltmore Hotel near El Cabrillo and Channel Drive, a car pulled up, rolled down the window, and a friendly voice said "Hey, can you tell me how to get to Summerland from here?"

My companion yelled at him "Hey! You're Bob Ballard!! We work for Tim Kelly!!"  Immediate recognition (Tim was the leader of NG TV who had flown the edited Titanic show in his hands, via helicopter, to WTBS to make air).  We stood in the street shooting the breeze, recalling the craziness of the previous year's TV production, talking about this or that project that he was working on either at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute or as a National Geographic "Explorer-In-Residence," and eventually sending him on his way.

Where Am I?  ... And Where's That Darn Ship?

Now, get this: Summerland was about two miles south of where we stood, and on the main road toward Carpinteria and Ventura.  Nobody leaving Santa Barbara bound for LA could get far without immediately seeing signs for Summerland.  And here's the funny thing: much later I learned that among Bob's distinguished credentials he held a dual degree in Chemistry and Marine Biology from UCSB, so he had lived right there in beautiful Isla Vista for four years (he'd also been an ROTC student).

So it's inexplicable to me how a master-class navigator could have been so befuddled.  But we were happy to correct his course, of course, and did see a good bit more of him in his EXPLORER-hosting days from 1989-1991.  A sharp, driven guy with absolute leadership class, who dreams big and is never averse to being in the spotlight.

Oed und leer das meer!

Yo Ho Ho , Me Matey - Mel Fisher and Yours Truly

Kanye West?  KEY WEST!

I struck up a rich friendship with "Treasure Salvor" Mel Fisher in 1985, when he found the Atocha shipwreck and its incredible $450,000,000 bounty of gold coins, mountains of emeralds, and other riches just miles off the coast of Key West....

 The National Geographic Society had supported Mel's research with expedition grants, much as they had supported Bob Ballard in his quest to locate the Titanic.  In a barter for exclusive rights to 'break the story' in its own pages, NGS funded numerous promising, interesting explorers, expeditionists and researchers such as Jane Goodall (chimps), Dian Fossey (gorillas), Louis and Richard Leakey (homo erecti), and Sylvia Earle (sharks) - along with aforementioned gents Ballard et Fisher.  In 1985-86, both of these gentlemanly bets would pay off spectacularly.

"The Atocha Motherlode" as it is known amounted to nearly half a $Billion worth of gold and silver - over 40 tons (and the intervening years have been very kind to the commodity price of precious metals).

Mine, Mine, it's all Mine ...

Even as Mel began hauling the Atocha loot to the surface, word reverberated around the Geographic headquarters - and especially within the TV Division, where our leader Dennis Kane had earlier made a personal investment in Salvors, Inc. (the romance of discovery aside, Fisher is a shrewd businessman; note the prominence given Investor Relations on Fisher's site).

Mel Fisher had to fight the state of Florida over ownership of the trove (Mel won it all at the Supreme Court; he's donated 20% of the find to FL).

We were prepared, and we hastily accelerated a prime time documentary to air on WTBS as a Sunday evening National Geographic Explorer Special.  On Thursday of that week, a panicked call came from Atlanta, where the ad sales office at TBS had noted Mel's personal purchase of a pair of spots, to air during Explorer, in which he personally pitched jewels, coins and artifacts with an (800) #, direct to viewers.

It was the cheesiest commercial imaginable: home-made production values like you'd see in a spot for a local car dealership, Mel draped in gold chains over a Hawaiian shirt, glowing and lit up like W. C. Fields.

Total Class!

The National Geographic saw its sterling reputation for taste, quality and accuracy about to go down the drain! ... and instructed my boss Tim Kelly to talk Mel out of the buy, which he did.

The special, "Atocha: Quest for Treasure" was a giant hit, eclipsed only a year later when we presented "Secrets of the Titanic" following Ballard's histrionic find.  In both cases, we in the hated TV Division had to fight the powers that were, in order to scoop the Magazine where 'breaking news' could be turned into a cover story.. 9 months later at earliest.  So we had to vanquish Bill Garrett and the magaziners in order to get on the air.

Swashbucklers Two: Fisher & Porter

We were victorious in our little battle, so was Mel in his grand quest, and That's The Way It Was.