Foul Ball Read online

  And what must Andy Mick be thinking right now?

  It didn’t take long to find out. In back-to-back editorials, the Berkshire Eagle angrily castigated its own readers:

  A crippling blow… voters have doomed a piece of downtown real estate to continued decay… the unforgivable abusive treatment of Larry Bossidy… we should demand action from the naysayers… we await proposals from David Potts, Eugene Nadeau and the rest of Anne Leaf’s “modern Minutemen.” Ms. Leaf’s analogy is a smear on the Minutemen who were not simply a destructive force of fear-mongers but were in fact nation builders… it is now time to stop hiding behind the flag and do something difficult—offer a recipe for positive change.

  According to the Eagle, Pittsfield voters should now give up their day jobs and assume the function of city officials—who would presumably be available to give them a hand. The strangest comment was the one about the voters having “doomed a piece of downtown real estate to continued decay.” That real estate was owned by the Eagle! They could turn it into a park if they wanted to.

  As part of its message that the voters stink, the Eagle quoted a few dejected new-stadium supporters.

  Larry Bossidy, who has lived in Ridgefield, Connecticut, for the past thirty-two years, said of his former home, “I thought this town was ready to say yes to something.”

  Mayor Doyle said, “It’s depressing that you could have people come into this community and offer to donate money and then have the city reject their offer. Not to be bitter or anything, but I’ll be interested to see what their plan is now to keep professional baseball.”

  Stadium Yes! chairman Edward O’Keefe said, “We eagerly await the plan our opponents have to revitalize Pittsfield. We are all ears.”

  Okay. Listen up.

  While Chip and I are not the opponents referred to above, it just so happens that we do have a plan “to keep professional baseball,” that would “revitalize Pittsfield,” and that the town might be “ready to say yes to.”

  It’s called Plan B.

  The day after the election, as promised, Chip called Andy Mick to talk about our plan. When Andy didn’t call back, Chip left another message. Still no response. Maybe Andy was on vacation again.

  Time to play hardball.

  In an open letter to the Pittsfield City Council and Berkshire Sports & Events, we outlined our plan, making the following points:

  1. Economic development: Pittsfield is better served by putting the $18.5 million earmarked for a new baseball stadium toward an indoor arena, and letting us preserve Wahconah Park at no cost to the taxpayers.

  2. Marketing: We’ll make improvements to Wahconah Park and create a “must see” entertainment experience at a nationally promoted historic ballpark that will attract fans from all over the Berkshires and beyond.

  3. Long-term lease: We’ll bring an independent league team to Pittsfield in time for the 2002 season.

  4. Independent league: The AA-level Northern and Atlantic Leagues play a better brand of baseball than the Class A New York–Penn League.

  5. Local ownership: We’ll sell stock to local residents, providing team continuity and stability, instead of musical chairs.

  6. Hockey: If money earmarked for a new stadium is spent instead on an indoor arena, we’ll provide a professional hockey team.

  7. Credentials: Our all-Berkshire partnership provides a strong set of managerial, promotional, and financial skills.

  We also sent copies to the local media, which consist of three Pittsfield radio stations, one public radio station in nearby Albany, New York, two weekly newspapers, and the Berkshire Eagle.

  That was on June 11. On June 12 Andy Mick called Chip.

  He sounded irritated.

  “What’s this?” he asked, referring to our open letter.

  “Time for Plan B,” said Chip. “I told you we’d be calling. So what do you think of our proposal? We’d like your support.”

  There was a pause.

  “It’s not my decision,” said Andy Mick, very matter of fact. “The guy you have to convince is my boss in Denver.”

  “Dean Singleton?” asked Chip, who had already looked him up. Singleton is the CEO of Media News Group.

  “Yeah,” said Andy Mick, casually. “I’ll see what he wants to do. I’ll be traveling on business. I’ll call you back and we’ll talk again.”

  It must have been a long business trip, because Andy never called back. We thought of sending out a search party.

  And strangely enough, the Eagle did not print Plan B—our revolutionary plan to change the balance of power between a city and its baseball team.

  A historic ballpark soon to be abandoned, a government that ignores its citizens, a newspaper at war with its readers, the curious involvement of General Electric, and the shots are being called by a guy in Denver?

  It was about this time that I began taking notes.

  CHAPTER 1

  “Fuckyouski!”

  JUNE 13

  WEDNESDAY

  Today we got Andy Mick’s response to Plan B. It appeared in an editorial in the Berkshire Eagle. Chip called me up to read it to me. The unsigned editorial read as follows:

  When you scoop away the whip [sic] cream from a South County partnership’s sundae of proposed athletic venues for Pittsfield, you won’t find much substantive confection. The trio, including former Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton of Egremont, pledge to bring an as yet to be organized independent Northern League team to Wahconah Park—for which they will do “modest” renovations—and an as yet undetermined minor league hockey team to a proposed $22 million indoor arena—on the site of the rejected $18.5 million downtown baseball stadium—which they expect someone else to build. The partners concede that Wahconah is not up to being home to a New York–Penn League affiliate; they’re counting on dilapidated charm. Does this sound like a recipe for success?

  Chip and I had to laugh. For months the Eagle has been saying there’s no alternative to a new stadium. Now our Plan B comes along—hasn’t even been out there twenty-four hours—and already they don’t like it. And this is the paper that accused the new-stadium opponents of being “naysayers.”

  I’m sure I’ve met David Scribner, the editor-in-chief of the Eagle, but I don’t remember him. It might have been at a party at my friend Alan Chartock’s house. Alan is the executive director of WAMC, Northeast Public Radio, based in Albany. Scribner is a frequent guest on WAMC, reading the morning news in exchange for an Eagle plug and appearing on a program that Alan hosts called the Media Project, which examines how that industry does or doesn’t do its job.

  Now there’s an idea! How about a joint appearance with Scribner and me on the Media Project or WAMC’s Vox Pop call-in show? We could debate the merits of our plan for Wahconah Park, or examine the Eagle’s conflict of interest with the new stadium. Either topic would be of interest to Berkshire residents, if not the entire listening area.

  Alan is always fighting against conflicts of interest and corporate attempts to buy off the media. It’s the main message of his WAMC fund drives, which mix humor, fear, and outright begging to raise the thousands of dollars necessary… “to keep this beacon lit, and I’m not kidding you, folks, this is it. If we don’t have twenty callers in the next five minutes, this public radio station and everything it stands for will be gone forever. Gone, do you hear me? We can’t let that happen… because we’re all in this together… this is our radio station. Why aren’t those phones ringing? Not a single phone! Listen to me. This is Kafkaesque. We gotta do it now! Dive, dive, dive… Whatever you can give… because… and I’m deadly serious right now… because let me tell you about what happens when the corporate big shots come around with their money. One day, not too long ago, three men came into my office…”

  And he’s not afraid to talk tough to the big boys. One time the NBC Nightly News asked him to comment on General Electric’s continual legal battle to avoid cleaning up the PCBs it dumped into the Hudson River.

 
“I looked right into the camera,” said Chartock, “and I said, ‘Jack Welch, clean up your mess!’ Of course, they never used it because NBC is owned by General Electric.”

  When he’s not fulminating about media malfeasance, Dr. Chartock, or “that little pain in the ass” as he’s known by his carefully cultivated enemies, teaches political communication at the State University of New York at Albany, offers commentaries on the NBC-TV affiliate, recently hosted a Me & Mario radio show with former Governor Cuomo, and writes a weekly column for the Eagle.

  Alan is a legend in the Berkshires. And WAMC is his living room where people are invited over to learn about what’s happening in the neighborhood and the world at large. You drive up from New York City, tune into WAMC, and you know you’re home.

  I told Chip that WAMC could be the necessary balance to the Berkshire Eagle—the area’s most powerful radio station versus Pittsfield’s only daily newspaper. Wait until Chartock finds out what’s really going on with Wahconah Park, I said. This will be a whole different ball game.

  Chip and I then called Chartock at his office in Albany; Chip is good at patching people in on conference calls. We told Alan about the Eagle’s editorial, briefed him on our plan for Wahconah Park, and filled him in on our problems with the Eagle.

  “So,” said Chartock, in a neutral tone of voice. “They won’t give a sucker an even break.”

  An even break? What happened to “the flaunting of corporate power, the dereliction of journalistic responsibility, and the unbridled tyranny of a one-paper town?” Undeterred, I pressed on.

  “What about a Media Project with me and Scribner?” I said. “We could debate the very things you talk about on that program, with one of your regular guests, about a perfect example right here in our community! Scribner and I, mano a mano. I could ask Scribner if that was his real name or did he have it changed to match his job. The listeners would love it.”

  “Scribner hasn’t been on for months,” said Chartock evenly. “And we’ve done programs in the past about the Eagle’s conflict of interest. Why don’t you write a letter to the editor? More people read the letters than the editorials.”

  This was not exactly what I expected to hear. But we thanked Alan for his time and hung up. Maybe Alan wasn’t feeling well today. Or maybe he was ambivalent.

  Back in May, Alan had written about the new stadium in his “I, Publius” column in the Eagle.

  I think that once again the people of Pittsfield have a real opportunity to turn their city around. A new minor league stadium will bring people into a largely deserted business district that needs help big time….

  I have a theory that many of the people who are left in Pittsfield actually want to live in a dying city. They want a North Street in which once thriving storefronts are filled with governmental/social service agencies….

  Now it would appear that a goodly number of folks in town are prepared to cut their own throats once again.

  Alan, who has a good crap detector and gets to the core of most issues faster than anyone else, hadn’t gotten deep enough on this one. So when Paula and I ran into him at the movies a few days after that column appeared, I briefed Alan on the sad history of teams and leagues that force cities to build new stadiums by threatening to leave. I also told him I was working on an alternative plan for Pittsfield—which I couldn’t reveal at that moment—and that he might just possibly be on the wrong side of this one.

  A rueful grin appeared on Alan’s face, and his eyes rolled up, behind his glasses.

  “Uh-oh,” he said, stroking his beard.

  But after today’s phone call, maybe it’s Chip and I who should be saying “Uh-oh.”

  JUNE 14

  THURSDAY

  Along with the voters of Pittsfield.

  Because it suddenly appears that a new stadium is not dead after all. The front-page headline in today’s Berkshire Eagle reads REVISED STADIUM CONCEPT DRAWS TENTATIVE SUPPORT. According to the story, Mayor Doyle “has asked for and received tentative support” from the City Council and Berkshire Sports & Events for the same new stadium in the same downtown location—but without a Civic Authority. It turns out it was the Civic Authority that people were voting against, not a new stadium.

  A “new stadium” question would presumably require another special referendum.

  This evening Chip and I drove up to the Bousquet Ski Area, a few miles southwest of downtown Pittsfield, where a “brainstorming session” would be held to consider various proposals for local sports arenas. As new players in this sports facility game, Chip and I figured we’d better show up.

  The meeting had been organized by George Jervas, Bousquet’s owner, who thinks the best location for a new stadium is across the street from his ski area. It’s not the first time he’s made this proposal. Apparently, when he had suggested it last year—as an alternative to the downtown site owned by the Eagle—Mayor Doyle had called him into his office and read him the riot act, and he backed off.

  The Bousquet meeting was held in a large, post-and-beam room with windows that overlooked the slopes. A few people checked us out as we walked in—the new boys in town. Chip and I sat at a table in the back with a box containing four hundred copies of our proposal—about three hundred more than we needed.

  We were joined by Eric Lincoln, who had spotted us from across the room. Eric is a reporter for the Record, a weekly newspaper based in Great Barrington. I remembered Eric from my days as a TV sportscaster in New York, when he was a sports writer with the New York Times. Eric is a big guy, a former blocking back for Columbia who likes to quote Dan Dierdorf’s line: “I started out six-foot-three and when I retired I was five-foot-eight.” Eric, who always seems like he’s just climbed a flight of stairs, is partial to baseball caps, logo shirts, clogs, and dress slacks—at the same time.

  Eric pointed out some of the heavy hitters in attendance. Standing over near the door—maybe so they could exit quickly—were Mayor Doyle, State Senator Andy Nuciforo, City Council President Tom Hickey, city councilors Gary Grunin and Gerald Lee, and two of the Three Amigos—Dan Bianchi and Rick Scapin.

  Good thing Chip and I came.

  The meeting was hosted by a lawyer for the Bousquet Ski Area. He said he hoped the meeting could be “the beginning of the end of all the negativity.” Since it wasn’t our party, Chip and I planned to wait until near the end before saying anything.

  After half an hour of suggestions from various residents—which included a new downtown baseball stadium, a renovated Wahconah Park, and an ice rink—Mayor Doyle stepped forward and said, “Why not do all three?” This got a small round of applause from the crowd.

  Two speakers later, a woman stood up and said, “What about this new proposal for Wahconah Park I’ve heard about? Does anyone know anything about that?”

  Recognizing a cue when we heard it, Chip and I sprang into action. As Chip moved to the microphone, I handed out copies of our proposal. Chip, who has the uncanny ability to speak in complete paragraphs without notes, delivered the logic of our plan to save Wahconah Park. I followed him at the microphone with the passion part—an emotional pitch that conjured up soft summer nights and the enchanting fragrance of hot dogs and mustard.

  And we got a standing ovation!

  Except from the mayor, who walked out while Chip was talking.

  JUNE 15

  FRIDAY

  Today I got a call from a guy named Hunter Golden who said he was a reporter for the Eagle and did I have few minutes to answer some questions. I said sure.

  “What guarantee would Pittsfield have,” asked Golden, “that the United Hockey League would stay in town more than just a few years, in view of struggling UHL franchises?” Why would he ask a question like that, I wondered. A United Hockey League team was merely a sidebar to our plan for Wahconah Park. Why Golden wanted to focus on hockey instead of on the larger question of a new stadium versus Wahconah Park became clear with his second question.

  “What kind of players
are we likely to get in view of recent violence in the UHL?” he asked. “Players brought up on charges of high-sticking, et cetera.”

  This was not a reporter. This was a man on a mission.

  “What guarantees did Pittsfield get from the Red Sox, Senators, Rangers, Brewers, Cubs, Mets, and Astros baseball teams over the past thirty years?” I asked him. “And as far as hockey violence is concerned,” I said, just getting warmed up, “we’ll do psychological testing of all players, get letters of recommendation from their teachers, and require two years of Boy Scout participation.”

  Maybe I was a tad sarcastic.

  The investigative journalist thanked me for my time and hung up. I never saw what he wrote, if anything.

  It reminded me of my days as a McGovern delegate at the Democratic Convention in Miami in 1972—a time of hippies, free love, and pot smoking, often simultaneously. As the vice chairman of the New Jersey delegation, I was asked by a reporter what I planned to do about rumors that certain people in our group were smoking pot. I said anyone found smoking pot who refused to share it with the others would be sent home.

  I never saw anything written about that either.

  Chip got a call from Mayor Doyle’s secretary today. The mayor wants to meet with us at City Hall on Monday morning at 8:30. What the hell does that mean? Has he changed his mind on a new stadium? Does he want to hear more about our proposal? Is he going to ask us to butt out?

  Maybe he’s going to ask me to organize a Mayors’ Old Timer baseball game.

  JUNE 16

  SATURDAY

  Suddenly the field is getting crowded. “College League May Be On Deck,” reads a headline in today’s Eagle. The story talks about a proposal from the New England Collegiate Baseball League to play in Wahconah Park in 2002, to replace the departing Pittsfield Astros. And who likes this idea right away? The mayor. “I’m very impressed,” said Gerald S. Doyle, Jr. “It fits right in with our goal, which is to have some kind of structured baseball at Wahconah Park, as we’ve said all along.”