OT - the way it was
 

In the current annual baseball thread, I mentioned two off topic items. One was that I once shook hands with Bobby Hull and the other that I once "worked" with Billy Williams of the Cubs. Both occurred back in the 60s when pro athletes weren't paid a bazillion dollars and sometimes had to work in the off-season to support their families - that's how it was back then.

Bobby was doing a promotion for the company for which my dad worked. It was a wholesale food distributor and Bobby would make appearances at locally owned grocery stores and sign autographs. He would also promote the brands of canned goods distributed by my dad's company. My dad took me along one day on his route and Bobby was at one of the stores we visited. My dad introduced us and I got to shake hands with Bobby. I was a huge fan of his and it meant a lot to me.

As to Billy Williams, we both worked at a huge car dealership in the Chicago suburbs. He worked in the fall and winter there selling cars. I worked after school and weekends in their mail room (they were one of the first car dealerships to use a direct mailer program). Sometimes Billy and I would eat lunch together in the lunchroom and we would talk baseball. We would tease each other because I was a big White Sox fan. He really was a nice guy and he sold a lot of cars, many because he was a "celebrity".

Did any of you guys ever have a "non-sports" meeting with a pro athlete?

I have coached against Bill Lambier.

I have watched many Rock games with Pinball.

Went to school with the Gretzkys.

Once we were car shopping and our trade-in had the paint coming off the roof. The dealer brought out some guy to have a look at it who was somehow involved the car painting business. (or something) We were introduced, and the name momentarily didn't register with me, until the guy extended his left hand.........because he didn't have a right hand.

It was Tom Dempsey.

How many know who that is?

Oh yeah - I once went to a party at Jerry Colangelo's house back in the early 60s. I went to HS with his sister, Rosemary, and she threw the party. Jerry just happened to be there at the time. I didn't see him dance, though. :)

Plus, Dick Butkis' two sisters were in my HS class (they are twins). I saw him come pick them up after school a few times. He was the scariest guy I ever saw.

Mr. Basketball ...
 

As a teenager, I once met Bob Cousy. He was at our local Bradlees department store making an appearence to drum up business for his Bob Cousy sneakers. I wore his Mr. Basketball sneakers until I upgraded to Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars.

http://counterkicks.com/wp-content/u...sy-Lo-Ad-1.jpg

I wore PF Flyers. The nerds in our school wore Keds.

BTW - when I was in our park district's baseball program (we didn't have "official" Little League), Pete Ward of the White Sox once came to our field to do a hitting demonstration. One of the other 12 year olds threw him a pitch and Ward hit it totally out of the park (not really a big deal), over the highway and through a gas station window - on the fly! That was a big deal. We guesstimated it was well over 400 feet, maybe even over 450.

Me and my dad went fishing with Ken Griffey Sr. about 18 years ago up at Lake Erie for a weekend. Dad's basketball partner at the time was a good friend with Griffey and had gotten him to do a brief, less than two years, stint reffing basketball.

Embedded for your pleasure
 

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All the talk about brushes with greatness, and THIS is the line that intrigues me most.

Among other parts of my day job, I support an online sales website, so the pioneering of direct mail -- the precursor -- intrigues me. Mark, what did the dealership sell via mail? I can't imagine cars were on the menu.

It was a monthly newsletter to all their customers. Each newsletter was specific to that customer, i.e.: letting them know when it was about time to trade, keeping track of when they might have a kid who was now old enough to get a car, etc. This was based on information they gathered when they first dealt with the customer. My stepfather owned an ad agency and he developed this program and the car dealer (Bauer Buick in Harvey, Illinois) was a client of his. He got me the mailroom job. After a short time of using this program, he got together with the dealership owner and they found some IBM computer dudes to computerize the program (remember, this was in the late 60s) and sell it to car dealerships across the nation. The computer dudes were living in Portland and in order to form the company properly, my family moved here. The company is Poorman-Douglas Corporation, named after the two computer guys.

I once shook hands with J. Dallas Shirley. Haven't washed that hand since. My oldest brother roomed with Ronnie Nunn in college. As a point guard, he practiced great ref mechanics. My 2nd oldest brother roomed with the original Walt Szczerbiak, and, I can spell his name without looking it up. His son goes by 'Wally' for simplicity. Had the pleasure of watching young John Guthrie as assistant coach of my brothers' team before he escaped to Univ Georgia and thence to become SEC Head of Basketball officials.
Sorta fortuitous I got into officiating, albeit late in life. Can't help but think destiny finally found me :rolleyes:.
Those of you who know me may justifiably think differently!!!

Happy Easter and Pesach

I had an "In" as a young kid, and met many that I couldn't appreciate fully until later in life - Meadowlark Lemon, Curly Neal, Moses Malone, Clyde Frazier, and baseball ump Frank Pulli were my favorites. Once at 13 or 14, I even had my picture taken at the table at the Phila, Spectrum before a game with famed NBA referee Mendy Rudolph. Who knew? :)

As for now....well, I've met and shook hands with the last three Presidents (not sports related, but I am honored in that regard). :cool:

I had dinner a few times with Jimmy Carter and my parents told me that just before my fourth birthday, I had dinner with Adlai Stevenson. I had an uncle who was personal friends with him and he threw a fund-raising dinner for him a few months before his first presidential election. Of course my family attended and the then-governor came over to our table, shook my hand and patted me on the head.

I met Karl Malone at a truck stop once. I guess he liked to do a little trucking. He was there with his big rig and he took a minute to sign some baseball caps, nice guy.

Neither Rain Nor Snow Nor Gloom Of Night ...
 

Was it a mail truck?

Keep On Truckin' ...
 

One of the jobs I had as a kid was parking cars at a steak house. The restaurant was actually owned by the mob, but that's another story. Anyway, one of its best customers was Lou Boudreau. Lou was a former MLB player and manager of the Cubs. He'd come in for dinner once or twice a week and I parked his car most of the times he came there. He wasn't a very big tipper and it might have been because he knew I was a White Sox fan. :rolleyes:

I used to work as a sports editor at a small newspaper that had a minor league baseball team. Over the years, I got to meet Hall of Fame pitcher Warren Spahn (far more interested in our paper's very pretty photographer than in talking to me), Bob Feller (the man's ego matched his famed fastball), Dallas Greene (huge guy ... just filled the room), and a collection of Penthouse Pets who played is charity softball games (very pretty, very well built, not very good players).

The saddest one was meeting Billy Martin in the early 1980s. This was when he was doing commercials for Miller Lite with George Steinbrenner, making fun of him being fired all the time and always getting into fights. In one ad, he had the line "I didn't punch no doggie." I was interviewing him while we were watching the game, and every 30 seconds or so, somebody would wallk up to us and yell, "I didn't punch no doggie" or "Hey, Billy, been fired today?" and other smart comments.

He finally went down to the bullpen, away from the crowd. It was the only place where he could have a conversation and watch the game in peace. I have never seen anybody look more haunted in my life. I remember thinking at the time, "No matter whatr they are paying him, it's not worth it."

My younger son's team played at YBOA Nationals a couple of years ago. Shaq's son's team was in our pool. We lost a close one to them, and my son had a pretty good game. Shaq made it a point to talk to the boys' coach afterward, and spent a few minutes with my son. The next day, they played right after us. While our game was going on, Shaq's son's team came into the gym. Shaq sat down beside me and spent the next 10-15 minutes just having a "dad stuff" conversation. After our game he spent a few minutes with my son, and had his picture taken with the team. During the next NBA season, when the Celtics came to Atlanta, I got tickets for my two sons to attend the game. Shaq spotted them when he came out for warm-ups and told them to wait for him after the game. They did, and he came out and spent about 10 minutes talking to them.

Previously, I mentioned Jerry Colangelo. I also saw him once here in Portland at Memorial Coluseum, which is where the Blazers played before moving to the Rose Garden. He was in the lobby talking on a pay phone (remember those?). At the time, he was the owner of the Phoenix Suns. I recognized him, and after he got off the phone (I could hear him talking about a trade!) I introduced myself and told him I had gone to HS with his sister, Rosemary, and that I once saw him at a party at his parents house. He actually remembered the party, although he didn't remember me. We talked about our old HS for a minute, then he had to leave.

And speaking of Jerry - when he did go to my HS (years before me), he was a pitcher on our baseball team. One of the other pitchers on that same team was Jim Bouton. I also saw Jim here in Portland. After his career was basically over, the class A minor league Portland Mavericks baseball team hired him on as a promotion. I went to one of the games and he was warming up in the bullpen. I leaned down out of the stands and yelled that I had gone to the same HS as him. He smiled and came over to the stands. I was able to reach down and shake his hand. Just like with Jerry, Jim and I talked for a minute about our old HS. I also told him how much I liked his books about baseball. He said that if I had one with me (which I didn't), he would autograph it for me. It was quite an experience.

BTW - the HS I was referring to is Bloom HS in Chicago Heights, Illinois.

Of course, there was that one time I ran into Dr. Naismith at Hooters! He was at a table next to Diebler.

Damn - where's those meds? :o