Inside Just Watch the Game Again

FOREWORD

After further review, everything I wrote in my first book stands. I can’t believe I just wrote a sentence that contains the words“in my first book.”

I never thought I would write a book and here I am with book Number 2. Believe it or not, in 2010 lots of people actually bought “Just Watch the Game.” So, I figured if you can fool ’em once….

In case you were among the millions who didn’t read “Just Watch the Game,” the title comes from my dad. When he would catch me spending too much time looking for the popcorn vendor at Forbes Field during a Pirates g ame, he would give me a nudge, gesture toward the field and say, “Just watch the game.”

I thought that was a perfect title for my book because that’s all I really ever wanted to do while covering sports for almost 40 years. I’ve enjoyed the access that I’ve had to the players and the other perks, but I became a sportscaster because I couldn’t imagine any job that could be better than being paid to watch games.

And it took writing “Just Watch the Game” for me to realize just how interesting my life has been. Spending a day flying to and from a golf tournament with Arnold Palmer or covering a World Series with Bob Prince sure beats the hell out of sitting in a cubicle counting the minutes until lunchtime every day.

Chapter 20 in “Just Watch the Game (Again)” is called “I Wish I Had Known.” It’s my way of publicly kicking myself for not being smart enough to know that all the interesting things I was experiencing and people I was meeting would make a pretty good book some day.

I never lost sight of how lucky I was to have the job that I had. Or how lucky I was to have it in a town that produced so many great teams and memorable personalities. So it wasn’t a case of not stopping to smell the roses. It was more of a case of not stopping to take notes.

As it turned out, I was able to crank out what I think are two pretty good books. It’s just that I know they could have been a lot better if only I had known I was going to write them.

For example, I sure as hell didn’t know, when I was in the fifth grade at St. Bernard’s school in Mt. Lebanon, that my experiences trying to hide my uneaten stewed tomatoes from dreaded Sister Mary Flavia, the Holy Troll of the Cafeteria, would make it into a book. You’ll be introduced to Sister Flavia in Chapter 35, the story of a local grade school football team that lost three games in 13 years.

You don’t need to take notes when you get a chance to play right field in a Pirates spring training intra-squad game. That experience is going to stick with you and I remember it like it was yesterday. Fortunately for me, Chuck Tanner was the manager and you’ll see in Chapter 6 that he and a major technical problem with a camera played a role in making the story 10 times more interesting and memorable.

My yearning for the days when just watching the game was enough provided the impetus to write a successful book. But it also got me a ticket to Cyber Hell when I questioned the judgment of a 42-year-old father of two who ended up with severe brain damage and in a coma when he was beaten for wearing a Giants jersey to a Dodgers game. In Chapter 5 you get my firsthand account of what it was like to hold the title of “Most Hated Man in America.” If everybody who trashed me on the Internet buys this book, you’re reading a million-seller.

Ninety-nine percent of the baseball fans on Earth will tell you that it’s a slam-dunk that Barry Bonds was a better player than Roberto Clemente. In Chapter 7, I say not necessarily and I have some numbers to back up my argument.

How many times have you seen the film of Bill Mazeroski’s 1960 World Series home run? In Chapter 28, “Behind the Scores (Literally),” you’ll get a totally different perspective on Maz’s home run from a guy who was looking into Yankee leftfielder Yogi Berra’s eyes as he watched the ball barely clear the ivy-covered wall.

There are lots of other ramblings, reminiscences and revelations.

In “You Can’t Care More Than Your Boss,” I tell a story about a TV story that I didn’t do in 2001. I tell you why the fact that my boss at KDKA didn’t think it was worth covering convinced me that local television news had officially become a joke — seven years before I stopped working in it.

It may surprise you to find out that Pittsburgh’s baddest-man-ever didn’t play for the Steelers and his highlights have never been seen on ESPN, but he’s in this book too.

I even have answers to questions that you may not have asked yourself. Such as, how did Dave Parker get the nickname “Cobra” and why was he the most underrated and underappreciated athlete in Pittsburgh sports history? And what was going through a local guy’s mind when he was a couple of hours away from having been on the wrong end of one of the biggest upsets in

boxing history? And who the hell was Co Prins and how did he get in this book?

It’s all in here – and more. And the best part is you don’t have to read the chapters in order. I was told that “Just Watch the Game” was a great book to keep in the bathroom. I can’t think of a better compliment and I can only hope that this book ends up there, too