A dream job realized
Greatest sports city now perfect office
A whisper came my way that George Steinbrenner had called up a player from Triple A without telling either the general manager or manager, making for an extremely awkward baptism with the ballclub. It also made for an interesting story angle.
The next day, George King, still Yankees beat writer for the New York Post and then a teammate of mine, asked The Boss about Darryl Strawberry.
“I don’t know what my plans are for Strawberry,” King George told George King. “But I know what my plans are for your man Keegan: I’m going to cut his (twin body parts) out.”
Fortunately, Angie and I already had completed our family with the birth of our fourth child and first daughter. Even better, Steinbrenner never carried through on his threat. Years later, I called him at home, interviewed him briefly and never will never forget how he ended our final conversation.
“You’ve been fair with me,” he said. “I’ll always take your calls, but don’t ever call me again.”
I routinely was falsely accused of hating the Yankees in those days. Sure, growing up in Rochester, N.Y., I didn’t care for them, their pinstripes or anything else. A fan of the Red Wings, the Orioles’ Triple-A affiliate, I considered it terribly disloyal of friends to root for the Yankees against exWings.
That was a long time ago. Once you write sports for a living, you root for good stories. No cheering in the pressbox and all that. Despite what a couple of wrong co-workers from the Post used to claim, I didn’t carry my Yankees animus into adulthood.
I enjoyed my 10 years living in Norwalk, Conn., and working in New York, a city I never visited until age 22. I also had a blast working the past 13-plus years in Lawrence, Kan., home of Allen Fieldhouse, a wildly intense place where Marcus Smart once executed a back flip 10 feet in front of me.
Early in my stay there, broadcaster/former coach Fran Fraschilla spotted me before a game, looked puzzled, then broke into a smile: “Tom Keegan, I know what you’re doing here. You’re in the Federal Witness Protection Program, aren’t you?”
Not true. The timing of my return to the East Coast has nothing to do with Whitey Bulger’s brutal death. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
On the topic of childhood allegiances’ relationship to adult work, consider my interaction with Cesar Cedeno. When Roberto Clemente died in a plane crash en route to Nicaragua, I chose Cedeno to replace him as my favorite player.
On the last day of his career, my favorite player threatened to kill me.
I flew on the Dodgers’ team plane back then, an uncomfortable arrangement for players and writers. As I came out of the bathroom, turbulence threw my elbow into Cedeno’s head and he lost it (his temper, not his head). Considering his history, this was no laughing matter.
Just in case, all sportswriters should learn to duck. I readied myself when I asked Bob Knight at the 1985 NIT Final Four: “Do you ever wake up in the morning and regret your actions from the previous night?”
Without blinking or raising his voice, Knight answered: “Sure, all the time. Sometimes I don’t have to wait until the next morning. Sometimes I regret them when the chair is halfway across the floor.”
The room erupted with genuine laughter, not the courtesy variety given bullies as a way of thanking them for not lapsing into default humiliation mode.
My Marquette education taught me not to leave any questions unasked. During my freshman year, Frank Clines, the school’s best journalism instructor, had us break into pairs to interview each other.
“What is your dream job?” my classmate asked.
“I want to be a sportswriter in Boston,” I answered.
Afterward, Clines told her she should have asked, “Why Boston?”
I remember being relieved that she didn’t because I had no explanation. Looking back, I wonder what might have prompted that response.
It could have had something to do with the second big league game I witnessed, at Fenway Park in 1973. (The first came two seasons earlier at RFK Stadium, Jim Palmer vs. Denny McClain). We watched Catfish Hunter and Bill Lee go the distance. Carl Yastrzemski deked the baserunner, pretending to camp under a flyball and playing it off the wall, stoking my father beyond belief. I thought the Green Monster was the coolest thing I had ever seen. I thought it was perfect. I was wrong. It became better 30 years later when seats appeared atop it, looking as if they had been there from birth.
Those two games lasted a combined four hours, 15 minutes, three hours and five minutes shorter than Game 3 of the World Series. The game has changed. At least one thing about it has not: Great outfield defense remains its richest entertainment. If not for Andrew Benintendi, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Mookie Betts jamming a season’s worth of highlights into October, it might still be the most underappreciated key to winning.
I suppose that attending Rochester Amerks games on Sunday nights might have influenced me to blurt out the Boston answer. Gerry “Cheese” Cheevers stopped in Rochester on his way to the Hall of Fame, but it was John Wensink who would become my favorite player. He gave an opponent a beating the likes of which I still haven’t witnessed, and of lesser interest, scored a goal. Wensink carved up that face and left it so ugly that even a modern-day Hollywood plastic surgeon would have a tough time duplicating his work.
Why else? For one thing, announcers’ talk of the Boston Garden dead spot fascinated me. Sibling pride also played a role. My late brother George was the second leg of Boston College’s mile relay team. Time-adjusted to 4x400, O’Brien, Keegan, Walsh and Catano ran a 3:12.6, at last check the second-fastest time in BC history. Who cares? I do.
“Why Boston?” is far easier to answer now: a chance to cover the final years of history’s top quarterback, baseball’s best 21st-century franchise and Wensink’s old team.
Writing on the Celtics, the organization where the greatest champion in the history of team sports worked, has serious appeal. Thanks to Bill Russell and teammates, even a halfcentury later, when somebody says, “He’d make a good Celtic,” everybody knows what that means: unselfish, relentless, tough, clutch. Nobody ever says, “He’d make a good Knick,” or, “He’d make a good Pelican.”
Why Boston? I can’t find any better words than friend Sean McAdam chose for his book title: “Boston: America’s Best Sports Town”.