Scribbled notes on a cocktail napkin, Part VII
Everyday I write the book … finding inspiration in unique ways … shameless plugs for author friends … Northridge memories ... and how Bip Roberts helped me find a comfort zone
"Scribbled notes on a cocktail napkin" is my weekly Sunday feature that's a tribute to the sports columnists I grew up reading who penned Herb Caen-inspired three dot columns. It's an excuse to shamelessly plug my other side projects, post my favorite Immaculate Grid from the week with a story about one of the players, link to stories I found interesting, and string together loose topics on my mind.
This weekend’s college baseball assignment took me to Cal State Northridge and I was able to visit with two of my most important classmates from San Diego State: Eric Winter and Damon Paikos.
Let’s start with Eric. He was the Sports Editor at The Daily Aztec who hired me and taught me a lot about Journalism, and even more about life.
I’ll never forget our conversation on Monday, Sept. 10, 2001. It’s easy to remember this date. Barry Bonds hit three home runs the day before, giving him 63 for the season. He was eight homers away from passing Mark McGwire as the new single-season home run king.
It was an off day in Houston. Greg Papa had me as a guest on his sports talk radio show in the Bay Area to talk about Bonds. I was the Giants beat writer for The Oakland Tribune at the time. Near the end of the interview, Papa said something like, “if Bonds breaks this record, somebody should write a book about this season.” I replied something like, “you never know, maybe it’ll be me.”
I don’t know how many books were inspired by a throwaway line by a sports talk host. But I kept thinking about a Bonds book. I called Eric and asked him what he thought. I’ll never forget his response.
“If you write it,” Eric told me, “I’ll find a way to publish it.”
I spent the rest of the night thinking about how to write a book, where to start, what would be in the book, even doing some outlining.
The next morning, the late Nick Peters of the Sacramento Bee called my hotel room at a Marriott in Houston and said, “turn on the TV kid, the world’s coming to an end.”
It was 9/11.
I turned on the TV just in time to see the second plane fly into a World Trade Center building.
This week’s “Where Ya At?” podcast guest: Eric Blehm
I host a podcast for San Diego State’s School of Journalism and Media Studies titled “Where Ya At?” Each week, I interview an alum to learn about their experience at SDSU, transitioning from student to professional, and their current job. You can listen on all podcast platforms, including Apple Music.
This week’s guest is New York Times best-selling author Eric Blehm.
I first discovered Blehm through my cousin Grant. After reading one of his previous books, “The Only Thing Worth Dying For,” Grant saw on the author bio that Blehm attended SDSU and asked if I knew him. I checked him out on LinkedIn. Despite our years at SDSU overlapping, I didn’t know Blehm, but knew that I wanted to connect with him. We did on this podcast.
You never know how your career or story assignments will come to you. For Blehm, it was two different trips on ski lifts that changed his life.
The first time, Blehm was a college student, thinking more about becoming a professional snowboarder than his studies. An older guy on the ski lift peppered him with questions. Eventually, Blehm realized the guy was a reporter looking for information for his travel story. Blehm realized Outdoor Journalism and Travel Journalism were real assignments. It started him on his career path.
The second time, he was already a best-selling author, on the slopes for some fun. A younger guy on the ski lift saw a “Craig Kelly is my co-pilot” sticker on his board and asked, “who is Craig Kelly?” Blehm couldn’t believe it. Then he realized, the younger generation doesn’t know Kelly’s story and his impact on the sport. That inspired Blehm to write his next book.
That book is now in stores, “The Darkest White: A Mountain Legend and the Avalanche That Took Him.”
“This Gracious Season” comes to life
After the 9/11 terrorist attack, I didn’t think about writing a Bonds book for a good three weeks. A book about home runs seemed callous.
An entire week of the baseball season was postponed, later shifted to the end of the season. That meant I returned to Houston a month later with the Giants. Bonds was intentionally walked almost every at-bat, a strategy that prompted the Astros fans to boo their own team, even though the strategy was meant to help them win games and reach the playoffs.
The Astros didn’t provide a suite for Giants executives, so GM Brian Sabean and Asst. GM Ned Colletti sat in the press box, right next to me. I remember their fury that nobody would pitch to Bonds. I realized the story wasn’t just home runs. It was the lack of opportunities to hit home runs.
They finally pitched to Bonds in his final at-bat and he walloped a massive home run to tie the record. That’s when I decided that, just maybe, a book about this season was possible. Bonds, as we know, broke the record. I wrote the book in roughly three months.
True to his words, Eric Winter made it happen. The publisher is “Winter Publications.”
It was my first book and there’s a lot I would do very differently. That’s a different post for a different time.
But the lesson for today is that if other people are thinking a story is worthy of a book, listen to them. If you don’t write it, someone else will.
This week’s not-so random Immaculate Grid story: Bip Roberts
Bip Roberts doesn’t know this, but he was instrumental in establishing my credibility as a reporter and finding confidence in a clubhouse. The year was 1998. I’m covering high school sports for The Oakland Tribune and would occasionally get thrown a bone in the Summer to fill-in for John Hickey on A’s coverage for a day.
The Bipster was 34 years old, playing for his hometown Oakland A’s in what turned out to be the final year of his 12-year career. Bip’s locker was one of the first you’d see entering the clubhouse. MLB clubhouse’s can be intimidating when you’re a new reporter. Bip was listed at 5’7, 150 pounds, so he was approachable and always friendly.
I spent a lot of time that Summer writing about multiple Oakland youth baseball teams that were winning tournaments around the western region. I figured I could get a quote from Bip, since he was from Oakland, that I could use to amplify my stories.
Bip was awesome. He asked me the names of the youth coaches. He knew one of those guys from his childhood and wanted to get back in touch. I shared a phone number so he could connect.
On future trips to the Oakland Coliseum, the gregarious Bip approached me, asking for updates on how the Under-15s were doing or the Under-12s. It was clear he was reading my stories in the paper and following their progress. Just those little conversations were validation that I belonged.
Fast forward a year. I’m covering a Castlemont High baseball game and the guy coaching first base looks familiar. It was Bip! He was a volunteer coach. I wrote a story about how then-Mayor Jerry Brown’s call to duty inspired Bip to give back to his community. The paper even teased the story above the fold on A-1, the first time one of my stories ever got such treatment.
Since then, Bip has continued to coach multiple youth and high school teams, organize baseball camps and clinics, he’s been an analyst on A’s pre/postgame shows, and continues to give back to the community.
One of the first times I was ever on a live TV pregame show, I was nervous as heck, but Bip was part of the segment and always has a way of making you feel at ease, including that day.
Bip asked me a question during the segment. It was such a cool “full circle” moment and another moment of validation that I can do this.
Northridge memories: sushi and earthquakes
It’s probably not a coincidence that I’ve encountered so many people in my life with heavy baseball backgrounds, but it sure seems that way.
It’s January 1993. I’m a sophomore at SDSU, wasn’t happy with my living situation and trying to change it. I told my friend Jamie about my predicament, and she said there’s a guy who lives in her building who is looking for a roommate.
That’s how I met Damon Paikos.
I knew very little about him when I moved into his apartment. That’s college life. Turns out, Damon was from Northridge, played baseball his whole life with tons of hilarious stories, and any awkwardness of living with mostly a stranger ended immediately when we talked baseball.
Damon regaled me with stories of growing up in The San Fernando Valley. I asked if girls really say “barf me out” and “gag me with a spoon” like in that song, “She’s a Valley Girl.” A couple weekends he took me to his parent’s house in Northridge.
I remember the first time I ate sushi was with Damon in The Valley. I remember Dominic from “The Real World” was there and that was a big deal. I thought the green stuff was guacamole. I lathered it onto a sushi roll. Damon sat there quietly as I put the wasabi-covered sushi into my mouth, then laughed hysterically as I just about died.
Back then, before cell phones, you just showed up at people’s houses. Multiple times, I drove from San Diego to Pleasanton and stopped at Damon’s parents house, without telling them in advance, because it divided the 7-hour drive roughly in half. They always welcomed me warmly and had a guest room for me to use.
On Jan. 16, 1994, I was driving back down to San Diego for a new semester. My plan was to stay at the Paikos’ house. When I was coming down The Grapevine, I changed my mind and decided I wanted to get back to San Diego that night. It was a wise choice. Damon was already in SD too. It’s possible we over-served ourselves that night.
The next morning, at 4:31 am, was the 6.7-magnitude Northridge earthquake. Their usual guest bedroom had an enormous bookcase above the bed. All those books fell onto the bed. If I had spent the night, hundreds of books would have crashed on top of my body.
I wouldn’t have died. But I think my opinion about books would be much different.
New baseball authors to support
A new baseball season has arrived and that coincides with the launch of a bunch of new baseball books. I want to recommend two fiction Baseball books by people I know who have self published.
“Where The Seams Meet,” by Patrick Holcomb, is historical baseball fiction involving the San Francisco Giants. I was introduced to Patrick through mutual SDSU friends and read an early version of his book last summer. Below is the description. You can pre-order the book here.
Dogged by tragedy and broken dreams, they’ve learned the hard way that not every mistake turns into a foul ball—and sometimes, it’s the words left unspoken that cut the deepest.
After fleeing 1970s San Francisco to escape the shadow of his abusive father, Frank struggles to balance his firefighting career with the demands of raising his talented but challenging son, Danny. Determined to transcend his tortured past, Frank bridges the growing chasm between them the only way he knows how: through baseball.
Danny’s meteoric rise on the diamond draws father and son together, but a shared passion for the game can only carry them so far. When life throws the Romanos a series of knee-buckling curveballs, not even the sport they love can strengthen the withering ties that bind.
As the thrilling seventh game of the 2014 World Series unfolds and chance offers them one last swing at redemption, father and son must confront their intermingled traumas to finally answer the question that torments them both: Is there life after baseball?
“Lose Yourself,” by Vince Wetzel, is a Novel with five intersecting stories at a baseball game. Vince and I used to work at the Bay Area News Group as prep writers. This is his second Novel. You can subscribe to Vince’s Substack and read previews of the novel. Below is the description. You can pre-order the book here.
It’s The Final Game of the Season… All Star Brett Austen has a chance to secure the first .400 batting average for a season in more than 80 years. But increasing pressure and his own hubris threaten the apex of his career. Meanwhile… A sideline reporter wrestles with a choice between career and her mom in crisis. A retiring usher takes in his final game before moving in with his son’s family. A lanky 15-year-old can’t understand his future stepdad while pining for a girl from school. A lemonade vendor agonizes over a big score to settle gambling debts and fulfill his daughter’s dreams. An adult daughter navigates uncomfortable family dynamics at home while her father lies in hospice. Will their choices meet the moment?
Books are hard to write. Fiction books are really hard. I’ve tried to write Fiction and I just can’t do it.
I’m excited for Patrick and Vince. It’s an emotional rollercoaster to write a book, especially when you self publish. Not everyone has an Eric Winter in their life. I’m excited that Patrick and Vince get to share their books with the world soon.