I'm going to take a little literary license now and double back for a few more stories from my time in Cleveland.

A few weeks after returning from our meeting in New York City with Wick Temple, Judy and I and the kids were invited to join some friends for Thanksgiving dinner.

We had told our families about the new job and the move to the New York metropolitan area and had received lots of congratulations and good wishes. But we hadn't told any of our Cleveland friends.

As dinner was getting started, I said, "Guys, Judy and I have something to tell you."

After everyone had stopped talking and was looking at me in expectation, I said, "I've been promoted to a new job at AP's headquarters in New York and we're moving at the end of the year."

Instead of the expected happy smiles and congratulations, there was an awkward silence for a few moments and then a chorus of "Not New York." "It's dirty." It's dangerous." "It's expensive." "Why would you want to move there?"

No amount of talk about the great opportunity, the entertainment, the excitement of being in The Big Apple or the history made a bit of difference to these locals. They were acting as if we had been sentenced to life in prison.

It made for a fairly awkward Thanksgiving dinner, although things did eventually lighten up. But it certainly was not what we had expected.

And, thinking back on my Cleveland years, I almost forgot about another special assignment that brought lots of new experiences.

In the summer of 1978, I was sent to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to work with a small AP team on the Commonwealth Games _ an Olympics-like tournament for athletes from countries that were or had been part of the British Empire. Like the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games are a quadrennial event taking place in different cities around the world every four years.

Forty-seven countries with 1,475 athletes took part in 128 events in 11 sports in these games

The team was led by Geoffrey Miller, the AP's European sports editor, and included sports writers George Strode from Columbus, Ohio, Dick Braude from Boston and Bert Rosenthal from New York Sports.

It was a very friendly and cohesive group and it made the two weeks in Edmonton tremendous fun.

One of the best parts was coming into the little AP office (alcove) in the main press center every morning and listening to Geoffrey expound on last night's cricket results as he went over them from the overnight wire copy. It was the most I ever knew about cricket, which is one sport I still don't really understand or follow. But his excitement about his favorite sport was contagious.

We divvied up the various sports among us and my main job was covering freestyle wrestling. India dominated the sport and I never knew there were so many Singhs and Kumars in the world. That experience was the basis for my covering the same sport in both the Los Angeles and Seoul Olympics.

And I also got to cover swimming, boxing and lawn bowls in Edmonton.

Yes, lawn bowls was a serious competition and a sport I knew nothing about. I could hardly believe it when Geoffrey told me to go cover the opening round.

That first lawn bowling session, I scanned the spectators and found a gentleman who really seemed to be into it. I sat down next to him, started a conversation and picked his brain about the sport. He turned out to be a youth coach from Vancouver and gave me all the basics of lawn bowling that I would ever need.

Geoffrey complimented me on my first story saying, "I had no idea you knew about lawn bowling strategy."

A far less pleasant assignment came in August of 1979 when Thurman Munson, the star catcher and captain of the New York Yankees and a native of Akron, was killed in the crash of a private plane at the Akron-Canton Airport. He was 32 years old and in the prime of his Hall of Fame career.

We got several calls from radio stations saying that they had heard someone famous had crashed a plane in Akron. I started making phone calls and quickly verified with the airport security people that it was Munson's plane that had crashed.

He had been flying for about a year and had bought the plane to be able to come home to visit his family on off days during the long baseball season. Munson was practicing touch and go landings when he came in too low, clipped a tree and crashed. His two passengers, including an instructor, survived, but Munson was trapped in the plane and died of smoke inhalation.

As details came in, I wrote several quick ledes. But NY Sports quickly grabbed onto the story and my part of that job was over. Then, surprisingly, I was assigned to cover the funeral a few days later at Canton's Memorial Civic Center.

There were 700 people at the service, but the media was not allowed to go inside. Officials had set up a bullpen area in front of the convention center and we were told the Yankees' public relations staff would get us quotes and notes from the service, but I was anxious to find some way to see it myself.

I left the pack of media people in front of the building and found the loading dock in the back. There was no security there and I was able to slip inside. I made my way through a labyrinth of corridors - feeling like James Bond about to meet the evil enemy - and finally found a door that opened behind the stage area of the main hall.

By opening the door a crack, I could hear everything that was going on, although I couldn't see who was speaking. Fortunately, the speakers were introduced and I was able to hear the eulogies by Lou Piniella and Bobby Murcer, Munson's closest friends on the Yankees.

As the eulogies ended, I slipped through the door and got a look at the convention floor and the crowd, giving me some visuals to relate in my story. An AP photographer noticed me and gave me a wink as I walked off the stage.

At that point, I was able to walk through the crowd unnoticed and rejoin the other media people in time to get the promised notes and to interview some of the players and other baseball people as they walked out of the hall.

My story had plenty of detail and color and the folks in NY Sports were pleased.

I spent the last two months of 1979 training my Cleveland replacement, Chuck Melvin, trying to get the house sold and preparing for my new assignment.

Although there was no movement on the house sale, I was ordered to report to New York Sports on Jan. 30 to learn the computer system and help on the desk during the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y.,  before heading to Daytona for my first Speed Weeks in February.

That was just nine days after returning from the NASCAR race and Super Bowl in California. And it wasn't easy to leave Judy and the kids, especially not knowing when I would see them again.

Things were going great in 1979. Thanks to her part-time waitressing, Tory having started preschool, and getting to know a couple of the neighbor ladies, Judy was happier and feeling better about Cleveland. My job was going very well and I was thoroughly enjoying covering professional sports.

I was particularly enjoying covering the Indians, despite their lowly status. Jeff Torborg had replaced Frank Robinson as the manager during the 1977 season. He was a college graduate (Rutgers) and a very pleasant person.

While Frank was usually approachable and friendly, there were times when he was downright thorny and difficult. Jeff was much easier to deal with and we were able to talk about things other than baseball.

The other Cleveland writers made me pay my dues before I was accepted. But I had a secret weapon named Mike Peticca. I inherited Mike as my baseball stringer and soon found out he was about as good as you can get.

Not only was he accepted in the clubhouse and got me loads of great quotes and notes, he was (and probably still is) a numbers savant. Mike could figure out batting averages and earned run averages instantly in his head. And, long before analytics became an integral part of baseball, Mike would come up with all kinds of interesting stats that I used for notes.

I wasn't about to give away any real scoops, but I was happy to share notes and stats with the other writers, which broke down a lot of the barriers.

As the baseball season ended, Russell Schneider, the veteran baseball writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, decided to quit as chairman of the Cleveland Baseball Writers chapter and, to my surprise, nominated me to replace him. I easily won the vote and was very excited about the job.

Unlike Indianapolis, where I knew after a year or two that my future was elsewhere, I was beginning to think that maybe staying in Cleveland for the rest of my career would be just fine, especially if I kept getting sent to spring training and the Indy 500 and maybe added some other special events along the way.

Then came the call that changed everything.

For some reason, AP's National Sports Editor, Wick Temple, had gotten it into his head that I was the right person to take over the auto racing beat (called motorsports in those days).

I had turned the job down twice, once in Indianapolis in 1974 and again in May of 1977. But I was still surprised to hear Wick on the other end of the phone saying, "I want you and Judy to come to New York and let me talk you into taking the auto racing beat."

I started to protest that I really didn't want the job. But Wick persisted, saying, "I've made plane reservations for you and Judy for next Tuesday. Come in and we'll talk about it."

Again, I said I wasn't really interested in a traveling job and, besides, I had a Monday night game between the Browns and the Dallas Cowboys.

"You can sleep on the plane," he said. "Write down everything it will take for you to accept the job and we'll go over it when you get here Tuesday."

And he hung up.

I walked into the kitchen and told Judy about the call. She took it a lot better than I did.

"Do you want the job?" she asked.

I hemmed and hawed for a bit, but finally said, "Well, it would get me to NY Sports."

"Then go for it," Judy said. "The kids and I will adjust."

Over the next few days, I filled a page on a legal pad with demands (requests is more appropriate, I suppose) _ both sides.

Things like autonomy on my schedule, being allowed to take my family on my assignments when they are available to travel, a modest expense account to help pay their expenses when they do travel with me, a good-sized pay raise to accomodate moving to the New York area and lots more.

One of the most important items, though, was allowing me to start my new job from Cleveland until we got the house sold.

The Monday night game could not have gone any better. The Browns won 26-7 and I was able to get my stories written and sent before 1 a.m. I dashed home, got a couple of hours of sleep and Judy, who had miraculously found a baby sitter willing to stay overnight, and I were on a Delta flight at 8 a.m.

When we arrived at the AP office at 50 Rockefeller Plaza, across from the iconic skating rink, I walked into the office to a standing ovation. It turns out I had won the play against UPI on the Monday night game 24-0. What an entrance.

Wick immediately took us into his office and, after a bit of small talk, took my page of demands/requests and sat there, leaning back in his chair, sucking on his pipe and playing with his hair as he took what seemed like forever to read every word.

Judy and I were both fidgeting and eyeing each other, wondering what he was thinking when Wick finished reading, set the paper down and said simply: "Okay. You've got it."

My response: "Shit! I didn't ask for enough." 

Finally, I shook my head and said to Wick, "Okay, I'll do it. But, as I said on that paper, I'll do it for three years and then I want to cover a real sport."

His reply: "We'll see."

All of a sudden, I was no longer the Cleveland sports writer for AP. I was now the AP's Motorsports Writer.

Nobody at AP seemed to care that my entire auto racing experience consisted of attending a motorcycle race on my local eighth-mile dirt track in my teens and nine Indy 500 races. I knew nothing about NASCAR, IMSA, Formula One, NHRA or any of the other myriad racing acronyms or designations.

But, as Wick said, "You'll learn."

I had plenty of time to prepare since Wick decided to let the current motorsports writer finish out the regular season and have me start in January. That would also give the Ohio bureau time to find my Cleveland replacement and let us get the house prepared to sell.

Wick took us back to his home in New Jersey that night, riding a commuter bus, which was a preview of the way it would be once we moved out east. He and his wife took us to dinner at The Manor, a famous restaurant in northern New Jersey and then dropped us off at a hotel near Newark Airport.

By the time we were alone in the hotel, we were both dead tired and did little talking. But, on the plane back to Cleveland the next morning, I said, "What have I done? New Jersey is the middle of nowhere. And I'll be on the road all the time and I'll never get to see you and the kids. I think I should call Wick and tell him I've changed my mind."

Again Judy said, "It's a great opportunity for you. We'll adjust. And moving to the New York area is very exciting. We'll find a place with good schools near one of the airports and we'll be fine."

It was prophetic _ but still scary.

The next few months seemed to fly by. Unfortunately, we found out that selling the house was not going to be easy because interest rates were sky high _up to 14 or 15 percent _  at the end of 1979. The house, a beautiful 50-year-old Tudor-style was in almost perfect shape. But houses were just not selling.

Finally, I had said all my goodbyes to the players and team officials and media people in Cleveland it was time to start my new job.

NASCAR had a very strange schedule in those days. After the last race in the fall, there was about a six-week hiatus before the new season began with a road race in Riverside, CA. The season then continued three weeks later with NASCAR's biggest race, the Daytona 500.

I flew out to Los Angeles on a Wednesday and drove the 60 miles east to Riverside. I had been told there was no practice on Thursday but that some of the Good Ole Boys would likely be hanging around the garage area.

I was hoping to meet some people and start to get a handle on what stock car racing was all about.

After meeting Bob Russo, the Riverside PR man who became a good friend, I wandered over to the garage area and began walking around. I saw a number of people working on cars, sorting and stacking tires and hauling equipment. But, of course, I knew nobody and couldn't bring myself to interrupt anybody's work.

Finally, I got very lucky. There, sitting on a short stack of tires, was a face I recognized. Richard Petty, the most famous driver in NASCAR _ and one of the few stock car names I even knew _ was watching his team working on his famous No. 43 car.

I walked up and said, "Mr. Petty. I hope you don't mind me bothering you, but I'm Mike Harris, the new Motorsports Writer for AP."

Richard's craggy face lit up with a smile. He stuck out his hand and said, "Welcome to NASCAR, son."

Conversation came easily and we talked about everything from family to Indy cars. After about 10 minutes, I said, "I hope I'm not keeping you from anything Mr. Petty."

He laughed and said, "I ain't going anywhere. And I'm Richard."

Just then, Cale Yarborough, another face I recognized, walked past. Richard flagged him down, introduced us and said, "How about this. An AP guy in the garage."

Apparently, my predecessors were not known for leaving the media center or press box unless they had to. I told them that was going to change.

It was a great way to begin my new job. But it turned out to be a very strange and difficult weekend.

A young driver named Tim Williamson was killed in a crash during the Grand American race _ a preliminary event _ on Saturday. I didn't know him, of course, but it was a stark reminder of what covering such a dangerous sport could be like and it felt like a bad omen about the job.

Sunday's race didn't make me feel much better. It started in a heavy mist and, after 26 laps, it began raining hard. Officials wanted badly to get the race in so teams could begin preparations for Daytona Speed Weeks in February. But, after a long wait, the race was postponed until the following Saturday.

I filed a story and then called the office to see what they wanted me to do. Should I stay in California for the week or go home and come back next Friday? Ask Wick, I was told.

I called the boss at home and told him what was going on. He said, "Your call. You wanted autonomy on your schedule. You've got it."

So I decided to fly home to be with the family for the week.

On the plane, I was reading an LA Times story about next Sunday's Super Bowl XIV between the  LA Rams and the Pittsburgh Steelers at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. An idea popped into my head.

When I got off the plane I called Deputy Sports Editor Terry Taylor, who was in charge of the Super Bowl coverage, and said, "I'm going to be covering a NASCAR race next Saturday in Riverside. Could you use any more help on the Super Bowl on Sunday? Pasadena is only 60 miles from Riverside."

To my great pleasure, she said, "Sure. We'll put you to work."

The weather cooperated and the rest of the race went off smoothly, with rising star Darrell Waltrip beating another rising star, Dale Earnhardt, for the win.

After finishing my writing, I drove back to LA and checked into a hotel near the airport. The next morning, I headed to Pasadena and the Rose Bowl. My only other visit to the famous stadium was when I worked the 1963 Rose Bowl game between Wisconsin and Southern Cal as a Badgers' manager.

It was exciting to be back and to be part of the crew covering the Super Bowl. It turned out that there was not enough room in the press box to accommodate all of the media, so Ken Peters, the LA sports editor for AP, and I were seated in the last row of the grandstands, right in front of the press box.

Our assignment was to cover the team dressing rooms after the game, so we had nothing to do but watch the action from our 50-yard-line seats until we had to go down to the field with about five minutes left on the clock.

It was a warm, cloudless day and, after a while, it became hard to keep my eyes open. It didn't help that the Steelers and quarterback Terry Bradshaw dominated the Rams.

We flipped a coin and Ken got the winning team and I got the losers. But, other than getting shoved from behind and stepping on some big lineman's foot in the overcrowded dressing room, everything went well. I got some good quotes, ran up to the press box, typed them out and my job was over.

That turned out to be the only Super Bowl I ever got to cover. But it was great fun.

It had been a strange and interesting start to my new job. And it was definitely a harbinger of things to come.

 My wonderful, supportive wife never really felt comfortable in Cleveland.

After I left her and the babies isolated in a motel for the first two weeks of our time there while I worked long hours, Judy never quite got over that feeling of being abandoned in Cleveland.

After we settled in, particularly after we bought our first house about 18 months after we got to Cleveland, things should have been better. But I was working long hours, mostly nights and weekends, and leaving her to take care of two kids under the age of five.

I was home during the day, so we did our errands and spent time together while the other mothers in the neighborhood were out with their kids. Then I left for work just about the time everyone else was going in to prepare dinner and get their kids ready for bed. So she never got close with any of the neighbors.

Judy was a trooper, though, and tried hard to deal with the situation. But she couldn't help but be frustrated and lonely at times.

We talked about it and decided she should get out of the house at least one night a week. As Judy said, "I wanted to do something that was just me."

First, she tried to go to the library one night a week. But the sitters we got were kids who often were unavailable or had a change of plans and Judy would just say, "The heck with it. I'll stay home."

Then, we got a dependable older sitter and Judy took a crochet class and a scuba class.

In crochet, she found her stitches were often too tight and, when she made a mistake, which was often, it was very difficult to rip out those stitches.

In scuba, she easily passed the written exam, but nearly drowned one night when she made a mistake with the breathing apparatus and found herself lying on the bottom of the pool, held down by a weight belt. The instructor brought her up, gasping for breath and dazed and that was the end of scuba classes.

The only good to come out of that near-death experience was that her crochet stitches were suddenly big and easy to rip out as she felt much more relaxed in class.

Finally, Judy decided a part-time job might be the answer.

There was a small Manners Big Boy restaurant at the end of our street. Judy was fascinated by some of the clientele, which included guys with slicked-back hair driving 50s-style cars and girls with big hair and short skirts.

"I thought it was awfully interesting and I was dying to know who those people were," she said. "So I applied and became a waitress there."

Judy never considered herself a very good waitress, mostly because she has never had a good short-term memory and felt like she messed up too many orders. But the patrons loved her because she always tried very hard and cared about everyone.

I'll let her tell you some of her stories - with a few explanatory interjections from me.

"In those days, if your hair was long, below your ears or down to your shoulders, you had to put it up and wear a bun over it, and a little net over that," Judy said. "We only lived a block from the restaurant and, as I walked home, I swear I worried about dogs coming up and jumping at the bun because it smelled of Manners Big Boy. I pictured a dog lying by the curb, choking on that bun."

The young people who had interested her turned out to be not very interesting and, in fact, were a bit of a pain because they just hung out for long periods in the three-table coffee shop at the restaurant. And, of course, there were no tips.

The main room of the restaurant had 13 tables and there were usually two waitresses working that area. The waitress who drew the coffee shop usually also ran the cash register.

If you got hit by a dinner rush, the manager on duty would often pitch in, helping set up meals on trays and even delivering them to the tables at times. And there were times when there was only one waitress on duty for the main dining room, which could be a problem, especially when there was a big party that pushed tables together.

"There was one manager, a woman who always came in wearing heels and tight-fitting clothes and short skirts and did not much care much about what went on in the rest of the shop," Judy said, "She just stayed up front and you never got any backup from her. And she was highly critical.

"One night, I had a rush going with the tables in the back with a party of 14 and I was trying to get everything together by myself because I was on alone. I set up rolls on a couple of platters, one for each end of the table. But she stopped me, telling me the rules say one roll per meal. She ordered me to put them all on separate plates, and this during a dinner rush when I had that table of 14 plus some other tables. And she did not lift a finger.

"Everyone disliked her, including a waitress who just walked out. This waitress, one of the best that was there, just decided she had enough and walked out during a dinner rush. The tables were numbered  so you could hand in your table slips with numbers on them. This manager had never bothered to memorize which table was which and was left with the dinner rush and no idea what table what went to. It was kind of fun to watch her wandering around asking people what they had ordered.

"She was on duty one night when there was a big winter storm and the floors stayed somewhat slick from everybody walking in through the sleet and snow. I was hurrying to get an order out, wearing my little hefty waitress shoes. She was there in her heels. I was carrying two trays and as I rounded the corner rather quickly, I stepped on a wet patch and slipped. My legs went out from under me, I landed on my backside and skidded.

"I managed to keep hold of both trays, but I skidded straight across, slid under her, upended her and she wound up in my lap as we slid further on the floor. I still had the trays upright and got great applause from the patrons. She said nothing and skittered off as quick as she could go. It was never mentioned."

There were several managers at the Big Boy while Judy worked there. One of them, a young man named Mike, who really pitched in, liked his employees and always stood up for them.

"One day, Mike told me that the district manager was coming to inspect us and he would be giving him to me," Judy said. "So he said, 'Do a good job.' My reply was, 'If he fires me, I just go home and get pregnant again? It makes me no never mind.' Mike replied: 'No, he’s rating me for my people.' That put the pressure on because Mike deserved the best I could give."

When the district manager arrived, he was seated at a small table in Judy's section. She walked quickly up to the table and said, "I’m supposed to say _ because I read the book _ ‘Hi, my name is Judy, I’ll be serving you this evening and the soups of the day are … ‘

"And he said, 'If you know you’re supposed to say all of this, why aren’t you saying it?'

"I said, “Because I know you know all this.” And then I named the soups. And he ordered and he asked for a cup of tea, among other things. While I was waiting for his food to come up, I served one of my other tables, who were regulars, and they wanted the junior sundaes, which were just on the kiddy menu.

"I knew these nice people and I leaned over and whispered to them that the district manager was in and watching and the rules say we can’t give that to adults. Their reply was, 'Tell us what you want us to order.' They wanted to help. I said anything else they’d care to order, as long as it’s on the adult menu. And they did just that.

"I served the gentleman his tea and it came with a hottle, one of the little metal pitchers. When I went past, I asked him a question.

“The book says we’re supposed to serve this with the hottle and the tea bag. But if people want a second cup, the water in the hottle has already gone cold. Wouldn’t it be better to serve a cup's worth and, if they wanted a second cup, they’d ask and you’d get them more hot water?”

"He didn't say much and and the dinner service went well. When he left, Mike came out and said to me, 'Judy, he gave you a ten.' I said, 'Out of how many?'

"It was 10 out of 10 and Mike said he even wrote 'Wow!' That was this particular district manager’s highest form of praise. I was incredibly happy, for me, of course, with pride and all, but mostly because I had done that kind of job for Mike and his shop.

"Meanwhile, we had a cook who was always putting people down and telling everyone how good he was. He had gotten a 9 ½. He’d gotten points taken off for putting too much of something on something. He asked me what I got and looked crushed when I told him. So it was a double victory."

As I've written before, I was born in Cleveland and my parents and a lot of my family had lived there over the years. One of our favorite places to eat was and still is Corky & Lenny's, a traditional Jewish deli on the eastside.

When my family would visit Cleveland from Wisconsin for one of my dad's sales meetings or a family occasion, we'd invariably wind up eating at Corky & Lenny's and usually finding a family member or friend there. My Aunt Anita had even dated Corky briefly in high school, so the connection ran deep.

When we lived there in the 70s, the original Corky & Lenny's restaurant was still open in Warrensville Center, not far form our home. When Judy got tired of the craziness at the Big Boy, it was natural that she would think about getting a job at the deli."

It turned out to be an interesting job for Judy and she turned out to be a bit of a revelation for the people who worked there, and the customers, too.

"I wanted to know what an old Jewish deIi was really like,'' she explained. "And they had something like 26 waitresses and a large number of them on at any one time. I really wanted to see what that was all about. So that was my next step.

"They opened a second location while I was working there, but the Warrensville Center store was the real deal. Corky and Lenny both hung out there. Their wives were there. It was just fun.

"The countermen could be pretty tough. They’d sling the stuff across the counter. The customers could be pretty tough, too, and many of the waitresses had been there forever and they were pretty doggone tough, also.

"The floor manager, Yolie, was rather stern and did not brook any nonsense. One time I put three straws together, reached over her shoulder and sipped out of her soda. She wasn’t pleased, but it gave me great joy.

"There were people there, including some of the management, that when I walked in I’d always give them a bright hello and they’d grunt at me. One of the other waitresses said 'They don’t like to be talked to by the employees' and I smiled and said, 'I know!' That was why I did it.

"There was one night Yolie had to use the restroom. I guess I was the closest waitress at the moment and she asked me to be the hostess for a few minutes and seat people. There was this lovely velvet rope that people would stand behind until they were ushered in. I got menus and walked over to the next people behind the velvet rope and said, “Please follow me.” I looked back and, to my horror, an older couple was trying to climb over the rope. I had forgotten to take it down. Yolie came back at about that time and that was the last time I was ever asked to hostess."

The customers could be difficult at times, but Judy had ways of diffusing difficult situations.

"I hadn't been there very long when I approached an older man sitting at one of my tables. He looked at me with a harsh glare and said, 'I was in here three weeks ago and the corned beef was lousy. And I was in two weeks ago and I order a corned beef and it was lousy. And if you bring me another lousy corned beef sandwich, I’ll throw it back in your face.'

"I looked at the gentleman _ I always called them the woman or the gentleman because you couldn’t get yourself in trouble with a slip _ and said, 'Sir, I just got here. Have I mess up yet?'

"He looked puzzled and said, 'No.' Fortunately for both of us, I had recently attended a seminar from Cleveland's Office on Aging, where I had been volunteering. They talked about in nursing homes or assisted living places, that it’s hard to work the dining hall because you always have to keep in mind that this is the last place that these people have to make any decisions in their lives. So it’s rather important to them _ a matter of respect.

"Thinking about that, I said, 'Tell me what was wrong with your corned beef and give me a shot. Was it too fatty or wasn’t it fatty enough? Too hot or wasn’t it heated properly. Tell me what you need and see if I can get it right for you.'

"The man was an absolute gem after that.

"For the really nasty customers, the ones who were just inherently not pleasant, other waitresses would ask, 'How can you be nice to that person? They come in here and they’re always mean. How do you stay pleasant?'

"And I said, 'I just keep thinking to myself, I don’t have to go home with them.’”

"One of the funnier moments of my time at Corky & Lenny's came one night when it was getting on toward closing time when it was really quiet. A group of nurses, five of them, had just come in from a local hospital and they went to the section directly next to mine.

"They were wearing nurses outfits, which in those days were a jacket, pants and shoes all in white, which was pretty much what we wore. Our waitress outfit was apparently a holdover from the old days when you wore white to show you were sanitary. But we wore a black apron where you kept your note pads and things like that.

"I saw them coming and there was nobody in my section. There was a barrel-top table, a large table with a curved bench around it. Three of them slid onto the bench. I plopped down next to them and kept sliding and two more plopped in next to me. Every one of them turned all of a sudden and looked at me because there I was sitting in the middle.

"About that time, Yolie walked up and her eyes got very large. She said, 'Judy, what are you doing there?'

"I replied, 'I just thought I’d slide in with this bunch of nurses and, when it's time to leave, I’ll slip out and start a promising new career as a nurse.' I’ve got the uniform. I turned to one of the women and said, 'That’s all I need, isn’t it?'

"She turned to me and said, 'Just take off the apron and come with us.'

"I said, 'Take off the apron? Where will I keep my tips?'

"She said, 'You don’t get any tips in nursing.'

"I said, 'Excuse me ladies. I have tables to waitress' and scrambled out. They cracked up and were so pleased that there was really nothing Yolie could do but shake her head."

Judy's penchant for study paid off with one of the funnier moments in her brief career as a waitress.

"One night, I had a gentlemen left over from the previous shift when I arrived to start work," she recalled. "He was at the back of the room that I was setting up and he called me over.

"With an attitude that clearly spoke, 'Hey girly, come here,' he held up a piece of gold jewelry hanging from his neck. 'Do you know what a cartouche ( rhyming with Moochie) is?

"The first thing that came to mind was Scaramouche, which was a novel written by Rafael Sabatini that I read when I was a teenager. Then I looked down and said, 'Oh, yes sir, a cartouche. You’re wearing the cartouche of King Tut, Tutankhamun.'

"He looked startled and said, 'How do you know that?'

"I proceeded to take out a pen, grab a napkin and sketch out the cartouche, or the royal signet name of King Tutankhamun. Fortunately for me I had played around with hieroglyphics the previous summer after seeing the King Tut Exhibit in Chicago. That was the only cartouche I knew, but it happened to be the one he was wearing.

"So I diagrammed how the two half circles are the t sounds, the little bird is the u sound and the word meant image. Up above was the ankh, meaning ever-living. And at the top _ because you always put the gods name on top _ was the amun, with the feather and checker board you play to get over the underworld, and the n sound, which is the river. Tutankhamun!

"He then turned the thing over and said, 'All right then, what does this say?'

"He didn’t even have to turn it over because I knew it. The kings always had their personal name paired with their throne name. I went through that one, too and he was very impressed. He called Lenny over  said, 'Watch what she can do.'

"They had me go over it again. When I was done, Lenny said, 'Have you been to Egypt?' I said, 'No!' He said, 'Well, how do you know this?'

"I said, 'Len, I’m a Jew. I study.' Then I walked off and started setting up tables."

Those were long days for Judy, getting up early with the kids most of the time and then working until 1 a.m.

The day of her first shift at Corky & Lenny's Judy decided she would take a one-hour nap after I left for work. Lanni was still young enough that she napped every day, but Tory was no longer interested in napping

Judy put Lanni down in her bed and told Tory to play quietly while Mama took a much-needed nap before going to work. When the alarm went off, Judy was very proud of Tory, who had not made a sound during the hour.

Then she went downstairs and found out why. The four-year-old had gone outside to play with his friends.

Judy gathered Tory up and told him in no uncertain terms he was not to leave the house during her nap time. So, the next week she was awakened by noise coming from the living room. Tory had invited his friends in.

This time, she told him bluntly, no leaving the house and no friends invited in.

The next week, she put out some books and some paper and crayons and laid down. After 15 minutes, she felt little fingers poking her awake. "Is it an hour yet, Mommy?"

By the fourth week, things fell into place and Judy got her much-needed nap.

The two nights a week that Judy worked as a waitress turned out to be a great pressure release valve, giving her some time away from the kids, something interesting to do and some fun stories to tell. It made our last few years in Cleveland a lot easier for both of us.

I met Charles O. Finley, the colorful and unpredictable owner of the Oakland Athletics while I was working in Indianapolis.

Charlie O, as he was known,  owned a farm in LaPorte, IN, near Lake Michigan and the Michigan border. He held a Christmas Party there for several years, with lots of baseball personalities and celebrities attending. His PR people decided in 1974 to invite some media to the event.

I met Charlie during the party and we hit it off, talking about his colorful and unique ideas for baseball and how they sort of mirrored the American Basketball Association's red-white-and-blue ball and three-point shot. He liked to talk about his vision of baseball's future and how the stodgy powers that be weren't thinking ahead.

That party produced a nice feature story and I thought that was going to be the end of it. By the next Christmas, I was in Cleveland.

The A's had been a powerhouse team, winning three straight World Series championships earlier in the 1970s. But, by 1974, Charlie had pretty much dismantled the team in the name of economics. He was also known, like George Steinbrenner of the Yankees, for his firing ways.

I was at home on a dreary winter afternoon in January of 1976 when the phone rang. I said, "Hello," and the voice at the other end said, "Mike, this is Charlie. I want you to come work for me in Oakland."

It took a moment for the name and location to register, but I said, "Hi Charlie. What are you talking about?"

"I'd like you to come out here and be my PR man," he said. "I think you and I could work together."

I recognized his voice, so I knew this was no prank call. But I hesitated for a few moments to get my thoughts together before saying, "What are we talking about here, Charlie? You know I have a young family and a pretty secure job and you are not known for keeping your people around for very long."

"I'll pay your moving expenses, my people will find you and your family a place to live and we'll sign a contract," Charlie said. "Why don't you fly out here and we'll talk about it?"

Again, I hesitated for a few moments before finally saying, "Charlie, I'm flattered, but I don't think PR is my future. I ... "

I was just about to say that I thought coming out to Oakland would be a waste of his time and mine when I heard a click. He had hung up and that was the last time I talked with Charles O. Finley.

During my time in Cleveland, I got to cover a few other things besides professional baseball, football, basketball and hockey.

The only college sports that I had any dealings with were at Cleveland State University, where I covered the NCAA swimming and diving championships one year and also a couple of basketball games.

But I did get to report on a few golf tournaments.

One notable one was in the summer of 1978 at Tanglewood Country Club in Chagrin Falls, a suburb of Cleveland. My memory on this one isn't clear, but I think it was the Ohio Men's Amateur Championship.

There were 128 players entered in the first round and I was responsible for sending the scores on the wire as well as writing stories. I thought about bringing Judy along to take care of the scores for me, but it turned out we had out-of-town company that week, so she was not available.

I had trouble finding a stringer to help out, so I decided to bite the bullet and handle the scores myself.

My laptop computer at the time had a function allowing me to write on any of six screens. So I used one of those screens to keep a running tally of the scores, which had to be done in order of lowest (best) to highest (worst) and complete with home towns.

In the meantime, I also was writing my stories _ a main story and notes column for the morning papers and a story for the afternoon papers. The latter would include more quotes and color from the post-play interviews.

As luck would have it, the final twosome of the day were both in contention for the lead. My morning stories were all done and ready to just plug in the results of that match and a couple of quick quotes. The story for the PMs members was also mostly done. And the results, 126 names and scores, were in proper order, just waiting for the last two names and scores to be added.

It was a long day of play and the sun was on the horizon when that last twosome came to the 18th green. The club manager, trying to be a nice guy, walked into the room and said, "Let's get some lights on for you guys."

But he didn't know which switches controlled the lights and began trying every light switch in the room. What he also didn't know was that several of the lights were also tied in with the electric receptacles into which our computers were plugged.

Suddenly, my computer screen blinked, momentarily turned black and then flashed back on _ with all six available screens empty. And that computer did not have memory capability.

A couple of us cursed out loud, but the manager, still unaware of what he had done, smiled and said, "Now you can see what you're doing." He had no idea why we were so angry and upset. When he was told, he simply slunk out of the room and was not seen again for the rest of the tournament.

That happened about 8 p.m. and, by the time I covered the leader interviews, reconstructed my stories and the scoring list, it was after midnight. And I had to be back at the country club by 9 the next morning.

That was truly one of the most frustrating things that ever happened to me in all my years covering sport. But that was a strange week in more ways than one.

Those out-of-town guests I spoke of were an odd lot.

While we lived in Indianapolis, Judy befriended a strange young man who hung out occasionally at the zoo. His name was Danny. His queer behavior apparently put off a lot of people, but Judy saw the goodness in him and quickly adopted him as a friend.

It took me a little longer to warm up to him, but I eventually did. And, after we met his parents _ a hard-working pair of farm people _ we became even closer.

Eventually, we met a few of Danny's friends and one of them, Bobby, was a dwarf who used a tiny wheel chair to get around in. He was born with a condition called "brittle bone syndrome," which meant his bones were so weak and brittle that they began breaking in the womb. He was a very bright but also a strange guy. Bobby was from a wealthy family and was going to college when we met.

We lost touch with Danny and his friends after moving to Cleveland. But then came a phone call that Judy answered.

This odd little voice said, "Hi, this is Bobby! You may know me as Robert, a friend of Danny's. I just graduated from college and I would like to come visit you for a vacation. You probably won't have to carry me off the bus because I can probably ask the bus driver to do it since I am so small."

Judy told Bobby to hold on for a minute and told me what was being said. We both agreed that we didn't want to disappoint him, but the idea of having to possibly carry him and take care of him did not make us happy. I came up with a contingency plan.

"See if he would ask Danny to come with him and be his helper," I said. "Maybe Danny can even drive him."

That resonated with Bobby and he said he would let us know.

A few days later, another call came. This one was from Danny telling us that he would indeed drive Bobby to Cleveland _ and that another friend, Don, whom we didn't know, would also be coming.

The three of them showed up late on a Friday night in the middle of Judy's shift as a waitress at Corky & Lenny's Delicatessen, where she worked part-time for a couple of years.

There was Bobby the dwarf in his tiny wheelchair, strange looking Danny and this very big guy named Don, who turned out to have injured vocal cords that made him sound like a little girl. It was quite the trio that definitely got some attention from the other waitresses, especially after they found out the guys were staying with us.

Tory and Lanni were then 5 and 4 and they knew Danny. But Judy was concerned they would say something to offend or embarrass Bobby when they first saw him sleeping on the couch in the living room. She kept waking up during the night, trying to make sure she was there when everybody got up. But, eventually, she fell into a deep sleep.

When she woke, she heard voices and the sound of a television, threw on a robe and rushed downstairs. She needn't have worried.

Danny and Don were bustling around the kitchen making breakfast and there were Tory and Lanni sitting at the kitchen table, elbow-to-elbow with Bobby, the three of them huddled together eating cereal and totally engrossed in the Saturday morning cartoons.

However, that was only part of the of the strangeness that week.

I had gotten a call that Friday from a former colleague from Chicago, Bob Sidman, who had worked in AP radio. He was unemployed, pretty much broke and coming to Cleveland for a job interview. He needed a place to stay.

What the heck, Judy said. The more the merrier.

So, that Saturday, the 6-foot-5, 280-pound "Big Bob" showed up at our house while I was at the golf tournament. By the time I got home for dinner that night, it was a big love-fest. Big Bob and Little Bob hit it off right away _ opposites do attract, I guess _ and Big Bob, always a talker, kept all the boys entertained with his wonderful stories of celebrities and adventures.

Once I got past that awful Friday night at Tanglewood, it turned out to be a really fun and interesting weekend.

I also got to help out AP's longtime golf writer, Bob Green, on a rare pro golf doubleheader _ tournaments at the same venue two weeks in a row. The American Golf Classic, a regular tournament, and the World Series of Golf, an invitation-only event for 64 of the top golfers, were held on consecutive weekends at Firestone Country Club in Akron.

Green asked me to cover the first tournament by myself so he and his wife, who traveled with him full-time, could take some vacation days. That was fine with me.

Only a few of the big names were entered in the event, but it was still fun to watch these elite players taking apart the new North Course at Firestone.

All the rounds were affected by gusty, swirling winds and Saturday's play was interrupted by a massive rainstorm that stopped play for several hours. A second squall later that day postponed the end of the round until Sunday morning.

The rain delay turned out to be a nice break for me. I wound up sitting in the clubhouse dining room with the eventual tournament winner, David Graham, a slim, pleasant Australian who, besides being one of the top golfers in the world, wrote a column for a golf magazine and was also a master club-maker.

Very relaxed, he talked about the rigors of playing golf all over the world and being away from his family for extended periods. Good stuff.

Then David began interviewing me, picking my brain about writing sports and asking some really good questions about writing styles.

It was a fun time and I enjoyed watching him continue on to the tournament title, turning in four consecutive rounds in the 60s despite the windy conditions that had so many other golfers scrambling.

A week later, I was back at Firestone as Green's helper, running around the famed South Course, known as "The Monster," and mostly gathering notes and quotes for him. But it also gave me the opportunity to talk with some of the game's top players, including meeting Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino for the first time.

I really loved the variety that was afforded by writing for AP.

 It didn't take long to get back into the swing of covering basketball and hockey after returning to Cleveland from Tucson at the end of March. But, no sooner had I developed a rhythm for covering those two sports, it was May and time to head for Indianapolis.

It was only a six-hour drive from Cleveland to Indy, but it felt like I was traveling back in time. After missing the 1976 Indy 500, I was feeling a little uncertain about being back at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and how I would fit into the AP team.

I needn't have worried. I was greeted happily by the writers and editors from the Indianapolis bureau as well as the other out-of-town writers sent to cover the big event. And I was put to work in a hurry.

And it turns out I picked the perfect year to make my return. The 1977 Indy 500 was one of the most historic in the long  and storied history of the 500-mile race.

The first story I wrote that week was about Janet Guthrie, the first woman to qualify for the 33-car starting field at Indy. Reams of copy had already been written about her that month, but Janet and I seemed to hit it off and she gave me some previously unreported details of her life and racing career that made the story national news.

She gave me her phone number that day and, in the years since, I've used it more than once to get comment from her as more women have followed her to the top level of the sport. She has always been gracious and quotable.

Tom Sneva posted the first 200 mph qualifying lap at Indy that year on the way to winning the pole position. And then, to top off the historic month, A.J. Foyt became the first driver to win four Indy 500s.

Again, I wrote the main story for the afternoon papers. And, this time, there was no writer's block. This story was easy to write.

That year at Indy was also significant as the second time I was offered the auto racing beat - and the second time I turned it down.

Wick Temple, the AP's national sports editor, called me at the speedway on Friday afternoon.

"Listen, I want to make a change," he said. "We're not happy with the way things are going on the racing beat and I'd really like you to take over, starting in January."

I was caught off guard and asked if I could have a little time to think about it. He agreed.

After talking with Judy that night, I called Wick back on Saturday and said, "Nothing has changed since the last time. I still have a wife I adore and two little kids in diapers at home and I don't want to be away from them most of the year. So thanks but no thanks."

He was very gracious about my refusal and I got off the phone hoping I hadn't made a gigantic mistake with my career.

Judy and the kids came to Indy with me and we managed to find a baby sitter after we were invited to a party early in the week in a suite at the old Atkinson Hotel in downtown Indianapolis. Among the other guests that night was Tony Hulman, the owner of the Indy speedway and a really nice man.

Judy decided she wanted to get Mr. Hulman's autograph and found some plastic cups and a Sharpie pen.

Mr. Hulman broke into a huge smile and signed each of the four cups before sharing a hug with Judy. Unfortunately, Mr. Hulman died of heart failure later that year. But we still have those signed cups.

The week in Indy went by in a flash and back to Cleveland we went.

At that time, the election campaign of Dennis Kucinich, who was running for mayor of Cleveland, was just heating up. Although I generally pay little attention to politics, I found Kucinich, who was just 31 years old and had consistently lost every election campaign he had previously run - although by close margins - an interesting figure.

As the mayoral race heated up, AP Cleveland correspondent Neil Bibler made arrangements to spend a day on the campaign trail with Kucinich. Bibler was then called out of town and the duty somehow fell to me.

I found Kucinich to be easy to deal with and far less of a con man than most politicians. He had an entourage, of course, but we somehow managed to spend some time together, just the two of us that day,and I got some great insights into his personality and vision.

A week or so after my story appeared in newspapers around Ohio and the rest of the country, I got a thank you letter from Kucinich. 

Kucinich won the election and became the youngest mayor of a major American city. He was immediately dubbed "The boy mayor of Cleveland."

We'd run into each other at sporting events on occasion and he was always friendly and welcoming. I followed his career closely after that and was pleased when he won election to the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio in 1996. He was re-elected seven times.

Kucinich wasn't my first experience with a political candidate, though. A year earlier, Jimmy Carter spent a day in Cleveland campaigning for the presidency. I guess I was the only available body and was sent to shadow Carter, along with a host of other journalists from Cleveland and from around the country.

One stop that day was at the Ford plant in Berea, a suburb of Cleveland near Hopkins Municipal Airport. I fully expected we'd be marching through the plant, wearing hard hats and trying to hear what Carter and any of the other officials were saying to one another.

Instead,  we wound up at a baseball complex behind the plant, where Carter picked a team of journalists to play a game of softball against a team from the union at the Ford Plant.

The future president asked if any of us had ever played baseball and I raised my hand. He said, "What's your name? You're my second baseman."

That's how we played a three-inning game with Jimmy Carter pitching and me playing behind him in the infield. I don't remember if we won or lost, but I do remember getting two hits and a couple of high fives from the man who would be the 39th President of the United States.

 

The morning after we arrived in Tucson, I left the family in our new apartment and headed for Hi Corbett Field, the spring home of the Cleveland Indians.

The venerable old ballpark was nothing like Cleveland Stadium. While the vast grandstands in Cleveland held up to 80,000 spectators, cozy Hi Corbett maxed out at 9,500. But there were three other baseball fields set up behind the stadium and it made a perfect spring training venue.

I admit I was a little nervous as I drove to the stadium that first morning. Since AP sports writers rarely travel with the teams they cover, they generally remain somewhat anonymous. Sure, the players get to know their faces and maybe even their names, but they are generally kept at a distance.

I wondered if anybody on the Indians would even know who I was when I popped up in such a foreign situation.

I needn't have worried.

As I walked into the quiet clubhouse on that Monday morning, several players, including Dennis Eckersley and Rick Manning, were standing in front of their lockers, preparing for the first workout of the day.

Eckersley turned when he heard me enter the room and got a huge smile on his face.

"Hey, look who showed up in Tucson," he said, walking quickly toward me with his hand outstretched. His buddy Manning and several other players followed suit and soon I was surrounded with half-dressed men shaking my hand and slapping my back. I even got a couple of manly hugs.

Even Rico Carty, who rarely acknowledged my presence in Cleveland, shook my hand and said, "Nice to see you."

"What brings you here?" Eck asked.

When I said I was in Tucson for the duration of spring training and I was going to be writing about their spring exploits for the good people of northern Ohio and beyond, there were smiles all around.

I then walked into manager Frank Robinson's office. Frank looked up from the paper he was reading, looked startled and said, "What the hell are you doing here?"

It was early and neither of us was in any hurry. We just sat and chatted for a while. I got Frank laughing, telling him about our crazy trip from Cleveland to Tucson. He particularly enjoyed the part about "borrowing" diapers in the airport. It was the longest conversation we had ever had.

After that, I went back out into the clubhouse and was flagged down by pitching coach Harvey Haddix, always a friendly guy. He gave me a couple of tips about when and where to talk with players during the busy days of spring training.

As a baseball fan, I had often wondered what it would be like to go to spring training, although my dreams were usually just about sitting in the sun and watching games. But the greeting I got from the team made reality better than the dream.

I sat in the shade on the third base side of the grandstand that afternoon and watched an intrasquad game and it was simply idyllic, kind of like baseball heaven.

Over the next few days, a rhythm developed, with interviews in the morning, games in the afternoon and a couple of hours of writing. One of the best parts of spring training was eating dinner with my family almost every night since there were only two night games the entire spring.

The AP control bureau in Ohio was Columbus and the powers that be decided to send out a promotion letting the members know that Norm and I would both be covering spring training that year.

Now it was time to get busy and start sending stories back east. And, even though it was a lot of work, it was some of the most enjoyable work I've ever had.

Standing in the Indians clubhouse that first morning it was like a kid in a candy shop, knowing I had my pick of talking with anybody in the room.

For my first spring story, I chose Rocky Colavito, once the slugging star outfielder for Cleveland and now the first base coach and hitting instructor.

He was one of my favorite players growing up and I wanted to get to know him better. My goal that day was to see if he would talk about the chances of the Indians being a better ball club in 1977.

He was sitting in the the tiny coach's room off the main clubhouse when I walked in. He looked away from me, hoping, I guess, that I would leave him alone. But I walked up and said, "Hey, Rocky. I'd like to ask you some questions."

Rocky grimaced, shrugged and said, "All the questions have been asked already, but I suppose I have to talk to you. What do you want to know?"

To this day I don't know why I said it, but trying to look very serious I asked, "What's your favorite ice cream flavor?"

He looked incredulous for a moment and then started to laugh.

"Vanilla, I guess." he answered. "What else do you want to know?

The rest of the interview went pretty much the way I wanted it to and he was always cordial to me after that.

I found out from the other Cleveland writers that it was okay to leave the press box during the games and find a comfortable place to watch from until you had to write your game story. You just had to keep score and a few notes.

When the starting pitcher was pulled from the game, or a regular was done for the day, I'd usually head for the clubhouse for a quick interview before going back to the stands and asking somebody to catch me up on the scoring.

It was a lot different from the regular season, and a lot more fun.

There was also a lunch room, where a light meal was served before home games. Like the Wigwam Room in Cleveland, it was a great place to come up with notes and stories and to hear baseball lore.

In my second year covering spring training, broadcasting star Howard Cosell became a regular at lunch for several weeks.

Cosell was a close friend of new Indians' president Gabe Paul and he and his wife spent several weeks with the Pauls at their spring training home. Howard came to the ballpark almost every day.

One memorable lunch, Howard was expounding about how the members of the media were all on the take, only out for what they could get without paying. He had just taken a large bite of a tuna fish sandwich when I asked him rather loudly, "So Howard, did you pay for that sandwich?"

He nearly choked, spitting out tuna fish and bread and turning red in the face. To his credit, he then said, "Guess you got me there" and laughed along with the rest of us.

During that period, I got a call from New York, telling me that I was to cover the nationally televised boxing match between up and coming star Sugar Ray Leonard and an Argentinian fighter named Daniel Gonzalez, which was being held in Tucson that March.

My orders were to find a stringer to cover the baseball games while I took a couple of days to cover the fight.

I grew up watching the Friday Night Fights on TV with my dad, who was an avid boxing fan. He even took me and my brother Richard to University of Wisconsin boxing matches. I had covered some Golden Gloves fights, but never a professional bout.

Two days before the fight, I went to the community center where Leonard was training and met him, trainer-manager Angelo Dundee, who had trained Muhammed Ali, and the rest of the Leonard entourage. They let me hang out with them for the day and it was a totally different milieu than I had dealt with before. It was friendly but with an edge.

I also went to talk to the challenger, who spoke no English. His manager was a famous Argentine boxer, Carlos Monzon, who, fortunately, did speak some English.

Through his manager, I asked Gonzalez what he thought of Sugar Ray and his boxing style. The young man answered with a burst of Spanish and Monzon grinned as he told me, "He says he ain't seen him, yet."

Another couple of questions and I had enough for my advance story.

On the day of the boxing match, I found my seat near ringside, right behind Cosell, who was broadcasting the fight for ABC. I listened as Cosell hyped the fight, saying that Gonzalez could be a big surprise for Leonard, who was expecting to win easily. After all, Gonzalez came into the fight with a 52-2 overall record, with 31 knockouts.

I knew that record was probably misleading since almost all of those fights were against lesser competition in Argentina. But, in sports, you never know.

The bell sounded and the fighters stepped to the center of the ring and touched gloves. After that, it was no contest.

Leonard dropped Gonzalez with a right to the chin at 1:15 of the first round. After Gonzalez managed to get back on his feet, Leonard backed him into his own corner and knocked him down again with a hard right and an even harder left.

The youngster struggled back to his feet, but Monzon stopped the fight. It had lasted just over three minutes.

I wrote a quick lede for the wire and raced to the challenger's dressing room to see if he was okay and if I could get a quick quote.

Gonzalez, looking stunned but generally okay, was sitting on a table rubbing his arms and legs. Through Monzon, I asked him what he thought of Leonard now. Monzon translated with a shake of his head, "I still ain't seen him."

After that, it was back to baseball, which was fine by me.

I wound up covering the Indians' spring training for three years and, in each of the last two, my mother-in-law, Dorothy Rosee, joined us in Tucson. She was pretty easy to live with _ at least for me _ and it gave Judy and me a built-in babysitter for some relaxing evenings out.

In February of 1979, we moved to a different apartment complex, which had a large, very nice interior couryard that had picnic tables, grills, a pool and lots of grass for the kids to play on.

One night, Judy said, "You're always talking about how nice the players and coaches are. Maybe we should think about having them over for a dinner."

At first, I thought the idea was crazy. How would we deal with so many people?

We started talking about menu and logistics and came up with the idea of two dinners - one for the players and their families and one for the manager and his coaches and the team executives and their families. The other Cleveland writers were also invited to either night.

Several other families in the complex got wind of the idea and offered to take part in setting it up and doing the serving.

Judy and her Mom made up huge pots of chili, loaves of garlic bread and several big bowls of side dishes. The neighbors, who all wanted to meet the Indians, chipped in with desserts and drinks and more.

To our great pleasure, the turnout by the team people for both events was terrific and everyone had a good time. Those dinners cemented my status as an insider with the team. Unfortunately, that summer was also my last in Cleveland.

There was a little feeling of loss and withdrawal when May dawned in 1976 and I was not at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But I was so busy in Cleveland that I didn't have much time to think about it.

I watched that year's Indy 500 on television, alone in my living room, and I cheered when my friend Johnny Rutherford won the race for the second time. After covering the world's biggest and most important auto race each of the previous six years, it felt strange and more than a little empty watching it on that little screen.

In those days, the top, all-access credential at Indy was a silver badge made different each year to reflect the previous year's winner, a race sponsor or that year's pace car. I had six of those badges and I thought it was a collection that I'd like to continue, even if I wasn't attending the event.

Before the race, I sent a note (snail mail in those days, of course) to old friend Bruce Lowitt, asking if he would keep a lookout for any extra badges or one I could buy cheap. I also mentioned it to Indy colleague and friend Steve Herman.

To my surprise and delight, I got an envelope in the mail from Bruce a week after the race. In it, was a silver badge. I still don't know how he got it or if it was his. He has never said.

A few days later, another envelope showed up, this one from Steve. Another silver badge.

In the end, I wound up with 47 years of badges. Ironically, the only year I didn't attend the race during that period was the year in which I collected two badges.

That same year, the Cincinnati Reds, then known as The Big Red Machine, won their second consecutive World Series.

I have to admit I was a little jealous of Norm Clarke, the AP sports writer in Cincinnati. The Indians continued to be mediocre while the Reds soared to new heights.

Of course, Norm, one of AP's best writers and a really nice guy, got to spend February and March at the Reds' spring training camp in Florida, a fact that I was well aware of while shivering and shoveling snow in Cleveland during the winter and spring of 1976.

But, while I shoveled, an idea was fomenting in my brain. It took until the summer before I acted upon it, but I eventually did, writing a letter to the Ohio Bureau Chief Jim Lagier with a carbon copy to National Sports Editor Wick Temple.

In it, I pointed out that, despite the fact that the Indians were usually hopeless by July, there was always serious interest in the team, particularly in northern Ohio, over the winter and into the spring. After all, hope springs eternal, right?

I suggested that I be sent to Tucson, AZ, where the Indians trained, for a week early in spring training. I would fill up a few notebooks and, after I was back in Cleveland, I would write a steady stream of features from those interviews and observations.

I heard nothing back from Lagier or Temple and figured the idea had just fizzled.

It was a quiet day in December when I walked into the Cleveland bureau for the 4 p.m. start of my shift. No games that day, so I was figuring on a night of answering phones, rewriting or following up stories in the early editions of the Plain Dealer or coming up with a feature idea or two.

As I walked into the office, Cleveland correspondent Neil Bibler, ostensibly my boss, but more of a friend, called me into his office. He looked so serious, I wondered if I was in some kind of trouble.

"Mike, how would you like to go back to Indy?" Neil asked.

I grimaced, thinking I was being transferred back to Indianapolis.

"Wick wants you back at the 500 in May," he said, grinning.

I was ecstatic. He handed me the memo asking me to report to Indy the week of the race.

That was great news and I started to walk back to my desk when Neil said, "Wait, there's more."

He handed me another envelope, this one more official looking.

In it was a letter from Jim Lagier, with a handwritten note from Wick Temple, telling me I was not only heading for spring training in February but I was going to be there for the entire six weeks, covering the games _ which had been done in previous years by a stringer _ and writing as many features as my little brain could come up with.

Wick's note said, "Great thinking, Mike. Go to Tucson and hit it out of the ballpark for us. And enjoy the sunshine."

My kids were still in diapers and Judy was only working part-time as a waitress, so I immediately began figuring out ways in my mind to take them along. I said something about it to Neil and he pointed out that the assignment included renting a furnished apartment while I was there. So, no problem taking the family along.

I was so excited I was almost to the point of bursting, and I wanted to tell Judy as soon as possible. But this was long before cell phones and she wasn't answering our house phone. I finally tracked her down at a neighbor's house.

She got scared when the neighbor told her I was on the phone. Why would I be calling her at a neighbor's in the middle of the day?

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But I quickly explained that we were going to be traveling to Indianapolis and Tucson in 1977. It was a super exciting moment in our lives.

It was typically frigid and snowy in Cleveland that December and, coincidentally, the next day's Plain Dealer had a picture on the front page of a group of nice looking people frolicking in a swimming pool in, of all places, Tucson.

We clipped that picture and kept it on our refrigerator door, anticipating the trip to the warm winds and sunshine of Arizona as winter raged on in northern Ohio. 

I made the travel arrangements for the family and found an apartment that AP was okay with, leasing it for seven weeks, starting the second week of February.

Finally, the big day came. We were packed and more than ready to get out of Cleveland. And, of course, it started snowing on the way to the airport. Heavy snow.

As we sat at the airport, it became apparent that it was going to be a very long day. The cycle began where the airport workers would deice the plane and the runway would then need plowing. So they would have to deice the plane again. And again the runway needed plowing.

We sat in the waiting area for delay after delay, wondering if we should just give up, go home and reschedule for another day. We ran out of diapers and had to ask other families with kids for more.

Finally, the call came to board. They deiced the plane once more with us inside and we began to taxi. As we did, the snow came down even harder and my heart sank. I still expected us to head back to the gate any moment.

But, wonder of wonders, the pilot came on the intercom and said, "We're next for departure."

Off we went, bumping through the clouds, the plane shaking and bouncing for what seemed like an eternity. Suddenly, we were above the clouds with nothing but azure blue skies above and ahead of us. The rest of the flight to Tucson was smooth and uneventful and we both had visions of that poolside scene from our refrigerator door in our heads as we prepared to land.

Our arrival in Tucson was not what we expected. Instead of blue skies and warm temperatures, there was heavy rain and strong winds blowing the rain in sheets across the tarmac. The clouds were black and threatening.

Judy looked at me and said, "Welcome to Tucson. Just our luck."

Being an eternal optimist, I said, "It will be nicer soon, I'm sure."

This was before most airports had jet bridges, so we clamored down the uncovered stairs in the still driving rain. Airline officials handed us umbrellas at the bottom of the steps, but the rain was coming sideways, so they did little to help keep us dry.

We were all soaked by the time we reached the terminal. It was a disconcerting start to our much-anticipated spring adventure. But, by the time we had collected our luggage and signed for our rental car, the skies were clearing and things had begun drying out.

By the time we reached our apartment complex, the sun was shining brightly and the clouds were gone. We had no way of knowing then, but those clouds that we saw upon our arrival in Tucson were the last we would see for our entire stay.

I think it was just the Gods playing a little prank on us.

As we began carrying our possessions into the apartment building, a mustachioed man in a trench coat walked out of the door leading a small dog. He smiled and said "Hi" as he walked past. With a thick mustache and dark features, he looked a lot like comedian Ernie Kovacs.

By the time, I was getting the last of our stuff out of the car, the man had come back from walking his dog. He stopped to chat and, after finding out I worked for AP, he began to tell me about what he thought was a local government conspiracy.

I broke off the conversation as politely as I could, saying I had to get the family settled and go buy groceries. He told me he and his wife were our upstairs neighbors and we should stop by sometime soon.

Although I tried to avoid him for the next few days, he and his wife kept insisting on making us dinner. We finally agreed a couple of nights after our arrival. And it turned out, he wasn't a nut job, just a very intense and caring guy.

Vicki and Jerry Cogelja were and are salt of the earth. Jerry worked in the juvenile court system, trying to help young people through difficult situations. Vicki was a grade school teacher.

After Jerry told me the whole story about his conspiracy theory, I found it palatable enough that I called the AP correspondent in Tucson and told him the story. He agreed to talk to Jerry. In the end, he wound up breaking a big story about a government fraud.

We are still friends with the Cogeljas, although we only see them once every few years on our infrequent trips to Tucson.

I'll get to the baseball part of the trip next time, but there was another new personal relationship that sprang up in Tucson.

Another neighbor in our complex was a couple with one small son, around the same age as our kids. They were hippies, in the true sense of the word, and were particularly interested in Native American affairs.

They had a crystal-shaped dome in their living room and would sit inside it to meditate and let their son play in it. Judy spent some time with them and the kids played together quite a bit.

I came home one day to find Judy chuckling and a bit red in the face. The woman had come knocking on our door that afternoon, saying, "Judy, Judy, tell your old man the indians are meeting in the desert to protest for water rights later today."

Judy had to tell the woman that when she said I was in Arizona to cover the Indians, it was a baseball thing, not a cultural thing. She had misunderstood.

It was a wonderful time in our lives, and I haven't even started writing about spring baseball, one of the best assignments I ever had.

Baseball Blog

I loved covering baseball. The sounds, the smells, the pace of the game. It all just felt right to my sensibilities.

One of my favorite things about baseball at Cleveland Stadium was The Wigwam, the private dining room where a pregame meal was served to media members, team officials and VIPs. The food wasn't great, but the company was often amazing.

The best part was that you never knew who you would wind up sitting next to.

I did get some story ideas, some notes and some quotes during those pregame meals, but more often I just got to hear wonderful stories about the game of baseball and the characters who played the game.

One memorable day, I walked into The Wigwam and found myself seated next to actor-comedian Danny Kaye, who was part owner of the Seattle Mariners. He made one road trip with the team each year and, this time, wound up spending a couple of days in Cleveland.

Danny was a talented performer, but he was also a brilliant individual. In middle age, he decided to take up golf and, within two years, was a six-handicap. He got his pilot's license in his 50s and was also so knowledgeable about medicine that surgeons allowed him to sit on on operations as an observer. And he loved to tell stories.

He was in the midst of an entertaining tale about Bing Crosby and Bob Hope and their ties to baseball when we both suddenly realized the game had started and we were still sitting in The Wigwam.

Danny came and sat with me in the press box for a few innings and asked if he could keep score for me. When he left, he handed me the book and his scoring was perfect - so much neater than mine. I asked him to sign the book, which he did. I still have that score book somewhere.

The Indians were generally a mediocre team during my five years in Cleveland, but they did have some good moments.

Heading into July in 1976, the Indians were in second place, trailing the New York Yankees by six games and facing a four-game series in Cleveland. When the Tribe won the opener and cut the lead to five games, the excitement level in Cleveland increased exponentially.

The Friday night game drew 35,800 spectators, by far the biggest crowd of the year. Unfortunately, the Indians lost 7-1. But excitement remained high with two more games to play.

Both the Saturday and Sunday games drew crowds of more than 60,000. But even with the backing of such huge and enthusiastic crowds, the Indians could not overcome their ineptitude. They lost the last three games of the Yankees series, lost nine of 10 in that stretch and wound up finishing fourth in their division that season. It was pretty much the last hurrah on my watch.

Another of my favorite things while covering Indians games was the eating. There was a small alcove behind the press box where hot dogs, peanuts and popcorn were always available during the games. More important, there was Cleveland Stadium Mustard, the best spicy mustard ever made, in my humble opinion.

I ate way too many of those hot dogs, partly because I couldn't get enough of that mustard. A few years ago, my cousin and former stringer Ian (Ike) Krieger sent me a few jars of that wonderful mustard. It's just as good now as it was then, although somehow it doesn't taste quite the same without the sounds and smells of the ballpark.

During my frequent between-inning trips to that alcove, I would often run into Indians' broadcasters Herb Score and Joe Tait.

Herb was a former major league pitcher whose career was cut short by a line drive to the face. But he loved baseball and knew the game as well as anyone. During our brief meetings behind the press box, he would often explain something that had happened in the game and shine a new light on what I thought I knew. It was a big part of my baseball education.

Joe was the radio voice of Indiana Pacers for my first couple of years covering the ABA. And he was just a friendly guy and one helluva broadcaster.

And we all loved those ball park hot dogs with mustard.

One of my most embarrassing moments took place in the grandstand at Cleveland Stadium during an Indians game.

Judy likes baseball because it's a quiet, slow game that she can follow and it's generally played in warm weather. She particularly enjoys it when I sit with her and explain the strategy taking place on the field.

I brought her and the kids, who were both still in diapers, to an afternoon game on a pleasant August day in 1976. I sat with them in the grandstand boxes, along the first base line, for the first eight innings, keeping score and enjoying the day and being with the family as much as possible.

I had met Glen Frey and Don Henley of the Eagles rock band at a hockey game the previous winter and I noticed after a while that they were sitting just behind us at the baseball game.

They remembered me and I introduced them to Judy. For the next inning or so, I spent a lot of time talking with them over my shoulder while holding Tory in my arms. Our diaper bag was under my feet.

I was engrossed in the conversation, although I can't remember the subject, when Judy tapped on my shoulder and said, "Michael!"

Without looking back, I said, "Just a minute."

Again, she tapped on my shoulder and again, I just waved her away, still involved in my conversation.

This time, she said in a loud, strident voice, "Michael!"

I looked around and said in a not very nice way, "What is it?"

She said, "I have a handful of s..t and I need the diaper bag."

Turns out she had smelled something, reached down to check Lanni's diaper and came up with a handful of poop. Under the circumstances, Judy had been very patient - until she wasn't.

Needless to say, the conversation with the Eagles was over and done. They drifted away quietly a couple of inning later without even a goodbye.

One of my favorite stories happened in Cleveland Stadium, too.

I grew up in Wisconsin and was a fan of the Milwaukee Braves. To this day, I can recite the lineups and statistics of those teams in the 1950s. My favorite player on the Braves was third baseman Eddie Mathews, who later was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Usually, I was able to leave the ballpark after a game while there were still a lot of people around. But on this particular night, I had to write a story about the Cavaliers after I finished my Indians coverage. By the time I left the ballpark, it was dark and deserted.

My car was parked in the otherwise empty lot just a few steps from the media entrance and I was almost to the door when I saw a very large silhouette looming in the darkness and moving toward me. I was spooked and thought I was about to get mugged when the person stepped into the single overhead light.

It was a large, well-dressed man with a smile on his face and I relaxed. I also knew that face from somewhere.

He said, "How do you get a cab around here this time of night?"

I said, "Your best bet is to walk up the hill toward the Terminal Tower. You should find a cab up there. It's only a couple of blocks."

He started to walk away and, now that I had stopped fearing for my life, my brain clicked into gear.

"Hey, I can give you a ride up to the Tower."

He turned around, stuck out his hand and said, "Thank you. My name is Eddie Mathews and I would love a ride."

I was thrilled to meet one of my childhood heroes and told him so. He was staying at the Hollenden House Hotel and I offered to drop him there.

Eddie told me he was scouting for the Oakland Athletics and was in Cleveland  checking out several players for a possible trade. When we got to the hotel, he asked if he could buy me a beer.

I don't really drink beer, but you don't turn down an offer from your hero. I sipped a beer and managed to keep him telling stories until the bar shut down at 2 a.m. Eddie was the only guy to play with the Braves in Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta, so he had plenty of stories to tell.

He came to Cleveland several more times over the next two years and always called me and offered to buy me a beer. I never turned him down.

Things didn't always run so smooth in my baseball days.

I had run-ins - unintentional - with two managers, both of them over what I thought were very innocent questions.

The first came in my second year in Cleveland when the Detroit Tigers were in town. The Tigers were managed by Ralph Houk, a former Marine and known to be a tough guy.

After the Indians beat the Tigers in a close game, I ran into the visiting manager's office and asked about a late pitching change and why Houk had made the move at that particular moment.

He took offense at my question, leaped out of his seat and started to come around the desk with his hands balled into fists and fire in his eyes.

I must have looked shocked, and probably very afraid, and he stopped in his tracks and said, "Next question."

At that point, I had no more questions and made my exit.

A year or so later, I was part of a post-game scrum around Yankees' fiery manager Billy Martin. They had won the game, but Martin appeared to be in some kind of funk. Maybe he was about to be fired by George Steinbrenner - again.

I asked him why he had chosen to bring in a left-handed reliever to face a right-handed batter when he also had a righty ready in the bullpen. Generally, managers try to go with a right-handed pitcher against a right-handed batter. It's the percentage thing to do.

For whatever reason, Martin took offense at my question and launched a string of epithets that were actually very colorful and somewhat original. Several of the Yankees writers started to chuckle and that made Martin even more angry.

He got up and hovered over me like he was going to start punching. This time, I stayed calm, at least outwardly, and said in a very measured tone, "I meant nothing by that question. I just noticed you went against the percentages and I wondered why?"

The fire drained out of Martin's eyes and he walked back around his desk, sat down and gave me a decent answer to my question, as if nothing had happened. I'm not sure I even wrote down his answer, but I got out of there in a hurry.

A couple of the New York writers later came over to me in the press box and told me they had never seen Martin calm down that fast. I'm just glad it worked.