Foul Ball

by Jim Bouton

  Threatening calls?

  But I didn’t have time to focus on it just then. For some reason, I zeroed in on City Council candidate Rick Jones. Rick is a guy in his thirties who comes across as half-man, half-boy, with thinning black hair and a deer-in-the-headlights air of uncertainty about him.

  “What about you, Rick?” I asked, catching him off guard.

  “I’ll do it with someone else,” said Rick, looking anxiously round the table.

  But no one else volunteered.

  “Rick,” I said, “it looks like you’re it. But you’ll have plenty of help. Chip and I will make sure you have all the materials you need, and your team captains here will all pitch in. They’ll actually be doing most of the work. You’ll be the executive in charge of the in and out box.”

  The group promised to help, and a few of them made sure that Rick had their phone numbers.

  “Well,” said Rick, smiling with a mixture of resignation and pride. “I always seem to end up running things at work.”

  “This will be the defining issue of your campaign,” I said to him. “What got Dave Potts a shot at being mayor could put you on the City Council.”

  Rick’s brown eyes brightened. “Yeah, maybe you’re right,” he said, smiling.

  With that, the meeting was over. We said our goodbyes, and I headed for the door, grabbing a brownie on the way out.

  Only to bump into Rick Jones in the parking lot.

  “I just talked it over with my girlfriend,” he said. “And she agrees with you that this could be what gets me elected.”

  “Good,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

  What I meant was, I hope you’ll do fine.

  In the car on the way home, I called Chip and filled him in on what was happening—and how I sort of appointed Rick Jones.

  “You think he can handle it?” asked Chip.

  “Rick’s young, and he’s enthusiastic,” I said. “If he wants to be a city councilor, it’ll be good experience. Sometimes people are ready to step up and all they need is a chance.”

  AUGUST 31

  FRIDAY

  Today we received a response to our debate challenge and my letter to Cliff Nilan. In an Eagle editorial headlined GIMMICKRY, INSULTS OFF THE PLATE, Ever-Scrib wrote:

  The future of professional baseball in Pittsfield is too important to be determined through reality-show style debates and gimmicky, unscientific polls, as is the apparent strategy of the partnership of Jim Bouton, Chip Elitzer and Eric Margenau. Mr. Bouton’s promise that the group will abandon its plan if it is in essence “voted off the island” calls into question the seriousness of their bid.

  Equally troubling is the contrariness of a group that is insulted by legitimate comment and sees challenges to its plan as part of a massive conspiracy. City officials must also ask, in light of Mr. Bouton’s insulting open letter to Parks Commission Chairman Clifford J. Nilan in which he instructed Mr. Nilan to “go take a shower,” if they want to assure themselves of a long, contentious relationship by allowing the group to bring an independent team to Wahconah Park.

  Here is a newspaper that for years has steadfastly refused to either sponsor or promote a public forum on the “too important” matter of “the future of professional baseball in Pittsfield.” Of course, a public forum or debate is the last thing the Eagle wants because they know what the result would be—the defeat of their new-stadium agenda.

  And in furtherance of that agenda—as far as the Eagle is concerned—any act is fair game for distortion. So, just as our phone-in results are less newsworthy than Jack Dew’s questioning of six people at a Big Y, and there is no conspiracy because the mayor said there wasn’t, so Cliff Nilan’s rudeness to us becomes our rudeness to him.

  The Berkshire Eagle is nothing if not consistent.

  Having used up our quota of letters to the editor, what can we do? Go to a competing purveyor of news and information?

  CHAPTER 11

  “You’ve got to fight the madness”

  SEPTEMBER 1

  SATURDAY

  It was winter when Chip and I first brought our plan to Berkshire Sports & Events. It was spring when we introduced it to the public, and summer when we won them over. Now it’s almost fall, with a month to go, and still we wait. It’s a good thing we had said “time is of the essence.” Otherwise there’s no telling how long it would take.

  Most normal people, with families and jobs and hobbies, would have dropped out long ago. But Chip and I are not normal—at least not when we’re together. Then we become something else. Like a science experiment gone bad. Two ordinary elements—hydrogen and sulfur—mixed accidently to make sulfuric acid.

  “Both my mother and my wife think we feed off each other’s worst tendencies,” said Chip.

  “And what might those be?” I asked.

  “Something about relentlessness,” said Chip, “and stubbornness, and cowboys and Indians.”

  “But those are our best tendencies,” I said.

  This morning we took our relentless selves out to get some bows and arrows for the petition drive. We drove up to Staples, in Pittsfield, to get a dozen clipboards and pens, and some string to tie the pens to the clipboards. Then we went to Kwik Print, in Great Barrington, to pick up 1,000 signature sheets and 100 window banners that say “Wahconah Yes!—Petition—Sign up here,” which we had ordered yesterday.

  Some key dates are coming up, when a growing stack of signature sheets will be hard to ignore:

  September 11: City Council meeting. The last chance to put Wahconah Park on the November ballot. The number of signatures needed to force a ballot question is approximately 4,000, which is a near impossibility since we have only ten more days. But anything approaching that number could pressure the City Council into putting it on the ballot.

  September 25: Primary day. Candidates will need to declare where they stand on the various proposals for Wahconah Park. This is also the day we plan to make our big push to gather signatures at polling stations.

  October 5: Parks Commission makes decision on Wahconah Park—maybe.

  November 6: Election day. Candidates may need to declare whether they agree with—or will seek to overturn—the Parks Commission decision.

  This afternoon, while Chip visited his dad, I dropped off the petition materials to Rick Jones, who met me in the parking lot at a Friendly’s in Pittsfield. In what I took to be a good sign, Rick arrived on time, pulling up in his truck. When he’s not running for City Council, Rick works for a small plumbing contractor.

  So as not to overwhelm him, I gave him only about a third of the materials. As I went over the plan again, Rick listened and nodded. Then he said something that made me nervous.

  “Has anybody ever called you pushy before?” He was half smiling when he said it.

  “I’ve been known to be a little overbearing,” I said. “If I am, just tell me and I’ll back off.”

  “You seem to be in a hurry,” said Rick, his smile receding slightly. “It’s a little fast for some people.”

  I flinched a bit when Rick said this, because it’s not the first time I’ve heard something like that. It reminded me of when my mother used to say, “The trouble with you is, you refuse to take ‘no’ for an answer.”

  She didn’t mean it as a compliment.

  I know I can be pushy. But sometimes it’s hard to know the difference between pushy and persistent. Persistent is what got me most of the good things in my life, including the big leagues, Ball Four, and Paula. I give that up and I might as well sit and read somewhere—somewhere other than the house in which we’re currently living.

  Hell, companies pay me to teach them how to be persistent. I tell them to focus on the process rather than the goal. Do the work for its own sake. Forget the salary and the bonus. Do it for the fun, the satisfaction, the challenge. The irony is that by focusing on the process, you increase your chances of achieving the goal.

  It can also drive your opponents nuts. When
the Eagle asks if the commissioners want “to assure themselves of a long, contentious relationship by allowing the [Bouton] group to bring an independent team to Wahconah Park,” the paper is expressing its own fears. When the bully feels bullied, you know you’re onto something.

  But Rick is not a bully, and I had been pushy when I put him on the spot at the Italian-American Club, maybe even sensing he didn’t have the strength to say no. On the other hand, he did have the backbone to call me on it today. So, maybe he’s going to be okay after all. And I’ll try to ease up a bit.

  A bulldog with a few missing teeth.

  Conference call today with our partner, Eric Margenau, updating him on what’s happening:

  “Short of overwhelming public pressure,” said Chip, “they will give it to Bossidy or Fleisig. They are prepared to defy all logic.”

  “We need to have a team,” said Margenau. “What’s happening with the Atlantic League?”

  “Frank Boulton has agreed to ‘lease’ us a team for 2002,” I said, “but he hasn’t given us an option to buy for 2003 and beyond.”

  “Maybe if we commit to the Atlantic League now for 2002,” said Chip, thinking out loud, “instead of waiting for the Northern League, Frank will give us the option.”

  “That’s a good idea,” I said. “We’re probably not going to get the Northern League for next year anyway. And if we have a good season in the Atlantic, we can still pick and choose between the two leagues after 2002.”

  There was a pause while we digested this shift in strategy.

  “There’s one move that would nullify everything,” said Margenau, an excellent strategic thinker. “Give Fleisig a minority stake.”

  But this is precisely the offer Fleisig had spurned back in July, saying he didn’t need us because he had the “first position” with both the Northern League and Pittsfield. That was also before we knew much about him.

  “No!” Chip and I said simultaneously.

  “Fleisig would be a pain in the ass,” said Chip. “We don’t want him in. End of story.”

  Defying all logic ourselves, we continue to behave as if we have a chance. Tonight, Chip went to Wahconah Park to write down the names of all the advertisers on the billboards in the outfield. That’s so we don’t have to buy the “advertiser list” from Rick Murphy, the guy who had offered to sell us the “season ticket holder list.”

  SEPTEMBER 2

  SUNDAY

  No news on those 1994 test borings that Potsy said were taken on the Eagle property. “Nothing so far at the DEP,” said Tim Gray.

  I asked Tim what he did when he’s not running the Housatonic River Initiative.

  “I have a greenhouse business,” he said. “And I play in three different musical groups. As far as environmental work is concerned, I don’t get paid for that. One day, Gerry Doyle said on the radio, ‘That Tim Gray is making a big living off this PCB issue.’ So I took my IRS forms down to the station. I said, Look at them. Four thousand dollars. Two thousand dollars salary.”

  “You sound like a ’60s guy,” I said. “I met people like you when I was speaking against the war.”

  “I just do what my dad taught me to do,” said Gray. “Stand up for my rights. I saw people marching in the ’60s, so I learned about marching. We had people marching on City Hall with signs. ‘We want a total cleanup.’”

  “How did you get to City Hall from the Housatonic?”

  “The river led me to GE, then to people’s property,” said Gray.

  “That’s sort of how I found you,” I said.

  “I would go door-to-door,” said Gray. “I know families where all the kids are sick. Mr. Haynes has six kids with cancer. Right now, HRI is doing a small survey of the Lakewood section—that’s ground zero for pollution.”

  I told Tim I had been to Newell Street, which is near Lakewood.

  “You should speak to Vinnie Curro,” said Gray. “He owned a body shop there—Ravin Auto Body. He made a cancer map of the area. He’s known as the Mayor of Lakewood.”

  I said I would give Curro a call.

  “The people who took the brunt were the employees who died,” said Gray. “We’re still trying to do a study of GE workers. We’ve got videos of employees looking straight into the camera and saying, ‘They’re just waiting for us all to die.’”

  How polluted is Pittsfield?

  “The city is marinating in PCBs,” said Gray. “State law says two parts per million is safe. The EPA found plumes, which are chemical lakes, measuring 300,000 parts per million. Unheard of levels. Pure product flowing underground.”

  “What can be done about it?” I asked.

  “Instead of trying to hide it,” said Gray, “let’s get it fixed.”

  Tim said he would check further on those test borings.

  And I was in the mood to test the business philosophy of my investment banking partner.

  “If this is a market economy,” I said to Chip, “there should be a market solution. Make GE give Pittsfield the money it saved by dumping. No penalties. Just pay what they would have paid otherwise.”

  “Plus interest,” said Chip, getting into it. He keyed in a spreadsheet program with various scenarios. “Assuming $2 million a year in savings for forty years—from 1936 to 1976, which is when the EPA made it illegal—and a 4% cost of capital, GE would owe Pittsfield almost $554 million. Using $4 million annual savings—which is much more likely—and a 5.25% cost of capital, GE would owe Pittsfield a little over $2 billion.”

  “Either one would put a dent in the city’s $9 million debt,” I said.

  “They probably had some guy with a green eyeshade do exactly that kind of calculation,” said Chip.

  “And it’s fair,” I said, “because even if the dumping was not yet illegal, GE knew back then that PCBs caused illness. Their chemists knew. In 1936, two GE vice presidents talked about workers with terrible rashes. They said without PCBs they’d lose the bottom line of their business.”

  “Their calculation was that they’d never have to pay that much if they ever got caught,” said Chip.

  “They figured correctly,” I said. “And that explains why Pittsfield has to turn out its street lights and Jack Welch has a net worth of $900 million.”

  SEPTEMBER 3

  MONDAY

  In celebration of Labor Day, a fax came in from Northern League Commissioner Miles Wolff.

  Thanks for your letter of August 25, and please excuse the delay in replying. While I certainly recognize the logic of your argument, I must continue to support Jonathan Fleisig’s efforts…. He has worked hard to be in Pittsfield and wants to continue his efforts.

  What “efforts”? Fleisig tossed a proposal on the table and went home. His only role is to keep us out of Wahconah Park until a new stadium can be built—either for him or for Bossidy, with Bossidy having first shot.

  I bet here’s the deal: If a new stadium is built or committed to, and Bossidy gets a team, Fleisig will be told, or maybe paid, to take a hike. If Bossidy can’t get a team, Fleisig will get the new stadium he’s been looking for. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this: If Bossidy is able to buy the Utica Blue Sox, Fleisig will fill the vacated spot in Utica.

  It’s a win-win-win for Bossidy, Fleisig, and the new-stadium die-hards. The only losers will be the people of Pittsfield. It’s the same strong-arm tactic that teams and leagues have been using against cities all over the country. The difference here—as in New York City—is that the city is actually helping them do it.

  In a letter to the editor in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine, a woman named Laura Kaminker wrote in response to a recent article on the stadium follies in New York City:

  Mayor Giuliani may dismiss Andrew Zimbalist, who has made exhaustive studies of the impact of professional sports on cities, as “Castro’s economist.” But it’s Giuliani who sounds more like the dictator when he explains why New Yorkers weren’t asked whether their taxes should build ballparks for the multimillionaires Fred W
ilpon and George Steinbrenner: “Because they would have voted it down.” The last time I checked, that was the way a democracy worked.

  As Pittsfield goes, so goes the Big Apple.

  SEPTEMBER 4

  TUESDAY

  Today Chip got a call from a fellow named Larry Bossidy.

  “I’m going to decline your invitation to debate,” said Bossidy, “I don’t see any purpose to it.”

  Chip said he asked Bossidy how a new stadium was better than an arena, but Bossidy had waffled. Chip said he offered Bossidy the vision of being the majority owner of a professional hockey team.

  “Nah,” said Bossidy. “That’s not for me. Affiliated baseball is the right way to go.”

  When Chip mentioned Wahconah Park, Bossidy said, “If you were making the kind of investment I’m making in a team, would you want to play in an old ballpark?”

  Chip told him that’s exactly what we wanted to do, and that a historic Wahconah Park could outdraw a new stadium.

  It was a brief conversation. Chip said he and Bossidy agreed to go their separate ways and that it ended on a cordial note.

  “If I get into town,” Bossidy said, “maybe we can have a drink.”

  And that was it.

  What’s a petition drive without campaign buttons? It’s like a glove without a ball. A ballpark without a team.

  This afternoon, I called New England Ad Specialties and ordered 500 green “Wahconah Yes!” buttons. I told them to ship the buttons directly to Rick Jones.

  What’s five hundred bucks—more or less—for a good cause?

  SEPTEMBER 5

  WEDNESDAY

  Today we committed ourselves to playing in the Atlantic League for 2002. In a Letter of Agreement, Chip wrote, “We are ready to join your league with great enthusiasm!”

  Now all we need is Frank Boulton’s signature.

  By Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, if possible.