Foul Ball

by Jim Bouton

  “It was satisfying to see Lothrop get more votes than Massery,” said Chip.

  “Too bad people can’t vote the newspaper out of office,” said I.

  Mayor Doyle delivered a memorable farewell address before leaving office. He called the Dan Valenti Show and blamed Dan and his listeners for having disrupted “the administration, my life, and my family’s life.” On an ominous note, Doyle warned that he planned to “hold people accountable.”

  “Will there be trials?” I wondered aloud to Chip.

  “Usually it’s the politicians who have to be accountable,” said Chip, still trying to grasp how things work in Pittsfield.

  Another way things work is evidenced by what happened to Gary Grunin. Apparently, during the 2001 primary campaign for mayor, candidate Grunin had asked the DelGallo camp for its support in exchange for the going rate for that service. The only problem was that the DelGallo crowd decided to secretly support Jimmy Ruberto instead. Reports say that when Grunin found out what happened, he stopped by DelGallo’s and “shot his mouth off.” Fortunately, those were the only shots fired.

  A word here about Remo DelGallo. By all accounts he is not the Godfather, his politically connected restaurant notwithstanding. According to reliable sources, he’s a decent guy who was one of the first to uncover PCB pollution on Newell Street, and who may or may not be able to deliver a certain number of votes on election day. In any case, everyone seems to agree that Remo and his wife serve a great pasta fagiole.

  Then there is Matt Kerwood—“Little Eddie Munster.” With the changing of the guard on the City Council, Kerwood was removed from the finance committee by new council president Rick Scapin, causing Kerwood to whine and act out. As retaliation against Rob Tuttle for having backed Scapin over Gerry Lee for council president, Kerwood tried to ruin Tuttle’s job prospects with the state Republican party. Tuttle then filed a complaint with the State Ethics Commission.

  Speaking of ethics, or the lack thereof, it’s hard to top the goings on of Jim Conant, who is now Fleisig’s groundskeeper, which by itself is a smile. What’s not so funny is learning that Conant had been hired by Fleisig before the Parks Commission had announced its decision.

  Apparently, in late September, prior to a high school football game, a local sports fan was standing on the field at Wahconah Park with maintenance man Tony Stracuzzi. A guy came over and told Stracuzzi that the outfield would need to be seeded. “Who was that?” asked the fan. “Oh, that’s Conant,” replied Stracuzzi. “He’s got the contract to maintain the field.”

  Our public servants at work.

  And on it goes.

  Here is democracy in action, advise and consent, Pittsfield style: The power structure advises the council what it wants to see happen, and asks them to play ball or else. Once the council consents, which can take all of fifteen minutes, the matter goes to the lower chamber—DelGallo’s or the Brewery—for enactment by people like the mayor and his commissioners.

  At that point you have a system of checks and balances, with each check balanced by a cost. For example, a few years ago Mayor Doyle hired a company to administer the city’s health insurance program, which for some reason was not licensed to certify claims. This led to millions of dollars in losses for the city through overpayments to Berkshire Medical Center, whose president happens to be a pal of the mayor.

  In a separate transaction, Mayor Doyle awarded a $30,000 severance package to the city treasurer—which some cynics have called hush money—even though an agent hired by that treasurer had neglected to pay the premiums on city insurance policies. That particular oversight contributed to either $5 or $9 million of city debt, depending on the outcome of a lawsuit filed by city employees.

  Nothing illegal, you understand. The mayor was just following a long tradition in Pittsfield.

  Then there’s the story of EV Worldwide.

  Back when Tim Gray was challenging the GE settlement, a company called EV Worldwide came forward and promised to build buses on the old GE site—if and when a GE deal was signed. Also pending was a $3 million state grant—of taxpayer dollars—to help seed EV Worldwide, which promised to employ a thousand people.

  “I was accused of standing in the way of a thousand jobs,” said Gray. “The Eagle kept writing, ‘These jobs are in jeopardy.’”

  But two years after the GE deal was signed, EV Worldwide announced that it wasn’t going to build any buses after all. Unfortunately, Mayor Doyle, with city council approval, had already given $250,000 of the GE settlement funds to EV Worldwide, on top of the $3 million state grant. Then it was discovered that the EV Worldwide CEO had mafia connections.

  Whatever happened to EV Worldwide?

  “They’re still sitting over there,” said Gray, “pretending they’re a company.”

  Meanwhile, Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin is pretending that the unindicted former mayor Doyle is the best possible choice to be his liaison for Berkshire County. Doyle’s responsibilities in the paid, no-show job include—hold on to your baseball caps—helping assess potential uses of grant funding from the state Historical Commission. If I could think up stuff like this, I’d make a fortune in Hollywood.

  The story possibilities are endless. I just learned, for example, that two months before Chip and I first met with Berkshire Sports & Events at the North End restaurant, there had been an important meeting—referred to by insiders as “the secret meeting”—in the boardroom at Berkshire Bank.

  According to witnesses, it was “a full house.” Mike Daly and Gerry Denmark from the bank, Mike MacDonald of Cain Hibbard, Mayor Doyle and Tom Murphy, and Larry Bossidy and some of his friends had invited the city councilors to a meeting. Actually it was three meetings, one after another, with different sets of councilors so as not to be in violation of the open meetings law.

  The law is important to these fellows.

  The leader, or “drill instructor” as some described him, was Mike Daly, who underlined the need for secrecy. “And I don’t want to hear about this on the Dan Valenti Show tomorrow,” he warned. Then he went to work on the councilors. “Are you with us or not?” Daly challenged them. “You better get on board.” According to one source, “Bill Barry was shaking in his boots.” Another said he had heard that “Brassard looked like he might wet himself.” Evidently Bossidy just sat there, his mere presence making the point.

  Where “the secret meeting” ranks with “an unbelievable amount of shit” is difficult to know. In fairness to Daly, who was then the bank’s chief lending officer, it should be said that at no time was the bank’s ability to deny loans and/or generally wreak havoc on the business and personal lives of the councilors ever discussed.

  Why Andy Mick was absent from the meeting is not known. Maybe he felt he’d have to report it in the Eagle; as it was, only the Gazette carried the story. Or maybe Mick conducted his own meetings, which could explain Councilor Massery’s comment to Chip, early on, that “I can’t just walk away from this, unless Andy Mick releases us.”

  Speaking of releases, rumor has it that the new-stadium site—property the Eagle had portrayed as a “donation” to the city of Pittsfield—has a slight problem.

  It’s polluted.

  Apparently, evidence of contamination release comes not from the 1994 test borings—which are still being investigated—but from recent soil samples commissioned by the CVS Pharmacy Corporation, which had an option to buy the property. The story goes that after the samples were taken, CVS declined to exercise its option.

  Environmental law states that when a property is sold, the seller must guarantee that it’s not polluted, unless the buyer is willing to sign a waiver and assume the responsibility. It’s a waiver the Eagle very likely signed when it bought an extra 22 acres (formerly a car dealership) to complete the stadium parcel, in anticipation of a yes vote in the June 5th referendum. More significantly for Pittsfield, it’s a waiver the Eagle’s lawyers had written into the Civic Authority Act, absolving itse
lf of any responsibility for a cleanup. By law, whenever contamination is discovered, perimeter testing is required to determine the extent of any migration, which now includes the entire property. So, instead of sitting on nine acres of polluted land, the Eagle may now be sitting on 112. It’s enough to cause panic in the hearts of a newspaper owner and his editorial staff.

  Or have they known about the pollution all along? A look back at an old newspaper clipping offers a clue. During the Civic Authority campaign, Andy Mick was quoted as saying, “There is no hidden agenda here.” Sounds pretty Murphyesque to me.

  So is it true about pollution on the Eagle property? And could that be why they wanted to cover it with a new stadium?

  CHAPTER 15

  “We gave it to Fleisig knowing full well he’d fail”

  SPRING & SUMMER 2002

  It’s been six months since the Pittsfield Parks Commission—acting of its own free will, independent of Mayor Doyle, the City Council, Berkshire Bank, the Berkshire Eagle, Cain Hibbard Myers & Cook, and General Electric—said, “Thank you very much, fuck you,” to its fellow citizens.

  Meanwhile, a lot of things have happened. Chip and I are in a different place. It’s called home. Chip is back in the investment banking business, trying to make up for last year’s lost income. And I’m trying to write the final chapter of a story that never ends. We still get together socially—Paula and Cindy allow us a two-minute Wahconah Park update—but we sort of miss each other. You can see it in the eyes, the pat on the shoulder. We’re like army buddies who fought the business equivalent of a small war.

  “It was an honor to have served with you,” I said to him the other day, only half joking.

  And it was an honor to introduce him when he received his Citizen-of-the-Year award from the Great Barrington Rotary. Chip was selected for having created the Tech Fund, which makes sure every student in the Berkshire Hills Regional School District has a home computer—in some cases personally installed and guaranteed by Chip! As Chip approached the podium to enthusiastic applause, I couldn’t help thinking what jerks those park commissioners were for denying their city this man’s talent and generosity.

  Chip and I try to laugh about what happened. We tell people that we achieved our goal without spending a dime. We turned what Berkshire Sports & Events had said was “a crumbling, decrepit dump, not worth saving” into what the Parks Commission said was “a national treasure, and a jewel, which must be protected from private groups.”

  It never ceases to be amusing.

  Like the minor detail that Boy Scout leader Ed McCormick failed to mention in our meeting about the $3,000 speaking fee rumor: He and Nilan were college roommates! Scout’s honor.

  “What surprises me is that Cliff went to college,” said Chip.

  And you’ll never guess who owns the speed-dialer that made 144 calls in favor of the Fleisig/Bossidy proposal during our infamous phone poll. By sheer coincidence, it’s the same company that did phone polling for Berkshire Sports & Events during the Civic Authority campaign.

  I even discovered how Jamie Akers’s color renderings of our proposed changes to Wahconah Park ended up looking so dark and foreboding on the front page of the Eagle: Printing experts tell me instructions had to be given to not separate the colors, as is customarily done on a color page. It comes as no surprise to this reporter.

  Mystery lovers will be disappointed to learn, however, that the trail of the missing Wahconah Yes! buttons has grown cold. Alert citizens are invited to post promising leads at www.foulball.com.

  Meanwhile, the Pittsfield Gazette won a New England Press Association award for “Fairness in Journalism.” That weekly’s coverage of the stadium issue was judged “down the middle” by NEPA. It was so fair, in fact, that two of the Gazette’s major advertisers, Berkshire Bank and Berkshire Medical Center, pulled their advertising. Publisher Jonathan Levine, who would like to stay in business, declined to comment on the matter.

  In the same vein, Dan Valenti is not saying that his coverage of the stadium issue led to the Berkshire Eagle’s dropping his column. “Scribner told me they wanted to make a change,” said Valenti, “so they could have other voices.”

  The funny thing is, Dan hadn’t even told his best story. Right after the Parks Commission ruled in favor of Fleisig, Conant told Valenti, “We gave it to Fleisig, knowing full well he’d fail.” When Valenti asked him why they would do such a thing, Valenti said Conant “sort of laughed and shrugged it off.”

  Some of the best reading I had all summer appeared in the Eagle’s sports section, which Chip would clip for me. It was Jonathan Fleisig’s first season at Wahconah Park—with his renamed Berkshire Black Bears. Here are the highlights:

  • Finished last in league standings with twenty-four wins and sixty-five losses.

  • Finished second to last in league attendance.

  • Set new league record for player turnover with fifty-eight, breaking old record of forty-nine held by his own Mad Dogs.

  • Several players were dismissed for off-the-field behavioral problems.

  • The director of player personnel was arrested on charges of stealing from his former team.

  • Manager George “Boomer” Scott was fired.

  • Fleisig announced he’d be coming back in 2003.

  The good news is that an ejector pump didn’t blow.

  Fleisig admitted making a few mistakes. “At some point in time,” he said, “I should have said, ‘We’ll come in 2003 instead of 2002.’”

  Of course. But that’s not what his backers had wanted him to say. Trying to run the clock out on us, they ran it out on Fleisig.

  What Fleisig didn’t say was that the main reason he did so poorly was because nobody in Pittsfield was rooting for him, a distinct possibility made painfully clear at the Parks Commission’s so-called open hearing when no one stood up for his proposal.

  “Watching Fleisig that night,” someone commented later, “was like watching a man at his own funeral.”

  Instead, Fleisig plowed ahead as if nothing were amiss.

  The morning after the Commission’s decision, he called Phil Massery, the radio talk show host and brother of city councilor James Massery, to say that he was “proud of the people of Pittsfield” for having chosen him. He said he was “all about togetherness” and that he’d “love to get a call from Mr. Bouton and Mr. Elitzer to say, hey, let’s all work together.”

  “Tell me that’s not the most exciting call we ever had,” said Massery, who was later hired as Fleisig’s director of group sales.

  Then Ever-Scrib got into the act. The day after Fleisig’s call for togetherness, Ever-Scrib wrote an editorial entitled FLEISIG Is THE RIGHT CHOICE FOR PITTSFIELD:

  We hope the South County partnership will gracefully accept the decision and the city will not be afflicted with paralyzing lawsuits and petition drives….

  That was followed by this note in Scribner’s own column:

  [We could be] in for 30 years of litigation, so thorough is [the Bouton group’s] sense of entitlement to Berkshire baseball bragging rights.

  Now there’s an idea. Litigation. What kind of case did we have? Restraint of trade? Economic interference? Breach of fiduciary duty? Unfair bidding practice? Fraud? What did the Eagle know and when did they know it?

  Another reason for Fleisig’s tough summer was the local newspaper. The only thing worse than having the fans against him was having the Eagle for him. When they weren’t propping up Fleisig, they were tearing down Wahconah Park. A relentless stream of negativity is not conducive to ticket sales. A sampling of Ever-Scrib’s sniping:

  [The Bouton group] had little comprehension of the many problems any tenant will face at the outdated park.

  Mayor elect Hathaway… should not buy the preposterous notion that the Parks Commission [selected] a tenant at decrepit Wahconah Park without adequate public input.

  [Fleisig] had better be prepared to [spend money] to keep the decrepit ballpark in minima
lly respectable shape.

  [It] has all the ambiance and charm of an old wooden outhouse in the middle of a swamp.

  No amount of renovations and restorations is going to bring it close to the standards set by newly built ballparks.

  The Northern League is floundering on the field and with fans… [because of] a bush-league setting.

  The decaying ruin that is hardly fan friendly, especially in comparison to new ballparks.

  Et cetera.

  Still another problem was promising the fans a winner.

  “I want to win, and I want to win now!” Fleisig had proclaimed on Phil Massery’s radio show.

  This is the classic mistake of team owners everywhere—promising a result that, for 90% of them, is mathematically impossible. Sports is a zero sum game; you can only win at someone else’s expense. Since most fans think winner means first place, or a close second, you are going to disappoint them most of the time. That’s why, especially in the minors, besides family fun, you need to sell community spirit and the ballpark experience—two concepts fatally damaged by Fleisig’s own backers.

  Without the aforementioned problems, Fleisig’s promotional snafus might have been seen as amusing rather than infuriating. Fans might have chuckled when the George Scott bobble-head dolls were not there to bobble on “Bobble-Head Night.” Ditto the missing hats on “Disney Hat Night.” And when Mia Hamm was a no-show on “Mia Hamm Night,” it could have been laughed off and followed up with a “Where Was Mia Hamm? Contest Night.”

  Of course, there’s not much that can be done about a lack of fireworks on “Fireworks Night.” Especially if it’s the last night game of the season and it’s also “Fan Appreciation Night.”

  “Thank you for coming,” the PA announcer was reported to have said, without reference to the missing fireworks. “See you next year.”