Carol Lewis, Terry Shroeder, Teder Bitmore, Rowdy Gaines, Nancy Hogshead, and Willie Banks were the other Goodwill Ambassadors chosen, and together we traveled to Spain, Germany, France, Italy, and England, covering five countries in ten days. We’d fly into Rome, stay two days, then fly into Madrid for dinner, get up the next morning to do a press conference, then leave without spending a second night because Juan Bautista was heading up a revolution. As Goodwill Ambassadors, we didn’t want to get in the middle of that mess.
And that wasn’t the only hotbed of political uncertainty. NATO missiles were being set up in Western Europe and used as bargaining chips by Reagan during arms talks with the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. It wasn’t the greatest time to be traveling abroad, and I was glad when the press tour was over. However, I returned to devastating news.
One of my business managers, told me that the $250,000 I’d earned from the Superstars, the ´84 Olympics, and the contracts with Fuji and Buick, was gone.
“I’m so sorry, Annie, I don’t know what to tell you. Everyone’s been wiped out,” he said, breaking the news as gently as possible.
Donnie and I, and about 900 other athletes, doctors, lawyers, and businessmen, many from the Palm Springs area, had invested in a company that only a few years before seemed to be a sure thing.
Technical Equities board of Directors read like a who’s who of the day. Robert Campbell, CEO of Newsweek, and astronaut Eugene Cernan, were among them. High profile players in the world of finance were so certain of TE’s return that they happily sunk large sums into the company. When prominent doctors and athletes we knew in the desert did the same, we followed suit. Now word on the street was that the company was filing bankruptcy.
The Bernie Madoff of his day, Harry C. Stern was the founding partner and manager of Technical Equities. Jurors would find that every tax return from 1969 to 1986 had been false—nothing more than one big Ponzi scheme.
My quarter of a million dollars had gone up in smoke. It was a clobbering unlike anything I’d ever experienced as an athlete. If I’d lost a game because we’d been outplayed, or came in second in an event because of an injury, at least there was some sense to it. This was inexplicable. Like a car accident, it came from out of nowhere, causing instant destruction.
I’m young. I can recoup. I’ve still got my broadcasting career ahead of me, I told myself. I was still living with Mom when I was in California, so I didn’t have the expenses and responsibilities compared to those whose finances had been decimated and feared they couldn’t possibly ever get that money back (Many years later 60% of investors’ funds were returned). I thought about older couples and people who were raising families, like Raiders player, Pete Banaszak, who according to Sports Illustrated had lost nearly twice what I had, and was counting on that money to put his kids through college. I felt terrible not just for me, but for them.
Money and I had already established a sketchy track record. I’d botched my $150,000 deal with the Pacers by canceling the contract and then sat out the second year with the WBL waiting to get paid for the first year, not realizing the organization would fold in its third year. I was starting to think maybe I didn’t have a green thumb, or a green anything else. Was this just par for the course? I’d worked hard to earn what I’d made, but I wondered if fate had decided that money and I simply weren’t meant to be together.
However far and wide the Technical Equities’ financial meltdown was felt in the world of American athletes, that February, a global meltdown with far more serious and greater reaching repercussions was about to take place in a part of the world I was preparing to visit.
On April 26th, 1986, the Ukraine’s Chernobyl Nuclear Power plant’s reactor #4 melted down, spewing large quantities of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere. The plume drifted over much of the Western Soviet Union and Europe. Thirty-one deaths were directly attributed to the accident, but everyone was aware of the potential threat the toxic air posed for those living in the region. I had turned thirty-one the month before, and now I was heading to Moscow to broadcast the Goodwill Games for TNT. Like everybody else who found themselves heading to that part of the world, I wondered how my own health would be affected.
When I arrived in Moscow, the first thing I decided was that I wouldn’t eat the local food, fearing contamination. There was a microwave in the hotel, so I existed on popcorn and orange drinks bottled somewhere else. I steered clear of milk, vegetables, fruit, and meat. I’d always been able to eat whatever I wanted and not gain a pound. Now I wondered how long I’d last. I missed American food. Heck, I missed food! I also missed home and Donnie, and I wondered when I’d wake up and start missing that $250,000. I wasn’t in the greatest of places in my head. But then, the earth wasn’t in the greatest of conditions in the universe.
The 1986 Goodwill Games were designed to accomplish something very noble, but because of the nuclear disaster and the escalating arms race, they were playing out against a dark backdrop. Those first few days, I could never have guessed how everything would end up. It had been eleven years since the two countries’ athletes had competed on such a world stage—eleven years since the Soviet women had shredded us by thirty-five points.
I was announcing with my old pal Rick Barry and 1956 Gold Medal Olympian and Boston Celtic great, Bill Russell. Like Rick, Bill was also a friend. As basketball greats, they were very familiar with the Soviet women’s global domination on the court. But having never lost to the Soviet women themselves, they weren’t quite as invested in seeing the U.S. Women’s team succeed like I was. That year, 6’8” Anne Donovan was playing for the U.S., and she would negate the size of the Russian giantess, Semjonova. On July 11, under Coach Kay Yow, Donovan, Katrina McClain Johnson, Denise Curry, Cheryl Miller, and Teresa Edwards trounced the world champions 83 to 60, breaking their 152-game winning streak that had lasted twenty-eight years.
I was through the roof and over the moon, and nearly unable to keep my emotions in check. It was a historic day and a long time coming. I had always worn my patriotism on my sleeve, but probably never more than that day. There was a changing of the guard, and it was palpable. I began to tear up at the end, knowing that not only had the U.S. women’s team finally beat them, but we’d done it on their home turf. It may have been a game of goodwill, but we were still archrivals, and the competition in Moscow in ’86 was as fierce as it had ever been.
Before I did the interview with Anne Donovan, I put on my highest heels so that the cameraman could get us together in the shot, but she still towered over me. I was so proud of her and her teammates. Some thought the Goodwill Games may have even helped pave the way for peace, as Turner had hoped. Months later, Reagan would make his famous speech in West Berlin urging the Russian leader to open the gate and “Tear down this wall.” Eventually Reagan and Gorbachev would sign a pact to reduce nuclear arsenals and eliminate intermediate and shorter-range nuclear missiles—an atomic-age first.
But for now, the U.S. would simply be happy with our showing in Moscow. Among the 142 Gold medal U.S. winners, was Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who broke the heptathlon record with a score of 7,148 points. She would later write in her autobiography that she had decided to attend UCLA after seeing me play on the UCLA Championship Team on TV and after seeing Evelyn Ashford run track and field for the Bruins. Watching two women who had both already become Olympians, each wearing the UCLA jerseys, sold her. I was happy and proud of Jackie, just as I was elated for the US women’s basketball team, but more than anything I was glad to be returning home. I was looking forward to some good old American meat, bread, potatoes, and milk. Mostly I was looking forward to seeing Donnie.
Our long phone conversations weren’t possible while I’d been traveling. There was no Skype, email, or cell phones. We had both been so busy, and the time difference made it near impossible to connect, so I wrote him letters. The flight home was long. I thought about how I had missed him, how he had asked me so many times to marry him over the years
and how I had always said, “just quit asking me.” Even after his divorce, I said no. It was largely because I worried about what he would tell his parents and his daughter, and I didn’t think it was a good idea to rush from one marriage straight into another. It had been six years since we had first met, and a tiny part of me wondered whether he would ever ask again.
After the plane touched ground, I made my way through the international terminal to Customs, and there he was, with that great smile and disarming manner that made everyone want to be his friend. We hugged, and all I could think of was how much I had missed him. After we collected my luggage, we drove to a hotel nearby LAX. On the way, I told Donnie about how I’d been surviving on microwave popcorn since the Chernobyl disaster had scared me away from trying anything grown in the region. I told him about the press conferences, the games, how the U.S. women did us proud.
Even with all the traveling I’d done playing basketball, I’d never been to all of the places I’d seen in just the last year. Rome, Paris, London, all of the most romantic places in the world, and at each stop, all I could think was how I had wished Don were there with me. But I’d never missed him more than I had in Moscow.
Finally, we were together after what had seemed like forever. About a half a mile from the hotel, with his left hand gripping the wheel, he reached into his pocket with his right hand and pulled out a little box and handed it to me.
“What do you think?” he said, letting a little grin play out on his face. My mind took a mental picture of how the street lights illuminated the small dimple on either side of his cheeks and the tiny cleft in his chin, and the bits of grey in his full head of hair shimmering.
“What are you asking me?” Of course I knew what he was asking me, but I wanted to hear it again. I wanted to make sure this was really happening, and that this time I was actually, completely ready.
“Will you marry me?”
Hearing those words now, I knew it was right. I knew I couldn’t have been more ready. I was so excited that I reached over and gave him the biggest hug and kiss I could muster, almost swerving us right off the road.
18
Juggling It All – Life With Don and Our Children
“Those who dance are considered insane by those who do not hear the music.”
~ George Carlin
On November 1st, 1986, Judge John Flynn presided over another wedding ceremony in which more than half the guests were Meyers, this time at the Club at Morningside in Rancho Mirage. Never before had so many Bloody Mary’s been served before noon. Everyone was on vacation in a place where wildflowers bloomed in autumn and the only high-rises for miles had palm fronds shooting out the tops.
I wore a cream-colored lace, knee-length dress with short puffy sleeves that covered my shoulders and a garland made of pink carnations and baby’s breath in my hair. Don wore an off-white sports jacket and a tie which was perfectly appropriate, since this wasn’t a big church wedding, though I know that’s certainly what my mom would have preferred. But Don would have had to fill out a three-hundred-page annulment document in order for the two of us to be married in the Church, and that sure wasn’t going to happen.
The Club at Morningside on that sunny November day was as beautiful as any bride could hope for. Its huge windows looked out past a sea of perfectly manicured fairways, which framed the mountains off in the distance. We’d been living there in the home we bought on the 8th fairway behind a lake. Donnie knew the country club owner, Don Johnson, and the golf pro, Vern Fraser, so it just felt right.
Donnie’s best man was his good friend, Gene Mauch, one of baseball’s greatest managers. I chose my oldest sister, Patty, to be my maid of honor. It was a tough choice because I was so close to all of my sisters and I had many good friends. But Patty was my oldest sister, and I hoped everyone would understand.
We’d set the date for November because it was after the baseball season, and Donnie was still broadcasting the White Sox games out of Chicago. It didn’t give us a lot of time, but luckily everything had come together quickly and easily. Many of Donnie’s good friends were there, like Chuck Connors, Sparky Anderson and his wife, Carol, and Gene Autry and his wife, Jackie, who owned a home in the desert. Don’s daughter, Kelly, parents Scotty and Verna, and sister Nancy and her husband and family were also there, making it the perfect opportunity for our two families to become better acquainted.
I knew the guests would be expecting my dad to walk me down the aisle, but my relationship with him had always been complicated. I didn’t want Mom to be any less involved in my wedding, so I asked them both to walk me down the aisle. They hadn’t seen each other since Kelly’s death.
There had been plenty of Meyers events since then, of course, but none with as much laughter. Everyone danced while the drinks flowed. At one point, after Bob Uecker gave his toast, Donnie and I were dancing when Ueckie came up and tapped on Donnie’s shoulder. Thinking that Ueckie wanted to dance with me, I turned toward him, but he grabbed Donnie’s hand instead and the two of them waltzed around the room, a couple of clowns grinning from ear to ear while everybody howled. It was like the Bob Hope/ Bing Crosby Road To… films, with me as Dorothy Lamour.
It was impossible for anyone to spend much time around these two and not find their belly sore from laughing so hard. And it was good to see Mom smile. That night, there was every bit as much laughter as there had been that first night when we all had dinner together in the Bahamas, but this time instead of stewing about how I’d done in the Superstars, I was laughing, too.
After the reception Ueckie and his wife, Judy, got in their car and followed Donnie and me to Dominic’s, a great old restaurant about two miles from The Club where we’d planned to have dinner. On the way, Don drove through a yellow light and Ueckie followed behind just as the light turned red. One of Rancho Mirage’s finest stopped Ueckie, who explained that he was in Don Drysdale’s wedding party.
“Have you been drinking?”
“Well, my best friend just got married. I hope so.”
“If I let you go, do you promise not to have another drink while you’re in there?”
“I promise.”
“You better not, because I’m going to follow you, and when you come out, I’ll be at your car, waiting.”
Of course Ueckie proceeded to have a couple of drinks during dinner, and when we finished he and his wife headed out to their car, and sure enough, there was the officer, waiting.
“After you, my dear,” Ueckie told Judy, opening the driver’s side door so that she could slide in behind the wheel and drive them home. There was nothing the officer could do but smile. Ueckie and Donnie had that effect on people.
They had first met when they were in their twenties down in Vero Beach, Uecker at his first spring training with the Braves, and Donnie playing for the Dodgers. Donnie gave everybody a nickname and soon ‘Ueckie’ stuck. Ueckie liked to tell about the first time Donnie threw a pitch to him and it went over his head. “I had no idea what a bad pitcher he was.” Of course, Ueckie realized soon enough that Donnie had done it as a joke. They loved to tease each other whenever they could, but never on the field. “He’d bean his own mom if she swung at one of his good pitches,” Ueckie always said. “You never messed with Don when he was pitching.”
When the two slap–happy friends weren’t behaving like Bing and Bob, they were acting like Felix and Oscar. I don’t know that I’d call him fastidious, but Donnie was certainly proud of our home in Rancho Mirage, which looked out beyond the lake onto the pass where the San Jacinto and San Gorgonio mountains converged. I’d watched him oversee the building of several homes, and he was particular about what he chose and how the place looked. Our desert home was beautiful, and Donnie wanted to keep it that way. Especially when Ueckie came to visit.
Donnie would make drinks, put them down on coasters, and during the course of conversation, Ueckie would casually pick up his drink, take a sip, then purposely set it down on the glass table, right next to th
e coaster. Donnie would grab a towel, wipe up the ring, then place the drink back on the coaster, from which Ueckie would move it again. Then Ueckie would get up, walk around, touch a window or move a trinket or a piece of furniture, knowing that Donnie would be right behind him, straightening up, oblivious to the fact that Ueckie was doing it all intentionally.
Donnie had worked hard to get where he was. He’d been a smart investor who’d owned restaurants in Hawaii and properties in California. But his divorce had been costly. When he asked me to sign a pre-nup, I had absolutely no problem doing it. I wasn’t marrying him for his money. I knew I could take care of myself. I didn’t need a man to provide for me. I needed him only to love me and to laugh with me. And, occasionally, to compete with me.
Donnie and I loved to compete at golf. And there was no such thing as a friendly game. As much as I loved playing golf with Donnie, I still played pick-up basketball and tennis.
We weren’t married for long when I became pregnant with our first child, but I continued to compete and broadcast. There wasn’t a lot of free time, but when we found it, we played golf—and my swing never felt better. I had to slow down and go around my tummy. When I was pregnant, I ate well and took good care of myself, especially when I was on the road broadcasting. But I knew that exercise was good for me and the baby, so I ran and played basketball, working clinics here and there. I also knew that when the big day arrived, I wanted Donnie to be in the delivery room with me, so I asked him a few months into my pregnancy how he felt about that.
You Let Some Girl Beat You? Page 17