Our Worst Sports Figure Related experiences

By the TSB Staff 

Paul M. Banks…

It’s funny how both my best and worst days interacting with a sports figure stemmed from the same article. In 2006, I published a feature on how both of Chicago’s professional teams market themselves.
http://www.therealchicago.org/0104cubssox.htm

I started the project by trying to get a hold of Cubs marketing Vice President John McDonough. Instead, after a few days of non response, they gave me this useless pile of trash from McDonough’s little yes-man lackey, Jay Blunk, director of promotions and advertising. (Both have now moved on to new and more powerful positions in the Chicago Black Hawks front office. Personally, I think these two make the late Bill Wirtz look like a nice guy.) My editor/publisher cut the whole interview portion; sadly, these are the more interesting and thoughtful of Blunk’s responses. He would have been better off just ignoring me completely. Note what a complete knob he was to me here. And yes “knob” is a technical term from within the field of journalism.

PMB: What is the demographic(s) of Cub fans?

JB: Cubs baseball fans crossover all demographics.

PMB: How has being owned by a media corporation influenced Cubs marketing and branding?

JB: It’s been a terrific marketing advantage.

PMB: How has the White Sox World Series title affected the dynamic of the rivalry with the Cubs?

 JB: It has raised the awareness of baseball as a whole in the Chicago market.

So instead of giving the team some free publicity and advertisement for their product, I wrote this passage, basically calling the Cubs and the Tribune company the evil thought police.

“In addition to the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field Premium Ticket Services, Tribune company holdings include: WGN radio, the WGN TV super-station, the Red Eye, the Chicago Tribune, Chicago magazine, CLTV, Metromix, Hoy and the WB. An exceptionally powerful media corporation such as this can shape public opinion and overshadow events unfavorable to their investments. Cub fans have stayed loyal despite losing seasons on the field and very disagreeable policies by management off the field. In recent years, the front office has been criticized for scalping their own tickets through Wrigley Field Premium Ticket services, creating false security threats as an excuse to deprive neighboring rooftop owners and street vendors of revenue, being less than completely truthful about the health of star pitchers Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, unfair treatment of ex-WGN broadcaster and beloved Chicago icon Steve Stone, and allowing a potential conflict of interest to exist within the organization. (The editor of the Chicago Tribune sports department Dan McGrath and team manager Dusty Baker maintain a very close friendship.) However, as any Cubs fan who waits for hours each February to get tickets (whether it be in the frigid wristband line or their workstation’s virtual waiting room) will attest, none of this negative press has affected the demand for Cubs tickets.”

 That’s right. Look at the Tribune Company stock fall! burn baby burn.

Brooks Boyer, the White Sox counterpart to McDonough on the other hand was very accommodating and afforded me every professional courtesy, including a media credential for a game after the article was published. My friends thought my article had a heavy Sox bias, because they know what a hard core White Sox fan I am. Given the contrasting experiences I had with both front offices…of course the piece turned out that way!  It wasn’t all bad though. For the Cubs marketing analysis, I utilized the insights of my two mentors: WSCR 670 The Score midday co-host Dan Bernstein and Evanthia Geroulis, Loyola University marketing professor. One is from the world of media, the other business, so it worked out perfectly. And I got to do this wonderful interview with Brooks Boyer, Vice President of Marketing for the Chicago White Sox. I had no problem letting him just shill away here.

GO SOX!
To read the Brooks Boyer exclusive
http://www.therealchicago.org/0104cubssox.htm
 

David K.’s Worst Experience with a Professional Athlete:

This is by far my most embarrassing moment as a member of the working media.  I was sent to cover the Minnesota Wild’s home opener in 2005.  The Wild were playing Calgary and at the time former Wisconsin Badger Steve Reinprecht was playing for the Flames.  At the conclusion, I was going to get post-game sound in Minnesota’s locker room and then heading into Calgary’s side and talk to Reinprecht.

Let me preface the following by saying that I am, like the majority of sports fans, not a very big NHL fan or follower.  Once you take the jersey off the back of a player, I can maybe pick out 10 guys in a line-up by name.  So I head into the Flames’ locker room and find the public relations guy for the team and tell him that I work in Wisconsin and that I was hoping to talk to Reinprecht.  He says he’ll find him and send him out to talk to me once he is all dressed.  My photographer and I are waiting around for about five minutes when a player walks directly up to us.  I say, “Hi Steve, blah, blah, blah… I want to talk you about your journey from Madison to the NHL.”  He says, “sounds good” and I start firing some softball questions at him, first about the start of the season and then the new rules that the NHL has put into place.

Transition to the following exchange:

Me: “Talk me to about your experience playing in Madison and how it
prepared you for the NHL.”

Steve (with a dumb-founded look on his face): “Madison? (thinking)
Madison? (thinking) I think you got the wrong guy. Who are you looking
 for?”

Me: (terrified) “Steve Reinprecht?”

Not Steve: “I’m Damien Langkow.  (disgusted) You got the wrong guy.”

Needless to say, I wanted to A.) crawl in a hole, B) kill the Calgary PR guy who was standing just ten feet from me during this entire exchange.  I will now officially never forget Langkow, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that idiot reporter in Minnesota never escapes his mind.

 
 

Soxman’s worst….

Even not so good interactions with sports figures can leave positive memories of the comedic variety…
 
-When Ozzie Guillen was a player, I heard a vintage tirade of vulgarities that would have made Scarface blush. A young Soxman asked for his autograph and instead heard the words, “No Habla Engles.”
 
-During a game in which Jose Canseco was getting heckled in right field, he received a beer shower as he went for a corner double.  Determined to figure out who it was, he kept staring into the stands; and when I waved to him, I was invited to (you know), through a very specific grabbing gesture.
 
-As Soxman, I was called a freak by Carlos Zambranno.  I took Big Z’s comment as a compliment and offered him a Red Bull.
 
You see sports fans, even through a bad experience you can learn how you would treat people if you ever were in a similar situation.  To non-Sox fans reading this, let’s just avoid the beer showers.

Seymour Pennants’
http://Since1908clothing.com

Babe Ruth farted at me after we called him a fatass from the stands sometime back in the ’30s. God only knows what crawled up and died inside The Babe’s huge tush, but it cleared the stands.

But the best yet…Pittsburgh fans used to throw D Cell batteries at Dave Parker (the star of their own team) in the outfield when he was having a bad year back in the 80’s, based on Bob Prince (Pittsburgh’s version of Harry Caray) suggesting Parker needed a charge. How bad would a D Cell battery hurt? Parker wore his batting helmet into the outfield that season.

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