May 7, 1989: Not like O'Strowsky's on bread and water
Amazing thing happened today, in that it’s amazing it didn’t happen sooner. It wasn’t such a big thing that you’d notice if you weren’t looking for it or you were new to the place. You have to know the people to know something’s up. O’Strowsky, who’s a skinny guy and normally so full of energy drives the editors nuts sometimes, first time we noticed him after lunch looked drained, like someone pulled the plug on him somehow. Didn’t think too much of it, with 24 pages of magazine to get down to production, but when break came and I took one couple of guys had noticed it too and were talking about it.
E-Boe, who has the ear of the publisher sort of, says he knew right off what was going on. “Geez, thought you guys would’ve guessed,” he says. “O’Strowsky is on double-secret probation.”
Now, people call it “double-secret probation,” like in the movie, as a kind of joke, since everything’s a joke around here. Actually there’s nothing’s funny about double-secret probation if you’re interested in keeping your job, which O’Strowsky is, on account of what he does being so specialized that no one else would want to hire him, and then he’s O’Strowsky besides, sort of halfway between prickly and goofy, and not everyone wants that. There’s never anything secret about it, that part’s wrong, not in what acts like a newsroom sometimes filled with people who can remember stuff from their college journalism classes when they want to.
“Hey, now that’s a surprise,” Whitey says. Whitey always figured he was next because he never holds back a punch when the chin is out there, and with O’Strowsky getting it that lets Whitey know he’s next. Whitey is the saddest guy in the building that O’Strowsky on double-secret probation outside of O’Strowsky himself.
The upshot of the conversation to that point is, “Okay, so who’d he tee off now?”, since part of what O’Strowsky is is a guy who will off and say what he wants to about someone only he’s just saying it to be funny, because it’s a good line, because the words fall together right, and the guy on the receiving end doesn’t see it that way. He reads it as an insult straight up when it’s really just O’Strowsky not taking it serious. O’Strowsky says he’s been like that ever since he was able to write, even had to get on the P.A. system in junior high and apologize for calling dirtballs “dirtballs” in the school newspaper. When you’re doing retractions in junior high you got a career path all laid out for you, no question.
When people start figuring out who O’Strowsky coulda teed off enough to get himself on double-secret probation the list just keeps getting longer and longer, with everyone going around the table naming someone O’Strowsky crossed the wrong side of somewhere along the line.
“Oh, geez, F.F. Bosway,” Bulk says, naming a guy who reps a real bad sports artist half the time and some pretty good baseball cards the other half the time, only he keeps trying to weasel the bad sports artist into the good baseball cards and O’Strowsky keeps calling him on it. O’Strowsky also doesn’t like the way F.F. Bosway talks about the successful career on Wall Street he gave up to rep a bad sports artist. “If he was so damn successful, what’s he doing in this business with this guy?” O’Strowsky asks, and he’s got a point.
“I’m in -- Barry Glevin,” Donnie B says. Glevin is 16 years old, a millionaire and totally obnoxious because he’s 16 years old and from Long Island and a Yankee fan and a millionaire eight times over from using his dad’s money to buy a couple thousand cases of baseball cards just before the boom hit. After that he started his own card company and bought up rights to the popular young players in all the sports, rookies of the year and draft picks before they go sour. He poses with ‘em in pictures, chubby, curly-headed kid next to a seven-foot-tall monster and a 350-pound run-stuffer. Pictures look great on dart boards. Glevin has ‘em sign balls and then he sells the balls with the cards, which isn’t such a bad idea other than it was Glevin thought of it so he makes it out to be a whole lot better idea than it really is. Glevin’ll call up O’Strowsky and command him to write about his cards knowing O’Strowsky’ll write what a ripoff the cards are. Once that happens Glevin whines to Baumer until Baumer gives Glevin a full page gratis so Glevin won’t pull his ads. It’s a stinking way to make money, at least not spend money, but it’s easy to do when you’re 16 and don’t care what happens when you’re 25.
Homer votes for Guy Lee Partley, another ego with legs attached who made his millions selling leisure suits through the mail and brought that experience intact to sports cards. He’ll hit you up with a big, colorful brochure advertising 100 1987 Topps cards for 10 bucks, cards you can buy for a buck at any card show, flea market or rummage sale. Even buys TV time on Sunday mornings to sell his cards, gets on TV himself to sell them, the big ham. O’Strowsky doesn’t like Guy Lee Partley thinking he’s qualified to sell baseball cards because he used to sell leisure suits, doesn’t like his big ham face showing up on TV when there used to be Looney Tunes and the Jetsons, doesn’t like getting called up by Partley and patted on the back over the telephone, and really doesn’t like him taking advantage of folks who don’t know any better and aren’t in a position to buy O’Strowsky’s magazine to know better.
The Phantom votes for the Fat Man because the Fat Man hates everyone.
Duke says Baumer “scapled the corporate ladder” to get back at O’Strowsky.
E-Boe says, “Well, you’re all wrong, boys. You all know who Dick Rickens is, right?”, and we all nod, because everyone’s read his book about pitching in the ‘60s, Sox It To Me. O’Strowsky says he read it 11 times between the ages of 11 and 17, which is exactly the way everyone thought O'Strowsky spent his formative years. “Dick Rickens has got that company makes baseball cards of the pictures you send in. Good idea, made him a lot of money, cool and so forth. However – and this is interesting – company got in hot water recently because a guy who turned out to be a convicted child molester had a whole bunch of cards made. Turns out that was his angle – ask kids whether they want to be on baseball cards, then get the camera out and take his kind of pictures. They catch the guy – wasn’t trying hard to not get caught – and ask him how he found out about Dick Rickens’ company, guy gives them O’Strowsky’s name. Child molester reads O’Strowsky’s magazine, calls up O’Strowsky and asks him a question I bet O’Strowsky gets asked twice a week, that’s how popular these cards are -- and you remember the piece he wrote about them. O’Strowsky gives him the answer; he doesn’t know. Now the guy turns out to be a child molester, he gives ‘em O’Strowsky’s name, company has to do something to show it’s taking it seriously – beats me what it is they’re supposed to be taking seriously – and O’Strowsky gets double-secret probation.
“It’s not long – only a week – and it’s not bread and water or anything. Just has to be nice to people who call, tone down the negative stuff for an issue, he’ll be fine.”
“And if Barry Glevin calls?” Donnie B says.
“Has to be nice to him, I suppose. And write nice things about his cards for a change.”
“Baumer know about this?” Bulk asks, but all Donnie B says is, “It’s gonna kill him. It’s just gonna freakin’ kill him.” Whitey, on the other hand, is smiling.
Amazing thing happened today, in that it’s amazing it didn’t happen sooner. It wasn’t such a big thing that you’d notice if you weren’t looking for it or you were new to the place. You have to know the people to know something’s up. O’Strowsky, who’s a skinny guy and normally so full of energy drives the editors nuts sometimes, first time we noticed him after lunch looked drained, like someone pulled the plug on him somehow. Didn’t think too much of it, with 24 pages of magazine to get down to production, but when break came and I took one couple of guys had noticed it too and were talking about it.
E-Boe, who has the ear of the publisher sort of, says he knew right off what was going on. “Geez, thought you guys would’ve guessed,” he says. “O’Strowsky is on double-secret probation.”
Now, people call it “double-secret probation,” like in the movie, as a kind of joke, since everything’s a joke around here. Actually there’s nothing’s funny about double-secret probation if you’re interested in keeping your job, which O’Strowsky is, on account of what he does being so specialized that no one else would want to hire him, and then he’s O’Strowsky besides, sort of halfway between prickly and goofy, and not everyone wants that. There’s never anything secret about it, that part’s wrong, not in what acts like a newsroom sometimes filled with people who can remember stuff from their college journalism classes when they want to.
“Hey, now that’s a surprise,” Whitey says. Whitey always figured he was next because he never holds back a punch when the chin is out there, and with O’Strowsky getting it that lets Whitey know he’s next. Whitey is the saddest guy in the building that O’Strowsky on double-secret probation outside of O’Strowsky himself.
The upshot of the conversation to that point is, “Okay, so who’d he tee off now?”, since part of what O’Strowsky is is a guy who will off and say what he wants to about someone only he’s just saying it to be funny, because it’s a good line, because the words fall together right, and the guy on the receiving end doesn’t see it that way. He reads it as an insult straight up when it’s really just O’Strowsky not taking it serious. O’Strowsky says he’s been like that ever since he was able to write, even had to get on the P.A. system in junior high and apologize for calling dirtballs “dirtballs” in the school newspaper. When you’re doing retractions in junior high you got a career path all laid out for you, no question.
When people start figuring out who O’Strowsky coulda teed off enough to get himself on double-secret probation the list just keeps getting longer and longer, with everyone going around the table naming someone O’Strowsky crossed the wrong side of somewhere along the line.
“Oh, geez, F.F. Bosway,” Bulk says, naming a guy who reps a real bad sports artist half the time and some pretty good baseball cards the other half the time, only he keeps trying to weasel the bad sports artist into the good baseball cards and O’Strowsky keeps calling him on it. O’Strowsky also doesn’t like the way F.F. Bosway talks about the successful career on Wall Street he gave up to rep a bad sports artist. “If he was so damn successful, what’s he doing in this business with this guy?” O’Strowsky asks, and he’s got a point.
“I’m in -- Barry Glevin,” Donnie B says. Glevin is 16 years old, a millionaire and totally obnoxious because he’s 16 years old and from Long Island and a Yankee fan and a millionaire eight times over from using his dad’s money to buy a couple thousand cases of baseball cards just before the boom hit. After that he started his own card company and bought up rights to the popular young players in all the sports, rookies of the year and draft picks before they go sour. He poses with ‘em in pictures, chubby, curly-headed kid next to a seven-foot-tall monster and a 350-pound run-stuffer. Pictures look great on dart boards. Glevin has ‘em sign balls and then he sells the balls with the cards, which isn’t such a bad idea other than it was Glevin thought of it so he makes it out to be a whole lot better idea than it really is. Glevin’ll call up O’Strowsky and command him to write about his cards knowing O’Strowsky’ll write what a ripoff the cards are. Once that happens Glevin whines to Baumer until Baumer gives Glevin a full page gratis so Glevin won’t pull his ads. It’s a stinking way to make money, at least not spend money, but it’s easy to do when you’re 16 and don’t care what happens when you’re 25.
Homer votes for Guy Lee Partley, another ego with legs attached who made his millions selling leisure suits through the mail and brought that experience intact to sports cards. He’ll hit you up with a big, colorful brochure advertising 100 1987 Topps cards for 10 bucks, cards you can buy for a buck at any card show, flea market or rummage sale. Even buys TV time on Sunday mornings to sell his cards, gets on TV himself to sell them, the big ham. O’Strowsky doesn’t like Guy Lee Partley thinking he’s qualified to sell baseball cards because he used to sell leisure suits, doesn’t like his big ham face showing up on TV when there used to be Looney Tunes and the Jetsons, doesn’t like getting called up by Partley and patted on the back over the telephone, and really doesn’t like him taking advantage of folks who don’t know any better and aren’t in a position to buy O’Strowsky’s magazine to know better.
The Phantom votes for the Fat Man because the Fat Man hates everyone.
Duke says Baumer “scapled the corporate ladder” to get back at O’Strowsky.
E-Boe says, “Well, you’re all wrong, boys. You all know who Dick Rickens is, right?”, and we all nod, because everyone’s read his book about pitching in the ‘60s, Sox It To Me. O’Strowsky says he read it 11 times between the ages of 11 and 17, which is exactly the way everyone thought O'Strowsky spent his formative years. “Dick Rickens has got that company makes baseball cards of the pictures you send in. Good idea, made him a lot of money, cool and so forth. However – and this is interesting – company got in hot water recently because a guy who turned out to be a convicted child molester had a whole bunch of cards made. Turns out that was his angle – ask kids whether they want to be on baseball cards, then get the camera out and take his kind of pictures. They catch the guy – wasn’t trying hard to not get caught – and ask him how he found out about Dick Rickens’ company, guy gives them O’Strowsky’s name. Child molester reads O’Strowsky’s magazine, calls up O’Strowsky and asks him a question I bet O’Strowsky gets asked twice a week, that’s how popular these cards are -- and you remember the piece he wrote about them. O’Strowsky gives him the answer; he doesn’t know. Now the guy turns out to be a child molester, he gives ‘em O’Strowsky’s name, company has to do something to show it’s taking it seriously – beats me what it is they’re supposed to be taking seriously – and O’Strowsky gets double-secret probation.
“It’s not long – only a week – and it’s not bread and water or anything. Just has to be nice to people who call, tone down the negative stuff for an issue, he’ll be fine.”
“And if Barry Glevin calls?” Donnie B says.
“Has to be nice to him, I suppose. And write nice things about his cards for a change.”
“Baumer know about this?” Bulk asks, but all Donnie B says is, “It’s gonna kill him. It’s just gonna freakin’ kill him.” Whitey, on the other hand, is smiling.
posted by Kit Kiefer | 7:00 PM
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