Hail and Farewell, Yankee Stadium

Yes, a blog bidding farewell to Yankee Stadium will not win the "Most Original Idea For A Blog" sweepstakes this week. But since my last blog before this detailed my memorable last trip ever to Shea Stadium, there's kind of a nice synergy here.

My wife, Peri, and I were lucky enough to be invited to the last game ever at Yankee Stadium last night. (Thanks to my friend of 34 years, Keith Olbermann, for inviting us. You're a good man, KO!). It was a happy and uplifting experience, and - to my surprise - not the least bit sad.

That's because it really is all about the moments and memories. Yankee Stadium is beautiful when you're already sitting in your seat, staring out at the lush green field. If you're on your way TO the Stadium, or in its halls, walkways, and concession areas, not so much. To call it a "pit" wouldn't be inaccurate.

Also, it's been well documented elsewhere that THIS is not the Yankee Stadium of Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, most recently by Tom Verducci in Sports Illustrated.

My most memorable moments occurred in the now long-dead Yankee Stadium, the one with the poles obstructing the views from the reserved seats, the one with the original steel facade lining the top of the upper deck. That's where I saw my first Yankee game in May of 1967 with my grandfather. And that's where I had MY most memorable in-person moment.

It was Memorial Day, 1968. The once-great Mickey Mantle was in his final year as a Yankee, a shadow of his former self, but still a favorite of the fans and one very enthusiastic 12-year old fan - me.

The Yankees played the Washington Senators in a doubleheader (remember those?) and for one day, Mickey was 25 again. In game one, he went 5-for-5 with two tremendous home runs into the upper deck in right field. I'd never heard a crowd roar that loud in my life. The Yankees won that game 13-4, and although they lost the second game, that's still the game that stands out in my mind as a personal favorite.

I'm told by people in the know (OK, it was KO)that when people walk into the new Yankee Stadium, they'll rediscover the OLD Yankee Stadium. KO says while the Mets went for "functional" with Citifield, the Yankees went for "iconic", and nailed it. I'll be looking forward to returning to the Yankee Stadium of my youth next season. With much cleaner bathrooms!

My Brush With Beatle Greatness

With six words, Billy Joel gave about 60,000 Shea Stadium fans the thrill of a lifetime last night: "Ladies and gentlemen, Sir Paul McCartney!"

Not since Mookie's grounder went through Buckner's legs has Shea Stadium been as loud or shook as hard as it did last night.

It was Billy Joel's "Last Play At Shea" - the second of two concerts designed to give Shea, which is closing at year's end, its musical sendoff.

We knew there would be "special musical guests" - the names had been leaked, so everyone knew that Tony Bennett, Garth Brooks, Steven Tyler, and Roger Daltrey would all come on for one song at some point. They did, and they were terrific.

But when Billy came back for an encore - and everyone was expecting to hear the opening notes to "Piano Man" - he threw one of the best curveballs in the history of Shea Stadium: "Ladies and gentlemen, Sir Paul McCartney!".

When they began to play "I Saw Her Standing There", I nearly wept. Yes, I know, if you're not of a certain age, that reaction seems ridiculous. I am. And it's not. And when he came out again and played "Let It Be" - there were some dry eyes in the house, but I didn't see them.

I watched the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. I bought every album. My sister was a member of their fan club. In short: I did (and do) love the Beatles. Obviously, I'm a little late on the idea of ever seeing them live. But I came damn close last night!

So thanks to Billy Joel - a terrific musician and performer who gladly upstaged himself to bring Sir Paul on. And give Beatle fans like me the thrill of a lifetime.

Caught Up In The Gadgetry

The gadgeteers finally got me.

As much as I like and admire the wonders of modern electronics, I'm not what you'd call an early adopter. I'm the type of person who hears about something neat and useful, then waits for all the early bugs to be worked out. Then, if I determine it's something I might want, I go out and buy the second version. Or third. Or fourth. Or maybe never.

This especially applies to mobile phones. iPhones? Don't have one. Don't want one. Nothing against Apple or others, but I have a standard line that I use when someone shows me their spiffy new smart phone. I take my phone, point to it, and say "you know what this one can do?" My audience waits in breathless anticipation of the answer, and then I finally say, after sufficient pause .. "It makes phone calls!!".

This attempt at comedy gets varied reactions, but I really have only used my phone for one purpose: to make calls.

Until this week.

Our family is on Verizon's "New Every Two" plan, whose main feature is that two of the words in the title rhyme, but also lets you have a new phone for free (or a discount) after two years. (Actually, they just changed it to 20 months, but that didn't rhyme, so they kept "new every two" as the slogan ..)

My wife and I both picked out very nice new (free) phones that work just fine. And so, I thought I was ready for another two years (or 20 months) of saying "Hey look! This phone makes calls!"

But then, I discovered a new mind-boggling feature: if a song is playing in the nearby vicinity and you press a certain button, the phone listens to the song and then tells you what song it is! Then, of course, it offers you the opportunity to buy the song and/or a matching ringtone. But you don't have to do that - the song ID feature is free.

They got me. I'm totally obsessed with this.

I've been identifying songs off my computer, off loudspeakers, off car radios, off anywhere that has a song since I got it. I don't know why this has hooked me, other than that I like music, and I love marketing ideas that are so damn clever you don't even mind that the purveyor is trying to sell you something.

So, the last few days, in the midst of the hoopla over the new iPhone, I've been taking my Motorola out and waving it around as usual. But no longer am I touting the virtues of a phone that makes phone calls. Now it's all about identifying songs!

Oh yeah, it DOES make calls. I think. I haven't made one yet. I've been too busy seeing if my phone really can tell "I Wanna Be Sedated" from "Chances Are".

The Terrifying Torah

There's a venerable old saying that tells us to face our fears as a way of getting over them.

I've been doing just that - or trying to - by doing something that, in the Jewish religion, is considered a mitzvah, or good deed: reading the Torah during religious services.

I'm not talking about picking up the prayer book and reading a few passages, or watching Mel Brooks carry the Ten Commandments down the mountain during the hilarious "History of the World Part I".

I'm talking about walking up in front of EVERYONE, standing in front of the scroll, and reading - and singing - an entire portion or two. I've done it a few times a year for the past several years, and I still quake in my boots whenever I do.

Imagine standing in front of a crowd reading a book out loud. Not so bad, right? Now imagine that you have to sing the book. A little more difficult. Now imagine that someone took all the vowels out of the words. How's that book looking now? How about, just for fun, we remove all the punctuation and paragraph marks? Did I mention that the letters are all in Hebrew? THAT's what reading Torah is!

If you haven't ever seen a Torah scroll up close, that's pretty much what it looks like. Torahs are written in Hebrew letters with no punctuation or vowels, and worse, many different letters or sounds can look exactly the same in that format. Sheer terror!

And I keep doing it. Willingly! Why? Because relatively few people can, or are willing to try. Because they invented some really neat software to help you learn the various passages. Because it makes you feel terrific when you get up there and do a great job at it. Because it's fun to do something you might have HAD to do as a kid, merely because you WANT to do it. Because it makes you feel part of a service, rather than just an observer. And because my wife does it as well, and when we go up and read consecutive portions, people are really impressed with us. And who wouldn't like that?

Vote With Your Wallet

Let's hear it for good customer service!

OK, maybe that first line didn't grab you as a radical new concept. But I'm on a kick to reward companies that don't outsource their help desks to who-knows-where and have people who sound like they actually want to help you.

So, in that vein - let's hear it for newegg.com.

First - a disclaimer. I don't work for newegg. I don't know anyone who works there. I'm not getting a discount on my next order for writing this. I wouldn't even bother with a disclaimer, but a few years ago, someone in an online running forum asked about good GPS watches for running and I said I liked my Timex. Someone immediately posted that I obviously work for Timex. I didn't and don't.

If you don't order computer equipment or other technology products online, you may not have ever heard of newegg. But here's why I like this site: THEY GET IT!!

What do they get? The value of customer service. A simple concept, perhaps, but lost on many, many companies. If you have a problem, they fix it. Quickly and cheerfully. Not to mention creatively.

Here's an example: I placed an order for a few pairs of music player headphones and thought it would be a great opportunity to use a $25 gift card that I'd gotten.

The order came to $25.06. The order page took the gift card, but didn't give me the chance to enter another card to make up the difference. The order, of course, was rejected for insufficient funds on the card.

I activated the site's online chat help and was connected immediately to an agent. I told her the problem and she said - hmmm, how about I just take six cents off the order price and put it through again? That should work. It did work.

Understand that I'm not exulting about saving six cents. It's that she didn't give me the robo-answer of going back to the site, finding the product number, resubmitting the order, and jumping through a hoop of fire to use that gift card. I immediately got nice warm fuzzy feelings about newegg.com and will most certainly shop there again.

Maybe if we all decide to only patronize companies that consider your time and business valuable - we'll wipe out the companies that don't. Or get them to change. Vote with your wallet!

Get Over It, Dude!

"Let it go" is a sound piece of advice, often given to people who are trying to get past some frustrating situation and move forward.

Except sometimes, you just can't.

I know I can't. As noted in my prior blog, it's been two years since I departed Bloomberg Radio to return to CNBC. And the circumstances that led me to leave rankle me just as much today as they did the day I left.

Bloomberg LP in general is, shall we say, a quirky place. The eccentricities of the company, and the people who run it, have been well documented elsewhere. All I know is, despite that, while I was there, I wound up in THE perfect job for me, the one I'd always wanted. From 2001-2005, I anchored mornings with my good friends Connell McShane, now of Fox Business Network, and Ben Farnsworth, a New York legend on both radio and TV.

Since I was 8, I wanted to be on the radio. I was unwavering in this career goal. I decided early on to specialize in business because I liked the subject, and found to my delight that it was an advantage in an era when very few broadcasters specialized in that subject.

Despite Bloomberg's quirks, and an unorthodox approach to programming radio and television, I loved my job. I was good at it. Despite the frustrations surrounding those quirks, I would have been happy to keep doing it forever.

Except one day, they took it away.

Someone in power decided they didn't like my voice (they unfathomably decided this about Ben as well) and removed us from the show. From there, things quickly deteriorated to where by March 2006, I was vastly underemployed. I wrote, did brief reports, produced, helped others, but it just wasn't the same.

Thankfully, the wonderful people at CNBC were there to rescue me. I'd left there on excellent terms (see my blog about karma!) and had always kept in touch. I was offered the job as breaking news producer and gladly accepted. And now that I've been back there for two years, it seems like the home it's always been. In terms of the overall culture and the people, it was and still is the best place I've ever worked.

But I still can't get over the Bloomberg thing.

A good friend of mine told me "Dude" (yes, he actually used the word "dude") .. "don't let people live rent-free in your head."

He's right. I guess. But it feels as bad today as the day it happened.

Those who are on the air in radio and TV will always be subject to the whims of those who manage them. You have to accept that. It comes with the territory.

I'm lucky. I have a great job at a great place and - the frustrations of not doing much radio aside - consider myself to be quite fortunate.

But I don't know that I'll ever be totally at peace with this. I tell people that TV producer is what I do, but radio anchor is what I am. And I'll always believe that.

Various Anniversaries

This blogging thing is supposed to be, above all else, fun. And it is. Except when it starts to feel like an assignment with a deadline.

I was reminded of this a few days ago when my good friend and fellow blogger Wes Richards (http://wessays.blogspot.com) pointed out to me in an e-mail that as of today, it had been one month since my last blog post.

Wes is a prolific writer and blogger, and I've always been impressed that he's been able to keep up the quality as well as the quantity.

I've written broadcast news stories my entire adult life. I enjoy doing so. I rarely if ever have trouble coming up with them, and, I'm proud to say, they mostly match the high quality standards I set for myself.

As I point out in the "about me" section of this blog, I've rarely gotten the chance to just write for fun. And this blog IS great fun. When a thought strikes me and inspires me, the words just come. Since I'm not writing this blog for any boss and there's no money involved, I write when I feel like it and when I don't, I don't.

Except I'm starting to feel guilty about it.

I look at some of the blogs I've written, and I'm really proud of them. But I also remember the few days when I hadn't written in a while, and decided that I really should. Except that I had nothing of interest to say, and sat there starting at a blank screen. Blogger's block!

So, this one really is to explain myself, thank all my blog-readers (and you know who you are!), and to tell you that - while I hope that another month does NOT go by between posts - I'll only post when one of those inspiring thoughts strike me. After all, if I don't enjoy writing what I write, you won't enjoy reading it.

And since we're on the subject of anniversaries, it was exactly two years ago today that I told the folks at Bloomberg Radio I no longer wished to work for them. That was one of the most triumphant yet sad days of my life, and the subject for another day. And you won't have to wait a month for it!