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Going by the Book |
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Night to Remember |
The Annual Baseball Writers' Dinner
This year's awards dinner
was filled with humanity
By MAURY ALLEN
of TheColumnists.com
For more than 40 years, I've been attending the annual
Baseball Writers dinner, the best winter social sports event
in New York City.
Our group has honored every name baseball player from Babe Ruth,
Lou Gehrig, Bill Terry and Ty Cobb in the 1930s to Roger Clemens,
Barry Bonds, Mike Piazza and Randy Johnson in 2002.
These names of the game come and go, make a nice acceptance speech
at the dinner before 1,500 people dressed as penguins, walk off
with a plaque or trophy and leave the audience thrilled at being
in the same room with them for three hours.
It must have been the same way in 1923 when it all started (Nah,
I wasn’t there despite the gray hair.) as it was on the
final Sunday in January of this year.
The fans beg for autographs. The waiters rattle enough dishes
to miss a few good lines. The players keep looking at their watches
so they know how much longer they must endure all this before
they can hit their favorite watering hole in the big town.
Mickey Mantle came to the dais drunk one year, propositioned
a gorgeous television sportscaster, berated his Yankee GM, George
Weiss, for being so cheap with him in his playing days with a
stream of obscenities and had to be helped off the platform.
There was always a little something special to remember about
the dinner each year.
This year there was a lot to remember.
I remember Barry Bonds--usually crusty, sarcastic and arrogant--almost
breaking down when 1,500 people stood up in that huge banquet
room and applauded him for his historic 73 homers.
“This is the first time I have ever received a standing
ovation,” Bonds said in a choked voice.
I remember Roger Clemens accepting his sixth Cy Young award for
pitching excellence from the sportswriters in gentle tones, thanking
the voters and marching off the dais to present the prize to
his mother who had flown up from her Houston home.
“This is for you, Mom,” he said, as he left the prize
on her front row table she shared with the rest of the Clemens
family.
I remember Paul O’Neill, so intense as a player it was impossible
to get much talk out of him, thanking the audience for their
cries of “Paulie, Paulie,” as they say goodbye to the
retired Yankee outfielder.
“This is exciting,” he said of the warm reaction in
the room, “but when 56,000 people stand up in Yankee Stadium
and shout your name, that’s something you can never forget.”
Yankee manager Joe Torre pointed out that the only good thing
about O’Neill’s retirement was the survival of Yankee
dugout water coolers and toilet bowls, frequent targets of O’Neill’s
wrath.
I remember Mets manager Bobby Valentine describing the urge he
felt after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to do what he could
to help people who had lost loved ones at the World Trade Center.
“We just must continue to do what we can,” Valentine
said. “The sadness and the tragedy is not over.”
I remember Yankee pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre describing how
his son, Arizona pitcher Todd Stottlemyre, accepted an award
for him last year because he was too concerned about his health
to travel to New York from his Issaquah, Washington home in the
winter.
“Now I’m cancer free (multiple myeloma) and I just
enjoy every moment of my life,” he said. “Things changed
after 9/11 and we have all learned to appreciate everything in
our lives.”
I remember Mike Piazza, graciously accepting an award for being
a Good Guy to the sportswriters, thanking the New York City fire
fighters and police officers for their 9/11 bravery and I remember
Joe Torre standing up and describing the trauma of returning
to baseball after 9/11.
“What I found out as we played around the country with that
NY on our caps (is) that after 9/11 we all became New Yorkers,”
he said.
The most touching moment of the evening came about when Yankee
reliever Mariano Rivera, the loser in game seven of the World
Series to a relief pitcher for Arizona named Randy Johnson, accepted
an award as “Fireman of the Year,” a traditional prize
for relief pitching heroes.
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Mariano Rivera provided a touching moment that evening |
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The award is a huge trophy in the shape of a fire fighter’s helmet, all glowing in silver and brass, heavy enough that two people or one strong guy are needed to haul it out of the room.
“I want to present this to the fire fighters of New York,” said Rivera, as he called former New York City Fire Commissioner Tom Von Essen to the rostrum. “This is for you, this is for all your heroes.”
There were 343 New York City firefighters who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center.
I remember one class act by one classy pitcher on the last Sunday in January, 2002. That trophy will sit in NYC fire headquarters as a gentle reminder of how we are all connected in loss.
I remember this evening as I have not remembered any of the others at this event over the last 40 years. No one could get out of the ballroom without a tear.
© 2002 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel.
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