More Faces To Match With Names

HOME / More Faces To Match With Names

January 11th, 2018

Even before I wrote the first word for “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” two years ago, I knew that it would be heavy on details and based around characters. After all, the fun is in the details and the wide variety and large number of absolute characters I’ve known or met, throughout it all, sometimes even baffles me. And, it wasn’t until I got started in the process, working with Outskirts Press, that I began to understand how photos can or can’t be used in a printed publication. The short version is that there’s a ton of paperwork and signatures involved and some of the photos I had could not be used at all. So, a lot of photos ended up in a file folder saved for those that didn’t make the cut.

In addition, I’ve been searching for our Paintsville Hilanders team photo, and I know it’s here somewhere but I can’t find it. Moving to Spokane in 2012 meant that everything in the house had to be packed up and moved with us. When we arrived, a lot of those boxes just got put straight away instead of being unpacked. And then we moved back to Minnesota in 2016 and the same process played out in reverse. I know the Paintsville photo is still around, in a cheap frame, but I haven’t found it yet. Yesterday, though, I did stumble onto a box that held some more photos I’d previously considered “missing” so now I have the chance to share some of those. I think it should be fun to add some real faces to the many names that played such big roles in the book.

Well dressed champions! (Click on any image to enlarge)

I’ll start with this great photo of a bunch of guys in matching tuxedos. No, we were not part of a huge wedding party. We were, instead, at a banquet.

The Sauget Wizards baseball team played in the Mon-Clair League near St. Louis, as I explained in the book. At the end of each season, the league held a banquet to congratulate the champions and hand out awards. Every year it would be held at an American Legion Hall (note the classic paneling) with a couple of buffet lines that featured fare like Wonder Bread and cold cuts. Maybe some potato salad.

While no one came grubby, the average level of formality was generally in the area of a sport coat and slacks. Maybe. A decent pair of jeans wouldn’t have exactly raised any eyebrows. When the Sauget Wizards won the Mon-Clair League title, we smashed the dress code to smithereens by all renting matching tuxedos. That was kind of our image in the league, and we had a riot at the banquet that year. It was fun to walk in the Legion Hall as a group, all dressed like that. The other teams looked at us like we were nuts, or aliens, or possibly just lost.

If you’ve read the book, you may remember these names. All great guys and fantastic ballplayers. From left to right: Jeff Junker, Neil Fiala, Bob Wilber, Joe Mehallow, Gerry Pitchford, John Parke, Jim Greenwald, Dan Nicholson, Bob Hughes, and Rick Fiala. Champions all! (Greenie wore a red bowtie because, well… He’s Greenie.)

A Blue Jay and a Giant

This next photo is from my scouting days, with the Toronto Blue Jays. I think my facial appearance backs up the fact I was the youngest scout in Major League Baseball. I look like such a kid. I was 25 at the time. The photo was taken at Yosemite National Park during that summer of 1981. The other guy in the pic is the one and only Jeff Trax, who I became great friends with that summer.

Jeff was the property of the San Francisco Giants and had been assigned to their Class-A team in the California League, the Fresno Giants. Unfortunately, he’d injured his pitching arm and couldn’t play. Rather than go home to Michigan, he stayed with his teammates at the same apartment complex where I lived. We all got to be good friends, but Jeff and I spent so much time together we became extraordinary friends. We still hold the unofficial record for “most hours spent at the pool” in California League history.

And as I spelled out in the book, we spent such a crazy amount of time together because he was on the disabled list and Toronto pulled all their scouts off the road during the 1981 MLB work stoppage. So, Jeff moved into my place to have a room of his own. I’m sure a Blue Jays scout rooming with a Giants pitcher was totally fine. Really. Well, it is now, anyway.

And that brown t-shirt I’m wearing… The brand name on the front is Snauwaert, a Belgian maker of tennis racquets. Why was I wearing a Snauwaert t-shirt? Well, Jeff and I also played a lot of tennis that summer, and I did play with a Snauwaert racquet, but the reason I had the t-shirt was because my brother Del Jr. was the President of Snauwaert. I had connections.

In the next photo, whattaya say we move backward to the summer of 1978 in Paintsville, Kentucky. I know I will find that team photo one of these days, no doubt in a place where I’ve already looked five times, and I hope I do because almost every guy on the team is in the book in some way.

Stan Loy. Comedic genius.

This guy is Stan Loy, wearing a dapper hat in our clubhouse at Johnson Central Park. He was a heck of a ballplayer, and a truly hilarious guy. He played a solid second base for us, and hit a very fine .263 on the year. Plus, he kept us in stitches.

Stan is in the book for having pulled of one of the greatest pranks ever. You may recall a certain night in Elizabethton when we were playing the Twins, and Stan was taking Eddie Gates’s gear out to him after Eddie had been stranded on base during our half of the inning. Except Stan took something else out there instead of Eddie’s hat. I don’t want to spoil it in case you haven’t read it yet but this, ladies and germs, is Stan Loy.

Of all the teams I played on in college and pro ball, that Paintsville team was probably the closest-knit and tightest group of guys I ever had the privilege to play with. And that’s saying a lot, because all of our SIUE college teams were close and many of those guys are still great friends today. There was just something about all of us gathering in a town we’d never heard of, to start our pro careers out in the distant coal-mining hills of Appalachia, that really brought us together as brothers. And the way the locals treated us made it feel even more like home. I will never forget it. The Medford A’s were also a very close group, but it was the Paintsville experience that really meant the most to me. I think about it often.

And, let me digress one moment. It is now officially 2018, so that makes it time for Lance McCord, Bob “Radar” Ricker, James “Oscar” Noffke, and my own bad self to decide where our annual reunion will be this summer. Three summers ago, for our first such reunion, we went to Cooperstown and Washington, D.C. Two summers ago it was Minneapolis and St. Paul. Last summer it was Seattle. This summer, it looks like it will be Pittsburgh and Cleveland, and thanks to the MLB schedule makers we have a chance to do something really fun. If everyone is good to go with the weekend I spotted (and so far they’re all in) we can meet in Pittsburgh and see them play the Cardinals, then get up to Cleveland to see the Indians play the Twins! We’ll have some genuine rooting interests at both games. We haven’t picked hotels yet, but that’s the easy part. Can’t wait.

With Pete Conaty

Okay, back to photos. This one is also from Paintsville.

I’m standing at my locker with teammate Pete Conaty. He was a fantastic pitcher for us, and was mostly used as a starter. He went 5-5 that year, but he threw three complete games and ended the season with a fine earned run average of 3.10 which is pretty damn good for a guy who went undrafted out of college and was on the Hilanders as one of our unaffiliated free agents.

Pete and I got along great and were good friends on that club, but as the book explained we crossed paths, and were coincidentally teammates, one more time, almost a decade later. When I was working for my brother Del’s company in suburban D.C. I joined a very good semipro team in Fairfax, Virginia for the summer. Lo and behold, there was Pete Conaty on the bench the first day I arrived to meet the team. Small world. And yep, that’s a can of Mountain Dew and a blow dryer on the top shelf of my locker. I have no need for either of those items now.

Conaty is not the only example of such “small world” stuff in the game. I played at SIUE with Stan Osterbur and we were then teammates on the Hilanders. I played for the Sauget Wizards with Pete Delkus, who went through SIUE nine years after me. Then, I was his agent after the signed with the Minnesota Twins.

Gosh I wish we would’ve had incredible cameras built into our smartphones back then. To actually have someone show up with a camera for a day, and it was usually a Polaroid, was a big deal and we’d all go out and buy a couple of 10-packs of film for the occasion. Then we’d pass the camera around and try to get as many photos as possible. We’d have every moment documented these days, but I have maybe a dozen blurry photos from that entire summer in Paintsville

Number 5, making sure the Cardinals catcher is OK.

Like this one, taken by an actual member of the media. On this particular night in Paintsville we were playing the Johnson City Cardinals. The Cardinals catcher had just been hit in the throat by a pitched ball, and a number of us were out there to check on him. I was clearly the on-deck batter at the time, because I still have the rubber “donut” weight on my bat.

The teammate I’m mostly blocking the photo was Steve Chandler. Our manager, Yank Mihal, is partially seen at the far left, talking with the umpire. I don’t know who No. 14 is for the Cardinals but he looks like a coach. It’s the other Cardinal guy in the shot, the one looking down at his catcher while scratching his right arm, who made it big.

That’s Nick Leyva, who was managing for the first time that summer. He went on to manage or coach his entire career after that year in the Appalachian League, for the St. Louis Cardinals and many other organizations. He managed at the Big League level with the Phillies, from 1989 to 1991. Your standard “baseball lifer” like a certain father of mine.

And in the background of that shot? That’s your basic weeknight crowd at a Paintsville Hilanders home game. Packed.

We’re all in there somewhere…

Now, let’s jump ahead to the summer of 1979 and those wacky Medford A’s. This photo is not an old photocopy of a better one, but it is surely one you’ll need to click on to enlarge (and don’t call me Shirley). It’s what’s left of an actual giveaway item from a home game. Yes, it was “Team Photo Night” at Miles Field in Medford, and the first 1,000 fans got this low-resolution grainy photo on a piece of plain paper. They didn’t even manage to print them on card-stock. Frankly, I’m amazed I found this the other day and it’s still in mostly one piece.

For those who have read the book, I can point out some familiar names. In the front row, one of my roomies at the radio guy’s house, where most of us slept on the floor, was Shaun Lacey. He’s second from the left. Next to him, third from the left, is Mike “Alto” Altobelli, one of my favorite teammates EVER. Sixth from the left is another roomie from the radio guy’s house, Oscar Burnett. Dan Randle, with whom I spent many nights laying on the carpeted floor listening to albums in the house, is sixth from the right in that front row. At the far right is our trainer, Charlie Saad, next to him is Rod Runyon, our radio guy, and next to him is our manager, Rich Morales.

In the back row, pitcher Keith Call (who makes a couple of funny appearances in the book) is far left. Second from left is John Pignotti, the first player on the A’s I met after flying out there and making my way to the hotel. Fifth from the left is Don Van Marter, otherwise known as Don Hawk Van Hawk Marter. I’m at the far right in the back row. Third from the right is Terry Harper, another denizen of the empty house, and next to him is Craig Harris. “Craig, man.”

Welcome to Medford!

This next one is a newspaper photo from Opening Night against those pesky Central Oregon Phillies. I’d just arrived in Medford about 48 hours earlier, after having driven home to St. Louis from Lakeland, Florida. I was, technically speaking, in a bit of a daze but happy to be a part of the Medford A’s, as I shook hands during the introductions with owner Doug Emmans. I wore number 33 that night, obviously, but I don’t remember if I wore that number the rest of the year after we got our new green jerseys. Maybe I did. It was a long time ago.

I’m also sporting my brand-spanking-new white adidas spikes, purchased in Medford at a sporting goods store the prior day, with the stripes hand-painted green with a Magic Marker.

In the photo with me are catcher Frank Kneuer, soon referred to as “Baloosh” by all of us. In the middle is Shaun Lacey again, and at the far right is Howard Robinson, who actually signed with the A’s in 1975, so this was his fourth year in the organization, and there he was back in the Northwest League for another season.

What do Kneuer, Lacey, and Robinson all seem to have in common in this shot? To me, it looks like they’re all thinking “Who is this guy?”

The disco dance winner celebrates

These next two photos are really out of focus and horribly composed (I have no idea who took them but they ended up coming home with me.) This first one is from a night specifically spelled out in detail, in the book. We were on a long road trip, and were in Bellingham, Washington to play the Mariners. Alto and I were thrilled to find a bar and disco across the street from our hotel.

On that first night in Bellingham, we went over there after the game and they were holding a freestyle disco dancing contest. Yes, Alto won. Of course he did. In the photo, from left to right, is an exuberantly proud Mike Altobelli, and then me, Frank “Baloosh” Kneuer, and radio guy Rod Runyon.

The next night, we played a video football game that made our forearms so sore we could barely swing the bat the following day. Please, don’t anyone tell our skipper Rich Morales that. We kept it a secret.

This, my friends, was life in Class-A ball in 1979.

Livin’ large…

In this final photo, we are back in Medford at Rod Runyon’s nearly empty house. I stumbled upon this yesterday and hadn’t seen it in many years. What leaped out at me was the Mickey Mouse telephone. I had no idea that memory was still lodged in my head, but as soon as I saw the photo I clearly remembered it.

Since I’m laying on the floor at the bottom of the photo and Alto is not in it, Alto must’ve taken the shot. And my location would effectively put me “in bed” in this photo, since we slept on the floor. Behind me are roomies Pete Slattery from Boston (who called me and his girlfriend Barb the same sounding name of “Bahb”), Shaun Lacey (who gets in a lot of these photos, doesn’t he?), and Oscar Burnett.

Every time I think about that season in Medford I wonder how any of us got through it. Incredibly long bus rides, made longer by the proclivity of said bus to quit in the middle of the night, playing every single day, living on the floor when we weren’t on road trips, and eating about as well as Lacey is in this pic. I can almost guarantee that’s a bowl of cereal as an after game midnight snack. Oscar is at least having a beer.

It was fun finding some of these, and one of these days I’m really going to find that Paintsville team photo. It has to be somewhere.

As for my new book, my very personal memories and view of my dad’s life, as a biography, I’m still neck deep in preparations and I’m getting in touch with more and more guys who used to play for my dad in the minor leagues. The Twins want to set up a meeting in early February, so some key researchers from their office can sit with me and see what I need and how I need it. I appreciate that enormously, and Elon Werner is working on the same sort of thing with the Texas Rangers. I’ve also seen, first hand, that a bit of the research can be “viral” in a way. Steve Greenberg is involved, and he played for my dad for three years, spanning Denver and Spokane. Steve is a great guy and really unique. His dad was Hank Greenberg, one of the best to ever wear a Detroit Tigers uniform and a two-time American League MVP. Steve got his college degree at a little place called Yale. He then signed his pro contract when the Texas Rangers were still the Washington Senators. He played for my dad from 1972 through 1974, and then the Rangers sold his contract to the White Sox. Despite being one step from the big leagues and doing very well as a Triple-A first-baseman (one of the best defensive first-basemen I’ve ever seen) he decided to retire and went to UCLA to get his law degree. He’s a smart guy. And very well connected and respected.

Steve is still in touch with a few guys from those teams, and it hit me that if some of the guys I can track down are also in touch with other guys, the list can grow pretty quickly. And the Twins and Rangers front-offices should have info on a lot of the guys I’m after.

So, I’m officially making progress but I really need to get these ducks lined up before I dive in with the interviews. I did go up to Office Depot and buy a little digital voice recorder, so I’m all set.

I’ll be back here next week. Now, I can just spin around in my office chair to look out the back window to see that it’s still snowing and has been since mid-morning. Looks like we have almost two inches so far. And earlier this week I went for 2-mile walks outside on the paved trails in our development, where it was 40 and most of the snow was gone. Winter has returned, as I suspected it would.

As always, please do met the favor of hitting the “Like” button at the top of the page, if you enjoyed this installment. “Likes” are important, or so I’m told.

Bob Wilber, at your service and still looking for that Paintsville team photo.

The Next Project

HOME / The Next Project

January 4th, 2018

This might not be the longest or the funniest Bob’s Blog I’ve ever written or will write, but it does rank in the top 2 percentile in terms of big news. It’s the answer to the question I’ve heard the most in 2017. The question is, “What’s next for you, in 2018?” For all but the final five days in 2017 I didn’t have a firm answer, other than “I’ve got some ideas, but nothing solid yet.” On December 27 the lightbulb went on, after my sister Mary asked me a half-dozen times “What’s your next book going to be about?” while we were on Kauai.

Like it so often goes with me, the answer came to me out of the clear blue sky as a nearly fully formed concept, all at once. “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” was my book. I’ve known, for many months, that my next one would likely be a biography about someone else, and I had some informal conversations with a couple of people in that regard. On the afternoon of December 27 I could’ve slapped my forehead with an open palm and said, “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before!” I didn’t do that, but I certainly could have. Actually, I think I might have done that. I know I said those words!

Yesterday, on January 3, 2018, I sat at my desk and got back to work. Yesterday was Day 1 of the project, and a good day it was. I sat down and began the long process of writing a new book.

It will be my father’s biography, but in a very personal way through the eyes of his youngest child. It will be my ode to my dad, with (hopefully) a lot of first-hand personal stories, anecdotes, and memories from his kids, some of his former friends, many of his former players from his managing days, and others who knew him and knew how much he could impact a person’s life.

The initial “working title” which could easily change or be adapted, is “1-0” as in “one and oh.” Anyone who knows even part of my dad’s story knows that 1-0 represents his career won/lost record as a Major League manager. Undefeated. Texas Rangers. You can look it up.

Delbert Quentin Wilber was born on February 24, 1919 in Lincoln Park, Mich. He was a heck of an athlete in multiple sports, but his life changed forever in 1937. He saw an article in a newspaper about an “open tryout” the St. Louis Browns baseball team was holding in Springfield, Ill. and he drove there in a Model A Ford. They signed him.

If he never went, if he never took that chance, he would’ve kept working at the Ford plant in River Rouge and so many lives would not be the same. Now you know where I get my own “plow forward” approach to life!

After some exhaustive (but fun) research, I’ll trace his life through the minors, then into the military where he met my mom, and on through is playing days. Then, his 30-year run as a minor league manager, coach, and scout. Oh, and that one game in Arlington, Tex. Throughout it all, I hope I can paint a picture of not just him as a baseball “lifer” but also as a father, a mentor, a protector, and a truly hilarious funny guy. As most people who know me understand, it would be impossible for me to say there’s ever been another man in my life whom I admired more.

When I went to work yesterday, my first mission was a handwritten one, as I began to jot down a list of many former players and colleagues I’ll want to talk to and interview. He spent 10 years with the Minnesota Twins, so there are lots of connections in that regard but so many of his peers are, just like him, no longer with us. He spent five years managing in the Texas Rangers organization, all at the the Triple-A level in Denver and Spokane (other than that single big league game that left him 1-0 for eternity) and won three championships in those five years. Most of his former players are still around, and a number of them are still very active in the game.

My first email was to Dave St. Peter, the President of the Twins. I told him my plans, and within minutes he wrote back and let me know that the Twins organization will be happy to do whatever they can to connect me to former players and front-office people.

My second email was to Roy Smalley, who played for Big Del in Spokane for one season before he went on to his own fantastic Major League career, and who now lives here in the Twin Cities. He does some stellar work on the Twins pregame and postgame TV shows, so much so he’d make a great color analyst someday, if he really wanted to rejoin the grind of a 162-game schedule. Roy and I have been firing notes back and forth, and we plan to sit down soon and get it all recorded, because as he once told me, “From the first day I played for Del, I felt we had a very special relationship. More like a connection. I loved your father.”

I’m Facebook friends with a number of his former players, from the Denver Bears to the Spokane Indians and the Tacoma Twins. Former infielder Jimmy Driscoll was all fired up to hear my plans, and already sent me his first funny Del Wilber story. One of many he’ll provide, I’m sure.

Like anything, all firm plans in life are completely subject to change, but in just these 24 hours since I committed to do this I can tell it’s the right thing to do and a lot of people are going to want to pitch in and be involved. Dad had that sort of impact on people.

Bigger than life.

He sure had an impact on his youngest son.

From my earliest memories of him, he was always bigger than life. He never planned or tried to be the center of attention, but he often was because those around him hung on every word.

He was a great coach and instructor, but the most important things he taught me were how to play the game the right way and how to carry myself as a person and a ballplayer. I was thick-headed enough to make many of those lessons painful to learn, but by the time I was in high school I knew baseball was my mission and I knew how the pros acted and went about preparing. Those lessons never left me. Neither did a million stories.

I’ll try to keep under a half-million when I begin writing.

I hope you’ll follow along and read it when it’s done. If you do, I hope you’ll get to know Big Del a little better and you’ll certainly become familiar with a lot of guys who played for him or worked alongside him.

It’s going to be a joy to write.

And you know how this blog has to end, right? If you read it and liked it (and plan to follow along as I research and write) please click on the “Like” button at the top.

Bob Wilber, at your service and back in the saddle.

A Day Late and a Beach Short

HOME / A Day Late and a Beach Short

December 30th, 2017

Yesterday, I posted a small notice informing Blog Nation that I had run out of time and run out of mental acuity to post my musings on Thursday Blog Day. So here we are on Friday Blog Day, which is kind of like “Monday Night Football – Thursday Night Edition” (that always cracks me up) and I’m still not back to full game shape. Going six time zones away to the east for a week (Scotland & England), then back to Central Time for a couple of weeks, and then four time zones west for 11 days, before landing back at home again, is a cumulative thing. Even Barbara Doyle felt it, and she’s a veteran international traveler who jumps and skips time zones multiple times a year. Pretty soon, you just have to sleep it off.

The problem was, neither one of us slept much (or in my case, at all) on the overnight return flight back from Honolulu. Then we got home at around 6 in the morning but couldn’t go to bed, because we had people coming to install some new “house stuff” for us. I ended up sleeping about four hours through the late morning and early afternoon, and then Barb laid on the couch “for a minute” just to catch her breath and that turned into four hours, right in the middle of the day. I went to bed early last night (for me) and slept in this morning, with the boyz, but I’m still a little out of whack. Hence, my late afternoon start here, although I did have some time-sensitive errands to run today, as part of the joy of home ownership. Here I am though, with tales of Hawaiian Islands. Let’s go to the beach!

It was a long trip from Salt Lake to Honolulu, and I recall actually sleeping a bit on that flight. I didn’t watch any movies but I did have the “flight tracker” app going on my personal screen and in what seemed like a minute I remember seeing our little airplane icon over Nevada and the next time I looked we were well off the west coast and over the Pacific. So, I either dozed off or was abducted by aliens. When we landed in Honolulu we had a bit of time to kill before the rescheduled Hawaiian flight left for Kona, so we partook in all things Sky Club before getting on the smaller plane. After having left home in the dark that morning, we landed well after dark in Kona, and still had 15 miles or so to drive up to our destination for the next four nights, the Lava Lava Beach Club. To say it’s a bit dark on the Kona Coast during a moonless night is like saying it’s a bit chilly at the South Pole. Pay attention!

We’d called the resort from SLC, to let them know we’d be late by a couple of hours but we could only leave a voice mail, then when we were about to take off from HNL Barb saw she had a voice message. It was Lava Lava letting us know that we didn’t have to “check in” in the classic hotel sense, and they actually had no front desk. We should drive right to our hale (pronounced HA-lay) and park under our private carport. The lights would be on, the keys would be inside, and we’d be all set to go. It wasn’t easy to find, peering through the darkness, but we somehow prevailed and found the resort, then parked in our private spot. The anticipation was killing us, so we left everything in the car and dashed around front to check it out.

Now THIS is a cool shower! (Click on any photo to enlarge)

As promised, the lights were on, the sliding glass door was unlocked, and everything we needed was inside, including a welcome note from the staff, a gift card for the restaurant, and other goodies. It was amazing. The place was fantastic, and it was literally on the beach, under some tropical trees. Not near the beach. Not overlooking the beach. On the beach. A public beach. A beautiful amazing beach. And the hale itself, Hale Nalu, was incredible. It was just the right size, with everything we’d need, including one thing we didn’t know it had and didn’t know we needed. That would be the outdoor shower under a couple of banana trees, surrounded by a tall lava rock wall. There was an indoor shower as well, but the outdoor space looked incredible.

We had about 15 minutes before the bar closed, and boy we really wanted that first Mai Tai, so off we went, traipsing up the beach and stepping over knotty roots in the dark. The drinks were perfect. Everything about Lava Lava, late that first night upon arrival, was perfect.

The only hitch during the first part of our stay was the weather, but even that didn’t really bother us. It was pouring the next morning, which made the indoor regular shower a bit more inviting, and it rained most of the day, but much of the precip was gentle and we could still hear the surf and stick our toes in the sand, so the weather was nothing more than a minor irritant and it allowed us to use that first full day as pure decompression and relaxation time. We spent a lot of it on the porch.

Lava Lava is in an area called Waikoloa, and it’s within walking distance of a nice upscale shopping area, so despite the drizzle we did venture over there to stock up on some provisions for the kitchen, check out some stores, and get familiar with our surroundings. We made sure to purchase the ingredients to make our own Mai Tais, which is always fun but never quite as good as the ones made by the bartenders. And no, I actually don’t drink Mai Tais unless I’m in Hawaii or on the way there on the plane. It’s a state law that you must imbibe in these fruity rum-based drinks when in Hawaii. Really. You can get in big trouble if you don’t. Seriously. I’m pretty sure that’s true.

I did a lot of sitting out there. I’m a natural at such things.

It may have been a rainy first day, but it was sublime. I mean, really, how can it not be with a front porch view like this? Being on a public beach, the foot traffic out in front of our hale, and the other three that make up 100% of Lava Lava Beach Club’s accommodations, was pretty continual but in a very friendly way. A lot of the people passing by were from the mega-resorts nearby, and they seemed surprised to see the four cottages on the beach as they went for their strolls. We talked to many of them, and let them know just how fantastic it was, as we stared out and appreciated Anaehoomalu Bay.

We were sitting out there, watching the tiki torches light the scene later that night, when a staff member arrived with a complimentary plate of the special appetizers they were serving that night in the restaurant. Those would be called Pupu in the local vernacular. They were sublime. In the morning, they arrived with banana bread, pineapple, and guava. It was a “pretty nice place” if you catch my drift

Our second full day was not quite as rainy as the first, so the outdoor shower got to make its debut. Regular showers will never be good enough again. The water came out in one round stream, from a PVC pipe above the regulators. That, I absolutely loved. One thing I don’t like about many shower heads is the tiny little spray that comes out in a wide diameter. This thing poured on you like a miniature waterfall. I was plotting ways to take three or four showers a day. Then, after Barb took a shower she came back in and said, “When you take your next one, look up. Straight up above you.” Sure enough, there was a bunch of green bananas growing on the tree.

Lava Lava Beach Club, during the day. The place is hopping, and so fantastic.

We did venture to the restaurant that second night, and that was more spectacular fun. Since there are only four hale units, 99% of their restaurant/bar clientele was coming in from the “front” of the place. We walked in from the backside, under the lit torches. We had wristbands to wear (they were put in our hale by the staff) and as we approached the back entrance to the restaurant and bar, a gentleman saw us and glanced at our wristbands. He then stopped what he was doing and came down the steps to greet us, saying, “You must be Barbara and Robert! Welcome!” He shook my hand and gave Barb a kiss on the cheek. He added, “I have a special table all ready for you tonight. We missed you last night, but very much hoped you’d join us tonight. We’re thrilled to have you with us.” Yeah, I get that kind of service all the time at restaurants. Not. Turned out, our wristbands were color coded. When he saw the orange bands he knew it was the Nalu hale, and he’d prepared by remembering our names. Amazing. As were the complimentary sushi tacos he brought over as a welcome gift. Dinner was as sumptuous as you’d imagine. And, with the $100 gift card they gave us, our bill was $9. Yes, I left a hefty tip based on the superlative service (the manager who greeted us was never overbearing, but always nearby and checking on us) and an actual bill of $109.

The next day (I think – It’s really hard to remember what we did on each day) we headed north a bit, to Hapuna Beach. What we discovered there was totally unexpected and fun beyond description. We’ve both been on a lot of Hawaiian beaches. Heck, we got married on one. This was the best one ever. There were a lot of people there, but the beach is wide and long so it never felt crowded. Plus, a lot of them were friendly locals, so that’s always good.

Best beach and best bodysurfing ever! Hapuna Beach.

We put our towels down and took a long walk, up and down the beach, then decided to take a dip in the water. A little chilly at first, but it was soon perfect. And as we stood out in the gentle waves about waist-deep, I saw a bigger roller coming in and said to Barb, “I’m going to try to bodysurf this one” but I wasn’t expecting much. What I got had me all smiles and whooping and hollering out loud. All I did was jump forward a bit as the wave got to me. No mad paddling to get going. I just jumped up and it took me a solid 10 yards or more, keeping me out in front and on top of the wave the whole way. Best. Bodysurfing. Ever!

We laid in the sun, I walked the beach a few more times, and we bodysurfed for more than an hour. What a fun and totally surprising day. Again, I’ve done a lot of bodysurfing and usually it requires a lot of effort for very little reward. These waves, at this beach, were magic!

We enjoyed the Lava Lava restaurant again that night, trying different Pupu and entrees, while tipping back another Mai Tai or two. And Barbara said, “This place is amazing. I could live here. I could TOTALLY live here. Do you think they’d just sell us the hale and we could call it home?”

I don’t think they would, but I completely agreed with the sentiment. It took us one rainy decompression day to leave the rest of the world behind, but we’d done it. It’s truly an intoxicating place, with or without the rum.

We sat on our porch that night, illuminated by the tiki torches once again, and I think we were both giving off the same glow as the flames.

Kinda old, in an ancient sort of way…

There are some ancient petroglyphs within walking distance of the resort, so we had to check that out the next day (or the day before, or… one of those days) and that was very cool. They are very old, from the earliest Hawaiian times, and since they are carved or pounded into lava flows, which are so hard they barely ever erode, even over thousands of years, they are still vibrant and stunning.

This area was the beginning of the King’s Road, which traversed the lava flows all the way down to Kona. We learned the travelers would stop and denote their presence, often showing how many were in their party and where they were from. The King’s Road, parts of which are still easily seen, was meticulously cleared and made obvious by the lava stones they stacked along its side, like an ancient guardrail. It was such a good guardrail the riders could often nap upon their horses, because their steeds knew to stay on the road and just keep walking.

Further back in the protected petroglyph area, we found some carvings with modern names and dates, like “James Fitzgerald – 1832”. I took one look, and said to Barb, “This is just graffiti! These jerks were tagging this sacred land before anyone ever knew what a can of spray paint was.” It kind of made me mad! Who knew graffiti taggers date back to the early 1800s?

Our fun Canadian friends. They need to not be so shy!

We were back at the resort that night, and were seated out on the open area under the torches when we began to talk to the large group seated next to us. They were clearly having a good time, and were quite funny. I spotted the Canadian accent at once. One guy had won a free vacation at the mega-resort around the bend, and he invited all his friends to come with him, which is kinda cool in a “great friend” sort of way. They’d discovered Lava Lava early on and had been there every night. Before long, we were all one big rollicking party of Americans and Canadians, having a smashing time. Hilarious people, and it was great to spend an evening with them.

We enjoyed our final night, consumed the treats the staff brought us, made a final Mai Tai, and slept the sleep reserved for those who have an outdoor shower awaiting them in the morning. It was all off-the-charts. Then, back down to the little Kona Airport, Barbara Doyle’s self-proclaimed “Favorite Airport in the World” and headed off for Kauai, but not before a quick stop on Maui to change planes. We therefore managed to spend some time on four islands during our trip, although on two of them we never left the airport.

We’d been prepared to rent a car on Kauai just like we did at Kona, but my sister Mary informed me that with my niece Leigh no longer living with them (she just recently move to Portland) they had a second car, and we could use that instead. That saved me $250 (island rentals aren’t cheap) but we figured we’d make that up by spending an equal amount on something better than a rental car. We succeeded. Many times over.

Lonnie picked us up and we headed for the Marriott Courtyard, right by their condo. Barb and I checked in, got situated, and then walked over to the condo. It’s that convenient. Lonnie then took us up the road to one of their favorite places, the Olympic Cafe in Kapa’a town, where we had a few drinks and enjoyed the free Taco Bar for dinner. Mary got home later from work, and we all got a good night’s sleep.

I mean, you have to eat, right? So why not at this place?

With all four of us united the next day, we crammed ourselves into Lonnie and Mary’s car (a Honda Fit) and took off on a day trip around the island. That’s a lot of what you do on Kauai, because it’s not an island full of flashy nightlife or manufactured fun. It’s a genuinely laid-back place with a vibe that’s off the “cool chart” while it also provides vistas and views that one’s brain can barely understand. As a place to visit, or live, it’s unique and priceless. We LOVE Kauai, and Barb and I each have no trouble imagining the concept of joining Mary and Lonnie someday. Someday soon? That would be awesome, but we’ll see. It’s a slice of paradise. A big slice.

Again, I kinda lose track of the days, but we did make an excursion all the way around the east and north side, past Hanalei Bay and Princeville (where we stopped at a huge resort to watch part of the Vikings – Packers game at the bar) all the way to the “end of the road” where our NHRA friends, the Evans family, have their beach house. They weren’t on the island at the time (they live in California) but it was fun to head all the way up there and see it all again. Mary and Lon were pretty stunned by the location of the beach abode!

The sights along the way, whether they be waterfalls, beaches, jungles, or crashing waves, are mesmerizing. We also stopped a few times, just to support the local business economy of course. There’s this thing called “Happy Hour” and typical Kauai food is pretty happy-inducing, as well. We ate a lot of incredible burgers, flaky fish, fresh salads, and mostly everything else on any menu.

Christmas Day was lined up to be pretty special, and it was that x10. Mary works with a guy named Andrew, and they’ve become fast friends. Andrew and Bob live not far from Mary and Lonnie, but “up the hill” a little, meaning away from the beach. Many of my nieces and nephews have been over to see Mary and Lonnie and they are all now friends with Andrew and Bob, who have a jungle house that is magnificent in every way. The tropical flowers are stunning, the house is warm and inviting, the Christmas decorations were beyond belief. And, they were hosting all of us for an afternoon Christmas dinner. A new friend of theirs, John, would also be joining us. Did I mention that Andrew is an unbelievable chef? Well, he is. Every single thing for dinner was scratch made and carefully done. We all love the process of eating Christmas or Thanksgiving meals. Andrew equally loves the process of wowing his guests with food that would make a New York culinary critic rave.

Andrew and Bob. Now friends of the highest order. What a fun day!

It was great to meet those guys and we were all laughing and talking as if we’d known each other forever, within mere minutes of our arrival. When things start with a heartfelt hug and the words, “Mary and Lonnie have told us all about you!” it’s pretty obvious you’re in for a special deal.

We imbibed, we ate, we played a few riotous games, and we sat at the best decorated Christmas table of all time. So, do you think the food was OK? Yeah, just like the 1927 Yankees were OK. I’m running out of words to describe all of this. It was…. Beyond words! OK, that’s cheating. It was an afternoon I will never forget.

And, as a bonus, it’s Bob who is a fantastic pastry chef and he prepared a couple of scratch-made pies for us. Barbara can attest that I’m not a “pie guy” in any way. She could probably count on just two hands the number of times she’s seen me eat pie. She can add this Christmas to the fingers. Bob’s apple pie was not the sort of thing I’ve ever eaten. Because it was perfect. Plus, with the same name and same dry sarcastic sense of humor he and I hit it off at once, although I informed him that our names might be the same but I spelled mine in the other direction.

Throughout all of this wonderment, day by wonderful day, Barbara had been keeping an eye on the ocean, looking for whales. Our Marriott room overlooked the beach and had a wide horizon, and she’d spotted a few plumes and splashes, but not many. Then we had an actual thunderstorm one afternoon. Big boomers and heavy rain, just like “back home” in the Midwest. Right after it stopped, the whales got REALLY active. We didn’t have Mary’s binoculars, but just to spot them we didn’t need them. As soon as you’d see three, you’d see three more. Amazing. Whales = Greatness On The Planet.

We still had one more full day on the 26th, and Lonnie had reserved that for a trip to the the top of the magnificent Kauai canyons, and up there you can find some of the wettest spots on Earth. It takes a lot of rain to keep those magnificent waterfalls going 24/7, right? They don’t turn them off at night.

Amazing Kauai View No. 243. Or so it seems. Awesome is a good description!

The ride itself is pretty thrilling, and all the way there we could see right to the top with no clouds obstructing the view. That’s a total rarity. Sure enough, as soon as we got there the clouds and mist rolled back in. That’s how it works, but all along the way there are other scenic spots to pull over and visit and we made the most of those.

There are certain things you see that are so spectacular your brain and eyes can’t really agree on what is being looked at. Especially in this world of computer generated movies and graphics, which really aren’t real, where we’ve become kind of numb to awesomeness. Your brain probably just gets the image from your eyes and reacts with, “Sorry, can’t be real. That’s CG. Don’t believe it…” Much of Kauai is like that.

Having tour guides like my sister and her hubby just makes it all the more special. They introduce us to people we never would’ve met, and I know if those people are Mary and Lonnie’s friends then they’re going to be my friends, too. That’s just how it works. It almost ALWAYS works that way. We’re wired that similarly. This trip was no different, and on Kauai it almost doesn’t matter if anyone in your group knows the people you meet. I think Kauai is the friendliest place on Earth. Just saying “Aloha” to someone usually starts a conversation. In the end, you’ve widened and brightened your world. I can see why Mary and Lonnie love it there. They will never leave. At least not permanently.

It’s a very special place.

We had to depart the next day, but we knew we’d just done something very special. For my incredible wife, the last year or two have been very difficult, when it comes to her job. So much going on, so much pressure, so many hours devoted to helping make Itron the best company in the world, at what it does. For me, far less pressure in that regard but the incredible experience of putting my head down for a full year to write my book, followed by another year of publicizing and promoting it. New territory. New challenges. New roads to conquer. We both needed this. Dammit, we both earned it!

We spent some money to make this trip happen, but we knew that going in and we planned for it. There was not going to be a moment when we said “Oh we can’t do that. That’s too expensive. We’ll do the budget version instead.” OK, I take that back. Lonnie is the ultimate dollar counter, who knows exactly what everything costs and how it can be gotten without spending the average. I’m not. Except one morning at the Marriott on Kauai when it was time for breakfast. We went down to the restaurant and when I saw that the breakfast buffet was $24, I said, “No way. That’s ridiculous. Let’s order off the menu. All I want is bacon and eggs” and that’s what we did. And it took nearly 30 minutes to get our food, plus with coffee and juice, which would’ve been part of the buffet, our $13 entrees added up to a $22 bill. I sheepishly said, “I picked the wrong morning to let the Lonnie approach influence me.” We should have just had the buffet. Live and learn.

The next night, we flew back home and slept like babies on the plane. By that, I mean we were awake the whole time kicking and screaming. Not the last part (much) but it was still a long flight back and it was “slightly” colder when we got off the plane. Right now, it’s 1 degree and we’ve had flurries most of the day. We love it here, though, so I’m not complaining at all. Everyone is out and about no matter the weather, and Minnesota is pretty damn friendly too. Just a little chillier than Kauai or Kona.

And here’s a hint or two regarding things about to possibly happen. In terms of the most common question I’m asked these day, being “What are you going to do next year?” or “What’s the next book?” I can say that I’ve got a few finalists germinating in my brain. Nothing for sure yet, but after Mary asked me for the fourth time this past week, I went for a walk and a new concept came to me. Boom! There it was. Can’t believe I never thought of it before. I’m really excited about it, and I can do it on my own with only some help in the research and editing areas to make it it happen. I could just get the band back together with Greg, Elon, and Todd and off we’d go. That’s all I’ll say for now, but it would be another labor of love, and that’s what drives me. I’ll keep you posted.

On the travel front, there is a good chance I’ll be going back to Kauai in the next couple of months, to do a favor for Mary and Lonnie. That’s hilarious, right? Yeah, I’ll suffer through another trip to Kauai just because that’s the kind of brother I am. I’m a giver! I’m about to book the flights for that, but until I have them reserved I’ll keep the details under wraps. Weirder things have happened than having to alter or cancel a trip like that, but all signs point toward me going. And I might use the solo trip (Barb can’t go and Mary and Lon will be gone, so I’ll be staying at their place) as a test run for finding out what it might be like to actually live there. Mary and Lonnie did it without any friends already being there, and that’s stunning. If we ever move there, we’d be joining them and all the friends they’ve introduced us to. It’s probably years down the road, I’m sure, but you can dream! Who wouldn’t want to live in paradise? As Mary can attest, when you live there you get a lot of visitors, so that makes it even better. We wouldn’t lose touch with our dearest friends, many of whom will be longing to get to the islands, right?

That’s it for this epic. I’ll be back next week, same Blog Day, same Blog Channel, and I might include more of the photos I didn’t have room for here. When I woke up this morning I saw the white snow outside and my groggy brain initially thought it was the sandy beach. I hope that happens again tomorrow. It’s a great way to start the day.

And, as always friends, if you read this monster and found it enjoyable, please “Like” it by clicking on the button at the top.

Have a very Happy and Safe New Year’s Eve. I’ll see you all in 2018. Aloha!

Bob Wilber, at your service and still finding sand in my flip flops!

After Flight Delays… A Brief Blog Delay

HOME / After Flight Delays… A Brief Blog Delay

December 28th, 2017

Aloha blog faithful. I’m making a point of getting this quick update posted today just to stay in touch and let you know there will be much more coming tomorrow, on Friday December 29. The Hawaii trip was beyond special, and I want to be sharp with my writing to bring it all back to life. After an overnight flight, during which I slept not one single wink, and an arrival at MSP at around 5:20 a.m. when the airport was stunningly busy, still well before dawn, we got home to two sleepy cats around 6:15, or so, this morning after traversing some snowy streets and temps around zero.

After unpacking, helping the boyz reacclimatize to us (hey, spell check says that’s the word, not “reacclimate” which I’ve often used, so spell check wins this one) I laid down for a few minutes, just to relax, and that then turned into five or six hours. My brain is still a bit foggy, but I’m coming around. I still have many photos to download and a lot of writing to do, though, so I’ll save it for tomorrow, if you don’t mind.

I mentioned the flight delays because they were a stressful part of our outbound and return trips. When I booked the tickets, with an outbound connection in Salt Lake, the layover was supposed to be about 90 minutes. Then one of the flights was changed a bit, and as we took off for SLC we figured we only had about 45 minutes to get to the Honolulu flight. When we landed, we discovered the Honolulu flight was roughly two hours delayed. So, I had to change our inter-island flight to Kona on Hawaiian Airlines, since we were going to miss that. Stress to begin the vacation.

On the way back, we originally had a solid two hours in Honolulu between our Hawaiian Airlines flight and the Delta nonstop back to MSP. But, again, flight schedules were altered just a little and we thought we’d have around 55 minutes, which can be pretty tight at HNL were the island-hopper flights have their own terminal. Then the Hawaiian Air flights out of Kauai all got scrambled, with later ones leaving before earlier ones, gate changes left and right, and a very congested concourse as two Hawaiian 767s were leaving from adjoining gates that normally would only hold passengers from my smaller “island hopper” flights. It was claustrophobic and a mess. After a number of delays, we ran through HNL (or walked quickly) for a good 20-minutes to get to our MSP flight and its luxurious “lay flat” seats in the front cabin. But sleep was more than just elusive. It was impossible after all that.

Now, I’m home with two well adjusted boyz after Erica Moon took such good care of them. I’ll write all of the tales (at least the ones I can remember) tomorrow.

See you then! And I leave you with the final pic I took on Kauai. Looks like your standard 25-foot waterfall doesn’t it? It’s not. It’s closer to 150 or 200 feet. Those trees, near the top, are gigantic. A person would be minuscule next to them. And these scenes dot the Kauai landscape everywhere you look.

Aloha. See you Friday!!!

Bob Wilber, at your service and too foggy to write.

Just another stunning Kauai waterfall. (Click to enlarge)

 

A Tale of Two Blogs

HOME / A Tale of Two Blogs

December 14th, 2017

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Thank you, Charles Dickens. The corollary is this: One week ago I had to fight and edit my way to a manageable blog size with an installment that was so full of fresh news and photos I had to leave a lot of it on the editing room floor. This week, not so much. All the really fun stuff starts tonight, Barbara was out in Spokane all week (I just picked her up at the airport), and about the most exciting thing that happened in my world was when Rainbow Tree Care came and trimmed a vast amount of branches and scrub growth out of the landscaping in our backyard. It now looks like I did as a kid, when my mom would let my hair grow out and then buzz it all off, other than the detail where I never really did look like a Colorado Blue Spruce but my ears sure did look funny.

It had to be done… (Click on any photo to enlarge)

Unfortunately, the trimming work is probably just a stopgap and not the end solution to a big problem. Colorado Blue Spruce trees are native to (you’re not going to believe this) Colorado. Every one of them in Minnesota was imported, and our climate is not conducive to keeping them healthy, as they are very susceptible to root-born fungal diseases. As you drive around Woodbury, you can’t miss it. They basically wither and begin to die from the ground up, with the needles first turning brown, followed by the branches completely dying, one by one. It’s a sad thing to see, especially in the really big and old ones. So we hired Rainbow to try to extend the lifespan of the ones that were planted behind our house well before our house was ever built. They now get quarterly “deep feed” nutrient injections, and this week a crew came out to trim off as many dead branches as they could.

What that means is that the natural barrier between our house and the road behind it is now much less of a barrier. This trim work needed to be done now, so we had it done, but obviously we’re going to have to wait until spring to plant some new trees, bushes, or other living things, back there, to fill in the gaps. Whatever we plant, I can guarantee it will not feature any Colorado Blue Spruce. Truth is, though, it’s not noticeably louder and I’m already used to it. There were so many wild scrub plants back in there they needed to come out as well, to give the trees the best shot at hanging in there.

Since I started this blog with the beginning of the opening sentence in “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens, it bears mentioning that I wrote about that in “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” regarding the freshman-year English class in high school, in which we were assigned to read it. I was not into the book at all, and that lack of interest almost got me flunked out of St. Louis U. High before I even knew my way around the secret back staircases and hallways. I have nothing at all against Charles Dickens, though, and have thoroughly enjoyed many of his other works.

Give me “A Christmas Carol” or “Oliver Twist” over “A Tale of Two Cities” though…

I did mention in last week’s Bloggapalooza that Barbara, Kitty, and I visited his home in London, which he owned after he became famous and was therefore a very rich man for those times. I just didn’t have room for a photo in last week’s blog, so here is that photo. It’s too rich to leave on the editing room floor. And gosh, we had such a great time over there. It was fabulous. I’m still glowing from the trip (not literally).

And that leads to the main topic of this blog. Starting tonight, we’re going to be very busy and we will be traveling again before I get back to the blog next week. Tonight, we are attending the Minnesota Timberwolves game, which is always a fun time but it will be made even more fun (because, sorry, “funner” is not a word) thanks to their opponents, the Sacramento Kings. The Kings radio play-by-play guy is…  You know this… Gary Gerould! Barbara and I plan to arrive early so we can stop by the visiting radio booth to say hello, as we have done multiple times in the past.

Plus, it will be our first visit to Target Center since it underwent a massive renovation. We’re looking forward to checking it all out.

Saturday afternoon, we’re taking Erica Moon (our live-in cat sitter) to the Minnesota Wild game, in St. Paul, as a kind of “Christmas bonus” for the splendid job she does with Boofus and Buster. We’re lucky to have her be here when we’re gone.

And speaking of that, we’re going to be busy on Sunday because first thing Monday morning we fly out of MSP. First stop SLC (Salt Lake City) for a quick connection, and our next plane will take us to HNL (Honolulu!!!). There, we’ll switch over to a Hawaiian Airlines flight to Kona, on the Big Island. Four nights there, at the Lava Lava Beach Club, will be followed by another Hawaiian flight to LIH (Lihue, on Kauai) for five nights. Can’t wait to see my sister Mary and her hubby Lonnie. A wonderful time will be had, I can positively guarantee that.

We will be in Kona next Thursday Blog Day, so I’m going to wait and see what the weather is like before committing to interrupt our trip to put a brief blog in this space. If we get a rainy day, I’ll spend an hour writing one. If we’re having too much fun, I might have time to at least post a headline about seeing you all the next week. We’ll call that audible at the line of scrimmage. Omaha!!! 55 is the Mike. 2-80, 2-80 hut.

In the world of Facebook and other social media, I’ve really enjoyed reconnecting with so many friends from my days in elementary and high school, as well as in baseball, indoor soccer, sports marketing, and all the years in between. As I was browsing through Facebook yesterday, I saw that Robi Goff had shared a post someone else had made about indoor soccer in Kansas City. Robi played for the Kansas City Attack when I was the team’s General Manager, and he was one of my favorite players. He was also a very good indoor soccer player. One of our best.

And there’s plenty more, where this came from…

When I saw the post he shared, which was full of old photos from the days of the Kansas City Comets (MISL) and the Attack (NPSL) I went to the closet in one of our spare bedrooms and pulled out a few items. In this photo, we have an adidas Attack warm-up jacket, an authentic game jersey, and one of our game programs. Robi’s response of “WOW” made me smile.

I greatly enjoyed my time in Kansas City, and I loved the team. As I wrote about in Chapter 21 (entitled “More Soccer Balls”) the offer from the Attack was one of those “plow forward” moments that happened out of the blue, at a time when I could never have imagined it, but it also could not have been any better timed. The players were all great guys, and between Facebook and LinkedIn I’ve connected with a bunch of them.

I was there long enough to feel “at home” in KC, and made my way to a number of Royals and Chiefs games, or concerts, during that span. And you know what… Putting on a suit and tie everyday is not really my favorite cup of tea, but to do so and then go to work in an executive corner office inside a major arena, running a professional sports franchise, is about as good as it gets. Stressful? Definitely. Rewarding? Often, but when the rewards came they were priceless. It was all priceless, and it was just another step on the chaotic path that led me to NHRA management and public relations work. As in, my 20-year career doing PR work for Whit Bazemore, Del Worsham, and Tim Wilkerson in the NHRA world was the very next thing I did after leading the Attack.

It also bears mentioning that “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” continues to amaze me, confuse me, and stun me on a regular basis. Seriously, I never considered that it would sell regularly for more than two or three months. We are now just days away from the seven-month mark and, out of nowhere, we’ve had major spikes in sales a few times in the last week. And right before those spikes the book had slid to its lowest ranking yet, on Amazon. When it did that, I thought, “OK, there we go. Now it will quickly come to a stop, or at least a slow dribble.” Not 24 hours later, it shot back up to around No. 140 in the category.

Beyond my wildest dreams. I’m so thankful for these reviews.

It certainly hasn’t hurt to get some more very nice reviews, both on Amazon and on social media. This review on Amazon was my 25th, and we’re still at 100% when it comes to 5-Star reviews. I’m sure you’ll need to click on the review to be able to read it.

Alan Reinhart also posted some kind words the other day, announcing that he just completed his second full reading of the book. Now that’s amazing! Thanks, Alan!

And speaking of my book and the plethora of memories I was able to include in it, I did take time and care to write about my years at Mary Queen of Peace elementary school, with much of the focus being on how important 6th grade was for me, my focus, and my development as a student.

The legend of Mrs. Luna, and our geeky 6th-grade class at MQP.

The reasons for that were very much based on Mrs. Luna, our teacher, and my classmate Larry Eberle. As I recounted in the book, Mrs. Luna saw something in both Larry and me that others had not, and she directly helped me blossom as a student and a person. Larry was my best friend and a terrific inspiration. Artistically, he may still be the most talented person I’ve ever known. And I’m talking about when he and I were in 6th grade! Larry is second from the right in the third row, in this tattered and nearly ruined old photo. I’m second from the left, in the second row. And yes, both of my sisters had to wear those “adorable” uniforms for eight years. I just had to wear khaki pants, a white shirt, and a blue tie. As you can see with the guys in the front row, our parents often tried to get two years of wear out of each pair of pants, despite the fact our legs were miraculously getting longer.

Well, this one is much shorter than last week’s but I also didn’t travel to the United Kingdom, or have family from Florida up here for Thanksgiving, so it is what it is.

Remember, if you read this blog and liked what you read, please “Like” it by clicking the button at the top. You can’t have too many “Likes” in this biz. I checked on that.

See you next time I’m here, and I aim to at least get something posted from Hawaii next week. Aloha!

Bob Wilber, at your service and already salivating for a Mai Tai…

Back In The Saddle…

HOME / Back In The Saddle…

December 7th, 2017

Welcome back, blog faithful! Or, maybe it’s more appropriate to say “welcome back” to myself, since I’m the one that was gone for two weeks. Either way, after a two-week hiatus, I’m back in the saddle and strapped to my laptop today, with plenty of fun ground to cover. I mean that in both the figurative and literal sense. A lot happened, and I truly covered a lot of ground, on airplanes, sidewalks, subways, and cars. Planes, trains, and automobiles, for sure.

My most recent blog was published and posted on Thursday, November 16. Today is Thursday December 7. That’s a long time with no blogging, especially considering how consistent I’ve been at this gig dating back to 2005. But, as you will see here, we had a lot going on.

The first thing we had “going on” was Thanksgiving. That holiday, obviously, is always on a Thursday so that was a clear no-choice decision to forego the blog and share the day with family. We had a marvelous time.

Our guests flew up from Orlando, and the traveling roster included Barb’s sister Kitty, nephew Todd, his wife Angie, and their twin girls, Arabella and Anastasia, otherwise known as Bella and Stassi. They are, technically speaking, adorable. And at about a year and a half, they are at that priceless stage of being very vocal but not quite talking yet in real words, while they also run around the house almost nonstop, before usually crashing into something. It’s generally OK, because they’re close to the ground to begin with.

Over the years, Kitty has usually been the Head Chef in charge of Thanksgiving dinner, with the rest of us acting as her hard-working sous chefs, but with the group not even arriving until late Wednesday we instituted a change of plans. We ordered a full Turkey Day meal from our local Kowalski’s market. It was partially cooked, so we still had to put things in the oven for a few hours, but that just gave the house a wonderful Thanksgiving aroma. And, it was nice to not have to slave over everything, all day, just to eat for 20 minutes. It all turned out great.

We also had to baby-proof the house, which isn’t something Barbara and I are well practiced at, but by putting up a couple of gates, putting covers on outlets, and securing cabinets, we ended up giving the girls pretty much full access to the main level. Barbara and I moved downstairs to one of the spare bedrooms, as did Kitty, while Todd, Angie, and the twins took over the master. It worked out great for everyone, with the possible exceptions being Buster and Boofus, who never figured out how to jump over the gate near the top of the stairs. When the girls would go to bed for the night, or for their naps, we could open it up and let them snoop around, but before long they made it pretty clear that they’d just stay downstairs.

What also became clear, in short order, was that Stassi had a crush on me. I’ve been around them a few times since they were born, but this was the first time either one of them really “locked eyes” on me, and Stassi would smile broadly every time she saw me. Then she’d bat those gorgeous eyes at me to seal the deal. Bella seemed to get a kick out of her sister’s overt flirting, too.

All smiles! (Click on any image to enlarge)

On Friday, we took them on a walk around the neighborhood before the weather totally tipped over later in the weekend, and they took to the playground like fish to water. They were all over the equipment, and laughing the whole time.

They are likely far too young to actually remember any of this later in life, but that’s the beauty of our current technology. Things like iPhones and internet blogs keep everything documented in far more detail than when we were kids. Back when I was their age, or just a little bit older, the only documentation came via a small “Brownie” camera and rolls of film. It was a big deal to shoot photographs and get them developed. Now, everything is kept for as long as the current tech lasts. Once holograms are in vogue, these old iPhone shots will seem like something nostalgic from an ancient time.

The girls also got to go to the Children’s Museum, and had a riot there, but while they were doing that I took Todd to the Minnesota Wild hockey game. We had a great time, and they won in a shootout after no one scored in overtime, so we had plenty to cheer about.

Selfie time!

Our next outing was with the whole group, once again in downtown St. Paul, with the chilly wind making it feel very much like winter. We bundled everybody up and I’d venture a guess that it was Bella and Stassi’s first time out and about in that sort of weather, in their double stroller. They had a great time, and never stopped smiling. That’s my little flirt Stassi in the front seat. She’s definitely tuned in as to how an iPhone selfie works, isn’t she? Adorable.

Winter Carnival isn’t until February, but St. Paul had the lights up in Rice Park and the skating rink going, so the Orlando brigade all got a good dose of winter in Minnesota. Todd and Angie even rented skates and took a few laps around the rink. Nobody crashed, so that was a good thing. And the lights were beautiful.

There was also a trip to Mall of America, which included a lot of time in the amusement park followed by a trip through the giant aquarium. They thought that was fascinating, but by then I’d headed back home after purchasing a new watch for myself. My favorite Oakley watch has served me so well, and was so durable on the road and at the track for many years, but all of a sudden it lost the ability to manually move the hands. Being one, or even two, time zones off is one thing, but with our trip across the Atlantic approaching, I needed a new watch. Mission accomplished, at Macy’s.

We did have to rent an additional car for the weekend, but I had a few free days from National in my account, so that was no big deal. What is, absolutely, a big deal is the transportation of toddlers. This guy got to see, up close, just how much goes into putting their car seats in the rental SUV, and then getting the girls into and out of them. Then there’s the double stroller, as well. It’s a lot of work, but their smiles make it priceless.

On Monday, it was “getaway day” for everyone. Todd, Angie, and the girls flew back to Orlando around midday, and if taking them to Mall of America was a lot of work, getting organized for the flight and getting them there was a major endeavor. There was no way we could do that by the curb, so we parked both cars and somehow managed to get everyone on the plane. Then, Barb, Kitty, and I went back home to get ready for our flight at 10:00 that night. Needless to say, there was a lot going on. It was like we were all flying around in limitless directions, but we managed to get it all done gracefully, including my job as the innkeeper. With our friend Erica coming the next day, to be our live-in cat sitter for a week, we needed to “flip” one bedroom for her. Lots of laundry and a full cleaning were in order. We went ahead and did the same thing for the master bedroom too, knowing it would be nice to get home from the trip and have a clean bed to sleep in.

I didn’t even pack for our trip until around 7:00 p.m., and that was yet another challenge. The logistics of flying nonstop to London, and then splitting up so that Kitty and I could make a connection to Edinburgh while Barb flew off to Zurich, made it an easy decision for all of us to pack scientifically and carefully, so that we could carry on our bags and not check them. Somehow, I made it work. Barb is the expert at that sort of stuff, because she’s always carrying on her bags when she’s on business in Europe. Her schedules are so jam-packed with meetings in various cities, she can’t afford to wait for a bag at the carousel. I tried my best to imitate what she does, and I got over my fear of wearing a shirt more than once.

We were in the front cabin for our overnight flight, and the 767 we were on had “lay flat” seats, so that was good. What was not good was my ongoing problem of hardly ever being able to sleep on a plane when doing so would be the best thing. We took off just after 10:00 p.m., and I might possibly have gotten a total of one hour of sleep before we landed at Heathrow near 12:00 noon their time. It’s not a good feeling.

We also had to traipse through an enormous terminal, take a bus to a different terminal, get through immigration, and then Kitty and I headed one way while Barb headed another, to get to her Zurich flight. We’d gotten on that first plane on Monday night, and it was already about to get dark on Tuesday when we landed at the much more manageable Edinburgh airport. And for the record, as you’re reading this, Edinburgh is pronounced “Eddinbruh” in Scotland.

Kitty and I were staying at a marvelous place, the Glasshouse Hotel, not far from the Royal Mile in the city and walking distance to just about everything. Despite our jet lag, we made it a point to put on our coats on a blustery Edinburgh night and head out for a long walk on the bustling sidewalks. What was kind of funny, before we headed out the doors and onto the sidewalk, was the confused look on the desk clerk’s face when Kitty asked her if we should avoid any areas or take special precautions while taking a walk after sunset. The young lady honestly looked like she didn’t understand the question, and she said, “I’m sorry. I’m not sure what you mean.”

Kitty said, “Is it safe to be out or are there any places in the city we should avoid?”

Again, she looked puzzled, but she said, “I’ve lived here all my life, and like everyone else I walk to most places. I’ve never once felt any reason to be worried about that sort of thing. You can go wherever you’d like. We all do. It’s very much a pedestrian city.”

We roamed the streets for a good hour, and finally passed an Italian restaurant that looked good, so we ducked in there for a quick meal. It was fantastic, and it gave us a chance to use our British pounds as cash.

We did all we could to stay up as late as possible, knowing that getting to 9:00 would go a long way toward getting us acclimated to the time. Once we were back at the hotel we went to the lounge on our floor and had a glass of wine, trying to stretch the time just to get close to 9:00, but we didn’t make it. At 8:00 I was spent, as was Kitty, so we went to our rooms and gave in to the urge to sleep.

After falling asleep fairly quickly, I awoke to the sound of some people in the hallway. My first thought was, “Why are these people making so much noise at this hour? It’s got to be 3:00 in the morning…”  Then I looked at my new watch and saw that it was not, actually, 3:00 in the morning. It was more like 10:45. I’d been asleep a full two hours. And after that, I couldn’t fall back asleep. Jet lag is a real challenge.

I did nod off a bit before dawn, but by the time I finally got up I was certifiably groggy. To clear our heads, we went for another walk to get some fresh air, and did some shopping. We couldn’t buy too much, though, because we basically had no room in our bags to take anything back home with us. I had even stuffed five t-shirts in my backpack, where my laptop would normally go. For the first time in forever, I traveled without my computer. I’d have to rely on my iPhone for any internet access or email. That, my friends, was weird.

NOTE: To the right here, I was going to try something new but I failed. Our blog template does have a button for creating photo galleries, rather than just single photos, but I couldn’t even figure out how to open the page. When I clicked on it, I only got an “Access Denied” message. Sorry about that. Instead, I’m just going to stack a bunch of photos from the trip. They may or may not be in order, but will all have captions.

With Alan. Like we’d seen each other yesterday.

Around 12 noon, we started a great adventure. When my sister Mary was a freshman in college, she did an exchange program in order to actually spend her first year of school in England, rather than at home. While she was there, she met a handsome young Scotsman by the name of Alan Learmonth, and they ended up getting married, having two children, and living in a small seaside village called Arbroath. That is the very short version of why Mary’s two oldest kids are named Rhiannon and Ewan. Scottish names, indeed.

Mary and Alan’s marriage didn’t last, but Rhiannon and Ewan have stayed connected to their biological father thanks to the access given to us via social media. In addition, Kimberly, Leigh, and Lauren (Mary’s three kids with her husband Lonnie) have all gotten to know Alan and his girls Rachel and Eve, so all of them are one big happy group these days, and they travel to see each other quite a bit. Alan, who lives in Edinburgh, pledged to be our tour guide on Wednesday, and no better tour guide could ever be found.

He spent many hours with us, doing far more than just pointing out the major sights and important buildings. He had stories for just about everything, and really gave us an insider’s tour of Edinburgh, including back alleys and side streets that had their own tales to tell. It was fascinating, and a ton of fun. While we were walking around, just down the Royal Mile from Edinburgh Castle, we happened upon a street musician. Instead of a guitar, a saxophone, or an overturned plastic bucket being played like a drum, we was expertly playing bagpipes. In a full formal kilt. That’s the sort of thing that makes a trip really special.

When it was time for dinner, just after sunset, we met up with Alan’s better half, Christine, and his girls Rachel and Eve, at a wonderful pub. It was a fantastically fun evening, with great pub grub (fish & chips, of course) and raucous laughter.

My kind of street entertainer!

I hadn’t seen Alan in so long I can only venture a guess as to when we last shared a drink. I’m pretty sure it was around 1990 or 1991, but we both felt like we never missed a beat. It was like I’d just seen him yesterday, and getting to know his family was a real pleasure. When I met Rachel, she said she was happy to meet me, and I replied, “Ah, yes, but I’ve actually met you before, when you were just home from being born. Just a wee baby, you were.”

That night, I actually got a solid four or five hours of uninterrupted sleep. I was getting there, but still not operating at maximum capacity. On Thursday, Kitty and I went for yet another early walk before hailing a taxi to take us back to the airport. With Scotland and England both being part of the United Kingdom, we were now flying domestically, so no need for immigration or customs, and that made it a much easier commute aboard a British Airways jet. Barbara was also in London by then, and when we landed at Heathrow she had arranged to have a car service waiting for us. All I had to do was look for the bloke holding the sign that said “Mr. Wilber” and off we went in Mercedes Benz luxury.

For her meetings in London, Barbara had a room at the J.W. Marriott, right across Park Lane from Hyde Park. But, on Thursday the hotel was sold-out so there was no way to get a room for Kitty. I, therefore, let the girls have fun sharing a room and I walked a half-mile up the road to another Marriott for one night. Kitty would get her own room the next night, and I’d relocate back to Barb’s place. It sounded like a hassle, but it was all pretty easy.

“Pub Time” is always a good time

Over the next couple of days, we had nothing short of a riotously great time. We walked miles and miles, and while Barbara was busy on a conference call on Friday, Kitty and I walked down to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard. I’d seen it multiple times before, but it’s alway worth witnessing. Finally, with work behind her we had Barb’s full attention and we wasted nary a minute of time checking as many items off our list as possible. In addition to Buckingham Palace and all the pageantry, we also managed to eat a wonderful dinner in the J.W. Marriott’s fine restaurant, while we also hit a few pubs and wandered the incredibly busy streets of London.

We heard from another guest at the hotel that the Tate Museum was featuring some fantastic impressionist art, and we headed there (by the Thames River) to see it. That’s as close as I’ve ever stood to a Monet. Pretty thrilling, actually. I took a few Art Appreciation classes in college, and there I was standing next to many works of art I’d learned about so many years ago.

We bought travel cards for the London Underground (aka The Tube) which can whisk you all around the city in minutes. We went to the Charles Dickens Museum in the house he once lived in, and after that we ventured to a place none of us had been to before. We went to Abbey Road Studios, and marveled at the scene of a constant flow of tourists all taking their photos at the famous crosswalk that’s featured on the album cover.

Hey look! It’s Ringo and Paul

Abbey Road is in a fashionable part of London, on a busy street, but most of the drivers seemed very patient as group after group posed for photos at this famous site. Only one crabby old lady honked at anyone. I gave her the “C’mon man” look.

On Saturday night, we decided to attend the theater. I left it up to Barb to select the play, but I was secretly hoping for something light-hearted and funny. The play we went to see, called “The Ferryman” was definitely not light-hearted, but it was fascinating. It was based on one family’s struggle in Ireland, when the IRA was very active and people were being horribly oppressed. It was a violent era, as well. The time frame during the play was when many IRA members who were imprisoned went on hunger strikes. Many of them starved themselves to death. It was a harrowing story, and it was expertly acted. There were also a number of kids in the show, playing members of the family around which the story was told, and they were the best child stage actors I’ve ever seen.

It was great to do that, and another box checked off the list, but man it was not easy getting there or getting back. The theater was just off Piccadilly Circus, which is pretty much the London version of Times Square. The tube trains were packed, the sidewalks were claustrophobic, and we were actually a few minutes late. The ushers had us wait until a set change before they seated us. From that point forward, we were mesmerized.

From earlier in the day, before the crush of crowds at Piccadilly. Much easier this way.

After the show, when all the plays in the area were getting out at the same time, the crush of people all trying to get on The Tube was incredible. If you’ve seen shots of the Japanese subways, where people are literally crammed into every square inch, it was pretty much like that. And, we’d have to change lines twice to get back to the stop at Marble Arch, where the hotel was. It was crazy.

And then we heard an announcement about the Jubilee Line being closed for at least 30 minutes, and that was one of the lines we had planned to use to get back the hotel. Like pros on The Tube, we quickly figured out a “work around” for the problem, by heading in a different direction to take two different lines back home. We felt pretty proud of ourselves, for that one.

Finally, on Sunday, it was time to head home. Even more adventures awaited us. Barbara had another hired driver pick us up at the hotel, and with there being three of us someone would have to sit in the front passenger’s seat. I offered to do that and then immediately made the typical American mistake of going to the wrong side of the car! As I reached to open the front door on the right side, our driver said, “You can do that, but you’ll have to drive. I’ll give you directions.” I sheepishly went back around to the left side.

By that time, though, I’m proud to say we were all pretty much dialed in to looking to the right at every crosswalk. A lifetime of looking left first is hard to overcome, but the first time a car whizzes by you on the left side of the road is enough to make you pay attention.

As we approached the airport, the driver asked if we were in First or Business Class, and we were. He smiled and then said, “I’ve got a very pleasant surprise for you. Virgin Atlantic and Delta are partners, so I can drop you at the exclusive Virgin First Class entrance. It’s pretty wonderful.”

Wonderful it was. We pulled off the main road and pulled up to a private entrance. There, we entered a private lounge. A nattily attired woman came out from behind one of the desks and escorted us to a large comfortable sofa. She took our passports and our bags back to her station and moments later returned with our boarding passes and passports. She then showed us to a private security entrance, where no more than six or eight other people were going through the same process that hundreds were lined up for in the main terminal. We were through it in mere minutes.

Virgin Atlantic does it right. The most pleasant traveling experience I’ve had in decades. Maybe ever.

Then, we were welcomed to the Virgin Atlantic lounge, one of the most amazing airline clubs I’ve ever been to. Full meals, a spa, waiter service, and too many other niceties to mention. It was “pretty wonderful” to the max, I’d say. Thank you, Sir Richard Branson! Your airline is phenomenal, and we’re fortunate that Delta partners with it. That was incredible.

Our return flight was about nine hours long, meaning we left Heathrow around 12 noon and got into MSP in the middle of the same afternoon, with the six hour time difference. We had the same lay flat seats, but by then we were totally acclimated to British time and there we were in the middle of the day. So what did I do? With the pressure off, I ate my meal and put my seat back. Then I slept like a brick for three or four hours, maybe even a bit more. Strange how that works.

We did our best to stay up late to try to get back on Minnesota time, and we slept in a little extra on Monday morning. That was important, because on Tuesday night we had a date with our great friends Terry and Lynn Blake. We’d be meeting them at the incredible State Theater in downtown Minneapolis for a concert.

Evanescence = Amazing

I’ve been a big fan of Evanescence for years, as has Lynn. I think Terry and Barb came along to see what we’ve always been raving about. They were not disappointed. Singer Amy Lee has a voice that is nearly impossible to describe. I don’t think there’s any doubt that she’s the absolute finest rock vocalist I’ve ever heard, but as I told Barb on the way to the show, “What makes them incredible is that she’s that talented but they’re also a great band. They are all talented. It’s not like she’s the star and they just play the beats for her.”

To make it even better, they performed that night with an orchestra behind them. It was one of the single most spellbinding concerts I’ve ever attended. And Terry and Barbara both thought so too. What an experience that was.

So there you go. I take a couple of weeks off from the blog and look what you get. 4,300 words spanning a major holiday, a trip across the Atlantic, and a Minneapolis concert. I think it was worth the wait.

I’ll be back next week, same Bat Time, same Bat Channel. I’m not sure the subject matter can keep up with this one, but I’ll give it my best shot.

And hey, one more time… If you read this blog and liked what you read, then (by all means!) please “Like” it with a click on the button at the top. The more likes the merrier.

Bob Wilber, at your service and still smiling about all of the above (maybe not the crowds in Piccadilly, but everything else.)

 

And The Winner Is…

HOME / And The Winner Is…

November 16th, 2017

I wrote about this topic earlier this week, briefly, in a Facebook post. It’s hard to do much more than write about something briefly on Facebook, but at least it’s a good venue and platform for showing photos. The topic was this: Over the decades, too many people to count have asked me, “What’s your favorite track on the NHRA tour?” To be diplomatic, I’d usually respond with something like, “Oh gosh, there’s so many I like it’s impossible to pick just one.”

I don’t know why this trip to the Auto Club NHRA Finals was a bit different, but I think it’s because I’m at a sort of natural crossroads with my life and career. I still feel like I’m definitely “retired” from the grind of doing the tour as a full-time PR rep and manager, but I’m also not ready to put my feet up, sleep all day, shave once a month, and be a fully retired couch potato with a box of bonbons. On the other hand, I still don’t have a fully detailed plan in place for next year and beyond. When people ask me about the future, I’m still saying, “I don’t know, because I’m still doing this.” And frankly that, by itself, is kind of surprising. When “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” came out, I had no preconceived notion as to how long we’d keep promoting and publicizing it, because I didn’t know how long it would keep selling. And here we are after the 2017 season, heading into the holidays, and it’s still moving the sales meter. Not as much as in June or July, but it’s a steady flow.

OK, that was a total digression. Now, back to the premise at hand here: My favorite track. Ranking the tracks includes all sorts of criteria, to get right down the the nitty gritty. The facility itself is key. Is it clean? Is it modern? Is it well kept? Are the restroom facilities mostly permanent with running water, or Porta-Johns? Are there fully functioning permanent concessions, or just a few trailers? Even if it’s mostly trailers, is the food good and creative or just hot dogs and turkey legs?

Then, there’s traffic flow. Can you get in and out without spending half your day in bumper-to-bumper traffic? Are the parking areas easily accessible? Are they also prone to flooding and known for annually turning into mud bogs?

History is surely part of it, although any track that has the name Bruton Smith attached to it is still going to be near the top of the list. In their current incarnations, though, none of Mr. Smith’s tracks are particularly historic in the entire scope of NHRA’s history. Yes, Bristol and Sonoma have hosted drag races for a long time, but they’ve both been renovated and rebuilt into modern stadiums. Still, maybe history isn’t that important.

Is the track easily navigated, in terms of those of us on teams who need to get from the pit to our destination without the use of a golf cart, scooter, or bicycle?

Are the fans there unique in any way? Do they seem “different” than fans at other venues, in a local or regional kind of way?

Is the racing typically thrilling, or forgettable?

Is the surrounding area interesting, pretty, and full of things to do and places to eat?

So let’s take all that and compare some tracks. Las Vegas ticks just about all the boxes. It’s modern, clean, it’s awesome, and you’re in Vegas, so there’s that.

Bristol ticks a lot of boxes, as well. Fabulous facility, wonderful part of the country, and great fans. With their NASCAR training, the Bristoll staff also know how to move traffic and, since racers get to come in via a back entrance into the pits, it’s a very easy trip for us. Plus, even though we might be at the finish line, the pro pits in Bristol are literally “trackside” viewing spots.

Sonoma is tops, as well (see where we’re going here, with all these Bruton Smith tracks?) It’s a great facility that is, admittedly, hamstrung with some traffic issues, but you’re in Sonoma and not far from Napa and San Francisco. That’s hard to beat.

Charlotte? My gosh, there is no better drag racing stadium in the world. Period.

Gainesville? The traffic can be rough, since everyone is coming in together on one road, but they’ve improved that a lot in recent years. For me, it’s one of my favorite tracks because of where it is and when the event is run. It’s in Florida, in the spring. As you can imagine, Florida in the spring is a part of my family DNA. John Fink and I have, many times, attended a spring training game after the Gatornationals. It’s a great place and that Florida sunshine in March brings back so many spring training memories.

But, and as soon as I write the next part of this sentence you’re going to know where I’m going with this, something occurred to me this past weekend. The answer to the question is Pomona.

My favorite track and my favorite race (Click on any photo to enlarge)

Now, to be fair, there’s a certain percentage of the answer that really pertains to the Auto Club NHRA Finals, for reasons that range all over the board. The importance of it, the weather, and the emotion of finishing another season and saying goodbye to so many friends you will not see until the next February all conspire to make Pomona something no other track can ever be, no matter how huge or impressive they are.

Is it the most modern? No, but it has solid infrastructure and lots of attributes that are both permanent and comfortable.

Is it in a good part of the country? Are you kidding? Sure, SoCal traffic is legendary for a legit reason, but you only have to plow through the freeway system on the day you arrive and the day you leave. With the track located near so many hotels and restaurants, it’s generally pretty stress free. Plus, there’s In-N-Out and the nearest one is close enough for you to hear Top Fuel running while eating your Double-Double. I have specific experience in that regard, as does Barbara Doyle.

Is it easily navigated for crews and PR hacks? Probably better than any other track.

What about history? Yeah, what about it? Again, are you kidding me?

And the fans. What about them? Are they unique, in a good local way? The answer, my friends, isn’t “blowin’ in the wind” it’s a simple “Yes, they are.”

Some tracks draw from such a wide swath of the Earth they don’t really have a fan identity. Vegas comes to mind, unless that identity is crazy Halloween costumes for the Countdown race. Mostly, Vegas fans seem like they’re out-of-towners combining the unique wonders of Sin City with their favorite sport.

In Pomona, especially at the Finals, I can’t be there without feeling all that history and sensing, immediately, that the avid fans there are directly connected to it. They may be third or fourth generation now, but SoCal is the birthplace of drag racing and post WWII hot rodding, and you can still, to this day, sense that and see it in the fans. Plus, they’re very friendly, very engaged, and just all-around fantastic.

For me, there is no other track that has the vibe Pomona does and, as I mentioned, about 20% of that is based on how it feels at the Finals. That being said, many of the attributes are just as vivid at the Winternationals. The Finals are just “this much” better in all regards.

So it only took me about 22 years to come to grips with that, but looking back over the decades I know, in my heart, that I’ve always understood it.

It’s just a very special place. There are a lot of tracks tied for 2nd place in this contest, but they can’t compete with Pomona in November. And, to me, it’s not even close.

These thoughts are mine, of course, and I don’t pretend to present them as the definitive “ranking” in any way. It’s just how I feel, and this past weekend the feelings were extraordinarily vivid. Like, hair standing up on my arms vivid.

There are no tracks on the tour that I utterly dislike. Some present more challenges than others, especially for people like me who have to travel to get there, but all of them have more positives than negatives and I love them all. It’s just that Pomona, to me, is the ultimate NHRA experience. No wonder the NHRA headquarters are just a few miles away. When the sport of drag racing looks around, it must look at Pomona and think “Hey, I’m home!”

I was there on Saturday, of course, and it was jam-packed with stuff to do, people to see, and things to accomplish. The first thing I had to accomplish was the act of being a book courier. Right after I went on the P.A. with Alan Reinhart in Vegas, we sold every last book we had in the souvenir trailer within a few minutes. I kind of expected to hear that, because I know I signed a bunch.

For Pomona, I knew I had some stashed in the Team Wilk hospitality lounge (yeah, the new big rig hospitality center that we never had when I was there, but who’s bitter?) and I stuffed four more in my suitcase. At 2.5 lbs per book, that added a nifty 10 lbs to my bag. At least we gave the souvenir trailer something to sell.

This time, in Pomona, Alan had me come up to the announcing deck while Q3 was going on, instead of during a cleanup or other kind of downtime. That’s kind of fun, and it was my first experience with timing it so that you’re not talking over burnouts or launches. I even got to use one of Alan’s patented (not really patented, but you know what I mean) lines when I was speaking as a car rolled through the water box. I said, “Pause for burnout” and that got a smile from Alan and the reply, “You’re getting this.” Yay for me.

Kathy Macias, with a book to sign

By doing it that way, we got to spend more time talking and that’s a good thing. Between folks who brought Amazon purchased books with them and those that bought them at the track, I signed more books in Pomona than I have at any other race. After all, the locals have the Dodgers and the Angels, the L.A. Galaxy, and Pomona. That, right there, is baseball bats, soccer balls, and dragster burnouts. It’s a perfect fit!

One of those who brought her book was this fine person, Kathy Macias. She wrote a great review on Amazon, and I see her a lot on Twitter. It was a pleasure to meet her and sign her book, but it was a wonderfully stunning thing to hear her say she liked all 545 pages of it so much she’s read it twice! That’s awesome.

What was also awesome, and very interesting, was this: In an hour or two after I was on the P.A., I know for a fact we sold a lot of books, and I don’t just mean at the track. In that immediate time frame, we sold more Kindle versions of “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” than we ever have in one day! We set a Kindle sales record almost seven months after the book was released. Isn’t that crazy!

I don’t know if those sales were by folks in the grandstand ordering it on their phones, or fans at home listening to Alan and me talk on All-Access, but I find it very interesting that we did that. And very encouraging, as well. That confirms what I’ve always hoped and have long believed. There are still potential purchasers out there who just need to be informed about the book. There are still people who will hear about it and think, “Yeah, that’s something I might like” or, just as good, “Yeah, that’s something my husband would like” (or insert son, cousin, neighbor, friend, butcher, baker, or candlestick maker.)

Word of mouth is a slow moving thing, but it’s powerful. With that in mind, and with Christmas on the horizon, I’m not going to be too shy to ask each of you to think about that. Whether you buy another copy as a gift, or tell your friends that you liked it and think they will too, we can keep on selling. That would be cool. So (he writes without much shame): SPREAD THE WORD!!!

So, Pomona in summary. There were old friends to see, there were fans to meet, there were books to sign, and in the end there was yet another season to bid adieu. And there was the not surprising mental revelation that Pomona is my favorite track, and the Finals makes it even better.

On Sunday, I got to watch the opening round on All-Access, then made my way to LAX, where I got to watch more racing from the Sky Club. It was a relaxing way to cap off a year. And it was kind of fun to have other travelers walk behind me in the club and sense that they’d stopped to take a look at what I was watching on my laptop.

And now, it will be an interesting winter as my future plans coalesce. As I wrote about extensively in the book, it’s not like me to overanalyze or overthink things like this. I’m planning on just “plowing forward” into the next great adventure. But, whatever the plan ends up to be, NHRA will always be a part of me and a key part of who I am. I’ll never be that guy who waves goodbye and is never seen again. It’s in my blood far too much. I have a few ideas, but I’ll keep them to myself for now. However it turns out, I’ll always be out there for as many races as I can attend.

And now, time to wrap this up.

You know the next line, right? If you read this blog and enjoyed it, please show that you liked it by clicking on the “Like” button at the top. The more of those the merrier.

Bob Wilber, at your service and happy to have finally answered the question, “What’s your favorite track?”

 

 

Memories of Finals Past

HOME / Memories of Finals Past

November 9th, 2017

Welcome to Thursday Blog Day, the November 9, 2017 edition. Tomorrow, I will board a big metal tube with wings and miraculously fly from Minneapolis to Los Angeles while enjoying WiFi and lunch in seat 2D. I will get my rental car out at the National lot about a mile from the LAX terminal, then will drive to Pomona using the following directions, written here in pure SoCal “freeway speak.” I’ll take Sepulveda Blvd. to the 105. The 105 to the 605. The 605 to the 10. Then I’ll exit at Fairplex Dr. and head to the hotel. I land around 4:00, so depending on L.A. traffic I could arrive at the hotel by 5:30, or conceivably around 10:30. You never know.

And, of course, the reason for my trip is the same thing that will attract tens of thousands of others. It’s the NHRA Auto Club Finals in Pomona, where championships will be clinched (hopefully in thrilling cliff-hanger fashion) and Wally trophies will be won (possibly by a driver or drivers who use that final-round win to clinch the championship.) I have so many great memories of the Finals, beginning before just about anyone knew I existed in the sport, much less knew my name.

I know I typically consider my PR career to have started in 1996 with Whit Bazemore, then from 1997 through 2008 with Del Worsham, before wrapping up 20 years with Tim Wilkerson, from 2009 through 2015. But, if you read my book “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” you might recall that my first visit to the NHRA Finals was not in 1996. It was in 1992. And my team won in the Funny Car class.

Nobody Beats the Wiz. And nobody did beat the Wiz in Pomona 1992.

Early in the summer of 1992 I accepted an offer to become Vice President at Motorsports Marketing Inc., based out of Wyckoff, New Jersey. Ostensibly, my job was going to be that of the PR and Media Relations guy, while the owner of the company (Bill Griffith) handled the marketing and logistics. Our main client was this guy, the late Chuck Etchells, and the sponsor on his Funny Car was Nobody Beats the Wiz, a retail electronics firm on the east coast.

Right before I moved to New Jersey, Etchells won the Englishtown race. Right after my arrival, he won in Denver, although we didn’t go to that race. The first race I attended as a PR guy was Brainerd. By the Finals in Pomona, my feet were finally getting wet and I was figuring the job out, but I was still mostly a clueless unknown. And somehow, Etchells won Pomona with me in attendance. It was my first Winner’s Circle, my first red Winston winner’s hat, and a lot of fun. I don’t remember who we beat. All I remember is that it was really (REALLY) dark when the final round was won. So, I’d been there for half a season and “my team” had won three races. I honestly figured this Funny Car drag racing stuff was easy.

It wasn’t, of course, and by mid-1993 Bill and I went our separate ways as I moved home to St. Louis to try to “make it” in the PR and marketing world by myself. With Norm Wilding and Lewis Worden as my clients, I successfully forged some deep and lasting friendships, and I got to know a lot more about the sport, about sponsorships, about PR, and about hard work. I also successfully went broke. I went back into indoor soccer with the Kansas City Attack in early spring of 1994, as the general manager, and had a wonderful time there. Then Whit called in early 1996 and my “real” PR career was launched.

And if you haven’t read the book, all of this is in there in much more detail. Don’t be afraid to check it out. It won’t bite. As far as I know.

I joined Del and the Checker, Schuck’s, Kragen team in 1997. We won our first race as a group in 1999. We started winning with regularity in 2001, and we won our first NHRA Finals, in Pomona, at the conclusion of our breakout 2001 season. We then won it again in 2003. Both wins were of the “wacky and zany” variety.

In 2001, we were facing the aforementioned Mr. Bazemore in the final, and Del smoked the tires at the hit of the throttle. I don’t think the big Goodyear slicks made one revolution before spinning into huge tire smoke. We were, momentarily, crestfallen to have given it away like that. But then we noticed the bright red light on Whit’s side of the tree. He had fouled. We had won. And we celebrated like crazy.

It doesn’t have to be pretty. (Click to enlarge)

This memorable photo has been used on the blog before, but it earns a repeat appearance. This is what it looks like for a full Funny Car team (both the red crew and the blue) when they accept their good fortune and race to the top end to meet their driver. I’m hanging on for dear life on the step in the back. There are a lot of memorable guys in this photo. Good friends.

In 2003 we were back in the final round at the Finals in Pomona, and this one was even wackier and zanier (if that’s a word.) We’d marched through three rounds, taking out some tough teams, and we then faced the guy who most experts would’ve considered the least likely of the 16 entered drivers to be there. Not because he wasn’t good. Not because his car wasn’t fast. But just because he was a pinch-hitter as a driver in a car that hadn’t won and hadn’t even won many rounds. It was Cory Lee, and he was our teammate driving the Artisan Entertainment car Arnie Karp had been driving. After Arnie injured his knee, Phil Burkart drove it for a couple of races, then we put our good friend Cory in it for the Finals at Pomona. And we somehow squared off against him in the final round.

This time, it was Del who flinched and lit the red bulb. Cory took off fast and was on his way to his first career victory, until he crossed the center line. It was very strange way to win a race, and as excited as we were for Del to get another trophy, we were heartbroken for Cory and his team. They had the win in their hands, but it slipped away.

I’ll never forget the 2008 Finals for a bunch of reasons. It was our last race together as the CSK team, and that was emotional enough. It was also the race where just about everyone in the Funny Car class, heck just about everyone in the sport, was pulling for Tim Wilkerson to wrap up the championship. In the first round, against John Force, he red lit. Those red lights seem to be all through this blog. Maybe it’s something about Pomona, huh.

The rub, though, was that both Wilk and Force were adamant that they didn’t foul. Wilk actually thought he was a little late on the tree. But, that’s how it stood. After the race, I officially became a member of Team Wilkerson. Photos were taken as proof.

Just making margaritas. No big deal… (Photo by Hot Rod Magazine)

And through the years, another big highlight of the Finals was our Worsham Racing pit party. Long after the final rounds were won and Winner’s Circle celebrations were complete, also after most of the fans were gone, the pro pit area would mostly gather in our CSK pit, and our hospitality area. A live band would rock, many adult beverages would be consumed, and during a few of those years the most legendary margarita mixer in the history of margarita mixers would make its appearance.

This photo, from legendary Hot Rod Magazine was found online and it’s probably the best shot I’ve ever seen of MegaRita in action. This is from a different event (it looks like it was shot at the Worsham Racing shop) but it’s classic. 15 gallons of margaritas in five seconds. And loud, too!

So, there’s good reason why I’m really looking forward to getting out there tomorrow, and spending all of Saturday at the track. If you have my book and want it signed, come find me at the Team Wilk pit between sessions on Saturday. If you don’t have the book but are coming to the track on Saturday, we will have a few copies available in the Stupid Fast souvenir trailer. We sold out in Las Vegas, but I have a few books stashed in the Team Wilk hospitality trailer and I’m going to wedge a few more in my suitcase.

I hope to see you there!

As for things here at home, we’re getting close to Thanksgiving and that’s exciting. Barbara’s sister Kitty, along with nephew Todd, his wife Angie, and their twin toddler daughters, are all coming up for the holiday. We need to baby-proof this house! I’ve never really had to worry about that, but it would be very wise to put those plastic covers on the electrical outlets and get those hooks that prevent cabinet drawers from being opened. Barb already bought the gates that we’ll put up to keep the little ones away from the stairs.

On Monday, after the holiday, Barb, Kitty, and I will all head to MSP to catch a 10:00 pm flight. Where? To London. We’ll all fly there together and once we’re at Heathrow on Tuesday Barb will catch her flight to Switzerland for business meetings, while Kitty and I venture north to the wonderful city of Edinburgh, in Scotland. Then, on Thursday we’ll all meet up again in London for a few more days of sightseeing and fun. Can’t wait!

I need to run some errands now, and then start formulating my plan for taking what I need (including some books) to Pomona, all in one suitcase.

Of course, if you haven’t bought the book or want to buy a copy as a gift, you know it can be found right here:

https://www.amazon.com/Bats-Balls-Burnouts-Sports-Marketing/dp/1478775726/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498841315&sr=8-1&keywords=bats+balls+and+burnouts

As always, if you read this blog and enjoyed it, please “Like” it by clicking the button at the top. The more “Likes” the merrier.

I’ll see you next week!

Bob Wilber, at your service and wanting a margarita, for some odd reason…

A 7-Day Chronological Rehash

HOME / A 7-Day Chronological Rehash

November 2nd, 2017

Hello again, blog faithful. Welcome to yet another Thursday Blog Day as we near the two-year mark for this version of my blog, after 10+ years over at NHRA.com. One week ago I was getting ready to fly to Las Vegas, and about to dive into a new book, “Bull In The Ring” by fellow St. Louis U. High alum Joe Castellano. It’s been a remarkably interesting week.

My flight to Vegas was uneventful, which is almost always a good thing. The highlight of the trip was my chance to dive into “Bull In The Ring” and it blew me away. Some of the nicest and most satisfying reviews I’ve gotten for my book “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” have been the ones wherein the reviewer makes it clear that he or she is either disinterested or does not like one or more aspects of my story, in terms of the sports I’ve been involved with. Whenever I read something like, “I don’t even like baseball, but I found those parts of the book to be fascinating” I smile.  That was the biggest challenge I faced when I sat down to write.

On January 5, 2016 when I sat at my desk and got started, I clearly remember thinking, “If I’m doing this chronologically, I’m going to have be at my best form to even get a drag racing fan through the first two-thirds of my life, before we ever get to a page about NHRA and Funny Cars.” That was constantly on my mind as I wrote, as well as the reverse thought of, “I hope I can keep a baseball fan interested once we get to racing” and I’ve earned a few 5-Star comments about that side of it, as well.

For Castellano’s book, I knew going in that he is a fine writer. I figured it would resonate a great deal with me because we were at SLUH for one year together, and I looked up to those football players as grown men I deeply admired. I was interested to see how Joe would deal with the fact only a segment of his market would be classmates. He knocked it out of the park.

You don’t have to have gone to SLUH to love his book. You don’t need to be a football fan. It’s probably more relatable to someone near our age, because a great part of his book is the retelling of the strife America was going through then, with the Vietnam war, demonstrations, riots, and assassinations, but I believe the book would be an eye-opening tale for younger people, who only learned about that time in history books. His class, which graduated in 1971, was right in the middle of that. But, frankly, it’s such a masterpiece I’d recommend it to anyone. He truly wrote a masterpiece. This is not a cliche when I say I couldn’t put it down. The only time I did put it down was when I walked to the gate and boarded the plane. It came right out of my backpack then, and stayed in my hands until we touched down at McCarran.

As opposed to the phonebook-like heft and page count of my monster, Joe’s book can indeed be read in one sitting. I was sad when it was over.

Joe Castellano, class of ’71, bravo sir. Bravo! I finished it just as we touched down. And I may read it again. It was that good.

When I checked in at the J.W. Marriott the young clerk said, “I apologize Mr. Wilber, but all I have right now are doubles. I can see if we have anything that’s still being cleaned or you can take one of the doubles now.” I asked him to take one more look. True, you can only sleep in one bed, but there’s a reason a guy like me prefers only one. The standard rooms themselves are all the same size, so a second bed usually displaces at least one other piece of furniture, and that piece is usually a large comfy chair, perfect for watching the World Series. After a few moments he said, “For the inconvenience, I’ve moved you to one of our executive suites, on a high floor. You’ll be comfortable there.” And yes I was. A very nice room.

One of the things I like about the J.W. Marriott out there, located in Summerlin, is the fact you have the option of walking through the casino to get to your room, but you don’t have to. There are self parking areas near both hotel towers and you can just go straight to the elevator without even hearing any chimes, bells, or shouts. That, of course, doesn’t mean I didn’t go to the casino. I just wasn’t forced to do it.

After dinner I did venture to the main floor and for the first 10 or 15 minutes I just cruised around, to see if any of the slot machines sent me a vibe. Just when I was about to give up (it’s weird, I know, but I need to find machines that give off good vibes because I go broke in a hurry if I play any old machine just to play it) I found a pair of identical $1 machines tucked in a corner. They didn’t have any bonus wheels (something that’s usually a magnet for me) but after a few spins I noticed that the machine I was on did one thing well. It gave me enough small winners to keep me going. And, even though it was a $1 machine, it played more like a $5 machine because the “Max Bet” was nine credits. Don’t play slots if you don’t want to play the maximum bet. It’s the only way to win big. That level of commitment qualifies as a “high roller” slot, and they tend to pay off the best.

At $9 a spin, though, it was a very good thing the machine kept throwing me bones. Whether they were $5 or $20, they were bones. I remember thinking, “If I hang in here, this thing will pay off for me.” It did. I doubled the money I had put in and took the payout slip. So what did I do then? Did I go to my room? No, I just changed seats and played the other machine. I tripled my money there, very early in the session (the best way to win big!) At that point, yes, I did retire to my room. I had only used half of the money I brought with me, and I had payout slips worth more than three times as much as I had arrived with. That’s a big win.

On Saturday morning, I tried to stay in bed as long as possible but with the two-hour time difference it was hard to just lay there until 8:00 because my body thought it was almost 10:00. So I headed for the track. The Strip at LVMS is about 25 or 30 minutes from the hotel, around the northwest side of town on the outer loop, and with some construction going on it took me a little while to get there. When I did, and the line to exit off the freeway was already backed up at least a half-mile, I knew we’d have a good crowd on our hands. We did.

Packed on Saturday!

After I parked, I strolled into the pro pits and was still early enough that quite a few Top Fuel and Funny Car teams were only just then getting their cars out. And the pits were already packed. By the time the first session rolled around, I took this photo. You might want to click on it to enlarge it just so you can count the crowd. Good luck with that!

It was great to be there, and it was great to sign quite a few more copies of the book. One woman bought three copies. One for herself, and two for her sons, who will get them as Christmas presents. Which is a good idea in my mind because, well, I’m the author and that’s how I get royalties. If you have anyone on your Christmas list who might like a book about life, baseball, soccer, drag racing, and adventures both near and far, you know where to find it. And if you don’t know where to find it (c’mon, man) you can just click here:

https://www.amazon.com/Bats-Balls-Burnouts-Sports-Marketing/dp/1478775726/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498841315&sr=8-1&keywords=bats+balls+and+burnouts

And speaking of royalties, I got my first check from our trackside souvenir people today. I know when we sell a bunch at the track, because I then tend to sign a bunch, but I really didn’t know what to expect. And, we’d only ever talked in generalities about my percentage of the sale. They told me, “You’ll be happy, because we want Tim to be happy with how we handled your book” but I didn’t know I’d be as happy as I was when I tore open the envelope. I was thinking, “This should be no less than X” and yet it was basically twice what I thought X would be. It’s going in the bank as soon as I post this blog.

I had to duck out a little early Saturday, because we had a firm 7:00 date with the Hujabre family. Yes, all your favorite Hujabres, from Buck to Mary to Gibson and Hudson. We met at The Cheesecake Factory, which was conveniently located less than a mile from my hotel. And I didn’t pick the place. Buck and Mary let Gibson and Hudson pick where they wanted to eat and for the second consecutive year they chose The Cheesecake Factory. The food was fabulous, and the conversation was rollicking. Buck and Mary were so interested in talking about the book, and what it was like to write it, publish it, and now publicize it, we had a hard time eating! It was great fun, and I once again managed to fail to take a selfie with all of us. Maybe it was so much fun I deleted the photo thing from my mental must-do list.

I did get to ride in Buck’s Tesla, though, and that was beyond cool. He loves his car, and rightfully so. It’s about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen, and all we did was go out to it in the parking lot in order to drive it back to the front of the restaurant to pick up Mary and the boys. I gave his Tesla a 5-Star verbal review. That’s a “rave” of the highest order.

On Sunday, it was back to the airport. I thought my flight was at around 12 noon, but when I checked in on Saturday I noticed it was listed as a 2:15 departure. I needed to check out of the hotel, though, so I ended up getting to McCarran around 12:15. There’s no Delta Sky Club there, but there is an American Express Centurion Lounge, and those are really nice places. Lots of comfy chairs and booths, hot food, and an open bar. All you need to get in there is a Platinum card. When I walked in, I couldn’t believe how packed it was. So crowded it took a while to find an empty seat and I ate my lunch off the plate on my lap. I’d never seen the place that jammed.

It turned out, as I learned talking to the folks around me, that a big storm was pounding the east coast and they were all on various airlines that had delayed or even cancelled flights to New York, Newark, or Boston. Once again, I felt fortunate to have an on-time departure on Delta. No airline is perfect, and I can only speak from my own experiences, but Delta has been pretty outstanding since we became customers, after the merger with Northwest. The only problem we had on my return flight was that we were so early into MSP we didn’t have a gate. We had to wait out on the tarmac for 15 minutes and were still five minutes early when we stepped onto the jet bridge.

Relics

Moving on to a different subject, the photo to the right was one of a bunch I posted on Facebook yesterday. I had a strange thought that I might find the old nameplate from my Paintsville Hilanders locker if I dug down deep enough in all the baseball duffel bags I have on the top shelf of our utility room. It wasn’t easy getting them down, and I did have fun digging through all of that old stuff, but alas there was no name plate. There were, on the other hand, multiple jerseys, uniforms, gloves, and warm-up jackets dating back to the summer between junior and senior year in college. Including these pants.

I wore these Toronto Blue Jays pants when I was in my first year with the organization, as a scout. Right after the draft, in June, they sent me to Utica, NY to be a coach for their Class-A team in the New York – Penn League. Like many organizations, the Blue Jays used the “hand-me-down” method for putting uniforms on minor league players assigned to teams that didn’t have their own look and colors. I put these away in my Blue Jays duffel bag after that summer, and just kind of rediscovered them yesterday.

I wondered who they might have belonged to before I got them, and despite there not being any names written in Sharpie inside the waistband, there was a way to figure it out.

On the label, inside that waistband, was the Wilson Sporting Goods logo and then some embroidered numbers. The numbers were 47-23-78-2.  And that would mean they were worn by the Blue Jays player who wore number 47, they had a 23-inch inseam, the year was 1978, and they were in Set 2 of that player’s uniforms. Each player gets multiple sets and any part of each set can be easily replaced if torn or damaged.

Hey Victor… I have your pants!

So all I had to do was find out who wore 47 that year for the Jays, and that sort of thing is what the internet does best. It took me all of 15 seconds to find out that Victor Cruz was the guy.

And it’s even possible, although I’m not sure if it’s likely, that the pants he is wearing in this photo are the pants I found at the bottom of my duffel bag. Pretty cool, actually. He’s also sporting a nice wad of Red Man or Levi Garrett tobacco in this old shot. Most of us did, back then.

When the Blue Jays joined the American League in 1977, they did so with some creative new uniforms and I’ve always been a big fan of them. They used that unique double-piped print, both at home in their whites and on the road in their powder blue uniforms, which had TORONTO on the front instead of BLUE JAYS. And the bird logo was centered below the letters, which was also unique.

A few years later, when they switched to buttons instead of pullover style jerseys, they moved the bird to the left chest, so as not to interrupt the logo with buttons and a seam.

For a while, starting around 2004, someone in marketing had the not so brilliant idea of trying to improve upon what was already a pretty flawless logo and look. They tried to modernize the bird and they changed the uniforms and hats completely, even going so far as to just have “Jays” on the front. In my mind, it was a real mistake. There was never anything wrong with the original design. Especially the bird over a baseball with a Maple Leaf.

Around 2012, they admitted as much and went back to the double-piped letters and something very close to the original bird. And they look great again.

Speaking of all this baseball stuff, how about the World Series!  I got the impression during the playoffs that America was ready to totally embrace the game and the playoffs, and the record ratings showed it to be true. But more than that, I just got the vibe from people around me, folks I never thought would sit down to watch full games of baseball featuring teams they didn’t even root for. The World Series, and all of the amazing and thrilling games within it, took it to a whole different level. It was thrilling, and for a guy like me it was heartwarming. Congrats to the Astros and all their fans, who filled their ballpark last night to watch it. Why is that noteworthy? It’s noteworthy because the game was in Los Angeles. In Houston, a capacity crowd watched the game communally on the big-screen scoreboard, and they went nuts when it ended. That’s pretty cool.

So now, a weekend off before heading to Pomona for the final race of the 2017 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing season. Should be an intense one!

As always, if you read this blog and enjoyed it, please do me a favor and hit the “Like” button at the top.

And, don’t forget, if you read my book and liked it, you can always buy more on Amazon as Christmas presents! Let’s keep this sales train rolling!!!

Bob Wilber, at your service and still digging those Blue Jays uniforms.

 

The Oncoming Chill And Memories That Never Fade

HOME / The Oncoming Chill And Memories That Never Fade

October 26th, 2017

It’s October 26, as I write this. All around these parts, whether you’re talking about Woodbury, the Twin Cities, or Minnesota in general, people know what’s coming. It may come early, it may come late. It may be brutal, it may be mild. But it’s coming. It’s winter. You can almost smell it.

One week ago. (Click on any photo to enlarge)

Today’s first photo was taken last Friday. The fall colors were clearly nearing their peak if not at it, and they were so vibrant I couldn’t help clicking this photo with my iPhone. All around Woodbury it was an amazing sight to see so many different trees all hitting their brightest autumn colors right on time and in sync.

Sunday was possibly the most perfect day in Minnesota weather history. Yes, my mother told me a million times to stop exaggerating so much, but it really was about as nice a day as this human could imagine. A deep royal-blue sky, mid-60s, gentle breeze, and no humidity. It was stellar. It was spectacular. It was, like, “really nice out” if you catch my drift.

As this week then progressed, we’ve had some ups and downs, and have had lows in the upper 30s at night. It think it was Tuesday when I was out running errands and upon departure from our home the thermometer on my dashboard said it was 61. After my first stop, it was 58. The wind was starting to really pick up, too, and it was out of the north. By my second stop it was 55. By the time I got home it was in the low 50s but with the brisk north wind it felt much colder. And I’d left the house in a t-shirt and jeans.

We’re back up to about 59 today, but the cold and windy conditions shortened the life cycle of our beautiful leaves. As of this morning, they were mostly on the ground. So much so, you could barely tell we had a yard.

Not so pretty anymore…

This photo is from two hours ago. What a difference a week can make.

And things have changed since I took this one, as well. Today, the company our HOA management firm hires to do cutting, mowing, pruning, irrigation services, snow removal, and clean-up came through our neighborhood to do the final item on the list, so all of the leaves on the ground are gone now. Soon to be replaced by the ones still on the trees. But therein lies a bit of a rub.

I sit on the board of directors in our neighborhood, St. John’s Village, which is part of the larger Dancing Waters community and development. One of the issues that has been regularly raised by residents during my time on the board has had to do with the company mentioned above. Whether it was tardy or sloppy snow removal, blowing grass clippings into places where residents don’t want them, or a slew of other things, there has been some complaining. So, the board voted 3-0 to have our management company look into replacing them.

St. John’s Village is in the upper lefthand corner of Dancing Waters, and our street connects to another neighborhood (called Cardinal Way for all of you St. Louis baseball fans) that is not part of Dancing Waters. Over the last year all three of us on the board had been admiring the work of the company that does the same sorts of work for Cardinal Way. Their driveways would always get cleared before ours, their grass was always cut better, their trees were regularly pruned, and much more. Their guys even looked more professional than ours, with nice matching uniforms. So, we hired them.

Our contract with the original company is up October 31, so this was most likely the last thing they will do for us, which means we might need to pay our new company to finish the fall clean-up that was started today. Last year, they came and did the clean-up too early, with most of the leaves still on the trees. We had to negotiate with them to get them to come back. We won’t be doing that this year.

See, this is the drama that goes on with the board of directors and the best interests of our residents. And I thought it was all going to be fun and games when I accepted the nomination.

And we might get a dusting of snow on Friday, but I won’t be here to see it. I’ll be jetting my way to Las Vegas and will be at the track on Saturday. As for that dusting of snow, and the fact it should happen before October 31, unless it’s 1.5 inches or more (and that’s way more than a dusting) the yard guys don’t clear it. And yes, we’ve had a few disagreements with them over the last few years, when our measuring sticks showed 2 inches but the company said “Oh no, we came out and measured and it was an inch and a quarter.” Maybe they have a magic ruler they use.

Can’t wait to read this!

Now, on to a different topic. And a literary topic it is. This book arrived in my mailbox today, and it’s taking all the discipline I can muster to write this blog and leave it sitting on my desk. I know what I’ll be reading on the plane tomorrow.

The author, Joe Castellano, went to the same high school I attended. St. Louis University High, aka SLUH. He was a senior when I was a geeky little freshman. And he was part of one of the greatest SLUH football teams of all time. This book is about their journey as a team and as men. I can’t wait.

As I wrote in “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” in great detail, SLUH is an all-boys Jesuit school. We had a nice gym but no home football field. The practice field, which generally had no grass on it, is now the site of a real stadium and great playing surface, but through my four years at SLUH all of us who wanted to see a home game had to gather a few miles away, at O’Fallon Tech, to see a “home game” being held at a neutral site. We also had no home baseball or soccer fields, and no pool for water polo, swimming, and diving. We hardly had anything other than the gym, but through the annual largesse of many hundreds of alumni, myself included, SLUH now has top-notch facilities for every sport.

In that freshman fall of 1970, Joe and his Junior Billiken teammates went 11-1 on the football field. Our biggest rivals, annually, were the Cadets from Christian Brothers College (although it was, indeed, a high school) and the SLUH – CBC game was such a big deal it was played at Busch Stadium. That fall, this freshman and 19,000 other fans watched the Jr. Bills beat the Cadets 14-13. The team made it all the way to the state championship game, versus Kansas City Center High, in a location perfectly well placed in the middle of the state. It was SLUH vs. KC Center at the University of Missouri stadium. Final score: SLUH 28 – Center 19.

I still have my yearbooks from freshman year and senior year, but sadly my sophomore and junior yearbooks were lost in a flood. Just flipping through my freshman book, this afternoon, brought all those memories, all the excitement, all the emotions, right back to life. It was an amazing group, and we truly looked up to them as grown men, while most of us felt like little boys. We practically idolized these guys, and they were true leaders at school. Great athletes, great students, and great role models.

State Champs!

Like it was yesterday, I vividly remember a lengthy caravan of jam-packed charter buses carrying SLUH boys and their guests to Mizzou. I remember the fact our family was friends with another family who had a relative on the Center team, so they traveled to Mizzou as well, but sat on the other side of the stadium. And, in doing so, they got a full-throated taste of one huge SLUH advantage. At co-ed schools, the cheerleaders were girls and most of the cheering in the stands was done by girls. As an all-boys school, our cheerleaders were guys with big megaphones and every SLUH student knew all the cheers. Our family friends told us they couldn’t hear their own side of the stadium cheering. All they could hear was us.

And boy do I remember that ride home from Columbia. I feel sorry, to this day, for the bus drivers who had to get us home. And, being just a freshman and only a few months into my high school career, I figured we’d win state every year. We call that being naive.

And how about the fact two SLUH boys have published books this year! I know Joe’s book is going to really touch me, and bring back all those youthful highlights. SLUH was a very special place. It still is. SLUH maintains its place as an institution that annually takes in freshman classes of boys and four years later sends them off to college as men. Good men. I’m honored, truly honored, to have been a Jr. Bill. I will always be a Jr. Bill.

A SLUH Junior Billiken for life!

My four years there ranged from the fear and intimidation I felt when I arrived for my first day, to the enormous pride I felt standing on stage at the Kiel Opera House, in a white tuxedo, receiving my diploma. I’d made some of the best friends I ever had. I was challenged by the curriculum every day, by instructors who demanded nothing less than our best. Those instructors, whether we addressed them as “Father” or “Mister” turned us into men. When I then arrived on the campus of SIU-Edwardsville in the fall of 1974, I was ready to excel at everything. I had to work my butt off every day at SLUH, but that’s why I made the Dean’s List every quarter I was at SIUE. I’m very fortunate to have spent four years at the Backer Memorial. Even if we didn’t have a football field.

And what is the miracle that makes garments like my letter jacket shrink so much just hanging in a closet for 40 years? This relic is in a frame now, along with my SIUE, Detroit Tigers, Oakland A’s, and Toronto Blue Jays jackets, but before that happened I tried to put it on. Not. Going. To. Happen! What, was I half the size I am now?

So that’s about it for this week. Tomorrow I’ll be heading for the airport around 12 noon, landing in Las Vegas just before 4:00 pm, and at my hotel by 5:00ish, I hope. Then, a full day at the track on Saturday, hopefully selling and signing some more books (my book, not Joe Castellano’s book) and then dinner with the Hujabre family that night. Back home again on Sunday. Just two races left in the campaign, and the Top Fuel and Funny Car championships are going to be epic. I predict they will both go right down to the wire.

And speaking of that, I was fortunate enough to be speaking about those very championships, on WFO Radio yesterday, with announcer Joe Castello. And hey, how often do I get to write about Joe Castello and Joe Castellano in the same blog? The answer is once, at least so far. The show is here:

http://wforadio.com/nhra-nitro-10242017/

My segment starts at the 1-hour and 29-minute mark. Hope you enjoy.

And I hope some of you will give Joe Castellano’s book “Bull In The Ring” a look. I think you’ll like it.

As always, if you read this blog and enjoyed it, please “Like” it by clicking the button at the top.

See you next week, with tales of massive winnings on the Vegas slots. Fingers crossed. If I don’t mention that, next week, well… Those casinos aren’t that huge and beautiful for no reason.

Bob Wilber, at your service and about to travel back in time to St. Louis U. High, in the early 1970s.

FRIDAY UPDATE: Apparently you really can tempt fate. After leading off this week’s blog with weather news, and the thought that all Minnesotans know what’s coming, the “dusting” of snow we were supposed to have late this afternoon arrived early this morning as a wet heavy snow storm, driven sideways by north winds. It’s winter. BAM! As the check-in agent here at the Delta Sky Club at MSP said, “They really should ease us into this a little more. Going from fall to winter overnight, while we slept, was a little too stark.” I agree with her, and left home a full 45 minutes early just to take my time and make sure I got to MSP (and inside, where it’s warm) with no issues. I did, however, see my first “car in the ditch” of the 2017-2018 winter. It won’t be the last…

From DFW To U of M

HOME / From DFW To U of M

October 19th, 2017

It’s October 19 in Minnesota and I have all the windows open. I’m seated on our comfy white leather chair in my lower-level office with the sliding door pulled all the way to the left. Boofus is sitting on the floor, watching the leaves skitter around the patio like brightly colored crabs on the beach. Buster is upstairs, in the upper level of his kitty condo, curled into a ball. He’s good at that. Did I mention it’s October 19 in Minnesota? It is. And it’s 73 degrees.

I mentioned the white leather comfy chair for a reason, and it’s based on nostalgia. We’ve had this chair, and its matching love seat, for a long time. We bought them (at Rooms To Go) back when we lived in Austin. We had two living areas in our nice little home on Lovebird Lane, but only one living room sofa, so we bought this stuff to put downstairs, shortly after we moved in, which was in early 1998. It moved with us to Woodbury in 2002, and we put it in the bright and cheery sunroom we had in the old neighborhood. Every Sunday morning, when we were both home, Barbara and I would read the St. Paul Pioneer-Press, section by section and page by page, on this furniture.

When we moved to Liberty Lake, in 2012, these two pieces got left behind, in a storage unit that also held a small army of Wally trophies and some other odds and ends we knew we didn’t need in the house on Alki Lane. When we moved back, into our new Woodbury home, all of that stuff was sprung free from jail. And today, in 2017, I’m sitting on the same chair that made our house a home, in both Austin, Tex. and Woodbury, Minn. And it still looks basically brand new.

Did I mention it’s 73 degrees on October 19? All the kids have the day off from school, due to a thing called MEA (Minnesota Educator Academy). It’s a huge teacher conference in downtown St. Paul, and with all the teachers down there the kids get today and tomorrow off. Boy did they get lucky this time. Woodbury is a beehive of bicycles, basketball games, and kids just being outside having fun. Lots of leaves, too, fluttering around on a day when the sky is impossibly blue.

Since we were all last gathered here, in Blogville, I’ve been to Dallas. I’ve also been to Ennis, since that’s where the Texas Motorplex is located. I outlined my sneaky plan to stay at the DFW Hyatt instead of down by the track, and that worked out pretty well, except for the fact I had no idea that so many of the major freeways in Dallas are under construction. Instead of it being a 45-minute drive to the track on Saturday morning, it was closer to two hours. A few times, right in the middle of downtown, we came to a complete stop for 12 to 15 minutes. So, all the delays pushed my arrival at the track back about an hour and that put me right in prime time for arriving fans. The backup getting into the track from the west was at least two miles long, with everybody camped out in the left lane, because that’s the way you have to turn to park. So I had to be “that guy” and I’m not proud of it. I don’t like “that guy” when he does it to me.

I swung out into the right lane and probably swooped a mile and a half of cars. I’d made up my mind that if there wasn’t a large gap in the left lane I’d just keep going straight and do a U-turn to come back from the other direction, but right before the left turn there was a driver not paying attention. The opening was huge, and I slid right in. I’m still on alert for the Karma Police.

My peeps! (Enlarge any photo by clicking on it)

Saturday was a great day at the track, hanging out with Team Wilk and my former colleagues in the PR world. Yeah, these folks. A great group of talented and dedicated pros, who are all also wonderful people. And yes, this is the Media Center at the Motorplex. It’s out in the pits, with no view of the track. There is a monitor on the wall, with a feed from a  static camera behind the starting line, and the building rumbles when the fuel cars go down the track, but no view. And that’s okay. Everyone in there is doing their work and lighting up social media anyway, so all you really need is an unobstructed view of your laptop.

And yep, that’s my friend and publicist Elon Werner, front and center. Holding court, stirring the pot, and doing that Elon stuff that nobody else does as well. Great to see everyone.

I signed quite a few books, as well. LRS does quite a bit of hospitality at the Dallas race, and many of their annual guests remember me, so all the catching up led to a few new sales. One woman said she was going to buy a copy for someone in her family but she came back to the pit with two! So that was fun.

Rock on, sir!

What was also fun was seeing my buddy Dennis Peek. Always great to see him and catch up on things in his world. His world is the one where a lot of great music gets played (even by him!) and things like lights and sound have to be set up, adjusted, and operated for “live” shows. Talented dude. And a rocker at heart.

A longtime friend of Krista Wilkerson’s was there, and I had a great time catching up with her. Her name is Whitney and she lives in Austin now. She brought me up to speed on how fast things have changed in that town Barbara and I loved so much, and most of those changes haven’t necessarily been positive. Huge rapid growth will do that to a place that used to be charming, hip, and a little nutty. I still have a “Keep Austin Weird” t-shirt. Now it’s congested, crowded, and just a big city.

After socializing, hanging out in the Media Center, and signing books, it was time to head back up to DFW airport and the Hyatt. The return trip went much more smoothly, and I filled my rental car up with gas before turning it in at the National area at the big centralized rental car center. Then, on the shuttle back to Terminal C where, if you know what you’re doing and where you’re going, you can walk to the Hyatt via the vast parking garage. I only got lost once. It’s not like the route is painted on the concrete.

In the morning, I went over to the airport early because I had some stuff to do on my computer and there is a Sky Club there. Better to get my bag checked, get through security, and find a quiet corner. Mission accomplished, and I finished my work just in time to walk to the gate and stroll right on. Three hours later I was home.

At that point, I needed to get to work on a big assignment for Tuesday night. Two of our best friends from the old neighborhood are Terry and Lynn Blake. You may recall that the Blakes and Scott and Barb Meehan used to alternate hosting the New Year’s Eve party each year. Fun people, and Terry and I get along fantastically. It helps to have the same skewed (nutty) sense of humor. Terry has been a top-level corporate PR and communications expert for years (he and Barbara actually used to work together, at Lawson Software) and now he teaches a class about all of that at the University of Minnesota, sharing his practical experience and broad knowledge with young students who want to pursue such a thing as a career. On Tuesday night, I was his guest speaker.

I put together a deck of slides to use as talking points, and met Terry down there on campus at 6:00, for the 6:15 class. It was cool just to be on a major college campus again. Lots of youthful energy and too many bicycles to count.

How to build a brand, and the challenges that must be faced

The class, that night, was focusing on how communications and branding go hand in hand. My job was to illustrate that in a “real world” way with my presentation. Having done so many things, in different sports and businesses, and having been charged with building brands in numerous jobs, I focused on that for about half of my 45-minute talk, then switched to my 10 top bits of advice for how these bright young kids could establish a career.

As I wrote about extensively in “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” brand building is critical for so many sports, leagues, and franchises. When I was hired as the first employee by the St. Louis Storm indoor soccer franchise, just about 10 weeks from Opening Night, we not only didn’t have a brand, we didn’t have any players or soccer balls. It was a frantic, yet totally thrilling, race to our first game and we pulled it off magnificently.

We did build a solid brand for the Storm, and we worked at it every day. Our brand was built on affordable family fun, great excitement, high energy atmosphere, and the importance of being solid contributors to our community. I think we achieved all of that. Our challenge was that we were part of the Major Indoor Soccer League and the MISL was spiraling downward. Teams came and went so fast it was hard to remember if the Cleveland team was still the Force or were they, by then, the Crunch. Where did those Hartford Hellions go? They just disappeared. And the Los Angeles Lazers? Did they manage to make payroll? In effect, the league had no positive brand by then. So, as I told the students, sometimes you can do everything right but the things that are wrong are things you can’t fix.

Say “Checker, Schuck’s, Kragen” three times fast…

That brought us to brand building with NHRA Funny Car teams. I spoke about the Worsham team, and how we started with a small sponsorship nobody else thought was worth taking, and then built it into something admirable and quite successful. Along with that team branding came a different style of communication. CSK Auto, Inc. owned Checker, Schuck’s, and Kragen then, but the buying public generally didn’t know that. A California customer just knew that he shopped at Kragen, but he’d likely never have heard of the other two. Early on, the CSK guys were adamant that we never refer to them as CSK. It always had to be Checker, Schuck’s, and Kragen. Hence, Del Worsham’s propensity for saying those three names as fast as possible.

Over the 12 years, as the team PR rep and as its liaison with the sponsor, I gently and subtly found ways to inform the NHRA world that this company called CSK owned all these auto parts stores. Over time, many years actually, we finally felt like we’d gotten over that, and that their customers who followed the team knew the headquarters building had the CSK Auto logo on it, not the three individual names. CSK became a thing, and in the last few years they had no problem with me using the acronym in stories, press releases, or quotes.

It was a long evolution to this gorgeous new look

Then, when I joined Team Wilkerson, we kind of went through it all again. I can’t say I was totally surprised, when I joined Wilk and his organization, to hear so many people ask me if Levi, Ray, & Shoup was a law firm, or something like that. It takes a lot of work to get those messages out, and have them sink in to the point where now, in 2017, LRS has made themselves so much more effectively branded that the cars just have the new LRS logo on them, not Levi, Ray, & Shoup. The race team and the company’s marketing aces worked together to help make that happen, and the cool looking LRS bodies this year are fantastic. Took a while for me to get used to seeing them, but I love how they look.

And no, LRS is not a law firm. They are a global multifaceted tech company, based in Springfield, Illinois. You can read all about the great company that partners with Team Wilkerson on and off the track, right here:

https://www.lrs.com

The best part about the class at U of M was how attentive the “kids” were. Really focused on what I was saying and taking copious notes. I put kids in quotes because I don’t think I considered myself a “kid” when I was a college senior, and that’s what this group all were. I had a great time, and told Terry I’d do it again any time he wants me. And next time, I won’t need a map to find the building or the parking garage.

Finally, this isn’t so much a bit from the book that ended up being edited out as it is something that I remembered while watching the MLB playoffs this week. You’re probably familiar with how MLB teams and their grounds crews typically cut the outfield grass in a way that creates designs that can be easily seen. They do that by cutting it in different directions, because a blade of grass isn’t exactly the same color on both sides.

But did you know this? When they do that, it has an actual impact on how the baseball rolls in the outfield. I didn’t know it until my Sauget Wizards played the USA National Team at their stadium in Millington, Tenn., and the outfield was cut in a checkerboard design. The first ball that came to me on the ground, during batting practice, zig-zagged its way to my glove. Not a lot, but it does change direction slightly as it rolls over the grass. It stunned me. That was the first time I’d been on a field where the grass was cut like that and I’d not only never seen it before, I didn’t know such a thing existed.

Now, if you watch the games and look very (VERY) closely, you might be able to see how that ball changes course, ever so slightly, when it rolls on the outfield grass. Just one more crazy thing most people don’t even know about…

So, no race this weekend but we’re off to Vegas late next week. It will be great to see the Hujabre family and my racing family again. Looking forward to it, immensely.

And, as per our rule here, if you read this blog and liked what you read, please (PLEASE!) hit the “Like” button at the top. Gracias!

Bob Wilber, at your service and still trying to catch those ground balls…

 

Sweeping Up The Editing Room

HOME / Sweeping Up The Editing Room

October 12th, 2017

Yet another Thursday Blog Day is upon us, and I’ve got a good idea for this one. I have no race from the prior weekend to report on, and I leave tomorrow for Dallas, so there’s no “breaking news” to lead off with. Instead, a few details about life and plans, and then I’ll finish the majority of this blog with some good stories that almost made the book. As Secret Agent Maxwell Smart would say, they missed it by “THAT much.”

In terms of travel, I don’t fly to Dallas until tomorrow afternoon, arriving at DFW close to 6:00 p.m. if the flight is on-time. And then I won’t be leaving DFW until Saturday morning. Because I had a great thought. The hotel rates down near Ennis and Waxahachie go up a great deal during the race weekend, and some of those roadside motels are not exactly The Ritz, although most of them are nice enough. Realizing I didn’t necessarily need to stay down there, since I’m only going to the track on Saturday, I booked a room at the DFW Hyatt, right in the middle of the airport, for Friday and Saturday nights. I’ll get my bag, ride out to the rental car center, get my car, and then drive back into the airport to the Hyatt. Then down to Ennis for the day on Saturday. When I return that evening, I’ll turn the car in and take the shuttle back up to the airport and the hotel. Sunday morning, I can walk to my flight. Fingers crossed this plan comes together seamlessly.

In terms of overall health, I can present the following to you. This head and chest thing is everywhere, so it’s hard to not be around people who have it. For me, it came on very quickly. I was fine when I went to bed on Friday night in St. Louis, then woke up with that nasty sore throat on Saturday. By Sunday, I was feeling awful. Monday was my “lost day” where all I did was rest and blow my nose a lot. By Tuesday, I was on the upswing and thinking “This wasn’t so bad, I’ll be all good in 24 more hours.”  Not so fast, Mr. Wilber.

Here we are the next Thursday, a full nine days after I thought it would be all gone in 24 hours, and it’s still hanging on. I feel OK, in general, but the nose, sinus, and chest stuff is scratching and clawing in an effort to, potentially, never leave my body. Barbara is experiencing the same slow retreat, and she heard from her brother Tim, in Pittsburgh, that he’s entering his third week of this crud. It’s just an inconvenience now, but it’s a nagging inconvenience. We both feel well enough to go on walks, go to the gym, and eat nice meals (when it’s at its worst you have no tastebuds and hence no appetite) but we’re still going through Kleenex at an astonishing rate. I find the Neti Pot is the best approach to keeping my sinuses clear. That thing is magic. It’s gross, at first, but I’ve gotten used to it and it clears me right up.

So there. I feel fine in general, but I’m still coughing and sneezing and blowing my nose a lot. It’s great fun.

Now, on to more stories that were left on the editing room floor. This first one is more about a guy than a specific story. The guy is Bob Mitchell, and he is in the book because I did recount the big “trip around America” we did after our senior year at St. Louis U. High, in my powder-blue VW Beetle.

Section 1: Mitch

Mitch and I were good friends throughout much of high school. We met as freshmen, and by sophomore year we were pretty much best buddies at SLUH. Even then, before we had driver’s licenses, we managed to get driven to a number of concerts or special events together, seeing many of our favorite bands of the time. I remember going down to Kiel Auditorium in downtown St. Louis, to see the Dutch band Focus. Remember them? They had a big hit with a gimmicky song called “Hocus Pocus” and the gimmick was the fact keyboardist and “vocalist” Thijs van Leer really didn’t sing, so on “Hocus Pocus” he yodeled.

That song was enough of a hook to persuade Mitch and me to both buy the album (“Moving Waves”) and that’s when we discovered Side 2. It was a side-long epic jam called “Eruption” and it was incredible. I remember Mitch excitedly telling me, “You’ve got to listen to Side 2. Over and over again. It’s unbelievable!” It was the sort of thing that reinforced what Yes was already telling us; that there was a lot more to rock music than the hits.

On their next album, creatively entitled “Focus 3” I discovered a song called “Sylvia” which also showed me how creative rock music could be. The structure and arrangement of the song begged for vocals, but since van Leer had no hope of singing those vocals, guitarist Jan Akkerman used his enormous talent to make his guitar, in effect, sing the song. Amazing stuff, and it was cool that Mitch and I were experiencing it all at the same time. The show at Kiel Auditorium was mind blowing and eye opening, although we were part of a crowd that had to number no more than 2,000 people in the 10,000 seat arena.

Another great tradition for Mitch and me was Wiffle Ball. We played it in the driveway at my home, on Woodleaf Court, and our games were nearly endless and very competitive. Home plate was right in front of the garage, although at the time we had converted the garage to a family room with big windows and a sliding glass door. The pitcher threw from right next to where the basketball goal was. The rules were as follows. There were no walks or called strikes (who would be the umpire?), but three swinging strikes or fouls and you’re out. Any ground ball fielded cleanly by the pitcher was an out. Any fly ball or pop-up caught was an out. With an imaginary runner on base, any line drive caught by the pitcher was a double-play. Any batted balls that left the driveway surface before passing the pitcher, were considered foul balls. Ground balls past the pitcher were singles. Over the years, we moved the boundaries for what constituted a double, triple, or home run until, at the end of high school, a home-run had to clear the midpoint of the street. That was quite a wallop with a plastic Wiffle Ball. Then there was The Green Monster.

Batter by the house. Pitcher mid-driveway. Home run, half-way across the street. Looks like The Monster taketh away even more these days… (Click to enlarge and throw a pitch)

A huge oak tree stood near the end of the driveway, on the right side of it if you were looking at the house from the street (the left side of the drive looking at it from home plate) and it’s still there today. Actually, here it is. I just discovered that Bing.com maps now have street-side views! The oak tree’s massive branches extended out over the drive, almost halfway across the asphalt, and it came into play a lot. Any ball hit into the tree that was caught before it hit the ground was an out. Sometimes, we’d crush a ball that was easily going to be a home-run, but the tree would get in the way. Other times, we’d hit little bloop pop-ups, but a branch would deflect the ball and cause the pitcher to miss it. Our motto was, “The Monster giveth, and the Monster taketh away” and it did just that. Oh, and my sidearm slider was unhittable.

Section 2: Pickfair

I recounted in “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” how, when I worked for my brother at DelWilber+Associates, we put together a big sponsorship for M&M Mars and their 3 Musketeers brand, with the Major Indoor Soccer League, and we took the 3 Musketeers guys out to L.A. for the MISL All-Star Game at The Forum. What I didn’t have room for, in the editing process, was the tale of our night at a legendary Beverly Hills home, as part of the festivities.

The Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA were owned by Dr. Jerry Buss. He also owned the L.A. Lazers, of the MISL, and they would be hosting the All-Star Game at The Forum. On the night before the game, team owners, players, officials, and our small contingent were all invited to the fine doctor’s home. He did not live in a normal kind of place. He lived at a place called Pickfair.

As seen in 1937. Imagine us in a big white tent on the lawn…

In the early part of the 20th century, movies were silent. That didn’t keep the movie stars of the day from being very famous, though, and very rich. Around 1919, movie star Douglas Fairbanks bought a hunting lodge atop a hill above Hollywood and over the course of five years he turned it into a 25-room mansion. He’d bought it for his equally famous silent-movie actress wife, Mary Pickford. He named it Pickfair. It was one of the most well-known Beverly Hills homes for many decades. Mary Pickford died in 1979, and the house sat vacant until Buss bought it a year or two later.

Our reception and party were in a big tent on the lawn, but the Buss family opened the home and allowed us to walk through as we wanted. It was pretty surreal, actually. I’d never been in a movie star’s home, and have not been in one since. Sadly, as a footnote, Buss sold Pickfair to actress Pia Zadora who, along with her husband, stated it would be renovated and brought back to all its glory. Instead, they demolished it and built a new mansion. Zadora later admitted she regretted that, but she felt the house was clearly haunted and she couldn’t live in it. I’m glad I had the chance to be there, with a bunch of indoor soccer folks and a few B-List movie and TV people.

Section 3 – The Wizard of Oz

Today’s final section is about one of the overall stars of the book, and it’s a story that was in the manuscript right up until the final edits. It’s about my dear friend, former teammate and roommate, James “Oscar” Noffke.

Oscar was then, and still is now, one of the funniest people I’ve ever known, and not in a sort of stand-up “tell jokes and make people laugh” sort of way. He’s just extraordinarily witty and 100% sarcastic. We laughed a lot then, and we laugh a lot now when we do our “Wilb, Lance, Oscar, and Radar” reunions each summer.

One of the most wonderful things about Oscar was his deep love for the movie “The Wizard of Oz.” He seemed to know every single line in the movie, from start to finish. All of us on the SIUE baseball team were, of course, completely familiar with the film, and we liked it a lot. Oscar loved it.

On at least a couple of occasions, the movie would run on network TV while we happened to be on a baseball road trip. Picture 12 to 15 SIUE Cougar baseball players, all in their 20s, crammed into one motel room watching Dorothy, Toto, and the Wicked Witch, while Oscar accompanied the show by reciting every line. It was the greatest thing I could imagine. “She is not just merely dead, she is most sincerely dead!” We’d spend the rest of the road trip, in the dugout and on the bus, reciting lines to each other and laughing uncontrollably.

So that’s about it for this week. No real photos today, just the two screen grabs, because there really aren’t any that would fit the storyline. I’ll make it up to you next week, with plenty of stories and pics about the Dallas race. Can’t wait to get down there.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t exercise my right to shamelessly self-promote. “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” amazingly continues to sell at a steady clip, so don’t be afraid to recommend it to a friend. Or if, heaven forbid, you haven’t bought it yet yourself, now is a great time. Winter is coming, and you’ll need a solid book by the fire. Don’t take my word for it, we’re up to 22 Amazon reviews now and they continue to all be 5-Stars.

https://www.amazon.com/Bats-Balls-Burnouts-Sports-Marketing/dp/1478775726/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498841315&sr=8-1&keywords=bats+balls+and+burnouts

And, of course, if you read this blog installment and thought it was groovy, or cool, or rad, or the single greatest piece of writing you’ve ever laid eyes on, please hit the “Like” button at the top. Even if your name is Bob Mitchell.

Bob Wilber, at your service and remember, “Orders are, nobody can see the Great Oz. Not nobody, not no how!”

My Gateway Getaway

HOME / My Gateway Getaway

October 5th, 2017

Anyone who has read my book “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” knows many of the central themes in my life. I grew up in St. Louis. I always loved Farotto’s pizza and their stupendous toasted ravioli. I’ve made a lot of great friends over the years, and the special ones I’ve either always kept close or have reconnected with thanks to the magic of social media. After baseball, soccer, and marketing, I spent 20 consecutive years going to drag races for a living. And, from my childhood up through college, I was either bugged by allergies or actually sick, and quite often.

Consider all those boxes checked, and many more, during this past weekend’s foray to my old home town. It was wonderful, it was nostalgic, and in the end it was pretty miserable.

I flew down on Thursday afternoon, arriving at the Homewood Suites just an hour before my dinner with longtime friend and classmate Jim Keegan. We met at Maggiano’s, which was walking distance for me. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of dinner at a Maggiano’s, you know about the great fare and how fun the atmosphere is. If you haven’t, you should. There are 49 Maggiano’s spread around the country, and the food is special.

With my buddy Jim Keegan. We’ll always be friends. (Click on any photo to enlarge)

Jim had just arrived and was waiting at the bar for me. Seeing him for the first time in about 38 years was a remarkable and fantastic thing. We were very close friends in college, sharing a large number of classes in the Mass Communications Department at SIUE. Our mutually bent senses of humor fit together like a crossword puzzle. But, as was often the case back then, we both started moving around and chasing different dreams, and we lost touch. Facebook, for all its warts and nuisances, was the method to reconnect. Last Thursday night in Clayton, Mo. was the evening to do it in person.

We weren’t one sentence into our conversation before we were laughing riotously, and it never ended until we said goodbye. We caught up on each other’s lives, we looked back on our time at school and our careers post-college, and we laughed. Not those polite “ha-ha” laughs when you’re just trying to be nice. We laughed and shook our heads and spanned the years of wonderful memories. We talked about school, and our classes, and the projects we did as a team. We talked baseball. We talked about the Cubs World Series victory and what that meant, so very deeply, to a Chicago-area guy like Jim. We talked about how we used to go to Cardinals home games any time we felt like it, and the tricks we knew that allowed us to buy cheap General Admission tickets and then sit in the box seats. It helped that the Cardinals rarely sold out Busch Stadium back then, in the late 70s. We stunned each other repeatedly by knowing the exact sentence the other guy was about to say. And did I mention we laughed a lot?

Jim brought his copy of the book, and before we left I put a heartfelt inscription inside it. What a phenomenal evening. Truly an evening well spent. We “waste” a lot of time in our lives. So much so that nights like last Thursday seem so valuable. And the weekend was only just beginning.

Plus, my salmon dinner was spectacular.

I’d originally planned to keep Friday completely free, but when the chance to have lunch with Art Holliday came up, that took immediate precedence.

I met Art in 1982, when I returned to St. Louis after a year out in Fresno. We became friends quickly, and shared a ton of interests in common, not the least of which was sports. He was in the sports department at KSDK-TV in St. Louis, and was establishing a great reputation and fan base in the area. We also were both music freaks, with elaborate stereos in our suburban apartments. We liked cars, too, and I remember he was driving one of the first versions of the Nissan Maxima when we met. I had a Toyota Celica. I don’t know what I had for lunch yesterday, but I remember that.

We were both communications grads in college. He got his degree in Journalism in the prestigious program at the University of Missouri. And, we not only both played tennis a lot, we just happened to be at about the same skill level, so we both enjoyed our very even matches and we made each other better. Then, after a few years my career took me off to various points on the map, while Art stayed at Channel 5 in St. Louis. He did sports for about 10 years, then did the early morning show for 20. Now he does special feature projects for the news department. And he hasn’t changed a bit.

We met at a restaurant near his home in the fashionable Central West End area of St. Louis, just east of historic Forest Park. I know the area well, since my high school is no more than a mile away and when my mother had her PR agency, she rented an office suite right in the heart of the Central West End. I’d never been to the place where Art wanted to meet, though, so I tried to get there early. That plan backfired a little, but I was lucky enough to find a meter right by the entrance. I used a credit card to put an hour and 20 minutes on it, figuring a busy guy like Art wouldn’t have time for much more than that. He was already seated in the outdoor area on the bustling sidewalk. Again, just like with Jim the night before, it was like we’d just seen each other. Also like Jim, it had been about the same 38 years since we had actually been together.

We had a great lunch, a rollicking conversation, and some more serious talk about our careers and what we’ve been up to. Like I wrote in last week’s blog, he’s been at KSDK since the day he was hired there. I’ve done quite a few other things and have lived in St. Louis, Washington DC, St. Louis again, Dana Point, Calif., Topeka, Indianapolis, Chapel Hill, Austin, Woodbury, Liberty Lake, and now Woodbury again in the same span.

Art, just hangin’ out with some dude named Keith. Because, well… Yeah!

When lunch was over, my parking meter had actually run out. We shared another handshake and hug on the sidewalk, and said goodbye. And I totally forgot to take a selfie. I realized that when I started my car. Grrrr.  So, I present to you my longtime friend Art Holliday with this shot I found of him hanging out with Keith Richards in Greenwich Village, during a film project Art did. Because how cool is it to hang out with Keith Richards! Way cooler than hanging out with the author of “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” I’d think. I was going to try to mock up a “fake selfie” by inserting my mug in a shot of Art, but my PhotoShop skills are basically nonexistent, so this is what we have to work with. Plus, Keith Richards. I do not have that box checked on my list.

After lunch, I took a few hours to tour around my hometown, seeing neighborhoods and ballparks and businesses that date back to my earliest memories. I’m a chronically nostalgic guy, a fact to which Barbara can absolutely attest. Whenever I’m in a place where I used to live or spend a lot of time, I always like to take some time to drive around and see things. I don’t necessarily feel the need to actually go into those places, but I like to rekindle warm memories by seeing places that meant a lot to me.

Of course, I had to visit Kirkwood and it didn’t take long for me to notice something that’s not necessarily a good thing, in my opinion. Kirkwood has been just about 100% built-out since my college days. The only way for it to grow was to purchase land parcels from residents and then cram a few more houses in there. Many of the original homes in Kirkwood were small 1940s brick bungalows and Cape Cods, just like the first home my parents bought in 1946, on Par Lane not too far from Woodleaf Court, where I would grow up.

What I saw this trip was a trend in those older neighborhoods of smaller homes. People are going in and buying two of them at once, so they can tear them both down and then put in a larger more modern house. And that transition is a jarring one. The history disappears, and while the neighborhoods are transitioning you have this crazy juxtaposition of new and old, big and small, all on the same street.

As for Woodleaf Ct., I think it will avoid this trend. It’s an historically important cul-de-sac of just 10 homes, but they were all designed by an esteemed architect named Harris Armstrong, and they are classic examples of mid-century contemporary style. And very unique to just one street. The street I grew up on.

Home.

I stopped by and took yet another photo of my former home. If there are vivid memories of many other parts of Kirkwood or the St. Louis area, there are none more vivid and important than this place. Basketball and Wiffle Ball in the driveway. Kickball in the street. Riding our bikes around the cul-de-sac circle with the other kids in the neighborhood, on endless summer afternoons and evenings. My original bedroom upstairs (second window from the right) from my grade school years, and my room in the basement through high school (with blacklight posters, of course). Christmas in the living room. Dinners at the table. This is home. And it looks marvelous.

The two tall windows on the left side of the front door are the living room. If you look up on the roof, you can spot a skylight window angled up to the side of the chimney. Ours was the only house on Woodleaf with that feature. It was great to feel the vibe again.

I headed back to the hotel for a bit but it was soon time to get to Farotto’s to meet my niece Kim and enjoy our now annual tradition of toasted ravioli and pizza at our favorite place.

I had a bit of a panic attack when I noticed the new menu and the fact the very style of pizza the Wilber family has enjoyed since the first time I ate Farotto’s as a young kid, was no longer listed. All I’ve ever ordered at Farotto’s, for all these decades, was the “Deluxe” version of their thin-crust St. Louis style pizza. And it wasn’t there!

The toasted ravioli is TDF.

Just as I was about to decide, “Well, more than five decades of the Deluxe is probably a rut anyway, so I ought to order something different” the server appeared and I asked her about it. She said, “Don’t worry, all the guys know how to make a Deluxe. I can get you one.” Crisis averted, and rut maintained.

Kim and I enjoyed our pizza and each took some home. We also split an order of toasted ravioli and Farotto’s once again established itself as the purveyor of the finest “toasted ravs” in town. And it’s the town where toasted ravioli was invented. So that’s saying a lot, in my book.

We caught up on family news, and all other things important to both of us, and then shared another hug before heading in opposite directions; me to my hotel and Kim to her lovely Kirkwood home. She is the last of my relatives to remain in our home town, at least for now.

I got what I thought was a fine night’s sleep that night, knowing I was meeting my buddy Stan Osterbur at his workplace at 9:30 on Saturday morning. When I woke up, I noticed something I haven’t felt in a very long time. I had a legit sore throat. I felt pretty good otherwise, but the sore throat was more than just a hassle.

I drove over to Collinsville to pick up Stan, and I was ready for him with a credential and a lanyard ready to go. With this being his first drag racing experience, I wanted it to be a top-notch experience. And, thanks to the great help of my friend Kelly Topolinski and friend Les Williams from the Summit Racing Pro Stock team (you know Les if you watch NHRA Pro Stock on TV – He’s the guy with the cowboy hat who helps clear the burnout smoke from Greg Anderson or Jason Line’s cars by opening and closing one of the doors) I landed two “Sponsor Viewing Area” stickers for Stan and myself. Those would allow us to stand in front of the tower and make the experience all the more vivid.

Two SIUE Cougars and Paintsville HIlanders, enjoying the NHRA experience.

Stan brought along his fabulous camera, with multiple lenses, and by the time we walked through the pits on our way in, his head was already spinning in every direction. When we arrived at the Team Wilkerson pit, I could tell the whole thing was slightly overwhelming for Stan, but in a good way. Actually, in a great way. I don’t think he had any idea what to expect, but it wasn’t quite as amazing as what he was seeing. Stan got to meet everyone, including Wilk who took a few precious minutes out of his hectic day to talk baseball with us. He met Krista and immediately knew why she’s one of my best friends ever. He got to meet Dick Levi as well, and a bunch of crew guys and other friends of mine. It was fun for me to experience it with him. And, standing near the car during the first warmup, he got his introduction to Nitro. And he liked it.

We headed over to the Worsham & Fink pit next, and spent a solid 15-minutes with Del, up in his lounge, recalling stories we’ve all told about each other. That was terrific, and Del was really gracious as he showed Stan his race computer and explained how these 10,000 hp beasts are (hopefully) tamed in the tuning room. I even learned a few things.

When we headed up to the tower to watch from the sponsor viewing area, and the first Top Fuel car did its burnout, Stand just turned and looked at me. He didn’t have words for it. I yelled, “You haven’t seen anything yet!”

When the first two launched, his eyes were as wide as saucers and he said, “That’s the most incredible thing I have ever seen, heard, and felt. Now I know why you brought me here.” Another new recruit has joined the faithful.

I’d been texting with Alan Reinhart, knowing that if he gave my book a plug and mentioned that I was a St. Louis native and the son of a Cardinal, we could probably move a few copies. He’s always great about that, but with this race being St. Louis I figured we’d do better than normal. Then, there was a lengthy oil-down during Top Fuel and I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. I looked at the text and it was from Alan. It said, “Can you get up here right now?”

I dashed up to the announcer’s booth and Alan and I had a solid six or seven minutes of down-time to play with. We utilized every bit of it, talking about where I went to school, who my mom and dad were and what they did, and even my baseball career with both the SIUE Cougars and the Sauget Wizards. It was great fun, and my hunch turned out to be accurate. I signed a lot of books!

When we got back to the pit, we had some lunch and I continued to pound bottles of water almost nonstop. Stan said he lost count when I hit my 15th bottle, but my throat was still barking at me. Then, I got another thrill.

I just happened to be looking at the front of the hospitality area when I spotted a face from the past. A face so familiar it made me jump out of my seat. It was the first Funny Car driver I represented after I went out on my own as a PR and marketing guy. It was Norm Wilding, my British friend from the early 1990s. I hadn’t seen Norm since probably around 1998 or thereabouts.

Norm and me, reunited after far too long.

I brought Norm and his friend into the hospitality area, and he asked about the book. He was wondering if I wrote about him and said, “I hope you were kind to me.” I told him, of course, he was a big part of it and I wrote of him honestly, which was a positive thing. He then went out and bought a copy and returned to have me sign it. He’d said earlier that he recalled exactly what I had said the first time I introduced myself to him. He stated, “Bob, you shook my hand and said ‘Norm, I’m going to make you a star’.” Well, I tried. It surely wasn’t his fault that we didn’t achieve our wildest dreams. When I signed his book I wrote “To my friend Norm. You ARE a star!”

For the second qualifying session, I took Stan to a place where he could get another completely different experience. LRS not only packs the pitside hospitality area, they also rent a huge tent trackside, near the finish line. I wanted Stan to get that perspective, where the speed of the cars is so crazily evident. When the first Top Fuel cars went by, his eyes were even wider than they were at the starting line. Great stuff.

Once the Funny Car session was about half over, I heard the announcement on the P.A. that all sportsman cars still in competition should start stacking up in the staging lanes. They would all run again after the pro session was over. That news meant that Stan and I had to make a decision. We either had to bolt right then, to avoid being blocked in the Gold Key lot (which empties through the lanes) or stick it out and be there another hour or more. My throat made the decision for me. We got out of there just in time, and were lucky to find a space between two sportsman cars to get out of the track.

I wasn’t feeling all that spiffy, but the day Stan had experienced, combined with seeing Norm, being on the P.A. with Alan, signing so many books, and seeing so many friends, was priceless.

My flight on Sunday was at noon, and I went to bed as soon as I felt like I could go to sleep, after taking some Alka Seltzer Cold tablets. I woke up at 5:00 a.m. and knew it was not good. The sore throat had abated a little, but now the fun was in my chest and sinuses. A full blown head & chest cold had taken up residence, and it didn’t seem like the sort of visitor who planned to leave very soon. I was officially miserable enough I wasn’t sure how I could get out of bed, much less drive to the airport or get on a plane. Fortunately, the early wake-up left me a solid five hours to do all I could to feel at least partially human. It wasn’t much fun.

I managed to get my rental car returned, check my bag, and get to the gate with time to spare. I was feeling a little better just walking around, but I was pretty sure I hadn’t even gotten to the worst of it yet. By the time I finally got home, it was all I could do to get unpacked and hit the sofa for a while. Barbara was wonderful enough to head up to Walgreen’s to get me more meds and those helped enormously. The Alka Seltzer Cold stuff is pretty magic.

And, of course, the next morning Barbara felt the first pangs of it. These colds love to move around and make new friends. I spent nearly all of Monday in a fog, mostly laying in bed with Buster. It was one of those “lost days” that seem to pass like an hallucination. By Tuesday, I was on the rebound just as Barb was hitting the skids. Such fun.

In college, I got this sort of thing a lot. My roomie Lance called it “Bob Wilber’s Disease.” I haven’t been felled by a bout this bad in a long time though. Maybe as long ago as 2001. Another slam from Bob Wilber’s Disease can take its sweet time making its next visit. If it never returns, I’m okay with that. It’s about a day getting started, then two days of being wasted, then two or three more going away. I’m on Day 6 now, and it’s almost gone. Good riddance! Barbara is only on Day 4. She still has a way to go.

So, despite the grunge at the end of my trip and return home, the rest of it was stellar. I’m not sure I’ve ever written a blog in which I’ve had the remarkable pleasure of seeing so many old friends, while doing so many great things, all within a matter of two days. If the cold was the price to pay for that, I’m happy to pay it.

And finally, our local sports news… As reported, our Twins had one of the most amazing turnarounds in baseball history, going from 103 losses last year to the American League Wild Card playoff. The only problem was the fact the one-game playoff would be at Yankee Stadium, on Tuesday night. When our boys stunned the crowd with two home-runs and three runs scored in the top of the first, I was happy but then worried. They left runners on second and third after the three runs, and couldn’t drive them in. That seemed like a bad omen to me. The omen came true. Final score: Yankees 8 – Twins 4. Still, we’re all proud of what this young team did, and I think the franchise has turned a big corner. They are young and talented. If their pitching gets a little better, we might be getting psyched up for playoff baseball for a number of years.

The best news in the Twin Cities was provided by our WNBA team, the Minnesota Lynx. They’ve been very good for a very long time, and once again were in the WNBA Finals against the L.A. Sparks. Last year, in the final game of the playoffs, with 3-seconds left, the Sparks and Lynx forwards were battling for a rebound with the Lynx up by one. Just when it looked like the Lynx would earn their fourth WNBA championship in six years, the Sparks tipped it in and broke their hearts.

Minnesota proud! Congrats (and Thank You!) to the Lynx.

This year, it was a replay and a chance at redemption, and redemption it was in a thriller that went to the wire. Plus, it happened in a perfect venue. With Target Center undergoing a massive renovation, they played this season at Xcel Energy Center, the home of the Wild in downtown St. Paul. They did fine there, and drew nice crowds, but once the building had to be ready for hockey they needed another new home for the playoffs. So, the University of Minnesota rolled out the red carpet at Williams Arena, the historic Gophers basketball arena affectionately called “The Barn.”  Last night, 14,632 rabid fans filled more than every seat in the gym, which has an official capacity of 14,625. I guess the extra seven people stood up. And they were LOUD.

It was great fun to watch, and a great feeling to see them celebrate with more than 14,000 screaming fans. I don’t imagine the Sparks were ready for that atmosphere. And, not to be too snarky about it, but it’s a rare bright spot in Minnesota sports these days. As one of the Pioneer Press columnists wrote in today’s paper, the Lynx now have twice as many championships (4) as the Twins (2), Vikings (0), Timberwolves (0), and Wild (0) have combined.

So we had that to cheer about last night. And the Twins are clearly a team on the upswing. The T-Wolves seem to have their best roster since the Kevin Garnett heyday, and we’re excited to see how good they can be. The Wild are now a destination team, where free agents want to go to vie for a Stanley Cup. The Vikings seem to remain cursed by injuries, and our Minnesota United FC Loons are just starting to write their tale as a first-year team in MLS. Maybe this is the start of the next great era in Minnesota sports. And we’d have the Lynx to thank for getting it rolling. Way to go, ladies!

Wow, this was a long one but there was so much material to cover. It will be nice to just relax for the rest of the week, and for both of us to continue getting better from this awful thing we passed around. Next week, I’m off to Dallas but not before I do my next Thursday blog. I’ll see you then.

As always (say it with me) if you just read this blog and liked what you read, please “Like” it by clicking on the button at the top.

And finally, because I can and because I’ve learned not to be shy about promotion, if you’ve been thinking “I need to order Wilber’s book” or “I swear I’m going to get around to ordering Wilber’s book in October” now’s the time! We just got our 22nd review, and once again it’s 5-Stars. I hope you’ll buy it and enjoy it.

https://www.amazon.com/Bats-Balls-Burnouts-Sports-Marketing/dp/1478775726/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498841315&sr=8-1&keywords=bats+balls+and+burnouts

See you next week.

Bob Wilber, at your service and feeling better.

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, To STL We Go

HOME / Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, To STL We Go

September 28th, 2017

Win Twins! (Click on any image to enlarge)

Greetings blog faithful, on a beautiful Thursday in the Twin Cities. It’s beautiful on many levels, including the real sense and feel of autumn being in the air with leaves that are turning brilliant colors, and the most amazing sports news in a long time. After having not been in the playoffs since 2010, and after losing 103 games last year with most of the same players, the Minnesota Twins clinched a spot in the Wild Card playoff last night. That would be the first time in MLB history a team has gone from 100+ losses one year but then to the playoffs the next. It’s been an amazing ride, watching these guys, and the word that best describes them is “resilient.” Every time you think “Well, here we go again” they find a way to put any bad things behind them and turn it around. They’re an easy team to root for. Teamwork, brotherhood, family.

Barring a total collapse by the Red Sox this weekend, they’ll venture east to The Bronx to take on the Yankees on Tuesday. Still a game left today in Cleveland and a final home stand against Detroit, but on Tuesday it will be a “winner take all” one-game playoff to see which club moves on. Do they have a chance against the Yankees? History says maybe not. It’s not easy to walk into Yankee Stadium and come out the winner of a playoff game. But I’ve learned this in 2017: Never EVER count these guys out. This is a wonderful team all of Twins Territory can be extremely proud of. I know I am (says the season-ticket holder.)

But what’s also a beautiful thing is that I’m sitting in the Delta Sky Club waiting to board my flight to my hometown. It’s St. Louis weekend for the NHRA Mello Yello tour and I can’t wait. I’m even going in a day early, as compared to all the other races I’ve been going to for “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” publicity purposes, just because I can. For two decades, the St. Louis race always meant a homecoming for me, but when you’re there working full-time, especially for Team Wilkerson with primary sponsor LRS being “just up the road” in Springfield, there was rarely any time to sightsee or connect with old friends. This time, I’m making the time.

Tonight, after I land and check in at my hotel, I’m having dinner with Jim Keegan. Quick, book readers, tell me who Jim Keegan is and why it’s great for me to be getting together with him. I’ll wait. (Play theme music). That’s right, he was my classmate at SIUE who went through the TV/Radio program with me, in the Mass Communications Department. We were pretty much the stars of the program there, and really good friends who could crack each other up at will. Basically Jim was my best friend who wasn’t part of the athletic program, while I was in college. Can’t wait to see him tonight. I may be wrong, but I think it’s been 27 or 28 years since we were last together.

Then, on Friday, I’m having lunch with Art Holliday. If you live near St. Louis you know who Art is, but for those who aren’t familiar with him, I’ll explain. Just as we were getting out of college, a young man about the same age as all of us started working at the NBC affiliate, Channel 5 in St. Louis, as a sportscaster. We all liked his work, because he seemed just like us. A couple of years later, when the Toronto Blue Jays moved me back to St. Louis to take over the midwestern states as a Scouting Supervisor, I found an apartment out on the west side of St. Louis, in Maryland Heights where all the cool kids lived, and discovered quickly that Art and his wife lived just a few doors away. Art and I met, became friends, and played a ton of tennis together. I don’t believe I’ve seen Art since 1989 either, and he’s amazingly still working at Channel 5 although he’s been out of the sports department for many years. In the time he’s worked at KSDK, I’ve held 277 different jobs. OK, not that many, but I’ve done a lot of different things.

On Friday night, I’m meeting my niece Kimberly (and hopefully her husband Chris although I don’t know that for a fact) at Farotto’s for what is now an annual tradition. There will be much pizza and toasted ravioli consumed.

As I wrote in a prior blog, I’m then taking former roomie and teammate Stan “The Count” Osterbur to the race with me on Saturday. As opposed to Jim and Art, I have actually seen Stan recently, at last year’s SIUE Hall of Fame induction, but it will be great to provide him with his NHRA Nitro indoctrination. Ear plugs? Yeah, probably.

With the extra day, I’m going to be able to do so much more and see so many other parts of my home town. I really am looking forward to this. And I’m looking forward to the race and the interaction I’ll no doubt have with the LRS people, as well as book buyers seeking signatures. To that end, we’ve not only been doing a lot of St. Louis area publicity work but have leapfrogged it a bit by doing some pre-Dallas work as well. On Tuesday, I did two lengthy interviews. One was a radio gig with a station in Amarillo, the second was with the San Antonio newspaper. I, quite literally, had a sore throat by the time we were done. The radio interview was 56 minutes long! I think that’s a world record. The newspaper conversation was “only” 35 minutes. Both were very enjoyable and we did, indeed, see a spike in sales after the radio bit. That Elon Werner guy is a pretty decent publicist. Just sayin’…

On the home front, we’ve had that big swing in the weather, finally. On Saturday, Barbara and I joined our friends Mary Beth and Joe Gillis at the Afton Art Fair. Afton is a little town due east of us, on the St. Croix River, and its annual art fair is classic “small town America” wonderfulness. Plus, the artists have some incredible stuff to offer. We came home with a lot of it. And, one item was not only pricey, and big, but also very heavy. It was a good thing I could go get the car and drive it right up to the entrance of the fair, in the small town square.

Welcome home, little birdies…

We love to watch Minnesota nature, especially the wide range of birds we have here. We feed them in the winter and now we can accommodate a family and their nest in style with this heavy steel birdhouse, all created and welded by a local guy who comes up with some great ideas. We chatted with him quite a bit. He told me he spends each winter making about 100 new steel birdhouses and then sells them all summer at fairs and flea markets.

He also sells them from his home, and he said, “Every year I put them in the ground out in back of my shop, just to keep the shop free of clutter, and it never fails that every spring I’ll have to hang signs on a few, that say ‘Sorry, Occupied!’ It would be pretty hypocritical of me to kick out the birds so that I can sell their house.”

He made a wide range of designs, but we loved this one the best because it’s so “Minnesota Cabin” looking. It makes a great addition to our back yard, and Buster and Boofus have already noticed that it attracts small birds in a hurry. They’re pretty mesmerized.

And yeah, that’s a small deer head welded to the front, above the “front door” and the roof is made of diamond plate.

BREAKING NEWS:

We take you now to our reporter, Bob Wilber (often spelled Wilbur) “live” from the Delta Sky Club on the F concourse at MSP:

“Hello everyone, this is Bob Wilber on the scene just moments after being alerted, by my publicist Elon Werner, that I’m not just in the online version of the St. Louis Post Dispatch today, but apparently I’m in the print version on Page 2! What? Couldn’t get me on the front page?”

This is actually unbelievable and a thrill. My hometown paper!

http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/columns/joe-holleman/former-stler-signing-autobiography-at-saturday-auto-race/article_15a312c9-f903-55ad-9785-db7a6547b8fc.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share

And yes, PR does work. A huge spike in Amazon sales last night and again today. At one point, back up to No. 85 in the category. That’s stunning for a book that’s been out for four months. Wow. Great work, Elon!!!

In other breaking news, the Sky Club today featured grilled Italian sausage and hot dog buns, plus freshly made hot pretzels, which allows a visitor like me to do double-duty with the small packets of mustard. Efficiency!

I need to get this wrapped up and then get over to my gate. F-14 is a fun one, as anyone who has traversed MSP could attest. It’s at the very end of the most congested concourse in the place. Awesome!

See you all next week.

And, if you read this blog and liked this blog, then please (by all means!) “Like” this blog by using the button at the top.

Bob Wilber, at your service and worried he might have mustard on his chin.

 

Sorry, Ray…

HOME / Sorry, Ray…

September 21st, 2017

Welcome back, blog faithful. I’m going to switch it up a little this week. Instead of ending this installment with a good story that didn’t make the final edit of my book “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” I’m going to lead off with it. This story is just too rich to leave for last, and it dates back to 1988.

The Sauget Wizards, of course, are a major ongoing theme in the book, because I played for them for so many years, but 1988 was a classic year filled with some of the best “characters” I ever played with, all on the team at the same time. One of those characters was Ray Schott.

Ray didn’t play for us, although he was heavily involved in just about every game that year. He was our batboy. As such, we adopted him as one of the guys and we were all really fond of Ray. 1988 was 29 years ago, so I’m assuming Ray was around 11 or 12 at the time. Just yesterday, when thinking about the “Sorry, Ray” story I’m about to tell, I reconnected with Ray on Facebook. One look at his page, after all these decades, instantly confirmed it was the same Ray Schott, nearly 30 years later.

As you might imagine, baseball fields, dugouts, and clubhouses are all places where the English language contains an above average amount of salty words. OK, far above average. Sailors may cuss as much, but probably not more. When I wrote about my youthful years as a batboy, for my dad’s Triple-A minor league teams, I recounted how a number of the Denver Bears said goodbye to me at the end of the summer with a warning. They said, “Remember, saying ‘Pass the f*****g salt’ isn’t going to go over very well with your mom. So, try to unlearn everything you picked up this summer.”

I managed to avoid cussing at the dinner table, but I failed at unlearning what is just normal talk before, during, or after any ballgame. Just about every guy I ever played with was the same way. The conversations were pretty “colorful” if you know what I mean. To the point where it gets whitewashed in our ears as if we never even said that stuff, and we were certainly never shocked to hear it. Yes, drag racers can be pretty much the same.

1988 was the first season we had a full-time batboy and by our first game or two we were all realizing that Ray’s young ears were absorbing a lot of stuff he was probably hadn’t been exposed to very much, at that age. We tried mightily to clean up our verbal acts, but it was impossible. We couldn’t unlearn all those years of talking like that.

The 1988 Wizards, with Ray Schott on the far left, standing. Sorry, Ray! (Click to enlarge any photo)

So, we figured we’d get some sort of special dispensation if we just apologized every time we cussed. And we did that, all summer long. If we came back to the dugout blurting out a string of expletives, those bad words had to immediately be followed by, “Sorry, Ray.” If we did that, we figured it was OK. If any of us took a called third strike and walked back to the dugout upset, it would likely come out as, “Well #### me! That ###### struck me out with that piece of #### pitch? No ####ing way. Sorry, Ray.”

And it wasn’t just angry outbursts. General conversation was very much peppered with a basic set of six to eight classic curse words. A simple question like, “Who’s up this inning?” could realistically end up having two or three words you can’t say on the radio in it, by the time it was spoken.

Ray surely “grew up a lot” that summer, but in a bigger picture view of it I think it actually was a good thing for all of us. Having to add the “Sorry, Ray” to the end of any profanity-laced sentence diffused it immediately. We’d all crack up when the “Sorry, Ray” followed the string of curse words.

And, we won the league championship that year, capping it off by celebrating on the field before pouring champagne on each other’s heads in Sauget. Ray was obviously a good-luck charm!

After connecting on Facebook yesterday, I alerted Ray that this story would be in today’s blog. So, one more time for the sake of great memories, I’ll say it again. Sorry, Ray!

And, I’m sorry this story didn’t make it in the book. A lot of great (hilarious) stories ended up on the editing room floor, but now “Sorry, Ray” gets to see the light of day and be shared with the world.

Back to the present day, or at least recent days, I did venture southeast to Charlotte over the weekend, to attend the NHRA Mello Yello Carolina Nationals there on Saturday. As always, it was great to spend time with my racing family, including Team Wilkerson, my PR colleagues, and the new friends I’m making by getting to so many of these races in the second half of the season. It’s always good, and the PR group in the media center are a bunch of people who always make me smile and laugh. That’s good for the soul.

Very cool to be in Drag Illustrated.

One of the highlights of the weekend was being able to pick up an actual copy of Drag Illustrated magazine and open it to page 42. I’d seen the PDF version of the Q&A story they’d done with me, but holding it in my hands was a totally different deal, in a really good way. It was weird, because I obviously knew it existed, and I’d already read it as a PDF, but then seeing in print, in such a highly respected and well produced magazine, took it to a completely new level. To the point where I immediately sat down and read it all over again (and maybe a time or two more, to be honest.)

Brandon Mudd did a great job with it, and the magazine staff also did a wonderful job with the layout. I’m honored to be in the publication, and thankful for their interest in “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts.” And, yeah, this might be a good time to click on the images to enlarge them. If you’re a big drag racing fan, it might also be a good time to think about subscribing. They cover it all, and do it very well.

A few moments after I had the joy of reading this story, I walked down the interior hallway within the magnificent tower behind the zMAX Dragway starting line, and the last door I passed was the one for the P.A. announcer’s booth. The pro categories had just wrapped up, so I hung out for a second to say hello to Alan Reinhart, who I’ve seemed to unluckily miss at the last few races. I’d be near him when his mic was live, or he’d be near the Wilk pit while I was somewhere else. On Saturday, I made sure that didn’t happen.

Page 2 of the Q&A

We had a nice chat, and talked about what we can do in St. Louis to get the word out to more fans, regarding the book. After all, I’m a St. Louis boy, with a dad who was a former Cardinal, and a mom who was a KMOX radio personality, and I went to school in the area from Kindergarten all the way to my college degree. There ought to be plenty to talk about. We’re planning on doing all we can at Gateway when the tour gets there at the end of next week.

And, when I was talking with Alan I discovered (much to my horror) that I’d never sent him the book. I thought I had, truly, but apparently I hadn’t or I shipped it to a wrong address. My plan was to send signed copies to a list of people who had been critical in its publication and promotion, but somehow Alan never got his.

He said, “Can I buy it?” and I said, “Not a chance. I won’t allow that.” Then he said, “Well, you know, whenever you get a chance…” He was leaving to go do some other things announcers do, so I said, “I’ll go get one right now. Where should I leave it?” He pointed to a laptop in the booth and said, “That’s my computer.” 15 minutes later, a signed copy was sitting next to his laptop.

zMAX Dragway in Charlotte. It’s kind of a big place.

And the reason it was only 15 minutes later was because Tim and Krista were gracious enough to let me hop on the golf cart to take the book back to the tower. zMAX Dragway is huge, in every measure of the term, and one of those measures, for us, was how far the Team Wilk pit area was from the tower and the staging lanes. Well beyond the end of the grandstand, and probably 250-300 feet beyond the scoreboards. That’s a long hike. I don’t work for the team anymore, obviously, so I’m sensitive about grabbing things or taking the golf cart without asking, and at a place like Charlotte the crew needs the golf cart just to get to the line and back. Now, I’m happy to erase that embarrassing mistake of not getting a book to Alan back when it first came out.

Once in St. Louis next week, I also plan on having my annual Farotto’s dinner with niece Kim and her hubby Chris (if he’s in town) on Friday night.

I then plan to spend some time driving around the area in a more in-depth way than I usually have time for when I’m there for the race. When I was on the tour all those years, I’d generally be lucky to even get out to the old neighborhood on Monday before my flight. This time, I’ve built in some extra time on Friday before I go the track on Saturday. I don’t think I can “see it all” but I’ll give it my best shot.

Yeah, these two former Cougars and Hilanders will be at the St. Louis race on Sept. 30

And, here’s some big news for the St. Louis race. If you’ve read the book, you certainly would recognize the name Stan “The Count” Osterbur. Stan was my roomie on road trips for a couple of years at SIUE, and one of my best friends on those college teams. He also then spent much of the 1978 summer as my roomie in the professional ranks, as a member of the Paintsville Hilanders in the Appalachian League. How big a part does he play in the book? Well, of the 39 photos in the back, he’s in three of them. That’s an enormous percentage for anyone other than the author himself.

With all that as the back story, Stan will be coming with me to the track on Saturday. It will be his first NHRA experience, and we’ll do all we can to make it an unforgettable one. I’d be surprised if he didn’t get more than a few autograph requests once book owners learn he’s there. I love the fact that in the past few years I’ve been able to introduce former Paintsville teammate Vince “The Bronze Fox” Bienek to NHRA, out in Sonoma, and now “The Count” will get to feel the power and inhale the nitro, in St. Louis. Don’t be scared, Roomie. You’ll be fine!

Had I been going to all the races in the second half of the season, I’d be getting ready to head to the airport again because Reading is this weekend, in Pennsylvania. But, for budgetary and marriage reasons, I’m not going. It’s an expensive race to get to, in terms of air travel and hotel costs, and frankly my wife Barbara has been absolutely swamped and consumed by her job for many months now. Unlike the stunt we mutually pulled off last week, where we did one of our patented “ships passing in the night” routines as she returned home just as I was leaving and then vice-versa a couple of days later, I want to be home this weekend. That’s more important than selling a few books.

So I’ll leave you with two standard requests…

A) If you perused this blog installment and liked what you saw, please “Like” it by clicking the button at the top. The more “Likes” the merrier.

B) If you’re still thinking, “I really gotta get Wilber’s book one of these days” it’s a good time to do that. Fall is in the air, winter won’t be far behind, and a fun book will be a good companion as you sit by the fireplace and sip on hot tea. Or a cold beer. Or a glass of anything, for that matter. Could be a good Christmas present, too!

You can get it right here, of course:

https://www.amazon.com/Bats-Balls-Burnouts-Sports-Marketing/dp/1478775726/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498841315&sr=8-1&keywords=bats+balls+and+burnouts

Thanks everyone, and best of luck to all my racing colleagues in Reading this weekend. I’ll be watching!

Bob Wilber, at your service and still saying “Sorry, Ray.”

The Calendar Marches On

HOME / The Calendar Marches On

September 14th, 2017

So, we’re in that part of the year where all sorts of things are changing or happening at once. We’ve had a few delicious days in the 60s so far, but mostly it still feels like summer here in Minnesota. We’re in the 80s today and it’s humid. But, as the band Ambrosia once told us, “Time waits for no one.” If time did wait for anyone, I think we’d all be doomed, so perhaps (perhaps?) it’s better this way.

That time of year when baseball and football overlap. (Click on any image to enlarge)

School buses are everywhere, the Vikings have already played (and won) their first regular season game, the Twins have only 17 games left, with seven of them to be played at Target Field, and they still are holding tight to the second Wild Card spot in the American League. Seriously, who saw that coming? The Minnesota Wild open training camp today, and the Timberwolves won’t be far behind. And, this is where it gets weird, the leaves are changing color and many are already falling. It’s a strange transition when the trees look like autumn but the air still feels like summer.

The thing is, around here it tends to tip over all at once. We can’t be more than a few weeks away from that first day when the wind comes out of the north and you swear you can smell winter in the air. Snow sticks will get pounded into the ground, the hunt for heavy jackets will take place in the hall closet, and (gasp) the countdown will be on for switching over from AC to the furnace. When you first do that, and the furnace kicks on, it has a certain smell about it. It’s the smell of oncoming winter.

When I was a kid, I didn’t like autumn because it meant winter was coming. In suburban St. Louis that meant endless months of gray skies and gloomy afternoons were on the way, and some snow, and some cold weather, plus some sleet just to add to the fun. Winter in St. Louis was not much fun, actually. Up here, I don’t mind it. It’s an adventure to get through, it’s sunny a lot, and we’ll have multiple winter sports all going at once. Here’s hoping those teams keep us as entertained as the Twins have this summer. Last night, another walk-off win with a home run in the bottom of the 10th. Win Twins!

A very special national anthem, on 9/11/17

Barbara and I had the Vikings Monday Night Football tickets thanks to our friends Mary Beth and Joe, who were vacationing in Hungary and Croatia, but as the game neared it was obvious that Barb’s job was intent upon making it so that she wouldn’t be able to go. So, I called Terry Blake and invited him. Terry is a great guy, and one of the funniest people I know, so I figured even if the Vikings looked as bad as they did in the preseason, we’d still find a way to have a great time. It was also September 11th, so we figured there would be some emotional tributes during the event. The national anthem was, as we technically put it, amazing. It also included a massive “card stunt” for the whole crowd to be involved in. Terry and I aced the stunt.

Lo and behold, the game ended up being a defensive struggle until the end of the first half, when the Vikings marched all the way down the field to score a touchdown right before halftime. They kept that momentum going in the second half, as well, and ended up beating the Saints 29-19, and it really wasn’t that close.

We’d been talking to some other fans before the game, and the consensus was that former Viking Adrian Peterson would either get totally stopped by the Vikings defense or run all over them in his first game as a Saint. As we said, “He’s either going to run for 25 yards or 225 yards, but probably not anything in between.” I was leaning toward the 225 end of things. As it turned out, No. 28 only rushed for 18 yards, so we missed it on all counts.

Good times with Mr. Blake, who was attempting to fist-bump my iPhone

Frankly, it was a heck of a game. The Vikes unleashed a passing offense like we haven’t seen in years, their rookie running back Dalvin Cook ran for 127 yards, and they dominated. The words “Vikings” and “dominated” haven’t gone together much lately, unless the word “were” was placed between them.

And, we had an overall great time at the game, even beyond the football on the field. We got there early, like just about everyone else, and strolled around outside before going into US Bank Stadium, and we did a lot of high-fiving with perfect strangers wearing purple. The only hitch to the entire event was the departure. The parking structure we used is great, but you’d have to drive right into all the departing traffic to take the shortest route home by getting directly on I-94 eastbound, which is the way back to St. Paul and Woodbury. The best way to go is to do a little loop south on city streets, in order to get on I-35W northbound for a bit, then follow the I-94 ramp to go east. That’s the best way to do it if things like on-ramp construction aren’t underway. The ramp to get on I-35W was closed for said construction. Fortunately, for me as the driver, Terry knew another very efficient way to get him back to their apartment in downtown St. Paul, taking I-35W south toward the airport, and then following surface streets to St. Paul. I think that might be the best way to get home from a Vikings game from now on.

Great show! Bucket list item checked.

Last week, on Friday night, it was actually Barbara and me at US Bank Stadium for the U2 concert, and as it turned out we had plenty of Woodbury company in the huge sold-out crowd, although it was impossible to meet up. I think we all agreed on a consensus review. The show was great. U2 was spectacular. US Bank Stadium is a lousy place for concerts.

The building is enormous, with a cavernous roof. They’ve added some acoustic fabric on half the roof (the half that isn’t see-through) but it still echoes like crazy and the sound bounces around in there like a tennis ball in the dryer (not that I’ve ever put a tennis ball in the dryer, but you know what I mean.) Still, just to get to see U2 was a thrill for me. And they played their hearts out despite the lousy acoustics.

Those same echo-filled acoustics, however, make it a great place for football. It gets really (REALLY) loud in there. So much so, I wished I’d taken ear plugs to the Vikings game. Yeah, that’s coming from a guy who spent 20 consecutive years at the NHRA races. It’s that loud when the Vikings are on defense.

The stadium has only been open for a year, so you have to give them a bit of a break, but with the Super Bowl coming to town at the end of this NFL season, the stadium management needs to get a lot of work done. The signage is pretty bad and it’s hard to figure out how to get to specific places. The people working there don’t seem to be too sure of it either. Neighbor Dave and I experienced that first-hand when we worked the sidelines at the Vikes – 49ers game. Most of the people we approached for directions were clueless, and there were absolutely no signs showing us how to get to the broadcast level. And, expert professionals were at a loss, as well. The text I got from our buddy Mike Hohler at KNBR basically said “You’re just going to have to find us. I can’t really explain how we even got up here…”

At the concert, we asked how to get to the Club Level but got only a vague guess from an usher-looking person. We finally looked over a railing to a lower level and saw a sign for our section, so we went down the escalator only to find that we had to turn around and go back up. We were originally only a few steps from the section, but had no idea it was there. I think the US Bank Stadium staff needs to go spend some time at Target Field with the Twins or the Xcel Energy Center with the Wild. And hey, Target Center is just finishing up a massive renovation for the Timberwolves, so that would be a good place to go get some advice, too.

In addition, a lot of the entry gates seem like they were designed without any security in mind. The gate we entered for the concert looked like they’d gotten to work that morning and realized they had forgotten to put any security measures in place. Problem “solved” with massive amounts of temporary chainlink fencing all over the place. That’s probably not the look you’re after for the Super Bowl.

All things considered, still a great time and I’m thrilled to have seen U2, thrilled to have seen a Vikings win, and I learned a new way home from the stadium. Tons of fun was had by all. And, it was an honor and a real pleasure to hear Terry tell me that he’s about 2/3 of the way done with my book. His comments were not only very positive, they were very insightful. He sensed and recognized some themes and deeper meanings that made perfect sense, although I wasn’t fully aware of them as I wrote. Terry is an excellent professional communicator, whom I respect as much as anyone I’ve met who works with the written word, doing media relations, or just plain writing. His comments might’ve been the highlight of my week.

Tomorrow, I’m off to Charlotte to spend Saturday at the track. Looking forward to getting back to zMAX Dragway and seeing my extended NHRA family.

Thanks for reading and remember… If you read this and you enjoyed it, please click on the “Like” button at the top. The more “likes” the merrier.

Finally, it would be hard for me to believe that anyone reading this blog is still “thinking about” buying my book but hasn’t yet. If that’s the case, though, excuse me while I promote it one more time with a link right to the Amazon page. If Terry Blake likes it, that’s about the best Seal of Approval I could get.

https://www.amazon.com/Bats-Balls-Burnouts-Sports-Marketing/dp/1478775726/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498841315&sr=8-1&keywords=bats+balls+and+burnouts

Bob Wilber, at your service as a tireless book promoter (whispering “Buy my book” in hushed tones).

 

Procrastination Is Overrated

HOME / Procrastination Is Overrated

September 7th, 2017

I don’t often procrastinate. Or, at least, I don’t usually procrastinate. Today, though, is one of those days. It’s 2:15 in the afternoon and I’m finally writing this first blog paragraph after finding every possible useless and/or useful thing to do up until this point. Usually, I’m excited to get going on a new blog installment but today is one of those examples of the water being too cold, the mountain too high, the sauna too hot, and my brain too disengaged. So, I’ve been surfing the web, reading (parts of my book and a few chapters of another), and basically doing anything but writing. Maybe my writing tank was just empty. Now, here I am and it’s flowing pretty well. Maybe I ought to eat a second lunch, or go run some more errands…  Nah, time to finally dive in.

There is a lot to write about, especially starting with my brief trip to Indy for the US Nationals. Let us start at the beginning. That’s always a good way to get rolling.

I flew down on Saturday, which in itself was an odd thing. That’s an “Indy Only” approach because the race is on Monday. Before I packed for my early afternoon flight, I studied up on the construction that’s going on with the TSA stations at MSP. There are just two TSA security entrances at MSP, but they are very large and tend to be pretty efficient. There is, however, a new type of security set-up that makes things even more efficient, and I’ve had experience with it. Was it at Orlando? That’s possible, but even if it was somewhere else I was really impressed.

Why does it take so long for people to get through security? A lot of it has to do with people being in a line to do it. And then the person at the front of the line takes forever to fill their bins and load their bags onto the conveyor belt. Like boarding an aircraft, once the person at the front stops and takes a while to get situated, everyone else is stuck doing nothing at all.

The new system involves bins and a conveyor, but it has room for multiple people to be doing their thing at the same time, at automated “stations” along the conveyor. Bins pop up automatically, you put your stuff in the bin, and away it goes. Since there are different places to stand, you can go to any available spot when you get there. You don’t have to wait for everyone in front of you. It really moves along pretty quickly once people get the hang of it. Kind of like roundabouts on the roads these days. Once people have figured them out, everything moves smoothly and you can’t believe we used to sit at stoplights there.

So, they’re putting this system in at MSP and to do so they’ve closed one of the two TSA checkpoints to install it. I figured it wouldn’t be awful on a Saturday, and it wasn’t. Plus, I now have CLEAR as well as Pre-Check, and the great news was that they had the CLEAR lane open at the checkpoint that’s closed. I literally checked my bag at the Delta Sky Priority desk and was through TSA in less than a minute. Fingerprints or retina scans are the absolute model of efficiency.

That left me an hour to hang out at the Delta Sky Club, and there’s all sorts of good news about Sky Clubs these days. Not long ago, definitely back in the old Northwest Airlines days and even into the early days after the Delta merger, the club was a great place to relax, have a drink, get on the internet, and have a bite to eat, if by “bite to eat” you meant little rectangles of cheddar cheese or some pretzels.

Now, there’s real food. Okay, not steak and potatoes, but some good soups, chicken salad, a salad bar, and even hot breakfast in a number of Sky Clubs. Plus, the new seats and cubicles all address the most crucial necessity we all must have: Power outlets. There are power outlets and USB ports everywhere. No more leaving your phone on the floor to charge it up.

I’ve been a member of the Sky Club since the first trip I made out of MSP after we moved to Minnesota in 2002. It was, of course, the World Club then because Northwest and Delta weren’t one big airline yet, but all it’s done is get better, year after year. I just renewed my membership again, for another year, last month. I can do it every year with miles, and they are miles well spent. As a “Million Miler” on Delta, I have plenty to spare.

Okay, back to the Indy trip. I reserved a room at a Residence Inn on the northwest side of town because I wanted space to spread out, the rate was pretty good, and it seemed like it should be a quiet place to stay. Quiet is a very important thing for me, when I’m on the road. When I checked in, the lady behind the desk took care of the details and then said, “We have breakfast from 7 to 10 in the morning, although tomorrow there will be an early cold breakfast at 6, for the teams.”

I said, “Did you say teams?” thinking there might be some NHRA friends of mine staying there, but her reply was, “Yes, we have a number of 10-12 year old youth soccer teams staying with us, for a big tournament.” Oh joy!

When I got to my room, all the doors around mine were decorated with photos of young soccer players, with the names of the boys in each room taped to the wall above their photos. Even more joy!

As it turned out, they were pretty wound up and noisy until about 9:00 pm and then the parents were able to get them all in their rooms and all was good. Crisis averted. Thank you, soccer parents!

I was excited to get to the track in the morning, as well. Because I’ve been going to the US Nationals since 1992, and because I actually lived in Indy for nearly two years in 1996 and ’97, it’s a nostalgic race for me. Plus, the news had spread that another former PR pro, one by the name of Elon Werner, was also making an appearance. We weren’t technically “putting the band back together” but it was going to be great to see Elon and hang out in the Media Center with my former PR colleagues. Consider it like one of those special benefit concerts when a disbanded rock group will get back together for one night.

This is epic on too many levels to count. Also two of my favorite people! (Click to hilariously enlarge the photo)

At one point, up in the 4th-floor Media Center (feel the burn, going up those flights of stairs 10 times a day) I asked Leah Vaughn to take my phone and shoot a pic of Elon, Kelly Topolinski, and me. She clicked off two and then said, “Elon, open your eyes!” and we ended up with this most epic iPhone pic. I had to stick the “grimace” emoji onto the shot, because Elon is doing a perfect impression of that guy. Hilarious. And, if you’ve read “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” you know how important and influential these two wonderful people are, and how much they’ve meant to me.

I spent a lot of time in the Team Wilk pit, enjoying the company of so many longtime friends and colleagues, including (of course) but not limited to my buddy Krista Wilkerson. Indy is a big race for the Wilkerson family, and there’s always a large number of volunteers helping out (including Jon and Susan Cagle who cook some amazing steaks for us) and many of those volunteers started helping Tim in 2009, after John Fink and I joined the team. Those Auburn, Ind. friends of the Finkster have stayed part of Team Wilk all these many seasons. It’s like being home again when I’m around everyone.

The pits were jammed, and it seemed like I couldn’t walk 10 feet without seeing another friend, former teammate, or colleague. It’s really a homecoming race for a lot of people. For me, being in the Media Center with so many great and valuable friends is like therapy. That part of the job I miss enormously. That’s why I’m so happy to be doing this promotional tour to many of the races, and Charlotte will be next on my agenda, next week. Hurricane permitting, I guess. The forecast for Charlotte predicts it will move through and be gone by the race weekend, so here’s another time when I’m rooting for the weather experts to be right. Also hoping, very much, that Irma just moves back out to sea and spares Florida and the southeast. I have family there, and many friends.

My best buddy Rachel, with her new reading assignment

Rachel Wilkerson was in Indy, too, and Krista secretly bought a copy of my book for her. Now she has two pounds of reading to do! I expect a full book report, Miss Wilkerson. Hop to it!

I was in the Media Center for the first Sunday qualifying session, and when Tim came up as part of the final pair, Alan Reinhart proceeded to give my book and me some nice plugs on the P.A. system. That had an immediate effect once I was back in the pit.

I can say with certainty that Sunday at Indy was the single biggest day in terms of book sales at the souvenir trailer, and for folks bringing their copies to the pit for me to sign. I didn’t think we’d ever match the action we had in Joliet, but Indy trounced it. Very gratifying, and a lot of fun.

I caught up with Del Worsham in the lanes before the second session, and was thrilled when his sister Susan came over to the Wilk pit with her adorable daughter, Lily Elaine. I’ve known Susan since my first day on the job with Del and Chuck, in 1997. We were introduced early that day and have been dear friends ever since. And somehow, 20+ years later, I’ve aged and she hasn’t. I was just flipping through photos for some Facebook posts I’ve been making, and came across a picture of Susan from that first day in Pomona. She looks exactly the same. Absolutely beautiful.

In summation, it was a wonderful day at the US Nationals with many of my favorite people on the planet. When the second session was nearing its end, I made the long walk out to the infield of the circle track, got in my rental car, and headed back to the hotel. As a bonus, all the soccer teams were gone and there was no sign of Justin, Jordan, or Kyle on the doors of the rooms around mine. And, I had Steak ‘n Shake for dinner. All was good.

On Monday, I gave myself plenty of time to get from my room to the departure gate, as I always do, and once again flew right on through everything. A smiling agent was waiting for me at the Delta counter when I turned the corner, and we had a fun conversation about the Twin Cities. He’d lived there for quite a while before transferring to the Indy airport.

No CLEAR at Indy, but I had Pre-Check and never slowed down going through that. The TSA guys even said, “Man, you timed that perfectly. Up until five minutes ago, we’ve been slammed.” Then, thanks to another Sky Club, I had comfy place to get a bite, do some social media, and relax before heading to the gate. And, I timed that perfectly too. When you show up at the gate at the precise moment they begin to board the plane, you’ve aced your travel test for the day. To top it off, we were 20 minutes early into MSP. All good. I feel like I’m getting back into the rhythm of travel again, and it looks like I’ll at least make Platinum this year, after a very slow start.

Now, another brief story that originally was in the book but ended up on the editing room floor. It has to do with golf clubs. My golf clubs.

We went through a phase with the CSK team where just about everyone on the team was really into golf, and Thursday would typically be the day most of the team would play. We had three big rigs on the road then, with the red team, the blue team, and hospitality all having transporters, so the golfers on the team kept their clubs in the hospitality rig. I did as well.

Maybe some day I’ll find out who lost my 7-iron

But, and this is critical, the Thursday thing didn’t work very often for me, since that was my standard travel day back then. That does not mean, however, that it was also an off-day for my clubs. Not all the guys had clubs in the rig, so someone would almost invariably use mine. Even the time the whole team came to our original home in Woodbury, big rigs and all. That’s Carl Boyd on the right, with my green bag in his hand.

Now, I’m not about to blame Carl for this because it could’ve been a wide variety of people who did this deed. But, someone, at some point, lost my 7-iron. That’s not hard to do. It’s standard to take your putter and the club you’re going to need to get on the green, with you from the cart. It’s easy to lay the club down on the side of the green while you’re putting, and not difficult to walk right past it on your way back to the cart.

Right around this time was when I started having all those horrible arthritis issues in my ankles and knees, so golf stopped being a thing I could do very often. I still have that bag, I still have those clubs, but I still have no 7-iron. And that was probably the club I hit the best and trusted the most. It’s probably time for a whole new set anyway. I hope my 7-iron found a nice new home with someone in a foursome behind my CSK buddies.

And I leave you, today, with this.

Almost too sleepy to eat… I said Almost.

Boofus and Buster are professional sleepers. Buster is probably a little better at marathon snooze sessions than his little brother, but they can both stretch it out to mid-morning just about everyday. I’ve seen Buster make it to the middle of the afternoon, still snoring in our unmade bed. I don’t make the bed until they’re both up. Hey, it’s their bed. We just get to share it with them!

Yesterday, around 11:00 in the morning, they heard me in the kitchen and came out for their breakfast treats. They fully expect breakfast treats. Don’t even think of not giving them breakfast treats. But this time, they were still so sleepy they could barely meow. Boof looks like he’s still 90% asleep in this photo. They crack me up.

So, that’s about it. Still lots of fun stuff on the agenda for the next week, including the U2 concert at the Vikings stadium tomorrow night. That will be incredible. Then, on Monday night my buddy Terry Blake will head back to the same US Bank Stadium for a little Monday Night Football. Vikes vs. Saints, featuring some running back named Peterson. Should be fun, win or lose.

As always, if you perused this blog installment and enjoyed it, please don’t leave before clicking the “Like” button at the top. The more likes, the merrier.

Until next Thursday, I bid you all farewell and hope you have a great weekend. Off to Charlotte next Friday.

Bob Wilber, at your service and still missing my 7-iron.

Inside The 30s

HOME / Inside The 30s

August 31st, 2017

Let’s get right to the meat and potatoes of this blog installment. That would be a Filet Mignon and a fully loaded baked Idaho spud, too. Maybe some grilled asparagus on the side, with Bearnaise sauce. Lots of good top-of-the-line material for this one, starting with my adventures on the artificial-turf field at US Bank Stadium in downtown Minneapolis. What a deal that was. So, let’s get right to it!

It was a night game, versus the 49ers, on Sunday so Dave and I planned to leave his house at around 4:00, prior to the 7:10 kickoff. My buddy Mike Hohler, who is the executive producer of the Niners radio broadcasts on KNBR, urged us to arrive as early as we wanted, to have some fun and stroll around before the game began. He also wanted us there no later than 6:00, so we could head up to the broadcast booth and learn the “rules of engagement” from his engineer.

It was raining a bit when we left Woodbury, but it’s an indoor stadium so we weren’t too worried about that. Our first stop was the Radisson Blu hotel in downtown, where the 49ers had spent the night on Saturday after flying in from the Bay Area. That’s typically how NFL teams do it. They fly in the day before, have some meetings, get a good night’s sleep, and then fly back home immediately after the game. They do that, of course, on a chartered aircraft. At the Radisson, Dave pulled under the portico and I dashed inside to the front desk, where Mike had left a packet for us. In it were our two field credentials, a map, and a parking pass. On a sunny afternoon, the five block walk from the parking structure where we were to park would’ve been a pleasure. Unfortunately, it was coming down steadily and a heavily by that time. Good thing for us we each brought an umbrella.

Even with the umbrellas we were still getting a little wet, but we wanted to get inside and get the party started so we kept trudging. Then, about two blocks from the massive stadium, while the rain was still coming down hard, a car came toward us and drove right through a deep and large puddle next to the curb. You can probably guess how that ended. Yep, we were right in the line of fire and totally drenched from the waist down, although I was on the curb side and blocked a bit of it from hitting Dave. My right pant leg was completely soaked, from belt to shoe. As you might imagine, I was none too pleased by said driver in said car. If it was an accident he never saw coming, that’s one thing. But to be completely unaware is a stretch.

We knew generally where the Media entrance was, at the southeast corner of the stadium, but Mike had texted me with a warning. He wrote, “It’s not easy to find the booth. You have to search around to find the only elevator that goes to floors 3 and 4, where all the booths and the press box are.”

He was right. We wandered around like lost puppies for a bit, before a Vikings employee spotted us and asked if we needed help. Even she wasn’t sure where the magic elevator was, but we did eventually find it. After that, everything was pretty easy.

Hanging with Mike and learning the ropes up in the booth (Click image to enlarge)

It was around 5:00 by then, but Mike, his engineer, and the two on-air guys (Ted Robinson and Tim Ryan), were all set up and ready to go. That gave us some time to do the important stuff. The engineer walked us through where we could go, where we should go, what we shouldn’t do, and what we should. He showed us our dish microphones (also known as parabolic mics) and walked us through what he wanted.

The keys were: When the team breaks the huddle, have the dish right in front of your face. It’s clear plastic, so you look through it and always keep it pointed toward the action. The dishes had straps, to put around our necks, so our arms could get a break between plays or during time outs.

All around every NFL field there is a line of yellow dashes, about a yard or two from the sideline. At the 30s’ it expands to go around behind the team bench areas, which are pretty huge and pretty deep. We had to stand behind those yellow marks, and because of the benches we could only work inside the 30s.

That meant, we’d aim our dishes at the plays from the goal line to the 30. Then, if the play went beyond the 30, we’d stay put until the team with the ball crossed midfield. Once that happened, we’d have to dash around behind the team benches to get on the other side of the 50.

My only tool for the evening. I took good care of it.

The other key piece of advice we got was this: If the play was coming right at you, don’t try to back up. NFL players are big, but they are also very fast. You can’t back up quickly enough to get away from them. So, we were told to judge the oncoming play and avoid the players by moving laterally, left or right. I was getting more nervous by the minute.

After that, we did the single most important item on our to-do list. Mike had brought his copy of “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” with him, and it was sitting right in the middle of his desk on the upper level of the booth. It was my job to sign it with a message, and I was happy to do that. He then said, “Leave the dishes up here. Go downstairs and get a feel for everything, watch some warm-ups, and have some fun. Just be back up here by 6:30 or so. You’ll want to be in position by 6:45.”

At that point, we discovered that the solitary “magic elevator” that serviced the broadcast level was very slow. A lot of media members need to get up and down all the time, so despite the fact we had a stadium employee running it, the time it took to finally show up gave Dave and me a reason to make sure we weren’t late getting back to the booth before the game. We wandered around, watched quite a bit of the warmups, saw a bunch of Twin Cities TV personalities we knew by sight, and had some fun. We decided, also, that I’d take the near sideline for the first half, and he’d be on the 49ers side. On kicks and punts, I’d aim at the kickers and he’d be in position to get the sound of the return.

On that stroll, we also realized another thing. US Bank Stadium is so enormous it’s hard to fathom, but the sidelines are actually pretty tight, especially behind the benches. And, there’s another crew that needs full access to that slim area behind the benches. They are the guys running the big vehicle with the scissor-lift on it, and a full-sized camera and its operator on that lift. Mike had already warned us to be very wary of those things. They’re network cameras and they need to reposition quickly when the ball moves up and down the field. It was obvious to us, even during warmups, that we’d probably just have to stand aside and let those guys through. Mike had also told us that the NBC guys would always be in a hurry, and they’d expect to get the best spots. He said, “They’ll be running a lot. We don’t want you guys to run. Just walk quickly and stay out of their way. If you miss a play walking to the other end of the bench, that’s okay. Just be safe.”

We decided to get back up to the booth a little early, keeping the elevator in mind, and then it was time to grab a quick bite in the Media Lounge before heading down to actually do our assigned tasks. We were both excited and a little nervous. Plus, like the scene in “Spinal Tap” when the band leaves the dressing room but then can’t find their way to the stage, US Bank Stadium is a labyrinth of concourses, passageways, stairwells, and doors. Many many doors. Each time we went up or down, we got a little lost. At least until halftime, at which point we felt like veterans of this gig.

My view, for four quarters of NFL football.

After all the pregame intros and that hoopla, we took our positions on opposite sidelines and strapped on our dishes. Dave had done this once before, back in the Metrodome days, but it was my first time ever on a football field for an NFL kickoff. Nervous, excited, thrilled, apprehensive… I was all of the above.

Let me also tell you a little about NFL players. Yeah, they look big and fast on TV. They look big and fast from the seats in the stadium. They are not “big and fast” when you’re standing next to them. They range from very big to gigantic, and from pretty quick to lightning fast. They are really something to behold, actually. And being right next to them, when I was standing at either 30, I really appreciated their professionalism and serious attitudes. I was on the Vikings sideline, and even the camaraderie and support they showed, for their teammates, was pretty inspiring.

And about all the other people on the sidelines. NBC had four sound guys with dishes. So, they didn’t have to run around behind the benches when the ball moved. They also got first choice on where to stand. There were NBC camera operators with handheld minicams, for sideline shots and interviews. There were security guards, with their backs to the field, about every five yards. And, there were a ton of other people with sideline passes, ranging from team physicians to NFL people. The serious looking guy right behind me on the right side of the field was really focused on everything. I finally saw his hard-card credential, and his job was “Uniform Code Enforcement” or something like that. I didn’t want to stare, but it was clear that his job involved making sure all the players had their uniforms on the correct way and weren’t wearing any unapproved brands of equipment. He didn’t look like a guy you’d want to mess with.

On the right side of the bench, I was near all the linemen. On the other end, I was standing near the kickers and punters, and with it still being preseason the Vikings had multiple guys still fighting to win each spot. There were a lot of them. And that net they kick into, to warm up? It was no more than a few feet behind me and when their feet would make contact to the ball it sounded like a gun shot. I kicked a lot when I was in my teens and 20s. None of my kicks ever sounded like that.

During one of the early plays, I discovered two things. 1) We were told to hold the dishes in front of our faces and look through them. Good plan. Except the dishes have been through some battles and they’re a bit hard to see through. 2) When a play came toward me, at full speed, being able to see a little better would’ve helped, and the advice to move laterally to get out of the way was also a good idea, but one that really couldn’t happen. Standing at the 30, I had Vikings linemen to my left, the NBC dish guy right on my elbow, a security guy to my right, two guys holding the yard and down markers right in front of me, and various others all around. And a running play came right at me. Have you been in the ocean when the waves are pretty big and they pretty much pick you up and take you wherever they want to go? It was kind of like that. A wave of humans engulfed me and I just skittered across the turf with them, mostly backward. I didn’t have much say in the matter. The guys holding the sticks are told to drop them immediately when players approach, for everyone’s safety. One of them threw his to the ground. Right on my ankle. That stung a little, but I somehow avoided contact with any monstrous players. I’ll call it a win.

At the half, which actually comes pretty fast when you’re on the field, Dave and I put our dishes down but immediately made up our minds that going up to the Media Lounge or the booth was out of the question. We couldn’t risk having the elevator make us late. We also decided not to switch sides for the second half. We’d both spent the first half figuring out the best way to operate on the sidelines we were on, so it was best just to stick with it. To that point, I’d avoided being run over by the scissor-lift truck, the NBC minicam guy and his minions only tripped me up once with their cords (when the cord guy snapped his to avoid a knot and it lassoed my ankle for a split second, although I escaped catastrophe on that one) and no linebackers flattened me. Actually, though, we both felt about 100 percent more confident in what we were doing after two quarters, so staying put made the most sense.

We strapped our dishes on and put on our headsets, ready to go. On our headsets, we could hear the KNBR guys doing the play-by-play and could also hear Mike as he talked to them and got them back on the air after every commercial. Had we been disappointing them or doing our jobs wrong, they could talk to us and get us straightened out, but we had no way to talk to them. Throughout the first half, no one ever spoke to us. I was actually a little worried that I had the headset radio turned to the wrong setting.

Michelle Tafoya: “So, Sam, exactly how tall are you?”

The second half was more of the same, and we both had it fairly well figured out by then. At one point, NBC’s Michelle Tafoya interviewed starting quarterback Sam Bradford right behind me. I didn’t want to turn around and be a fan by pointing my phone at them, so I sneaked a custom selfie-style shot without me in it. To the world, it looked like I was shooting a pic of the field. But I got the shot. And yeah, even Sam Bradford the QB is a very big boy.

To cap off a very fun game, the Vikings third-string guys actually put a rally together in the last few minutes, then scored a touchdown to get within one point with no time remaining. So, of course, they went for the two-point conversion, right in front of us. The QB wanted to pass but no one was open, so he sprinted for the pylon in the corner of the end zone, on the far side. Dave was positioned right there.

When the QB dove for the conversion, and the Vikings won the game, the entire team (both the guys on the field and the full bench) sprinted to congratulate him and celebrate, and Dave was nearly consumed by that tsunami of huge humanity. The scissor-lift truck on his side was right behind him, and one of those guys yelled, “Get on here” at him. That pretty much kept him from being crushed.

We took our time, and then headed back up to the booth. I asked Mike how we’d done and he said, “I guess great. Did anyone call down to you or tell you what to do better?” I said we never heard a word from anyone, and he replied, “Well, then you did great. Can’t do any better than that.” Kudos to us. We were the best sideline sound guys KNBR Radio had at US Bank Stadium that night.

After being on our feet for more than three hours, it felt good just to sit down for a bit. Then, once Mike and his guys were all packed up, we helped them wheel their big rolling cases full of all their equipment down to the loading dock. The 49ers had two big trucks waiting, and we rolled the four-foot tall heavy radio boxes onto the lift gate. Then, we got to see how an NFL team travels. The Niners had three big buses waiting, and TSA was there to handle everything right there in the concrete bowels of US Bank Stadium. The players and personnel went through security, and got on a bus. From there, they’d head straight to MSP airport but would never go through the terminal. The buses would enter a secure area next to the charter jet, and they’d get right on. It’s not a bad way to travel. They got back to the Bay Area around 2:00 a.m. or thereabouts.

So, that was my fun Sunday night. Dave and I had a ball. And, before he got on the bus Mike informed us that the 49ers would be coming back to Minneapolis next year, as well, but that will be a regular season game. We are already committed and confirmed to be KNBR’s sideline mic guys for that one. Can’t wait!

On a different subject, this has been a big week for me as an author. Amazon direct-deposited a few hundred dollars in my business account, representing my royalties for Kindle digital sales in the U.S., Canada, the UK, and Australia. So, technically, that was the first income I ever earned as an author. The next day, an actual check from Outskirts Press showed up in the mailbox. I deposited all $1,410.18 of it in my business account, but not before I made a copy of it. After visiting the bank, I went to Office Max and bought a frame. My first royalty check is now on display just to the right of me, as I sit at my desk.

My first royalty check. I am officially a professional author!

I’m not kidding when I tell you how much that check meant to me. The money (it’s real, although it’s not like I can pay off the mortgage with it) isn’t the issue. It’s the fact this check exists. At the end of 2015 I made the drastic move to quit working for Team Wilkerson and instead write a book. More than 100 people generously backed me on Kickstarter so that I could then afford to publish whatever it was I was going to write. A year and a half later, it was done and on the market. That check represented my royalties, the net sum after Amazon and Outskirts took their percentages from the gross sales price, for a book I’d vowed to do, and then went ahead and did. I’ve been paid plenty of times for writing press releases and feature stories. I’d never before deposited a check for having written a book that people bought. This check is for the last week of May and the month of June. And through July and August, it’s still been selling steadily. I’m damn proud of this. Sometimes it hits me just what I’ve done, and this check was one of those moments of clarity.

Here on the home front, I am pleased to tell you a story you haven’t heard yet, about Boofus and Buster. At least I believe that to be true. With all this writing I’ve been doing, it’s hard to remember exactly what stories I’ve told and which ones I’ve only thought about telling but then never did. Anyway, if I’ve told this before, it bears repeating.

Needless to say, the boyz are not short of toys. They have so many it’s almost impossible to walk through a room and not step on one. They mostly like to play with rigid toy balls they can bat around like little soccer players, or they like us to play with them by dangling the feathers that are attached to sticks. Then there are the green, white, and yellow “mystery balls” they have.

They don’t play with them much, because they’re very soft and don’t go very far when they bat them around. Oh no, they have a totally different approach to these balls.

There are four of them. For weeks at a time, they will disappear. We literally will not see them for weeks, even months. And we’ve never known where they go. This goes all the way back to Liberty Lake, when we first got moved into the house there. The four fuzzy little toy balls disappeared for more than a month. Then, one by one they reappeared.

It’s gotten far more structured now that we’re back home in Woodbury. The four balls go away and we don’t see them. Then, one by one they will be presented to us in a grouping. Boofus is hilarious, because you can hear him doing it. When he carries them in his mouth he makes the funniest meow sound, and he only makes that long drawn-out sound when he’s carrying one. If he’s running a little while doing it, the meow goes up and down as he trots across the floor. At first, we didn’t know what was wrong with him and were worried that he wasn’t feeling well, but then we actually witnessed what he was doing and now, when we hear it, we say, “Bring it over here, Boofie.”

Still waiting in the fourth one…

In the last month or so, they have all disappeared and then been presented to us again, three or four times. Once, it was on the landing to the stairs coming down to my office in the lower level. Just one or two a day, until all four balls were there in a tight circle. The next time, the same process played out right in front of Barbara’s office door. All four balls in the course of two days. Then, within another day, they all disappeared again. This time, we’re up to three in the living room. The fourth should show up soon.

It’s pretty clear that these are things they’re “catching” as prey, and then bringing them to us as trophies. Sure beats actual dead mice, that’s for sure. But it’s nothing short of hilarious to watch the whole process play out. And I still have no idea where they hide these things when they disappear. I’ve looked under beds, behind curtains, and everywhere else I can imagine. I’ve never seen one “in captivity” before they bring them all back to us.

So that’s your Boofus and Buster story for this week. They’re crazy and lovable boyz.

I was going to include another fun story that ended up being edited out of the book, but I think this blog is quite long enough after all the tales of football, microphones, elevators, checks, and mastery toy balls. I’ll be sure to include one next week, and I’m keeping a list of new snippets as they occur to me. The list is plenty long enough already.

I guess that’s it for today. Lots of fun tales and big news. And mystery fuzzy toy balls, too. And, you know the drill: If you perused this nonsense and found it enjoyable, please click on the “Like” button at the top.

UPDATE: I’ve been checking a certain website the entire time I’ve been writing this blog. I sent a promotional copy of my book to longtime writer and reporter Jerry Bonkowski, a couple of weeks ago. Last week, he interviewed me at length, on the phone. Today, his story ran as a lead-in to the NHRA U.S. Nationals on a big-time sports website (NBCSports.com) and it’s really fantastic. I’m honored to have a pro like Jerry write a piece about me and the book I’ve created. Big time stuff.  Here it is:

New book takes fans on compelling, humorous journey into world of NHRA drag racing

That’s about as cool as it gets. Big thanks to Elon Werner for setting that up and to Jerry Bonkowski for his stellar work.

Bob Wilber, at your service and still not flattened by a linebacker.

 

A Trip Up North, and More…

HOME / A Trip Up North, and More…

August 24th, 2017

One week ago I posted my weekly Thursday Blog Day installment and lamented the fact that my Thursday posting schedule meant a lot of the fun stuff I will now being doing each week will happen the day after the blog. For instance, on Friday afternoon I left Woodbury and headed for Brainerd. Seems like a long time ago, now. But, as we say so technically and gracefully, it is what it is. So here we are on this particular Thursday with a chance to wrap up the last week.

For the record, driving up to the Brainerd Lakes region, or really anywhere in northern or north-central Minnesota, on a summer Friday is a recipe for one thing. Traffic. And lots of it. Minnesotans love their lakes, their Walleye, and their boats, which means they also love their cabins up by those lakes, Walleye, and boats. And that makes for a mass exodus on Friday afternoons as they venture north.

It’s roughly 150 miles from Woodbury to Baxter, and the track is just north of Baxter, so that should take (“should” being the operative word) about 2.5 hours, since much of it is state or county roads rather than interstates. Except it was a summer Friday afternoon. Heck, it took me more than an hour just to get around the north side of the Twin Cities on the I-694 loop! Nearly four hours after backing out of my driveway, I arrived at Madden’s Resort on Gull Lake. Burned out and tired of it, too.

This is the prescription for relieving the stress of bumper-to-bumper traffic… (Click to enlarge and appreciate even more)

So, it was a wonderful thing to have this view from my room. And, for the first time in all my stays at Madden’s my room was in one of the original buildings, which was cool. They’ve been improving and adding on to Madden’s for a million years (slight exaggeration) but it all started with one big lodge and I finally got a chance to stay there. Rustic, wonderful, quirky, luxurious, quaint, and did I say wonderful? It’s all of that.

It’s like a step back in time, in a lot of ways, but the balcony view of the lake was right there in the present. All of the Gull Lake resorts are great, and all are a bit different in how they approach things and aim for their key demographics, but I’ve become pretty attached to Madden’s. This will not have been my last visit there, and since Barbara’s work kept her chained to her desk all weekend, and she therefore couldn’t come up with me since her desk is too big for the car, I told her that we should pick a non-race weekend, or play hooky during a week, and come up for some real R&R. We need to do that.

I had a nice dinner, went to bed fairly early, and looked forward to being at the track all day on Saturday. I knew they’d had a lot of rain in the days leading up to the race, so despite the fact it was sunny and perfect on Saturday I also knew I’d need to get out there pretty early. Why? Because the reserved parking lots flood fairly easily, and since I was driving Barb’s little Lexus hot rod RC300 coupe (she wanted my larger car for the weekend) I didn’t really want to either park in the mud, or in water, or get stuck.

When I got to the track, and pulled into the Red Key/Gold Key lot, the guy pointed to the end of the current row of cars they were organizing. Between me and the end of that row was a veritable swamp of mud, muck, and water. I rolled my window down and said, “Hey man, I don’t know if this little car can get through that, and worse this actually my wife’s car.” He smiled and said, “I gotcha. Put it right here.”

“Right here” was the first spot off the entry road. Good dude. And much appreciated.

I walked into Brainerd International Raceway just like I have for decades, and the beautiful thing is that it remains not much different than my first trip. And, if you’ve read my book “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” you may recall that Brainerd, in 1992, was the first race I attended as the Vice President of Motorsports Marketing, Inc. which is a fancy way of saying it was the first NHRA race I attended as the assistant to the guy in New Jersey who represented Chuck Etchells.

There’s never any doubt that you’re “up north” in Brainerd

BIR is special, in so many ways, and it’s really unique in many glorious ways as well. It has an entirely different vibe from any of the other tracks on the Mello Yello tour, and even the air feels different up there just 100-some miles north of Minneapolis. You have no problem knowing exactly where you are. And I say that because anyone who has been on the tour for any length of time knows that surreal feeling of standing on the track and realizing your brain is thinking, “Wait a minute. Where are we this week?” or being in the pits and thinking, “Which way is the starting line from here?”

I headed straight for the Wilkerson pit, not exactly sure where it was located but sure of the fact that I’d have to run into it once I came in the gate and turned right after the Nitro Mall. The Nitro pits in Brainerd are just one long aisle, with rigs on either side of it. A little more than halfway down the aisle, I was there, but only after running into a series of crew guys, drivers, NHRA officials, and others who said hello and asked how the book was going. In so many ways, it was really great to be back.

I hung out with Tim, Krista, and the team for a number of hours, and was thrilled when our longtime friend Tom “Shorty” Shannon showed up with a tray of pulled pork and his amazing french fries. Shorty had to sell his restaurant in Cottage Grove, just south of Woodbury, when a developer came in and bought the whole strip center with the intent of demolishing it and putting in something new, but Shorty hasn’t forgotten how to make those fries.

One of the first things I did was take the golf cart back out to the parking lot to unload six more boxes of books, out of the trunk. That would be 42 in total. We needed them because the souvenir trailer was down to their last three copies. Just as I was doing that longtime blog reader, Facebook friend, and now cat sitter to the stars (Boofus and Buster) Erica Moon showed up in the Wilk pit. She came with me and helped load and unload boxes. I had one thing to accomplish before I took the first three boxes to the souvenir stand, though. I had to open three boxes and sign all 21 of them with a Sharpie, and then Wilk was gracious enough to drop what he was doing to sign them as well. From there, Erica helped me get them over to the trailer.

Hanging with the PR pros in the Media Center

When it was time for Q3, I made the long trek down to the Media Center, which is roughly 12.25 miles away from the pit. Again, a slight exaggeration, but if you’re familiar with BIR you know how spread out it is. Like Topeka, it’s spread out so much almost all the teams use their golf cars and scooters to get to the staging lanes, so a former PR guy who is now just promoting his book had to hoof it. I did that at least five times during the day, back and forth, so I’m guessing I’d have hit the 20,000 step mark if I’d had a FitBit on. It’s a long way.

I don’t have a “Restricted Area” pass anymore, so I watched Q3 from the Media Center, surrounded mostly by former colleagues I still know well and respect a ton. There are some new NHRA people on the Media Relations staff, though, so Brainerd was a great chance for me to get to know them and let them know who I might be, and that I’d be at all the rest of the races other than Reading. Gotta stay relevant out there, right?

I had prepaid for two nights at Madden’s, but I told my captive wife that if the day ended on time, and if I didn’t feel too tired, I might just pack up the car and head home. The room was paid for and it would be well past check-out time, so I would just load up and go. After Q4, and after selling and signing a bunch of books, I dashed for the car and headed back to the resort. And I yawned. It was a big yawn, too. I knew right then that I was tired, and making the drive back home was probably not the smartest thing. It could’ve been done, but why tempt fate? I got a good night’s sleep and was rolling at 9:30 on Sunday morning, taking the route that heads east out of Brainerd over to Mille Lacs, then taking route 169 south, around the west side of the huge lake and straight back down to I-94, where it intersects right outside of the Twin Cities. I got home at 12 noon.

It had been a fun little trip, to a place I always love visiting, and I’m really happy I’m doing this publicity tour to this many tracks. It’s great to be out there but free from the stress of working in a traditional PR sense. I’m just “working the room” to promote the book, and then I head back home.

Indy is next, of course, and since that race happens on a Monday I’ll be flying down on Saturday and spending only Sunday at the track. If you’re coming to “The Big Go” and have the book, bring it with you! If you don’t have it yet, get it on Amazon or buy it at the track. The personalized signatures are free of charge. Just come find me at Wilk’s pit.

This week has been pretty quiet, which is not a bad thing after a year and a half of writing, editing, and promoting a book. With six more races for me to attend, and with all of them requiring Delta airplanes, National rental cars, and hotels of various styles and ilks, I’ll be plenty busy right into mid-November. A quiet week is good, although I also had the opportunity to have fantastic lunches with great guys the last two days. Fun conversations with two guys I really like and respect. Great catching up with both of them.

The big thing on the horizon for me, and Neighbor Dave, happens on Sunday night. The San Francisco 49ers will be in town to play the Vikings at US Bank Stadium, and we will be there for Sunday Night Football. We won’t be in seats, though. We’ll be on the field holding the big round parabolic microphones for KNBR, the official 49ers radio station that covers all their games. I’ve known Mike Hohler for many years, thanks to the blog, and he’s the executive producer for the games. We set this up quite a while a go, and now the appointed Sunday is nearly upon us. If you happen upon the game on TV, look for us on the sidelines.

And now, keeping to our new tradition, I will leave you with a fun story that somehow didn’t make the final editing cut for the book…

When I graduated from Mary, Queen of Peace elementary school and headed off to St. Louis U. High, a number of my MQP classmates made the same transition, from the nuns to the Jesuits. One of them was Mick Bayer, although we all called him Mickey back then. I’d lost total track of him for most of the last 43 odd years, until I stumbled onto his Facebook page and we reconnected. One of the first notes I sent to him had to do with his father, and his muscle cars.

As freshmen at SLUH, our parents set up a mutual carpooling situation, wherein my mom and I would swing by Mick’s house (not far at all from our home) and pick him up on certain days, and on the others my mom would drop me at the Bayer home so that I could ride with Mick and his dad. Almost invariably, after I’d knock on the door I’d be invited in and the Bayer family would still be finishing breakfast, which as I recall seemed to feature mostly just toast. Odd that I remember that, but I think it’s true.

Mick’s dad loved Mopar muscle cars, and while I do not recall what specific models he had, I remember him having a couple of them. I’d slide into the back seat, and hold my breath for the entire 20-minute ride to SLUH. Mick’s dad’s opinion was, “I love these Mopar muscle cars and they don’t like to go slow, so I have the remedy for that.”

I felt like we were in a NASCAR race every time I rode with Mick and his dad. And I clearly remember sideswiping either another car or a street sign once. Just like the NASCAR boys say, rubbin’ is racin’ so that’s how it went. I was literally petrified every morning his dad drove us down there. And, to make it more terrifying, his dad never drove us to school on Highway 40, the most direct and rapid way to get from their house to SLUH, down by Forest Park in the city. We drove surface streets, usually on Clayton Rd., each morning. And he’d be on and off that throttle with a lead foot, making those big motors howl while he veered into and out of various lanes. It was, I guess, a thrilling way to get your blood moving before another long day in various classrooms. I have never forgotten it. Those tales were in the original manuscript, but since they really didn’t tie into any other themes in the book we decided they were fun but expendable. And now they’ve seen the light of day. Thanks, Mick!

I guess I’ll see you next week. Remember, if you somehow got through this blog installment and enjoyed it, please click on the “Like” button at the top.

Bob Wilber, at your service and still recovering from those morning races to SLUH.

Reaching Into The Mail Bag…

HOME / Reaching Into The Mail Bag…

August 17th, 2017

When it’s Thursday Blog Day and not much has happened since the prior blog installment, what’s a blogger to do? Considering this endeavor has always seemed more “Seinfeldian” than news-filled, for oh these 11+ years, there’s still only so much “nothing” one can write about. This, therefore, is why I keep a file that is filled with all the emails or Facebook messages I get that even vaguely resemble questions from readers. When in doubt, go to the file and find the best ones. It’s like “Instant Blog” powder. Just add water. And since it’s been raining here in the Twin Cities for about 24 hours, I have plenty of water to add. Just ask my sump pump.

Before that, though, I just realized something about the arbitrary decision I made to make Thursday my blogging day. I think I did that because when I switched this blog to our family site after posting my final installment at the NHRA site, I was neck deep in feverish writing, having just started the process with “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” and Thursday was the best day to give myself a bit of a break from that. Research and write like a maniac on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, then blog on Thursday, and finish up with some final editing and writing on Friday. Seemed like a great plan, at the time. Now, though, I see the flaw. Heading back out to a bunch of races, in order to continue promoting the book, means I’m blogging on the day before that happens. I leave for Brainerd tomorrow. Maybe it would’ve been smarter to pick a different blog day, way back then, but I think we’re locked in now. Thursday it is!

So let’s get to those questions, but before I do that it bears mentioning that I rarely get reader emails anymore. Most of the questions and comments I get are direct messages on Facebook. The times, they keep changing…

Cara, from San Antonio, actually contacted me through our charity, The Perfect Game Foundation, and she asked: “I’m heading to the University of Texas for my freshman year and I think public relations is something I could really love doing. Any advice for my field of study?”

You really couldn’t go wrong majoring in Journalism, for multiple reasons. You’ll learn how to write succinctly and accurately, you’ll learn what’s important and what’s fluff, you’ll understand how to structure a story, you’ll learn about dogged determination, and you’ll come out of it knowing the “other side of the street” from a PR perspective. Knowing what matters to a member of the media will make you a better PR person. Oh, and Hook ‘Em Horns! Enjoy Austin, and eat at Chuy’s whenever your college-student bank account allows.

Carl, from New Hampshire, wrote: “What do you think about New England Dragway? I haven’t seen you write about it much, but it sure is great for all of us up here in this part of the country.”

The reason I haven’t written about it much is because it’s been a really (like REALLY) long time since I’ve been there. When it was added to the NHRA tour, we’d already instituted our “no travel when no hospitality” rule at Team Wilkerson, and LRS was not doing corporate hospitality there. So, beginning with the first year it was on the schedule I never traveled there. The only time I’ve been to New England Dragway was way back in (I think) 1992 or thereabouts. If you’ve read my book you know my first job in drag racing PR was when I went to work for a guy in New Jersey. We represented Chuck Etchells and Mike Dunn, and I got my feet wet for the first time in terms of press releases, media relations, and this whole end of the business. We also represented Kendall Oil, and they sponsored “Big Daddy” Don Garlits and his Top Fuel Dragster, at the time.

Garlits wasn’t driving then. He tuned the car and Bruce Larson drove it. I don’t recall which “Swamp Rat” that car was, but it was the black dragster with a cockpit canopy and the mono-strut rear wing.  A very innovative car, indeed. I went to New England Dragway for an IHRA race they were in, but I don’t remember much about it other than how small the track was and that they lost in the first round. Hey, it was a long time ago. We also did some PR work for Al Hanna, who drove a jet Funny Car. I have an almost certain memory of him being there, as well.

I do know NHRA and the teams really enjoy going to the Epping race now. It’s pretty easy to see that on Twitter, thanks to the plethora of tweets from drivers, crew members, and PR people who love to share pics of the lobster, crab, clam chowder, and other New England delicacies they enjoy up there. And when the schedules coincide you see a lot of pics from Fenway Park, too.

Paula, from Denver, sent me this message: “I really enjoyed your book. It was hard to put it down! And, I really related to your chapters about growing up and not liking grade school. Are you like me, in that you’re well past those years but still get a pain in your gut when you see kids and their parents buying back-to-school supplies this time of year?”

Oh my, yes I do. Today is my sister Cindy’s birthday, and as I wrote in the book we could mark off the milestones of summer by three such dates. My birthday is June 19, and at that time we had nary a care in the world and summer was just getting started. My sister Mary’s birthday is July 25, and by then I was getting worried. When Cindy’s birthday came around, I was in full panic mode. When I got up this morning and sent Cindy and email on her big day, I felt that pang once again. At this point, I’m pretty sure no one can force me to go back to Mary Queen of Peace with the nuns, but I can’t be 100 percent sure of that so I’m always on guard!

Chad, from right here in the great state of Minnesota (St. Cloud, to be precise) said: “Just finished your book. It was awesome, and really motivating for me. I’ve felt like I should write a book for years, but never knew how to do it or how to get started. Any advice?”

Yes. Just start writing. As my editor, Greg Halling, told me, “Write it all. Write everything you can think of. We can always edit.” And boy, did we ever edit. As originally written, my book would’ve been close to 1,000 pages and the cover price would’ve been close to $95 or more, because it’s based on page count. We edited 400+ pages out of it.

So, Chad, don’t worry about publishing or formatting or anything else. Just write. Write as much as you can. Once it begins to look and feel like a book, start researching publishers. The vast array of self-publishing and print-on-demand firms out there makes it really easy and you’ll have lots of options. I enjoyed working with (and continuing to work with) Outskirts Press but there are plenty of publishers out there and they all have their own approaches to the process. I liked Outskirts Press because they charge less up front, but then act as the writer’s partner by taking a percentage of each sale. That motivates them to help you promote the book.

One other piece of advice is to write in the Google Docs word processing application. I had to download it and get used to it, but it’s the best way to write a book, in my opinion. That’s because you can share it with other people and both make changes, and because everything you ever write, whether you eventually edit things out or not, is always saved. You can dig back and find stuff you chopped out, if you want. (Also, in the interest of fair reporting I will admit that I wrote Chad a reply on Facebook immediately, so this is just a recap of that.)

Steven, from Michigan, politely and succinctly asked: “Why is your book so expensive?” I don’t hear that a lot, but I do hear it. As explained above, in the world of self-publishing the cover price is mostly out of the author’s hands, except the case in which the author wants to make the price more expensive. The default cover price is usually $19.95, but that’s based on a “normal” sized book, or one even shorter than normal. 200 pages, max. After that, each page adds to the cost. We used every trick in the book to condense “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” and got it down to a still-hefty 545 pages. At that length, that’s what it had to cost. And after Amazon and the publisher take their cut, I end up getting about $7.50 per copy sold.

Keep an eye on Amazon, if you’re still on the fence about buying it. They have formulas for calculating expected demand, and the price can float around a bit. At one point, it was down to $39.95 but we’ve had a spike in sales recently and it’s back up to $49.93 right now, so two entire cents less than the original cover price. And, of course, the Kindle version is only $9.99.

https://www.amazon.com/Bats-Balls-Burnouts-Sports-Marketing/dp/1478775726/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498841315&sr=8-1&keywords=bats+balls+and+burnouts

As has been my recent tradition, I’ll finish up today with yet another story that fell victim to the massive editing process Greg and I went through.

SLUH. Home of the Junior Billikens. Class of 1974. (Click to enlarge)

It’s well documented in the book that I attended a very challenging all-boys Jesuit high school; St. Louis U. High. The curriculum was stout and the instructors expected excellence. I provided them with a lot of “not too horrible” but somehow I got through it. For all four years, though, there was one period during the day that I relished. It was Physical Education, otherwise referred to as “Phys-Ed” or the generic “gym.”

In the fall, we’d play touch football. I was captain of one team and I decided to “draft” players from our class a little differently than the other captains, who picked buddies and other guys on the real football team. I, instead, picked one tall and fast guy, named Chris Kainz. Then I added a number of non-athletes who never played on any teams. And we won. A lot. Beating teams full of guys from the varsity football squad and other great athletes. How did we do that?

Well, the guys I picked were usually overlooked, underused, and disrespected and I needed them to be a key part of our offense. I needed them to block! I was the quarterback and I knew if I got just a little bit of time I could hit Chris with passes and he could outrun the defense. My blockers took their assignments seriously, since they usually weren’t even included in sports. Chris and I kept it simple. He’d run two or three “square out” routes on successive plays. That’s a route where the receiver runs about 10 yards, then squares off the route to run straight toward the sidelines. A little head fake the other way helps too.

Then, after a few of those where I could throw the ball before he even made his cut, we’d call a “square and go” and Chris would appear to run the same route as I faked the pass. Then he’d turn back upfield again and I’d hit him going long. That fooled the defenders every time.

I remember those games vividly because we had a team full of guys no one else wanted and we won. Even when the other teams knew what was coming.

In 2014 we had our 40th reunion and Chris was there. We were chatting and I said, “Do you remember those touch football games during Phys-Ed?” and before I could finish the question he said “Like it was yesterday. We ran nothing but square outs and square and go patterns and beat everyone.” I was stunned. I couldn’t believe he remembered it as vividly as I did, 40 years later. Sometimes the most mundane and unimportant things stick with you. Those touch football games stuck with both of us.

That’s it for today, gang. Thanks for hanging around with me and I’ll see you next week. As always, if you liked what you read here please hit the “Like” button at the top.

Bob Wilber, at your service calling more square out routes.

 

A Whirlwind Month Ends on a Mountain

HOME / A Whirlwind Month Ends on a Mountain

August 10th, 2017

The officially recognized word for expressing one’s own feeling of well-earned rest after a crazy spell of time is “Whew” and that’s how I feel. I haven’t traveled a great deal while writing, editing, and promoting the book, until now. Denver, Seattle, Sonoma (via Sacramento), and back to Denver, all in succession. Whew. There, I said it.

The “We Did It!” moment. Husband and wife, Eric and Erin Novotny (Click to enlarge)

The good news, as in the great news, was the way it all wrapped up. It was back to Denver for a Doyle family hullabaloo highlighted by one of the most beautiful and enjoyable weddings I’ve ever attended, as Barbara’s niece Erin exchanged vows and rings with Eric in a gorgeous setting. It was also a ceremony filled with original thoughts and sentiments, and not a lot of typical “wedding fluff” which I think everyone really enjoyed, especially the bride and groom. Every word and action of the ceremony was purposeful, thoughtful, and meaningful. And, there were not a lot of dry eyes in the house.

It was an outdoor ceremony, and after months of parched drought in the area, it rained a little during the wedding but just enough to add some character to it. We barely got wet. Barb’s brother Jim, who is Erin’s dad, was magnificent and very touched by having so many family members there with him and his wife Deb. Basically ALL the Doyle family members were there. Jim’s other daughter, Leah, was maid of honor and his son James was in attendance as well. We then had the added bonus of having Leah’s boyfriend Levi and James’ girlfriend Rachel join us, as well.

Barb’s sister Kitty, her son Todd, his wife Angie, and their adorable twin daughters flew up from Orlando. Her brother Tim, his wife Kelly, and his sons Colin and Sean all came in from Pittsburgh, and Sean’s boy Jordan came along as well, for comic relief. The kid is a hoot. So, in summary, all the Doyle siblings were there, as well as all six of their kids and three grandchildren. Amazing.

We stayed at Jim and Debbie’s place and never stopped having fun. The wedding day itself was a bit stressful, but we all pitched in and got everything ready. Tim and I were in charge of decorating the tables for the reception, and organizing the seating to mesh with the detailed seating chart that had been developed. For some reason, the venue wouldn’t let us start until 2:00 for a 5:00 wedding, but we managed to pull it off with minutes to spare. It was like the TV show “Chopped” where the chefs have a limited amount of time to prepare a complicated dinner. When “Time’s Up!” is yelled, everyone raises their hands. We got great help from some other relatives who came in for the day, and finished with minutes to spare.

Enjoying the reception with the bride and groom. Too much fun…

Everyone looked magnificent, especially the bride and groom, and the reception went off without a hitch. We ate well, we enjoyed a few glasses of wine, and we danced and laughed the night away. And to that end, the host for the reception, who also doubled as the minister for the wedding, had a great way of organizing the buffet line. In conjunction with a deejay, he played “Name That Tune” with the assembled 200+ guests. They’d play a snippet of a song and if you knew it you raised your hand. If you got it right, your table was set free to hit the buffet and you could pick another table to go with you. I sprang our group loose by getting “Born To Be Wild” by Steppenwolf after just two or three notes. “Get your motor runnin’ – Head out on the highway – Lookin’ for adventure – And whatever comes our way…”

By the way, for the record the buffet line was about 10-steps better than your typical reception food. Incredible food, really, and I devoured it like a starving man.

Speaking of being a starving man, I had a follow-up appointment with my allergist yesterday, to see how everything is going with the new meds he had prescribed during this awful year for my allergies, and one of the ways I pointed out that I’m feeling better overall was the fact I’m eating more now. When your allergies are as bad as mine have been, you can’t really taste much and you lose your appetite. For the last few months I’ve been eating, but not really getting much enjoyment out of it. For the last few weeks, I’ve found myself actually craving certain dishes and flavors. That’s a good thing, if I can manage to not gain back some of the weight I’ve been able to shed. I needed to drop 15 pounds, and I’ve done that, so in that regard the allergies actually helped me. But that doesn’t mean it was fun.

Anyway, after a fun few hours at the reception, the wedding party dashed through a rain shower to get in the limos and off they went.

The next day, on Sunday, Jim and Deb hosted a huge picnic and cookout for everyone and that was equally as spectacular, in its own way. Brother Tim was in charge of the grill, with my assistance, and the brats and burgers were epic. Fun stuff for everyone, and a great way to relax and just have fun after the wedding.

On Monday, we had plans to go up to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, while Erin and Eric got on an early flight and took off for their honeymoon in Costa Rica. I know they’re having a great time down there, and Costa Rica is a marvelous place so that helps. The rest of us piled into three cars for our escapade but the weather did not want to cooperate. In driving rain we made the quick trip up to Estes Park, where we stopped at a McDonald’s to figure out our next move. We left my rental car in the parking lot and headed for the park. A bunch of rain, mist, and fog wasn’t going to stop us.

At the entrance, we went into the Visitor’s Center and a Park Ranger tipped us off that it was raining all the way to the top of the park, even up at 12,000 feet, but if we ventured on to the “back side” of the park the sun was shining on that side of the mountain. With Tim at the controls, I relaxed in the back of the minivan and off we went. Sure enough, limited visibility and rain all the way up, which is not a bad thing in one regard. The road to the top clings to the side of the mountains, and can be a bit harrowing for nervous drivers or passengers. We couldn’t see much more than the road ahead, so it felt as if we were on the flatlands. Sadly, though, that also meant we didn’t get to enjoy the gorgeous scenery on the way up.

The sign was just waiting for us.

True to the Ranger’s word, when we passed the summit and went around the corner to the back side, the clouds soon broke and we could see the mountains around us. Our first stop was a Doyle “go-to” moment, as we had our photo taken in front of the Continental Divide sign. Of course we did. It’s a rule. You have to do it.

Oops. Gotta run. Almost late for a meeting. (Play your own theme music).

(An hour later…) Okay, now I’m back. I had a 12:15 appointment to meet up with our dear friends Mary Beth and Joe Gillis, over a Greek lunch, in order to complete a “business transaction” of the most important kind. Vikings tickets were involved. They were kind enough to give us their tickets to the final preseason game, because the final preseason game is one where almost no starters play. We don’t care about that we’ll just go to have a great time in their phenomenal stadium. They also had a conflict with the home opener in the regular season, so I bought those from them.

The Vikes open against the New Orleans Saints. Guess who now plays for the Saints…  Did you guess?  Did you know the answer? Well, it’s Adrian Peterson, quite possibly the greatest running back who ever wore the purple. The Vikings didn’t offer him a contract extension after his injury-marred 2016 season and he signed with New Orleans, which as I pointed out in my book is actually pronounced Newollens.

I personally am part of the majority who believes Peterson’s great days are well behind him, because he was pretty ineffective in the few games he played last year before getting hurt. He just didn’t have the explosiveness and decisiveness he used to have, but that doesn’t mean he won’t run for 200 yards against his old team. Those homecoming emotions have a way of helping a player do extraordinary things. I do think, however, that he’ll get a nice ovation from the crowd at US Bank Stadium. He was always popular here, and there will be more than a few No. 28 jerseys with “PETERSON” on the back in the crowd that day.

Three generations of Doyles. L-R: Sean, Tim, Jordan (Sean’s boy), and Colin. When I met Sean and Colin for the first time, Sean was the age Jordan is now.

Okay, back to Rocky Mountain National Park. After our stop at the Continental Divide sign we drove down to a scenic valley next to a small lake, and all got out to stretch our legs. We even “hiked” a bit if by that you mean a few of us walked an entire 300 yards up a steep trail. Hey, it’s still about 11,000 feet up there. I was proud I wasn’t out of breath.

It was great to be out there with family, who are all such good people, and we were all glad we took the Ranger’s advice by driving around to the backside of the park. Sunshine is a good thing.

We saw a bunch of deer and a few elk on the way back, before we got to the summit and the clouds and rain returned for the trip back down to Estes Park. Once there, we transitioned back to the appropriate vehicles and Barbara and I headed for the Denver Airport, as did Sean, Jordan, and Colin in their rental car. You know where Denver International Airport is, right? Yeah, it’s almost in Kansas, so we didn’t want to take a chance on what’s typically a two-hour drive turning into a five-hour one if there were any wrecks on the roads.

We programmed the airport into Barb’s phone and lovely Siri gave us three options. We chose the quickest route, despite the fact it took us some funky ways on some very small roads as we left Estes Park. I was a little concerned Siri was nuts, or maybe inebriated or something, because it seemed like we were really going the wrong way. I should place more trust in Siri. Within 20 minutes, we were in Longmont and by 3:45 we were in the airport for our 6:05 flight. And, Siri allowed us to actually get in front of the boys, who left Estes Park before us and then followed the conventional directions. So we had that goin’ for us, which was nice.

Later that night, we arrived back home to see two wonderfully relaxed and well-adjusted boyz, and that’s all thanks to our new cat sitter Erica Moon. She “lives in” with them when we’re gone now, and it makes such a difference in the way they are when we get home. No more of the dismissive looks followed by 30-minutes of yelling at us for having left them. This time, they were happy to see us but there was no sign of the unhappiness we’re used to. Thank you, again, Erica! It’s great to have you living with them when we both need to be out of town.

And we’ll wrap this installment up with another fine story from “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” that ended up on the editing room floor.

In college, at SIUE, it was a baseball team tradition to make rookies do a couple of things on their first road trip, as a final step in their initiation. My first road trip with the team happened early in my sophomore year, when we went southeast to play University of Evansville and Kentucky Wesleyan. I knew what was coming and I was not looking forward to it. Stage 1 was singing your high school fight song for the entire team on the bus.

To make it all the more stressful, the veterans waited until the ride to Evansville was almost over, just to let all of us rookies stew on it and worry about it more. As we were rolling into the town of Evansville, it had gotten dark. We wondered if the veterans had forgotten it was our first road trip. They had not. They just wanted to keep us in suspense and they wanted it to be dark out. That way, when the driver turned all of the interior lights on as we drove through town, people in other cars or on the sidewalk could see us each singing. In… Our… Underwear! Yep.

I gave “When The Bills Go Marching In” my best effort, in my tight white briefs, and felt enormous relief when the vets applauded and let me pull my jeans back up. Some other rookies were not so fortunate. “Sing it AGAIN” was heard a few times.

Stage 2 of rookie initiation came after arrival at the motel. It was tradition for the seniors to throw each rookie into the pool, no matter the weather. I had selected the clothes I wore on the trip carefully, knowing everything would be drenched. After getting our keys, we sulked outside to accept our fate. Each rookie was supposed to be tossed in by two seniors, who would hold him by his feet and hands to do so. In my case, however, Bob Matzenbacher, a senior outfielder, just grabbed me and tossed me in by himself, before I could even resist.

Later, the seniors huddled to discuss this transgression, as if it had been my fault. A few of them felt I deserved to be tossed in again, the correct way and in another set of clothes. I approached our senior catcher, Pat Scholz, who actually intimidated me enough that I was somewhat scared of him. He and I went back on the bus for a meeting and I stated my case. “Scholzy, this isn’t fair,” I said. “Matzy ambushed me and tossed me in before I knew what he was doing. I wore this stuff for a reason, and it’s not fair to ruin two full sets of clothing for something I didn’t do.”

Scholz thought about it seriously, like a judge considering his verdict. He looked at me very studiously, nodded his head, and said, “You’re right Wilb. Not your fault.” He then went out and told the rest of the ever-so-disappointed seniors that it was Matzenbacher’s fault, not mine. I had completed my initiation and was free to go. I still thank Pat Scholz for that, to this day.

So that’s it for this week’s extravaganza. Hope you enjoyed it, and if you did please do me the one favor I ask every week. Hit the “Like” button at the top.

Thanks everyone, see again next Thursday!

Bob Wilber, at your service and finally dried off after that pool plunge in 1976.

Here And There on a Small Planet

HOME / Here And There on a Small Planet

August 3rd, 2017

Well, how about that. How about me! I’m actually posting this week’s blog on the correct day. Gosh, maybe I shouldn’t have typed that. I mean, I’m just now starting this blog and all sorts of nefarious things could still happen, including but not limited to falling space debris, a super-rare Minnesota earthquake, a swarm of locusts, or me winning the lottery. Actually, that final option is not possible, because I haven’t been playing the lottery. And I’m not saying that if I won $250 million I’d drop this blog in a split second. We don’t know that. I’ve never won $250 million, so I’m out of my area of expertise.

Anyway, moving forward assuming none of the things listed above will happen, I shall wrap up last week and look forward to this weekend.

Sonoma was a massive amount of fun. Period.

Oh, you want more details? Well, after arriving in Sacramento right on time I picked out a car at National and hit the road for Sonoma. The last time I tried that, with Barbara Doyle last year, I-80 was a mess. It went from packed and moving slowly to not moving at all, for no apparent reason, either. So, took I-5 down to 80 in a hopeful state of mind, with fingers crossed. And, badda boom badda bing, no problem at all. I shouldn’t say “no problem” but there were no backups. What you get then, on a California freeway, is the awful mix of rates of speed that can be extremely dangerous.

About 35% of the drivers are within 5 mph of the limit. About 40% are 10-15 mph over. Then there’s the Darwin Award Winners who are attempting to do 85 to 95 mph while weaving in and out of traffic. I saw one guy coming in my rearview (I was in the middle lane) and he was closing fast. He swerved hard to pass me on the right then determined he needed to be over in the far left lane despite the fact there were multiple cars, trucks, and semis in his way. He missed clipping the left rear of one car by inches. So close, I cringed and had my foot ready to hit the brakes. When he avoided that catastrophe, he missed the front right of a big rig by the same inches, causing the truck driver to hit the brakes hard, and no doubt make a one-finger gesture and use some salty language. It’s a madhouse when people are doing stuff like that.

After my arrival at the hotel, a fine and quaint place just a block from historic Sonoma Plaza, the phenomenal square in the heart of town where so many great restaurants and retail establishments ring the park, I had a quick bite to eat and was off to bed soon thereafter. After a good night’s sleep, my buddy and former Paintsville teammate Vince picked me up right at 10:00 and we headed to the track.

Vince and his wife Mary are real estate agents in Sonoma, and she had to cover some showings or maybe an open house, so it was just us guys. Barbara and I took Vince and Mary to the race for a day last year, and Vince was really excited to be back and experience NHRA one more time. Plus, this time I’m actually an author and he instantly got a kick out of the first fan who stopped me and asked me to sign their book.

With a few hours to kill before the first Saturday session, I took Vince on a tour of the pits and the midway area. The first stop we made was the stage outside the Worsham pit area, where Alan Reinhart and Del were holding “Nitro School” for a bevy of fans. This thing has really gotten popular, and I very much enjoyed listening to the two of them talk about very technical scientific things, but in a way that made everyone feel like they “got it” and understood how a 10,000 hp Nitro Funny Car gets from the starting line to the finish line successfully, as well as the myriad ways the attempt can be unsuccessful. Vince and I were standing in the rear of the crowd, and during the Q&A segment I was tempted to raise my hand and ask a smart-aleck question, but I figured the answer might have a worse bite than the query. Great fun, though, and Alan really does a terrific job being the host of it.

Vince and I then cruised over to where the Army, Harley-Davidson, Traxxas, Toyota, Mello Yello, and other sponsors have their displays and he was really intrigued about how “hands-on” a drag race is, in marketing terms, as opposed to other forms of motorsports and the stick-and-ball sports. It’s totally unique, in that way, and it blew him away.

Just a couple of Paintsville Hilanders hanging out with the Sonoma crowd (Click to enlarge)

We wandered back to the Team Wilkerson pit in time for the warm up. Then, once the team pushed out from the pit to make their run, we headed up to the reserved seats I got us. Great seats at about the 330 mark, halfway up the enormous grandstand. We watched the motorcycles and Pro Stock cars, then the Top Fuel session, and finally Funny Car. It was hot and loose out there on the track (surface temp in the 125 to 130 range) and the fuel cars were really having a hard time getting down the track, so when the first pair of Funny Cars successfully made it, Vince was all smiles. It’s loud even when they smoke the tires. It’s overwhelmingly awesome when they don’t, and the entire massive Sonoma grandstand shakes.

During the session, Alan mentioned “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” at length, and once Vince and I got back to the pit after the run the number of folks who stopped by with books in hand was pretty steady. Many of them brought previously purchased copies with them, but we sold a few as well.

We’re down to less than 10 copies left, of the 42 I originally took to Joliet, but I think we have enough to easily get through Seattle, and then I can load a few more boxes in my car for the trip to Brainerd. Hopefully the interest level remains solid and we keep having some fun when I’m at the track meeting people, catching up on old friendships, and staying in touch. As I told Vince, when he asked me if trips like this were money-makers for me, “Oh heck no. This costs me a lot of money, but it’s more about spreading the word, staying in touch, and staying relevant in the NHRA community. I can’t really put a price on that, but I think it’s pretty priceless.”

Vince and I had dinner reservations, at Swiss Hotel on the Plaza, at 7:00, and Mary would be joining us for that. So, when the team finished their warm-up and headed for the line again, as it closed in on 6:00, we knew we’d have to make a move to the parking area. The “Red Key” parking lot in Sonoma is close to the pit area, but atop a very steep hill. As we were leaving the pits, Mike Adams spotted us from his golf cart. Mike is the tall guy who leads the activation efforts for Mello Yello. If you’ve seen the ad on the big screen, of the tall guy inside the Mello Yello display, pointing out all the things you can do in there, that’s Mike.

What’s funny is that when Vince and I parked in the dusty lot that morning, Mike and one of his associates were just getting out of their car, right next to us. Then, as Vince and I were leaving, Mike was about to take a colleague up to the same lot. He yelled at us to get on the backseat of the golf cart, and we were quite happy to do that. Great guy, that Mike.

We got back to Sonoma in time to both clean up a bit after a day at the track, and then Vince and Mary arrived a mere minute after I did, outside the restaurant (which also is, indeed, a very small boutique hotel). Let me say for the record that Mary Bienek seems to have defied age. Vince and I haven’t, but she looks so much like she did when we all were in Paintsville back in 1978, out there in the coal mining hills of eastern Kentucky, that it’s startling. And she’s the same sweet and intelligent person as well.

Mary also brought a nice bottle of wine with her, so we enjoyed fabulous food and fine libations for a solid couple of hours. The conversation was rollicking, as well. They live just down the street from the hotel I was in, so we all walked back there together. Just as we arrived, another chance meeting took place that made Vince and Mary shake their heads in disbelief.

We were just saying our goodbyes when we heard, “Is that Bob Wilber’s voice I hear?” from behind us. It was Bobby and Alex Medina, with their two impossibly cute kids. Let me connect those dots. Bobby Medina is the brother of Connie Worsham (she was Connie Medina when Del met her.) Alex is the former Alex Baca, and she is the daughter of former Top Fuel driver David Baca. Small world, huh. And what are the odds we’d be walking down the same dimly lit sidewalk in Sonoma, Calif. at exactly the same time? Hey, it’s drag racing. It’s a very small planet of interconnected people.

I was on the road around 9:00 a.m. the next morning, and at the Sacramento airport with two hours to kill before my flight. Then, a nice smooth ride and I was back home around 8:00 p.m. in Woodbury. That’s a good thing, because Barbara had to fly out to Spokane early the next morning.

And now it’s Thursday and she is due back here later tonight. What does tomorrow bring for us? A morning flight to Denver to be out there for the wedding of niece Erin and her fiancé Eric. Lots of Doyles coming in for the wedding and the weekend, so I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll be back on Monday night.

And now back to Barb’s great idea about including some fun parts of the book that didn’t make the final cut. In the original manuscript, a guy by the name of Dennis Werth was mentioned numerous times, in the chapters about my college years. In the final version, he is mentioned just once, in the part where Lance and I are chatting with Oakland A’s catcher Mike Heath and the first “one degree of separation” dot we could connect was the fact Mike had played with Dennis in the Yankees organization.

“Herbie” Werth. And a fine nose guard, too!

Dennis, who we all called “Herbie” for reasons I never knew, was a few years ahead of us at SIUE, but he was around for a few years after his playing days there, to finish up his degree. He signed with the Yankees out of school, and made it all the way to the big leagues with them. When he originally made their 40-man roster, but hadn’t played in the big leagues yet, he was continuing to be a star player on our dominant flag football team, as our nose guard on defense. In the flag football playoffs that year, we were playing on a cold and icy day. As the other team came to the line of scrimmage to start a play, Herbie got down in a four-point stance so that his frozen breath would visibly blow on the football like all those classic NFL Films shots from the “frozen tundra” of Lambeau Field. He was growling while he did it.

I turned to Steve Novak and said, “I wonder what George Steinbrenner would think if he saw this…”

And if you’re thinking, “Is Dennis Werth any relation to Jayson Werth, of the Washington Nationals?” there’s a funny story there, too. He is, but Dennis is Jayson’s stepdad, not his biological father. Jayson’s mom is the former Kim Schofield, of the Springfield, Ill. Schofield family that produced Dick “Ducky” Schofield (St. Louis Cardinals in the 1960s) and Dick Schofield (Angels, Mets, Blue Jays, and Dodgers in the 80s and 90s). Now that’s some “small world” stuff right there. And yes, the Wilkersons know the Schofields and went to school with a few of them. Kim Schofield was also an Olympic athlete, and Jayson’s biological dad set football records at Illinois State, so there was lots of good athletic DNA in the mix.

So that was fun to write, and every time I think about the Werths, the Schofields, and the Wilkersons all being part of the same sphere in Springfield it boggles my mind a little. Oh, and if you read the book and remember when I was the Southwest Regional Promotions guy for Converse, Dick Schofield was one of my guys who wore Converse spikes on the Angels.

I guess I’ll wrap this installment up with the same line as always. If you read this blog and liked what you read, please “Like” it by clicking on the button at the top.

Thanks everyone. See you next week!

Bob Wilber, at your service in a very small world.

Spanning The Days – Thursday/Friday Edition

HOME / Spanning The Days – Thursday/Friday Edition

July 28th, 2017

When this blog installment is published, I’m hoping (very seriously) that it’s on our appointed Thursday Blog Day. This week, that would be July 27. I can only hope, though, at this point. Right now, it’s 1:50 pm on Tuesday and I’m sitting in the Delta Sky Club at MSP getting ready to board my flight to Seattle. Once there, it’s three and a half days of fun and other merriment with my buddies Lance, Radar, and Oscar, including golf, fine dining, and a Mariners game. We play golf at 8:00 am on Thursday, so I’ll need to have the discipline necessary to carve another hour out of my schedule to get this posted then. Heck, I might even have to do a second blog to include all the Seattle tales. That might be on Friday Blog Day.

If it seems like I just got off a plane, it’s because I did. I flew to Denver on Friday, spent Saturday at the track, and flew back Sunday. Now, 48 hours later, I’m going all the way to Puget Sound. Then, on Friday, I’ll fly down to Sacramento and drive to Sonoma. Saturday will be my track day, and I’m still hoping to meet up with Vince “The Bronze Fox” Bienek and his lovely wife Mary, an actual native of Paintsville, Kentucky. Then, back to Sacramento on Sunday morning for the long flight back to MSP, and then home to Woodbury to spend a few hours with one Barbara Doyle before she takes the Sunday night flight back to Spokane, which is where she is right now. It’s really easy to get confused by all of this. Plus, next weekend I go back to Denver, this time with Barb, for a wonderful outdoor wedding as niece Erin Doyle weds her fiancé Eric Novotny. Busy, busy, busy…

And now busy again, because it’s time to head to my gate. More from the plane… Back in a bit.

Section II.

Greetings from 33,000 feet somewhere over far western North Dakota. Cloudy all over this part of the country, so there’s not even anything good to look at. I’m in the front cabin, in seat 2D. I guess that makes me like a Flat Stanley, because I’m two dimensional. Hmmm.

Okay, back to my Denver fun. I got to the hotel in Lakewood in time to see the final qualifying session on NHRA All Access, and Wilk was ripping pretty hard on both Friday runs. I was definitely excited to get out to Bandimere on Saturday, although the odd schedule there made it a bit of a marathon. Both Friday and Saturday featured sessions that started in late afternoon and ended well into the evening, so Saturday was going to be a long day. So long, actually, that I wished I’d taken a closer look at the race schedule before buying my Delta ticket. I could’ve flown in on Saturday morning and made it to the track with time to spare.

Signing books. This guy bought one for himself and one for his daughter!

There was much to do, though, and plenty of people to see, so I drove out to Thunder Mountain around 10:30 despite the first Funny Car run being scheduled for around 5:00. With Saturday at Denver always being the huge hullaballoo that is the special Dick Levi “friends and family” gathering in the LRS hospitality center, I was jazzed to not just see the team and Krista Wilkerson, but also Dick himself and Shelley Williams, who comes in for the biggest of the big LRS functions to help out. Shelley and I have been buddies for many years, and Dick is such a great guy I can’t say enough about him. As I wrote about Dick Levi in my book, he’s a very important and successful man. And he never treated me like anything other than a peer and an important colleague. “Class Act” comes close to describing him, but he’s more than that. Truly one of the most impressive people I’ve ever met in my career.

We also had a few promotional things planned, although not all of them happened. Instead, what happened in a sort of organic way was a wave of fans coming by to ask where they could get “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” and, in Denver, giving someone directions to the correct souvenir trailer is as easy as pointing to it from the end of the pit. All day, Saturday, people kept coming by wanting autographs and inscriptions, and some of them were pretty emotional about it, which I wasn’t expecting. That stuff generally gets to me, and it was hard not to be as touched as they were. That’s a part of this whole process I never expected.

I was also really happy to see that Bob Vandergriff was racing in Denver. I walked over to his pit and saw a big smile on his face when I arrived. It was the first chance I’ve had to personally thank him and shake his hand after the Kickstarter campaign ended with him being the actual person who put me over the top of my goal. He said, “I did that at 31,000 feet on a plane. I was on the WiFi and knew it was your last day, so I checked on it to see how close you were. When I saw the number I thought to myself, well I’m just going to do this and get him there.” I’m still humbled by that and by all the generous people who stepped up to make the book happen. All I had to do was write it!

Our great friends Gerald and Kari Meux were there, as well, and that’s always a great thing. Many years ago, when I first met Gerald, I told Tim moments later, “This guy is going straight to the top at Hormel. Just watch. He’s got that ‘it’ factor going for him. He’s going to run the company someday.”  Well, I got that one pretty much right on the nose. After being recruited out of college by Hormel, he’s been promoted so many times I’ve lost track of all the places he’s been. Now, he and Kari live in Austin, Minn. and he works at corporate headquarters. Just since the last time we communicated, he’s been promoted again and is now a national accounts sales director for the company.

Me with my new friend Brittany and my longtime friend Nadine.

All that’s good. I love Gerald and Kari, but I really love Gerald’s mom Nadine. She’s a phenomenal woman and I look forward to every chance I get to see her. This time, she was in Denver for the day and her daughter, Brittany, was with her to spend the day with Gerald and Kari. I hadn’t met Brittany before, but we were besties within a minute after we met. That’s a Meux family trait. Meet them and you’re immediately friends.

As you probably know, Wilk’s LRS Mustang lifted the front end pretty high in Q4, and when it came back to Earth from that wheel stand it bent the frame. The guys worked those typical and well-documented epic long hours to switch everything over to the backup chassis and used that for Round 1. And what happened? The car did another wheelie and the same result came about. The scramble to have a car in Sonoma is unfolding right now, as I write this.

Fabled chassis builder Murf McKinney had another chassis in process at his shop in Indiana, but it was really just the cockpit part of the car with a few straight tubes pointed forward. Murf’s guys sprang into action, though, and from what I saw on Facebook it looked like they had nearly completed the chassis by the end of today. Now all that has to happen is to get it out to Sonoma and finish putting all the systems on it. Wilk hopes to have it ready by Q2 on Friday evening, but if they have to wait until Saturday to know it’s good to go, that’s what they’ll do. The Western Swing is a challenge for everyone, but it’s even more of a challenge when you bend both Funny Cars in a 24-hour span at the first of the Western Swing races. Yikes.

Update: We’re finally over the middle of Montana. I think we’re in slow motion.

Here’s another old blog feature that used to be popular. While I’m typing, I have my Bose earphones on listening to music on my iPad. I chose a playlist I compiled for one of our long drives from Spokane back to Woodbury, and it’s cleverly entitled “Trip Mix 2” since it was the second one of those I put together for the three day drive we did many times.

Since I’ve been writing this in-the-air segment of the blog, I’ve listened to songs by Breaking Benjamin, Chevelle, Tool, Thousand Foot Crutch, Evans Blue, Fight or Flight, and Cavo. Right now, “Erase My Scars” by Evans Blue is serenading me.

I’m anxious to get to Seattle right now. Lance, Radar, and Oscar are all already there. When I booked my flight I figured we’d all get in during the afternoon, but those guys booked earlier flights than me. And this third reunion is already a lot different for me. I was pretty intensely involved in setting everything up for the first two, but Lance took all of that on this time around. I’m not even sure what all we have planned, but that’s cool. I’m just going to arrive and have fun.

Our hotel is actually right across the street from the famous Pike Place Market in downtown. That’s the public market where they toss freshly caught fish through the air to get them on display for customers. Should be big fun, and Seattle is a cool town so I’m sure we’ll find no shortage of interesting things to see and do. Including the fact Lance has us scheduled to go on a boat trip one afternoon. And I’m not talking about a big ferry boat. We’re going to tour around Seattle on a sail boat. If none of us fall overboard I’ll consider it a success.

That’s about it for this segment. I’ll add more to this after we engage in Seattle shenanigans…

Wednesday Update…

Whew. What a whirlwind but what fun. And right now, at around 5:20 pm on Wednesday, we’re all in our respective rooms taking naps or otherwise catching our breath. I just went to a Target in downtown Seattle to buy grapes, trail mix, and bottled water I don’t have to pay $6 for if I consume it from the mini-bar.

First, let me say this now that I’ve been here 24 hours.

A) Lance has done a masterful job organizing all of this and getting it all paid for and set up. When we leave, I’ll find out what I owe him and send him a check for more than that. What a pleasure to just fly out here and ride along in whatever direction he has us going.

Just four SIUE Cougars having a bite to eat in Seattle

B) To that end, we enjoyed a marvelous dinner at a nearby bistro last night, and the fresh salmon tasted not quite like anything we can get in Woodbury. Hmmm. Not sure why.

C) Our hotel is fantastic. I look out from my room and see the Pike Place Market. We leave the lobby and walk the steep almost San Francisco-like streets of this wonderful city. I’ve always dug Seattle, but this trip is making me love everything but the overwhelming traffic. That’s OK though, because we’re walking or taking Uber everywhere.

D) We attended the Mariners – Red Sox game today and had a phenomenal time. Safeco Field is really a gem. The staff there is as attentive as any I’ve seen in Major League Baseball. And Chris Sale, who pitched for the Sox is, as we say in baseball parlance, not just nasty but filthy. We saw numerous Major League professional baseball players take feeble swings that looked like something you might see at a local batting cage. When you can throw 96 to 98 and run it in on guys’ hands, then throw an 84 mph change-up or slider, it’s almost not fair.

Because… Yeah. We could and we did.

E) Lance saw some Converse-like sneakers online and loved them so much he bought a pair for each of us. They are MLB sneaks, and I got the Twins version. Oscar and Radar got the Cardinals. Lance had to take the Dodgers because it was all he could get in his size and slip-on.

Now, once we all get a little rest, we’re off to another fabulous restaurant, this time an Italian bistro a few blocks away. This city has such a vibe it’s invigorating. Just looking around near our hotel, almost every high-rise building is residential, so the sidewalks are alive with people who live here and tourists like us. We walked 1.5 miles to the ballgame, and the sidewalks were jammed both ways. Love it here.

More tomorrow…

UPDATE: Well, best laid plans and all. It’s now Friday and I’m in the spacious new Delta Sky Club at Sea-Tac airport, waiting for my flight to Sacramento. Traffic can be so bad here, you always want to give yourself a ton of time to get to SEA, but my cabbie drove like an IndyCar guy, and we made it in 20 minutes. Then, after checking my bag, I went around the corner to see the typical TSA lines that go out of sight, but with CLEAR I had my fingerprints scanned and in I went. Badda boom badda bing. It’s a beautiful thing.

Yes, yesterday was the appointed blog day but Lance had so many incredible things planned it got away from me. We were headed for Broadmoor Golf Club by 7:45 in the morning, back at the hotel by 3:00 after playing 18 holes and having lunch, and then had reservations for a two and a half our sailboat cruise that night. All we could do between golf and the boat was take naps.

So here we are.

Seattle was fantastic. None of us rented cars so we walked everywhere and if you’ve been to Seattle you know that means steep hills in downtown. I’d guess we walked a solid 10 miles in total, and a lot of it was straight up those hills, but it was all fun and the company was as stellar as ever.

FORE!

Broadmoor is a really exclusive private club (think Bushwood from “Caddy Shack” but 100 times nicer and more prestigious) but we got on because Lance knows a guy who is very high ranking with the PGA. He must be, because they treated us like kings. As for us, my three cohorts played golf as follows: Radar -Really good. Oscar -Gorgeous swing and he played great. Lance -Played a game with which I am wholly unfamiliar. He absolutely CRUSHES the ball and plays all sorts of shapes and fades. Unlike me, he does that on purpose. As for me, it was my third round of golf in five years and it was the most difficult course I’ve ever seen, much less played on. Tight fairways, lots of big trees, and more sand than Miami Beach. I was in way over my head, so I just concentrated on having fun and not letting my lousy skill level get to me. I hit a few good ones, but they were few.

After we returned to the hotel, and had our required naps, we walked down to the pier and met the sailboat crew, a First Mate who looked 18 but was probably more like 28, and a Captain who was certainly no more than 35. We all commented the obvious: The older we get the more trouble we have guessing the age of anyone under 50.

Just four buddies, sailing around…

We had a nice group of about 20 on the boat with us. It was a 75-foot sailboat, but there were no seats on it. You just had to sit on the deck. How was the experience, you ask? Phenomenal. It got a little chilly when the sun went down but it was so worth doing and they did have blankets for us. I was pleasantly surprised that all four of us could sit on the deck like that without having our backs seize up totally, as well.

We cruised all around off shore from downtown Seattle, going all the way out to one of the islands you can see from downtown, and never did much more than 6 or 7 knots in terms of speed. As for our youthful looking crew, they were terrific and kept us out of trouble. Nobody fell overboard, so that’s not just a good thing it’s also kind of surprising. The boat does list in the wind, the deck is small and covered in ropes, and there’s just a small cord between any passenger and the very cold water.

Let’s just say that everyone was very careful any time they walked around. Everyone but the two drunk guys up at the bow, anyway. How they stayed in the boat is a mystery. And did they really have to sing that Christopher Cross song (“Sailing”) off-key for the last half-hour of the trip.

A great American city. And much fun.

By the time we got back to the city, nightfall was upon us and it was beyond gorgeous. Seattle is a beautiful city to begin with, but right after sunset, as the buildings light up, it’s stunning.

We’d, by then, made ourselves well known at the bar/restaurant across from our hotel, in almost a full-on “Cheers” fashion, so we headed there for some appetizers and a round of drinks or three. Don’t try this at home. We’re highly trained professionals. Plus, we walked everywhere and the bar was across the street from our digs.

This morning, we wanted to have an early lunch at an Italian place about a mile away, but Lance had forewarned us that he’d read up on the place and it’s a bit quirky. It’s really little, but it’s only open from 11:00 to 3:00, or something like that, and the line forms early. We got there at 10:50 and at least 30 people were on the sidewalk waiting for it to open. They don’t have seating for 30, so it didn’t look good for us since I had a firm time I wanted to be headed to the airport. When they opened, the line did start to move but it quickly stalled out. No such Italian luck for us.

We did muse about the odd business model the place utilizes. You could hear the owner in your mind, saying “We’re only going to be open 12 minutes a day and we won’t have nearly enough tables for our guests. That should work great!”

We’d passed a gourmet taco place on the way, which was only a counter inside with outdoor tables, and it was actually fantastic. We were all walking back to the hotel together, but we passed a little urban courtyard were a couple of classical musicians were tuning up and folks were gathering, so I said my goodbyes, shared the hugs with three of the greatest guys on the planet, and took off by myself.

And now I’m here. Very tired, but determined to get this blog posted. A day late and many dollars short.

Tomorrow, Sonoma Raceway and the Wilk pit area. Plus, my Paintsville buddy Vince and his wife Mary said they’d like to come with me to experience their second NHRA race, so that will make it even better. Tomorrow night, dinner with them at the Swiss Hotel on Sonoma Square. I have indeed eaten well on this excursion.

Sorry for being tardy with this one, and I know it rambles, but at least it’s here.

Oh. Wow, almost forgot this. Last week I did a fun interview with the sports writer for the Woodbury Bulletin, our little weekly suburban paper. it ran on Wednesday and is on their website. You can see it here:

http://www.woodburybulletin.com/sports/4303772-woodbury-author-chronicles-lifetime-sports

Have a great weekend everyone! See you next week (hopefully on time) and you know this drill: If you read these words and liked them, please officially “Like” them by clicking the button at the top.

Bob Wilber, at your service and still savoring Seattle.

A Fantastic Idea

HOME / A Fantastic Idea

July 20th, 2017

My wife, the lovely and talented Barbara Doyle, has a lot of great ideas. That’s why she’s such a fantastic executive and valued member of the Itron Inc. team, out in Liberty Lake. She’s there right now, actually, and will be flying home tonight before I leave first thing tomorrow morning for Denver and the Mile-High Nationals. It’s the life we lead.

But back to the brilliant ideas. Like I said, she has plenty of them. The other day, before she left for Spokane, she came up with one that will change this blog in, I think, a great way. At least for a while until the stories run out. We were talking about the many long months of editing Greg Halling and I went through, just to get the book down to a somewhat manageable 545 pages. The line I use the most is “We left a lot of really good stories on the editing room floor” when describing what we took out. They were some great bits, but in the end Greg and I had to do some tough cutting.

So, Barbara said, “Why don’t you put one of those stories, or personalities, in each blog?”

The lightbulb over my head turned on immediately. And very brightly. That’s a GREAT way to get many of those stories out to the world, and today we will start this new feature. Today, I present to you Larry Donaldson.

Larry is briefly mentioned in the book, in Chapter 6 on page 70. It’s the chapter entitled “College as a Cougar” and it recounts a lot of what we all did as student athletes. In the initial manuscript, Larry was featured much more but that pesky editing knocked him down to just a brief mention in the part about my senior year.

During that senior year, my buddies and I decided over the Christmas break to rent my brother’s big white house, in Edwardsville, to finally get out of apartment living. Lance and Radar are still great buddies, and I’ll actually be seeing them next week out in Seattle when we have our annual summer reunion, along with Oscar. But, moving into the house with us, back in 1978, was a newcomer to the team and to the school. It was Larry, and he was a character.

He was a pitcher, from Peoria, and he was a big strong guy. When he first got there, we were all hopeful that he’d throw as hard and as well as it looked like he could. It turned out that big strong body didn’t match up to the arm, but Larry was a valued roomie and teammate.

He needed to feed that body of his, and he was always hungry. He was probably never not hungry. And when he ate, he focused strictly on the food. Nothing else mattered to Larry when it was time to eat.

Back then, one of our go-to joints for dinner was the local Bonanza Steak House. The steaks weren’t much more than passable, but you got an unlimited salad bar, a potato, and Texas Toast to go with the Top Sirloin. Plus, with our SIUE student ID cards, we got 25% off. So, once the food was ordered and the math was done, we could stuff ourselves with a steak, a baked potato, all the salad we could eat, and the toast, all for less than $3, and that’s not a typo. Hence its position as a go-to place for hungry young lads.

One evening, the four of us had taken our seats at a table and Larry was strictly focused on the consumption of what was before him. As the knife and fork sprang into action he fell into his own world, bite after bite. There was a table of SIUE girls sitting near us, and they didn’t appear to have much interest in their Texas Toast bread, which caused Lance to say, to them, “You better be careful with that bread. Larry will take it right off your plate.” Radar and I got a laugh out of that but not as big a laugh as we were about to have. Through the fog of dinner bliss, the word “bread” somehow got through and into Larry’s brain. When it did, he reached toward the girls’ table and said, “Did she say she didn’t want her bread?” Lance, Radar, and I all started laughing hysterically while the girls looked shocked and scared, as if Larry might not just eat their bread but might also steal their purses.

I guarantee, next week out in Seattle, one of us will say, “Did she say she didn’t want her bread?” at one of our dinners. That line has lasted nearly 40 years.

Another fine Larry story had to do with his room, and again his body. He slept in a downstairs room while the rest of us were upstairs in the two-story house. Our only phone (a land line, of course) was in Larry’s room. At about 6-foot-5, he was roughly six inches longer than his bed, and he slept with floppy white tube socks on his giant feet. If you needed to make a call in the morning or go through Larry’s room to the main bathroom, while Larry was still in bed, those big feet in their white socks would be sticking out of his covers and hanging out over the end of his bed, invariably pointed straight up.

One weekday morning, I did something very unlike me. I decided to cut one of my classes in my major, TV-Radio Broadcasting. Since it was in my major, I called my professor an hour before the class was scheduled, to let him know I wouldn’t be there and that I’d make up anything I missed. I would always do that for my TV-R classes. But, for some reason I felt like I needed a better excuse than, “Dr. Regnell, I’m just not going to come today…”

So I called my instructor and told him I was at my parents’ house, over in Kirkwood, Mo. about an hour away. And (this was the key) my car wouldn’t start so it was going to be impossible for me to drive back to Edwardsville for class. I apologized profusely, explaining my frustration, and Dr. Regnell said, “Don’t worry about it, Bob. Just get your car fixed and I’ll see you next week.”

Quite proud of myself and my creative ruse, I hung up. Larry looked up from his pillow and said, “Wow, that’s too bad. What do you think is wrong with your car?”

You can’t make stuff like that up.

Larry Donaldson, ladies and germs.

Here on the home front, which is also the book front, we’ve had some PR and publicity fun over the last two days. Yesterday, I taped a phone interview with longtime motorsports host Marty Hough and his sidekick, the one and only Doug Herbert (yeah, that Doug Herbert from Top Fuel fame) on their show “The Straight Line” over at Motor Racing Network. The good news: They’re great guys I’ve known forever and they gave me a solid 10-12 minutes on the show. The bad news: I followed Steve Johnson, the Pro Stock Motorcycle rider who has more rich stories than Jerry Seinfeld, and most of them are just as funny. That’s a tough act to follow. We did have fun though, and you can hear it at this link. If you want to skip some of the Steve Johnson hilarity, my segment starts right at the 23:00 minute mark.

http://www.mrn.com/MRN-Radio/Shows/The-Straightline.aspx

Then, this morning I drove over to the little bistro at Kowalski’s Market here in Woodbury, where we do most of our grocery shopping, and met a nice young man by the name of Blaze Fugina, who is a sports reporter for our very own Woodbury Bulletin. Yes, Blaze swears that’s his real name. I know I’m getting older but man he looked like such a young guy despite the fact he graduated from college in 2011.

Blaze had certainly done his homework with the notes Elon Werner had sent him, because we dove right into what turned out to be about 45 minutes of nonstop back and forth. Much fun was had, by both of us. The paper is a weekly, so the story should come out during the middle of next week. I’ll be in Seattle with my buddies, but on Thursday I’ll make sure I get a blog posted with a link. Thanks Blaze!

Putting faces to the names… (Click to enlarge)

And here are my two photos for today. I put the top one on Facebook and Twitter yesterday, but it’s worth throwing on here and is one you’ll definitely want to click on to enlarge. The reason I posted this online yesterday was because I stumbled upon a whole gallery of photos on the SIUE website, all of our 1977 baseball team that was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame.

It occurred to me that a lot of people have now read the book and gotten to know so many names of my college teammates, guys like Stan Osterbur, Lance McCord, James “Oscar” Noffke, Steve Novak, Kent “Cornpone” Wells, Dave Schaake, Mike Brown, Kent Hendrickson, and so many others who were all such good friends of mine. Since only a few of them are in the book in photo form, this team picture can introduce you to a lot of them. Great guys, great players, great teammates. It was a very rewarding time for almost all of us, and a fantastic experience. Being able to get my degree thanks to baseball, and to play alongside and become so close to such a great group was nothing less than priceless. And what’s also priceless is that the school slid “Oscar” into James Noffke’s name, in parentheses.

Not a lot of fun. Especially for Steve.

In my book, at the end of Chapter 6, I tell the tales about the final season so many of us played together, and what a horrible disappointment it was. Making it a little worse and lot more depressing for all of us, was the brutal and gruesome injury Steve Novak suffered playing against University of Missouri St. Louis early in the season. It depressed us, seeing our friend in such agony. It made Steve absolutely miserable for a very long time. When I found the photo gallery yesterday, it included this shot. It’s the first photo I’ve seen of Steve after he came back from the injury.

As I wrote about in the first two pages of Chapter 7, it was so bad for Steve he was actually “over it” when it came to the sport he loved so much. It had been a brutal injury (to this day he still can’t breathe correctly) and even after he came back the mask he had to wear was a hassle, our team was bad, and the fun had gone out of it. When the Detroit Tigers offered me a contract, they also offered one to Steve. We could’ve played together that summer, in Paintsville, but he turned it down. You have to be pretty down in the dumps and “over it” to turn down the dream we all had since childhood, but Steve had really gone through a rough season. It was depressing for us. It was a life-altering year for Steve.

It was really great to see Steve, his lovely wife Linda, and their son Ryan at the Hall of Fame induction last year. Linda was Steve’s girlfriend all through college, so I’ve known her about as long as I’ve known him. A great roomie and a fantastic guy who baked an absolutely killer cinnamon crumb cake.

So that’s it for today. I’m off to Denver in the morning and it sounds like Elon has some more PR work for me to do at the track. Hopefully we’ll sell a few more books this weekend, as well, to those great fans out at Bandimere Speedway.

By the time it’s Thursday Blog Day next week, I’ll still be out in Seattle with the guys. Thursday is our golf day, so I might write the next blog installment early (perhaps on my flight out there) to make it so I can just post it after I shoot an 82. That would be on the front nine, by the way. I’m pretty bad.

See you then, with photos, tales, and another great story or two that ended up on the editing room floor.

And, as always, the more “Likes” the better. So, if you read these words and like what you saw, hit the “Like” button at the top. Thanks!

Bob Wilber, at your service and loving the memories.

 

What Are The Odds…?

HOME / What Are The Odds…?

July 13th, 2017

Hello blog faithful. I have returned from Route 66 Raceway and my first foray back into the NHRA Mello Racing Drag Racing world unscathed, and very happy I went, for many reasons. Much like last year, when I’d venture out to an event after having left the sport in order to write the book, there was always a sense of trepidation as I drove toward the track the first day. What if no one remembered me? What if there are so many new PR and NHRA people that I’m now a complete stranger?

That second question is inescapable. People come and go all the time, and sure enough there are some new NHRA people in high positions, whom I had never met and who may certainly have no clue who I am or what I did out there for 20 years. But, for the most part, the experience is a great one once I get there and the smiling faces are heartwarming.

The fun started, however, on the six-hour drive from Woodbury to Naperville, where I was staying for two nights. From our driveway, I’m only about 10-minutes from Wisconsin. For the record, in case you were wondering, there’s a whole lot of Wisconsin to get through before you reach Illinois. It’s a long slog, and the section from Madison down to the state line is a mess, with construction bottling everything up. But, and this is a fun story, the most entertaining thing happened when I was further north.

Traffic was moving but somewhat heavy, and I had noticed a sedan pacing alongside me for a while. Then it would get ahead of me before slowing down to get behind me. Once, when I was on the right and it passed me, the passenger window went down but the angle of my vision prevented me from seeing who was inside.

Finally, I was in the left lane and I pulled up next to the car from behind it. The driver’s window went down and I saw a big “thumbs-up” gesture. I smiled and waved. Then, the driver showed his cellphone to me, but I was wearing sunglasses and my windows are tinted so all I saw was a black screen. At that point, I noticed a car coming up on me fast from behind, so I had to speed up and leave the sedan behind.

On Sunday, I received the explanation, via a message sent to our TPGF website. I provide it here, for your reading pleasure, in its entirety:

Good afternoon Bob,

So I am the crazy driver that was waving like a madman and following you like a borderline stalker on Friday morning along I 94 just past Osseo, WI. I’ve been a longtime blog reader and follower of Del and Team Wilk and I’m currently in the middle of reading your book. I had just read your latest Thursday blog and saw you were heading down to Illinois for the weekend. My wife and I had just flown in from Vegas to visit family in Tomah, Wi. So here we are cruising along and see a license plate NHRA FC and I’m like I wonder if that’s you, a guy I’ve been reading since the beginning of NHRA blogs and the author of the book I’m currently reading. Sure enough. Then I geek out. I’m driving alongside a celebrity. I wanted to show you the book so you didn’t think I was totally insane but of course it was in the trunk so I did the next best thing and show you my phone with the Bob’s Blog page pulled up and give you a thumbs up. Anyway I have always enjoyed reading your blogs and love the book. Apologies for driving like an idiot. Take it easy.

Dan Jolly

Amazing. What are the odds that we’d be side-by-side on I-94 in the middle of Wisconsin. Crazy. I do have license plates that say NHRA FC and I also have an oval YYZ decal on my back window, which any fan of the band Rush would recognize, so I wasn’t sure what the thumbs-up had been all about. Now I know. Cool stuff. Thanks for the note, Dan!

Once I got to Illinois I partook in something new for me. There have always been a lot of tollways in Illinois, especially up in Chicago, and I can remember when I worked for Converse and our office was there, all the guys had huge coin racks on their center consoles, to constantly feed the machines by tossing those coins in the plastic baskets. Things are different now.

The vast majority of tolls are now collected electronically as cars pass under the toll station. But what if you’re from out of state? Do you have to stop and pay cash? Well, you certainly can but I don’t carry a lot of cash and I almost never have coins anymore. Instead, you can just drive under the sensors and speed right on through. Then, you have seven days to go online and fill out the forms to pay your tolls with no added fees or penalties. They even have a nice app that helps you plot your routes so that the site can figure out what toll booths you passed through. Yesterday, I got them all paid. Simple as that.

Not hard to spot! (Click any image to enlarge)

At the track, it was easy to find the Wilkerson pit area. Being an Illinois team, NHRA always parks them at the end of an aisle for the greatest possible visibility, so finding the LRS transporter was simple.

It was also the first time I’d seen the team’s new hospitality set-up and it was very impressive. You can imagine how impressive, considering Wilk bought it from Kenny Bernstein. Timing is everything, though. This rig comes complete with a ton of storage, a machine shop, and a lounge that would’ve made a perfect office for a guy like me, back in those days. And the AC absolutely rips in there.

I got my obligatory hugs in, with Krista Wilkerson, Jon and Susan Cagle, Tom Meyer, and even Annette and Rich Schendel, who were in attendance. Plus, Daniel Wilkerson was tuning Brian Stewart’s car, parked right next door, so it was full-on “Old Homes Week” for me. Those hugs and handshakes went on all day. They never got old.

Krista and I then commandeered the golf cart and went back out to my car to get the six cases of books I’d brought along for the merchandise trailer. If you’re going to a race and want to buy a book, here are two pieces of information that will be key. They are sold in the trailer where Wilk’s stuff is, called the “Stupid Fast Racing” trailer. And also, I hope they still have some. They sold very fast on Saturday. More on that later.

A real friend and motivator.

My dear friend Kelly Topolinski, who is now doing the PR for both Tim and Summit Racing Equipment, showed up moments later, saying “I brought this with me from Tennessee to see if I could get the author to sign it.” We then had a 20-minute heartfelt conversation about the process and how, even now, I’m still learning new things about my own confidence and my sense of accomplishment. If you’ve read the book and have gotten past the Seattle race in 2015, you know what a huge influence Kelly was on me. I think it’s safe to say we probably wouldn’t have “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” in our hands without her motivation and friendship.

I was also thrilled to see the turnout of fans on Saturday. I think that’s as good a crowd as I’ve seen on a Saturday at Route 66 for many years, maybe going all the way back to when the place opened. Both sides of the massive stadium were heavily populated with fans, while they also stood 10-12 deep along the fences for the length of the track. Good stuff, on a gorgeous day.

Our plan was for me to hang out in the Media Center during Q3 for Funny Cars, and I’d need to be ready to jump at a moment’s notice. We figured the best time to sell books was between the two sessions, and NHRA and Alan Reinhart were gracious enough to block out a “TV timeout” for me to be on the P.A. with Alan. The trick would be any unexpected delays, like an oil down. If that happened one pair before I was due to be on, we’d switch on the fly and do it then. As it turned out, we went on right on schedule and I got two minutes to plug the book while talking to Alan.

The view from the Media Center. Big crowd!

We told the crowd where to buy it and where to bring it if they wanted it signed. I’d consigned 42 books to the trailer, with the belief that those would easily last until Brainerd, where I could drive some more to the track.

Once we were done, and the session was over, I headed back to Wilk’s pit and talked with a bunch of LRS people in the hospitality area. And then one of the hospitality coordinators tapped me on the shoulder and said, “There’s some people here who want you to sign their books.”

I can honestly say that the sight of five or six people, all lined up by the ropes, holding the book I’d just published, was something I’d never seen before. By the time the day ended, I’d say no fewer than a dozen were brought and presented to me for signatures. The sales person at the merchandise trailer said, “We heard you on the P.A. with Alan, and right after that we just started killing it. They were flying out of here.”

So now I don’t have much of a way to gracefully get more books to the trailer before Brainerd, unless I take a big suitcase to Denver or Sonoma and put six books in there. Shipping them would be really expensive, and we’re already only making a few bucks per book. I hope anyone who comes to a race and can’t get one will reach out to me. We can work something out. But, let’s face it, this is a good problem for me to have!

The best way to tie that P.A. work into additional sales was to have two of the most gracious guys in racing step up to help me out. Both Wilk and Del Worsham put a decal of the book cover on the “rear window” area of their Funny Cars. That lent a real air of legitimacy to the whole thing. And for the record, when the body is on the stand, the lower part of the rear window is one of the hardest places to reach. It’s too far forward to come at it from the rear, and the spill plates make it hard to get to from the sides. Somehow, we managed.

Me and The Finkster, together again.

I got to spend some great time over in the Worsham pit, hanging with Del, Chuck, and my longtime buddy John Fink. They’re rocking it old school, right down to the transporter and a lot of the other stuff that dates back to the CSK red car. Those are some friends of the highest order, and I’ll never stop appreciating what they allowed me to do when I joined their team in 1997, and how much that changed my life forever.

After Q4 was over, and a few more fans came by with books for me to sign, I headed back to the hotel in Naperville to get a good night’s sleep. In the morning, utilizing the same “Pay Later” technique for the tolls, I headed back to Woodbury, arriving in the late afternoon. I was, no doubt, a little out of practice for road trips, and I was pretty weary when I got home. Nearly 900 miles in three days, with a full day at the track in the middle of it, can do that. It was good to be home, and just as good to have been there.

And now we hit the road for some more fun. Denver, Sonoma, Brainerd, Indy, Charlotte, St. Louis, Dallas, Las Vegas, and Pomona are all on the agenda for this ex-PR guy now an author with a book to sell. I’ll be at all those tracks for Saturday qualifying, except for Indy. I’ll be there on Sunday for that one, because the race is Monday on Labor Day. There will be airplanes and rental cars involved in all of them other than Brainerd.

Have you bought the book yet? It’s still selling steadily on Amazon and some other online retail sites and the Kindle and Nook versions are moving nicely, as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Bats-Balls-Burnouts-Sports-Marketing/dp/1478775726/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498841315&sr=8-1&keywords=bats+balls+and+burnouts

Here on the home front, Barbara has spent the week out in Spokane but is returning tomorrow night, in time for a concert we’re really looking forward to. It’s Queen with Adam Lambert at the Xcel Arena in St. Paul. I was a big Queen fan in high school and saw them with the incomparable Freddie Mercury many times. I was skeptical that anyone else could ever be the lead singer for the band, but everything I’ve seen and heard about Adam Lambert is that he’s terrific and very natural in the role. He doesn’t try to imitate Freddie. He just sings their amazing songs very very well. Can’t wait to see the show!

As always, if you peruse this blog installment and like the content, please click the “Like” button at the top. The more likes the merrier!

I’ll see you next week, hopefully with more positive news on the book and with my review of the Queen show. “Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango? Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening, me! Galileo (Galileo). Galileo (Galileo). Galileo Figaro. Magnifico-o-o-o…”

Bob Wilber, at your service and still wondering “What are the odds?”

Blog Day Bonanza

HOME / Blog Day Bonanza

July 6th, 2017

Greetings blog faithful, and welcome to another Thursday in the seemingly endless parade of them. Not to be a downer, but every one of these Thursday Blog Days means we’re another week older. Not necessarily wiser, but certainly older. And for this one, I think it’s going to have to be one of those rambling “odds & ends” types of a blog, because I don’t have a major theme in mind.

As always, we can start with the book and an update about the prior week. Elon Werner had my plate pretty full with radio stuff, and all of that went very well. I’d have to say the highlight was a Sunday night interview with Kenny Sargent, Crash Gladys, and Statt Mann, who are collectively known as the SpeedFreaks from coast to coast. I’ve known them since their first year with the popular show, which was around the time of my third or fourth year with Del Worsham. Over the span of time after we first met, I got Del on the air with them countless times, and in Sunday’s interview I even admitted that a few of the post-race “live shots” we did after a big win were probably completed after beverages in red Solo cups had been consumed. If by “probably” you mean “certainly.”

The interview was fun, as I knew it would be. You can listen to it here, if you haven’t heard it yet, and please feel free (feel eager, feel compelled) to share the link on social media.

http://www.speedfreaks.tv/news/bob-wilber-on-reading-writing-and-an-authors-arithmetic/

The Freaks are awesome, and they were all incredibly generous with the praise and promotion for “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts.”  Love you guys! Love your show!

And, as a direct result of that interview I saw another surprisingly large spike in Amazon sales. PR really works! The Kindle sales are staying consistent, as well, so that’s a good thing. I have no idea how many books are being sold on other sites, but I can’t imagine it’s too lofty of a number. When I promote it I keep it simple by sticking with the big gorilla in the room; that being Amazon. As I told an interviewer from Dallas, “The book is on sale at all the well-known retail sites, but since there’s probably not a person left in the United States who hasn’t bought something on Amazon, I just tell people to go there.”

A perfect night. For the humans and for Bella… (Click on photos to enlarge)

And, since Tuesday was 4th of July, we made the best out of our social plans for what we turned into a long weekend. On Friday night, we attended our annual outdoor party hosted by Mary Beth and Joe Gillis in their lovely backyard, with stellar music provided by Ken Wanovich. The company, the food, the drinks, the tunes, and the venue were all spectacular. And yes, as you can see here, Bella was doing a great job of cleaning the paper plates.

Ken is a magnificent singer and guitarist, and his style is perfect for these gatherings of close friends and neighbors. Lots of Jimmy Buffett, Eagles, Neil Diamond, and other stuff everyone can sing along and dance to. Or at least something approaching singing and dancing. We should leave that to the trained professionals.

On Saturday, Barbara and I made a last minute decision to get lunch, but instead of staying within the “Woodbury Bubble” we ventured to the east a few miles, all the way to Stillwater, Minn. on the St. Croix River. Wisconsin is on the other side of the St. Croix and it’s a gathering place for boaters from both states. It’s a marvelous town, with Main Street running alongside the river for about a mile. Both sides of the street are crowded with old brick buildings from the town’s early days in the 1800s, and the sidewalks are jammed with shoppers, diners, and other visitors.

The obligatory selfie by the Stillwater Lift Bridge. Of course…

In the middle of town, the old historic Stillwater Lift Bridge allows direct access to Wisconsin and it can also allow larger boats to pass beneath it by raising straight up. There’s a huge new bridge just south of Stillwater, on Route 36, and it will be opening just a few days from now, after years of construction. That will ease the burden on the old bridge by a huge amount. With just one lane in each direction, and the need to allow boats to pass, the line-up of cars trying to get in or out of Stillwater could often stretch out of sight.

Stillwater is a great place to have and enjoy so nearby, although I’m glad we never went through with the idea of buying a condo there. It’s one of those “great places to visit” but it’s generally so crowded, especially on weekends, it would drive me nuts if we lived there.

We had lunch at a little pub and left there significantly more stuffed than we were when we walked in. It was our first experience with the pub delicacy known as Poutine and it did not fail to impress, in a variety of ways. It was on the appetizer list, but our server made it clear that it would feed multiple people. What she didn’t say was the the word “multiple” could mean a dozen. Basically, if you’ve never had the French Canadian dish, it’s french fries, cheese curds, and gravy. We didn’t come close to finishing it. And, its was on the appetizer menu for what reason? I’m still stuffed.

L-R: Wilber, Doyle, Blake, Blake

On Monday, we continued our social scene by arriving in downtown Minneapolis at 5:15 for a 7:00 pm Twins game versus the Angels. Why so early? We met friends Terry and Lynn Blake before the game for more pub grub and socializing, and they made it even better by bringing their kids, Maddy and Dylan, who are now both in college. That’s, of course, impossible but somehow true. We stopped in at The Loon first, then all descended on Target Field to enjoy the game, although we didn’t sit together. They like to sit in the left field bleachers, and we had our box-seat tickets over in the right field corner, but we took the time to hit a few of the best spots in the ballpark early on before returning to our respective locations, including the Town Ball Tavern, which is on the second deck out in the left field corner. It’s a cool place, and it features the actual floor the old Minneapolis Lakers used to play on, before they moved to someplace called Los Angeles. It also has a fantastic outdoor seating area overlooking Target Field Station, where the light rail trains drop off thousands of fans each game. Twin Cities sports fans are really good about public transportation.

On Tuesday night, we headed over to Dave and Nichol Jacobsen’s house, right next door to our old house, for hot dogs and snacks before the Woodbury fireworks. Also Sangria. My second batch ever, and if I must say so myself it was pretty good. They moved the fireworks show to a different place a few years ago, so we can’t put our lawn chairs out in the driveway anymore. We have to, instead, walk about three blocks to a little park where we can watch the show from a mile away. I’d say about 25-30 other residents joined us there, and even though there’s a delay of about a second between seeing the explosions and hearing them, it’s still way better than fighting the crowds over at the actual site. And, in the darkness our friends Scott and Barb Meehan managed to find us. Good times, good friends, and a great fireworks show. Plus, Neighbor Dave made some magnificent dogs.

And yes, it’s still bizarre to go to their house and look right at the place where we lived for 10 years. I should’ve taken a Pond Cam photo, but it was completely covered in duckweed so it wasn’t exactly attractive. We do miss that house, and the views in both directions, but Dave and Nichol are finally to the point of doing what we eventually did. Both kids, Justin and Alexa, are out of the house now, and there’s no reason to stay in such a big place. They’re officially empty-nesters, and it’s time to downsize. They’re just starting the process though, so no timetable or destination yet, but they’ll stay in Woodbury.

Terry and Lynn actually left Woodbury a year ago, downsizing in a huge way by moving to a high-rise apartment in downtown St. Paul, overlooking the Mississippi River. They really wanted to try the urban life, and have enjoyed almost all of it, but the magnetic pull of Woodbury got to them. They’re making plans to return, just like we did.

And that brings us to tonight. Why stop socializing? We’re meeting Mary Beth and Joe (our party hosts from last Friday) at the Twins game. This time, we all get to sit together.

And, any second now, the delivery guys from the store where we bought our home theater seats should be knocking on the door. Next week, I’ll put a photo on the blog.

Tomorrow is also going to be a big day. I’ll get in my car tomorrow morning and drive six hours (hopefully just that much) to the south and east, arriving in Naperville, Illinois during the late afternoon or early evening. On Saturday morning, it will be just a short drive down to Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, and once I’m there I will have officially made my 2017 return to the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing world. If you’re going to be at the track on Saturday, stop by Wilk’s trailer and hospitality center to say hello. And if you don’t have the book yet, we should have it on sale at the Stupid Fast souvenir trailer. Not sure what price we’re going to list it at, but the autographs are free.

And yeah, I know Amazon is charging quite a bit for the book, but that was out of my control. With Outskirts Press, it’s all about the page count to finally come to the price, and I selected the lowest possible figure. Outskirts takes their slice, Amazon takes theirs, and I get a few bucks of what’s left over. Literally, I make about $8 a copy if it’s sold on Amazon. At the track, we can pick any price we want, but I will again have to share the proceeds with multiple partners and I had to pay about $25 per copy myself, so there’s that to figure into the final number. It’s a good thing I never did this to get rich, and I still haven’t been paid a penny in sales royalties anyway. I should start to receive royalties later this month. Some of it by check, some by direct deposit, so we’ll see exactly what an author makes. Maybe enough to buy another gigantic plate of Poutine!

I guess that’s it for this installment. Another Thursday has come and nearly gone…

As always, if you took the time to read this rambling mess and you enjoyed it, please “Like” it by clicking on the button at the top. And if you order Poutine, have lots of friends with you. Win Twins!

Bob Wilber, at your service and still stuffed.

Department of Admissions and Deletions

HOME / Department of Admissions and Deletions

June 29th, 2017

I learned a lot of things in the 16 months it took to write “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” and those teachable moments came in a variety of shapes and sizes. I learned how to be a better writer, and through that I believe I earned the title “author” as well. I could always write. Press releases are one thing, as are blog installments, but they’re just bite-sized chunks of words that start and end in mere minutes. By the end of the book, I was seeing the much bigger picture and it pleased me enormously to see the way the book flowed and stayed connected. I didn’t want it to be 33 chapters that all seemed separate and disjointed. I wanted it meander, but like a river it had to flow to a conclusion.

I think I did that. On the fly, I learned how to write a 545-page book and while some of it was due to the marvelous direct influence of Greg Halling, my editor, I think the rest of it was somehow subconsciously absorbed and adapted. It was a whole new skill set for this old dog, and it was great to feel myself grow on daily and weekly basis.

I also learned quite a few things about myself, as seen through the prism of such an autobiography. Looking down from 30,000 feet you see the natural topography. When you’re deep in the middle of a sentence or paragraph, all you see is the grass.

So I’ll make some admissions about things I learned, and after that I’ll throw in a few highlights that were, sadly, victims of page count. There seem to be as many great stories that aren’t in the book as there are ones that made the cut, but the book couldn’t weigh 12 pounds, and some things had to go. Some very good stories and characters.

But first, the admissions.

Looking back, I think it’s clear that if I was growing up today I would’ve been diagnosed with A.D.D. upon arrival at grade school. I couldn’t concentrate on what the nuns were trying to teach me, I didn’t really care what the nuns were trying to teach me, and my standard length of time to be able maintain focus on school work was about 25 seconds. The work itself was far easier than the strain to focus on it. It wasn’t until the final few years of high school that the focus got better. In college, it was razor sharp. Did I “grow out of it?” No, I don’t think so. I just grew out of math and science and concentrated on the things that interested me.

Another admission, here for the first time, was my common reliance on one old adage about school: “You’re only as good as your wing man.” That was especially true in math and science. During my junior year at St. Louis U. High the math stuff was getting so deep, so many levels beyond what I could “get” and just so damn “hard” my writer’s brain couldn’t fathom it. We had a very difficult test one day and my wing man, who was the guy at the desk in front of me, gave me ample room to see over his shoulder. At that level of trigonometry or calculus you have to not only arrive at the correct answer, but you also have to show your work. I didn’t have a chance.

The next day our teacher, who was a priest in a wheelchair, rolled into the room with our tests graded. I was quite nervous. And then he said, quite loudly, “Mr. Wilber, please come to the front of the room.”

I figured, well, I was finally busted. Would they just fail me? Would they suspend me? Was copying much of a classmate’s work grounds for expulsion? I pondered all of those thoughts as I slowly walked forward. And then Father I-Don’t-Remember-His-Name held up my test and showed the front of it to the class. There was a large B+ at the top. He said, “Best work you’ve done all year, son. Keep it up.” I swear there was a gleam in his eye. Almost a slight wink, maybe. He knew. He had to know. Right? But maybe, just maybe, by then as a junior my instructors could see my potential in other pursuits. Maybe they didn’t have the heart to kick me to the curb one year before college. And yes, those math classes were HARD. If you don’t have the genes for math, it seems impossible.

And here’s a question about this for the present day. The statute of limitations has run out on all this, right? I don’t need to start having those recurring nightmares again, right? The ones where my high school or college comes back months or years later and yanks my diploma away.

I was a naturally good athlete, but two things conspired to put me behind in terms of developing as a baseball player trying to swing a bat. By being so incredibly sick as a kid, for so many years, my growth and physical maturity were a little delayed. When I got to high school, I was no more than 5’6″ and maybe 130 pounds. Then, those five incredible summers with my dad’s professional teams made me into an outfielder of the highest caliber, but left my hitting lagging far behind. By the time I was done with pro ball, and could play semipro with my buddies, I had filled out, gotten stronger, and learned to swing the bat. If you could’ve taken that 29-year-old version of me and time-traveled it back to Class A ball, I might have had a real chance to play in the big leagues, or at least play a lot longer in the minors. It was like two completely different versions of the same body and skill set. Timing is everything.

As I wrote the book, I told the baseball stories as truly and accurately as I could. The stats are the stats. My descriptions of the talent level were not exaggerations. Now, you’re probably not going to believe this but the book made me admit one key thing about my baseball years. I was better than I ever gave myself credit for. Because I wasn’t necessarily the best player on any team I played for, and because I never made it to the big leagues like my dad had, my standard belief was rooted in a less than stellar self-image. I always felt that I wasn’t all that good. Maybe even a complete mirage. Writing all about it, I could see my shortcomings and flaws but I finally had to admit I was a pretty good player. And I hope I was a good teammate. I think I was. Those are good things to accept and admit. I had my moments. They’re in the stats.

And one other thing I learned to admit once the book was done was this: It’s not only OK to be proud of it, it’s healthy to feel that way. The promotional side of marketing the book requires a healthy amount of self-confidence, but throughout the writing process I was so deeply involved in trying to write the best stuff I could, I rarely allowed myself to stop and analyze how good it was. Even after I was done, I wasn’t a total believer. When the first reviews started to pop up, I was not only proud of it all but also intrigued by it.

And so I’ve been reading it again. Front to back. Trying to do that impossible thing of pretending I’m reading someone else’s work for the first time. If I bought this book, what would I think? Well, I think it’s pretty good. I’m proud of it. Getting more proud by the day, actually. It was a huge leap and probably a pretty big risk. What if it totally stunk? I don’t want to think about that now, and I don’t believe I have to worry about it anymore.

I did a great radio interview with a radio station near Des Moines, earlier this week. It wasn’t a sports show. It wasn’t a racing show. It was an arts and literature program and the guy interviewing me is a very sharp critic of those pursuits. He had me send him a promotional copy a few weeks earlier so that he could read it before the show. I was, to say the least, pretty nervous about making this huge leap to a show where the host is focused on content, flow, and entertainment. Well… He loved it. It was the most enjoyable 20-minutes of conversation I’ve had so far, the most complimentary, and the most fulfilling. The guy, an art critic who reviews books of all types, absolutely loved it. I’ll admit it, that was an honor and a thrill and yet another reason to believe in what I’ve done.

Now, for a few deletions.

When Greg and I were done with the first draft of the manuscript we had to face the fact that it was massively too long. And we had to face the fact that some good stories were going to get cut.

We also had to put a lid on the amount of photos we used, for two reasons. 1. The page count was enormous. 2. You can’t publish (in print) anyone’s recognizable photo without their permission. I’d consider the day I received the signed consent form from SRO Management, on behalf of Geddy Lee from Rush, to be the biggest highlight in that regard. We could use that photo and we did.

I never did hear back from the Detroit Tigers or Justin Verlander’s agent, though, so I couldn’t include the photo of the two of us in the Team Wilk pit back in ’08. That was a disappointment, but we were running out of space anyway.

Solid effort from Christopher Knight (Click on any image to enlarge).

We also left the Christopher Knight appearances at the races out. They were fun stories about a famous guy we all watched on The Brady Bunch, but when Greg was making suggestions about things to clip he’d often say “It’s a good bit, but it doesn’t move the story along.” So we didn’t get to use the phenomenal “Peter Brady” photobomb shot. At least I can show it here!

There were many others like that, too. Getting to meet Gregg Potter and Cathy Rich a couple of times was off the charts. Cathy, of course, is the daughter of the late Buddy Rich, one of the best drummers in the history of percussion, and Gregg is a world-renowned drummer himself. On top of that, they love drag racing and are a massive amount of fun to be around.

Or the time three members of Aerosmith spent a day with us at the Vegas race.

Or the time the band Saliva shot a video for their hit song “Ladies and Gentlemen” in the Team CSK pit area, also in Vegas.

Or how about when I reconnected with former big leaguer Rob Deer when I discovered he was racing in the sportsman classes in Phoenix. I’d scouted him heavily when he played in Fresno, and we had a great time catching up. The next day, he showed up at the CSK pit with a former teammate of his. A teammate who was, by then, already in the Hall of Fame. Funny thing was, nobody on the race team recognized Robin Yount. Rob and Robin played together on the Brewers.

Final day with LRS in St. Louis. Let’s do a selfie!

Another photo we couldn’t run was the final shot I took at the end of my final day of hosting hospitality for LRS in St. Louis. I gathered everyone around and took this photo with my phone. It would’ve been a great addition to the photo section, because of its finality, but there would’ve been no way to secure photo releases from all these people. But, yes sir, I can post it here.

I also had to at least try to keep the flow of the photos matching the flow of the book. I couldn’t post eight pages of baseball stuff and then just two pages of racing. And I, sadly, didn’t even have any photos from the indoor soccer years! Well, I did have one of me at the microphone for the St. Louis Arena P.A. system, but it was taken of me with a little kid, who had won a contest to come down there and sit with me for a quarter. Heck, I look so young in the photo it’s hard to believe it’s me, but the kid was no more than five. Not a chance of getting that photo release. I still have no idea who he was.

If you’ve read it yet you’ll surely remember Chapter 10, entitled “A Quick Change of Plans.” It details my summer with the Medford A’s minor league team and I think it’s clear that those guys and that summer were very special. And not all in good ways, as the broken teeth and 50 stitches from my encounter with a flying Louisville Slugger bat illustrated. But the guys on that team were special. As were my teammates on the Paintsville Hilanders the year before.

The law firm of Alto, Wilb, Harp, and Slats

Mike Altobelli was the most special guy in Medford, and we became the best of friends in mere days. We still talk now, too. So, I included the “before and after” shots of me and Alto in the book. That precluded me from including a photo like this one, of Alto, me, and two other guys I wrote about quite a lot. Our two roomies Terry Harper and Pete Slattery. They were great guys and the stories of life in the low minors with this bunch make for fun reading, but there wasn’t room to show them.

Great guys. Great memories. Great stories to tell… But some great stuff had to be left out.

At some point, I’m actually going to get bobwilber.net up and running, and when I do I’ll put the most effort into gathering up ALL the photos, to give them a home on the Web. Lots of people and faces that you’ll be able to match up with names from the book. All I need is the time to do it.

So, my initial thought this morning, when I was still laying in bed, was to blog today about some admissions, but then I also thought of some deletions. And now, 2,400 words later, we have a new Thursday Blog Day.

I have to admit, I do enjoy writing this every week. If you enjoy reading it, please “Like” it by clicking on the button at the top. And if you really REALLY enjoy it, sharing a link on Facebook and Twitter is a great way to introduce all this nonsense to other people. Just tell them I’m crazy and all of this is made up.

I’ll see you next week. That gives me seven days to fabricate all sorts of other impossible stories. Because I’m crazy.

Bob Wilber, at your service and actually not all that crazy. Much. Sort of…

Ramping It Up…

HOME / Ramping It Up…

June 22nd, 2017

Just like I didn’t really have a clue as to all that went into the writing of a book, on the day I started, and just like I wasn’t even all that aware of how much time, focus, and dedication would go into the editing once the writing was done, the publicity side of the process was all kind of a fog to me, as well. That’s why I hired Elon Werner to represent me. Had I tried to do this myself, the results would’ve likely resembled the Hindenburg upon its fateful arrival at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

So, the book has now been out and for sale for a full month. As expected, the initial flurry of sales were strong and not a huge surprise, although definitely a heartwarming deal. It was great to watch the ranking soar because it confirmed, to me, that a lot of people were looking forward to the release of “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” and they made that known by buying it. Now, weeks later, had Mr. Werner not been in charge of the publicity and had I tried to do that part of the deal myself, we’d be winding down and saying, “Well, that was fun. What’s next?”

With Elon at the PR helm, what’s next is the first big ramp-up of interviews after a few important ones got us started over the last month. He’s “en fuego” right now when it comes to lining up interviews. As of this hour, I have six scheduled chronologically on the print-out he emailed me this morning, with four of those being “live” shows on the radio. This afternoon, I’m doing a racing podcast out of Salt Lake City, and then all the others will happen in succession. I won’t post a schedule here, because media work is notoriously hard to totally pin down before it happens and you often have to be flexible. Breaking news changes everything. Or, once again referring to the mammoth airship mentioned in the first paragraph, you don’t want to be the guy who throws his first no-hitter on the day the Hindenburg crashes and burns.

And the good news is, Elon is working well out into the future to keep the pipeline full. As we approach each of the 10 NHRA races I’m going to attend, he’ll be out in front of that working with the local media in each market. I just did one of those this week, with a very smart and talented writer for the Sandusky Register, just north of Norwalk where the tour is this weekend. Having been a part of countless interviews like this, when I was representing my NHRA drivers, I know how “all over the board” writers can be in terms of taking notes or keeping up with the person they’re interviewing, and then being able to coherently put it all back together for the actual story.

Mark Hazelwood did the interview for the paper, and we just engaged in a free-flowing 15 minute conversation, banging around from topic to topic and careening into different subjects. It was great fun, but it was even more fun to see him have it expertly put together and on the paper’s website just hours later. Here it is, if you haven’t seen it yet:

http://www.sanduskyregister.com/story/201706200051

So on we go, with a process that keeps the book “out there” in the public eye and which digs down deeper to new layers of potential readers and purchasers. I’m learning a lot, being led by the best.

We’re also up to six wonderful reviews on Amazon, and are about to land a few professional reviews from websites, newspapers, and magazines, which takes us into a whole new level of exposure. Fingers crossed the pro reviews aren’t horrible. And in terms of that, one of my favorite bad reviews of all time came from our school newspaper at SIUE, the Daily Alestle (which stood for Alton, East St. Louis, and Edwardsville, the three campus locations for the school when it originally opened.) They reviewed a concert at the historic old Mississippi River Festival and the warm-up act for that show was the band Head East. After writing a generally positive review for the main act, the reporter then wrote, “As for Head East. They should.”

Dreary… (Click any photo to enlarge)

Here at the homestead, it’s our first really dreary and sort of miserable day in a long time. We’d been on such a roll of beautiful June days, with only a few early-morning thunderstorms thrown in, I was getting spoiled. Today is the kind of day that makes you want to stay in bed with the boyz and just listen to the rain fall. It’s coming straight down, not too heavy, from a leaden sky. Hopefully it clears up in time for the Twins and White Sox to finish their three-game series today.

I’m not heading to Target Field today, but Tuesday was the evening I went down there to meet up with my old Sauget Wizard teammate John Parke. Talk about not obsessing over details or over-analyzing things. Our entire plan was this: John would call when he landed at MSP. Then we’d figure it out.

He rented a car, so we both drove to Minneapolis, a place he’d never driven around much or at all, but once he was within a few blocks of the ballpark he called again and I let him know he was close and that he should just park at whichever surface lot he saw next. He was exactly two blocks from where I was parked and waiting for him. Go figure.

I’d gotten our tickets through my Flex Plan app, and we also decided to try the “Upgrade” button on my phone to see how that worked. Our original seats where in the lower boxes down the right field line, up in row 33. When we upgraded for just a few bucks, we were moved to behind the 3rd-base dugout, in the lower boxes, but down in row 12. The way it worked was we used my phone to get our original seats scanned and gain entrance to the ballpark, then we went to our new section and just showed my upgrade form, on my iPhone, to the usher. Badda boom, badda bing. Great seats, too.

Just two old Wizards at the ballgame…

John and I fell right back into the exact types of conversations we had whenever we saw each other last. Neither of us was sure when that was, but we were both guessing 25 years ago. We had a lot of catching up to do, in terms of jobs, families, wives, and homes. It was great fun, and once all the news was exchanged we slipped right into baseball, both the games we’d played and the characters we played with, as well as the game on the field. It was terrific. And, it was fantastic to see him. JP was one of my all-time favorite teammates and one of the best friends I ever made in the sport. We need to do a better job of staying in touch.

He also really liked the ballpark (who doesn’t?) and Minneapolis. I very much enjoy showing people around both Minneapolis and St. Paul when they come to town for the first time. It allows me to see the cities through fresh eyes, and appreciate again how great both places are. We’re fortunate we live here, and it’s why we vowed to come back after our time out in Spokane.

And because my life is all about sports, sports, and more sports, last night I flipped back and forth on the TV between the Twins – White Sox game and the Minnesota United – Portland Timbers match from TCF Stadium, just a mile or two east of Target Field. It was big night for sports, sports, and more sports in Minneapolis. A bit more than 18,400 watched the Loons beat the Timbers 3-2, while about 33,000 watched the Twins beat the White Sox 4-2. And if you were in the right high-rise in Minneapolis, like say the sumptuous Carlyle (a place Barbara and I often drool over when thinking of downtown condo life) you could’ve easily seen the lights from both stadiums. And since a huge percentage of both Twins and Loons fans arrive by light-rail, and the line runs right by both stadiums, I’m sure those train cars were full of boisterous fans of both teams.

Don’t bother me…

I leave you, today, with this example of just what a sleepy day it is in Woodbury. Not that a perfectly sunny day is any less sleepy for Buster (or Boofus) but there’s a little more relaxation going on when you get to sleep amidst all your toys in your kitty condo while the gentle rain plinks off the window right behind you. He was not, however, very pleased with me this morning when I broke his revery by actually getting  up and out of the bed he owns, but allows us to sleep in. Boofus wasn’t very happy about it either. I even heard a squawk or two from them as they stretched and slowly eased their way into new locations. Tough life.

Time to get ready for my podcast interview. And then off we’ll go on a nearly daily basis for weeks, if not months to come.

Thank you all, for the support, for buying the book, and for the fantastic reviews. It all means the world to me.

And remember (because I only write this every week). If you just read this blog and you liked it, please “Like” it by clicking on the button at the top. See you next week!

Bob Wilber, at your service on a dreary rainy day.

Elephants On Parade

HOME / Elephants On Parade

June 15th, 2017

The headline for today’s blog installment is misleading. There are no elephants involved in this blog in any way. And if there were, I probably would not put them on parade. Elephants deserve a lot more respect than that. It is also a coy reference to a song called “Pink Elephants On Parade” from the classic 1941 animated Disney film “Dumbo” which is also a name that describes me from time to time. So, this is really deep. Elephant connections on many levels all tied together in a web of obtuse references.

What’s key about this headline is the final word in it. Parades are fun. Lots of sidewalk sitting, usually. Maybe some marching bands and baton twirlers. Possibly even a shiny red fire truck. All things we enjoy, especially in midsummer. But every Sunday, if you subscribe to your local paper, you probably rifle through the largest edition of the week and find the funny papers, a huge sports section, and Parade Magazine. We’re all familiar with a laid-back Sunday morning, in a comfy chair, reading Parade. It’s an American institution and treasure.

Just hanging out on the interwebs with Jimmy and Oprah. (Click to enlarge)

I have never been in Parade Magazine, but this week I got about as close as I can come. I was included on their website, Parade.com, along with a photo of my book’s cover. As seen in this screen grab, I was in some very fine company. Because I’m always hanging around at parties with Jimmy Fallon, Oprah Winfrey, Tim Allen, Cheech Marin, and Bette Midler. Always. So much so it’s commonplace and darn near boring.

So, how did this come to be? Well, as I’ve crowed about before, I have a fantastic publicist in the person of Elon Werner, he of the lengthy career with that John Force character who is now firmly established as the finest PR rep in the highly collectible auction industry, at Heritage Auctions. Elon made it all happen. He once pitched a Parade contributor, Nancy Berk, on a JFR story and in doing so, over a lengthy period of time, established a relationship and a feeling of mutual respect. A few weeks ago, Elon contacted Nancy and pitched her my story, as a lead in to Father’s Day, since my father is an integral part of my autobiography.

Nancy submitted a series of questions to me, and as soon as I saw them I was struck by how insightful and original they were. She’d not only done her homework on the subject matter of “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” but she also took all of that and created some questions that made me shake my head. They were deep, and creative, and they made me think. These were not your typical “So why did you want to write this book?” questions. They were so good, I felt it was important to spend 24 hours formulating my answers, rather the just fire back cliches and other nonsense. The questions deserved real answers. Thoughtful answers.

After I submitted them on Sunday, I started emailing directly with Nancy as we prepped the piece for Parade.com, and I found her fascinating. So I did some research and it was very telling. She is Dr. Nancy Woodward Berk, Ph.D, who is a widely respected clinical psychologist while also dabbling in writing, blogging, public speaking, and comedy. Really. Not making any of that up. And that explains why the questions were so good.

Here’s the interview, if you want to read something where the questions might just be better than the answers:

https://parade.com/578593/nancyberk/from-baseball-to-drag-racing-sports-personality-bob-wilbers-life-in-the-fast-lane/

That was fun. And being on Parade.com was incredible.

As for the book, we’re just five days away from the one-month mark in terms of it being on sale. That fact, all by itself, seems impossible but it’s true. It made its debut on May 20. Today is June 15. And hey, my birthday is Monday. Not that that means anything, but just putting it out there. When it finally went on sale I expected it to do well right out of the gate, and it did. To be more than three weeks into it and have it still selling solidly, on a daily basis, is really encouraging. I think word continues to spread, and having the Kindle version available is helping, as well.

Much appreciated! (Again, click on this photo to enlarge it)

And, what helps enormously are great reviews on Amazon. I had a few new ones come in this week and these are the sorts of words that make an author proud, and that pride is directly linked to the knowledge that I created something out of thin air, not sure if people would like it or yawn, and they seem to like it. If you’ve read it, and want to join in the review party, please feel free. Great reviews sell more books. That’s a proven fact on Amazon.

If a buyer already knows about the book and appreciates the author’s style before they even head to Amazon to buy it, the reviews might not mean much. But as promotion and publicity digs into the second and third layers of the reader world, those folks are going to want to hear what other buyers before them thought of the book. Heck, I’m honored these folks even took the time to write these reviews and share them.

We’ve also had some other fantastic publicity in the last few days. Dave Rieff gave me a great plug on the Fox Sports 1 NHRA telecast from Englishtown, although I sat down to watch exactly 10 minutes too late and missed it. Facebook came to the rescue, though, and numerous people who had it recorded via DVR went to that particular spot in the show and shot it with their phones, so I got to see it.

Also, National Dragster Magazine ran a really nice piece in their “Bits From The Pits” section. Elon Werner at work, I suspect. And we’ve got a lot of other interviews and feature stories in the works. I’m all for it.

On to other rambling things…

At least the number is right. We was number 45.

This photo is of my nephew Ewan Smith, kneeling beside a jersey in the Texas Rangers Museum at their ballpark in Arlington. It’s cool, right? Very cool. But it has a mysterious backstory I haven’t yet completely decoded.

As many of you know, my dad Del Wilber managed the Rangers for one game, after the team fired Whitey Herzog late in the 1973 season. On September 7, 1973 he led the Rangers to a comeback 10-8 win over Oakland, in Arlington (at the old ballpark there). He’d been told he’d get the rest of the season as an “audition” to keep the job, but by the time the game ended the team had hired Billy Martin and were introducing him to the media. Del Wilber, therefore, ended his Major League managing career at 1-0. Undefeated.

But… This is a road uniform. He never went on the road with the team. And, there’s a plaque next to it with an interesting story about the letters being hastily hand-cut and sewn on. But why? He brought the white jersey he wore back home, and it was around for a long time with various Wilbers before it vanished.

So, I have no idea why this blue jersey exists or why the letters were hand-cut or why it’s on display like it is. Crazy. Baseball aliens might well be involved. It’s still cool, though.

Onto another baseball story…

I like fleshing these out with additional photos that aren’t in the book because many of these guys are written about at length in it, especially my teammates on the Sauget Wizards.

John Parke was a fine pitcher from Vanderbilt who was my teammate on the Wizards for multiple seasons. He was one of those guys whose sense of humor and intellect was spot-on connected to mine, and we became great friends. I even hired him as one of my first staff members when I took the job as VP-Marketing & Promotions for the St. Louis Storm indoor soccer team. We went through a lot of ups and downs together, as well as a ton of stress, with the Storm but we kept each other sane. We worked hard, but we did a lot of laughing as well.

Your 1989 Sauget Wizards, prior to our win over the USA National Team in Millington, Tenn.

In this Wizards team photo (another one you’ll probably want to click on in order to enlarge it) you can spot a lot of characters from the book, including John (aka JP), Bob Hughes, Jim Greenwald, Moose Kassebaum, Neil Fiala, Rick Fiala, Downtown Scotty Brown, Joe Mehallow, Jim Donohue, Jeff Junker, and others. JP and I are in the back row, with “crafty lefty” Joe Mehallow between us. I don’t remember the last time I saw JP, but I know the next time.

He’s coming up to Minneapolis on business next week, and we’re going to meet at Target Field for the Twins game on Tuesday night. The odds that we’ll fall right back into conversations and laughter just like we’d seen each other last week are roughly at 100%. I’m really looking forward to it. And that means that the “after” photo to complete the reunion will be in next week’s blog. It’ll be a selfie, no doubt.

And this Wizards team? It might possibly be the best baseball team I ever played on. Better than the Paintsville Hilanders and Medford A’s, for sure. And we did it for free.

Time for lunch, I think, so I’ll let you all go for another week.

Keep spreading the word on my book, and we’ll keep up the PR work to keep the sales going.

And, as always, if you like what you just read here today, please “Like” it by clicking on the button at the top! The more likes the better, just like the great reviews on Amazon.

Bob Wilber, at your service without the use of elephants.

Monitoring the Monitor – I Cared That Much

HOME / Monitoring the Monitor – I Cared That Much

June 8th, 2017

Back when I was running various professional indoor soccer franchises, I was the sort of general manager who could not stand to just let things happen, especially when it came to ticket sales. On game days, I’d hover relentlessly over the sales computer monitor, checking on how many tickets were being bought, where they were being bought, and how fast they were selling. As we got closer to opening the gates, I was the guy constantly peeking outside to see how many cars were coming into the parking lots, or taking a firm look at the ticket windows to see how our walk-up sales were going. I couldn’t help it. I cared about it that much.

It wasn’t until my second stint running a team, when I was GM of the Kansas City Attack, that I attended a league meeting with all the other executives from the various clubs, and I learned there were names for a guy like me. Around the conference table, I mentioned my predilection for following sales so closely, and another GM laughed a little and said, “Oh, you’re a parking lot watcher, huh? Bob, just relax. Once it’s 6:00 for a 7:00 game, there’s nothing you can do. Go sit in your office and relax. The deed is done.”

He might as well have been telling me to go juggle flaming knives. I couldn’t even comprehend the idea that I wouldn’t worry about it, stress over it, and watch it all carefully. As I said before, I cared that much.

To be fair, I drove my ticket managers a little nutty, constantly elbowing them out of the way to reset the computer to update the sales. And I probably caused a few staff members to think I was nuts, as I walked around constantly looking at who was coming in the gates, or worse yet who was NOT coming in. But that was me. I cared that much.

My first job in racing was also as a GM, but this time it was Heartland Park instead of the Indianapolis Twisters. The magnetic pull of watching ticket sales, and then watching the traffic come into the track, remained. Even during my 20-year run as a PR rep, a job in which I had no responsibility for ticket sales, I couldn’t help it. I’d take the time to look at the incoming traffic, or check on the walk-up, or stare at the grandstands to see how “we” did despite the fact “we” really had nothing to do with me. On my NHRA blog, I’d often post photos of long lines at the ticket windows, or endless streams of traffic, or packed parking lots. I cared that much.

So now I’ve got a book for sale. I bet you can see where I’m going with this. It’s a little frustrating, because Amazon only updates the sales figures at the end of each month. But, even though the book went on sale at the end of May, there’s still a lag between when any of you hit the “Purchase” button and the moment that transaction is registered in Amazon’s system. So, that last week of May ended up being lumped in with all of June in terms of sales. That means I still have no idea how many books have sold on Amazon, and since it’s going to represent a gigantic percentage of online sales (I mean, really, what other site comes to mind first when you think “I want to buy that book”?) I’m nearly totally in the dark.

One place where I’ve got a little bit of light shining through is Kindle sales, on Amazon. That option just became available within the week, and Amazon does afford me an analytics page for those sales, although it’s rudimentary. All it shows me is how many Kindle versions sell on any given day, and the numbers tend to only be updated once or twice per day. It does, though, inform me of the massive amount of money I’m making each week. Those boatloads of dollars will be direct-deposited into my new LLC business account once a month or so. So far, in eight days of Kindle sales, I’ve earned $124.86 in royalties! Woo Hoo! New tax bracket, here I come!!!

The one thing I can keep an eye on, in terms of paperback sales, is my ranking on Amazon’s sales chart. We hit No. 42 on the first day, in our category, and now swing wildly from around 180 to as high (low?) as 1,200 on a daily basis. It’s easy to track the PR effort that way, but I also get surprised from time to time, just as I was this morning. The book was ranked around 1,000 when I went to bed last night, but it was at No. 243 when I got up this morning. Weird how that ebbs and flows. I really don’t completely understand all the reasons why it jumps up and slides down for reasons I didn’t personally attend to, but knowing a little bit about the stock market (thanks to what my incredible wife does for a living) I do know that wild swings in share prices are usually (but not always) a reflection of low volume. My guess is that our category (Sports & Outdoors – Biographies and Memoirs) doesn’t exactly pace Amazon in terms of overall sales. If that’s the case, it might only take six or eight sales to jump the ranking up a lot. Or maybe it’s 60 or 80. Who knows? Not me. Just like I was the last person to get his own copies, I appear poised to be the last person who knows how many people are buying the book.

We still have a ton of PR and publicity to do, and we’ll have some direct sales at the various races I’ll be going to, plus we have a few signing parties coming up, so we’ll see.

The money means nothing to me, just to be clear. That’s why I was joking about the Kindle sales. I never did this for the money. The way Outskirts works, the income on book sales gets split at least three ways. Amazon makes their profit, Outskirts makes their chunk, and I get what’s left. It’s not much. Less than $10 per book.

But I care about sales because I want as many people as possible to read it. I think I created something enjoyable, and I want to share it. As my friend Kelly Topolinski posted on Twitter: “Hey guys. My friend Bob Wilber made us a present! We all get to enjoy it!” That was cool.

And, of course, word of mouth plays a big role in it, just like it does in ticket sales for sporting events. That takes some time to filter down through the various levels, but if a fan goes to a game or a race and has an awesome unbelievable time, you would hope they’d go home and tell some other people how incredible it was. I know when Barbara and I attended the Minnesota United soccer match, we made it a point to tell anyone who would listen how great it was, and how entertaining the entire experience was. As Barb said, “I never dreamed a 1-0 game could ever be that much fun and that exciting.”

On the flip side, if a customer has a really negative experience, you don’t even need to worry about them spreading the word. They will. If they have a great time, you hope they tell someone. Anyone. If they have a terrible time, you can expect them to tell anyone who will listen. That was a message I constantly harped on with my staff members at the soccer teams. If you exceed expectations, you won’t have much to worry about.

What I’m hoping is that if you bought it, and you liked it, you’ll share your thoughts with friends and strangers. Spread the word. Word of mouth works, it just takes a while. And hey, I may not have patience as a core trait, but I don’t have much choice.

I think I’ll go look at Amazon to see the ranking right now. As my ticket manager would say at the St. Louis Storm, “You can’t help but monitor the monitor, can you? You’re a monitor monitor. Go away.”

(Theme music plays…)

That didn’t take long. I bookmarked the page yesterday to save a few steps. Now No. 349 in the category. That’s pretty good for a book that’s been on sale nearly three weeks. As they say in the music biz, maybe it’s “got legs” or at least a little bit of staying power.

One of the drivers (meaning something that drives sales, not someone who drives a car) is that PR stuff, and this week my Skype interview with Lewis Bloom went “live” on NHRA.com. We had a lot of fun doing it, and I think it turned out great. I also think it’s easily apparent that Lewis and I like each other and care about each other. Those are great interviews to do. In the off chance you haven’t seen it yet (really?) it’s here:

http://www.nhra.com/news/2017/bats-balls-and-burnouts

Fun stuff. Lewis is a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. He’s from New Jersey and he lived a long time in Asbury Park, so he’s been following Bruce since he was an unknown playing clubs. After we closed the interview, we stayed on Skype for a bit and I showed him the poster I had framed for Barbara, who is nearly as big a fan of The Boss as Lewis is. It’s from a show he often does in a small hall in Pittsburgh, with local legend Joe Grushecky. I turned my laptop so he could see it and he got really excited, saying, “Oh man! I’ve seen him and Joe play there. It’s awesome.”

So, I’m going to wrap this up now. Time to go run some errands around the Twin Cities, not the least of which is the pick-up of some new cushions for our porch furniture. Hey, the glider, rocking chair, and ottoman are only about 12 years old. I think it’s time.

See you next week. I hope “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” still has those “legs” and the word continues to spread. I leave you with two thoughts:

As always, if you read this blog, and you liked it, please take a moment to “Like” it by clicking on the button at the top.

And, if you read the book, and you liked it, spread the word. Facebook, Twitter, smoke signals, message in a bottle… It all keeps those “legs” going

Bob Wilber, at your service, monitoring the monitor!

In. My. Hands!

HOME / In. My. Hands!

June 1st, 2017

I spent about half of my life knowing I should write a book. I spent a few years looking forward to whatever unknown year it might happen. I spent about six months of 2015 seriously toying with the idea, but not sure if the time was right. Late that summer, I made up my mind. In January of 2016 I began writing with no clear clue as to how long it would take or if I was even capable of completing the task. And then it was done. And then it was on sale. And now, the biggest of the big days I was anticipating is upon me. I can hold it in my hand.

I had been a little frustrated, as I mentioned last week, because many buyers were posting photos of them holding their copies of “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” on their Facebook timelines. And yet, the author didn’t have his yet. And then, on Tuesday when I was busy doing a newspaper interview, I wrapped that up and went upstairs. And when I turned the corner into the kitchen, my wife Barbara came walking toward me carrying two of the 230 copies that had just been delivered. The UPS truck was just pulling out of the driveway.

There it was.

In my very own hand. And it’s pretty hefty!

My reaction surprised me quite a bit. I felt no need to open it and start reading. No need at all. I’ve been reading it and rereading it for months, page by page. Like a little kid, I just wanted to hold it and look at the pictures.

A bit later, Barbara sat at the kitchen island and started cherrypicking various chapters to dive into. She hadn’t read it cover to cover like I had so many times, but she was aware of the look, shape, and order of it so she could jump ahead or jump back and relive a lot of memories we’ve shared. To see her smiling, and to hear her laugh from time to time, was far more rewarding than reading it myself. It’s supposed to make people laugh. It’s also supposed to make readers smile, and cry a bit, and hopefully it conveys the feelings associated with hitting home runs, or signing a pro baseball contract, or that most emotional thing I’ve ever experienced in sports: Winning a drag race.

It’s a revelation that’s taken a couple of days to sink in. At first, maybe I was a bit numb to it, after 16 long months of work. Or maybe it was just a relief. Over the last 48 hours it became quite a bit more real. It’s an actual thing, and I have about 40 boxes full of them in the garage. So, now I allow myself the chance to flip it open to any random page and dive back into it a little.

For me, as opposed to anyone else who might read it, it’s a double or triple memory on every page. I remember what the subject matter is, whether it’s from my childhood or any other stage of my life, but I also remember writing it, and editing it, and proofing it. I’ve been through the book so many times, from the first page to the last, I couldn’t possibly count the number of run-throughs I’ve done. But those began as Google Docs files, and then became Galley Proof PDFs. There were only on my laptop screen. Now it’s a book.

There’s no time to rest, though. I have a full day ahead of me, shipping out promotional copies to key people who helped me make it happen. I have more PR to do, as Elon Werner continues to line up interviews. This segment of the process is the payoff for all the hard work. And, I’ve got much of my travel planned out and purchased for the second half of the NHRA Mello Yello tour, beginning with Joliet. It’s not going to get any less hectic from here on out.

And here’s an interesting tidbit. I spent 20 years doing PR for some fantastic NHRA Funny Car teams, and all that time I knew it was a nebulous world in which I worked. I understood the value of good PR, but it was hard to put a number on what effect it had on the racing business. It was more cumulative over the long haul,versus something that had an immediate quantifiable impact on either performance or the bottom line.

With the book, it’s quite different. And in a good way. We came out of the gate very strong when the book went on sale last week, and I figured we would because a lot of people had been patiently waiting for it to be available. Then, as the week went on the sales stayed consistent but we slid back down into what I thought was a more reasonable range in terms of sales rankings on Amazon.

Each time I’d do a new interview or see a story come out, the numbers would spike. Late last week I did a lengthy interview with CompetitionPlus.com and it went live on their site this morning. When it did, our sales ranking went from 980 to 260 within two hours.

I also did a long, and very fun, interview with Joe Castello, on his WFO Radio podcast, and that went out to the world in the last 24 hours. Again, another spike in sales and a lot of buzz on social media. It’s fun to watch it happen.

We got the word out to all of you over the course of the last 16 months. Now, we’re getting the word out to people who might love the book, but weren’t aware of it yet. And the impact of that publicity directly impacts the number of books we sell.

Yesterday, I did a very fun Skype video interview with Lewis Bloom, for NHRA.com. I’m not sure when it will be posted on the site, but now that I’ve seen what a website feature story does in terms of creating demand for the book, I’m REALLY anxious to see what kind of excitement we can drum up with a video interview on the biggest drag racing website in the universe. Can’t wait. And man, it was great to have such a rambling fun conversation with the Stat Guy again. Lewis is a good man.

We are still waiting on the digital versions of the book, which seems to take a bit of time. When they become available, we’ll probably see another spike in sales as that pent-up demand is satisfied. I just want everyone who might like it to have a chance to read it, in whatever format they like.

And now I can hold it in my hands and, quite seriously, marvel at what I created out of thin air. I was shaking my head as I wrote that.

Yes, it’s a bit of a short one today but the subject matter is as big as it gets. I have a book.

Bob Wilber, at your service and feeling very proud.

 

The Blog We’ve Been Waiting For

HOME / The Blog We’ve Been Waiting For

May 25th, 2017

I’ve been writing about my book, and the enormous challenges it put in front of me, for so long the date is burned into my mental hard drive. The date is January 6, 2016. That’s the day I sat down at my desk at our Liberty Lake, Wash. home and began to write. I knew the book was going to be chronological, so I’d start with my earliest memories, but did I know exactly what words were going to find their way from my brain to my fingers and then onto the manuscript? No. I had no clue.

Having no clue was a perfect example of being “blissfully ignorant” about the process. Had I known how long it was going to take, and how high the mountain top was, I likely would’ve chickened out or come up with a legitimate excuse to not do it at all. The Kickstarter campaign was still in action, though, and a lot of people I love and respect were pledging enormous sums of money to help me make this happen, so there was that as motivation to dive in and create something. Anything. A book, maybe.

When I began, I had visions of writing it in total by June of that year. And then, maybe, the publishing part could be finished by mid-August and maybe (wouldn’t it be great?) we’d be able to debut the book at the U.S. Nationals over the Labor Day weekend. Yeah, what a great plan. I was only off by about six months in terms of the writing and another five in terms of editing, which wasn’t even part of my forward-looking plan when I started. Editing? I’ll find the typos and we’ll be done with it.

My editor, Greg Halling, had one edict for me when we began. He said, “Write it all. We can always trim, but it’s almost impossible to make it longer.” So, I wrote it all. The first draft, completed in late October, came in at roughly 1,000 pages. That was not going to work.

At Outskirts Press, they publish a lot of small works. Poetry books, short-story compilations, things like that. They are very accustomed to taking a “thin” book and making it look more substantial. Big margins, small dimensions, lots of illustrations, empty pages, things like that. They know how to take a 75-page manuscript and turn it into a 150-page book. Our challenge, with “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” was figuring out how to take what we had and make it manageable, in terms of size and thickness.

Greg and I toiled for a couple of months, to find “fluff” and take it out, or to streamline stuff that was overly wordy. We finally had it to where we thought it might come in at 700-750 pages. That still seemed enormous and daunting, like it would scare off readers by its own heft. So, with the Outskirts designers on board, we did the opposite of what they normally do. We took a 700-page book and found every possible way of making it shorter. We ended up at 545 pages, including the “legal stuff” at the front and the photos in the back.

And off it went. I’ve been telling my wife Barbara that the routine with the publisher has been for them to “aim long” so that any deadline they beat seems like a very good thing. When I finally approved the last proof of the book and sent it and the cover off to be born, the estimate was 2-4 weeks. I figured it might be sooner than that, so I told my publicist, Elon Werner, to be on alert and ready to go. We might have a book on sale within two weeks.

Then, over the weekend, my daily scan of Amazon.com surprised me. After typing in the title, instead of seeing “No Results Match Your Search” I saw my cover. It wasn’t on sale yet, but it was there. I told Elon to go to Code Red.

The next morning, on May 22, I woke up and picked up my phone. Barbara was getting up and starting to get ready for a day of work in her office. I was still laying in bed with Boofus and Buster. I clicked on my link to Amazon, on my iPhone, and typed in the title. And there it was. It was on sale.

Barbara came in the room and I calmly said, “It’s there. It’s on sale right now” as if I’d only muttered, “Looks like it’s going to be a nice day.” I didn’t scream or jump up and down. It was oddly calm. It was the top of the mountain I’d been climbing for more than 16 months, and instead of raising my arms and screaming, I felt myself sink into the mattress a little more and take a very deep breath. I put my hand on Buster and felt him purring. It was the most peaceful feeling I’ve experienced in a very long time.

I took another deep breath and got up. After brushing my teeth, shaving, and showering, I went to my desk and sent Elon a note to let him know we were “live” and on sale. His response was a completely appropriate, “Holy crap!” and off we went. Press releases went out, phone calls were made, and I spent the entire day on social media, letting the world (or at least my little slice of it) know that we had a book, and they could buy it, and there it was, and it’s real.

I barely broke for lunch and probably wouldn’t have had Barbara not quietly made me a sandwich and brought it down to me. Facebook, Twitter, emails, carrier pigeons, smoke signals. You name it, I used it. By that afternoon, some stats finally started showing up on the Amazon page. The most remarkable one was the sales ranking of the book. Within my category (“Sports and Outdoors – Biographies or Memoirs”) we hit the No. 50 ranking almost immediately. We made it as high as 42 before the initial “pent up demand” wave of purchases was over.

To be honest, the sight of so many sales actually made me nervous. Throughout the process of nearly a year and a half, this was my baby. It was my private challenge. Only Greg Halling and a few celebrity endorsers had seen more than rough drafts of the manuscript. Looking at the Amazon page, and realizing that actual human beings were parting with a good deal of money to buy it, struck me as scary. It was as if I never realized until right then that people were going to actually READ the book. It was a strange sensation.

As posted by Ewan Smith. This thing in his hand? It’s a book. It’s A BOOK!

My social media and email was rocking for the first 48 hours. Lots of alerts and notes from people who were telling me they’d ordered it. By yesterday, I was hearing from folks who had gotten the notification that it had shipped. My nephew Ewan was the first to post a Facebook photo of him holding the actual thing.

Since I retired from my PR job in November of 2015… Since I started the Kickstarter campaign on December 15 of 2015… Since I sat down to begin writing on January 6 of 2016… Since I finished the first draft of the enormous manuscript on October 20 of 2016…  Since I saw the first Galley Proof just a month or so ago… Since I approved the third Galley Proof and sent it off to Outskirts just a couple of weeks ago… Since all of that, throughout the entire process that started with me as a 59-year-old living in Liberty Lake, until yesterday as the 60-year-old me sat at his desk in Woodbury, Minn., it’s been nothing more than a project. It was a dream. It was a goal. It was the mountain top.

Yesterday, late in the afternoon when Ewan posted this photo, it was a book.

I’ve been writing a lot of words for the last 16 months. Big ones, small ones, fancy ones, utilitarian ones. Lots and lots of words. Hundreds of thousands of words.

I’m not sure I know the exact ones that reflect how it felt to see Ewan’s hand holding the thing I created. It wasn’t an outline anymore. It wasn’t a manuscript. It wasn’t a digital proof. It was a book.

Look at Sue Madden’s beautiful pillow! And there’s a book in front of it.

And here’s the weird thing. A lot of people, in a number of states and countries, have their copies right now. Maybe some of them are reading it. Maybe it’s just on a shelf. Sue Madden, a good friend and the mother of my former CSK teammate and still great friend Matt Madden, came in second in the race to post a photo on Facebook. There it was again. It was a book. And a gorgeous pillow, as well.

The theme that runs as a continuous thread throughout the book is the concept of plowing forward. It’s how I’ve lived my life, and I seem to do it on a daily basis, whether it’s what I’m having for lunch or how I’m going to write whatever it is I’m creating. I’m doing it right now, actually. I had no idea what words were going to appear on my screen when I opened this window and began to write today’s blog. Literally had no clue. And here I am, plowing forward and it’s appearing before my eyes.

Seeing Ewan and Sue’s photos delivered the latest major example of it. For more than 16 months I’ve been working on this. Plowing forward every day. Rarely taking a day off. Feeling the physical side of it, with sore muscles in my neck and lower back, and aching in my fingers. It’s mental work, to write, but it’s physical as well.

And then… On May 24 of 2017, there were these two photos.

It’s a book.

And here’s the nutty part. I’ve been reading the digital proofs for so long I feel like I’ve had it in my hands for weeks, but that’s not true. I have 230 copies on their way to me, but…  They’re not here yet.

I still don’t have a copy in my own hands. But the chance to see these photos was enormously gratifying. Actual people have the book I created in their possession.

It’s a book. Hey everyone! I wrote a book!

Amazing. Can’t wait to have my own copy. Maybe I’ll autograph it to myself.

“To Bob. Great job. Your wrote a book!”

See ya next week, everybody. I think I deserve the rest of the day off.

Oh, as always, if you found this blog, and read this blog, and liked what you read, please “Like” it by clicking the button at the top.

And, if this is all news to you and you think you might like to actually buy this thing I made, just go to Amazon.com and type in the title. It’s a little thing called “Bats, Balls, and Burnouts” and it’s a book.

Bob Wilber, at your service but still waiting for his own copy. Patience is a virtue.

Of Updates and Sharp Objects

HOME / Of Updates and Sharp Objects

May 18th, 2017

Greetings, blog faithful. It’s Thursday (of course) and it’s May 18, in the year 2017. That makes it 16 and a half months since I sat down and started writing “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” way back when we still lived in Liberty Lake, Wash. Seems like ancient history. And today, maybe today, possibly today, we might just get a real look at when the book will be available. I wish things could be more predictable with publishing people, but apparently I’m not the only author they are working with, so I take my updates from them when I get them.

Earlier this week, I was surprised to discover that the final piece of the pre-production schedule was the “title page” that goes at the front of the book. When you open the cover, the first thing you see is a right-side page with the title of the book on it. Why they waited until the other 545 pages were done and print ready before asking for the title page is not something I understand completely (at all) but apparently that’s how the process works.

Outskirts took a shot at it themselves, but it was just the front cover of the book rendered into black & white. They also wrote “We’d prefer text-only for your title page, but you can feel free to approve this as is.” I wrote back within seconds to let them know we’d do a text-only title page ourselves. It seemed dumb to me to have a reader hold the book in his or her hands, looking at the fabulous color cover, and then open the cover to see the same thing in black & white.

Keeping it simple. (Click to enlarge any photo)

Todd Myers and I decided “simple, classy, and straightforward” was the way to go. This also leaves a lot of white space for autographs. When you open the book, this is what you’ll see (barring any additional footnotes or copyrights Outskirts needs to put at the bottom.) Yeah, seems kind of underwhelming that something this simple would be the final thing that needs to be done in order to go to publication, but what do I know? I’m just a dumb author.

We got this back to my Outskirts rep yesterday, and after Todd submitted it I sent her a note and asked when we’d finally have a handle on publication. She wrote back and said “I’ll keep you posted and let you know as soon as I learn that info.”

So…  Maybe that will come today. Maybe it will come while I’m writing this blog. I’ll type as… slowly… as… possible. But seriously, if I do move on to new subjects and then get an update, I’ll break into our regularly scheduled programming with a bulletin.

So let’s go back to last week (more time travel, right?) After my Thursday blog was posted I took a walk around downtown Spokane for a bit, grabbing a quick bite at Twig’s, one of our favorite restaurants, and then we drove over to the place where the knife skills class was to be held. There’s an old flour mill there, overlooking the Spokane River and Spokane Falls, that has been transformed into retail and fine dining, and the class was held in a kitchen specialty store where all things cooking can be purchased. They have an actual kitchen classroom permanently set up. We were only a little nervous.

They have a variety of classes, and ours was for basic knife skills with vegetables and fruits. No butchering or cutting of meats. That was fine by me, but it was a little intimidating to pick up the ultra-sharp German chef’s knife and hold it in my hand. It was a Wusthof, one of the most prestigious knife makers in the world, and it was more than likely the single most incredibly sharp thing I’ve ever beheld. Even the slightest screw up could really do some damage.

Our instructor was a great guy, and very talented. He had a bit of Alton Brown in his delivery, and that kept us loose and entertained. We learned how to hold the knife, how to slice (forward), how to use our left hand as the guide hand, actually making contact to the side of the blade, and then got to work. Potatoes, tomatoes, strawberries, green onions, white onions, cucumbers, garlic, cabbage…  None of it was safe.

It was cool to get a feel for it, and even though I’m still a stark beginner I did absorb the “rules of the road” to a great degree, so the rest of it is just practice. You know the line. Say it with me: “Guy walks up to me in Times Square and asks, ‘How do I get to Carnegie Hall?’ So I told him. PRACTICE!”

And here’s the best news. I nicked the middle of one fingernail during the 90-minute class, but that’s it. No slices, no dices, no chops other than to the vegetables and fruit. Bottom line, if you like to cook but are self-taught like me, a good class on knife skills is a solid and worthwhile thing to experience.

UPDATE: There is no update. Still waiting on word from Outskirts. Not sure whether to cite Tom Petty (“The waiting is the hardest part”) or Carly Simon (“Anticipation”) but both apply.

Hello Spokane!

After our class, we walked next door to the restaurant that is also in the old flour mill. It’s Clinkerdagger and it’s a go-to spot for anyone who is visiting Spokane or who lives there. It has million dollar views of the Spokane Falls, but that wouldn’t keep it in business if the food was lousy. The food is spectacular, so the views and the meals are on a par with each other. And the Falls were ripping. I was in the mood for a steak, but Barb took a chance on a Steelhead Trout filet. She’d never had it before, but absolutely loved it. I had a bite and can vouch for it’s spectacular flavor.

Here in Woodbury, we’ve been doing a good job at spending money as of late. The first thing was pulling the trigger on something we’ve needed to do, and have planned to do, since we moved back here and put this fabulous home theater in the lower level. We finally bought theater seating.

We’ve gone shopping for theater seats a couple of times previously, but right after the move and the huge expense for the big flat-screen and sound system, we didn’t have the appetite for the seats. You can buy “cheap” theater seats, but that’s exactly what you’ll get and in the end you’ll have buyer’s remorse for going that way. So, we waited until we had saved up the money and went shopping again over the weekend. One of the groupings we’d seen last year was still available, and we made up our minds to do it.

Since we got back here, we’ve just been sitting on some mismatched stuff that has functionally served as a place from which we could watch TV, but it’s not actual theater seating in any way. It’s a white leather chair, a matching love seat, an ottoman, and a brown leather chair. It’s not uncomfortable, but it’s not designed for what we need and it looks kind of hokey.

The unit we bought has four seats, arranged in an arc. There’s a love seat in the middle, with two separate recliners, then two individual recliners on either side of it. Cup holders and tray tables for everyone, and all the recliners are powered by battery packs, so we won’t have any electrical cords running through the middle of the room.

What we liked about them the most, besides the comfort and quality, was the backside. Our seats sit out in the middle of the room, and when you come down the stairs the first thing you see is the backside of everything. Most reclining theater seats don’t bother making the back attractive, and when they’re in the reclined position you can see the rails and all the other apparatus back there. I guess they’re designed to sit in front of the back wall. This unit was designed to sit in the middle of the room. Everything in back is uniform and covered, with a solid piece instead of a skirt. It looks the same upright or reclined.

We also custom-ordered a special burgundy color, so that turns the purchase into a 12-week wait, instead of 10 days, but we can deal with that. We’ve been fine on our floppy mismatched stuff for a year, so what’s 12 more weeks? When it comes in, I’ll post “before and after” photos to show you what we’ve done.

Oh, and my wife remains the best professional negotiator I’ve ever known. So much so that I let her do all of that herself, because any words that might have come out of my mouth would most likely have damaged our final price. Before signing on the dotted line, she came home and hit the internet hard. When she went back to the store, she brought with her a printed Web page of the exact same unit, from an online store. It was $1,200 cheaper. The store matched the price. Well played, indeed.  Oh, and the charge for installation? Yeah, that disappeared, too. Extra well played.

My other expense happened Monday and Tuesday. We had taken a hot tub late on Sunday night and Barb noticed that the pump seemed unusually loud. It was, but I think we’d gotten used to it over the last couple of months so I hadn’t noticed. Then, on Tuesday, I went out to service the tub and it wouldn’t run. The screen showed an FL-1 code. Generally, that’s a filter issue.

So, I took the filter out and cleaned it thoroughly. When I put it back it, it fired up but within a minute the code came back and it stopped running. So I drove 20 miles to get a new filter. The guy at the Jacuzzi store has been there for many years, and he’s sold us a lot of stuff including this tub. He gave me some hints for things to try, because the FL-1 code can be related to a number of things. None of them worked.

A tight squeeze on his knees, but we’re all fixed again.

I then called the service center and a guy was at the house within an hour. He took the access panel off and immediately knew what the problem was. The main pump was fried.

He didn’t have this particular pump on his truck, so he came back Tuesday to replace it. A bit more than $600 later, we were back in business. Also about 500 gallons of water, later, as well. I changed the water once as a work-around but that did nothing. We had to drain it again for him to replace the pump, so that fresh water went away and another 250 gallons filled it back up again. The joys of having a spa.

But, you know what? Worth every penny and we get 100-times more enjoyment and relaxation out of having a hot tub than all the expenses added together. For four years in Liberty Lake we had the fantastic steam room to enjoy, but we didn’t have a hot tub and we missed it very much. All is right with the world.

UPDATE: Still no update. I’ll probably go ahead and post this now, and if I hear from Outskirts later today I’ll get back into this installment and add the news. If I do that, I’ll post it on Facebook and Twitter.

The book is coming. It’s almost here. It’s just a matter of when…

Thanks for all the support and the continued interest. I’ll see you either later today or next week.

Oh, and remember… Fasten your seatbelt, put your tray table in its upright and locked position, and if you read this blog and actually liked it, then by all means please “Like” it with the button at the top. Enjoy your flight.

Bob Wilber, at your service with a working hot tub, seats on order, and almost a book.

FINAL UPDATE: Just got an email from my rep at the publisher, and it was really not that specific. Just a letter telling me my book is now off to its final phase, called the “Pre-Media Phase” of publication. Lots of talk about supervisors and quality control people and all of that. No mention of how long this takes. Weeks? Probably at least one or two…  That’s my guess.

I Gotcha Covered

HOME / I Gotcha Covered

May 11th, 2017

Welcome back to Thursday Blog Day, faithful readers. It’s actually Wednesday as I type this, but that’s because I’m flying out to Spokane on Thursday and won’t have time to write it then. So, this is kind of like time travel. It’s Wednesday as I’m typing these words but it’s Thursday as I’m posting them, from the Sky Club at MSP. See how weird that is. Weird.

Let’s dive right in… Last week I wrote about the latest milestones with the book, and that was the submission of it as approved, by the author (me.) Early this week, as I was beginning to think the dimensions and template for the cover would never arrive, I watched as my email program indicated it was downloading a large file, and voila! There it was. That was yet another “hair standing up on my arms” moment.

I’d tipped off Todd Myers that it was about to happen, and he was on standby for a couple of days as we waited. During that time, he came up with a great concept for the spine, and once I received the template I fired it off to him so that he could complete the cover art. The directions were pretty complicated for an idiot like me, but that’s why I hired a pro. Todd had the cover back to me within a couple of hours, and we had it headed back to Outskirts Press later that same day.

We have a cover and it has a spine. A strong bold spine! (Click to enlarge)

The middle piece of the cover is, of course, the spine. And, just like in humans, a book needs a good strong spine to stay together and stand out, and that goes for the physical nature of it and the look of it. After all, a lot of people put their books on a shelf, so the spine is the only thing you can see. His idea of having the top part of it be on a grass background and the bottom (my name, in big bold print) over an asphalt surface, was brilliant.

Todd wanted to make sure I was okay with it, and he was ready to make any changes I asked for, but in an email I told him he’d nailed it. I didn’t want to change a thing. I think it’s fantastic.

When I showed it to Barbara, before she had to get back on yet another plane to first travel to the Bay Area before heading up to Spokane for the rest of the week, I saw something on her face that made it all sink in, for me. She had a slight look of disbelief, mixed in with a dose of emotion, spiced with some pride.

All this work. All these months. All the editing. And finally, there it was in front of her. It’s not a project anymore. It’s not a pipe dream. It’s not some crazy fool’s errand. It was a book cover. And that means the stuff I’ve slaved over for 16 months is going to be a book. It’s actually going to be a book, just like the ones you see in a book store. There’s my name, and that’s me. For months, the front and the back have looked like this but they were separate files. You had to imagine them as a cover. And there it is. It was kind of a big moment.

But, the biggest of the big moments is still yet to come. It’s all back at Outskirts again, and the next time I see it I should be holding it in my hands. Now THAT will be a big moment. The big moments have all been building for the last year and a half, and each one has gotten us closer. The last one will cap it off.

They think we might have books in 4-6 weeks. To be safe, I’m aiming for the Joliet race as my debut appearance, with books, at an NHRA race. After that, I’ll make as many races as I can to promote it and talk to fans. I can’t make Sonoma, because of another family wedding, but I’ll get out there on a pretty good run of races other than that. And with all of that in mind, it was time to put the PR plan in place.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I don’t believe I’ve named names. I knew I’d need to hire a PR professional to represent me, just like I hired Todd Myers to be my graphics professional, Mark Rebilas to be my photography professional, and Greg Halling to be my editing pro. So I hired Elon Werner.

Elon is the best. He’s the best PR person I’ve ever worked with, and his ability to not only promote but to manage the effort for many years at John Force Racing has made him one of the most respected pros in all of sports, much less drag racing. He left JFR at the end of last season, and is now doing PR and communications work for Heritage Auctions, a premier auction house for highly collectible and rare stuff, including a lot of mind-bending sports memorabilia. He gets to be home with his family, near Dallas, on weekends now and that’s been something he rarely could do when he was with JFR. Plus, he’s really REALLY good at what he does.

Elon and I have worked up a plan and he’ll be the guy to implement it for me. Trust me, it’s way better to have Elon Werner call a TV or radio station, or a newspaper, or a magazine, and say, “I want you to interview this guy. His story is great and his book is fantastic” than to pitch those things yourself, about little old you.

I could’ve made a bit more money by cutting corners in all these areas, and I could’ve tried to do a lot of it myself or have Outskirts do it. I chose, instead, to hire real professionals I knew I could trust to deliver the goods. It’s worth it, 10-times over.

Laptop on my lap. Out on the porch. Being watched by security guard.

For the record, I’m writing this on my laptop and for once it’s on  my lap. And, I’m out on the porch with my security guard up in his tower keeping me safe from flying things. Buster has his eye on all 200 birds that seem to be in the trees around us. And again, it’s yesterday. But to you it’s today. Today is actually yesterday. And now, I’m in the Sky Club and not on the porch. But I’m on the porch. It’s really confusing. I’ll have to try this method the next time the PowerBall gets up to $400 million. I’ll just write my blog a day early and get a glimpse of the future. That would work, right?

And since it’s tomorrow while it’s still today, I shall divulge the reason for my quick trip to Spokane. I’ll only be there one night, and then Barbara and I will be on the 1:45 p.m. flight out of GEG to get back to MSP on Friday. She got us enrolled in a beginner’s class for developing kitchen knife skills. After that, we plan to have dinner at Clinkerdagger overlooking Spokane Falls, where their chef can utilize his or her knife skills on my entree.

I’ve been a pretty good “short order” cook for a long time, and since I do most of the cooking for us I’ve gotten incrementally better at a wider variety of dishes, instead of only knowing how to grill steaks or chicken breasts. My knife skills, though, are still very amateurish. I’m not sure what they can teach me in one class, but coming out of it with better skills is almost a certainty. Because I cut just like I did when I was 12. It’s easy to get smarter when you start out knowing nothing.

So here I sit on the porch (in the Sky club) writing this important blog on a Wednesday (Thursday) before having a nice dinner (getting on a plane). Maybe I’ll leave a note for myself in the Club…

I’m really confused. But guess what? We have a BOOK COVER!

When you combine the photography of Mark Rebilas (okay, and also a file photo of a young me from the SIUE Athletic office) with the graphics of Todd Myers, you get an awesome cover. With the great help of Greg Halling, I hope the book holds up to bar set by the cover. In this case, go ahead and judge my book by its cover. Because then you’ll think it’s terrific.

UPDATE: Well, best laid plans and all. It is indeed Thursday and it’s today, and I’m in Spokane at the hotel. Turns out, I had some last minute crunch-time stuff to do in the Sky Club and before I knew it we were boarding, so here I am.

If you can see hole #2 at Meadowood, you can see our old house…

I am a member of the board of directors for our neighborhood Home Owners Association in Woodbury, and as such I am also our sub-association’s representative on the master association’s board, as well. So I’m on two boards. You can call me Mr. Director, if you’d like. We’ve had a lot going on and there are a lot of moving pieces with board work, so I got a bit buried with some communications for that at the airport. And now I’m here.

It’s always fun to come back out here, and this time I was sitting on the correct side of the plane to see Liberty Lake as we approached. Yes, without squinting I can see our former house, or at least its location, in the quick iPad photo I took.

UPDATE No. 2: And how about this… Just before we started our descent I got an email from Outskirts Press alerting me that my cover had been approved as “print ready” and as soon as I click into my publishing center at their website I can send the whole book, every page and cover of it, to their publishing department.

So, gang…  WE’RE THAT CLOSE! Just a few weeks now. Another “big deal” kind of day in my world.

Now, a chance to relax or walk around downtown Spokane for a bit, before our knife skills class tonight. Here’s hoping I fly back to Minnesota tomorrow with the same amount of fingers I arrived with.

See you next week.

Bob Wilber, at your service and traveling through time.

Another Milestone, Plus a Fabulous Wedding

HOME / Another Milestone, Plus a Fabulous Wedding

May 4th, 2017

I know what you’re saying (or thinking). It’s, “Oh yeah, that blog guy Wilber is touting another milestone day for the book he started back before I was born. Give us a book already!” Right? Well, I know it seems like that, even more so to me, but we did have another major milestone this week and we’re down to the last step. I swear.

The first part was keeping a promise I made to myself, and it was harder to keep than I’d anticipated. I got Galley Proof No. 3 back from the publisher and all I did was double-check that all 49 edits I’d sent them the week before had been made, and made correctly. I felt that familiar feeling wash over me, the one that says, “Just sleep on it one more night” or even worse, “Just go through the whole book, all 545 pages, one more time. Just to be safe.” The promise I’d made was to not give in to that.

I’ve made so many editing passes through the book I have parts of it memorized, and that makes further edits even more difficult because I have a hard time reading any of it as if it’s something I’ve never seen before. Plus, with each Galley Proof the edits shifted from being about 80% typos to really only being about 5% typos the last time around. Instead, most of the edits in Proof No. 3 were style changes, cleaning up clunky sentences that had been bugging me. As I’ve said before, I’m relatively certain there are still a few goof-ups in there, but I’m not going to find them. If you buy it, they’ll probably leap out at you like a scene in a 3-D movie.

But, and this was the key thing, even making one more tiny edit would cost me another week, in what now feels like an endless string of weeks that turned into months that turned into years. It’s been a long but thoughtful process, and I knew I was ready to send it off totally approved and submitted for print. I’m not kidding when I tell you that I had to mentally tell myself, “No, you’re not going to lunch. And no, you’re not going to sleep on it. You’re going to move that cursor, position it over the button that says ‘Submit’ and send it off. Do it.” I actually think I held my breath when I did it.

Yesterday, I got a note back from my rep at Outskirts Press and she confirmed the submission and relayed the word that the last real thing they needed from my end was the cover. Todd Myers, who designed the cover, is currently waiting to finish it. All we need are the precise and completely accurate dimensions for the spine. I’m waiting for that right now, so if I get that email I’ll play the theme music while I dash away to take care of that and pass it along to Todd. Once he can marry the front and back to the spine, we’ll have a cover.

And that brings us to the elephant standing in the corner. “So when is it going to be for sale?”

Once the cover is submitted (after they give us the dimensions) it could be as soon as four weeks. Maybe five. Six at the outside, but I’m thinking more like 4-5 weeks. After 16 months of writing and editing, I can deal with that.

I also asked if we would have a pre-order date for sites like Amazon, where you can go buy the book now and then get it when it’s finally released, but the answer was no. The way Outskirts works, we have to wait for it to be fully available and then it will go on sale. As we get closer, I’ll be able to be more specific with all of that.

So, you see it was another milestone this week. It’s the first time the book is completely and utterly out of my hands to the point where I’m not even allowed to make any more silly nitpicking changes. It’s off for publication. If they’d just give me those pesky dimensions. C’mon, man. You’re killin’ me, Smalls.

So that all happened this week. Last week’s highlight, after Thursday’s blog, happened in Atlanta and it was truly spectacular and very heartwarming.

My niece Lauren, reading a poem for the bride and groom. (Click to enlarge)

My nephew Simon, a gem of man who has done some great charitable things with his life, became friends with a lovely girl named Molly many years ago. Molly was (if I’m getting this story straight) a student who worked with my sister Cindy at Stanford, where Cindy runs the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. Cindy is Simon’s mom. Simon and Molly hit it off and were fast friends for many years. At one point, a decade or so into their friendship, they realized they were more than just friends. It took them a while to figure it out, but on Saturday night we all got to be part of one of the most wonderful and scenic weddings I’ve ever attended.

It was an outdoor wedding at an incredible home, nestled in the woods above the Chattahoochee River. The home has been in Molly’s family for generations, and the initial phase of it was built in 1945. And, wait for it… The ceremony took place at the amphitheater in the back yard. Yes indeed. A real amphitheater. The dinner and reception followed and it was all marvelous. And for the record, I’m able to say with great certainty that Simon and Molly are a perfect couple. And the seated dinner was pretty terrific, as well. Overall, on a 1 to 10 scale I’d rate the entire evening a 30.

Left to right: Sister Cindy, brother Del, his wife Kay, niece Rhiannon, sister Mary, and standing is brother Rick

For my siblings and me, it as also one of those far-too-rare occasions when we were all together. All five of us, including my sister Mary and her husband Lonnie, who flew in all the way from their home in Kauai and were joined by four of their kids, a son-in-law, a boyfriend-in-law (you know what I mean) and two grandchildren. It was a Wilber / Smith reunion of the highest order.

I’m not sure I’ve ever been to a more beautiful wedding, and I can say with absolute certainty that I’ve never been to a wedding in such a spectacular setting. But, and this is important, the best thing was the feeling of family. Watching such a fine man marry the girl of his dreams. Meeting Molly, knowing immediately that these two will be a far greater entity than the simple sum of their two parts. And, being with all of my brothers and sisters, to celebrate something really special. It was fantastic. It was beyond rich.

We caught up on stories and lives, we shared memories, and we laughed a lot. That last part was really important. It seems like we’re in that place in our lives where a reunion of the five Wilber kids is usually for a sad reason. This was joyous.

What a bunch of stiffs…

There was a photo booth at the dinner, and I was happily surprised to hear my oldest brother Del say, “C’mon, you grab Mary and I’ll get Cindy and Rick. We all have to do this.” We did one normal shot, and then all raced over to the “props” table they had nearby. The more normal photo was fine, but this is priceless. I’m the youngest of the bunch, and I’m 60. This is the Wilber family in all their fantastic glory. Too bad we can’t find a way to loosen up and have some fun.

We stayed in the Midtown section of Atlanta, and although I’ve been through Atlanta too many times to count I’ve never really “been” there that much. A few of us stayed at the Loew’s Atlanta while the rest stayed at a Hampton Inn nearby, and we were able to get out and explore the sidewalk cafe’s and the cool vibe of that part of town.

The Atlanta Botanical Garden was within walking distance, so we headed up there early in the afternoon before the wedding, with Rhiannon’s kids in tow as well. It’s located in Piedmont Park, a true urban oasis in the middle of a gigantic city, and the park itself was fantastic. There wasn’t a softball field, a beach volleyball court, or a square acre of grass that wasn’t being utilized, and the whole place was buzzing with youth and excitement. Just watch out for those rollerbladers.

More family in Row 2, Section 1, Field Boxes. Nephew Ewan, niece Kim’s husband Chris, and Kim herself.

All in all, a fantastic time in Hotlanta. And, to add to my good news, when I got to MSP to fly down there on Friday I passed the new “Clear” area and took five entire minutes to sign up for that very useful tool. It’s only in major airports right now, but having it at MSP (and at ATL) made the entire airport experience a much better thing. They scan your eyes, your retinas actually, and take digital fingerprints. Once you scan your passport the kiosk asks a few questions to make sure you are who you say you are, and you’re done. I walked straight from the kiosk to the Clear aisle at TSA and stared into the scanner. A second later, I was approved and was then escorted directly to the head of the Pre-Check line. I was through TSA in 10 seconds, max.

Okay, the fact that they could scan your passport and basically know everything about you within seconds was a little disconcerting, but the fact is they (whoever “they” are) already know everything about all of us, so if it keeps me out of TSA lines I’ll take advantage of it. Some of my questions were as specific as “Which of these five car models have you NEVER owned?” Four of them were cars I had indeed owned, going back more than 20 years. Crazy… I’m not paranoid. They really are following me!

So that’s about it for this week. In case you’re wondering, I have not had to play the theme music because I have not yet gotten the dimensions for the cover. Can’t have a cover without a spine. Well, you could for a pamphlet, but at about 545 pages you’re going to need that spine to hold it all together.

We’re just weeks away, gang. Once I get a better feel for the publication date I’ll start mapping out some races to attend. We’ll get the book into a souvenir stand and, since I’ll be selling those directly without Outskirts or Amazon, or any other sales outlet, being involved, I’ll be able to offer a little discount. I’m not allowed to mess with the price when the publisher or the retailer are in the mix.

It would be overly optimistic to think I could make it out there by Norwalk (June 22-25) but I think it might be reasonable to think I could be in Joliet (July 6-9) with books in hand. I’ll keep you posted. Denver, Seattle, Brainerd, Indy, and beyond are all legit targets. I can’t make Sonoma, but for another very good reason. One of Barb’s nieces is getting married, in Colorado, that weekend. I’m getting into this whole wedding thing.

See you next week. And remember…  If you read this and you liked it, please “Like” it by clicking on the button at the top. The more likes the merrier.

Bob Wilber, at your service and uncle of the groom.

Of Publications And Champions…

HOME / Of Publications And Champions…

April 27th, 2017

Like Peyton Manning coming to the line of scrimmage and seeing a surprise defensive alignment, the play I called in the huddle for this blog installment will now be switched via an audible. I might even yell “Omaha!” while doing it.

I had planned, since last Friday, to start this installment with the telling of a night at Target Field that was so above and beyond anything Barbara and I had ever experienced at a ballgame it caused her to say, at the end of the night, “Great. Now we’re ruined” because the entire evening was a step into another world. And a very nice world it was.

This is a good audible, though, because I had called a run and the defense was stacked in the box to stop it, so I switched the play to a screen pass to exploit a better option. And it’s book related, of course. Omaha!

I had finished my second round of Galley edits by last weekend, although I let them sit and simmer for a couple of days just so I could get up on Monday and take one last look. Once I was fairly well convinced that we were good to go, one last nagging question kept tickling my brain. I’d been having a “there’s something amiss here” thought since the first Galley proof arrived a couple of weeks ago, but like a foggy idea that just wouldn’t come into focus, I couldn’t put my finger on it. And then I got it. Kind of by accident.

I was ready to submit the edits on Monday, but I went back to the first page of the PDF proof just to make sure my math was right on the page count. For the edits, Outskirts Press wants the number of the PDF page and the number of the line on that page, in which the edit will be made. With 42 lines on most pages, that can get a little dizzying at times as you try to start at the top and count down to the line you’re altering. The PDF page is important, due to the fact the page in the actual book that has a 1 at the bottom, otherwise known as Page 1, is actually the ninth page of the book, because copyrights, endorsements, forewords, and the table of contents don’t have page numbers. When I scanned past the Endorsement section a brick landed on my head when I finally figured out what was wrong.

I had kept a running file of all the endorsements received and updated it each time a new one came in. There are five on the back cover, and six on the third page of the proof, under a headline that reads “More Praise for Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” and that’s where the problem was finally solved. On my file of endorsements, the last two that arrived ended up being pasted “below the horizon” so that I couldn’t see them when taking a quick look. And, just to make it even more complicated, I kept two copies of the file for no good reason. And they weren’t the same.

When I pasted the endorsements onto the master file, which I submitted as my initial manuscript, I used the wrong file and the last two endorsements were left off. And they were great endorsements I was really proud to receive. This past weekend, I finally saw that they were missing but I couldn’t understand where they’d gone, and it took me a while to go back and figure it out. I also couldn’t quite figure out how to add them. The six endorsements that were printed on the interior page filled it. Any new ones were going to jump over to a new page, and I was worried that might mess up the directions for all my edits. After all, it would throw off the PDF page listings by one. It was a confusing conundrum.

For a while, my author’s rep at Outskirts didn’t quite grasp what I wanted to do, and she repeatedly asked me to actually resubmit the ENTIRE manuscript with the two additional endorsements added. That would, quite literally, mean starting completely over on the production phase. Finally, I asked her if she could just get with the page designer after my 50 final edits were made, and have that person insert the two additional endorsements manually. I think, as I sit here writing this today, that we’ll be able to do that. If we do all the edits first, it won’t matter if we add a page before them, because they’ll already be done. And, I suggested we move one or two of the original six to that second page, as well. Just to make it more visually appealing and balanced.

So, who were the two endorsements from? A highly respected author and a former professional soccer player. What the heck, here they are as this week’s “sneak peek” at the book.

“Bob Wilber provides an insider’s view of three professional sports—baseball, soccer and drag racing. As someone who played pro baseball and scouted prospects after his playing days, Wilber offers an engaging and humorous look into two aspects of the game that we seldom read about: the day-to-day life of minor leaguers and the unsung scouts who discover the talent we watch on major league baseball fields. His energetic “plow forward” approach to his many endeavors shines in his storytelling.” -Thom Henninger, author of “Tony Oliva – The Life and Times of a Minnesota Twins Legend”

“Bob Wilber’s indoor soccer stories are vivid, and bring back a lot of great memories from my playing days. His ability to write about baseball, drag racing, sports marketing, and life in general make those subjects just as riveting. Bats, Balls, & Burnouts is a great read for anyone.” -Greg Villa, former professional soccer player (outdoor and indoor) and former member of the U.S. Men’s National Team

Both gentlemen were kind enough to plow through a draft of the manuscript just to do that, so you can understand my respect for that and my dismay that I’d even allowed their blurbs to be clipped off the end of the page. I think we have it all fixed now, and I will not go to print without these two being included.

And now, the Galley proof is out of my hands again and back with the publisher. This time, it is my sole aim to approve the next proof and send it to be published. We’ll have a book soon. I’m not sure exactly when, in terms of number of days or weeks, but the process will move into its final stage. And as soon as I know when you can go online to order it, I will make that call. Omaha!!!

Yesterday, when we got this all sorted out and put the plan in place, I had yet another one of those magical moments where the enormity of it smacked me right in the back of the head. One second, I was working with my rep and exchanging emails about how we would make this fix, and after that was done and I hit “Submit” on my publishing page, I began to post something about it on Facebook when the tsunami washed over me. The book was done. Not the actual printing of it, but the writing and editing are officially done. That’s kind of a big deal.

I started the process around December 15, way back in 2015, with the Kickstarter campaign and the development of an outline. On January 6, 2016, I began writing. On October 20, or thereabouts, I finished the first draft of the full manuscript. It was long. Like really really long. Like so long Leo Tolstoy would’ve been proud (that’s your daily “War And Peace” reference, free of charge.) So Greg Halling and I spent nearly three months clipping and pruning, right down to individual words, much less paragraphs. And, I spent the money for “enhanced formatting” to keep the page count as low as possible. Once we had it as concise as possible (with a lot of good stories ending up on the floor) I submitted it. My little baby bird was out of the nest.

Now, after two full runs through it in Galley form, where I can see the book exactly like it will appear in print, I’ve sent it back for the final time. And, coincidentally, as I was typing that sentence I got an email from my rep with two questions about the edits I made. I had to take a minute there to fire off the answers.

Barring anything like having my own name misspelled on the cover, I’ve come to grips with being done with it. 16 months since the first day I began writing, more or less. Yeah, it’s kind of a big deal. We’ve all come this far together, and we’re almost there.

So, now let’s go back to the original play I called in the huddle. It was a big deal, as well, but in a totally different way. And a very pleasant and exciting way, too.

Yes, Friday night was our chance to sit in the Champion’s Club seats at Target Field. Now, keep in mind, I’ve been going to professional baseball games since I was in the womb. I remember details of games from when I was three and on my mom’s lap. I’ve sat in great seats, including the front row right behind home plate at both Fenway Park and Wrigley Field. In 1967 and 1968, when the Cardinals went to back-to-back World Series, my mother worked in the team’s front office. We had four season tickets right behind the plate in the fourth row.

Nothing in my past compares to the Champion’s Club at Target Field, with the Minnesota Twins. It’s that amazing. And thanks to Matt Koehnen and the very fine folks at Lexus of Maplewood, we got our chance to experience it. I’m not sure when we’ll get another chance, so I’m thrilled we got to do it.

It starts with valet parking. We drove right around the long lines of cars trying to get into the various parking structures near the ballpark, and instead turned down the street actually named Twins Way, where we pulled into a lot and had our Champion’s Club parking voucher scanned. Then we pulled forward to have two nattily attired young men leap to our assistance and take our car away. One even sprinted back out to it when I realized I’d left my jacket in the back seat.

Living large in the Champion’s Club (Click to enlarge)

From there, through a private security area to have our tickets scanned, and then through a private entrance to the club itself. The description “unbelievable” is overused, but it comes to mind. And, as we walked in we passed Tony Oliva, who was on the phone. Had he not been, I would’ve said hello. He remembers my father fondly.

The food, in the Champion’s Club, is absolutely top notch. We had prime rib, short ribs, salmon, and many other entrees and sides to choose from, and we chose small portions of most. The wait staff was never intrusive but always around, ready to go get anything we could dream up. When we were done enjoying the amazing cuisine and spectacular service, Barb said, “This isn’t like coming to the ballpark and eating hot dogs and peanuts,” and while I agreed I also said, “Yeah, but that stuff is great too. We might have to indulge anyway…”

As the first pitch neared, we passed through another private set of doors and were in the seating area, right behind the plate with our padded high-back chairs and a view of the game that was more than just up-close. We could hear the players talking, and the crack of the bat sounded just like it did throughout my younger years when I was with my dad and his teams.

Because… Prince night at the ballpark

It was a gorgeous night, although the temperature dipped a little below 60 as the game began. We’d seen a few other fans around us with big plush blankets on their laps and wondered where we had to go to get those. We didn’t have to go anywhere. The young lady who was in charge of taking care of everything for our small section of seats came by and delivered two. Yeah, that never happened to me before.

It was also a night the Twins honored Prince in multiple ways. The LED lights that shine on the underside of the Target Field roof were purple, as were the backgrounds on the big screen and scoreboard. Every half inning was punctuated with a different Prince song. It was pretty epic, and it made the treat of the club seats even better. On Friday night we partied like it was 1999.

And our girl who brought us the blankets was never far away and always looking to see who she could help, in any way. If the food in the club was great, the service in the seating area was off the charts. She even went and got us peanuts and a couple of hot dogs, dressed up just like we wanted them, and made sure we had water and drinks from the bar. And it was all included. I did tip everyone substantially, but that’s the only money that left my wallet.

Was it the Spring Solstice?

As some sort of sign that this was a perfect night, just as the sun began to set it shined through the gap between the upper deck and the artistic purple-illuminated roof and it shone directly on Minny and Paul, the two classic characters who have been part of the Twins logo since the club moved to the Twin Cities (from Washington) in 1961. My dad worked for the Twins then, and for the entire decade of the 60s, so I had plenty of Minny and Paul stuff around my childhood home.

When I looked up and saw the band of light spreading across the logo, I almost had to wonder if Target Field had actually been designed to align exactly with the sun on certain evenings. It was our own little version of Stonehenge. It was pretty impressive.

We enjoyed the game, a Twins win over the Tigers, cheered for our boys, enjoyed all the service, and basically just kept pinching ourselves.

We even stayed until the final out, which is a rarity in the Wilber world. Our father, the longtime scout who could see everything he needed to see in seven innings, usually had us on the way home after the seventh, to beat the crowd. This time, we stayed in our seats. When we finally left, we returned to the valet parking area to be greeted by a battalion of people eager to help. They were sprinting out to the parking area and pulling cars up to the multiple lanes constantly. Despite everyone from the Champion’s Club being there at once, our Lexus arrived in mere minutes. And yet another well-earned tip was given.

All of this adds up to Barb’s statement about us being ruined after having experienced this. We aren’t, and we’ll go back to being standard Flex Plan season ticket holders for the rest of the season, either walking up to the concession stands or waiting for the guy with the hot dogs or peanuts to come down our aisle, and we’ll enjoy it just as much as we ever have. Whether it’s the Champion’s Club or the bleachers, I still revel in every day or night at the ballgame, and we’re so very fortunate to have a place like Target Field to call our home “yard.” The Metrodome might have been a crazy place to play baseball, but it was our crazy place and we loved going to games there, as well. Target Field, though, is VERY special.

Baseball has, as I said above, been a part of my life since before I was born. It’s been a huge part of my life ever since, on the fields, in the dugouts, on the road trips, and in the clubhouses with first my dad’s teams and then my own. The best and closest friends I’ve ever had were baseball players. Drag racers and soccer players are great, too, and I have many dear friends from those sports, but there’s a bond among ballplayers that has been unique in my life. That’s why I’m holding a bat and wearing a Twins cap on the cover of my book.

Home.

Barbara grew up in Pittsburgh, and she followed the Pirates like any normal Pittsburgh sports fan, but baseball was nowhere near being central and essential to her life. Ever since we moved here, though, she’s been a very real and very loyal Twins fan. We always will be. I wanted to be a Twins fan since 1961 when our home in Kirkwood, Missouri began to fill with Twins coffee cups, note pads, ash trays, and TC hats. In 2002, we moved here and I was home. And now Barbara is home too. This smile says it all. It’s says contentment.

Anywhere we ever sit at Target Field will be just fine. I like spending at least a couple of innings just walking around, grabbing bites or drinks at the wide variety of places there are to do such things, and making a full lap of the park on the concourse that’s at the top of the box seats, walking all the way around the outfield and seeing the game from so many different perspectives.

But Friday night was pretty special. I’m not ruined. I’m better for having experienced it. It was a night that will be easy to remember, and the Prince tribute was heartwarming. We miss him, and Minnesotans are still having a hard time coming to grips with the fact he’s gone. His music will live forever. We, at least, have that.

Win Twins!

See you next week… And as always, if you liked this blog installment, please “Like” it by clicking the button at the top. The more likes the merrier!

Bob Wilber, at your service and about to be an author.

Closing In On The Finish Line

HOME / Closing In On The Finish Line

April 20th, 2017

Later today, hopefully, I’ll be resubmitting my Galley Proof (version 2) of “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” to Outskirts Press and all of the “wordy” stuff will be done. No more writing, no more editing, no more proofreading. The page count will be finalized, the cover will be completed, and off we’ll go. When will I have the first printed copy in my hands? I’m not totally sure yet, but it’s a matter of weeks, not months. And once that happens, it will be available for everybody to either purchase or download. And I’ll start going to some races to help promote it. That’s how close we are. I’ll try to remember to keep you posted once things like availability and on-sale dates are set in stone, because you know, I might just forget about little details like that. Not.

So that’s where we stand. I still have at least today, if not part of tomorrow, to finalize all of this (knowing, for sure, that it won’t be 100% perfect and I’ve surely missed something) and then we move on to the next phase. There will be more waiting, of course, and some additional paperwork like photo releases and copyright approvals, but once all that is done and books begin to be published, I’ll be moving on to the promotional end of this process. That will be fun, and I have one of the best PR people in the history of drag racing lined up to represent me, but it will also be something I’ve never done before. For 20 years I did all I could to get my drivers as much ink and coverage as possible. Now I have to promote myself.

That being said, I’ll admit I was never afraid to be “out front” and recognizable in the sport. A lot of PR people (most, actually) would not have taken on an NHRA blog as themselves. They prefer to stay in the background and out of sight. Being visible never bothered me, but it wasn’t like I was pitching stories or interviews with myself. I did that for my drivers, and my own visible profile helped make that publicity easier to get. Now, I’ll be the one wanting to get on the air or in print. That’s why I need a PR rep, because it’s almost impossible to do that effectively for yourself. It will be yet another new adventure.

The Kickstarter campaign went a long way in getting me over the trepidation I felt about self-promoting. At first, I was hesitant to do stuff like that, but I realized quickly that if I was going to hit my Kickstarter target I couldn’t be shy about it. And part of that was understanding that social media is a fleeting thing, and you’re only hitting a slice of your target market with each post or tweet. So… You have to go back again and again, spreading the word and asking others to spread it for you. Del Worsham, Ron Capps, and Antron Brown were spectacular, in that regard. They dove in and “shared” or “retweeted” my posts regularly, to their enormous base of followers. That was much appreciated, but I really kind of expected that from those three class acts.

We’re putting a PR plan in place, to reach out to the media in a wide variety of markets. The book follows my life, and through baseball, soccer, drag racing, and everything else I’ve done, there are plenty of markets to hit. I also have a few book signings hanging out there, waiting for a date to be set up. My neighbors and friends have been awesome about wanting to do that. It will be an interesting new phase of my life. Again, kind of a “great unknown” but not totally. I’ll just be on the other side of the PR fence. Maybe we’ll sell a few books, too.

On top of all that, the book continues to re-open doors that have been long closed, in terms of connecting to people I worked with, played with, or knew in all of my various pursuits. Today was yet another one.

I worked for Converse Shoes twice. The first time I worked in the state of Illinois right after my baseball career was over. I sold shoes to sporting goods stores and worked with teams and coaches to promote the brand. The second time, in 1990, my former boss brought me back to the company to be a Regional Promotions Director in the southwestern part of the country. I lived in Dana Point, Calif. and traveled six states to sign professional athletes and college coaches to contracts. It was a very challenging job that stressed me out more than anything I’d ever done, and I wrote about it honestly and openly in that chapter.

All around good guy (Click to enlarge)

In terms of football, one of my teams was the L.A. Raiders, and I needed to have six players in Converse to hit my bonus target. I had the five starters on the offensive line (I did not have the tight end or any receivers) and a back-up running back and kick returner named Vance Mueller. All of those guys were great to me, and very appreciative of the shoes and apparel I provided. I found it pretty fascinating, because the Raiders openly promoted being tough guys, but the linemen were all really kind and polite. Gentle giants, as it were.

Vance was pretty special in that regard. He was drafted out of Occidental College, which is not exactly known as a football factory, and he was a bit undersized for the NFL. When I started working with him, he was in his fourth year with the Raiders, and he’d been there that long because he outworked everyone who tried to take his job. He was absolutely determined. It was impressive.

He was also one of the nicest guys I worked with in that job. The first day we met he invited me to dinner. He treated me with nothing but respect and class. Frankly, most of the pro athletes I worked with, including Magic Johnson, treated me with respect and class. They were a good bunch of people. But, Vance was one of my favorites.

After editing that chapter yesterday, I looked for him on the internet and saw that he was on LinkedIn, a networking site I’m part of. I sent him a note and when I got up this morning I had a reply. 27 years after I last put a pair of Converse football shoes on Vance, we were reconnected. Good guy. Really a good guy.

These reconnections have been a great, and totally unexpected, benefit. I just dove into writing and told tales of some really unique individuals, and lo & behold I’ve found a bunch of them. It’s a different age and a different era, and I’m glad I’m part of it.

Speaking of different eras, here’s another example. On Facebook, the other day, I posted a photo of a new card that will go in my wallet and it’s truly a product we couldn’t have dreamed of a decade ago. We bought Minnesota Twins season tickets the second summer we lived here, and they arrived at the house every year in printed form, just like tickets have looked forever.

Later in the decade, we switched to a “Flex Plan” so that we could decide which games we attended, instead of having to pick a plan that locked us in. Again, in the mail, we received 20 coupons that could be redeemed for printed tickets at the ballpark. Still handing those printed tickets to the usher as we walked in.

The digital age for season tickets!

Now that we’re back, I wanted to get another 20-ticket Flex Plan, so I signed up for that just a few days ago. This card is what I got in the mail.

After I filled out the online form and submitted my payment, I downloaded a special app to my iPhone. And I got this card in the mail just a couple of days later. The card won’t get us in the gate; it’s just an ID and a way to get the season ticket holder discount on merchandise. My iPhone will get us in the gate.

When we want to go to a game, we can select it right up until the first pitch is thrown, and the bar code for admission will show up on my phone just like a boarding pass for a Delta flight. When we get to Target Field, it will scan just like a digital boarding pass at the gate. No paper whatsoever.

The only downside to that is a complete lack of ticket stubs. I used to collect ticket stubs, from cool events I attended, and at one point had about 100 of them framed while I kept on collecting more. When we moved back here from Spokane, the souvenir cup I always put them in was stuffed full again, and it was my plan to have the new group framed as well. Lots of very cool event tickets in that bunch, but I haven’t gotten around to doing it. Yet. Maybe someday soon, and then that will probably be the last of it. I can’t see traditional tickets lasting much longer in this new era. Even today, there are very few traditional hard tickets on heavy stock paper. If a ticket is on paper, you’re probably printing it at home. It’s convenient, and I love the technology of the new Twins app, but there’s something nostalgic about having an actual ticket stub in your hand when the event is over. The times, they are a changing… Time to move on.

Wut?

And then there’s this photo. Buster was not exactly, technically, really, very pleased with me when I woke him up just to take this, a few seconds ago. That’s a grumpy looking Big Fella right there, but he’s also been a real snuggle bunny lately. The last few days have been kind of chilly and very rainy, and I’ve kept the thermostat down pretty low. I spend each night with both Buster and Boofus on me or next to me, and this morning woke up with Buster snuggled under one of my arms. It was a good night for sleeping, with the rain falling and the room nice and cool. He’s got the look that tells me he thinks it’s going to be a great day for sleeping, as well. He’s a pro.

Here’s hoping the forecast for Friday works out as planned. It’s supposed to be 61 degrees with clear skies, and that would be great for our first-ever night in the Champion’s Club seats at Target Field, for a Twins game.

The Champion’s Club is pretty much out of our price range, if by “pretty much” you mean “totally” out of our price range. It’s just a few sections of box seats, right behind home plate, and right down by the backstop. The best seats in the house. The seats themselves are extra large and padded, and with our tickets we’ll have exclusive access to a private club/restaurant located right behind the section, under the grandstand. It’s all-inclusive. As is the special Valet Parking pass we have, which will put us just a few steps from a private entrance reserved for Champion’s Club members.

How’d we pull this off? We bought a car. Lexus of Maplewood, here in the Twin Cities, usually has a promotion or two going with local teams. When Barbara bought her previous Lexus, you might remember we got a full set of Timberwolves season tickets, in row seven by one of the baskets. That was pretty amazing, as were the nights the Timberwolves upgraded us to seats on the floor.

When we moved back here last year, Barb traded that 2010 Lexus in on a new one, and the dealership gave us great seats to another Wolves game. We picked the night they played the Sacramento Kings so we could go down early and say hello to Gary Gerould before he did the play-by-play for Kings radio. And, they let us pick a Twins game for the Champion’s Club. If we had bought these tickets, for just one game, it would’ve been about as much as my Flex Plan season tickets, which will get the two of us into 10 games in great field-level box seats further down the line in right field. But, here’s the rub. We couldn’t have bought these Champion’s Club tickets from the Twins. The entire block is Sold Out for the season and they are only available as full season tickets, so we would’ve needed to buy them on the secondary market and there’s no telling what they would have cost, if we could find them.

Photos will be taken on Friday night. You’ll see them next week. Huge thanks to Matt Koehnen, the General Sales Manager at the Lexus dealership, for taking such great care of us!

Now, it’s time to get back to the book and finish this project. Almost time to ship it off for the final time… The clock is ticking.

Oh, and remember: If you read this blog, and liked what you read, please hit the “Like” button at the top. The more “Likes” the merrier!

Bob Wilber, at your service and still missing ticket stubs.

Human Pinball

HOME / Human Pinball

April 13th, 2017

Happy Blog Day, everyone. It’s great to be back in (insert city) with you, and thanks for coming out. T-shirts are on sale in the lobby, and remember to tip your bartenders and waitresses. We’re going to finish up with one last hit, called “Human Pinball.” It goes a little something like this… (raucous applause and a standing ovation).

“Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” is into the final stage for approval, so I’m still diligently waiting for galley proof No. 2 to come bouncing back home to me. I’m like totally focused on waiting. Patiently. In the meantime, it struck me that in this blog I’ve often referenced the sport that is represented by the ball I’m holding on the book’s cover, and the word that comes between “Bats” and “Burnouts.” Yes, it’s soccer, but it’s a different kind of soccer that many (most?) of you have probably never seen, and maybe never heard of, at least from any source other than me. It’s indoor soccer, and it was a big part of my life. Hence its inclusion in the title and the photo.

Soccer has been played indoors almost forever, of course, but usually for training sessions or in the version called futsal in places where soccer is so popular it can be supported in various versions. In futsal, the indoor floor is really just a shrunken version of an outdoor field (picture soccer on a basketball court) the ball is slightly smaller, and the “field” is generally a hard/smooth surface. The ball goes out of bounds a lot. Like all the time.

In the late 70s, two businessmen who were also sports guys saw an indoor exhibition soccer game played on a hockey rink covered in Astroturf. They were so excited by it, they created a sport. Their names were Earl Foreman and Ed Tepper. The sport they created was a version of indoor soccer much like the exhibition they saw, but they mapped it out, created a league, and established the official rules. They even figured out that a red ball, on a green field, would show up best on television.

They launched the Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) in late 1978, planning for it to be a winter sport at the time of year when indoor activities are at a premium. They started with six teams: The New York Arrows, Philadelphia Fever, Cleveland Force, Houston Summit, Pittsburgh Spirit, and Cincinnati Kids. If you were a fan of the great TV show “WKRP In Cincinnati” you might even recall an early episode in which a Kids player of British descent gets interviewed on the air and much hilarity ensues.

The concept was simple. Condense the game of soccer into the footprint of a hockey rink. Leave the boards and glass in place. Insert large soccer goals flush into the boards at each end. Hit the “delete” button on the outdoor offsides rule. All of that added up to this: Instead of the ball going out of bounds, it would usually rebound off the boards or glass and stay in play. If you took a shot and it went wide, the rebound would come straight back out. The game would cover the entire floor with few restrictions. Typical scores were 10-9 instead of 1-0. The MISL took off.

The flow was very different from the outdoor game. It was much more like hockey in every regard, including the fact the players would play shifts in a free-flow way, hopping over the boards to take the field when a teammate ran off. That allowed players to basically just sprint all the time, then take a quick break and do it again. The game never stopped moving at nearly full pace. There were two-minute penalties, as well, allowing one team to go on the power play when the other squad played a man short.

It was also mocked by just about everyone other than the fans who bought the tickets and loved it so much. There wasn’t a lot of “middle of the road” when it came to the new indoor version of “the beautiful game” and the way it was played was often referred to as “human pinball” by the naysayers. When the blocked shots and rebounds were careening all over the field, it could look a bit like pinball. With humans.

In 1979-80, the St. Louis Steamers came to my hometown. The Blues were not doing well then, and the fans were staying away in droves. St. Louis had no pro basketball team either, so there was a void to fill. Also, St. Louis was already a hotbed for soccer. It was the perfect formula.

More scoring than hockey. Lots of local boys and some popular foreigners. Smoke, strobe lights, and constant music. Plus dancing girls.

Filling the Checkerdome in the glory years (Click to enlarge)

When the Steamers played their first game at the old St. Louis Arena (which at the time was called the Checkerdome because it and the Blues were owned by Ralston Purina after they saved the franchise for their home city) more than 18,000 people showed up to see the new sport and new team. The town basically went bonkers over the Steamers. They averaged 14,060 fans per game in their first year, then 15,219 in their second. In 1982-83, their third season, the Steamers packed in 17,107 per game, often selling standing-room-only tickets to draw crowds in excess of the Checkerdome’s capacity.

I remember those games like they were yesterday. Like most St. Louisans, I went nuts over the Steamers. The atmosphere at the games was completely electric. They had plenty of local guys, including a number who played their college soccer at SIU-Edwardsville at the same time I was playing baseball there. Guys like Don Ebert, Jeff Cacciatore, Greg Makowski, and Greg Villa. Villa and I have reconnected as friends on Facebook, in recent years.

Former SIUE star, Greg Villa. Throwing his size around in the MISL for the Steamers

With some other Americans on the team, as well, they filled in other key positions with some fabulous imports. Scotsman Tony Glavin was one of the most exciting players I’d ever seen. Irishman Redmond Lane was a fan favorite. But the biggest and most popular of them all was goalkeeper Slobo Ilijevski (pronounced, roughly, “Illy-evski”). He was Yugoslavian, and he’d come to America to play soccer but was down to his last few dollars when he tried out for the Steamers. He would become a St. Louis legend overnight.

And Slobo’s Yugoslavian heritage was not unique. For some reason, the indoor game seemed to be a natural fit for many Yugoslavs, and they became some of the sport’s biggest stars. Steve Zungul, Stan Stamenkovic, Mike Stankovic, Val Tuska, Nebo Bandovic, and many others were prodigious indoor soccer players.

Slobo was such a friendly guy, and with that thick Yugoslavian accent he was nothing less than charming. On the field, his acrobatic saves seemed impossible, and he had a tendency to dribble the ball up the field all by himself, leaving the goal empty. Those moments, when Slobo “wandered” up the field, kept the fans simultaneously enthralled and terrified. He was really something to watch.

I imagine I attended at least 50 Steamers games during the ’80s, and I even went and saw them once in San Francisco. The MISL was successful in many markets, but not all of them, and when it wasn’t good it was usually awful in terms of fan support. I spent one year living in Fresno, when I worked for the Toronto Blue Jays, and that was the winter the MISL came to the Bay Area. I went over to see the Steamers play the San Francisco Fog, at the Cow Palace near old Candlestick Park, and just about everything about the experience was counter to everything I knew at the Checkerdome.

I got there at around 6:45 for a 7:00 game, and parked right by the entrance. I went inside to watch and was joined by maybe 1,000 other humans. That optimistic total might have been true, if you counted the players, ushers, and vendors. San Francisco clearly didn’t take to the Fog. That would happen in other markets as well, while in St. Louis, Wichita, Kansas City, Cleveland, Dallas, San Diego, New York, and a few other markets, the game exploded with popularity.

The Steamers were so overwhelmingly popular they almost drove the Blues out of town. While the Blues were struggling to put big crowds in the building for hockey, the Steamers were filling the old barn to the rafters with SRO crowds. Finally, Ralston Purina had enough and they attempted to sell the team to a group in Saskatoon, but the NHL said, “No, actually, that won’t work.” So, Ralston simply gave the team back to the NHL. The Blues were just about to fold when the NHL finally found a new owner for both them and the building, which reverted back to its original name of the St. Louis Arena.

Fan favorite. May he rest n peace…

The MISL ebbed and flowed, with franchises coming and going while the mainstay teams continued on a strong successful course. Salaries were rising, though, and the initial group of team owners cashed out when the value was at its highest. Those folks made a lot of money. Those coming in behind them weren’t so fortunate. Even the Steamers weren’t immune, and after a couple of ownership changes they folded at the end of the 1988 season. It had been enormously fun while it lasted. A year later, a new expansion team came to town. I interviewed with their owner, Milan Mandaric (another Yugoslav) and was hired as Vice President – Marketing, for the upstart St. Louis Storm. I’d gone from being a fan to being a key part of a franchise, and I eagerly went to work each day in the same St. Louis Arena I had loved for so long. I wrote about it in great detail in the book. We even signed Slobo to be our goalkeeper. In 2008, while still playing the game he loved, Slobo died suddenly from a ruptured aorta. That was a tragically sad day in my life, and the lives of many others in the St. Louis area. He is truly missed.

I also was General Manager of the Kansas City Attack, in the National Professional Soccer League (NPSL), a new indoor league that took over from the MISL, and then for a brief period I ran the Indianapolis Twisters in yet another indoor league, the Continental Indoor Soccer League (CISL.)

So that’s why I’m holding a soccer ball on the cover of my book. It’s a MISL ball, too.

There is still professional indoor soccer being played now, but the Major Arena Soccer League (MASL) doesn’t attempt to spend the money to be “big league” in its markets. They keep a lid on costs and with that the MASL is a step down both in terms of talent and fan base, although they work very hard at keeping the sport alive and being good civic neighbors in their markets. I think a big part of the reason indoor soccer likely won’t ever revisit its halcyon era is the massive growth of Major League Soccer (MLS) across the country, which is the biggest piece of evidence that after decades of hope the outdoor game has finally become a part of the American sports fabric. Even on the NHRA tour, many of us followed not only MLS, but also the Premier League, Bundesliga, and other foreign circuits. Seeing my NHRA friends posting Facebook photos from Manchester United games or Bayern Munich matches is not uncommon. When the MISL came along, a lot of American sports fans not only didn’t care about the outdoor game, they actually disliked it actively. The MISL was a bridge for them. It was an “Americanized” high-scoring version with nonstop action played at full speed. There’s no real need for that bridge anymore. MLS is bigger and more successful than any dream the MISL ever had.

It really was a ton of fun, and the research I did for the book brought it all back to life for me. Those were great games, great people, and an unparalleled atmosphere. And the Steam Heat Dancers weren’t bad either.

Here’s an old highlight video that should give you a taste of what it was like. Depending on your browser or device, after hitting the “Play” icon you might have to click on the button that says “Watch On YouTube” to actually watch it. And the 80s music is more than just a little epic. As are the haircuts. Enjoy!

Whether it’s baseball, drag racing, sports marketing, or indoor soccer, the process of writing it all down and creating a book out of thin air has been one of the most remarkable and rewarding times of my life. And it was kind of like human pinball…

See you next week! And remember, the more “Likes” the merrier, so if you read this and liked it, then please “Like” it by clicking the button at the top. Thanks!

Bob Wilber, at your service netting the rebound off the glass.

Pondering Things. Like Kittens, Soccer, and Horsepower

HOME / Pondering Things. Like Kittens, Soccer, and Horsepower

April 6th, 2017

Hello blog faithful! My No. 1 priority this week was to make sure I got this installment written and posted on time, as in “on the right day” after my mishap last week. So, consider this a success. My No. 2 priority was to have all sorts of incredible news about my book to share with all of you. Consider that a failure. Basically, the status remains quo.

I’ve been diligent with my final edits on the “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” proof, and still have about another two hours of work until I’m done and I get it fired back to Outskirts Press, but this blog takes precedence today so I’ll finish that later this afternoon. The bottom line is I’m consistently amazed at how I keep finding things, despite the fact I’ve been through the whole book at least 10 times. I think I’m seeing a lot of things now just because it’s in a finalized format and it looks different. That’s the way it goes with the blog and other things I’ve written in my career. Here, after I finish writing today’s blog, I’ll “preview” it in the format it takes on when it’s published, and things will jump right off the screen when I do that. In “draft” form, I miss those mistakes because my brain fills in the blanks. Once it looks “final” it’s like reading something that someone else wrote. I’m pretty much the Typo King, though.

With all that being said (written) there’s not much in the way of concrete news to share. Next step is to upload the changes and wait for the proof to come back as a final, then we’re off to production. I’m trying to not get too excited, because until we go final on the proof we don’t even have the cover done, so there’s that to finish and then it’s a matter of weeks until we have the first copies. We can’t finish the cover until we have the final page count.

Once I have books, it’ll be time to get back on the road for a while. I just got off the phone with Krista Wilkerson, talking about all of this exact same stuff, and we’re both really looking forward to being back together at some races. I miss all of those wacky Wilkersons.

And I miss the wacky Worshams, too. I got a text message from Del last night, and he was writing me from Madison Square Garden. As a birthday present to Kate and Maddy, he and Connie took them to New York and last night they attended a John Mayer concert. Del was reminiscing about how “a long time ago” Barbara got hooked on John Mayer’s music and we went to see him a few times back before he was a big star. The first time we saw him he played in a large bar in Austin, in front of maybe 500 paying customers.

Kate and Maddy are huge fans of the aforementioned Mr. Mayer, so I texted Del back and told him to share with the girls the memory I have of the singer/songwriter. I was on a long night flight, coming back from a race, and John Mayer and Jessica Simpson were seated directly behind me in First Class. He was a big star by then, and Barbara and I had tickets to see him the next night at the Xcel Energy Arena in St. Paul, so he’d come a long way from that bar in Austin. The coolest thing, though, was that he was gracious and kind to everyone who wanted to say hello or talk music. He was a real class act, throughout the entire flight, and when we all stood up to get off the plane I said hello, let him know we were going to the show, and I told him I was very impressed by how friendly and approachable he was. All he said was, “Gosh, thanks” in a sheepish sort of embarrassed way. He sure seemed like a really good guy.

So, due to a lack of any new “big news” in this installment, I’ll dig back through the “In Box” to find a few more questions from readers. After those questions are posted here, I shall provide the answers. That’s how it works. It’s a “give and take” sort of thing.

Terry from Massachusetts wrote: “We always need more photos of the boyz. How old are they getting to be now?”

Just kittens… (Click to enlarge)

They’re going to be 10 years old this fall. And this pic is from the first week or so they took up residence with us. They were little guys back then. They still seem like kittens to me, and at least a couple of times a day they’ll hit that spurt of playtime and act just like kittens, as well. When they stalk each other, hiding behind a corner and twitching their butts as they get ready to pounce, it’s a riot just to be a spectator. Buster surprised Boofus so much the other day Boofie sprung at least two feet in the air, straight up, and then it was on. They’ll race around the house at full speed for four or five minutes and then collapse into a heap and take a well-deserved nap.

These photos, however, shows me just how much they’ve “grown up” since they adopted us back in October of 2007. They were already a month or so old when they found us at the Woodbury shelter, and leaped out of the cage they were sharing to jump on me, so I never got to see them as really little kittens, but they were still small and very sweet. Now, they’re a bit bigger, still sweet, and still totally goofy.

Little Boofus on the left, little Buster on the right. Circa 2007.

And it’s not surprising that they’ve maintained the same personalities from Day One. Boofus is afraid of anything that moves, and a total Momma’s boy. What’s funny though, is that he always sleeps between my legs, not Barbara’s. He’s a creature of habit. Buster is the kindest and most gentle feline soul I’ve ever met. He’s just a wonderful guy, and he’s Daddy’s boy through and through. He literally follows me around the house, even to the point of shadowing me when I go upstairs to get an iced tea, and then coming right back down here to my office as soon as I do.

They’re also both really smart cats. Not much gets by them, and they have amazing problem-solving abilities. Barbara regularly ties shoe laces or other strings to drawer handles and Boofie rarely needs more than a minute to untie them. They’re good boyz…

Gordon, from Salt Lake City, asked: Do you still watch the NHRA races on TV and still follow how your former teams are doing?

Of course I do. I have NHRA All Access on my laptop, so I’m typically watching every qualifying session and every round of eliminations “live” as it happens. And I still get nervous when either Tim or Del gets ready to run. Some things will never change.  Can’t wait to get back out there and get a face full of Nitro!

This note, from Cathy in Minneapolis, came in just this morning. She asked: How about those Twins! 2-0 and two great games so far. Do you think they’re for real?

Well, I know for a fact they are “for real” if the other option would be “they’re fictional.” (Sorry. Couldn’t help it.) They really have played two solid games against a very good Royals team to start the season, and if they keep those fundamentals in order they’ll be much better than last year. They’ve pitched well, which is a major key, and they’ve made all the plays. They’ve also matured quite a bit as hitters. Both of those wins featured some very patient at-bats that turned into walks, and those then turned into runs. Last year, it seemed they were undisciplined and over-anxious at the plate, swinging at bad pitches all the time. So… I don’t know if they’ll finish over .500 or not, but they’re already showing they’re a better team than they were. But more importantly, its baseball season!!!  That’s awesome. They’re also playing the Royals again today, right now actually, so we’ll see who gets the W in game three.

(UPDATE: Twins are miraculously still “on pace” to go 162-0 for the season. They beat the Royals today 5-3 to improve their record to 3-0. Only 159 more consecutive wins to go!)

Also on a Twin Cities sports-related note, Cam from Milwaukee asked: Were you surprised that your Minnesota United finally won a game?

A little, yes. I’ll admit that. They were pretty bad, in an “epic bad” sort of way, starting out. To beat Real Salt Lake 4-2 last weekend was a huge step forward. It was also a really entertaining game, although I’m still bearing the scars from it. Buster was on my lap, down here in the home theater, and when United scored their first goal I yelled “GOAL” so loud he flew off my lap, but not before the claws on his back paws dug into my thigh for traction. It’s the price you pay for a great goal, I guess.

Go Loons!

And speaking of Minnesota United, I bought tickets for their home game on May 27. They’ll be playing Orlando City, and my nephew Todd (who lives in Orlando with his wife Angie and their adorable twin girls) is a huge fan. So we’ll have to place a friendly wager on that match, I’d say. Maybe something like if Orlando City wins I’ll buy him dinner and if United wins, he’ll buy me a private jet. That works.

Finally, Chris from Amarillo asked: How do they know how much horsepower a Funny Car or a Top Fuel Dragster makes? It seems like they said 6,000 hp just a few years ago, then it was 8,000 hp. Now it’s 10,000.

The answer is math. You can’t put a Nitro motor on a dyno to measure it like you would with a street car, so smart people who know how to do smart equations can look at things like acceleration, weight, torque and other factors and then come up with a pretty accurate guess. Plus, those people who make the truly big bucks (crew chiefs) are always finding ways to go faster and make more power. Right now, the consensus is that 10,000 hp is really the low-end guess. It might very well be more. And coming up at the end of the month we’ll have the 4-Wide Nationals in Charlotte. That’s at least 40,000 hp all leaving the starting line at once.

I also just noticed that the Houston race comes before Charlotte this year. That’s interesting, because it had been right after the 4-Wides before, and it was noteworthy to sense the difference a week made when we’d go from zMAX to Royal Purple Raceway. Houston had always seemed like a standard-sized track throughout my career, but when we’d go there right after Charlotte it always seemed absolutely miniature. Just two lanes and just two cars at a time. And “normal” bleachers instead of giant stadium grandstands on both sides of the track. Atlanta Dragway now gets the post-Charlotte slot on the schedule, so I bet it will seem smaller than before after the 4-Wides.

Between you, me, and the fence post…

I’ll leave you with this photo of an old fence post. Why? Well, we live in a large sprawling suburban “master development” called Dancing Waters, here in Woodbury. We’re surrounded by winding streets and hundreds of homes. We also have a number of paved trails to walk or ride on, and during the months when the foliage is not green you can see some interesting things. There are still a few really old fences in some of the undeveloped wild areas, and I can only guess that they’re left over from the farms that were here before Dancing Waters was built. I’d seen many of the old rusty fences before, but it wasn’t until a few days ago that I spotted this old fence post. I thought it was pretty cool, but maybe I’m just easily amused.

I wonder if the former residents are still around to see what it all looks like now…

See you next week!

Oh, and remember this: If you read this, and liked it, feel free to hit the “Like” button at the top. The more “Likes” the merrier!

Bob Wilber, at your service looking for fences.

A Day Late, But Not A Dollar Short

HOME / A Day Late, But Not A Dollar Short

March 31st, 2017

So, I kinda sorta missed Thursday Blog Day yesterday. Not totally, because I did have time to post a short blurb and cut & paste my most recent Kickstarter update onto it, but it really wasn’t a blog. It was more of a placeholder for this one, which I’m writing on Friday morning.

We currently have a visitor in the house, as a granite technician takes detailed measurements of the countertops in all three bathrooms here. They will soon undergo a transformation from that “contractor’s grade” white stuff to a cool new granite. We found some remnants at a place down in Burnsville and are getting it all done at a great price.

And Burnsville…  A south-side suburb of the Twin Cities. When we followed Siri’s directions to the granite place, and pulled into the parking lot, I said to Barbara something I’ve uttered more than a few times since we originally moved to Minnesota in 2002. I said, “I’ve been here.” Not the granite place, but the location directly across Route 13. Burnsville High School.

As you’ll learn in “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” I spent parts of four years as a regional scouting supervisor for the Toronto Blue Jays, and each year my area was tweaked either a little bit (add a new state or remove part of another) or a lot (move to Fresno from St. Louis for a year) but for my last two years Minnesota was part of my area.

I’d always have to hit Minny last in my region, which would also include Iowa, Missouri, Southern Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee, just to let the snow melt, but the Land of 10,000 Lakes quickly became my favorite state in the region. It was then that I felt the first inklings that I’d want to live here. The people, the scenery, and the quality of life were so pleasant and so easy to like.

I’d get up here in late April or early May, often when big snow banks were still evident on the sides of the roads, and hit most of the colleges and many of the high schools, wherever my “sources” told me there were prospects. There were almost always prospects at the University of Minnesota. That school produced a few good players over the years, if by “good players” you mean names like Dave Winfield and Paul Molitor. During my time with the Jays, I watched and reported on Terry Steinbach.

When I was scouting, schools like Edina and Eden Prairie usually featured the most prospects, but Burnsville was a good baseball program as well. I remember 1982 and ’83 very well, and both years I watched Burnsville High at their home field. When we pulled up to the granite place, I saw the school and the memory of having been there was as fresh as if it had been last year. I dig memories like that.

That was a decent digression, but the main subject matter here is “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts.” It’s a real book, almost.

On Monday, I was surprised to see an early-morning email from Outskirts Press, and it contained a link to a PDF. That file was the full book, formatted and laid out just as it will look in print. It was a momentous morning.

Your official sneak peek at the Table of Contents (Click to enlarge)

This week has been all about my last pass through the book. This is my final chance to make corrections, additions, or deletions. So, I’m carefully doing it one page and one paragraph at a time. I’ve been doing that all week. And just for giggles and a ton of fun, here’s a look at the Table of Contents, to give you a hint as to the subject matter of all the chapters. Click on it (or any other photo) to enlarge it.

As soon as I’m done with this blog, I’ll get back to work on the book and today will start with Chapter 20, wittily entitled “Hello New Jersey” and it, of course, details my time with Motorsports Marketing Inc., representing Chuck Etchells and Mike Dunn. I was technically a Vice President for MMI, but in reality I was the assistant to the guy who owned the company. It was a challenging job in a lot of ways, not the least of which was the requirement that I move from my hometown of St. Louis to the northern suburbs of New Jersey, but it was also a rewarding one. I learned a ton about doing this PR and marketing thing, for professional NHRA Drag Racing teams, and I laid the foundation for what I’d later do for two decades.

I think you could officially state that there would likely never have been 12 years with Del Worsham and seven years with Tim Wilkerson without that first stop in Jersey, with MMI. All those dominoes had to fall in the right order to get me where I eventually ended up.

Once I’m done going through it one last time, I’ll fire my changes back to Outskirts and the book will move into final production. At that point, we’ll have the final page count and that will give us the exact dimensions for the cover. I’ll be counting on my buddy and expert, Todd Myers, to finalize his incredible graphics and off we’ll go.

Yes, the big question is “When will it actually be on sale?” but I don’t know that yet. What I’ve learned through this process is that nothing happens overnight in the publishing biz. It all happens at it’s own organic rate. So, it’ll be a matter of weeks but I don’t yet know how many weeks. Rest assured I’ll keep you posted.

I’m a dollar richer…

And, as the title to today’s blog insinuates, I may be a day late but I’m not a dollar short. Before I headed to the airport to pick up Barbara last night, after she’d spent yet another week back out in Spokane, I went to the grocery store to replenish a few basic items we were out of. As I walked back to my car, I spotted this dollar bill on the ground. Barbara says I should buy a lottery ticket with it. That might be a good plan…

And speaking (writing) of dollars, the great news with the proof of the book is the page count. When I finished principal writing, way back in late October, we had planned on a 6×9-inch format and it looked like we were going to end up close to 1,000 pages, which was really untenable and unrealistic.

So, we did a few things. We stepped up to a 7×10 format, we heavily edited the manuscript and left some fun, but not necessarily important, stuff on the floor, and we condensed the pages by eliminating the space between paragraphs. All of that got us down to 511 pages plus the photos and other extras at the front and back. And that impacts the purchase price.

Even before I saw the proof, I was still concerned that the book would come in north of 700 pages, because it was impossible to do that math until we saw how it all laid out. At that size, the cover price could’ve realistically been around $65 per copy. That scared me to death. Now, I think we’ll come in around $49 per copy. That’s more than I’d like, but I don’t have a say in the minimum price. The publisher has a to make their money, too.

All this adds up to the fact we’re almost there, almost at the finish line, almost having a book to hold in our hands and read. That’s pretty cool. It’s been such a journey, and it’s not over yet. Originally, I thought the writing would be so much more rewarding than the editing and production, but the reality was that it has all been great. Even this last pass of editing is a thrill, because I’m finally looking at the actual “print ready” book. That’s a lot more fun than looking at a Google Docs or Word file.

My mother, looking like a movie star.

On the subject of photos that didn’t make the cut, how about this incredible shot of my mother, Taffy, from the mid-1940s. She worked at the Air Force base in San Antonio during World War II, where she was actually named Miss Air Force, and my father was stationed there. That’s how they met. He was technically a “physical education instructor” during the war, but mostly he was a star on the baseball team that represented the base, along with a few other St. Louis Cardinals.

As beautiful as Mom was, she had no shortage of soldiers asking her out on dates. She did like to dance, though, and my dad was not much of a dancer, so he’d take her out for afternoon dates and then hang out with her parents when she went out dancing later. His plan worked like an absolute charm. Had it not, you wouldn’t know me and there would be no book. That’s why I make a point, in the book, of stating that I’m still the luckiest kid in the world. Miss you, Mom!

I guess we’ll wrap this up and get back into editing mode. I’ve found the best way to approach it is to do one chapter at a time, then take a break. If I try to do more than that, I tend to get a little blurry-eyed (or is it bleary-eyed?) and that’s when I miss stuff. Seriously, this is my fourth or fifth pass through the book and I’m still spotting things that leap out at me, screaming, “How did you miss this?” in a loud voice.

Back to work, and I’ll be back here again next week. Hey, do you know what Monday is? It’s Opening Day. Starting Monday, Dick Bremer and Bert Blyleven will be our house guests again nearly every afternoon or evening, as they announce the Minnesota Twins games on TV. It’s baseball season. All is right with the world.

Bob Wilber, at your service and ready for some baseball…