Author: bwilber

It may seem as if it’s been a million years since I’ve gotten on here to write an update. Maybe it has been that long, but my in-depth research and analysis says more like five months, I think. And SO MUCH has happened.

Where to start? Well, in April I received one of the greatest honors any athlete in any sport can earn, at any level. I was inducted into the St. Louis Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame, during their 50th anniversary year. I was fortunate to go in with not only a lot of guys I played against over the years, as a member of the Sauget Wizards semi-pro team, but even more fortunate to be inducted with two former Wizards teammates and best friends. John Parke (who played for Vanderbilt and then for the Wizards) and Pete Delkus (former roomie who and great friend who also went to SIUE and then signed with the Twins, becoming their minor league player of the year) were there with me and the other guys on the dais, and that meant the world to me. We made up the 8th, 9th, and 10th Wizards to be inducted. I was the 10th (because the order was alphabetical.) In my speech I said “I’m the 10th Wizard, and that speaks volumes about the level of talent we had. I don’t care if I’m the 10th or the 100th. It’s just a huge honor to be standing here.”

In late May, I flew back down to St. Louis to attend a different induction, but also went there to support one of my favorite teammates ever. Bill Lee played first base for us at Southern Illinois Univ. – Edwardsville, and like me he then went on to a stellar sports marketing career, but unlike me he got back into baseball and rose through the ranks until he became commissioner of the Frontier League, an independent league that Bill guided to great success. A great guy, and an honor more than well deserved.

Right after that, it was time for my SIUE buddies Lance McCord, James “Oscar” Noffke, and me to head out on our annual “Roomies Reunion” trip. This year it was San Diego and we loved it. Had a fabulous Vrbo rental house just a block off the water, comfortable rooms and beds, and a fine kitchen to make our culinary magic. A trip well taken. We’re currently addressing our 2025 plans and Detroit seems to be the leader in the clubhouse. We’ll see. There are still many towns and ballparks we haven’t been to, but Detroit is pretty easy for all of us and not that expensive to get to. We’ll rent a house again, but it will likely be out in the suburbs, just like we’ve in most of the towns we’ve visited. Once the ’25 MLB schedule comes out, we can start to get serious about it.

Then, for much of the month of July and the early part of August, I did my duty once again and flew over to Kauai to condo-sit and cat-sit for my sister Mary and her husband Lonnie while they headed to the Mainland to visit their kids and grandkids.

Yeah, it was sublime once again and now I’ve been promoted to be in charge of three indoor cats (Maxie, Biscuit, and Lil’ Bit) plus two outdoor cats who adopted Mary and Lonnie by hanging out on their lanai until Mary decided to start putting food out. I’m sure that decision took about 5 seconds.

Now, we’re putting some plans in place for other adventures. Including the fact that October 4th and 5th will be the 50th reunion with my classmates from 1974. 50 years? How can that be? We’re all still about 25 or 30, right?

And finally, my news is that I am indeed writing that fourth book. No real working title yet, but there’s been one rolling around in my head for quite a while. I’m just a little shy of it because it’s a cliche and I hate cliches. We’ll see.

Yes, book number four will be baseball related and I’m almost done with chapter two now. A long way yet to go….

I hope you like this episode from the blog you thought was dead and gone.

Adios. I’ll be back right after my high school reunion.

 

Just in case you were wondering…  What’s it like to publish a book and see how it does in the eyes of the purchasing public and those who take the time to read it?

Answer: It’s a bit befuddling, it’s very complicated, and it’s a lesson in highs and lows. I’ll explain.

When your book first comes out, you have a big choice to make. Do you just let it seep out into the world silently and hope that people discover it? Or, do you put the promotional and PR pedals to the floor to get the word out?

I have always chosen Option B. Releasing a book to the world without letting the world (or our corner of the world) know about it is the proverbial tree falling in the forest when there’s nobody there to hear it. Does is it make any noise? Consider a silently released book to be that tree.

This time, with my third book “The Lost Manuscript” I had the advantage of having a publisher who could arrange a presale release on Amazon. For my first two books, my previous publisher graciously replied “No, we can’t do that.” Okie Doke.

Between myself and Elon Werner, who handled the PR for the release, we spread the word, distributed a very well-written press release, and put a full-court press on via social media.

I’d never done a pre-sale before, so I didn’t know how that would go. The presale date was about three weeks before the actual print release, and I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Would people tie up a bit more than $40 for a book they wouldn’t get for likely another month?

Well, that’s the tsunami I referenced in the headline. It was a massive pre-sale. It was stunning to me. Truly epic, heartwarming, and reassuring. But, always maintaining a bit of skepticism in my usually optimistic brain, I quickly switched gears to “Well, maybe everyone who is going to want to read it just bought it and the well is already dry before it’s actually released…”

When October 3 rolled around, and the book hit the market “live” on Amazon, the results were, indeed, a little less stellar than the first two books, neither of which had the benefit of a presale, but it was a still a very strong response. We sold a lot more books, and then had to deal with shipping problems that delayed delivery a few weeks in many cases. That was frustrating because I couldn’t do anything about it but apologize. Meanwhile, my publisher and Amazon played an amazing game of “pass the hot potato” as they both insisted they were ready for the release and for shipping. That can’t be true, obviously, but by now I don’t think I’ll ever know and I guess it doesn’t matter.

As the last five months have unfolded, I’ve kept a keen eye on the Amazon ranking for “The Lost Manuscript.” I’m not obsessive or anything. I only check the ranking about 12 times a day.

How many books have we sold so far? I have no clue. This is yet another of the tedious parts of the equation you have to patiently wade through like a mud bog.

I get paid my royalty based on what the publisher sells to Amazon or other platforms. In other words, I get paid on the wholesale results, not the retail. I don’t get paid by Amazon at all. As for the payment from the publisher, I get paid a large percentage of the “net profit” which means everything in the world gets deducted out of the income before I get my little slice. It’s a few bucks per book. You’re not going to get rich doing this.

Amazon accepts returns, so they don’t consider a book they purchased from my publisher to be in the official “SOLD” column for 90 days, just to make sure it doesn’t come back. My publisher then asks for 90 days to compile the numbers and finally send me a check. So, you’re talking 6 months from the time the first book is sold to when I might see a check for millions. Or thousands. Or maybe even dozens, of dollars.

I’ve been told I should know the numbers and begin looking for a check in April. When in April? I’m sorry, that’s apparently classified information. You need an Alpha Clearance for that.

And what about that Amazon “ranking” thing? On my sales page, you can see my book’s overall ranking based on all the books sold on Amazon. There are more than 3 million books on Amazon, so anything under 1 million means you’re in the top 1/3 of all the books they sell.

There is also a ranking for my category, which is “Motorsports” and that just compares my sales to all the other books in that category, which covers everyone from racing biographies, to photo compilations, all the way to how to tune up your hot rod. If you take the overall ranking and then look at the category ranking, you at least get a somewhat clear picture of how your book is doing based on the success or failure of your peers.

We opened at Number 1 in the Motorsports category. That was a stunner and I had to blink twice to believe my eyes.

How’s it gone since then? Ebbs and flows, but every time I think “OK, that’s it, everyone who is ever going to buy this book has bought it. Many of them have then given it to someone else who now doesn’t need to buy it. We’re about done.”

And then I get up the next morning and it has shot back up into the stratosphere once again. It did that yesterday. I was convinced we were over the hump and the book had seen its best days. And then this morning we were back up to Number 32 in the category and just around 85,000 on all of Amazon. The son of a gun surprised me again.

We have to be getting near the end though, right? Within a week or two the book will have been for sale for six months. Half a year. It can’t keep ebbing and flowing like this forever.

As for my conjecture based on things like rankings, reviews, and word of mouth, I think this book has easily outsold “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” and “How Far?” We shall see, but that’s my gut feeling just based on the buzz.

So, books are very much like record albums. Remember those? They get released to much fanfare, initial sales are a land rush, and then the sales taper off after the most ardent fans have bought and played the grooves out of it. OK, maybe not “Dark Side Of The Moon” by Pink Floyd.

That album broke, and probably continues to break, all the rules. Did you know…  “Dark Side Of The Moon” spent 736 continuous weeks on the Billboard Top 200 chart? That’s insane! Most artists would be thrilled to spend a week there. And it hopped back up into that chart many times after the consecutive weeks were over. It is an anomaly. Like Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak and Cal Ripken’s consecutive game streak, this one is likely to never be broken.

“The Lost Manuscript” is fine book, and I’m very proud of it. Damn proud, actually. But it’s not an anomaly. It’s getting to be an old book now, slowing down… But it still as the spunk to jump back up with the big boys when I least expect it. It’s still got some spunk!

What that leads me to is the realization I’m an author now. So it must be time to do the author thing again, even though I haven’t yet been paid a penny for this last one. That will happen. I didn’t do it for the royalties, although I happily accept them. When I do get paid, I’ll let you know.

Meanwhile, Book Number 4 is in my head. It’s percolating. It’s coalescing. I’ve got a fictional character in mind, and a time line, and a mental outline. I haven’t written any of it down yet, but I will soon. I mean, I gotta do that author thing, right?  Stay tuned.

Thanks for bearing with me through this blog drought. I had all my focus on the book. Now I’m ready to do it all over again.

As always, if you liked this post, or the info, or just anything about it, there’s a “LIKE” button at the bottom. I’d be honored and grateful if you clicked on that.

I will actually be here again soon. April is going to be a month for me unlike any I’ve ever known. A huge honor is coming up. I’ll write all about.

Oh, and if by chance you haven’t bought The Lost Manuscript yet, you (and everybody else) can find it here:

http://bobwilber.net

Cheers!

We’ll get the bad news out of the way in a hurry. Yes, it’s been forever since I’ve been here in Blog World. There’s been a lot going on and the Earth just keeps rotating, making the days come and go at blinding speed. Winter is here now, in Minnesota, and it will be our companion for the next five months or so.

We’ve been on the run for a while now, visiting family, hosting friends, and living a “normal” life. For Thanksgiving we went down to St. Louis and spent it with niece Kimberly and niece Rhiannon (who came up from Florida with her kids) and other family and friends. We actually had not seen Joe and Harper (Rhiannon’s kids) since they were babies. They are teenagers now, but they had no memory of ever having met us! That is weird, but they live in the panhandle of Florida and our paths just haven’t crossed over the years. We tried to make up for it while we were all together.

It was spectacular, nostalgic, and it was family. I loved it, and I think Barbara did too.

While we were in St. Louis, doing all kinds of St. Louis things and enjoying all the St. Louis food, some COVID bugs got through my minimal defenses. We haven’t been wearing masks for a long time, as part of the “it’s all in the past” denial group, and by the time I got home I had a slight fever. And, I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. I figured I was just worn out from the trip, but when it persisted I took a home test. I had a streak of about 35 negative home tests going. 35-0! Unbeaten and un-scored upon. But I knew when I took it. This was different.

The instructions are for you to wait 15 minutes before judging if the “positive” line had showed up on the kit. It took two minutes max, and that bright red line was staring at me like a neon sign in Times Square. After all this time, and all this diligence, I finally had Covid. Swell.

All those shots and boosters had to step up to help me through this with just a mild case, and so far they have. I’m on Day 5, and I’m also on Paxlovid, so I’ll be OK. The symptoms just seem to shift and alter every day. The fever is gone, I have very good O2 levels. It’s just a matter of time and a matter of a lot of rest to let my body battle it. Onward!

So the good news is very good, and this is it. Nearly a year ago, I was nominated for election into the Greater St. Louis Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame. It was a huge honor, but I wasn’t confident. There are a lot of great ballplayers from St. Louis and I played against many of them. Lots of them went on to stellar pro careers, including Major League stardom. I was just “Del Wilber’s kid” who had some talent but a lot of holes in my game, for a long time.

Last April, Barbara and I went down to St. Louis to attend the 2023 induction ceremony, which included my former Sauget Wizard teammate Joe Mehallow, who absolutely positively earned his spot in the Hall. He was an amazing pitcher. A Maddux type of guy who could just miss bats with impunity. It was a great night, an impressive banquet, and I started to feel that “Gosh, it would be great to be up there getting a ring” sensation, but to me it was never real. It was just “a thing” out there I was hoping for.

On Thanksgiving Day, as Barb and I slept in a bit in our St. Louis hotel room, not in any hurry to get to Kimberly’s house before the late afternoon feast, my phone buzzed. It was a 314 area code. That’s St. Louis.

My general rule is that I don’t answer my phone if the caller is not in my contact list. But a 314 struck me. I answered.

“Hello Bob, this is Mike Stewart from the Greater St. Louis Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame. Happy Thanksgiving! I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

All he was interrupting was some quiet lounging in bed, but it’s funny that when I answered it I hopped up and started walking around, as if all was normal and I was on the go.

“Hi Mike, great to hear from you.”

“Bob, if you’re willing I’m going to need you to book a couple of flights from Minneapolis to St. Louis. You’ve been elected to the Greater St. Louis Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame. Congratulations!”

Mike told me that this 50th Anniversary class of inductees was a stout group, full of great local players. But, he said, “From the board’s first vote to the end, you were a slam dunk and always near the top of the list. It was never close.”

I was pacing around the hotel room talking to Mike and Barbara was up and about following me. She knew who it was and what it was about. When I hung up, she had tears in her eyes and that got me going.

I’ve gotten some nice awards in my life. I’ve accepted them and always felt proud to have earned them. This was different. This was baseball at a very high level. A decision balanced by a vote than included other very talented guys. I had known I was nominated for a long time, but I was still a bit stunned.

As it turned out, Mike was not allowed to tell me who the other inductees were. I was one of his first calls and as a fellow PR person I understood the need to “control the message” until all the parties involved were informed.

Over the next few hours, I began to hear stuff from other Sauget Wizards veterans. After all, my amateur career, after pro ball, was mostly as a Sauget Wizard semipro player, just playing for the love of the game with some uber-talented guys.

My buddy John Parke was also inducted. When we each understood that talking to each other was OK versus telling the masses, we chatted for a good long time. JP is a gem of a man, and was a helluva pitcher. He was a star at Vanderbilt and somehow all the scouts missed on him. That’s scouting.  I did it for five years and it’s a very inexact science. A pro prospect like JP at a fine college program was just missed. I still don’t get it, but I assume I missed a few like JP myself, as a scout. We have been great friends since we met on the Wizards. He deserves this. I hope I do too.

It wasn’t for a couple of additional days, until the Hall’s actual press release, that I discovered that Pete Delkus was also going in with JP and me. Pete is one of my best friends ever, and is also a former Wizard and a former Cougar from SIUE. We went to the same college, majored in the same thing (Broadcast Journalism), and played for the same SIUE Cougar team. We just did it nine years apart.

While Pete was still in school, he pitched for us on the Wizards for summer ball. I was an old guy by then, but we became fast friends and we still are. Our paths have been so parallel it’s uncanny.

When Pete went undrafted after his senior year, he called to tell me and I went to work on his behalf. I had a half-dozen MLB teams ready to have him work out for them. I also talked to my dad, and he made one phone call. He called the Minnesota Twins and told them about Pete. He’d seen him pitch with the Wizards, and he knew how good he was. His submarine delivery was damn near impossible to hit. Terry Ryan, the GM of the Twins said, “If you say so, Del, we want him. Tell him to be in Elizabethton, Tennessee by Wednesday.” Another coincidence. My pro career started in the Appalachian League, in Bristol. Pete would be starting in the same league, about 15 miles from where I started my career.

Pete is a meteorologist now. It’s a long story. Don’t ask, but he’s really good at it and has the Emmy Awards to prove it. He made it all the way to Triple-A and pitched in spring training for the Major League Twins, but his elbow finally gave out. He was unhittable until then.

So Pete, JP, and I will all be going into this St. Louis Hall together. Nothing could be more perfect. Three great friends. Three successful players. And, I think, three really good people.

We earned this.  Nobody handed it to us. We had potential, and we had setbacks, but in the end a group of other baseball guys looked at what we’d done and put all three of us in at the same time.

I can’t wait for April 18th.

As always, there’s a “LIKE” button at the bottom, if you’re so inclined…

Eons. Ages. Centuries…  It’s been forever since I posted a new blog here. There was this book thing, and that kept me more than a little busy as I took an old scrap of a draft (or a “manuscript” as we called it) and turned it into something that could be submitted to a new publisher and brought to life. In other words, I’ve been a little busy.

Where to start? I think the logical point was just getting the thing into shape. It’s still rough, even now in the printed version, but I got my head wrapped around that right up front. It was way more than rough as a manuscript. It was a mess, basically, and it was made more than a mess once we digitized the one printed copy and put it into an up-to-date format and app. It was a puzzle of misprints, odd symbols, missing letters, and transposed grammatical marks where letters should be.

If you’ve ever edited your own writing, you know how hard it is. The mistakes and the hidden glitches are invisible to the writer. It’s just about impossible.

So, after at least 10 times through it, for both me and my wife Barbara, we finally just threw in the towel and said “That’s it. It is what it is. Whatever glitches are left are going out to the world.” I still see them now, as I randomly open my copy and read a chapter, but it’s too late to do anything about it. It is what it is.

We got it submitted, went through another final two rounds of editing (still discovering things we missed the first 10 times through it) and just let it go. “Here it is world! This is what it is and as rough as it may be it’s still way better than how it looked in manuscript form.”

So how did it do? I’m not quite sure how to describe it…

Bats, Balls, & Burnouts did great. There was a lot of pent-up demand for it back then. I was proud of the sales figures and still have a copy of my first royalty check, as a real-life author, for $1,410.18 framed on my office wall. At the time, I thought “Well this isn’t what I expected. I thought I was gonna get rich!” but that’s not how this works.

How Far? did well too, but not quite as well as the first book just because it was so different. A totally new genre, a completely different take on my writing style, and no built-in audience. Plus, my publisher convinced me to go with a lower cover price, which was good, but that created a lower royalty rate, which was almost embarrassing. Making about two bucks per book? Well, I guess I always said “I’m not in this for the royalties” were words I had to live by.

The Lost Manuscript turned out to be a completely different animal, and it’s not done yet. My previous publisher, for some reason when asked if we could do a presale on Amazon, replied “No, we don’t offer that.” Thankfully, my new publisher Palmetto Publishing, did offer a presale. As we say in the world of cars that go fast, we blew the doors off.

I had no preconceived notion as to how it would do in a presale. No concept at all. Zero expectations. And it went stratospheric within days.

We opened at Number One in the “Motorsports” category, and there are a lot of books in that category, ranging from the history of Ferrari in Formula One to how-to books about how to hop up your Ford F-150 pick up. It’s a big category. And we ruled it for days.

It was just crazy, basically, and to a great degree I understand why. Like my first book, this one had a built-in fan base. Maybe even more so. I know I did a good job publicizing it via social media, so people were ready for it, and man did they all cut phenomenal reaction times at the tree to get off the starting line and get those orders in. I was blown away. I’m still blown away.

That was more than a month ago and it’s still rocking. When the sales ranking slips for a few days, I worry that we’re over the hill and on the way down, but then we spike back up again and I can’t believe it.

I don’t have hard sales data, which means I don’t know how many copies we’ve sold to this point. The only data I get is the book’s ranking on Amazon. There are about 3.7 million books on Amazon, so anything better than a ranking of about 200,000 is really good, as a percentage of what’s available on the platform. We’ve been killing that.

It will be a while before I know what we’ve actually sold. The publisher waits a good while to make sure there are no returns from Amazon (my publisher is basically the wholesaler, so I get paid on what they sell to retailers) then they take their sweet time tallying the numbers to come up with a royalty payment amount, and they also wait another month before they cut you a check. Will it be more than the $1,410.18 I got from my first publisher for my first book? We’ll see. I think it will be, and it won’t be close.

If you’ve ordered The Lost Manuscript I thank you enormously, and hope you’ve received it by now. If you’re still thinking about it, don’t be afraid to dive in. I think it’s a good story.

It’s been beyond my wildest dreams. I’m damn proud of it.

 

As always (remember?) please click on the “Like” button below if that’s how you felt about this installment…

Yeah, I know… I’ve been missing in action in terms of the blog for another very long time. Truth is, for a retired guy I’ve been busy!

So this new book project… Have you heard about it? It’s basically amazing on all fronts. If you haven’t been following on my other social media platforms (yes, I’m on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and you SHOULD follow me there to keep up with all this) there’s a new writing and editing passion that’s on fire here that I never saw coming. No, I actually mean that literally! I never saw it coming.

Oh, I remembered writing a diary about a full season of NHRA Funny Car racing back in 2001. Like a naive fool, I just had the idea and dove in, starting right after the 2000 season ended. I kept after it, finding ways to write in addition to all the PR work I was actually getting paid to do. At the end of that season, I printed one copy of it. I kept it over the always-short NHRA off-season, and in 2002 I actually shared it with a couple of crew guys and writers. The responses varied from “You wrote a book here, Bob. This is a book!” to “Kinda neat, but nobody knows who you are…” I’m just glad they gave it back to me and no one dropped it on the floor and scrambled all the pages.

Keep in mind, I wrote it in 2001 but even in early 2002 I was still a total nobody. It was still three and a half years from when blogs became a thing and I was recruited to write one. In the pit area, I was getting known and respected, but to the public I was still invisible. That’s kinda how it works for PR people. You publicize your team, your drivers, and your sponsors. I was good with that and I was good at doing that. It was the blog on NHRA.com that made me “somebody” although even that was a strange thing for me. Enjoyable, but strange, because I never had blog writing on my radar screen. Until 2005, I’d never heard of blogs.

So I put the printed manuscript away. Apparently I put it away pretty well, because I lost track of it. Did I keep a digital copy? Yeah, at the time I did but software and operating systems changed, and I lost the disc anyway, so the printed copy was all there was. And for much of the last 22 years I had no idea what had happened to it. It was still a memory, but it was gone. That’s all I knew.

Let’s fast forward to now. I’m not big on garage sales (either in the buying or selling mode) but our ever-growing town of Woodbury has a giant garage sale weekend, and I got signed up to help us fill our garage and driveway with stuff we didn’t want anymore. Why other people would want stuff we didn’t want was a mystery to me, but I dutifully cleaned the garage, arranged some things we could live without, and got ready.

I can’t recall what Barbara was looking for in particular, but our utility room sure was a trove of that sort of stuff. Including an entire cardboard banker’s box of Del Worsham and Tim Wilkerson die-cast cars. While I was balancing on a ladder to get that box down, Barbara opened a drawer in a cheap old plastic chest that probably cost $10 two and a half decades ago at Target, but she didn’t see what she was searching for. I had gotten off the ladder by then, and looked inside the drawer with her.

I said, “Wait! Hang on a sec… What’s that???”

It was the long-lost only printed copy of that diary. 22 years had passed since I wrote it. We moved from Austin to the Twin Cities, and then to Spokane, and then back “home” to the Twin Cities again. Things get packed up. Movers take over. Some of those boxes just blend into the the new house without being unpacked. The manuscript had been found, and if an actual lightbulb didn’t go on over my head, a figurative one definitely did.

I had been planning to write the sequel to How Far? for a while. I started doing the research. I wrote a rudimentary timeline. I wrote some character studies. But, it wasn’t gaining traction in my brain. This long lost manuscript fired my neurons up as if I’d put nitromethane in the tank.

This was it. This was what I was supposed to be doing.

Step 1: I had to read it. This thing was written 22 years ago when I was a rube and a newbie in terms of PR. To me, the odds were about 80/20 that it would be embarrassing, full of bravado and over-writing, with me trying too hard to be an author when all I really could be classified as was a writer. I read it. It didn’t suck. I actually surprised myself by how good it was.

Step 2: Have Barbara read it. She dove in and basically said “I love it. It leaps off the page. I was back in 2001 with you.”

So we decided to publish it.

Step 3: Find a new publisher or go back to the publisher I’d used for Bats, Balls, & Burnouts and then How Far?  To be blunt, I had some good luck and help with that publisher, and I never wrote either book to make a living off the royalties, but it was time to look around and hope for a little more financial reward. Not a fortune, but not a pittance either. I felt I’d earned that status. My last publisher still owes me $1.61 and I’ll probably never see it.

Hey, here’s a thought. If 25 of you want to order either of my first two books on Amazon (they’re even both discounted now) I might get above the $25 threshold to actually get a final royalty check from them, that would be awesome. Just sayin’…

Through my research, I found Palmetto Publishing. Again, since I don’t have a traditional publishing deal nor do I have an agent, I’d be paying to play, but the terms were actually way better, the royalty percentage was better, the reviews about them were good, and our initial conversations were right on target as to what I was looking for. I signed with them, and we were off to the races (pun intended).

Step 4: How do I take this printed document and make it a digital version? I sure as heck was not excited about rewriting it all, although when I initially mentioned this on social media I got too many “Can you just make a copy and sell it to me?” requests to count. That’s when I knew this project had legs and buzz. The response has been incredible since the day I let my small portion of the world know it had been found.

So, we took it up to a copy store and they scanned the whole thing, then digitized it into a PDF. From there, they turned it into a Word document. Badda Boom, Badda Bing, right? Not so fast good buddy.

It was a mess. 22 years had passed. The document we had on our hands was full of glitches. Too many to fathom. There was not a single page that didn’t have at least a dozen problems, from missing spaces to too many spaces. From letters turned into numbers to punctuation completely missing. This was going to take some work.

That was a month and a half ago. We’ve both been working on it since then. It’s been my full-time job and Barbara has helped in the role of “a new set of eyes” which any author or editor knows is critical. If you look at it too long, you just start reading instead of analyzing. You miss a LOT of stuff.

Today, on this fine Saturday on the first day of July, I’m just two days away from finishing the file and sending it off to Palmetto.

Is it perfect? I’m sure it’s not. I very much liked the fact I wrote it in “real time” back in 2001. It’s raw, it’s hurried, it’s heartfelt and just plain real. It is a true look into what happens with a professional Funny Car team over the course of a year. There are plenty of details, but what I really felt good about was that the emotion was there in the words. I felt like I was back there again. I think I nailed it, and that surprised me in a wonderful way.

But those glitches are insidious. I’ve been through it five times. Barbara’s been through it twice. I’m still spotting stuff, including the fact I never proofed it to begin with after I wrote it, so there are good old-fashioned typos and grammar errors mixed in too. According to Barbara’s red ink marks, I was infatuated with quotation marks back then. She was “right” on that account. It’s a handful, but at this point I just want to present this gift to all of you and anyone else who wants to read it. Glitches and all.

As I posted on Facebook recently, it’s like your Funny Car is showing low oil pressure after the burnout, but it’s the final round and it’s all on the line. What do you do? If you’re Del Worsham you point forward to your dad to let him know “Send it.”

Here’s what has me most excited about it. I have no recollection of what motivated me to write this throughout the 2001 season. I’d been with the Worshams for four years, so 2001 would be my fifth. We’d won one race since landing the CSK sponsorship in ’97, on a hot track in Seattle in ’99 where we had the ability to finesse the tuneup while a lot of other cars were smoking the tires. There was no real reason to think 2001 was going to be a breakout year for us.

But…

That’s the great thing about it. I was talking to Del about it a few days ago and he said “2001 changed our lives and careers…”

And I got to write it all down. I’m so glad I did, but I’m even happier that Barbara opened that drawer and we saw it. Now, it’s finally coming to life.

For those who did see it in the initial printed version (I will never let this original out of my sight again) and who motivated me and complimented what I’d done, I thank you for that support because it still motivates me. It gave me confidence. Maybe the whole exercise was just a “test lap” to see if I could write in this long form. To see if I could actually write a book one day, one year, somewhere off in the distance. It was 15 years later when I wrote Bats, Balls, & Burnouts. I knew I could do that. The Lost Manuscript was still within me. I knew I had the skills to do it.

For anyone who felt like I was way out of bounds, as an invisible PR guy, to write it from my perspective, including the off-the-track stuff and my personal life, I totally get it. I probably felt that way too, or I would’ve tried to get it published then. I was a certified nobody, but my mom’s DNA has always been in me. She was a brilliant writer. I just strive to be a decent one, in her honor.

It was an amazing year, and what I like the most about it was how I didn’t just recite what we did at the races. I did that, and I did it in detail, while I also wrote it emotionally as a guy who was completely a part of it and invested in it. But in addition to that I wrote it in my own personal way, not as the team PR rep but also the team manager. We were making the transition from losers to winners, we were building our organization, and we were doing it quickly. I was in the middle of so much of that off-the-track stuff, working daily with CSK and all of our sponsors. There were personal hardships, lessons learned, and the fact Barbara and I were actually living in two different places that year, when she was on an assignment for IBM in Connecticut while I was still minding the home we loved in Austin. It was not easy. The travel was brutal. Life was both incredible and very hard at the same time. What a year I documented.

There was a lot of drama, as things unfolded before me. There was a ton of intrigue. Heartbreak and over-the-top exhilaration. I could hardly have picked a better year to do this diary.

It made for a helluva story!

I hope we have it in your hands within three months, but that’s going to be a matter of how my new publisher Palmetto gets it done, so I’ll be waiting just like you are. I’ll keep you posted and hope your browser is set up for it on Amazon the day it comes out. I think you’ll love it. I’m extremely proud of it.

There’s so much more to write about, but I’ve got to get back to fixing glitches and typos if I want to send this off to Palmetto in the next few days.

In the meantime, a look at the proposed front cover is below.

And, as always, if you liked what you just read and are excited about The Lost Manuscript please do me a favor and click on that “LIKE” button below.

Back to work…

It’s been so long since I’ve blogged but the truth is we’ve been back to our pre-Covid days in terms of travel and just being busy. We have three more trips on the calendar, including another epic jaunt to Hawaii, and have just recently been to Florida, Arizona, and St. Louis. I guess we were getting quite a bit of “cabin fever” even though we live in a house, but we had piles of snow that were four or five feet high. We had to escape.

The Orlando trip was a quick one for me, but Barbara stayed behind for almost another week just to spend priceless time with family and the two twincesses, who are now little ladies but still little girls.

The Arizona thing was just a fluke really. A bunch of our friends from the old neighborhood had booked rental homes or condos in Sedona, although it wasn’t really planned that way. They just all did and most of their trips overlapped, so when Lynn and Terry Blake said to us “Hey, we got a condo in Sedona like everyone else, and it’s got two full bedroom suites. You want to come out and join us?” it didn’t take us long to say yes.

Orlando was great, although (like I wrote) it was a quick trip for me. The funniest thing about it was that Barbara and I both felt a little lost at MSP airport. That’s a place we’ve flown out of too many times to count, to the current tune of about 1.5 million miles on Delta for me, but it had been a while and the whole thing felt really foreign. TSA lines were rearranged, as were the Sky Priority check-in locations, there are new restaurants, and it all just looked different. It was a weird experience. We enjoyed our mutual time with the Orlando side of Barbara’s family, although my stay was too short to find a way to see my Florida relatives. All in all, it was great to escape the frozen north for a bit.

We flew out to Phoenix for the Arizona trip, and our plan was to stay in Scottsdale the first night to have dinner with Jim Schoenberger, who is a truly great man who used to work for CSK back in those days. We’re good friends who stay in touch. Then we started hearing startling things about the weather, and it was clear that we should get up to Sedona right after landing to beat a winter storm. Jim was kind enough to reschedule our dinner into a lunch on the day we were flying back out, so we made that happen, and it was fantastic to spend a fun meal with him, his son Alec (who was a kid when we were first working with Jim on the CSK sponsorship) and Alec’s two adorable kids of his own.

In a cruel twist of fate, we actually brought the snow with us to Sedona. When we went to bed on our first night there we had seen a forecast for a bit of white stuff (Sedona is at a much higher elevation than Phoenix, so snow is not uncommon.) We woke up to 9 inches.

That altered some of our hiking plans, but not all of them. We spent a glorious few days and nights out there with dear friends, and by the last full day we did manage a decent hike, although the trails were still snowy and icy, which rhymes with dicey, and that’s what they were. It was great fun, and like we do in most towns we visit, we ate our way through Sedona, but we did it with many of our best friends from Woodbury! Crazy, I tell ya. So much fun.

As for Sedona, it was the first time I’ve spent some real time there. I’ve heard Barbara rave about it many times, but it exceeded all my expectations for beauty of the sort where your eyes and brain can’t come to agreement on what you’re seeing or if it’s even real. It’s just a spectacular place, and quirky too, so we love that. We even had our auras read. I’m mostly yellow, which is expressive, inquisitive, creative, and passionate about what I do. Nailed it, I think…

We had to fly back on the day we did because Barbara had bought two great seats to the Bruce Springsteen concert at the Xcel Arena in St. Paul, and we couldn’t miss that. I think our consensus was it might be the last time to see him and the E-Street band. Fabulous tickets, fast-paced show, and worth every dollar.

Once we were mostly all back in Woodbury, we capitalized on a mission we had staked out after we were all together the last time. We scheduled a “game night” at Neighbor Dave and Nichol’s house with a bunch of our hilariously fun friends. We had two tables going, playing a unique and mentally taxing board game called Five Straight. Yes, it’s weird to be in their house with our old Woodbury home right nextdoor, but each time we do it gets a little less weird. It’s just a really nice house in a great neighborhood, but we have a different home in Woodbury now.

Finally, we jetted down to St. Louis in support of a former Sauget Wizards teammate of mine. Joe Mehallow, an absolute ace of a pitcher, teammate, and person was inducted into the Greater St. Louis Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame, and we just had to be there for him. It was a GREAT ceremony in a big ballroom (we stayed right in the hotel where it was held) and it was really fun. Cardinal great and Cooperstown Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith was even in attendance!

Totally 100% deserved for Joey, too. Every time he took the mound we all figured “this other team doesn’t have much of a chance” and we all focused and buckled down just a little harder to make another win happen. Former Sauget teammates Robert Giegling, John Parke, Rick Fiala, and Dan “Nick The Stick” Nicholson were there as well. We’re all extremely proud of Joe and gave him a rousing ovation when he made his speech, which was great. All of those guys are my brothers for life.

Of course, we made sure we had some St. Louis-style pizza and toasted ravioli, and even managed to squeeze in a stop at Ted Drewe’s Frozen Custard on the southside. And, great to see my niece Kimberly (aka Kimbo) and her husband Chris for dinner at Farotto’s.

Mix in errands, appointments, and the fact I take Buster to the vet twice a week to get fluid injections, and it seems like we’ve been going nonstop.

I have no excuse for being so late with this, other than everything you just read. I’ll try to be better, but we still have some more trips on the docket, including Hawaii in the fall.

I’ll just spread a bunch of photos below to reflect on a lot of what I just wrote about.

I you could be so kind (and forgiving) as to click on the “Like” button at the bottom, I’d bow in your general direction in thanks.

See ya! Hopefully soon.

Yes, I’ve been away from blogging for a while. I could list all the interviews I’ve done in support of my book How Far? (and that does take up a lot of time and mental energy) or I could fabricate totally made-up stories about how far I’ve traveled recently, or maybe even abducted by aliens, but the bottom line is the fact I haven’t really had much to talk (write) about. But here I am.

It all began to germinate when I was in our utility room. I’m in there every day. With my allergies, I change the furnace filters regularly (I buy them by the dozen on Amazon.) During the deepest part of Minnesota winter, I am also fidgeting with the built-in humidifier, trying to find that narrow balance between waking up with your mouth so dry you can hardly speak while also not frosting all the windows up, which can lead to having them ice up on the inside. It’s a delicate balance. I also keep my bathroom scale in there, to keep tabs on my weight. I’m trying to stay between 210 and 220, but one big dinner can throw that out of whack. Under 210, people start to ask me if I’m OK. I’m fine,  but over 220 I start to feel enormous and my pants are too tight. As of this morning, I was at 212. That’s not bad. Way to go, me.

The thing that got me going on this blog was the common sight of three old duffel bags in the utility room. They’re on a high shelf (a step ladder is required) and they’ve been there since we bought this house. They’ve also been with me since well before we were married 25 years ago. As a matter of true fact, they’ve been with me since my 20s and 30s. They sit up there on that shelf reminding me of their existence, but it’s been forever since I climbed the ladder and took them down. They are my Detroit Tigers bag, my Paintsville Hilanders bag, and my Toronto Blue Jays bag, all still filled with whatever was in there when I put them away. Yesterday, I took them down and had a look. They were like time capsules.

Baseball spikes with dirt still attached since the last time I played. Old uniforms. Old socks! A few gloves, and a few odd things I don’t even recall owning, like weird t-shirts I must’ve worn under my jersey. My green Oakland A’s stirrup socks, but not the yellow sanitary socks we elegantly wore under those stirrups. My hand-me-down Oakland A’s pants, worn by a series of other minor leaguers before I was granted custody in Medford, Oregon, but not the jersey. It was a trip back in time. I wish I still had the jersey.

And it got me thinking about all the shirts, jerseys, shoes, and jackets I’ve worn all my life. So here I am.

My wife Barbara has long told me that I need to wear fewer items of clothing that have sports logos on them. I get that, but my closets have been full of sports logos for most of my life. My favorite jacket is a nice thermal Minnesota Twins zip-up that is totally warm enough for anything here until it gets into the single digits. I still have a closet full of old jerseys from baseball, to soccer, and then into the 22 years I spent in racing. Logos and I have had a long and compatible relationship.

It was time to dig through those duffel bags and a closet or two just to see what I still have, and to marvel at how small all those garments are now. Seriously. How did I fit in these things? And that includes the baseball spikes… I always wore size 9 1/2 spikes. Now, I wear 11 1/2 shoes. How can that be?

Jerseys have been part of my life since early childhood. Baseball jerseys in particular. In high school our jerseys were a strange middle-ground between the old wool versions and the new double-knit types that took over the sport when the Pittsburgh Pirates donned such a thing in 1970. We had the letters SLUH stitched onto the front. In college, as a freshman we still wore the old wool types, but by sophomore year we had modern polyester unis with “Cougars” on the front. In pro ball, I wore everything from the Old English D logo with the Tigers to a jersey that said “Hilanders” for home game and “Paintsville” for road games, and then the bright green & gold A’s uniforms with the unique green stirrups and yellow sanis, as we called the cotton socks that went below the stirrups.

There were others… I spent one summer (after my junior year in college) splitting my time between the Cheney Studs team out in Seattle and the Danville Roosters in eastern Illinois. Proof you could go from being a Stud to a Rooster in a matter of days.

And, of course, the Sauget Wizards. We went through many versions of our white with blue piping uniforms through the years, but they were all based on the look the Toronto Blue Jays had initiated. That was a perfect fit for me. I had worked for the Blue Jays as a scout for most of five years before I joined the Wizards. I felt right at home.

And shoes… Growing up, there weren’t many options once you were allowed to wear metal spikes in high school. I always wore the old-school Rawlings spikes, black of course, with the heavy leather sole. They were not exactly sleek, but we didn’t know any better. By my junior year at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, we voted as a group to wear adidas in “Cougar Red” color, but that wasn’t easy either. Our red was a darker style, sort of like Cardinal Red, but adidas didn’t make those. So we all got black shoes and dyed them ourselves. They were awesome looking and very comfortable. And yes, it is correct to type the word adidas without a capital A. That’s the official name of the company, although copy editors around the world throw fits when it’s not capitalized.

For our senior year, we switched to Puma and had to dye those ourselves again. They were fine shoes once you broke them in, but during that process the entire team was playing with bandages on our heels after the bloody blisters emerged.

In pro ball I wore my adidas again in Paintsville, dyed back to black again, but when I signed an endorsement deal with Rawlings for gloves, they had just brought out a new style of spikes and they were great.

When I went to work for Converse Shoes, I immediately switched my footwear once again. I was even allowed to sign a promotional deal with our Sauget Wizards team so that all of us wore matching blue Converse “Energy Wave” spikes.

I had forgotten that I had switched to Reebok for my last year of semipro ball in 1995, playing in Kansas City. Converse was nearly out of business by then and I needed new spikes. At a KC sporting goods store, the Reeboks were the most comfortable. Fine spikes.

I used my Toronto duffel bag throughout my semipro career, and was pleased to find the Reeboks and many pairs of blue Converse in that bag. There is still dirt stuck to the spikes.

And what about NHRA? My gosh, I couldn’t possibly recount every single jersey we wore. We started out with heavy cotton embroidered shirts for the starting line and then, after a few years, joined the conversion to polyester printed shirts. The process is technically called “sublimation” but nobody other than insiders would know what you were talking about if you said “We have these new sublimated shirts now” so we just referred to them as printed shirt. They were much lighter, and as the process matured they became “any concept you could dream up” in terms of the design. I still have one of each style in a spare closet.

There were a few years during the CSK Worsham Racing years when our sponsor maximized the involvement of various vendors by having us do special-edition cars and crew shirts, so we were swapping them out like mad.

So the duffel bags came down. The contents were all still as I had left them so many decades ago. The dirt in the spikes seemed to speak to me. “Remember that last home run you hit? This is the dirt from your trip around the bases!”

It’s crazy. It’s nostalgic. It’s my history. I’m proud of it and proud to have done it. I always will be.

Photographic evidence is posted below.

If you just read this and liked the thought of old wool uniforms, or pullover polyester ones, and dirt in the spikes, please click on the “LIKE” button below.

I’ll be back as soon as my brain comes up with another topic to explore.

BW

At the end of 2015 I officially retired from my life on the road. How long had I been traveling? Basically since I was in the womb.

In the Wilber family, my father was always traveling thanks to his lifelong employment in baseball. My childhood was filled with annual trips to Spring Training (either on a train or in the family car) or towns where he was managing or coaching (his MLB playing career was over by the time I was born, so I never got to experience that.) I did my fair share of scouting trips with him when I was a kid. I also regularly earned a week off from school to be his batboy in the Florida Instructional League, even flying down to Bradenton by myself once I was 12. It was all normal to me. Doesn’t everybody do this stuff?

Throughout my younger years, Dad was a scout for the Twins and I’d get the joy of an occasional trip with him, but mostly he was just gone. By my teens, summers were totally dedicated to spending time with Dad. It was precious. 1970 was Washington D.C. because he was the bullpen coach for the Senators. We rented a wonderful house in Bethesda. I spent every day the team was home roaming the outfield at RFK Stadium, learning how to be an outfielder well before my peers were doing much more than tossing short fly balls to each other. I was catching rockets hit by big leaguers.

1971 and ’72 were spent in Denver, as one of his batboys with the Triple-A Denver Bears. I even went on road trips with the team. Just more traveling inserted into a phenomenal summer of travel. Dad and I shared a motel room at home and on the road. Late at night, we’d order room service while we rehashed every game and I listened to him call in his nightly report to the big club.

1973 was another full season with Dad, but out in Spokane. We shared a room in the historic Davenport Hotel and instead of being a batboy (I was 17 by then) I wore a full uniform, warmed up pitchers in the bullpen, played catch with one of the corner outfielders between innings, and helped the clubhouse attendants shine shoes and do the laundry. And yes, I went on road trips too.

1974 was the summer after I graduated from high school. My best buddy Bob Mitchell and I drove my VW Beetle from St. Louis to Sacramento, where we met the Spokane team. After four days there, the road trip took us to Honolulu, so the team could play the Hawaii Islanders. My first of countless trips to the islands. It was, dare I say, mesmerizing! By that time I was taking regular BP with the team and taking infield before the games, out in right field with the regular outfielders Don Castle and Bobby Jones. My arm and my range in the outfield were becoming my best assets. It was Jones who told me, “You do understand you have the best arm of all of us, right?”

Mitch and I followed the team up to Tacoma after the Hawaii trip, in my Vee Dub, then over to Spokane for a home-stand while the World’s Fair, Expo ’74, was happening just a block or two away from the hotel. We then headed all the way back home to St. Louis. What a trip that was, for a couple of teenagers who were allowed the freedom (and financial support) of our parents to do such a thing.

College… As a scholarship baseball player, half of our school year was devoted to the game and the many long bus trips that came with it. School work had to be juggled at the same time, and for the most part all of us were serious about our classes. Text books took up a lot of space on the cramped bus. We didn’t get much sleep, but we loved those road trips.

When I signed with the Detroit Tigers after my senior year, the travel and life on the road continued. I was assigned to a Class A club in Paintsville, Kentucky so even “home life” was travel. Once a week, we’d head out on the road to Bluefield, Johnson City, Bristol, Elizabethton, or Kingsport. The trips back to Paintsville were always overnight rides. Life on the road.

The same went for the next year, 1979. I made my own trip to Spring Training (the “full circle” meaning of that was not lost on me) and made the Lakeland team. I was “on the road” just being there, away from home, and half of the games on our schedule required bus trips. It was nonstop.

Then a sudden shift all the way to Medford, Oregon. The bus trips in the Northwest League were fairly epic. Five hours was a short one. 16 hours was not unheard of, even if the bus didn’t break down in the middle of nowhere.

Then I became a baseball scout, following my dad’s footsteps once again. Now I was the one constantly on the road as a scout, just as he had been for most of my childhood. From February to late October I always had to be somewhere. Some of the travel was in the air, but most of it was in my car. Covering state after state to hopefully discover some prospects. Nearly five years of that. I was rarely home.

I left that behind to go to work for Converse Shoes. Again, on the road constantly. At least five days a week. I was on a first-name basis with most of the desk clerks at Holiday Inns around the Land of Lincoln.

I then joined the sports marketing world by joining my brother Del at his agency in D.C.  I was playing high-level semipro baseball by then, and had been since I quit scouting. The only difference was the distance I was traveling to get to my games. With Converse, I played ball with the Sauget Wizards in St. Louis. Every time I’d pull up to our ballpark for a game, my teammates would ask “Where were you earlier today?” The answer could’ve ranged from Champaign, Illinois to Carbondale or Bloomington. I covered the whole state south of Chicago, but never missed a game. With Del’s company, I played for a team in Fairfax, Virginia and the questions soon repeated themselves. “Where were you this week?” The answers ranged from Detroit to Seattle and all points in between, not counting the outliers like Italy or Cuba.

I got to stay home quite a bit more for the next few years, working in indoor soccer, but by the mid-90s I was getting my feet wet in drag racing as the VP of a marketing company in New Jersey. Jetting off to races all across the USA doing PR for Funny Car driver Chuck Etchells and Top Fuel star Mike Dunn. I loved it. I was on the move. I felt like a shark. If I stopped moving, I might die.

In 1997, I joined Del Worsham’s team to become the manager and PR rep. I would do that for 12 consecutive years. In those 12 years, I missed only one race, because my father had died the day I was packed and ready to head to Denver. The team won the race. They called me from the Winner’s Circle and most of the voices I heard were those of my teammates crying. I was too. They dedicated the race to my dad.

12 years with Del Worsham, building and solidifying our sponsorship and doing all I could to create a brand and a future. Then eight years with Tim Wilkerson, doing the same “relationship building” with our sponsors and creating all sorts of social media channels for us to keep our fans engaged while drawing new ones. And a 24-race schedule that ranged from coast to coast and border to border. More airports, more planes, hopefully more First Class upgrades, and more hotels or motels ranging from “pretty darn smelly and shady” to luxurious.

In 2015, I knew I’d had enough. It was time to settle down and be an author and a stay-at-home husband. By then I had already flown a million miles on Delta and Northwest, and I didn’t start flying Northwest until we moved to Minnesota in 2002.

Going back over my entire “heavy travel” career, it had to be more than two million miles (maybe three million) on airlines ranging from Eastern, to Continental, to United, to American, and TWA. Then Southwest to keep my expenses down when I joined Worsham Racing. I even flew free for a couple of those years, after I put together a sponsorship with upstart Vanguard Airlines. The price was right but they couldn’t be counted on to actually get me where I needed to be. We let that lapse and I went back to Northwest, which would later become Delta.

I currently am sitting on 1.2 million active miles stored in my account. I don’t burn them frivolously. Now that Barbara and I are finally fully retired, we’ll hold those bad boys for important trips, to Hawaii and Europe, and maybe someday to the South Pacific. We earned every mile we have. We earned cashing them in on First Class seats. The days of hopping on Vanguard or Southwest to make six connections in coach are long behind us. We earned that, too.

It feels good to be home. COVID forced the issue and really left us no choice. For two years we never really left Woodbury, Minnesota. Now, we’re venturing out again, but we still keep our status as Million Milers with Delta and we keep our CLEAR and PreCheck status in the active category.

When I was in drag racing, I’d be gone as many as 30 weekends a year, leaving on Thursday and getting home on Monday. Meanwhile, Barbara’s executive career had her on the road a lot too. But, she’d leave on Monday and generally get home on Friday. We would often leave cars for each other at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport. The texts would read “Car is on level five, on the Blue side, row Q.” We’d miss each other by hours as we traveled our way through our careers.

Now…  It’s just damn good to be home. We fly to see family or good friends, and air travel seems more stressful now than it did back in the day when it was required. Now it’s optional. I miss my friends and colleagues out on the NHRA tour, but we all manage to stay in touch and I’ve dropped in at a few races since 2015. Now I can arrive when I want and leave when I want. It’s better this way. We’ve earned it. We earned every single mile of it.

Thanks for reading. It kind of blows my mind to write all this down and realize how crazy it’s been since birth. And now I’m 66 and loving every minute at home.

If you liked reading about this madness, do me a favor and click on that “Like” button at the bottom.

See you again soon. I have one more month on my contract with Ascot Media Group and we’ll make the most of it, in support of my book How Far? My travel is mostly virtual now. I have no problem with Zoom calls or phone-in interviews. There are no security lines to get through in order to do those.

Take care everyone. And Happy New Year!

BW

 

I know it’s been a while, if by “a while” you mean nearly a month, but when your PR agency is keeping such a constant flow of leads and introductions coming your way, and you’re scrambling to keep them all organized, answered, and scheduled, there’s not much time for blogging.

I’ve got a break until tomorrow, right now, so here goes…

I spent about 22 years doing PR for drag racers. First, as an assistant to the guy in New Jersey who represented Chuck Etchells and Mike Dunn. I learned a lot of ropes back then, including the ropes involved with living in Harriman, NY and working in Wyckoff, New Jersey.

Then, rather impulsively, I went out on my own anticipating I’d conquer the world in a matter of days. Instead, I basically went broke. Pro Stock driver Lewis Worden (still a dear friend) was my first paying client. He and his racing partner Steve Ash paid me $600 a month. British Funny Car driver Norm Wilding (also still a dear friend) was also a client, but we were both about broke so he couldn’t pay me. It was a passion project. Passion projects typically don’t pay well.

At the end of my financial rope, in 1994, I got a call from the Kansas City Attack indoor soccer franchise and that was my escape hatch. I actually had a salary and I loved being the general manager of the team for about two years. Then Funny Car star Whit Bazemore called. I was out of the office but I knew he had called and I was 99.99% sure I knew what he was going to ask me. Sure enough, without much prompting, I quit a soccer job I loved and jumped back into the NHRA Funny Car pool.

A year later, I joined Del and Chuck Worsham. That symbiotic relationship lasted 12 glorious and thrilling years. When our Checker, Schuck’s, Kragen sponsorship went away, all of us were looking for jobs, Del included. He went on to win World Championships in both Top Fuel and Funny Car, but both of us went on to remain close friends. To this day, I often get texts or calls from Del about either important stuff, or family-related news. The family stuff is priceless. I was his best man the day he married Connie, and Barbara and I were near the top of the list for a phone call the day Kate and Maddy were born.

Before that 2008 season ended, I had already agreed to join Tim Wilkerson’s Funny Car team. Those eight years flew by so fast it was inconceivable.

PR is not manual labor. It’s not knuckle-busting work out in the snow or mud. Its creativity and it’s all about writing and communicating. Lots of writing. Tons of writing.

Press releases, daily updates, race recaps, sponsor proposals, and then the dawn of social media. This old “Boomer” had to adapt, and I’m not necessarily good at that. But I did. Twitter, Facebook, and email became close friends of mine. I couldn’t hazard a wild guess as to how many pages of PR work I cranked out from the day I joined the guy in New Jersey until the day I walked away from it all at the end of the 2015 season. But I sure was fortunate. I worked for some stellar people on wonderful teams. 10 minutes ago I answered my phone in the car (Blue Tooth, another Boomer adaptation) and spent 30 marvelous minutes talking and laughing with Krista Wilkerson. She’s an incredible person and a priceless friend.

With Bats, Balls & Burnouts I hired the one and only Elon Werner to do my PR. It’s very difficult to do your own publicity. It’s like saying “Hey, look at me! I wrote a book. It’s awesome…”

As I knew he would, Elon did a fabulous job. He’s really adept at longterm relationships with a wide range of people in the media. He can make one call and say “Bring Bob Wilber on your show. How about next Thursday?” and it happens. Same thing with print reporters. They lined up.

For How Far? I talked to Elon again and learned that he’d finally flipped the switch to go out on his own with his PR agency, but he was eager to help me, totally pro bono (that means free if you’re not into legal lingo) while he grew his client base. He did great again, but in terms of his agency he did even better than he thought. He attracted clients like a light bulb attracts bugs. Before long, I knew he didn’t have time so I thanked him profusely and plotted my next move.

When Ascot Media Group reached out to me, I’d never heard of them. I did my due diligence and was convinced they could not only help me sell books, but also build my brand. The second part of that sentence was more important than the first. With each book, I want to be more well known, more respected, and more legit as an author.

They’ve been working for me for two months and I have to decide soon if I’ll sign up for another month. Are they good? Let’s just say they’re great. I’m averaging about 20 fresh leads and requests per week, for everything from podcasts, to radio shows, TV shows, and print. Reviewers have been consistently asking for copies to read and review. It basically never stops.

My office here in the lower-level man cave of our house often looks like a shipping depot. I’m on close terms with the Postal Service “Flat Rate Priority boxes.” I can pack up a book in a flash, and print my own Priority postage labels right here. All I have to do is swing by the Woodbury post office and throw them in a bin. That happens at least three days a week.

And here’s how that works. Responding to the lead and getting a book packaged and sent out (or, in some cases, a digital PDF version of the book to places like Australia and Great Britain) is just the start. The books have to get there, and it’s not a super-quick read. Reviewers and reporters need time to digest it all. I’m still just now getting reviews from books I sent out the first week Ascot represented me. It’s pretty nonstop. And it’s fun.

The grass was mighty green on the PR side of the fence, and I had the chance to do it in a sport I barely knew when I started. My 22-year love affair with NHRA Drag Racing was a major highlight of my life and career. It made me “somebody” and that brand, that knowledge that “If Wilber wrote it, it’s probably good” is invaluable. You can’t buy respect. I think I’ve earned it.

Now, the grass is just as green over here as I watch a team of professional publicists get after it on my behalf.

This Wednesday, at 6 am my time, I will go live on WTBQ radio in New Jersey. Their reach encompasses that little town on the other side of the Hudson River. What’s the name of that place again? Oh yeah, New York. They have 3 million average listeners. I’ll have to be right to the point to answer the interview questions before they say “Thanks Bob. That’s all the time we have. Now let’s check the traffic situation…”

So yeah, I’m digging this side of the fence. It’s all passion and communication. I’m pretty good at both of those things. And the hits just keep on coming.

Now I have to make dinner…  Steaks and salmon cakes with small salad and Bernaise sauce.

And yes, to answer the question I hear the most, I am indeed plotting my course for my next book.

Would you read a sequel if I completed How Far? to its logical end? I closed that book when the two characters’ careers had ended, not when their lives ended. The whole “post-career” path for both guys and their families is still ahead of them. More drama, more love, more tears, and more hockey and baseball for sure, because they will become parents and the circle of life keeps going around and around. That’s the way I’m leaning, but that’s not a promise. Something else could pop into my brain at any moment.

For fun, I think the title might be the answer to the question posed by the prior book. What about This Far!  I kinda like that.

This is a good time to say THANK YOU again to Elon Werner for getting me off the ground as an author. He’s phenomenal, and a truly great friend. And equal gratitude to Ascot Media Group. I’m telling you, every day is like Christmas when I see their emails in my In-Box. Every email is a lead, and any lead can be huge.

See you again soon. I promise it won’t be another month.

As always, I humbly ask for a favor. If this is your first trip through one of my blogs or if you’ve read every one of them since this blog adventure began in August of 2005, please click on the LIKE button below.

I’m also on Instagram now. This Boomer just keeps adapting. Follow me at bwilber5.

I’ve posted a few photos and reviews below, as an example of what Ascot Media Group has done.

Adios!

 

 

 

 

 

“Influencers.” It’s a word I don’t recall hearing up until a couple years ago. Somehow, some way, it appears that some individuals use social media to create their own sort of celebrity, and then they become famous for being famous, and what follows is that their content can influence perfect strangers. It’s the world we live in.

I can honestly attest to the fact I have never partaken in the murky world of influencers. I get my influence from people I know, people I respect, and people I trust.

Let’s talk about influence, shall we?

My parents

I think the vast majority of us were influenced heavily by our parents, even when it was not a conscious thing for us as very tiny little creatures. The still-crawling, barely talking, versions of us. We get imprinted just like ducklings, and we tend to follow our moms everywhere.

In that regard, my parents came up aces. My dad was, of course, a mystical gigantic man in my mind. I knew all about his baseball career, although I never got to see him play, and he did as much as he could to make my two brothers and me the best we could be. He wasn’t there a lot because making your living in baseball keeps you away (I know this first hand and as his son) but his influence and his legacy guided all of us. He was my idol.

My mother gave me many other non-athletic gifts. She was kind. She was extremely caring (considering I was so sickly as a kid I needed almost constant attention.) She was brilliant. By the time I was in the upper levels of grade school, and certainly when I was in high school, she was constantly devouring literature ranging from the classics to modern psychology and inner meaning. She was, as we say, DEEP!

Am I a “momma’s boy” or was I just a jock like my dad? I think it’s about 50/50 but my dad was gone a lot because of baseball, so as I said above he was just kind of a mystical legend to me. When he was around, and he showed me the game, I was in heaven. When I spent four straight summers hanging out with him in Washington DC, Denver, and Spokane (often as a batboy but also as an “intern” with the teams, taking infield practice and BP and shagging fly balls) I could not have been happier.

My mother and I were very close. The fact I was her baby (the youngest of five kids) and I had chronic and serious asthma and allergies, my momma duck never let this duckling get too far away or too lost in the haze of illnesses.

But what about beyond that? Who else imprinted on me something so impactful it changed me for the better?

My brother Del

Del is 11 years older than me. The only real impact he made on me before he was off to college and then into baseball, followed by the business world, was as a standard big brother and as a babysitter who would force us to stay at the table until we ate every last one of those mushy canned peas.

But later… Del went on to a fabulous marketing career and I always looked up to him. He had a Johnny Carson type of style about him, and he was so successful I could only speculate on what an immense range of intelligence and focus he had to have in order to do all the things he did.

When I was feeling that I was about to be done as a baseball scout, Del was the first person I called. He set me up with numerous interviews in the sports equipment world and that turned into my first job with Converse Shoes. Without that, who knows what I would’ve ended up doing.

I then went to work for him in his Washington DC office, otherwise known as DelWilber+Associates. I was one of the associates. I was also almost fully incapable of understanding the importance and seriousness of what we were doing there, when I first arrived. At Converse we were, pretty much, ex-athletes having fun selling or giving away shoes. It was very laid back and we loved what we were doing. At DW+A, we were dealing with numerous Fortune 500 companies at the highest levels of their organizational charts, from IBM to Chrysler to Audi and many more. On the other side of the aisle we also worked with an equally impressive list of sports leagues, teams, and organizations as we developed relationships and put sponsorship programs together.

I’m not going to say I totally “got it” the first week I was there, not even the first month I was there, but over time it all sunk in and I continually found myself entrusted to have one-on-one meetings with very high level people, sometimes in foreign countries. It was a different world.

Del never once “taught me” anything there (he had given up, by then, trying to get me to eat my mushy peas.) He didn’t sit me down and say “Here’s Lesson 2 for writing a proposal…” I learned from his example and by watching my peers and colleagues do their work and get it done right. And Del led all of us.

Del and I are closer today than we’ve ever been.

Huge influence.

Pete Delkus 

As you likely know, if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time or if you read my book Bats, Balls & Burnouts, Pete Delkus made a huge impact on me.

Pete and I both attended SIUE and played baseball there. We were both communications majors with specialities in the Broadcast Journalism school. But, we did it nine years apart. We met when we were both playing on the Sauget Wizards while he was still in college. He made an impact on me the day I met him.

Pete is one funny dude. He’s also brilliant, expertly well spoken, and sarcastic as hell. Basically, it was a friendship made in heaven.

Through the years, while I was his agent representing him during his fantastic career in the Minnesota Twins organization, everything that got him to where he was became so evident to me.

He knew how to compartmentalize the fun aspects of life, all while still able to focus like a laser beam on the important things. In his case, those important things mostly revolved around being the best pitcher he could be. Also the best husband he would later be, and the best father.

His focus and determination were talked about by the two of us from time to time, but mostly I just admired how he carried himself and how he looked at life. And, how hard he worked! Nothing was going to stop him from succeeding. His elbow finally did, but up until then he willed himself to be a big league prospect. The fact he was named Twins Minor League Player of the Year after his second season tells you all you need to know.

After baseball he became a meteorologist. He started in Orlando, moved to Cincinnati, and now he’s the number one weather expert in Dallas/Fort Worth, where the weather is a major part of life. He has too many Emmy Awards for me to even keep track of.

In Bats, Balls & Burnouts, Pete wrote one of the Forewards. I had nothing to do with the two Forewords (the other was by Del Worsham). I basically recused myself from that so the writers could feel free to express themselves. I was surprised and very touched to read them after my editor Greg Halling had compiled them for publication. Both of them were great and very heartfelt. Pete wrote extensively about what an impact I had made on him and on other people. I clearly remember thinking, “You’ve got this totally backwards Pete. It’s the other way around.”

Lance McCord

Lance didn’t show up at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville until my junior year. He was a transfer from a different program but was instantly part of the group and well-liked by everyone. But not necessarily by me.

I was a bit of a loner, but only because I was taking my studies very seriously and wasn’t prone to partying too much. I loved being “away” at school and, unlike a lot of other guys who could get home in an hour or three for the weekend, I actually liked to be on campus in our apartment all the time. I’d go home when I needed groceries, but I liked the quiet times too. I really loved being a college student. I spent a lot of time in the library.

Lance was very outgoing. A little outrageous. And, as it turned out, a lot of fun. He’s also incredibly smart. He took school seriously and with his accounting and finance degree he has had a phenomenal career. The title CFO has been after his name on his business cards. We were polar opposites when we met (other than the whole baseball and grades stuff.)

But he drew me out. He got me out of my bubble and from him I learned to be much more social and overtly engaging rather than waiting to be invited into any conversation, and I enjoyed every minute of it. We weren’t lunatics (well, most of the time) and we kept our grades up and both graduated with ease (him a quarter or two before me.) But the socially active and outgoing part of me had a lot to do with hanging out and rooming with Lance. That’s the me people know to this day. Lance gets a lot of credit for that.

Still an all-time best friend.

So, how about influential people in other walks of life, when I was in the midst of my career and trying to rise as high as I could in whatever crazy field I was in. Here’s a few.

Todd Veney

Todd has been intimately involved in drag racing since he was in the womb (just like me with baseball.) His father, Ken Veney was an icon in the sport. A legend.

By the time I got into the sport, Todd was established as a reporter and writer for National DRAGSTER magazine. The first time I sat down with a copy and read something he’d written, a gigantic light bulb went on over my head. It was nearly blinding.

There’s “reporting” and there’s “telling stories.” Todd’s submissions to the magazine were all compelling stories, even if what he was writing about was actually his reporting of results and performances. He was unique, and I found myself engrossed in stories about drivers and cars in the lower sportsman classes I knew very little about. The man can tell a story.

The impact? There are stories to tell no matter the subject. He was concise and not flowery. But he wove tales. When I discovered his work, I took to scanning the magazine for his byline before doing anything else.

At the beginning of my racing career, Todd Veney opened my eyes to what could be done, not just what had to be done.

Phil Burgess

This one is a no-brainer. I can’t tell you where I’d be today or what I’d be doing if not for Phil Burgess who, as you know, has been the editor of National DRAGSTER and NHRA.com forever. He, too, is a legend.

And, again, like others it was not overt or instructional. It was by osmosis, by watching how he might edit my work, and by how he complimented me not so much with literal “Hey good work” pats on the back, although he’d launch those your way if your work deserved it. It was much more by the way he’d “reward” me with greater challenges, new ventures, new columns, and (of course) the blog. Here I am, still writing it.

Looking back over those years, it’s as clear as glass to me now. Phil pushed me, and then rewarded me with bigger and better positions in the magazine or on the website. And I didn’t work for NHRA! He saw something in me, and I was willing to try just about anything for him.

Every time Phil said “I want you to try this” I dove in. And I grew as a writer and storyteller.

Greg Halling

Any of you who know my work and my books will know the name Greg Halling. He’s been my mentor and style editor for two books now.

I can say this very simply: I would not be the writer and author I am today without Greg’s input, mentorship, and influence. Period. End of story.

Again, it was never really by correcting me or trying to overtly instruct me. It was by example. He changed the way I wrote! And all I did was follow his example and listen to his input. I was a sponge. That’s a good thing if you want to improve at anything you’re doing. Greg Halling is brilliant. I love the man.

Now, what about other authors… Who influenced me the most?

Jim Bouton

Jim Bouton was a fine big league pitcher. He was also incredibly smart, insightful, self-aware, outspoken, and daring. In 1970, he took notes throughout a full baseball season as he attempted to resurrect his career as a knuckleball pitcher with the old Seattle Pilots. His flame throwing days were over, so he reinvented himself. Then, he reinvented how sports figures are seen by the appreciative public. He wrote the classic book Ball Four.

Many athletes had worked with their ghost writers and editors to put books out. Most were pretty shallow and only recitations of sports careers.

Jim Bouton crafted Ball Four like a seasoned pro in the author game.

It’s brilliant. Hilarious. Heartbreaking. And it’s a behind-the-scenes view of baseball that had never been done. He crossed lines no one had ever crossed before. It got him blackballed from the game. But Ball Four lives on, through numerous updates and revisions.

It is classic. I’ve read it at least 30 times. This made a GIGANTIC impact on me. Dumb jocks don’t necessarily need to be dumb jocks. Sometimes they are brilliant. Rest in peace, Bulldog! I hope you knew how many people you influenced.

Jerry Kramer

See Jim Bouton but even earlier and possibly more impactful. Jerry Kramer was a lineman for the powerful Green Bay Packers in the 1960s, under the direction of Vince Lombardi.

He was big and tough, and a force on the football field.

As it turned out, he could also write. Instant Replay was his story of his upbringing and his time under Lombardi with the Packers. It was groundbreaking. He had a brilliant editor working with him, the legendary Dick Schaap, but by all accounts these were his themes and his words. That became clear the first time I saw him interviewed on TV and his answers were 12 levels deeper than the softball questions.

I was young when I first read it, probably around 1968 which would’ve made me 12.

He transported me into a realm I never even dreamed about. He told the tales expertly, and made it so you could smell the sweaty shoulder pads, feel the heat of the locker room, shiver uncontrollably during the “Ice Bowl” at Lambeau Field, and rejoice when he and his teammates were champions, thanks mostly to the crazy amount of hard work they all put into it as Packers.

Jerry Kramer told me, through his book, that dumb jocks might actually be intelligent and fascinating people. He made it clear to me, even at that young age, that I would be writing a book or two someday later in life.

He wrote a book that changed me and showed me the light, decades before that light began to shine.

Whitley Strieber

This one takes us up to a much more recent event. Whitley Strieber was a very successful author, and he made a mark in the world of “what paperback can I take on my next cross-country flight?” It was Communion. To this day, as far as I know, Strieber still insists every word of Communion is true. Why would that be important? Because the book is about his and his family’s contact with aliens, including “lost time” and abductions. Every one of my peers back then, in the mid-80s, read Communion.

After I read it, I noticed he had other books out in the world. I took a chance on War Day and, yet again, it was a life changing moment but I wouldn’t realize that for another 30+ years.

He and James Kunetka co-wrote War Day. It’s the tale of two New Yorkers heading out to see what’s left of America after a very brief but also devastating nuclear conflict with the Soviets.

They alternated chapters, writing about their travels around the country and the things they saw. It’s obviously fiction, but it read so true it felt like it was real and any reader was immersed in the characters’ stories (despite the fact we are still fortunate enough to have avoided World War III) and it absolutely captivated me. I stored it away in the recesses of my crowded brain for many years.

And then How Far? came to me as my next great writing challenge. The concept for it is directly attributed to Whitley Strieber. I don’t know him, and he doesn’t know me, but that’s the beauty of storytelling and publishing books. He planted a seed in the much younger version of me. That seed blossomed into my second book, How Far? in 2022.

That’s pretty impactful, if you ask me.

And finally…

Barbara Doyle

Talk about having an influence on me! As good as I am at stringing cogent words together, it’s almost impossible for me to put into words the impact Barbara has had on me since the day we met.

Her beauty, intelligence, curiosity, and zest for life blew me away. As we’ve spent the last 25 years together, I know I’m still the same old me but I also know I’m a much better version of me. She didn’t have to demand it, either. I just knew it. I knew it deep in my heart. It wasn’t always easy and sometimes it’s not easy to this day, but I constantly strive to do positive things and make her life better.

She is a lofty standard to try to match, and I’ve never quite gotten there, but I spend most of every single day wondering what I can do to make her happy, and make sure she knows how much I appreciate all she’s done and all the support she’s given me when I wanted to take another leap of faith. She is the most amazing person I’ve ever known.

Without her, and my constant desire to be a better husband and human, I have no clue where I would be today.

I just know I wouldn’t be here. And that would be a shame.

There are many more. From baseball to soccer to the world of fast cars and public relations. My peers. My colleagues. My friends.

I like to think that I’m a reflection and a compilation of all of them.

So, all of those “influencers” on social media can do whatever they want. They can sell themselves and their “influencer brand” until the cows come home. I have chosen to be influenced by real people.

It’s better that way.

See you again soon. Try to influence someone you know, to share goals and know you can keep being and getting better.

And, as always, if you enjoyed this blog installment please click on the “Like” button below.

Photos arranged below.

Be a good influence!

Bob

 

 

 

Today’s blog headline should set the table for what might be a litany of agreements and disagreements. That’s fine. Just like most of you, I played Little League baseball. Like a few of you, I played high school ball. Like fewer, I played college ball on a full scholarship. Like very few, I was honored to play professionally at the minor league level for the Detroit Tigers and Oakland A’s. I have opinions, but I’ve also been there. On the field and in the dugout.

A few years ago, the Houston Astros were caught “cheating” by using video monitors just outside the dugout to see the opposing catcher’s pitch signals, and they would relay that info to hitters by banging on a metal trash can. People still hate them and boo them to this day because of it, and many who were involved paid a heavy price for having been part of it.

Was it really cheating?

For one thing, it certainly was a crude way of imparting information to your teammates, but this sort of thing has been going on in baseball since before the Boston Americans won the first World Series in 1903. For me, as a former player and a lifelong fan of the game, it’s all just part of the chess match. The game typically polices itself.

From high school on through college and pro ball, and into my lengthy post-professional career playing semi-pro ball, I don’t remember a time when teammates and coaches weren’t trying to find any possible weakness or “tips” the other team happened to be exposing. Third-base coaches give signals. If you’ve been around long enough, you can decipher the “indicator” signal within an inning or two, and can then put the puzzle together as to what signal follows the indicator. Is the indicator the belt? Is the signal for a sacrifice bunt a brush down the forearm right after he touches his belt? Is “steal” a rub down the thigh? Even in college we had dozens of coded signs, but none of the codes were unbreakable. As a matter of pure fact, our college head coach Roy Lee kept the signals pretty simple because he figured we were idiots. The indicator was usually the belt, and all running signs were then on the legs. Any hitting or bunting signs were on the arms. The signal to take a pitch was the hat. I missed that one once, and got a base hit on the first pitch. The first-baseman for Coastal Carolina said to me, “I think you’re in trouble.” I asked him why and he said “You got the signal to take at least one strike. Your coach is about to blow a gasket.” Sure enough, I got benched for getting a hit when I’d been given the sign to take a pitch. True story.

Catchers have put fingers down between their legs to call pitches forever. Until now. Some teams still use that system, but most now use an electronic version of pitch calling, as the catcher presses a button on his wrist and the pitcher hears it in his hat. It’s an adaptation not unlike what the NFL does now. No more signals from the sidelines. Now, the coach calls the play right into the quarterback’s helmet.

This electronic thing is an answer to the Astros problem from a few years ago. Seeing the catcher put down a series of fingers was decipherable, and watching a high-def monitor just outside the dugout and then banging on a trash can was easy to do.

There are so many codes in the game. Most can be figured out, including the always popular signal from a runner on second when he either sees what pitch the catcher has called for or where he’s set up (inside, outside, high or low?) and he relays that to the hitter. Does the runner touch his hat or look to the left or right after seeing the sign? The baseball remedy for such a blatant transgression was simple. That runner would be nailed with a fastball in the ribs the next time he came to the plate.

It’s a chess match. There are rules. Some are written but many are not. Drill my power hitter? Your best hitter had better be ready to get drilled the next time he comes up. Then everyone will get riled up and rush the mound. Catch a coach using simplistic signs? Let your guys know what’s going on. Pass the word and take advantage of it. See a pitcher doing something different with his delivery on different pitches? Well, now we have a national media story!

Lance McCullers, pitching for the Astros, was blitzed by a barrage of long balls in Game 3 of the World Series the other night. He’s fine pitcher with good stuff, but the Phillies seemed to know what was coming and jumped all over it.

Did they? Did they cheat? No, they may very well have seen a difference in his leg kick and his delivery between his fastball and breaking ball. That is “tipping your pitches” and it’s fair game. Just like figuring out the third-base coach’s signs to hitters and runners.

To be fair, McCullers and his team have refuted that he tipped his pitches, but the video evidence is pretty damning. He definitely changed his delivery for different pitches. Any good hitter would pick that up and, like Bryce Harper, would pass that on to teammates.

When my pro career was over, and I was playing high-level semi-pro ball for the Sauget Wizards, we were playing a team that featured a former minor league star for the St. Louis Cardinals. Joe Silkwood could really throw, and the challenge of being ready for his fastball but still able to adjust to his off-speed stuff was very tough. Pro ball tough. And then, from the on-deck circle, I heard him slightly grunt when he threw his fastball but not when he threw his curve. I found a flaw.

When it was my turn at bat, I listened. His fastball was a good one and you had to be ready for it. I clearly remember thinking “Will I be able to adjust if he grunts when he throws it, or will it already be too late?”  I heard the grunt and laced a rocket into left field for a hit. He tipped his pitched, and I took advantage of it. Fair enough.

There have been many Major League pitchers who didn’t know they were tipping pitches. Stick your tongue out on your breaking ball but not your fastball? Obviously move your grip in your glove to a splitter after you nod to the catcher that you liked the sign? The tips are many. You just have to look for them and decipher them.

Where is the line? When does it go from being perceptive to being cheating? I don’t know. It’s always been part of the game. Figure it out and gain an advantage, and the rules might soon be changed or your opponent will find a way to make you “pay the price” during the game that day. Or tomorrow. Or five months from now. Baseball players have long memories!

My own father reveled in telling a tale from his days in the big leagues. I think it was when he was the bullpen coach for the Chicago White Sox just after his playing days. He told the tale as follows:

“We had a pair of military binoculars, like they would use on a ship. I’d go out and position myself inside the big scoreboard in center field, which was hand-operated so I could see out of it toward the plate. Within an inning, I had their signs. We had a crude hook-up with a switch that activated a light on the scoreboard. If it was a fastball, I wouldn’t touch the switch. If a curve was coming, I’d flip it on.”

Now, to be fair, knowing my dad that story could well be embellished, but he rarely (if ever) just made stuff up. I’m sure there is a lot of truth to what he said. And he never thought it was cheating. He just figured it this way: “If we could decode anything the other team was doing, and find that little edge, it’s all fair.”

Also, to be fair, many hitters don’t want to get that tip. Fastballs to the head can kill you, and accepting advice that a curve is coming can be precarious. Some of us just liked to try to do it on our own, with our eyes.

It was all part of the game. And yes, the game does adjust. Pitchers have their hands inspected every time they come off the field now, to make sure no foreign substances are involved. Gaylord Perry would not have liked that. Catchers electronically signal pitchers as to what they want. My own dad would not have liked that.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the Phillies noticing Lance McCullers Jr. tipping his pitches. It’s his fault, not the Phillies’ fault. His denial is just a natural way of shifting the blame to his performance, not his mechanics.

And I’m old enough now to state that Lance McCullers Jr is the son of another fine pitcher. His dad, Lance McCullers Sr was drafted out of high school (by the Phillies, ironically) in 1982. I was a scout for the Blue Jays then, and saw him pitch. He was really good and did well in the Major Leagues. I have no clue if he ever tipped his pitches.

It happens. Players know it. Coaches know it. It’s a chess match.

Below you will see two shots of Lance McCullers Jr pitching. He stayed taller in his mechanics and raised his knee more for this breaking ball. That’s kind of natural to do. You want to stay back and “on top” of your breaking ball and not get too far out in front of it. For his fastball, which any pitcher wants to “drive into” to get max velocity, he changed his delivery ever so slightly. Bryce Harper saw it and passed the word to his teammates.

See you again soon. For the record, even with help from my teammates I was often late on the fastball and too early on the breaking stuff.

As always, I ask that if you read this and liked it please click on the “Like” below! Gracias.

BW

 

This will be a little bit unusual as compared to my normal blog writing endeavors, but it seems to be the best place to put this interesting interview I recently participated in. It was set up by my PR agency Ascot Media Group with a blogger who writes mostly about motherhood.

At first I didn’t think I’d be any kind of good fit, but once I did the interview (all by email, by the way) I could see why I think I was exactly a perfect fit. Obviously, I’ve never been a mom and never will be thanks to both gender and age, but I was fortunate enough to have a mother who inspired me, drove me, and loved me from the day I was born until she passed away.

Basically, this interview was a perfect way for me to expound on how I remember my mom. As I said in my first book Bats, Balls & Burnouts “You can’t pick your parents. I won the lottery with Taffy and Del Wilber.”

It also allowed me to speak about the value of mentors. I’ve had a few and don’t know where I’d be today without them.

And finally, I used the platform to once again preach the adage “If you think you should write a book, write a book!” It’s that simple.

Here it is… I’ll post a link on Facebook after it goes “live” next week.

If you loved your mom, or are lucky enough to still give her a hug and let her know how priceless she is, I think you’ll like this.

If you do, please click the “Like” button at the bottom!

Thank you, and yes I think about my mom nearly every day.

 

Bob Wilber and his wife Barbara Doyle live in the Twin Cities suburb of Woodbury, Minnesota

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I recently wrote about a relaunch of the publicity plan for my second book How Far? and now I’m here to report on the first full week of the effort made by Ascot Media Group.

As advertised, they came out firing and the media responses started rolling in on the first day which, for the record, was last Monday October 17th.

As fate would have it, the launch actually happened a week earlier than originally planned. There’s a story to that. That story is this:

A couple of weeks ago I took my fuzzy boy Buster to the vet for an update on his old age. Both Buster and Boofus are 15 now, and Buster is showing his age much more than Boofie.

Concurrently, we also had an 8-day trip planned at the time, for an enormous Doyle family reunion in Pittsburgh. Those tickets were all booked and everything was in place.

Then I got a call from the veterinarian after Buster’s latest blood workup was analyzed. Like most cats his age, he’s slowing down and a few key organs are now out of whack and in decline. We’ve been working on calming down a hyper-thyroid condition for at least a year, and we seem to have gotten it under control. Now, it’s his kidneys. That’s sadly a standard thing with indoor cats but not because being indoors is bad for them. It’s actually too good in a certain way, because it allows them reach senior citizen status far more regularly than outdoor kitties. Kidney problems are frequent and not really something you “fix” with medication. Basically, all you can do is try to keep him hydrated and comfortable. When the vet says things like “So, we’ll stay on this course but at some point soon we’ll have to address quality of life for Buster” it jolts you. Absolutely.

We went through this exact same thing with Shasta back in the day. We did all we could and kept him happy and well fed. Father Time finally caught up to him. He lived a full, long, and well-loved life. The same thing will happen with Buster, and at some point soon with Boofie. Like people, cats are not immortal. We knew that when we allowed them to adopt us in 2007, at the Woodbury Humane Society.

He’s not in any pain, but he had lost a lot of weight before that last check-up. That was attributed to the thyroid condition activating again. We’ve upped his meds for that, but the doctor was blunt and honest when she said “He’s losing weight because of the thyroid condition, but once we get it back in check a side-effect will be a worsening of the kidney problems.” So now my good boy is going into the vet’s office three times a week for injections of fluids that keep his kidneys as good as they can be. He’s a very good patient, and never fights me when it’s time to get in his carrier for the ride to his doctor’s office. I let him out of the carrier for the brief ride home and he sits on my lap, leaning against me, purring.

Although he’s mostly deaf by now, he’s still vibrant and happy and loves watching TV with me in the downstairs home theater. I can’t even fathom having that conversation about quality of life. As the vet also said, “Now it’s time to keep him well loved and happy. Don’t worry about healthy food. Let him eat whatever he wants.”

The good news is he’s gained back two of the eight pounds he recently lost. We focus on the good news.

Now back to that Pittsburgh trip. After the sobering news from the vet I told Barbara that I was absolutely going, but I just couldn’t stay the full eight days. All the really important stuff was happening in the first three days, including a massive photo shoot in a park near downtown Pittsburgh. I wanted to be there for all of that, but I wanted to come home early after we’d accomplished those things.

Barbara slid into retirement well, and one of the reasons for that was the fact she was spearheading the whole reunion. Like me, when I retired from racing but immediately began writing my first book Bats, Balls, & Burnouts she “went to work” each day, for many months, organizing this effort. She aced every test. She managed to get everyone to Pittsburgh at the same time, although at least half had to head back home the day after the photo shoot. The younger adults actually have things like jobs.

She even had t-shirts made for everyone, and by “everyone” that means babies, toddlers, young adults, and us old people. Barbara’s two brothers and one sister all have kids, and we’re now old enough that most of the kids have kids. There are Doyles everywhere, in every age category! The t-shirts featured the actual Doyle crest from the Doyle Clan in Ireland, which is their direct lineage.

I rebooked my ticket for Monday the 17th, and very much appreciated that Barbara agreed that I should do that. I needed to get back to Buster. Before I left I got to check off one bucket list item and partake in the amazing photo shoot. The bucket list item was seeing and touring Falling Water. It’s among the most famous of Frank Lloyd Wright’s incredible architectural designs, and after studying it in college I have forever had the dream to actually see it in person. Box checked. Goosebumps felt. Stunning, really. Even seeing it in person, it seems impossible.

With my early departure decided and arranged, I got my weekly update from Ascot Media Group and mentioned the fact I’d now be home late in the day on the 17th. They immediately asked if I’d be willing to have the PR plan launched that day instead of a week later. I said yes.

They have a huge database and, under the current contract we have, they will send a press release and introductory email to around 10,000 media outlets over the course of a month. I knew my Monday midday flight would keep me incommunicado for part of that day, but by the time I got home I already had the first few responses and immediately replied. By the end of last week I had shipped out enough books to be reviewed that I felt I should order another two boxes of copies from my publisher, on top of the three cases I ordered before the launch. I also shared a PDF of the full book with numerous other media outlets.

It was a rush. It was exciting. These people get after it and every person I’ve interacted with at Ascot has been fantastic.

Each week they push the email blast one day later, because sending every one of them on four consecutive Mondays means a lot of targets will get the email multiple times while others will never get it. The system works.

Today is the launch date for the second week. I’ve now booked interviews with the #1 morning drive-time radio station in northern New Jersey (just across the Hudson River from a little town called New York) that averages 3 million listeners, and have others pending mutually agreeable dates. Some very high-level and high-impact print and web outlets have agreed to review the book for thousands and thousands of readers. I’m all in.

Today alone, I confirmed a radio interview, a placement in Woodbury Magazine, and three other reviews. Bring it on Ascot Media Group!  They hardworking smart people, and so far they’ve absolutely delivered as promised. It’s up to me to do engaging interviews and spread the word.

As the head of the agency said, “I can promise you that we’ll be fully involved in this, but it won’t work if you’re not doing the same. Be all in. Reply promptly to every email. Book every interview.”

I only signed with them for one month, but if the results keep up this pace I think I’ll add a second month, at least. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: This isn’t about selling enough incremental books in a month or two in order to justify the fee I pay. It’s about building my personal brand and making a real mark in the world of authorship. I have to take the step up from “Former athlete and NHRA PR guy has now written a book or two” all the way to “Author Bob Wilber has released his third book to rave reviews.” Or my fourth book… Or my fifth…  I’ll keep writing and I’ll keep working to build the brand and write stuff people enjoy.

Yes, I’m pretty much locked in on what’s next in terms of book projects, but I’ll keep that undercover until the promotion of  How Far? has finished its course and I get ready to start the process again. I’ll continue to write and publish as long as I’m mentally and physically capable. Here’s hoping this old guy can do that for many more years and many more books.

And I feel the personal need to mention the fact that none of this would have happened without Elon Werner. Elon stepped in to do my PR for both books when they launched. His resume’ of having somehow expertly handling the PR for the media tornado that is the 16-time NHRA Funny Car World Champion John Force made my new writing career a “real thing” when it had always just been a dream. He did it as a “passion project” as he put it. Without that effort, I’d still be mostly an unknown who sold a few books. I’ll be forever grateful for his great work and amazing results, and forever thrilled that Elon’s new agency is rocking like I knew it would when he went out on his own. He’s a gem, a great friend, and a super-talented PR guru.

You know, the funny thing is not just that I was a PR rep for much of 22 years in the NHRA world. It’s that throughout that time I knew the value of a talented and solid PR plan, but it’s so hard to really see tangible results, real bottom-line results, from that perch. Now… I’m the client and I’m seeing it. I’m replying to inquiries, sending out books, scheduling interviews, and so much more. It’s a real thing. It works. Without Elon and now Ascot Media Group, I’d still be a nobody.

And here’s hoping we can keep Buster and Boofus as happy as any cats can be.

See you all again soon. Huge thanks to all of you who read this every time I post a new installment. Can you believe that I’ve been writing my blog for 17 years???  Crazy.

Send Buster some good vibes, please.

And again, if you read this and enjoyed it please click on the “Like” button at the bottom. Buster will get a kick out of that and more of his favorite treats!

Photos below…

BW

 

 

One of the most common questions I’ve heard, since the day I launched my actual creative writing career after retiring from the real world (if a life in sports like baseball, soccer, and drag racing can even be considered the real world) is “How did you do that? How did you even know where to start or how to do it?”

My general answer is something along the lines of “Well, I didn’t know. I just thought I could, so I dove in and started swimming. You can do some amazing things if you’re afraid you’re going to sink.”

It’s not really that simple, of course. If I gave the best answer I could come up with, with lots of details and heartfelt feelings, I’d be talking to only myself in short order, after the questioner slowly backed away and sneaked out of the room. Let’s just boil it down to this: Writing good sentences and paragraphs came easy. Turning it all into my first project, a 545-page book about myself, was not. There’s a ton of self-doubt and worry involved. And that was just my autobiography! I already knew the story and the characters going in. I didn’t need to make anything up. I just had to tell the stories.

In How Far? I had my baseball character Brooks Bennett write about his school years, with a focus on the fact that math and numbers just came easily and naturally to him. He was less accomplished on the creative side, but numbers were like puzzle pieces that spoke to him. I felt worthy of putting those words in Brooks’ voice, because I’m the opposite and I truly don’t understand it when I hear guys like him explain how easy math is. I wrote the book (sorry to break this to you, but Brooks doesn’t exist except in our minds) and that allowed me (or forced me) to delve into one concept that has fascinated me since high school.

There are different types of people. There, I’ve said it. OK, what I’m talking about is intelligence as a whole, but specialties in specific. I don’t really know if it’s “left brain” or “right brain” but I’m the creative guy. I knew I could write (horribly at first) as early as sixth grade when I won a St. Louis city-wide essay contest. It came naturally, but like any skill it had to be honed and sharpened. For many years. In different formats and styles. I had some stout DNA to work with, as well. My mother was an amazing writer. She gets the credit for putting me on this path.

Math and I don’t get along. It’s not even a polite detente. It’s quite contentious. It’s oil and water, lawns and weeds, dogs and cats, you name it. Even to this day, I’m forever thankful for the invention of calculators and don’t trust myself with much more than the basic formulas for leaving a good tip and coming up with the new total. Math befuddles me. It makes no sense. It’s HARD! Science fascinates me, but it too is over my head. I struggled in school once we got beyond the periodic table and into more ethereal stuff. But boy oh boy, I could write. I had that going for me.

So how did I know I could write not one, but TWO books in very different styles and genres? I still don’t know a better answer than “I just knew I could. I knew I’d have to master this corner of the writing world, but I’m a quick learner when watching my mentors and seeing how they do things.”

I figured, perhaps with some arrogance and cockiness, that I could figure it out and make it work. But “making it work” wouldn’t be enough. I had to make it work and also make it good. That’s a whole new level. The best part was, I had no trepidation about being up for the challenge. Maybe I was just foolish enough to try it.

To be clear, I think being a writer and being an author are two very different things. I’ve been a writer for most of my life. I’ve written more press releases, proposals, scripts, and Year In Review binders than I care to even come close to counting. And on top of all of that, there’s blog writing in what little spare time I’ve had left. Jumping into the “author world” was a huge leap into a canyon that seemed to have no bottom. You know the cliche. It was a leap of faith, and the faith had to be in myself. No one was going to save me if I failed and no one could do it for me. I couldn’t peer over Joe Shea’s shoulder in high school to copy his math test. I just had to believe.

I’ll never forget January 6, 2016 when I sat at my desk in our home out in Spokane, and typed the first words of Bats, Balls, & Burnouts. That was the leap. It was almost too overwhelming at first. I’ll admit that. It nearly scared me into a sort of writing paralysis. Why? Because it was one of those deals where I had to learn as I went, but I also had to start before I’d learned. Right? Starting was the hardest part, so I gave myself a break and instead started by writing an outline and firmly deciding on the format.

At one point, with Bats, Balls, & Burnouts, I had a lofty idea about making it meander between the past and the present, alternating back and forth as if that would absolutely prove to the world that I was damn special and could do anything.

I tried that for a few “test pages” and I knew it wasn’t right. I had a phenomenal mentor/editor at my instant disposal, in the person of Greg Halling. Greg was my leader, my inspiration for getting better, and the guy who was constantly steering me with gentle pushes and tugs to get me out of my “PR style” and into actual creative writing. With that crazy format, we both agreed I was attempting to pick up a bow and arrow for the first time and hit an apple at 50 yards. I wrote to him, “I think I’m just going to write it straight forward. No tricks. No games. Just linear and chronological.” His instant response was “I’m for that.” I could almost hear his exhale of relief between the words.

I can still go back through that book and clearly see the growth. It happened pretty quickly, actually. I absolutely hate the first chapter, and don’t much like a few right after that, but before long I had hit my pace and picked up enough knowledge from my fearless mentor to sense the growth. All in all, I’m really proud of it, despite Chapter 1. I can pick it up today and randomly read a chapter and smile. It’s like, “Damn. I wrote that. It’s pretty good…”

Then came the next great challenge. I thought Bats, Balls, & Burnouts was hard when I did it. It was. And it was a whole new challenge in my life. With How Far? I was leaping off yet another cliff. Higher still and way more scary. I never really seriously considered that I’d fail at Bats, Balls, & Burnouts. I think I just figured “How bad could it be? It’s my life. I just have to make it palatable.”

How Far? was a whole different animal. Fiction? Historical Fiction? Historical Fiction in a sports setting? Gimme a break. I actually thought I could do that? Who the hell was I to dare even thinking that?

Again, I didn’t know. Perhaps I’m just a combination of reckless, clueless, and arrogantly confident, so I took the dive.

It took a very long time to write it. Mostly because I started with no established deadline. I was going to take as long as I needed. With Bats, Balls, & Burnouts I felt I had a deadline. The reason for that was the Kickstarter campaign I’d done and all the money I raised to actually make the book happen. Writing it was a job and an obligation. People gave me money to do it! I never planned for it to take exactly one year, but that felt like a reasonable deadline from the first day. It was just luck or fate that had me finish the first draft on January 6, 2017. One year. To the day. Possibly to the minute. Weird, but rewarding.

With How Far? I just got started and tried to find my way in this strange new land where I barely spoke the language. There were issues getting started. You probably don’t know this, but almost all of Chapters 1 & 2 were tossed in the trash as failures. I overwrote them, tried too hard, and hated the result. Greg would never admit to hating anything I did, but he gently guided me back to the beginning and I started again, being more efficient and way less wordy and flowery. And the key was to remember to write in my characters’ voices. I had to keep me out of it. That was a very large adjustment, but I was conscious of it every day I wrote.

I decided to clear my head and focus on the two characters for a few weeks. I just wrote about them, for my own sake. I taught myself about them, and how they’d talk, and how they acted, and what they looked like. You can’t write as two fictional people without really knowing them. That was the right approach.

Months went by. I’d write a chapter, save it and share it with Greg, and typically wouldn’t start the next one until he had his comments and edits back to me and I made the adjustments. More time spent. The months were flying by.

And about those edits and comments. Working in Google Docs, Greg could access my drafts and go in there to make tweaks or fix clunky bits, and then I’d get it back and see those edits, along with his comments in the margin. I’ll give myself credit for this: I never took that lightly. I seriously and earnestly tried to learn from every edit and suggestion. My goal was to be a vastly different writer as we went. And, without planning it, that played perfectly into the words I wrote in the voices of Brooks and Eric. If they were real, and if they were athletes who were writing a book for the first time, one would assume they’d have their versions of Greg Halling helping them. They are both smart guys, and very perceptive, but they sounded different from each other and they wrote differently. They would, though, get better at it as they went. I did that too. Which means they did it. It was a natural flow and progression.

But the months were flying by. I’d spent a year and a half and only had about 18 or 20 chapters done. The finish line was not only out of sight, it wasn’t even on my radar.

And here’s another aside about writing projects like How Far?  It is VERY physical. It’s intellectually exhausting, creatively tiring, but also really physical. I have no idea how some prolific writers crank out 300-page novels every few months or so. Yes, I am retired and didn’t have to share my time between work obligations and the book, but my body would tell me when to take a break or slow down. I do have some arthritis, and my hands would often start to tell me they’d had enough and needed an hour off. I’d usually go for a calming scenic drive, with the steering wheel heater on to give my knuckles a chance to loosen up and feel better. I have a severely compressed disc in my upper back in the cervical area. Typing on a laptop makes that nerve “buzz” after a while. It’s buzzing right now, just writing this blog. The discs in my lower back are damaged as well, so there’s that. After four hours of nonstop writing, the first challenge is to stand up straight. It’s the price of doing this business.

Finally, around the end of 2020, I knew I had to create a finish line. I had to have a target. I had to have a deadline. Self-imposed, of course, but a deadline nonetheless. I wanted it done by the middle of 2021. My first deadline was March. That became May. I finished the draft on July 4th. And as has been well documented, I spent five days in the hospital not long after that. Like I said, writing this much is very physical. And I stopped taking care of myself. I slept little and sometimes not at all. I alternated between being “locked in” as I wrote to being absolutely useless when I wasn’t. The stress drove everything into hyperdrive. I finished the draft on the 4th of July, and it almost finished me. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but when they told me to get to the hospital in an hour after looking at my CT scan, the doctors weren’t exaggerating. It could have been serious.

All of my charts, results, and doctor’s reports are on a website and I can go back and read all of that whenever I want to. I don’t usually want to but I did a few months back and I could see something in their words that is just “so me” it made me shake my head. Comments like “Patient shows no signs of pain or discomfort and is in good spirits.” This was when I had four different IVs going and serious looking specialist doctors coming and going all day and all night. It was like, OK I might be sick but I’m going in with a positive attitude and I’ll walk out of here just fine. And I did.

And then the book was edited, proofed, and published and off we went into another abyss unlike any leap I’d taken to that point. We were playing in a different league. Fiction is the most popular genre in publishing. Historical fiction is a subsection that is populated by serious “Major League” authors of enormous repute who mostly have awards and accolades to spare. Then there was me.

Why on Earth did I think I could play at that level? I must have been a fool, or I must have convinced myself that I was really SERIOUSLY only doing this for myself. I had to convince myself that I wouldn’t care if nobody read it and I sure didn’t think anyone would like it more than a friend who might typically say something nice just to be supportive. “I read your book. It was good. Congrats.”

Self doubt. Man, when it creeps in it’s a bit like getting the yips when you’re putting for par. The simplest thing you’ve done a million times becomes enormously daunting.

Since the publication of the book I’ve gone through peaks and valleys that would look like a sine wave if charted out. One day I’ll feel an enormous sense of accomplishment, and the next I’ll read some reviews of other books released by my publisher, ones that have won major awards, and I’ll feel myself shrink in size until I’m a tiny little man who can almost stand on his laptop keyboard to step on the keys. It really never fails. I’ll get word from a reader or a truly trusted friend who has just finished How Far? and listen to them shower me with praise and effusive descriptions of how the book made them laugh and cry, all within two paragraphs. That makes it all so worthwhile, but it’s fleeting.

I can describe the praise as some sort of “writer’s high” but it’s fleeting, as I just said. My default setting, when I’m sitting here in a vacuum with no external input, is one of skepticism and doubt. All those other books I see my publisher touting, with feature stories and rave reviews? Those are real. I’m just me. I’m an amateur. I’m glad I did this and I’m proud of it, but it has to rank at the bottom of the big picture, right? It’s just me.

That never really goes away. Is it motivating? It sure doesn’t feel that way, but I suspect it is. Otherwise, why would I have tackled these projects in the first place? Why would I have had the utter audacity to write my autobiography as my first book when my “fame” was contained to a neat little group of family, neighbors, friends, drag racing fans, and blog readers? There’s confidence in there somewhere. Somewhere deep. The doubt just screams louder.

And then I took another giant leap by signing with Ascot Media Group to represent me in a full PR and publicity program. Yes, they represent plenty of retired people (dreamers) who have tried their hands at the author game, but they also represent a good number of established writing stars. Award winners. Best sellers. And I’m just me. We launch the campaign in about three weeks. My doubting brain says to me, “They can’t help you. You’re a fraud.” My confident self says “They play in the big leagues. They will take you to another level. This is REALLY important, so be ready to rock it.”

I’m smart enough to consciously know my confident self is the right one. The doubt is just noise. It’s a bit like the internet and social media. The haters and the jealous scream the loudest and call you names. You have to know the belief that what you’re doing is at least good, and maybe very good. Probably not noble or important, but good. It has to be good.

So that’s me. This “relaunch” with Ascot has me excited. I’m ready to rock. I wish it was starting today.

And I’ve opened my PDF of How Far? quite a few times over the past few weeks. I read the first 12 chapters over the last couple days. I’ve read the middle chapters and the final rush to the finish recently, as well. Like a movie, the book has to start a bit slow just to establish the characters and their backgrounds. As it gets going, the pace picks up. When it comes to the culmination, it’s flying. Writing it was that way. Methodical and careful to start, creating more pace and emotion in the middle, and then absolutely screaming at Mach 1 to the climax, with my own emotions totally on edge as I took Brooks and Eric through it all.

You know what? I really like it. I smile a lot when I’m reading it. The doubt is silenced and sent to the corner. It’s damn good stuff. I really believe that it’s the best work of my life.

When people tell me about laughing and crying when reading it, I often say “I get it and that makes me very proud. Hell, I laughed and cried when I wrote it” and I’m totally serious about that. The characters touched me. I know them. They are my friends. It was my responsibility to bring them to life. I think I did. Whew. This has really been a thrill ride, to say the very least.

Thanks for reading. And thanks, in advance, to any of you who will click on the “Like” button below. Likes beget more likes and more eyeballs. I want to share this book with the widest possible audience. A good PR and publicity agency will do that, and so will word of mouth. I just want to share what I created. Feel free to share this link with your friends if you’re so inclined.

When looking back and analyzing all of this, I often hear the late star relief pitcher Tug McGraw in my head, shouting “Ya Gotta Believe!” or Coach Herb Brooks telling his Olympic team “You were born to be hockey players” but he changes the words to “You were born to be an author.” I do think it was meant to be.

Thanks Mom. And thank you Greg Halling, Phil Burgess, Barbara Doyle, Kelly Wade, Elon Werner, Terry Blake and so many others who challenged me, led me, taught me, corrected me, and drove my passion. There’s a piece of all of you in every word I write. And thanks to Paul Broten, Brian Raabe, CJ Eick, Jeff Morton, Dave St. Peter, Del Worsham and a long list of others who gave me the insight, the feelings, and the truth about what Brooks and Eric would’ve gone through. Those details in How Far? were imparted to me by a long list of people who lived it and knew it. They were so gracious and unselfish with their time. They “bought in” and that still means more to me than they will ever know.

See ya soon. I want to go say hello to Brooks and Eric again before the rest of my day spins out of control…

Bob

PS: If you’ve yet to read either one (or both) of my books, you know where to find them. Rhymes with Schmamazon.

Greetings boys and girls. It’s a fine September day in Minnesota, with refreshing temps in the low 60s and a sky so blue they should name a Crayon after it.

Yesterday, Barbara and I went for a walk. We do this often. It sounded like a grand idea. It wasn’t until we were possibly 200 yards from home when Barbara said, “Man, it’s hot and humid! Can we find a walk that has the most shade?”

She was right, and we did. We had both seen the forecast for the rest of the week and, therefore, also agreed that there was surely a thunderstorm or two in our near future. It was 87 and “sticky” when we walked and perspired yesterday. By this morning, it was around 59 or 60. Those changes usually only come at the expense of a cold front hitting hot air. Hence, thunderstorms. We dodged most of it here in our part of Woodbury, but when the hail did crash down it was of the marble to golfball variety. Fortunately, it only lasted a few minutes here. We’ve had a series of storms like this in 2022, and they have resulted in a nearly nonstop cacophony of roofing hammers installing new shingles. Truly, it’s been nonstop, and at least half the homes in our neighborhood have gotten new roofs this summer. We’ve dodged that so far, but it sure would be a shame for anyone who just got a new roof to have had it damaged by last night’s hail.

So, the inevitable nature of cooling temps in September led me to think about all the things in life that are inevitable. Hence, the first part of today’s headline.

For most of my life, one of the cliches I’ve heard the most was the one about sure things in life. Those two things have always been “death and taxes.” The first part of that statement remains undefeated and un-scored upon throughout history. The second part, not so much. We’ve heard for years about a lengthy list of extraordinarily rich people, corporations, and other institutions that pay basically no taxes. That’s a whole rant for another day…

But that all got me thinking about what is inevitable. Things that are beyond our control. As they say in sports, “You can’t stop them. You can only hope to contain them.” Like a great running back or point guard. Here are my thoughts…

Here in Minnesota, climate shifts and weather in general do create differences we have to get used to. Such as, we’ll probably have a lousy autumn in terms of colors on the trees this year. Why? Because it’s been hot and very dry (except for the times when all hell breaks loose and we get ready to hunker down in the utility room.) Ponds are just swamps right now. Rivers are way down. Lakes are often more like ponds. But, we’ll still have winter. That’s inevitable. At least for the foreseeable future. We’ll have lows in the 40s and 50s this week. We’re still weeks away from the first snowfall, but it’s out there. It’s inevitable. And since we originally moved here in 2002, I’ve learned not to hope for a mild winter. “Mild” here means winter temps in the teens or 20s. Why wouldn’t you want that? Because that relative warmth creates heavier and wetter snow. The kind that dumps 18-inches of near concrete in a day or overnight. More standard temps in the low teens or single digits (above or below) create light fluffy snowflakes. The kind you can push around and scrape off the drive, as opposed to the heavy wet stuff that leads to lower back injuries (or worse.) So, anyway, it’s inevitable. We’ll just have to see how bad.

The passage of time is also inevitable, as far as we know for sure. I mean, time travel is actually something real scientists research and hypothesize on these days, but for the rest of us time just keeps grinding on. It just occurred to me that I’ve been “out of college” twice as long as the age I was when I graduated. OK, that sentence was a little hard to follow. Here’s the math: I was 22 when Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville granted me a diploma. OK, I was 22 when my four core years were done. I did go back and pick up some more classes the next year, but we shan’t be picking nits here. I’m 66 now (a number I still can’t process) which means I’ve been a college grad for 44 years. That’s twice my age when I graduated. Time marches on, and it seems to speed up the older you get.

To a great degree, I still think like that kid in college. I think I’m young. At that age, you’re becoming real adults and you either push back on that or embrace it. I embraced it. I felt bulletproof and brilliant. I knew it all. It was a great time to be alive and we maximized the good times we could have. I’m not that kid, though. Not mentally or physically. Things hurt. There no longer seems to be a day when everything is physically perfect. Those days are gone. Knees, ankles, shoulders, spinal discs, and large muscles all announce to me, on a daily basis, “Hey, cool it dude. We’re not 22 anymore…” and then they prove the point to me.

It’s been a month since my epic “double reunion” week in St. Louis. When I spent three days with my former SIUE teammates and roomies, Lance and Oscar, I swear one of the most common themes for conversation focused on ailments. We may still feel like kids, especially around each other and when we’re not anywhere near a mirror, but we’re not. We’re 66. That’s four short years from 70. I’m literally shaking my head just writing that.

Time never slows down, it only speeds up. That’s deep, but it’s the way it feels. We go from being young people whose parents didn’t understand us or the music we listened to, and then in a split second we find we have become those older folks (most of my peers are grandparents now) and we can’t understand the kids these days. And the music? Mostly it’s not even music. It’s just noise. Does that sound familiar? Yeah, it does. We’re crabby old people.

Another thing that seems inevitable, but probably isn’t in the real world, is the continuing letdown we feel as Minnesota sports fans. We moved here in 2002 and the only major championships any local sports teams have won belong to our once-brilliant Minnesota Lynx, of the WNBA. Even they were just 14-22 this year, finishing fifth in a six-team division. The Vikings dominated the Packers in their first game, and all was good, optimistic, and positive. Rainbows and unicorns! They got dismantled by the Eagles this past Monday night and it was “Here we go again…” The Twins were in first place for most of the season, and then basically 90% of their starting lineup went on the Injured List. They are effectively fielding a Triple-A team these days, with  just a couple of core starters physically able to play. The post-season has slipped away. Here we go again. Minnesota United FC was marching up the standings in MLS, and capped that off with a 4-0 stunner of a victory over Everton from the British Premier League. All was good. Soccer was king. And then they lost a few they should’ve won, or got embarrassed completely. Here we go again. The Wild and the Timberwolves? They start soon. Will they bring us joy? There’s one mental ability we Minnesotans do have, and that’s the resolve to always have hope. Maybe this year on the ice. Maybe this year on the court. Maybe. We still show up and cheer.

I clearly remember one key piece of advice I received right before we moved here. We were living in Austin, Texas and loving it. Winter in Austin falls on a Sunday in January. When Barbara got the offer she couldn’t refuse from Lawson Software, we moved to Minnesota. We had no idea what it would be like. Back then, with Del Worsham and the CSK-sponsored Funny Car team, we had a fine relationship with Pepsi, as a significant associate sponsor. I, therefore, dealt with a Pepsi marketing person. I recall his name was Scott but I don’t recall his last name. He lived in the south Twin Cities suburbs, and when we were getting ready to move I talked to him about it. In addition to telling me about wearing layers and having good tires, he said, “It’s pretty simple. Basketball and hockey. They get you through the winter.” Wise words.

So, there you go. The inevitability of so many things can weigh on you, and just proofing this blog I can see it’s weighing on me a little. You can’t let it. You can’t control it, so just let it be. The thing I do the best, with all of this, is maintaining my young attitude. If I close my eyes and avoid trying to throw things, or run, or bend over, I’m still about 30. I just have to avoid mirrors.

On the book front, we continue to move forward with my new PR agency. So far, all is great. I know I’ve picked a winner and they can take me to levels I never imagined (no matter how young I was or how old I may now be.) They have a very talented staff, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of the collaboration. I wish we could launch the PR plan right now, and we could as far as Ascot Media Group is concerned, but it’s wise to wait another month before we hit the ground with it. The last big trip I have scheduled for ’22 is the Doyle family reunion in the middle of October.

When I’m in Pennsylvania for a little more than a week, I’ll be unable to be “on call” for the media who might want to interview me or talk about my books. That would be dumb, so we’ll just wait until I get home from that. I’m terrible at waiting for things I’m pumped up about, but I have to be patient on this one.

I just spent about a week working with Wendy at Ascot. She’s their lead press release writer, and I was truly and honestly blown away by not only how good she is, but how willing she was to collaborate in order to get it all just right. The final product was one of the best and most compelling press releases I’ve ever read, and as you likely know, I’ve written a few. Absolutely top notch.

When we made the decision that I’d take this big step to hire such a successful agency to represent me, both Barbara and I made comments like “This is the big leagues” and it is proving to be just that. Waiting another month will be about as bad as waiting for Christmas when I was a kid, but Christmas never came early and this plan has to be rolled out then. I’ll make the most of it.

So that’s all good. “Just be patient, Bob. It will happen when it needs to happen.” Easier said (or written) than done, but I’m up for it.

On a different subject, my double-reunion weekend last month in St. Louis also included that fantastic Sauget Wizards get-together and I’m still glowing about that. I’ve had time to digest it and reflect on it, and the key for me is a double-whammy of very positive feelings. For one, the Wizards were a very good team made up of truly fantastic guys. Secondly, for some reason I matured into the player I always wanted to be while playing for Bob Hughes on the Wizards. Bob was a remarkable leader and mentor. I learned more from him, about hitting and playing the game the right way, in those years than I did in my entire career before I played for Sauget.

You’d think that playing college baseball on a full scholarship, and then playing professional ball after that would be the ultimate achievement. It might have been if I’d been the hitter I ended up being as a Wizard. I was still trying to catch up and keep my head above water as a college player and a pro. Things changed after I spent parts of five years as a scout for the Blue Jays and couldn’t, therefore, play anymore. When I quit scouting and I joined the Wizards, I think I was about 28 and hadn’t swung a bat in five years. Maybe I just needed the time off from playing. Maybe I’d gotten stronger. Maybe Bob Hughes finally got through to me.

I hit five home runs in college, but three of those were during the summer league, so you’ll never find them on any official stats. Those games were great, but they weren’t part of our NCAA schedule.

As a Sauget Wizard, I don’t really know how many home runs I hit. Did I go deep 100 times? That’s absolutely possible. Maybe more. I also played one season for a team in Fairfax, Virginia and hit five dingers there, in about 30 games, including a dramatic bomb against the Korean National Team. I crushed that one enough that all I did was drop my bat and jog while the left-fielder just spun around to watch it go. And I wrapped up my playing career with a championship team in Kansas City, in 1995. I hit five or six there, and I was about to turn 40.

I could easily look back on that with sadness or regret. Like, “Why couldn’t I put it all together like that as a pro?” but that’s a waste of time and brain power. Instead, I just revel in those Wizards years, with that phenomenal group of guys. It was a different level. A different feeling. A different amount of confidence. A certain player/manager got me there.

Bob Hughes knows this. He doesn’t like to admit it, and he’ll brush you off if you try to tell him, but it’s true. I wouldn’t trade those years with the Wizards for anything. Bob Hughes was the mentor I always needed. I maximized my time with him, and the rest of those guys. It was priceless.

That’s probably enough for this blog installment. It’s all about coming to grips with the moment, as opposed to wishing my youth had never ended or avoiding the here and now.

I always thought I’d be a ballplayer. I never dreamed I’d become an actual author in my 60s. But here I am, on this day, in this place, and it’s magnificent. I’ve got a LOT more to do. And I can’t let the “Here we go again” curse spend a second in my brain. Instead, it’s just “Here we go!”

See you again soon. And, as always, if you liked any of these ramblings please click on the “Like” button at the bottom. And if you’ve read How Far? or my first book Bats, Balls, & Burnouts, and liked them, spread the word.

Now let’s get ready for hockey and basketball. And maybe the Vikings can do some good and learn from that game against the Eagles. And here comes another Minnesota winter.

Bring it on!

My post on LinkedIn yesterday started with these words: “It’s all about branding.”

And that’s what I’m up to. Branding. Not branding cattle, not brands of cereal or automobiles, but instead branding myself as an author.

Why? Because this is what I am now. This is what I do. I write books and hope people enjoy them. I’m not too shy to state that my first two books were very much enjoyed by a wide variety of people. In other words, the reviews have mostly been raves for Bats, Balls, & Burnouts and it’s baby brother How Far? Yes, I’m quite proud of that. When you make the treacherous leap from working for a living to writing for something of a living (let’s be realistic) you shouldn’t expect NY Times best seller status, but you sure want people to say “That was great. I loved it.”

The only thing left hanging there, unrealized as of yet, is establishing a brand for the name Bob Wilber at the bottom of a book cover. I see it this way: Most of my readers to this point, for both books, have been friends, family, blog readers, or people I’ve known in racing, soccer, and baseball. I have yet to break through to the masses, or even a slight sliver of the masses.

As a former PR guy, I know how it works. My friend and former colleague Elon Werner did masterful work publicizing my first book and equally masterful work getting the word out on How Far?

I knew that partnership would likely be short-lived this time around, because Elon started his own PR firm, Werner Communications, and although he couldn’t be certain that it would take off and that clients would line up to retain his services, I was absolutely sure it would go that way. When it did, I knew I’d need to have a Plan B.

My publisher stepped up with a PR and marketing plan, and I was happy to have them do that. They worked at it for a month but basically the needle never moved. They may be a little more skilled at publishing than they are at promotions. Since then, to say sales have flattened out, especially compared to the first two months when I was stunned by our rankings on Amazon, would be an accurate assessment.

I knew why it happened. It was due to the fact that most of those who knew the book was coming were waiting for it. To coin a racing phrase, we “blew the doors off” right out of the gate. Then, by late in the summer, it was literally on me to spread the word through social media or in person. I never go anywhere without a wallet full of business cards.

That’s all great, and we have continued to sell books, but picking up those new sales one-by-one isn’t exactly a great way to improve your ranking on Amazon or gain too many new 5-star reviews. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled with what we’ve sold and I’m humbled by the reviews, but I know there’s a whole reading world out there we’re not yet reaching.

Thanks to the networking one can do on LinkedIn, I received an unsolicited email about 10 days ago from a woman who owns a PR and Publicity agency that specializes in promoting authors and their books. The pitch was interesting enough for me to reply with a quick “OK, I’m game. Tell me more…”

Within 48 hours we’d traded numerous messages and she had supplied me with all the background on her company, her client list, the testimonials other authors had submitted, and the plans the firm offers to make it all work.

I am naturally skeptical of such things. For too many decades I’ve had too many people, agencies, or even potential race car sponsors tell me all the right things, and promise the world. But rarely does the world arrive on a platter. In terms of PR, some just aren’t as good at this sort of thing as they’d like you to think. I should know. I spent more than 20 years as a PR guy. Some are, sadly, just bilking you out of precious money to do basically nothing and report back with “We contacted everyone but got no response.” It’s frustrating.

To get a second set of eyes on the material, I called in my resident business expert. Barbara Doyle, my wife. With nearly 40 years of high-level corporate finance work, at IBM, Lawson Software, Itron, and HB Fuller, she’s seen all the tricks and charades. She knows a con when she sees one.

We sat at my desk and she went through all the emails and the company’s website. She knew what it would cost to sign on the dotted line. She turned to me and said, “They’re for real. This is really impressive. Their client list is incredible. This is the big leagues. You should do this.”

The goal is that brand I wrote of at the top. We need to get past the core group of people who know me, who know how I write, and who trust that I’m for real in a very difficult and competitive landscape.

Am I doing this for a huge return on investment? Not in the short term, and I’m good with that. My royalty structure for How Far? is less than half of what I got for every copy of Bats, Balls, & Burnouts that was sold. Why? Because I made the conscious decision to keep the new book under $30. We had to work hard to do that, but we made it happen. At $50, the first book probably priced itself out of some interested folks’ dollar range. I knew that. By bringing in How Far? at $29.95 my royalty per book took a big hit, because it’s a percentage of the sales price. After the publisher and Amazon take their slices, I get the crumbs that are left. This agency would have to do the near impossible to help me sell enough new copies to provide the royalty payments I’d need to break even. It’s about investing in myself and my future. It’s a long range plan, because I intend to keep writing for a long time.

It’s not even about breaking even. It’s about widening my market. Creating awareness. Getting new eyes on the products I worked so hard to create. That’s branding.

When I joined the St. Louis Storm indoor soccer team as an executive, just two months prior to the first game the team would ever play, I had so many responsibilities it was staggering. Ticket sales, sponsorships, advertising, game production, public relations, game programs, media guides, and even the design of the uniforms, all had to happen in 60 days. I had put a hard-working staff together, and they did a lot of the leg work, but all of it was on my shoulders. The owner expected me to succeed. The pressure was immense.

What did all that all add up to? Branding. We had to make the name St. Louis Storm known to as many people as possible in a very short amount of time, in a very crowded sports market dominated by a popular hockey team and a baseball organization that ranks as one of the all-time best. The two most popular things in St. Louis begin with the letter “B.” Baseball and beer.

If I could, I wanted to make sure everyone in metro St. Louis at least knew the Storm were in town, playing at the venerable and historic St. Louis Arena. We did that. We didn’t sleep much, we worked weekends, and I personally shook as many hands and pitched as many programs as I physically could. On Opening Night, for our first game, 14,500 St. Louisans paid to come see us play. That was branding. Our brand consisted of great indoor soccer talent, a fun atmosphere, wonderful players who embraced the community, and affordable prices. That’s a good brand.

I’m not a soccer team. I’m an author now. But the concept is the same. To spread the word, build the brand, and provide the confidence potential readers need in order to part with their money to buy a copy of whatever I’ve written.

The firm is Ascot Media Group. I spent an hour on the phone with Trish Stevens. It’s her company. We could’ve talked for five hours and I have no doubt she would have done that. I got the answers I wanted. I learned more about the firm. And I signed on the bottom line.

In mid-October, Ascot Media Group will begin promoting me and my work. It will be an official relaunch of How Far? dedicated to reaching new readers, and new potential buyers.

As I’ve said many times, I didn’t retire from my sports career to make big money selling books. I did it to satisfy the need I have to string written words together in some fashion that is enjoyable and engaging. I learned a ton from my editor Greg Halling, on both books. I think How Far? shows that. In terms of a coherent writing style, I had been making it up was I went along with Bats, Balls, & Burnouts and was remarkably stunned by how it was received. I worked twice as hard, and for twice as long, to bring How Far? to life. I’m extraordinarily proud of it. Those who have read it have generally loved it. I get emails and Facebook messages from far and wide, with some of them writing me regularly as they read the book. An author really can’t ask for any better support than that. It’s priceless.

Now it’s time to get to work widening our horizons. We’re going to reach new people. We’re going to tap into new resources and utilize the mass media to spread the word, on my work and on me.

You can’t be shy if you want to do something like this. I’ve learned not to be shy.

Let’s get to work!

And today, I will finish with some other words I’ve written. When I organized the reunion for the Sauget Wizards baseball team, I put together a booklet for every guy. It was a directory, with all our personal info included so that we can all stay in touch, and there was also a section devoted to each guy’s memories of being a Wizard. They were all priceless. Sentences like “the best time of my life” or “the best team I ever played on” were common. The most common theme was just how seriously we took the game, playing it the right way, for the love of the game. I printed the memories alphabetically, knowing that left me for last.

This is what I wrote:

“Like most of the Wizards, I sure played a lot of baseball in my life. Starting with pick-up games with neighborhood kids. No umpires, never enough players, no coaches, and rules we had to make up every time we played, based on the number of players we had. Then grade school ball, high school (St. Louis U. High) followed by the incredible good fortune of landing a scholarship to SIU-Edwardsville, where I got a great education while I was part of two teams that played in the NCAA Division II World Series, and which are now in the SIUE Athletic Hall of Fame.

“At SIUE, I met Bob Hughes, who was an assistant coach for the Cougars. He was a mentor even then, and a great guy we all looked up to. I then got to play professional minor league ball for the Tigers and A’s, in four different towns in three different leagues. Finally, I spent five seasons as a scouting supervisor for the Blue Jays. I loved the game. I still do, and I cherish every single memory and moment.

“But you know what? None of that matches the fun and the rewards I got from playing with the Wizards. Over the years, our always-evolving group may well have been the best fundamental baseball team I ever played for, and we took the games seriously with a huge amount of pride in what we were doing. It was a joy and an honor to be a Wizard, and that starts with Bob Hughes and Jim Greenwald. I consider them to be the purest example of what Wizards baseball really was. Focus, attention, love of the game, playing the game the right way, and enjoying the hell out of every second of it while leaving every ounce of energy and sweat out there on the field (especially during those weekly Sunday doubleheaders.)

“In terms of favorite baseball moments, I had some at every level but the of the best of the very best came as a Wizard. The big wins against great teams. The tension and seriousness of those games against Waterloo and Valmeyer. The big hits and the home runs. Winning championships and the Valmeyer Tournament. Beating the USA team in their home stadium. I even got to manage the Wizards for much of the 1992 season, and that was kind of a “life mission” for me, following in my dad’s footsteps. The best moments, though, were not just snapshots in time. They were the pure joy of the camaraderie, the effort, and the incredible skill my teammates all possessed. It was priceless.

“When people ask me about the most fun I have had playing baseball, the answer is simple: Just being a Sauget Wizard.

“Guys… We didn’t just play ball. We were actual Wizards. WE MADE MAGIC!”

So there you have it. Launching a branding campaign, hopefully reaching new readers and making them happy, and my sincere feelings about having shared the field with so many incredible characters on the Sauget Wizards. All in all, a pretty good blog to share on a rainy Friday.

As always, if you perused these words and sorta-kinda maybe liked what you read, please click on the “LIKE” button at the bottom.

See you again soon…  Here’s a visual representation of what I just wrote about.

 

It’s officially been forever since I last posted a blog. How long is “forever?” Well, in terms of this blog it’s been nearly two months. TWO MONTHS! I’ve been writing this living & breathing thing since August of 2005, and two weeks has always been a long wait between installments. Two months? Geez.

I can recall writing that last one, which was an overview of the priceless group of guys who played with me on the Sauget Wizards, and at the time I was looking forward at the calendar thinking, “This is going to get pretty wild before it all calms down.” I was correct.

Since then, there’s been a trip to Colorado, a trip to Florida, a Fourth of July party with our friends, a retirement party for Barbara, and then “reunion week” for me, as we had our SIUE Roomies Reunion from August 16 to August 19, and then the biggest hullabaloo out of the whole bunch, our Sauget Wizards reunion, right after that. Being a major part of the planning for both of those last two, it was my mission to book them back-to-back, and since Lance and Oscar were both good with our reunion being in St. Louis, I could do that. Having them back-to-back in St. Louis meant I could make one trip for two extravaganzas. Our Wizards reunion was in Sauget, just on the other side of the Mississippi, on August 20. Throw in a gaggle of lunch and dinner plans, and it was a dervish, of the whirling kind.

The good (great) news is that all of it went perfectly well and the concept of “a fabulous time was had by all” ran all the way from start to finish. When I got home from St. Louis I was exhausted. I think I posted on Facebook that the exhaustion level equaled what we all felt after the NHRA Awards Ceremony finally ended each year, capping off yet another 10-month season. For those 10 months, you’re running nonstop. By the time you stumble back to the limo in your tux or formal dress, and put your head against the back of the seat, all the energy drains out of you in an instant. All that adrenalin is gone. You’re asleep before the limo driver has you out of Hollywood.

This last stretch has been like that. And on the flight home Sunday, I was asleep before they closed the door on the plane. Considering I almost never sleep on planes, that’s about all you need to know. That night at home I actually didn’t sleep all that well, probably just due to my entire body and mind being totally out of whack, and by Monday morning I knew what that felt like. It was exactly like waking up in London or Amsterdam after an overnight flight and feeling that total out-of-body feeling of utter jet lag. Apparently, planning and implementing so many trips and big occasions feels like jet lag. I’ve proven it, scientifically!

So, as not to overdo it or put too much reading strain on you, I’m going to give a brief replay of all I’ve done since the last time I was here. And then, just to keep it simple, I’ll post a bunch of photos and captions at the bottom.

Barbara’s brother Jim lives north of Denver, in the town of Berthoud, and his clan was celebrating a birthday for one granddaughter, and the fact her little sister is quickly becoming the cutest child in captivity, and another niece was introducing her new son to us, as well. Lots of new family members out there near the Rockies. The party was pretty spectacular and all three new additions to the family are priceless, smart, and funny.

As a bonus, the Colorado Avalanche were playing in the Stanley Cup Finals and Jim is a big fan. We watched at their house, and I’ve never seen him so nervous. Literally afraid to look at the TV a few times, while cautioning himself not to get too excited too soon. “There’s still a lot of time left. They haven’t won it yet…”

When the final minute rolled around, and a Stanley Cup for the Colorado boys was assured, Jim was… A) Over the moon. B) Very excited. C) Yelling like crazy. Or, D) Emotional as any diehard sports fan can be when their favorite team achieves the ultimate goal. Answer: All of the above.

After that short trip, we had our annual Fourth of July get together with our best friends from the old neighborhood, and it was great (as always). The first thought that came to my mind, once we all settled into our chairs to watch the fireworks, was just how different this year’s celebration was as opposed to the year before. I had, quite literally, just finished principal writing for my book “How Far?” that very day, and I was worn out and not feeling well at all. That old exhaustion thing, again, but this time it was from putting nearly two full years of my life into creating that book, and doing so at my own physical peril. It wasn’t until much later that I looked at photos from the 2021 gathering and noticed how I looked. I looked dazed, confused, and like a shell of myself. Some people had mentioned the fact I didn’t seem to feel well, or have any energy, and boy were they right. As we all know, I found myself in the hospital for five days not too long after that. This year was much better. I’m a new me!

Late in the month, we hosted two of the nicest young people I’ve met in a long time, as one of Barbara’s second cousins and her boyfriend arrived from the east coast due to the small little detail of them actually moving to Minneapolis!

Their apartment in the North Loop section of downtown was delayed a bit, so we offered our lower level as their private hideaway until they could officially move in. Torie and Will were fantastic. I had been a little worried about the fact they were arriving with a large rental truck, as well as two dogs, a cat, a gecko, and a small python, but it all worked out fantastically. They’re both great young people just now launching into a life of devotion to each other and to work, just as Barb was heading toward the finish line after more than 35 years of a nonstop career in corporate finance. It was great to have the kids and the managerie with us, and since Will is a former college soccer player we had a lot to talk about. They’re all settled in Minneapolis now, in a cool loft apartment, and are loving it. Winter hasn’t come yet…  Just sayin’

By the time that was over, the next big thing was on the horizon. Monday, August 1st would be Barbara’s final day at work. Retirement loomed and a party was a given. It wasn’t going to be a surprise, so Barb had a lot of input on what she was hoping for and how it would go, but I was in charge of making it all happen and having our home ready for guests that night, after she officially “clocked out” of her office at H.B. Fuller that day.

Having a party on a Monday night isn’t usually the best way to go, but we wanted it to be an actual timely celebration of a career well lived and well spent. Our friends, and quite a few neighbors, made sure it was

Our next big excursion was another trip to Orlando, to visit with the “Twincesses” Bella and Stassi as well as Barbara’s sister Kitty and niece and nephew, Todd and Angie. Orlando was, get this: Hot and steamy. I actually think writers’ style books should now consider “Orlando” and “hot and steamy” to be synonyms. Like, ask a person in St. Louis how the weather is and they might say, “It’s so Orlando I don’t even want to go outside.”

We were just a few days early for the girls’ sixth birthday, but it was the only way we could make the schedule work and they were happy to have us there because, well, they love us and also that meant they had a minimum of two parties. We had a marvelous time, and the new pool Todd and Angie have had put in was a big reason for that. We frolicked, we cavorted, and we swam. Bella and Stassi are like fish. Todd and Angie got them started with swimming lessons when they were very young, and now they are as comfortable under the water as they are out of the pool. I love cavorting. Frolicking is great, too.

Keep in mind. Throughout all of this I was obsessed with the planning and organization of the party for Barb and two different reunions. And I do mean obsessed. With so much going on at nearly the same time, I knew I had to be as organized as my scattered brain will let me be, so kept spreadsheets, notes, and full file folders for every event.

I worked hard at reaching as many former Wizards as I could find, and got a lot of help from the guys who I was already in touch with. My goal was to have at least 20 at the reunion, to be held in a catered private area at the Gateway Grizzlies minor league game in Sauget. I felt like that was a reasonable target, and it was one that would make it all worth while.

I then decided to create a directory for everyone, which I would distribute at the gathering. I thought, “This has been a real effort to find as many guys as I have. We all ought to have that contact information whenever we want it.” So that became the next obsession. Collecting info, formatting the spiral-bound books, creating a cover, and more. I figured, if we were going to have a directory we should have a section for everyone’s memories of being a Sauget Wizard, whether it was one game or just the whole experience. Those ended up being fantastic. Great work guys! And while I was at it, I figured we should have a photo section in the back. It kept me busy.

As for the SIUE Roomies Reunion, that necessitated a great deal of planning as well but all three of us were involved in what the plans were. The key thing was where we would stay. In the beginning, with these reunions, we tended to stay in hotels. After a while, we made the shift to AirBNB and Vrbo properties, so we could have the run of a full house, make our own meals, and each have a bedroom and bath but all under one roof.

Our first goal was to find something unusual, in a part of St. Louis we didn’t all spend much time in. As Lance put it perfectly, “I don’t want to go to St. Louis and just do stuff we’ve been doing since we were kids. Let’s try something different.”

It was a great idea, and between Lance and me we scoured the interwebs for rental houses in the part of town known as the Central West End. It’s an older and very historic part of the city, and basically it’s very urban and classic, located just east of Forest Park.

We had a bunch of options, almost all of which were entire homes that had been completely renovated. Every time we’d land on one that seemed really intriguing, something would make us change our minds. All of them were in stable neighborhoods, but a few were just a block or two away from areas that haven’t yet gone through the rebirth St. Louis is experiencing. A small number looked great, had all we needed, and were priced right, and then we’d read the reviews. If even one of them said “We loved the place, but there’s no private parking, and our car was broken into” or something like that, that spot was nixed. We finally had to give up.

I’d always been interested in staying out in Kirkwood, where I grew up. The town has never really gone through a down time, but right now it’s about as vibrant as it’s ever been. Finally, after too many disappointments around the Central West End, we all agreed that maybe the quiet suburban life out in Kirkwood would be just fine. It’s only a 20-minute drive to downtown and Busch Stadium, and it’s a very walkable city with a cool little downtown area.

We found a place just blocks from downtown Kirkwood and locked it up. It looked really cool, and the location was superb!

Then, after we’d all seen the TV reports of huge rain storms and widespread flooding in the St. Louis region, I got the email I was hoping to not get. Our host who owns the home, Johnny, broke the news that house had suffered flood damage and would not be ready by the time we got there. He arranged for 100% of our funds to be reimbursed. And then he mentioned that he did have one more house in that part of west St. Louis County, although it was a little further out.

It was a five bedroom, four bath house, completely renovated from top to bottom, out in a gated community surrounding a golf course. It wasn’t exactly walkable, and it was 15 minutes from Kirkwood which made it about 35 minutes from downtown, but we took it. The plethora of couches and huge flatscreen TVs, along with all the wildlife in the area, and the huge kitchen, not to mention the indoor putting green, all went into our decision.

Bottom line, it was amazing in its own way. The community is pretty remote in one of the last parts of the county to not yet experience massive suburban sprawl, and as such it was quite a drive on very narrow roads just to get to it, but the house was fantastic. We all met there on Tuesday the 16th.

Oscar had brought binoculars once he saw the listing and photos of deer and other animals. He didn’t need them. The deer (many of them) literally came right up to greet us when we arrived. They were the welcoming committee.

The location was a challenge in terms of any of us memorizing the many turns and merges we had to make just to get to I-44, but it was also stunningly quiet, beautiful, and very comfortable. It felt like home as soon as we all walked inside.

The first night, Oscar made pork chops on the grill and whipped up a stupendous salad made from produce he had gotten from the many farmers near his home in the town of Strasburg, Illinois. The boy can cook, and the fresh produce was terrific.

The second night, we went to the Cardinals game and sat in the “Dugout Box” section just behind first base. Again, a “home run” if you’ll pardon the pun. We also found time to make the short drive to Kirkwood and spend a few hours there. It’s a happening place, and I think both Oscar and Lance really loved it.

We toured around, we ate great food, and we binge-watched a little TV to cap off each day. On Thursday, we devised a treat that we were all looking forward to. At one point in our college history, Lance, Oscar, and I lived together with a different fourth roomie. I said to him, on the phone before we got there, “Hey, we have a chance to have all four roomies from that last apartment together again. Let’s do it.” That fourth roomie (back in 1979-80) was a wonderful young lady by the name of Theresa Natta. She was Oscar’s girlfriend back then, and we all became fast friends. We were sort of like a “Four’s Company” version of the old TV show “Three’s Company” and we all got along fantastically. Theresa still lives in St. Louis, in a very historic part of town called Dogtown, right across the highway from Forest Park and the St. Louis Zoo. We met at a fine establishment called Seamus McDaniel’s, a local corner pub that serves great food. Suffice to say, we had a marvelous wonderful stupendous time as Lance, Oscar, Wilbs, and T Natta were all together again.

Lance headed home to Raleigh early the next morning, and Oscar followed suit not long after that, driving back to Strasburg (which for geographical purposes can be located just north of Effingham.) I did one last sweep through the house to leave it exactly as Johnny requested and not long after wrote a 5-Star review on Vrbo for him. He’s a heck of a host. Every text or email was answered at once, and the house was fantastic.

After I relocated to the Hilton, across from Busch Stadium, I had another dinner date on Friday, and it again involved a former girlfriend of one of my roomies. After we got out of school, Lance dated a great young lady named Sheri Sanders for a number of years. I got to know Sheri well, since I was one of Lance’s best buddies, but they ended up going their separate ways after a bit.

It was not too long ago that I somehow found Sheri, or she found me, or who knows what, on social media. She’s married to Leo, and after all these years she’s still flying as a flight attendant. That’s what she was doing (for long-gone Ozark Airlines) when she met Lance. Our original contact had a lot to do with Bats, Balls, & Burnouts because Sheri was reading it while she traveled and spent nights in hotels around the country, now working for American Airlines. She loved the book, and took great joy in describing everything she was reading in terrific detail, with amazing insight. As just about any author would, I loved the feedback, and the fact it was all so positive gave me a ton of confidence and made me very happy with the finished product.

So, figuring she’d almost surely be on a work trip, I sent her a note a week or so before the reunion to see if she and her husband Leo would be free for dinner. Much to my happy amazement, they were free and eager to meet.

We got together about halfway between downtown and the part of West County they live in, and spent a good two hours at the restaurant. Only part of that time was spent in the actual act of eating. We just talked nonstop. Leo is a great guy (Lance had already told me that, and he was right) and Sheri is now reading How Far? and loves the depth of the two main characters. I ought to hire her to be my own personal book review critic! It was great to see her, and fantastic to meet Leo. An evening well spent.

The next day would be the Wizards reunion, but that wasn’t until about 6:00 that night, so I had another plan in mind. I’ve gotten to know Elon Werner’s daughter Abby pretty well over the years. She was just a kid when she’d show up with her mom and brother at a few NHRA races, to watch Dad work his PR magic for John Force and get to meet all the drivers. Then, much to my incredulity, she graduated from high school and went off to college to attend the University of Missouri, otherwise known to just about everyone as Mizzou. She sped through school like a champ and we all knew she’d have a bright future. That future is now, as she landed a job with a St. Louis-based marketing firm. She and her boyfriend Adam live in the community of Richmond Heights, again not too far from Forest Park. We met on The Hill, and had a phenomenal meal at Zia’s. Abby is something special, and as I got to know Adam over lunch I could tell they were a perfect match.

Abby hasn’t been in St. Louis too long, so we just absolutely had to go to The Hill, right? After that, a little cruising around to show them some parts of the city Abby was supposed to be unfamiliar with. I said, “So tell me where you haven’t been yet but want to go” and when I started listing stuff off, she’d already seen most of it. So the consensus was I’d show them both around the part of town I’m from, meaning Kirkwood and the surrounding suburbs. It was fun and the conversations never lagged. Then I had to hustle back to downtown to get ready for the crowning event of the week. The Sauget Wizards reunion.

After all that work and all that planning, I’m thrilled to say that it was a smash hit and all the guys had a great time. A few brought scrapbooks, we had one of our league championship trophies to admire, and everyone was very appreciative of the directory books I brought with me.

I can just sum it up by saying it was a truly priceless evening. We did so much together as a team. The winning, whether it was individual games, or championships, or tournaments, was great and we’ll never forget it. Our almost unfathomable victory over Team USA, which was stocked top to bottom with future big league stars and No. 1 draft picks was, of course, the topic of much of the conversation. We all have vivid memories of that. We’ll never forget what we did, on that one night in Millington, Tennessee against at team we could never beat “on paper.” But, baseball isn’t played on paper. It’s played on the field. And on that June night in 1989 we surprised a lot of people, including ourselves.

All the guys were beaming, and so was I. It was an unforgettable night. It was an unforgettable week. It was an unforgettable couple of months. At times, it was a lot of work but I loved it. It really couldn’t have gone any better.

And so here we are. My aforementioned exhaustion is gone and we look forward to all the upcoming challenges and adventures.

I’ll leave you with this teaser. An idea came to me a couple days ago. Just the seed of a thought. And, as I ruminated on it and let it flesh itself out, I might just have the concept for the third book. Not sure yet, and it is once again a completely different concept and style, but that was what I loved about How Far? the most. It was outside my comfort zone and experience. Why not keep that up?

You know me. I’ll keep you posted!

And hey, once again I’m sorry for being gone so long, but now you know why.

If you got through this and smiled at least once, please click on the “Like” button at the bottom.

I’ll see you again soon. I promise.

Some random photos are delivered below, free of charge.

Oh… Almost forgot. If you’ve still been waiting to buy Bats, Balls, & Burnouts now may be the perfect time. After five years, Amazon has finally substantially discounted the price. Same book. Same stories. Now only $30.41

You can click here to read about it and order it:

http://bobwilber.net

BW

 

Sorry. We’re not going to the Emerald City. We’re going to Sauget, Illinois, which is a good thing.

You see, I just figured it was time to write the words “And now for something completely different” here on the blog. I hope you used your best John Cleese voice for that.

I’ve been writing a blog, not just any blog but this blog to be precise (although it spans two different generations, locations, and countless themes) since 2005. That means I’ve been writing this mess for something like 17 consecutive years while also writing a lot of press releases, stories, and two exceedingly long books. That’s insane. Nuts, I tells ya.

When I started this adventure way back when, at NHRA.com, I truly wondered if I had enough material and a vast enough imagination to get through an entire month. I guess we made it. Good for us! I couldn’t have done it without all of you. I guess I could have, but what’s the value in writing a blog in a vacuum? Nobody hears those trees when they fall…

But now, on this installment, we finally break through and provide a single theme that stretches between two web locations, using multi-media, while tying a whole long story together. It’s about time…

Here’s the first disclaimer. This blog will link you to a site where you can see a lot of baseball stuff, but as of today you can also see a few rudimentary videos. The warning is this: You’re not going to see any cutting edge modern technology. These videos were shot on a bulky old VHS camcorder, the kind you balanced on your shoulder, and were then later transferred to a DVD about 25 years later. It was “raw footage” in every way, which means for every minute of good stuff there were many more minutes of blurry nonsense. To edit, I played that DVD on my big screen home theater and recorded the small parts I wanted for this exercise on my iPhone 12. That’s what you’ll see. Modern smart-phone tech being used to show some truly ancient tech. The only way it could be more ancient would be if the original footage was shot on film, in Super-8. (And a percentage of readers just thought, “What the heck is Super-8?)

I’ve written about the Sauget Wizards baseball team many times, here on the blog and in my first book Bats, Balls & Burnouts. You probably know this, but I played for that stellar semipro team after my professional baseball career was over. I was a Wizard for close to a decade, but there were a couple of summers in there when I was living out of town, so I missed those.

I’ve told stories of the guys on that team. They are some of the best players I’ve ever shared a dugout with. I’ve shown old photos. I’ve waxed poetic about everyone from our illustrious player/manager Bob Hughes to our one-in-a-million batboy Ray Schott.

Now you get to see some of these heroes in action. They were my heroes. I never played with a finer bunch of guys.

Once the loose concept of a Wizards reunion (our first such reunion ever) finally gained some traction, I took it upon myself to be the guy who coordinated it. We are set for August 20, and we’ll meet at a real professional game actually being played in Sauget. The Gateway Grizzlies are Sauget’s team now, in the Frontier League. We just paved the way for them.

As part of the reunion, I launched a Facebook Group Page, where former Wizards can share stories, read old clippings, and even see some photos of us back when we were young and could still do extraordinary things like running and throwing.

Now, I’m putting some of these ancient videos on that site. I’ve chosen some key clips from our trip to Millington, Tennessee where we beat the USA team in a thrilling upset for the ages. I’ve also added a few from the legendary Valmeyer Tournament, which just concluded its annual run yesterday in Valmeyer, Illinois. Congrats to the Belleville team for winning it all. It’s a tough tournament to win, but it’s a wonderful experience. Been there, done that, wouldn’t trade it for much of anything.

I’ll post the direct link to the FB page at the bottom, but first… Here’s a synopsis of the guys who made up two particular Wizards teams. I’ve chosen the 1988 and 1989 clubs. Why? Because in ’88 we won the league championship, which was another tough mountain to climb, and in ’89 we beat the USA team, which might have been akin to climbing Mount Everest.

Most of those two teams were made up of the same guys, but there were a few classic (and very talented) Wizards who were on one or the other, but not both. The team had some mainstays over the years, but also evolved every season with new guys coming as other guys left.

So, it’s my mission to let you get to know a lot of these guys better, before you watch the videos.

Here, in print, I present to you a group of Sauget Wizards who accomplished greatness. In my own particular order, they are:

Bob Hughes – Player/Manager and 3rd baseman.

Universally known as “Coach Hughes” or “Hugheser.” Bob was originally from Okawville, Illinois. He signed his first professional contract with the Dodgers after they drafted him, and was a bona fide prospect for L.A., playing in the minors for Tommy Lasorda and alongside some guys who went on to Dodger greatness. And then the army got him in a different kind of draft. When his tour of duty in Vietnam was almost over, he stepped on a land mine. He was lucky to be alive. He worked hard to get back on the field against enormous odds despite the fact he knew his pro career was over, and he managed to put together a stellar player/manager career for us, while also throwing batting practice for the Cardinals and, for many years, holding the position of Head Coach for the St. Louis U. Billkens baseball team. When I met Bob, in 1976, he was an assistant coach on the SIUE Cougars, of which I was a part. Anyone who knows Coach Hughes loves the man. There is no one like him. Supremely talented, incredibly dedicated, truly tireless, and on top of that he’s a man with a heart of gold.

Jim Greenwald – Outfield

Known as “Greenie” to all who played with him, Jim was a key part of nearly all the Wizards team. It was he and Bob Hughes who formed the team after they got to know Rich Sauget, who had incorporated the town and who was eager to back the new team financially, while also building a beautiful ballpark for them to play in. Greenie went to SIUE a few years before me, but I got to know him there because he was always around. He signed with the Twins after his senior year and played for their minor league organization for a while, but never got the baseball bug out of his system. Without “Hughes & Greenie” (always collectively known as that one simple term) there never would have been a Sauget Wizards team. With them, and their leadership, we became one of the best semipro teams in the country.

Neil Fiala – Shortstop

Neil was a major prospect when he played at SIU-Carbondale, and as such was drafted and signed by his hometown team the Cardinals. He advanced through their organization rapidly before being traded to Cincinnati. I actually scouted him, when he was playing in Triple-A Indianapolis for the Reds and I was still a scout for the Blue Jays. Neil made it to the big leagues, with both the Cardinals and the Reds. When he joined the Wizards, he became a key part of the team’s bedrock and foundation. The man could do it all, to the point where he was playing for the Wizards while also managing a summer team for college players. We were so fortunate to have him.

Rick Fiala – Infield and Pitcher

Rick is Neil’s brother. He was also a fine college player, and was a massive part of the Wizards for many years due to his ability to play all over the field, and do it well. He could hit, pitch, field, and throw. On top of that, he was a huge positive motivator in the dugout and on the field, while also a fine coach and instructor in his own right. Rick was a born leader.

Dave Kassebaum – 2nd base

Dave Kassebaum was not the tallest or biggest guy on the Wizards. Hence, his nickname “Moose.” What he lacked in stature he made up for with sheer talent and determination. I may have never played with any other guy who had Moose’s discipline at the plate. He had no fear of taking a strike or two until he got the pitch he wanted. He could handle second base like a pro, and knew the game inside-out. He had been a fine college player, and was a key part of the Wizards for many years.

Dan Nicholson – Outfield

Dan Nicholson, known as “Nick” for short or “Nick The Stick” to many of us, was a jack of all trades for the Wizards, playing anywhere Coach Hughes needed him, after his junior college career. The sort of guy every teammate loved. He was a key part of the Wizards in many ways, for many years. Coach Hughes later brought him along to St. Louis U. as an assistant, when he took over the head coaching job.

Joe Mehallow – Pitcher

Joey Mehallow was the epitome of a classic “crafty lefty” on the mound. A fine college pitcher who may have only been overlooked by the Major Leagues because of a slight lack of velocity, he relied on location and changing speeds to carve up every league the Wizards played in. He was elegant on the mound, and a joy to play behind. A true pitcher, who understood the art of the position. If talking about being “lucky to have him” that was definitely the case with Joey. Every time he took the mound, we knew we were probably going to win. That’s why he started the game against the powerhouse USA team and shut them out for three innings. Gamer!

John Parke – Pitcher

John Parke, aka “JP” to all his teammates, was one of those fine college players who the scouts all somehow missed. His talent proved that scouting is an imperfect art. I’ve told him that and meant every word of it. I still mean it. He was great at Vanderbilt (a very good program) and never heard his name called during the draft. For the Wizards, he was every bit as important as Joe Mehallow, and the two were a phenomenal pair in the rotation. Like with Joey, when JP took the mound we knew we’d probably win. He was also incredibly smart and brilliantly funny, and a terrific friend to all of us. JP pitched the middle three innings in the USA game and got the win.

Scott Brown – Pitcher

Scotty Brown could bring the heat. He played his college ball at Illinois State and (this is a recurring theme) was missed by the scouts when he graduated. Their loss was our gain. Scotty could pitch, and he was fearless on the mound. Not long after the USA game, in which he pitched the final three innings and earned the save, the Pittsburgh Pirates came calling and Scott signed with them, proving that the road between the Wizards and the pros was a two-way street. He went on to be a very successful coach at Vianney High School in St. Louis.

Jeff Junker – Catcher

Jeff Junker (pronounced “Yunker” and known as “Yunk” to teammates) was, in many ways, the heart and soul of the Wizards. When he joined the team, Coach Hughes was in dire need of a starting catcher, and despite the fact Jeff hadn’t played the position in high school or college, he volunteered and turned himself into a first-class receiver. The dude was strictly talented, and dedicated, and tireless. A total gamer, who could play that tough position, throw runners out, call a great game, and hit. He drew a critical walk that kept the top of the second alive against the USA, and moments later the Wizards scored to make it 1-0 on our way to a 6-5 win. The two catchers the USA used in that game, Dan Wilson and Pedro Grifol, both played professionally with Wilson starring in the big leagues and Grifol having a fine minor league career. Frankly, you couldn’t tell the difference between those guys and Jeff Junker. Seriously.

Robert Giegling – Outfield

Robert was another player, like John Parke, who the scouts all totally blew it on. He played his college ball at Nicholls State and was a stud. “Gigs” and I played side-by-side in the outfield for a few great years, and the guy could do it all. Between the two of us, not much got by us without being caught. And man, he could just flat hit. What a beautiful swing. A phenomenal guy, a dedicated player, and a star. As a former scout, I have no clue how the scouts who saw him missed a chance to sign the guy.

Gerry Pitchford – Outfield

“Pitch” was another SIU-Carbondale alum and why he never got a chance to play pro ball is yet another mystery. The dude could just flat run, track down everything in the outfield, and work his butt off to be a key part of every Wizards team he was on. He could do it all. And there were no teammates more admired and liked than him.

Tim Black – Outfield

Every now and then, the Wizards would bring in young college guys who could provide the energy and wheels we older dudes lacked in our 30s. Tim Black was one of those guys, who was a stellar centerfielder at Meramec CC in St. Louis. He was part of the team that beat the USA club and a major part of the Wizards that year, taking over Giegling’s spot in center. He covered center field like a blanket. Sure made my life easy next to him, in right.

Jason Boehlow – Catcher/Utility

Jason played for Bob Hughes at St. Louis U., and his stature earned him the nickname “Payload” from his teammates. The guy could just flat hit, and when he got all of one it rarely come down before leaving the park. Jason was multitalented, and was actually held out of the USA game for one good reason: Should Mehallow, Parke, or Brown falter on the mound, we had him in reserve to finish the game on the mound. A big boy, and a talented dude.

Curt Junker – Pitcher

Jeff’s little brother was a tall and wiry young guy when he joined the Wizards. He was a key pitcher for us during the ’88 championship season and actually got the win for us in the league championship game, throwing eight innings of stout relief in the win over a tough and experienced East Alton team. He was 17-years old at the time, although he turned 18 a few days later. A great kid with a ton of talent, and most of us remember him as a “cool as a cucumber” guy on the mound. He stepped up huge in ’88. We wouldn’t have won the championship without him.

Other Key Wizards Through The Years

Lance McCord. My roomie from college at SIUE, played for the Wizards in the very early years. As in, during the first year the Wizards existed. I had been in pro baseball for six years when I finally quit scouting, and Lance called me. He said “You want to play for this team I’m on? Hughes and Greenie run it, and we’re pretty good. It’s fun. Come on out.” I joined the team to end the season and found my game. Without Lance, I never would’ve played for the Wizards. And yes, the scouts saw something in him they missed with some other guys. Lance signed with the Twins after our senior year at SIUE. We played against each other in the Appalachian League.

Pete Delkus. Another former roomie of mine, whom I met for the first time on the Wizards. A sidearm/submarine pitcher with absolutely nasty stuff, Pete was our ace for a couple of years while he was finishing up his college career at SIUE (He was All-America one year and is in the SIUE Hall of Fame.) He used the Wizards as his “summer team” to stay in shape for college ball. He could just flat deal. I’ve hit off him in the cage, and know firsthand that when you made contact, it felt like you were hitting a concrete ball. The scouts missed him, but my dad didn’t. He saw Pete pitch for us on the Wizards and called the Twins after the draft. Sight-unseen and only on Del Wilber’s recommendation, the Twins signed Pete. Two years later he was Minor League Player of the Year and winner of the Rolaids Relief Man Award. He made it as far as the Twins 40-man Major League roster and Triple-A before his elbow blew up and ended his career. Since then, he’s done OK. He’s the Chief Meteorologist at WFAA TV in Dallas and has more Emmy Awards on his shelf than any of us have baseball awards. Like I said, he’s done OK…

Tom Burg. Tom was a catcher at SIUE, and I actually scouted him when I was with the Blue Jays. He was a fine catcher and a great teammate with the Wizards. And now is as good a time as ever to admit that I was a scout who missed him when evaluating his skills. I blew it. I didn’t write him up for the Jays, and once we played together I totally regretted that. He was a fantastic defensive catcher, a brilliant game caller, and an all-around fine player who deserved to sign a contract. The rule of thumb is, if you want a serious chance to play pro baseball, be a catcher. Good ones are in short supply and great ones go to the Hall of Fame. Tom Burg was a good one. He should’ve gotten a chance, but as you can tell by reading this the Wizards were usually made up of very good players who also should’ve gotten a chance.

Me. You know the story. A decent player coming out of SIUE where I was 80% outfield defense and 20% hitter. I battled through a couple of years in the minors with Detroit and Oakland, and had my moments but not enough of them. Playing for Coach Hughes and the Wizards, I became a different player and came into my own. I wouldn’t trade a day of it for anything, and I have Coach Hughes to thank for turning me into a real hitter, with power and at least a little discipline at the plate.

There are so many more, including some incredibly great players from the early 90s teams, and the ’92 team that I managed for the second half of the season. How good were they? Another Valmeyer Tournament win. That good… Guys like Mike Rogers, Reid Hartmann, Jimmy Anderson, Darin Hendrickson, Pat Donohue, Bob Finder, Boyd Manne, Sean Randall, Joe Swiderski and more. All fantastic ballplayers from great college programs. Managing them was easy. I just filled out the lineup card and let them play.

Over the course of the Wizards existence, we put a ton of great players on the field, but we also had the knack to get “the right kind” of guys. We all got along. We all cracked each other up. We all LOVED THE GAME and that was the key.

This was no “beer league” or softball stuff. We were dead serious about it and worked our butts off. Some of us worked out all year together, taking BP at the St. Louis U. indoor cage during the winter and keeping our arms in shape. Not because we were trying to get signed or move up the ladder. Only because we loved the game. And we did some incredible stuff.

So, now that you’ve met and gotten to know so many of the Wizards a bit better, click on this link and look around at our Facebook Group.

Wizard FB Group

There’s lots to see there, and if you go searching you can find those “low tech” videos I mentioned at the start of this lengthy blog. The boys will “come to life” for you, if you squint just a little…

If you liked this blog, or like the videos, please click on the “Like” button below. The guys earned that.

See you soon. Long live the Wizards!

Bob

 

Today’s blog installment may just meander a bit. Wait…  Really? That would be a first!

The reason for said meandering is a chain of thoughts that have passed through my now 66-year old brain the last few days. And they all began with this charming photo.

“What a nice couple,” you say. Yes they are.

“Enjoying the good life,” you add. Yes they are.

“Who are they?” you inquire.

Well, this is what started it. This is what caused my brain to immediately come up with the headline for this blog without the rest of the text even being slightly formulated. This photo is a perfect example of the ties that bind. And in my case, boy do they ever.

The handsome gentleman in this shot is Dan O’Connor. That name might mean little or nothing to you. It means a lot to me. His lovely bride is Richele, and she herself is clear evidence that my friend Dan completely out-kicked his coverage when they married.

Who is Dan O’Connor? He was my teammate and roommate in Bristol, Paintsville, and Lakeland in the Detroit Tigers minor league system. We all called him OC. I call him that to this day, but “to this day” includes the fact we only reconnected a year or so ago, thanks to his son Danny who made it happen after I stumbled upon the young lad on Facebook, and I quickly fired off a note asking “Are you related to Dan O’Connor who played pro baseball in the Tigers’ organization?” I’m glad I did that.

Richele posted this on FB the other day on their anniversary. It’s one of the first photos I’ve seen of OC in the present day. He must be camera shy. He shouldn’t be. Son of gun is still as handsome as he was in those minor league days.

As a player, OC was a stud. The Tigers saw a lot in him when they signed him. He was from Erie, Pennsylvania. He was big and strong as a catcher, with very good tools. He was the real deal.

If you read my book Bats, Balls & Burnouts you might remember OC from the chapters about my minor league days. The only problem was, OC was hurt when he got to Paintsville (with a chronically injured hand and thumb that seemed to refuse to heal) and through all his years in minor league ball he never got to show what he really could do. Was that fair? No, but nothing is really fair in professional baseball. You play the hand you’re dealt, even if your hand hurts so bad you can’t pick up the cards. I could see it in him, but he wasn’t able to show it.

We enjoyed our time in Paintsville enormously. We played in a charming little town in the Kentucky coal region, we rode the bus together for every road trip, and we were followed by the most devoted fans, even if the town was so small we rarely played in front of 1,000 of them during any given game. They loved us. We loved them. That vibe made for a wonderful summer and a vivid experience. Plus, we were getting paid to do it. That’s a dream come true.

I knew all summer that OC was hurting, both physically and mentally. None of us came to Paintsville to make $500 a month doing nothing. We all wanted to play. Some of these guys were great players. Some of us were just getting by and loving every day of it. OC was stuck, often with his hand in a bowl of ice-water back at our upstairs apartment after yet another game in which he couldn’t play.

Since we’ve reconnected, the tie is reestablished. I doubt it will ever be broken. We are brothers. We shared something only the tiniest infinitesimal percentage of young men get to do. We played pro baseball.

Of course, without social media and without the help of young Danny O’Connor, this may never have happened. Social media is a scourge, for sure, but it’s also a savior when it comes to ties like this. It’s comforting to know I can pick up the phone and call or text OC whenever I want now. Even if it’s just to yank his memory chain and say “We gotta get to the ballpark. We’re LATE!”  This tie is bound. I’m grateful.

Dan’s not the only guy I’ve reconnected with from the Paintsville team, thanks to social media. My buddy Vince “The Bronze Fox” Bienek isn’t in this cropped shot because he was at the end of one row, looking very bronze and fox-like. My dear friend from as far back as our SIUE college days, Stan Osterbur, hadn’t yet joined the Paintsville team when the photo was taken. We make contact almost weekly. Those ties have never loosened.

I’m Facebook friends with Eddie Gates (aka “Boxhead” back then) and he’s the second guy from the left in the back row. Same with Pete Conaty, who is next to OC in the middle row. Pete and I somehow even ended up on the same semi-pro team in Fairfax, Virginia for one summer in the mid-80s. Go figure. That tie remained bound even if neither of us knew we’d be teammates again until we showed up to play on that talent-laden club. Mark Platel is kneeling just in front of OC. We called him “Boots” and boy could he bring it. And the batboy who is kneeling in the front with the shaggy blonde hair? That’s Rio Mihal. We’re FB friends as well, and he’s still got the hair. It fits. He’s a helluva musician and he has the same wild spirit you can see in the unabashed grin of a little kid who is loving every minute of his summer.

Those minor league ties still bind. I love that. I love my brothers. I’ve experienced a LOT of stuff in my 66 years. Crazy stuff and unique stuff. Heart wrenching stuff and things that will make the term “primal scream” come to life out of sheer 100% joy. Enough crazy amazing stuff to have written a book about it. There was nothing like playing minor league ball. We played nearly every day. We rode the bus for hours on end, often throughout the night, just to play again the next day. We were hurt, injured, sore, and bloody most of the time. We loved the hot streaks and endured the slumps. I would guess that almost all of us would turn back the clock and do it again if we could.

The ties from college bind just as firmly, but in most cases more directly. We played together for years. We roomed together at school and on road trips. We ate together in the cafeteria every day. We were good students and good friend. We were proud of our school and of being Cougars. We were truly brothers, and most of us found ways to never lose touch. Many of us support the SIUE Cougar Baseball program to this day. I’m a member of the “Dugout Club” and my annual donations (plus those of so many other guys) help the team in many ways. We’re proud to do it, and proud to be members of the SIUE Athletic Hall of Fame. Some of us are even lucky enough to be in it twice, with both the 1976 and 1977 teams. Two trips to the NCAA Div. II World Series were highlights for all of us.

Almost all of us stay in touch, and that 1977 team induction (back in 2016 on-campus) brought us all together as a group once again. Teammate and leader Dave Schaake hosted us for a party at his house and the next night we all cleaned up and put our best jackets and ties on for the induction ceremony.

Of course, it was just a few years ago when my SIUE roomies Lance McCord, James “Oscar” Noffke, Bob “Radar” Ricker, and I instituted our beloved annual “Roomies Reunion” where we’d meet in some far-away place, see a ballgame, and never shut up. Sadly, tragically, we lost our brother Radar a couple of years ago. Lance, Oscar, and I will not let the tradition die. We just can’t. The loss of Radar and COVID put our trips on hold for a couple of years, but in August we’ll be meeting up again, this time in St. Louis. If you’re going to the Cardinals game on August 17, look for us. Our seats are just a few rows behind the first-base dugout. These ties don’t just bind. They are tied in knots any sailor would be proud of.

Baseball ties aren’t restricted to college and pro ball. Not in any way. In my case, I can state without any reservation that my ties to the Sauget Wizards are as strong as any in my life. We were a crew of former pros, or former college guys, with some current college guys added in, and we all played baseball for the love of the game.

Coincidentally, I’m the quarterback for our first ever Wizards reunion, coming up on August 20 near St. Louis. Right now, we’re at around 20 commitments but more are still to come. Not one response has been “Well, I’ll see if I can make it. I’ll let you know…”

Every response has been “I’m there. Book it. Can’t wait to see all of you guys.”

That’s how I feel. There will always be something very special about the Wizards, because we weren’t trying to make it to a higher level (most of us had already been there.) We weren’t trying to impress anyone. We just loved the game and couldn’t quit playing.

I’ve written ad nauseam about our group that beat the USA National Team down near Memphis in 1989. That was a night none of us will ever forget. The thing that made it so special was that our opponents were all on the cusp of greatness and many went on to be top draft picks and Major League stars. We were just a bunch of former has-beens who loved the game so much we’d play as many as 70 games in one summer. For free. Because the joy of playing was greater than any paycheck.

Some of the guys are sharing old photos and stories now, as we get ready to meet each other in August. One of the photos is this one below. I have a great memory, and most of my Wizards memories are as fresh as if they happened yesterday. But, when my buddy John Parke posted this team photo I as taken aback.

It’s another team pic from the day we played the USA team. After we did the shot you’ve likely seen before, with the stadium behind us, someone obviously said “Let’s go do another one, out by the USA Baseball sign on the outfield fence.” I have no recollection of that. I must have been getting nervous about the game. But here it is, and the most amazing thing is we are all exactly as we were positioned in the first photo, in the same order, in the same poses. To me, seeing his was just a new bonus of memories after all these years. Can’t wait to see these guys and many more who wore the Sauget uniform.

There is a ton of love in this photo. Love of the game. Love of our teammates. There’s nothing like it. What is it? It’s a tie that binds.

And just to prove the point, here’s what I consider the “original” Sauget team photo from Millington. Coach Hughes clearly instilled a lot of discipline in us. This isn’t PhotoShop, we actually moved out to the fence and shot it again.

What other ties continue to bind?

Racing. Of course. My birthday was last week and I make it a point of pride to answer or respond to every birthday wish as they come in, all day, on Facebook. By far, the racing friends are the largest subset. Crew guys, drivers, crew chiefs, media reps, blog readers, announcers, fans, and more. 22 years in the sport will help you forge a lot of friendships. I’m honored to have so many of those friendships, and to maintain the ties that will always bind us together. Considering NHRA Drag Racing was a venture I never even knew was out there until I was nearing 40, it’s amazing how many great relationships came my way because of that enormously important part of my life.

There’s indoor soccer, sports marketing, and friends from the neighborhood, including friends from my childhood. All precious and the ties still bind.

And family. Of course. My family and Barbara’s. We have trips planned to see her side in Colorado, Florida, and Pennsylvania all in the next few months, and I’m trying to get my sister Mary to bring her husband Lonnie to visit us here in Minnesota. Hope we can make that happen. There are NO ties that bind like family ties. In terms of parents, I’m still the luckiest kid in the world. In terms of family, I’m just as fortunate.

All these ties. All the connections. All the heart-to-heart days and nights with friends of the closest sort. All of it. It’s irreplaceable and priceless.

That means you, OC. So happy we’ve reestablished a connection that was always there, but dormant. It will never be dormant again.

So there you have it. A meandering blog that came from the heart. As always, I’m always appreciative when any of you click on the “Like” button below.

Thanks for playing along…

BW

I’m sorry for being negligent, once again, in my blog production but the truth of this particular matter has to do with a lot of various external sources. I had an important “follow-up” MRI this week, to check on my progress after the illness and hospital stay that marred my summer a year ago, right after finishing my new book How Far? It went very well, and the next follow-up won’t be for five more months. In other words, against all odds for a guy who turns 66 next week, I’m perfectly healthy. Who knew?

Side note: Did you know there is a worldwide shortage of the “contrast dye” they use for CT scans? When I had my other CT scans, I had to ingest what seemed like gallons of a specific liquid that gives the images the contrast they need to see the details. Somehow (can you say China?) there is a huge shortage of that stuff right now, all around the world. My MRI was originally scheduled as a follow-up CT scan, but after it was postponed twice the doctor finally gave up and changed it to an MRI. They serve the same purpose, but the MRI procedure takes a lot longer to complete (an hour or more versus a few minutes) and that backs everything up. I just showed up and got shoved in the noisy tube. I was fine not having to drink all that stuff.

I asked the technician about it and he said, “Yeah, it’s been a problem for months now, and we’re next.”

I asked him what that meant and he said “Well, so many CT scans had to be shifted over to MRIs we’re going to run out of the contrast dye we use for this machine. The demand is huge and for both CTs and MRIs they still have to keep a reserve for emergencies and more serious life-threatening cases. Our shortage will happen soon. It’s coming.” Great.

I also am still neck deep in promoting the book, publicizing it, and marketing the darn thing. It seems to be nonstop, but that’s OK. I’m proud of it. And the more I hear from people who have read it, the prouder and more confident I get.

Of course, getting the word out and selling more copies has nothing to do with dreams of riches. I’ll never come close to making any real money on this book or the first one, but that’s not why I did it. The publishing biz is tough these days, and those riches seem to be reserved for the big-time authors with big-time names. The rest of us are just happy to see our stuff in print and if a few positive reviews roll in, that’s a bonus.

I was talking with my marketing rep from Outskirts Press yesterday, and we were strategizing a few ways to increase awareness for How Far? As I told her, “I’m thrilled with the book, and I’m really proud of it. We’ve done a good job getting the word out to people I already know and who know my writing style, but it feels like we’ve hit a wall getting the awareness built with new groups of readers.”

She said, “That’s really typical, and there are a few things we can do to increase that and get new eyeballs on the book. Looks to me like getting anyone to read it gains you another fan. They love the book, so let’s keep pushing. Believe it or not, good books don’t really have a shelf life like loaves of bread. They can keep selling for years, and can even peak years after they’re first published. You just never know, but it’s all out there. We haven’t scratched past the surface yet.”

One of the things we talked about was a “lending” program Amazon has with their Kindle digital reader. I didn’t really know anything about it, but apparently if you sign up for it you can peruse the Kindle library and “sign out” books just to read them, but not own them, kind of like you have the option to rent movies on TV or buy them so you always have them. Will that create a new revenue stream? Hardly if you’re talking about immediate royalties.

As my rep said, “Oh, you’ll make a solid 33 cents every time someone checks it out. But you’ll get eyeballs, and that can translate into word-of-mouth, book sales, and more growth. There’s basically nothing in it for us as the publisher. We don’t even make 33 cents on this program, because there’s no physical book and no actual sale. But it helps us in the long haul, too.”

Interesting. So a publisher, who only exists to earn income off book sales, fully supports a program that will make them basically nothing and the author a pittance, while it provides the book to new readers for almost nothing? Sort of like that antiquated old concept of those places we called libraries? Crazy, right?. But that’s why I work with Outskirts. They’re willing to do stuff like this to help me, which helps them. It’s the long view, not the shortcut to instant gratification.

This whole publishing thing is one of those late-in-life challenges I’ve taken on for the last few years, diving into the deep end and figuring it out as I go. I must be brave. Right? I’m not.

Knowing that, I look back on my life and see moments that make me cringe today. Trips I’ve taken where I couldn’t have had any idea how many more things could go wrong than go right, but I dove in. Challenges that would petrify the older me.

Why is it like that? Why don’t we get braver as we get older? Why is the actual opposite more likely?

I think I know the answer, and it’s both simple and kind of depressing. It’s this: The older we get, the more we see how poorly things can turn out, and we build a defense to keep away from those situations. In other words, there’s a lot to be said for the impetuousness of youth. When you don’t know the 15 things that can go wrong versus the one thing that can go right, you just dive in. Or, as I wrote repeatedly in Bats, Balls, & Burnouts, we just plow forward.

I guess I’m still doing that, because somehow I’ve published two books and learned how to publicize them without having a clue how to do that when I started. But, on the flip side, I stress out over simple things like airplane flights, security lines, parking spots, and directions, like crazy. Why? Because I’ve experienced about all the problems a person can face in those endeavors. I begin those journeys jaded and wary. I’ve been there when things go haywire. I’d never written a book before, though. What could go wrong?

In grade school, I was a smart kid but I was labeled an “underachiever” by the nuns at Mary Queen of Peace in beautiful Webster Groves, Mo. I was just too easily distracted, I think. As Sister Gertrude Marie would tell my folks on Parent/Teacher Nights, “Bob doesn’t apply himself all the time. He could do much better.”

When it was time to decide where I wanted to go to high school, I never hesitated. I just picked the most challenging and difficult private school in St. Louis. By all accounts, I should have had almost no chance to pass the entrance exam and earn a spot at St. Louis U. High. But I signed up for it, sat in the gymnasium with 400 or so other young men, and tried to make the cut to be one of the 225 who would get in as the class of ’74. And I did. Had I failed, I guess my life would’ve been much different and I’d be writing about what an interesting experience it was to graduate from Kirkwood High, home of the Pioneers.

I almost flunked out my freshman year at SLUH (once again, not applying myself enough) but I straightened that out and one of the impetuous things I did was analyze my strengths and realize what sort of curriculum I could succeed at. I met with the Jesuit advisors and I’ll give them credit. They saw a lot in me. They didn’t see a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist, or a kid who could even do anything beyond basic math, but they saw something. And they worked with me and helped me succeed with an emphasis on creative thinking and communications. I have no idea where I’d be if I hadn’t applied at SLUH and if the Jesuits hadn’t spotted something in my makeup that would make me, and them, proud. I just dove in.

High school was followed by college, and again I just picked the one school I wanted to attend, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and I planned on somehow getting a baseball scholarship there. My plan for the scholarship worked, and I’ll forever be thankful for my time as an SIUE Cougar. On the educational side, once more my advisors saw something in me. When I didn’t have to struggle through mandatory math and science classes, I could shine. Straight A’s. Dean’s List. Great advisors and mentors. I was lucky to have them on my side. The same thing has applied throughout my life. I’ve found people who believe in me, who can see the shiny parts through the trash.

The “diving in” thing was a huge part of my younger years. After baseball I went to work for Converse shoes, not because I was an ex-basketball player who was already a legend, but because I felt I could learn the business and move shoes.

Then I went to work for my brother Del, in Washington, DC, at his sports marketing agency. It was a whole new experience and I was flying by the seat of my pants for most of it.

Had I ever written and presented a marketing proposal to a Fortune 500 company? Uh, no.

Had I ever walked into a major sports franchise front office and boldly tell them, from the podium, how my plans could make them more successful in terms of revenue streams? No.

Had I ever gotten on a plane at 3 in the morning, in Miami, to fly to Havana, Cuba for a week, knowing I was there to represent my brother and our company during the International Baseball Association worldwide meetings? Nope. Was I stressed out beyond belief, heading to a communist country which was still stuck in the 1950s? Somehow I wasn’t. When we landed in the middle of the night and the Cuban customs agent took our passports, I didn’t freak out. When we were taken to an ancient hotel left over from Havana’s pre-Castro mafioso days, was I worried? For some reason I wasn’t.

I was there with my boss, Maidie Oliveau, and we just went with the flow. We shook a lot of hands, drank a few Mojitos, watched old Cuban men make priceless cigars for money that wouldn’t buy them a cigarette, and we were escorted around to strange places that seemed to be out of a bizarre foreign movie, but I don’t recall ever being stressed. It was just an adventure.

Funny note about Maidie. She was my boss, as were all the Vice Presidents at DelWilber+Associates (my title was Senior Project Director). Oh, and the guy in the corner office, Del himself, was the big boss. We all worked for him and reported to him. Talk about a mentor! I can’t express how much I learned from my boss, my brother, and my friend.

Anyway, Maidie and I got along fine and worked well together, but we could hardly have been more different. She was a New York lawyer, and her life experiences as such were nothing like I’d ever been through. We traveled on more than a few international business trips, and what amused me the most about her was the fact she spoke something like seven languages, but not one of them was Spanish. Odd that we were in Cuba together and my rudimentary Espanol from high school classes and baseball dugouts had to carry us most of the way.

Oh yeah, we went to Cuba back when almost no Americans could do that. We flew back to Florida in the middle of a hurricane, with the charter jet’s crew slamming the door shut before we were even seated, passports once again in hand after we dashed through Jose Marti Airport and out to the Eastern Airlines 727. And somehow I lived through it. The Mojitos probably helped. We just dove in, and I assisted with the Spanish.

Our next big trip was to Italy. DW+A represented the International Baseball Association (IBA) and the World Cup of Baseball was coming to Northern Italy the next year. We were there to confirm the venues and to set the stage for international TV coverage.

We had a driver. He was a fine Italian fellow named Sergio Bernini. Yep, I still remember his name. I’m not just making that up. This was in the late 1980s, over in Italy, and we were on a whirlwind tour of cities like Florence, Grossetto, Milan, Turin, Bologna, Rome, and Parma, where the Baseball World Cup would be held. My specific job was to confirm that the baseball venues were of a high enough standard to host an international tournament.

Again, like Spanish, none of Maddie’s many languages happened to be Italian. Sergio spoke enough English to get us around, but mostly he drove us from city to city on the superhighways at around 110 mph in a Lancia Beta Coupe, and we saw all the ballparks where the tournament would be held. I gave my educated “thumbs up” to all of them. Play ball!

The head of the IBA and the Italian Federation, Aldo Notari, was from Parma, and very proud of his scenic little town. As I related in Bats, Balls & Burnouts, Aldo rolled out his best red carpet and put us up in a fabulous boutique hotel that really impressed us, and he reserved a private dining room for us to have dinner as a group.

When we arrived for our meal, we discovered the hotel manager had forgotten to reserve the room for us. Aldo was not happy.

So, within a few minutes the lobby was emptied of its usual furniture, a formal dinner table was brought in, and we were served a sumptuous Italian dinner of the highest quality. The whole thing was surreal. I clearly recall sitting at this very table with Sergio and Maidie, thinking “Is this really happening?” It was. We were there. We trusted those around us and went with the flow. We just dove in and acted like we did this stuff every day.

A few months later, I flew back to Florence for the actual tournament, by myself. Somehow I did my job of being the marketing liaison while surrounded by dozens of languages I did not speak. I got to know many of the guys on the USA team (do the names Tino Martinez, Robin Ventura, Andy Benes, and Jim Abbott ring a bell?) and spent a lot of time with the USA staff. Those relationships with the staff were what fostered a certain game in Millington, Tennessee one year later, when the USA Team put my Sauget Wizards semipro club on the schedule and we went down there and beat them 6-5. It’s all about relationships and diving in. And hitting home runs. That helped.

I subsisted on pizza most of the time I was in Italy, when we weren’t having catered dinners. There was a “by the slice” place next to our Florence hotel and I became proficient at pointing out the style I liked and holding up the right amount of fingers to indicate how many slices I wanted. I was not as proficient at then paying for my pizza with Italian Lire. I’d often take a guess and hand over the money, only to have the shopkeeper say “No, no. Too much. Grazie!” as he handed me back about half what I’d given him.

And then of course there was my adventure flying back to the USA after the tournament, when my flight from Florence to Paris was late and I missed my connection. In France. Among French-speaking people. So I dove in, found the British Airways desk, and flew up to London with them, then took the Underground to Hyde Park, got a room at the Grovesnor Hotel at Victoria Station, enjoyed London for a night and then took the Tube back out to Heathrow to catch a morning flight to New York and then home to DC. No big deal. I’d probably just faint now, at my advanced age and stress levels.

Life. It can be mundane. You can force it to be mundane. You can steer clear of the unknown. Or you can just go with the flow.

Was I that much braver back then? Again, I think I was just that much more clueless. And trusting. And confident that we could make it all work out.

These days I feel my blood pressure rising just knowing we have to catch a flight to Denver, or Orlando, or any other domestic destination. But I think I could still do it the old way. Just dive in. Barbara and I have proven we can do that. We’ve met for a weekend in Amsterdam without a real plan on how we’d rendezvous at the massive Schipol Airport. We’ve walked the crowded streets in Aruba and Curacao, and cruised the canals in Costa Rica. We’ve learned enough about the Hawaiian islands to feel at home there. London and Edinburgh feel like second homes, as well, when I visit now. We even go so far as to venture all the way to MINNEAPOLIS for dinner or a ballgame, totally on a whim! We’re nuts, right?

We’ve gotten older, wiser, and probably a lot more cautious, but those younger more bullet-proof days are still in our DNA.

We’re just not as clueless as we used to be.

Thanks for hanging in here with me. As always, I appreciate it when those of you who enjoyed my blog take a moment to click on the “Like” button below. The more likes the better.

Now, I have to get back to marketing How Far? and getting “more eyeballs” on it.

Ciao!

BW (Del’s little brother)

PS: Don’t be afraid to visit my new website. You can see an actual timeline of my career that clearly spells out how many times I’ve gone with the “dive in” or “plow forward” concept. Plus, you can buy both of my books there.

http://bobwilber.net

 

 

 

Hey…  LOOK AT ME!!!  A new blog for the second consecutive week and it’s actually on Thursday, for cryin’ out loud. That’s an all-time record. At least for consecutive Thursdays in May, of 2022, but let’s not be picky.

Lots to write about in this one, although probably not quite as much as last week’s epic adventure through blog land. This is mostly about one three-day trip to our south. Not too far south. Just about an hour by air, following Interstate 35 most of the way.

How’s your geography? Do those clues about direction, a highway, and flight duration nail it down for you? Well, here’s the answer. Barbara and I headed down to Kansas City for the wedding I referenced last week. Cydney Ricker, the beautiful daughter of my late friend, roomie, and teammate Bob “Radar” Ricker, got herself hitched to a wonderful guy by the name of Benton Glaze, and a marvelous time was had by all.

I haven’t spent much time in Kansas City since I was the GM of the indoor soccer team there, the legendary Kansas City Attack. I use the term “legendary” loosely, although we had our moments. I’ve been in and out a few times, and would fly into and out of Kansas City International Airport (the pride of southern Iowa) for the Topeka NHRA race every year. I also spent a couple of nights out in Independence (home of Harry Truman) when I came in for a Mavericks hockey game in order to interview CJ Eick about life in the minor leagues and junior hockey, for my book “How Far?”. But spending time right in Kansas City? That’s been rare since 1996.

When I did live in the area, I got a taste of most of the suburbs that ring the city on the west, southwest, and south, and even spent a month living in downtown.

As part of my compensation plan with the Attack, they not only paid me a salary, I also got a free apartment and a free car. The car part was pretty easy. They bought a nice brand-new Camry and handed me the keys. We festooned it with Attack decals so that I was a rolling billboard. Although, I do recall understanding, at one point, that we had not exactly saturated the market in terms of name recognition and awareness. Our logo, which was firmly affixed to both front doors on the car, featured the word “ATTACK” over the words “Kansas City”. Not real complicated. I was paying for my parking at the airport when the lady in the booth (yes, real  humans used to man those empty booths you see now, where you scan your ticket and pay without so much as a “hello” or “how are you, today?”) said “Why do you want to attack Kansas City? I think that’s awful. Why do you want to do that?”

I did my best to explain to her that I did not actually want to attack KC, but our indoor soccer team was called the Attack and that was our name. She didn’t seem swayed. When the gate went up I said “I promise. I love Kansas City” and drove out of there. She probably never bought season tickets, I’m guessing.

Anyway, I originally lived in an old historic downtown luxury hotel for the first 30 days on the job, in a nice suite. I was living large. At the end of the 30 days the hotel manager informed me that my time in the lap of luxury was up. Gotta go.

The team scrambled and found me a furnished apartment in Overland Park, a very nice suburb in the south metro and actually in Kansas. Again, though, that only lasted 30 days. It was a nice place but I was working so hard getting ready for my first season as GM, I barely had time to notice much about it. When I moved in (basically with just a suitcase of clothes and Shasta the cat) the table was set with dishes, silverware, and wine glasses with folded napkins pointing up artistically out of each glass. When I moved out, 30 days later, everything was still on the table as it was when I arrived. Even the folded napkins.

Finally, the team worked a trade deal with an apartment complex in the suburb of Roeland Park, also in Kansas but not too far south of downtown KC and close to Kemper Arena, where we played and had our offices. They got a bunch of free stuff (tickets, program ad, and a sign on the boards) and I got an apartment, free of charge. I’d actually moved all my furniture when I got the job, and Mayflower Van Lines had crated it up and stored it until I had a more permanent place to live. It was nice to have my sectional sofa back… Again, though, I was all about work. I barely remember anything about the place. I got up, went to the arena, worked, and came back to go to bed. If it was a game day, that meant being at Kemper by 8:00 in the morning and getting home just short of midnight. But I loved it.

While I was there, I made a few friends and on more than a few occasions we’d go out to dinner in the area known as Country Club Plaza, or another hot spot nearby called Westport. I recall both places being nice, and fun, and full of good vibes and good food. But that was a long time ago… Things must change, right?

Well, when we got our invite for Cydney and Benton’s wedding, they let us know they had blocked rooms at the Sheraton and The Fontaine Hotel, in Country Club Plaza. I had already sensed that this was going to be a phenomenal wedding (the fact it was “black tie” was hint enough) so I was happy to see two hotels in what I recalled to be a really nice area.

We stayed at The Fontaine. What a marvelous place. Truly nice and right in the heart of the Plaza. The only hitch was the GPS on our phones. I don’t know if Siri actually moonlights as the GPS voice, but it sounds like her so I’m going with that. She was pretty good at getting us from the airport to near the hotel, although a few of her alerts (TURN RIGHT!) came a bit late and sounded a bit panic-stricken. At one point, I had to cross the three lanes on I-29 to make the exit old Siri had just called out.

Once we got close to our target, she failed miserably. She alerted me to make a left, at an intersection we’d just passed. Twice she said, “Turn right at the light” and my own internal guidance system knew that was wrong. We needed to turn left, and I did. To cap it off, as we neared the hotel she spoke, ever so confidently, “The destination is on your right.” I said to Barb, “She’s lost. It’s on the left. I know it’s on the left. I looked at a real map before we started this.” I was right. It was left. Siri was lost.

We got there. Or at least I got us there. Siri needed a nap or a cup of coffee or something.

We got some bad news at that point. Former roomie and teammate Lance McCord was due in before us, but he texted me and said “Stuck in Atlanta. My flight to KC has been cancelled. This is bad.”

It turned out his options were to spend 13 hours in the Atlanta airport just to get on a flight to Chicago at midnight, which would connect to a flight to KC, arriving late Friday night. We had a “Welcome Party” to attend, and he’d miss that no matter what. His other option was to spend the night in Atlanta and take an 8:00 am flight to Chicago and then, hours later, connect to KC. Factoring in any delays and the distance from the KC airport to the hotel (where he’d have to change into his tux) he wouldn’t make the wedding anyway. He flew back home to Raleigh. We were all bummed.

James “Oscar” Noffke and Alicia were not due in until Saturday, around noon, because Alicia’s daughter was graduating from junior college, so Barb and I had the afternoon free before the “Welcome Party” at 8:00. We headed out for a Country Club Plaza walking adventure and loved it. It was vibrant, hip, and full of friendly people who live there. I was so pleased to see how great it was.

We had made dinner reservations at a steakhouse called “Chaz” and it was spectacular. First rate. I mean, if you’re going to eat out in Kansas City, beef should be on your plate. Our filets were perfect. It was an old-school place, just off the lobby of a historic old hotel (The Raphael) in the Plaza. It had a vibe, for sure. Just across from us was a private semi-circular booth recessed into the wall, with a curtain that could be drawn for privacy. I wonder if the old Kansas City mob would check their guns at the desk or hold on to them when they’d enjoy a dinner while plotting out new plans for the week. If you’re in KC and are looking for a cool joint with great steaks, check out Chaz.

The party that night was great, in a private room at a huge distillery just outside of downtown (more Siri GPS adventures to say the least) and everyone treated us wonderfully. When we finally got to talk to Cydney, she was not only thrilled to see us (and heartbroken like we were that Lance wasn’t going to make it) she excitedly said, “Wait right here. I brought something for you. It’s something you need to have.”

I had an idea, but I wasn’t sure. The last “SIUE Roomies Reunion” we did was Spring Training in 2019. Lance surprised us by bringing a sterling silver memorial cup, and on it was engraved all the reunion trips we’d taken together up until then. The plan was to each hold onto it for a while, and keep adding the engraved locations. Little did we know…

When Radar tragically passed away, he had the cup. It, luckily, ended up with Cydney who took care of it for us. By her wedding, it was finally time to face that fact and she was proud to hand me the cup. It was really emotional, to say the least.

As we talked about it, it occurred to me that it was our little version of the Stanley Cup, and we needed to keep the plan alive to rotate it between the surviving members of our group. I said to Cydney, “Hockey has the Stanley Cup. It has a name. Our cup doesn’t have a name. It needs one. I think we should call it the Radar Cup.” And now it will always be called The Radar Cup.

And as for Radar, I lost track of how many times I had to tell the story about why we called him that. Everyone else only knew him as Bob or Bobby. The short version is this: When Radar arrived at SIUE, a few years after us, he had not yet discovered the weight room and he had wire-rim glasses. On his first day at the baseball lunch table, someone called him Radar, because he looked like Radar O’Reilly from the show M*A*S*H. It stuck. Even after he bulked up and got new glasses and contacts, he would always be Radar to us. And he always will be.

The wedding was the next day, at 5:30, and the wedding party had gone to great lengths to provide private transportation to the church, the reception, and back to the two hotels for all of us who were there from out of town. That was awesome! They thought of everything.

We walked around The Plaza some more, and I helped Barbara pick out some new lipstick (I did a fine job and everyone raved about it, so I insist on being proud of the selection) while I splurged on some new cologne for myself there, at Saphora. I do have a bit of marketing advice for the folks at Saphora though. If you’d add a small “husband’s lounge” in a back corner of the store, with comfy chairs and ballgames on a flat-screen, you might sell more stuff to the wives because we wouldn’t be standing around tapping our feet after two hours of sniffing fragrances and trying lipsticks. Just a thought.

James and Alicia arrived, after suffering through many of the same GPS issues once they got close to the hotel (they drove from central Illinois) and we got together for a bit and then retired to our rooms to tackle the always great challenge of dressing in formal clothes for a black-tie event. We were lucky to make it to the 5:00 shuttle for the 5:30 wedding.

It was incredible. And we all looked nice in our fancy clothes. We do clean up nicely. My tux was classic black and Barbara’s dress was blue and sparkly. I had lobbied hard for that dress. It was vibrant and gorgeous. I knew it was right for her the first time she tried it on.

Our timing for the wedding was perfect and we only had to wait a few minutes before the ceremony started.

Everyone looked radiant. Barbara and I agreed afterward that if it wasn’t the most beautiful and memorable wedding we’d ever been to, it was sure at the top of the list. Everything about it was magical.

Cydney looked radiant coming down the aisle. I had goosebumps.

I mentioned in my last blog that Radar’s son John was going to walk her down the aisle. He is a fine upstanding man who doesn’t let his Down Syndrome slow him down. He absolutely loved his father, and he’s been a strong young man since we lost him. He’s doing great.

And… He got to walk his sister down the aisle.

I’d said before that we shouldn’t just bring a few Kleenex for this moment. One of us should actually just bring a whole box and hand them out.

As it turned out, we all kept our composure. I think that was because John and Cydney kept theirs as well, and we were all so impressed. It could not have gone any better.

After the vows, the rings, and the walk back down the aisle as husband and wife, we all piled back onto the shuttle buses for the short ride over the the Carriage Club, just a mile or so away. OK, I’ve never quite been to a reception like this one before either. It was magnificent and, again, everyone treated us so wonderfully it was stunning. This day was all about Cydney and Benton, but I was shocked at how many people knew who we were, and why we were there, and what we meant to the Ricker family.

It’s easy to see something like college roomies and teammates through a very narrow lens. It’s just our world, right? We were good guys, good players, and great friends. We were goofballs who loved to have fun but we got great grades and all went on to wonderful careers after baseball and school were over. I’m proud of us.

But what I never knew was what we meant to Radar, and therefore what we meant to his family. Cydney knows, and she makes it clear to us. And the number of people we met who said “Oh I’ve heard of you. You all played ball with Bobby” seemed too great to count.

Since Cydney works for the Kansas City Chiefs in their front office, we also knew the reception might be a little special in that regard. Head Coach Andy Reid was there, talking to everyone and being very gracious. But Cyd also had some front office colleagues in attendance, and they all brought some bling to show off. I will never have this sort of bling. I would show it off too, because it means so much to anyone who sees or touches a real Super Bowl ring. Plus, bravo to the Chiefs for giving members of the front office the real deal rings. Wow.

Barbara got to “borrow” one from a colleague of Cydney’s and couldn’t believe how huge and heavy it was. It’s the first Super Bowl ring either of us has ever touched, and she got to wear it.

So that’s about it for this installment. We’re both still glowing from the weekend. What a phenomenal experience it was, with us being surrounded by so many gracious and kind people. I never felt like an outsider. Quite the opposite, really. We felt like part of the family. Cydney, Benton, and Cydney’s mom Kathryn made sure we felt that way, as did Radar’s “little sister” Andrea, who we all used to torment when we were big-shot college boys and she was just a kid. She’s not a kid anymore. She’s a judge in Miami. Fortunately I believe the statute of limitations has run out on the ribbing and kidding we used to do when we’d be over at Radar’s parents’ house and she’d be there.

Maybe I’ll see you here again next Thursday. Time to get back on that horse now that my book “How Far?” is in the can and selling.

If you liked this installment, do me a proper favor and click on the “Like” button below. Those “Likes” go a long way. And if you’ve read the book, don’t be afraid to rate it with stars and/or review it on Amazon. Oh, and if you liked it, please spread the word or make a post about it. That goes a VERY long way. Word of mouth is golden! Thank you!

Bob

PS: I leave you with a fabulous photo that shows that even a schlub like me can hang out with two beautiful and wonderful women.

Greetings, friends. It’s been a busy and hectic time around here. I guess that’s redundant but I’ve never been afraid of stating the same thing twice, even if I have to state it two times.

I did a fun Podcast with Bob Busser yesterday. Bob is a longtime arena and stadium historian on social media, and I follow his posts faithfully on Facebook. He’s been shooting photos of stadiums and sports buildings for a long time, some famous and some you’ve never heard of, but I love that sort of stuff and I always dig in when he posts something new. Great material. If, like me, you enjoy that kind of history, follow him like I do. Tell him I sent ya. What’s my personal favorite genre on his posts? Stadiums or arenas that had just closed and were about to be torn down. He’d somehow gain access to all the inner workings, including locker rooms, broadcast locations, and other stuff we never saw as fans. Very cool, and very nostalgic.

I think I’m getting better at this Podcast stuff. We had a great time with it, and it felt free and easy to me. We had such a great time, and such an easy rapport, we only covered about one-fourth of the years I can eventually cover in terms of my life in baseball and what it was like to grow up around MLB players and stars, then play college and pro ball myself, and finally my scouting years and all the stuff (not all good) that came with that job. So, I think we’ll do a few more episodes to just get through all those stories.

The Podcast is here:

https://bit.ly/3L7BrLZ

I think you might enjoy it.

What the Podcast did within 24 hours was introduce me to a whole bunch of new friends who dug the show and what I had to say. Social media will do that. It’s kinda why it exists. It does a lot of horrible things completely wrong and can be very destructive (it often brings out the vile worst in people), but it does stuff like this right. It makes connections.

A lot of the people who contacted me on various platforms hadn’t heard of me or “met” me until this bit went live on YouTube, and they had a lot of questions about my history and my new book, which we plugged pretty heavily at the beginning of the segment.

Some of these I’ve answered before. Some are new. All are relevant and I’m happy to post the “Qs” and the “As” here.

I’m most happy to do it because as hard as I try to pitch the book, I think there are still some questions and trepidations within some people’s minds, regarding pulling the trigger and buying the book on Amazon. “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” had a built-in buyer base just waiting in the wings. Literally. People knew me from my NHRA blog, they supported me with the Kickstarter campaign, and they knew it would be my autobiography and a straight-forward read. It sold beyond my wildest expectations.

I think you all knew what you were going to get with that book. And it flew out of the Amazon warehouses for the first few months.

“How Far?” is both very much the same, but very different. It’s a different style of writing. It’s a different genre. What if you don’t like it?

Well, that’s kind of the beauty of creating stuff, whether it’s books, art, or music. I write what’s in my heart and in my brain, and I can only hope you like it. The reviews have been great, both on Amazon and in the papers and magazines where it has appeared, but that’s just one part of the equation. The question is: Will <YOU> like it? The second question is: Will you <BUY> it? if you haven’t already.

I’m reminded of my time as GM of the Kansas City Attack indoor soccer team. As GM, I made a ton of appearances at local Lions Clubs, Kiwanis, and Rotary Club gatherings. I’d make a small speech or pitch about the team and then take questions. Invariably, and by that I mean every single time, someone would say “My kids have been begging me to take them to an Attack game for a year” as if that was supposed to cheer me up. I finally learned to say, in response, “Well if that’s the case, I think you better buy some tickets tonight and take them to a game. They’ll love it, and so will you.” I don’t know what my success rate was with that answer, but it was better than “Well that’s nice. Maybe you can take them some day.”

So yeah, I hear this a lot. “I’m going to buy your book. I just haven’t yet, but I will.”

I know life is busy and we’re all pulled in different directions. I’m no different than you. But hey… I firmly believe you’ll like it. At least I hope so. I put my heart into it and I’m proud of finding a way to do that. It’s here:

https://amzn.to/3KW77oR

I can only hope you’ll enjoy it. And I think you will. I’m damn proud of it and so happy I dove into a whole new part of the writing universe, but in the end it’s still me and it’s still told through the lens of sports. Because, you know… “Write what you know.” It’s not just a “sports book” though. It’s got plenty of drama, emotion, and heartbreak in it, to go along with elation and happiness of the highest order. It’s just told through a sports lens.

So here are some of the things I’ve heard not just in the last 24 hours since Bob and I introduced it to his audience, but over the last few months as well. Some questions may be familiar, others not so much. I just thought it was time to string a lot of them together.

Here we go, the good the bad and the ugly.

Q. The book is pretty long. Geez! Couldn’t you have kept the page count down?

A. Yes, I could have. But then so many rich details would have been left out. I’m a huge fan of details. I don’t just write “It was a nice day on campus.” I tell you the color of the sky, what the clouds looked like, how warm it was, what my character was wearing on such a glorious spring day, all of that. I want each reader to be there, see it, smell it, and feel it.

Also, it’s not a “speed read” book. I don’t care how long it takes people to read it, I just hope you appreciate the details, the feelings, and the emotions I put into it. And… This is key: It’s really two books in one. I could have written a book about Brooks Bennett, the baseball guy. Or I could have written a book about Eric Olson, my hockey character. But I wanted to write about both of them, in their voices. That was the whole point. So just pretend you’re reading two books at once. That’s really what it is. All for the low-low price of just $29.95. It’s a bargain! As the slick hawker of wares would say on TV “Buy it now, supplies are limited!” Actually supplies aren’t limited. That’s the beauty of “print on demand publishing.” If Amazon runs out, the publisher will make more. They’ll even make just one. It’s a good system for a writer like me, but right now Amazon has them in stock. No fuss, no muss.

Q. How did you come up with the names for these guys? I think they’re perfect but I’d like to know if those are real names of people you know or if you totally made them up.

A. I totally made them up. I love alliteration. It’s a vice of mine when I’m writing. I mean “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” had to have all three words start with the same letter. And three was the magic number for that book because of the three main parts of my professional sports career: Baseball, Indoor Soccer, and Drag Racing. “How Far?” has a subtitle of “A Tale of Determination, DNA, and Drama.” See? I feel the need for alliteration.

I have known two guys named Brooks and they were both cool dudes from SoCal. So I went with that. I needed a last name that started with a B to feed my alliteration hunger. I just picked Bennett. It wasn’t until I read the feature story in the Roseau paper that I connected the dots to my mom, when the writer pointed out that her maiden name was Bennett. I’m not sure how he knew that (Research!) but that had been totally subconscious for me. I never thought of it that way, but it worked. As for Eric Olson, he had to have a “northern Minnesota” type of name. There are two types of Olsons up there. Olsen, and Olson. I picked the “Olson” version because I just liked typing it and it resonated with me for some unknown reason. Many Roseau folks have said “You got that right” so I guess I did, but the writer of the story in the Roseau paper is Jeff Olsen, so there.

Q. What possessed you to write in this style, as two guys in their own voices? What a crazy approach, but I dug it and feel like I know them.

A. I really struggled to find “the next great challenge” after the first book. Nothing seemed to click. I literally wasted about a year trying to find what I was looking for. I needed something that would consume me and keep me going. I was talking to another writer early on, and he mentioned historical fiction. He had dabbled with a Civil War story about real battles and real generals, but his Union and Confederate soldiers were totally made up. He, however, wrote in narration style as the author telling the tale. I loved the concept, but immediately knew I wanted to write it in my characters’ voices. I was just drawn to that. That’s what made me passionate about it.

I’ve told this before but I remember the 24-hour period like it was yesterday. I told Barbara about my concept, and said “I wonder if I should recruit a co-writer and we’ll each be one of the characters?” Laying in bed that night, failing at the art falling asleep (as I often do) I had some clarity. I could do it myself. I’d write it as both guys, in their own unique voices. And that leads to this question:

Q. It was pretty audacious of you to think you could go from your own life story to writing this book as two different people. It worked! But how in the world did you keep it in line and even think you could do it? I have a hard time writing a letter to my mom.

A. I guess “audacious” is the right word. I didn’t know. I didn’t have a clue. I just had confidence in myself once I knew this was the “passion project” I was looking for. Most of the outline for the stories of the two guys was just in my head. I tried following a formal outline but the characters would constantly remind me that they would act or do something different than what I had planned. So I let them lead me. It worked better that way.

The hard part was the timeline. The two fictional guys needed to keep their stories in sync, even before they met. I couldn’t have one get too far ahead of the other. It all had to mesh. That took a great deal of concentration and a few rewrites to keep it flowing without one guy running off into the future while the other was still back behind him. It wasn’t easy, but it sure was fun.

Q. I think in my heart I’m a writer. I keep journals and scribble short-story ideas, but I can’t get over the hump. How do I do what you do? It feels like I’ll never get there.

A. You write. You write every day, even if it’s just one line. Ideas, story concepts. Style concepts. I’d steer clear of “How To Be A Successful Author” books because they are aiming at the lowest common denominator (not to mention the gullible) and those rules may not fit you. I know they wouldn’t have fit me. Be yourself. And for now, just write for an audience of one. You! Try to do a character study, as if that character was going to be in a book you will someday write. Who is she (or he)? What’s she like? Where does she live? What does she look like? What’s her family like. All of the things that make up a person.

Then, go back and add detail to every answer. Does she have brown hair? OK, but is it straight or curly or wavy? Does it shine in the sun? Does she have bangs? Are her eyes as dark as her hair? Is there an actor she reminds you of?

The key thing I did for “How Far?” (since I was clueless going in) was to write those character studies for Brooks and Eric. I had to get to know them and how they acted. I needed to know their families and upbringings. I needed to really know them as people in my life, not fictitious characters. That’s what made the book work. At least for me.

Create a person. Get to know her. And keep writing. She can be based on people you have known. It’s always fun to take about five people you’ve known, who are unique, and meld them together into one new fictitious person. I did that a lot with “How Far?”

When you’re ready to step up to a short story, take the plunge. It helps to have a trusted advisor and/or editor. I could have written both of my books without my friend and editor Greg Halling, but they would be without the detailed joy of life and without much of the coherent flow I craved had I flown solo on either book. Find someone like that, who you trust and whose opinion you value without taking offense at the red ink on your work.

There are thousands of approaches to writing. And each approach has a thousand variations on how to do it. So just write. Write every single day, even if it’s just a phrase. Do it! And never throw any of it away. Save it all.

Q. You’re pretty full of yourself, aren’t you?

A. (Aside: That’s a real comment, start to finish.) I did answer the guy. I simply wrote “I guess I am. Thanks for noticing.”

But really, I’ve found that I can’t be shy about what I’m doing. I had to be proud of it or it would never have happened. I had to be proud of myself. I don’t actually think I’m “full of myself” because I’m as wracked with self-doubt as anyone. The “I’m not worthy” thoughts never go away, as do the “Who in the world is going to buy this mess?” doubts. But I’m confident. I told everyone I wasn’t sure I could write “How Far?” but deep inside I knew I could. It’s me. I’m not shy about who I am. Plus, I’m still the luckiest guy in the world. And, apparently, full of myself.

That seems like enough.

This is going to be a phenomenal weekend. Barbara and I are headed for Kansas City to attend a very special wedding. Our friend Kelsey will be staying here to be with Boofus and Buster. They love her and the feeling is mutual.

Cydney Ricker is the daughter of my former college baseball teammate and one of my former roommates, Bob “Radar” Ricker. He and I were joined annually by Lance McCord and James “Oscar” Noffke as we traveled around to enjoy a reunion every year. Our mantra was, “We’ll do this as long as we’re able, because we should.”

Radar was so proud of Cydney. She rose through the ranks in the front office for the Kansas City Chiefs in record time. I believe she’s currently the Manager of Football Communications and Administration. I can’t be sure of that. She keeps moving up the ladder. When they won the Super Bowl, she got a ring. She’s a key part of their stellar organization.

When Radar stunned us all by taking his life, we all rallied around Cydney, as well as Radar’s son John, who is Down Syndrome. Before Cydney even sent out “Save The Date” cards announcing her wedding, she contacted me, Lance, and Oscar and let us know that it would be really important for us to be there. We never hesitated. It’s an honor to be there for her.

And John is apparently going to walk her down the aisle. As I told Lance, “There won’t be enough Kleenex for that. I might just bring a whole box and we can pass it back and forth.”

There’s a get-together tomorrow night, and the wedding is Saturday. It’s “black tie” so tuxedos and formal dresses. It’s going to be a wonderful thing to be a part of.

Here’s wishing Cydney and Benton a truly special life together. Be kind. Be supportive. Love each other without reservation.

Thanks everybody. If you haven’t bought “How Far?” yet but plan to, just recall what I used to say to people at those club meetings I spoke at in support of my indoor soccer team. You’ll be supporting me and what I do. That’s a good thing, I hope.

As always, I ask you to scroll down until you see the “Like” button at the bottom of this blog. Clicking on that creates new readers and possibly new book buyers.

Thank you!

Bob

 

I know, I know, I know. I’m fully aware that I’ve been remiss in my blog duties as of late, but time seems to get away from me on a daily basis. There’s still so much to do with “How Far?” and there are other responsibilities as well. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it. Here I am today, on May 6. I got that going for me!

So much has happened in the last couple of weeks. It’s been pretty incredible, and at times pretty tiring, but all well worth it.

Let us begin…  A number of weeks back I made contact with a gentleman up in Roseau, Minn. His name is Jeff Olsen, but everyone calls him “Bro.” Seriously. Before we talked, and I only knew his name, I figured anyone called “Bro” must be young hip dude. Turns out Bro is older than me.

He’s a longtime columnist and writer for the Roseau Times newspaper. We just chatted in general the first time on the phone and the conversation wandered from subject to subject so much I was afraid he’d forgotten why we were talking at all. It was supposed to be my pitch to him to write about “How Far?” and what a key role the town of Roseau played in the book. But then I realized, “We’ll get there, but right now we’re having a riot talking about things we have in common and we’re making each other laugh. Go with the flow…”

The baseball connection was important to him, and it had been a surprise. To that end, the story he thought he’d be writing (basically just a review of the book) became more about me and my family for many opening paragraphs, and then it shifted into his feelings about the book. Spoiler: He loved it.

We scheduled a couple of interviews for a few weeks later, and I made sure I got him a copy of the book so he’d know what he was in for. We talked at length, and then reconnected a few times so he could confirm the notes he’d taken. Two weeks later his story ran in the paper and on the paper’s website. It starts on Page 1 of the issue, then jumps to much of Page 3. It’s probably the longest and most detailed story I’ve ever had done about me or my work. And it’s fantastic.

Yes, it’s about impossible to read here on the blog, since we can’t enlarge, so there was no real valid reason to post the Page 3 text. You can see them both and enlarge them by finding my recent post about this subject on my Facebook page. Also available on my Facebook “Bob Wilber’s Books” page.

Here’s what I learned once the story ran and the paper landed on everyone’s doorstep or driveway in Roseau (I am assuming they have home delivery.)  Roseau is a small remote community at the top of the state of Minnesota. Everyone knows everyone else. I once wrote a blog about my first visit there and emailed one person in Roseau about that blog. Two days later, I had the most blog hits I’ve ever had and second place is not even close. The word spread around town so fast it must have looked like a verbal wildfire.

The same thing happened when the story came out in the paper. I check my sales ranking on Amazon far too regularly. It’s a habit. And then the paper came out and the ranking started a hot streak that looked like the front of a gas pump as gallon after gallon flowed through the hose.

The size of the town makes word-of-mouth very effective. The pride they have in their community makes them gravitate to anything that paints their beloved town in a positive light, which I did quite sincerely. And the fact the local paper is a weekly publication means that a lot of copies sit on the living room coffee table or the kitchen counter for days, not hours. It all adds up to people buying the book.

My meager royalties per copy aren’t the reason I love seeing sales. No, seriously. You probably wouldn’t believe what I make per copy, after the publisher and Amazon take their cuts. It’s basically a pittance, but that’s not why I wrote it.

Sales mean a few bucks to me per book, but more importantly they mean people are interested, they’re reading it, and hopefully they like it and take something away from it when they’re done. There’s a lot of balls, strikes, road trips, checks into the boards, slap shots, and endless hours of training in the book. But to me the important things are the life lessons, the drama, and the emotions.

As for those rankings on Amazon, they are my daily conduit for generally seeing how the book is doing. I don’t see actual sales numbers on Amazon. I just see where “How Far?” ranks in its category (historical fiction) and within the overall Amazon catalogue. There are about 2.8 MILLION books on Amazon. If my book is in the top 250,000, that’s pretty astonishing. Right after it came out, we were even in the top 100,000.

With the big surge from Roseau, thanks to Bro and the Times, we shot back up to just about where we were in the first week. I was astonished, but very pleased.

As for real sales numbers and royalties, it goes like this. I only get a royalty when Outskirts Press sells books wholesale, to retailers like Amazon, or on a “print on demand” basis for individual buyers who go direct to the publisher. That’s the only source of income other than Kindle sales, and Amazon pays me directly for those. Yep, I make more than twice as much per “copy” for each Kindle sale as I do for printed books. That’s just how it works.

I could’ve made more on the print versions if I wanted to, but keeping the book at $29.95 was very important to me. We could’ve picked $34.95, or $39.95, or any other number, but I was adamant that the price started with a 2. I wanted it to be affordable. Since I get a percentage of what’s left over after the other cuts are taken, the low price makes for a low royalties.

Do I wish it was more? Sure. Who wouldn’t? But that’s not why I wrote it. I watch the sales ranking because it gives me a general indicator as to how many eyeballs are on my work. I want it to mean something for the reader. I want it to be absorbed and enjoyed. That’s why I wrote it. That’s why I write!

For the pure unadulterated sales figures, I get those numbers from Outskirts based on how many copies they have sold to individuals and retailers. When do I see those numbers? About 90 days after they are compiled. One must be patient to get that feedback.

As a side note, I posted an update on LinkedIn today, about a question I’m hearing more often than I ever thought to be feasibly possible. That question is: “Will your book become a movie? It reads like one, and I see the characters like actors in a film.”

While I’m honored to hear people say that sort of stuff, I’ve never even pondered that much more than a fleeting thought. But now I’m hearing it so much I can’t help but wonder.

I’m almost certain it won’t ever be a full-length feature film. At 545 pages it would have to be edited and chopped to smithereens to get it in under two hours. I just don’t see that happening.

But… Could it be something like an 8-episode miniseries on a streaming service, or Netflix, or some platform like that? For the first time, I’m beginning the think it could. The longer format would allow many more key details to be included and it would give the characters time to grow. For the longest time (as in at least the last two years) I scoffed at this thought. It was as much me seeing it as a pipe dream as it was me thinking “I’m not worthy.”

But I can see it now. I don’t know if there’s even a 1% chance of it happening, but I can at least imagine it. There are so many hoops to jump through to make it happen, I can’t fathom it. I’d need to enlist a screenwriter, because that is a very specialized skill which I have never even attempted. Then it needs to be pitched to producers. If in the 1-in-a-million chance a studio liked it, then the trimming, cutting, and editing begins to make it appear on the screen. All of that would have to happen before a single scene is shot.

Seems awfully daunting. But so did writing a book like “How Far?” in two different guys’ voices. You never know. Maybe we’ll get lucky, because that’s clearly a component in making it happen. Someone will read it, and one of those someones might know a guy, who knows a woman, who works with screenwriters, and the whole thing could get rolling. I’m not counting on it. I’d be stunned if it ever materialized, but stranger things have been happened.

On a different subject, Barbara’s sister Kitty came up from Florida last week to help celebrate Barb’s birthday. We ate well, we laughed without constraint, and we all loved every minute of it.

And if you guys out there want to know how lucky I am to be married to Barbara Doyle, when I asked what she wanted to do for her birthday she said “Are the Twins playing?”

They were. It was day game on her birthday so I bought some “Dugout Club” seats for the three of us. Barbara and I love those seats because they are so close to the action you can hear the players taking and shouting. For me, being down that close always turns on one light bulb over my head. From higher up, in such a huge and beautiful stadium, it seems like a different game than the one I played. More immense, I guess. Sitting down there, it slaps me upside the head that such a feeling is dead wrong. Down there I can see it. It’s the same game. It’s the same 90-feet between bases. It’s the same 60-feet 6-inches from the mound to the plate. They’re just ballplayers. Among the best in the world, but when I’m that close I feel like I could be out there. It’s the same game, taken very seriously. I love it.

It was a bit of a raw blustery day, but we dressed for it and the Dugout Box seats come complete with a small private concession and restroom area. It’s a great way to watch a game.

I know it looks like the crowd is really sparse in the photo, but the attendance was about 19,000 and at any given time at least 2/3 of the crowd was watching from up on the main concourse, where radiant heaters keep you toasty warm while you wolf down that brat or hot dog. We had a GREAT time.

The next day, it was time to go on an excursion, all the way across the Twin Cities to the suburb of Chanhassen, 33 miles away. We were going to a museum, and not just any museum. We were headed to Paisley Park. I assume most of you know what Paisley Park is, but for those of you who don’t it’s the former home, studio, and performance venue owned and built by Prince, who was a Minneapolis native. It’s incredible.

OK, even though I’m a writer I really can’t come up with the words to adequately describe it. The family clearly hired a curator of the highest quality, and the staff takes care of the place as if Prince was still alive and they didn’t want to let him down.

They don’t allow pics until the final stop on the guided tour, in the soundstage where movies have been shot and impromptu concerts used to happen. I took a few but that area is so huge it was tough to get a photo with any sense of scale. Plus, they keep it very dark.

It was not uncommon for Prince to play a 3-hour show at Target Center, and then announce that he and the band were heading across the street to First Avenue to keep playing, well into the morning hours. It was also not out of the question for Prince to say, “Thanks for coming. We’re going to head down to Paisley Park and keep playing. Come along if you want.”

We did get to tour Studio A, in both the stunning control room and the “live” recording room. You could feel the man in the room with us.

It was an amazing experience. It seemed like each new room we entered we had our breath taken away again. And again. And again.

It was also horribly sad. I kept thinking “This would always become a museum, but it’s too early. He should still be in that chair behind the gigantic mixing console, making more musical magic.”

He made magic. When the tour starts you watch a retrospective of his life, starting out as a child prodigy, and growing into a legend who went places other artists couldn’t even imagine. I’m so glad we went.

And finally today, I have another new job to take care of. My buddies on the Sauget Wizards have long been saying or texting “We need to have a reunion.” We all kept saying it, but nothing was happening. So something is happening now. And I’m quarterbacking it.

On August 20, we will have our long awaited reunion in Sauget, at a Gateway Grizzlies ballgame. We were a semipro team made up of ex-pros and ex-college players competing seriously, and with great pride, for as many as 70 games in four months each summer. We played in a modest ballpark not far from downtown St. Louis, but it was our park. Built for us. And the playing surface and lights were as good as any in the St. Louis area.

The Grizzlies are an independent minor league pro team, playing in a real stadium. They’ve taken Sauget baseball to an all new level, but we did our part as well. We won championships, we won tournaments, and we beat the USA National team at their own home stadium. More than that, we loved each other and loved the game. We played hard. We were focused. We worked out over the winter. We knew the fundamentals and abided by them. It was the most fun I ever had playing the game I love. It was pure joy to be a Wizard. These guys are my brothers.

There were many eras of Wizards baseball. A few of us cross over all the eras, but a lot of guys played early or played late in the time line and don’t even know the guys who came before or after. On top of that, we don’t all look like we’re in our 20s an 30s anymore. I’m thinking we may need name tags!

I’m busy contacting guys, and networking to find guys I couldn’t find on my own. Hopefully we’ll have a good turnout with guys from many different years. We’re getting a private area at the Grizzlies game and it will be all-inclusive. All you and eat and drink. And all the stories you can tell.

But more than anything else, it will fun, and full of love and memories. Can’t wait.

So this was a pretty good one. Maybe worth the wait. I hope so. If you know a screenwriter, let me know. Why not? Worth a shot, I guess.

As always, it’s important to me if you hit the “Like” button at the bottom if you think this blog installment has been worth your time. Thanks for your patience and for bearing with me.

See you again soon!

BW

 

Hey! I’m finally back at the blogging desk. It’s been a while and it’s been a whirlwind, so I hope you can bear with me.

I’ve been doing pretty much non-stop publicity for How Far? and it’s kept me hopping like the Easter bunny. TV interviews, podcasts, print interviews, tons of social media, you name it. Great stuff and huge thanks continue to head from me to my publicist Elon Werner. He gets frustrated when he can’t make EVERYTHING happen, but when he lines up a big hit he’s the hero.

For instance, he lined up a segment for me on a huge TV station in Los Angeles, on their Sports Central show, with host Jill Painter. That was amazing.

My instructions before we began taping were “Just give the longest answers you want. Keep talking. We won’t know how much time we get to fill until the show sorts out, so we’ll edit it to fit.

Worked for me! I’ve never been afraid of the sound of my own voice. And Jill was fantastic.

I did a lengthy podcast recently with my longtime friend Susan Wade, who was a reporter for most of the years I was a PR guy in drag racing, along with the show’s host Anthony Caruso and that went great although it will suck up about an hour and a half of your life to watch the whole thing. Like the Energizer Bunny, we just kept going, and going, and going.

It’s here:

CapitalSportsReport

That show grew into a bigger deal when Susan then wrote about the new book and my career on her blog.

That’s here:

Thoughts Racing

Susan has always been one of the best reporters I’ve known, especially in terms of her very polished writing skills. I loved the story, and very much appreciate it. Geez, I’ve known her for so long I can’t even remember when we first met out on the NHRA tour. I think we were still living in Austin when I pitched my first press release to her and she immediately got it in a Seattle paper.

Here on the home front, we have a glossy magazine called The Connector that is mailed to thousands of residents here in the eastside suburbs of St. Paul, including Woodbury and all the neighborhoods that surround us.

Two issues ago, they printed a story on me as a “Featured Author” and told all their readers about the book.

For the most recent issue, they made Barbara and me the “Featured Family” and we were on the cover, with a lengthy story inside the magazine. Yes, Boofus and Buster got to be in one of the photos, because they are part of the family.

The photo shoot was done inside our home, because it was raw and windy day outside. That cover shot is us standing in front of our living room fireplace.

They spent about an hour shooting us, and then gave us proofs of all the shots they deemed usable in the magazine. We got to veto the ones we didn’t like and point out a few we’d really like to see in the story. It was seamless, and then about a week later I opened the mailbox and there we were, looking right back me. Very cool.

For the record, down below are two of our favorite photos from the magazine, including the one with our famous “children”.

I’m also currently working with the newspaper in Roseau and might even get a feature so big it fills a page. We’ll see, but any exposure is good exposure.

The writer up there in Roseau has been reading the book and said, and I quote “This is the greatest book I’ve ever read. If I ever write a book, I’d try to base it on your style of writing.”

Yeah, I’m patting myself on the back, but words like that from a longtime newspaper man mean a lot to me. We call it affirmation.

So, it’s all going well. I’m proud of it.

On a different front, we celebrated the retirement of one of our great friends from the old neighborhood recently. We all met at our favorite Woodbury bistro, Angelina’s Kitchen.

They walled off a whole private area for us and treated us like superstars.

Barb Meehan has worked a long and successful career at Wells Fargo and is now retired. We were all so happy for her and so proud of her.

Gifts were exchanged, hugs were shared, stories were told, laughs were loud, and the food was as good as it can be. Angelina rocks, and she came back to see us a couple of times.

Almost all of the old group made it, but unfortunately Neighbor Dave and Nichol couldn’t be there. Their little dog Bauer is really struggling and, as Nichol put it, “He had a really bad day. We just couldn’t leave him…” Bauer has had great life with a phenomenal family. He’s been one lucky dog. He’s brought so much joy to that warm and wonderful house on the pond.

But this is what it’s all about. It’s why Woodbury is home. It’s why we bought this town home when we were still out in Spokane, because we knew we’d be coming back. We have the best possible friends in the world, here.

Sorry about the way the photos stack up in this blog. I’ve started making them bigger because we no longer have the feature where you can click on them to enlarge. They look fine on the original draft, and then I publish the blog and they’re all over the place. So keep scrolling. The group photo of us at the retirement party is at the very bottom.

So this wasn’t the longest blog ever, but it’s all I had the time and mental bandwidth for.

As the publicity effort slows down, I’ll get back more into the swing of things.

Hope you are all well. Take care of yourselves.

And, as always, if you liked this blog even a little bit, please click on the “LIKE” button at the bottom.

I’ll see you again soon!

BW

 

 

Greetings and sincere salutations, blog faithful. Yes, it’s Monday. Monday Fun Day!

We were supposed to have a significant snow storm start overnight last night, and as we went to bed the Accuweather forecast was still saying 8 to 12 inches, starting around 3:00 am. Well, it’s now just after 12 noon and nary a flake has fallen. It’s late. Maybe it made a wrong turn over North Dakota? I suspect it will arrive at some point, and now they’ve “downgraded” it to 6 to 10 inches. We will do that thing northerners do. We’ll hunker down.

As you may, or may not, know I’m a bit of a nostalgia and memorabilia freak. Always have been since I was a kid and we had Boston Red Sox duffel bags full of catching gear in the garage. To be fair, at that point in my childhood the mitts, masks, spikes, and shin guards mesmerized me but not to the point of me being careful with it all. To me, it was all just toys. Most of that stuff has long ago disappeared, and that’s a shame.

Now, I do care for and relish my collectable stuff, whether it’s my own duffel bags from pro ball and Sauget Wizards semipro baseball, still stuffed with gear and uniforms as they were after the last game I played in any organization, or stuff I find out there on eBay or other sites. Some precious things, like my father’s first ever Major League jersey (1946 Cardinals) I bought at auction.

Just this week, I added something I’ve wanted to have for a very long time. I’ve wanted a clean basketball from the old ABA, the American Basketball Association, since the first day I found this crazy internet thing and began looking for one.

There are almost no game-used ABA balls to be found for less than $20,000 dollars. Incredibly expensive, unless you want one that was game-used and then driveway used, which reminds me of all that old Red Sox gear.

I found one on eBay only because a collectibles company now owns the rights and the logo for the ABA red, white, and blue ball. They are actual ABA basketballs, but are recently reissued and I didn’t care.

I loved the ABA ball. I had a rubber version of one all through high school, and when it would get dirty I’d take it to the kitchen  and clean it, just to make all the colors pop again. The first time I saw an ABA game, I was mesmerized. To see that tri-color ball fly through the air, rotating like a pinwheel of color, was so much cooler than the staid and old orange NBA ball.

And that was all on purpose. The ABA saw itself as a breath of fresh air in the pro basketball world. The NBA wouldn’t change a thing, and attendance was stunningly abysmal compared to today’s crowds. The NBA was becoming irrelevant.

The ABA saw the chance to cash in on that, and positioned itself as an all-new product. The ball was awesome. The 3-point shot was the ABA’s invention. And the style was run-and-gun, instead of the NBA’s “four corners” passing contests. I loved it.

To be fair, the ABA scuffled to stay in business throughout its existence. Many teams came and went, but a few were very successful. In the end, the San Antonio Spurs, Indiana Pacers, Denver Nuggets, and New York Nets were all merged into the NBA. The red, white, and blue ball didn’t make the merger. Sad day.

My personal ABA experience was with the Spirits of St. Louis, a team uniquely monikered with its nickname before the city name to reference Charles Lindbergh’s plane. They played at the old St. Louis Arena and were a crazy collection of up-and-coming stars, solid role players, and flamboyant personalities. I was a huge fan. They only lasted two seasons. The first year, I was a college freshman and went to as many games as I could. Some nights there’d be 8,000 people in the Arena, and some nights it was more like 800. But I loved that team. Also loved their very talented play-by-play announcer, who was just 21 and straight out of Syracuse University. It was his first pro announcing job. You might have heard of him. His name is Bob Costas.

One night, my dad arranged for the team to give me a photo pass for a game against the Nets, who featured the one and only Dr. J, Julius Erving. It was amazing to sit courtside, or even under the basket, and watch those guys play. Dr. J could just flat defeat gravity. No, seriously. He seemed to be able to jump for a dunk, then change direction in mid-air, and then rise up another six inches. He levitated. And in a moment of pure luck, I got him on Kodachrome color film as he floated a finger-roll layup into the bucket. Like so many pieces of my personal memorabilia, that photo is long gone. How I’d love to have it now.

The second season, I had a job as an usher at the Arena, so I saw every home game the Spirits played that year.

Over the full span, guys like Marvin Barnes, Maurice Lucas, Moses Malone, Mike D’Antoni, ML Carr, and other great players wore the Spirits uniform. Gus Gerard was my favorite player. He’s pictured here on the cover of the Spirits yearbook. My dad often came to Spirits games with me, whether I was there as a fan or as an usher. Every time Gus Gerard would do something good, Dad would yell “Attaboy Gustav!!!” Like it was yesterday. I can still hear him. And just look at that gorgeous bad-ass ball.

For the last 25 years I’ve been looking for an ABA ball. When Barbara and I got married, they were already selling on eBay for $5,000. That was too crazy for me. Today, as I said, I don’t know where they all went but the supply is so limited you can spend $25,000 just to hold one in your hands. Insane.

So when I discovered the re-issued balls online, I finally had a shot at having that gorgeous ball in my collection, at a fraction of the price for a game-used one from back in the day. And then I noticed something on eBay. There was one signed by Dr. J himself. BAM! I hit “Buy It Now” as fast as I could. It is now in my possession. Question: How much do I love it? Answer: Every time I lay eyes on it I smile. I love it.

And here’s something that will blow your mind. When the ABA-NBA merger happened, the owners of the Spirits made the NBA an offer. “We’ll skip the merger if you pay us a small percentage of TV income in perpetuity.” At the time, the NBA was making next to nothing for network TV rights. It was a helluva deal, they figured.

Well, as you know the NBA has exploded into one of the biggest and richest sports leagues in the world. The Silna brothers made a bet that no one could have foreseen. After they’d received about $800 million they finally agreed to end the deal and take a few more million in a buy-out of the contract. Easily the greatest coup in the history of sports franchises.

Here in the lower level of our house, where the home theater and my office are located, I’ve done a little rearranging. We have a really stylish metal and glass audio rack that we used in our first Woodbury house. It was too nice to just give away when we moved into this house, but we didn’t really need it. So it mostly just sat in the corner with some old surround-sound equipment on it. Like a piece of memorabilia!

Once the ABA Dr. J ball was in my possession, I knew what I wanted to do. And now here it is…

The ABA ball, my Bob Griese Football Hall of Fame football, and my authentic Major Indoor Soccer League ball from my days in indoor soccer management. Also a few autographed baseballs.

Above the rack is a print of a Norman Rockwell piece of art called “The Rookie” and it features a geeky new ballplayer arriving at Spring Training for the Boston Red Sox. As legend has it (and despite the fact my father could bend legends like a pro) Ted Williams was either not available to pose for the photo Rockwell took in order to create the painting, or he just didn’t want to do it. So my dad stood in for him at Teddy Ballgame’s locker. It sure looks a lot more like Del Wilber than Ted Williams, so I’ve always believed it to be true.

Above that, a replica Vikings helmet signed by quarterback Kirk Cousins. This may or may not be obsolete any day now.

And next all this memorabilia, on the adjacent wall, is a limited-edition and numbered lithograph of the original artwork for the cover of the Rush album “Power Windows.” It’s signed by all three members of the band, including the late Neil Peart. Attached are two Neil Peart drumsticks. A photo of all three guys signing it is on the back of the frame. That photo, a significant piece of proof of authenticity, is almost as cool as the lithograph.

The challenge is this: I have many more autographed baseballs, and some other collectibles I love, but they are buried in a mover’s box somewhere in the utility room. When we moved to Spokane there was really no place to display it all, so I just put the boxes away. They are here somewhere, but cleaning out the utility room is one of those major projects that just seems to never happen. It will, someday. And my Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, and Paintsville Hilanders signed balls, as well the very baseballs I hit for homers against the USA Team, the Korean National Team, and in the NCAA Regional Championship, will have a display home again.

It’s memorabilia. The physical form of memories.

And, you ask “How’s the book going?” Still chugging along, and Elon Werner and I are ramping up the PR effort to spread the word further.

If you’ve bought and are reading it (and like it) do me a solid and tell your friends. And don’t be shy about reviewing it and rating it on Amazon. That creates sales all by itself.

Just send them here, to my new website. With one click they can go straight to the correct page on Amazon. And with another click they can read all about me because, you know, that’s so important. Plus, I look handsome as hell thanks to the photographic genius of my niece Kerry B. Smith.

Bob Wilber’s Website

Thanks for following along. We’ll be taking advance reservations to view the Dr. J autographed ABA ball. I’m still smiling.

If you liked this (are you smiling?) please click on the “LIKE” button below. Muchas gracias for that, amigos and amigas.

See you again soon. Fire up a 3-pointer and remember the ABA is what brought that to you. Nothin’ but net.

 

 

 

 

Hey, look at me. Actually posting a blog on Thursday. Which means Thursday Blog Day is back in session. Welcome!

It’s been a crazy busy day, with the big news being that GoDaddy once again beat the benchmark they gave me for having assignments done as they designed, created, and built my new website. The first draft of the site was supposed to take more than week, and it was done three days early. The second draft was also early. We had a Zoom call scheduled for tomorrow, Friday the 11th, to go over all the final changes and hopefully get my approval.

When I woke up this morning, Barbara said, “So what’s on you calendar for today?” And I replied, “Nothing yet, but I’d bet some things will come up.”

Somewhere in mid-morning I got the email stating that the new website was ready to go. My guy Michael, who serendipitously is not only a former college baseball player but also a friend of the stepson of Jack Jones. “Who is Jack Jones?” you ask.

Well,  Jack Jones was a drag racer. A Top Gas racer from way back in the day. After a few years of giving out fairly inexpensive and absolutely enormous trophies to race winners (all of which were unique but not equal in quality) NHRA founder Wally Parks decided to come up with a permanent champion’s trophy. At some track out west, Jack Jones was chosen to pose for the photo that would be cast in metal atop a heavy wooden base, to become that trophy. He had his fire suit on, his helmet in his left hand, and had his right hand on a big racing slick. All these years later, that’s still the trophy and it is revered and adored by racers.

Yes, we collectively call the trophy a “Wally” just like the Academy Awards trophy is an “Oscar” but that is not Wally Parks on the trophy. It’s Jack Jones. And my rep at GoDaddy knows his stepson. And he played ball in college. It’s a small planet, right?

So, back to today. I just had a feeling. I was answering emails when the note from GoDaddy came in, and a few minutes later Michael called and we walked through it. The only change I wanted to make was a tiny one that was my fault. I felt like we needed a disclaimer on the site, noting that reproduction of any content was by written permission only, and we added that to the foot of the “Contact” page. Except when I sent the text for the disclaimer to Michael, I put it in quote marks so that he would know that was the wording I wanted. I should’ve noticed that the quote marks got copied and pasted onto the site, too. Michael removed them with two quick key strokes, and we were ready to go public.

It was literally like the countdown to liftoff. And then he said, “There you go. Your site is published and live on the Web.”

That was big moment. I’ve been part of numerous websites, and have managed them for Del Worsham and Tim Wilkerson. Obviously, I write this blog here on The Perfect Game Foundation® site, but this is a minor part of what our site is about. My brother Del was ultra-gracious enough to offer me a spot here when I retired from my NHRA career. There has never been a website solely about me and what I’ve done and continue to do.

The landing page, or the “home page” if you will, is just for navigation, but I absolutely love how it looks. It’s clean and easy and very attractive (I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about the page.) From there, you can browse summaries of “How Far?” and “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” and below each synopsis and photo of the cover is a button that will take you directly to that book’s page on Amazon.

The landing page is split in half vertically, so on the right side you can click on a button to read an extensive bio of the author dude, and a timeline of all the major moments in my life, followed by a photo gallery that we’ll add to as time goes on. Michael cautioned me about not going crazy in that regard. Some people still have slow internet connections and too many photos can grind a device to nearly a halt. But, I’ll add a few more as we go…

The contact page is mostly for members of the media, and it directs them to my esteemed publicist Elon Werner. There’s also a mail icon, and if you click on that you can send a note directly to me, although I’m still learning how to actually retrieve those notes.

It’s a simple and easy site to navigate, and I love the look of it.

Now let me tell you about GoDaddy (this is not an ad or a paid endorsement, it’s just the experience I had.)

Barbara and I knew we finally needed to get this site designed and up and running. The only person we knew who had just started a new business and wanted a site, was her brother Tim. He used GoDaddy and raved about them.

I rave about them too. Very creative, very friendly (Michael and I had a lot in common and a lot to talk about between the changes and drafts) and really professional. And, as stated above, every benchmark or estimated deadline they provided, none of which were noticeably far in the future, they beat easily. Each change was done exactly how I wanted it.

I highly recommend them. Good people who know what they’re doing. A seamless and enjoyable experience. And affordable, which is key in the world of a new author. I watch every penny.

And now I have a website. I guess I can say those dreaded words, “This time, it’s all about me!”

Check it out if you haven’t yet.

Bob’s Website

So that’s my quick update on an actual Thursday.

As always, there’s this little thing at the bottom of this blog that’s called a “LIKE” button. It would please me to enormous lengths if you’d click on that.

I’ll see you again soon.

PS: Did you buy “How Far?” yet?  Just asking for a friend

Greetings blog faithful, from beautiful Woodbury, Minn. where our temperature today has skyrocketed all the way above zero! We are sitting pretty at 1-degree right now. I’m inside. It’s fine. Going out to get the newspaper can wait until we hit a crooked number. And that massive dangerous storm that is rocking the south and east right now is all below us. We have a beautiful blue sky. It’s just cold.

We’ll start off with some news about the book. Yesterday, the Kindle version was added to the Amazon website. Which means if you own a Kindle or know someone who does, one quick click can get you “How Far?” in all its digital glory for the low-low price of $9.99, and that’s hard to beat. The button is right next to the one for the printed version, as you can maybe see here in this screen grab.

I wrote at length, in a post I created for the networking website LinkedIn, that I firmly believe the era of digital readers is waning and fading. When Kindle, NOOK, and iBooks for the iPad all greeted us as “the next huge thing” there was a groundswell of transition going on. It was cool, all your books were in one place, and once you bought the device the books were cheap. On any flight I was on through the mid-teens, it seemed like every other person on the plane had some sort of e-reader. I even had one. I read more than a few books on my iPad.

But here’s what happened, in my opinion. People actually enjoy the tactile connection between the human hands and a real book. It’s a connection that is centuries old. It’s in our DNA.

I think the catalyst for this shift has a lot to do with the global pandemic and the challenges we’ve all faced and continue to face. We crave normalcy. We crave anything close to normal. We missed books.

Yes, people will still download material to their devices, but not at the rate they used to. I think it’s heartwarming. Books are warm. Devices are not. You connect with books (hopefully) and feel them in your hands. You get the joy of turning an actual page. It’s a primal connection we’ve all known since just after birth. Books are never going away.

To that end, we’ve only had the Kindle version “live” for about 24 hours now, but the sales are mere fraction of what they were for “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” while the printed book sales seem to be at least as big if not more so. We actually sold quite a few Kindle versions in the first month back then, with “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts.” And for me, as much as I love books, that was financially a good thing. Believe it or not, I actually earn a larger royalty from Kindle. Why? It’s only $9.99 right? That is true, but there is no book to print. No production cost. No shipping. And no middle man. It felt like free money. I think I’ll be lucky to buy a nice lunch with what I earn this week from Kindle.

But… If you do have a Kindle, or know anyone who does, do me a solid favor and consider clicking on that button or telling your Kindle friends about it. Maybe I can buy two lunches if we spike the sales a bit. Maybe even Super-Size it!

As for my personal interaction with “How Far?” I had a marvelous hour with it the other day. A couple of copies landed on the porch and I needed to sign them and ship them back off to their rightful destinations. Before doing that, I could hold it in my hand and marvel at it. Barbara did too, and we were both pretty emotional just to see it and hold it. That tactile sensation again. It was tough, but I signed the books, packaged them up, and got them mailed off to where they belong.

And what this all means is that I still don’t have my copies. It was as if I got to adopt a copy for an hour. It was the same way with “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” too. I was the last to get it.

And that brings me to my next section of this blog. A few people have asked me what the two experiences were like, writing each book. There are some similarities, but there are far more differences.

One similarity is that both had to be heavily researched. That was a lot of work and I filled file folders and notepads with important details that had to be right.

For “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” it was really all about numbers and names. After all, the story itself was already in my head. I had lived it. Today, I may only remember 10% of my passwords and I wonder what we had for dinner on Sunday, but my recollections of the stories in my life were all up here (points to head). There was no way, however, I was going to be able to instantly recall every at-bat, every lap, every elapsed time, every opponent, every win, every loss in baseball or drag racing, and that all had to be right. I’m sure I spent at least an equal amount of hours, for one year, getting all of that correct with research compared to the hours I spent actually writing.

For “How Far?” there was more research. Brooks and Eric may be  fictional characters, but when writing a book like this the “real stuff” going on around them has to be right. Again, just tons of research and not all of it on my own. I had some trusted and appreciated “advisers” giving me background, color, and flavor. But it all had to be right. That’s why I went up to Roseau twice, just to soak the place in and plant the feelings and the look of the place up here (points to head again).

So the research was a similarity, and lots of focused work.

The differences?

Obviously the storyline for the first book was already there. I just had to write it. The other characters were all real too, I just had to write about them.

For “How Far?” the historical stuff was there, but the main characters were fictional, as were their families and many of their friends. All of that had to be made up, and surrounded by reality and real facts. And, writing it as two people, I had to juggle the timelines and keep the flow going without it getting too convoluted or out of sync. And, of course, I’d never done anything like this, so I was learning on the fly.

Very different experiences, basically.

Another difference was the pace of writing. As you probably remember I got a lot of money, from quite a few people, with my Kickstarter campaign. That money got me going and paid a lot of the publishing and marketing expenses, but it also created a sense of urgency and responsibility within me. Those people paid me. I felt like I worked for them. That’s why I dutifully went to work at least five days a week, and put in long days, cranking out the stories. It was my job.

For this book, I did it all on my own. I didn’t want to go to that Kickstarter well again. I didn’t really like doing it the first time. So, with no “bosses” watching over me, I wrote at a pace that was comfortable. Sometimes too comfortable. Sometimes the whole thing would grind to a halt for a few days or even a couple of weeks. I just waited until the writing juices were flowing again, and then got back into it.

“Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” took exactly one year to write. Exactly. Right to the day.

“How Far?” took more than two years to write, and the odd thing is I don’t remember what day I sat down and started. I remember that with “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts.” It was January 6, 2016.

For this one, two long years at least, although the pace quickened as I got to know the characters and how they sounded and acted. In the last month (June, 2021) I couldn’t write fast enough. It was pouring out of me, but I couldn’t cheat. I still needed the same amount of detail and drama. I never said “That’s good enough” or “I don’t need all this, I’ll just jump right to the end.”

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure how the book was going to end until maybe a month before I was done with the original manuscript (July 4, 2021). I found a small notepad the other day, buried under some files on my desk. On it were my scribbles outlining the final five chapters. I remember doing that.

I did it not so much for the story, but to see how much more writing I had to do! I needed a road map to the end. Looking at those notes (in purple ink, by the way) I think I had my head wrapped around it pretty well. Step by step, that’s how the story ended. And like I said, I don’t really think I had a firm grip on the ending until right then.

Or as Greg Halling told me, after we were done with the manuscript, “I’ve been with you all the way with this, for two years. Up until today, I wasn’t sure how it was going to end. Well done, Bobby Ballgame.”

Another huge (gigantic) difference is just the comparison of writing in the first-person as myself versus writing in the first-person as two made-up characters. That’s what we call a stretch.

I know my voice. I know how I like to write, in a very conversational way. For “How Far?” it was all a completely new experience, and I had to be really careful to “stay in character” and not slip into being me. I had the concept in my head when I started, but putting it into practice was a challenge. I’m proud of it, and I’m proud of Brooks and Eric for feeding me the words, all up in my head. They’re good guys. I miss them. We spent a lot of time together! And I don’t think I’m nuts to have heard their voices in my brain for two years. I hope not, anyway.

Finally, on a different subject, please send some good vibes, solid karma, and positive thoughts to my sister Mary, out on Kauai. She had a knee replaced a few days ago and is in initial recovery. Yesterday, when we spoke, she said it was still killing her but for the first time since the operation she was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and finally felt like she might not be in excruciating pain for the rest of her life. Damn I wish I could be there with her and Lonnie. Mary and I are like twins. It’s horrible that I can’t be there.

Get well Sis! Follow the program. I love you!

So there you have it. I’ll finish by asking you all two favors.

Number one: If you haven’t bought the book, please consider it. If you have and you’re reading it, I hope you enjoy it. If you do enjoy it, please rate it and write a review on Amazon. And if you do that, please recommend the book to anyone you know who will like it. Spread the word! I often say that I didn’t do this for anyone other than me, but that’s not true. I’m proud of it, and I want to share it with as many people as possible. That’s really why I wrote it.

Haven’t bought it yet? Just click here to join this big party.

https://amzn.to/3KW77oR

Number two: In terms of this blog, if you thought it was OK please click on the “LIKE” button below. That’s how this works. “Likes” beget more “Likes” and the word spreads.

Thank you all. For those of you who have “How Far?” I truly and deeply hope you’ll like it.

Take care everyone, especially if you’re in the way of this mega-storm.

Bob

Odd for me to be posting a blog on a Friday, and things have been really pretty manic and busy all week, but right now things are quiet and I thought I’d post an update.

It was a heck of a first few days for “How Far?” and we haven’t even ramped up the PR effort yet. It’s just been a barrage of social media and I’ve even spent an hour or so each day just emailing specific relatives, friends, and former teammates to make sure they know about the book and will consider buying it. You can’t be shy.

It’s hard to gauge exactly what the sales are because Outskirts Press only releases sales numbers quarterly. QUARTERLY! Geez, that’s going to be a long wait.

Amazon does not release sales numbers at all but they do provide “Sales Rankings” and that’s about all you can go on. So here’s what we know…

There are more than 700,000 books in the Amazon catalogue. That’s a lot of books. For the first four days after “How Far?” launched, we were in the top 5% of all the books on Amazon! That is stunning. I don’t know what it means, but it’s stunning. Things have slowed down a little today, but once Elon Werner and I get the publicity machine running, I’m sure we’ll see a new uptick.

I can look back on how that all worked with “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” and that’s how it went. A big blast of sales on Day 1 then a small drop-off for a week or so, followed by an even bigger burst in the third week. Why? Because Elon had lined up a bunch of interviews, podcasts, and even FaceTime conversations and that effort reached out to a whole new audience, beyond my racing friends and blog readers who were waiting for the book and hit “Buy” the day it came out. So, I think there’s that to look forward to.

An interesting side issue is the fact “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” is selling a little bit now. I’d see the odd increase in our sales rank with that every now and then, but I think it’s risen substantially “in the category” this week. The old dog just keeps on truckin’

And that’s another thing. There are many categories of books on Amazon. I don’t know how many, but maybe 100? “Sports Biographies” was the category for the first book, and it’s not an enormous playing field (pun intended.) There are lots of books, but it’s not crazy big. You sell a few books in one week and you’ll rocket right back up to the top 900 or so in the category.

Moving to the “Historical Fiction” category was like getting called up to the big leagues. For one thing, the category is enormous. Many thousands of books. Secondly, a lot of those books are written by some of the best authors in the world. I’m literally playing on a completely new level when measuring my success against those who are also selling and promoting a new “historical fiction” book. It’s the big leagues. The clubhouse isn’t as nice and there’s no catered food, but it’s the big leagues.

That’s why I’m so shocked and stoked (that’s a reference to my SoCal baseball character Brooks Bennett) to be having so much success with this. And like I said, we haven’t ramped up the actual “sales pitch” yet, with the PR effort. It’s pretty amazing.

As I mentioned in the last blog, we are on BarnesandNoble.com now, as well. I still steer people to Amazon because that’s where the money is, the customers are, and the sales ranks are easy to judge.

Plus, once the book is actually in people’s hands and they read it, they can review it on Amazon. That’s precious PR, as long as the reviews are good. If you buy it on a different platform, Amazon will rarely allow you to review the book.

And speaking of Amazon, those mysterious sales rankings, and PR… We kind of got hosed on this book. For the first book, we could see our ranking by the end of the first day. That allowed Elon to heavily push the fact we were well up into the Top 50 in the category on the first day. That was big news.

This time, Amazon was really slow to add the sales rankings to the “How Far?” page. Like nearly 48 hours slow. So, we have no idea where we stood on that first day when so many people were anxious to buy it. And we’ll likely never know. I can only guess. And my guess is “We were pretty good.”

The book is shipping now, but as far as I know nobody has received it yet. So, we have no reviews at this point and probably won’t for a week or two, depending on when the books actually begin to arrive in mailboxes and how fast people read. I’m looking forward to that day, with the typical “excited dread” any author feels. You may love what you’ve written, but others may not. It’s all personal preference.

UPDATE: The first guy to post that he had ordered the book, just a minute after I announced it was available, was the first to receive it from Amazon. He just sent me a photo a few minutes ago. Way to go Bob Cole!

Am I a stalker of the sales rankings? Yes, I’ll admit I am. They don’t change in real time. I think they update every hour or so, but I can’t help but click on the page to see what’s going on.

This is not new for me. When I ran those indoor soccer teams I got no end of grief from my staff because of my continual habit of looking up advance ticket sales on the computer in the ticket office. I’d walk in the room and my director of ticket sales would just stand up and let me have his chair, while rolling his eyes.

Did I watch the crowd coming in the arena? Yes. Couldn’t help it. At league meetings, other GMs would say “You can’t do anything by then. Your crowd is going to be your crowd. Just relax and wait for the game to start.” Really? No way… I’d look at the traffic coming in, the people walking up to the gates, I’d see if there were lines at the ticket windows for walk-up sales, I’d check out how crowded the concourse was, things like that. Just by looking at the cars coming into the parking lot, I could judge within 10% how big our crowd was going to be.

Even throughout my NHRA years, I still was a crowd watcher. I couldn’t help it, even though I had nothing to do with selling tickets. I’d cruise around on the scooter and see how long the lines were at the ticket windows, and at the gates. Like I said, I couldn’t help it. It’s my nature.

And here’s the next big piece of news. I’ve owned the web domain bobwilber.net since the first book, but never did anything with it. Barbara and I decided it was time to fix that, so we asked around for some advice from other people who use GoDaddy to build and host their sites. The consensus was that the process wasn’t hard, and the GoDaddy staff is great.

We set up a call with them and went over the options. Yes, we could build our own site for free but the options are pretty rudimentary and neither one of us have ever tried that before. Or, we could pay them a fee and they’d build it for us with actual professional web designers. We decided “professional” was better than “amateur” and agreed to that option.

Yesterday, I had one-hour call with one of their design guys and we went through everything from “What’s your goal here?” to specifics of page layouts. He asked me “How soon can you have all the text and photos to me?” and my answer was “Right now.” I had it all ready to go.

As I type this, bobwilber.net is being built. In a few weeks, we’ll have it up and running. Anyone will be able to learn all about me and peruse both books. Yep, there will be a “BUY THE BOOK” button under each cover image. That button will take people directly to Amazon.

People often ask me if I can sell them a book. The answer is no. I need a middleman. Our tax accountant made that abundantly clear with the first book. There are tax issues galore, including sales tax, when you sell anything yourself. I wanted nothing to do with that. I’ll happily let someone else sell the books, pay the taxes, and then send me my royalty.

Oh, and the addition of barnesandnoble.com a few days ago was huge news for my Canadian fans, friends, and readers. Amazon made a corporate decision to stop shipping books to Canada. The customs stuff, the Covid security, and just all the legwork that has to be done to get a book across the border and into a mailbox wasn’t worth it to them. Kim the Lawyer and Crazy Jane, who both live near Vancouver, were crushed.

And then barnesandnoble.com took my book and they will ship to Canada. Now I have happy friends in Vancouver.

I’m assuming the weekend will be pretty quiet. That would actually be nice. It’s been pretty crazy here.

Remember, you can buy the book right here:

Amazon: “How Far?”

And whattaya mean you haven’t bought it yet but plan to? Help a brother out here. It’s $29.95 and it’s my baby.

That’s my update. If you’re on Twitter or Facebook with me, I’ve put out the challenge to see who will get their hands on a copy first. Post a pic if you get it. I assume, like with the first book, I’ll be one of the last to get mine. Not sure why the author has to wait, but I suspect that will be the case again.

As always, please click on the “LIKE” button below if you didn’t hate this blog installment.

More updates next week. Wish me luck!

Bob

As is so often the case in life, or at least my life, things that seem to drag on forever often come to a surprisingly fast conclusion. The last few days have been no exception to that rule.

My new novel (I’m not used to writing that word) has been “in progress” for so long I can’t even remember when I started it. This past summer, I finally finished writing the initial manuscript. Then we had months of editing and proofing to do.

Finally it was submitted to Outskirts Press and received with high praise.

We had a cover to finish, and Todd Myers and I got that done. He’s an artist, an expert, a genius with a vision, and a great friend.

When that was sent along to Outskirts I knew we were close, but they tend to always err on the side of caution when it comes to estimates about timing. It took just days, not weeks.

The book was officially published for public consumption just a couple of days ago. The next big question was, “When will it be on Amazon?”

My author’s rep, Jennifer, had told me “Once we get the cover and approve it, it should be out in the world in 12-15 business days.”

I scheduled yet another phone call with her yesterday. She is great about accepting those invites and always calls right on time. One of my questions had to do with the timing of the Amazon release, since Elon Werner (my publicist) and I wanted to get that ball rolling right after it was available for purchase. It doesn’t make sense to pitch a new book nobody can buy yet. You’d be counting on them to remember to do that, and since we didn’t have the capability to offer a Pre-Order window, that would be a tough sell.

Jennifer said, in a somewhat excited voice, “Actually, I’d say Amazon should have it up and running within 48 hours.”

That kind of blew me away. It was about to be real.

Those 48 hours turned into 45 minutes. I’m a little obsessive about keeping an eye on things I can’t control. I got a lot of that from my dad. Always early, always watching, and generally always worried. When my mom would be five minutes late coming back to the house, he’d take his post in the living room watching to see when her car would come down the street. I’m like that with the pizza delivery guy. I’m definitely like that with the actual publication of something I’ve worked so hard on for so long.

When I checked Amazon for the 155th time yesterday, there it was. A chill ran through me. I had to compose myself a bit just to go upstairs and say to Barbara “We have a book! It’s live and on Amazon.” The hug was epic.

You can buy it by simply clicking on this link:

Amazon.com “How Far?”

BREAKING UPDATE. Late on Tuesday night we added BarnesandNoble.com as an optional place to buy the printed version of “How Far?”

BarnesandNoble.com “How Far?”

Since Elon and I were still thinking we had maybe a week to get all our ducks and/or kittens in a row, I knew we had to bring out our Plan B for a day. We had to saturate all of our social media platforms with the announcement.

On Facebook, I should acknowledge that Florida friend and fine drummer Bob Cole was the first to reply with the word “Bought” only minutes after I posted the news. After that, similar such replies kept coming in. It was pretty surreal.

Today, I posted what is below on Facebook. The reason? I couldn’t do this alone. Oh, I could develop the characters and write the book, at least in its first unedited version, but none of it would have been possible without the help and support of countless people, and not just now but throughout the years. So many people have had major positive impacts on me.

Here’s the transcript of that Facebook “Thank You” post…

……………………………….

It’s a new day, and although I did get a good night’s sleep there was no way to stay in bed after 6 am. I just had the feeling that the big machine was about to get seriously rolling and I wanted to be ready.

The key thing on this post is to thank all of those who supported me, encouraged me, and directly helped with the completion (and now, publication!) of “How Far?” It took forever, didn’t it?

First, of course, is my wife Barbara Doyle. She supported this effort for more than two years and was as emotional as I was when it hit Amazon yesterday. I could not have done this without her unselfish support and love.

The book couldn’t have become a reality without Greg Halling, my esteemed editor, mentor, and motivator. He doesn’t know how important he’s been with regard to my writing development.

The clunky number of commas might never have been fixed without Terry Blake doing the dirty work to find them and eliminate them. I love commas, apparently. (See what I did there…)

Todd Myers stole the show with the book cover design. It was an honor to collaborate with that kind of genius.

Kerry B. Smith did a photo shoot with me that actually (not kidding) made me look good and maybe even a little like a real author or at least a serious kind of guy.

Jeff Morton was a key for me to understand high school baseball in SoCal. For nothing more than the love of the game, he filled me with information and helped me envision how that character would’ve have grown up.

Paul Broten and Tracy Ostby were fountains of info for what life, and hockey, are like up in Roseau, Minn. I could not have come up with the rich details about that part of the book without their input.

And my two research visits to Roseau were invaluable as well. Just meeting the people and so many legends.

Brian Raabe was my conduit for life at the U of Minnesota as a baseball player. More rich details I could not have made up, and always ready to help.

Larry Guggisberg was the first Roseau resident to step in and help me. He was Superintendant of Schools at the time. Without him, the interviews with all the people up there would not have happened.

And my family, friends, and longtime readers. You encouraged me, followed my progress, and were patient. It is not lost on me that this may never have happened without your positive support and motivation.

As soon as the book was released (not even 24 hours ago yet) people like Alan Reinhart, Elon Werner, and Kelly Wade were diving in to support and retweet on social media. Many others did as well.

Elon Werner has inspired and taught me the publicity game by osmosis, for years. He’s quarterbacking the effort to publicize “How Far?” and I know it will be stellar.

Phil Burgess also probably has no idea of the impact he made on me throughout my NHRA career. He never demanded anything, but always showed me ways to improve. And, over time, he gave me more responsibility and his trust, whether it was press releases, the blog, or my column in the magazine. That was all priceless.

I know many authors slave away at this passion on their own, locked in a room. I believe it takes a team. It takes a village. And I’m so fortunate to have one helluva village on my side.

And Outskirts Press. My author’s rep Jennifer was priceless and always there. The “fast track” they put this book on amazed me. And within a few days I’ll be holding it in my hands.

Thank you all.

Now back to work promoting it and selling it. With Elon Werner on my team, doing the publicity and PR work, I think I’m golden.

Long post, but it needed to be said. I’ll get a blog up later today, just to write about yesterday and how it unfolded. Still pretty surreal.

Now I guess we have no choice but to see if anyone actually likes it…

I mean all of that very sincerely, and just wish I could have rambled on for an hour thanking every person who shares some credit. Not just in the “nuts and bolts” of getting it written, designed, and done, but in shaping me throughout the years.

I can look back as far as grade school and remember my teacher, Mrs. Luna in 6th grade, giving me confidence in my writing abilities, or whatever you would’ve called it then. In high school, the Jesuits realized my world wasn’t going to revolve around math or science, so they kept encouraging me to write and adjusted my class schedules to adapt to that. As a senior, they gave me the responsibility to be an associate teacher for freshman creative writing. The list of people who have helped shaped me, and given me the confidence to write not one, but two books, is enormous.

And I won’t let the Roseau, Minnesota impact be taken lightly, as mentioned above. I went there twice. I met everyone from the guy who runs the Roseau Memorial Arena to the mayor. They were all so generous with their time, and I loved my time there.

And Roseau folks, just so you know, this book is “historical fiction.” That means my Roseau hockey character, Eric Olson, is fictional, but the teams, the wins, the losses, the arena, and the town are all very real. The same goes for my baseball character, Brooks Bennett. He’s a made-up guy, too, but the world around him is very real.

It’s a fascinating way to write! Especially letting them get inside my head so I could write it in their voices. Of course, being fictional they don’t have actual voices, but I could hear them both.

And, I’ve just learned, tonight Roseau plays Warroad in hockey. It’s a rivalry that is so classic in a very unique part of the world. I wish I could be there for that.

So it’s out there. It’s real. It can be held in your hands although only after Amazon processes the orders and gets them in the mail. What an amazing journey. And we’re not done yet…

If you like all this news, PLEASE click on the “LIKE” button at the bottom. I’ll be back soon. There’s just a heckuva lot going on right now.

Bob

Sorry for the delay in getting this update out, but things have been fairly frantic, or even frenetic, on the book front as of late. The manuscript is done and ready to go. We still needed a cover, as you know, and we were waiting on a new template to fit the artwork in there precisely.

I got that template a few days back and immediately forwarded it to Todd Myers. He and I had mutually decided to make January 15 our firm deadline for having the cover done and “print ready” but Todd went for it early and got it finished. This photo can’t be enlarged, so I’m also posting it on Facebook so that everyone can click on it and get a real look at what it’s going to be.

Todd came up with a couple of great improvements since I was at his house a few weeks ago. The cover had been stark white, but he thought a very light blue would look better as the base background. He was absolutely right.

He also slightly arched the words “HOW FAR?” at the top to look more like a name on the back of a jersey. The font itself is actually called “Jersey” because it looks like the sort of lettering you’d see on an athlete’s apparel. Again, Todd hit a home run. (See what I did there?)

So, we were both congratulating each other and thanking each other, knowing we’d knocked it out of the park and it was done. As soon as the publisher’s production team could take a look and OK it for publication, our new baby would be added to the queue for actual printing and release. Seemed like a great moment.

I had been told it would be 7 to 10 days before we got that “print ready” approval, but just 24 hours later my rep at Outskirts Press emailed me with a sincere apology. Todd had more work to do…

They had sent us the wrong template. Not terribly wrong. Not outrageously wrong. But wrong nonetheless. The template is wrong in terms of the width of the spine of the book. I don’t know if the original template was too narrow or too wide, and it didn’t matter. It just needed to be right for the cover to fit the book.

So there was that. And then I learned that they’d also sent us the wrong barcode for the back cover. That should not be a big deal. It can stay right where it is and the correct one will just be inserted into that spot. What I don’t know yet is how much trouble the spine is going to be. Todd is busy as all hell these days, so hopefully it won’t be a massive amount of work.

When I emailed him about the problem, and forwarded him the new template, his reply was, “Well, @&*$.”  I’ll let you figure out what four-letter word he used. My reply back was “That was the most succinct two-word message ever.”

So we’re there, but we’re not there. Hopefully we’re back in the hands of the publisher within a few days. Fingers and toes crossed.

Check out my Facebook page if you want a close-up look at this great and creative design. I drafted the right player to do it. He’s a star.

When I have a good idea of when we will “hit the streets” (meaning “hit Amazon”) with “How Far?” I’ll let you know. Track me on Facebook and Twitter just to be in the loop.

Speaking of fingers and toes (which I did two paragraphs ago) I have a couple of Minnesota weather tales to tell. The first happened last Saturday.

We had tickets for the NHL Winter Classic hockey game between the Minnesota Wild and the St. Louis Blues. That’s good. We knew when we bought them that the game itself might be a challenge. Why? Because the Winter Classic is always played outdoors, and this game would be at the Twins’ stadium, Target Field.

The Classic is also always on January 1, when the Twin Cities’ temp could possibly be as high as the 20s or 30s. Even the teens would be easy. It could also be well below zero.

Barbara had been suffering from a head cold and sinus infection and wasn’t feeling all that great in the week leading up to the game. Also, this new wave of COVID has been tearing through the country and Minnesota like a viral tsunami, so there was that to worry about. And we were supposed to have our annual bash with our wonderful friends from the old neighborhood on New Year’s Eve.

Actually, one by one all the couples who always attend our New Year’s Eve bash (and anniversary celebration) began to have serious second thoughts, and they began to drop out. We did as well, and finally the party was cancelled. That was the right choice. I’d rather have healthy friends I can see later rather than sick ones who we saw that night.

Barbara and I were very much on the fence regarding the hockey game, as the forecast kept getting colder and colder. We even went so far as to list our tickets for resale, just to see if we could unload them. It wasn’t exactly a seller’s market once the forecast hit temps as low as 11-below zero just a day before the game. So, with help from our friends Joe and Mary Beth, who know how to survive cold sports events thanks to their Green Bay Packers season tickets, we gathered enough cold-weather gear and decided we had to go

We just had to. It’s not like the Winter Classic is going to be back at Target Field anytime soon. Probably not in our lifetimes. It was a box we had to check. It was an event we had to experience.

Barb had bought all sorts of high-tech stuff to get us through it. Heated socks, heated pants, heated insoles, all battery operated. Joe and Mary Beth loaned us all kinds of clothing they use when Lambeau Field is subzero, so we had plenty of armor on.

First of all, we were glad we went. It wasn’t so much about watching a hockey game as it was about just being there for the full spectacle of it. Actually, we could barely see the hockey game. The rink was way out in the center of the baseball diamond, and our VIP seats would’ve been fabulous for a ballgame, just a few rows behind home plate, but once the players took the ice we could basically only see them from about the waist up. As Barb said, “It was a lot like sitting out in your yard at 10-below watching a hockey game on a TV across the street.” Mostly, we could just watch it on the centerfield Jumbotron.

That was true, but it was still great to be there. What was funny was that all the high-tech stuff pretty much failed. The things that kept us warm were the old-school items like ski jackets, great mittens, hand warmer packs in the mittens, and the hats, hoods, and other accessories Joe and Mary Beth loaned us.

After a while, the Blues started pouring it on and we noticed that whatever batteries were supposed to keep our feet warm were failing. Once our toes became so numb we weren’t sure they were still there, we decided to check out early. That was OK. It was a fantastic experience and I could feel my toes again the next day!

Another hint: When it gets to be that cold, I found it best to move my thumbs right into the main mitten instead of the thumb slot. With those heat packets, our fingers never got cold. On the way to the car, however, when it was time to unlock the doors and actually get in, just having the mittens off for a minute was painful.

Painful also describes today’s temperature. When I got up this morning, the sun was shining, the snow was glistening, and it looked quite beautiful outside. Then I thought it might be prudent to check AccuWeather to see what the temperature was.

And here I get to illustrate just how bone-chilling it was this morning.

You don’t mess around with -16. We may have gone to a hockey game at -11, but even that was a walk in the park compared to minus 16. I know this because I had to check on the hot tub and service it with chemicals today.

I bundled up as well as I could, figuring I’d only be out there for a couple of minutes, but the first problem was just getting the lid opened. I had to take my gloves off to make that happen, and it almost didn’t happen anyway. It was practically frozen shut, but I finally got it lifted without actually breaking the cover itself. I added chlorine tablets to the floater, and put in some granules to get the pH and alkalinity back in line, and put the lid back down. My fingers were numb. I mean 100% totally numb, despite the fact I was leaning over a hot tub with 97-degree water.

But this is Minnesota. The sun is out. The sky is blue. It’s OK. We deal with it. I doubt we’ll go for a walk today, but with the fireplace going and the boyz snuggling with us, it’s all good.

And now about a connection…

I recently joined a Facebook group called “Growing Up in St. Louis County” and immediately found it to be a fun place for getting all nostalgic about the St. Louis area, especially the suburbs. Within days I was corresponding with a variety of people who not only lived near me, in Kirkwood, when we were kids, but who knew a lot of the same kids I played with growing up. It was amazing.

And finally, I saw a post that said “Bob Wilber? The same Bob Wilber that lived in Pheasant Run in the 80s and who was good friends with Lance McCord???”

I recognized the name Sheri Sanders at once, although she’s now hyphenated as Sheri Sanders-Klutho. Sheri was Lance’s girlfriend back eons ago, and I mostly just remember that she was a great person. Way back then, when we first met, she was a flight attendant for Ozark Airlines. They had their base at Lambert Airport in St. Louis, and with TWA also having their main hub there the area in West County where we lived (Maryland Heights) was full of modern apartment complexes where a lot of flight attendants lived. Also more than a few fun bars. I got to know Sheri well when she and Lance were dating, and we always had fun together. I hadn’t heard from her since probably 1985 or 1986.

We started direct messaging each other on Facebook, and she immediately bought “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” for her husband’s Kindle, knowing she’d read it first.

Yep, she’s still flying. When Ozark was bought by TWA she made that transition. When TWA was acquired by American, she got laid off, but now she’s back in the air with them.

She’s almost constantly on the road and actually flies out of DFW quite often, having to commute down there to catch her trips, but with the Kindle she was able to dive into the book.

I’m proud, and I’m thrilled, to say that she loved it. The only complaint she had was that it would often keep her up so late in her hotel room because she couldn’t put it down. As she went through it, from front to back, she kept me up to speed on what she had just read, and it was like living it again for me. It was really wonderful.

I had worried that the NHRA part of the book might lose her, because she obviously didn’t know much (or anything) about professional drag racing and Nitro Funny Cars.

Today, I got a note she’d sent me late last night, telling me she had finished it. She read the whole thing between flights and in hotels in just a week. I was stunned, but so happy to make that connection again and to know that she liked it.

In the epilogue for that book, I wrote that it was “uncanny” that I started the writing process on January 5, 2016 and finished writing on January 6, 2017. I know she read it to the end because she messaged “It’s uncanny that I finished the book and noticed that today is January 6th.”

What a lot of fun this has been. And it never would’ve happened if I hadn’t joined that St. Louis County group on Facebook. See? There are a few redeeming things about social media. You just have to block out the insanity and find the comfort.

That’s it for this installment. A bit frustrated with the cover issues, but Todd will fix that. Really happy about everything else I got to write about today.

As always, if you enjoyed any of this it would be super-duper nice if you’d click on the “Like” button at the bottom.

Back soon…  Keep an ear out for more book updates and be ready to click that “Purchase” button on Amazon when it goes on sale. Just a few weeks now, I’m told.

 

Geez. That headline is just straight poetry. Seriously. OK, maybe not but it was fun to try to mix the words up a bit.

Things have definitely been going at full speed lately. As much as I’ve put this blog off to make all the stuff I’ve done happen, it’s still a tight deadline today to get it all into words and posted. I seem to be all awhirl as well.

This one will outline two important weekends. The last two weekends. They were really important, basically critical, when you lay out the things that have to happen to go from an idea to a book. There are no shortcuts. Well, yes there are shortcuts but they end up looking like shortcuts and I didn’t want to do that. I wanted the best.

The first assignment was a “glamour shot” photo of little old me, for the back cover of the book. And while I was doing that, I should also have a wide variety of such portraits taken for the PR effort and other book-related needs. So, I needed a professional portrait photographer with mad skills and all the right equipment. It takes “mad skills” to make me and my face made for radio look like a serious author.

When I knew this had to happen, and it had to happen fast, it was Barbara who sprung the idea on me. She said, “You need to get down to Orlando and have your niece Kerry shoot these. She’s awesome. She’ll kill it.”

Kerry is married to my nephew Ewan, who is my sister Mary’s son. Yes, he was born in Scotland and hence the name. He’s also about 6-foot-9 and a former college basketball player. Plus, both he and Kerry and their three kids, Matt, Ryann, and Cal, are all really cool people.

And Barb was right. We’ve seen a lot of Kerry’s work on social media and it’s world class. Plus, Ewan and Kerry have been moving around the country pretty much nonstop for the last couple of decades, and it’s been really hard to get to see them. I think the last time I saw Ewan was when he and Matt attended the Charlotte race eons ago. Matt was just a boy at the time. He’s in college now.

What’s worse is that I had never even met Ryann and Cal. How is that possible? I communicated with Kerry and we set up the photo shoot for Sunday, December 12, at their house in Maitland.

Maitland is right next to Winter Park, which is a lovely town I could actually see us living in, if we were so inclined. Full of shops, restaurants, and fun places. Also very walkable.

Ewan picked me up and we headed to a restaurant called Rome, in Winter Park. Unfortunately, for me, Matt was still at school at the University of Delaware, so he wasn’t there. Fortunately, for me, that meant I got to use his bedroom.

Dinner was great, the conversation was rollicking, and we all had a great time. After the Italian dinner, we walked a few blocks to enjoy some gelato. Photo attached of the smiling faces.

Back at their beautiful home, Ewan and I stayed up way too late after everyone else went to bed, just telling stories and reliving so many memories. It was a fabulous conversation that only took about 15 years to happen since the last time we were together. I shall not allow the stark lack of visits to happen again.

Bright and early on Sunday morning, Ewan and Kerry set up the backdrop and the big light, and I put on a dress shirt and jeans. I thought that looked authentically authorish. Spell check says “authorish” isn’t a word. Too bad, spell check. I’m using it.

The whole photo project was fantastic. Kerry is such a great photographer but she’s just as good as a coach to get the subject (me) into the right poses with the right smile. “Chin forward, head down, lean a little to the left, and smile!” Click, click, click. She worked magic.

We did standing up, leaning against a wall, seated, leaning on a chair (which had to be placed on top of Tupperware dishes to make it high enough) and a bunch of other poses. It was foreign territory to me, but I had a helluva coach.

We took a break for a great lunch, just a block away, and later in the afternoon Ewan ran me back to the Orlando airport and I jetted home. A quick trip, but hundreds of clicks and Kerry took the initiative of going through all the images and sending me a link to a few dozen of the best ones. I whittled that down to a short list that would be candidates for the back cover of the book, and the rest we can use for other PR purposes.

It was a marvelous trip. I wish Matt could’ve been there, but then I would’ve had to sleep on the floor. I’ll catch up with that young man later.

And, if you live anywhere near Orlando, or can get there, and you need some phenomenal portrait photography done, call Kerry. She made me almost look handsome! That’s a miracle. Here’s her website:

https://www.kbsphoto.com

And a word about my nephew Ewan. I am so damn proud of him I’m busting at the seams. He’s always been a great guy, even when he was a great little kid. He’s risen through the ranks in the business world and is now the President and Global Chief Revenue Officer for a company called Electrosonic. And he’s not done moving up the organizational chart yet. Remember I said that. He will rise all the way to the top. He’s amazing, but he’s still exactly the same guy I’ve known since he was born. Bravo, Ewan! You rock buddy!

Now let’s move forward to this past weekend. One of the most challenging things about this book has been the cover. Having worked with Todd Myers for many years on the NHRA tour (he was the PR rep for Kalitta Racing) and on the cover of my first book, I knew I wanted his talent for this cover. The first book cover was photographically based, thanks to the uber-ridiculous skills of Mark Rebilas behind the lens, and Todd did all the PhotoShop and graphics for that cover. He’s a genius.

This time I wanted him to do the whole thing. It would all be graphics. I, sadly, steered him wrong at first, challenging him to think and work not just “outside the box” but also miles from it. I thought a wild impressionistic cover would be cool. I wasn’t smart enough to know that the one key thing a cover provides is a glimpse into the book, its story, its characters, and such. The title also has to be instantly recognizable and legible. I sent Todd off on that original misguided gambit and we were just wasting his time.

If there’s one thing Todd doesn’t have a lot of, it’s time. He works two jobs that keep him busy all week. He also is devoted to painting, and one of his oil paintings hangs in our house. With all that said, I knew we weren’t making enough headway remotely, via email and text, and it was Barbara who again had the right idea. She said, “Find a day when the two of you can go into his home office and close the door until it’s done. You have to go there. Find the time.”

So this past weekend, I flew to Detroit late on Saturday afternoon and stayed at the Westin that is right inside the main terminal. On Sunday, I got up and picked up a rental car, dialed Todd’s address into the GPS on my iPhone, and off I went on my way to Todd and Betsy’s home in Waterville, Ohio. About an hour south of the Detroit airport.

We immediately got to work. No time to waste. Todd had been messing around with some silhouette images of a baseball pitcher and a hockey player, and he had merged them into one image. It was way cool, but I had to break the news to him, “That pitcher is left-handed. My character is right-handed.” Within a minute he reversed that out and magic was made. By putting the pitcher on the left side of the image, it was crazy how both of the athletes’ legs lined up in perfect symmetry. Even the hockey stick was in perfect alignment. I’m telling you, it was magic.

Beyond that image, we had a blank computer monitor staring back at us. We had a long way to go…

Todd still had the cover template from “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” and even though that book was 7 x 10, and this one will be about 6.5 x 9.5, we at least had that to use for the concept. He knew he’d have to adjust a lot of the layers to fit the smaller size, once Outskirts Press sends us the template, but this was a good way to build the cover from scratch and lock in the concept.

It was an amazing process, and we not only worked well together, it was absolutely uncanny how we were consistently on the same wavelength. Basically, any time I’d say “What if we do this..?” he’d smack his forehead and say “Stop it. I was just thinking that exact same thing.”

It felt, to me, like what musicians must go through to write a new song together. I mean, we started with nothing but a silhouette image of two athletes and we just let our minds go. Throwing every idea at the wall. Considering everything. Learning what worked and what didn’t work. It was a spectacular experience. And yes, Todd Myers is a just a little talented. If by “a little” you mean “enormously.”

Every now and then we’d stand up and walk to the other side of the room, just to get a different perspective on what the whole thing would look like. And if Todd said, “I don’t hate it. I really don’t…” that meant he loved it. And I loved it too.

After about six hours, we were physically and mentally drained. It was getting hard to focus but we had the bones of it completed. As Todd put it, “I think we’re done. I’m going to have to go back through all these images and layers to format them to the new template anyway, so we’re wasting our energy trying to fine-tune this too much. We, sir, have a cover.”

And we did. Here’s a sneak peek at the front cover. The rest of it is still a ways from being totally “publisher ready” but we covered a million miles in one six-hour period in Waterville, Ohio.

Again, I can’t say enough about Todd’s focus and determination, not to mention his phenomenal skills on the computer. At one point he said “You’re getting a first-hand tutorial on how to do this. For your next book you’ll be able to do it yourself.”

My response was, “Not a chance. Unless I sketch it in crayon…”

I drove back up to Detroit basically beaming. We had covered so much ground and created this thing out of thin air. We’ve been friends a long time, and have been through a lot together, but this one day in Waterville, Ohio was magic. I’m not going to say we were like Lennon and McCartney, but we were so in tune with each other’s ideas it was just flabbergasting. We made one helluva team.

So how about the book? Well, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, so they say, but I hope you judge this one well.

Today, I resubmitted the manuscript after having made 37 small edits to it last week. That was a busy week, going through it page by page and paragraph by paragraph. Basically, word by word. After Outskirts made those changes they gave it back to me for one last look. I stared at the laptop screen and thought to myself, “I’ve been through this a million times. Greg Halling and Terry Blake have been through it front to back as well.” I figured it was just time to say “OK, we’re done.”  I clicked on “Approved” and there we were.

I just, moments ago, got an email from my author’s rep at Outskirts that outlined what we have left to do. It’s as simple as this:

They will send me a template for the cover by the end of the week, and I’ll share that with Todd.

Todd will then reconstruct the cover to fit that template, for the front, spine, and back.

Once we send that back to Outskirts, they will put it through a review process to make sure it will fit and look correct when printed.

Then… And strap yourselves in for this bit of news, it will be about two weeks to finish the book, publish it, print it, and get it on Amazon and other platforms. Holy crap!!!

We need to get the cover done, and Elon Werner and I need to map out our PR and publicity strategy, and then we’re staring at a brand new bouncing baby book. Weird… Early February? That’s very possible.

Get your Amazon fingers loosened up. It will be just $29.95 and the cover will rock your world. I’ll keep you all updated on Facebook, Twitter, and here on the blog. We’re not at the finish line yet, but I can see it from here. Whew. Makes me nervous!

It’s one thing to get so personally invested in a book project, putting your heart and soul into these characters and the words you choose to tell the tales. It’s another to then let the other side of your psyche think, “But what if nobody likes it?”

I remember the first day “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” went on sale back in 2017. I’ll never forget it. My initial feelings really weren’t like joy and excitement. Basically, I was scared to death. I’m sure it will also be that way for “How Far?”

So that’s it. I’m exhausted. If you just read this blog and thought “Well, that wasn’t awful” or you quoted Todd Myers by saying “I don’t hate it. I really don’t” please do me a solid favor and hit the “LIKE” button here at the bottom.

I’ll keep you posted as we keep nearing that finish line.

And here are a few random shots of this blogger taken by his niece Kerry Smith, the amazing photographer. Enjoy.

Welcome to Monday Blog Day. OK, I just made that up. There is no such thing as Monday Blog Day, but if you’ve been following my ramblings for any length of time you know I was pretty good about posting a blog every Thursday. And then came writing a new book, editing the new book, proofing the edits, working with a publisher, approving formats and page counts, and other bits of life. The Thursday thing hasn’t necessarily become obsolete, but it’s been really hard to stick with.

I’m not going to say I’ve been too busy. Postal carriers are too busy. ICU nurses are definitely too busy. Utility workers during a serious storm are too busy. I just didn’t have the mental bandwidth to make it happen every Thursday. So now I pick my spots. I don’t have a lot on my plate today, so this particular Monday is a good time to write.

When I awoke this morning, I could just sense that it was legit cold outside. I checked my phone and it was 7 degrees. We also got another dusting of snow, as well. The temperature was harder to deal with than the tiny bit of snow.

Barbara and I used the hot tub last night and it felt frigid outside, but it was still in the 20s. For December, that’s a bonus. The tough part was we still had the water temperature set for warmer days and nights. We’ve had such a prolonged autumn, with comfortable days, we kept the water temperature around 92. That feels hot when you get in, but you “get used to it” pretty quickly. It was set at 94 last night, and that wasn’t warm enough with a strong wind blowing right in our faces. Barb punched it up to 96. Unfortunately, with the lid open and the jets running, it takes a long time to bring the temp up even a few degrees with 250 gallons of water in the tub. That’s kind of an overnight thing. Still great to be out there, but that wind was a shark.

For the record, the forecast for today’s high is 13 but we’ve already gotten that far. Piece of cake. The sun is out, so it’s not a big deal.

Looking back over the last few weeks, it’s been a crazy adventure. The book stuff has been constant and my “author’s rep” Jennifer, at Outskirts Press, has been an enormous help. She’s very knowledgeable and very helpful. Right now, the key decision to make is how large the book format will be and how we keep the page count in line. I think I’ve made my decision.

The key thing to me is the retail cover price. I want “How Far?” to be eminently affordable. I knew when “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” was released that $49.95 was a very steep price, but I wasn’t willing to cut any more pages or stories. Greg Halling and I left a lot of those on the editing room floor as it was. So we used every trick we could come up with, from making it a 7 x 10 book instead of 6 x 9, taking out spaces between the paragraphs, and narrowing the margins. I ended up hating that last trick. It was too hard to read the words that were bumping up against the “gutter” which is the term for the part of the layout that is closest to the spine. It still bugs me.

I’m 99.9% sure we’re going with the 6 x 9 format size, in paperback. Technically it’s 6.14 inches by 9.21 inches, but you know… If we trim some white space and drop the font size from the standard 12-point to 11-point, we can get it down to 559 pages. That’s still a big YIKES, and boy was my math wrong.

I really “felt” like this book was shorter and a much quicker read than “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” but I still plotted out an average word count per page when I was done. I grabbed six random 6 x 9 books off the shelf and counted words per line, then averaged that out. Then I counted lines per page, and averaged that out. I was sure the page count would end up around 400. Still a lot, but manageable. As it turned out, the designers at Outskirts let Jennifer know that my math skills were horrible. I already knew that.

They said, if we went 6 x 9 in a standard format, with a 12-point font size, we’d clock in at 645 pages and the retail price would be $32.95. I don’t think the price was a deal breaker, although I understand the psychology of having that price start with a 2. Nobody lists their house at $303,000. You go with $295,500 and work from there. I did, however, greatly fear a 645-page book. That’s very intimidating.

And I really thought my averaging skills were right on. I missed it by “that much.”

I think we’re in agreement on all this now. Jennifer indicated that it’s quite common to print in 11-point, so we’ll go with that.

Once we get the final page count, Outskirts can provide a template for the cover. Hopefully, we can make that happen quickly and off we’ll go to a full proof for this guy to make one more sweep through. It’ll be my last chance to make any changes. It takes an enormous amount of concentration and self-control to go through it very slowly. You can’t rush through it. Once we’re done with that, and I’ve approved the designed “look” of the interior, it’s off to be printed.

So that’s where we are. We’re getting there.

Back to the Thursday thing. A week and a half ago, Thursday the 25th of November was Thanksgiving. Hence the lack of a blog that day. It was a huge hullabaloo up here in Woodbury.

Barb’s sister Kitty, her nephew Todd, his wife Angie, and the two little 5-year-old Twincesses, Stassi and Bella, live near Orlando. After another long hot and humid summer, they looked forward to coming up here for the holiday, just to feel some brisk clean dry air. We were thrilled to have them as our guests.

It wasn’t brutally cold, but the mid-30s were enough of a fresh departure for them and there were only a few “I’m too cold” statements.

The funny thing is, Bella and Stassi are twins. Bella is usually very adventurous but she was easily cold. She didn’t like the sensation of her face being chilly. Stassi, on the other hand, rarely mentioned the temperature. It was an effort for us to keep her mittens and hat on. And they’re twins…

We had a great feast, followed by two days of leftovers. We just cooked a turkey breast, to keep it simple and that was more than enough for all of us.

After we ate, it was time for post-turkey naps for all the adults, but that wasn’t going to happen with the twins around. Seriously, did we EVER have that much energy? I mean, it’s nonstop, at full speed, in our little house. It was a blur, but they were having fun and that’s what mattered most. Boofus and Buster, on the other hand, were not sure what to make of it all. It took them a couple of days to even let the girls get near them. We’d also gone for a walk earlier, all bundled up, and they were mesmerized by the ice on the ponds. I had to make it clear to all involved that it was just a sheen of ice. It wouldn’t hold them for a second. They were not allowed to get anywhere near anything that looked like ice.

The next day is was time to go on a longer walk, to a small park across the main road behind our house. It’s a busy street that many people treat as having no speed limit, and there is no cross-walk between our neighborhood and the park. I was ultra-worried about keeping the two rambunctious little ones safe. We managed to do that.

The playground at that park is slightly bigger, and the tireless little grand-nieces went non-stop most of the time we were over there. It was also slightly colder but the girls were running around so much I don’t know if they ever got cold.

I did get this adorable pic of Bella, as she contemplated the big slide from the top. She’s mentally figuring it all out, and once she made the first plunge there was no stopping them. Two trips down the slide later, and they were both going headfirst. Much fun was had by all.

On Saturday, Angie needed to fly back by herself for work. That was dramatic, to say the least. I don’t think Bella and Stassi are too used to seeing Mama leave them and Dada behind. The sweet little things were confused and sad.

That night, the rest of us seriously bundled up and drove (in two cars) over to the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, about halfway between St. Paul and Minneapolis, for a display they call “Glow” and that term expertly described it.

Everything is lit up. It was pretty overwhelming for the little ones, but Barbara had the foresight to spend a little extra money on the VIP tickets, which came with upfront parking and access to one of the main buildings there. We could come and go to get warm and to use the nice clean bathrooms. Money well spent. Barbara and Todd took the girls on the gigantic mega-slide too. They thought they were being daring at the little park across the road! This thing is one of those long steep slides with three or four large humps in it. The little ones were a little worried at the top, but they loved it. I’d say, during their brief visit to Minnesota, that we helped them graduate from a tiny slide, to a bigger one, to the biggest one. Well played.

Everyone had to head back out on Sunday, so there was the need for coordination with that, as well. We still needed two cars. They had to check their bags, and the girls still thought running around and doing their own thing in the busy MSP airport was all good. Somehow, like herding kittens, we got everyone checked in and through security. Barbara and I were officially exhausted, but it sure was fun and family is what’s critical at Thanksgiving.

Now we’re ramping up for Christmas. No traditional tree in the house. It’s far too much of a game for the boyz. But we do have this tree, on the wall!

When Barbara bought it and it came out of the box as straight lines of smashed gold tinsel, I was disappointed. I shouldn’t have been. A few minutes later we had it hung and she went to work spreading out the little branches and now I think it looks great.

We’ve also decided to keep the gift-giving in check. We need for nothing. We have a few utilitarian things we want, which we’ll buy for ourselves (we could really use a Roomba vacuum, although I’m not sure Buster and Boofus will agree with that) but beyond that I think we’ll just stick with some stocking stuffers and I would imagine our two fuzzy “kids” will end up with presents galore, but Barbara and I will just enjoy each other and the new vacuum.

I’m going to hope to cover a lot of this pre-production stuff this week, and then I’m off on a quick overnight trip Saturday and Sunday. I need to have professional photos taken, of me, for the back cover of the book. The best way to do that is in a professional environment with a great photographer. I’ve got that all arranged, although it’s going to be a very quick trip. We’ll shoot a bunch and I’ll figure out the best one for the “Author’s Photo” on the back. More on that later…

On a completely different subject, yesterday featured the announcement of the addition of some additional deserving players to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. This “special committee” vote allows the Hall to correct some oversights made in the past. I’ve always found it odd that the regular Hall of Fame vote is done by baseball writers. They can be really picky, for guys who never played the game. This vote is done by a much smaller committee, and it features a number of former players who knew these guys, played with them, and appreciated the talent they had. It’s like with my book. I have one last chance to go back and edit, to make changes and fix mistakes, and this committee is doing just that.

It was a huge day for the Minnesota Twins franchise and Twins fans everywhere, but it was also a huge day for the Wilber family.

Twins greats Tony Oliva and Jim Kaat were inducted. That’s so overdue is ridiculous. Both marvelous players and great men. They’ve deserved this for far too long. Former Negro Leagues players Buck O’Neil and Bud Fowler, were added to the Hall as well. In addition, the great Gil Hodges and the ageless Minnie Minoso were rewarded for incredible contributions to the game.

Here’s how that impacted those of us who were fortunate enough to have Del Wilber as their father…

Tony Oliva absolutely considers my dad to be the key to his big league career. When Tony was signed, he could already hit (my dad’s comment to the organization was “Don’t mess with his swing. It’s already perfect”) but Tony was almost clueless in the outfield. My dad would take the time, in the fall Instructional League, to hit him hundreds of fly balls and grounders, working on making him at least a serviceable outfielder. Tony ended up being great at that part of the game, too. Just a few years later he won a Gold Glove.

Jim “Kitty” Kaat knew my dad very well, in the Twins organization. When I spoke with Jim on the phone a couple of years ago, he couldn’t stop raving about Dad. And he, too, mentioned the sight of seeing Big Del and Tony O out on the field in Florida, working on what had been nonexistent fielding skills, day after day. Kitty said, “Your dad was tireless, and he had a great student. Your dad would never quit teaching, and Tony would never quit learning.” Two great players. Two really amazing and classy men.

Minnie Minoso is an incredible story. My dad knew him as well, from the White Sox organization. Big Del used to rave about him all the time. Minnie came up to the big leagues in 1946, the same year my dad did. He played regularly until 1964, but that’s not the most stunning thing. He also played briefly in 1976 and 1980. He played in the big leagues in five different decades! He was ageless.

As for Buck O’Neil, that’s my story. Buck never got a chance to play in the Major Leagues. He only played and managed in the Negro League and was a legend as a Kansas City Monarch. When I was a scout for the Toronto Blue Jays, in the early 80s, Buck was scouting as well and our territories and assignments overlapped often. When I first met this gentle, humble, intelligent, and gracious man, I’ll sadly admit I didn’t know who he was. When another scout told me all about Buck, I made it a point to sit next to him as often as I could, just to soak up his knowledge and outlook by osmosis. By the time the epic “Baseball” documentary was released, by director Ken Burns, I realized what a gift those scouting years were. Buck O’Neil is the star of that lengthy series so expertly filmed by Mr. Burns. He’s wonderful in it. He was wonderful, period.

Congratulations to all of the living inductees and to the families of those who have passed on. It was a big day.

That’s it for this Monday Blog Day. I hope everything is great with all of you. I’ll be back here again next week, but I can’t say what day it will be. Not enough mental bandwidth for that.

As always, if this installment was something you enjoyed, and how could you not with Bella and Stassi involved, please click on the “Like” button at the bottom.

See you next week, boys & berries.

 

Welcome back, I say to you all. Whatever you do, avoid reading the words “Welcome back” and immediately tying it to the tune of the “Welcome Back Kotter” theme song. DON’T DO IT! That’s my advice. It’ll be stuck in your head for days. And for the record, the singer of that song you’re not supposed to think of was the great John Sebastian, who was also the singer for the band Lovin’ Spoonful, so you’re welcome for that little tidbit of trivia, as well. We’re off to a great start today.

I’ve been busy. How about you?

This past Sunday, Barbara and I ventured out into the world of travel again, staring wide-eyed at the changes made within the terminal and concourses at MSP airport. We were “only” headed for Chicago, a quick little trip by air, but even that seemed like ancient memories and a daring excursion. We wore masks, like everyone else at MSP and on the plane. It’s not a big deal. Doesn’t bother me a bit and it would probably stress me out beyond belief to be in any place like that without one. I still mask up just to go to the grocery store, although now the percentage of like-minded people there is about 30% with masks on. Maybe that’s why Minnesota just took over the “top spot” in terms of states that have had the largest surge of recent new cases of COVID. We, apparently, never learn. I’m tripled vaccinated and still wear a mask. So sue me.

The main reason for our trip was a concert. Talk about getting outside our comfort zone. A sold-out crowd at the enormous United Center, where the Blackhawks and Bulls play, and even though you had to wear a mask and show proof of vaccination to get in, once the lights went down many of the masks came off. Not ours.

More on the concert in a bit, but first a quick mention of what we did on Monday morning after a great dinner on Sunday night at an English pub called Elephant & Castle. I had a fine French Dip but in retrospect I should’ve followed my instinct and had Fish & Chips. I mean, really. It’s a pub. Don’t know what I was thinking… I was seduced by the thought of a fine bit of au jus.

On Monday morning (the concert was Monday night) we rented a car from a nearby Avis outlet in downtown Chi-Town, and drove down to the suburb of Aurora. Barbara had arranged a meeting with an investment analyst who covers her company, H.B. Fuller, and that would happen at a phenomenal facility they have there. It’s where basically all the adhesives and grouts come from for flooring materials. H.B. Fuller is a market leader in that category.

I got to sit in on a one-hour meeting with the analyst and members of the plant staff, going over the market, trends, and how they run the facility. It was fascinating. Have I ever mentioned how brilliant my wife is? I’ve heard her on phone calls and on Zoom meetings, but this was the first time I’ve ever been a “fly on the wall” in an actual meeting she was having. I listened and marveled at all of it.

After that, the Plant Manager and the Director of Sales took us all on an in-depth tour of the whole facility. They make many of the materials there, they store it all in a mammoth building, and they ship it out on big trucks that take it all to the far reaches of the country.

It was incredible. When we first walked into the main plant building just beyond the offices, it was like a scene from a movie where you just know the images are all computer generated because nothing could be that big, and nothing could be that well organized. But it was very real.

It went on forever, all coded and stored with complex software that “knew” where everything was. Forklifts moving all the time. Employees paying close attention to everything they were doing. It’s amazingly efficient and stunningly well run.

We toured everything. We got up close to industrial-sized mixers, huge packaging machines, and stood in amazement as pallet after pallet of dry grout were poured, bagged, stacked, packed, and then shrink-wrapped all in one quick process. The whole thing was incredible. No wonder why H.B. Fuller is such a leader in the industry and doing so well. My wife has something to do with that, by the way. She knows more about adhesives than I know about baseball. OK, maybe that’s not the right comparison, but she’s a genius. I’m floored by how much she knows and the insight she has.

The only hard part of the excursion was the “getting there” and the “getting back” in the rental car. Traffic in Chicago is legendary, and not necessarily in a good way. Once you get near downtown, it’s confusing and stressful, especially for a “small town” hick from the Twin Cities. We managed it, though, thanks to Siri and her knowledge on the iPhone.

After that, a quick bite to eat in the Executive Lounge at the hotel, the JW Marriott, and then an Uber ride over to United Center for the show. It was a night I’ve been waiting for. Like for about 15 years.

I think it’s been about 13 or 14 years since the last time the band Genesis had toured. I saw them for the first time in 1974, when they came to a smallish theater in St. Louis and Peter Gabriel was still the lead singer while Phil Collins was just a great drummer. I’d heard of the band from my sister, who was dating (and later married) a Scotsman who was a big fan. Mary was spending her freshman year in college at a school in England, and she sent me a cassette tape of the first “Genesis Live” album, which was interesting to say the least considering I’d never heard a note of any of the songs. I’d also never heard of the band. It was from another world, for me. It was mesmerizing. It changed my musical tastes forever.

Since the last time I’d seen them, some stark differences were clearly evident and some things were exactly the same. Phil Collins, unfortunately, has been beset by a nerve disease that makes it impossible for him to play drums, or even walk without a cane. I knew, going in, that he’d be singing while seated in a chair. Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks, on the other hand, haven’t changed a bit and are playing as well as they ever have, and the same goes for Daryl Stuermer, who has been the touring guitarist for the band for about a million years.

I was really impressed by United Center. It’s huge, and I’ve personally never seen so many NHL and NBA banners in one building, but I also only got to the old Boston Garden once (when I worked for Converse) and didn’t memorize it, so there’s that. It seems like the building is so new, but it’s actually been around for about 27 years. It’s well laid out, and they’ve done a great job in today’s world of making the entry process pretty seamless. You had to have a mask on to get in, you had to show your vaccination card (a photo on your phone worked) and the whole thing is paperless and non-contact. Cash doesn’t change hands anywhere in the building.

It was packed. We got there very early, around 7:00 for an 8 o’clock show, and there were already tons of people milling around and finding their seats. By the time the show started, I was so amped up I was fidgeting and nervous. We had really good seats, at what would’ve been around center ice for a hockey game, on the side, 8th row. Barbara was never really a Genesis fan, but she knew how important this was for me and she wanted to see it for herself.

It was magic. Phil is nothing more than a shell of his former self, but he gave it everything he could while seated in a chair and the crowd adored him for that. As Barbara said, “There was so much love in the building.” She also admitted to having loved every minute of it. I felt the same way.

To play live again, the band needed a new drummer, obviously, and a couple years ago Phil had mentioned to Mike and Tony that his boy, Nicholas, could handle it. They were, apparently, skeptical at first but he invited them to watch a show on his last solo tour, with Nic on the drums, and they bought into it. I’ll state this: Nic Collins is proof that DNA is an amazing thing. He plays like his dad. He hits the drums like his dad. He even looks like his dad. The kid is phenomenal and worth the price of admission all by himself.

So, basically, it was a pretty decent show. Right?

I was worried about the Uber ride back to the hotel, I’ll admit. It was one thing to get there early and have the driver drop us off a block away. It’s another to think about 18,000 people all leaving the arena at once and trying to find your Uber driver, if you can even get one on the app. They had it all figured out and it was really impressive.

A block from the arena, they’ve taken one of the secondary parking lots and turned it into an Uber pick-up location. There’s a large tent you enter, and you wait in there until your car arrives. Once your driver checks in, he’ll tell you what aisle he is parked in, and you already know what kind of car he has and what the license plate number is. You stay in the big warm tent until you get that notification, and then they allow you outside to find your car. Badda boom, badda bing. The whole thing worked like a charm. It was great to be back in the Uber world again.

It had been so long since I’d used Uber my app didn’t work anymore. Before we left the hotel I had to update the app and enter some new info. For one thing, my American Express card on the app was two cards ago! Had to update that because there’s no cash involved.

And just for fun, here’s a fabulous photo from inside the United Center. Some basketball player, I guess. Was he any good?

So all in all, it was a great experience. The factory tour, the concert, even the airports and Delta planes were as “comfortable” and safe as one could ever expect these days. We’re glad we did it. We’re thrilled we saw the show. Those old guys can still deliver it. Bravo!

On the book front, we’re still working on the cover concepts. When Barbara and I got to O’Hare to fly home, we stopped in a concourse bookstore to look at covers just to see what the trends are these days. Basically, the trends are “don’t be really creative, just be safe and make the title really big.” It was underwhelming. I’m not saying Todd Myers and I are “better” than that, but we aren’t saddled with a publisher who is afraid of being outside the box. The cover still has to entice the reader, and tell a bit of the story, but it doesn’t have to be vanilla in a world where wild flavors can still thrive. We’re working on it. Progress is being made.

I’ve been in contact with Outskirts Press to let them know I’m back and coming at them with a finished product. Still have to make a decision about hardback versus paperback, but we haven’t gotten that far yet. We will get there. It will happen.

That’s all I got. Next week is Thanksgiving and we have the entire Orlando contingent of Barbara’s family coming up to join us for the holiday, including the two princesses Bella and Stassi. Can’t wait!

Wish I could go see Genesis one more time, but I don’t see how that’s possible. That’s why we went to such lengths to see them in Chicago. It was a “Thank you, and goodbye” trip. Very heartwarming, and I’ll admit a few tears escaped from my eyes, but that’s another great thing about wearing an N-95 mask. No one can see you crying…

See you again soon. If you liked any of this, please be kind and click on the “Like” button below. And if you get a chance, go say goodbye to Genesis. You won’t be disappointed.

Adios. I’ll be back.

 

 

I checked into the “Rules of Blogging” handbook and discovered that there is no mandate that states blogs must be posted once a week on Thursdays. So here I am, after a couple of weeks where I just didn’t have the time or the mental bandwidth to write anything, and son of a gun if it’s not actually Friday. Hope that’s OK.

Not much to divulge this week. It was just last night, after dinner, when I finally hit “Save” after completing a front-to-back sweep through my new book “How Far?” in terms of proof reading. I found a few glitches, missing letters, and extra spaces, but that only makes the “glass half-empty” part of me wonder how many other things I missed. We’ll see. What that landmark moment brought to mind was a question in my head, and that question led to more questions. So here I am to answer them to the best of my ability.

Why is proof reading so hard?

Well, I don’t think it is for someone who didn’t write the text in the first place. As the author, your brain tends to fill in gaps and mentally fix mistakes without you ever actually doing it. You “hear” the book more than you read it. I’ve heard of various techniques some people use, and one of them is to actually read the text backward. I’ve tried that. I’m not capable of it.

For me, this sweep through the book was made more complex by the fact I was not just looking for goofs or mistakes, but also finding those “clunky bits” that had bothered me from the beginning. When you write something that just doesn’t flow or please you, it’s sometimes hard to figure out what’s wrong with it. When you give it space and let it settle a little more, you can see it and think “Why did I leave that alone? It’s so obvious now that it could be better.”

Is the book good?

That’s a hard one. I go through phases where I know it’s terrible and then I read through it again and tears come to my eyes because I know it’s some of the best stuff I’ve ever written.

It’s different. It’s not “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” and all about my life story. Most of it is made up. It was a stretch. It’s still a stretch. But late last night before I closed my laptop and headed to bed, I had a warm feeling about it. I did the best I could. I found new ways of writing and composing. I created something.

I didn’t write it just for me, though. I just wrote it to push my limits and get it out there in the universe. If people like it, that’s a bonus. I recall hearing an interview with Geddy Lee from Rush, when he said “We don’t write songs to address what’s popular at the moment. We write songs we like. And, if other people like them too then that’s a great thing.” That’s kind of how I felt about the process. It’s great that I liked it. I’m proud of it. If other people like it too, well that’s a “great thing” just like Geddy said.

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

Just keeping it straight. Writing as two different fictional characters, with completely different backgrounds, was a challenge. Their voices were easy. I knew them and considered them friends of mine who just happened to live in my head. Keeping it all linear and consistent was hard. To go through it and read so many passages that flow correctly and make me smile, well that was ultra rewarding.

What did I learn through this process?

I learned a lot. It was like saying “OK, you played baseball for all those years so let’s try hockey now” even though I really didn’t know how to skate. It was so far outside of my comfort zone it was very daunting. It was totally something new, and I had to learn the skills and the moves.

I also had to learn to be patient. It takes time. It takes concentration and focus. It happens at its own rate. You can’t force it. Even though I finished the initial manuscript on July 4, I spent last night going through it one more time. It’s October now. It takes time.

When can you buy it and where will it be for sale?

That’s a great question I still don’t know the answer to. I’m done, for the most part. It’s written, it’s edited, it’s proofed, and it’s polished up like a classic car. We still need a cover and we need the publisher to format it and bring it to life. It’s not a short process. January? I don’t think so. February or March? I think that’s likely.

I’m going to work with Outskirts Press again, and when “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” was published they did not have any process to make it available on Amazon before publication. I haven’t gotten that far with them on this book, so we’ll see if pre-ordering is now an option.

I’ve gotten outreach emails from a variety of publishers, including Barnes & Noble, but as I dig into what they offer and how they want to do it I still think Outskirts is the way to go. I trust them, I have a track record with them, and I know how the process works.

“How Far?” will be available on all the same platforms my first book was on. Amazon will be the easiest way to get it. I’ll let you know when we “go live” and it’s ready for you to purchase.

And by the way, I know it can be less expensive to buy a used copy on Amazon. They still have more than a few of those for sale right now, with “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” but the deal for me is this: I only get a royalty if you buy the book through the regular channels. Buying a used copy or buying it on eBay earns me nothing. Is that ultra-important to me? Not really. I won’t make a dime on this book in the end. But, yeah it’s cool to get royalty checks every now and then. It’s a nice payback for all the work I put into it.

As for other random questions…

Did I watch the World Series?

I watched every game. I didn’t have a rooting interest, and I actually really like and admire a lot of players on both the Houston and Atlanta teams, but when baseball is being played, I’m watching.

Why didn’t I play in the big leagues?

The easy answer is, because I wasn’t good enough. I got a lot of my father’s DNA but not enough. I’m proud of my career, from grade school, to high school, to college, and pro ball. I’m just as proud of my time in semipro ball, in Sauget and Fairfax. I did a lot. I made the most of it. I’m proud of it. I just wasn’t good enough to get to the mountain top. Very few get there.

What’s up with your front teeth?

If you saw my post on Facebook, you know that after 42 years I finally got the crowns on my two front teeth replaced. It was a big deal.

In June of 1979, after the Detroit Tigers told me to go home and the Oakland A’s signed me and told me to get my butt up to Medford, Oregon as soon as possible, I was there only a couple of weeks before I got seriously hurt. The Louisville Slugger that hit me could have cost me an eye, quite easily, but instead it “only” created a need for more than 50 stitches on my right cheek and the need for two crowns that took the place of my original two front teeth. The dentist in Medford said they should last between 15 to 20 years.

I finally pulled the trigger to get them replaced because they had outlived that guess and they had shifted around enough to drive me crazy. It wasn’t much fun, but we’re done with it now.

So that’s it for this blog installment. My brain is still mush from all the proofing and editing.

The big goal now is to turn all these digital files into a book and get it out there for everyone to read. I hope you like it. Time will tell.

Speaking of “liking” things, if you have the time and inclination to click not the “Like” button below, that would be cool. I’d appreciate that enormously.

See you soon!

 

 

 

 

 

Greetings and salutations everyone. Today really feels like fall, here in the great state of Minnesota. We’ve had a glorious start to the season here, with multiple sunny days in the 70s, but yesterday was chilly, blustery, gray, and wet. The official forecast for yesterday, by KARE-11 TV here in the Twin Cities, was “Raw.” That’s what it was. Today is warmer, but still overcast.

The leaves on the trees are all changing and falling to the ground. Our sprinkler system has been “blown out” and winterized by the HOA. My snow marker sticks are probably next but not just yet. And “not just yet” for winterizing the outdoor spigots and getting that water turned off, either. I’ll still want to change the water in the hot tub one last time in 2021 so I’ll need that hose to accomplish the task. Fresh water at the end of October should get us all the way through until March, if I stay on top of the chemicals. I usually do, but mistakes have happened over the years.

So let’s start with the NHRA Drag Racing world. It’s been a big week. There have been new sponsorships announced, and Travis Shumake began his licensing process in Del Worsham’s car, with Del tuning it. Travis ran a 4.009 at more than 319 mph after the recent race at the Texas Motorplex. He still needs one more solid lap to get his license and I’m sure he’ll do that before the end of the season. Watching the video of his 4.009 run, the looks and smiles on the faces of Del, Alexis DeJoria, and Jeff Arend were priceless. Travis’ late father, Tripp Shumake, was a star on the Funny Car circuit back in the 70s and 80s, and Travis can carry on that legacy with talent handed down by DNA and sheer determination.

It’s a great story, and a bit of a historic one at that. I’m pulling for Travis and all he stands for and represents. He’ll be a great addition to the NHRA tour and to professional sports. You can read about it here:

https://www.nhra.com/news/2021/travis-shumake-continues-historic-journey-earn-funny-car-license

The latest giant news came today, at a press conference in Charlotte. Racing legend Tony Stewart announced he will be launching a two-car NHRA team, featuring Leah Pruett in a Top Fuel dragster and Matt Hagan in a Funny Car. That’s pretty huge.

It was always fun to go to Charlotte for our races there, and not just because zMAX Dragway is so spectacular, but also because so many NASCAR drivers and teams would come over during the race weekend to check out the straight-line racing. Their reactions were always very similar at the starting line. Eyes wide open, mouth agape, and then finally something like “Whoa” or “No way!” would be yelled above the din. They were typically fascinated by it.

Tony Stewart was no different. And the more he’s been around the sport, and the more he’s learned about it, the more he has fallen in love with it. Stepping up to own a team and run for not just race wins but championships is a “very Tony Stewart” thing. He’s there to win.

It’s a new era in the NHRA world.

And stay tuned. I don’t think the NHRA news is done yet. Still lots of “Silly Season” announcements to make and championships to be won.

People ask me all the time if I miss it. I always have the same answer.

I must miss it. If I didn’t, why would I follow every race online, or via NHRA.TV, or on FOX? And why am I ecstatic when Tim Wilkerson gets on a roll, or then feel crushed when he loses by inches. But… Do I miss being away from home for more than half the weekends every year? Do I miss the airports, planes, rental cars, and hotels? Answer: Not really. That’s why I retired to be an author. I miss the people, the camaraderie, and the excitement. I don’t miss the travel.

I spent parts of 22 seasons out there plying my PR and management trade. I made some great friends and stay in touch with most of them. And I experienced some of the most vivid and emotional moments of sheer joy and happiness at the starting line. I also had to deal with the losses, the explosions, the accidents, and the fires. The good comes with the bad, but I wouldn’t trade my NHRA career for anything.

And that brings me to my next subject.

What are some of the greatest sports moments I’ve witnessed in person? I’ve been in sports my whole life. I’ve seen a lot, but not all in the arena or stadium. Many of what I’d consider my greatest thrills came while watching games on TV. But, here are some things I saw while being there.

BASEBALL

The most thrilling game I’ve ever seen was “Game 163” in 2009, when the Twins and the Tigers had to play one game to settle the division title after finishing the regular season in a tie. No game I’ve ever seen was as nerve-wracking and exciting as that one game.

The photo is a blurry shot from the days when iPhone pics were still like that. The Metrodome was electric. The game went back and forth so many times it was mind boggling and dizzying. The Twins won in the bottom of the 12th and no “winning moment” celebration was like that one. It was unbelievable what the Dome was like at that moment.

Here’s a neat little compilation of the key plays throughout the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICnb1fXNCi8

Now keep this in mind. I saw the Cardinals play the Yankees in the World Series (at old Sportsman’s Park) in 1964. I saw all three home games when the Cardinals won the World Series over the Red Sox in 1967. I saw all four home games of the World Series (which the Cardinals lost in seven) in 1968, including the game in which Bob Gibson set a new MLB record by striking out 17 Tigers. I saw all four home games of the 1982 World Series at Busch Stadium when the Cardinals beat the Brewers and I was working for the Blue Jays. None of those could measure up to Game 163.

But what about baseball games I actually played in? Well, there was the NCAA Regional Championship game in 1977 when my SIUE Cougars beat Northern Kentucky to earn our spot in the NCAA Div. II World Series. That was an amazing celebration, but my late home run (with my mom there to see it) had kind of set us up for the win a few innings earlier. It wasn’t all that tense. We just needed six more outs.

There was a big win over the Korean National Team when I was playing for a semipro team in Fairfax, Virginia in 1987, at the University of Maryland’s stadium. I hit a bomb in that game as well. Crushed it. No doubt. Gone. Drop the bat and jog. High fives everywhere.

And, of course, my Sauget Wizards win over the USA National Team in 1989, at their home stadium near Memphis. Yep, I hit a bomb in that one. Dead center field. Surprised the hell out of myself.

Of all those celebrations, the win over the USA team was probably the best and most emotional. That USA team was full of future big leaguers. We were just a bunch of washed up ex-minor leaguers, some washed up ex-college players, and a couple of current college players who no doubt wondered why these “old guys” were still playing the game. We had no business beating the USA team, but we did. We probably had no business still playing in our 30s, but we loved the game.

But…  Game 163 at the Metrodome was the real deal.

FOOTBALL

Sadly, my experience at being present in the stadium for huge NFL moments is basically nonexistent. No team I’ve rooted for passionately (that would be the old St. Louis Football Cardinals and then the Vikings) have ever sealed the deal. I did watch one of the greatest moments in Vikings’ history on TV, the “Miracle in Minneapolis” when they beat the Saints on the final play of the game, but that doesn’t count.

The most thrilling football game I saw, of any type, came as a freshman in high school. Our St. Louis University High team, the formidable Junior Billikens, won the Missouri state championship for large schools (even though we only had about 1,000 students) at the University of Missouri’s stadium, beating a team from Kansas City. It was nuts. It was loud. It was crazy. And we all collectively lost our minds when the Jr. Bills won.

That team was amazing. We thought they were grown men. To us  as young freshmen, they could’ve been an NFL team. We all traveled to Mizzou in a caravan of chartered Greyhound buses. It was insanity, but the most insane thing was that our feeble little freshman brains couldn’t really process how special it was at the time. I clearly remember thinking “I can’t wait until the team does this again next year.” Silly me.

One of the guys on that team was Joe Castellano. Like so many of his teammates, he appeared to be a fully grown and mature man, to us. We were just kids. He was handsome, he was well spoken, he was incredibly smart, and he was a great student. He was also a leader and a great football player.

Joe went on to a phenomenal career in sports marketing. When he decided to write it all down, all about that team and the class of 1971, I bought the book the day it went on sale.

It’s fantastic. I think anyone would love it. I’m a little prejudiced for having been there for that incredible game, and sharing the halls with all those older role models, but it truly is a great book.

BASKETBALL

Also sadly, my life has had almost zero “big moments” at any basketball games. The closest I can come is when the Spirits of St. Louis upset the supposedly unbeatable New York Nets who were led by Julius “Dr. J” Erving, but the final game of that ABA series was on Long Island so I watched it on TV with my roomie at SIUE. Freddie Lewis drained a 15-foot jumper at the buzzer to stun the Nets, who had never lost a game to the Spirits until that playoff series.

SOCCER

The only highlight of my outdoor soccer fandom came when Barbara and I went to see Minnesota United play a regular-season game a few years back, before their spectacular Allianz Field was built. They played at the University of Minnesota’s football stadium. It was great fun, and a fabulous experience, but just a solid win in front of great fans.

In terms of indoor soccer, I’ve had more luck. The best was an impossible comeback for the Kansas City Attack against the Baltimore Spirit at Kemper Arena. I was not only there, I was standing behind one of the goals wearing a dark blue suit, as the GM of the team.

It was rough game, and we were down by four points with just 40 or so seconds to play. The rules in the NPSL then were that a regular goal was worth two points and any shot beyond the long-distance arc painted on the turf was worth three, just like in basketball.

Our coach, Zoran Savic, pulled his goalie and put a sixth attacker on the floor. We scored a two-point goal with 30 seconds to play, maybe less. We had a good crowd that night, and they were on their feet, screaming.

As the clock ticked down, our sixth attacker (Jim Schwab) ran up the field to be in the play, leaving the goal completely empty. He took his spot just outside the 3-point arc and was fed a prefect pass by Wes Wade. Schwabbie never hesitated. He one-timed it perfectly into the lower right corner for a three and the game was over. The place went nuts. That was a big thrill for the GM.

HOCKEY

Again, just a few highlights from games I’ve been in attendance for, but most of the huge moments were on TV.

When we originally moved to Woodbury in 2002 we became instant fans of the Minnesota Wild. We’d only been living here about a year when the Wild made the playoffs and faced the Colorado Avalanche in round one. It started out poorly. By the time we even got into it, the Wild were down 3 games to 1.

Two days later, at the last second (literally) Barbara’s CEO at Lawson Software offered her his two tickets for Game 6 at Xcel Energy Center. They were on the glass! Row 1. I jumped in my car and sped to downtown St. Paul to meet Barb at her office. We got to our primo seats just as the opening face-off was happening. Of course, the game was back-and-forth and finally went into sudden-death overtime. My favorite Wild player was a guy named Richard Park, a rare Korean American in the NHL. With us on our feet, he streaked down the far boards and scored to send the Xcel arena into bedlam.

In Game 7, our nearby Woodbury neighbor Andrew Brunette scored in overtime, getting the puck past Patrick Roy, one of the greatest goalies of all time. We went crazy, but we were in the living room. We had a chance to congratulate Andrew a couple days later, when he was walking his dog in front of our house.

Here’s that goal. It’s still routinely listed as the best moment in Wild history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXWQUUsSpzI

DRAG RACING

No doubt about it. Nothing comes close. This one is another one of those great moments I was part of. Unfortunately, I’m not in the photo. For the CSK team, I shot our video kneeling by the retaining wall, so that I could get a good shot of the rear tire as the car planted and then took off. And I had to keep the camera pointed at the car until after it crossed the finish line. It took me a while to shoot the full run, then stand up, and then join my teammates. I wasn’t quite there yet when this shot was taken.

2005. Indy. Mac Tools US Nationals. We’d earned $100,000 by winning the Skoal Showdown on Sunday. On Monday, we beat four tough teams to win the US Nationals. It was impossible. It was inconceivable. It was beyond any emotion I’ve ever felt at a sporting event, and I was part of it. We earned more than $225,000 in two days. Considering our first sponsorship contract with CSK Auto, in 1997, was for roughly $200,000 (for the whole year!) that was unfathomable. Pure elation. Pure unfiltered joy. It’s still hard to believe we did that, but all I have to do is close my eyes and think about it, and it all comes back.

Finally, my final thought for this week, this day, and this blog.

When we bought this house in 2012, we had sold our original Woodbury home and were renting our place out in Liberty Lake, Washington. As you know, we bought this house so we’d have it when it came time to move back. Woodbury and Minnesota were home by then, and we knew we’d come back. Being out there, though, meant the best we could do was keep a distant eye on the place until we moved back in 2016.

What we learned quickly, after the landscaping was done, had to do with the backyard. It was a swampy mess. There were all sorts of drainage and ground water problems. Now, years later and many dollars spent on drain tiles and new soil, we’ve pretty much conquered it. But it was a mess those first few years, and the ground water was so bad many of our trees and shrubs died.

We had one new tree that wasn’t going to make it. Branch by branch it was dying. If you so much as touched the soil around it with a shovel, water would bubble to the surface.

We hired a company to tackle the problem and all those drain lines helped by moving all that water to a nearby pond, but the tree didn’t look like it was going to make it.

Keep in mind, I’ve never been rumored to have a green thumb. Plants and flowers challenge me. Trees seemed out of my league.

But, I wasn’t going to let this tree die without giving it everything I had. I pruned it. I talked to it. I clipped off any branch that looked like it was done and gone.

And here it is today. I’m damn proud of this tree. I saved its life and it’s repaying me with its health and beauty now.

This is my tree. I did good.

So that’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed some of these words. If you did, don’t be shy. Click on that “Like” button at the bottom.

The tree would really appreciate that, and so would Joe Castellano, Jim Schwab, Travis Shumake, and all the others listed above.

See ya next time!

BW

People talk about “bucket lists” all the time, and I personally believe that has a lot to do with the 2007 hit movie starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. I had never heard of a bucket list until I saw the movie “The Bucket List.” A great flick, too.

I have a few items in my bucket, but I feel extraordinarily fortunate to have lived a very rich life, full of travel, adventure, and incredible experiences. I mean, who among us has been to Cuba? Thanks to one of the many fantastic jobs I’ve had, I’ve been there. The red beans and rice were phenomenal and the 1956 Chevys were everywhere.

Let’s see…  There really aren’t many places I want to go. When you spend anywhere from a couple weeks to a month on Kauai almost every year, what beats that? I’ve been all over the US, Canada, and Mexico thanks to baseball and the shoe biz. Maine and Alaska are the only two states I’ve never set foot in, so maybe that’s something I have to correct. I’ve been to many European countries, so those boxes have been checked. I’d like to go to Germany and Austria, but I wouldn’t consider those bucket worthy. Those are just places I’d like to go. Maybe see Bayern Munich play a Bundesliga game. South America doesn’t interest me and Asia is too far and too complicated. But maybe a trip to Fiji or Tahiti would qualify. One of those thatch-roof huts out over the crystal clear ocean water. Yeah, that would work. Put that in the bucket. Australia and New Zealand? Yes, there’s two more destinations in the bucket.

I have been to France multiple times but I’ve never been to Omaha Beach or any of the D-Day sites. That would be an important trip, but I just don’t even know if I could get through it emotionally. So many died there. Such sacrifice. Such tragedy. So much blood on that sand. I’ve been to Pearl Harbor and that was tough enough.

In terms of sports, since they are central to my life, it would entail time travel to visit most of the stadiums or arenas I’ve never been to but would want to see. They are all long gone. I feel lucky to have been to the original Yankee Stadium, old Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, Tiger Stadium (what a cool place that was) and even the old “Mistake By The Lake” Cleveland Municipal Stadium. I got to see the Celtics at Boston Garden and the Lakers at The Forum (which is still there but is now a concert venue.) I grew up roaming the halls and tunnels of the old historic St. Louis Arena. I even worked there, as an usher and as a franchise executive in indoor soccer. I’ve also been to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Box checked. Three times.

But I would like to go to Green Bay and see a Packers game at Lambeau Field. That would be an A+ bucket item…  Oh wait. I JUST DID THAT!!! Box checked with an emphatic mark.

Yep, last weekend Barbara and I joined our friends Joe and Mary Beth on a two-night trip to Green Bay. Yes, Lambeau and the Packers were central to the escapade but not the only stops on the agenda.

Joe was born and raised in Green Bay, so he was a superlative tour guide. Before the game, he drove us through the part of town he grew up in and I love that sort of stuff. I very much enjoy being a tour guide in St. Louis and hope I might get the chance to return the favor to Joe and Mary Beth someday. There’s a lot to see (and eat) there.

Joe is also a proud owner of two sets of Packers tickets. The first set, where Barbara and I sat, have been in his family for generations. That’s how it works in Green Bay. The Packers are everything to the town and people hold onto season tickets as if they were made of gold. They get handed down. A few years back, when they added suites and more amenities to the stadium, Joe put his name on the list to get two seats in the Club Level. The biggest benefit with those is that they are indoors. That would be a good thing in December or January. It can get “a little brisk” at those games. It took years for his name to finally rise to the top, but he gobbled those tickets up as soon as they were offered.

Joe also arranged a Bed & Breakfast for us. The Foxglove Inn is in a house built more than 100 years ago, and it’s fantastic. It’s in Sturgeon Bay, about 40 minutes from Lambeau, and it’s a phenomenal place. We loved our room and the incredible breakfast that was delivered to it each morning. The bed was great too. Hence the term “Bed & Breakfast.”

On Sunday, the Packers were playing the Steelers, so that was another big benefit and the reason Joe picked that game for us to accompany them. Barbara, of course, is from Pittsburgh. She wore her black and gold. Joe wore his green and gold. I went in nondescript casual clothes, as did Mary Beth.

Mary Beth is a Vikings fan (like me) but she and Joe have a wonderful detente when it comes to their favorite teams. There are many “mixed marriages” in this part of Minnesota. We have a number of friends who are on different sides of the rooting fence but who put their love and marriage ahead of football. They find a way to make it work. Ground rules are essential.

Joe also has an enormous extended family, so there were plenty of relatives to meet and a fun tailgating set-up to enjoy.

Packers fans know how to tailgate. I’ve been to Arrowhead in Kansas City, and they party hard there, but it’s all on gigantically spread out asphalt parking lots. Green Bay is different. Lambeau is different.

The stadium is right in the middle of a residential part of the city. People actually live right across the street from Lambeau. With that sort of location, there are no city-owned parking lots where thousands of cars can park. As we approached Lambeau, we were still a good five miles away when we started passing guys with flags urging people to park in whatever space they had. And yes, a lot of people sell parking in their yards, near the stadium.

We parked right in the middle of the tailgating and that was not only fun but also really convenient. Maybe the equivalent of a four-block walk to the stadium.

Barb had expressed a little concern about how Green Bay fans would treat someone wearing Steelers garb, but everyone said “Oh, it’s not like that. You won’t get much grief.”

They were right. Generally, the 89,000 fans at Lambeau were well behaved and polite. There are always some loud mouths, and that’s to be expected, but I’ve been around fans of other sports teams that are horrendously rude and mean. It ruins the experience. There are baseball, football, and hockey teams whose fans travel and can be so overbearing and awful we won’t even go to our own home games because of them. I’ll be polite and not name any names. Oh, I’d love to, but I won’t stoop to their level.

There are some downsides to Lambeau, but that’s all part of the character of such a historic place. When it was built and opened, in 1957, people were apparently much smaller than they are now. Seriously.

As far as I could tell, all the seats in the main seating bowl are aluminum bleachers. And they’re just benches, with no backs. The “seat” numbers are painted on the aluminum. Get one hefty guy in the row, and the whole system is off. Yes, you’re crammed in there. But, there’s one cool remedy we could not have done without.

Right after you scan your phone and walk through the gate, you can fork over a few bucks for clip-on seats. They hook to the bleachers and not only give you a pad to sit on, but also a back to save you from traction. We wouldn’t have made it to halftime without those rental chairs. And at the end of the game, you just leave them in place. They come and get them and do it all over again at the next home game.

The big benefit, though, is that those rental chairs delineate the boundaries of your seats. There’s no pushing you down the row if your rental seats are there. This was probably the best piece of advice Joe and Mary Beth gave us prior to the game. Life saver. And butt saver. And back saver. All good!

The Packers won, much to Barbara’s disappointment, but the thrill of being at Lambeau and seeing Mr. Rodgers and Mr. Roethlisberger square off at the quarterback position was a chance to see future history. Two guys who are automatic sure-thing inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Was it worth it to check off this bucket list item? It was worth it many times over. I’m still thinking about it. And wow, it was LOUD in there. After 22 years in drag racing, my ears are bad enough. I made sure to use my fingers as ear plugs when the screaming got really cacophonous. I just used the word cacophonous. Score 8 bonus points for the blogger.

The night before the game was another special deal and it was something Barbara and I had not just never done, but had never heard of before. Joe and Mary Beth took us to a fish boil. Yes, a fish boil.

Door County covers much of the long peninsula that extends from Green Bay out into Lake Michigan. It’s charming and full of great things to see and do. Very much worth a visit.

In Door County, it’s practically a law that you have to attend at least one fish boil. Sounds weird, doesn’t it.

Well, Lake Michigan is full of whitefish, and when they are caught by the local fishermen they are instantly sold to many restaurants. They are also the staple of any fish boil.

They are cleaned and cut, but the skin is still on and the bones are still in. People sit in a large circle as if Old Faithful is about to erupt, and your “host” puts on the show. In a large cast-iron kettle, he brings the water to a boil with nothing more than logs and patience. Potatoes and onions are the first items to go in, and they are done so in their own baskets. Then, when they are done, the real show begins. The fish is added in its basket, and the fire is brought to a roaring tower of flames. Seven minutes later, it’s time for dinner.

We went to our reserved table in the restaurant and the server brought everyone the same meal. No need for any stinkin’ menus at this soiree. Fish, potatoes, and onions, all cooked to perfection. Our server also uttered the best possible words when he said, “Would you like me to remove the bones?” We couldn’t say yes fast enough.

So how was it? Barbara and I had made the decision to accompany Mary Beth and Joe because we wanted to do something we’d never done before. We had no idea if we’d like it or not. It was great!

The fish is white and flaky. The potatoes and onions are great sides, and you’re quite full by the time you’ve cleaned your plate. The fact our server removed the bones was a huge bonus.

After dinner, cherry pie for everyone. It was quite a deal and we’re both really glad we did it. Boiling fish doesn’t sound all that appetizing, but it was perfectly cooked and tasty, with very little seasoning. Big thanks to Lake Michigan, the fishermen, and our fish boil host. It truly was “dinner and a show” when he stoked the fire. Expensive? Sure, if you think $25 per person is expensive, show included. Not kidding. I thought the bill was a mistake when it came.

So there you have it. A great trip to Green Bay, a wonderful B&B, a fish boil, and a pilgrimage to Lambeau Field. Done, done, and done. Do it if you ever get the chance.

Here at the Wilber/Doyle manse, a few interesting items have arrived and will be cherished. Richard Noffke is my former roomie Oscar Noffke’s brother. I’ve been to Richard’s house and have witnessed first-hand the absolute sports memorabilia museum in his basement. I’ve never seen anything like it. There’s not an inch to spare down there, and everywhere you look you are stunned by the collection.

Today, I saw a Priority Mail envelope in our mail box, and the name on the return address was “Richard Noffke.” I knew something special had to be in there. It was what you see here:

When World War II ended, the St. Louis Cardinals promoted my dad from their minor league system up to the Cardinals in 1946. This is the first Major League contract he ever signed. Somehow, Richard had this in his collection.

He sent along a note that said:

“Hi Bob. Hope all is well! Every time I walk by this I can’t help but think it needs to be in your family. So, I decided I would take action on that thought and send it to where it belongs. It goes nicely with that 1946 Cardinals jersey you have. Enjoy!”

Well how about that! What a kind and thoughtful gesture by a good man. I sent him a quick “thank you” note on Facebook and told him what he good man he is. I also said “That clearly runs in your family.” Oscar is one of the best and most thoughtful guys I’ve ever known.

Oh, and what’s the number typed onto the line for my dad’s annual salary with the Cardinals? $4,000. That’s four thousand dollars. He must have thought he was rich.

A week or so earlier, I got a box from my nephew Ewan and in it were three Rawlings baseball gloves that all belonged to me. I’d given them to him over the years and he still had them. There are a lot of innings in these two fielders gloves and one first-baseman’s mitt. And it’s pretty obvious I had a contract with Rawlings sporting goods.

The first-baseman’s mitt originally had a 33 written on it in green marker. That means I had that glove when I was with the Medford A’s in 1979. I then played a lot of first base for the Sauget Wizards, so I scratched out the 33 and wrote Wilber 7 on the thumb. The only time I wore 33 was in Medford, so it’s pretty easy to figure that part out. I wore number 7 for almost all my years with the Wizards. The glove served me well. I don’t recall ever dropping or botching a throw at first during my years with Sauget.

One of the outfielder’s gloves has a 5 written on the thumb, and WILBER written down the length of one of the fingers. That means I wore that glove either in college at SIUE or in Paintsville after I turned pro. That’s where I was number 5. I’m guessing college.

The other glove just has “Wilb” written on the thumb. Why did we all write our names and/or numbers on our gloves in permanent marker? So that a teammate could grab your glove and hat and take it to you out in the field if you were stranded on base after three outs.

I recently saw a photo of me from Paintsville, taken with one of the girls who worked in the concession stand or ticket office, and the glove I’m wearing says “HAWK” in marker on the thumb. I and saddened to realize I don’t have that particular piece of memorabilia. I wish I had it.

So I guess that’s about it. Now that I’ve been writing about fish, I have a desire to take my bride to our favorite Woodbury bistro, Angelina’s Kitchen, for their incredible salmon. It is baked, for the record, and very tasty.

As always, the author of this blog really digs it when people read it and like it, and he (me) likes it even more when they click on the “Like” button below.

See you again soon. Get to Green Bay if you haven’t been, and go to Door County for a fish boil. You’ll thank me.

Adios.

BW

 

After my freshman year at SIUE, in which I was incorrectly slotted into a roommate situation with three inebriated degenerates who kept me up all night and ate my food, our head baseball coach Roy Lee got the situation cleared up by my sophomore year. I would be rooming with three of the most remarkable, unique, and wonderful guys who ever attended the school. All three were fellow baseball players. All three were special guys I have never forgotten and never will. I wrote about them extensively in my book “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” but felt the urge to explain them maybe just a little bit more here on the blog today. Perhaps you thought I was using “artistic license” to inflate their stories in the book. I was not.

There was Tom Hill, from Findlay, Ohio, with whom I shared a bedroom. Easily the smartest guy in the bunch, and one of the smartest who strolled the hallways and grounds of our beautiful campus in Edwardsville, Illinois.

Tom was a genius in multiple ways. Doesn’t it always seem like some guys are super “book smart” but not adept at the arts or the ways of the world? And others can create magic with their hands but couldn’t get through the first chapter of an english literature book? Tom did it all. He graduated early with a double major in two highly technical fields, like calculus and engineering or something like that. He built things from raw materials, including the unparalleled pair of Bose 901 stereo speakers he built for me. He could create pencil drawings of Corvettes that were so super-realistic you’d swear you were holding a photo in your hands. And, he rebuilt and customized actual Corvettes. Plus, he was a fine ballplayer but the game seemed to be the least of his interests. One incredibly unique guy.

Kent “Cornpone” Wells, a country boy from Flora, Illinois, was one of the most popular players on the team, thanks to his down-home attitude and his charming country accent. He was smart, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it. He seemed soft like a teddy bear, but he was a bulldog. And he was funny, often without even realizing it.

He was charming, and caring, and a great roommate who always looked out for us and everyone around him. At the time, none of us knew the acronym OCD or what it stood for, but Cornpone had that too. His closet and desk, at the apartment, nearly became tourist attractions. Everything exactly in its place. Every hanger the same distance apart. Every pair of pants hanging the exact same way and lined up along the cuffs. Every pencil arranged by length in the top drawer. Was ‘Pone unique? He defined the term.

And then there was Steve Novak, from Michigan City, Indiana. Steve and Cornpone shared the other bedroom, and were practically joined at the hip. Cornpone was not as “simple” as he seemed, but he also wasn’t exactly worldly, so Steve looked out for him. Steve looked out for everyone.

He was a model roomie and a great friend. He was smart and he took school seriously (as we all did) but he had fun. He was caring in a mature way well beyond his years. He practically adopted a waif of an Indonesian student named Tedja, taking care of him, making sure he was warm in the winter, feeding him, and making dinner for him. He looked after Tedja like a son, and the rest of us followed suit. I mean, if “Nove” showed that kind of love, it must be right. We learned a lot from Steve. Always.

Steve also made a cinnamon crumb cake that made the local ladies at the Edwardsville bakery jealous. He was mature, but a goofball. He was serious, but hilarious. He was a perfect roomie.

During our disastrous senior season, when the wheels came off a team that had gone to two consecutive NCAA Div. II World Series, Steve was the unfortunate poster child for the disaster. Against University of Missouri – St. Louis, on their rocky infield, he took a hard smash off the nose while playing first base. It about obliterated his face and he, to this day, still can’t breathe quite right. It was awful. It encapsulated our demise as seniors. If you don’t think seeing (and hearing) something like that happening to your friend and roomie will tear you apart and ruin everything, you don’t know us. The worst part was, we couldn’t help him. His sinuses were packed with gauze, his face was a mess, and he was in great pain for a long time. All we could do was try to keep his spirits up.

When he was finally cleared to play again, he had to do so with a cumbersome plastic shield on his face, as if that thing was going to totally protect him if another awful “bad hop” smash were to come his way. He was miserable.

When the depressing season ended, the Detroit Tigers stepped up. They offered Steve and me identical contracts. The money was minimal, but that wasn’t the point. It was a chance to play pro ball. It was a chance to live the dream.

I clearly remember calling Steve, who was home by the time the contracts arrived, to celebrate not only our contracts but our chance to keep playing together, this time in the pros. He sounded odd.

Finally he said, “I’m not going to do it. I’m over it. I’m over being hurt, and away from home, and riding buses. I just don’t love it anymore and I’m done.”

I tried my best to talk him out of that decision, but he wouldn’t waiver. He was done. I’d be heading off to Bristol, Tennessee and then Paintsville, Kentucky by myself.

Steve would’ve done very well there. He was a confident and methodical hitter. He had a very short swing and waited on the ball very well. He hardly ever got fooled. He was a terrific fielder at first base (despite the bad bounce UMSL’s rocky infield inflicted upon him) who gave every infielder the confidence to just fire it over there. If Nove could reach it, he’d catch it.

Steve later admitted to me that he regretted that decision. As he put it, “I should’ve just looked at it as a summer job. I always had one of those during college. I mean, the contract wouldn’t pay much more than working at Sears so it was just a summer job. I should’ve done it, if only for the experience of being a pro.”

But, Steve had bigger things on his horizon. He quickly landed a job in the men’s apparel business, working for Jaymar-Ruby. He rose through the ranks, moved around a lot as he got promoted, and finally was transferred back to his hometown of Michigan City. It was a profitable move for a guy who had worked so hard. He’d lived in Glendale, Burbank, and Corona, California and when he sold the final house out there he had the buying power to purchase just about anything he wanted back home. He had earned that.

Later, he’d lead a successful golf apparel company called Tehama. Its owner was Clint Eastwood. My former roomie had earned every accomplishment along the way.

Recently, while I was on Kauai, SIUE held its annual golf tournament to benefit the athletic department. I wish I could have been there. Steve, who now works for Ahead, a company that makes sports apparel and embroidered hats, whipped up some special lids for the baseball contingent. Although I wasn’t there, he was kind enough to send a couple to me. They had a photo taken that is a total “keeper” in my mind. Some of the best friends, and best people, I’ve ever known are in this shot.

Far left is James “Oscar” Noffke, well known to most of you as a key member of our annual reunion group. Also a former roomie of mine of the highest order. Next to him is a special man. That’s John Ricker, our late friend Radar’s son. Then my longtime roomie and best friend Lance McCord in the blue shirt. Next to him is a smiling Steve Novak. Handsome as ever. You’d never know a baseball once rearranged his face. Finally, on the far right is Scott Brown. That’s another story.

“Downtown” Scotty Brown played with me on the semipro Sauget Wizards. He did not attend SIUE and I never roomed with him. I believe he went to Illinois State. I had long forgotten that Scott and Steve are cousins! What a small world.

Scott is another class act and wonderful person. We were great friends on the Wizards, and Scott was always going out of his way to do nice things. Unexpectedly nice things. He’s such a good man. He was also a helluva good pitcher. He pitched the last three innings of our historic win over the USA National Team at their stadium in Tennessee, and not long after that outing the Pittsburgh Pirates signed him. He is now the head coach at Vianney High School in suburban St. Louis. Yet another truly unique person I’ve had the good fortune to know.

Amazing to see those two momentous times of my athletic and personal life merged in one photo. My buddies and roomies from SIUE and my teammate and friend from the Wizards, along with the amazing son of our dearly departed friend. John is doing great. He’s a very unique and wonderful man.

Of all these guys and groups, whether it be teammates, roommates, or friends, I always considered myself the luckiest of the bunch. I was just a nondescript schlub who went to school and played ball. I didn’t build speakers or Corvettes. I didn’t adopt a lost Indonesian guy to show him how things worked in America. I didn’t do much of anything other than go to class and play ball. I partied with the rest of them, and we all were proud of the fact we could close down Spanky’s in Edwardsville, then go home to have another beer, and still be bright-eyed and ready at our 8:00 am class the next morning. Ah, youth. Such an ability to bounce back.

We were responsible, smart, and talented. All that. But more importantly we were good people and we cared for each other. We were brothers, and we still are. And dammit, we all did OK in life, didn’t we!

Steve Novak, ladies and gentleman. Still married to his high-school sweetheart Linda, who has magically not aged a day since I met her in college. Father, grandfather, and successful executive. Friend. That last one is important.

Now I’ll finish up with a new other notes.

When I booked my big trip to Kauai, one of the first things Barbara said was “You need to go up to Poipu and find that jewelry shop where we got your titanium and crushed pearl ring. Get yourself another one!”

We got the first one after Barbara and her sister Kitty were shopping at the Poipu center and happened upon it. As you may recall, my original gold wedding band had to be cut off thanks to my fat fingers. The titanium ring with inlaid crushed black pearl had me at “look at this one.”

My weight has been fluctuating lately, but mostly I’ve succeeded in getting the number to be lower. When I checked in at a medical appointment this week, the nurse said “201” after I stood on the scale. I said “No way. That’s not right.” So I stood on it again and she said “Yep, 201. Is that too high or too low?”

I told her I had only weighed in with a number that started with a 1 (199) one time in the last 35 years. I’ve been over 200 all that time, and often way over. 218 to 222 was the area I seemed to be saddled with.

That all changed when I had to spend five days in the hospital and came out of that eating better. On Kauai, I walked every day. To hear 201 stunned me.

With that in mind, the first titanium ring was getting to be pretty loose. My mission was to find the store and find another ring to go with it.

Thankfully, the store had survived COVID (at least to this point) and was still open. I found another titanium ring but this one had two inlay bands. One is Hawaiian koa wood and the other is the same crushed black pearl. I love it. I’m wearing it right now.

It will always remind me of Kauai, and my now 24-year marriage to Barbara. I look at it this way: We’ve been married long enough and gone through enough for me to now need a third ring. I’m proud to wear it. It’s gorgeous.

As for that medical appointment that brought to light the 201-pound weight, it was my last one scheduled for a while. It was an endoscopic ultrasound, and that entails (get this) inserting a tube down the back of my throat and sending it into my stomach for a look around. It had an ultrasound device on the end of it, and even had little snippers in case they saw anything suspicious that they’d want to take a better look at.

If that sounds awful, I suspect it would’ve been if I’d been awake. I’ve gotten used to being put under lately, and find it quite amazing. I mean, feel the IV burn for a sec and then open your eyes in the recovery room. It’s magic. And my throat only hurt a little. All in all, way better than that tube they stuck up my nose and down my throat for four days in the hospital. Way better.

As I shook off the grogginess, the doctor finally came in and told us what they’d found. More importantly, he told us what they hadn’t found. The thing (a growth or cyst or something) on my pancreas had been about 4cm long when I was in the hospital. It was only 1.5cm long now. It’s going away by itself, thanks to better eating and less drinking. They didn’t even use the snippers.

The doctor said “This is all good. Just keep it up and in 10 or 12 weeks we’ll schedule you for another CT scan to see how it’s going. For now, we don’t have to do anything invasive. Just keep taking care of yourself.”

That would be, in my book, very good news. Barbara was extraordinarily relieved. She’d been very worried but consciously not showing it. I had admitted to her beforehand that the procedure itself didn’t worry me, it was the results I was worried about. While she was exhaling and grabbing my hand, I was still a bit groggy when the doctor reported in and to me it was like “OK, sounds great. I’m hungry.” The fact I weighed 201 probably ties into it all. That means I’m taking better care of myself and the body heals itself.

Finally, a word or 20 about another very special guy baseball brought into my life. On Facebook, I’m friends with a dude who goes by the moniker Therron Louis Harper. To me he’s Terry Harper. Or “Harp” for short. We played together, and lived together, on the Medford A’s in 1979.

I knew Harp was a different and interesting guy back then. Very thoughtful and intellectually curious. He looked at life with a maturity most of my teammates didn’t share. On the A’s we had a strange mix of personalities. Some of them acted as if they were boys dressed up as men in green, gold, and white. They were goofballs. Frankly, I didn’t socialize with most of them. The group I was closest to was much more like me. We liked to have fun, but we knew what we were doing and we respected the game. We took it seriously.

And, much like 1978 had been a disaster for Steve Novak, in terms of a huge injury, 1979 was that year for me. The Louisville Slugger to my face and teeth cut my season and my career short. But Harp was one of the shining beacons that year. Our core group, when we all lived at the radio guy’s house, included Dan Randle, Oscar Burnett, Shaun Lacey, Pete “Slats” Slattery, and then Terry, Mike “Alto” Altobelli, and me. Many of us slept on the floor, but we all got along and were pretty like-minded. Terry was at a different level, and I really respected that.

Put it this way. Like I said, some of the guys on that team acted about 12 years old. As a group, we all lived in a house and slept on the floor but we supported each other and pulled for each other. When I was hurt and then recovering, they all looked out for me and helped me.

I knew Terry was smart. Until now, as we’ve gotten to know each other all over again, I didn’t know how smart or how talented he was.

He went to Pepperdine and majored in Linguistics. He’s a high school teacher now, but nearing retirement and he’s looking for the next great thing to do. He reads this blog (hey dude!) and my stuff and asked if we could talk about it.

We spent close to 45 minutes on the phone, talking about blogging, writing in general, and books. He’s a deep thinker who goes for walks and senses themes and ideas pop into his head as he ambles down any given path. He should really write those down or record them on his phone.

He sees himself writing essays, about life lessons and goals and achieving not just dreams but realities. I was so impressed to hear it all. He asked cogent questions and listened to my responses. We took it deeper and deeper, and in the end all I could say was “Terry, you have to do this. Write. Just write. Practice. And call me anytime you’re lost or wondering what to do next. It will always be a pleasure to talk with you about this, or about anything roomie.”

He said, “Those were great days and great memories of that summer.”

I said, “Well, probably better for you. You actually got a bedroom and a bed and I slept on the floor.” Not to mention the stitches in my face and two broken teeth.

Terry Harper is a really good man. See what gifts baseball has given me! People from all over, and all walks of life. Personalities as endlessly different as snowflakes. Friends and brothers.

You can lose your fortune, or lose your health, or lose everything. But no one can ever take these friendships and memories away from you if you continue to nurture them and keep them alive.

I’m no good at doing that with plants or flowers. I think I’m pretty good at it with people. I treasure my friends.

This has been a fun one to write, and I learned a lot as I did it. It struck me, again, just how valuable so many people from my past have been to me and how they remain that way. And we’re just scratching the surface.

Take care of yourselves, and take care of your friends. They are assets that can’t be replaced.

As always, there’s a “Like” button at the bottom of this. Feel free to click on that if you wish.

See you next week. Be good. Be kind. Be caring. Heck, just being nice is a good start. I look back and realize I always have surrounded myself with nice people. They are much better to be around than negative, angry, and rude types.

Bob Wilber

 

Aloha on a Friday, from Woodbury. I’ve been home from my epic trip to Kauai since late Tuesday after a long overnight flight, but I’m still recovering from it a bit in terms of jet lag and sleep patterns. Because I’m old and obstinate and can’t seem to get over my chronic insomnia. When it’s really important for me to sleep through the night, like on a red-eye flight, I sit there awake and have no chance. Even after I got home, I had another totally sleepless night, but finally got some good “nap time” the next day. I’m getting there.

How old am I getting to be? Just this week the Minnesota Wild hockey team finally signed their absolutely thrilling and uber-talented rookie Kirill Kaprisov to a multi-year deal. His first name is pronounced “Ka-RILL” so hence the nickname Kirill The Thrill. He has a very good chance of being a legit superstar in the NHL.

The Wild wanted to lock him up long-term, like 8 to 10 years. The Thrill’s agent wanted a much shorter contract, to give the kid the flexibility to become a free agent earlier. They wanted 3 years. In the end, they met in the middle at 5 years. So, when Kaprisov’s contract is up, I’ll be 70. That, as we say, was a wake-up call. Never in my life have I even so much as thought about being 70. It seems bizarre beyond my comprehension, but time does march on so I better keep taking care of myself.

On Kauai, I managed to do that. Long walks nearly every day, averaging about 8,000 steps but clearing 10,000 a couple of times. I can’t say I ate totally healthy, but I steered clear of the worst fattening stuff pretty well. When you eat out for every meal, over the course of three and a half weeks, you either have to get a lot of exercise or be pretty particular about what you order. I think I was mostly both.

On my last night on the island, my travel schedule overlapped with Mary and Lonnie’s by six hours, so we were able to go out to eat before they took me to the airport. We went to a wonderful place called Sam’s Ocean View, one of the most popular spots on Kauai and for good reason. Fabulous food and priceless views. Plus, Mary and Lon are very good friends with Sam herself, and always get the VIP treatment from her and her staff. They were jammed, but made room for us. My salmon cakes were to die for. Absolutely perfect. It was a great way to end the trip.

During my stay, Maxie was his normal rambunctious and loving self. Sometimes he gets absolutely manic about getting belly rubs, but he was never far from me and a truly great cat. A real gem of friendliness.

Biscuit has always been a lot more reserved and skittish. The first time I stayed at the condo to take care of things, I was worried Biscuit had gotten away because I never saw him for the first three days, and it’s a small condo. Finally, on the fourth night, I was on the sofa and saw him walk through the room to get to the food dish. We never interacted the entire time, during that first trip.

This time, Biscuit warmed right up to me and by the third or fourth day we were great friends. He’s really a sweet cat, and absolutely handsome, with beautiful markings. We were close buddies the whole time I was there.

So, yes the trip was fantastic. I’d do it again next year for sure. The travel is a little tough, but it’s very much worth it and by now I’ve learned my way around the island pretty much like a local. It feels like a second home, and it’s a great one to have.

And the good news here at home is that Buster and Boofus really didn’t give me much grief for being gone almost a month. It was clear they really missed me, and both of them have been love bugs since I got back. Life is good.

And now for some other news.

As you probably recall, I finished initial writing on “How Far?” on July 4, and promptly ended up in the hospital just a few days later. Clearly, the stress had taken a toll on me.

The stress of a tough Covid-impacted economy was taking a toll on my publisher as well. This was a big project for him to bite off during challenging times, and book sales have not been great lately. For two months, after I finished the initial manuscript, not much happened. We were at a standstill. It was frustrating to me, and I’m sure it was just as tough on the publisher.

Finally, while I was on the island, I made a big decision. I needed to take full control of the project and be the quarterback to put it in the end zone. It was a very difficult decision to make, and I’d grown to like the publisher very much, but the worry that we were never going to get there built up in me by the day. It was something I felt I had to do. Yes, I’m a worrier. I’ll admit that.

So, now I’m back with my hands on it everyday.

To get us there, I “got the band back together” as soon as the publisher and I agreed on the path forward. Elon Werner will again be my ace publicity and PR guy, helping me sell this thing once it’s out by getting me on as many high-profile shows and in print everywhere he can. And he can. He’s the best.

Todd Myers, another great friend from the NHRA world of PR who did the graphics on “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” will be the graphic artist and in charge of the covers, both front and back. He’s really creative and I had to come to grips with the concept of “thinking outside the box” when it comes to the design. Since Day 1 I’d been locked in on an image of the front cover that was very literal. My two characters, in full uniform, looking off into the distance. The author who is that much of a micromanager needs to learn to delegate. My job was to write. Todd is in charge of finding the final concept and making it come to life.

I also added a new member to the band. We’re still grooming and tightening, and I’ve enlisted the help of a great friend, Terry Blake, to assist as another set of eyes. My editor Greg and I were so close to the book, so deeply into it, we got to that point of not seeing a few things that could be altered. I go blind to those things fairly easily. Terry has done this stuff for a living, as a highly respected corporate communications guy, and his input is great.

Greg Halling has been my mentor and style editor for two books now, and without him neither one of them would ever have seen the light of day. He’s brilliant and he knows me. He knows what I’m trying to do and he knows how I’m trying to get there. He guided me through this whole book and always had incredible insights and thoughts. I’m a much better writer because of Greg. I can’t thank him enough and I respect him so much.

What does this all mean?

Well, it means Barbara and I are taking this on as our project and will make it happen. I will almost certainly go back to Outskirts Press to publish it, and it won’t be cheap, but it will be mine and they do a great job of getting into as many sales channels as possible. Their good to work with and I was really happy with how we collaborated on the first book.

My wife is the greatest, and she’s in love with this project. I think she’s in love with me, too. She gave me a resounding green light to go for it. It was basically almost an instruction to do it this way.

So the full band is back together.

I have made the request to remain the lead singer. That is what we call a mixed metaphor. I’m the quarterback getting the book into the end zone and I’m the lead singer. Got that? To get to this point, I called an audible and changed the play while I was on the island.

We’ll get this done. We’ll make it sing. We’ll have a book and “the band” will be working on it as a unit to get us there.

It was a huge decision, but it’s the right one. We won’t make any money on this book. It will almost certainly cost more to produce than we can make in royalties, but maybe all of you can spread the word once it’s out. Your reviews on Amazon will be greatly appreciated.

No Kickstarter or other crowd-funding for this one. We did that once and it was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever experienced, but I’m absolutely not going back to that incredibly generous well again. This one is on us.

When will it be out? Well, we still have some work to do to finalize the look and Todd has the big challenge of giving us a cover. He’s currently reading the manuscript to get a firm idea of what the book is about and who the characters are. So I don’t know. I’ve stopped worrying about it making Christmas. It will be out when it’s out.

Barbara is also convinced we have a screenplay on our hands. Not a major Hollywood movie, but maybe a mini-series on one of the new streaming networks that are so popular. If we can make that happen some day, we might even make our money back.

But the money isn’t the reason for this. Whatever it costs, it costs. Getting this book into people’s hands is what matters. That’s the reason.

I’ll tell you this: The more I go back over it and I soak it in, the prouder I am of it. I think it’s the best writing I’ve ever done. I can thank Greg for that. And I’m proud of myself for being able to learn new tricks as an old dog. I got better. I got sharper. I got way more creative in a book that had a concept which demanded I got far outside my comfort zone.

We’ll get it done. The band will make great music as a tight unit.

When we’re done, I hope you like it. How far did I grow writing this book? All the way to where it is.

Time for a nap. I’m still blaming the jet lag.

If you liked what you just read, please click on the “Like” button here at the bottom. And hopefully be ready to like “How Far?” as well.

Thank you, everyone. This should be worth the wait.

 

Greetings from the Garden Isle. This will be the shortest blog ever, but I’m just here to check in and let you know I’m alive and well in Paradise.

This month-long escapade has passed its halfway point, and I’ll be here for another 10 days. On September 20, I’ll be heading home on a flight that leaves Lihue Airport at the enticing hour of 9:50 pm. We will land at LAX somewhere around 5:30 in the morning Pacific time. After that, a 2-hour layover before the final leg to MSP. Yay!

Blog writer’s note: I won’t try to weave stories into the photos today (or vice-versa.) I’ll just post random pics I’ve taken as I go. Like this one.

My return flight (a week from Monday) may be enticing to some, but I have a long history of being unable to sleep on planes when the schedule makes it very beneficial to do so. Red-eye flights and I do not get along. It’s the eastbound flights that are the worst, whether it’s from Hawaii back to the mainland or from Minneapolis to Europe. Just the thought of “If I just get a few hours sleep on this flight I’ll be good to go when we get there” is enough to keep me wide awake. The good news for this trip is the fact I really don’t have to be ready for anything when I get home. I can just rest up however I see fit.

I’ve fallen into a nice groove here. Barbara was able to pull the trigger on a surprise visit last week, coming in on Wednesday and staying until Sunday night, and that was fantastic. We had a wonderful time together and with a few of Mary and Lonnie’s good friends. Bob, Thom, and Michael are aces and great people, and our two dinners together were fantastic. Many laughs all around, and too much good food to even imagine.

I’ve been doing a lot of walking, whether it’s a just a jaunt out the front door and around the area here by the condo or taking a drive to a nearby beach to walk on those trails. I think I’ve been averaging about 7,500 steps per day, and cleared 10,000 once or twice. That sort of exercise will allow you to eat pretty much whatever you want for dinner.

Food trucks are the rage here, as are “pop up” food stands. Mary and Lonnie had highly recommended the food sold by a nice woman on a street corner in downtown Kapaa. Just her and two bright red umbrellas, with a couple of warming ovens and one small hot plate. The French Dip sandwich was to die for! And, oddly enough, we somehow got on the subject of Minnesota and she said “You’re from there? My husband is from White Bear Lake!” That, as we say, is more evidence that it’s a small world. Barbara’s office is technically in Vadnais Heights but about a block away you’ll find yourself in White Bear Lake. “Go Bears!” (That’s a “Fargo” reference, by the way.)

So it’s all good here. The weather has been sublime. Biscuit and Maxie have been very good boys and are ultra-friendly with me now. And, I know my way around this island well enough to pretty much go wherever I want without much research.

I leave you with one funny story…

At the end of one of my walks a few days ago, I was just about back to the car at Kealia Beach when a surfer came walking toward me on the path. He was soaking wet and carrying his board. As we passed, he said, “Hey man, do you know what time it is?”

I looked at my “smart watch” (I use those quotes because I’m not smart enough to understand half of what my watch does) only to find it had switched itself to a different setting, tracking my activity instead of just, you know, TELLING TIME like most watches do. I apologized and said “Sorry man, my watch just switched to a different screen. I’m not sure what time it is.”

He then said, in perfect surfer dude language, “Uh, dude. Your phone is in your right hand.”

Geez. I’m such a boomer. And an idiot. To hear the surfer guy’s voice accurately, think about how Sean Penn would’ve said it, playing the one and only Jeff Spicoli in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

That’s all for this one. I’ve got so much on my agenda I need to go. I’m busy here. Just crazy busy. It’s hard to get it all done each day. Maybe I’ll take a nap…

Aloha, gang! I’ll recap the whole trip when I get back home in 10 days.

And, feel free to send the Aloha back my way with a click on that pesky “Like” button at the bottom.