You never get a second chance to make a first impression

Forgive me while I vent a little. I can do that; this is my blog.

I was supposed to do an interview with a high-profile former major leaguer who will be making an appearance at a local Jewish venue (I won’t name names or places). What made the story especially interesting is that this fellow isn’t Jewish.

The program is scheduled for the near future which necessitated its inclusion in the newspaper — this edition comes out bi-weekly — that goes to press today. I explained this to said player’s representative, and that to get something in would mean talking with said player yesterday afternoon. Mr. Representative was nice and professional, and told me that, after consultation, Mr. Player would call at 2:30.

Obviously he didn’t call at 2:30, or 3:30 or 4:30, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this.

I left a telephone message with Mr. Representative, explaining the situation and even offering to push the deadline to first thing this morning. Mr. R. left a very apologetic message and said he didn’t know why the scheduled appointment had fallen through and that he would (try to) get Mr. Player to call this morning.

The call came in at 3:20 p.m., long after I had to scramble to find other material to fill the hole I had left for the interview. I keep referring to him as “Mr. Player,” because that’s the formality with which he referred to himself, although he declined to offer me the same consideration. A minor thing, perhaps, but in all the time I’ve been working in this business, I’ve never had anyone, other than a medical doctor, refer to him or herself as anything but First Name Last Name. while often initially addressing me as “Mr. Kaplan.” (For the record, I am older than Mr. Player, although he had no way of knowing that. Oh for the days when everyone addressed each other with formal salutations.)

If this had been someone else I might have not given this as much time and effort as I seem to be wasting now. But Mr. Player is known for having some difficulties when it comes to himself and others. Even if he had had the courtesy of calling after hours, as Mr. Rep did, just to say “oops, my bad,” and reschedule — or even say “sorry, can’t do it,”  dayenu, that would have been enough.

Many years ago I was writing a piece for Nine, a scholarly journal about baseball (nu, what else?).  I managed to score an interview with Sparky Anderson, the ex-Reds, ex-Tigers manager who had just published an autobiography. He was incredibly generous with his time, knowing full well I was a “nobody” (heck, this wasn’t even a paying gig). At one point he told me how he had always tried to treat everyone with respect, the small town media the same as the network guys or the reporters from the national press. Sometimes we get that here; if you’re not The New York Times or CNN, a lot of people don’t want to be bothered.

My wife — a big fan of Mr. Player — thinks I’m being foolish for reacting this way and perhaps she’s right, especially with Yom Kippur coming up. But that’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.

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Kaplan’s Korner on Jews and Sports © 2009 New Jersey Jewish News

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