No. 166 – Sunshine of Your Love

Performer: Eric Clapton

Songwriters: Jack Bruce, Pete Brown, Eric Clapton

Original Release: Disraeli Gears (Cream)

Year: 1967

Definitive Version: Eric Clapton & Friends, 1992.

Clapton & Friends was another bootleg Scott gave me during my tenure at Northwestern. He recorded Clapton’s show featuring Phil Collins on drums on MTV, which went otherwise unreleased for another half-decade.

I went to Northwestern with one goal in mind. Sure, it was to get a masters degree so I had a journalism degree on my resume, but the ultimate goal was to become a feature writer at Sports Illustrated—preferably in baseball. Having no idea how to accomplish such a thing, I thought the first step was to be a sportswriter for a newspaper.

Fortunately, the gates to that path swung wide open in the spring of 1987 when, as I mentioned, Medill offered a sportswriting class for the first time. Less than a month after class begun, I was assigned to cover the Cubs at Wrigley Field.

The instructor, Ron Berler, had finagled a press credential, which was an accomplishment in and of itself. Back then, the Cubs kept close wraps on everything. I mean, why be accommodating? At least they did something; the White Sox shut us out.

So, we got one credential, and it rotated through the class. I was first up, getting three games against the Pirates and Expos. I left my regular beat at New Trier for a few days.

I can’t tell you how excited I was. I was going to cover a Major League Baseball team! It was like a dream come true. I also can’t tell you how quickly the excitement faded.

My first day I arrived at the park early, so early in fact that I was not only the only member of the press when I arrived, but I was about the only person in the clubhouse, period. Needless to say, I felt awkward standing by myself for a long time. Fortunately, no one gave me much grief, except for Lee Smith, who did so in a good-natured way.

Another bit of good fortune: I knew the Cubs’ dugout coach—Johnny Oates, whom I’d met a few summers before when he managed the Columbus Clippers and lived four doors down. He was glad to see me—he was a genuinely nice man—and said if I needed anything, just let him know.

I thought I had everything under control. I had three assignments—a gamer, a feature and a news story. I tackled the feature first, and I decided to write about Jamie Moyer, who was a fresh-faced youngster who no-hit his childhood idols the Philadelphia Phillies for eight innings a few days before. (Yes, this is the same Jamie Moyer who still was pitching in the bigs as recently as 2012.)

Unfortunately, Moyer was one of the last players to arrive, so I did a lot of standing around and getting the stink eye from various players—most memorably Ryne Sandberg. When Moyer showed up, I was relieved to finally get to work.

I introduced myself and told him what I was doing. Then I interviewed other players and coaches about Moyer. I spoke with Jody Davis and Dave Martinez and the pitching coach, Herm Starrette, and manager, Stick Michael. Then I spoke with Moyer.

He was great. We chatted for a half-hour in the Cubs’ clubhouse, and he was genuinely excited to talk about the Philadelphia game and what it meant to him to pitch so close to his hometown and do so well. So far, so good.

When it was time for the game, I was shown my seat, and it wasn’t in the press box. Instead, the Cubs put me in the scaffolding-like walkway beside the press box, outside, where it was blustery. I sat in a folding chair behind a makeshift counter table. At least I was in the ballpark.

That was my seat the next two days, and I was the only one out there the entire time except when Joey Meyer—the DePaul basketball coach—showed up before the Cubs could arrange a place for him and his son in the press box.

I wrote up the feature (and got an A), so the next day I concentrated on the news story. For this I chose Scott Sanderson, who was scheduled to come off the DL soon and threw a sim game in front of an almost completely empty stadium.

This story was a bit more difficult. Now I was dealing with seasoned vets who weren’t as interested in speaking with the press as a young Jamie Moyer was. No one was an ass, but no one was as readily available as they had been the day before, and a few guys—not Sanderson, thank goodness—outright stiffed me. Maybe I didn’t ask great questions, but I sure got a lot of one-word answers.

I decided to do the gamer that day, too, to get it out of the way. After the game—a Pirates shutout victory—I hit up both clubhouses for the usual quotes. I was stunned to see that the visiting-team clubhouse was smaller than the locker room at Upper Arlington High School. Welcome to the majors, kid.

Mike Lavalliere of the Pirates and Bryan Dayett of the Cubs were great. No one really was bad. I’d love to say that I was told off by a young Barry Bonds, but I didn’t try to interview him. That would’ve made for a better story.

The Expos came in for my third day at the park. I had done all my work, so I could just be a fan that day. I didn’t even visit the clubhouse and arrived just before the game. After, I went in to take leave of Johnny Oates until the next time (four years later in Baltimore). My time covering the bigs was over. I was heading back to the high-school kids at New Trier, and I felt … relief.

I didn’t have a terrible experience, but it wasn’t what I hoped. If anything, it made me acutely aware that I didn’t want to grow to hate baseball because the players were jerks. After only three days of covering the Cubs, I could see that happening.

So, like that, I gave up on doing the very thing that brought me to Northwestern in the first place: I gave up on becoming a sportswriter who covered professional sports. And I haven’t looked back.