Commenting on things that interested me, sharing my bounteous wisdom with the world. I only had two jobs in which one of my primary duties was writing a column, but if I included the other jobs where I wrote one weekly, I probably wrote 2,000 or so between 1980 and 2001 (I didn't write columns at all after 2001).
I won awards. Best in the state in Colorado, best in Inland Southern California, and once even a first-place in a national competition that was mostly small papers.
Some angry.
Some funny.
One was just, well, weird.
I was working at the Reno Gazette-Journal in 1989, with the biggest part of my job as the beat writer covering University of Nevada basketball. In the off-season, I did a lot of different things. In the fall of 1989, I covered three games at Candlestick Park as the San Francisco Giants won the National League pennant by defeating the Chicago Cubs.
Oakland won the American League pennant that year, so the two Bay Area teams were matched for the first time in the baseball World Series. The Athletics won the first two games, and there was an off-day before the series would shift across the Bay to San Francisco for Game Three on Tuesday, Oct. 17, 1989.
Remember the date.
It matters.
I was going to have a column in the paper that day, and even though I wasn't going down to San Francisco, I decided to write a funny column about the World Series.
***
"BRIDGING GAPS IN SERIES COVERAGE NOT ALWAYS EASY"
Writing original stories about major events is always difficult.
Hundreds of reporters representing papers from Maine to San Diego prowl the clubhouses at Final Fours, World Series and Super Bowls, looking for the definitive story, the one no one else has.
That's why I was glad when the idea for a truly unique story hit me along about midnight the other night.
Most of you probably know midnight is when the weirdest ideas seem to strike. Midnight is when everything makes sense, no matter how nonsensical it really is.
This is the Bay Bridge Series, right?
Well, has anyone interviewed the single key figure in all of this?
Has anyone actually gone to the trouble of speaking with the Bay Bridge?
I didn't have time to go down to San Francisco this week, so I figured I would do the interview by phone.
I checked the directory, buy for obvious reasons, the Bay Bridge has an unlisted number. No problem at all. Semi-professional journalists have their ways of getting numbers.
I bribed somebody. It cost me $20.
Expense-account stuff, but please don't tell my bosses or the IRS.
The Bay Bridge answered his phone on the third ring.
"Is this money or good news?"
"No, but ..."
The next thing I heard was the dial tone. I couldn't believe it. The Bay Bridge had hung up on me.
Thank goodness for redial.
"Don't hang up, OK?"
"All right, but make it quick."
"Could I speak to the Bay Bridge?"
"Speaking. Who's calling?"
"I'm a sportswriter, and I'm calling from the Biggest Little City in the World. Reno, Nevada."
"So? Is that supposed to excite me or something?"
This was definitely a bridge with a chip on its spar.
"I'm doing a story about the Bay Bridge World Series, and I wanted to get your reaction."
"Really?" He seemed to be warming up a little.
"What do you think about it all?"
"Well, you're the first one who's asked, and I'm really hurt that everybody's ignoring me. I've never really gotten the credit due me."
"What do you mean?"
"Come on now. Everybody knows I'm underrated. Everybody thinks the Golden Gate Bridge is so beautiful, but I'm a lot more important."
"How so?"
"All the Golden Gate Bridge does is let the yuppies get into the City from Marin County. I handle the traffic back and forth between two great cities -- San Francisco and Oakland."
He had a point.
"And one more thing. I'm more than eight miles long."
"That's not true," I said. "What about Treasure Island in the middle?"
"You want me to hang up again?"
"Wow, eight miles long. That's really impressive. So tell me, who do you like in the World Series?"
"Well, I shouldn't admit this. After all, I do touch both cities. But I'm an A's fan."
"How come?"
"You see, have to share San Francisco with the Golden Gate Bridge. The A's are mine, all mine."
"What about the San Mateo Bridge?"
"Strictly minor league," he said. "You ever see a picture of the San Mateo Bridge on a postcard?"
I had to admit I hadn't.
"It's in Hayward, anyway."
"So you're for the A's, huh? Do you make it to many games?"
"No way. I'm on duty 24 hours a day. I do listen on the radio, though, and once I thought I saw a police car chasing Jose Canseco across me. Of course, it might have been someone else. It was dark."
"Tell me, how long do you figure it'll take the A's to win it now that they're up 2-0?"
"No longer than four more games, maybe just three."
"I read a story that said you were all dolled up with pennants -- 36 each for the Giants and A's."
"Yeah, I kinda like it. Makes me feel sort of, well, stylish."
I figured as long as I had the reclusive Bay Bridge on the phone, I might as well do the enquiring minds want to know bit and learn a little more about him.
"What's your favorite song?"
"Bridge Over Troubled Water."
"What's your favorite movie?"
"Bridge on the River Kwai."
"Who's your favorite American actor?"
"Jeff Bridges."
"And how about your favorite television show?"
"Bridget Loves Bernie."
This was getting ridiculous.
He thought so, too.
"Do you have everything you need from me? I've got to go. I'm getting together with some friends."
"Just what does the Bay Bridge do for fun?"
"I love to play cards," he said.
I didn't ask the name of his favorite game. I'd played straight man long enough.
***
That was the column.
It ran in the morning paper on Tuesday, Oct. 17, 1989. I got some nice comments about it, but my boss two levels up -- the managing editor -- said that while he got some laughs, he wasn't really that fond of interviews with inanimate objects.
 |
| Bay Bridge, Oct. 17, 1989 |
I understood. I was working on the desk that evening, and at 5:04 p.m., the entire building shook. We were more than 200 miles away on the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but we were feeling the Loma Prieta Earthquake, a pretty impressive 6.9 quake that shut down the World Series for a week.
It also partially collapsed the Bay Bridge and sent a few cars falling into San Francisco Bay.
Pretty funny, huh?
Worst timing I ever had.
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