ALWAYS GRAB THE CORKS

By Brian Murphy

I hit the Gomez Lottery. I did Yankee Stadium in October with Pedro Gomez. Covering the NFL from 1994 to 1999, I thought I knew the way. The rush of football game day. The Super Bowl parties in Miami. The royal feeling of writing America’s most popular sport. I didn’t know the way. Pedro showed me.

More than anything, Pedro taught me to trust my eyes. Covering the NFL, you couldn’t do that. After games, coaches would tell us they’d have to watch the film. Baseball was different. You might study the occasional instant replay—what exactly happened there?—but mostly you could tune out the distractions and be alone with the game. You could trust your eyes.

In 1999, I covered the up-and-coming Oakland A’s. I owned a box seat to the most fun team I’d ever cover. Jason Giambi would talk to us after games in a hat that read “Drive It Like You Stole It.” It was a special deal.

One more special thing: I earned The Tap from Pedro. Even though Pedro had moved on to become a columnist for the Arizona Republic, he loved ball writers. He loved new ball writers, because he could help us.  Be friends with us. Look out for us. I had Pedro Gomez calling me amigo.

“You’re an A’s beat writer now,” Pedro said. “You’re part of the family. We look out for each other.”

The A’s didn’t make the playoffs in 1999, but my sports editor at the San Francisco Examiner,  Glenn Schwarz—he was a ball guy. Budget be damned, he was sending his A’s and Giants beat writers to cover the League Championship Series. In 1999, that meant John Shea drew Braves-Mets. And it meant I drew Red Sox-Yankees.

It meant I drew my new best ball-writer friend, Pedro Gomez, in baseball’s best city, in baseball’s most hallowed stadium, in baseball’s greatest month.

I can still hear Pedro: “My Irish amigo! Let’s go to Yankee Stadium! Meet you in the Grand Hyatt lobby.”

I can still see Pedro in his coat and tie, laptop satchel over his shoulder, bright white teeth smiling under those eyebrows, waiting in the lobby. His smile was for Yankees-Red Sox. His smile was for October.

His smile was for the excitement of showing his rookie ball-writer pal the way to do it. The Pedro Way.

So the Pedro Way was the No. 4 subway, of course. The Pedro Way was to feel the pregame energy through the jostling crowds of Yankee fans in O’Neill T-shirts and El Duque jerseys, crammed together in the train and spilling out into the Bronx, where we smelled the sausages and onions from street vendors and felt the chill of the night air and saw the brightness of The Stadium lights against a dark Gotham sky.

The Red Sox and Yankees in October strained credulity. We drew the two most storied teams in the game. I had a sensei like Pedro to show me the way in, to take me to the packed press room downstairs, and to make sure all the New York writers and broadcasters—George King, Joel Sherman, Tyler Kepner, Michael Kay, Suzyn Waldman, on and on—knew that the new kid from the SF Examiner was OK.

Pre- and postgame press conferences were run by the American League, and their venerable and respected director of public relations, Phyllis Merhige. Phyllis was like the White House press secretary, only more important, because it was The Stadium in October.

“Phyllis, whatever you do, don’t take any questions from Murphy from the SF Examiner,” Pedro needled, eyes glinting. “This Mick is trouble. Stay away, Phyllis!”

That was all Phyllis needed to hear. She winked and made sure to call on me.

Game 1 was everything. Extra innings. Bob Sheppard on the PA. Eddie Layton on the organ. A controversial blown call against the Red Sox. A walk-off home run by Bernie Williams. Frank Sinatra. Frank Sinatra. Frank Sinatra.

I figured the press conferences with Yankees manager Joe Torre and Red Sox manager Jimy Williams would do the trick for quotes, not knowing clubhouse access in October. Pedro wanted more.

“Make sure you get Rod Beck after the game,” Pedro urged, speaking of the ex-Giant who surrendered Williams’ blast. “He’ll be in the clubhouse for sure. Squeeze in there!”

Ol’ Shooter Beck was a stand-up guy, sure enough. I can still feel the crush of bodies around his locker, can still see the beer in his hand, still hear his disappointed, yet patient voice, explaining the one that got away.

That advice? Made my story. An adrenalized write, for sure. Heady stuff. Filed to the Examiner around 1 a.m. Eastern.

“Ready to go?” Pedro asked a few laptops over.

“Where to?” I asked, still dazed from the drama, the lights, the scene.

“Dude! Come on! It’s New York in October!”

That Pedro grin. I soon learned that an October in New York with Pedro meant the ball game was only the opening act. There was too much life to be lived, too many laughs to be had, too many stories to tell, too much ball to argue. The night, to Pedro, was but an infant.

A stash of Town Cars waited for late ball writers. Pedro knew where to go. I wish I could bottle the feeling of having written postseason baseball from the Bronx, blended with the comfort and warmth of the backseat of a Town Car bearing down on the city, mixed with the adrenaline of knowing that Manhattan’s taverns awaited our arrival, their generous 4 a.m. closing times a virtual welcome mat—topped off by Pedro’s high-pitched cadence of amazement at the theater as we rode . . . “Can you believe Rod Beck hung that slider? It was the only batter he faced! . . . What was Rick Reed watching when he blew that call? . . . How great is Yankee Stadium in October? . . .”

Pedro knew where to go. American Trash, 1st Avenue and E. 77th, a few blocks from the East River. As these things happen, we met the famous New York Jets fan “Fireman Ed,” who was glassy-eyed and feeling no pain. Fireman Ed was famous for sitting on the shoulders of a fan and spelling out “J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS!” Pedro took stock of Fireman Ed, who went about six-foot-two, 230 pounds of muscle. “You sit it on someone’s shoulders?” Pedro asked, pint in hand, eyes glinting. “That’s my brother,” Fireman Ed said, leaning against the bar. “You should see the size of him.”

As these things happen, Pedro and I decided the bar needed to hear “The Cowboy Song” by Thin Lizzy, over and over. It was a good choice at 3 a.m. for a couple of ball writers.

Roll me over and turn me around/Let me keep spinning til I hit the ground/Roll me over and let me go ridin’ in the rodeo . . .

We felt good. So did Fireman Ed. Thin Lizzy sounded great. Fireman Ed proclaimed his life philosophy. “It’s all good,” he said, grabbing my shirt. “Because if it isn’t . . . what is it?”

Pedro and I cackled, over and over. We had a new mantra.

And Thin Lizzy sings:  Roll me over and set me free/The cowboy’s life is the life for me.

We never said it out loud, but Thin Lizzy might as well have been singing about us. With Pedro, the unwritten rule was: You didn’t do New York right unless you stepped on your door-front USA Today going back into your hotel room. That meant sleeping until 2 p.m., then rising to do it all again. Game 2 called.

Pedro in the lobby. Coat and tie. Laptop in satchel. The grin. The eyebrows. The wattage of energy undimmed by the previous night’s burn. The subway, the pregame, Phyllis Merhige making sure to call on my question.

The ancient rivals did not disappoint. Game 2 was another dandy. Red Sox lead, 2-1, in the bottom of the seventh, but Chuck Knoblauch ties it with an RBI double. Stadium favorite Paul O’Neill plates Knoblauch with a two-out single. The Stadium comes unglued, the notes from O’Neill’s walk-up music—The Who’s “Baba O’Riley”—still hanging in the night air. Pedro is loving it, slapping my shoulder with the back of his hand. That slap on the back tells me how lucky we are.

Ramiro Mendoza gets out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the top of the eighth. Heartbreak for the Red Sox. Mariano Rivera finishes it.  Frank Sinatra. Frank Sinatra. Frank Sinatra. Now I know the deal. We talk to a relieved Torre and an exasperated Williams. Phyllis calls on both of us.

Impossibly, our experience heightened. Games 3, 4 and 5 at Fenway Park. If riding sidesaddle with Pedro in October at Yankee Stadium was a singular experience, October in Boston with the ball writer’s ball writer was a heck of a runner-up. Even better, Game 3 featured the return of ex- Red Sox star and new Yankee villain Roger Clemens on the hill for the Bombers. The Red Sox answered with Cy Young winner Pedro Martinez.

We could go into the details of how the Red Sox—and their taunting, howling fans—dismembered Clemens that day, sending him to the showers after two innings, but it would be extraneous. Just close your eyes and picture Fenway Park in late afternoon October light, and hear the singsong of “Rogerrrrrrrrrrr …. Rogerrrrrrrrrrr … Rogerrrrrrrrr,” a horsehide version of a Gregorian chant.

Red Sox 13, Yankees 1. Pedro couldn’t contain his enthusiasm for the theater. Of course he couldn’t. Years later, we found a questionnaire he filled out for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Education, background, newspaper experience. A question near the end asked: Most memorable game you’ve ever covered? “Game 3 of the 1999 ALCS,” he wrote, “when the NY Yankees played at Boston with Roger Clemens facing Pedro Martinez. The game was filled with emotion and lived up to all the hype, with Martinez shelling Clemens.”

That victory was Boston’s death rattle. Game 4 went New York’s way, with yet another critical call going against the Red Sox. Fans rained debris on the field. The game was stopped for eight minutes. The call was not changing.

I was disappointed that Game 5 would become an inevitability, that the Yankees would take care of Boston and close it out en route to yet another World Series title. My disappointment was rooted in two things: One, I wouldn’t get back to Yankee Stadium. Two, my week with Pedro was coming to an end.

Pedro didn’t let it end without more memories.

“Come on, let’s go through the stands, get some color,” he urged me in the ninth inning of what would become a 6-1 Yankee clincher.

We stood behind a fan who watched the ninth-inning fatality play out, shouting to the oncoming winter: “At least we shelled the fat man! They cannot win the World Series! Roger Clemens must die a bitter, ringless old man!”

Pedro dug his elbow into my ribs: “You can use that!”

I did.

We snaked through the dank walkways of Fenway to the visitor’s clubhouse, where the American League champions were partying on enemy soil. I will never forget certain things about that cramped, smoky, beer-soaked room. George Steinbrenner in a blue blazer and turtleneck, telling Pedro and me that “the Yankees are on top, where they belong.” A twenty-five-year-old Derek Jeter taking a long pull on a cigar, heading to his third World Series.

And I will never forget what Pedro said to me before we entered.

“You have to listen to me,” he said. “Do you have any friends that are huge Yankee fans? Like, friends who truly care, so that the Yankees actually mean something to them?” I did. An old pal from high school came to mind. He was born in New York. He moved to the Bay Area in junior high. He was devoted. And he was getting married in two weeks.

“I do,” I said.

“So here’s what you’re going to do,” Pedro said. “You are going to go in there and grab Champagne corks from the floor of the clubhouse. You put them in your jacket pocket and do not lose them.”

I nodded.

“Then, go back home and find that friend and give him a cork and you tell him it came from the New York Yankees clubhouse, just as they celebrated the pennant.”

So in between Steinbrenner and Jeter, late on a Sunday night in October, I grabbed those corks. Two weeks later, at the wedding reception, I cornered the groom at the bar. I told him the story. I had him hold out his hand. The tear in his eye came because Pedro Gomez taught me the way.