Category Archives: Sports
LA Trip 2018: Day 1 (Continued)
LA Trip 2018: Day 1 of a two-day trip to Los Angeles, California (Continued)… to be a guest at the Fred Claire Celebrity Golf Classic, an event to raise money for cancer research for City of Hope.
1:00 p.m. Mid-day at the Oakmont Country Club in Glendale, California… A gorgeous day to be outdoors… Ahhhh… did I say it was a Monday?
1:30 p.m. Dodger great Orel Hershiser chats with DodgersNation about what he’s been up to (including his friendship with Fred Claire and his current broadcasting career), with some of my books on display… I learned a lot, actually, being in the room listening in on Hershiser’s interview.
4:00 p.m. It’s DodgersNation chatting with the one and only Tommy Lasorda, the long-time former manager of the Dodgers!
Jerry Reuss and Mickey Hatcher were also at the event to help raise money for Mr. Claire’s cause.
Here’s the great knuckleballer Charlie Hough, who’s holding two of my books. I had a chance to speak with him briefly – he loves to talk knuckleballs!
6:00 p.m. Dinner began, and then a silent auction and speeches.
in terms of the speeches, there were some inspirational words spoken by Mr. Claire himself, a couple of doctors, and Tommy Lasorda.
All in all, an enjoyable and inspirational evening…
Tweet by former Dodgers broadcaster Ross Porter about “The 1988 Dodgers”
Former long-time Dodgers broadcaster Ross Porter had this to say about my book, The 1988 Dodgers: Reliving the Championship Season, on Twitter:
Chatting 1988 Dodgers book on AM590 The Answer with GabeRealSports
I had the opportunity recently to speak with GabeRealSports on his weekly show, The Sports Corner, on AM590 The Answer (radio home of the LA Rams).
Something to be very proud of…
I’ve had several people tell me that I did a fantastic job writing The 1988 Dodgers: Reliving the Championship Season. They tell me I should be proud of myself.
And I should be.
There were a lot of odds against me, but I persevered and “hit a home run,” just to use a baseball expression.
First of all, I am based in Vancouver, Canada, and I had full-time commitments to my teaching jobs. I conducted just one interview in person, and that was only because the ex-player (Franklin Stubbs) just happened to be in town as a coach for a series against Vancouver’s Single-A baseball team.
Second, there were so many negative people around me. I succeeded in blocking them out. With people whom I know, I tend to be friendly with them. Yet, quite a few get hostile if they disagree with the direction I’m taking in my own life. That’s life, I suppose. But having so much negativity around you can suck the energy out of you. I chose to block them out. Believe me, it’s hard. There were some who said “So what?” (ie. who the hell cares?) when I explained that I was writing this book because it was the 30th anniversary of the last Dodgers championship. There were others who scoffed, saying in a condescending manner, “How much money can you make from this?” All sorts of negativity…
Third, there’s also timing. With my full-time teaching life – and no vacation at all during that time – I had very little time to commit to writing. But I made it work. I also had a short time frame because I wanted to have this book published by 2018 – meaning I had to scramble for potential publishers, write up proposals to be sent out, and make sure that ultimately the finished product would be done by October 2017 just to have it ready to be published by 2018! There was also scrambling to get photos for the book, and so on.
Overall, I’m proud to have this book out. I hope that members of the 1988 Dodgers are proud too.
Chatting ’88 Dodgers on TSN1040
I had the opportunity to talk about my 1988 Dodgers book, The 1988 Dodgers: Reliving the Championship Season, on TSN1040 back on August 23rd. Here’s the link to it.
