Shakeup in Fort Lauderdale

A very long time ago, in a newspaper far, far away. My God, I actually still had hair.

 

At some point, everything became pretty much built out. The beautiful city in which I lived (Weston) didn't even exist and was basically swampland when I arrived in South Florida in 1986.

Ladies and gentlemen, Craig Barnes:



I'll say this about Craig. He knew EVERYBODY and always got me tickets at face value to anything I wanted to see, including Tennessee's BCS championship game against Florida State.

 

Love the Barnesy stories.

 

Back before there was no team in South Florida and spring training was everything, Barnes always covered the Yankees in Fort Lauderdale. He would occasionally call the desk, almost in a whisper, and say "Hey, Murray (Chass) doesn't know this, but . . . (insert player move here)."

To which our typical response would be, "But Craig, it's been on the wire for more than an hour."


And my all time favorite:

Barnes goes to Reggie Jackson's hotel room, knocks on the door.

Reggie, in the middle of banging some chick, comes to the door angry as hell about being disturbed, sees who's at the door, and calms down a little.

"Barnes, if it was anybody but you . . . " he reportedly said.


I believe there was another one about a naked Chris Evert, but I'm fuzzy on the details after 30+ years.

 

Or so Barnes said.
One of his favorite things on the FSU beat, long before the internet or social media, was if there was a surprise starter at some position or Bowden ran a trick play. Barnes would invariably lean back in his seat and announce to all, "Bowden told me yesterday he was going to do that."
Mind you, it wouldn't have appeared in the Sentinel that day. One day Jeff Snook finally had it up to here and screamed at Barnes, "no one gives a shit if you don't write it.!"

 

One more "Colonel" story. A friend from my first career stop was a Yankees beat writer during the team's final few springs in Fort Lauderdale, and the New York beat writers would get together and have an end-of-spring-training party every year. After a few rounds of adult beverages, they'd have a contest to see who could do the best Barnes imitation. I forget what the prize was for winning -- maybe a bucket of KFC. It just wasn't the same without Barnes when the Yankees moved their spring-training operation to Tampa.

 

These stories are why I come to SJ.com. Please, if there are more to tell, keep them coming. This stuff is gold.

 

Barnes went to the same high school as Pete Maravich. He said one game he and Pete combined for 64 points. To which one guy replied: "What, did Pete score 63 and you went 1 for 2 from the foul line?"

 

One last Barnes remembrance: When he covered Florida State, he was notorious for writing repeatedly about special teams, especially punters and kickers. He'd write about a half-dozen stories apiece every season on the first-string punter and kicker, and even the backup punter and kicker were good for two or three more stories. I said something about this to one of the sports bosses; given Barnes' status as a staff star and my status as a junior copy editor, I expected a stern rebuke. Instead, with the weary smile of someone who'd tolerated Craig's idiosyncrasies forever, he said, "I think those are the only guys who'll talk to him."

All these posts have made me curious what's up with Barnes these days. He was right around retirement age when he took a buyout from the Sun-Sentinel and had a blog (called "Barnes Burner") for a while after that, but I think it faded away. If he'd died, we'd have heard about it. Not sure if he's still in South Florida. My guess is he's probably still in fine form, telling anyone who'll listen how he knew the day before the game that Bobby Bowden planned to run a "Puntrooskie" against Clemson in '88, but couldn't write about it.

 

He, uh, tended to talk to white players, which made kickers and punters a target-rich environment. From 1988-91 you couldn't read a story without a quote from either of defensive lineman twin brothers Joe and Henry Ostaszewski. LB Kirk Carruthers was another favorite from the same period.

Turns out Joe finished fourth on TV's The Biggest Loser in 2013.

 

Another favorite was QB Danny Kanell, who attended a small private school in Fort Lauderdale before heading to FSU. His father also had celebrity status because he was team doctor for the Dolphins and spring-training Yankees.

 

Yes, he appears to still be living. And most stunningly, he's only 10 years older than me. Never would have guessed. Thought he was a cranky veteran scribe in 1980.