I have never been so embarrassed of fellow journalists

One time, while I was covering an NFL preseason game, I was walking out of the locker room when a rookie stopped me and asked to borrow my pad and pen, because he wanted to write down a phone number for one of the other players.

He handed me back the pad and pen when he was done _ and I was promptly stopped by one of the team's PR interns, who started threatening that he was going to have my credential taken away for getting autographs. The rookie player spoke up, told him what happened, and then snapped, "Leave him alone, he wasn't doing anything wrong. Get out of here." The kid just kind of mumbled an apology and walked away. The player, who I think got cut a couple of weeks later, also apologized. "Man, I didn't mean to get you in trouble," he said.

A few years ago, Rollie Fingers was in town to watch his son play for the minor-league baseball team. On my way out to interview him, one of the news reporters asked me to get Fingers' autograph for him. He didn't understand when I told him it wasn't ethical.

 

Yeah, but you gotta admit, "I Think I'm In Love" and "Baby Hold On" are rockin' tunes.

 

i saw him back in '88. awesome show.

 

He's still touring. ;D

 

god bless eddie murray ... his backup singers are hot, too.

 

I always preferred ... Two Kickets to Paradise

 

ever hear the acoustical version? to. die. for.

 

According to some of you, what I'm about to tell should probably have me shot.

Last summer, my father in law was still with us, but in his last couple months fighting cancer. He and my mother in law came with me, the hubby and male Rosebud as I went to do a story on a professional sports team's off-season outstate road tour.

There was a long, yet orderly and manageable line for fans to meet the players and my FIL, a huge sports fan, just hung back. He was confined to a wheelchair at this point in his life and he would not let my hubby or son push him through the line.

"This is for the kids," he said in a shaky, scratchy voice not even a shadow of its former self.

When I asked Mr. Rosie why his dad hadn't been through the line, I was told what my father in law had said.

As I talked with the players, I said a little prayer under my breath, then asked one of the players whom I'd interviewed before if he'd do me a huge favor and that I normally wouldn't request this.

Before the players boarded the bus for the next stop, the player I requested do me a favor did just that. He came over to where my in-laws sat, shook my father in law's hand and spoke with him until the tour director finally said the bus had to leave.

My father in law's face glowed like a little kid's the rest of the afternoon, and I'm told he spoke of that more times than a person could count, until a month before he passed away, when he couldn't speak at all.

Did I abuse my position? Yeah, probably. But I'd do it all over again for the joy it brought my father in law in the last two months of his life.

 

Rosie: Your story is the exception that proves the rule. No one would criticize what you did. In fact, you are to be commended.

 

I think I'd call that classy. Of course, no surprise there.

 

Anybody criticizing you should be grounded.

 

Can I have your autograph?