File 770 Goes To The Ballpark

By James H. Burns: I tend to write backwards, nowadays, in that I’ll write a piece I want to write, or suddenly write one of those mini-memoirs many of you have been kind enough to read here, and then look to place it. I’ve had some good luck with certain publications and websites, and have been most extraordinarily fortunate to have discovered Mike Glyer’s very good graces, here…

A few weeks ago, I became intrigued by the process by which small rock concerts can be set up, right after a major league baseball game (or other, similar events, I suppose). I’m a major baseball fan (and still play, once in a long while), but I think it was the logistics of the process that intrigued me. The Mets had a couple of concerts coming up, and one of their very excellent press people (one of the mysteries in baseball, by the way, is how good the Mets media office has been for decades, when the team itself hasn’t necessarily fared as well), suggested I go Saturday night, when Heart — the sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson, and their rock band — played. The plan was for me to watch the game, and then see the concert set-up, and the performance itself, from the field…

I got to the game a while before its 7:10 p.m. start, this evening, at Citi Field, in Flushing, Queens, New York, and entered the press gate. The very nice young gentleman working the entrance had my pass waiting for me, but it had me listed as working for Newsday, the major Long Island newspaper. Now, I’ve barely written for Newsday over the years, but one of my most recent Op-Eds was about a surprise at the ballpark, and it ran over there. I told the intern I couldn’t have that on the pass, Why couldn’t he just put “freelance”? He said, “No, we have to have an affiliation. How about CBS? You just did a Mets piece for them.” I said that, No. That made really uncomfortable. He said that we had to put down something.

(The Mets press office already knew of my plan to cover the event, and see what that led to, in my mind…)

Now, this was already humorous, because the intern was extremely nice, and just trying to be helpful. Plus, my first pass had been made out not in my name, but as “James Burned.” (Did they know something I don’t?)

Searching my brain for some place I write for with some regularity, that would not infer anything that a corporation could take umbrage to, I said, “You know, how about just using….”

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12 thoughts on “File 770 Goes To The Ballpark

  1. I also think if you got in on a File 770 press pass it would be reasonable to write up a report for File 770..

  2. Well, looking at the box score, the Metropolitans did quite well for themselves last night, but how were the Heart Sisters? Did they go on pretty late after the offensive display your boys put on?

  3. Ahem.

    You seem to have missed the point of the story.

    FILE 770 was at the ballgame… Because of ME.

    😉

    And more to come. article wise…

    Surfeit to say, now, rather remarkably, Ann Wilson, 65ish, still has remarkable pipes, and can sing FAR MORE than most of her contemporaries, and her sister, Nancy, can still play and sing as well, with a grand purity.

    And remarkable to me, the whole concert/stage setup is pulled of in under twenty minutes…!

    I’m not sure there’s another band from the ’70s I can think of, that can still rock with the same ferocity and sweetness, with seemingly no concession, to time.

  4. By the way–

    ENTIRELY genre related!

    😉

    Jay Horwitz is the somewhat legendary head of the Mets press office. At least, he should be legendary, He’s so good at his job, that when Major League Baseball has a major event–the World Series, etc.–you can see Jay there, helping out with all the immense media details.

    He is the best in the game

    A while back, the Mets All Star third baseman, David Wright, got the nickname of Captain America… Because, well, he was the team captain, and he’s kind of the all American kid…

    And, he was excelling as he competed for the United States team in the World Baseball Classic.

    Mr. Horwitz decided to show some inspiration of his own, with a visage that will be familiar to any long time Marvel comics fan:

    http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1288043!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_970/webhorwitz14s-copy.jpg

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