they need more than a makeover

So today (Sunday) I was sent to interview the Ali family of Queens, stars of that evening's 'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition'. Only, no one in the office had thought to set this up ahead of time ... and they apparently have an unlisted number. So I just show up at their doorstep around 6:30 p.m., ahead of the show. Dean, the guy who answers the door, pretty nicely tells me that contractually they can't talk until after the show has aired - and afterwards they are planning on having "family time," couldn't I come back tomorrow? (Words no newsman wants to hear).

So I wait until after the show airs at 9, knock on the door again. One of the teenaged sons answers. I'm real apologetic, sorry to bother you, any way I could just talk to somoene for like two minutes or so. He leaves and comes back and says yeah, his mother will talk to me. Then Dean comes barrelling out of the door toward me, kinda pushing me a bit with his body (he's a big guy). "You're some kinda aggressive reporter, aren't you?" he says. I think he's just roughhousing, kidding around, but then I realize he's actually really pissed -- and pretty drunk. Stunned, I kinda sidestep him and start to apologize, saying I didn't mean to bother him and was just trying to do my job. "You interrupted a party!" he yells. "There's a family reunion going on here!" As some other relatives sorta hold him back, he yells, "I'm gonna fuck you up!"

Wow. I had no enthusiasm for this story to begin with -- and it certainly isn't worth this. I walk off. Incredibly, he says something about how we can call him tomorrow. "Forget it," I say over my shoulder. "There isn't going to be a story!"

But actually, there is, dammit - we'll have something in Monday's paper written just off the TV.

I call my editor from the corner of the block, just in case any family member wants to come over and apologize. But no one does.

Needless to say, the experience has left a bad taste in my mouth about these something-for-nothing makeover shows ... maybe there's a good reason they were living in a dump of a home ...

UPDATE: Lucy Ali called me today (11/1) to apologize, which i accepted, and i take back what i wrote in anger above.

Finally!

"The Yankees couldn't save themselves. They couldn't keep the egg from being splattered all over their faces. They couldn't avoid being the first team in Major League Baseball to ever surrender a three-games-to-none series lead. ... [T]he 2004 Yankees are poster boys for unprecedented failure. Hands down, they represent the biggest sporting collapse of all time.
-- Karen Guregian, Boston Herald
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"Forevermore, the date goes into the New England calendar as an official no-school/no-work/no-mail-delivery holiday in Red Sox Nation. Mark it down. Oct. 20. It will always be the day that Sox citizens were liberated from 8 decades of torment and torture at the hands of the New York Yankees and their fans. Boston Baseball's Bastille Day."
- Dan Shaughnessy, Boston Globe
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"[T]his was more than just a baseball game last night. This was a passion play, a contemporary epic poem, the classic New England novel. This was about the Red Sox and overcoming their star-crossed past, this franchise that's been around for over 100 years now, as much a part of New England as Paul Revere's ride and the Old North Church. This was the Red Sox, and they transcended baseball around here a long time ago. Baseball is what little kids play on the sandlot."
-- Bill Reynolds, Providence Journal
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"Now, the single biggest postseason flop in baseball history does not belong to some Red Sox team or Boston goat such as Bill Buckner. Instead, the new and uncontested champions of the October gag are the New York Yankees."
-- Thomas Boswell, Washington Post
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"History was theirs for the taking, and the Boston Red Sox didn't merely seize it Wednesday night — they grabbed it by the neck, put it in a headlock and wrestled it to the ground, much as they did to all those Yankee Stadium ghosts that have haunted them for so many years."
-- Mike DiGiovanna, L.A. Times
---
"I sit here in journalistic shock. I am trying to digest the fact that I have just seen the greatest team feat in the 101-year history of postseason baseball as we know it. A team that fell behind, three games to none, has come back to win a postseason series. That team is the Boston Red Sox, and the team they have just victimized is the New York Yankees."
--Bob Ryan, Boston Globe

JUST DO IT

JUST DO IT

the critics agree

If New York loses Game 7 Wednesday night ... these 2004 Yankees will go down as the greatest chokers in postseason history.

the critics agree

If the Red Sox, the team synonymous with collapses, misfortune and despair, win Game 7, then, in a blink, the blackest mark in Yankees history will actually be darker than any disgrace in all Boston annals.

choke

The Yankees are gagging like a terrier on a chicken bone. And if they lose this series after having it in a strangle hold, nothing Boston has ever coughed up, from Bucky F.N. Dent to Bill F.N. Buckner to Aaron F.N. Boone, can even come close to measuring up.

no controversy here

From the MLB Umpire Manual, secgtion 6.1 (offensive interference)
While contact may occur between a fielder and runner during a tag attempt, a runner is not allowed to use his hands or arms to commit an obviously malicious or unsportsmanlike act such as grabbing, tackling, intentionally slapping at the baseball, punching, kicking, flagrantly using his arms or forearms, etc. to commit an intentional act of interference unrelated to running the bases. [emphasis added]

making history

Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted, one moment, would you capture it or just let it slip?"

Mr. Clutch

Who's your Papi????

keep hope alive

this would be ... the. greatest. comeback. IN SPORTS HISTORY!!!

Kobe question

Why does the Associated Press and other news organizations continue to blame the Eagle County Justice Center for the name of the accuser in the Kobe Bryant case being revealed on the Internet?

The woman was first named on eurweb.com on July 17, 2003. Within days web sites quickly with names like the Binary Report, Web Rats, Kobe Watch and others quickly sprang up (or rose to prominence) by posting details and pictures of the woman (Some of the pictures later proved to be of someone else). By the time L.A.-based talk-show host Tom Leykis named her on-air July 23, 2003, anyone with a little curiousity and access to google already knew her name.

The Eagle County Justice Center, meanwhile, didn’t accidentally post her name until Sept. 16 – for just a few hours, in a document that was quickly removed. The only archive copy I’m aware of, on The Smoking Gun, was posted in a redacted format, with her name removed.

There’s simply no reason to believe the screw-ups at the Eagle County Justice Center contributed to anyone learning this young woman’s name.

debate reax

I thought Kerry won. He makes Bush look like an intellectual lightweight. But Kerry's bringing up Mary Cheney was just so tacky and gratuitous. Bush was at his best when he talked about compassion, tolerance for gays, etc. -- he seemed genuine and from-the-heart. A lot of his attacks on Kerry just seem so ... smirky. They turn me off. And I wonder if his denying that quote about Osama Bin Laden will come back to haunt him... Apparently CNN has him on tape March 2002 saying he is "truly am not that concerned about" OBL.

I watched the debate with the Daily News debate panel, though, and several of our six panelists thought Bush won. So who knows.

Afterwards I planned to watch the Yanks/Sox game on tape. Got out of the office managing to evade not hearing the score past the sixth inning ... but then spot a taxi with one of those ESPN scoreboards on top posting the score in the 9th inning. Bleah. Bleah bleah bleah. But gotta keep hope alive - Sox can still pull this out.

I just added a site meter to my site...

It's not paranoia ...

our columnist Juan Gonzalez just gave me a solid example of why you can't just dismiss conspiracy theories out of a hand -- a recently declassified 12-page secret plan for creating a pretext for invading cuba...

3. A 'Remember the Maine incident' could be arranged in several forms:
      a. We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba.
      b. We could blow up a drone (unmanned) vessel anywhere in Cuban waters ... The US could follow up with an air/sea rescue operation covered by US fighters to 'evacuate' the remaining members of the non-existent crew. Casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.
4. We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated) ... Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots ... also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.

The plan was apparently approved by Joint Chiefs of Staff March 13, 1962. JCS Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer signed the memo forwarding the plan to the Secretary of Defense ... Juan tells me JFK nixed the idea.

You heard it here first

Red Sox in five. Sox are ready, poised and prepared. They Yankees aren't going to know what hit them.

feelin' good

12 miles in the park this afternoon, then a quick 20-min. workout in the company gym before work ... two scales in the locker room, one put me at 171, the other 178. Hm. In any case, good news - i had ballooned up to 185 after that knee surgery in 2002.

Grete's Great Gallup photo

Photos of yours truly


2004 race


2003 race

more running

Ran Grete's Great Gallup 1/2 marathon this morning. Kicked it the last mile to finish under 1:40 - 1:39:50 (net). "Clock" time was 1:41 flat. 7:37 pace, 500 out of 2,105 men running...

Those crazy Cajuns...

Too funny. NYT article on squirrel-hunting in Louisiana ...

"Excitement rushes through your body when you see a squirrel and you say, 'I've got to shoot it,' " says Alycia McDaniel, the homecoming queen at Pine Prairie High. "I like the trophy of it."

Oh this is so hypnotic...

So was this obnoxious of me or what? Today I got an email from my former M.E., asking if I was freelancing for the Boston Globe. Now there according to a nationwide phone search there are only 32 "Derek Rose"'s in the entire United States - but wouldn't you know it, there one is another working as a reporter in my former stomping grounds. Gak!

I did a Nexis search and only found 30 Globe bylines by him, mostly in the "Globe West" suburban section. So I'm guessing maybe he's in his early 20s, just starting out...

Anyway, I sent him this email, asking him, as nicely as I could, if he'd consider using his middle initial... I'm just worried as his career progresses we'll get confused more. And I was Derek Rose first!

From: Rose, Derek [mailto:DRose[at]edit.nydailynews.com]
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2004 12:27 PM
To: drose[at]globe.com
Subject: hey derek


Yo, Derek - great name, nice work for the Globe ...

Hey, can I ask you something without you being offended?? Have you ever considered using a middle initial?? (which is hopefully not "m")

I only ask because I worked for five years at several different
newspapers in New Hampshire, grew up in Massachusetts, and (before my career as a journalist) have had a couple letters published in the Globe. Also,as a reporter for the New York Daily News for the past four years, I've had more than 1,000 bylines as a "Derek Rose."

So I'm just worried if there are two of us out there without middle initials, we'll inevitably be confused...

Anyways, just something to consider.

Regards,
Derek Rose
Staff writer, New York Daily News
www.derekrose.com