Day 2 - What lovely eyes you have!
On our second day, we devoted 12 hours of travel to spend 15 minutes with Kevin Millar, the outgoing sparkplug of the 2004 team who was traded to the Orioles a year later when his talents started to decline (his baseball talents, that is, not his verbal ones – the Orioles’ PR staff told us he was the go-to guy for giving the media their daily sound bites). On a whim, Joel had called the team’s Ft. Lauderdale spring training offices, and had cajoled his way into speaking with the media people. Only yesterday he’d only gotten the OK for us to come on down, so we decided to make a day of it.
We left the condo at 8:15am and got back at 8pm, having covered 350 elapsed miles going back and forth across the state of Florida by way of Alligator Alley (aka Interstate 75 – we did safely glimpse a couple through the chain fence, at our cruising speed of 65 mph). We did allow for some time out for iced tea and a salad in Ft. Lauderdale Beach, and a quick swim in the clear blue of Ft. L.’s Atlantic waters. The Orioles media relations people were quite helpful, and gave us 3 press passes without hesitation (this included an extra one for my wife Doreen, our gofer for the day). Maybe they’re just friendly, maybe they were in awe of our name-dropping skills ( the Red Sox, Larry L., etc.) and maybe they wanted to give their poor lonely media pool of 7 (tops) some company. So we got to watch the last few innings of an intra-squad scrimmage with a couple of hundred well-tanned fans, and then we set up some chairs on the first base line and waited for Kevin to emerge from the dugout.
He was pleasant, down to earth, a bit tired from his long workout, and above all nostalgic. He was grateful to have been a part of that 2004 team, and knew it was the highpoint of his career, with an intensity that would never again be duplicated. He talked about how those Sox were so easy to love because they were ordinary looking – none of the physical freaks of nature that other teams often have, very blue-collar and down-to-earth. He shared some stories about the team’s escapades, made us laugh, and made me appreciate how lucky we were to be having these opportunities to meet such interesting people. I got to ask him the question that had been bugging me for years: how could the Sox possibly stay focused when they were down 3-0 to the Yankees in the ALCS playoffs? He said that no special gimmicks or techniques were needed; they were pros, and staying focused is what pros do. He said more too, but I’ll have to wait for the digitized interview material to be transferred to DVD format for review, because it all went by in such a blur that I only remember snippets now.
And that was pretty much it. We took the luxury of spending a few extra days at the rental place on Sanibel Island (not expensed to the movie production!), and then headed home to chilly Boston. While waiting in the departure gate at the Ft. Myers airport for our delayed Jet Blue flight, I had to admit that I could only come up with 3 coulda/woulda/shoulda’s from the entire trip (that’s much lower than my usual ratio):
1. Not asking Kevin Millar to take off his sunglasses – but how do you ask a macho man to take off sunglasses because his eyes are so expressive? His mischievious twinkle was really a key part of his charm, and it was hidden behind those shades. But it was probably just as well that I didn’t ask - I’m not all that fond of concussions.
2. Not asking Dice K a question at the press conference – I didn’t realize that my magic press pass rendered me just as entitled to ask questions of these guys as Dan Shaughnessy and the other media gods standing right next to me. A good one would have been: are there any Japanese energy exercises that build team cohesion, exercises which might help the Sox’ chemistry?
3. Not asking Terry F. a question at the same conference– What strategies are you using to enhance team chemistry? Given his woes with a late-arriving Manny and a wildly overpaid new outfielder, not to mention two new Japanese players, it would have been interesting to hear his thoughts.
And then one final near miss – while delayed at the departure gate, that was unmistakeably Coach Mike Ditka of the Chicago (football) Bears walking by, hair still in his ‘50s era V-part, and chewing gum with a vengeance. He had coached perhaps the best team of the past 50 years, one that crushed my Patriots in the 1986 Super Bowl, so who better to ask about team chemistry. But his flight was already boarding, and besides, I only had my tiny PowerShot digital camera, good for a 30 second video clip that would feature cinema verite grittiness and non-existent sound quality. Woulda been kinda fun, but it didn’t happen. This synchronicity was the last “weird science” of our trip – it was as if there was enough of an afterglow of intentionality still lingering in my aura to manifest one final unexpected creative opportunity. Or not.
We left the condo at 8:15am and got back at 8pm, having covered 350 elapsed miles going back and forth across the state of Florida by way of Alligator Alley (aka Interstate 75 – we did safely glimpse a couple through the chain fence, at our cruising speed of 65 mph). We did allow for some time out for iced tea and a salad in Ft. Lauderdale Beach, and a quick swim in the clear blue of Ft. L.’s Atlantic waters. The Orioles media relations people were quite helpful, and gave us 3 press passes without hesitation (this included an extra one for my wife Doreen, our gofer for the day). Maybe they’re just friendly, maybe they were in awe of our name-dropping skills ( the Red Sox, Larry L., etc.) and maybe they wanted to give their poor lonely media pool of 7 (tops) some company. So we got to watch the last few innings of an intra-squad scrimmage with a couple of hundred well-tanned fans, and then we set up some chairs on the first base line and waited for Kevin to emerge from the dugout.
He was pleasant, down to earth, a bit tired from his long workout, and above all nostalgic. He was grateful to have been a part of that 2004 team, and knew it was the highpoint of his career, with an intensity that would never again be duplicated. He talked about how those Sox were so easy to love because they were ordinary looking – none of the physical freaks of nature that other teams often have, very blue-collar and down-to-earth. He shared some stories about the team’s escapades, made us laugh, and made me appreciate how lucky we were to be having these opportunities to meet such interesting people. I got to ask him the question that had been bugging me for years: how could the Sox possibly stay focused when they were down 3-0 to the Yankees in the ALCS playoffs? He said that no special gimmicks or techniques were needed; they were pros, and staying focused is what pros do. He said more too, but I’ll have to wait for the digitized interview material to be transferred to DVD format for review, because it all went by in such a blur that I only remember snippets now.
And that was pretty much it. We took the luxury of spending a few extra days at the rental place on Sanibel Island (not expensed to the movie production!), and then headed home to chilly Boston. While waiting in the departure gate at the Ft. Myers airport for our delayed Jet Blue flight, I had to admit that I could only come up with 3 coulda/woulda/shoulda’s from the entire trip (that’s much lower than my usual ratio):
1. Not asking Kevin Millar to take off his sunglasses – but how do you ask a macho man to take off sunglasses because his eyes are so expressive? His mischievious twinkle was really a key part of his charm, and it was hidden behind those shades. But it was probably just as well that I didn’t ask - I’m not all that fond of concussions.
2. Not asking Dice K a question at the press conference – I didn’t realize that my magic press pass rendered me just as entitled to ask questions of these guys as Dan Shaughnessy and the other media gods standing right next to me. A good one would have been: are there any Japanese energy exercises that build team cohesion, exercises which might help the Sox’ chemistry?
3. Not asking Terry F. a question at the same conference– What strategies are you using to enhance team chemistry? Given his woes with a late-arriving Manny and a wildly overpaid new outfielder, not to mention two new Japanese players, it would have been interesting to hear his thoughts.
And then one final near miss – while delayed at the departure gate, that was unmistakeably Coach Mike Ditka of the Chicago (football) Bears walking by, hair still in his ‘50s era V-part, and chewing gum with a vengeance. He had coached perhaps the best team of the past 50 years, one that crushed my Patriots in the 1986 Super Bowl, so who better to ask about team chemistry. But his flight was already boarding, and besides, I only had my tiny PowerShot digital camera, good for a 30 second video clip that would feature cinema verite grittiness and non-existent sound quality. Woulda been kinda fun, but it didn’t happen. This synchronicity was the last “weird science” of our trip – it was as if there was enough of an afterglow of intentionality still lingering in my aura to manifest one final unexpected creative opportunity. Or not.
posted by Rick Leskowitz,MD at 8:40 PM
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