No air conditioning, no radio, no TV. There is one ship-to-shore phone that the movie company can crank up. Because of that, I'm a hero to the crew because they want to know how the World Series turned out. They're buying me lunches and beers so I can tell them about the World Series. Then there's an actress, Grayson Hall, who's in the movie. She says, "I hear you're from Philly.'' It turns out, her real name is Shirley Grossman and her mother lives on the Parkway - she becomes my inside source. I get very lucky there.

Huston loves boxing and he wants to talk Philly boxing. Burton loves baseball and wants to know about the World Series. I wind up teaching Burton how to shoot pool in the one pool room in Puerto Vallarta - the Mexicans bail out and let us play during the movie-crew lunch hour. I have lunch with Burton and Liz Taylor - she's gorgeous but she's leery about a Jewish guy from Philadelphia because she just dumped Eddie Fisher.

Meanwhile, the paper has put my picture on the sides of the delivery trucks. "Our man in Puerto Vallarta."

Gloria

 

Having such a supportive, understanding wife has made all the difference for me. Here's how I met her. It's autumn of 1959, and Bill Shea, the New York attorney is talking about organizing a third major league, the Continental League, because baseball won't give his backers a franchise to replace either the Giants or Dodgers. Gloria is doing public relations for the Greenfield hotels, which include the Bellevue-Stratford. The Public Relations Association invites Shea to speak at a lunch at the Bellevue. I go, looking for an offseason baseball column, and she delays the start of the luncheon so I can have some one-on-one time with Shea. I go back and write a column in which I do not mention the name of the hotel, nor do I mention the name of the group he spoke to. She is furious.

Three weeks later, she is running the Army-Navy pregame party. I am going to cover the game, so I go to the party. I see her, tap her on the hip, and ask, "Do you remember me?" I get a 27-minute lecture on the ethics of journalism. I am dazzled. I ask her out. She's busy. I ask her again, we go out on a date that costs a week's salary. A year later, we're married, at the Bellevue.

Many years later, we spot Shea, across the room in a restaurant near Madison Square Garden, before a big fight. I encourage Gloria to go tell Shea the part he played in our lives. Two minutes into her monologue, he holds his hands in the traditional timeout gesture and says, "Are you happy?" She says, "Yes," and he's relieved and says, "Go on, tell me the rest of the story." And years later, when Gloria is inducted into the public relations hall of fame, I stand up, and say, "Maybe she was right."

Multimedia

 

I was one of the first crossover guys going to electronic - Jack McKinney and me. They did auditions where you came on for a week with the morning guy, Bob Menefee, whose slogan was, "Often wrong but never in doubt." Funny, sometimes abrasive morning DJ. I drive down City Line to WCAU and I'm listening and a guy named Hugh Ferguson is giving the farm report: "Hog bellies are up and corn is down." I'm thinking, "Who is going to be listening at 7:05 to 5 minutes of sports?" I can't imagine this has an audience.

I wind up winning the audition because I brought a little horn where I bleeped out innuendo and naughty words, and that impressed them that I had enough sense to bring a gimmick. I'm on at 7:05 and 8:05, even when I'm on the road with the Phillies.

From there, I went to afternoon drive. John Facenda, a political scientist, Gary Sheppard (who went on to a long career with the network), a weather guy, me and someone else would sit around a table. Facenda was the moderator, maybe from 3 to 5. It was a tremendous show.

From there, I went to weekend sports anchor at Channel 6. Lew Klein, an executive there, helped me with that. He told me, "Don't quit your day job." Later, Pat Polillo came in as program director and I'm on the air and they tell me he glances at the set and says, "Who's that guy?" They reassured him I was OK.

Then I had a half-hour talk show, once a week, five of us rotated. Non-sports guests. I had one guest, a cookbook author, Julia Dannenbaum. I remember her because her meringue fell under the hot lights.

Then there was "Diamond Derby." It was a postgame show, with Billy Werndl answering the phones and turning over the cardboard thing with how much the question was worth. Somebody would call in, I'd ask him who drove in the winning run for $10. If they missed, it went up to $20. That was "Diamond Derby." I did that for a whole season. It wasn't all glamorous.

Inside the Eagles

 

I told Dick Vermeil I wanted to spend a week and see what it's like on the inside - meetings, everything. He had to be able to trust me not to use anything that would affect the game against the Steelers. He agreed right away. He said, "Be there at 7 on Monday morning."

There's traffic on the Penrose Avenue Bridge. I get there, he's looking at his watch. It's 7:03. He says, "I asked you to be here at 7." I said, "Coach, there was unexpected traffic." He said, "I expect you to be here at 7. The rest of the week, I'd like you to be on time." I was.