This will get to Alex Rodriguez in a second. Give me a few seconds and, also, forgive me for not doing a traditional 3UP today because I need to head down to the clubhouse for the Blue Jays-Yankees matinee:
In 1984, I turned a summer internship job at United Press International into a full-time gig. I was just 20, still going to school full-time, trying to complete my senior year at NYU and graduate on time. On Dec. 17, 1984, I was assigned my first “significant” story outside of the office or a press conference. The Oilers were playing a game against the Devils and Wayne Gretzky was showing up with 998 points, trying to become the youngest player ever to reach 1,000 points.
I was quite an excitable, enthusiastic young man. I was totally psyched to be covering something that was on the main international sports budget for the day. The way it worked was I had to work a full shift first, 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and then I was going to head cross-town (UPI was located in the Daily News building on 42nd and 3rd) and grab a bus from the Port Authority to the Meadowlands.
I must have glanced at the clock once a minute for that entire shift. Sitting off to my side was a fellow named Steve Snider. Steve, I believe still, was born during the Jurassic period. He possessed Baseball Writers Association or America card No. 1, which meant he was the longest-tenured baseball writer in the country at that moment. Those were the days when you could still smoke in an office and Steve would smoke his non-filtered cigarettes and never flick an ash, and somehow the ash would grow and grow, but never tilt and fall into his computer terminal.
At 3:29. I began a quick move for jacket and door, and had almost reached the door when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around and it was Steve Snider.
“What you up to?” he asked. I explained what I was doing with all the enthusiasm I was feeling: Off to see if Wayne Gretzky could make history, youngest man to 1,000 points in NHL history.
Steve studied me for a second and then said. “He’s already the fastest to 998. The only reason we care about 1,000 is because we have 10 fingers and things that end in zero interest us. Keep it in perspective.”
At that moment, my enthusiasm cratered and if it were not senior abuses I might have assaulted Steve Snider right there. But, with perspective, that exchange turned out to be one of the most important of my career. Steve Snider did help me keep things in perspective from then on; to recognize the truly magical and momentous and the stuff that we rig because, for among other reasons, we care about things that are multiples of fives and tens because we have five fingers on each hand and 10 altogether.
So if I were going to give the uptight Alex Rodriguez one piece of advice it would be this: Keep it in perspective. Only seven men in history have 599 homers and he is one of them.