Chasing catastrophe, p.18
Chasing Catastrophe, page 18
I started asking A-Rod a bunch of questions, of course, because that’s my job and why wouldn’t I? Was he going to sign with the Mets, who were rumored to be among his suitors? Might he go to the Texas Rangers? Would he give me the first, exclusive interview when he did his deal? He laughed that one off and said I should reach out to his agent, Scott Boras, whom I didn’t know but certainly knew of because I followed sports, and Boras was one of the biggest agents in the game.
A-Rod couldn’t have been nicer. He was super cool the entire time we hung out, which was close to three hours. We checked out another bar, but it was closed, too, so then we drove to his buddy’s townhouse so they could drop some stuff off, then to check on another club that was also closed, then to some frat party where we got beers and walked around for a bit. Eventually we piled back in the Expedition and dropped them off at their place. We said our goodbyes and I gave him my card, and he gave me his agent’s contact and that was that.
I didn’t get the interview when A-Rod signed his $275 million, ten-year deal with the Rangers and didn’t talk to him when he was traded to the Yankees in 2004. But I did wind up crossing paths with him several more times, and he couldn’t have been a bigger asshole on all three occasions, each time acting as if he’d never seen me before and had no idea who I was, which I fully admit was possible, but, in my not so humble opinion, unlikely.
The first time I saw A-Rod again was at the Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star Game in Pittsburgh in 2006. It was almost six years since we’d rescued him and his buddies outside Hooters, and I get that it’s a long time, and I also get that he must meet countless people every day, but it seemed to me he was pretending not to know who I was because of the random and unusual circumstances of how we met, and it really pissed me off.
During the lead up to every All-Star Game there’s a media availability with the players a day or two before the game. The players each sit at their own table or booth and the press moves around the room, from spot to spot, waiting for a chance to throw a question at the players.
My daughter Veronica actually came with me on that trip because I got her an internship that summer. She was fifteen at the time, apparently the youngest intern in Fox News Channel’s short history, which proved back then that nepotism was alive and well.
Veronica was following me as I worked the room, getting sound from players, and I’d told her my A-Rod story before, so I said “Hey, let’s go say hi to A-Rod and see if he remembers me!”
We walk up to his booth, and it’s packed with other reporters, and he’s patiently answering questions from them, and I push my way up to the front and finally get his attention. He looks at me, and I say, “Hey A-Rod, how you doing?” He says “Great, what’s your question?” showing no recognition whatsoever. “Rick Leventhal, Fox News!” I say, trying to jar his memory. “OK, what’s your question?”
“You don’t remember me? We gave you a ride from Hooters in Tallahassee after the Miami–Florida State game in 2000?” He looked at me blankly. “Hooters? I must’ve been drunk. Do you have a question?”
I remember seeing red at this point. It was embarrassing. I could tell he remembered me, but it felt like he didn’t want to admit it with reporters and other cameras in his face. It wasn’t that I thought I was so memorable, but our meeting had been so random it seemed hard to forget, especially since he absolutely was not drunk that night.
He was completely lucid and sober, and I can’t imagine he’d been left without a ride after the biggest football game of the year in Tallahassee more than once in his life, not to mention that we rode next to each other in the front seat of an SUV for more than two hours, but whatever. I didn’t have a question for him and walked away.
I’d always spoken highly of him after I’d met him, but now my opinion of him completely reversed, and it would be upheld twice more, at two separate events during Super Bowl week in Miami in 2010.
A friend was helping to handle public relations for the opening of the brand new J.W. Marriott hotel in Downtown Miami, off Brickell, and invited me to participate in a celebrity free-throw shooting contest at the indoor basketball court next to the hotel’s gym.
It turned out that A-Rod was also a participant. I wondered if he’d acknowledge or remember me, and I wasn’t surprised when he acted, again, like he’d never met me before. I didn’t try to remind him this time, but at the end of the contest (which neither of us won) he was taking photos and against my better judgement I asked to take one with him (which I regret to this day), and he told me no. I can’t remember what his reason was, but at the time I remember thinking, “not only does this guy remember me, he’s intentionally being a dick.”
I saw him again a night or two later at one the best parties I’ve ever been to, at one of the coolest apartments I’ve ever seen, hosted by Wayne Boich, a well-known Miami-based entrepreneur and philanthropist, in his penthouse on Alton Road in South Beach. The place was sick. Two stories with the biggest rooftop and biggest hot tub I’d ever seen. It was like a club.
There were tons of athletes and celebrities there, including former Green Bay Packers linebacker A.J. Hawk, who recognized me because it turned out he was a big Fox fan. I bullshitted with him for about twenty minutes, and we became buds after that. I even flew to Columbus, Ohio, a few years later to act as master of ceremonies at a charity event at A.J.’s house.
When I was leaving the party with my friends, A-Rod got on the elevator with a dude, looked at me, and immediately turned his back, talking to his friend the whole way down and managing to avoid eye contact when he got off.
I get that the guy is uber famous, and I’m sure he’s constantly asked for photos and autographs. But I wasn’t some fanboy. I was a network news reporter who’d randomly given him and his friends a ride when they were stranded late one night in Tallahassee.
To this day, I don’t believe he didn’t know who I was, and I just don’t respect that kind of behavior. I’ve met many famous people over the past thirty-five years. Very many. Some are dicks. Some are surprisingly down to earth. I appreciate when they aren’t completely stuck up their own asses, and this guy definitely was.
ROOM ROULETTE
Because Tallahassee was home to Florida State University, and because it was the height of the college football season, finding hotel rooms was a huge challenge. Weekends when the Seminoles were out of town were not an issue, but for the nights before and after home games, we had to scramble.
Many of the rooms in the nicer hotels were booked a year in advance for big matchups, like when the Hurricanes came to town and A-Rod was there. We had to move at least three times, which was a serious pain in the ass, especially when we had live shots that day and had been up late the night before.
We’d need to pack and get out and still get to work on time, which was often before we could check in to our next home away from home, which meant we’d have our luggage with us all day and would most likely have to wait until the wee hours of the next morning to check in, unless we could race over there in a short window between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., before we had to get ready for the next round of hits for the late news.
One of my rooms at the Sheraton downtown was a penthouse suite because that was all they had. The Sheraton was one of the tallest buildings in the area at the time, built in a circular shape, and my floor-to-ceiling windows gave me an awesome panoramic view from the living/dining area. The sprawling suite had a big, long dining table and a mini kitchen with an ice maker, so one night when I got off early, I ordered pizzas and hosted a poker game and won a few hundred bucks off my colleagues.
This was the room I hoped to keep for the rest of my stay, but of course it was booked the following weekend, and I had no choice but to find another rental bed.
SHEP’S ARREST
One of the wackiest things that happened during our month-plus in Tallahassee was when one of our anchors, Shepard Smith, got arrested on his remote set on the grounds of the Capitol Complex, right before he was to anchor Studio B, his show at 3 p.m. ET. I’ll never forget the moment Don Collopy, one of our engineers, a big, hilariously funny guy, came running into the satellite truck we were using as a workspace.
“Dude! Shep just got arrested!”
“What???” I asked, stunned. “Where?”
“On set! The cops just showed up and took him away!”
I dropped the script I was working on and ran outside to the spot where all the cables ran to, a shaded spot under the overhang of the front deck of what I think was the Senate Office Building on the grounds of the Capitol Complex. Our engineers and techs had commandeered a corner and built a temporary “studio” for Shep’s two daily shows, one hour each, every afternoon and evening. The camera and production guys were all standing around looking shocked and confused, and I started asking around to find out what happened.
It turned that out Shep and his favorite producer and pal Erik Liljegren had taken their rental car and grabbed lunch and were hurrying back so that Shep could get in position for his show. When they got to the most convenient parking lot nearby, a woman was standing in an empty space, saving it for a colleague on the way. Shep was a hothead and yelled at her to get out of the way, and when she explained she was holding it for someone else, he got pissed, yelling, “You can’t hold parking spaces. Get the fuck out of the way!” or something to that effect.
The woman, Maureen Walsh, a freelance journalist for a local cable outlet, refused to move, and Shep began inching forward to force her out. She held her ground, and he kept getting closer until his front bumper was up against her legs. She claims he hit her hard enough to bruise her legs and showed off the alleged injuries to local authorities. Shep told me that Walsh exaggerated the whole episode, dramatically leaping onto the hood and claiming that he hit her, which seemed a more likely scenario to me.
In any event, he forced his way into the space, grabbed his stuff, and he and Erik hustled to the set. In the meantime, Walsh called police, who showed up, took her statement, then headed to the Capitol Complex to find Shep seated in his director’s chair with three cameras pointed at him, mic’d up, IFB (interruptible feedback) piece in his ear, staring at the prompter, about to be counted down to start the show.
The conversation went something like “We’re looking for Shepard Smith,” and he said, “That’s me,” and the police said, “We need you to come with us,” and he said, “I’m about to anchor the news,” and they said, “We don’t care, we’re gonna need to you to come with us NOW,” and he looked into the camera and said to producers watching from the control room: “Well I guess I’m getting arrested.” He took his mic off, unplugged his earpiece, and headed off with the cops to be booked and processed.
Shep and I were good friends at the time, and he later told me what a miserable experience it was, with fingerprints taken and a full-on cavity search. I don’t recall how long they held him, but I heard later that the control room was in a complete panic, unsure of what to do with just a few minutes until showtime.
He was charged with aggravated battery with a motor vehicle and released on $10,000 bail and was back on the air the next day. His arrest and mug shot made national news. In a statement, Fox simply said: “Shepard Smith was arrested for aggravated battery in Leon County. We’re still collecting the relevant facts of the case.”
Shep later settled the case out of court and told me he paid the woman somewhere in the mid-five figures to go away.
I COULD’VE BEEN ARRESTED TOO…
After a month of long days and nights of nearly non-stop hanging-chad coverage, I was burned out, homesick, and desperate to get back to New York City. When I got the green light to book a flight, I found one that was leaving in just a couple of hours and required a connection in Atlanta. I packed my stuff and threw it in my rental car and practically burned rubber out of the parking lot on my way to Tallahassee International. I’ve always loved driving fast, and I’ve been pulled over a bunch of times, and my Fox News ID card had gotten me out of many, many tickets. Not on this day.
I was desperate to get to the airport on time and encountered some traffic, so I made some crazy moves, including passing cars using a center-turn lane and veering around a semi-truck that had blocked the road to back into some loading dock. At some point a souped-up Camaro or Firebird started following me at high speed and I assumed he was racing with me, and I did my best to lose the guy, but it turned out it was a cop in an unmarked vehicle.
I was maybe five minutes from the terminal when he hit his lights and siren and pulled me over, and when he got up to my window, he was super pissed and asked why I was driving like such an asshole and what my big hurry was. I told him who I was and how long I’d been there and why I was racing to the airport, but he was not impressed, and I’ll never forget what he said to me:
“I thought you robbed a bank!”
He wrote me a couple of tickets for excessive speed and reckless driving, and I sheepishly drove the last miles at the posted speed limit and somehow managed to make my flight.
EPILOGUE 1
HANGING WITH THE GOO GOO DOLLS
Two years later, Fox sent me back to Tallahassee to cover the midterm elections and report on which changes had been made since 2000, and to see if there was any kind of repeat of the hanging-chad controversy.
It just so happened that left wing filmmaker Michael Moore was also in town, sponsoring a “Get out the Vote” concert the Friday night before the election at the Leon County Civic Center featuring the Goo Goo Dolls, a rock band from Buffalo, New York. The Goo Goo Dolls were very well known, and the show was packed. One of their albums spent almost a full year on the Billboard 100 charts, and their song “Iris” was number one for eighteen straight weeks.
We didn’t know it, but the band was staying in our hotel, and late that night, once we’d packed up our gear after our last live shot, we went to the hotel bar, which was unusually crowded. We assumed it was because the concert had ended and it was one of the closest watering holes to the venue.
My producer, cameraman, and I ended up at the far end of the bar, ordered our drinks, and quickly realized the guys in the band were right next to us. I wasn’t a big fan of their music at the time and didn’t recognize them, but other people in the bar kept coming up to say hello and I overheard them. Not being shy I started bullshitting with the guys, mostly Johnny Rzeznik the lead singer, and Robby Takac the bass guitarist. Their drummer Michael Malinin was there, too. We proceeded to get hammered together and were having a great time, and eventually, after last call, one of the guys said they had a bunch of wine in their room and went up and got it, and we commandeered a couch area in the lobby near the front door and kept drinking and telling stories.
I remember Johnny was hitting on some girl for much of the time and was trying to make out with her outside the front doors, and since they were all glass, we were watching and laughing because he wasn’t having much success, and when she ditched him and he came back in, we started giving him a hard time about it.
He looked at me and goes: “You’re a national news correspondent. You must get all kinds of girls!” And I looked at him and said, “Dude, you’re a rock star! There’s no comparison!” and we actually debated this for a while.
I saw them a few more times after that, including at the Superdome in New Orleans for the first home game after Hurricane Katrina, where I interviewed them on the field before the game when they were done with their sound check, and saw them again in New York City, when Robby got me backstage passes for a show in Times Square.
It was just another one of those random events I never would’ve experienced if not for the amazing job I had.
EPILOGUE 2
SEAN HANNITY & THE BAYONET
One of the other wacky incidents that happened in Tallahassee involved Sean Hannity, one of Fox News Channel’s most popular prime time hosts. An outspoken conservative and Republican cheerleader who knew the Bush family, Sean flew down to Tallahassee on a private jet a few years after the recount to do a one-on-one interview with Jeb Bush inside the Governor’s Mansion.
This was not long after I’d returned to New York from Iraq where I’d been embedded. During my time in the desert, a few different Marines came up to me and gave me Iraqi bayonets they’d found on the ground to bring back as gifts to Fox talent in New York. I actually found another one and kept it for myself. It’s clearly old but in great shape, with a long six-inch blade with a curved tip in a metal sleeve, designed to attach to the end of an AK-47.
One of the Marines who gave me one of these knives specifically asked me to give it to Sean along with a note, and I promised I would. When I got back to New York, one of my first stops was the office of Roger Ailes, the former president and CEO of Fox News Channel who created the network with the financing and direction of Rupert Murdoch.
I loved Roger. I considered him a genius, and he was always very, very good to me. He was extremely supportive and complimentary of my work and rewarded me handsomely for my dedication to the channel and the craft, eventually making me the highest-paid correspondent at the network. I gave Roger one of the bayonets the Marines had given me, and then I went to Sean Hannity’s office and gave him his, along with the note the Marine had written to pass on. Sean loved it and put the weapon in his briefcase.
Fast forward to Sean arriving at the Governor’s Mansion for his interview. There was obviously heavy security there for anyone entering the building, including Sean, who had to put his briefcase on one of those airport-style luggage X-ray machines and then walk through the archway metal detector before retrieving his bag.
