A Front-Row Seat with the Sportswriters Who Sat There
Sit down with host Todd Jones and other sportswriters who knew the greatest athletes and coaches, and experienced first-hand some of the biggest sports moments in the past 50 years. They’ll share stories behind the stories -- some they’ve only told to each other.
Filip Bondy: “It Became an Anterior-Posterior Investigation.”
Filip Bondy describes his four decades as a sportswriter as being “crazy, stupid, frustrating, wonderful and a wild ride.” This episode explains why. Fights between writers. Lou Piniella flipping the bird. The Pine Tar Game’s connection to Rush Limbaugh. Billy Martin at his worst. John McEnroe relaying a message for Howard Cosell. Spying on Bernard King. Riding shotgun with Hubie Brown. Travel horror stories. The British press at Wimbledon. An infamous Olympic question. Nancy and Tonya. A mugging near Shea. Oh, and that rental car and . . . a portable toilet.
The Associated Press Sports Editors named Bondy one of the top ten sports columnists in America during a career that took him to 48 states, 40 countries, six continents and regular assignments at the Olympics, World Cup and Wimbledon. He also covered the Super Bowl and World Series multiple times, as well as several NBA and Stanley Cup finals. Besides being a columnist, he was a beat writer on local Major League Baseball, NBA and NHL teams for four different newspapers in the New York City market.
Bondy spent two stints at the New York Daily News, first from 1983 to ’91, and then as a regular columnist from 1993 until 2015. In-between, he worked two years at the New York Times, primarily as an Olympic and hockey writer. His career began in 1973 as a City Hall reporter, theatre critic and basketball writer for the Paterson (N.J.) News. After leaving to earn his M.A. in Communications at the University of Pennsylvania ’76, Bondy returned to the Paterson News in 1976 as a sportswriter. Four years later, he joined The Record of Hackensack, N.J., where he covered baseball and basketball until moving to the Daily News for the first time in 1983.
Bondy is the author or co-author of eight books:
“The Pine Tar Game: The Kansas City Royals, the New York Yankees, and Baseball's Most Absurd and Entertaining Controversy”
“Tip-Off: How the 1984 NBA Draft Changed Basketball Forever”
“The Selling of the Green: The Financial Rise and Moral Decline of the Boston Celtics” – co-author of Harvey Araton
“Who's on Worst?: The Lousiest Players, Biggest Cheaters, Saddest Goats and Other Antiheroes in Baseball History”
“Bleeding Pinstripes: A Season with the Bleacher Creatures at Yankee Stadium
“Dreams of Gold” – co-author with Wayne Coffey
“Chasing the Game: America and the Quest for the World Cup”
“The World Cup: Players, Coaches, History and Excitement”
You can follow Filip on X: @filipbondy.
His son, Stefan Bondy, currently covers the New York Knicks for the New York Daily News. @SBondyNYDN
Where to Listen
Find us in your favorite podcast app.
Filip Bondy edited transcript
PBA-Filip
Speakers: Todd Jones & Filip Bondy
Todd Jones (00:00):
Hey, Filip, thanks for joining us on Press Box Access.
Filip Bondy (00:09):
Hey, Todd. Good to see you again. It's been a while, but I've been listening to all these wonderful podcasts, and they've been a real treat.
Todd Jones (00:17):
Well, great. Did you get the Venmo money that I sent you for listening?
Filip Bondy (00:21):
Still waiting on that. Do you know I'm so old, I don't have a Venmo account.
Todd Jones (00:28):
Well, I have kids who can help me with that kind of thing, so.
Todd Jones (00:33):
Anyway, I'm looking forward to our conversation. I know you've got a lot of great stories from nearly 40 years based in New York City and traveling around the globe.
Todd Jones (00:42):
And when you think about it, when somebody says to you, Filip, what was it like to be a sportswriter? What do you tell them?
Filip Bondy (00:51):
I say, it was crazy, it was stupid, it was frustrating, and it was wonderful. It was all those things. And boy, I'll tell you, it was a wild ride. And it was a time that I was incredibly lucky to be part of something of a golden era, or at least the fading twilight of a golden era.
Filip Bondy (01:13):
And the stories I can tell and the stories I hope I'll be able to tell here, they're just remarkable. The memories are great.
Todd Jones (01:23):
Well, let's get into them right now. Let's do it.
Todd Jones (01:26):
You've been everywhere, but let's kind of start at your home base in New York City. You're at the Daily News for so long many, many years. And also, at the New York Times, The Record, and started out in Paterson, New Jersey.
Todd Jones (01:38):
Let's specifically get into the Bronx zoo.
Todd Jones (01:43):
And one particular day I want to ask you about involves other sportswriters, and that's a dustup that we experienced in the press box at Yankee Stadium. I was not there. I said we, but you were there.
Filip Bondy (01:59):
Ah, yes.
Todd Jones (01:59):
Between Norman Mac Lean of UPI and it involved Harold Rosenthal and Murray Chass. What the hell was going on that day at Yankee Stadium.
Filip Bondy (02:09):
Yeah. Well, the press box at Yankee Stadium is an open air box and you can lean over and practically touch the crowd.
Filip Bondy (02:20):
But on this particular day, a real character, the late Norman Mac Lean, he always wanted to be the official scorer. He found that the extra $35 that they paid him were absolutely essential to his wellbeing.
Todd Jones (02:43):
That's $35. I love it.
Filip Bondy (02:45):
So, he was very jealous of Harold Rosenthal, a very elderly fellow at the time. A retired-
Todd Jones (02:53):
Yeah, Harold was retired, right? From the Harold Tribune?
Filip Bondy (02:55):
Yeah, at the time. But he was a semi-regular official scorer at Yankee Stadium.
Filip Bondy (03:02):
Anyway, Lou Piniella gets up at play, and Lou, as we all know, was quite a character. And Lou hits what would appear to be a very clear double. The outfielder barely touched the ball and Red was running like crazy. And Harold Rosenthal for reasons that none of us really could understand, called it an error.
Filip Bondy (03:23):
Well, this infuriated-
Todd Jones (03:26):
Well, wait a minute. Did Lou Piniella understand that reasoning?
Filip Bondy (03:29):
No, no, he did not. I can still see this. Some things are just memories of memories, but this is a memory. Lou Piniella standing on second base, looking up at the press box and giving the finger, both fingers up to the official scores up there.
Todd Jones (03:48):
That's the Lou Piniella I grew to love when I was in Cincinnati, and he was a Reds manager.
Filip Bondy (03:53):
So, Lou is giving the finger up on second base. And Norman Mac Lean now, sees the opportunity to really ... I mean, he's infuriated that such an incompetent official scorer could have done such a thing. And why am I not the official scorer?
Filip Bondy (04:12):
He turns to the back of the press box where Harold Rosenthal is sitting, and he yells, "Why don't you die already?"
Todd Jones (04:22):
Oh, my.
Filip Bondy (04:26):
And Harold is-
Todd Jones (04:27):
Wait a minute, Harold's like in his 80s, right?
Filip Bondy (04:29):
Yeah. Oh, at least, at least. "Why don't you die already?"
Filip Bondy (04:34):
Murray Chass of The New York Times is fairly formal guy. He was a member of the Baseball Writers Association. He liked things to be run on the up and up.
Filip Bondy (04:48):
And he hears Norm say this to Harold Rosenthal, and he just leaps across the table, the long desk, I should say, at Norman Mac Lean, and they start wrestling.
Filip Bondy (05:01):
And it really did look like the scene from North by Northwest with them sort of dangly ... and maybe I'm putting a little bit of my memory here to test. But they were dangling over the side, and it required several other of us reporters to pull them apart. That was the best dustup I've ever seen in a press box.
Todd Jones (05:26):
Yeah. Well, it's not funny because people are trying to work, right? This is like your office.
Filip Bondy (05:34):
That's right, that's right. Well, I've seen plenty of nastiness, but never anything like that. Yeah, yeah. That was quite something. And Norm-
Todd Jones (05:44):
Did they ever make amends and say, "You know what, sorry about that."
Filip Bondy (05:49):
No, Norm walked in different circles than Murray. But I don't think Norm was chosen to be an official scorer after that. I think that sort of-
Todd Jones (06:00):
Yeah, the $35 always went to the Harold.
Filip Bondy (06:02):
Yeah, 35 bucks can go a long way.
Todd Jones (06:04):
Mostly the sugar reign of Lou Piniella.
Filip Bondy (06:06):
If my memory is right, he did reverse that call, and Lou did get a double out of that.
Todd Jones (06:18):
Lou reversed the double finger.
Todd Jones (06:23):
Well, that's great. I mean, that just sets the tone for what it was like sometimes in a press box. You just never know what you're going to run into with some of these guys.
Todd Jones (06:31):
You were also, there at the Pine Tar Game, July 24th, 1983, another dust up where George Brett, of the Kansas City Royals wanted to kill somebody. And it wasn't Harold Rosenthal. He wanted to kill umpire Tim McClelland. You actually ended up writing a great book about it, The Pine Tar Game.
Todd Jones (06:52):
What was it like at Yankee Stadium, and can you still vividly see George coming out of the dugout?
Filip Bondy (06:59):
I can, and it's funny because I actually covered the Pine Tar Game originally for the Bergen Record, and then covered the resumption of the Pine Tar Game for the New York Daily News, because it took so long, we-
Todd Jones (07:12):
Oh, wait a minute. Like from July 24th to August 18th, you switched papers.
Filip Bondy (07:15):
That's when I switched papers. So, I actually, columned it for two different papers.
Filip Bondy (07:20):
But yeah, it was a scene. And of course, we didn't quite know what was going on at first with the bat being measured at home plate. And then this tantrum, I think the greatest sports tantrum ever demonstrated on any field in my opinion.
Filip Bondy (07:38):
And then afterwards, we go down into the clubhouses, and George Brett is perfectly sane again.
Todd Jones (07:49):
Really?
Filip Bondy (07:49):
Yeah, yeah. By the time we got down there, he was fine.
Todd Jones (07:54):
So, he talked to the press about it?
Filip Bondy (07:56):
Yeah, yeah. George was fine. I mean, there's obviously a lot of stuff in that thing. Everybody from Roy Cohn to Rush Limbaugh was involved, peripherally at least. But when it was-
Todd Jones (08:11):
Wait a minute, wait a minute. How was Rush Limbaugh involved?
Filip Bondy (08:13):
Well, Rush was the promotions director for the Kansas City Royals at the time.
Todd Jones (08:21):
Oh, so, he was there that day?
Filip Bondy (08:22):
Yes. I had this bizarre relationship with Rush Limbaugh. And if anybody knows my politics, it does not resemble Rush Limbaugh's politics at all.
Filip Bondy (08:36):
This is typical nonsense. I was sent to the Super Bowl down in Florida when the Giants were playing the Baltimore Ravens. And my job was to write weird columns during the week up to the Super Bowl.
Filip Bondy (08:55):
So, I rode in the Goodyear Blimp, and then I heard that Rush Limbaugh was going to be playing a round of golf down there. And I said, "Alright, sounds like a story." So, I went all around with him, and we talked and this and that.
Filip Bondy (09:14):
And then, of course, as sportswriters and reporters do, I totally betrayed him and wrote that he looked like The Goodyear Blimper Bob.
Filip Bondy (09:22):
But say this for the guy, he has a sense of humor. So, it turned out he starts emailing me about sports for years and years after that, especially about football.
Todd Jones (09:37):
Really? So, he didn't mind that you like basically said he looked like the balloon?
Filip Bondy (09:41):
I don't know how he didn't. I mean, it was a really insulting column about his golf and his appearance and everything. He got a kick out of it.
Filip Bondy (09:50):
So, years later, I'm writing this book about the Pine Tar Game, and I've discovered that he was the promotions director. I didn't really know that when I was covering the game.
Filip Bondy (10:03):
So, I give him a call and his guy says, "No, he's too busy." And then the next thing I know, he calls me up and he says, "Oh, nobody told me it was you. Of course, I have to."
Todd Jones (10:14):
Oh, really? Nobody told me it was the guy I said I look like a balloon.
Filip Bondy (10:18):
You’re right. And he gives me great stuff, very self-deprecating stuff about his time as the promotions director for the Kansas City Royals. And so, that became a chapter in the book, how the players would play pranks on him. He was treated like [crosstalk 00:10:35].
Todd Jones (10:33):
That's fascinating. I don't think many people know that Rush Limbaugh was working for the Royals. Yeah.
Filip Bondy (10:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, there you go. You make all sorts of bizarre connections in this business. And I would say that was my weirdest one. But anyway, so he became-
Todd Jones (10:53):
Well, that was definitely one of the most bizarre moments in baseball history.
Todd Jones (10:57):
And then really at the center of that was Billy Martin, the Yankees manager. He's the one who knew about the rule and decided to try to put this pine tar on the bat rule to wipe out a two run homer by George Brett off of Goose Gossage. That's just how Martin operated, right?
Filip Bondy (11:17):
Yeah. And my favorite moment in the whole thing for me, personally, was when they resumed the game, and the first thing that Martin did was appeal to the umpires saying that George Brett had not touched all the bases a month earlier.
Filip Bondy (11:34):
Because he figured this was a different umpiring crew, and they would not be able to affirm that Brett had touched all the bases.
Filip Bondy (11:44):
But there was this guy in the American League office, Bob Fisher, who had worked with the Yankees. He knew Billy Martin's mind, and he warned the umpires about this.
Filip Bondy (11:57):
And one of the umps pulled out a deposition from the previous umpire crew testifying that George Brett had touched all the bases, and Billy was absolutely sunk.
Filip Bondy (12:13):
But he could be drunk, and he could be a mess, and he could be charming, and he could be all those things. I'd say the worst thing I witnessed with him was the event with Deborah Hensel, a New York Times freelancer. A young woman who was just sort of an intern. And she went into the Yankee-
Todd Jones (12:40):
So, this is like early 1980s?
Filip Bondy (12:43):
1983, I believe. She goes into the clubhouse. There's nobody in there yet in terms of reporters. There's a few players. And Billy is pissed off at the moment because George had just fired his best friend, Art Fowler, the pitching coach for the millionth time to get at Billy.
Filip Bondy (13:03):
So, Billy's furious. He sees this woman, and he screams obscenities at her. She goes crying to George Steinbrenner, literally crying, and says, “This is what happened.” And George says, "Well, we're going to have to investigate."
Filip Bondy (13:20):
So, she claimed that-
Todd Jones (13:26):
Well, George knew all about being investigated.
Filip Bondy (13:28):
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. So, Billy claimed that he had just said to this woman, "The New York Times can kiss my Daygo ass." She said that he told her, "You can suck my, whatever." So, it became an-
Todd Jones (13:48):
Come on, Billy. Jesus.
Filip Bondy (13:49):
It became an anterior-posterior investigation. And it was decided that if Billy had said something in the anterior fashion, he would be fired. But if it was just this Daygo ass in question, it would be okay.
Filip Bondy (14:08):
And sure enough, it was discovered after speaking to two of Billy's friends, that it was a posterior question, and he was not fired on that particular day.
Todd Jones (14:20):
Man, I just feel for the poor woman. She's a young reporter at a time when women are really just trying to break down the barriers of female in sports, and then she gets subjected to-
Filip Bondy (14:31):
Oh, it was awful.
Todd Jones (14:31):
... to Billy Martin like that.
Filip Bondy (14:33):
It was awful.
Todd Jones (14:33):
Yeah, terrible.
Filip Bondy (14:33):
It was Billy at his worst. Yeah. And oh, it gets ... so, he's acquitted of this crime, and the next day he's in his office talking to reporters, and he says, "Wow. She was this hussy with a slit up to her ass." Oh, it was awful. It was just awful.
Filip Bondy (14:50):
Anybody who thinks Billy was a charming guy all the time, just didn't get to see him in action.
Todd Jones (14:58):
Well, you got to see him a lot and Steinbrenner. I mean, as a reporter around that scene, it just had to be chaotic all the time.
Filip Bondy (15:06):
Yeah, yeah. And they were vengeful, especially Steinbrenner. So, if you wrote something negative, you'd find yourself off the parking list the next day, and George would leak a story to a competitor, The New York Post or something like that. So, you were always aware that you were being surveilled, let's put it that way.
Todd Jones (15:33):
Right. Well, you did a lot of baseball at that time in New York, and you also, did a lot of NBA.
Todd Jones (15:41):
And there was a story that I heard about you involving Hubie Brown when he was the Knicks coach, and I think it was like mid '80s, like '86. And anyway, there's a Nets game at Cleveland in the middle of winter, which you can't beat. Right?
So, what happened between you and Hubie?
Filip Bondy (16:11):
Yeah, well, as reporters know, we get to games usually the day beforehand, so that we can be there for the morning, shoot around the next morning and get prepared for that.
Filip Bondy (16:25):
But in this case, it was a Sunday afternoon game, I believe, and I had a family. I decided I'll take a chance and I'll just fly in on the same morning from LaGuardia.
Filip Bondy (16:37):
And so, I get on early morning flight, and there's Hubie Brown in business class, or first class, whatever it was. And I'm thinking-
Todd Jones (16:50):
The morning of the game and he's getting on a flight?
Filip Bondy (16:53):
The morning of the game, he's getting on the plane. So, I think maybe, what do I know, he's scouting. He had a personal reason, whatever.
Filip Bondy (17:02):
So, everything's okay until they announce on the on the plane there's a problem. They're iced in at Cleveland Airport, we're going to have to land in Pittsburgh. Well, so, oh-oh. It's now, I don't know, 11:00am or something like that, game's about two hours away or something like that. I don't remember specifics.
Filip Bondy (17:29):
And Hubie sees that I'm on the plane, and he comes to me and goes, "You come with me. We're renting a car." So, he's driving like crazy-
Todd Jones (17:37):
Oh, you guys are going to drive together.
Filip Bondy (17:39):
Yeah. He's driving like a madman. He's going 80 miles an hour, 90 miles an hour on the Ohio Turnpike.
Filip Bondy (17:46):
And we get to a toll booth and Hubie leans out of the window, and he goes, "How far is it to the Richfield exit?" And the woman says, "Oh, it's about 80 miles, sir." And he goes, "Fuck, we're screwed." My favorite thing.
Filip Bondy (18:02):
And I'm thinking, "I'm not screwed here. I'm not screwed at all. I have a great story." And as we-
Todd Jones (18:14):
Oh, hell yeah. You got the story that nobody else has. You have the scoop.
Filip Bondy (18:17):
So, as we're approaching the Coliseum, Hubie turns to me and he goes, "I'm going to have to ask you not to print any of this." "And good luck with that. There's a whole arena full of people who've noticed that you're not there."
Todd Jones (18:39):
Exactly. So, what happened at the game then when you finally arrived? And did you get there on time?
Filip Bondy (18:44):
We got there at tip-off, basically. And the trainer there, Mike Saunders, he had told all the reporters and everybody that Hubie was sick in his hotel room.
Todd Jones (19:00):
Good line.
Filip Bondy (19:00):
He had flat out lied, and now, Hubie becomes storming in and whatever. So, I mean, he was already at the end of his tether, because the team was horrible. He was losing interest. It was clear that he was going to be fired sooner or later.
Filip Bondy (19:15):
So, at the end of the game, he just called everybody together, all the writers, and he said, “Listen, I know this looks bad, but all I ask is that you don't write where I took the plane from.” And we're all thinking, "This is probably a personal problem that may or may not have to do with his marital arrangement."
Filip Bondy (19:44):
We never did find out exactly what the reason was that he was flying out of LaGuardia early that morning.
Todd Jones (19:52):
Wait a minute. Hold on a second. Did everybody write where he took the plane from?
Filip Bondy (19:56):
No, nobody wrote that he took off from LaGuardia. That was the respectful decision that was made at the time. Do I regret it? Yeah, maybe a little, because Hubie ... and hey, the guy is still out there. He's still-
Todd Jones (20:14):
Amazing.
Filip Bondy (20:15):
It's amazing. But he could be pretty cruel to his players. I mean, it got very ugly at times.
Todd Jones (20:26):
Give us an example of that.
Filip Bondy (20:27):
Well, I mean, Darryl Walker finally ended up sitting down at the foul line and refusing to move during a shoot around. He was so fed up with the treatment. And he had nicknames for some of his players, which were not very pleasant.
Filip Bondy (20:53):
Now, he's kind of seen as this lovable old guy who's hanging in here, and he is in a way, and he's remarkable. But yeah, he could be mean, he could be downright mean.
Filip Bondy (21:04):
Anyway, there goes another ... I'm sounding really jaded here. Beloved people like Billy and Hubie, and here I am saying all these nasty things.
Todd Jones (21:15):
Well, that's where all the good stuff is. Come on. We know that.
Todd Jones (21:20):
Alright, let's go to an actual great, great player. And that was Bernard King. And you got to see Bernard on with the Knicks. And then he suffers that knee injury, tears his ACL. And at the time, that's kind of a career threatening thing. You just don't really come back from an ACL in the mid '80s.
Todd Jones (21:40):
But wasn't there something to the effect that the Knicks were trying to hide how his rehab was going, and how did the reporters handle that?
Filip Bondy (21:56):
Yeah, we had no access, and the Knicks had no access to their own star player. Bernard had these rules, and he didn't want to be watched. He had had ACL surgery. As it turned out, he became the first professional level athlete to recover well enough to perform as he had pretty much before it happened.
Filip Bondy (22:19):
Before then, nobody ever was able to do that. Dr. Norman Scott did the surgery, and it was shocking as it turned out, but nobody knew this at the time. For all we knew, he was limping around somewhere and would never return to basketball.
Filip Bondy (22:35):
So, one day I was the beat writer at the time, and I asked Scotty Stirling, who happens to have made the two worst trades in NBA history, the general manager of the Knicks at the time, I asked him-
Todd Jones (22:52):
By the way, what were those trades, in your opinion?
Filip Bondy (22:54):
It was the rights to draft Kevin McHale plus, Robert Parish. He gave those up.
Todd Jones (23:06):
Golden State.
Filip Bondy (23:08):
To Golden State for Joe-
Todd Jones (23:08):
Golden State. And he sends them to the Celtics.
Filip Bondy (23:11):
For Joe Barry Carroll. How's that for a trade?
Todd Jones (23:16):
Nice.
Filip Bondy (23:16):
And the other one was a little more indirect. He was panicking because the Knicks were playing so badly. And so, he acquired Gerald Henderson for the pick that became Scotty Pippen. So, basically, he built two franchise dynasties. He built the Celtics and the Bulls. And so, hearing that-
Todd Jones (23:48):
For somebody else. He built somebody else's championship teams.
Filip Bondy (23:51):
Yeah, two championship teams he constructed. And I did write that when he was first hired by the Knicks, and he really hated me ever since. And I don't blame him. That was my lead that the Knicks have just signed the guy who made the worst trade in NBA history. He hadn't made the second worst trade yet until he got to the Knicks.
Todd Jones (24:14):
You're just dealing with facts.
Filip Bondy (24:17):
Yeah, absolutely.
Todd Jones (24:18):
Just the facts, Filip. Alright. So, you asked Scotty Stirling, "Where is Bernard? How's he doing?"
Filip Bondy (24:23):
How's he doing? And Scotty snaps at me. He says, "Why don't you go find out?" Okay. So, I say, "Alright."
Todd Jones (24:32):
Well, that sounds like a dare.
Filip Bondy (24:34):
It's a dare. It's a challenge. So, my friend Harvey Aton, a long time New York sports columnist and writer, and I, we decided we were going to go try in search of Bernard King. And we found out that he was working out at a little upsell of college, which no longer exists, in the gymnasium there.
Filip Bondy (24:57):
So, Harvey and I sneak on-
Todd Jones (24:59):
Where's that? Like East Orange or somewhere in New Jersey, right?
Filip Bondy (25:02):
East Orange, New Jersey. You got it. Yeah. I like your knowledge of defunct colleges. Very good, Todd.
Todd Jones (25:11):
Well, I took a tour, quite a few.
Filip Bondy (25:15):
So, anyway, Harvey and I, we sneak up to the gym and we get down on our knees, and we look through this little window and we see Bernard, and he's working out.
Todd Jones (25:29):
From the outside? Wait a minute. You're outside the gym and you're looking in like two little kids?
Filip Bondy (25:33):
Like most people, we were scared to death of Bernard King, who had the scariest game face in the world, other than maybe Mark Messier. That was the only other guy who ever compared.
Todd Jones (25:43):
He was an intense guy.
Filip Bondy (25:45):
He had an on scare. So, we're there looking around. But we're looking, and he's playing great, he's scrimmaging against a college player, basically. And he's just schooling him. And he looks like the old Bernard.
Filip Bondy (25:58):
So, we're congratulating each other for this. And all of a sudden Bernard disappears, and the next thing we know, he's behind us on the outside.
Todd Jones (26:09):
He came outside?
Filip Bondy (26:12):
Came outside. Apparently, our heads were very obvious. The sun was shining from behind us. We were not kidding anybody.
Filip Bondy (26:20):
So, Bernard comes up behind us and says, "What the hell are you guys doing here?" And I pricked up, or Harvey did, and said in this sort of squeaky voice, “Scotty said we should come and look.” And Bernard says, "Fuck Scotty." How many players say that about their general manager? You got to love it.
Todd Jones (26:51):
That's tremendous.
Filip Bondy (26:52):
He says, "You guys want to see me? Come on in." So, we go inside, and sure enough, we watch him do a full workout, and he's spectacular. He's Bernard.
Filip Bondy (27:02):
And so, we go back to the newspaper office, and we're on cloud nine, the ultimate scoop. We finally see Bernard, and he's just as good as he ever was. And we envisioned a front page story, let alone a back page.
Filip Bondy (27:19):
And this is how sports writing works. It turned out to be a tragic day because Len Bias, the great player who had been drafted by the Boston Celtics, died of cocaine overdose that same day, and we got knocked off the back pages.
Todd Jones (27:37):
Oh, wow.
Filip Bondy (27:37):
But it was still a good story. It was still a good story.
Todd Jones (27:44):
Well, you went searching for Bernard, and it paid off. Kudos to you and Harvey for doing that. I mean, that's just great reporting instincts, right?
Filip Bondy (27:54):
Yeah. It was fun. There's nothing like a general manager daring you to do something.
Todd Jones (28:01):
Exactly. Well, sometimes you get sent on searches and you don't really want to do it. And this is kind of an NBA segue into another world of sports.
Todd Jones (28:09):
I think it's the late '80s, NBA finals, and you're in Los Angeles, the Lakers, before game one. And you get a call from the office at The Daily News with some orders, right? What were you ordered for?
Filip Bondy (28:22):
Well, yeah, everybody wants to be a sportswriter until stuff like this happens.
Filip Bondy (28:28):
Very few people remember this, but Howard Cosell in sort of his twilight years, became a sports columnist for The New York Daily News. He wasn't a very good writer. And by then, he really wasn't a very good reporter either, but he was-
Todd Jones (28:52):
But he was such a peach of a fellow.
Filip Bondy (28:54):
He was a name, he was a big name. And so, who wouldn't jump at having Howard Cosell's picture and column in their newspaper?
Filip Bondy (29:00):
So, we signed him up. And I remember he called the office once, and I picked up the phone, and he said, "Listen, young man, don't be nervous. This is Howard Cosell." So, he had quite an opinion of himself.
Filip Bondy (29:19):
Anyway, so, I get a phone call from our sports editor, and he says, "Howard Cosell has just written a column saying that John McEnroe is in drug rehab at the Beverly Hills, whatever." I can't remember the exact name of the place, but it was a rehab center.
Filip Bondy (29:41):
And my editor says to me, "I need you to confirm it. John, we know McEnroe comes to a lot of these Laker games out there on the West coast. If he's there tonight, go ask him."
Todd Jones (30:00):
Okay, sure.
Filip Bondy (30:01):
So, he's the man with the most famous temper other than maybe George Britt in sports. And I'm supposed to go up to him and ask him if he's in a drug rehab center. And for all I know, he's with his wife at the time, Tatum O'Neil.
Filip Bondy (30:16):
Well, I go to the game praying that he doesn't show up, but sure enough, McEnroe is there, and they show him on the television. So, I don't have a choice. I have to go to talk to him, because everybody sees he's there.
Filip Bondy (30:31):
So, I go down at halftime, he's with Vitas Gerulaitis, the great tennis player who has the best tennis quote ever. “Nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row.”
Todd Jones (30:47):
I love it.
Todd Jones (30:52):
So, Mark and Vitas are sitting there at the game. And you come walking up.
Filip Bondy (30:59):
And I come walking up and I say to John, I figure I'm going to use Cosell as the middleman here. I say, "Howard Cosell has written a column for us saying that you're in drug rehab." And McEnroe glares at me and says, "Will you tell Cosell to go to hell?"
Filip Bondy (31:19):
So, I call up the office and I give them the quote, and I'm just happy to be done with it. And they say, "Well, he didn't deny it, did he?" And I said, "Well, no."
Todd Jones (31:32):
Wait a minute. Meanwhile, you're trying to cover an NBA Finals too. It's going on.
Filip Bondy (31:35):
Exactly. I'm rushing those deadlines, which anybody knows. And the telephones there were terrible. We all had to share one telephone. Anyway, on and on.
Filip Bondy (31:46):
So, my editor says, "You're going to have to go tail John McEnroe and see if he goes to drug rehab." So, I say to myself, "I don't know where John McEnroe lives. I'm not going to tail John McEnroe. I'm not Humphrey Bogart in some noir movie."
Filip Bondy (32:05):
So, instead, I decide to go to this actual drug rehab center and poke around there. And I go there and there's a note on the window saying this place is closed. And the note is from six months ago, the place was closed.
Todd Jones (32:26):
Oh. So, it's been closed this whole time.
Filip Bondy (32:28):
For six months, it's been closed. And for all I know, McEnroe may have been there once. I mean, there were all kinds of rumors, but to write that he is in drug rehab was completely wrong and would've gotten us in real trouble. And Cosell just didn't do his homework, which at that time was pretty, I guess, typical for him.
Todd Jones (32:50):
So, The Daily News did not run Cosell's column?
Filip Bondy (32:51):
No, he did not run that John McEnroe is in a drug rehab center that is closed article.
Todd Jones (33:01):
Well, you saved the paper a lawsuit. That’s what you did.
Filip Bondy (33:02):
That was one time I may have, yeah.
Todd Jones (33:07):
What kind of relationship did you have with McEnroe at the time, and then going forward?
Filip Bondy (33:12):
I have covered a lot of tennis. And I went to Zimbabwe with him once. I covered the US Davis Cup match at Zimbabwe. He was captain, and it was a crazy place.
Filip Bondy (33:25):
It was an indoor arena, the roof was leaking. There was a clown named Bobo the Clown. It was dancing along the sidelines. And this was not exactly what John McEnroe was used to at a tournament.
Todd Jones (33:43):
He was used to being a clown.
Filip Bondy (33:46):
Exactly. So, yeah, I knew him pretty well, but that doesn't mean anything with John. I'll go up to John, even now, at a US Open and just out of politeness, I'll say, "John, Filip Bondy, New York Daily News," or whatever. And when I do that, he'll say, "Big fucking deal."
Todd Jones (34:06):
So, the bread from Queens forever.
Filip Bondy (34:09):
I don't know if he still does, but boy, he used to read the papers. He once yelled at a New York Post writer who had been the official scorer at a Yankee game and had given an error to somebody. And McEnroe just suddenly stopped in the middle of his press conference and started to belittle this writer for calling an error at a Yankee game.
Todd Jones (34:32):
Well, maybe he was channeling his Norman Mac Lean.
Todd Jones (34:34):
Alright. You did a lot of tennis over the years. I think you covered like 20 something Wimbledons. Center court, the beauty of that place. For somebody who's not been there as a reporter, it's so intimate, right? I mean, compared to what you think of it when you see it on TV.
Filip Bondy (34:56):
Oh, absolutely. I guess it's my favorite assignment. It's a little cushier than the World Cup. And it's certainly a lot cushier than the Olympics. But there's so much going on and you're running back and forth between matches.
Filip Bondy (35:14):
And the best thing about Wimbledon or always was in the days before the internet, was that you had the five extra hours difference. So, you could take your time and really construct a story and do the reporting.
Filip Bondy (35:30):
Nowadays, of course, that's different. You have to file as soon as it's over anyway, because it doesn't matter that it's just 1:00 PM in the afternoon. You've got to file for the web. So, that's different.
Filip Bondy (35:43):
But yeah, it's an elegant event. And what's great about it is the contrast, the craziness. I always thought tennis was a great tabloid sport because crazy things happen. As we all know, the Serena tantrums.
Filip Bondy (36:00):
And we're talking about Wimbledon, and the Jeff Durango incident is still my favorite. Jeff Durango-
Todd Jones (36:07):
Well, what happened with Jeff Durango, for those who don't recall? He was an American tennis player in the '80s.
Filip Bondy (36:11):
A crazy, crazy guy with a wonderful sense of humor. But he absolutely had a terrible tantrum. I mean, he once lowered his pants and mooned a crowd in Tokyo.
Filip Bondy (36:24):
But at Wimbledon, he threw a fit over a call by an umpire named Bruno Rebeuh. And Bruno ... I don't know what happened.
Filip Bondy (36:42):
Bruno made a call that he didn't like and he stormed away. And that's Jeff Durango. It's unusual, but not too unusual. And then the best part, his wife shows up, she goes to this chair umpire and slaps him in the face. Yeah, she slaps-
Todd Jones (37:05):
Really? Did you guys see this? Like right on a court?
Filip Bondy (37:08):
She didn't see it because it was on a side court. But this is the gift that keeps giving because she shows up in the press conference. And she's talking, "Yes, I slapped him, but he deserved it." And then we were-
Todd Jones (37:30):
Was she sitting right next to Jeff? Was it the two of them?
Filip Bondy (37:32):
He came in and of course, Wimbledon has all these moderators who are supposed to stop these sort of things, but he didn't know what to do. This wasn't a crazy question from the British reporters, which is what we usually got. This was a wife, so they couldn't stop her. And it was wonderful. Best press conference ever.
Todd Jones (37:58):
Yeah. Usually press conferences are pretty staid and not really helpful in many ways, but sometimes a press conference like that erupts, or you get a press conference like at 3:00 in the morning, like you had at Lillehammer at the Olympics.
Todd Jones (38:11):
I mean, you were on the front lines of the whole Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan debacle that went on for weeks. Tonya shows up and you have a press conference at 3:00 in the morning at the Lillehammer Olympics in '94.
Filip Bondy (38:28):
Yeah. I mean, figure skating was usually not at the top of the priority list for The New York Daily News, which is a tabloid paper. But when Nancy was whacked, suddenly it became the biggest story in the world.
Filip Bondy (38:45):
And so, when I was in Lillehammer recovering this, I mean, I was on 24-hour notice to track down anything that Tanya Harding did or said. And she showed up at around three o'clock.
Todd Jones (38:59):
Filip, by the way, I want to ask you real quick. Were you there for the whacking in Detroit?
Filip Bondy (39:03):
I was in Detroit at the time of the whacking, covering the US figure skating championships. However, I was interviewing Isaiah Thomas several miles away, doing the while you were there type stuff that journalists do a lot.
Filip Bondy (39:21):
And so, I fought my way through a snowstorm because another reporter called me up and told me, "You better get your ass back here." So, I got back there to discover the whacking had taken place, and I was on the scene for the aftermath of the whacking. Yes. But in little-
Todd Jones (39:41):
I don't know, the Kerrigan camp might have said, “Where was that Filip Bondy at? We didn't see him here at the time.”
Filip Bondy (39:46):
Isaiah would have given me my alibi.
Todd Jones (39:50):
I don't know about Isaiah. I don't know. I'm not sure about that.
Todd Jones (39:53):
Alright, so, let's get back to Lillehammer. It's 3:00 in the morning and you're at a press conference.
Filip Bondy (39:56):
Yeah, yeah. And-
Todd Jones (39:58):
Come on, Tanya.
Filip Bondy (39:58):
Yeah. I mean, she really kind of messed things up for all of us, but we got through that. I missed a lot of good stories because of her. I missed Dan Jansen winning finally a gold medal in speed skating because I had to be at her stupid practice, things like that.
Filip Bondy (40:14):
But anyway, I had this amazing place where I was staying in Lillehammer, never anything before or after, like it. It was like a log cabin up in the woods, and I could look up out of a picture window and see on some nights the Northern Lights. Can you imagine this? Oh, it was just something. It was incredible.
Filip Bondy (40:40):
And then know she was ruining things. And then one night-
Todd Jones (40:46):
Yeah. As Tanya was want to.
Filip Bondy (40:48):
One day I get a phone call, or one day, I guess it was during the day from a news side editor. And anybody who's been a sportswriter knows that the last thing you ever want is a phone call from news side. Right? I'm sure you had your-
Todd Jones (41:05):
Yeah. Worst thing you could hear. A one wants your story. Oh.
Filip Bondy (41:08):
And they're going to torture you, and then butcher the story.
Filip Bondy (41:12):
Anyway, so, it's an editor and she says, "The managing editor (who is a Britt) wants you to get an exclusive interview with Nancy Kerrigan. And he says we're willing to pay $250,000 for it."
Todd Jones (41:32):
Wait a minute. Pay?
Filip Bondy (41:33):
Exactly. But he's British. Of course, [crosstalk 00:41:39].
Todd Jones (41:37):
You don't do that. This is journalism.
Filip Bondy (41:40):
Right. So, I'm put in a pretty bad spot here. I'm not going to do that. It's something I don't do. But I can't say I am not going to do it, or I'll probably get recalled from my beautiful log cabin.
Todd Jones (42:00):
So, what did you do?
Filip Bondy (42:00):
I did a smart thing. I just simply told them that I asked her agent and he declined, which he would've done anyway. And as you know, news side has a very short concentration span. They had already moved on to something else, and it was forgotten instantly.
Todd Jones (42:21):
Well, once again, your instincts were right, Filip. You knew how to handle it in the moment. That's all.
Filip Bondy (42:27):
It was kind of a cowardly way. What I should have said is, "Screw you. That's not American journalism."
Todd Jones (42:37):
That's right. Exactly. Let the Brits do that. So, but you know what, the Britts they'll pay for stories, but you never know what you're going to get from overseas media.
Filip Bondy (42:47):
Absolutely.
Todd Jones (42:48):
By the way, I'm thinking of overseas media. You get these questions, like I know from my experience at Olympics, some of these foreign journalists would ask these questions. I just couldn't believe that they would ask that. Because you think the American press is tough, but man, I witnessed some things that just made my eyes dry out.
Filip Bondy (43:08):
They're much more patriotic for one thing. I mean, they seem to be really invested in their teams and their athletes.
Todd Jones (43:18):
Yeah. They actually cheer, right? Yeah. They get happy. But what if you lose? Then it's like they're the fan and then takes over.
Filip Bondy (43:26):
Well, there's a famous question from an eastern European reporter at a water polo after his team lost the water polo match in the Olympics, when he got up to the mic and he said, "You are disgrace to this country. Please explain."
Todd Jones (43:47):
Well, I was at the El Guerrouj press conference in Sydney when he got defeated. I think it was the 1500. And he's weeping, it was a huge story that he got beat again.
Todd Jones (44:04):
And the question along the lines was like, "You have let down 2 million Moroccans or whatever, how do you feel?" And I'm like, "How do you feel? He let down 2 million Moroccans? How do you feel?"
Filip Bondy (44:24):
Yeah, it can be rough. Wimbledon is rough. I mean, those guys, those Britts, those tabloid Britts, they are known for their bizarre and crazy questions. They hammered Boris Becker for having rented two videos from the local video store and not returning them. And I remember-
Todd Jones (44:50):
Big breaking news in Britain.
Filip Bondy (44:52):
And Boris just looked at them — and who has served in prison since then over something much more important. Anyway, Boris just looked at them and said, "Are you serious? You can't be serious."
Filip Bondy (45:04):
They asked Jelena-
Todd Jones (45:08):
He's like John McElroe, you cannot be serious.
Filip Bondy (45:10):
Jelena Dokic, this poor teenage — she might have been 20 by then. She was sitting up there and one of them had said, "Jelena, what is that thing on your face?" She had to say, "It's a mole."
Todd Jones (45:24):
Oh, come on.
Filip Bondy (45:25):
I mean, come on. And they also asked, there was a woman … Ivo Karlovic, who's a sweetheart, and used to have a terrible, terrible stuttering problem. Couldn't get through a sentence in less than a minute.
Filip Bondy (45:42):
He was desperately telling stories about his upbringing with his parents. And one of the reporters said, "Ivo, could you spell the name of your parents, please?" Oh God, it was awful. It was just awful.
Todd Jones (45:59):
Oh, come on. Oh, the glory days of sports writing. Well, overseas, it's different in the press conferences.
Todd Jones (46:09):
It's also just different when you're trying to cover something, you're traveling and yes, it's great. I mean, you're getting paid to go around the world. I mean, it's ridiculous when you think about it. No wonder the newspaper industry tanked. They're sending me all over the place.
Todd Jones (46:23):
So, I think you covered sports on like six continents. Like 12, 13 Olympics maybe, World Cups all over the place. We just had a World Cup in Qatar.
Todd Jones (46:35):
But you were in Qatar in 1993, because I think the US was going to host the World Cup the following year. So, New York Daily News sends you over to Qatar at the time.
Filip Bondy (47:01):
I didn't see a woman the whole time I was there really. Yeah.
Todd Jones (47:14):
Wait a minute. Really?
Filip Bondy (47:15):
Yeah.
Todd Jones (47:15):
Like the whole time you were there.
Filip Bondy (47:16):
The only women I saw were tourists and foreigners like myself. There were no native women out on the streets or even service jobs. I didn't see a woman. It was an Emirate, but it was also very much so, a theological Emirate.
Filip Bondy (47:40):
And they would literally pull out the plug from the soda machine during prayer sessions. In the press room, they would come and pull out the plug so that there'd be no noise or any distractions, things like that. So, it was very different indeed. I know-
Todd Jones (48:02):
You also saw quite a few rivalries. We're talking serious rivals. We got Saudi Arabia versus Iraq. We got Iran versus Iraq. We got South Korea versus North Korea. I mean, we're not talking about High State Michigan.
Filip Bondy (48:15):
No. That's why they sent me, or why I convinced them to send me, which I still don't believe happened. I spent 11 days in Doha on their dole, they paid for everything.
Filip Bondy (48:28):
And what an experience. I mean, crazy experience watching these people carrying hot Saddam Hussein posters all over the place. And like you said, the rivalries were political powder kegs. They really were. I mean, the only team there that was-
Todd Jones (48:46):
You're talking about countries that are practically at war.
Filip Bondy (48:49):
Yeah. Two of them, or three of them had been at war very recently before that. The only team that didn't really matter in the political scheme of things at the time there was Japan whose journalists cried, sobbing, sobbing, sobbing when their team failed to make the World Cup. I remember them saying.
Todd Jones (49:12):
Really?
Filip Bondy (49:13):
But yeah, these-
Todd Jones (49:14):
Wow. That's like you used to do whenever the Knicks didn't make the playoffs. Right?
Filip Bondy (49:18):
Yeah. You mean I don't have to go to Detroit?
Todd Jones (49:22):
Yeah, right. Exactly. Filip, when you think back on those type of trips, not just that one, but all these different assignments around the world, as a journalist, how did you approach assignments like that?
Filip Bondy (49:44):
Yeah, the most important thing in most of these cases was not the sports event itself, but the atmosphere surrounding it, the craziness that was going on. That was to me, the most compelling.
Filip Bondy (50:02):
I remember I was touring with the US soccer team before throughout Europe, right before the 1990 World Cup. And I was in Budapest. Actually, this was in '91, I guess. No, ‘93. I don't know when it was, but whatever it was, it happened to coincide with Hungary's first free election.
Filip Bondy (50:32):
And so, I called up the news desk and I said, "You want me to cover this?" And the guy said, "Well, yeah, yeah, why not?" And I did. I covered Hungary's first free presidential election.
Filip Bondy (50:46):
And to me, that was far more fun and challenging and important than writing about how the US soccer team was preparing for the upcoming World Cup. So, you do-
Todd Jones (51:00):
Right. You tried to put the reader there. Try to take them with you.
Filip Bondy (51:03):
Absolutely. Any description of the scene. Scenes are the most important thing, obviously, or else you may as well just be covering another Knicks game if you're just going to write what's there.
Todd Jones (53:57):
Give us a little bit of sportswriter horror travel stories, just things that still haunt you.
Filip Bondy (54:04):
I have plenty of them. In fact, I sort of became known for them among my peers.
Filip Bondy (54:09):
But yeah, first World Cup trip in 1990 to Italy, I got a rail pass. And I showed up at the Rome train station to have it stamped. I was very happy with myself that I had done all these things properly.
Filip Bondy (54:28):
And I go up to the window and the fellow stamps my Eurail pass, he validates it. And I look down and all my bags are gone that I was standing online with. And this is the first day. Everything.
Todd Jones (54:45):
Everything's gone?
Filip Bondy (54:45):
Everything's gone. This is the first day of a five-week trip through Italy. I have nothing except my wallet and a passport. And later my wallet was pickpocketed on a Turin train. Same trip.
Todd Jones (55:01):
Same trip, you got robbed twice?
Filip Bondy (55:03):
But there's a certain freedom in having nothing. I did get to-
Todd Jones (55:09):
Filip, I will say this, you're the only reporter I know that covered the same baseball game for two different newspapers over two months, same game. And also, got robbed twice in one trip.
Filip Bondy (55:18):
There you go. I'm a twofer if I ever wore one.
Filip Bondy (55:23):
Yeah, I got all my credit cards stolen or lost in Brazil for that World Cup. I had to write a check to somebody to get Brazilian money and to make it through that particular trip. Somebody was charging 40, $4,500 at a time on my credit card. I still had it, but it was being cloned.
Todd Jones (55:52):
Was this like a phone card or a credit card? I had a phone card stolen at the old Orange Bowl in Miami where I made a phone call at halftime. I tried to make a phone call to call my wife, and they said, "Your card is blocked. You have like 4,000 calls to Kuwait in China on it."
Todd Jones (56:13):
And I'm like, “Really? That's going to be a lot of salads on the expense account.”
Filip Bondy (56:18):
Yeah, we've been through a lot. I was mugged outside of Shea Stadium after a late game. As you know, Todd, we get out of games very late sometimes, very late. And it can be a little dangerous. There was nobody there. I got mugged and I desperately tried to-
Todd Jones (56:37):
What happened? I mean, did you get like physically accosted, or?
Filip Bondy (56:39):
Yeah, two guys. One guy was choking me from behind in a choke hold. The other guy was going through everything.
Todd Jones (56:46):
Geez, they really didn't like what you wrote, Filip. Come on.
Filip Bondy (56:49):
I was desperately trying to convince them to take my porta bubble, which is an instrument that we used back then, which you were probably familiar with because it was totally a thing.
Todd Jones (57:00):
The porta bubble, which should have been blown up.
Filip Bondy (57:02):
So, this big clunky black thing, which I knew belonged to the newspaper, not to me. I'd much rather they had taken that than my wallet, but they were not interested in the porta bubble. So, yeah.
Todd Jones (57:20):
Well, who would be? I mean, did you ever try to send on that thing? Why would you want that?
Filip Bondy (57:22):
And now, take a look on eBay, Todd? Take a look. It's now worth something. Those muggers were very shortsighted, I'll tell you.
Todd Jones (57:32):
Alright, I'll have to look that up. I'll have to look that up. Well, sources tell me that there's one travel incident involving you that happened right here in the United States, in Washington DC and I think it involves a porta-potty. Please explain.
Todd Jones (57:48):
As that one reporter said, "You are a national disgrace. Please explain."
Filip Bondy (57:52):
Yeah. This was the ultimate dilemma for a sportswriter. And I think Bob Ford got the biggest kick out of this one.
Filip Bondy (58:00):
It was late at night again-
Todd Jones (58:03):
Bob Ford, the great Philadelphia writer, he loves this one. So, let's do this for Bob.
Filip Bondy (58:07):
It was very late at night. We got out of another late night World Cup game. There weren't many people around anymore, and there aren't any bathrooms really. So, you go to the porta-potty in the parking lot, which is our fate in life all too often.
Filip Bondy (58:26):
And I drop my rental car keys into the porta-potty, pretty deep into the porta-potty, I might add. Now, here's the dilemma.
Todd Jones (58:37):
Was it a three pointer?
Filip Bondy (58:37):
I'd say so. So, here's the dilemma. I mean, I have a rental car. It's after midnight, I'm in the middle of nowhere. I don't even have a cell phone back then. What do I do? I guess I could go to a payphone somewhere and call a friend to pick me up somewhere, but this rental car's just sitting there. Oh, it's an awful situation.
Filip Bondy (59:05):
So, I took out my pen and I started to dig. The decision was made. The decision was made.
Todd Jones (59:11):
Oh.
Filip Bondy (59:11):
Now, this is before key fobs. They had several keys on the chain there. So, that made things a little easier to see and to spot around.
Filip Bondy (59:25):
So, I dug around, and sure enough, I did come upon these keys, and I did pull them out. I got rid of the pen immediately. There was no way to really wash my hands.
Todd Jones (59:41):
You got rid of that good Marriott pen.
Filip Bondy (59:45):
And what can I tell you? I did it. I did it, it worked. And I went to the nearest rest area on the highway and I washed everything. But it was a tough, tough decision to make. But I think Todd, would you have done the same thing in my situation?
Todd Jones (01:00:04):
Hell, no. But you were much more dedicated to the craft.
Todd Jones (01:00:15):
Oh, Filip, I've really enjoyed this. It's been a lot of fun. We've covered a lot of ground, including dropping keys into a toilet.
Todd Jones (01:00:22):
We've been all over the world. We've been in Yankee Stadium, we've been in NBA trips with Hubie Brown, and it's been a lot of fun recounting all these years of covering sports as you did so well for The New York Daily News, The Times, and other papers in the northeast area.
Todd Jones (01:01:09):
Filip, thanks so much for joining us.
Filip Bondy (01:01:25):
Well, Todd, it's been fun to see you again and you're doing such good stuff here. I hope everybody just keeps listening because it's important to remember. It really is.
Recent Episodes
View AllPaul Hoynes part 2: “Those Teams Probably Saved Baseball in Cleveland.”
Press Box AccessPaul Hoynes part 1: “I'm Sweating Bullets, Shaking, Trying to Calm Myself Down.”
Press Box AccessWriters Bear Witness to Memorable Moments from March Madness
Press Box AccessJerry Tipton: “You could just walk into the Kentucky coach’s office.”
Press Box AccessHear More From Us!
Subscribe Today and get the newest Evergreen content delivered straight to your inbox!