Mike Vaccaro: “Isiah Thomas is on the Back Page in a Full Clown Suit.”

Mike Vaccaro edited transcript

PBA_Mike Vaccaro

Speakers: Todd Jones & Mike Vaccaro

Todd Jones (00:00):

Mike, welcome to Press Box Access. It's great to have you join us.

Mike Vaccaro (00:06):

Great to be here, Todd. Good to see you again.

Todd Jones (00:08):

It's so great to see you again. I know it's great news for this show because as the columnist at the New York Post, you're four times sportswriter of the year in New York. But not only that, you're also one of my favorite people in the business, so I'm just happy to have you join us here.

Hey, Vac is back. Vac is back. That's one of my favorite headlines from 2023. I was thrilled by your return, not only to the keyboard, but to the golf course, even though I know how you golf.

Todd Jones (00:50):

It was wonderful to read your column in June, 2023, about once again, playing the game you love after various health conditions, which caused the need to have your left leg amputated below the knee a year earlier.

Todd Jones (01:02):

So, we'll just start with that. How you doing, Vac?

Mike Vaccaro (01:06):

Yeah, Todd, I'm doing really well, thank you. Yeah, it was a little dicey there. I mean, obviously nobody wants to go through that. Nobody wants to spend that much time in hospitals and rehab centers the way I did it through much of 2022.

Mike Vaccaro (01:18):

But you know what? I'm on the other side of it, and life is unbelievable right now. I'm able to walk, sometimes needing the can, sometimes not. But just I'm able to get around. Wherever I need to go I can get to, professionally and personally, and as you referenced play some golf.

Mike Vaccaro (01:37):

And as you also know very well, I wasn't a lot good on the golf course beforehand, so my expectations were low, and I was able to exceed that lack of expectation.

Mike Vaccaro (01:48):

Now, it's great. I'm able to have my life back again. Unfortunately, I had some leg issues that haunted me for years, and they got worse and worse. And it really just it wouldn't allow me to do the things that I want to do, which is play golf, do my job the way it's supposed to be done.

Mike Vaccaro (02:04):

I mean, there's a reason why when we talk about being good reporters, you talk about shoe leather. Because you're not necessarily always walking to the places you got to go to or running after people, but a lot of that involves that.

Mike Vaccaro (02:15):

And I just wasn't able to do that nearly as well as I'd been. And ultimately reached a kind of a do or die point with what we wanted to do about the leg.

Mike Vaccaro (02:24):

And was really encouraged by a great team of doctors that my quality of life would be better after I had the procedure, which they've been proven to be a hundred percent accurate.

Mike Vaccaro (02:35):

And then I was lucky because after the amputation, I was cared for by just as a remarkable team of doctors, the therapists, forgetting friends and family, but just the therapists and the doctors. I remain blown away by the care and the attention to detail they took to in terms of reclaiming me being able to do the things I wanted to do with my life.

Mike Vaccaro (03:02):

And I sit here with you today, a couple of weeks before the new year, and I really do feel like I've got a new life, and it's really kind of amazing. Look, I mean, everybody has their moments and their days after you go through something like this where you're like, "I really wish this wasn't this way."

Mike Vaccaro (03:23):

But in the overall, I embraced it early, which probably helped my recovery and my adaptability. And look, I mean, I spent a long period of time where I just physically wasn't able to go into press boxes, and now, I can do that again. And it really is kind of an amazing thing.

Todd Jones (03:44):

Well, it's wonderful to have Vac back because I know-

Mike Vaccaro (03:49):

[Crosstalk 00:03:48]

Todd Jones (03:50):

I know you've met so many different journalists, and writers, and broadcasters over 30 plus years in the business, and I know that you received a lot of love and support from your peers because of how well liked and respected you are.

Todd Jones (04:02):

I'm kind of curious all those years of writing about athletes, coaches, and administrators, did any of those folks reach out to you? What kind of feedback did you get from people you actually write about and sometimes write about in ways that they don't like?

Mike Vaccaro (04:16):

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, I had the procedure done in August of 2022, and literally within a 24-hour space, I heard from the general manager, manager of the Mets, and the general manager, manager of the Yankees.

Mike Vaccaro (04:30):

And when you consider the time of the calendar, August is a pretty busy time for all those folks. And yet they managed to find the time to reach out and offer me well.

Mike Vaccaro (04:40):

And like you said, I haven't always written kindly about any of them, but I think they're all professional enough to know that that's just part of the job. And that's part of what it is when you participate in pro sports and when you cover them.

Mike Vaccaro (04:55):

And as I've reintegrated back into my job, a lot of the other folks have gone out of the way to come over and shake hands. And that's how I'm doing and stuff.

Mike Vaccaro (05:07):

I always thought that I might've stood out in a crowd a little bit just because I was a little bigger than the average guy in terms of partaking a little bit too much over the top in life. And now, it's funny, I think I probably like out the way because I usually show up with a pair of canes in my hand.

Mike Vaccaro (05:24):

So, if you had any question, which one was the guy with the peg leg? Now, they know it's me.

Mike Vaccaro (05:29):

But also, I mean, one thing I've learned overwhelmingly, Todd, is that 99.999% of people are generally nice as their default position.

Mike Vaccaro (05:43):

Whether it means I go into a store and people run out of their chairs to open the door. There've been a lot of examples of people whose default position is compassion, even strangers.

Todd Jones (05:57):

That's great to hear. I mean, that's fabulous.

Mike Vaccaro (06:00):

I had the one lady in the gym who said maybe I should wear sweatpants instead of shorts because I was frightening her daughter. And even that moment was trump, because the manager of the gym said, "Maybe you should find another place to work out."

Todd Jones (06:15):

Yeah, yeah, right. Well, good.

Mike Vaccaro (06:18):

At the end of the day, I guess compassion and empathy win now.

Todd Jones (06:20):

That's great to hear. Vac, I'm so glad that you're writing again, the New York Post, 21 years as the sports columnist there. And we talked about these health issues.

Todd Jones (06:32):

I mean, you've been through it. I mean, you had a heart attack in 2006. And it's not like sports writers are working in the salt mines, but when you look back on 30 plus years, it is kind of a crazy lifestyle. Right, Mike?

Mike Vaccaro (06:47):

Crazy and fun. Look, I mean, Todd, the reason why you and I became friends, look, you were based in Ohio, I was based in New York. I mean, generally speaking, people who do the same line of work, don't necessarily spend a lot of time together.

Mike Vaccaro (06:59):

And yet, because of the demands of the profession, you wind up on the road a lot. And look, I mean, no doubt at the beginning of my career, that was absolutely what I loved most about it, was getting on a plane.

Mike Vaccaro (07:09):

And one of the blessings is I've worked three places past the age of 30 at The Kansas City Star, Newark Star-Ledger, and New York Post, where their mission was get on the plane, get there. And that's what I did. That's what you did. That's what we all did.

Mike Vaccaro (07:27):

And so, yes, it leads to a little bit of a hectic life. Sometimes leads to a fairly unhealthy life, frankly, because you're relying on room service at 11:30 at night, which isn't probably the best plan of action.

Todd Jones (07:41):

Right.

Mike Vaccaro (07:42):

Until you realize that you have to kind of figure out how to sneak in time at the gym every day, how you have to figure out how to have at least the occasional salad once in a while, all that kind of stuff.

Mike Vaccaro (07:52):

But all that stuff, that's not a complaint. That's just as you talked about, I mean, it's the crazy nature of the job.

Mike Vaccaro (07:58):

And the fact is that if you and I saw each other five times a year, there were usually, say at the Final Four, the Super Bowl at Augusta National. If you ask people that stuff, they're like, "Well, where do I sign up?" And they're right because there's a lot of fun.

Todd Jones (08:13):

Yeah. No complaining.

Mike Vaccaro (08:14):

There's no complaining. It's a very social job. A lot of the best columns you write, I think you would agree, a lot of the best stuff you write comes from being around an Applebee's at 1:30 in the morning as they're trying to turn the game up. Because you're shooting all kinds of stories and throwing all kinds of story ideas.

Mike Vaccaro (08:32):

And I'll tell you what, one of the great lines I ever received is a guy that I know that you know well, Gary Shelton. We were talking about something one day, and next thing I know the idea we talked about at 10:30 at night appeared in his column. And I said, "What's up with that?" And he said, "You wear it, you share it, pal."

Mike Vaccaro (08:47):

And that's the best part. I mean, you learn the lessons of on the record and off the record if you're going to have your best line stolen by your friends.

Todd Jones (08:57):

That's right. All's fair in sports writing.

Mike Vaccaro (09:01):

Absolutely. A hundred percent.

Todd Jones (09:02):

Well, Mike, you've been doing what you wanted to do as a child and your love for it has never wavered. Take us back to your childhood. You grew up in New York, West Hempstead, I believe.

Mike Vaccaro (09:15):

That's right.

Todd Jones (09:15):

And your dad, like used to bring home the New York Post, which you are now the voice of for 21 years. What was it like as a kid? Why did you get into sports writing?

Mike Vaccaro (09:26):

Well, it really is a crazy story.

I grew up in a sports loving family. My father was a huge sports fan and also a family that encouraged dreams.

Mike Vaccaro (09:43):

My father early on, I can remember being 12, 13 years old saying like, "Don't be me." This guy who rode the Long Island Rail Road 30 years and hated every minute of it. He had a lot of other things he would've preferred to do. And he did this because he had to feed his family. And I always, of course, loved and respected him for that.

Mike Vaccaro (10:01):

But I loved and respected the fact that he said, “Don't do this. If you can avoid doing this ... whatever it is you like, do what you like.”

Mike Vaccaro (10:08):

So, the story kind of goes back to old timer's day at Shea, 1974. I'm seven years old, and of course, wide-eyed. It’s my first baseball game and it's like the greatest day of my life. And remains one of the best days of my life, actually.

Mike Vaccaro (11:35):

We get to Shea Stadium, my father's pointing at all the things that I should know about. There's Joe DiMaggio, there's Willie Mays. I have a knish, it's delicious.

Mike Vaccaro (11:43):

And then he points to the press box. He says, "That's where the sports writers do their work." I was puzzled and I said, "You mean you can actually make a living doing this?" And he's like, "Well, some people do."

Mike Vaccaro (11:53):

And he worked in the city. So, what he would do is he would buy the Daily News going into New York and the New York Post (which is an afternoon paper then) on his way home. And so, that's what he would hand me when he got home every day. And I would absorb the paper as we're preparing dinner.

Mike Vaccaro (12:08):

And I announced when I was seven, eight years old, I said, "I want to be a sports columnist to the New York Post." I literally said that to my father. And in 2002, that dream came true.

Mike Vaccaro (12:23):

And also, how many people can you talk to who said actually the thing they wanted to do when they were seven years old is what they wound up doing when they grew up. I mean, maybe I should had higher ambitions. Maybe I should have been wanted to be a senator or something.

Mike Vaccaro (12:34):

But I was a sportswriter in training from the time I was seven. And so, that makes the fact that I'm able to do this that much more remarkable, I think.

Todd Jones (14:40):

Alright. You mentioned a tabloid, the New York Post was famous as a tabloid. It's a different style of sports writing. By the way, do you have a favorite New York Post headline on one of your columns?

Mike Vaccaro (14:55):

Well, I mean, it's kind of a funny show. And one of the things you learn about the Post is that sometimes you'll laugh, and sometimes the laugh is at your expense.

Mike Vaccaro (15:02):

And when Isaiah Thomas was managing or mismanaging the Knicks, one Saturday night, I eviscerated him in a column and I realized that I was going to have to answer to that anyway.

Mike Vaccaro (15:16):

But then I woke up on Sunday morning, and there was Isaiah on the back page of the paper in a full clown suit. I mean, and there would be a headline [inaudible 00:15:26] clown show or something like that.

Mike Vaccaro (15:28):

And so, it's funny, I was supposed to actually start vacation Monday, and I told my wife, I said, "We're going to have to put off our vacation a couple hours. I got to go to the Knicks facility for practice on Monday."

Mike Vaccaro (15:37):

As I'm sure you were taught by your mentors, and I was taught by mine. The one rule that holds fast and true is if you rip somebody, you better make yourself accessible to them. Not because you're looking to get into it and want to get into a fight or anything, but you want to give the opportunity to have equal time.

Mike Vaccaro (15:53):

And so, Monday was spent at the Knick's practice facility with Isaiah staring bullets at me. And he never actually referenced it because I think he figured if we didn't talk about it, it would go away.

Todd Jones (16:03):

So, Isaiah was in a clown suit on the back cover to New York Post. You show up at practice and he doesn't confront you?

Mike Vaccaro (16:12):

You know what, I mean, to Isaiah's credit, to a lot of the guys who I cover in New York, I think they just realized that whether they like it or not, that's part of the game. I mean, I'm not going to say that he was going to ...

Mike Vaccaro (16:22):

It's funny, his first couple of years in town, he owned a popcorn company. And so, every Christmas we would get this huge tub of popcorn, and it was good popcorn. It was really good popcorn. And I don't think I got those popcorn canisters any longer after he appeared under my byline in a clown suit.

Mike Vaccaro (16:38):

But to their credit, look, my job is to criticize. It's also to praise. And we can get to this later, but I far prefer to praise and to criticize, because I personally think that sells more newspapers and gets more clicks. The good stuff gets more stuff, is better for business than the bad stuff.

Mike Vaccaro (17:01):

But sometimes the bad stuff happens. And so, you got to get into it.

Mike Vaccaro (17:04):

And of course, we're talking about tabloids at large. It is a different prism through which you look at the world and certainly a different prison through which you view the sports world. And I learned that lesson pretty quickly.

Todd Jones (17:16):

Did you get some advice early on when you became the columnist there? Because like you mentioned, you worked in Kansas City at The Star, you worked in Newark, and now, you're at the tabloid New York Post. What kind of advice did you get, if any, about how you should write a column for the Post?

Mike Vaccaro (17:35):

The two best pieces of advice were very disparate, and they both came from people who were already at the Post. One was the late Jay Greenberg, a wonderful man who was my colleague there for many years.

Mike Vaccaro (17:46):

And he congratulated me when I got the job, and he said, “Here's the deal. There's going to be 360 days every year when you're just going to wake up in the morning and you'd be like, ‘Yeah, I work at the Post, man. Let's go get them.’”

Mike Vaccaro (17:57):

“Then there's going to be five days in the course of those years …” You probably didn't realize at the time, but like days when you wake up and there's a clown on the back page of the Post because of something you wrote, and you're like, "Oh, man, I work at the Post." But the good days outweigh the bad.

Mike Vaccaro (18:14):

And of course, probably the best piece of advice I got was from the guy who hired me, a guy by the name of Greg Gallo. His father Bill was a longtime cartoonist and boxing writer for the Daily News.

Mike Vaccaro (18:26):

So, that's a guy who literally was born into the business. There were legendary stories in New York about when he first took over at The Post and what tyrant he was.

Mike Vaccaro (18:36):

By the time I got to see him, he was one of the great gentlemen I've ever met in my life. Had mellowed, but still he lived to beat the Daily News every day. And it's hilarious because of course, his father still worked in the Daily News. So, that was a lot of fun to observe.

Mike Vaccaro (18:50):

But it was something of a jump for him to hire me. I mean, as you mentioned, I mean, I cut my teeth at the Kansas City Star, and then at the Newark Star-Ledger, both of whom had very similar outlooks on how you cover sports.

Mike Vaccaro (19:05):

And they allowed the columnists — and I look back now, and I say, "I really can't believe it." They almost encouraged us to write long, to write 1200, 1300 words. That's too long for a column, in my opinion. Except if you're going to write about your amputated leg, you can go a little bit long.

Todd Jones (19:19):

Yeah, I think so.

Mike Vaccaro (19:21):

But that's what we did. And I've been lucky, I've never had a problem going long when asked to go long.

Todd Jones (19:30):

So, what did Gallo tell you?

Mike Vaccaro (19:32):

He said, "Look, you got to get in and out. You got to get in and out in the time it takes somebody to get on the subway and get off the subway. And I want you to grab them by the lapels and say, 'Here's what I think.’ I like your column, too many of these things, I'm looking at my watch saying, 'When is he going to get to the goddamn point?'"

Mike Vaccaro (19:47):

And those words stayed in my mind forever. And he was right.

Mike Vaccaro (21:01):

And you're wasting people's time if you're worried about your fancy writing. And that was lesson one that I learned at the Post. It's a very unique way to approach things. And I get it. And I'm glad that I've been able to do that, because I think I've become a better writer.

Todd Jones (21:38):

Alright. You mentioned Gallo, and I want to take you back to 2003.

Mike Vaccaro (21:44):

I know this one well.

Todd Jones (21:45):

There was a column you wrote, St. John's wanted to hire John Calipari, and he was at Memphis at the time, and you're the new fire breather at the New York Post. And you had some history with Cal, I think you knew him back when he was at UMass, and he was with the Nets when you were in Newark.

Todd Jones (22:05):

So, you write a column about whether or not St. John should hire John Calipari. What happened?

Mike Vaccaro (22:16):

Well, I should probably preface this by saying that in my salad days, I was a lot angrier, I guess, but I also wanted to prove what a tough guy I was. I had no problem throwing out cheap shots. And that's just by way of explanation to the column I wrote about Calipari. He was probably one of the great reservations of my career.

Mike Vaccaro (22:41):

And part of it was personally just-

Todd Jones (22:43):

His head is above your mantle. Is that-

Mike Vaccaro (22:45):

It really is, Todd. And it's interesting because he was actually quite good to me when I was a student at St. Bonaventure, he gave me like 25 minutes after a UMAS sheet around one time. Had been very nice to me.

Mike Vaccaro (23:01):

I covered him with the Nets. I'd seen a little bit of his act up close, didn't much care for it. Had a little sanctimony in me, I'll admit.

Mike Vaccaro (23:11):

St. John's is actually one of these sacrosanct things, at least back then it was, and I still admire St. John's because if I grew up anything as a kid, I was a St. John's fan. I was a Chris Mullin fan, I was Louis Carter's second fan. St. John's matters to me.

Todd Jones (23:26):

So, you had a vested interest in whether or not that school should hire John?

Mike Vaccaro (23:31):

And probably more than they should have. And of course, the fact is if they would've hired him, they probably would've been a lot more successful than they've been the last 20 years. But they didn't.

Mike Vaccaro (23:38):

And they didn't, primarily I was told because after I wrote what I wrote, there's no way the president could hire him, because I went into a lot of the nitty gritty. And look, I mean, whatever, that's what a column was supposed to do. I don't apologize for it. I can understand why he was upset.

Mike Vaccaro (23:52):

And so, the best part of the story is that so the next day, Gallo shows up for work, eight o'clock, 8:15 in the morning. And there's this like four minute voicemail waiting for him from a very angry John Calipari.

Mike Vaccaro (24:06):

And he could tell he was just kind of venting, but he is like, "I know how your people are. You're not going to have the guts to call me, but if you do, here's my number. Boom, boom, boom."

Todd Jones (24:16):

For four minutes, four minutes of ranting?

Mike Vaccaro (24:19):

Four minutes of just every ... and it was great. I mean, he played it for me one time. It was every one of the seven words you can't say on TV and about 25 more.

Mike Vaccaro (24:27):

And so, Gallo doesn't care. Gallo's about two years away from retire at that point. He is not going to let John Calipari ruin his day. So, he calls him back. And so, basically Cal starts in with the exact same rant that he left on the machine.

Mike Vaccaro (24:47):

And I should say here, I don't blame him. I mean, if I had read that about myself, I'd have been angry too. I mean, absolutely. And so, Gallo let's him have a say. And at the end. He says, "I don't know what to tell you, John."

Mike Vaccaro (25:02):

And so, Cal asked, "You mean to tell me it's okay with you if Mike Vaccaro wakes up one day and says, 'You know what? I'm just going to hammer Cal today.' That's okay with you?" And Gallo told him, “That's why I pay him.”

Mike Vaccaro (25:13):

And to Cal's credit, he laughed. And he said, "Well, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. Thanks." And that was that.

Mike Vaccaro (25:25):

And of course look, I guess because you mellow about everything through the years, I don't think that I've ever had any kind of reconciliation. I certainly don't think that he's needed one because you might heard he's gone on bigger and better things, and I'm kind of comfortable where I am.

Mike Vaccaro (25:42):

But yeah, I don't know that I would write the column of quite that intensity in 2023 as I did in 2003, I'll say that.

Todd Jones (25:51):

Did Cal ever say anything to you about that one particular column?

Mike Vaccaro (25:56):

To me personally, no. I have been around him at other NCAA tournaments and stuff, and he is always answered my questions. And I mean, he obviously knows who I am because he and I had a relationship when he covered the Nets. And that's fine. Like I mean, there’s-

Todd Jones (26:13):

Well, you changed college basketball history. St. John's could have had John Calipari. Now, they've got the other guy, Rick Pitino.

Mike Vaccaro (26:19):

Imagine that. Yeah. And that's the hilarious part because really you can say that they're bookends on the same shelf in a lot of ways. And of course, when St. John's hired Pitino, I wrote like it was if they hired Pope Francis, so. Such is the way of life, I guess.

Todd Jones (26:36):

Everything goes to 11 at the Post.

Mike Vaccaro (26:39):

Exactly. And by the way, there are more than enough people with long enough memories in New York that they were very happy to point out the fact that they weren't quite sure how I could have a value system where John Calipari was the devil. And Rick Pitino was St. Peter. But so it goes.

Todd Jones (26:58):

Well, Cal would've been happy about 10 years prior to that, because as you mentioned, you once got fired. You were the sports editor at the Northwest Arkansas Times in 1993, you're like 25 years old, and you got fired. What the hell happened?

Mike Vaccaro (27:15):

I mean, the best way to describe it is I was 25. I was young, I was dumb. I thought I knew a lot more than I did about the world. I thought I was smarter than those people down there, of course, because what New Yorker plopped down in northwest Arkansas probably wouldn't feel that way.

Mike Vaccaro (27:33):

I mean, it's just when you're 25, I realize looking back just how horribly arrogant I must have been.

Mike Vaccaro (27:39):

And all that said, look, I mean, basically was hired there because I worked at a paper in a similar chain in Olean. I was recruited there to work because they wanted me to be able to write there.

Mike Vaccaro (27:53):

And that's what I did. I was a terrible sports editor. I mean, I was not good with details. I hated reading other people's copy. I mean, that was probably the wrong job for me to have. But I wanted to see the world a little bit and experience covering the SEC. And I thought it was a good idea. And it was.

Mike Vaccaro (28:11):

I mean, my overwhelming amount of memories there are positive memories. One thing, I met my wife there, so it's hard not to feel warm about Arkansas. And I love my colleagues.

Mike Vaccaro (28:20):

It just so happened that after a series of bosses, I got two that just didn't click with me and didn't want to put up with my stuff. I mean, I was a lot, I had opinions about the way things should be done. I mean, they wanted to put ads on the sports front page. And I acted like it was the greatest crime ever committed in journalism. I mean, I was a lot.

Mike Vaccaro (28:40):

And so much to the point where it's not worth the details going into, but just suffice to say, and a little bit of code, I took a shot at my publisher at a column I wrote where I killed Frank Broyles.

Mike Vaccaro (28:53):

And that plus the fact that the publisher wanted to go play Augusta National as Frank's guest at the behest of Frank Broyles, who had had enough of me. He had quite enough of me after about two weeks, let alone two years. I want to be let go.

Mike Vaccaro (29:06):

But in the moment, I was filled with righteous indignation because, “How could you fire me over this, it's freedom in the press and blah, blah, blah.”

Mike Vaccaro (29:13):

And of course, 30 years later, I'm like, “I can't believe that they put up with me as long as they did, because I just was ...”

Mike Vaccaro (29:17):

And look, it was in many ways a defining moment in my life, Todd. My life, not just my career, because I realized, hey, I had to grow up right away. I had to identify this was my fault. It wasn't somebody else's fault, it was my fault.

Mike Vaccaro (29:30):

I also recognized in that moment just how precious opportunity I'd been given to work in a field I really wanted to. Now, at the time, there was no guarantee that I wasn't just going to spend my life working in favorable Arkansas or places like that. And that would've been fine with me. That's how much I love the job.

Mike Vaccaro (29:47):

But then it was taken away from me because I was an impetuous, immature jerk. And it's informed every move I've ever made since. Everything I want to say in a column, everything I want to say to a boss, every dealing I have with an editor. And I'm grateful for it.

Mike Vaccaro (30:06):

I mean, I can say it now. It's easy to say now. It wasn't very easy to say in 1993 when I'm driving around the south in a beat up car trying to find another job. But it was a great thing that ever happened to me.

Todd Jones (30:20):

One thing that's interesting about Arkansas, a beat like that is we think of newspaper wars in New York, in big cities.

Todd Jones (30:27):

But I know from having gone to school with the University of Kentucky and knowing the SEC even back in the stone age of the 1980s, and it's only gotten crazier now, but the type of journalism wars that go on, on a beat like say Arkansas basketball, what was that like for you as a young reporter that maybe helped you later on?

Mike Vaccaro (30:53):

Oh, it was the greatest. It was by far the greatest and angriest newspaper war I've ever been involved in. And you're right, nobody knows about it because it's true, it's Southwest Arkansas, but covering Arkansas and those that ...

Mike Vaccaro (31:06):

When I arrived in July of 1991, on the beat was the Northwest Arkansas times. That's faithful, that's me. That's where the university's located. Springdale, which is next town over, they covered it home, on the road, I remember that. There was Rogers, there was Bentonville.

Mike Vaccaro (31:25):

And then there were two little rock papers in their own ridiculous newspaper war. But both of them had three people each in the faithful bureau. And so, you walk into that and it's the most remarkable learning ground there is.

Mike Vaccaro (31:42):

And you had to write something good every day, because if you didn't, people had five other things to compare it to. If people took multiple papers then too. And it was the greatest learning experience of my life.

Mike Vaccaro (31:55):

Look, I spent 21 years in New York Post, sadly, the last few of them, there's really not good a war at all because the Daily News has diminished. The Times doesn't exist in sports anymore. There's Newsday and there's us, there’s Bergen Record.

Mike Vaccaro (32:07):

But when you think about a quintessential New York newspaper where you think about the Post and the Daily News, and that exists to a degree now, but it's not nearly what it was when I was hired.

Mike Vaccaro (32:18):

And I had my own little newspapers wars back in the day because one of my best friends Adrian Wojnarowski was at the Bergen Record, and I was at the Newark Star-Ledger. So, those were three fun years where we tried to outdo each other every day.

Mike Vaccaro (32:29):

But even that, I mean, nothing compares to the war that I was involved in Fayetteville. It was the greatest training ground ever. And sadly, that's never going to exist because most of those paper are all owned by the same people now. And it's not the same, the business as a whole is different.

Mike Vaccaro (32:47):

But that was just spectacular. It's an unparalleled learning experience.

Todd Jones (32:52):

So, that newspaper war in Arkansas taught you a lot about staying on your toes, did it also teach you about writing fast? Because, Vac, you're known as one of the fastest writers on deadline, which is kind of like a fast gun in the Wild West. I mean, you just have that reputation.

Mike Vaccaro (33:09):

Which I appreciate you saying it. I appreciate having that reputation. And I do know that when I first arrived in this area 25 years ago, for some reason, whatever reason Dave Anderson, the great columnist for the New York Times, took a liking to me.

Mike Vaccaro (33:29):

He took the papers, so he read me every day so that helped. But he took a real liking to me, became a genuine mentor. Him and Jerry Isenberg were just incredibly generous with their advice.

Mike Vaccaro (33:39):

But Dave told me one thing early on that's held fast with me. He said, "You got to be better than anybody that's faster than you and faster than anybody that's better than you."

Todd Jones (33:49):

Wow.

Mike Vaccaro (33:50):

Now, look, I mean, I attribute the skill, whatever you want to call it, the craft of being able to write fast to my first newspaper jobs in Olean and Fayetteville, and even Middletown, New York, where, and you know what this is like when you work the high school desk and when you're getting 35 calls a night.

Mike Vaccaro (34:08):

At small papers where I was at, sometimes I was the only person in the office. So, I had to handle ... it was completely insane.

Mike Vaccaro (34:14):

You not only had to get the 10 volleyball scores, and the 10 soccer scores, and the football scores right. You had to get the names right. You weren't necessarily as familiar with those names as you were with say Nolan Richardson.

Mike Vaccaro (34:26):

You had to get the stats right. You had to keep your own stats. You had to keep index cards to keep all this stuff right. The only way you to do that is to be able to get proficient and to write quickly. And that's how I became fast, no doubt. I hated every minute of it. I hated every minute of taking high school scores.

Mike Vaccaro (34:44):

I never did mind covering high school football games. It wasn't that I thought that I was above high school sports. But the labor of making sure that you do high school sports as a clerk, basically, and get everything right.

Mike Vaccaro (35:00):

And I told you I was a lousy sports editor. I was probably a lousy clerk too, for the same reason, because my natural affinity is to think about, “How can I make this sound good?” And not, “Did I get the score right, did I get the guy's name right?”

Mike Vaccaro (35:10):

I tell you what, my first boss told me that there's more minefields in smaller paper, because you know what? If you write about the local high school quarterback, 25 papers are going to get sold. And if they do, and the name is wrong, you're going to hear about it, and you're probably going to get in trouble for it.

Mike Vaccaro (35:28):

And so, that's also a great lesson to have learned when I learned it.

Todd Jones (35:33):

Okay. Years later, when you're covering big events and much bigger markets, what is the worst deadline you ever faced?

Mike Vaccaro (35:44):

Well, the most interesting one was in China when they, if you recall, made a point of having Michael Phelps's races early in the morning. So, it would coincide with prime time back home. And so, that meant a crazy thing where you had to wake up 5:00 in the morning and you woke up on deadline.

Mike Vaccaro (36:04):

Waking up on deadline is rough. I mean, to me, there's really not a hard deadline when you know what it is, which is usually seven o'clock. We at the Post, we have our three deadlines. We have 7:30, we have 11:15, we have one o'clock, and then we have whatever you can else after the internet.

Mike Vaccaro (36:23):

In China, you woke up on deadline. And it was stressful. I saw a confrontation between two people there, both of whom are incredibly nice people. And I thought in the moment they were going to kill each other because they were on deadline. They were stressed out after ...

Mike Vaccaro (36:37):

And one of them was working for Baltimore, so they had extra stress of having to write about the hometown boy.

Mike Vaccaro (36:41):

And it was the most remarkable adrenaline rush every day because you're getting off deadline and you just had to find someplace to eat, maybe have a beer this is of course at 11 o'clock in the morning because you just ... so, those deadlines were crazy.

Mike Vaccaro (37:00):

The only time I ever missed deadline was in 2001 when the Yankees and the Diamondbacks played that World Series.

Mike Vaccaro (37:09):

And in game four I think it was Tino Martinez had hit a home run with two out in the ninth to tie the game two [inaudible 00:37:15]. Next day, same situation. Yankees were down two. So, I decided to go down in the old Yankee stadium.

Mike Vaccaro (37:22):

You left your computer upstairs, you went downstairs to the clubhouse. I wanted to get in the clubhouse. I already filed my running column. And of course, as I'm approaching the locker room, the place blows up basically with noise. And Scott Roche has done the same thing.

Mike Vaccaro (37:37):

And so, I had to call the office and just basically say that you couldn't run the column. No, it was no longer relevant. And so, they did. I'm not sure what they did, but some new column ran that day, for that edition anyway. But that's the only one that I can remember.

Todd Jones (37:56):

That was one time when you look back and it causes you some angst all these years later, I'm sure.

Mike Vaccaro (38:03):

Well, sure. Because now I'm like, "Oh, you throwing a blank for one of the additions, this next one better be good." And the funny thing is I'm sure someplace in the Essex County Library is an addition to the Star-Ledger where there's no Mike Vaccaro column of game five of the World Series. Oops. So, that gives me angst all these years later.

Mike Vaccaro (38:23):

But I think I'm probably one of the rare people that ... and I attribute this partly to what we talked about just before about being a little proficient in writing on deadline, but also, I'm lucky enough to run a job that I love.

Mike Vaccaro (38:40):

I haven't done a cover letter in like 22 years. I haven't put together a resume because I've had a job that I really have no desire to ever leave. I hope I can retire from here.

Mike Vaccaro (38:52):

And I think one of the things that that allows you to do is … I think you probably had editors who told you this, and I know I did. Don't write for your colleagues. Don't write for your friends. Don't write for the judges at the contest you submit to. Write for your readers.

Mike Vaccaro (39:11):

And it's easier said than done, but after a while, you realize, okay, I'm here. I'm not trying to impress everybody with every syllable and every clever turn of phrase. Also, I realize that if I don't run a great column today, I'm going to have another chance to do it tomorrow, and tomorrow will be better.

Mike Vaccaro (39:27):

And so, I don't allow the usual anxieties of deadline to really bother me. I mean, sometimes not everything is going to go to the Pulitzer Committee. It's just not. And you have to realize that because your primary job is getting the column in. Your primary job is filling the space they reserve for you.

Mike Vaccaro (39:48):

Hopefully it's good. Hopefully it's readable. Hopefully people will talk about it. But your primary job is you got to get it in.

Todd Jones (39:54):

Well, when Jim Murray would finish his column, he would always say, "Fooled them again."

Mike Vaccaro (39:57):

Fooled them again. And he was right. He fooled them. He tend to fool them a little better than the rest of us did.

Todd Jones (40:02):

A little better than I did.

Mike Vaccaro (40:05):

Let people through the wall.

Todd Jones (40:07):

Mike, you mentioned the 2001 World Series.

And I think about that in the weeks after 9/11.

Todd Jones (40:28):

What was that event like to cover as a journalist and what stays with you even today?

Mike Vaccaro (40:36):

This story had probably as much of a personal impact on me as you probably could have had, not just because I like just about everybody else in New York area, new people who were in the towers had gone to school with them. And I did, I had several classmates from high school who died that day. So, that obviously makes it personal.

Mike Vaccaro (40:54):

My father, well, spend most of his adult career across the street from the World Trade Center. So, when I would go to visit him at the office, I literally can remember watching the final touches being put on it when I was a little kid. And my father saw it go from the ground. So, it had that kind of a personal nature too.

Mike Vaccaro (41:18):

But also, just I think I learned a great lesson that time, which I drew upon years later during COVID, is that sports still matters, but you have to be able to figure out what place it matters.

Mike Vaccaro (41:33):

On September 12th and 13th, 2001, none of us could figure out how we could ever possibly get crazed about Yankees, Mets, or Army Navy, or Ohio State, Michigan ever again. And all of a sudden, how can that possibly matter?

Mike Vaccaro (41:46):

And then how can going to a movie matter, how can I listen to a Beatles record the same way ever again, or a Springsteen record?

Mike Vaccaro (41:54):

And yet, you know what, in the same way we deal with death in our personal lives, we deal with tragedy, and you realize that yes, sports matters, sports will go on. I'm a sports columnist, so therefore I must write about it. But it's also important to keep it in perspective and keep it in its place.

Mike Vaccaro (42:11):

And I think one of the great moments ... people ask all the time about the great moments in New York post 9/11 sports and the Yankee World Series comes up.

Mike Vaccaro (42:23):

What's acknowledged as the first day night of sports being back was the Friday night, I think it was September 21st when the Mets playing the Braves, pretty important game. Mike Piazza hits a chilling home run in the eighth inning.

Mike Vaccaro (42:36):

And I mean, people were crying for hours afterwards. It was an emotional moment because there are cops and firefighters and a crowd that night. Liza Minnelli is like, “New York, New York.”

Mike Vaccaro (42:46):

I mean, it was an unbelievable night you couldn't possibly have scripted. And that's what people look at as when New York finally embraced sports again.

Mike Vaccaro (42:53):

And that was great. I actually pointed two days later when Armando Benitez came in the ninth inning and blew a three run lead to the Braves, and they wound up losing the game, and he got booed off the mound.

Mike Vaccaro (43:02):

I mean, that to me said, "Alright, sports is going to come back because now people are able to get mad about sports again, and not just look at as a release."

Mike Vaccaro (43:10):

And look, I mean 20 years later, when the world shuts down for COVID. And it's funny, a guy I respect as much as anybody in the business, Kevin Manahan, one of my old editors at the Star-Ledger, remember one time, three months into COVID, he's like, "Dude, you got to step back and just work for news side now. There's so many stories there." And I said, "I appreciate that."

Mike Vaccaro (43:32):

Our mutual friend Steve Politi did that. He moved to news for a couple months and did some extraordinary work. And there was extraordinary work to be done.

Mike Vaccaro (43:40):

But I also told him, and I mean this, I found my responsibility in my job to be almost heightened, to be able to give people reasons to read things other than death counts, hospital counts.

Mike Vaccaro (43:55):

And not to minimize the importance of those things, because those things were incredibly important. But people needed to release every day. They just did. They just needed something. And so, that allowed me to do that.

Mike Vaccaro (44:10):

And COVID allowed an opportunity over the course of an extended period of time, three, four months when there was no games at all to write about ... if you're going to write a sports, you got to figure something out to write about sports that isn't going to be grim or irrelevant.

Mike Vaccaro (44:25):

And so, that was a great challenge in its own right. And not that I've ever lost my love for doing this, but it definitely reignited the reminder that you can get by as long as you just remember the basic tools that were taught in the beginning of always know what the story is, go after the story.

Mike Vaccaro (44:47):

Be a reporter, ask questions, be curious, be inquisitive. You're going to still be able to make yourself relevant.

Mike Vaccaro (44:53):

And I learned those lessons for the first time after 9/11, specifically that World Series, which was such an incredible world series. And so, it offered a daily reminder that, yes, this is great and don't get too carried away. And that was the same kind of mindset I brought to writing during COVID.

Todd Jones (45:10):

So, what was it like in the press box when George Bush walks out to the pitching mound?

Mike Vaccaro (45:16):

It was electric. There was no such thing as Democrats or Republicans in the press box. It was just Americans. I'm pretty sure, I know that I clapped. I know that most of the people, especially baseball writers, you know that baseball writers tend to be a pretty serious lot.

Mike Vaccaro (45:33):

And it's just not there's no cheering in the press box, but there's no cheering in the press box. But how could you help yourself in that particular moment knowing what it represented. And it was wonderful. And it threw a strike, which made it even better.

Todd Jones (45:49):

You've seen so many great moments, and I know that one ranks right up there with everything you've covered.

Todd Jones (45:56):

Are there other sporting events or achievements that you witnessed as a journalist that stick with you in terms of what went on behind the scenes, the story behind the story that you came across while reporting and writing your column?

Mike Vaccaro (46:12):

Todd, I was at the Sydney Olympics one in 2000 and about halfway through and you know that stretch where all of a sudden you can't wait to get home and you're still exhilarated because you're there every day.

Mike Vaccaro (46:23):

And my boss said, "Look, just go find something different." It was like between the swimming and the track and field. So, it was like those two couple of days where if you're not covering basketball, there's stuff going on, but it's not the kind of stuff that's lighting up the world.

Mike Vaccaro (46:38):

And so, the way it was set up in Sydney is there were pavilions within walking distance of the main press center. And so, I just wandered into one. And as soon as I opened the door, it was just this deafening wave of just sound.

Mike Vaccaro (46:58):

And I walked in and it was a badminton match and there were 6,000 people there. And I soon discovered it was Malaysia against Korea in a badminton match.

Todd Jones (47:07):

Oh, that goes way back.

Mike Vaccaro (47:08):

3,000 Malaysian on one side and 3,000 Koreans on the other. Now, because it's the Olympics and because this is the kind of crazy stuff that happens at the Olympics, I had actually befriended a Malaysian reporter a couple days earlier who was asking me questions about the dream team.

Mike Vaccaro (47:24):

And so, I actually saw him, and he waved me over. And he spoke English. And I asked for background and he told me about this. There's a lot of history between both the countries and they're badminton. And it was a huge ... in that part of the country, you couldn't even liken it to anything that we know.

Mike Vaccaro (47:45):

And so, I watched this match, of course, it went the distance. And of course, the favorite South Korea won because they always seemed to beat them in the big matches. And it was just this most exhilarating thing.

Mike Vaccaro (47:59):

And I remember I couldn't wait to get to my laptop. And I wrote it, and it was my favorite piece from the entire Olympics. Maybe that and Rulon Gardner, the Wyoming wrestling. Those were my top two.

Mike Vaccaro (48:11):

I filed it. My editor called me. He's like, "You wrote about badminton?" I said, "You told me to write about something different. What's more different than badminton?" And he is like, "Alright, well, I'll read it first." Then of course he read it. He's like, "Oh yeah, this is pretty good. Okay, thanks."

Todd Jones (48:22):

You won him over.

Todd Jones (48:26):

I think about, I had those moments. I had a similar experience with table tennis. Not ping pong, table tennis. It was either in Sydney or in Athens. And I wandered in, same type of thing.

Todd Jones (48:38):

And lo and behold, here's this athlete, I think it was from Japan, and he was like thought of as the Michael Jordan of table tennis. And he was so popular that he had to wear a mask when he was out in public because fans would just overwhelm him.

Mike Vaccaro (48:55):

That is you in Columbus, right?

Todd Jones (48:56):

Right, right. What's that?

Mike Vaccaro (48:58):

That happens to you every time, every day in Columbus, right?

Todd Jones (49:01):

Oh, no, no. They're throwing old fruit at me, so. But I just remember thinking that yes, no matter where it is on the globe, whatever sport it is, somebody really cares about this.

Mike Vaccaro (49:14):

And that's the thing about the Olympics. I do miss covering the Olympics for those guys. I don't miss waking up at 5:00 in the morning to be one of 3,000 people surrounding Michael Phelps. I don't. But invariably, at every Olympics you do something, you write something.

Mike Vaccaro (49:30):

I'm at the Beijing Olympics. One day I was walking with Joe Posnanski and again, we came to one of those table tennis parks that they have. We're just citizens. It's like when you see like in New York, you'll see people playing chess. I mean, it was one of these places there were like 40 table tennis, and they were all occupied.

Mike Vaccaro (49:50):

And we happened upon one where there was this older grandmotherly lady who asked me if I wanted to play. I'm like, "Sure." I played table tennis in my day of college. Won a lot of money playing ping pong. And said, "Sure. I'll play. I'll go a couple points with her." And she crushed it.

Mike Vaccaro (50:07):

And of course, I got a column out of it. It was awesome. Those are the kind of things that are awesome.

Mike Vaccaro (50:13):

I remember sneaking into the London, the day before the London game started me and Posnanski snuck into the stadium to hear Paul McCartney's soundcheck.

Todd Jones (50:24):

Nice.

Mike Vaccaro (50:25):

Now, let me ask you, is there anything cool in the world than watching him mess around with Hey Jude and we’re making him ... I mean, in between, he would just like break out Lady Madonna just to amuse the workers. I mean, it was the greatest thing ever.

Mike Vaccaro (50:40):

I mean, those same Olympics, I was walking Politi and Dan Wetzel, and we look over and literally standing right to our side is Prince Charles and Camilla. I mean, there's no bodyguards. It's just the two of them, a few friends, a few people. And I'm like, "Where am I? This is weird."

Todd Jones (50:57):

Did you ask him to ride a sidebar?

Mike Vaccaro (50:58):

Exactly. "Hey, can you give me forty words and make it snappy."

Todd Jones (51:05):

Sometimes it's great moments, sometimes it's moments behind the scenes. Sometimes it's individuals and people.

Todd Jones (51:51):

Is there an athlete, or coach, or administrator that you enjoyed covering?

Mike Vaccaro (51:56):

It used to be that way all the time. Obviously, it's less now because the access rules are such that they know we're strangers even if we're in their clubhouse every day.

Mike Vaccaro (52:05):

Baseball's generally where people understand that just the day-to-day is as long as you keep showing up, they respect you. And they may not like what you write, generally speaking.

Mike Vaccaro (52:14):

But the best ones are the ones who clearly get it. David Cohen was always the best and remains the best because he literally wanted to be a sportswriter when he was a kid. Instead signed-

Todd Jones (52:26):

Did he really? He was like you, he was like seven years old and wanted to write sports.

Mike Vaccaro (52:29):

When I told that story, which he is like, "That was me. I wanted to write for the Kansas City Star." Well, I did write for the Kansas City Star. I'm like, "But you pitch for the Yankees, the Mets, you win." But he's like, "Eh, not something ..." But that was obviously unique.

Mike Vaccaro (52:44):

Probably my favorite experience came with a hockey player named John Madden. He was a rookie in 2000 with the Devils. Had a really nice career. But he was a rookie.

Mike Vaccaro (52:57):

And I watched plenty of hockey as a kid. I'd never really covered it until the 2000 playoffs. I was at the Star-Ledger and the Devils wound up going to the Stanley Cup that year.

Mike Vaccaro (53:07):

And I wound up writing 59 hockey columns in 61 days, which is an achievement that I still can't believe that. And I almost want that put on my tombstone when it happens, because I mean, that's just beyond belief that I was able to do that.

Mike Vaccaro (53:20):

But early on, I was already scuffling. I'm like, "I don't know the sport, I don't know these players, what am I going to do?" And John Madden came up to me, he didn't know me, but he saw that I was wandering around aimlessly in the clubhouse. And for some reason he just realized I didn't have a clue to write for.

Mike Vaccaro (53:36):

He was 20-year-old kid. And he said, "You have no idea what you're going to write." I said, “Actually, I don't.” He's like, "Tell you what, go over that guy and ask him how his mother's doing. You'll get gold from him." I'm like, "That's all I got to do. Ash how his mother's doing?" He said, "Yeah."

Mike Vaccaro (53:52):

And it's funny. So, I like go over there with dread thing and like he's going to tell me his mother has cancer. But no, I mean, he'd gotten to an incident on a hockey arena. His mother had endorsed back ... there was a great story behind it without boring with the details. It made for a terrific column.

Mike Vaccaro (54:06):

So, the next day I saw him in the dressing room. And I told John, I said, “Thank you for that.” He's like, "No problem, mate. Look, I mean, we got a good team. We're going to be in this for a while, so I'll see you again. Don't make a habit of it, but every time you're in a rut, you can come and see me." And so, I did.

Todd Jones (54:23):

That's interesting.

Mike Vaccaro (54:24):

I mean, how do you not love a guy like that? And he did, he helped me. And I remember like as a result he was a prominent member of the column on the night they won the Stanley Cup. He hadn't scored a goal, but he'd helped me.

Mike Vaccaro (54:45):

So, he gave me a side of the mouth wisecrack comment, which was great also. But I mean, he didn't score the game winning goal or anything, but he was important enough to me to want to make sure I included him in the story that day. But he definitely got it.

Mike Vaccaro (55:02):

And in fact, he got it to the point where the next year was getting close to playoff time. And of course, the way things are sometimes I hadn't spend one day with the Devils until the playoffs. And so, I decided I was going to go to a Devils, Rangers game just to say hello to my friends on the Devil’s.

Mike Vaccaro (55:17):

And so, of course, the game ends and they won. And they go into the men's locker and he stares at me. And he spends 10 seconds just cursing me like I've never been cursed at before, not even John Calipari. And he storms away.

Mike Vaccaro (55:30):

And I'm like, "Oh my God, what happened? I thought we were boys." He comes back to his locker, waits, and I said, "Are we okay?" He's like, "Yeah, I'm just messing with you. How've you been?"

Mike Vaccaro (55:43):

Which is probably as one of the boys a moment as I've ever had. When you're in a clubhouse or a dressing room, when you realize you're absolutely not one of the boys, especially as you get older.

Todd Jones (55:53):

Exactly. Well, as we wrap this up, there's one subject I want to throw out there. You can't be a New York Post columnist without being asked about Yankees, Red Sox. You've written so much about it.

Todd Jones (56:06):

You've actually wrote a book, Emperors and Idiots about the history of the rivalry. You know this rivalry inside and out, and you covered some iconic moments and saw great players.

Todd Jones (56:19):

When you think about all the years of writing about Yankees, Red Sox, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Maybe a story behind the story.

Mike Vaccaro (56:29):

So, the Yankees obviously have that three nothing lead in 2004. And the Red Sox come back and they have the most incredible comeback in sports history. Of course, in New York, we consider it the greatest choke job in sports history.

Mike Vaccaro (56:44):

And so, by the ninth inning, most of the Yankee fans had cleared out. And so, somehow Yankee Stadium was throbbing with Red Sox fans. Thank you, Red Sox. Thank you, Red Sox. And they wouldn't leave.

Mike Vaccaro (56:59):

Trot Nixon came out and showered him with champagne. And here came, Johnny Damon did the same thing. They all did, and they wouldn't leave.

Mike Vaccaro (57:06):

And somebody went to George Steinbrenner’s office, and Steinbrenner was furious of course, but they said, "Boss, we're going to clue these people out. They won't leave."

Mike Vaccaro (57:17):

And George Steinbrenner, who probably hated the Red Sox more than anybody ever born, said, "You know what? They've earned this moment. Let them stay."

Todd Jones (57:24):

Really?

Mike Vaccaro (57:25):

Which I thought is one of the coolest ... Bill James told me that story, which is great, because I was able ... and I believe that was actually the final line of the book that you referenced. It's like one of the great quotes, even if it was given to me secondhand.

Mike Vaccaro (57:40):

And later on, I confirmed it with George. He was always a guy I enjoyed talking with on the phone. But I think that that just shows you not just the mutual contempt they have for each other, but also, the mutual respect.

Mike Vaccaro (57:53):

And what I always found funny, I mean, I assume it's probably like this with Ohio State, Michigan. I know it's like this with Army-Navy, just because I cover that rivalry a bunch. But when players first come into the Yankees, Red Sox or those other rivalries I talk about, they're like, well, you know what ...

Mike Vaccaro (58:09):

I don't understand because the Red Sox would always say, "I've got nothing to do with Johnny Pesky holding the ball. I mean, my father wasn't born yet. How can I?"

Mike Vaccaro (58:18):

And it's only after they get into it and they realize. And they see the fans and how much it means to fans and how much it means to — that all of a sudden they realize, "Oh yeah, this is not something that's made up. This is real. This is something that matters in a way that other games don't matter."

Mike Vaccaro (58:32):

I mean, I don't think it's necessarily true probably that a Ohio State coach could go 1 in 12, as long as the win is against Michigan.

Mike Vaccaro (58:42):

I do think that in Army, if you only won five games in five years and all five of those wins are against Navy, you might have a shot. Which tells you about that rivalry. And of course, it wouldn't be the same way with the Yankees or the Red Sox either.

Mike Vaccaro (58:53):

But look, I mean, the one thing the Yankees had over the Red Sox was that for almost a century, they believed that the good things were going to happen to them, and bad things you happen the Red Sox.

Mike Vaccaro (59:08):

Yogi Berra would come to every game seven or every important game between the Red Sox and the Yankees, and just walk around the room and tell Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter, "These guys don't beat us. Don't worry about it. You'll be fine." And he was always right until 2004.

Mike Vaccaro (59:21):

And I'd be remiss if I didn't share this one story with you, which is different. So, I'd written that book and it was almost done its entirety, and it was pretty much a history of the Red Sox, Yankees rivalry, but told through segments of the 2003 season.

Mike Vaccaro (59:38):

Which kind of underlined everything that I was talking about because they wound up winning and Aaron Boone hitting a home run of course. And the Red Sox blowing a big league in game seven.

Mike Vaccaro (59:50):

And so, that's what the book was supposed to be founded on. All it needed was about a 4,000 word epilogue based on like what happened in 2005. Boom, we're in. And of course, the Yankees go up three nothing on the Red Sox. So, this is just perfect.

Mike Vaccaro (01:00:04):

I've already spent the money on my condo at the Hamptons that I'm going to write with all the royalties from this book. And then the publishing house couldn't wait. It was going to go.

Mike Vaccaro (01:00:12):

Of course, they go up three nothing, go up in the ninth inning in game four. I am just perfect. And of course, they blow game four.

Mike Vaccaro (01:00:21):

And my friend, George King, who covered the Yankees for many years, and cantankerous, wonderful man. And he turns to me after when he saw that I was a little bit glassy-eyed when the Yankees lost. And he said, “Nah, don't worry about it. That's one game. They'll win tomorrow. You're good.”

Mike Vaccaro (01:00:38):

Game five comes, Yankees are up in the eighth inning. Red Sox come back again winning extra innings. George turns to me at the end and he's like, "Go on the Yankee Stadium. It's all good. Don't worry about it. You're fine."

Mike Vaccaro (01:00:49):

Game six happens. Crazy game. The game ride slap game, all that nonsense happens. Call a home run, bring it back. George turns to me and says, "You might have a little bit of trouble."

Mike Vaccaro (01:01:02):

Game seven happens and Kevin Brown has thrown his fourth warmup pitch, and George turns to me and says, 'You're effed." And he was right. And so, I had to rewrite about half of that book. So, that comes down to about 50,000 words in three weeks.

Mike Vaccaro (01:01:23):

So, you talk about someone who's not bothered by deadline. If I were bothered by deadline, would've been able to do that.

Mike Vaccaro (01:01:29):

And you know what? I can sit here 20 years later and tell you, it was a better book as a result. But I didn't get my house in the Hamptons. There were about a million Red Sox books that came out to flood the market.

Mike Vaccaro (01:01:42):

So, it was an interesting experience, but a great experience. And just, those four nights with George made it all worthwhile.

Todd Jones (01:01:50):

Well, it's been a great experience knowing you over the years back. We go back, I mean, I was covering Xavier basketball in the Cincinnati Post, which no longer exists. That's how old I am.

Todd Jones (01:02:02):

And you were covering St. Bonaventure to Bonnies. And we were just young guys scrapping along, trying to figure out how to do this.

Todd Jones (01:02:10):

And you went on to such great success over the years and writing for the paper that you grew up loving for 21 years now, the New York Post. I'm so happy for you.

I'm so, so happy that your health has improved and I'm so glad that you're still in the business writing great columns. Four-time New York sportswriter of the year. That's amazing and well deserved.

Todd Jones (01:03:10):

And I just want to say thanks for your time and sharing your stories about your career.

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