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Richman, Poorman, Beggarman, Thief

Edgy DC Mar 26 2009 10:40 AM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Mar 26 2009 10:51 AM

<i>Newsday</i>'s Steven Marcus almost loses me right off the bat when he places Frank Cashen in the seventies, but he does a good job here describing both sides of Arthur Richman. Crap title to the story though. Anybody recall what his falling out with the Mets was over and when exactly it happened? For some reason, I link the end of his tenure with the end of Tim McCarver's. <blockquote>Arthur Richman was America's baseball guest Steven Marcus 11:39 AM EDT, March 26, 2009 Spring training, late 1970s. Then general manager Frank Cashen was lamenting how many close games the Mets had lost the year before when Arthur Richman interjected, "But Frank, what about the close games we won that we should have lost.'' Cashen sighed. It was vintage Arthur being Arthur. Richman, who died Wednesday, could never be intimidated, be it presidents or ballplayers. He spoke of a friendship with President George H.W. Bush, who one evening arrived at Shea Stadium with the all the usual pomp and circumstance. Richman had entrée to Bush at the game. "You think I didn't call him Georgie?'' Richman said. If an executive said something Richman didn't agree with, he would stand and shake his head in annoyance. Richman took on the players. When pitcher Craig Swan took exception to Richman's first class passage on a flight, the crusty traveling secretary carried the argument all the way back on the team bus to Shea Stadium and said to Swan, "If you don't like it, quit.'' He also threatened players who did not pay their hotel incidentals upon checkout. "You think I can't get you sent down?'' he would say. Newsday's Fantasy Baseball blog In a hotel coffee shop, he encountered Bob Murphy, the ever jovial Mets announcer and said, "Hey Murph, what do you think we'll lose by today?'' Murphy laughed and responded, "Oh my, what a marvelous sense of humor Artie has.'' Richman whispered, "He thinks I'm kidding.'' Richman's stated job may have been that of traveling secretary, but he mostly did what he wanted. The line "Arthur he does what he pleases,'' from the song "Lost between the moon and New York City,'' fit Richman. He was America's baseball guest, he knew everyone, everywhere. He was friendly, funny and could be sweet -- until tested. Entering Montreal with the Mets, a customs agent asked him about the big ring he was wearing, one that had a woman's likeness. "That's my mother, you ----.'' He shot back. The intimidated agent sheepishly let him pass. He was an unabashed mama's boy. "Call your mother before she is dead,'' he said to me on many occasions. Richman had a sense of fairness, even if it was irritating at times. Charles Payson, the once largely absentee owner of the Mets, arrived quietly at spring training and, in a brief conversation with two reporters, said that not only did he not know anything about the Mets but also that he was a Red Sox fan. It was huge news. Richman made sure to tell an out of the loop reporter who later got a bonus for what was perceived as breaking the story. For such a popular person with many friends, Richman's glass on life was always inexplicably near empty. Between the jokes, he could be gloom and doom. He studied the obituaries and was the first person to say "Ever notice how people always die in alphabetical order?'' Many of his sentences began with "When I die ... '' It was a preoccupation he no longer needs to obsess over. He also talked about his will and how much money he had, though not in specific terms. "What do you think I'm worth, huh?'' was a favorite line. And he carried it well into hyperbole. Once, when he was miffed at George Steinbrenner, he said, "You think I can't buy and sell him?'' Steinbrenner, of course, became Richman's savior after a falling out with the Mets. Despite his lofty Yankee title, he was not a big time advisor to Steinbrenner and Richman had no pretense that he was. He did, however, have Steinbrenner's ear in hiring Joe Torre. Richman was quite ill when Torre separated from the Yankees. A call to his apartment found a weakened voice, but he did say, "I bet George hires him back some day.'' If that seems remote, remember the unlikeliest of things have happened around the Yankees. When he suffered his first heart attack several years ago I called him in the hospital and immediately after identifying myself he joked that I only called because he was dying but not to worry, that I was on his good list. He had three: The cherished pallbearer that one reserved for players and baseball dignitaries, the one that starts with an `S 'and a third, containing his many friends. It was a privilege being on that one.</blockquote>

John Cougar Lunchbucket Mar 26 2009 10:47 AM

Madden's column would have you believe Richman was a Yankee employee for 40 years when in actuality 32 of them were with the Mets.

Edgy DC Mar 26 2009 10:58 AM

He's been everywhere. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... i_75308172

metirish Mar 26 2009 02:39 PM

Some Mets fan I am , never heard of Richman until reading this thread, so thanks for creating it. Jack Curry blogs on him ] March 25, 2009, 4:55 PM Remembering Arthur Richman, 83, a Baseball Lifer By JACK CURRY Arthur Richman had a distinctive way of saying hello to me and to others. He never really said hello. He asked how you were doing, then asked if you needed any money. He must have asked me that a thousand times. When I learned that Richman, a longtime employee of the Yankees and the Mets, died Wednesday at age 83, the first vision I had was of him stopping by my press box seat to chat. Within a few seconds, he would ask me if I needed money. There are numerous baseball lifers who spend 40 or 50 years in the sport. But then there are the few who have essentially been in the sport from the time they climbed out of the crib. Richman was one of those rare people, a man who spent more than 70 years following baseball. The reason I know Harlond Clift was an All-Star is because Richman mentioned how he hung out with Clift while traveling with the St. Louis Browns as a child. The only time I met Stan Musial was when I was having dinner with Richman and he stopped at our table and hugged Richman. I secured a home phone number for Willie Mays because Richman gave it to me. The only president I met was George H.W. Bush. I saw Bush and a Secret Service agent walking through a hotel in Palm Springs, Calif. When I mentioned that I knew Arthur, the 41st president stopped and talked for 10 minutes. Richman played a significant role in the Yankees’ hiring of Joe Torre as their manager in 1996, a decision that spurred the organization to four titles in five years. It was also something Richman felt he never received enough credit for doing. Richman dealt with George Steinbrenner, the principal owner, more than any other team official and bragged about how often Steinbrenner dismissed him and rehired him. Richman had relationships with Joe DiMaggio and Ralph Kiner, Derek Jeter and Darryl Strawberry. Speaking with Richman was like opening a baseball encyclopedia. He knew an army of people in every city the Yankees or Mets went. He called women “dollies” and he called his daily drinks “toddies.” Richman, who was Jewish, was so well connected that he secured Jim Thome a papal blessing from Pope John Paul II as a wedding gift. As a Catholic, I told Richman how impressed I was with what he had done for Thome. So he asked me if I wanted a papal blessing, too. Sometimes Richman said things that made me cringe. When I was the M.C. at the New York baseball writers’ dinner several years ago, he gave a rambling speech that included a reference to the K.K.K. The next person I had to introduce was Sharon Robinson, the daughter of Jackie Robinson. Richman liked to grouse about many things, but as a former sportswriter and a public relations man, he was always eager to help writers. Richman’s office at Yankee Stadium was full of pictures of him with everyone from Richard Nixon to Johnny Bench to Steinbrenner. He had a telephone book that was originally about the size of a paperback book, but over the years he stuffed it with so many scraps of paper and cards that it weighed as much as a brick. He was eager to pull a rumpled piece of paper out of his wallet that included the men he wanted to be his pallbearers. I believe Kiner, Bench, Torre, Mays, Rusty Staub and George Brett were on the list. Brett gave one of his sons the middle name Richman. A few years ago, after Richman once again asked me if I needed any money, I decided to teasingly test him. I asked him what he would do if I took him up on his offer and said that I needed a few bucks. “I’d ask you how much you wanted and I’d give it to you,” Richman said. “How much do you need?” I’m sure Arthur would have given me everything from his wallet. Then he would have come back the next day and asked me the same questions. I will miss those conversations. I will miss the man.

Edgy DC Mar 26 2009 02:55 PM

Any day with a Harlond Clift reference is a good day.

G-Fafif Mar 26 2009 03:09 PM

That K.K.K. paragraph seemed unnecessary and clumsy. Otherwise nice tribute. Arthur was a mainstay of team photos.

Edgy DC Mar 26 2009 03:24 PM

I like that he tried to tell the other side also. I agree that it was clumsy, leaving the specifics of the quote out of the story. Knowing the propensity for old men to tell the same story more than once, I'm betting on <a href="http://mcns.blogspot.com/2005_09_01_archive.html" target="_blank">this</a> to be substance of the reference. <blockquote><i>Kinder used to take me home with him to Jackson, Tennessee and he'd take me into a place and I'd say, "Ellie how can you take a Jew boy into a KKK camp?" He said,"It's the only place we can get a drink on a Sunday morning."</i></blockquote>Yuk, yuk.

G-Fafif Mar 26 2009 03:30 PM

Borderline material for the gathering, I infer. What are you going to tell Arthur Richman after he's become Arthur Richman -- stop being Arthur Richman? I guess what Curry was saying is "Everybody knows Artie was loopy." We don't know that, but now we do.

MFS62 Mar 26 2009 03:48 PM

From drinking with the KKK to this: http://www.jewishsports.org/jewishsport ... asp?sp=145 Later