Sid Cohen is tan, tall, has a great toupee — the kind you can wear in a pool that is all tied to your real hair — and wears sunglasses all the time, He never says “baby” to you, because it doesn’t fit the role of a sports agent. Other than that, he is pure Santa Monica in Los Angeles and is not to be trusted kissing babies,
I mostly got along with Sid in my salad years in the league because when he went out on the edge, I pulled him back in. Some players get with agents who think they’re representing King Kong. There are no King Kongs except for maybe a Michael Jordan or Shaquille or Bonds, or a couple of others. The rest of us are higher-grade replacement parts from Mr. Goodwrench or we’re down-and-dirty knockoffs from the discounters. Notice I mentioned basketball players being among the King Kongs. Big difference with 12 men on a team compared with 25, like in baseball, or 47, like in football. The stars get fewer, the bigger the night sky.
I knew that and made Sid know that I knew that. Sid always said I held myself back, but I kept making money, which is more than some wannabes made sitting out the seasons.
We met at a table in the Coq d’Or, which is a brassy little bar on the ground floor of my hotel. I had a beer and Sid had an iced tea and a salad. Angelenos in the show biz business eat very little of substance and never really look healthy except to one another, if they were cows in Texas, they’d be shot in a pit and burned.
“You looking good, Sid,” I said. It was omelette time again.
“Hmmph,” Sid said, gnawing at his lettuce. It was winter in Chicago and the salad did not meet California standards. Sid chewed on grimly like a rabbit in a wire cage waiting to be potluck. It was all the rabbit knew how to do, even though it was going to come to no good end. I felt so sorry for myself I ordered a steak on toast and a mound of french fries because Charlene wasn’t around to smell meat on my breath.
“I gave it a lot of careful thought on the plane. I even keyboarded myself’ a few notes. What you’re going to do is say you had no idea that George worked out a secret deal to trade off the whole team and import Cubans and that you want to resign, but that you have signed a valid contract and you can’t back out on it. You know, blah blah, your word is your bond and blah blah blah,” Sid began.
“But that isn’t the way it was,” I said.
Sid looked up at me sharp across his salad. “Who am I talking to? Diogenes?"
“Well, for one thing, there was Sam the equipment man. A couple of days after the season was over, George brought him into the office and had him speak Spanish at me, to see if I spoke Spanish.”
“You’re telling me George told him what was going on?”
“No, I don’t think so. George just told him to try out my Spanish.”
“So?”
“So what if Sam says anything about that?”
“Why would he?”
“Same reason people go on the Phil Donahue show, to make fools of themselves just to get on the TV.”
“I know Phil Donahue and I know he doesn’t want to put a Mexican equipment man on his show. Unless he wears a dress in the locker room.”
“Well —”
“Look. Don’t tell me Sam wears a dress in the locker room, I would have heard. George wanted to know if you spoke Spanish. You pass his test. You ask him why. He says, I can’t tell you. He says, sign a contract. You sign a contract. Adios. The next thing you know, George tells you to go to L.A. You go to L.A. — and, I might add, you don’t even give me the courtesy of a phone call to tell me you’re in town — and the next thing you know, George is announcing the end of baseball as we know it and implying that you’re part of the conspiracy. Now, that’s not true.”
“That’s sort of not true.”
“It’s not true for reasons of clarification.”
“All right, it’s sort of not true for that reason.”
“Not sort of. We’ve got to get ‘sort of out of your vocabulary if you ever are going to do anything. I’ll hold a press conference Thursday, after I meet with the Cubs tomorrow. We’ll do it in New York. You’ll stand up and —”
“I ain’t ever gonna do no press conference again.”
“That’s right. I forgot. You’re terrible. All right. We’ll issue a press release and I’ll do the press conference and say you are in seclusion with your family.”
“I don’t have no family left, not anywhere. Except for Uncle Dave in the Panhandle, he’s three bricks shy of a load. I’m not sure he wasn’t adopted by my grandfather, because they never spoke about where he come from.”
“It’s an expression, Ryan, don’t get tedious with me. Being % seclusion with your family’ means you’re going through the grieving process, and the press likes that, believe me. It shows you’re human even if you’re a Commie lover and a beanball pitcher.”
“I told you about beaning that guy in Kansas City, he was practically hanging over the plate with that goofy pumpkin head of his.”
Sid held up his forkful of lettuce. “Joke, Ryan. Chill out.”
“I can’t chill out when that son of a bitch has made me a goat.”
“Oh, George? He hasn’t managed to do that yet. What we have to do is damage control. And then we go back into the burned-out hulk and do damage assessment.”
“I sound like a building.”
“It’s like that. And I’m the fireman petting out the fire.”
“Then what?”
“We wait on the pleasure of the Yankees. On George, On whether this mild protest from Miami goes into a full court press and the government backs down and revokes the permits for the Cubanos. In which case, George is holding a sack of shit. This is a gamble on George’s part, Ryan, not a done deal. I made a couple of calls to people inside the Beltway, The Democrats want to make the bold move, bet they would jest as soon have a Republican creep do it for them if they can get the eventual credit. An old Democratic trick is to get Republicans to do their foreign policy work for them. Nixon in China, Bush saving the oil states. If it terns south, they cut loose and George will have no payroll, bet also no team. Unless you can pitch and catch at the same time.”
“What about the other owners?”
“If this works, George is a genius, he’s their hero, the first guy to seriously show how to stomp”“ the player’s union since the strike. If it doesn’t work, they force him to sell the franchise to the next sucker in line. They are actively neutral, believe me, bet they are secretly cheering for George.”
Sid cut another piece of lettuce. Northern salads have lots of lettuce, a reason it’s so hard to order a salad seriously.
“The Cubans in Miami are a smaller problem. Everyone hates everyone else in Miami — it’s what holds the city together. They’re like lobsters in a pot. Every time one climbs up to get out the other lobsters pull him back in. The Haitians hate the Cubans, they all hate the Anglos, naturally everyone hates the Jews, it’s a mess. Which can work to the Administration’s advantage. It’s unlikely the Cubans are going to burn down the city, since they seem to own so much of it. The Haitians might be confused enough to riot, but who cares, Haitians are always rioting. Besides, they speak French. The Miami contingent is a wild card but a small one.”
“What about the player’s union?”
“Well, I’m going to try to get you in their good graces again — you know, kiss and make up and stand by your man. What’s done is done insofar as getting rid of the old lineup…. This salad sucks, you know that?”
“I ordered steak.”
“It’ll kill you.”
“I feel self-destructive.”
“Don’t let me down.”
“I won’t, Sid.”
“You did once.”
“I won’t, Sid “
“The union can be made to see it’s getting no sympathy going after you, they have to keep their focus on George. The solution is pretty simple.”
“Solution?”
“George wants to break the union, demolish the agents, end arbitration, et cetera, all the things the owners always want. Remember the Big Strike. And he wants to do it in the name of international peace and brotherhood, which is a neat trick.”
“So what’s the solution, Sid?” I said again.
Sid put down his fork and covered the remains of his salad with a red napkin. I thought he might say a prayer over the departed, but he said something else.
“Get rid of George.”
And he was smiling.