Elliiott: R. I. P. Christie Blatchford
By Bob Elliott
Canadian Baseball Network
Looking back methinks Reggie Jackson was the only player who I ever felt intimidated by.
What always intimidated me was outstanding writing talent, going back to the 1970s… as I was not worthy to peak to the likes of Dick Young, of New York, UPI’s Milton Richman, Jim Murray of Los Angeles, Roger Angell of the The New Yorker and Ian O’Connor of ESPN.
And oh yes, there was a time when I was scared witless of Christie Blatchford. Man, she could write. My American friends here to cover the Blue Jays would ask “Does she always write that well?” And I’d say “No, that’s par for the course.” The course was usually police, courts or front-page stuff.
You will read many glowing tributes to Christie, who passed Wednesday morning at age 68. This won’t be one of the better ones. But the woman deserves a few words.
One fall, maybe it was 1989 against the Oakland A’s or two years later facing the Minnesota Twins the boss told me “Oh, Blatch is coming over from news side to cover the series too.”
Oh oh. My job aside from writing was to send in a note to tell the desk what everyone was writing. It would go like this:
Me: “Christie what should I put on the night note for you?”
Christie: “Oh don’t worry about me.”
Eventually I realized it was a dumb question. Christie was running up front in the news section where Paul Rimstead used to be and wasn’t in the sports section.
Somewhere during the American League Championship Series Christie asked me a question about a player’s mid-season injury. I answered. Then, another. Next thing you knew we were pals. Her writing was still intimidating because it was good, but Christie had a sense of humour which would fit into any press box.
Christie is a Canadian icon — both in the paper and on News Talk 1010. However, she was not a favourite of my daughter Alicia. Christie used to write a top 14 for Valentine’s Day. One year I made it with Nick Kypreos (now, neither one of us are on The Fan), but I don’t recall the other 12. If I recall she pointed out “how cute” it was that I still wore my red and white high school jacket. I never told her that one chilly day that spring I had rushed fo a sports store and bought a Dunedin High School jackett to keep me warm.
Miss Iaizzo walked into Alicia’s class grade 6 class at St. Francis of Assisi in Mississauga and congratulated my daughter to making Christie’s list. Alicia turned red.
* * *
There was this annoying, arrogant writer from south of the border, who thought he was a Pulitzer Prize winning author. When the Jays were at Veteran’s Stadium in Philadelphia there was a rain delay.
Rosie DiManno from the Toronto Star -- read her tribute to Christie without crying if you can -- and Christie were standing in an alcove, when this guy approached head down and we’re told it went like this:
Rosie: “Aren’t you going to say hello?”
Writer: “No, I don’t want people to see me talking to you two, they’ll think I am looking for a date.”
Christie: “Hey, I’ve read your stuff ... if anyone saw you talking to the two of us they’d assume you were looking for a lead.”
Ring the bell.
Match over.
Bam!
The woman did not suffer fools lightly. Same for Rosie.
I am not sure how I fooled the two of them all these years.
* * *
Tim Wharnsby and I went to visit Christie in hospital a couple of weeks ago. Broadcaster Brian Williams stopped by as well. Soon the talk turned to Albertville and the Olympics.
I was sent to 1996 Olympics in Atlanta to fill in as a coach/co-ordinator for sports editor Scotty Morrison whose wife, Kathy, was ill.
The night the bomb went off at Centennial Olympic Park most of us were back at our dorms at Clark University. As “chef-de-mission,” as the late Jim Proudfoot of the Toronto Star dubbed me (“Have you learned the names of all the rowers and paddlers yet?” he asked on Day 1), I rushed across the hall for the first time. There were 12 of us there, six on one side, six on the other.
There I found Christie in full-on Blatch mode ready to go downtown to cover the story and then hunt down the bomber herself.
Christie suggested another writer, who shall remain nameless, should go too. I took a deep breath, took a step back and said, “Ah, you can’t take him, he’s had too much to drink. He’ll go down there and get arrested for not staying behind the police lines. He does not really respect authority.”
Christie agreed turned and pounded three times on the door with her fist:
“SIMMONS! BOMB! DOWNTOWN! WAKE UP! LEAVING IN 10!!”
Simmons was off the mattress and ready at the nine count and off the two went.
The writer who had a few drinks after a long day had about eight coffees and went downtown too in about two hours. He did not get arrested.
The bombing and its aftermath was the low light of the Games.
Christie stayed up the whole night, while I and everyone else went to sleep. About 2 p.m. the next day Christie and I were seated in the press centre. I came back from a trip to the washroom. No Christie. Which is the norm with writers buzzing in an out and off to assignments.
Then, I saw her feet. She was lying on the ground at the end of the row. I asked if she had fallen and she snapped “Can’t anyone take a nap any more?” Within five minutes she was up pounding her Tandy 200 again.
* * *
I always thought of Christie as being bullet-proof. Fearless. A woman who could sense cliches and bull crap with equal ease and would call people on it whether they were wearing a jock strap or a suit. I used to ask her “How many lawyers in that court house are afraid you don’t have your law degree?”
Of course she steered the compliment into the corner like Johnny Bower. Man she was tough, but there was the other side of Christie, a woman who cared about people.
One spring I had sunstroke for the third time and did not make the field in Dunedin. I had it once in Germany and in West Palm Beach too. I told the guys I would not make the park and would write a notebook from my “penthouse” suite at the Jamaica Inn and not to tell anyone. I went back to sleep when I was awakened by a forceful knock. When you stay in hotels as often as I do you learn to ignore the maid. Except this knock grew louder. I was worried the door may come off the hinges. Finally, I opened the door, Christie walked in, ball cap over her eyes and two bags of juice, pop, medicine, water, ice, sun tan lotion and anything else an ill person could need.and wheeled to leave. It was a drive-by Good Samaritan.
“Look after yourself,” she said over her shoulder as she left.
I was so stunned am not even sure I said thanks. until a couple of days later.
That was the same spring she saw me downcast over a misleading headline or a spelling mistake. “Forget about it, keep fighting the a-- holes,” Christie commanded.
* * *
My pal Tim Wharnsby reminded me of Christie’s lead when a Canadian team finally won a World Series beating the Atlanta Braves in extras. It was the best of any lead in Toronto papers and it went like this:
“Somewhere, over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly
And the dreams that you dream of
Dreams really do come true
_ _ From Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
“The rainbow ended in the visitors clubhouse, where the lockers were draped in plastic sheeting, the floor was wet with sweat and beer, and the Blue Jays sang the Atlanta Braves’ war cry and chopped the air with spraying champagne bottles, and the gentle adults who play the children’s game stood in corners and wept.
“Pat Borders’ small mother, Donna, whispers to her daughter-in-law: ‘That took 10 years off my life, shee-it.’”