©1996 Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Telecommunication
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*By Audun Taraldsen* Until his last breath, Michael had a dream of a future life. After suffering from AIDS, the 54-year-old man died of pneumonia earlier this year in a Portland, Ore., hospital. That's when the work on his future began. Shortly after his death, Michael was packed in ice and shipped to Scottsdale where he was frozen in liquid nitrogen at Alcor Life Extension Foundation's storage facility just east of the city's airport. His body is stored head down in a 10-foot-tall shiny silver metal thermos in minus 195 degrees Celsius, which is minus 319 degrees Fahrenheit. He is with three other people who shared the same dream: to wake up in the future when medical technology can revive a frozen body, heal terminal sickness and stop the aging process. Cryonics is the science of ultra-low- temperature preservation of a person, as soon as possible after legal death, for the purpose of future reanimation. Alcor Life Extension Foundation is the largest of four cryonics societies in the United States, currently with 32 peopleÐ13 bodies and 19 headsÐ frozen. "There are now 67 patients in suspension at four public storage facilities," said Stephen Bridge, Alcor's president. He said besides those at Alcor, Cryonics Institute in Clinton Township, Mich., has 18 bodies, CryoSpan in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., has 13 and Trans Time in Oakland, Calif., has four. Alcor has 376 members on an emergency response list. These people have signed the necessary legal papers and arranged with their insurance companies to pay Alcor $125,000 for a full-body suspension or $50,000 for a head-only or so-called neuro-suspension. An additional $10,000 is assessed for members in other countries. Membership costs $150 per year and $324 to stay on the response list. Michael signed up for a full-body suspension. Bridge told a board meeting in March that the organization could expect Michael in the near future. Action taken quickly The foundation had kept in close contact with Michael's doctor during the last two weeks of Michael's life. When the doctor called Alcor and said Michael was dying, Tanya Jones, Alcor's suspension services manager, and Hugh Hixon, engineer and biochemist, left for Portland immediately to make the necessary arrangements. In Portland they were met by six Alcor volunteers. "Michael was pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m. local time on a Tuesday," Jones said. Within seconds after Michael's heart had stopped, the doctor signed the death certificate. Once Michael was officially clinically dead, Alcor's workers launched their procedures. "A nurse injected Heparin, an anti-blood- clotting drug, and Tagamet to prevent buildup of stomach acid," Jones said. "Hugh did CPR for 15 minutes to circulate the drugs. I left immediately after he was pronounced dead to mix drugs at a local mortuary." Meanwhile, Michael was packed in ice and then transported to the Portland mortuary. A mortician examined the body and declared Michael legally dead. Alcor then assumed responsibility of the body. Jones had everything ready when Michael was rolled into the embalming room at the mortuary. "We had prepared big bladders with an organ preservative called Viaspan and nutrients to protect the cells," she said. "As soon as they came in the door with him, I was ready. "With the help of the mortician, we opened the large femoral artery in the hip and the carotid artery in the throat, drained the blood and pumped Viaspan into Michael's body. Then we stitched him up, packed him in ice, drove him to the airport and shipped him to Scottsdale in a water-tight, insulated container." The logistics of Michael's transport were the best Alcor had ever experienced, Jones said. The medication was injected right after his death; he was released quickly from the hospital and transported to Scottsdale without any complications. The problems started in Scottsdale. 'A very special case' "This was a very special case," Jones said. "We usually open the chest and connect the tubes directly to the arteries around the heart, but Michael was so full of infectious diseases that we were afraid to do an open chest operation and release a misting virus." In addition to AIDS and pneumonia, Michael suffered from hepatitis and other infectious diseases. While the others were en route to Arizona, Brian Shock, Alcor's membership administrator, mixed chemicals in Scottsdale. When Michael arrived at Alcor, Shock, Jones, Hixon and Bridge discussed possible infection risks. "We were afraid that if we opened his chest we would have a possibly dangerous situation," Shock said. Jones added: "We got conflicting advice and we knew we had bad ventilation in the operating room, so we took all necessary precautions." Instead of doing the suspension procedures, Alcor workers drove to a Phoenix mortuary, which had better ventilation, Jones said. At the mortuary, the mortician and the Alcor workers got dressed in protective gear. "We put on full-protection suits in tough fabric, three layers of rubber gloves and face shields," Jones said. Then Michael's arteries and veins where opened again. The Viaspan was washed out and glycerol injected. The glycerol replaced up to 60 percent of the water in Michael's cells. "Then he was stitched up, packed in plastic and driven back to Alcor, where he was taken to the cool-down room and submerged in a cooling bath filled with dry-ice and special silicon oil," Jones said. "This is an automated cool-down system, and the process takes a couple of days because we wanted to cool him down slowly." Then Hixon took charge. In all, he has performed 33 suspensions. Hixon has a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Redlands in California and a master's biochemistry from the California State University at Long Beach. He was a munitions officer in the U.S. Air Force, reaching the rank of captain. His father (also Hugh Hixon) is in suspension at Alcor. It's a touchy subject Cryonics is a touchy subject. Many medical experts refuse to discuss the freezing of humans. Religious leaders have a problem with it, too. Sergei Ochkur, who holds a doctorate in cryobiology from the Ukraine Institute for Cryobiology and Cryomedicin in Kharkov, Ukraine, said cryonics might be possible in the future, but he would not predict when. "Today, we do not have any proof that cryonics can work," said Ochkur, who is now living in Phoenix. He recently accepted a part-time job offer from Alcor to do research. He is also working at the Mayo Clinic Scottsdale, taking care of research animals. "There are still many obstacles we have to overcome," he added. He said that the major obstacle is the intracellular freezing, which destroys cells. He said even if glycerol is pumped into the body, there still will be remains of water in the cells that can freeze and crystallize. Ochkur has 14 years of experience in the field. "I have frozen semen in liquid nitrogenÐminus 195 degrees CelsiusÐwith a survival rate of 90 percent," he said. "The fertility rate was high, but some of the cells suffered damage to their membrane. Others survived and seemed protected." He said another problem is the high concentration of salt in cells after freezing. "When a cell is frozen, it parts," he said. "One part becomes ice crystals. Another part becomes a dangerously high concentration of salt. This leads to destruction of the cell's functionality." Still, he said, freezing human bodies may be possible in the future. "Cryonics is a challenge, and it can be reachedÐhypothetically," he said. "It is possible to revive human cells," said Richard Trelease, an ASU professor of botany who holds a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin. "But the process only works if we plunge single cells into liquid nitrogen and freeze the cells in microseconds." The process would not work with a whole body, he added. "It is important to understand the difference between freezing single cells and cells hooked together to form a tissue," Trelease said. "A person is a grouping of millions of cells connected together. A whole person could not be brought back to life. I do not know that for sure, but I do not think it is possible." The professor added that if cells were frozen slowly, then ice crystals would form and kill the cells. "Formation of sharp ice crystals destroys the cell membrane, and the mixture of water, protein, amino acids and carbohydrates and salt, called protoplasm, leaks out," he said. "Viruses, on the other hand, do not have membranes around them. So viruses are a lot easier to freeze and easier to bring back to life. And that means they can infect." Mark Elwood, family pastor of the Broadway Christian Church in Tempe, said: "We believe that once you have passed away, you enter a new dimension or a new way of life. This is through our relationship with Christ. "Any supernatural way of keeping us alive, other than what is given to us by God, would be against God's will." Claude Middleton, a member of the priesthood in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, said, "This is a purely hypothetical problem since cryonics has not yet brought people back to life." He added he does not think cryonics will have an effect on the teachings of the Bible. "The prophets have talked and told us what is going to happen, but nothing has ever been said on the subject of cryonics. Our belief is that reviving people frozen in liquid nitrogen is never going to happen. If things were to be different I think God would have told us so. "We believe in resurrection, but so far the only one who has come back is Jesus Christ, and it is important to hang on to that belief." Into the pod and "big-foot" Back at Alcor, Michael was removed from the cool-down bath three days after his death. Hixon, Shock, Bridge, Michael Perry, the patient caretaker, and volunteer Paul Garfield started moving the dry-ice from the silicon oil bath to a container. They were dressed in rain gear. Garfield, wearing thick rubber gloves, stuck his hand down in the oil and grabbed a piece of dry ice. Hixon warned with a loud voice that the oil possibly carried hepatitis and the virus causing AIDS. Tools then were used and the workers put on protective glasses. When the ice was fished out, the bath was pushed under an electric winch. Michael's frozen body was lifted out and two boards were placed under him, one under his shoulders and one under his calves. Frozen to minus 110.2 degrees Fahrenheit, Michael needed no back support. The plastic was removed carefully with scissors and knives. Perry unzipped an ordinary blue sleeping bag and sprayed its inside and outside with liquid nitrogen. Michael was lifted off the boards and placed into the sleeping bag, which then was zipped. The sleeping bag containing Michael was placed in a 7-foot-long pod. Hixon bolted the top and bottom of the pod together and connected the winch hook to the pod. Michael then was lifted into the air and lowered head first into a small dewarÐa thermoslike containerÐfor cooldown to minus 319. After two weeks, he would be transferred to a "big-foot" dewar, which holds four pods, for permanent storage."It was 23 hours of non-stop work," Bridge said, smiling. Bridge is in charge of the paperwork involved in the suspension procedure and keeping track of the expenses. "The mortician's services cost about $1,000 and the surgeon about $2,500," Bridge said. "Then there is the transport of our people to the patient and back again, medication, medical personnel, ice and equipment expenses. We have had suspensions from overseas that cost us almost $40,000." A part of Michael's suspension fee was paid through a fund set up before he died. The remaining amount would come from his life insurance, which Michael gave to Alcor, Bridge said. Bridge got involved in cryonics at a science fiction club in 1976. At the time, cryonics was considered science fiction, but one young enthusiast got Bridge interested in it. "We started talking about the economy of the future and suddenly the person said he had frozen two people," said Bridge. That caught his attention and led him to Alcor. Alcor Society for Solid State Hypothermia was the brainchild of Fred and Linda Chamberlain in 1972. Dissatisfied with the lack of organization and openness they saw in the Cryonics Society of California, they founded Alcor. When Fred's father died in 1976, the Chamberlains and a handful of members performed Alcor's first suspension in a truck, which they had parked in a rented warehouse. In 1977, Bridge formed the Institute for Advanced Biological Studies (IABS) in Indianapolis, Ind., with Mike Darwin and others interested in promoting and developing cryonics. Bridge also became a co-editor of Cryonics magazine and he wrote much of the early introductory literature. IABS and the Chamberlains officially merged in 1982. Bridge was a children's librarian and sometimes branch administrator at Indianapolis- Marion County Public Library in Indiana from 1974 through 1992. He became president at Alcor in early 1993. "I don't pretend to be a doctor or a chemist or an embalmer," he said. "I don't do surgery. I manage a company. No one has ever commented negatively. The most I get is the occasional 'now there's a big career shift.'" Alcor moved to Arizona from Riverside, Calif., in 1990 because of fear of earthquakes. "Riverside was at high risk," Bridge said. "It would not be a good place for us to stay if a big earthquake struck, highways fell down, 10,000 died and riots happened. With this in mind we started looking around for a new place." He added that Alcor considered locations in Texas, Tucson and Las Vegas before settling on Scottsdale. "Scottsdale had the right combination of things," he said. "There was a good building and understanding state officials. Moving here decreased the hassle." Bridge added that there are no legal requirements to start a cryonics organization. "Cryonics is not regulated specifically in any state," he said. "We have to take precautions to avoid endangering the public health and that's about it. "But some states or cities may have specific requirements for storing patients, since they count as either 'anatomical gifts' or 'dead bodies' depending on the interpretation of the officials. We worked with the Arizona attorney general, the Department of Health, and the Funeral Board before moving to Arizona, so we could be sure of legalities," Bridge added. Alcor knew some places could have zoning problems, but the organization cleared that with Scottsdale officials two years in advance during its building search. "Some officials were skeptical, some friendly," Bridge said. "Only one or two seemed hostile. Most people were much friendlier once they met us and reviewed our material and procedures. It was 1,000 times better than in California, where several officials were illegally trying to close us." George Beard, executive director of the Arizona State Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers, confirmed that California officials tried to stop Alcor with laws and rules. "The laws and rules did not apply to Alcor, and the state kept losing," he said. Beard said his board has refused to license Alcor because its suspension processes are too different. "I toured Alcor last year together with the attorney general and a neurosurgeon," Beard said. "The processes are so different that they do not fit under the Federal Trade Commission's funeral rules and laws. It is one of those areas where technology has outpaced the statutes that guide it. "Alcor's long-term self-preservation goal did not fit in with the funeral director's short-term goal, which is to make a dead person esthetic enough to get by the viewing and into the ground." What Alcor is doing is not illegal. The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, adopted in one form or another in all 50 states, allows individuals to donate their bodies to medical facilities, usually medical schools and hospitals. "Alcor's procedures are legal under this act," Beard said. "But the board controlling the act was done in the late 1970s, so there is no authority watching it anymore. As long as Alcor refers to itselves as an experimental laboratory, it can take advantage of outdated laws." Beard added he knew that Alcor had got green light from the Department of Health Services before it settled in Scottsdale. But he said he is not comfortable with the current development in burial alternatives. "You got all kinds of weird things going on," he said. "There is not only Alcor out there. I know of one instance in Scottsdale where an individual preserved a human body with some kind of dehydration process for $35,000. There is even a group in Texas which shoots a couple of grams of your remains into space. But the laws and rules are silent to it. "I get a little suspicious about paying $50,000 to freeze a head. You never know if the container is going to hold or burst, or if these people will go out of business. I ask myself, where are these donations going. Are they protected? "We are working on a paper to let the executive and the legislative branch know that Alcor is out there. And let them know that Alcor is operating under the Anatomical Gift Act, that there is no authority currently regulating this act and that we cannot logically place them under our review. It would be like NASA overseeing gas pumps." The oldest person stored at Alcor was a 99- year-old man when he died. The youngest was a 29-year-old woman. Some were AIDS patients, one was a rock star, another an author and one an award-winning TV producer. Alcor members carry a bracelet with emergency telephone numbers, medical information and a biostasis protocol. The backside of the bracelet reads: "Rush Heparin and do CPR while cooling with ice to 50 degrees Fahrenheit. No autopsy or embalming." While giving a tour of the facility, Shock said: "If a person commits suicide there will be an autopsy. The cutting in the body makes it difficult for us to perfuse the body with glycerol afterwards." An autopsy would destroy the blood vessels necessary to carry the cryoprotective fluids around, he said. He added some people have written in their contracts that Alcor is to freeze anything it can get its hands on, even remains of brain cells. "Others say they do not want to be frozen if the cool-down process and perfusion cannot begin within one hour after death," Shock said. If time exceeds one hour after death, then too many cells have died, and the chance of revival minimal, he added. Family signs up Judy and Mark Muhlestein, in their early 40s, and their son Blaine, 13, are Alcor members. Sitting in their home north of Tucson, they explained why they had signed up with Alcor. "I found out about cryobiology in 1986 on the Internet," said Mark, a software engineer. "After I read about it, it occurred to me that this might work." During a short visit to California, he contacted Alcor for additional information about cryonics. He and his wife signed up in November 1992. The family pays about $800 a year for life insurance, which ultimately will go to Alcor. Each family member carries $50,000 in life insurance. Blaine signed up last year. He is the only one of eight Muhlestein children who has done so. He said he made his decision after his grandmother died last year. He added he had asked his mother and father a lot of questions before he made up his mind. He was troubled about what kind of suspension he should choose, although he ultimately decided on head only. "(At first) I did not want to come back just a head," he said. The family believes a new body can be grown in the future with the help of cell cloning technology. "We would have gone for the whole body if money was no object," Mark said. "I guess you could say I have a sentimental attachment to my body. "But our bodies are just machines. The body knows how to fix itself if it no longer functions. Your body even knows how to grow a new body. It grew this one. And the information on how to do that is contained within the DNA in the body." Judy, once a school counselor, said she chose a cryonics suspension so that she could experience the future and everything that comes with it. The family agreed that suspension may not necessarily be the answer for a life in the future. "We are not hoping or planning to be frozen," Judy said. "We are hoping that medical technology will develop rapidly enough so that we will be able to reverse the aging process, repair the body and cure the diseases before we die." They said some of their friends think they are weird, others say they are tampering with nature and others say what they are doing is "ungodly." They added that others support them and see cryonics as an option to burial and cremation. "A person with glasses once said cryonics was tampering with nature," Judy said. "I told him that he was tampering with nature wearing glasses and I think personally that God would be very pleased, not angry with me, because I respect life so much by doing and learning all I can to preserve life." Judy is now on Alcor's suspension team and takes part in the operation procedures. She is a registered emergency medical technician and soon will become a medical assistant. She does all the venal and arterial work during the suspensions. She has helped in five suspensions so far. "If I wake up in 200 years from now the language will have changed," she said. "I will have to learn how to wlk and talk all over again. Buildings will be different. There probably will even be changes in the body. I guess I am just open to the new experience more than the rebirth thing." Mark said he believes in waking up in a new environment and starting a new life where he left off. "There would be a lot to learn," he added. "I envision more changes for society and for people than Judy. Things would be unrecognizable to us now with a new set of interesting challenges and problems. I would like to be involved on working on those things. "There is a long list of things that might go wrong but we still have everything to gain. The money we pay for doing this costs less than a cigarette habit. Let us say technology develops so that cryonics work. Then we can be brought back and enjoy a long life and an interesting future. If it does not work, for whatever reason, then Judy, Blaine and I will all be dead and $150,000 poorer. But we are dead anyway, so it does not matter." The argument continues As soon as Michael was lowered into the cylinder and the chain was disconnected from the pod, Hixon pushed the dewar to a corner in the room. He climbed on top of the cool-down bath, gabbed a large metal lid and placed it on top of the dewar. Then he gave commands to the people on the floor. Bridge helped seal the lid with gray tape. Perry rolled a 4-foot-tall liquid nitrogen container to the dewar. Tubes were connected from the liquid nitrogen tank to the lid and wires from sensors inside Michael's body were connected to a computer. "He has only lost two degrees," Hixon said. Then he pushed a button on the computer and opened a valve on a liquid nitrogen tank. A fan started humming and white fog blew into the air from the lid and evaporated. The cool-down process began again. Hixon pushed keys on the computer, making sure everything was working. The workers took off their raingear and left the room one by one. "There are a lot of things yet undone," Hixon said. "We have to come up with techniques that are not just as effective as possible but also easy to use. Cryonics is very primitive now; we scarcely know what we're doing, much less if we'll succeed. It is, in all aspects, a grand adventure."
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*By RuthAnn Hogue* He's vice president and general manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks with a six-figure salary and instant name recognition. But Joe Garagiola Jr. still comes across as a weak-armed, no-hit journeyman ballplayer. "If you are thinking you are somebody, you're probably not," the 45-year-old father of four said. "You just better shut up and do your job every day. I think, no matter what your job is, you ought to show up every day ready to go to work. At the end of the day, you want to be able to look back and think you accomplished something." "Junior" doesn't even seem to mind that his name is often mistaken for that of his father, a television personality who played catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals and won a 1946 World Series ring. Joe Jr. tells his favorite stories of mistaken identityÐwhich involve a parking space and a phone messageÐwith a smile. The parking space belonged to his parents, Audrie and Joe Garagiola Sr., who had season tickets to sporting events at ASU. "They used to have a setup where they had curbs with parking spaces and they would paint people's names on them," Joe Jr. said. "So, one day, my parents were going to be going out of town and couldn't use the tickets. So they asked, 'Why don't you go?' "So, then I go out there and pull in and park. There's a car next to us where there's these two guys who are having a tailgate party. "And one guy says, 'Wait a minute, where's Joe?' "And I said, 'He's not here.' "He said, 'But that's his parking space.' "I said, 'I know that, but he's not here. He's out of town, as a matter of fact.' "And the guy said, 'Oh, Geez. Well, I told my friend, if he came out to the game, he'd see Joe, because Joe parks here.' "I said, 'Well, I'm sorry,' but the guy just couldn't get over it. "I said, 'You know when you go to the theater and you look on the playbill and it will say, so and so is sick today? Think of it that way. Think of it as me appearing in the role of Joe, OK?'" His other story involves a phone message he wanted to leave for his brother, Steve, who at the time worked in Phoenix television as a sportscaster. "I had to call and leave word, leave my name, and the receptionist said, 'Aren't you on the Today show?' "And I said, 'No, that would be my dad.' "She said, 'OK,' and paused and said, 'Oh, you're the guy on Channel 10, then.' "I said, 'No, that would be my brother.' "Longer pause. Then she said, 'Well, are you anybody?' "I said, 'no, not me. I was just splashing around in the shallow end of the gene pool one day and crawled out.' "So that always helps me keep things in perspective." There's baseball, and much more Joe Jr.'s baseball career began in 1975 with the New York Yankees. He was hired as in-house counsel with the team immediately after graduating from law school at Georgetown University. He went on to practice law for several years as a player's agent. Most recently, he practiced sports and real estate law for Gallagher and Kennedy, a Phoenix law firm, but gave up his practice last spring when Arizona Diamondbacks owner Jerry Colangelo asked him to oversee the new team. Joe Jr. said this prominent position, which comes with a six-figure salary (he declined to be more specific on the amount) hasn't changed the way he looks at himself. His no-nonsense style shows in his personal and professional life. He begins each weekday morning by taking his daughters, Meredith, 13, and Valerie, 10, to school on his way to work. The daily routine starts with his girls squeezing past a dozen or so bicycles and their mother's Dodge Caravan to pile into their father's Cadillac Coupe de Ville. After dropping them off at school, he heads to an office at One Arizona Center in downtown Phoenix. Meanwhile, Natalie, 5, and Christopher, 3, stay home with their mother, Noel, and Flashman, the family's golden retriever. A few olive trees dot a small front yard at their slump block home in Scottsdale. They live on a cul de sac, so most of the one-acre lot forms a funnel-shaped lawn in the back. A fenced-in pool is tucked away in one corner, leaving a grassy expanse where the children can play safely. A basketball hoop has been added to the front driveway. In short, Joe Jr.'s home is nothing like his father's million-dollar mansion in an elite, gated Paradise Valley neighborhood. "That is not us," said Noel Garagiola. She and Joe Jr. have been married 22 years. "When I look around, I think there will never be a time when we don't have a toy under foot or a dog bone. Between the kids and the bikes, you cannot possibly squeeze one more thing in there." At night, Joe Jr. often returns home only to pick up a copy of Baseball Weekly or read the sports page from the on-line version of several newspapers. He also enjoys reading two or three books at a time. His favorite book is Lonesome Dove. "It's absolutely the best book I've read in my life," he said. "It's got a lot of great lessons in it," such as, "it's not good to focus on one thing. Sometimes you get wrapped up in the big picture. I think people who are unhappy often make themselves that way." Professionally, he is consumed with baseball. One look at the Diamondbacks' office, which is decorated more like a ballpark than a high-rise building suite, reveals the depth of his love for the sport. The front lobby carpet boasts a baseball diamond pattern with home plate and colorful bases against a white background. The receptionist seems to peer out of a dugout cage where a catcher's mask hangs. Down the hall, a giant team logo is lit up in purple and turquoise neon. A taped version of a baseball game played over the intercom gives the illusion of being at a ballpark. Joe Jr.'s personal office serves as a shrine to a large cache of baseball memorabilia. Baseball treasures include his father's catcher's mitt and several autographed black-and- white images that have forever frozen great moments in baseball history. There's a case of brightly painted baseballs. Several replica 1950s vintage New York Yankee figures behind his desk seem ready to jump into action. While much of his collection celebrates the past, Arizona Diamondback and farm team Black Diamonds baseball caps on a shelf above his desk suggest hope for the future. Blueprints of Bank One Ball Park, now under construction in downtown Phoenix, are always handy. Joe Jr. contributed several ideas for amenities in the new stadium after visiting ballparks across the country. He is most proud of a conference room that will provide a place to huddle during conference drafts, "sort of like a war room," he said. Two more years of waiting The Diamondbacks will have to wait until the 1998 draft to find out how convenient the new "war room" will be. These days, Joe Jr. lives for the challenge of building a successful team. As general manager of a team that will not be fielded for two more seasons, his job of recruiting players, building a coaching staff and ironing out operational details mean long work days. He doesn't mind. "Certainly the opportunity to be part of building a Major League Baseball team would be a dream come true for anybody who was a real interest in the game," Joe Jr. said. He realized as a teenager that he wouldn't make it in professional baseball as a player. Even after working for the Yankees and representing several players, he never expected to get the chance to live out his dream of managing a team. "It would have been presumptuous to say, "I'm going to do this,'" he said. "There aren't very many of these jobs. But I'm thrilled to have gotten it. I like to think that everything I have done up to this point prepared me for this job and put me in a position where Jerry (Colangelo) would feel I was capable of doing it." Joe Jr. has been preparing for this job his entire life. He was raised on baseball. He said he recalls attending every baseball game at Busch Stadium in St. Louis between 1954 and 1959. His father had just retired from the Cardinals and had taken up radio broadcasting for the team. His mother was the stadium organist. "It was during the summer," he said. "My brother, Steve, was 1 year old at the time, so he would have a sitter stay with him. I and my parents, the three of us, would go off to the game. "There was this husband and wife who ran the press room, the place where they fed the media, and they kind of looked out for me and made sure I got something to eat. And the ushers all knew me. My job was to keep my mouth shut and not cause any trouble. "It's going to force you to say, 'I don't want to hear about baseball,' or you're going to go the other way. And I'm pretty happy things turned out the way they did." He said he hopes to share similar experiences with his own children at Bank One Ballpark. "When they get older, I hope, they will get a big kick out of coming down to the ballpark," he said. Joe Jr. added that he also dreams of seeing his only son play in the major leagues. Because Christopher is left handed, Dad hopes he will want to become a pitcher. "I'm looking forward in 18 years or so to be talking to his agent," Joe Jr. said. "Hopefully, we'll be doing so well at the end of the draft, and somebody will have taken him already." Instead of pushing his children to become involved in the national pastime, he encourages them to enjoy the game, much the way his father gently encouraged him. "He never tried to push us in terms of baseball," Joe Jr. said. "In terms of school and that kind of stuff, it was the same thing that all parents try to ask their kids to do, and that is, 'give it your best effort with where you are in life right now, and give it what you've got. And if you do that, then you will be fine.'" His father agreed. "Having grown up with his father being high profile, I didn't want the shade of the tree to kill off any new growth," Joe Sr. said in a telephone interview. "There are advantages to being Joe Jr. and there are disadvantages." Carrying the Garagiola name, for example, can often get a table in a packed restaurant or theater tickets to sold out shows. Other perks have included an invitation to the entire Garagiola familyÐincluding spouses and childrenÐto spend election night in the White House with President Gerald Ford. Later, when the First Family's golden retriever had puppies, Ford offered one to Joe Jr.'s family. They named him "Commander." There are downsides to carrying the name, too. Joe Sr. said he worries that some people might not give his son full credit for future successes with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Some folks might accuse Joe Jr. of riding on his father's coattails, he explained. "Winners do the job and losers find excuses," Joe Sr. said. "I know Joe's a winner. That's not going to bother him any." Junior has felt the weight of his baseball heritage since childhood. Kids, and parents, sometimes gave him a hard time when he struck out in Little League. "They'd say things like, 'you look just like your old man,'" said his mother, Audrie. "I don't suppose they meant anything by it. And kids will sluff it off. But it's not easy to have those things happened. We've tried to talk to all of the kids and tell them that good things happen because of your name and you have to take the good with the bad." Like father, like son? Not always Although father and son share the same name and life-long passion for baseball, they are different in many ways. "He's always in a pretty good mood," Joe Sr. said. "If he's having a bad day, he's very good at hiding it, which is one of the differences between the two of us. If I'm having a bad day, I'm going to share it." Joe Sr. attributes his son's softer side to his wife's gentle style of raising their two sons and daughter, Gina Bridgeman. "I think he's understanding, compassionate, and he's really very emotional," Audrie Garagiola said, "Although I think most times he tries to keep that inside of him." Joe Sr. said his son has a sense of humor, a conscientious, tenacious style and a sharp mind. "We call him the bottomless pit of trivia," Joe Sr. said. "He can remember whenever I get stuck recalling some player. He'll lay it right on me. He remembers little facts and big facts. But he's not one dimensional. He can talk about a number of things besides baseball, and not everyone can do that." He praised his eldest son most for his strong sense of loyalty. "If he tells you he's going to do something, he's going to do it," Joe Sr. said. "He's not going to wimp out, even if something supposedly better comes along. "I'm blessed to have him as a son, but I want him for a friend. Because if I ever got in trouble, I could go to him and he'd do something. And if it doesn't work out, he's going to go forward." Jerry Colangelo, president and CEO of the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Phoenix Suns, said he feels that he can depend on Joe Jr., too. He described his general manager as a "man of high moral character, a strong family man and a community-oriented man." Colangelo added that "he's the kind of man you want to represent you or your organization," On frequent visits to Joe Jr.'s office, Colangelo likes to ask for a progress report on what his general manager has accomplished that day. "I like to motivate and prod some people, just to let them know that I'm around, so I needle him a bit," he said. Colangelo added that his faith in Joe Jr. to build a successful team never waivers. "He's good people," he said. Joe Jr. earned his reputation with Colangelo by serving as vice chairman of the Governor's Cactus League Task Force from 1988 to 1990. He also served on the Mayor's Professional Baseball Committee and chaired the Arizona Baseball Commission. Other community projects include volunteering on the board of the Maricopa County Sports Authority, which he also chaired. He serves on the board of directors of Phoenix Suns Charities and the Memorial Hospital Foundation. "He was part of the group that came to me to get me interested in Major League Baseball," Colangelo said. "The more time I spent with him, I came to appreciate his potential to take a greater role, and I came to the decision to hire him as general manager." Mike Gallagher, president of Gallagher and Kennedy, called his former employee a "very well- rounded, capable lawyer who has outstanding people skills." Having a son of a famous ballplayer on staff didn't exactly hurt business, either. "Whenever we had a firm outing with clients, he would often talk his dad into coming along to provide the entertainment," Gallagher said. He added that he admires Joe Jr. because he sticks to his principles. "He's a real solid citizen," Gallagher said. "He's a real good guy, and he's a hard worker. He did a good job here, and he'll do a good job for the Diamondbacks. "I'm a big Joe Garagiola fanÐjunior and senior. "His dad's got a busy life and Joe's got a whole gaggle of kids at home and a wife. But I think they spend as much or more time together as fathers and sons who live in the same town normally spend." Longtime friend Bob Franken said he became familiar with Joe Jr.'s enthusiasm for baseball 25 years ago when they met at the University of Notre Dame. Together, they covered news and sports with other students who worked at the Fighting Irish campus radio station. The two kept in touch over the years through the local Notre Dame Club. Franken, who recently opened his own publishing business, Penny Publications, after several years with Phoenix Newspapers Inc., said his friend hasn't changed. "He's enthusiastic and enjoys whatever it is he's involved in," Franken said. "It's a kind of infectious enthusiasm, and he's a guy everybody likes to work with. He's a genuinely polite, outgoing, individual. Twenty-five years later, I still have very good memories of working with Joe as a student. I think that trait will serve him well." What Franken said he likes most however, is Joe Jr.'s down-to-earth-style. "He takes the time to return phone calls and a lot of people don't" Franken said. "Maybe he's lost a couple of hairs and put on a couple of pounds. But he's the same guy I remember." Changes to come Joe Jr. said he works as many hours now as he did as a lawyer, but "everybody tells me that I'm a happier person. Certainly nobody around here is a clock watcher. "You can't have that mentality in sports. Because once you get playing games, then a typical day will start now (about 9 a.m.) and it will end when the game is over. And that could be over 10:30 or 11:30 at night. It will take time away from my family, which I am not happy about." Already the line between work and his personal life is beginning to blur. "To go home at night and be on the computer to 10 o'clock looking at what The New York Times sports has got tomorrow morning, that's not a chore," Joe Jr. said. "I mean, this is a job where you work all day and your job is to think about and deal with the one thing in your life that you really love. As the Diamondbacks continue to develop, the job will increasingly require travel to visit farm teams, recruit players and take care of club business. "Travel is a part of this, and it's a reality part of it," Joe Jr. said. "These are not 9-to-5, Monday- through-Friday jobs. "I hear stories of organizations where they haven't seen the general manager in literally two or three years, which I think is terrible. I mean, this is your product and these are your people. And you can't be disconnected from them." To lessen the time it will take away from his family, and for business reasons, he said AA and AAA teams will be located as close to Phoenix as possible. "It kind of broadens your fan base, it softens player movement and it makes it easier to see each player," he said. Joe Jr.'s days as an agent taught him the importance of treating players' concerns, imagined and real. Real concerns, he said, often involve a lack of communication between owners and players, especially when a player is going to be released or traded. "Sometimes you can overlook the fact that they are human beings, they have lives, they have families, and things like that in their lives are big upheavals," he said. But that doesn't mean Joe Jr. plans to be soft on his staff or players. "Nothing makes me angrier than to see players running on half speed to first base, or they hit a fly ball and halfway to the first baseline, they peel out for the dugout," he said. "Because if I'm a fan, which I am, and I see that, I say, 'Wait a minute. These guys are getting paid a lot of money and they don't appear to care. So what kind of a chump does that make me to sit here in the stands having paid to get in? "So, I don't know how many games we'll win, but I can tell you this: You will not see that kind of attitude in our players. You will see guys that it matters to them. If it doesn't, then you won't see them runningÐbecause they will be gone." Dream in perspective The get-tough policy is steeped in Joe Jr.'s motivation to succeed. He hopes to see the Diamondbacks win as many games as they lose in their inaugural season. And he intends to eventually add a second World Series ring to his collection. He earned his first in 1977 while representing the Yankees. "It's a piece of metal, obviously, but it says that you were a part of the best team in your sport," he said. "And it's definitely an opportunity to get one. Some of the best people in the sport never get one. Jerry (Colangelo), look how successful the Suns have been. They've been in the finals twice. It's tough to do. "I'm working for somebody who understands how really tough it is to win the whole thing. The whole point is, this is not rotisserie baseball. You don't jut put the stats in the computer and see who wins. "You've got to go out there and play. And you can make all the right decisions and somebody blows out a knee or dislocates something and there you are. He (Colangelo) probably understands better than any other owner in sports how really tough it is to get all the way to the top." Getting there is a feeling that can't be matched, Garagiola said. "I've had successes as a lawyer," he added. "It was a lot of fun to get the call telling me I'd won a big salary arbitration case. It's a feeling I'm looking forward to experiencing again with the Diamondbacks. While he admitted that he lives for the challenge of building and managing a successful professional baseball team, he said he would be willing to die for only one thing: his family. "Nothing is more important than that," he said. "I don't think there are any great number of external things (that show it). It's what you have in here, what you have in your heart. I mean, my wife and my kids, they're the most important people in my life."
*By Kimberly Owens* Barbara Nelson sat at a table on the back patio of her Scottsdale home, sipping a soda. She gathered her knees to her chest and played with the pen in her hand. The breeze ruffled her hair and she reached up to push it out of her face. Behind her, a hummingbird drank from a flower near the swimming pool. Nelson's second novel had just been returned to her by a prospective agent and she was taking the rejection hard. It was not good news to an author whose first published novel had three printings in hardcover and one in paperback. "I was premature in sending it out," said Nelson, 42. "It wasn't quite ready, but I'm impatient." She looked through the back door of her house toward the manuscript sitting in an open box on the kitchen counter. "I'm not devastated, I still have other options," she said. Nelson graduated from ASU with a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing in 1991. She published her first novel in 1994. She writes in her home and teaches creative writing at Scottsdale Community College. She smiled as she looked back on her past. "I'm a native of Fargo/Moorhead," she said. Fargo, N. D., and Moorhead, Minn., are separated by a river, and most of the natives of those cities just consider them to be one. Nelson and her husband, Scott, were married in 1974, and both their families still reside in Fargo/Moorhead. "I did my undergraduate education at Concordia College in Moorhead," Nelson said. "I majored in social work and Spanish." After graduating in 1975, Nelson followed her major into social work. Besides counseling Big Brother, Big Sister programs, she helped begin the adopt-a-grandparent program in Fargo/Moorhead and worked in the adult mental health field. After the birth of her first child, Jill, in 1978, Nelson continued to work. But with the birth of her second child, Becky, in 1981, she gave up her job to stay home with her children full time. It was then that she started playing with the idea of writing. "Staying home all the time lasted only three months," she said. "I made a conscious decision not to go back to work full time, so I decided to go back to school." Nelson registered at Moorhead State University and studied fiction under Mark Vinz, a poetry writer. She got involved with the other writers in the area and was a founder of a community writing workshop. That's when she began her first novel. "I had no job, and stayed home with the kids, she said. "I was writing part of the day. Usually during nap time. "I structured my life around writing. I don't know why I thought of myself as a writer." Nelson's third and last child, Brian, was born in 1984. She continued to write. Nelson's first attempt at a novel was what she now looks on as a primer lesson. "It's horrible, not fixable at all," she said. "I haven't even thought about it in a long time." In the spring of 1987, the family moved to Arizona because of her husband's job. Nelson changed her position in the patio chair again. She reached forward and took a drink of her soda. She sighed before returning to her story. "When we arrived in Scottsdale, I was on the phone with ASU before the boxes were unpacked," she said. The Master of Fine Arts program at ASU drew Nelson into school again. "I took a general class that first fall I was here, and then another class the next semester," she added. "Within a year, I applied to the program." Nelson was accepted into the Master of Fine Arts program in 1988. While in the program, she was a teaching assistant and worked on Hayden's Ferry Review, a literary magazine published by ASU twice a year. "Barbara was an editorial assistant on Issue 5, and an editor on Issues 6 and 7," said Salima Keegan, managing editor of Hayden's Ferry Review. "We immediately struck off, and became good, close friends." Nelson's husband was also working on his degree at ASU, and the couple still had three little children at home. Her thesis for the writing program was the beginning drafts of Summer of Rescue, which eventually was to be her first published novel. The novel tells the story of Clare Nichols, a wife and mother, whose emotions are trying to balance themselves after the death of her son and the upcoming womanhood of her daughter. Nelson graduated in May 1991 and put her Rescue manuscript away for three months before looking at it again. "I was hoping to leave it until December, but I got impatient and picked it up again in August," she said. Nelson wrote out three more drafts before she was happy with her product. With a finished manuscript, she began shopping for a literary agent. Through her contacts and other people she had talked to, she narrowed down her list of prospective agents to 12. "I wrote a query letter, and sent it to all 12 of them," she said. "I got positive responses from six. "I hooked up with the most aggressive agent out of the six. He really jacked things up for me, but all the potential publishing houses fell through. "He sent out a second round of query letters to publishers, and that dragged on until he just fell out of touch with me." Nelson's break came when she heard that MacMurray and Beck, a self-help and women's studies publisher in Colorado, was looking for one or two titles for its first line of fiction. Nelson sent off a copy of her manuscript. Within days, she heard back from the Colorado publisher and quickly decided to sell it. "My agent was not pleased, because MacMurray and Beck is not a big house," Nelson said. "But, they are nationally distributed. I think they did it well." By mutual agreement, Nelson and her agent parted ways. In April 1994, Redbook Magazine excerpted Summer of Rescue . Nelson refutes the theory that the story of Clare Nichols is based on her own life. "Factually, the story and characters don't reflect me, she said. "But when you're writing from the heart, you're writing from the truth of life. "I wouldn't want to write my stories that way (from real life) because then the story is not fiction, and that destroys the imagination." Nelson's first book signings and readings ran through the summer of 1994. Her best reception came in her hometown. "There were people from all the different times in my life, and it was the best, she said. "If I'd known all those people would be there, I'd have had my husband come along with me." Scribner Paperback Fiction later published Summer of Rescue in paperback. Nelson was also asked to write a Christmas story for the December 1994 issue of Redbook. "The story was published, and it will be reprinted in Russia this year," she said. Her latest novel is titled The God Vandal. "I'm now looking for another agent, and this woman really pursued me," she said. "But this book is a lot different from the first. I like to set challenges for myself." Nelson reached again for her soda and changed her position in the chair. "I spent three years on that one, well, three years on Summer of Rescue, too, I guess," she said. "I just can't sit and dash things off. It's a great investment to write a book, and I work hard at it. "I'm totally capable of writing a really bad book." Nelson said she starts her book with just an idea of a character or two, or just a situation. "I figure out my story by writing it, otherwise it's not interesting or exciting for me, she said. "The story must have a compulsion of its own. "You need to follow the characters and loosen up. Just go one step at a time." She said that when she wants to read a story by another author, she heads for the fiction section of the bookstore. "I like Rosellen Brown's Before and After, and Toni Morrison's Beloved and Alice Walker's work, but I learned the most from Ron Carlson," she said. Carlson is a creative writing professor and fiction writer at ASU. He has written such books as Plan B for the Middle Class, Truants and The News of the World. Besides teaching creative writing courses at Scottsdale Community College, Nelson conducts the Directed Personal Writing Program at the Scottsdale YMCA. Directed Personal Writing uses the act of writing as a way of searching into one's self. "I teach it in workshops, where it has therapeutic intentions, she said. "I started it for juvenile offenders, and I used it as a component for truancy diversion in Mesa, as well as for an alzheimers group, and for teen-age parents." Nelson's schedule almost leaves no time for writing anymore. She also manages the quartet her daughter plays in, and is a full participant in her children's activities. "Writing is draining," she said. 'You have to keep other things in your life. It's very important to me to keep my life in a balance, to be able to spend time with my kids." Nelson said she tries to wiggle out of every schedule she makes. "I like to slow everything down. I begin my day with my family, but if I'm working by 9:30 or 10, I'm OK. I don't even attempt to write after my children get home," she added. Nelson looked inside her house again at the open box and the returned manuscript. "You get intimidated because even good stories get rejected," she said. "It gets difficult to present yourself, because your writing is an extension of yourself. It's like taking off your clothes for someone, and they laugh at you. "Rejection shouldn't ever get any easier unless you don't care."
*By Bonnie Bobit* Lynn Heath tried to hold back her smile as she shook her head in disapproval. "David, please don't tell the other students that. Give them a chance to figure it out for themselves." David Tuzon laughed mischievously, smiled back at Heath and said, "OK, mom, whatever you say." Heath is not Tuzon's mother, but as his tutor at Literacy Volunteers of Maricopa County in Phoenix, she certainly is involved in his development. She began working with Tuzon five years ago, two years after he first came to Literacy Volunteers as one of America's 44 million adults considered to be functionally illiterate. Like the others, he could not fill out an employment form or read cooking instructions or a newspaper. Since its inception in 1982, the Phoenix agency has established itself as Arizona's leading volunteer literacy agency. It has plenty of work to do, according to Adrienne Slusky, LVMC public relations coordinator, who said there are more than 350,000 adult illiterates in Maricopa County. "Last year LVMC provided service to more than 1,500 students," Slusky added. "Dedicated tutors, like Heath, provided in excess of 29,000 volunteer hours." Shortcuts and cues Heath reprimanded Tuzon during a group tutoring session because he has a habit of showing the other students shortcuts to the multiple choice answers on the lab computers. Tuzon, a 44-year-old Valley native, is typical of thousands of illiterate adults who have learned to function in today's world by using a series of shortcuts and cues. "Someone like David has learned to look at things and approach things differently. He uses a lot of associations," Heath said. Tuzon, who now works as an electrical trouble-shooter for a Valley machinery manufacturer, said he spent his life looking at everything as a problem and how to solve it. Slusky said, "These people are functioning at the lowest level in society, unable to read basic signs and labels. In spite of public and private efforts to improve education, the numbers keep growing." Jodi Decker, an LVMC director, said illiteracy "happens all too easily. The highest percentage of our adult students have some sort of learning disability. Usually it's just a slight disability that puts them behind in school." She said they are hurt academically, which often lowers their self-esteem and then it's a downward spiral, affecting them behaviorally and emotionally. The agency reports that in Arizona there are more than 520,000 adults with less than a high school education, and 25 percent of children currently enrolled will not finish high school this year. School was not a party for Tuzon. "They were just passing me," he said of his Valley elementary school. He said that when his mother came to school one day and found him doing the rounds with the janitors instead of in the classroom, she took him to the principal's office and said, "My son is here to learn." But that was not enough. Tuzon, who eventually worked as a janitor for 22 years, never finished high school. He was able to read enough to get by, but he couldn't write or spell. While working as a janitor, he tried moonlighting at a number of different jobs to earn extra money. Once he was hired as a limousine driver. He said he was able to pass the driver's test for his chauffeur's license, but could not fill out routine forms required by his employer. He lost the position. "Then one day, working as a janitor, I fixed a machine for my boss, and I guess he noticed my aptitude for problem solving and offered me another job," Tuzon said. "But the new position required a good deal of reading and writing." That is when Tuzon decided to confide in his boss, who admired his honesty and offered to send him to Devry Institute of Technology. First Tuzon needed to get his high school equivalency degree, which led him to make the initial call to Literacy Volunteers. Volunteers work in prisons During the last three years, LVMC has addressed the need for improved literacy skills in the workplace. The staff and volunteers have designed and delivered literacy programs to a wide variety of Valley businesses. Three years ago, the agency took its service to the Maricopa and Pima County prison systems. "There is a high correlation between incarceration and illiteracy," Decker said. "More than 80 percent of prison inmates have less than a high school education." Decker said the agency's students come from everywhere. "The motivation for most of our adult learners is job related," she added. She said the stereotyped adult illiterate is thought to be lazy, stupid and a minority, but that's just not true. LVMC's latest profile of adult learners indicates the average student is a white, full-time employee, between the ages of 25 and 44. For example, Larry Gans, a 39-year-old white male, recently came to LVMC to learn to write and spell. "My boss just made me supervisor and now I am required to give presentations," Gans said. LVMC's headquarters at 730 E. Highland Ave. is one of four Valley facilities the agency operates. It houses a library, meeting and training rooms for its volunteers and a computer lab for students. Tuzon and his wife, Mary, are two of more than 400 students each year who use the Learning Education And Reading Network (LEARN) Lab. There are 16 workstations in the lab that can be used by court-referred probationers, employer- sponsored programs and individual adult learners. "Mary has been coming with me to the lab every Monday and Wednesday afternoon for the last three years," Tuzon said as he smiled at his wife seated at the next workstation. He kicked her playfully under the computer table and joked, "She is mildly retarded, but that hasn't stopped her from learning here. She's become my inspiration." Heath, who was now standing between the two, laughed. She has also tutored Mary in reading, writing and typing. Mary said, "I love school, and I can learn things to show my mom and sister here. Lynn helped me learn how to type, so I could send my sister a letter. She was really proud of me when she got it." Mary and David said they feel fortunate that they and Heath live near LVMC's central office and computer lab. "We would still come here even if we lived on the other side of town because Lynn is such a special person," David said. Heath added, "I think David's kinda special, too. He didn't have the benefit of a good education, but I think he's a genius in certain areas. Both his desire and his coping skills are amazing." A lab for adult students The LEARN Lab was designed for adult students, and the computer programs can be tailored to individual needs. "We implemented a specialized program for David to help him pass the graduate test at Devry," said Decker. "The students like the lab because those adults who are embarrassed can say they are going to computer school rather than reading school." Heath, who has taught in the lab for five years, said the most important thing about the lab is there is no shame or fears. "Everyone is on common ground," she added. Heath said she became a tutor because she always wanted to be a teacher but didn't have the required degree. She has worked in the lab since she completed training. Last year LVMC trained more than 500 new volunteers during four training workshop sessions. Each workshop consists of 24 hours of intensive training in methods of teaching basic reading and English as a second language. Stephen Vance, a volunteer recruiter at the agency's Maryvale facility, said the demographics of the typical tutor have changed in the last five years. "The majority of our volunteers used to be elderly white women, but today the average tutor is the white, urban-working female with an undergraduate degree," he said. Shari L'Amour, a 30-year-old student at ASU and Scottsdale and Mesa community colleges, was a natural candidate for a training session last year when both SCC and MCC offered her credits to work as a volunteer at the LVMC. "I started college majoring in journalism but have since changed my focus to education," she said. L'Amour said the training she received at the agency helped her acquire a new job as a teaching assistant at a middle school in Tempe. After completing the training program, the tutors are matched with students based on proximity and personal schedules. Virginia Eastlake, a volunteer in the LVMC matching office, works five mornings a week matching tutors and students. "We always have a greater demand for tutors and try to procure volunteers from every sector possible," she said. "Recruiters make presentations at churches and business meetings. We invest in fliers placed in bookstores, booths at fairs and TV and print ads. Our television ads seem to work best." Valerie Wallace became an LVMC tutor six years ago after she saw a local student on the Oprah Winfrey Show. She said the talk show featured entrepreneurial females who have become millionaires. "One of Oprah's guests was Ann Valencia of Phoenix, who began her own maintenance company after learning to read and write at the age of 43," Wallace said. Wallace has worked individually with a series of students, including 31-year-old Julie Guy, who called LVMC two years ago seeking help. Guy, like Tuzon, slipped through the cracks of elementary school and dropped out of high school. She came to LVA at a third-grade reading level. A success story "My parents are from an Indian culture where educated women are looked down upon," Guy said. "My mom never went to school and she didn't want me to go, but the state forced her to send me. It was pretty hard to get motivated when your own parents are ashamed that you are going to school." When Guy had her own child, Tiffany, she decided things would be different. "I didn't want her to think I was stupid, and I wanted to be able to help her with her education, so I called Literacy Volunteers," she said. Wallace added, "Julie's a real success story. She has made this the most rewarding job possible." The highlight for Wallace came late one night, several months after she began one-on-one tutoring sessions with Guy. "The phone rang and it was Julie," Wallace said. "She was crying and I asked her what was wrong. She said, 'Thank you. You have made me the happiest mother alive. I just read Tiffany a book before she went to sleep.'"
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*By Lisa Eskey* At a spring training baseball game against the Colorado Rockies, Chicago Cubs center fielder Brian McRae caught a fly ball to end the first half of the seventh inning. At the same time sportscaster Harry Caray blandly announced to his WGN-TV audience, "The ball will be caught." He then calmly pulled out his earpiece and rose from his pressbox seat at Doug Patterson Field at HoHoKam Park in Mesa. More than 8,900 fans also stood up. They faced the press box, smiling as the 76-year-old man made his way to the public address system. "Sing it Harry!" one fan shouted as Caray picked up the microphone. "How about them Cubbies!" He shouted, his voice as excited as a child at his first game. "All right; a one, a two, a threeÑTake me out to the ball game." And the show was on. Caray's right hand formed a fist and pumped with the beginning of each verse as his other hand stretched the microphone into the crowd, encouraging the fans to sing along. "For it's 1, 2, 3 strikes your out, at the old ball game," the fans sang, their voices loud and their hands clapping. By the time the 53-year broadcast veteran returned to his seat, fans young and old had formed a line down one aisle of the bleachers, asking for his autograph. Security had to turn them away because play had already resumed on the field. One of the fans, an older gentleman, sighed as he was turned away. He returned to his seat, clutching his Harry Caray Budweiser poster and hanging his head. Caray made up for lost time at the end of his broadcast. He obliged as many fans as he could for the next 15 minutes, slowly and meticulously penning "Holy Cow! Harry Caray" on baseballs, bats, jerseys, programs and ticket stubs. Others brought posters, pictures or publicity photos from Caray's early years in broadcasting. It started in St. Louis Born Harry Christopher Carabina in St. Louis, Mo., Caray was raised by his aunt because both of his parents died before he was 8 years old. He grew up playing baseball because "in those days, there wasn't anything else. Baseball was the game." As a switch-hitter, he rotated between the second base and shortstop positions. He was offered a tuition scholarship to the University of Alabama, but had to decline it because he couldn't afford other expenses, such as books, room and board. "I used to play ball, and I was pretty good," he added, recalling when he played in the semipro league with the St. Louis Cardinals. He was paid $15 for playing on Saturdays, $20 if he played on Sundays. "Each year they would pick the best young talents and send them to tryout camp in Decatur (Ill.)," he said, adding that he lasted the first two days of a three-day trial. "After that, I got a job as a sales correspondent and went to a ballpark every chance I had, but my hopes of being a professional ballplayer were jolted when the Cardinals didn't sign me," he said. Caray, only 19 at the time, then sent a letter to Merle Jones, general manager of KMOX in St. Louis, telling him how good Caray could be as a broadcaster. "And I had never seen a microphone in my life," Caray confessed. "But something about my brashness intrigued him." Jones gave Caray a job broadcasting exhibition games on WCLS in Joliet, Ill. Caray also changed his name at the suggestion of his new station manager. At 25, Caray was broadcasting the Cardinals' games at Sportsman Park. During his 25 years there, he was named the Baseball Announcer of the Year for seven years in a row by "The Sporting News." He was unceremoniously fired by the Cardinals in 1969 , a move that caught Caray and Cardinals' fans by surprise. Caray said he didn't deny the rumors at that time. He moved to California and spent the 1970 season with the Oakland Athletics. He then returned to the Midwest and spent 11 years with the Chicago White Sox before moving to their cross-town rival, the Cubs, in 1982. In all of his years in broadcasting, Caray never missed a day of work, until Feb. 17, 1987, when he suffered a stroke. More than 15,000 letters, telegrams and cards poured into the hospital. "There was no way to answer those people personally, except to get back to work," he said. He added that although he missed the game during his illness, "I was worried about whether I was going to live or die. There are other things more important than baseball, like my family and my health. Let me remind you, baseball is just a game." Two months later, he overcame paralysis and speech difficulty to be back in the broadcast booth, missing only the first six weeks of the season. Since his stroke, Caray said he has learned the value of moderation and has cut back on his drinking, a difficult task because the teams he has worked for have been sponsored by Anheiser- Busch and Budweiser. He said he also lost 40 pounds by changing his eating habits. Time has slowed Caray. In 1994, he became light-headed and fell at Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami before a game. He had only minor injuries but has since limited his away-game broadcasts to only a few. In 1989, Caray was inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Later that same year, he was inducted into the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame. Caray's 50th year as a sportscaster in the major leagues was celebrated in 1994. He was awarded the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame award. He also sports a 50th anniversary gold and diamond ring from Budweiser on his right pinkie. Life's hectic in the booth Donned in their purple and black WGN windbreakers, Caray and co-anchor Steve Stone, who is smoking his pre-game cigar, prepared themselves for the Cubs-Rockies broadcast by reviewing pre-game statistics. When the game started, Caray rattled off statistics and provided the play-by-play, while Stone added the color commentary. The pair drew a lot of laughs from each other throughout the first three innings. "That might be out of here," Harry bellowed with excitement when right fielder Sammy Sosa hit a two-run homer to pull the Cubs within one run. Even early in the game, Caray was able to grab the attention of his fans by dramatically describing certain plays. Using strategically placed pauses, Caray announced with a hushed voice, "Bases loaded. Two strikes. Three balls. The pitch! "É And he walked him." "HOLY COW," Caray roared as Sosa hit another home run during the next inning. By the bottom of the third inning, the Cubs were six runs behind. Caray had lost his spark. Although still accurate, he was more formal. Fewer fan's names were said. There was less laughing. The next play retired the inning. Caray slowly moved out of his seat, finding another one nearby and became a spectator while Wayne Larivee took over broadcasting responsibilities for the next three innings. Caray returned for the seventh inning. Fans worldwide associate Caray with his seventh-inning rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." It's the only song he claims to know the words to. Caray said it all began when he mumbled the song to himself as it was played in-between innings at the ballparks. "Nobody heard me because I was in the booth and it was during a commercial," he recalled. One day, Bill Veeck, then-owner of the White Sox, noticed that the fans directly under the press box would sing along as Caray quietly amused himself. On opening day at Comiskey Park in 1976, Veeck hid a microphone in the booth. During the middle of the seventh inning, the organist began the tune. "I began to mumble like I always did and suddenly I hear my voice coming back at me over the PA system," Caray said. "When the game was over, I found Veeck and asked him, 'What the hell was that all about?'" He said Veeck replied that he had been looking for 40 years for a man to do that. "He told me no matter where a person was sitting in the ballpark, when he heard me singing, he knew he could sing better than me," Caray said. "He wanted to share the fun." Twenty years later, fans still wait for the moment when they can sing along with Caray. Cubs first baseman Mark Grace said he notices from the field how much the fans adore Caray. "He announces the game like a fan," he said. "When we're winning, he's on top of the world. When we're losing, he's dying along with us." When the Cubs aren't winning by the time Caray stands up to sing, he's been known to shout, "All right, let's get some runs!" Some days his plea works. Manager Jim Riggleman agreed that the energy Caray brings out of the fans occasionally transfers to the players on the field. "When we're losing, he'll say 'Let's get some runs!'" Riggleman said. "I like it when he does that." He added that his players are focused on what they need to do individually to stay in the game, and "it would probably be a stretch to say he has a direct effect." The players have varying opinions. Grace said that Caray has no effect on how well the Cubs play, but pitcher Jaime Navarro said although the players are familiar with his routine, Caray can sometimes energize the players. "He brings us a lot of luck," he said. His fans come first Caray has always worked for his fans and he has a profound appreciation for their long friendship. In the dedication of his 1989 book, "Holy Cow," Caray wrote, "Without them, nobody, including me, could have accomplished much at all. My greatest professional incentive has been to try to please them. "Chicago fans have proven they can support a team without winning." He's right. Wrigley Field, small for a ballpark, averages more than 31,000 fans a game. Almost two million fans watch from their homes across the country each year because the Cubs are broadcast over Chicago Superstation WGN, which, like the Cubs, is owned by the Tribune Co. "Fans are all wonderful people," Caray said. "They love to meet me and I love to meet them. It's been going on a long time." Caray attributed his longevity as being responsible for his popularity, saying, "Young people today have heard about me from their folks and then they grow up and tell their children about me. Generations have heard about me and know me. That certainly helps." Caray pleases his fans any way he can. At the Rockies game, the older gentleman returned, poster in hand, hoping for a chance to talk to Caray. He waited in line patiently with dozens of other fans during the few minutes in-between innings, and he was just a few people away from Caray when security informed everybody they needed to return to their seats as the next inning began. Although Caray can't be signing autographs when he's on the air, he does take the time to mention the Karens, Shirleys, Jays and as many other fans as he can. He even sang "Happy Birthday" to Gloria, which drew a laugh from Stone. "What do you expect, Frank Sinatra?" he replied as Stone laughed. Caray's broadcasts are animated and exhausting, as if each was the seventh game of a World Series. "Holy Cow" and "It might be É it could be É it IS a home run!" are only a couple of the coined expressions that Harry has used over the years to capture the excitement of a particular momentÑwhether it be a home run, a great catch or a spectacular throw. His "tell-it-like-it-is" style of broadcasting has united a stadium full of fans to cheer on the Cubs. "I put so much into a broadcast it looks like I've played the game," he said. In 1984, Caray developed an ulcer from his excitement when the Cubs won the National League East title. He was devastated when the team lost the pennant to the San Diego Padres. "I didn't feel all that sick after the playoff was over, but I guess I was," he wrote in his book. "I thought it was just the fast pace, the trauma of losing, the excitement of wanting to win for the fact that I was eating more, drinking more and sleeping less. But when I got back to Chicago from San Diego, I went in for a checkup and right into the hospital." "Entertaining and accurate" Caray said a person doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to understand and announce baseball. "Anybody can rattle off statistics," he said. "They give you all the statistics before the game starts. But to make it entertaining as well as keep it accurate it gets a little more difficult." He said he adds personality and style in his broadcasts because, "I don't think there's anything wrong with enjoying yourself at the ballpark." Pat Hues, a first-year Cubs broadcaster for WGN-radio, said it's heartwarming to see such a strong connection between Caray and the fans. "The fans see him as one of them," he said. "There's a real sincerity he has for the game. He genuinely loves baseball and in turn, baseball loves him. That's what you see in the fans' faces. It's just unbelievable." Stone has been broadcasting with Caray since 1983. Of the 194 games the Cubs will play this season, the pair will call 150 on WGN-TV. "He's been instrumental in my career the first few years, teaching me how to do the job," Stone said. "He's not your ordinary broadcaster. Nobody's had the impact that Harry's had on baseball. Our relationship has lasted over 14 years, that's longer than a lot of marriages. He's the best salesman the game of baseball has ever had." The pair also went into business together, opening restaurants in the Valley and Chicago. Caray opened Harry Caray's in Chicago in 1987. Caray also transformed his career into a family business, when he conned his 16-year-old son, Skip, into broadcasting. Caray said he talked with friend Bob Hyland, general manager at St. Louis' KMOX, and suggested a 15-minute show once a week devoted to covering high school sports. He added that Hyland loved the idea, but it took awhile to convince Skip to ask for the job. "I thought he might rebel like everybody else and become a part of another walk of life; he probably would have wound up as President of the United States," Carey said. Skip has been calling baseball games for the Braves in Atlanta for the past 20 years. Skip's son Chip is also a broadcaster, providing the play-by-play action for the Orlando Magic basketball team. He just signed with FOX to call Seattle Mariners' games for the next three years. Caray has four other children and several grandchildren. He spends the off season in Palm Springs, Calif., with his third wife, Dutchie. He said he has no plans for retirement and doesn't like to spend much time discussing the subject. "As long as the good Lord is willing I'll be working to having fun and make more money," he added. "Why would I get tired of this? Most people I know, right after they retire, they die." Back at the ballpark, the older gentleman returned. He easily snuck past the security guard, who's sitting on a step a few feet below, more interested in the game than his job. The man was in prime position for an autograph, waiting for the chance to talk to Caray, but the guard suddenly returned and ushered him away. Everyone's still waiting Caray, his fans and the owners are still waiting for the Cubs to win a pennant. It hasn't happened since 1945. He said the Cubs have a competitive team this year. "They will go just as long and as far as their pitching will take them," he said, adding that he thinks the team has questionable pitching. Everyone involved with the sport of baseball has trouble finding the right words to describe how important Caray has been to baseball and broadcasting. Cubs second baseman Ryne Sandberg said that Caray is a huge part of the Cubs organization. "It's awesome," he said. "He deserves the recognition. The fans adore him; he brings a lot to the game." Grace added that Caray is an icon to Cubs baseball. "A lot of people come to the games just to see him," he said. "Harry will always be near and dear to the Cubs and rightfully so." To end his broadcast, Carey yelled, "So long everybody." Fans crowded the booth, pleading for an autograph. Finally, Carey signed the older gentleman's poster, the last signature of the day. "Much obliged," he told Caray as a walked away from the press box, a wide grin imprinted on his face. "You're a good guy, Harry."
Five in-depth articles written by ASU journalism students are featured in today's edition of The Bulldog, which is published periodically by the Cronkite School of Journalism and Telecommunication and ASU's Student Publications. The Bulldog is an outlet for journalism students who always are looking for places to publish. The articles will range from feature stories to hard-hitting investigative articles. After all, we are The Bulldog. Today's newspaper was produced electronically by journalism students. Special thanks go to designer Laura Anderson, photographers Jim Poulin and Tim Hacker, and Vicki Carroll, who created The Electronic Bulldog. We hope you enjoy The Bulldog. Look for us again next semester.