BRIDGE: How I Came Not to Be

I wrote about Bobby Wolff's autobiography in the last post. I refer to meeting him for the second time while debuting as the Media Liaison for the American Contract Bridge League at its North American Bridge Championships, held in the spring of 1986.

How I got there was fairly amusing. It was all talk.

I was making a rare trip into Toronto to play at the Regal Bridge Studio on St. Clair. I had a sit out round and ended up yakking about the deplorable state of PR in bridge. I hated the European custom of having only first initials in names in results. Or even worse, calling women Mrs. Joe Suchandsuch. It implied her accomplishment was marrying Joe, not being good enough to be one-half of a placing pair. I wondered what my membership fees were being used for. Promotion wasn't it.

Two weeks later I got a call. Paul Cohen (Who?) was calling from Memphis, Tennessee to talk over some of my ideas for PR. Seems the Regal owner overhead my bellyaching, told a friend, who called his friend, the new Marketing Director of the ACBL, Paul Cohen. Ahhh, THAT who!

I wasn't yet 30, and neither was Cohen, although he did have the bloodlines in terms of both Bridge and in marketing. His relations were amongst the best players in the ACBL and Ralph was, at times, both the President AND the CEO. But Cohen wanted to transform the behemoth that was the aging ACBL. And he needed youngish confreres to pull it off. I was young enough. And anti-establishment enough. But I was already a 10-year media vet. Establishing that through an hour-long conversation, Paul offered me the PR gig, pending approval, over the phone. Two days later, I was leaving snowy Toronto, headed for semi-warm Memphis.

When I got there, I discovered the place was basically brown. Guess all the green grass was over in Kentucky. It was early, the warm weather was still weeks away. And not much was happening. At least it wasn't buried in 18 inches of snow, which I had just left. I stayed for two days, interrupted on the overnight stay by a fire alarm at my hotel. And I got a chance to meet the Memphis staff. I hit it off right away with Henry Francis and Sue Emery. These are two of the best people to walk the earth. Francis from up Boston way, and Emery from Texas. It amused Henry greatly that I failed to say 'Eh,' until just before I left. Until then, he wasn't sure I was an honest to goodness real Canadian. I got the job, with some proviso's.

I wanted to work out of Toronto. Done. Didn't want to dress up to do the work, but would wear ONLY ACBL T-Shirts and ballcaps. Done. Oh, and I wanted to be Media Liaison. I might want to return to honest journalism one day, and I couldn't have a PR job on my resume. Done. And the pay wasn't bad.

Eventually, it was time to be off to Portland. That meant flying. A second time. In less than a month. In every job, there is a downside. Being upside with no visible means of support, was that for me. Hated flying. My dad might be a licenced pilot, but I hated flying. Somehow or other, including visiting beautiful downtown Poccatello, Idaho, I ended up in Portland.

This is a wonderful city. And it's the most incredible city I've ever been in for a city its size. City blocks in Portland are like one building long. Walk 15 blocks in Montreal, and you'll have to take me the last third by ambulance. In Portland, five minutes tops. I really liked the city.

And I actually liked the people I was working with. Henry was there, but not Sue, if I remember correctly. The office was completed by Helen Horobetz, a gem of a lady from San Diego.

Eventually, Paul had to bring his new 'find' before the Board of Directors. Into a room filled with 25-35 largely-succcessful people, all of whom were at least 20 years older than I was. When I strolled in, it was evident by the looks of dismay that Paul's plan was not universally applauded. Looking back on it through the filter of time, I think I made 18 enemies that day, a little less than that in new friends, and pushed Paul close to being fired.

And I never convinced a single one who hated me on sight to change their minds. Not surprisingly, I never lost much sleep over it. I was, as advertised, an ex newspaperman and radio broadcaster who wanted to start getting the message out to the media that something big and fun was coming to town. And I did.

I talked a noted sports reporter into playing Bridge for the first time IN A NORTH AMERICAN CHAMPIONSHIP. And let the record show, Steve and I placed average. I got cameras into a Vanderbilt final for the first time. I'm not talking about ACBL cameras, I'm talking about local news photogs and cameramen. As an aside, it meant Ron Anderson hated my guts, but he was just added to the list. All in all, if Helen was telling the truth, we did as good a job at promoting and liaising with the local press as had been done in quite a few years. It's true she was too nice and might have lied, but I prefer to think she'd have kept quiet rather than lie.

Not all of the Board of Directors hated me on sight. I actually impressed a couple of them. One was the aforementioned Bobby Wolff. If nothing else we shared a love of NCAA basketball. We had another shared experience that I didn't know about at the time, but we both played a decent game of Table Tennis. He hustled bridge in college, I gamed people at the ping pong table, where unwitting foes would tangle with me whilst I played left-handed (fairly well). I would then bet them I could even beat them right-handed. Not much of a bet, since I am right-handed.

The other member of the ruling politburo that landed on my side was Tommy Sanders. He and Carol seemed quite impressed with me and openly talked about getting me over to China where they were playing a heat of the upcoming Epson World Pairs Championships to be held in The Great Hall in Beijing. I was much less enthused. Flying. Over Water. No French Fries for zillions of miles. This wasn't going to turn out well. And it didn't.

By the time I left Portland, I had dreams of doing this kind of work for a long time. The next event would be in Toronto. Couldn't screw that up. And after that, was the world championships in Bal Harbour, Florida. They filmed Superstars at the hotel. What could go wrong?

Jaime Ortiz-Patino.

After successes in Portland and Toronto, the heat was off Paul. I hadn't noticed the heat. Ignorance is bliss. And by Bal Harbour, I was a veteran at doing the job. Just a LITTLE too much ego at work.

Right off the bat, I ran into security issues. The year before, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, a fake camera crew had tried to infiltrate the event. At the top levels of Bridge, there is a higher than proportional percentage of Jewish players. The fear was that a run at the event, which would also include the first meaningful involvement by Mainland China, wouldn't exactly be good press. Ergo, LOTS of negotiation on press access to the playing area. After a series of concessions, I finally got the rules straightened out and left for an afternoon of computer shopping with Jean Besse, the venerable Swiss star.

Literally, as soon as I left the hotel, Ortiz-Patino ordered the media out of the playing area. The work I had done, the relationships I had created with the local press, were snipped off. I no longer could do my job. I quit. Although it actually took me a full day to escape the place, so I did the job for a day longer than I expected to.

Several people tried to talk me out of it. Paul, of course. Henry and Freddie Sheinwold actually asked me to say, then praised me for sticking to my guns. I'd learned how to play the game initially by reading Sheinwold's seminal Five Weeks to Winning Bridge. His support was appreciated. Charley McCracken and Mike Lawrence each took their turns trying to talk sense into me. Gotta admit, you could almost infer Lawrence was happier I was 'Sticking it to the man,' than somebody trying to talk me OUT of it should have been. Lawrence was the only player who had the time to get involved. The rest were playing. Sanders and Wolff, two allies from the first day in Portland, were occupied.

In the end, I did manage to get back the Great White North, pride intact. I was unemployed. But the pride, was there to support me. I did go back to the job again. And again. But even I got the message. I could like the people I worked with, but I wasn't going to like the people I worked for. And they didn't like me. So I said, I quit for the third and last time.

I wish it had been different. I loved the job. Loved most of the people I worked with. I even consented to fly, that's how happy I was. But I just couldn't kowtow to tinpot dictators and rich folks who looked down their nose at the way I dressed, ignoring how I performed. If I'd have bent a little, I could have possibly stayed on and eventually championed my pet ideas through the political maelstrom. On the other hand, I believe the ACBL has continued to suffer an idea vacuum in the post since Paul and I left. The organization would be better off had I stayed. I believe that.

Thus it came to be. Nobody lived happily ever after.