March is Mostly Mets Reading Month: 'Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72' and real-life adventures with Hunter S. Thompson

I must have the early 1970s on the brain. After yesterday's look at the baseball world of 1973, we can step back a year and the wild world of Hunter S. Thompson.

“Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72” by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

Published in 1973

This was actually required reading for one of my college journalism classes. 

Hunter S. Thompson is the legendary Rolling Stone writer famous for “gonzo” journalism that blurred the lines between fact and exaggerated truth.  And I say blurred, because it appears much of what transpires in a Thompson story occurs through a haze of booze and drugs, all thoroughly documented by the author.

That’s because the main character in a Hunter S. Thompson story is usually Thompson, with the stories being a first-person account of his adventures on the campaign trail.

When Thompson is “on,” he’s incredibly insightful and biting, and no one escapes his pointed wit, especially his colleagues in the media. And when he’s not, he’s still very entertaining. There are parts of this book that are hysterical, difficult to read because of the laughing it provokes. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if Thompson takes his role too seriously, or not seriously at all.

“Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ‘72” is a collection of Rolling Stone stories from the presidential election between Richard Nixon and George McGovern, who Thompson describes as a good man who was over matched when the party establishment took over his campaign.

Among the things we learned is that Thompson had a running feud with straight-laced NBC News anchor John Chancellor.

There’s a scene from the GOP convention in Miami where Thompson is trying to infiltrate a group of young Nixon supporters as they are about to be ushered on to the convention floor for a celebration. All was going well until he spotted Chancellor in the broadcast booth above. Here’s an excerpt:

“They herded us out of the Ready Room and called a ragged kind of cadence while we double-timed it across the wet grass under the guava trees in the back of the hall and finally burst through a well-guarded access door held open for us by Secret Service men just as balloons were released from the ceiling. It was wonderful; I waved happily to the SS man as I raced past him with the herd and then onto the floor. The hall was so full of balloons that I couldn’t see anything at first, but then I spotted Chancellor up there in the booth and I let the bastard have it. First I held up my “GARBAGE MEN DEMANDS EQUAL TIME” sign at him. Then, when I was sure he’d noticed the sign, I tucked it under my arm and ripped off my hat, clutching it in the same fist I was shaking angrily at the NBC booth and screaming at the top of my lungs: ‘You evil scumsucker! You’re through! You limp-wristed Nazi moron!’

“I went deep into the foulest back-waters of my vocabulary for that trip, working myself into a flat-out screeching hate-frenzy for five or six minutes and drawing similes of approval from some of my fellow demonstrators. They were dutifully chanting the slogans that had been assigned to them in the Ready Room – but I was really into it, and I could see that my zeal impressed them.”

A true story? Who knows. But it’s a fun read, especially if you've ever covered one of these things.

Rich and I had the opportunity to see a Thompson appearance in New Haven, Conn. in the late 1980s. It was a surreal evening.

Thompson sat at a table on stage, wearing aviator sunglasses and a cheap, tan Yankees cap that had a visor decorated with ballpoint pen. A bottle of some kind of booze was there, too, and he kept refilling his glass. 

A local radio host sat at another table and served as the moderator, asking a number of political questions, and Thompson, sometimes mumbling, would reply. It was difficult to hear what he was saying, but it was clear he still didn’t like President Nixon.

At some point the moderator called for questions from the audience. After several political questions, an attractive – and I’m guessing rather drunk – girl asked Thompson if he could sign her shoe.

Thompson disappeared behind the curtain – much to the apparent shock of the moderator – and appeared a short while later with another chair and invited the girl to come sit with him at the table.

Questions resumed, with Thompson answering some questions and the girl answering others, especially after the questions were about her and Thompson’s intentions toward her. Any doubts about her sobriety were soon dashed.

This went on for a while before Thompson again got up and disappeared behind the curtain, apparently much to the surprise of the moderator, who, at this point, was barely controlling things. Thompson emerged a short time later with a large trash can, set it on one side of the stage, and proceeded to try to fling like a Frisbee his empty box of Canadian cigarettes. (Unlike American packs, smokes from up north are sold in boxes that are flatter and wider with stronger cardboard.) Thompson was pretty good at this, then started challenging audience members to come up on stage and do the same.

This, too, went on for a while before Thompson again abruptly disappeared behind the curtain, this time not returning.

“Well everyone, I guess that’s ‘Good night,” the bemused moderator said.

Looking back, I’m glad I went to see Thompson, because he’s a legend and the night was an unpredictable sideshow that always seemed about to careen out of control. But I probably wouldn’t have ever plunked down $11 to see him again. Perhaps what had once been a brilliant and sharp mind had become dulled. It was a night both fascinating and frightening.

The book, however, remains a good and very funny read.

Thompson certainly in't a role model as a journalist, though I absolutely know one who thinks he is the heir apparent. But he does show a different way of looking at things, especially the people we cover and how they cover them. 

Your reading list so far:

March 21: "Swinging '73" by Matthew Silverman
March 18: "Roadshow" by Neil Peart

March 17: "Destiny of the Republic" by Candice Millard
March 11: "Street Gang" by Michael Davis
March 10: "Topps Baseball Cards, the Complete Picture Collection"
March 9: "Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks" by Bob Wood
March 8: "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" by Edmund Morris

March 7: "The New York Mets" by Leonard Koppett
March 6: "Mary Lou" by Mary Lou Retton and Bela Karolyi

March 5: "Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century" by Marc Okkenon
March 4: "Clemente! The Enduring Legacy" by Kal Wagenheim 
March 3: "Mets by the Numbers" by Jon Springer and Matthew Silverman

March 2: "Faith and Fear in Flushing" by Greg W. Prince

Pop Shortell, Dave Winfield and Richard Nixon

Matthew "Pop" Shortell meets sluger Dave Winfield.

I cover schools, but every once in a while I get to work baseball into my job — and it creates memories of a lifetime.

I was working for the Bridgeport Post in Connecticut back in 1987, and a local man, Matthew "Pop" Shortell, was named "Sports Nut of the Year" by a nut company.

Shortell was one of those people you seem to only find in small town America. A lovable, large older man from blue-collar Ansonia, he seemed to be the referee at every high school football and basketball game, and was famous for yelling out the name of the pitcher and catcher at the start of every youth baseball game he umpired.

He also was famous for his devotion to the New York Yankees. And after hearing about the nut company’s promotion, the team invited Shortell to Yankee Stadium.

My colleague and buddy, Rich Nangle, was going to cover the event, and I was able to tag along, ostensibly as the photographer. Shortell is a nice guy and all, but we were thrilled because this was an opportunity to attend a game for free, run around the stadium with our press passes and sit up in the press box.

Before the game, the Yankees public relations manager led Shortell — with us in tow — to the corridor outside the Yankees clubhouse, which is off limits to anyone except the media and sick children.

The staffer ducked into the clubhouse, and walked out with star pitcher Ron Guidry, who came over, thrilled Shortell with some small talk and posed for a photo.

"Pop" Shortell meets Ron Guidry.

The staffer went back into the clubhouse and came back with reliever Dave Righetti, who, like the Gator, was very pleasant and Shortell was beside himself that these guys would take a couple minutes to meet him — not realizing that they probably do this kind of thing a couple times a week.
Dave Raghetti can't bare to watch.

The staffer said, "Hold on, let me see if I can get one more guy" and headed back into the clubhouse. This was already pretty impressive, since Raghetti and Guidry were two of the team's biggest stars. It took a couple minutes and we wondered what was happening.

The clubhouse door slammed open, startling everyone. We heard a booming voice. "WHERE IS SHORTELL? I WANT TO MEET POP SHORTELL RIGHT NOW!"

Future Hall-of-Famer Dave Winfield turned into the tunnel swinging a bat, and compared to Guidry, was HUGE. He walked up to the old guy, gave him a bear hug and told him how glad he was to meet him.

"Pop" was near tears, showed Winfield photos of his late wife and daughter — he had 11 kids — in his wallet and had the time of his life.

I was impressed. Winfield easily could have done what Rags and Gator did -- both of whom where friendly, respectful and polite -- and everyone still would have walked away very happy. Instead, he put on a major show for the guy and made him feel very special -- pretty much rewarding him for a lifetime of fandom.

Once that was over, we made our way up to the press box. Located behind home plate, the box has several rows of seats behind narrow desks with telephones and places for reporters to plug in their computers, which was pretty complicated at the time. There were staff members on hand to look up stats and other materials reporters might need and a guy walked through with a food cart occasionally.

Seemed like kind of a cushy gig. I covered schools and Rich covered city governments. No one ran to answer our questions or walked past with a snack cart.

We were enjoying being around the big New York sportswriters and tried now to look like we belonged there.

Yankee Stadium actually has two press boxes. One is for the established local reporters and media from out of town. The other, called the auxiliary box, is smaller and separated by the radio and television broadcast booths. It’s for the smaller media types and people who don’t normally cover games — like us.

Somehow, we were assigned seats in the main press box and were very happy to see the reporter from our competition, the Ansonia Sentinel, in the auxiliary box.

About halfway through the game, the Sentinel reporter came over and said "You guys are missing out. We’re having fun over there."

"Ah, no. We’re in the main box," I said. "Maybe we can get you a hot dog."

"We have Nixon sitting with us," he said.

We jumped out of our seats and walked quickly along the narrow hallway that ran behind the press boxes. Next to the auxiliary box there was a small section of seats separated from the press boxes by a thick glass wall — a VIP section for sure.

And sure enough, there sat the 37th President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon. I sat there in awe. We went to the main box, picked up our stuff and moved to where we could keep and eye on the president.

All this while, Rich was working on his story and it was time to dictate it to the editors in Bridgeport. He picked a phone in the last row and started talking while I leaned against the wall of the hallway. The glass wall between the VIP box and ours ended at the hallway, and there was only a velvet rope and guard to keep people out.

I noticed Nixon get out of his seat with an empty glass, walk up the aisle into a room, presumably to get it refreshed.

He appeared again shortly. We made eye contact and I held up my hand and gestured that I would like to shake his. Much to my great glee, the president walked my way, reached out and took my hand. I remember that he looked shorter and grayer than I imagined.

I was completely star struck. "Mr. President, it’s an honor to meet you."

"Great night for a ballgame, isn’t it," he responded.

Rich, who was about three feet away dictating, dropped the phone and joined us.

I had seen Ronald Reagan from a distance three years earlier, but this was the first time I had ever shaken the hand of a president. It lasted just a few moments, but I’ll never forget it.I don’t know who enjoyed the night more, Pop Shortell or me.