47.0°,
Mostly Cloudy Columnist heads homeLong Beach's Steve Jacobson can now return to being a fan
Posted
The Long Beach native and Lido Beach resident has spent the better part of his life hanging out where most people wish they could. Locker rooms after the game, press boxes during some of baseball's most storied moments, and Lake Placid for the Miracle on Ice in 1980 are just a few of the places Jacobson's skills have taken him since he joined the paper in 1960.
Jacobson chose to retire while still at the top of his game, instead of holding on like so many athletes do. "It's hard to see someone at the end of their career," he said. "It's time."
Jacobson developed his love of sports as a young man who joined every league and team he could find in Long Beach, usually finding one at the Long Beach Recreation Center. "We played ball all the time," he said. Asked about his athletic prowess, he smiled and said, "I was almost good enough."
Jacobson's flair with words earned him trips to stadiums across the country and around the world. He became a columnist in 1979, and he is a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America.
Jacobson learned early on what the key to writing a column was. "The first thing you do is look at your watch," he said. "Because every deadline is at night.
"And you learn not to be a fan," he added. "You root for the game to be over by deadline. Whether they win or lose is their problem."
Jacobson said there have been a number of times when the story he thought he had finished was rendered useless by a late-inning home run. "I've had to run up and down a few flights of stairs," he said. "I've had to write 800 words in 20 minutes."
Baseball has remained Jacobson's main source of material. "Baseball is the most decipherable of games," he said. "You know when a second baseman boots a ball. But you might not know in football who misses a block which leads to a sack which leads to a fumble."
His lifetime of roaming the clubhouses and pressboxes of major league stadiums has left him with memories most people only dream of. He has an autographed photo of Casey Stengel bouncing a baby on his lap and laughing. The baby is Jacobson's son Mathew, who's now an environmentalist.
The first World Series he attended had one of the most dramatic finishes in history. In 1960, Bill Mazeroski gave the Pittsburgh Pirates a world championship with a game-winning home run over the Yankees. "That was ... wow," Jacobson recalled.
In 1976, the Yankees were on the verge of signing free agent pitcher Catfish Hunter. On New Year's Eve, Jacobson and his wife, Anita, were having a party when the phone rang. "Wouldn't you know it, there were ducks on the barbecue when I got the call that Catfish signed," he said. "I had to go to the press conference on New Year's Eve. To this day, that particular kind of duck is known as Catfish Hunter duck."
"Mickey Mantle ruined our picnic," Anita said. Mantle, the Yankee legend, chose Jacobson's day off with his family to announce his retirement from baseball, pulling Jacobson back in for a press conference. "For a long time," he said, "our kids knew Mickey as the man who ruined the picnic."
Jacobson brought slugger Reggie Jackson to talk to the students at Long Beach High School in the late '70s. Jackson didn't know quite what suburban kids needed to hear, but quickly learned that Long Beach wasn't a typical Long Island town. "Reggie was startled at the mix of race, ethnicity and wealth," Jacobson said.
Jacobson credits the diversity of Long Beach, and the fact that it has its own government, as essential factors in the development of children in the city. "Diversity helps the kids," he said. "And it's got a political ferment that other towns don't have. It's more like real life."
Now that he's retired, Jacobson will have plenty of time to spend at home, something his wife, a chef instructor at a cooking school in Manhattan, is looking forward to. "I work part-time, but I might go full-time now," she laughed.
However, just because Jacobson is retiring from the daily newspaper game doesn't mean he won't be writing. He is currently developing a book about the struggles of African-American ballplayers in the 1950s and '60s. "People seem to think that it all ended after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier," he said. "But players like Henry Aaron went through a lot."
Through the years, Jacobson has learned that Keith Hernandez and Joe Torre are great interviews, that athletes and coaches will lie, and that the Mepham football sex-abuse scandal was the worst thing to happen in a long time.
He has learned that baseball is the easiest game to figure out but the worst to cover with a looming deadline. He has been everywhere from Sarajevo to Shea Stadium, and reported on World Series Game 7s, Gamblers Anonymous meetings and everything in between.
And even though he has learned over the years not to be a fan, sports still do to him what they can do to anyone. "You always get that excitement," he said. "And you root for the story."
Jacobson chose to retire while still at the top of his game, instead of holding on like so many athletes do. "It's hard to see someone at the end of their career," he said. "It's time."
Jacobson developed his love of sports as a young man who joined every league and team he could find in Long Beach, usually finding one at the Long Beach Recreation Center. "We played ball all the time," he said. Asked about his athletic prowess, he smiled and said, "I was almost good enough."
Jacobson's flair with words earned him trips to stadiums across the country and around the world. He became a columnist in 1979, and he is a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America.
Jacobson learned early on what the key to writing a column was. "The first thing you do is look at your watch," he said. "Because every deadline is at night.
"And you learn not to be a fan," he added. "You root for the game to be over by deadline. Whether they win or lose is their problem."
Jacobson said there have been a number of times when the story he thought he had finished was rendered useless by a late-inning home run. "I've had to run up and down a few flights of stairs," he said. "I've had to write 800 words in 20 minutes."
Baseball has remained Jacobson's main source of material. "Baseball is the most decipherable of games," he said. "You know when a second baseman boots a ball. But you might not know in football who misses a block which leads to a sack which leads to a fumble."
His lifetime of roaming the clubhouses and pressboxes of major league stadiums has left him with memories most people only dream of. He has an autographed photo of Casey Stengel bouncing a baby on his lap and laughing. The baby is Jacobson's son Mathew, who's now an environmentalist.
The first World Series he attended had one of the most dramatic finishes in history. In 1960, Bill Mazeroski gave the Pittsburgh Pirates a world championship with a game-winning home run over the Yankees. "That was ... wow," Jacobson recalled.
In 1976, the Yankees were on the verge of signing free agent pitcher Catfish Hunter. On New Year's Eve, Jacobson and his wife, Anita, were having a party when the phone rang. "Wouldn't you know it, there were ducks on the barbecue when I got the call that Catfish signed," he said. "I had to go to the press conference on New Year's Eve. To this day, that particular kind of duck is known as Catfish Hunter duck."
"Mickey Mantle ruined our picnic," Anita said. Mantle, the Yankee legend, chose Jacobson's day off with his family to announce his retirement from baseball, pulling Jacobson back in for a press conference. "For a long time," he said, "our kids knew Mickey as the man who ruined the picnic."
Jacobson brought slugger Reggie Jackson to talk to the students at Long Beach High School in the late '70s. Jackson didn't know quite what suburban kids needed to hear, but quickly learned that Long Beach wasn't a typical Long Island town. "Reggie was startled at the mix of race, ethnicity and wealth," Jacobson said.
Jacobson credits the diversity of Long Beach, and the fact that it has its own government, as essential factors in the development of children in the city. "Diversity helps the kids," he said. "And it's got a political ferment that other towns don't have. It's more like real life."
Now that he's retired, Jacobson will have plenty of time to spend at home, something his wife, a chef instructor at a cooking school in Manhattan, is looking forward to. "I work part-time, but I might go full-time now," she laughed.
However, just because Jacobson is retiring from the daily newspaper game doesn't mean he won't be writing. He is currently developing a book about the struggles of African-American ballplayers in the 1950s and '60s. "People seem to think that it all ended after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier," he said. "But players like Henry Aaron went through a lot."
Through the years, Jacobson has learned that Keith Hernandez and Joe Torre are great interviews, that athletes and coaches will lie, and that the Mepham football sex-abuse scandal was the worst thing to happen in a long time.
He has learned that baseball is the easiest game to figure out but the worst to cover with a looming deadline. He has been everywhere from Sarajevo to Shea Stadium, and reported on World Series Game 7s, Gamblers Anonymous meetings and everything in between.
And even though he has learned over the years not to be a fan, sports still do to him what they can do to anyone. "You always get that excitement," he said. "And you root for the story."
Report an inappropriate comment
Comments