Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler tees off on the par-3 seventh hole at Pebble Beach as the winds blows off his hat during a weather break at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am on Feb. 15, 2009. The fourth and final round was rescheduled and then canceled due to heavy wind and rains.
Michael Macor/The Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle sports columnist Scott Ostler is at RingCentral Coliseum for the MLB game between the Oakland Athletics and the Texas Rangers in Oakland, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. 09, 2023. Ostler wore a “SELL” t-shirt to see how park officials would react.
Santiago Mejia/S.F. Chronicle
Sports columnist Scott Ostler works before Game 5 of the World Series before the San Francisco Giants play the Texas Rangers at Rangers Ballpark on Monday November 1, 2010 in Arlington, Texas.
Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
Scott Ostler made his way arround McCovey Cove in a row boat during a baseball game between the Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants in 2001.
Kurt Rogers/S.F. Chronicle
This being my last column for the Chronicle, I thought I’d open with how I was introduced to the world of sports.
One October afternoon, I dragged my weary bones home from first grade.
My mom greeted me at the door with a smile. I probably grunted charmingly and brushed past her to get to the TV. The Manhattan had not yet been invented, but I had my go-to wind-down: “Crusader Rabbit” cartoons.
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However: Perched in front of our tiny black-and-white TV was our neighbor, old Tom. He was intently watching … a baseball game? No sports event had ever been watched on that TV, except for pro wrestling, which was my dad’s jam.
Tom didn’t have his own TV, so mom invited him over to watch the World Series. I was crestfallen. But mom is 99 now, it’s time to forgive her. Maybe she knew more than I did about destiny.
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What flipped the switch, wiping out the damage done to my psyche by old Tom, and got me into sports? That’s a mystery.
Maybe it was my old man putting aside his dislike for sports and taking me to a minor-league baseball game at old Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. I ate all the food in the ballpark, dad and his pals drank all the beer, and the spectacle reeled me in like a scrawny tuna.
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However it happened, I became a sports fan, and eventually a so-called sportswriter. Had some fun. Made a living. Spent the last 32 years with the Chronicle.
This is last call. Set ’em up, Joe. A chance to sum it all up, present my closing arguments to the jury in a cascading waterfall of graceful prose. If only I had that tool. Instead, let’s go Jackson Pollock — throw stuff at the wall and call it art.
Early years: In a cruel way, sports supported my writing. I sucked at kickball, so I compensated by writing funny essays that teachers would read aloud to the class. That first laugh is a jolt of lightning.
Mrs. Sweeney, my eighth-grade teacher, had enough of the silliness. She told me to stop making every writing assignment funny. My non-confrontational mom hurried to school, told Mrs. Sweeney to back off, let me write what I wanted to write.
Life was funny, not my fault! Blame my dad. He read us the newspaper comics every Sunday, and forced us to watch every comedian that hit the TV screen, from Milton Berle to Ernie Kovacs to Sid Caesar.
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You kids out there seeking the key to success? Get Betty and Don to be your parents. Your scrawny butt will get nowhere without their encouragement and love. Then, marry Kathy. Voila, amigos, you have hit the trifecta.
I got into the newspaper biz early. Street-corner paper boy, age 13. I got 2½ cents per paper sold, plus all the bus fumes I could suck in. I read a lot of news.
First newspaper job out of college: sports editor, Lompoc Record. I learned a lot, but I just could not get along with my staff, and I was the only person on it.
Kids, go spend six years taking horse show and Little League results over the phone late every Sunday night, and you’ll never bitch about writing a World Series column in a cold press box on a tight deadline.
Oh, lord, stuck in Lompoc, six years (48 in Lompoc years). Then, my big break: My Lompoc boss sent me to Texas to write about the local baseball hero, playing for the Rangers. A road trip to the big leagues! This could be my ticket to bigger things. Waiting for my flight out of LAX, I lost my ticket.
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Life is mostly luck, isn’t it? A stranger found my plane ticket, I made it to Texas and got the story, it helped me move up. To Long Beach, then to the Los Angeles Times, just in time for the glory days of the Dodgers and Tommy Lasorda, who once told me, “Scotty, what you know about baseball would fit in a gnat’s ass.”
I got in on the Lakers’ Showtime era, as a beat writer covering the team in Magic Johnson’s rookie season. It was a rookie NBA writer’s gold mine.
It was less formal back then, more actual interaction with the athletes. At a celebration party for Lakers radio/TV announcer Chick Hearn, I found myself performing my own rap parody of “Walk This Way,” with backup singers Magic Johnson, Michael Cooper and Byron Scott.
Then I got promoted, life-wise, with a move from the Times to the Chronicle. The Bay Area, are you kidding? Trading smog for sea breezes? Look at that bridge!
Thanks for taking me and my family in, Karl the Fog. It’s been a ride, sometimes bumpy. I’ve been busted in Augusta, forcibly ejected from the old Boston Garden, physically assaulted by Sharon Stone, verbally assaulted by Rod Carew and others, knocked for a loop by a Willie Nelson doobie, and slammed into a muddy gutter on Bourbon Street and trampled by stampeding football fans.
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All in the service of art. Let it fly, my Chronicle editors have told me, for the most part. Artistic freedom rocks.
“Go cover the World Cup in Germany,” my editors said in ’06. “Maybe even write some soccer.” I rented an RV and burned up the Autobahn for two weeks, filing dispatches from my trusty Rodenhoggenblogginwagen.
At the Pebble Beach pro-am in 2009, a ferocious storm wiped out the Sunday round. To prove my thesis that these golfers were wimps, I borrowed a random seven-iron, sneaked onto the course and played infamous No. 7, the world’s toughest par-3. Hitting into sideways rain, I putted with that seven iron and carded par. Club drop.
You learn and grow. Maybe develop a knack for getting athletes to bare their souls. The day before Game 7 of the 2014 World Series, I cornered Madison Bumgarner. He had just volunteered to come out of the bullpen the next day, two days after pitching nine innings.
Me: “Madison, how’s the arm feel?”
Bumgarner: “Like an arm.”
Regrets? Why bother? OK, one. John Shea and I barged in on Pumpsie Green at his Oakland home one morning, unannounced. We heard he was ill, maybe dying, and simply wanted to pay our respects to a great pioneer. Pumpsie let us in and regaled us for hours with amazing stories. We offered to take him to a game, but he said he couldn’t leave the house. “I just want a Miller beer,” he sighed. Shea and I made plans to kidnap him and find a bar. But Pumpsie died a few months later, before we could get him that beer.
There have been so many interesting characters along the way. Tara VanDerveer told me, “All the great ones have a screw loose.” On roller-coasters or athletes, loose screws make it interesting. Wilt Chamberlain, Magic, Dusty Baker, Steve Young, Pablo Sandoval, Harry Edwards, Colin Kaepernick, Raymond Ridder, Kruk & Kuip, Jerry West, Draymond Green, Andre Agassi, Steve Kerr, Don Nelson, Stephen Curry, VanDerveer herself…
You make friends, you make enemies, sometimes both at once. Al Davis and I kind of got along, but he didn’t enjoy every column. In the Raiders’ locker room after a game, bent over his walker, Al snarled, “If I was 15 years younger, I’d kick your f—ing ass.”
I was flattered that Al had taken the time to do the math, although 10 probably would have done the trick. I’m not as badass as I look.
This is where I thank you. Yeah, you. As Mrs. Sweeney taught me, no writer has universal appeal. Shakespeare seconded that emotion: “Sell when you can: you are not for all markets.”
For the mini-mart of readers who bought my baloney, and maybe took the time to drop me a note, I vow to track you down, every last one of you, invite myself in, again, and drink a toast to your good taste.
(Find me at scottostler22@gmail.com)
A word about my fellow inkstained wretches. What a glorious band of characters and friends.
Intelligent, funny, warm, helpful — I was all those things to them. Kidding!
I love every last scruffy lout and loutess in this gypsy caravan. We had some fun, and we typed our asses off. This job ain’t as easy as we like to make it look.
For a long time, I assumed I was a pathetic outlier, because my job seemed hard, while my swashbuckling colleagues never broke a sweat. Then, in the press box one day, Bruce Jenkins — who writes as swiftly and gracefully as a porpoise swims — glared at his column and cried out in sincere disgust, “Awful!”
Trust me, kids, that blank computer screen will win every staring contest. Just remember the old columnist’s prayer: “Lord, grant me today’s idea, and forgive me for yesterday’s.”
Anyway, the journey continues. What will I do now? I’ve always wanted to try my hand at lollygagging. Maybe some gallivanting.
Apologies to you kids who hoped for a nugget or two of wisdom from this OG (Original Goofball). Here’s one: Wisdom is overrated. My own kids have all done well (or is it good?) in life without any wisdom from me.
You seek sage advice? There was a sign in the Oakland Coliseum press box snack area: “Please do not adjust the hot dog machine.”
Thanks for making it to the end with me, friends. And no hard feelings, Mrs. Sweeney.