Ten years later …

I don’t really have a lot to offer aside from two blog posts.

First up is a post of mine from MarketingSherpa this Friday. I interviewed a reputation management expert for a how-to consumer marketing article who worked the American Airlines account for a major PR firm that day. He provided an interesting insight into some of the behind the scenes aspects of 9/11.

From the link:

I spent 48 hours doing nothing but monitoring and taking in reports from different people. I didn’t go to bed. I didn’t go home. It was kind of funny because the next day after the first 48 hours was over, I actually had scheduled a meeting with the Interactive Marketing team at AA.com.

I went to that meeting and I hadn’t gone to sleep. They insisted on having the meeting, not because they really wanted to have the meeting, but they knew that I was also in the Corporate Communications side, and that I knew what was going on.

The second is a post on the personal blog from a Sherpa colleague of mine, Brad Bortone, was a NYC resident on that morning. His post covers the first Mets home game after the attacks.

From the link:

For all the good that a night of baseball seemed to be doing, it was clear that the outside world wasn’t going away, no matter how much we wanted it to do just that. Then Mike Piazza stepped up once last time.

In the eighth inning, with the Mets down 2-1, and fan enthusiasm rapidly waning, Piazza hit a defining shot of his career. A fastball by Steve Karsay, left right in Piazza’s wheelhouse, promptly found its way over the center field fence, giving the Mets a 3-2 lead which would hold up till the end.

Piazza tried his damnedest to maintain composure as he rounded the bases, but the fans weren’t as controlled. Despite the thinning attendance, the cheers were as loud as any I’ve experienced in my 31 years. It was as if 41,000 people, after two weeks of holding their breath, finally allowed themselves to exhale.

Ken Griffey Jr. retired tonight

Ending a great 22-year career as an excellent slugger for years. It’s a bit odd in a way, but how his career gradually wound down with no unexpected huge homer years or shocking bulking up makes him a prime (and maybe one of the only) examples of an almost certain non-juicer in the performance enhancing drugs era.

Ichiro ejected …

… for the first time in his career — US or Japanese.

Bud Selig is an idiot …

… if he thinks the steroid era isn’t going to be the sum total of his legacy as head of Major League Baseball.

From the link:

In the volatile wake of Alex Rodriguez‘s admission that he used performance-enhancing substances earlier this decade, Bud Selig remains bothered by the suggestion that he is to blame for Major League Baseball’s steroids era.

“I don’t want to hear the commissioner turned a blind eye to this or he didn’t care about it,” Selig told Newsday in a Monday phone interview. “That annoys the you-know-what out of me. You bet I’m sensitive to the criticism.

“The reason I’m so frustrated is, if you look at our whole body of work, I think we’ve come farther than anyone ever dreamed possible,” he said, adding, “I honestly don’t know how anyone could have done more than we’ve already done.”

Roger Clemens exposed?

Is future MLB Hall of Famer (well, maybe depending how all this goes) Roger Clemens about to be exposed as a user of steroids and other substances? He’s already been deposed for an upcoming grilling in Washington and he’s said he never used substances now banned by professional baseball.

The pitcher is scheduled to testify before Congress next week. If his ex-trainer has the goods on him with this evidence that testimony should become a lot more interesting.