The passing of Rocky Colavito last month was the impetus for this one.
The majority of people with whom I have these Conversations are your standard interview fare. By that I mean I only know them because of their work. In this case, I can honestly say the subject is a good friend.
When I became a writer for the New Jersey Jewish News, I was a fish out of water. Appearances notwithstanding, I am an introvert and the idea that I had to come up with story ideas and, even worse, talk to people, was terrifying. So I was jealous of anyone who seem to do it with apparent ease. Someone like Scott Raab.
I had been an admirer of Raab’s work — mostly in the pages of Esquire Magazine — for a long time. His combination of observation and wit was extremely entertaining. He has interviewed movie stars, politicians, athletes, et al, from Taylor Swift to Ted Williams to, yes, Donald Trump.
It turned out Raab lived in the next town over from me. Being a tremendously shy person, I can’t remember how I got the gumption to contact him. Maybe it was after I discovered he was a member of my synagogue. But reach out I did and we met for coffee at a local establishment. That became a regular thing for several years until he moved to the West Coast.
This Conversation was a bit unusual in that Raab has not written a book or done a movie or composed a song about baseball, though he has written numerous articles about the game. His love and knowledge of the national pastime — he grew up in Cleveland was was a huge Indians fan, hence the reference to Colavito — qualified him for inclusion here. Among his baseball pieces in Esquire:
- “Mr. December,” a profile of Alex Rodriguez (2001)
- A “What I’ve Learned” with Ted Williams (1999)
- A Q&A with troubled slugger Josh Hamilton (2009)
- A Q&A with Chief Wahoo, the embattled former mascot of the Cleveland franchise (2013)
He did publish two books about basketball — The Whore of Akron: One Man’s Search for the Soul of LeBron James in 2011 and You’re Welcome, Cleveland: How I Helped Lebron James Win a Championship and Save a City in 2017. (On a more serious note, he also released Once More to the Sky: The Rebuilding of the World Trade Centerin 2021.) He also appeared as a talking head in The Captain, the ESPN documentary series about Derek Jeter. So close enough for jazz. Blog mea, praecepta mea.
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