For a fellow who so carefully protects his image, Derek Jeter might want to do more to protect his name. Not to mention his adoring fans.
Ads heard this week on the Yankees’ radio station, WCBS-AM, pitched “very unique” — as opposed to just unique — and “very limited edition” — as opposed to just the limited kind — Derek Jeter-signed World Series baseballs, “the exact same ball used in this past World Series.”
The phone number for the sales company, National Collectors Gallery, was three times given. Yet, conspicuously absent in the ads was the price of the balls.
Hmmm. In poker, parenting and parachuting, that’s known as “a tell.”
Three calls to the given number produced the same result: the stench of bait-and-pitch boiler room.
All three times, after quickly stating that I wanted to know the price of the Jeter ball, I immediately was asked for my name and phone number. All three times I replied that I only want to know the price of the ball. All three times I was told that all salesmen are busy, but one would call in five minutes — just leave my name and number.
Twice, after I asked if the fellow who answered if he could just holler over to one of those salesmen to get the price of the Jeter ball — to save all of us time — he answered, word for word, the same thing: “Our ad just ran [on the air], so the salesmen are very busy, right now. Just leave me your name and number.”
When I offered to hold on for those five minutes — or as long as it took for someone to tell me the price of the Jeter ball — I was told no, I must leave my phone number.
Once, I asked the fellow who answered if I could call him back in 5-10 minutes to learn the price of the Jeter ball. No, he replied, a salesperson must call me with that info.
From years of investigating suspicious sports-related sales methods, I have learned that once they have an in beyond your name — your phone number, address, e-mail — is when the relentless and often harassing sells generally begin. That’s when you officially become “a live one.”
In the meantime, National Collectors Gallery’s Web site showed the Jeter baseballs described in the WCBS ads as selling for $500. Their folks on the phone might have told me that, but they very likely knew that, a) for most, $500 means the end of the conversation, and, b) if they don’t have my phone number, the hard sell of anything and everything else can’t begin.
And the carrot on their stick is Derek Jeter.
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Recession? What recession? Unemployment? Where? The home cost of tomorrow’s Manny Pacquiao–Miguel Cotto pay-per-view is $55.
Not too many years ago, before greed demanded that boxing destroy itself as a mainstreamed sport, a championship welterweight fight such as this would have made a perfect fit for live premium cable, an HBO or Showtime. Now? The idea is to make the most, short-term, even if it means serving the least; the inspiration is to grab the dough while simultaneously and systematically reducing boxing’s fan base.
Oddly, though, while they steadily have diminished boxing’s popularity, boxing promoters still are called boxing promoters.
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Is there anything attached to Andre Agassi that doesn’t turn up bogus? Though CBS’s “60 Minutes”, during Sunday’s NFL telecasts, repeatedly promoted its interview with Agassi as, “his only interview,” he appeared later that night in an interview with ESPN. Turns out “his only interview” was the start of a busy week of interviews.
Fair play in sports has been replaced by selective indignation, age and race-based populism/commercialism and, of course, gutless pandering. Rush Limbaugh is unfit to own a piece of an NFL team due to his conservative politics, but the NFL Network is proud to promote its weekly appearances of vulgar, women-degrading rapper, convicted criminal and pornographer, Snoop Dogg? So adidas pulled its deal with Central Florida because Michael Jordan‘s kid insisted on wearing Nikes? Hey, I have been trying to tell you for 25 years who runs college sports (not to mention Jordan). Used to be they would buy the coaches, the Jim Valvanos, John Thompsons and Jerry Tarkanians. Now they buy the school, too.
The latest Sporting News has a remarkable thing on its front cover. It posed four basketball players — Kansas’s Sherron Collins, Michigan State’s Kalin Lucas, Kentucky’s Patrick Patterson and UNC’s Ed Davis — smiling, having fun. In recent years, the threatening scowl became the only commercially acceptable pose. . . . Today is Nov. 13, the day Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence.