writing | PR around the horn

(Last in a series of three)

“You are one of the reasons I went to journalism school.”

Bob Ryan’s face jerked up at me, away from the book he had been inscribing to me. He did a double-take and looked at me a bit wide-eyed. (I was kind of proud of myself to get that reaction because I imagine that this guy isn’t shocked by anything he hears from baseball fans yakking away at him.)

It was early afternoon on August 3, 2022, and we had just emerged from that day’s Author’s Series presentation at the Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum. Bob Ryan and Bill Chuck had discussed their new book, In Scoring Position, and I had been transported into my own personal Field of Dreams for the better part of an hour. The joy and giddiness I felt were both unexpected and inspiring. Everyone and everything else fell away as I listened to the stories, as Bob spoke directly to me, it seemed, and I hung on every word he and Bill shared.

We (my son Will, sister Nancy, and baseball bestie KK) had planned to get on the road from Cooperstown around noon, but the night before, my son Christopher, who was then an intern at the Hall of Fame, had told us who would be appearing at the Author’s Series. I was psyched! There was no way we’d be getting back in that car mid-day.

Growing up in Massachusetts, and in particular, as one of the seven children of Adam Wolkovich, I was born a Red Sox Fan, although the fandom didn’t completely invade my formerly rational being until the summer of 1975. With that came an occasional weeknight game on tv, omnipresent radio casts, and the daily reporting by a fantastic corps of writers working on the Boston Globe sports page. That’s when and why I began reading a daily newspaper.

Through the years, my favorites were Ray Fitzgerald, Bob Ryan, and Leigh Montville. Their writing exuded such life! Their columns flowed like rivers of thought and emotion that connected me to the beauty of writing through sports – the Celts, Sox, and Bruins, mainly. (I must admit that Ray Fitzgerald was a personal favorite. I can only imagine the poetic prose he would have written about the drama, frustration, and ultimate glory of the summer and fall of 2004, had he not left this world way too soon.)

As a high school basketball manager in Hudson, Mass., I would call the team’s game stats and scores into the Globe sports desk. There was one person, an intern, I presume, who often answered the phone and responded to my questions, including a play-by-play of whose desk was where from his vantage point at that very moment. (Apparently, I was fan-girling before that was a thing.) Wow! Bob Ryan. Leigh Montville. Ray Fitzgerald. And many more scrappy, talented sports scribes! I wanted to be there one day.

Eventually, no Sunday would move forward until I read Peter Gammons’ Baseball Notes page; it was pure gold, filled with the inside scoop, and intriguing bits and pieces that you just couldn’t get anywhere else pre-digital revolution. Eventually, as the Baseball Notes page was handed down to other reporters, I also began to read weekly insights “from the Bill Chuck files.” Delicious!

I wanted to write like that and, initially, to become a sportswriter myself. Off to college I went, studied journalism, and wrote for The Diamondback, the University of Maryland’s daily paper. (#Feartheturtle!) I never worked as a reporter or eventually as a columnist (but Scott Moore, my Diamondback editor, remains a dear friend and kindred baseball soul). I have, nonetheless, applied my interview and writing skills in other ways throughout my communications career.

I try to pull some creativity into the daily writing that has been part of almost every day of my career. My communications work has been incredibly rewarding at times, exciting, fun and challenging, and has brought me through the years.

But on August 3, 2022, that spark came back to me, and I realized how and where my passion for writing professionally was born. Thanks for the reminder, Bob Ryan, and for speaking only to me during that hour (and really, for our actual five-minute chat) in Cooperstown!

(First in a series of three)

Oui. Si. Da. You bet.

I’m looking you right in the proverbial eyes. As you read.

If I’m doing my best job as a writer for a fairly defined audience, yes, you should understand what I’m saying because I am talking to you!

My words, my message, should be as easy to understand as a signal my son Christopher’s baseball third base coach used to communicate to his players, “Run on the next pitch”: fingers from one hand dancing along his other forearm, not unlike graceful fingers tickling the ivories. (Was it more amusing that the opposing runners couldn’t steal this sign, or that his own players sometimes missed it?)

As a battle-tested communications pro whose base skill is writing, I always stick up for the little guy out there – the one who needs to understand the corporate/organizational message as simply as possible. And as for the outsized intellects out there, who need only can scan that same message to comprehend? You’re welcome.

Writing to the audience is an art form that I continue to practice, and hope that on most days I improve on yesterday’s skills. My writer’s soul can actually drip with excitement when I write about a subject that I believe deep in my heart can inspire, inform, elicit emotion, or maybe even effect change.

And that same soul can cringe when editing documents drier than toast sitting under the midday desert sun. Like insurance documents. Right now, it pays the bills – my bread and butter, I guess. Or croutons. So I try to scrounge up some passion by thinking about who ultimately will read these manuals, payment policies, and such – so that they can do their jobs sitting in some doctor’s office. I still try to put myself in these readers’ eyes and engage them.

It’s a professional passion, but I have to dig wide and deep to understand its origin. I’ve been working this gig for a long time in my career, and personally, for my own self-reflection and growth.

It’s not clear to me sometimes if I am achieving my writing objectives, and I hadn’t thought for a long time about how I got here. Until August 3, 2022.

That day, someone who once inspired me to become a writer did speak to me. Directly (despite the other humans seated in the small presentation room). And with his voice rather than just his written words. He WAS talkin’ to me, just like he’d talked to me through millions of words since I was an adolescent.

On that glorious day, I stepped into my personal Field of Dreams and knew how I got there.