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In The News This Week April 25, 2008 |
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To The Rescue Researcher Will Explore Concerns About Fertilizer  By JIM KEVLIN COOPERSTOWN With concerns raised anew about fertilizers used to keep the Leatherstocking Golf Course green and weed free, the village trustees have turned to Dr. Ted Peters, whose decades-long efforts to protect Otsego Lake’s waters won him the OCCA’s 2006 Conservationist of the Year Award. The trustees asked Peters, a physician and Bassett Healthcare researcher since the 1950s, to examine concerns raised at their monthly meeting Monday, April 21, by activist Michael Whaling – he is also leading the charge to ban snowmobiles from the Village of Sharon Springs – Andy Mason of the Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society, and others. Peters – he is a charter member of the village’s Watershed Supervisory Committee, and a consultant to the village’s water and sewer commissioners – said Tuesday Mayor Carol B. Waller had not been too specific when she asked him to look into the new concerns, but he is willing to do what he can. At the meeting the night before, Mason presented the trustees with a list of pesticides and herbicides applied to the golf course, obtained from the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The two renewed concerns that chemicals from the golf course are contaminating – or might contaminate – the nearby lake, with Whaling saying non-chemical organic applications are the wave of the future. “The Otesaga” – the golf course is associated with the adjacent resort – “has the opportunity now to get ahead of this movement by announcing that, for 2008, the Leatherstocking Golf Course will be totally organic in its maintenance,” he said. “The Clark family has traditionally supported the preservation of Otsego Lake and the headwaters of the Susquehanna River. This adjustment would be consistent with that distinguished history.” The following afternoon at a press briefing in his office, Otesaga General Manager John Irvin said the hotel has traditionally been “a good steward of our environment,” and has sought to apply best practices in its maintenance of the golf course. LGC Director Dan Spooner said “everything we do is approved by the DEC.” And Bernie Banas, the greens’ superintendent, said he has attended the DEC-mandated training course every year for the past 15: “We are doing everything humanly possible to minimize the risk.” A greater risk, said Banas, comes from homeowners around the lake who, lacking his expertise, fertilize their lawns a lot more heavily. Irvin had also invited Peters to the briefing, and he reported testing Blackbird Bay and the intake to the village water plant, near Fairy Spring, in May 2001 – for a baseline – and again in August of that year. The tests found nothing, he said. The DEC has been requiring The Otesaga to test the lake water in April every three years. Whaling quoted DEC Pathologist Wade Stone as saying, “That’s a great time to test for pesticides if you don’t want to find any.” But Irvin said the DEC requires the tests to be done in April, and the golf course is simply following instructions. The day after the briefing, Whaling expressed “great respect” for Peters and said he’s glad the 2001 tests found nothing: “That’s good, because we need to stop using them before it’s too late and it’s in our drinking water.” Whaling said Stone has agreed to join him and Mason in a press conference in the near future to further dramatize their concerns.  Took Idelson To HoF’s Pinnacle  By JIM KEVLIN COOPERSTOWN In 1989, there were two PR assistant director jobs available in Major League Baseball, one with the Yankees, the other with the Orioles. Jeff Idelson applied for both, interviewed, and was told a guy from Detroit was first in line for each job and he was second. The guy took the Baltimore job, and Jeff joined New York shortly after New Year’s Day of 1999. A short time later he was at a party, as was George Steinbrenner. Jeff introduced himself. “Mr. Steinbrenner put his hands on my shoulders,” said Idelson, holding out both his hands, palms in, “and said, ‘You’re the young man from Detroit.’” No, explained the new hire, he was the young man from Boston. “I have three words of advice for you,” The Boss continued. “Rent, don’t buy.” Some welcome. Listening to Jeff Idelson – he was interviewed in the bleachers at Doubleday Field while a game was under way on the diamond below – you conclude he hasn’t gotten too many gifts in his 22 years in the business of baseball. Except perhaps from the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum board of directors, which Tuesday, April 15, appointed him president of the National Pastime’s Mecca. He’s thrilled to have the job, but he didn’t expect to get it on being named acting president after Dale Petroskey’s resignation three weeks before after a nine-year run. Idelson’s had a life-long love affair with the game but, as the bard has it, the course of true love doesn’t always run smooth. Every successful relationship takes a lot of hard work. And, Idelson might say, why shouldn’t it, particularly in heatedly competitive professional baseball? “I started as much on the bottom floor as you can get, maybe below the bottom floor,” he said. “But that always goes on in any field that’s incredibly competitive.” Jeff’s association with the game began well before it was a career. His dad, Beldon, a physician/teacher at Boston University Medical Center, was an avid Red Sox fan like his father before him. So was his mother, Roberta, a sociology researcher who, now retired, still has season tickets to Fenway Park, as she has for 22 years. Not just his parents, but his mother’s parents and father’s mother – they lived in the neighborhood as Jeff was growing up – plus his sister Sarah and brother Matt, were “huge Red Sox fans. “We talked about baseball all the time.” The young Jeff would sit with his grandfather, parked in the driveway during family picnics, listening to Red Sox games on the car radio. He would score as many games as he could, lying in bed, listening to broadcasts. From 1969 on, he attended every opening day at Fenway. Every June 22, his birthday, he could be found in the bleachers with his dad and three or four buddies. At 15, he began vending popcorn at the ballpark, and worked his way up to soda and hotdogs in the three years before he went off to Connecticut College in New London, Conn., a short Amtrak ride from Boston’s famed ballpark. His high school – Newton North – had 3,000 students in three grades, 50 percent more people than in all Cooperstown. So, on graduation, Jeff had sought out a small liberal arts college, and took full advantage of it. He deejayed for three years at the college radio station, interned at the public information office, and brought baseball to campus as a club sport. He shifted from English to international economics, spent a semester at the London School of Economics. But, on graduating, he followed his heart, besting 20 applicants to win a part-time PR internship with his beloved Red Sox’ organization – $125 per month – and launching three years of waiting on tables and eating macaroni and cheese as he sought to break into the business fulltime. After the first two years – he had been handling Red Sox broadcasts to 110 stations – he sold his car and moved home, but had set aside enough to spend six months in Colorado skiing as he tried to figure out what to do next. It was there, at a youth hostel in Breckenridge, that he met his future wife Erika, a Chicago native then studying at the University of Houston. They married five years later. (The couple has two children, Aaron, 12, and Nicole, 8.) “1988 was it,” Idelson said of his fledgling baseball career. “It was either going to work or it wasn’t.” And so the chance to go to New York was a career maker – and five years there created the executive you see today. George Steinbrenner lived up to his reputation. “He demanded perfection, which is impossible,” said Idelson. “But it puts you in the mindset of always doing the best you can every day.” Steinbrenner had contacts everywhere who would call him if they saw anything significant in their local papers. In those days before the Internet, that presented a challenge to a public relations department. Steinbrenner would get a tip and immediately call Jeff to make sure he was on top of the story. That caused Idelson to develop a network of his own, “to be out in front on things.” He remembers one such case with satisfaction. Steinbrenner and Mike Pagliarulo, a promising third baseman, had been feuding, and one day the ballplayer “popped off” to the Bergen Record. Idelson’s system worked, and he was tipped off early. When Steinbrenner called – Idelson knew why – he was able to jump in first, telling his boss, “You might want to check out the Bergen Record,” then outlining what he was doing in damage control. Smooth. Steinbrenner had had a lot of press, good and bad, by then, and Idelson thinks he didn’t much care about it one way or another. “What he was doing was teaching me a life lesson.” He recalled the sign on Steinbrenner’s desk – it’s still there, he discovered during a visit to New York a few months ago: “Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.” “It’s hard to fault a guy who wants to win,” said Idelson. “Nobody in baseball wants to win more than him.” After five grueling years, Idelson spent a transition year as assistant vice president and senior press officer for World Cup USA 1994, joining the Hall of Fame that fall as public relations director. In 1999, he was elevated to vice president of communications, with “and education” added later as the HoF programs for school kids grew to today, where 15 million students are served annually. By all accounts, he worked amicably with Petroskey and was often the public face of the Hall, whether fielding questions about steroids, or Curt Schilling’s bloody sock, or memorabilia from Barry Bonds’ record-breaking game, or the Hall of Fame Game cancellation. He’s been out of town about seven days a month, and estimates he’ll be away about the same amount now, only he’ll be dealing face to face with titans of the baseball business, instead of the baseball field. How will he handle it? Philosophically. “I believe you should control what you can control, and don’t dwell on what you can’t control,” he said. He pauses. Then there’s an echo of Steinbrenner: “Don’t get me wrong. A lot of what you do everyday you can control.” New Badger Park Playground COOPERSTOWN The Friends of the Parks has raised three-quarters of the $38,000 needed to create the village’s first public playground. With further donations anticipated and saving cost through volunteer labor, the Friends are planning to install the playground equipment June 6-7 at Badger Park behind the Great American, formerly Village Gardens. According to John Odell, a member of the Friends’ board, Kid City, behind Cooperstown Elementary School, is the only public playground, and pre-school children are barred from playing there most of the day. This playground, he said, will accommodate pre-schoolers at any time, and also has equipment to keep their older siblings occupied if mom or dad happens to bring them along. This is the first step in a Friends master plan, Odell said. The next phase? “Think Rink.” To contribute or volunteer, call Odell or Jessie Ravage, the Friends chairman. You Think,’ Winner Says Contestant Brings More Than $20,000 Home CHERRY VALLEY Now it can be told. Gabe Schechter of Cherry Valley, under a gag order for two months, is finally free to talk about the “great experience” after the two Jeopardy! episodes he competed in were aired Friday, April 18, and Monday, April 21. Schechter, a researcher at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, won $19,600 the first night and came in third the second night, receiving an additional consolation prize of $1,000. “It’s a lot faster and a lot tougher than it appears on television,” he said. That first night, Schechter’s friends and well-wishers at the Hall of Fame had a party for him at the Grandstand Theater – more than 100 people were there – and they all watched the competition together on the big screen. Gabe sat in the front row with his wife Linda and their grandson, Eric, 10, who was visiting from Mechanicsville. When their hero got one right, the crowd cheered. Arriving home, his neighbor congratulated him. The Doubleday Cafe tuned its TVs to Jeopardy! both nights. And he received calls of congratulations from hither and yon, including one from an elderly gent in Tennessee who he speaks to once a year on baseball related matters; it was aired there at 1:30 p.m. Friday afternoon, so he got a jump on the rest of Gabe’s fans. The episodes were taped in early March at the Sony Studio in Culver City, Calif. – the former MGM Studios. (It had been planned in February, but host Alex Trebek suffered a heart attack.) Schechter had taken the online test two years ago now. Passing that, he went to New York City for five hours of additional testing before finally being selected. Sure, knowledge has something to do with success on Jeopardy!, but it has more to do with the buzzer and timing. As Trebek is reading the question – or rather, Jeopardy! fans, the answer – it appears on a screen in front of the three contestants. The contestants read the answer-like question, and know whether they have the question-like answer or not by the time Alex finishes reading. “You’re doing a lot of things at the same time,” Schechter said. Two lights flash on either side of the screen where the question/answer is, and only then are the contestants’ buzzers activated. “The second game,” said Schechter, “I was just out of synch, just a split second slower than the others.” He even missed the baseball exchange: This team plays in Arlington, Texas. (Question-like answer: What are the Texas Rangers?) The games go by in a flash. At the first break the first evening, Gabe was surprised to find he was ahead. He didn’t think he had responded to enough of the question/answers. That was the case, he learned later, but the ones he answered were the $1,000 ones. “It was a great time, a lot of fun, a great experience,” he said, even though the period between the taping and the airing, when he couldn’t talk about it, was “dreamlike.” The Jeopardy! staff treats the contestants with great consideration, he said, and rather then dog-eat-dog, “the contestants form a fraternal bond. We were all in this together.” Motorists Into Bog HARTWICK SEMINARY The Tom Tom GPS system is erroneously directing drivers who use it into a Hartwick bog, according to Cooperstown Fire Chief Jim Tallman. Tallman’s department was called to stand by at the Hartwick fire station when a woman who had interviewed for a nursing job at Bassett Hospital followed Tom Tom’s directions west from Hartwick Seminary on Goey Pond Road, purportedly to reach Route 205. The road, however, is impassable at this time of year. 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