The Questions Not Asked

The questions not asked.

A sore point for any journalist.

In the ideal world, I'd be completely prepared, having devoured every single piece of pertinent information about a baseball player that can be found, all the statistics, the trades, the mentions in books and articles, and of course, the trivia.

Almost every player did something that was somehow noteworthy. That's the beauty of the game, and of statistics. Practically everyone gave up someone's first or last home run or base hit, played with or for future Hall of Famers, or was involved in some notable trade or notable game.

Sometimes, players bring these little factoids up to me without prompting (and thankfully, especially if it is something I hadn't known about). But a grain of salt must be applied. Several times when someone has told me "I was the first" or "I was the only" it turns out not to be quite true.

In any case, the questions not asked still bug me. Like when I neglected to ask pitcher Dick Welteroth (who has since passed away) about his part in the game where the Senators gave up 17 walks in a game, including 11 in a single inning (he gave up 4 of those). Not critical, but still irksome.

With all the research I've done, I know a lot. And yet it is only a fraction of what is to be known, what can be known, about baseball's history. So I shouldn't feel too bad about forgetting to ask a question and instead think of all the unplanned questions or conversational tangents that yielded much richer fruits than any forgotten question could bring.

A good interview is NOT just a question and answer session. If both of us stayed exactly within the lines, it would be quite a boring interview. Conversation must occur, and that's when the subject opens up and goes beyond your questions.

Here's a little gem from former Tiger George Lerchen, about his manager Red Rolfe, who played for the Yankees in the 1930s:

His wording was: "Isn’t that the way we used to do it at the Yankees?" No matter what you did, hit a home run or double, he said "Yup, that’s the way we did it at the Yankees. Isn’t that right, Charlie Keller?" Keller was on our ballclub at Detroit. And he said "Isn’t that right Charlie?" So you know, what can I say, he was a Yankee man. He lived and died for the Yankees.