"This interview is over!"
Amid myriad variables, choosing what goes into a story is a never-ending series of judgment calls for a journalist. Fritz Peterson's recent death sparks memories of how I navigated the issue with him.
The quest to tell an engaging story, to ferret out original details, to expose wrongs and foster justice—these are among the journalistic qualities that are forever steeped in my DNA.
So, when word of former Major League Baseball pitcher Fritz Peterson’s death emerged last week, it sparked a pair of long-ago memories1 when I faced a decision: Would I print a detail that a source very much did not want me to publish?
In one situation—with Peterson—I accommodated the request. In the other (which I’ll save for another column), I did not.
Why the different treatment?
Because journalism isn’t painting by numbers—there are countless varieties of circumstances, with some scenarios quite clearcut and others that reside in a gray area. Each situation needs to be evaluated on its own merits. Journalists can disagree in some instances and be in synch in others—it’s part of what makes the profession so challenging, energizing and, yes, controversial.
Simply stated, when a source asks you to leave something out of a story—whether it’s something they said, a part of their background or some other detail—there are times to stand your ground and there are times to stand down.
With Peterson, I stood down. To this day, I stand by my decision.
To set the scene: it’s Fall 1995 and my newspaper is preparing a series of stories on the first anniversary of the Grand Victoria Casino in Elgin, a wildly successful riverboat gambling mecca that’s just down the hill from our office.
I get a tip that one of the blackjack dealers is Peterson, a former New York Yankee pitcher who grew up in the northwest suburbs, played ball at Northern Illinois University and had settled down in the area.
I get Fritz’s phone number and arrange to sit down with him. He has no idea I’m a baseball nut. He has no idea I’m very much aware of this extraordinary story from over 20 years earlier: He and a fellow left-handed pitcher, Mike Kekich, had fallen in love with each other’s wives and, essentially, “swapped wives,” as it was portrayed in the media circus of 1973.
After greeting me cordially in a casino lobby, Fritz takes a seat across from me. Less than a minute later, I refer to the “wife swap” chapter—I was 27 and less nuanced back then, so it’s quite possible I even used those indelicate words.
Fritz practically jumps out of his chair.
“If you plan to write about that,” he says, his voice rising, “then this interview is over!”
In that moment, my decision crystallizes: this story isn’t about that part of his life, anyhow, and my focus is on his experience working at the casino. “C’mon, Fritz,” I think to myself, “I was just making small talk.”
Faced with a choice between no interview / no story and an interview with a story that includes this one “off limits” request, it’s an easy decision. I promise Fritz that I won’t mention it in the feature and we embark on our conversation.
The next week, the story appears; it’s still on newsstands when I catch a glimpse of Fritz as he shuffles out of the newspaper office—he’s just a left a note at the front desk thanking me for keeping my word.
Although Fritz says “no” to mentioning the “wife swap” saga in this story, I don’t give up on the idea of writing a story in the future that focuses on it. Despite all the initial media titillation, his marriage to Susanne thrives. Over the next couple of years, as their marriage nears the 25-year mark, I stay in touch with Fritz’s younger stepdaughter, Reagan.
Only 2 at the time of the family swap, she tells me that she regards Fritz as her dad and gushes about her folks’ marriage as a classic love story. Through Reagan, I try to convince Fritz to let me write about this happily-ever-after tale.
No such luck, however. After we wrapped up our conversation in the casino, our interview really was over.2
Both of these situations occurred in 1995, midway through my eight-year stretch as a reporter for The Courier News, a daily newspaper 40 miles northwest of Chicago.
In the end, Fritz becomes a writer himself—he is the author of several books, including Mickey Mantle is Going to Heaven and When the Yankees Were on the Fritz: Revisiting the Horace Clarke Era.
As you say, definitely a grey area, like most things, but if Peterson didn't make that a condition for continuing the interview, I would have advocated for a mention of the "wife swapping" at SOME point in the story -- a mere mention. That is what he was known for, after all. It's just IDing him. It's the journalistic presentation. But if, according to your read, the thing had been belabored and you wanted to make a statement that at some point, it must be allowed to let go, however, then I would support "no mention."
I would have totally supported the other article about the wife swapping and how it counterintuitively worked out, how it ultimately largely worked for him and his family, by the way. I actually am aware of one couple from private life who did the same thing, with similar success. (I do thing you would struggle to do a "study," getting together dozens of couples and seeing how they did, but who knows. And an initiative to recruit volunteers to do this, another possibility, although not for a quick journalistic article, seems to exceed even the moral tolerance for reality television.)
We talk about the item that will be in the first line of one's obituary, and that is indeed what transpired with the NYTimes obit of Peterson. And there, there IS a right and a wrong, I would say, and they got it right. No one would question that that is the most famous thing about him. The interesting question is when and how often does your obit item need to be mentioned in every story about you.
Audience, audience, audience is the name of the game, and what we always keep in front of us. The audience for the obit takes a wider view. Presumably, many people are reading that story who don't know who Peterson was. A 1975 report of some random game Peterson pitched has an audience who already knows it. Plus, I guess, just the whole task of that story is limited and just has to do with things relevant to that game.
My first link to Peterson was Jim Bouton, so I was interested, first, to see that Peterson swapped AFTER Ball Four had come out, and second to get some of the story of their relationship from the NYTimes obit. I read "Ball Four" when I was about 18, but it didn't make a big impression on me. My vague memory now is that he had come across as a guy who might do what he later did. I also vaguely thought it was a fond portrayal. So, as Peterson evidenly thought Bouton had crossed a line with "Ball Four," maybe Peterson was consistent in his sensitivity.
Wow. $80K in his pitching prime! Today a guy of his caliber - a starter and 20 game winner, even if not a "star" - would be pulling down a minimum of $4M to $5M per yr..Probably much more in fact. Even accounting for inflation that way more than his $80K in the 70s. Sports really are out of control.