You Gotta Have Balls Page 3

  My mother was one of the first people to get gastric bypass surgery, in 1970. The operation caused a lot of complications; it was scary. She was in the hospital for about five months, and my brothers and I had no idea what was going on. Our Aunt Lee lived four miles away, with my mother's father, and she kept a bit of an eye on us. We took a bus to my grandfather's house for dinner many nights. My aunt meant well, but she was not the warmest person. She resented having to look after us, and we felt it.

  I know she had her own issues to deal with, but I've always had difficulty understanding why Aunt Lee didn't put on a sunnier face for us. If she had assumed her caretaker role with a little more generosity in her heart, it would have made a world of difference to my brothers and me. And the whole thing would have been easier—and maybe even gratifying and enjoyable—for her.

  If you do somebody a favor, why not do it in good faith, with a positive attitude? If she had been a bit kinder, I would have built Aunt Lee a statue by now. Instead of feeling ambivalent about her my whole life.

  It was a very troubling time, and at one point, my mother almost died. Her liver was on the brink of failure. All of a sudden we were rushed to the hospital, totally bewildered.

  Children under 12 weren't allowed in the intensive care unit, which was on one of the upper floors. But since the doctors thought my mom was likely to die, they lifted her out of bed, plopped her in a wheelchair, and took her to the lobby to say goodbye to us.

  I'll never forget how my mother looked at that moment, slumped in that chair, practically falling over the side. It was very sad. She was so depleted. I felt like I was looking at death.

  That night, there was a lot of tension back at my grandfather's place. I remember getting into a screaming fight with him and Aunt Lee, who worried that my brothers and me were about to be foisted on her, permanently.

  Somehow, my mother made a miraculous recovery. I still don't know how.

  “I was about to pass to the other side,” she liked to say to us. “But the thought of Aunt Lee raising you brought me back.”

  Despite the traumatic complications of the weight-loss surgery, a year later, my mother was set on losing still more weight, so she checked herself into an in-patient weight loss clinic at the hospital. She was away another few months. In a span of three years, my mother wasn't home for over a year. It was just my brothers and me, living in that little apartment with virtually no parental supervision, other than my mother calling sometimes. Even though Cary was the oldest, I basically took on the role of running the house—as much as anyone was running anything. I did most of the shopping, bill paying, cooking, and other essential chores. Many times I had to take my mother's checkbook to write out the rent check myself, then beg the landlord to hold it for a few days while we paid for some other necessities.

  I even made trips to the local Con Ed office when we were unable to pay our electric bill, to plead for an extension. I had to stand at a distance from the counter so I could angle my head to see the lady behind it. I begged her not to cut off our power.

  Having to take on so many responsibilities at a young age was amazing training—the kind that makes running a company feel almost easy. But those years caused profound problems for me, Cary, and Adam, because we had too much independence. We never had anyone looking over our shoulders to help us with our homework, make sure we stayed out of trouble, or show us how to do the right thing. Drugs and alcohol found both of my brothers too soon. But it was different for me. From a very young age, I learned to find more productive things to keep me busy through all of the family drama. That was how I first came to fall in love with sports—it offered an escape from my home life. On any given day, I did everything I could either to go to a game, watch a game, or play in a game. When my friends and I got too old to play in the schoolyard, many of them transferred that energy to girls, drugs, or alcohol. But I wasn't yet into any of that.

  Instead, I started going to the Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst every day after school. The JCH had a pool, a basketball court, and everything else you could think of. It also had a small tuition requirement that I couldn't afford, but my mom found a way to take care of that.

  The executive director of the JCH was a former Lincoln High School gym teacher named Milt Gold. Milt was a local legend of sorts, having served as a father figure to hundreds, if not thousands, of Brooklyn kids in his decades running the JCH. In addition to coaching, he took a real interest in improving the lives of young people, encouraging them in their hobbies and passions, and steering them away from dangerous or illicit behaviors. My mom went to him personally to implore him to spend some time with me. He took a real liking to me, and effectively gave me a scholarship to attend the JCH for free.

  I'd run there the minute school ended, and play ball right up to dinner. Sometimes I even went back there after I ate, and played until they had to kick me out and lock up for the night. For a couple of years, I was also a forward on the JCH's basketball club team. We played teams from other community centers from all over the tri-state area. Milt always made sure we had some of the nicest uniforms in Brooklyn. That might sound like a small thing, but to a kid like me, who could never afford nice clothes, putting on that jersey was like becoming someone else for an evening—someone deserving, and special, and cared for. I'll always be grateful to Milt for those particular memories of my adolescent years.

  When I wasn't at the JCH, I was spending time at my friends' houses, each of which had the advantage of a potential meal. I was usually starving. I could always count on Charlie Marcus's place to have a big home-cooked dinner, while David Badar always had money for Chinese food or pizza. There were a number of parents in the neighborhood that looked after my brothers and me when they had the time.

  I worked at making friends anywhere I could, with people from all different social circles and ethnic backgrounds. I was friends with the Italians, the Syrians, the Jewish kids; I was friends with the nerds and the jocks. I was able to get along with folks from all different walks of life; I needed to keep busy, and that meant being able to move between groups effortlessly.

  For a long time while we were growing up, my mother took in boarders—random people she knew who were passing through Brooklyn for one reason or another. She felt that she was accruing good karma hosting these transients. I welcomed the houseguests, because I felt there was so much I could learn from them. I would ask them endless questions about their lives, their jobs, the things they'd seen.

  That was one of the great things about Brooklyn. You had to have balls growing up there, but being part of such a diverse community of people—all trying to get by—also gave you a big heart. On a daily basis, I interacted with and relied upon so many different kinds of people that it was impossible not to develop a strong sense of empathy. Now, kids can go on the web and discover hundreds of lives unlike their own. In Brooklyn, we got that experience every time we got on the subway. It was priceless preparation for adult life, and for my business.

  Understanding different types of people—being able to channel their wants and needs—gives you an edge in business. Having a network of friends with very diverse personalities, from all different backgrounds, can lead to amazing opportunities that might not otherwise come up.

  Chapter 2

  The Secret of ‘What Else?’

  There are two things people from the old neighborhood say about me—they didn't know any kid as poor as I was, and they didn't know any kid who worked as hard as I did.

  After my tenure with Freddy the Fruit Man, I got a paper route delivering the Daily News on my bike—29 dailies and 37 Sunday papers.

  But I needed more. The News had a contest for the paperboys that ran every week; the kid who opened the most new accounts won a box of candy bars—24 bars! To a hungry kid like me, that sounded like a steak dinner at Peter Luger.

  But how would I open enough new accounts to guarantee victory?

  Every morning, I walked by some big apartment buildings
on my way to school. There had to be a hundred apartments in each building, dozens of new accounts for the taking.

  One morning I decided to enter one of the buildings, knock on a few doors, and gauge interest. At the first door, an elderly lady answered.

  “Would you like to buy the Daily News from me?” I asked. “I can deliver it every day.”

  “Why should I do that?” she countered. “I can go to the store every day, and it costs me the same eight cents. But if I have you deliver it, I have to tip you, too.”

  Getting the paper delivered didn't cost extra, but she was right—you were expected to tip the paperboy. The News paid me a small fee for delivering papers on the route, but most of my money came from tips.

  When I got home that day, I told the story to my mother.

  “Besides selling them a newspaper,” she asked, “What else could you do for these people?”

  The next morning, I knocked on the same lady's door.

  “Would you like to buy the Daily News from me?” I asked. “I can deliver it every day.”

  “Why should I do that?” she said again. “I can go to the store every day, and it costs me the same eight cents. If I have you deliver it, I have to tip you, too.”

  It was like déjà vu all over again. But this time I was ready.

  “Because if you get the paper delivered from me every day,” I said, “I'll bring you milk twice a week, and I'll bring you bagels on Sunday.”

  In those days, there weren't bagel stores all over the city, but I lived right by one. Having a source of bagels nearby was kind of a big deal.

  “Wow,” the lady said. “You would do that for me?”

  “Yeah, I'll bring you the bagels on Sunday,” I said. “And on Thursdays, when you pay me for the News, you can pay me for the bagels, too.”

  She signed up. One new account.

  I went around to the rest of the building, and neighboring buildings, hitting up everyone with that bagel rap. Before I knew it, I was delivering over a 100 dailies and over 150 Sunday papers. Of course, I was also delivering around a hundred gallons of milk every week and over a hundred bagels every Sunday.

  I'd wake up at 6 a.m. to do my route every morning during the week, and be finished by seven. On Sundays, I had to make two separate trips with a shopping cart to carry all the bagels and papers I had to deliver. The paper's sections came in different batches, and each paperboy had to collate them. Sometimes my mom would help me by waking up early and putting the Sunday paper together for me.

  Most people have to wait until after college to find a job they're passionate about. I was lucky to be passionate about that paper-bagel-milk route at such a young age.

  And I constantly won the candy bar contest. I was a dynasty!

  The kids who focused solely on signing new accounts didn't seem to fare as well as I did, a fact that supports one of my favorite maxims: If you want more business, don't pay attention to the money. Pay attention to the thing that makes the money. I concentrated on potential customers—on people—rather than on accounts. This sounds like semantics, but it's not. People eat bagels, accounts don't. But in turn, those happy customers signed new accounts.

  After a few weeks, the guy who ran the bagel factory started to notice me. How could he not? I was buying more bagels than anyone else. One day he pulled me aside.

  “How would you like to work for me in the mornings?” he asked.

  “I already have this paper route in the mornings,” I told him. “I don't have any spare time.”

  “You can work for me two days a week, 4:30 to 7:00, and you can deliver your papers a little bit later those mornings,” he explained. “You'll earn five extra hours of pay every week.”

  What the heck. I was a young, hungry kid. Besides—when else would I be able to do stuff like this?

  So one weekday and one weekend day, I woke up at four in the morning. And I learned how to bake bagels.

  A couple of months after I started, the night baker quit. The timing was perfect. I got the promotion to night baker after only a couple of months of that 4 a.m. chazerai. My new job paid me $1.50 an hour, which wasn't bad in those days. And the job was relatively easy. That was one of my first lessons in luck being the residue of hard work.

  My mother's words kept echoing in my head. “What else could you do for these people?”

  One night I came home from baking bagels, very excited.

  “I have a great idea, Mom,” I said. “I want to get a food truck, and every Saturday and Sunday, I want to load it up with bagels, cream cheese, lox, and donuts—everything people need for their Saturday and Sunday morning breakfast—and deliver all of it. The neighborhood folks won't have to schlep around to get breakfast. They can sleep in a little later, and I'll earn a little more money. We'll put a giant bagel on top of the truck, so people will remember it.”

  “Brandon, it's a really good idea,” she said. “But there's one problem. You're 15. You can't drive.”

  It hadn't even occurred to me before she said it. That's just not how my mind worked. It didn't register obstacles.

  Unfortunately, my mom's way of finding the What Else could occasionally push the boundaries of creativity and become predatory. Like many of my Jewish friends, I long looked forward to becoming a Bar Mitzvah when I turned 13, with the attendant ceremony at synagogue, and—more importantly—the reception. But while we were planning the party, which was going to take place at a hotel outside the city, I voiced my concern that we didn't have enough money to pay for it.

  “Brandon,” my mom said with a soft voice, “what do you think we're going to do with the money everyone will give you?”

  The next day at school, I made sure to stress to my friends how fond I was of three-dimensional gifts.

  My First Autograph

  This year is the 25th anniversary of Steiner Sports, and I think that if I had to sum up our business in one sentence—one thought—it would read: Steiner Sports is the number-one collector of autographs in the world. In some 26 years, we have bought and sold almost 20 million autographs—and set up over 35,000 athlete appearances.

  And tens of thousands of autographs later, I'm pleased to say I'll never forget the first autograph I ever acquired.

  It was 1969; I was 11 years old. One summer day I was hanging out on the street corner with three older boys, including Bobby Pertsas, who would later become Baseball Commissioner of New York City's Public School Athletic League (the PSAL), and my friend Henry Delgadio. We were debating whether the Yankees or Mets were the better team that year, a discussion that prompted someone to propose that we go to that day's Yankees game at the Stadium. Honored by the older kids' invitation to join them, I ran home to get my mother's permission—and financial backing.

  “Mom,” I squealed, “can I go with them? Please!”

  She must have sensed that this was a special opportunity for me, because my mother barely hesitated.

  “Here's five dollars,” she said, handing me one of the bills she had on her. “Have a good time. But bring me back the change.”

  The subway cost 15 cents each way. And after we got to the Stadium, after a quick trip to the ticket window, Bobby announced that he had landed a special deal for us.

  “You're not gonna believe this,” he said. “They just released some tickets. I got us seats right near the on-deck circle!”

  “How much are they?” I said.

  “Four bucks each,” he replied.

  That was a bit steep, but what choice did I have? We all handed over our money. I had already spent $4.30. And once we got in, of course I had to buy a hot dog and scorecard. Another 25 cents.

  When we got to our seats, the balance sheet in my mind was wiped away by the smell of the green grass, which seemed to be wafting up from right under my nose, and the vision of Yankee Joe Pepitone signing autographs only a few feet away.

  Eventually we got Pepitone to come over and sign our programs; at our beckoning, he even called Tom Tresh to come over
and sign for us as well.

  I had never before been that close to a Major League field, let alone Major League players, let alone Yankees, let alone had the pleasure of two of them signing my program before my very eyes.

  Needless to say, I was in a state of ecstasy the entire game. I have no idea what happened on the field the rest of the game—let alone to the remaining 70 cents I had on me. And I'm sure I didn't much care.

  But as soon as I walked in the door after I got back home that night, my mom's voice rang out.

  “Where's my change?” she said.

  Eyes beaming, I explained the magic of the afternoon. How priceless the experience was. Joe Pepitone! Tom Tresh! They signed for me. I had their autographs—two real live Yankees! But my mom was not impressed.

  “You spent four dollars on a baseball ticket?!” she said.

  She ran out of the house, down to the aforementioned street corner, where the older boys had resumed the day's earlier discussion.

  “Where's my change!” she screamed. “Where's my money! How dare you!”

  Of course I was petrified.

  Of course she got her money back.

  Four years later, I found out that when the Yankees traveled to play the Red Sox, they stayed at the Sheraton in Boston. Thanks to her travel agency connections, my mom was able to get a good rate at Sheraton hotels. I begged her to take me to Boston one weekend, when the Yankees were playing a series at Fenway. I was sure I'd meet some of my heroes if I could just spend a couple of nights in the same hotel as them.

  We drove up on a Thursday; we were going to explore Boston on Friday, go to the game Saturday afternoon, and drive back after the game. But as we were wrapping up our sightseeing Friday, I was able to talk my mom into letting me go to that night's game as well.

  I'll never forget the first time I walked into Fenway Park. It was unbelievable. I had managed to score an amazing ticket from a scalper outside the stadium; my seat was five rows behind the Yankees dugout. I was yelling to my favorite players throughout the entire game. It annoyed the hell out of the Sox fans around me, but I didn't care. I didn't think I'd ever be that close to my beloved team again, and I couldn't let the opportunity pass me by. I focused my attention on Thurman Munson, the great catcher and legendary Yankees captain.