The Hardcore Diaries (19 page)

May 21, 2006
5:00 aboard Delta Flight #1823 from
NYC to Las Vegas

Dear Hardcore Diary,

Okay, I lied. I wrote “aboard Delta Flight #1823” before finding out my flight is to be delayed another two hours. So I’m back in the airport lounge, where I have changed my writing spot, so as to better watch, or at least occasionally glance at, the final game of the Pistons/Cavaliers series. I know I am clearly sending a signal that this particular “hardcore entry” doesn’t deserve my undivided attention, but this has been a roller-coaster series, and I do want to see who wins it.

I like to catch a few pro sports games every year just to regain some respect in the eyes of my oldest son. Most fathers will never have to face the day in which they come home to find that their son’s room looks different, mainly due to the fact that all of the Dad posters are down, replaced by Sammy Sosa and Shaq. Even though Dewey has grown up watching people make a big deal out of me, it’s only when he sees people who are a big deal to him making a big deal out of me that he seems impressed by it all.

So when he sees football great Tiki Barber (who I’ve known for five years through MDA) give me a hug, it’s a big deal to me. When he sees Allen Iverson come up to me and say, “You’re crazy, man,” it’s a big deal to me. And when he finds out Christy Canyon called, inviting me onto her radio show, it’s a big deal to…oh, wait a second, he doesn’t know about that one.

I think my favorite father/son bonding moment occurred three years ago at Yankee Stadium on opening day, in early April of 2003. This was during my WWE estrangement, and as a result, I’d been on television very little. I still did personal appearances and volunteer work, but in Dewey’s eyes, out of televised sight, out of mind, which meant the hardcore legend had been reduced to ordinary dad. My daughter Noelle used to get on my case, wondering if I could become an anesthesiologist, like her friend’s dad, so that we could live in a big house like they did.

Well, on this cold April day, with the evidence of a late-season snowfall piled up on busy Bronx streets, I waited in frustration for my buddy, Phil Castinetti, to meet me at the stadium’s giant “bat” landmark with my tickets.

I’d been standing out there a while, attracting more attention than I wanted, when Phil reached me on my cell, complaining of traffic, warning me that it might be a while before he got there. He told me to explain my situation at the Yankee ticket office, in the hopes I could find refuge from the storm of fans around me.

With Dewey and football great Tiki Barber.

Courtesy of the Foley family.

I sat down on a bench next to a woman at the will-call desk and managed to get a look at the guest list, which included names such as: Whitey Ford, Rudy Giuliani, Billy Crystal, and former secretary of state Henry Kissinger. I also saw members of the Mantle and Maris family as they made their way to the stadium.

Then I heard Dewey’s voice in a hushed, reverent tone. “Dad, it’s George Steinbrenner.” I turned to see the Yankee boss, no more than ten feet from me, his eyes focused on the elevator doors in front of him, so as not to greet the gawks of geeks like me.

“Should I say hello?” I asked

“If you want to,” Dewey said.

“Mr. Steinbrenner.”

Nothing.

“Excuse me, Mr. Steinbrenner.”

Not a thing. Not a peep. Not even the slightest sign of interest. If there had been nineteen thousand more like him, it would have resembled a Garden crowd during a Test match.

I had a single ace up my sleeve. One last chance before admitting defeat, acknowledging to my son that I was just a normal dad, albeit one with his own action figure and a distinctive missing ear.

“George, it’s me, Mick Foley.”

With that, the Yankee boss, one of the most famous names in sports, wheeled around, his eyes sparkling, his mouth open in a joyous smile. Dewey’s mouth was wide open as well, but I believe it was due to shock, not joy. How did his plain old ordinary dad know George Steinbrenner?

The answer was simple: I had previously had a top-secret meeting with Mr. Steinbrenner at the 2002 “Old Timers Day.” I guess someone had pointed me out in the crowd, and as a longtime wrestling fan (he even wrote the foreword to Dusty Rhodes’s autobiography), George had summoned me to the office. But Dewey didn’t know that—as I mentioned, the meeting was top-secret.

All he knew was that the Yankee boss patted him on the back, chatted amiably, and signed a baseball before heading back to the business of berating, intimidating, and firing employees—just kidding. Actually, a friend of mine, Stanley Kay, a longtime Yankee front-office man, shared a story with me that showed Mr. Steinbrenner in a different light.

“I’ll tell you,” Stanley said. “When I was sick, Mr. Steinbrenner took care of everything. Everything. I can’t say enough nice things about that man…so he yells a little.”

Well, it looks bad for the Cavaliers in this one. Down by fourteen, three minutes left. Rasheed Wallace had guaranteed a Pistons sweep, and was on the verge of eating some serious wordage when the Cavs took three in a row. But now it looks like Rasheed’s prediction is safe.

I met Rasheed in Portland, and procured a quick autograph as the Trailblazers star forward was making his way to ringside for a front-row viewing of
Raw
. While taking in the WWE action, Rasheed received a call on his cell, letting him know he’d been traded to Detroit. So, it is quite possible that I have in my possession the last official Rasheed Wallace Portland Trailblazers autograph.

I visited John Grill in the hospital a few days ago. John is the young man who was paralyzed during his first-ever pro wrestling match a short while ago. I was very apprehensive about the visit. Usually, when I visit someone, I can always count on a mutual love of wrestling to guide me through the experience. In this case, due to the circumstances surrounding John’s injury, I feared that wrestling itself would have been seen as the culprit. So I showed up at the hospital, armed with a new
WrestleMania
DVD and very little confidence, for a visit that really should have taken place a month or so earlier.

To my relief, the visit was a pleasure. John’s attitude was great, and he had far more use of his arms than I had previously believed. His mother didn’t seem to blame either me or wrestling, although no one seemed thrilled by the referee’s decision to push the seriously injured wrestler out of the ring instead of simply calling for the bell and stopping the match immediately.

But I do remember when I was much younger, and had the heartfelt belief that every match was of utmost importance. Poka, West Virginia, in front of twenty-six fans? It might as well have been
WrestleMania
. Every match was that way. John kept talking about his next match, challenging me and Raven to take on him and his partner. “Okay,” I said. “But Raven’s taking all the bumps.” It’s the least he can do for corrupting my poor mind.

As I was leaving, I spoke to a few nurses, who remembered my last visit to the hospital, about two years earlier. They remembered that I had not been alone that day; I had arrived with a special guest, whom I will speak about in a few minutes.

As I stepped out of the elevator, I was greeted by a face from my past—my first girlfriend, Katie McDevitt, who had sworn long ago that she was going to marry me. What’s a guy supposed to do in this type of situation? Should I ignore the past we shared, just pretend it didn’t exist? Or did I take the right course by inviting her to sit and talk for a few minutes in the lobby, to reminisce about the good old days of innocent love?

And once I finished reminiscing with my first love, should I admit the conversation to my wife? Or should I keep it hidden, secret like my meeting with Mr. Steinbrenner? That was my first instinct, but the secret didn’t last very long. Sometimes it feels as if I have Jiminy Cricket hanging around me 24/7, pooping on my party, forcing me to confess my simplest indiscretions.

Shortly before dinner, I approached Colette, ready to bare my soul. “Um, Collette, could I talk to you?”

“Sure,” she said. “Is something wrong?”

“Well, I just wanted to let you know that I bumped into an old girlfriend today.”

“Oh, was it serious?” she asked, slightly concerned, as is only normal when discussing the topic of past loves. She may also have been slightly confused, as “past Mick Foley girlfriends” are something of an endangered species. Not that they’ve been killed off or anything. There were just not that many out there to begin with.

“I guess it was pretty serious,” I said.

“Oh yeah, how serious?” Now she was more than concerned. Slightly bothered.

“We used to talk about getting married.”

“How old were you when you knew this girl, Mick?”

“Three.”

“Three?” she asked.

“Yeah, it was the first conversation we’d had in thirty-seven years.” (Okay, I’m on the plane now. It’s ten minutes after seven.)

A few hours later, I made my way over to Albertson, a drive of slightly less than an hour, for the big “Sports Night” event that I wrote of earlier in
The Hardcore Diaries
—my annual opportunity to hang out with Olympic figure skaters and dress up like a woman for the sake of Abilities, which consists of the Henry Viscardi School, a top-notch educational center for kids with disabilities, and a job placement center for disabled adults.

“Sports Night” cast, 2006.

Courtesy of the Foley family.

Except earlier in the week, I’d received the bad news; no cross-dressing this year. Instead, I had to learn lines for my role as Howie Mandelson, complete with the worst bald wig in America, in a takeoff of Mandel’s role on the
Deal or No Deal
game show.

As always, the best part of the day was interacting with the great kids of the Viscardi School, not only in rehearsals of
Schpiel or No Schpiel,
but in backstage conversations where they actually propose possible future WWE storylines, some of which are pretty good.

I also get to get in more hangout time with my favorite skating sisters, the Hughes girls, and their mom, Amy, who gave me one of my all-time favorite compliments when she said, “I’m so glad you and Sarah are friends.” Oksana Baiul was there as well, the beautiful Russian skater who won Olympic gold in 1992, the year of the infamous Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding kneecap angle. I enjoy talking to her, but always sense an aura of sadness surrounding her; proof, I guess, that life goes on even after dreams come true. I had some difficulty dealing with the aftermath of fame, the complicated residue of childhood dreams realized, back in 2000, when I retired from full-time wrestling. But at least I was thirty-four; Oksana Bauil was only sixteen. And I’m not sure she’s figured out what to do with her life just yet.

She did, however, look great in her
I Dream of Jeannie
outfit, and I got a kick out of hearing her explanation of her tendency to sprinkle her sentences with frequent obscenites. “This is how I learned English,” she said. “The first words I learned were ‘Blow me.’”

Which reminds me of Lada, a lovely young Russian woman who was an invaluable help to our family, back when Mickey was just a baby. One day, Lada made a discovery and summoned Colette to survey the situation. “Colette, Colette,” she said, in her thick Russian accent. “Meekey has a scratch on his right ball.”

Damn, Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” just came on my headphones—about the heaviest, most emotional piece of music I’ve ever heard. I know I touched on the song in an earlier
Hardcore Diaries
entry, but as is the case in almost everything in life, I think a parallel with the world of wrestling can be formed.

How is it that Cash, his health ailing, his voice failing, could make such an indelible footprint on the fabric of society with a mournful Nine Inch Nails song? I think it comes down to emotion, conviction in one’s own message, and an audience’s ability to see through the hype and identify the real deal once in a while. Could you imagine Cash singing “Hurt” on
American Idol
? He’d have been laughed off the stage. But can you imagine Clay Aiken singing “Hurt”? It would be a crime.