When My Boss Calls, Get the Name

By Howard Berk

In his business memoir, When My Boss Calls, Get the Name, Howard Berk shares the excitement of surviving and thriving in a corporate world transformed by takeovers, leveraged buyouts, mergers, and acquisitions. With warmth and insight, he depicts the differing styles of the high-profile executives he reported to as they went through the constantly revolving door of management, and he reflects on what he learned from them.

Follow the author's evolving career in the broadcasting industry, from the early days of radio to cable television and new media. See "the vice president in charge of everything" become a key participant in the 1973 modernization of Yankee Stadium, which kept the franchise in New York. Watch him help develop licensing and merchandising for the highly competitive and volatile business end of sports and entertainment. At the same time, enjoy his humorous anecdotes about the famous and glamorous figures he met along the way, including Thomas Mitchell, Samuel Goldwyn, Jack Benny, Mickey Mantle, Jackie Gleason, and a host of Miss Americas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 30, 2008
• ISBN: 9780595916344

Howard Berk

An award-winning novelist and screenwriter, Howard Berk's credits include memorable episodes of such classic TV series as Columbo, Mission: Impossible and The Rockford Files, as well as the feature film, Target, starring Gene Hackman and Matt Dillon.

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CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1   The Cycle of Business Life

Chapter 2   It’s All Show Biz

Chapter 3   Return to Civilian Life

Chapter 4   The Columbia Broadcasting System

Chapter 5   Here Come the Yankees

Chapter 6   Working with Mike Burke at NYY

Chapter 7   Big Plans for the Bronx

Chapter 8   Mr. Paley’s Yankees and Steinbrenner’s

Chapter 9   A Brief Stop with the Commissioner

Chapter 10   The World’s Most Famous Arena

Chapter 11   From Camelot to the NBA

Chapter 12   Licensing 101 and the NBA

Chapter 13   The Creation of Viacom

Chapter 14   Surviving and Thriving at Viacom

Chapter 15   Full Circle

Epilogue

PREFACE

My corporate career spanned more than forty years in the entertainment and sports industries, encompassing public relations, marketing, licensing, and administration. I began working for a radio network just as television was arriving on the communications scene in the early 1950s and had the opportunity to work with executive pioneers and giants. By the time I retired in the late 1990s and became a consultant, the corporate world had been transformed by takeovers, leveraged buyouts, mergers, and acquisitions. I had more than a ringside seat to this evolution, and in each instance I survived.

As the retirement date neared, Viacom, my employer for the preceding sixteen years, suggested some kind of get-together to recognize my departure. I strongly resisted. Farewell parties, as well intentioned as they may be, are phony. The one person who is meaningless at these events is the guest of honor, which is understandable because that person is obviously losing or giving up all power. And power is a very important element in business life.

I did want to mark the occasion, however, and to do so I hosted my own party. The invitee list, numbering approximately one hundred, included only those I worked with and for, and excluded nonbusiness friends or family. There were to be no speeches and no gifts. As the invitation stated, bearers of anything heavier than a few good memories would not be admitted!

The party was held at the Lotos Club, a private facility on East 66th Street near Fifth Avenue in New York City. We gathered for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres in the second-floor library, a room of breathtaking beauty and grandeur, with bookshelves lining one high wall from floor to ceiling. A graceful winding staircase opened onto a wide landing, where a tuxedoed musician at a baby grand piano helped welcome my guests, while waiters circulated with trays of hot and cold canapés.

The guest list represented virtually every phase of my business life going back decades. In one corner among old-timers from CBS was Ralph Baruch, a founder and former chairman of Viacom and a true visionary. Over by a window was a baseball group that included Bill White, who had been a Yankee announcer and president of the National League. Near the door stood Simon P. Gourdine, one-time deputy commissioner of the National Basketball Association, chatting with the former executive assistant to Larry O’Brien, the late NBA commissioner and Kennedy administration insider. In many ways, this was a cross section of the entertainment and sports worlds from post–World War II America to the eve of the millennium.

Some of these people had never met before, and they were surprised and pleased to mingle, chat, and shake hands. Others had not seen each other for years and were stunned to find themselves face to face after such a long time. My retirement party happened to be the magnet that reintroduced them, and many have maintained contact to this day. Why, even a future marriage had its initial spark that night.

Well before this delightful and rather emotional evening, I intended to write about the management styles of the fascinating people I met over the span of my career. I wanted to pass along what I had learned to the next generation, while sharing the fun and excitement of my own experiences. There were dozens of books written by CEOs about how to climb to the top of the corporate ladder, but very few—if any—written by a mid-level executive about how to survive and thrive as his bosses went through the constantly revolving door of management.

I remember a day at Viacom when a lot of changes were going on around me. Between 9:30 AM and a 1 PM lunch appointment, I was told that I was reporting to three different people. As I left the office, I turned to my assistant and said, When my boss calls, get the name.

1

THE CYCLE OF BUSINESS LIFE

My career had two cycles with the New York Yankees, spanning Jackie Farrell to George Steinbrenner. Of course, most sports fans know who Steinbrenner is, but Jackie Farrell—not exactly a household name—played a unique role in my life, too.

The saga began in 1949 after I’d been wrapping gifts part time at Macy’s when I was seventeen. In those days, there were no prepared ribbons, bows, or wrapping paper. Everything had to be measured carefully and exactly. Please understand that I’m all thumbs. At P.S. 77 in Manhattan, I was the only one in my class who failed shop; my wooden candy box actually rocked. It wasn’t long before Macy’s made the discovery that I was unqualified for the job.

My boss, clad in a gray linen jacket with the store crest over his heart, strutted up to me after only two days and said, Young man, I don’t believe you have a future as a gift wrapper. And then he fired me.

I felt that my fledgling career had crashed before takeoff. Worse than having no job was the prospect of going home to face my hard-working father. Would he consider me a failure because I couldn’t hold onto a job? Yet I always had the ability—even at that age—to step back in moments of crisis and think things out clearly. I concluded that the best thing to do was get another job before I went home. But with whom? And, more importantly, how?

My first love was baseball and it’s been a lifelong affair. The ’49 season was about to begin, and it occurred to me that maybe there were jobs around. So I went down to the subway station at 34th Street and Sixth Avenue (as Avenue of the Americas was then called) and found a working telephone booth. I made three calls. The first was to my favorite team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. When I asked if they had any openings for a part-time office boy, the response was a click. I interpreted that as meaning No.

Next I tried the Giants, who had an office on 42nd Street. The response was more polite but basically the same: no openings. A lady with a kind voice suggested that I write; the team would keep my letter on file for the future. Nice, but I wanted a job now.

I was facing a two-out situation and had always admired teams who could hang in when they were down. I called the Yankees, the last of the three New York clubs, and was transferred to Charles McManus, who was the stadium manager. I gulped when I heard his gruff voice but got the words out that I was looking for a job. I braced for yet another click—or worse. Instead he said: As a matter of fact, we do have one opening. Can you come up here tomorrow?

A lesson my father, Abe, had taught me about seizing opportunities immediately flashed through my mind. I thought of it as picking up the broom, because that’s how he got his first job—as a stock boy in New York’s garment center after immigrating from London as a teenager. Arriving for an interview, he noticed a long, winding line of applicants inching forward. As he approached the front of the line, he saw that each person was stepping over a broom on the ground. So he very simply reached down, picked it up, and leaned it against the wall. The proprietor pulled him from the line and hired him on the spot—for showing initiative.

Now it was my turn. I can be there in a little while because I’m in the neighborhood, I told Mr. McManus from my phone booth downtown, a good 45-minute subway ride to the Bronx and Yankee Stadium.

I was afraid that if I waited until the next day, someone else would have the job I already regarded as mine. So off I went on the D train to Yankee Stadium where I met McManus, a short, stocky, ruddy-complexioned man. Very hard. Very tough. I was scared to death but I wanted that job. After grilling me for a while, he told me the job was at their executive offices at 745 Fifth Avenue (not far from where I’d placed the call).

Could you go down tomorrow and meet Ann Doran, the office manager? he asked. She’s the one you’ll actually be working for. You’ll be doing the mail down there, shuttling back and forth during the season with tickets from our ticket office on 43rd Street, among other things.

McManus was talking as if I already had the job, and I didn’t want to take any chances by waiting until the next day to see Ann Doran. I can go down and meet her now! I’m going to be in the neighborhood anyway. In fact, any neighborhood he mentioned would have been the one I was going to be in.

McManus turned out to have a softer side. He called Miss Doran, who was also the assistant to co-owner Dan Topping, and she told him to send me downtown. So it was back on the D train to Manhattan and 745 Fifth Avenue, where I met a well-groomed, sophisticated lady. We had a pleasant talk, and I understood that she was checking me out for reliability, honesty, and dedication. Then she asked me for a letter of reference from either my minister or doctor.

When I told her I could bring one later that day, she smiled and said: Young man, relax. I promise we’re not going to hire anybody before tomorrow morning. So why don’t you just take the rest of the day to get the letter.

My family doctor came though for me, and the next day, after delivering the letter to Miss Doran in person, I found myself one of two office boys for the most famous sports franchise in the world.

Each morning between 8:30 and 9, I sorted the mail in a cubbyhole in the bowels of Yankee Stadium with the other office boy, Henry Gunderman. Then I’d pick up a load of tickets from Jimmy Gleason in the ticket department, take the subway downtown, and drop them off at the ticket office on the second floor of the Spaulding store on Fifth Avenue between 43rd and 44th Streets. Then I’d walk up to 57th Street, distribute the mail to the executive offices, sort the mail there, and take that batch up to the stadium.

If there was a day game, I went back to Spaulding, picked up any unsold tickets, took them back to the stadium, and finished the day at 745 Fifth. For the fourteen or so night games per season, I returned to Spaulding yet again to pick up any unsold tickets for sale at the stadium.

That same season Joe DiMaggio had a serious heel injury, which kept him out of the lineup from opening day till sometime in June. He lived at the Elysee Hotel, and every once in awhile I’d have to deliver mail to him in the late morning. I would be announced from the lobby and go up to his floor. He’d open the door in his bathrobe, always with a pleasant greeting, and I’d peer into his smoke-filled room while he put together a few things for me to deliver to Betty King for her boss, General Manager George Weiss, at 745 Fifth.

In addition to Dan Topping and George Weiss, the front office consisted of Co-Farm Directors Lee MacPhail and Gene Martin, Director of Publicity Arthur E. Red Patterson, and the aforementioned Jackie Farrell, director of the speakers’ bureau. Topping’s co-owner Del Webb, who was in the construction business, was seldom there. (This is the same Del Webb who later built retirement communities in the Sun Belt.)

Johnny Johnson was the secretary to MacPhail in the farm department, which was quartered in a large room with a huge chalkboard on which all the Yankee teams and players were listed. Whenever a player moved, Johnny would erase his name from one team and add it to the new one. Every day we received newspapers from the farm cities, and another of my jobs was to cut out sports stories about our teams in Binghamton or Norfolk or other places for MacPhail and Johnson to read.

Red’s publicity department occupied an even larger room, big enough for the press luncheons held during and after the season. The food was ordered from Ruben’s Restaurant downstairs, known for its deli and cheesecake. The media of the day were primarily the print press—John Drebinger, lead baseball writer for the New York Times; Dick Young and Joe Trimbel from the Daily News; and Til Fredenzi and Barney Kremenko of the Journal-American. Few broadcast people, if any, attended those luncheons. I used to hang around the press conferences just to be near Mel Allen and Curt Gowdy, the Yankee radio announcers, both of whom were very nice to me.

Red was ahead of his time, in a business sense. He came up with the idea for on-air promos during games. The announcers would invite fans to write in for souvenirs—a cap for this, a miniature bat for that, a facsimile autographed baseball, and so forth. Red threw me a curve and let me run that mail-order operation, a kind of job promotion. It was also my first stab at merchandising. I had a little corner of the department where I received my own mail, set up my own books with the help of the accounting department, and shipped out the souvenirs.

Of course, I also had more mundane duties, such as getting lunch for people, one of whom was Jackie. He was short—just over five feet tall—but what he lacked in height he made up for with great enthusiasm and a marvelous sense of humor. Every day, throughout the entire 1949 season, I brought him the same lunch, chicken salad on rye.

That year, an injury-ridden Yankee team won the pennant against the Boston Red Sox on the final day of the season. At the very last minute, Charlie McManus gave me a ticket to the first game of the World Series against the Dodgers. I sat in a box near the visitors’ dugout, next to Johnny Johnson and his wife. Seated in front of us was Herbert Hoover, and photographers kept taking his picture. That first game was won by Tommy Henrich