Thrown for a Curve; a Fumble; a Photo Finish

By MICHAEL LEWIS

Nov. 21, 2004 12 AM PT

Michael Lewis is the author, most recently, of "Moneyball."

To Miami to make a speech I cannot evade. En route, my New York lecture agent calls. He is a persuasive man. Often I am determined not to do what he wants me to do and yet, somehow, I end up doing it. One day he will no doubt book me to speak at my own funeral. His very tone of voice is a weapon, and from it, usually, I can guess what he’s about to say.

Today he wears his most ominous tone. I have not heard this tone since I flew to Beijing to collect a small fortune for regaling an audience of financiers with cynical stories about my days on Wall Street -- only to find 500 Chinese paper salesmen with little knowledge of English expecting a rousing inspirational speech. This time my agent tells me that while we do have a very serious problem, it has nothing to do with my inadequacies. The company that has hired me to be the keynote speaker at its conference next week has called to cancel. “The CEO’s wife is dying,” he says.

My spirits lift. I’m of course sorry that the CEO’s wife is dying, but relieved that I don’t have to go to his conference. That’s the strange thing about the lecture business. I agree to do these speeches -- as husband and provider it feels irresponsible to decline huge sums of money for an hour of yakking -- but always wind up regretting it. The very best lecture gig seems to be the one that gets canceled before I have to do it.

“That’s all right,” I say, sympathetically. “I understand if they have to bail.” But that’s not my lecture agent’s view of this matter. His view is that the whole thing is an outrage. “I’m going to make them pay 10 grand for the inconvenience to you,” he says. I ask, deferentially, the obvious question: If the CEO’s wife is dying, should we really fine him? Long pause. “I’ve already had the company wire us the money to get out of the contract.”

I say, again deferentially -- for this is a man who plays chess in a world of checkers -- that punishing people for their wives’ death somehow doesn’t feel ... right. Another long pause.

“Here’s the thing. I’m not sure she’s really dying.”

“Are you sure she’s not dying?” I ask. Yet another long pause.

“I think they may be making an excuse and the guy can’t make it for some other reason.”

Now we’re in familiar territory: The Republic of Corporate Lies. I’m wondering if this strategy might not work for me. If I called CBS, say, and told them Tabitha was dying and so would like them to extend the deadline for my TV pilot script six weeks. At any rate, for the first time in two days I feel better: one lecture down. But my lecture agent won’t stand for that.

“I’m making them rebook you for February, same fee,” he says. I groan.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” he says. “You have to take the money and do the date. It’s the right thing to do.”

To Arizona to work on a piece about minor league baseball players. Part of the pleasure of this project is that it is not just mine but also Tabitha’s. She is taking the pictures. Every day at 1 p.m. we go to the ballpark, and I sit in the stands while she goes into the dugout and snaps close-ups of ill-shaven 22-year-olds spitting sunflower seeds. She cares not one bit about baseball. All she cares for is shapes and colors.

Her unwillingness to learn even the most basic facts of the game is a source of endless amusement to the professional players. But today she only slips up a couple of times -- she calls the umpire “the referee” and ducks when someone yells “heads up.” But after the game, she takes a player out for a photo shoot. She wants to get some complicated series of photos of him bunting and running. Seven or eight times he lays a bunt down the third-base line and sprints for first base, as she snaps away.

Then she says, “OK, now do it the other way you do it.” He doesn’t understand what she’s getting at, until she explains. He is to bunt the ball and run straight to third.

I often have to explain to the players that my wife is one of those women who has been almost willful in her ignorance of sports. Not only did she play none herself but, before me, she had no interest in boys who did. (Rockers and slackers were more her style.) Not long after we met she told me, by the by, that the Seattle Mariners had asked her to throw out the first pitch at one of their games.

“You did it, right?” I said.

“Of course not!” she said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“I didn’t want to get hit!” she said.

As she understood it, the first pitch was the first pitch, and the game would open with Rickey Henderson facing Tabitha Soren.