Ian O’Connor, the author of a new golf book about the rivalry between Arnie and Jack, took some time out of his busy weekend covering the mostly-boring Masters to answer a few of our questions. Currently a columnist at the Bergen Record in New Jersey (full disclosure: Yes, it is the newspaper we used to work at, but no, we weren’t on staff together), O’Connor has been a prominent voice on the New York sports media scene for years (he also wrote a book about Sebastian Telfair). Among the many topics O’Connor talked about: Getting mistaken for Steve Alford, the ornery but helpful Mike Lupica, Ben Roethlisberger’s reluctance to give kids autographs, and cheating in baseball.

Q: Many readers know your headshot from USA Today, when you were writing for the Westchester Journal News. But very little about your career path is on the internet. Since we won’t urge you to start your own wikipedia page, what’s the story?

I was a college freshman confined to special teams on a sub-mediocre Division III football team when I realized, ‘You know what, it doesn’t appear there’s ever going to be an active NFL market for my services.’ A terrific professor at Marist, David McCraw, suggested I combine my interest in sports with my interest in writing, and so I gave it a try for the college weekly. Liked it. Then liked it a lot. Started out in The New York Times’ writing program learning how to be a journalist while running around getting coffee and doughnuts for real journalists. Got a big break when Frank Deford read a piece I did on one of those only-in-New York playground legends, Earl “The Goat” Manigault, and booked a ticket on The National’s 19-month roller coaster before The Daily News pulled me off the unemployment line. Worked my way up to columnist, got a good money offer to go to Gannett Westchester eight years later, and wrote a weekly column for USA Today. I now write columns for The Record (N.J.) and Foxsports.com, and just came out with my second book, “Arnie & Jack,” on the Palmer-Nicklaus rivalry.

I believe in my heart that newspapering is an honorable profession, despite the indignities suffered along the way.

Q: You’re a neophyte blogger. We remember those days fondly – writing and wondering, ‘hmmmm, is anyone going to read this? How will they find it?’ Do you feel like this is something you will continue to do, even after the book madness wears down? You’re also writing for Fox Sports, and it seems as if many forward-thinking journalists are dipping one foot in the internet ocean, and keeping another in newspaper land. The reasons could be many – the ability to espouse about topics in one medium and not another; to have that anchor in the “respected” newspapers business, but also in the burgeoning internet one; or simply, the extra paycheck. For you, is it one, or a combination, or something else?

Honestly, I only started the blog to try to sell my new book. If I didn’t have a book coming out, I wouldn’t have started the blog. Joe Posnanski was the one who really encouraged me to do it, as he gets a zillion hits a day on his, but I’m starting to wonder about his motives. I ended up hiring his wife, Margo, to design a full Web site for me, with a linked blog, and she did a hell of a job on it, really did. Saw Joe at the Masters, and was afraid to ask him, you know, how much his wife wanted to be paid for her work. My own wife just forced me to give her a new kitchen, and the contractors came in a mere $14,000 over their original estimate, so I decided I was going to set the price on this one. Cut Joe a check for $350, and he looked about as happy as Tiger did in 2006 when he had to slide the green jacket over Phil’s shoulders. I’m sure Joe will get over it.

Meanwhile, it was brutal trying to get to that blog during its first week, when I was covering the Masters and doing as many radio interviews as I could for my book. I don’t even know if eight people have looked at my blog – including extended family members – in its first week, but I want to do more blogs, and will do more blogs – hopefully daily — starting this week. I actually think I might like doing it, even if it doesn’t sell a single book.

And yes, given the state of the newspaper business and the ever-widening reach of the Internet, it’s foolish not to maintain a voice on the Net. You look at what Posnanski has accomplished with his blog, what Peter Abraham has accomplished with his Yankees blog, the influence of this site and Deadspin and others and you have to take notice. FoxSports.com doesn’t give me quite the same national forum I had at USA Today, but I think it’s a great site and any time you have a chance to team up with heavyweights like Kriegel, Whitlock, Rosenthal and Rosenberg, you take it.

Q: We get the sense a lot of athletes are cheating in some way shape or form, and only a handful are getting caught. The Jake Peavy screengrabs from last weekend generated discussion momentarily, and then everyone kind of shrugged their shoulders and moved on, even though the only person to speak out about it, Dodgers’ pitching coach Rick Honeycutt, said the ‘substance’ was too dark to be dirt and rosin, and was likely pine tar. We think this all goes back to baseball’s lame “code” which might as well mean, ‘don’t call out other teams and players for cheating, because you might have cheaters on your own side.’ Why does this exist?

As long as games are being played, there will be guys cutting corners and enablers who will protect them. Ballplayers are like cops – they honor the blue wall of silence. You think Derek Jeter didn’t know that Jason Giambi and Roger Clemens were using steroids? Of course he knew. In a perfect world, before the feds have to move in, the Jeters would call out the Giambis in the name of preserving the integrity of the sport. In the real world, the Jeters want to win games, maintain clubhouse harmony, and stay as far away from controversy as possible to protect their off-field bottom lines. So the clean athletes – assuming there are any – deserve some blame for helping to allow a culture of cheating to overrun sports. These days, if a Jake Peavy is putting an illegal substance on the ball, that’s the least of baseball’s problems. It’s a good day for Bud Selig when he wakes up and nobody’s been caught gene doping.

Q: More impressive, and why: Tiger’s career, or Roger Federer’s career?

Tiger’s career. It’s easier to dominate tennis than it is to dominate golf. Federer takes on his opponents one by one, gets to play defense against them, gets to play offense against them, gets to control their game. The court and weather conditions are always the same for Federer and his opponents, a huge advantage for the superior talent. Tiger can’t play defense against anyone. He doesn’t even see 90 percent of his opponents in a given round. The course and weather conditions can vary with the tee times, sometimes an advantage for Tiger, sometimes a disadvantage. The best Woods can do is psych out the field. He can’t whistle a three-iron shot at Phil Mickelson the way Roger Federer can hit an overhead smash at James Blake.

Q: You spent many years in New York, and everyone’s got one – their favorite Mike Lupica story. If you need some room to ramble, by all means – we have the bandwidth. Why is he such a polarizing figure?

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been asked about Mike Lupica by a colleague or reader, I’d have more money than Mike Lupica. The easy answer here is to say Mike is an insufferable ass. It’s not the answer I’m going to give.
I’ve got to ramble here because Mike inspires a lot of rambling thoughts. First, it’s been written on the Net that Mike forced me out at the Daily News, along with others. I can’t speak for the others. He didn’t force me out at the News. I got a better offer – an offer the News couldn’t come close to matching – and I took it.
I’ve always admired the guy’s talent for words, for running a 4.3 forty on deadline, for being so remarkably sure of himself in his opinions. When The National folded, he advised the Daily News to hire me. The economy was awful at the time. With so many talented people out of work, and with so few jobs available, that recommendation meant a ton. If Mike thinks I’ve forgotten, I haven’t.

After Mike jumped to Newsday, he advised the executive editor there to hire me as a takeout/enterprise guy. That offer prompted the Daily News to promote me to general columnist. If Mike thinks I’ve forgotten, I haven’t.

He also had me on his WFAN radio show once (he was great on the radio, by the way), and ended the segment by saying I was among the best reporters in the country. I grew up reading Mike; he’s one of the reasons I wanted to do what I now do. Hearing him say that meant a ton.

While passing each other in locker rooms, Mike has congratulated me on my book, on getting Steinbrenner on the phone. We’ve had many a cordial conversation. Sometimes we can talk a full 10 minutes before I notice his first glance over my shoulder looking for someone more important to engage.

I’ve seen him bring his sons to games; he appears to be a pretty damn good father. In fact, I didn’t just learn how to be a columnist from Mike. I learned a few things about being a dad, too.

Now onto the other stuff: Yes, he can be childish and incredibly paranoid. He did routinely rip me, and Kriegel, while he was at Newsday and the Daily News was using the two of us to fill his old back page. Kriegel was the lead columnist, and I was in the two hole. Mark’s an immense talent, but neither one of us could ever match Mike’s presence on the back page, and I think we both knew it. Why Mike felt the need to forever belittle our work I’ll never know.

There’s no point in going down the list of legendary Lupica tantrums, or of expanding on the obvious: The culture of Lupica, fortified by many enablers, ultimately wears down the other columnists on staff. I suspect that was the case with Kriegel and Lisa Olson, another great talent. I know it was one reason the money looked greener to me when I had a chance to leave.

In the end, Mike was one of the first print guys to look and sound credible on TV, paving the way for the sportswriter exodus to the electronic side. He deserves a lot of credit for that, and for carrying the most widely read column in the country’s biggest market for a long, long time.

I don’t care that he makes a boatload of money; God bless him for cutting whatever deals he could cut. We all do the same. And I don’t care if he decides next time not to spend those 10 minutes chatting with me before hunting down bigger small-talk game.

Mike’s an A-Rod, and I’m a Melky Cabrera. I’m totally cool with that. I just wish the guy had a little more Dave Anderson in him.

Q: Your new book is about the intense golf rivalry between Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. For our non-golf fans, just how heated was the rivalry? Dallas and Washington? Ohio State and Michigan? Lakers-Celtics in the 80s? And since because Tiger has no peer or rival, do you feel his reign of dominance may not be as fondly remembered as the Jack-Arnie one?

Palmer-Nicklaus is up there with Ali-Frazier and Russell-Chamberlain among the greatest man-to-man rivalries of all time, no question. Palmer’s hometown fans were so brutal on Nicklaus at the 1962 Open at Oakmont, Jack’s dad, Charlie, had to be restrained by Woody Hayes (a Nicklaus friend) from attacking an Arnie fan. If Woody Hayes is your designated peacemaker, you’ve got an intense rivalry.

But the Arnie-Jack thing got ugly when they battled in the business arena over commercial endorsements and course design contracts and status (as tournament hosts) on the PGA tour. They once refused to play in each other’s tournaments (Memorial and Bay Hill) for eight consecutive years. Jack had the defining quote in the book: “He wanted what I had, and I wanted what he had. And we both wanted to be both.€ Nicklaus had the trophies, and Palmer had the love of the crowds.

Golf’s problem right now is that Tiger has both. He’s the greatest player and the most popular player. Yeah, the fans love Phil, but deep down they know he’s not good enough and hasn’t won enough majors to truly stand as Tiger’s defining rival. Tiger’s only defining rival is Nicklaus, history, the magic number of 18 major titles. Too bad Jack isn’t 32 years old right now.

Q: We recently heard one of your radio interviews (WFAN) about the book, and afterward, callers couldn’t stop talking about how friendly and approachable Arnold Palmer was, whether it was the grocery store or the airport. The athlete now is much more recalcitrant, and sometimes (Antoine Walker, Eddy Curry, Paul Pierce) with good reason. In the internet era, a bad experience with an athlete in Blockbuster could wind up on blogs and find its way into the mainstream media. Do you think athletes even care about having a cordial relationship with fans? Should they?

I do think some athletes care about maintaining a relationship with the public and the media, but they belong to a shrinking parish. It can never be what it was. The superstar today almost has to be detached to a point – the demands and the scrutiny are so great that he or she needs more space than the greats from the pre-Internet, pre-24/7 age. If for some reason Elgin Baylor thought Jerry West was a horseshit teammate who needed to be traded (Kobe-Bynum), no fan with a cell camera in a parking lot would’ve recorded Baylor saying that for global consumption. Naturally there isn’t the same trust between athlete and public, though some stars take that to a ridiculous extreme and only hurt themselves in the process.

It’s clear the older greats are more comfortable around reporters; Palmer and Nicklaus even hired print guys as advisers and spokesmen. Arnie and Jack and their families fully cooperated with my book and granted extensive interviews without asking for anything in return. Could you imagine the reaction I’d get if I approached Tiger and Phil about a book on their relationship and told them they’d have no editorial control and receive no financial reward?
As far as connecting with the fans, Palmer set a standard that could never be touched today. One Palmer employee told me for the book that Ben Roethlisberger played in an outing at Arnie’s Latrobe Country Club and brushed past a group of kids looking for his autograph. Palmer said to him, “Hey, Ben, looks like you have a fan club over there. Why don’t you go over and say hello?” Big Ben’s response: “Do I have to?” I think that says it all.

Q: You wrote a book about Sebastian Telfair, chronicling his senior year in high school and leap into the NBA. Having been exposed to that world, do you think David Stern’s “developmental plan” is something that might work, or will it be impossible to curtail all that nefarious activity? And having seen Telfair struggle through four seasons – three different teams, he still has no jumper, and off-the-court incidents haven’t helped – does it seem like he would have been better served attending college, or would it not have mattered?

Telfair absolutely would’ve been better off playing a couple of seasons for Rick Pitino at Louisville. But there was no way he could turn down the millions Adidas and the NBA were throwing at him; during his senior year of high school, two of his acquaintances were murdered right outside his apartment door. How do you tell a kid who has spent his life in the projects, who has had family members in and out of jail, that he should go to college to improve his jumper (and possibly tear his ACL and blow his payday in the process) when the guarantee of a multimillion-dollar contract is sitting on his table? You can’t.

I have no use for David Stern’s development plan or his alleged desire to protect teenage prospects and adult general managers from themselves. A high school graduate should have the right to apply for employment in the NBA. He shouldn’t have the right to a job in the NBA, just the right to apply for one, and then leave it up to the employers to decide whether or not to offer employment. Stern is merely trying to protect the farm system that is major college basketball, which develops and markets his product free of charge.

QUICK HITS:
Who is in your press box clique? Who do you hang with at the large sporting events?
Posnanski and Steve Politi at the Masters, Adrian Wojnarowski, Mike Vaccaro and Dan Wetzel wherever they show up. Shaun Powell is a good guy to hang with at the ballpark, as are Jack Curry (we’re married to sisters), Bob Klapisch and Joel Sherman. Phil Taylor used to be a good guy to hang with during the NBA playoffs, but then he went big time on me and now barely says hello.
Your favorite TV show. Curb Your Enthusiasm. Is there a book you’ve read more than once? Tie: Brideshead Revisited — Really tapped into that whole Catholic guilt thing at the core of my existence…..A Season on the Brink – And not just because Feinstein was kind enough to blurb both of my books.
They’re making a movie about your life. Who plays you? The only time I’ve ever been mistaken for a famous face, a local on a beach in the Bahamas years ago saw my USA Basketball shirt and said, “Hey, you’re Steve Alford, right?” Last time I checked, Steve doesn’t do films. I’ll go with Matt Damon.