Clubhouse Chatter: Who was your best interview ever?
What our columnists and sportswriters have to say as they wait for the games to resume.
Who was your best interview ever?
This one is pretty easy. One of the best days I've had in this business was Bulls vs. Houston Rockets in 1998. Before the game, Charles Barkley was holding court in the visitors locker room and it was amazing. Every answer was pure entertainment. I remember local legend George Castle was in there going, "Charles, I'm doing a survey for Sport Magazine (remember that?)" So Castle was lobbing these questions like softballs and Barkley knocked every one of them out of the park. Then Jerry Springer (remember him?) walked into the locker room and the craziness went up a few more notches. Barkley was a huge fan. Overall, the 45 minutes of open locker room was better than most HBO comedy specials. If Draymond Green or anyone tries to tell you Barkley is overrated - don't believe it.
- Mike McGraw
Impossible to answer. It's a 500-way tie for first and I can't pick one over the other 499. Tiger Woods? Wayne Gretzky? Stan Mikita? Bob Gibson? Willie Stargell? Greg Maddux? Wilt Chamberlain? Peyton Manning? I wouldn't know where to start, but traveling with Harry Caray was a constant source of entertainment and he had a story for any name you could think of, and every story was great. The man could spin a tale - especially late at night.
- Barry Rozner
Ozzie Guillen, on two fronts. As a player with the White Sox and even more so as Sox manager, Guillen always had something interesting to say. Not only was he brutally honest about everything, Guillen was almost guaranteed to leave you laughing. He also understood the job newspaper writers had to do. When he was playing shortstop for the White Sox in 1995, I wrote a critical column in Anaheim, Calif. It was hanging on a wall in the clubhouse when the Sox returned home, and more than a few players let me know they didn't like it. Ozzie waved me over and said this: "Don't listen to those bleeps. Everything you wrote in there was true."
- Scot Gregor
Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford. Bit of a curveball I'm throwing there, isn't it? The 10-minute phone interview last May with Halford, who in my opinion is the best heavy metal singer of all time, was the opportunity of a lifetime for this Priest junkie. His eloquent answers to questions about the band, what he has on his iTunes play list and where the strangest place he's been recognized came with great ease. They were honest and thoughtful. They made you think. They made you laugh. Everything you'd want to make a story come alive. As I wrote in the piece, it's truly no wonder Halford is such a brilliant songwriter.
- John Dietz