|
I mail my questions and follow this with a
phone call a few days later.
“Hello?”
It’s him.
I introduce myself again, and he remembers me. He is in his office, the one he still works from two or three
days a week. It
is a museum in itself, full of Boston Celtic history –
photos, books, letters, awards – all of it the fruit
of Auerbach’s labor.
I hear paper rustling on the other end of
the line, and then he cuts loose:
“Look, I can’t answer these questions.
I’m not answering them because I’m working on
another book and I’m not giving that information away.
What’s this for?”
I pitch Celtic Nation again, and the Red
Auerbach feature that is being planned for the launch.
“The Internet – no, no, no…I can’t
do this. How
much are you making on this?”
I counter by asking for one question from
my list. One
question to include in the feature, something for the
thousands of Celtic fans who visit the site.
“I’ll give you one,” he says at last, the paper still
rustling. “I’ll
answer the Asimov question and that’s it.
I’m busy.”
Answer it he did. And then a funny thing happened – he answered another.
And another. Questions on the paper in front of him, questions that shot
into my mind as we talked.
And somewhere during the course of our
conversation it dawned on me; black limousines and
cinderblock shoes be damned, I was talking shop with the
cigar-smoking Godfather of the Boston Celtics.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ | 
