Wait. “BOB GIBSON?!” I asked? “Bob Gibson is throwing a baseball?”
Bob Gibson is one of the great pitchers in all of baseball and a Cardinal legend, and he would be throwing after me. My heart sank.
Time was running short and the PR guy introduced me to then Cardinal right fielder Joe Mather, to whom I’d be throwing my pitch, and I quickly fell in love. He was tall like a building and under his Cardinals hat was a full head of gorgeous gingey hair (you know I love a ginge, right?). He had no idea who I was or what a Real Housewife was, nor did he care. Nor should he have. I was just grateful for the distraction.
“Go over to Fredbird,” the publicist instructed me, ripping me away from my future boyfriend-in-my-head. Ever resilient, I joked with Fredbird, the mascot for whom I was nicknamed, as the announcer introduced me. Then came the very best part of the night: running, in slow motion, to the mound, framed by the Gateway Arch, as the crowd cheered. I caught a glimpse of the Jumbotron; a shot of the back of my Cardinals jersey was on-screen and I looked legitimately like I belonged. Even though the name said “Cohen” and the guy inside it didn’t really have any idea how to do what he was about to try to do. It was my finest moment. Except that I still had to make that effing pitch.
Once I got to the top of that mound, I knew it was all downhill from there. I took one last look at my family a million miles away in the stands, and then just got it the hell over with. The throw was, um … well, it was very high and very outside. That is me being kind to myself. But Joe Mather took several steps—maybe a leap or two—and caught it! It was nowhere in the vicinity of the plate, but it did not bounce and it was caught, and suddenly that seemed to be all that mattered.
After the pitch, Joe Mather ran to the mound and we took a picture together. Then, as the two of us jogged in slow-mo away from each other, he toward the dugout and I toward—I don’t know where the hell I was going, but it wasn’t into the dugout—the six-foot-four Gingey baseball god called out, “Hey, Andy!”
I turned to him and we locked eyes. We were still running away from each other in slow-mo, but yeah, our eyes totally locked. “If you ever need a baseball player … call me!” he said. Then he was gone.
My heart fluttered. I DID need a baseball player! I needed him! But I never called him, because I am not a fool and I know he wasn’t saying what I was hearing. Clearly, he meant if I needed a baseball player for a TV show or something. He was pitching himself to me! S to the woon.
In an insane twist, Bob Gibson pitched from the front of the mound and his ball definitely bounced. No matter that the man was in his seventies with a bum shoulder. I pitched better than he did. It’s as simple as that, and no one can take it away from me.
When I got to my friends and family, Isaac Mizrahi proclaimed it the “gayest pitch in the history of baseball.” I turned to my mom and dreamily told her about Joe Mather’s good-bye “offer.”
“Oh, that is RIDICULOUS!” she howled. “That guy is STRAIGHT! GET OVER HIM!”
And of the pitch? What did my mother think of The Pitch? “Well … at least you didn’t hit the DIRT.” And there you go: I had succeeded simply by not failing spectacularly. I’m sure there’s a deep metaphor somewhere in there for anyone who ever has to pitch anything. Maybe it’s this: There are no perfect pitches, just try not to hit the dirt.
BRAVO
You’ve probably seen me with a sheaf of blue index cards in my hands, which my guests on Watch What Happens Live or Housewives reunions clearly regard as some sort of dangerous weapon. These are viewer questions, and they rightly induce fear. The questions can be rude, invasive, and divisive. (And I mean that as a compliment.) They are what make our discussions interesting. Oh, and I enjoy the freedom that in most cases Andy C. is not asking if anybody was or was not in fact a prostitution whore; Brenda B. from Skokie is. Since turnabout is fair play, I have put some of the questions most frequently asked of me since I’ve been on Bravo on some blue cards and handed them over to my editor, and she has chosen a batch for me to answer here.
Q: How did you end up on the air? Did you just green-light your own show?
A: I hear this question a lot, often put exactly like that. Usually, I just say: If I could just green-light my own show, don’t you think I would be hosting Andy Chats with Susan Lucci While a Parade of Shirtless Gingers Slowly Walks By?
Short answer: No, I didn’t green-light my own show. A chain of coincidental-but-totally-connected events at Bravo have led me to where I’ve always wanted to be since using that hairbrush as a mic in the backseat of my uncle’s car.
Long Answer: It all began when I started sending detailed and gossipy e-mails to Lauren Zalaznick about behind-the-scenes shenanigans on Battle of the Network Reality Stars, the first show I concocted as head of current programming at Bravo in 2004. Rumor has it that Trishelle from The Real World hooked up last night, I’d write. Richard Hatch has ideas for how the format of this show could be better—he’s oddly competing while suggesting twists to the challenges. Lauren told me I should be blogging for the Bravo website.
For me, my blog became the silver lining of the bomb-shaped cloud that was Battle of the Network Reality Stars (more on that later). I envisioned
