THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 27, 1995 TAG: 9509270571
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C01 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
When Ed Nagourney departs for Europe in a few days with his wife, Louise, he'll be closing another chapter in his unique association with baseball.
``I feel very lucky that I've been able to work for the Tides in this great facility,'' he said this week at Harbor Park by way of announcing that he's stepping down after four years as the club's director of sales.
``I'm leaving at a time when this place doesn't need an Ed Nagourney. There's a waiting list for skybox seats. A waiting list for ballpark signage. You could say it's on a roll.''
You could say the same about Nagourney. A former department store president and entrepreneur, he has been rolling from one activity to another most of his life.
Soon after moving here in 1974 to run Rices-Nachman's, he and Tides general manager Dave Rosenfield started the Old Dominion University baseball clinic, bringing in Hall of Famers as instructors. The clinic is now a winter tradition. It is Nagourney's baseball legacy.
Over the years, Nagourney recruited just about everyone he wanted for his clinic. One that got away was Reggie Jackson.
``Reggie calls me,'' said Nagourney, ``and says, `Announce I'm coming. I'll send a telegram the day before saying that something's come up and I can't make it. But you'll have already sold a lot of tickets.' ''
No thanks, said Nagourney.
Telling the story, his face breaks into a grin. Memories. Baseball has provided him with years of memories.
When he and his wife return from France, Nagourney will do some consulting work. He wants to slow down, but, at 64, retirement is far from his mind. He doesn't golf or fish. His only hobby is baseball, which is why he took the Tides job in the first place. The team found itself a great salesman.
As for baseball, his ties to the game have never been limited to his work with the Tides. When he says, ``My so-called relationship with baseball is ending,'' he's telling only part of the story. For Nagourney, baseball has always been enjoyed on a personal level.
When he brought in Brooks Robinson, Harmon Killebrew, Catfish Hunter, Willie McCovey and so many others for the first few ODU clinics, he appealed to them as friends, which they are.
It's been that way for Nagourney since 1938, when his father, a ladies' coat manufacturer in New York, took him to meet Lou Gehrig. The Iron Horse was an icon. He also was a friend of Nagourney's father, who had played soccer with Gehrig on the same high school team.
Father and son were great sports fans, with a special fondness for the New York Giants baseball team. Some of the Giants would send their wives over to the Nagourney coat shop to pick up merchandise. A relationship grew between the team and the Nagourneys. By the time he was a teenager, Ed was working in the visiting clubhouse at the Polo Grounds.
Fast-forward almost 30 years. Nagourney and his family are living in Northern California when Ed's son, Bruce, gets a job as clubhouse boy for the Oakland A's in 1972, '73, '74, the championship years for Charlie O. Finley's team.
This is how Nagourney got to know Hunter, then the Athletics' best pitcher. Catfish still is a friend, though the athlete closest to Nagourney remains McCovey. The two met almost 25 years ago when Willie was a slugging first baseman for the San Francisco Giants and Nagourney asked him to sign autographs as a promotion for his department store.
Recently, Nagourney wrote a letter to the judge who will sentence McCovey for failing to report income earned at autograph shows. It's the least he can do for his longtime buddy.
``Willie takes me with him every year to the Hall of Fame ceremonies,'' Nagourney said.
McCovey stood at the microphone during his own Hall of Fame induction and thanked Nagourney.
``Ed Nagourney,'' he said, ``is the only man who's never asked me for anything other than his friendship.''
Pictures of McCovey were some of the many Nagourney hung on the walls of his Harbor Park office. The pictures are packed away now. The walls are bare.
``It's been a thrill just to be around baseball,'' he said. ``I feel I've made lasting friends.''
You figure that, sooner or later, he'll make more. ILLUSTRATION: Staff color photo by JIM WALKER
Ed Nagourney, 64, is stepping down as the Tides' director of sales.
``It's been a thrill just to be around baseball,'' he said.
by CNB