One of Those Little Great Stories of Life

Arthur Richman...a longtime employee of the Yankees and the Mets, died Wednesday at age 83...

....The only president I met was George H.W. Bush. I saw Bush and a Secret Service agent walking through a hotel in Palm Springs, Calif. When I mentioned that I knew Arthur, the 41st president stopped and talked for 10 minutes.

...Speaking with Richman was like opening a baseball encyclopedia. He knew an army of people in every city the Yankees or Mets went. He called women “dollies” and he called his daily drinks “toddies.” Richman, who was Jewish, was so well connected that he secured Jim Thome a papal blessing from Pope John Paul II as a wedding gift. As a Catholic, I told Richman how impressed I was with what he had done for Thome. So he asked me if I wanted a papal blessing, too.

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