Strike 3?

Strike 1:
On Wednesday, my associate publisher tells me to email Jay Horwitz (Vice President of PR for the Mets) about an article we’re doing for the magazine. I begin the email, “Dear Mr. Horowitz,…”

Strike 2:
I don’t receive a response to said email by Thursday (yesterday), so I call him to ask what mailing address I should send preview copies of the magazine to. His demeanor is abrupt and gruff, which comes as a shock to me because he’s known for being extremely nice. Today, I find this…

Today in Mets news (courtesy of mets.com):
Mark it down on the calendar: Dec. 14, 2006, was the first day since June 1987 that Mets vice president Jay Horwitz missed a day of work for reasons of illness. The club's public relations man since April 1980, Horwitz was out of the office on Thursday because of stomach flu. His absence was as conspicuous as would be Jose Reyes without a smile.

Horwitz had missed work because of the death of his mother, but the last time he missed work for illness was when he was quarantined in the team's Chicago hotel because he had chicken pox.

Wilpon said, "I didn't know what to think," when Horwitz didn't answer his 7:30 a.m. call to the Mets PR office. "We talk that early every day, and he's always there."

And, now, another bombshell. Horwitz was out sick on Friday as well.

Apparently, I underestimated my research skills when I was searching for his contact information because I found his CELL PHONE NUMBER instead of his office number, and I am now the ASSHOLE who bothered him on the ONE day he called in sick in TWENTY YEARS to ask him a STUPID QUESTION.

Hopefully he takes baseball rules to heart and I still have one more chance.

Sorry.

-L