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Right Name, Wrong
Number
by Rick
Reilly
Posted: Tue April 21, 1998
Dennis
Rodman is sleeping with a truck
driver.
It's true. Call him up and ask him yourself. He's in the
white pages. Dennis Rodman, Wentzville, Mo. He's a short
Italian-American housepainter, married to a lady trucker
and stuck with a very troublesome name. The other day it
took him a half hour to
go through the drive-up lane at the bank because the tellers
wouldn't give him back his driver's license. They were
making
photocopies.
At night he's usually home alone, answering calls. "Is
your hair purple?" kids will ask. Depends on how messy
I've been, he'll say. "Do you have women's clothes in
your closet?"
Plenty.
You can give Michael Jordan a buzz, too. I
did. He'd just given a guy a shot in the mouth
and was getting
thanked for it. He's the dentist Michael
Jordan—one of 13 Michael Jordans listed in
Chicago—and you wouldn't believe what he puts up with. The
other night he made reservations at a hot new restaurant
downtown. When he
and his wife got there, the hostess had scratched out his name.
"Sorry," she said, "we thought
you were kidding." They had a long wait for a
table.
One time he went to pick up a bike that Toys R Us had set
aside with his name on it. When he showed up, there was a
small crowd gathered around the bike, waiting with pens and
basketballs.
They were a little shocked to see a six-foot white dentist
arrive, but they had him sign anyway.
Best wishes, Michael
Jordan. Who's going to
ask?
"Yeah, well," Dr. Michael
Jordan says. "I could have been
Dr. Charles Manson, I
guess."
It gets weird like that. The other day the director of a
Little League called Rusty Staub of New Paltz, N.Y., and
asked him if he'd mind putting on his old uniform and
talking to the kids. "Sorry, I'm not that Rusty
Staub," said Rusty Staub, who is
owner of a computer store. There was a long pause, and the guy
on the other end said, "Could you come anyway? We're
desperate."
This Rusty Staub once went to a business lunch with a
banker named Calvin Klein and another guy. When they
approached the
maître d', Rusty Staub said, "We have a reservation. It's
either under Rusty Staub or Calvin Klein." The
maître d' scratched his haircut, looked at the third guy and said,
"Who are you, Joe
DiMaggio?"
Don't be silly. Joe DiMaggio lives in Syosset, N.Y., works
for TWA and sometimes wishes he'd been born Ralph Smith. He
won't even give his full name much anymore "because
they look so
disappointed when I show up," says Joe DiMaggio.
A guy could get a
complex.
Joe, you've got to
go with it. Ask Larry Mize, a manager in the
AT&T office in Atlanta. Twice a month for a year he had to fly
to Kansas City, Mo., on business. He'd check in late at
night at the same hotel. The first two times the desk clerk
got excited and asked, "You're
Larry Mize the golfer, right?" Larry Mize the AT&T
manager said no. Finally, on the third visit, the same
clerk said, "You're Larry Mize, the golfer,
right?" Larry Mize was too tired to fight it anymore.
"Sure," he
said.
"Great!" said the clerk. "I've upgraded you
to a suite! No charge!" Larry Mize got that suite the
rest of the
year.
There are people all over the U.S. whose lives have been
altered because of what some stranger can do with a ball or
a sand wedge or a pair of figure skates. According to one
Internet source, there are more than 200 Jerry Rices, 109
John Stocktons, 61
Willie Mayses and 11 Orville Moodys. There's a Herschel
Walker in Savannah, a Richard Petty in Valdosta, Ga., and a
Bobby Thomson in Wachtung, N.J. Oops, that's
the Bobby Thomson. He's actually in the book, as are Bobby
Bowden, Mark Fidrych and Byron
Nelson.
For the average Joe (Montana), sharing a name with a celeb
gives him a dollop of power that he otherwise wouldn't
taste. Take George Steinbrenner. He runs a lawn and garden
equipment company in Stafford, N.Y., but he gets a lot of
mail for a certain
famous despot. The other day he received a letter from a very
sincere woman who said her father's dying wish was to have
his ashes sprinkled in centerfield at Yankee Stadium. Could
Mr. Steinbrenner find it in his heart to grant her this
small
favor?
George Steinbrenner thought about it for a half minute,
called her up and told her, "All you do is wander out
into the stadium any off day, wait for a wind blowing
toward home plate, take your father's ashes, throw them up
in the air and go, 'Adios,
Dad!'" The woman, half grateful, half stupefied, said
thanks and hung
up.
Hey, George, think you can get us a new
stadium?
Tell us what you think. Sound off on the CNN/SI Message Boards.
Past Editions of Life of Reilly
photograph by Robert Beck
Issue date: April 27, 1998
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