I am now in Week 4 at my new job, continuing to cold call businesses to pitch my firm’s service. I was on the phone yesterday with a spa owner in Eureka Springs, Arkansas when a thought occurred to me.
Arkansas has long been famous for its natural hot springs, and baseball teams used to flock there for spring training, along with mobsters like Al Capone. Babe Ruth ended a holdout one winter while at the baths with sportswriter Dan Daniel. Daniel recounted years later in the memoir, No Cheering in the Press Box, about how he helped broker the deal between Ruth and Yankees owner Colonel Jacob Ruppert. It was pointed out to Ruth that he made more than the U.S. president at the time, Herbert Hoover. “What the hell has Hoover got to do with it?” Ruth reputedly quipped. “Besides, I had a better year than he did.”
Anyhow, I was on the phone yesterday with this spa owner, a woman named Nicole, when it occurred to me to ask if Ruth had ever frequented her business. As I’ve mentioned here before, I have this uncanny tendency to connect everything to sports. There was Rick Burleson, the architect I called a few weeks ago who has the same name as a former All-Star shortstop. One of my clients also has the same surname of a former Sacramento Kings backup (though she’s no relation, I checked.) As for the spa owner, her business is also located inside a hotel that’s been around since the 19th Century so it made sense that Ruth may have come through at one point. She wasn’t sure, though. I told her I would do a quick Google search.
This picture turned up and I sent it to Nicole. She signed up for a trial account of my firm’s service this morning.