THE AL CAMPANIS INCIDENT : Kahn Grapples With His Emotions : Author Sorry for Campanis but Angered by His Comments

Roger Kahn, the man who shared those fateful minutes with Al Campanis on Monday night’s “Nightline” television show, said Wednesday that he regrets, but has no remorse, over Campanis’ firing.

In fact, he implied that even more action against Campanis might be in order.

“I have a heavy heart that a man with such a superb organizational record, who has built such great teams, should lose his job,” Kahn said in a telephone interview from his home in New York. “I feel, ‘Damn, I’m sorry he’s out of work.’ But then, I think of what he said and did, and I feel, ‘Damn, I wish Peter Ueberroth had fined him $10,000 for conduct detrimental to baseball.’ ”

Kahn, author of many books, including “The Boys of Summer,” a prize-winning novel about the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers, shared the guest spot with the Dodgers’ Campanis on the ABC-TV show conducted by Ted Koppel. The subject was to have been a general discussion and reminiscence of Jackie Robinson, who, 40 years ago, became the first black to play in the major leagues.

Kahn was a guest because of his book on the ’55 Dodgers and because he had been a friend of Robinson. Campanis was a last-minute replacement for former Dodger pitcher Don Newcombe, whose plane had been delayed.

But Campanis’ selection was a natural, since it had been the Dodgers who made the historic breakthrough with Robinson back in Brooklyn in 1947, and since Campanis had played minor league ball with Robinson on the Dodgers’ Triple-A farm team in Montreal.

The rest is history. A quick two days’ worth. Campanis’ remarks about blacks in baseball and the reasons why more do not move up in the game’s management hierarchy caused a furor that brought about his firing Wednesday as Dodger vice president in charge of player personnel.

“I’ve thought a lot about the show the last day or so,” Kahn said. “First, I would never go on a show with an interviewer as gifted as Ted Koppel without some preparation. In this situation, you are no better than the ad-lib you deliver at 11:40 that you wrote at 3 o’clock that afternoon.

“You are there, in New York City, with a plug in your ear and five TV monitors in front of you. Koppel is in Washington, Campanis in the Astrodome. I mean, this isn’t as hard as writing, but it’s work.

“You have Koppel, who I believe is the best interviewer in the business, and you’ve got millions of people watching. If you don’t have slightly wet palms over that, you’re either demented or dead. I was just there, trying to be a good guest, trying to complete my sentences, trying not to ramble. But you can’t help being a little nervous. I mean, this isn’t AM Cleveland or something.”

So, given his state of personal preparation and concentration, Kahn said he was hardly worried about Al Campanis saying or doing the wrong thing.

“My first sense was shock,” Kahn said. “Then, my quick other sense was that this man is an employee of baseball and baseball’s record of hiring black general managers is terrible. So I would have said, had I been in his place, something about how I wasn’t an owner, but I think it is outrageous that there aren’t more black GMs. Something like that.

“My next thought was, how can I bail him out? I went on the show, ready to tell some stories. But I sure wasn’t ready for this.

“Then, I got to thinking that I wouldn’t want to hear this kind of talk at a party, much less on a TV show in front of millions of people, so I can’t bail him out of his position at all. But I wasn’t going to attack him, either. I’ve known Al for 35 years, and he was once very nice to my son. If somebody is nice to your son, he gets credit in your heart forever.”

Kahn said he was amazed at Campanis’ inability to articulately deal with the subject matter.

“One of the thoughts I had was that Al has a master’s degree from NYU,” Kahn said. “I know he’s not going to quote Keats to me, but he has a good education.

“I’ll tell you one thing. I have a friend named Peter Edward Rose, whom it took five years to get through high school, but who would have handled Koppel’s questions easily, with appropriate answers.”

Kahn said he had both immediate and delayed reactions to Campanis’ statements.

“I remember sitting there, thinking about what was being said, thinking that I couldn’t try to smooth this over or anything because I had an obligation to Jackie Robinson, and also thinking, ‘I am watching somebody slowly hang himself.’

“Then I got in the limo they send to take you home, and I’m saying to myself that what has happened is appalling. I guess I was still reacting a little slowly. You never completely stop being a newspaperman, but when you write books, you get three drafts.

“So when my 36-40-hour reaction started to set in, I started to think about the Dodgers, and being a Dodger fan back as a kid in Brooklyn during the liberal Roosevelt era. And thinking about the Dodger tradition--whether it’s Brooklyn or L.A.--and how the team did one of the finest things ever by hiring Jackie.

“And that meant to me, for the GM of the Dodgers to say these things meant so much more, did so much more damage, than had they been said by another GM from another team.”

Kahn said he takes no pleasure in being a part of such a moment.

“Personally, it was a sad day,” he said. “But I’m not going to be a bleeding heart about this. I think, in light of what’s happened, we just have to smoke this thing out.”