Say It Ain’t So, Joe: Montana Snubs Continue

First Sacramento. Now Philadelphia. It’s beginning to look like Joe Montana doesn’t care whom he offends. All of a sudden, Super Bowl Joe is becoming an equal opportunity jerk.

Sunday he stiffed the Presidents’ Day weekend sports collectors convention at the Sacramento Community Center. Two days later he snubbed the Maxwell Football Club, becoming the first winner of the prestigious Bert Bell Award in 30 years not to accept the trophy.

It should be noted that Montana had no trouble meeting commitments with Diet Pepsi and Disneyland. Or should we say lucrative commitments?

We should. While promoter Bob Lee sent Montana $20,000--since returned--for his Sacramento appearance, that at best is less than half what Disney pays and isn’t remotely close to the value of the Pepsi endorsement.

OK, maybe Joe’s favorite view of Sacramento is in his rear-view mirror at the end of training camp. And it’s hard to fault him for thinking Philadelphia isn’t a vacation wonderland in the middle of February.

So why can’t he tell Hillel Katzen, his San Jose-based personal-appearances agent, that he wouldn’t make it to either event? Why leave all those people hanging? This is the guy who phones dying children and brings autographed footballs to hospitals? Could it be that the same fellow who just turned three championship defenses into so much January linguine isn’t man enough to just say no?

Say it ain’t so, Joe. Say you’re not another Kevin Mitchell, who couldn’t be bothered to attend player-of-the-year ceremonies at baseball’s winter meetings.

At the Presidents’ Day weekend show, site of the first Montana slight, there were no saints. Only villains and victims.

Among the 6,000 who nudged, disgruntled, around the crowded Community Center aisles Sunday, Joe Montana was public enemy No. 1. Some told horror stories of rearranging their long weekend plans for a glimpse of Joe. Others reported driving several hundred miles. Some children cried while their red-faced parents tried to explain about modern sports heroes.

A lot of them wondered how much of their displeasure should have been focused on Lee, a veteran card-show promoter. For his part, Lee threw up his hands. He had sent the check. His people had conferred with Montana’s people. Now his attorney was hot on the case. Don’t blame me, he said.

I have trouble working up much sympathy for promoters. Promotion is, after all, one of those take-your-chances business, like sinking oil wells or skydiving for dollars. That’s why the rewards of successful huckstering are so great.

So Bob Lee had to post a hand-lettered sign announcing that Montana wasn’t coming. So he had to refund all those $19 Joe Montana autograph tickets. So he’s going to see Montana in court. So what?

Three days of jammed aisles and sellouts for others in the autograph lineup suggest that Lee had a successful event even without Montana.

It’s certain that any kind of settlement wouldn’t put any more cash in the pockets of the dealers who paid Lee $235 for table space, especially those who invested heavily in special Super Bowl footballs and Joe Montana cards. Before it was announced that Montana would not show up Sunday, championship footballs were going for $125; after that, they could be had for $75, and dealers would throw in a cap. Similarly, Montana’s rookie card was selling for $225 Saturday; the next day it plummeted to as little as $100.

“And it’s not like that’s a card you’re going to get signed, either,” says Rex Bacon of Hawaiian Brothers Baseball Cards. “It’s just that if a guy doesn’t show up, his popularity drops.”

If Lee was serious about making sure his stars were there--thereby protecting all 400-odd dealers--he should have had cancellation penalties written into their contracts. It’s one thing for a guy merely to return a check; it’s quite another for him to have to write one out. That’s true even for millionaires like Montana. You haven’t seen true cheapskates until you’ve witnessed a group of ballplayers--average salary, say, $750,000--haggling over the particulars of a $75 restaurant bill.

And yet, by most accounts, dealers who purchased space for the Presidents’ Day show say they are not angry with Lee and are only slightly miffed at Montana. Rumors had been circulating in sports souvenir circles since just after the Super Bowl that Montana would skip Sacramento.

Furthermore, if Lee had been serious about protecting the customers, he’d have published a phone number in his advertisements that would have accessed current information about the show. After last Thursday, all three numbers provided in the ads reached the same, out-of-date answering machine message.

But that hardly forgives Montana, who apparently agreed to the provisions of a contract, only to whimsically decide against fulfilling the obligation when it turned out he’d have to interrupt a Virgin Islands vacation. The circumstances were similar surrounding the Maxwell Club snafu. Montana never said he was coming, but he never said he wasn’t.

That’s two public relations shiners inside of a week, and the off-season is less than a month old. Come on, Joe. You can do better than that.