Donovan’s Dry Season : Pro Football Raconteur Has Trouble With His Heart

At various times in his 67 years, Art Donovan has used the holiday season to give thanks for Spam, the old days in the Bronx, salami, offensive linemen who couldn’t block, beer by the case, NFL Films, football on real grass, David Letterman, Italian food, life after 60 and the fact that he got to live in America, because, as he once put it, his ancestors in Ireland didn’t have anything to eat.

The old Baltimore Colt has whittled his list considerably this year, though. As his family gathers for the next holiday meal, Donovan will drop his head to his ample gullet and give thanks for the fact that, as he says, “I’m here, right?”

Not that it was ever iffy, but things did get a little scary in October, starting that night he leaned over to get into his car after a party. The next thing he knew his wife was yelling at him and beating on his chest.

“I never felt any pain at all,” he said. “When I came to I said, ‘OK, let’s go home.’ But everyone says, ‘No way,’ and I guess I was sweating a lot, and five minutes later I’m in an ambulance.”

He wound up seeing a series of doctors--”the plumber, the electrician. . . .”--whose consensus was that he had an enlarged heart that had started beating too fast. They installed a defibrillator in his chest to make sure it didn’t happen again and told him to stop drinking.

“If I’d known what they were doing, I would have walked out,” he said. “I got this thing looks like a deck of cards sitting behind my ribs. They tell me it’ll go off when it needs to. Whew. I said, ‘How will I know when it goes off?’ They said, ‘Ho, you’ll know.’ But they were the best, though. I guess people die from this, and they took care of me.”

Not that he was thrilled about giving up beer.

“They told me to stop two years ago. I listened for about three months. This time, I’m with them. All this was a slap in the face. It was a sad day, though, no more beer. I’ll tell you one thing, some poor guy on the beer line lost his job that day. Take out my beer money, and someone’s getting fired.”

In the beginning, he found himself in a room at St. Joseph Hospital, feeling sorry for himself.

“Real sorry,” he said. “I’m going, ‘Jeez, I got a bad heart. Of all the people to get it, me, who’s been over here a hundred times to visit sick people.’ ”

But then he turned on the television, and the World Series was on.

“And there was this umpire that got shot (Steve Palermo) going out to throw the first pitch, and I said to myself, ‘You phony . . . , here’s this guy so brave and you’re sitting around moping.’ That woke me up. I was fine after that.”

He got hundreds of cards and phone calls from friends, teammates and people he had visited in his recent incarnation as a football raconteur.

When he got home, he canceled a dozen scheduled appearances around the country at banquets and quarterback clubs. Then he put his feet in front of the television, started watching football and observed:

--”(Mike) Ditka must be the best coach in the league to win with that lousy offense. They can’t move an inch. Not even on Miami, which is saying something. (Jim) Harbaugh, he just runs around as soon as he gets the ball. And he says he thinks he’s the best quarterback in the league. He must be smoking dope.”

--”Everyone thinks Buffalo is so great. They can’t stop anyone.”

--”My favorite guy is this new coach of the Patriots (Dick MacPherson). He runs around kissing his players and jumping up and down. He’s a sketch. So is this (Jerry) Glanville guy, who looks like an undertaker.”

--”John Robinson is a hell of a nice guy, but I think he’s going to be unemployed. When this (49er quarterback Steve) Bono throws for 300 yards on his defense . . . , I figure his team has quit on him.”

--”What the hell is a pulled hamstring? Isn’t that a charley horse? And what is a medium collateral whatever ligament? It sounds like spaghetti with fish sauce.”

--”The TV people say, ‘This guy is having a Pro Bowl year,’ like it’s a big deal. I remember when this guy who ran a bar out in L.A., I think he picked the (Pro Bowl) teams. He’d always tell us beforehand whether we made it.”