We took this photo last week from an article that was written by Larry Henry of the Everett Herald. Henry retired in 2006 after four decades of covering sports in the Pacific Northwest.
Our friend, Greg Talley, is trying hard to help me find this story in a manner in which I could share it here but for now, the story behind the story will show you just how many different things were effected by a hair brained idea that was designed to test my marketing skills.
Our fourth of five children, Chris Carter was in middle school at the time and I was managing for the New York Times out in Seattle. We lived opposite Everett in a beautiful place called Lake Stevens. Chris Pratt put our little town on the map and we owned a pizza restaurant in the village for a stretch.
The Everett baseball team was the Single A farm club of the Seattle Mariners, and they played in the Northwest League. The league consisted of eight teams spread across two countries as Vancouver, Canada 🇨🇦 added the international flavor. Washington, Oregon, and Idaho housed the other seven teams.
The idea was to do the math on how quickly one could visit each of the eight parks and then find a way to reward the participants at the end of the journey.
One decade later, Sabrena Carter Deal would create our logo as her little sister, Rebecca, and I would introduce the adventure to the Valley Baseball League !
But let’s get back to the story about the mid-1990s. The goal was to get to return to your home park and throw out a first pitch before a game, which we did in the VBL. But the season ended shortly after so we had to look for a backup plan.
Larry Henry answered a phone call and was intrigued by our story and agreed to stop by our house and create a story about our bizarre trip.
17,500 is still the daily circulation, and Larry Henry passed away just two years ago ( October 4th), but the lesson he taught me that day changed my life in a manner that became quite possibly the RED LETTER DAY to the back half of my life.
My son was new in school as we had finally moved into a house that we owned for the very first time. Henry made him feel like the King of the World for the hour or so that he visited, and then he took the time to tell a story in a manner that sticks with us three decades later.
Chris went from being the new kid to becoming somewhat of a celebrity after the story, and we were still able to reflect back on it last week. Over my decades of writing, I am often asked why I treat everything like it is the 7th game of the World Series ? The answer is because you never know what impact your story will have on another person, in the present time or thirty years later.
When it was time to get out to Boise, Idaho, we had to take a $49 Southwest flight but that led to eating French Fries out of an airport vending machine.
The first of many ” Loops ” had been completed, and it would lead to numerous different marketing campaigns down the road. Mr Henry showed me something that I thought to be true and have carried forward across the past 30 years !
The story about Mike and Dave’s Pizza becoming part of our life while in Lake Stevens is a Book 7 story, but it did send us back in the direction of the East Coast when we sold it to some friends in town. That Pratt fella went on to have a nice career in acting.
Before we say goodbye to the PNW for the first time, there is time to sneak in the most enjoyable moments from Bob Bender and his University of Washington Huskies. Bender will always be the answer to the trivia question about which guard played in two different National Championship games for different schools.
Bender was part of the legendary Bob Knight Indiana University team that went 32-0 in 1976 before transferring to Duke University, where he fell to Kentucky in the 1978 title game. Bender joined UW at its low point and took us to consecutive tournaments, including one trip to the Sweet 16. Bender was believable and accessible at the time so there were plenty of great memories.
Slick Watts played six years in the NBA for Seattle, and his son, Donald, played for Bender. Watts passed away in 2025 but we shared some great times watching his boy play. The most memorable time was the Wally World game down in New Orleans.
Southwest Airlines was running a ridiculous offer of fly anywhere and then fly again for $49. I took Chris out of school early one day so we could fly to Spokane and back just to get tickets to fly down to New Orleans for the opening round of the NCAA.
Wally Szczerbiak was lighting up the country for Miami of Ohio in 1899. Bender chose to play him one on one and make his teammates beat us.
The bizarre plan nearly worked as Wally dropped 43 points that day against Thalo Green, but UW held the rest of the team to just 16 points. We lost 59-58 at the buzzer, but we had an experience, plus our rental car was a Chrysler Sebring convertible. That becomes part of the story later.
The number of both life experiences and sporting activities across the 90s had me looking forward to seeing what lies ahead.
The final footnote to the decade took place when Bob Muffett and I drove from Florence, South Carolina, to Tampa Bay, Florida, for the second of my Duke University Bowl games.
Crystal Clear Delivery was founded, and the original office was located on Fidalgo Island in the town of Anacortes.
We survived Y2K and we will pick things back up on Hilton Head Island.
