Salata still very relevant

ROGER CARLSON

The annual pilgrimage from Newport Beach to New York City begins on

Thursday when Irrelevant Week founder Paul Salata, along with

daughter Melanie and her husband, Ed Fitch, tacks on a few thousand

more frequent flier miles toward nearly one million miles over the

years via American Airlines.

With Irrelevant Week XXX approaching in June, celebrating the last

player to be picked in the National Football League draft, it all

gets under way April 24 at the Jacob Javitz Auditorium, giving him a

rite of passage through Newport Beach as Mr. Irrelevant.

Salata’s ritual is basically the same each year ... a flight out

on Thursday, a luncheon with the NFL commissioner, on Friday, and

“schmoozing” the media on Saturday as the first round gets underway.

Then Sunday waiting throughout the day for the final choice to

appear and gathering necessary information after taking center stage

to announce the last player. And finally, on Monday, the trip home

where a lot of logistics await.

“But first,” says Salata as they enter the city, “we stop at the

Carnegie Deli and take the cabbie in with us and eat.”

The Salata party arrives early on April 24 despite the fact the

last player doesn’t emerge until 4 to 5 p.m.

“We go early and sit around and heckle,” said Salata. “We have a

lot of friends.”

Truly an understatement, Newport Beach’s Irrelevant Week gets a

big play from the ESPN crew, and management of virtually every NFL

team is well aware with cooperation very much a given.

“Once you get the team, the player’s school and his hometown it’s

pretty easy,” said Salata. “What’s good is the cooperation. They play

along with it. The league likes it, the celebration, everyone likes

underdogs.”

And every once in a while, the underdog wins, such as the Chicago

Bears’ Mike Green, Mr. Irrelevant in 2000.

Green lit it up last fall in his role as a safety and appears to

have a long tour of duty in the NFL ahead of him, proving the theory

that “You just never know,” is always there.

“Pete Rozelle thought it was a great idea from the beginning,”

said Salata, “and there has not been a problem since Day One.”

Salata used to assist the San Francisco 49ers at the draft in the

pre-Irrelevant days, setting up the tables as a general assistant.

Perhaps this is where he came up with what must be the all-time

gimmick of pro sports: to honor an underdog for “no reason at all.”

“In those days [the draft] wasn’t on TV at all,” recalls Salata,

who is still on the mend following recent hip replacement surgery.

“There were many more rounds and a lot less teams, and it was done

faster. There were no audiences, no one was on the balcony and it

began at a hotel.”

The hotels got bigger, the show finally moving to Madison Square

Garden, and this year to the Javitz Auditorium, so Salata Inc. will

return to its original base at the Marriott Marquis in the downtown

area.

“When they were competing with Al Davis and the American Football

League they did it all in one day, 15 straight hours without a break

to beat up on the other league,” said Salata.

And when they’re not “working,” the Salata entourage spends a lot

of time Friday and Saturday nights hitting Broadway’s abundant list

of shows.

One of his favorite spots is wherever John Fedchok’s band is

playing.

“I used to hang out with Woodie Herman’s band and John was the

lead trombone,” explains Salata.

As for the Big Show, Salata’s appearance on ESPN2 to announce the

last player drafted,” he says the all-time shocker was when someone,

an agent perhaps, took Jim Finn to Madison Square Garden and he was

the selection.

“He’s here, he’s here,” cried out a voice in the crowd and Salata

interviewed him on the spot.

“It was a million-to-one shot the last player to be picked would

be in attendance,” said the 78-year-old Salata.

Salata’s presence at the proceedings, of course, starts the game

clock as the party gathers information and gets the fast break

underway toward the proceedings in June.

It all gets done in about 20 seconds on television, a far cry from

Salata’s first appearance when he began to go into some of his

well-known routines.

After hours and hours of pressure, there was little room for

Salata and his jokes. “Everyone was screaming at me,” said Salata. “I

was almost run out of town.”

The craziness of Irrelevant Week enters its 30th edition this

spring with the moniker of Irrelevant Week XXX and one wonders where

it will all end.

No problem, insists Salata, whose personal calendar surely has No.

50 penciled in for 2025. Irrelevant Week L? Will anyone know what the

heck they’re talking about?

“Melanie (in time) will keep it going,” said Salata, who has

always enjoyed huge boosts from sponsors, such as the Newport Beach

Chamber of Commerce and First American Title (Don Kennedy), among

many others. Salata is convinced, that even if Newport Beach should

collapse into the ocean, the NFL will maintain the tradition.

The last four picks, Tevita Ofahengaue (Cardinals), Ahmad Miller

(Texans), Ryan Hoag (Raiders) and Andre Sommersell (Raiders) haven’t

exactly set the NFL on fire, maintaining a tradition aside from the

emergence of Mike Green.

Also in the area of tradition are the stories that go with it.

Three of Salata’s favorites are the cases of “The Third Trombone,”

“The ‘Not-So-Fixed’ Horse Race” and “The Butcher Who Was a Prime

Rib.”

“In 1983 when John Tuggle of California was the pick we had the

Stanford trombone player who was run over in the end zone of the

Stanford-California thriller at the finish, and I invited him down

with the stipulation that all he had to do was to play the Stanford

fight song.” Little did Salata know, to his chagrin, that the third

trombone plays but a few bursts within the song, making the effort

little more than a noise in itself with no resemblance to the tune.

“In 1978, Lee Washburn was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys and we

took him to Hollywood Park. When a horse called ‘Rocket Cowboy,’ or

something like that, won, Washburn was convinced we had ‘rigged’ the

race. He said, ‘You guys are just amazing.’ ”

“Then there was the guy who missed his flight, Kelvin Kirk,”

Salata recalled of the original Mr. Irrelevant. “We found a butcher

who looked a little like him for the press conference. Kirk finally

showed up in the middle of the conference and stepped right in

without a hitch.”

Kirk is expected to be among most of the 28 other past irrelevants

at this year’s reunion of irrelevancy.

Salata, meanwhile, should be nearing full recovery from the hip

replacement surgery by the time everything explodes around here in

June.

“I’m way ahead of the norm,” said Salata. “I’m doing very well,

standing straight and walking very well with a cane. It’s supposed to

take six months [of recovery time] but I feel it will be pretty well

done in three months. They [Hoag Hospital and its doctors,

technicians and nurses] have got this thing down to a pretty good

science.”

All of which means the beat goes on for Salata.

With annual trips to New York City for the Irrelevant Week

revelation, the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl in Hawaii, chances are he’ll

be working on his second million miles very soon.

* ROGER CARLSON is the former sports editor for the Daily Pilot.

He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].