P.A. Marshal Mann has Cancer
rel...@cbus.mindspring.com
Some sad news from the AP tonight...
(Atlanta) As the mic man at Atlanta-Fulton County stadium, Marshall
Mann has introduced everyone from Hank Aaron to Greg Maddux in his 30
years with the Atlanta Braves.
Now Mann - - who has no health insurance because he's a part time
employee - - is turning to the Braves for financial help in his fight
against cancer.
The team - - which came up with 31 million dollars for pitcher John
Smoltz - - has offered to help with some fund raisers. But the Braves
haven't said whether they're willing to pay any of the doctor bills
for the longtime public address announcer.
Mann has begun treatment for cancer in his lungs and left kidney, and
will soon face overwhelming medical bills. Mann's friends in Griffin
have raised 12-thousand dollars for him, but it's not nearly enough.
The Braves' treatment of Mann has angered some in Griffin.
Mann didn't receive a championship ring when the Braves won the World
Series last year. He got a watch. Braves TV and radio announcers all
got rings.
That's all. Letsee if we can get the Braves to shell out a few bucks
for Mann. After all, he was one of the best PA guys in the business.
"AND IF YOU EXPERIENCE ANY DISCOMFORT DURING THE GAME, PLEASE HEAD TO
THE CUSTOMER SERVICE BOOTH OUTSIDE AISLE 119.....119! THANK YOU!"
Colin T. William
On Sun, 29 Dec 1996 rel...@cbus.mindspring.com wrote:
> Some sad news from the AP tonight...
>
> (Atlanta) As the mic man at Atlanta-Fulton County stadium, Marshall
> Mann has introduced everyone from Hank Aaron to Greg Maddux in his 30
> years with the Atlanta Braves.
> Now Mann - - who has no health insurance because he's a part time
> employee - - is turning to the Braves for financial help in his fight
> against cancer.
> The team - - which came up with 31 million dollars for pitcher John
> Smoltz - - has offered to help with some fund raisers. But the Braves
> haven't said whether they're willing to pay any of the doctor bills
> for the longtime public address announcer.
> Mann has begun treatment for cancer in his lungs and left kidney, and
> will soon face overwhelming medical bills. Mann's friends in Griffin
> have raised 12-thousand dollars for him, but it's not nearly enough.
> The Braves' treatment of Mann has angered some in Griffin.
> Mann didn't receive a championship ring when the Braves won the World
> Series last year. He got a watch. Braves TV and radio announcers all
> got rings.
Isn't that sweet of the organization. Geez. He didn't even get a ring?
How shitty of them.
The man deserves a lot better from this organization. Be nice if the
players would help him out a little too.
As an aside, how much did the team help out the family of the guy who was
killed while a replacement player with the braves?
Colin
Andy Beauchamp
>Isn't that sweet of the organization. Geez. He didn't even get a ring?
>How shitty of them.
>The man deserves a lot better from this organization. Be nice if the
>players would help him out a little too.
It seems even at part time they could afford to have some type of
health care on him after 30 years of service.
>As an aside, how much did the team help out the family of the guy who was
>killed while a replacement player with the braves?
A while after it happened I know his widow said the Braves had not
even contacted her.
--Andrew
Timothy Krasniewski
Colin T. William <cwi...@emory.edu> wrote in article
<Pine.GSO.3.95.96123...@curly.cc.emory.edu>...
> On Sun, 29 Dec 1996 rel...@cbus.mindspring.com wrote:
>
> > Some sad news from the AP tonight...
> >
> > (Atlanta) As the mic man at Atlanta-Fulton County stadium, Marshall
> > Mann has introduced everyone from Hank Aaron to Greg Maddux in his 30
> > years with the Atlanta Braves.
> > Now Mann - - who has no health insurance because he's a part time
> > employee - - is turning to the Braves for financial help in his fight
> > against cancer.
> > The team - - which came up with 31 million dollars for pitcher John
> > Smoltz - - has offered to help with some fund raisers. But the Braves
> > haven't said whether they're willing to pay any of the doctor bills
> > for the longtime public address announcer.
> > Mann has begun treatment for cancer in his lungs and left kidney, and
> > will soon face overwhelming medical bills. Mann's friends in Griffin
> > have raised 12-thousand dollars for him, but it's not nearly enough.
> > The Braves' treatment of Mann has angered some in Griffin.
> > Mann didn't receive a championship ring when the Braves won the World
> > Series last year. He got a watch. Braves TV and radio announcers all
> > got rings.
>
> Isn't that sweet of the organization. Geez. He didn't even get a ring?
> How shitty of them.
>
> The man deserves a lot better from this organization. Be nice if the
> players would help him out a little too.
I've worked in the insurance industry for over 6 years now. In that time I
have seen numerous situations similar to this one. Without trying to sound
heartless, I find it difficult to feel sorry for people who put themselves
in this siutation.
Consider the following:
1. If health insurance is important to a person, then why work for an
employer for 30 years without receiving this benefit? Part-time employee
or not, I've seen companies make special arrangements for people. Just
because an employee is only part-time or seasonal does not automatically
make him/her uninsurable.
2. Dozens of carriers offer individual policies for people in just such a
situation. Many of them are not as ludicrously expensive as one may think.
When my fiancee was between college and a job several years ago, I found
her a 90-day policy that only cost $70 for the 3-month period. There are
options available.
Now, I'm not saying that the organization SHOULDN'T help with his problems.
Rather that they do not deserve to be persecuted if they choose NOT to
help out. He made a conscious decision to not carry health insurance on
himself for 30 years, and I'm afraid there is only one person at fault.
On the issue of Championship Rings, isn't that up to the players to decide
who gets one and who doesn't? I know that they vote on who gets the $$$
shares from the series. Is it the same for the rings?
Even if not, I think that the team broadcasters, who spend months traveling
with the team around the country, are much more deserving than the PA
announcer who spends 3-4 hours at the stadium 81 times per year.
Again, not trying to sound cruel, but it's just my opinion.
T.
Colin T. William
On 2 Jan 1997, Timothy Krasniewski wrote:
> I've worked in the insurance industry for over 6 years now. In that time I
> have seen numerous situations similar to this one. Without trying to sound
> heartless, I find it difficult to feel sorry for people who put themselves
> in this siutation.
>
> 2. Dozens of carriers offer individual policies for people in just such a
> situation. Many of them are not as ludicrously expensive as one may think.
> When my fiancee was between college and a job several years ago, I found
> her a 90-day policy that only cost $70 for the 3-month period. There are
> options available.
But that is only temporary. Those policies are no substitute for a real
policy, and I dread to think what one would have to go through to actually
try to collect from them. When I have looked into affordable health
insurance (and I have looked into it pretty well) what I see is that for
someone young and healthy like me it still costs a bundle, for someone
older I shudder to think.
> Now, I'm not saying that the organization SHOULDN'T help with his problems.
> Rather that they do not deserve to be persecuted if they choose NOT to
> help out. He made a conscious decision to not carry health insurance on
> himself for 30 years, and I'm afraid there is only one person at fault.
Probably so. However, I'm a Brit and find it a little difficult to look
at a man losing everything over health problems. Tough to stomach. Just
my personal opinion on it though.
> On the issue of Championship Rings, isn't that up to the players to decide
> who gets one and who doesn't? I know that they vote on who gets the $$$
> shares from the series. Is it the same for the rings?
The folks in charge decide. The front office staff got them, lots of
people did. I think they ended up ordering well over a hundred.
> Even if not, I think that the team broadcasters, who spend months traveling
> with the team around the country, are much more deserving than the PA
> announcer who spends 3-4 hours at the stadium 81 times per year.
> Again, not trying to sound cruel, but it's just my opinion.
Of course, how long have Joe Simpson and Don Sutton been a part of the
organization? A hell of a lot shorter tenure than Mr. Mann. Tenure
usually matters in many businesses.
Not trying to sound like a whiny liberal, just my opinion :)
Colin
Colin T. William
On 2 Jan 1997, Scott McMahan - Softbase Systems wrote:
> I think IJ Rosenberg is certainly writing some very yellow journalism
> with this story, and is playing up the "rich organization ignores the
> little guy" aspect and not reporting the facts. I thought the AJC was
> a major newspaper, not some supermarket tabloid. I was wrong!
How often do you read it? I subscribed to it for three years before
movcing to Ohio, and thought it was a crappy, crappy paper overall. Any
paper for that large of a city that devotes a quarter page to "World in
Brief" as their entire world news coverage is not remotely major. And IJ
in particular is a weak baseball journalist. He hardly ever gets any
advanced word on trades that I don't hear from another source first,
spends much of his time making up crap about trades that never happen.
Outside of this one almost never hears him speak ill of anything the
organization does, no matter how patently stupid it is. Ugh.
That said, my new newspaper in Ohio is worse :)
> I have a *LOT* of unanswered questions about the whole deal
> ...What
> does getting a World Series ring have to do with anything? (Did the
> four TV/radio announcers get them? did the ushers? Anyway, it seems
> completely incidental to the main story.)
It was being discussed in the thread because it was mentioned in the AP
Story.
Colin
Scott McMahan - Softbase Systems
I think IJ Rosenberg is certainly writing some very yellow journalism
with this story, and is playing up the "rich organization ignores the
little guy" aspect and not reporting the facts. I thought the AJC was
a major newspaper, not some supermarket tabloid. I was wrong!
I have a *LOT* of unanswered questions about the whole deal, like what
Mann has been doing all these years -- surely a part time PA announcer
job was not the only work he's ever done!? Doesn't his day job have
insurance? Why did he wait until *now* to realize he needed to make
plans for the future? What's he been doing for the past 30 years? What
does getting a World Series ring have to do with anything? (Did the
four TV/radio announcers get them? did the ushers? Anyway, it seems
completely incidental to the main story.) Doesn't Mann have kids? What
are they doing about this, ignoring him?
I feel sorry for the guy, but the way this story has been reported has
rubbed me the wrong way. I'd like someone to do an honest, unbiased
report on Mann's situation.
Scott
rel...@cbus.mindspring.com
soft...@mercury.interpath.com (Scott McMahan - Softbase Systems)
wrote:
>I think IJ Rosenberg is certainly writing some very yellow journalism
>with this story, and is playing up the "rich organization ignores the
>little guy" aspect and not reporting the facts. I thought the AJC was
>a major newspaper, not some supermarket tabloid.
It's about time someone has said something mean about IJ Rosenberg.
He's very, very mediocre who's parlayed his position into alot of
money.
I went to high school with IJ (Lakeside HS in Atlanta). He was a huge
jerk there and never delved into journalism (and made fun of those who
did)
He went to the University of Alabama where apparently he got the
journalism bug. He worked for a couple of years with a paper in
Alabama before getting lucky and signing on with the AJC.
I knew the former Braves writer very well when he was with the
Columbus (GA) paper, Joe Strauss. A great guy and a good writer. The
AJC managment didn't like Joe and moved him somewhere else. They
stuck IJ in there as the Braves beat writer on a whim. He got very
very lucky because that was 1991, and the Braves took off.
Suddenly IJ is the golden boy. He writes all the articles, he writes
a couple of books (and I refuse to buy any of them).
But if you read his stuff, it's really really mediocre at best.
I'll never forget his piece when Francisco Cabrera got The Hit. He
could have written something that would have been cherished by Braves
fans for all history. Instead he wrote something to the effect of "It
was like something out of the movies". That's the oldest and most
overused cliche in journalism. I hope the AJC begins to realize this
and moves him off the Braves beat....
Sorry, just had to vent a little....
Colin T. William
On Thu, 2 Jan 1997, Sam Callan wrote:
> I have travelled a lot over the past few years and read local papers
> wherever I go (I once dated a journalism major who now writes for the
> AJC). I have found the AJC sports section to be better than most other
> newspapers. Most of them give little or no coverage to colleges or high
> schools.
However, IJ Rosenberg has been a complete brownnoser. He never seems to
dig deeper for the story, is great at sharing rumors that have already
come from other sources, but for the most part toes the party line. The
way he writes he seems to think playing Belliard is actually a fine idea.
And he's supposed to be the city's baseball authority?
> As far as it lack of world scope: I say so what? THere is so much news
> available now that reading a newspaper (while still one of my favorite
> activities) is not very timely. I would venture to guess that the average
> reader (of which there are fewer every year it seems) does not care much
> about world news.
Well, I would argue that Atlanta is developing into an international city,
and that the AJC might realize some increase in circulation if it
addressed the international news with something beyond a column which in
any given day wastes a chunk of its space on the latest rumors from the
British family. Business people care about international news, and for
that matter, any voting electorate needs to know something about the rest
of the world.
> Of course, the best part of the paper is the Vent....
Well, yeah...:)
Colin
TIGRWDS
I grew up listining to Marshall Mann. And you cant watch a Braves game
without hearing his stern voice. and you have to ask yourself if Chicago
won a world series dont you think Harry would get a ring. And if anyone
from the Braves may see this letter. even if you have to hold a fundraiser
for the man atleast give the chop talk a page in his name.