Speaker 1: One of the most important things that I've always believed
Speaker 1: in was you have to take risks. I think if
Speaker 1: you're not willing to take risks, there's no rewards. Hello everyone,
Speaker 1: I'm recording today at Samsung's flagship retail location, Samsung eight
Speaker 1: thirty seven with my guest, Jeffrey Loria. I've known Jeffrey
Speaker 1: for many years. In fact, I met him eighteen years
Speaker 1: ago at the Armory on Park Avenue in New York
Speaker 1: City where there was a very large New York art show,
Speaker 1: and it's been on for years. It's been on for years,
Speaker 1: and I was feeling good that night and I was
Speaker 1: walking by one of my favorite sculptures of all time.
Speaker 1: Did I ever tell you the story about why I
Speaker 1: love that sculpture so much? No? It is Myles Law Riviere,
Speaker 1: which was made in about nineteen thirty thirty one one.
Speaker 1: And when I was a college student at Barnard College,
Speaker 1: I would spend my Tuesday evenings at the Museum of
Speaker 1: Modern Art and I would listen to music. They had
Speaker 1: a music music at night every Tuesday night in the summertimes,
Speaker 1: and I would rest my arm or my head on
Speaker 1: the leg of La Riviere, which was a beautiful sculpture
Speaker 1: in the pool in the garden of the Museum of
Speaker 1: Modern Art on fifty third Street. And I always said
Speaker 1: to myself, if I could ever buy a sculpture, I
Speaker 1: would buy La Riviere. And then I saw a casting
Speaker 1: of it at the Armory, and Jeffrey was the dealer,
Speaker 1: and we made a deal, and we made a friendship,
Speaker 1: and we made a friendship. And thank you very much
Speaker 1: for that, because I have enjoyed her so much. She's
Speaker 1: one of the most beautiful, beautiful female sculptures I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: And you have one too, I hear in your garden.
Speaker 1: I have one at the end of a swimming pool.
Speaker 1: She exists to lie down next to a body of water.
Speaker 1: And although in law in the Twilries she's on a pedestal, well,
Speaker 1: they don't have any water there, that's right, No, no
Speaker 1: pond right there. And in my garden she's actually resting
Speaker 1: in a beautiful mossy garden surrounded by low shrubs. But
Speaker 1: she's beautiful and you look down on her, which is
Speaker 1: which is a nice way to look at her. Well.
Speaker 1: Sculpture is meant to be seen in many places and
Speaker 1: many viewpoints, and so it can be in a garden.
Speaker 1: It can be here a pool, It can be up
Speaker 1: on a pedestal, high up on a pedestal, but you
Speaker 1: try to make eye to eye contact with it. But see,
Speaker 1: we're getting off track here talking about one specific sculpture
Speaker 1: when I really want to introduce you to Jeffrey Lauria.
Speaker 1: I've known him through his two driving passions, baseball and art.
Speaker 1: He began as a highly successful dealer in the art
Speaker 1: world of the nineteen sixties, and as private collecting grew
Speaker 1: into the enormous business that it has become today. In
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, Jeffrey began to pursue the penultimate dream
Speaker 1: for any true baseball fan to be the owner of
Speaker 1: a professional baseball team. So he eventually became the owner
Speaker 1: of the Montreal Expos and then later the Miami Marlins.
Speaker 1: Jeffrey has just published a book filled with stories and
Speaker 1: insights from his two fascinating careers. It's titled From the
Speaker 1: Front Row Reflections of a Major League Baseball Owner and
Speaker 1: a Modern Art Dealer. Welcome Jeffrey. Each of my podcasts
Speaker 1: and I love your book. It is really informative and
Speaker 1: it is also a kind of a great, big fat book.
Speaker 1: Full of good advice for anybody in business, anybody thinking
Speaker 1: about business. When you examine somebody's career, a career like yours,
Speaker 1: which has been so phenomenally successful, it's really nice to
Speaker 1: know the backstories. And this book is so full of stories.
Speaker 1: You have lived in an extremely full life. I feel
Speaker 1: very fortunate, Martha, to have been part of two worlds.
Speaker 1: The baseball world, which came in the late eighties when
Speaker 1: I broughte a minor league team to see if I
Speaker 1: like the industry, and then eventually the major league club
Speaker 1: in late nineties. And having started in the early sixties
Speaker 1: in the art world, I guess I can say I
Speaker 1: came of age at the right time. I decided to
Speaker 1: put it all together, and when I sold the team
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, decided that I'd had some great experiences
Speaker 1: that I would like to share, and hence the book. Now.
Speaker 1: This book is available on Amazon, Amazon and bookstores soon.
Speaker 1: Yeah from the Front Row, published by Post Hill Press.
Speaker 1: Right L O. R I A. Is the last name
Speaker 1: of Jeffrey Lauria. It is a very interesting book and
Speaker 1: it has some very interesting illustrations of fabulous pictures. You
Speaker 1: did a great job the book is divided in both
Speaker 1: the art world and the baseball world. But it seems
Speaker 1: they seems so foreign. It's not, but it's not, is it. No,
Speaker 1: As you say, the baseball player is so much like
Speaker 1: an artist. I Martha, I always felt equally comfortable in
Speaker 1: an artist studio as I did on a baseball field
Speaker 1: or in a clubhouse. They sort of I mean, I
Speaker 1: could be watching a baseball game in Miami and learn
Speaker 1: about some work of art. I have to excuse myself
Speaker 1: for two minutes. But both worlds came together very well
Speaker 1: for me. You know that they both produce a lot
Speaker 1: of magic, a lot of drama, and a lot of excitement.
Speaker 1: And that's that's what life is about. You had that
Speaker 1: intuition of focusing on two giant businesses that are fun.
Speaker 1: Art is fun and baseball is really fun. I've been
Speaker 1: a baseball fan forever. I don't I don't know if
Speaker 1: you know that I babysat for Gil McDougal's kids, Yogi
Speaker 1: Bearer's kids. We were all young, young high school girls
Speaker 1: in Nutley, New Jersey, and they lived in te Neck,
Speaker 1: right across the river from Yankee Stadium. And we would
Speaker 1: and we were so trustworthy of these, this gang of
Speaker 1: girls from Nutley that we were always invited to babysit
Speaker 1: for the baseball players. Gil McDougall was one of my
Speaker 1: heroes growing up. I didn't know that, and and I
Speaker 1: knew exactly where he lived on. I think Leroy Street
Speaker 1: in Teaneck or Tenafly. You are right up there. Oh.
Speaker 1: And he was so charming, His wife was so nice,
Speaker 1: the kids were great and um and he. I have
Speaker 1: signed baseball card from Gil McDougall. I wonder what that's
Speaker 1: worth these days. Probably not as much as the Mickey
Speaker 1: Mantel card, which I do not have. I gave that
Speaker 1: one away. But but I love those I love those guys.
Speaker 1: They were really fun. And Yogi berra he actually remember.
Speaker 1: He didn't remember that I baby said for his kids,
Speaker 1: but his wife did. I've spent lots of time. I'm
Speaker 1: in the Yankee box with Yogi Vera and his wife
Speaker 1: at Yankee Stadium. I grew I grew up in Yankee Stadium.
Speaker 1: You did, so, where did you grow up? Where were
Speaker 1: you born? I was born in Manhattan, New York City,
Speaker 1: went to public school here in New York, played baseball
Speaker 1: at Steves In High School, and started going up to
Speaker 1: Yankee Stadium to chase my eventual dream when I was
Speaker 1: probably ten years old, when it was easy to get
Speaker 1: on a subway. So was it a dream to play
Speaker 1: baseball or well, it was both. It was first a
Speaker 1: dream to play the game and to play it well,
Speaker 1: and then to be around these players. What did you play?
Speaker 1: I played second base. I didn't have my growth spurt
Speaker 1: until I got to Yale, and so I was an
Speaker 1: infielder and going up to Yankee Stadium looking for autographs
Speaker 1: at an early age when I was, as I said,
Speaker 1: ten or eleven, did you ever catch a fly ball?
Speaker 1: There's a funny story with that. Yeah. I never caught
Speaker 1: a ball, either fair, foul, or in batting practice. But
Speaker 1: one day when I was in Miami with the Marlins,
Speaker 1: Barry Bonds came over to me and we started chatting,
Speaker 1: and he told me that he had a son who
Speaker 1: wanted to go to Yale. What did I think of
Speaker 1: the school? Of course, I could say nothing but great things.
Speaker 1: And then I said to him, you know, I never
Speaker 1: caught a foul ball, even in batting practice or any
Speaker 1: other time during the game. The first ending he came
Speaker 1: to bat and the first pitch he hit was straight
Speaker 1: up and was right over my head. Wow. And I
Speaker 1: could see it coming down and giving me a good
Speaker 1: shot on the head. So I put myself right under
Speaker 1: the eve of the of the dugout and it hit
Speaker 1: the eve of the dugout. And Barry was standing at
Speaker 1: home play laughing at me. He yelled over you said,
Speaker 1: you never caught a foul ball, and you hit from
Speaker 1: this one. I said, Barry, there's no way you can
Speaker 1: control a bat. They hit it right here at that
Speaker 1: moment he was he was joking, of course he was joking.
Speaker 1: But did you get the ball? No, somebody else, somebody
Speaker 1: else jumped in and took the ball. I'm always amazed
Speaker 1: when people catch them, but they're time to get into
Speaker 1: the stands. They're not that dangerous. But I sit in
Speaker 1: Jane Heller's seats, which are frightening because they now, yeah,
Speaker 1: right next to the dugout and right behind home plate,
Speaker 1: and it's really frightening because you're worry about getting hit
Speaker 1: by something very hard. Well, this week is Opening Day
Speaker 1: week for baseball. Are you going to Opening Day at
Speaker 1: Yankee Stadium? I am, I'm going to. I'll see you there,
Speaker 1: and I'd like to go. It's kind of tradition to go.
Speaker 1: And I'm posting a picture on my Instagram of me
Speaker 1: and my baseball dress from many years ago. Nicole Miller
Speaker 1: made us baseball dresses. So they're white sleeveless dresses with
Speaker 1: the red stitching, so it looks like we're it's a
Speaker 1: stitch baseball hard ball. But what team are you watching
Speaker 1: closely this year? I don't have a particular team. I
Speaker 1: do enjoy going to the stadium and I like going
Speaker 1: out city field. I like the game, and the game
Speaker 1: is what's of interest to me, right, and individual star players, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a number of players. I mean, there's a
Speaker 1: player on the Yankees, John Carlos Stanton, who played for
Speaker 1: me in Miami. I have a particular fondness for him.
Speaker 1: Oh so, how old is he now? Thirty one? Perhaps, well,
Speaker 1: he was even a younger baby when we signed him
Speaker 1: to that massive contract that he got. Right, it's pretty
Speaker 1: good to be in the in the front row and
Speaker 1: watching those games and the excitement. Would you be able
Speaker 1: to spot talent in the art world or in baseball
Speaker 1: if you didn't have that view from the front row.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's something you accumulate over a period
Speaker 1: of time. Baseball players and artists are pretty similar. I
Speaker 1: mean they both put their talents on the line, and
Speaker 1: neither of them is really stifled by criticism, but they
Speaker 1: focus on what they're doing. And the baseball players that
Speaker 1: I have watched along with my scouts, at the time
Speaker 1: I watched them, I had a pretty good idea who
Speaker 1: they were, but I didn't make final decisions. I made
Speaker 1: encouraging encouragement along the way. When did that start trading players? Yeah,
Speaker 1: way before. Babe Ruth. Remember when he was traded from
Speaker 1: the Boston Red Sox to the Yankees. That was a
Speaker 1: bad trade. That was a bad trade for Boston. Yes,
Speaker 1: great trade for New York it was. But most of
Speaker 1: the time when we trade players, it's to improve the team.
Speaker 1: You have twenty five players on a club and you
Speaker 1: want to make sure that they're all contributing, and so
Speaker 1: you need to um watch every aspect of it. You know,
Speaker 1: you can have great pitching, and if you don't have
Speaker 1: good and good infield, the pitchers don't matter. You know,
Speaker 1: you need hitters, you need you need all aspects of
Speaker 1: the game, and you use the players to trade to
Speaker 1: improve your club. Well, when you bought Montreal M what
Speaker 1: did you pay for that team at the time? Somewhere
Speaker 1: around one hundred and twenty five million dollars. But I
Speaker 1: didn't buy the whole team. I bought trolling interest in
Speaker 1: the team to operate the team and to again see
Speaker 1: if I like the ownership at the major league level,
Speaker 1: which I did. I like the whole camaraderie with the
Speaker 1: players and with the industry. The industry wonderful people, and
Speaker 1: I think that's due in part because they've had great
Speaker 1: leadership during the time I was there. Oh, so your
Speaker 1: interest was only one hundred and twenty million, My interest
Speaker 1: was less than that because I bought a percentage of it.
Speaker 1: Of that price, Well, now, valuation was it? Yes, I
Speaker 1: guess one hundred and twenty or one hundred and forty million,
Speaker 1: I don't remember. Now, Well, how much is the Yankee
Speaker 1: team worth now? Probably in excess of four billion. So
Speaker 1: what was a TV? Is? TV? Is that? What did it? Well,
Speaker 1: it's all a function of revenues, and TV as a
Speaker 1: main contributor to those revenues. Because the prices have gone
Speaker 1: up skyrocketed for any of the teams. Well, what's the
Speaker 1: highest price paid for a baseball team. Ever, I think
Speaker 1: at the moment the Dodgers probably hold that record at
Speaker 1: two point four billion dollars. And who do you think
Speaker 1: is going to win the series this year? What is
Speaker 1: what's the prognostication? Well, there are a lot of good
Speaker 1: clubs there. I think the Mets have a great opportunity.
Speaker 1: I think Houston does again. I think the Braves have
Speaker 1: improved themselves and the Dodgers. The Dodgers always have a
Speaker 1: great club and they work hard at figuring out what
Speaker 1: they need to figure out. Now, did you ever toss
Speaker 1: the first pitch? I did it in spring training. Once,
Speaker 1: you know, owners, owners are not the most beloved people.
Speaker 1: The fans, for the most part, want more. They have
Speaker 1: their own think, they have their opinions, and they want
Speaker 1: more and they want it now. And that's that's what
Speaker 1: makes the game so interesting. Yeah, well it's it's I
Speaker 1: think it's that's happening in all sports. I mean, I read,
Speaker 1: you know, I read the stories, the headlines in the
Speaker 1: sports page. It's just to keep keep up with my grandson.
Speaker 1: So I try to be at least a little bit educated.
Speaker 1: But there's always disputes, there's always sales, there's always trades,
Speaker 1: so you as a baseball player, you did not continue playing,
Speaker 1: but you continued your I do have own ownership. At
Speaker 1: one day, well, I bought the Marlins when there was
Speaker 1: a very complicated three way trade when baseball wanted to
Speaker 1: move out of Montreal and hopefully moved down to Washington
Speaker 1: one day, so my son David, who was the president
Speaker 1: of our team, we orchestrated a three way trade whereby
Speaker 1: we moved from Montreal to Miami. The man who owned
Speaker 1: the Miami club at the time, the Marlins. The man
Speaker 1: who owned the Marlins, wanted to buy the club in Boston.
Speaker 1: He insisted that it had to be Boston, although I
Speaker 1: pointed out he wanted out of Miami because they were
Speaker 1: not going to build a stadium for him. He made
Speaker 1: the egregious mistake of saying to the leaders there, if
Speaker 1: you don't build a stadium for me, I'll build it myself.
Speaker 1: You never say that, And so he needed to move
Speaker 1: somewhere else, and he decided that he didn't want to
Speaker 1: go to California to buy the Angels, which were for sale.
Speaker 1: And the year that he did and go there, they
Speaker 1: won the World Series. But the next the next year
Speaker 1: he had the opportunity to go to Boston and we
Speaker 1: made this three three way trade and I assumed control
Speaker 1: of the Marlins and took us a few years to
Speaker 1: get a stadium built, which was a main focus, utiful stadium.
Speaker 1: I remember going there to see your new stadium. It
Speaker 1: was just the most spectacular place. Well it's a It
Speaker 1: was a passion of mind because of my art history background,
Speaker 1: to build something architecturally that would be spectacular. And who
Speaker 1: was the architect um Populous. They were the architects for
Speaker 1: most bullparks. And I remember the day we got permission
Speaker 1: to go ahead with the stadium. I was in London
Speaker 1: and called the called the architect and said, would you
Speaker 1: be able to talk now we have permission? Where are you?
Speaker 1: He said, I'm in London. He came to the hotel
Speaker 1: Claridge's Hotel, where I was staying at the time, and
Speaker 1: I made a little sketch on a napkin. He took
Speaker 1: the sketch, made a better drawing and that became the stadium.
Speaker 1: He asked me at the time if I wanted to
Speaker 1: build a retro facility because there was a lot of
Speaker 1: Art deco in Miami, and I said no, I think
Speaker 1: we need to look forward, and we built a very
Speaker 1: contemporary stadium. It's really beautiful building. Yeah, it's beautiful. And
Speaker 1: then I remember the new owners took out some of
Speaker 1: the art that you would as well. That's a that's
Speaker 1: a sad story, but they they We had commissioned the
Speaker 1: pop artist Red Grooms to do a big sculpture at
Speaker 1: which woods, an interactive sculpture. It jumped into action when
Speaker 1: people when players hit home runs and the home team
Speaker 1: won the game, fish jumped into the water, water splashed,
Speaker 1: birds flew, lights were lit up all and the new
Speaker 1: owners just wanted to do their own things, so they
Speaker 1: basically took it down and put it out in the weather.
Speaker 1: So who knows how long it will last. It was.
Speaker 1: It was a cause for some consternation on my part
Speaker 1: because I didn't think they had the right to destroy
Speaker 1: public art. Yeah, that's true. Bad they did because it
Speaker 1: was spectacular. So you bought the Marlins and then you
Speaker 1: had big surprises along the way. You found amazing players. Well,
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two was a year that I
Speaker 1: spent studying the club and looking at what we needed,
Speaker 1: and by the time two thousand and three came around,
Speaker 1: we had some pretty good pitchers on our club at
Speaker 1: the time. I thought we needed an established, well established catcher,
Speaker 1: and I had my eyes focused on Pudge Fredriguez, who
Speaker 1: was not signed by anybody at the time, and we
Speaker 1: got in touch with his agent eventually signed him because
Speaker 1: he was the one that could handle pitchers. Runners weren't
Speaker 1: going to steal basis and Pudge was a leader and
Speaker 1: he did a great job. In the end, my general
Speaker 1: manager was not happy because he thought he's washed up.
Speaker 1: It's just why the Rangers didn't sign him. But I
Speaker 1: took that chance and he played I don't know six
Speaker 1: eight more years after US and it was the only
Speaker 1: World Championship he ever won. When he won the World Series,
Speaker 1: three Yankees and three Yes, Yankee Stadium and Yankee Statum.
Speaker 1: How did you feel, I had mismixed emotions. You know,
Speaker 1: I grew up a Yankee fan. I used to go
Speaker 1: up there all the time. I remember when I was
Speaker 1: there with eight years old with my father, sitting in
Speaker 1: the stands behind a pole in the old Yankee Stadium,
Speaker 1: thinking that I had the best seat in the Yankee Stadium.
Speaker 1: And at the end of that game, the Yankees lost
Speaker 1: and I went home the I think so it was close. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was close, and the Yankees had an opportunity to
Speaker 1: win it. I don't remember if I was there that
Speaker 1: year or not. I probably was forty I think it
Speaker 1: was nineteen forty eight or nine. I went there with
Speaker 1: my father, boy, and I walked out of the stadium
Speaker 1: in tears, and my father said, Jeffrey, there'll be another game.
Speaker 1: Guess what he was right? Was he alive when you
Speaker 1: bought about the team, the Marlins. No, so he didn't
Speaker 1: get to see that game. No, and he didn't get
Speaker 1: to see me win a championship in the minor leagues either. Wow.
Speaker 1: It was just towards the end of his life. You've
Speaker 1: learned so many lessons, and you have imparted many of
Speaker 1: those lessons in your fabulous book. What made you write
Speaker 1: this book now? From the front row? Well, I guess
Speaker 1: I felt that I had an opportunity to impart a
Speaker 1: lot of relationships that I had, some stories that I
Speaker 1: have memories that are very interesting to read. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was at the forefront of a lot in the
Speaker 1: art world and in the baseball worlds. Let's get into
Speaker 1: the art a little bit, because your ability to spot
Speaker 1: art you had an innate ability to know what was good,
Speaker 1: what appealed to you, and to meet artists and to
Speaker 1: develop relationships with artists. Not very many people do that. Well,
Speaker 1: You've done it amazingly well. So tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about the beginning. I studied art history at Yale,
Speaker 1: and my parents had sent me up there to become
Speaker 1: a premed student. And after six months of zoology, biology, botany,
Speaker 1: and chemistry, I called him and said, there's no more
Speaker 1: premed on the horizon. That I wanted to do something else.
Speaker 1: And I was taking in art history course you had
Speaker 1: to take. One of the areas of concentration had to
Speaker 1: be a history course, and our history seemed interesting. What
Speaker 1: period you remember the art history? It was the beginning
Speaker 1: art history course I was taking, and it was the
Speaker 1: course taught by the eminent art historian Vincent Scully. Oh.
Speaker 1: He's fantastic, written many books, many books, and a great
Speaker 1: favorite of mine. And we had a wonderful relationship, and
Speaker 1: he encouraged me, and he kept encouraging me all the
Speaker 1: way till the at the end of his life, when
Speaker 1: I then had the opportunity to return the favor and
Speaker 1: bring him to spring training and bring him to opening
Speaker 1: day because he was living in Miami at that time.
Speaker 1: Great and we had a lot of fun. I studied
Speaker 1: the art history all through college, and by the time
Speaker 1: I was ready, it was your favorite period modern art.
Speaker 1: Did you learn Greek and Roman? And yeah, we had
Speaker 1: to take those courses. Those courses, I mean, you don't
Speaker 1: get to the modern without understanding what some of the
Speaker 1: Greek and Romans were doing, because everything builds on itself.
Speaker 1: And came time for graduation, my parents came up to
Speaker 1: school and showed me an article in a newspaper that Sears,
Speaker 1: Roebuck and Company was going into the art business. They
Speaker 1: were opening stores all over the country. What year was that,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two when I graduated. It's major growth of
Speaker 1: the company all over the country, and they were looking
Speaker 1: to bring in a new clientele, and so the art
Speaker 1: was the vehicle for them to do that, so that
Speaker 1: they were not just known in all these new cities
Speaker 1: where they were building as a place where you can
Speaker 1: buy furniture and a refrigerator. Well they were they to me,
Speaker 1: Sears Robook. I always loved that company, and I thought
Speaker 1: they just missed the boat by They were the first.
Speaker 1: They were the first that catalog was I poured over
Speaker 1: that Sears catalog, that big fat catalog that, oh I know.
Speaker 1: And they were really the first Amazon. And they could
Speaker 1: have been the Amazon if they had believed in the Internet.
Speaker 1: But by the time, by the time the Internet became
Speaker 1: a powerhouse. Arthur Martinez was the CEO of Sears and
Speaker 1: he didn't quite get He didn't get quite get. You know,
Speaker 1: no stores you buy from the pages of your catalog,
Speaker 1: which is online. They didn't get it. And uh and
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos got it really big. And do you remember
Speaker 1: all those all that happening. I mean, it was just
Speaker 1: I remember, I remember the catalogs. Oh yeah, I even
Speaker 1: did the first art catalog. So and so what did
Speaker 1: you sell in it? Well, we sold lithographs and etchings.
Speaker 1: I remember commissioning Salvador Dolli to do a painting and
Speaker 1: three hundred lithographs. But did you pay him? I'm ashamed
Speaker 1: to say we paid him twenty five thousand dollars for
Speaker 1: a painting, which I felt was worth the twenty five
Speaker 1: thou and the three hundred lithographs that we sold for
Speaker 1: four hundred dollars a piece. Quickly and Sears hired Vincent Price,
Speaker 1: the actor or to be the person whose collection this
Speaker 1: was in the store, and my dad suggested I get
Speaker 1: in touch with Price, which I did. We eventually met
Speaker 1: and I became the youngest buyer in Sear's history. And
Speaker 1: it was a great experience because I got to meet
Speaker 1: all the artists. It was a time when you could
Speaker 1: call them and see them. End of my junior year,
Speaker 1: my parents wanted to know what I was doing for
Speaker 1: spring vacation. Was I going to fall at Lauderdale? And
Speaker 1: I said, no, I'm going to go to England if
Speaker 1: you'll buy me an airline ticket. I want to meet
Speaker 1: Henry Moore. And I had discovered in my way Henry
Speaker 1: Moore at college, so I went to visit with him,
Speaker 1: and at the time, I guess I was the youngest
Speaker 1: person ever to walk in his studio. And we hit
Speaker 1: it off and we became very close. Oh, I love
Speaker 1: his sculpture. And did you ever go it was foundry
Speaker 1: in Italy. I was everywhere he worked, even the quarries
Speaker 1: in Pietra Santa where he worked during the summer and
Speaker 1: doing his carvings. You're incredible and then you became dealers
Speaker 1: for these artists well, I had my own personal relationships
Speaker 1: with them and eventually opened my own business and started
Speaker 1: building collections slowly, and I dealt with, you know, collectors.
Speaker 1: The Chrysler family had a collection, and Walter christ was
Speaker 1: building a museum in Norfolk, Virginia, where he was his
Speaker 1: wife's family was from. And Norton Simon, the industrialists who
Speaker 1: lived in California. I spent a lot of time seeing him,
Speaker 1: and I talk about him in the book in very
Speaker 1: interesting people, these these giants. Did you have to educate
Speaker 1: them or were they already educated? These great wealth collectors?
Speaker 1: Both ways it went. I mean, Norton Simon called me
Speaker 1: one night and said, I hear you were a young
Speaker 1: deal and you know something about sculpture and pain. I
Speaker 1: was probably twenty eight at the time, and we spoke
Speaker 1: that night for five hours on the phone, and we
Speaker 1: became close, and I helped him buy lots of things
Speaker 1: that he as in his museum, including a big Henry
Speaker 1: Moore sculpture which I bought in England and brought over
Speaker 1: to the United States on a ship. Traveled his luggage
Speaker 1: and I tried to encourage him to come and see it.
Speaker 1: How many tons was that one? Three? Yeah? They were
Speaker 1: very big, those Henry Moors. You have so many stories
Speaker 1: in the book. What's something that you wish you had
Speaker 1: never sold? One of them is with Norton Simon. I mean,
Speaker 1: I had this great Henry Moore sculpture which I brought
Speaker 1: over and I thought he might be the perfect line
Speaker 1: for it. And Norton didn't respond. You know, three months
Speaker 1: for months went by, and he called me one day
Speaker 1: on a Friday afternoon, and you had laid out the
Speaker 1: money already. Oh, I had bought it. I didn't. I
Speaker 1: never bought for anybody specifically. I bought for myself and
Speaker 1: realizing that eventually it could be placed. He called me
Speaker 1: on a Friday afternoon, said, I'm in New York. I
Speaker 1: want to see the sculpture. I said, it's in a warehouse.
Speaker 1: They're closed on Saturdays. Find a way. I found a way,
Speaker 1: and he bought the sculpture. Wow, and saw it and
Speaker 1: loved it. Yeah. Any paintings that you regret the wood
Speaker 1: A could have should us well. I had a number
Speaker 1: of very important Surrealist paintings in the mid seventies that
Speaker 1: that was the time when the Japanese were really pursuing
Speaker 1: art and buying art and I had Miro's one of
Speaker 1: them his greatest paintings of a dancer listening to music
Speaker 1: and a Gothic cathedral, a huge upright painting. And I
Speaker 1: had a Tongee Eve Tangee painting that had been purchased
Speaker 1: by the collector. I bought it from Pittsburgh, which was
Speaker 1: sent by the artist to the Carnegie Exhibition in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty eight, and artists sent their masterpieces to show off
Speaker 1: their work. And I eventually bought those pictures and I
Speaker 1: had them. I was tempted not to sell them, but
Speaker 1: the temptation from the from the buyers encouraged me to
Speaker 1: sell them. And you'd love to have them back there.
Speaker 1: That's what being a dealer is. Well, you can't keep
Speaker 1: everything you know, no matter what business you're in. And
Speaker 1: what have you kept for yourself? What's what's in your collection?
Speaker 1: Pablo Picasso verst Picasso, I ever bought you kept? I kept? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I have a lot of Henry Moore sculptures. At
Speaker 1: one time I had sixty or seventy sculptures of Henry's. Wow,
Speaker 1: and a colleague of mine came to my home and
Speaker 1: he said to me, what are you doing with all
Speaker 1: these sculptures, sell half of them and buy some other artists.
Speaker 1: And I thought about it, and I said, that makes
Speaker 1: more sense than what I'm doing. I loved Henry's work
Speaker 1: and I love collecting them. Well. Gordon Buncheft was a
Speaker 1: big Henry Moore fan, yes, and I bought I bought
Speaker 1: Gordon Buncheff's little house in East Hampton. Oh, that beautiful
Speaker 1: house on Georgia a pond. And when I bought it,
Speaker 1: the Museum of Modern Art owned it, and Gordon had
Speaker 1: left it to the museum, and in the garden was
Speaker 1: a beautiful Henry Moore. There were, oh gosh, there were
Speaker 1: about five really important sculptures in the garden, but the
Speaker 1: museum was taking them all. And moon Bird was in
Speaker 1: the garden, and they left all the frames, all those
Speaker 1: very heavy cast iron frames and steel frames and platforms.
Speaker 1: They left all of that in the garden for me.
Speaker 1: Nothing on them, just the platforms, the plints. So I
Speaker 1: got to know what Gordon had liked, because he was
Speaker 1: placing those same kinds of sculptures and the buildings he
Speaker 1: was building in New York City. He did one Chase
Speaker 1: Manhattan Plaza, he did the Lever house and oh yeah,
Speaker 1: lots of dubuffet. It was a really interesting experience from
Speaker 1: me to buy a house like that. And I always thought, gosh,
Speaker 1: he must not like his wife very much because the
Speaker 1: kitchen on Georgia Capond had a wall, had no windows.
Speaker 1: He had his wife cooking in a kitchen with no
Speaker 1: windows facing the view. And the house was just a
Speaker 1: basic like a shoe box of travertine left over from
Speaker 1: probably the Chase Manhattan Plaza, because that was a travertine
Speaker 1: clad building and he built it out of concrete and
Speaker 1: travertine and cinder blox. It was beautiful. My daughter sold that,
Speaker 1: but it was it was a special place. But I
Speaker 1: loved the sculptures in the garden, and I've always loved
Speaker 1: sculptures ever ever since I went to that Museum of
Speaker 1: Modern Art garden and loved the beautiful sculptures in that garden.
Speaker 1: But do you have any Sarah's Sarah? No, I don't
Speaker 1: have any Sarah. Yeah. I have Marino Marini and Jacomo
Speaker 1: Monzoo and Saysar and Botero and Robert Indiana. I had
Speaker 1: dinner with Botero one night. He was interesting, he was
Speaker 1: I have a lot of art history background which because
Speaker 1: my husband was the publisher of Abram's Art Books books,
Speaker 1: all those early books, and Andy was the president of
Speaker 1: Abrams and he worked with Harry and uh and he
Speaker 1: published all those big books. And remember the Lawrence Gowing
Speaker 1: book on the on the Louver. There's there's great big
Speaker 1: books that Abrams used to do. So I learned a
Speaker 1: lot about art. Unfortunately I didn't buy art like you
Speaker 1: were buying art. I wish I had because I could have.
Speaker 1: Really I loved so much of it and it was
Speaker 1: so and I'm jealous of people like you who have
Speaker 1: developed their taste into a business. You have a lot
Speaker 1: of ideas for people who in and in your book
Speaker 1: you impart those I call him the tenants of business.
Speaker 1: So talk about those, because you have a whole list
Speaker 1: of things that you advise people in business to do well.
Speaker 1: I think I think the most one of the most
Speaker 1: important things that I've always believed in was you have
Speaker 1: to take risks. Um For me, it was a risk
Speaker 1: and a chance that I took when at age nineteen,
Speaker 1: got on an airplane went to England knowing nobody to
Speaker 1: visit an artist. And I think if you're not willing
Speaker 1: to take risks, there's no rewards. Did you read Edith
Speaker 1: Wharton's New York Stories? Did you read that one story? Oh,
Speaker 1: there's a story I'm going to send to you about
Speaker 1: a young man who is the ski on of a
Speaker 1: big New York, very wealthy New York family, and he's
Speaker 1: given by his father ten thousand dollars to go to
Speaker 1: Europe to buy his art collection. And at the time,
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars was like like early early twentieth century,
Speaker 1: I think ten thousand dollars was a lot of money.
Speaker 1: And he went to England and he then went to
Speaker 1: Italy and he came back with a collection that was
Speaker 1: probably what you would have bought and if you were
Speaker 1: in his position. He brought a man ten Ya. You know,
Speaker 1: nobody had ever heard of him. He bought some caravaggios,
Speaker 1: nobody masters, nobody had heard of any of these guys.
Speaker 1: When he came back, his father looked at the collection
Speaker 1: and just owned him. He said, you wasted my money
Speaker 1: on that stuff, And he just owned the boy. And
Speaker 1: the boy opened a little thinking museum in the village
Speaker 1: of New York, in the West Village, and people would
Speaker 1: come and pay a few cents to see the art,
Speaker 1: and then of course all everything he had bought turned
Speaker 1: out to be a priceless masterpiece. So he had the taste.
Speaker 1: He didn't have the belief of his father or and
Speaker 1: his friends didn't believe what he was up to. But
Speaker 1: it's a fabulous story. You have to read it. It's
Speaker 1: really right. But but you had that, you had that.
Speaker 1: I well, I think I developed that high early age.
Speaker 1: Took you took risks, yes, okay, And I never believed
Speaker 1: calculated risks. Yes, yeah, because I always tell people to
Speaker 1: take a risk, but don't take a chance, and it's
Speaker 1: part of taking risks. You have to know that a
Speaker 1: fear of failure is never an option. No fear. The
Speaker 1: one thing that can be a real detriment in any
Speaker 1: business transaction, whether you're buying a player, baseball player or
Speaker 1: a great work of artist, hesitation. If you hesitate, you're
Speaker 1: going to be lost. They did that a few times.
Speaker 1: But I learned quickly that a hesitation is a destriment
Speaker 1: that I don't want to live with. And so I've
Speaker 1: always believed that you have to do it right or
Speaker 1: don't do it at all. That was something that I
Speaker 1: learned from my father. Don't get started on something you
Speaker 1: can't complete, and if you're going to complete it in
Speaker 1: a half baked way, don't do it right. And while
Speaker 1: you're doing it, I learned along the way that quality
Speaker 1: was always more important than quantity. I always pursued a
Speaker 1: single great player rather than four players that build various spots,
Speaker 1: because that one player I always felt could add more
Speaker 1: to the team than the two or three that we needed.
Speaker 1: But we'd find them elsewhere. You got to you have
Speaker 1: to pursue the quality. They also have lived by the
Speaker 1: credo that you have to surround yourself with good people.
Speaker 1: I had great executives, and I in my baseball career.
Speaker 1: Towards the last few years after we opened the stadium,
Speaker 1: I decided to pursue some really top executives, and it
Speaker 1: took me a few years to put them all together,
Speaker 1: and we had a really good operating team until the
Speaker 1: new ownership came in and fired them all in the
Speaker 1: first week. I heard that, well, they didn't even give
Speaker 1: them a chance, and they had to pay their salaries
Speaker 1: for the lengths of those contracts. That I never quite
Speaker 1: understood why you would do that. One of the things
Speaker 1: that I have found along the way after I'm doing
Speaker 1: this for close to six decades now. Is you have
Speaker 1: to expect the unexpected things come your way that you
Speaker 1: had no idea we're going to come your way, but
Speaker 1: you have to be prepared for it and opportunity as
Speaker 1: well as both sides of the coin failure, good things
Speaker 1: and bad things, but you have to expect that those
Speaker 1: kinds of things are going to happen. I always bought
Speaker 1: and traded, whether I was trading pictures, which you could
Speaker 1: do at one time, trade work of art, which I did.
Speaker 1: I always felt that I wanted to be doing the
Speaker 1: deal that I wanted to do, not what others wanted
Speaker 1: me to do. In other words, if somebody had something
Speaker 1: and they felt that was great, if I wanted to
Speaker 1: do it too, then it worked. But if that was
Speaker 1: not going to be the case, you're going to end
Speaker 1: up making a poor decision that you're going to regret.
Speaker 1: You have to have a bit of a thick skin
Speaker 1: to work in both those worlds. It's not that I
Speaker 1: have it. I developed it along the way and realized
Speaker 1: that that's the only way to get to the bottom
Speaker 1: line and to the end successfully. You need a lot
Speaker 1: of humility too, and that doesn't always come easily to
Speaker 1: a lot of people. I don't know if it came
Speaker 1: easily or not to me, but it seems to have
Speaker 1: worked for me. Those are valuable lessons and valuable, valuable
Speaker 1: rules for running a business, and just well, there's there's
Speaker 1: one more which I find find very curious, which is
Speaker 1: you have to use your eyes. You have to trust
Speaker 1: your eye and use your eyes. I was at an
Speaker 1: exhibition in London recently with my wife and she she
Speaker 1: had me. She had encouraged me to listen to David
Speaker 1: Hockney and one of the things he said just really
Speaker 1: struck up a note, and I remember it now that
Speaker 1: most people don't know how to use their eyes. The
Speaker 1: only thing they used their eyes for, said David, was
Speaker 1: to see the street in the road in front of them.
Speaker 1: But they're not looking up and around them, and that's important.
Speaker 1: I'm always looking up. So you and I agree on
Speaker 1: this list a lot. I like your lists. And you
Speaker 1: know what else, Sometimes the best deals the deals you
Speaker 1: don't do, like not buying a particular painting and realizing
Speaker 1: later that that picture really wasn't as good as it
Speaker 1: could have been, that there are better works. I always
Speaker 1: strive for the best, and not having enough information about
Speaker 1: that artist meant that I was not striving for the best,
Speaker 1: not ready for it. Yeah, not ready for it. And
Speaker 1: that was a good deal not to have done what
Speaker 1: I didn't do. Things happened to you too in life.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love that you say go for it,
Speaker 1: and really, if you believe in it, act act quickly.
Speaker 1: And in parts of my life, I just I lost
Speaker 1: that ability to act quickly. It's just I just hesitated.
Speaker 1: And hesitation, as as you said, it's just a killer,
Speaker 1: a killer. Hesitating is really bad. So what's next? What
Speaker 1: else are you going to do? You have so much
Speaker 1: energy and so many good ideas. And do you have
Speaker 1: a shop where you sell your art? No, I'm a
Speaker 1: private dealer. I'm in the phone book, right, but I
Speaker 1: do it privately. And do you have one piece of
Speaker 1: art that you would never give up? Yeah? How many
Speaker 1: years ago I bought a study for the famous painting
Speaker 1: of Mattis called The Dance. And I didn't realize it,
Speaker 1: but I was thumbing through the Alfred Barr book. The
Speaker 1: Alfred Alfred Barr was the director of MoMA. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: and he wrote a book about Matisse, and I was
Speaker 1: reading through the book, and on one page in a
Speaker 1: postage size reproduction, there's a little work that I bought.
Speaker 1: It's so elegant and so much movement, and it's and
Speaker 1: it's the embodiment of Matis. So I think I would
Speaker 1: never part with that nice and that you can continually
Speaker 1: discover things about it right all the time. Yeah, oh great. Well,
Speaker 1: you can enjoy more of Jeffrey's stories in his new
Speaker 1: book From the front Row, Reflections of a Major League
Speaker 1: Baseball Owner and Modern Art Dealer. Be sure to pick
Speaker 1: it up wherever you like to get your books, And
Speaker 1: Jeffrey that we could talk forever. I think your stories
Speaker 1: are fascinating and your life has been an amazing, amazing
Speaker 1: journey and which continues every single day. Take care of
Speaker 1: your family. They're lovely. I got to meet some of
Speaker 1: them at the talk you did the other night at
Speaker 1: at Christie's. Yeah, it was a beautiful night. That was
Speaker 1: a really a pleasure and a great celebration for this
Speaker 1: book and keep going. Thanks, thanks very much.