NO RESOLUTIONS, BUT STORIES TO REMEMBER
by Steve Sheppard Independent Sports Editor
This began as a typical New Year's column, one where I'd give my sports resolutions for 2008. I got

as far as - Resolve to use up the blank pages in all my old notebooks before starting a new one - and then got stumped. I suppose I could have added: resolve to clean my desk, but I spent much of last Thursday afternoon doing just that, and it still looks the same.

In the midst of that task, and as I scanned stories written during the past year, I thought back to all the stories and subjects I've covered. I realized how kind this profession has been to me - what I've been able to see and where I've been able to go. One

of the best parts of being a journalist is getting a peek behind the locker room door, getting the chance to be on the inside.

And there have been some great moments.

One took place at Boston's Symphony Hall, not a place usually associated with sports, but on an April night in 1983 it certainly was. Ted Williams was back in town to pay tribute and to help raise money for Tony Conigliaro, felled the year before by a massive heart attack and stroke. "Aren't you going?" asked friend and colleague Stan Grossfeld. "Mickey Mantle's supposed to be there."

I explained that I didn't have a credential.

"Are you a reporter or not?" he chided. "I'll see you there."

I was already in town because I was going with my cousin Paul to the Celtics game that night. (And if you'll allow me an aside: isn't it great that games at the Garden mean something again?) Over to Symphony Hall we went, where, at the same time, a taxicab pulled up to the front door and out unfolded Ted Williams, hefting two baseball bats. We were definitely going in now, no matter what it took.

Credentials were being handed out at the stage door. Other than following Ted Williams through the front door, entering Symphony Hall through the musicians' entrance is another dream come true. Without giving anything away, and in what could never happen today in a security-conscious world, we, as Ralphie gleefully expressed in the movie "A Christmas Story," pulled it off.

It was an afternoon press conference before a big concert that evening with Frank Sinatra and Dionne Warwick. The afternoon belonged to the athletes, however. In a large ballroom off the main hall, newspapermen and photographers jammed around. I can still see Joyce Kulhawik standing on a chair, imploring her cameraman to do what I don't know. (And, all these years later, she still looks the same.) When things finally settled down we looked over to the long table against the wall. There sat Ted in the middle of things, looking uncomfortable as ever in a crowd. And there was Bobby Orr a little further down. But where was the Mick? Wait a minute - who's flanking Ted? Why it's Willie Mays and Joe DiMaggio. Unbelievable.

Stan, of course, got the picture that no one else did, of Ted, Willie and Joe - the dream outfield. I got an interview with Ted Williams, the dream assignment. "There are so many distractions these days," he said. "I don't know if any of us would be as good a hitter today." As he was leaving he looked at me and said, "Just don't say I said that Mays couldn't hit!"

And if Stan hadn't egged me on it never would have happened. It wasn't the first, or last, time he steered me in the right direction. And that's something else I'm thankful for - because more important than the places I've been on this job are the people I've met.

I saw an interview with David Halberstam on PBS the other night during Charlie Rose's look back at 2007. Halberstam said something to the effect of: You are who you interview. He spoke of what he'd been given from those he'd talked to over the years; how some people had altered his perceptions and the way he looked at life. I couldn't help but think of how lucky I was to have interviewed him on several occasions, and how his optimism and grasp of what was truly important has influenced my outlook in turn. David looked for the best in people, he nurtured his friendships, and that's something I took from my times with him.

"You are who you interview." How true.

Looking forward to the conversations of 2008. I