Game 36: Scott Ostler - Scott Ostler Omelette
For over 40 years, sportswriter Scott Ostler wrote about teams like the L.A. Lakers and San Francisco Giants columnist for papers like the Los Angeles Times, The National, and the San Francisco Chronicle. The L.A. native had a serendipitous start to his Lakers career, starting as a rookie Times beat writer the same season that Magic Johnson made his debut for the purple and gold. I spoke to Scott over the phone on December 20th, several hours before the Lakers lost on the road to the Bucks, about his memories of Magic copying Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s air travel style, his short-lived tenure at the before-its-time daily sports paper The National, his new young adult novel about a children’s wheelchair basketball team, and why tortilla strips were crucial to the structural integrity of the Scott Ostler Omelette.
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PABLO: What was your position with the L.A. Times in 1985?
SCOTT: In ‘85, I was a sports columnist.
Did you write exclusively for the Lakers?
No, I did all sports.
Going back to the start of your professional career, how did you get into sportswriting?
Well, I studied in college and decided that's what I wanted to do. My first job was in Lompoc, which is a small town near Santa Barbara. I worked there for six years, then I went to Long Beach as a sportswriter. And shortly after that I got to the LA Times in about ‘76. But I was at the Times for twelve years and then I was at a paper called The National. Which was a national sports newspaper that lasted one year.
I wanted to ask you about that because I've heard a lot about that paper. Did you get poached by them while you were at the Times?
Yeah, do you know the name Frank Deford?
Yeah, for sure.
Deford was at Sports Illustrated and left there to help launch this paper called The National with a Mexican billionaire who wanted to make a sports newspaper like they have in Europe and Asian and places like that. And he had a lot of money to throw at it, so he hired Frank and Frank started hiring people and I was one of the first people he hired. So yeah, he took me away from the Times and it was a great adventure for a year and then it folded.
Just reading about it, it seems like it was ahead of its time.
Not to get too deep into it but it was a fantastic paper because they had a huge variety. They had really great top flight writers. So much going for it but for mostly money reasons it didn't succeed. It was a bad time in the economy and so forth. But it was a great newspaper while it lasted.
Did they have a different paper for the various big cities or was it mostly one paper?
Yeah, it started out in three cities. New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. And they were gonna start expanding out but we had regional offices in those three places. So it was somewhat regionalized. For instance, each of those three regions had a regional columnist that was only in that section of the country. And then me and two other guys were the national columnists, so we were in all the editions.
Do you remember when you thought "Oh, this paper's in trouble. We're not gonna be around much longer."?
Well, after about a year, we gradually started hearing things. And I knew we were in trouble one day because we had this huge suite of offices in Los Angeles that I worked at. And they had meant to have a big local staff, but things hadn't turned out right. So basically we had this big suite of offices and there were only three of us in there. So we were just rambling around. And we had this water cooler, where you have hot water and cold water. And I used the hot water to make my soup. So one day they call up the main office and say "Hey, you know that water cooler you have, we gotta swap that out for one that only has cold water. Because it's three dollars cheaper a month" or something like that. And they had been spending money like water, throwing it like it was nothing. And all of a sudden, when we heard that... soon after that, they ran out of money and pulled the plug.
Do you have a specific favorite memory of covering the Showtime Lakers in that decade?
There was a lot of them. One would be the championship game in the 1979-1980 season when they played the Sixers and the sixth game was back in Philly. And they went back there and they played without Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who was the league MVP that year but he had been knocked out with a bad ankle in the previous game. So he didn't even make the trip. So they were playing without their number one scorer and superstar and the guy for whom the whole offense revolved around. So they were missing him and all of sudden they were in sort of a tight spot.
That game itself was phenomenal. It was just the most amazing game I've ever covered in any sports. You can go back and look it up, I think Magic scored forty two points and he played center for part of the game. Just one quick memory, the day before. This was back in the day when the writers flew on the same plane with the team. They flew commercial. And so at the airport we all met to fly to Philadelphia and the coach at the time, Paul Westhead, who was a fill-in coach because their regular coach had suffered a head accident. And Westhead was a very unusual guy and a charming guy, I loved him, he told all of us writers "Hey just so you know, I'm giving you a heads up that I'm playing Magic at center for part of the game." And Paul had some unusual ideas, but we looked at him like "What the fuck is this guy talking about?"
So we all get on the plane and as soon as we get into the air, we all got out of our seats, there were three other writers, and we went up to Magic Johnson. We went up to his seat and tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Hey Magic, we gotta talk to you and write our stories. We need to get some comments from you." But one of the funny things is that Kareem's deal was that he always sat in the same seat on the airplane. He had to have the bulkhead seat on the left, in the front. So he would always sit there and he would always put a blanket over his head for takeoff and also for privacy. So Magic sat in Kareem's seat and put a blanket over his head, saying kind of like "I'm taking over for the Captain." So we had Magic and he was a great guy. And we tell him, "Coach says you're playing center tonight." And he goes, "Yeah, yeah, I know I can do that." I said, "What makes you think you can play center?" He said, "I played center in high school." And I said, "I played center in high school too, Magic, but I think this is a different thing." He said, "No I can handle it. I could write you guys’ stories if I had to. I can do anything." And we all left our little interview and wrote our stories but I think I was convinced that he was delusional. Because I had seen every game he had played that whole year, his rookie year, and I knew he could do amazing things. But, you know, you don't go from point guard to center in game 6 of the NBA Finals and pull it off.
Unless you're Magic Johnson.
Covering him his rookie year was a crazy experience.
Going back to the cookbook, do you remember how it came together? Because so far, nobody I've talked to can remember who reached out to them. I know it was the Laker Ladies who put it together, but do you remember who reached out to you?
I don't. I'll ask my wife and if she remembers I'll get back to you. But I don't think she'll remember either. Maybe Chris Riley? Although this doesn't sound like something that would be her idea. Maybe Linda Rambis?
So the recipe that you and your wife prepared for the book, the Scott Ostler Omelette, I made it last Sunday. It called for four to six eggs and I used six.
That's a lot.
Yeah. I was wondering if I made a mistake in cooking it. Because it was so heavy, that when I tried to flip it, it broke. Was I supposed to do it in two pans?
Well, I don't know. Probably. If I remember, it's supposed to be more like a scramble than a straight omelette.
The instructions do say that if it breaks, don't worry about it. It tastes the same either way. So I kind of MacGyvered it.
I just remember that at the bottom of the recipe, that my wife and I had taken a trip to Catalina and we stopped at a little cafe there that had a similar dish. And I loved it so much that she went home and recreated it.
And the Catalina recipe also has the quarter inch strips of tortilla just thrown in there.
Oh, that was a key thing. Yeah the tortilla were a key ingredient for sure.
I was wondering if that was for more of a structural reason than flavor.
Yeah, I love tortillas anyway and I never thought about tossing them in eggs. But when we ate at that place in Catalina, I was blown away at that time. Just a great combo.
I know that you wrote for the Chronicle for a while, but I saw that you recently published a children's novel about a wheelchair basketball team. What was the inspiration for that book?
Funny, I'm just writing the story about what inspired me. It's pretty simple. For several years I was thinking, I should write a kid's sports book because I know Mike Lupica and some guys who have done a bunch of them. And you know, they make some money and I always thought I'd like to branch out a bit and try some fiction. So I had that basic idea knocking around about writing a kid's sports book. And then I wrote a couple stories with a local organization here in the Bay Area that provides recreation for disabled people of all ages and types. And I wrote a couple stories about their kid's basketball team. And I found it really to be a lot of fun. Just a great group of kids who were fun to be around and really energetic and loved basketball and highly competitive. And I came home one day and was kind of gushing about it and telling my wife that these kids are great and so fun to be around with. And she said, you know you've been talking about writing a book, why don't you make your book about a wheelchair basketball team? Because nobody writes about these kids, you know? So I thought, hey that's a great idea. And it turned out to be a great inspiration on my wife's part because it turns out these kids basically wrote the book for me. You know, I sat down and asked them their life's stories and they poured out these amazing stories about disability but mostly about basketball and what it meant to them in their lives.
Finally, I was wondering if you still kept up with the NBA and what you make of the Lakers’ hot start so far?
I do keep up with the NBA. I guess it's not surprising. But one thing that's surprising is LeBron who's probably ninety years old now but is playing the best. It seems like every year people say "Oh my God, LeBron is thirty seven but playing the best basketball of his life" but then he keeps upping the ante. So I continue to be blown away by LeBron and how he keeps himself at the top of his game. It seems like they put together an amazing package there at the right time. The NBA now has these instant teams popping up and don't have the long running dynasties like we used to. But it seems like the Lakers have popped up a really great team this year.
I think the Warriors will be back on top faster than we think. But it seems to be a gap year where anyone could take it. I hope the Lakers take it, being a fan, but we'll see.
I grew up in L.A. and was a gigantic Lakers fan as a kid. So that made it even more of a treat that I got to cover them when Jerry West and Bill Sharman were around. It was so good, just phenomenal. A phenomenal experience those years, especially the first year. Magic's rookie year was my first year on the beat.
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The Scott Ostler Omelette
4-6 eggs
½ cup grated Jack cheese
1-2 tablespoons red onion, chopped
¼ of a chopped chili or jalapeno pepper (optional)
Dash of milk
2 corn tortillas, cut into ¼ inch strips
¼ cup tomato, chopped
1-2 tablespoons salsa, medium to hot
Salt and pepper to taste
Combine eggs, salsa, salt, pepper, chili (if desired), and dash of milk in a bowl. Use wire whisk to beat together, set aside.
Melt small amount of butter in skillet or omelette pan. Saute onions lightly and then add tomatoes. Stir once or twice to heat through. Add egg mixture to pan. Immediately place tortilla strips on top of egg mixture spread out over entire pan. As bottom of omelette cooks, turn it over. Don’t worry if it breaks, it will taste the same! During the last couple of minutes sprinkle cheese on top. I usually remove the pan from the stove and cover it for a minute to allow the cheese to melt without scorching the eggs. Served with warm tortillas, potatoes, orange juice, and salsa.
“We had an omelette similar to this in a small cafe while vacationing on Catalina Island. Scott loved it so much that I made an attempt to duplicate it at home.”
Look, you devoted readers of Goldstein and Gasol know by now that I have a problem with eggs. One or two is fine. But six? I’m setting up the Scott Ostler Omelette to fail. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t think I can impartially grade the many egg dishes I’ve had to make so far. I’ve eaten more eggs in these first two months than I do in a year.
Like I mentioned in the interview, the omelette immediately broke when I flipped it. The omelette wasn’t just heavy, but also wet due to so much of the egg not being cooked. So I improvised and flipped it over multiple times, like I was cooking a steak. I know some grill purists say that you should only flip a steak once, but that’s just not true. Either way is fine. Did you know that some people on YouTube might not have a clue about what they’re blathering on about? Weird, I know!
By the end, my MacGyvered dish actually looked pretty tasty, even if you don’t like the taste of eggs. Bright yellows and greens and red, just like an omelette should look like. Unfortunately for my eggist taste buds, it tasted just like how an omelette should taste. I was disappointed, but my girlfriend loved our late breakfast/early lunch. Maybe we’ll head out to Catalina one of these days to try an authentic Scott Ostler Omelette.
