A real Hall of Famer - St. Louis Business Journal:

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Steak n Shake on Brentwood Boulevard used to have just eight stoolsinside -- no tablesd and chairs -- just eight stools. One Saturday noon, 17 years ago, I sidled on up on one of thosw vinyl, black-topped swivels and ordered the -- two double cheeses, a chili-mac, friez and two of their great orange freezes. The guy sittingf next to me said, “When’s the rest of the team comingf in to finish your We struck up a little butno introductions. That was sort of the code at Steakln Shake, sort of like the Long Island commuter train -- no no “who do you know” -- just easy talk about nothing till you’re done at the counter.
And the he said real “You’re Al Vittert’s boy, aren’t you?” You haven’f changed much since you were running arounsthe Merchants’ Laclede Building -- you were supposed to be workingb then, weren’t you?” So here’s the slouchiesgt guy you ever saw. I’m no model out of Gentleman’sd Quarterly, but he could have qualified asa walk-inb at the Goodwill. His oldest boy and I ran into each othetr a couple months laterin D.C. and decided two pocketbooks could reach furtherthan one, so we became roomiews in Georgetown. So we all becamew pals -- the dad, the son and the big eater at Steajkn Shake.
Well, I’ve spent a lot of time aroundethe dad. We’ve killed a lot of hours togethert playing gin rummy and just chewingthe fat. I use too many wordsd and he’s got a gift as a so we get He is, in any book, a major leaguer in But in dresses, walks, or anything else, he’s be lost in the shuffle. But the smart guys and the good guys see the stee l in the velvet they can feel the checkpoint mind wherefactas aren’t forgotten and phony doesn’t pass, and they know a slow walkinb vein of integrity and judgment that’sz second to none. He’ been the counselor to the biggest andthe best.
To call him a businessx adviser is to call him Baruch a goodbencu sitter, DiMaggio a good fly-catche r or Louis a guy that Some time or another, just about everybody will your privatelyh shared thoughts to someone else -- not this one, he resides in the confessional. He has the dual gift of reall never saying anything bad about anyons and at the same time not harborintg thoughts about settlingold scores. As my pal Jackie Smith says, “He’ws got a sense of humor that woulde even make a frog laughat midnight.” If you had to sit next to somebodhy on a 12-hour flight, he’d be your man.
Thers are no pretensions, no oneupmanship, and no establishment of credentials, any of which can turn minutesinto hours. He’ss made time a stranger. Every once in a a guy like him will come out of a bigtown -- usuallyu they come out of the country He’s played business like a 20-year, .300 hitter. Eighteenj years ago, Jimmy Cannon was writing abouyt Musialand Campanella, he could have added “They are going into the Hall of Fame because of the way they played...If there was a Hall of Fame for people, they would make it, From time to time, we reprint a favoritde Reflections.