Suzyn Waldman first says it was OK but then immediately corrects herself _ a habit potentially born from years of battling the death threats, the harassment and the ostracizing.
That iconic voice _ the Boston accent that found its home in the Bronx _ hardens with a twinge of defiance when she talks about the feces and bodily fluids sent to her in the mail. By her own description, she shuns mediocrity, doesn't quit and hates to fail _ that's how she became a longtime radio voice for the Yankees _ so when abuse rained down on her, Waldman braced herself and kept marching.
There were those angry, vile letters, the envelopes stuffed with used toilet paper and contraceptives. There were nights she feared for her life. And then there was the icy exclusion from her peers in sports media.
"It wasn't OK, and I don't know why I'm saying that (it was)," she said from her hotel in Tampa, Fla., another spring training done. "I had a freaking security detail for a solid year because people were trying to kill me. ... It was horrible. To this day, I'm nervous about everything."
The front line can be a gruesome, suffocating place, but that's where Waldman has lived for her entire media career.
