“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” – New York Yankees legend Yogi Berra
When Chappaqua-based public relations executive John Cirillo was a student at Fordham University in the Bronx, he broadcast the school’s games over its WFUV radio – whose alumni have included Vince Scully, “the voice of the Dodgers”; Mike Breen, “the voice of the Knicks”; and Michael Kay, “the voice of the Yankees” – with an eye to a career behind the mic.
But an assignment at Yonkers Raceway – where then publicist Mike Cohen seated him right up front with sportswriters from New York City’s big newspapers — led to a career in public relations with an emphasis on sports that included executive positions with Yonkers Raceway, the New York Knicks and Madison Square Garden before he went out on his own with his 28-year-old company, Cirillo World.
While he’s not giving up his day job, Cirillo is taking another fork in the road, so to speak – as an author in the billion-dollar self-publishing industry. “Marbles on an Unpaved Road: An Ode to Sheepshead Bay” (Amazon, $25.99 hardcover, $18.99 softcover, 120 pages) is an elegiac memoir of growing up Italian American in the once (1960s and ’70s) and future Brooklyn neighborhood where a slice was .25 cents (now $3.90), Cirillo and family lived at 2308 Jerome Ave. (now on the market for $1.5 million) and the gang hung out at Lundy’s Tappan’s, Pigs, The Barge and Captain Walter’s — all of which have since closed. (Now when Cirillo and wife Francine visit the old neighborhood, they head to such places as Brennan & Carr, Michael’s, Randazzo’s Clam Bar, Roll N Roaster or Wheeler’s, as well as Gargiulo’s in neighboring Coney Island).
Back in the day, Enrico “Harry” Lombardi – father of legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince – sat in the right front pew of St. Mark’s Roman Catholic Church. Vince was already an alumnus of St. Mark Catholic Academy when Cirillo was a student there before heading off to Nazareth Regional High School, Fordham and the wide world. Still, the old neighborhood lives not only in visits but in memory:
“It was a true neighborhood of single and two-family homes, with people on the stoop arguing about the Yankees and the Mets” – Cirillo was a Mets fan – “and kids playing ball in Bedford Park.”
They’re all there in the book – his siblings, parents, grandparents and great-grandparents – but if “Marbles on an Unpaved Road” is what Edith Wharton would call a “backward glance” at what was and what remains, the publication of the book is the story of how the self-publishing world has changed in the digital age, generating an estimated $1.5 billion a year in sales of 300 million books. Time was when Amazon was a river or a one-breasted female warrior in Greek mythology, and self-published books were considered vanity projects. But in an age in which multimedia juggernauts E.L. James (“Fifty Shades of Grey”) and Colleen Hoover (“It Ends With Us”) began as self-published authors, and whole businesses are devoted to creating bespoke books for owners of tony estates, yesterday’s vanity projects can be today’s moneymakers. (Self-publishing is not new, of course. Jane Austen — as successful today as she ever was, 250 years after her birth — began as a family-financed, anonymous author with “Sense and Sensibility.”)
Cirillo, who said he spent about $5,000 in self-publishing the book with Amazon, “never thought about making money with it.” Rather, he said, “it was a story that needed to be told.” And he already has a second book set to bow at the end of summer. “A Tail From the Bronx: Life Lessons Taught by a Cat” is a children’s book about the two cats Cirillo and his wife found behind Dominick’s Restaurant on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx and took home to Chappaqua. They’ve been named Vinnie, after Vince Lombardi, and Angelo, after Angelo Dundee, Muhammad Ali’s coach.
Two other manuscripts are waiting in the wings – a book on some of the famous people who died on Aug. 16, including Babe Ruth, Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin, about whom he’s also written the lyrics to a song, and a culinary history of the Bronx.
It helps that Cirillo has a long history of helping others tell their stories, dating from Yonkers Raceway, his “roots in PR,” where he was mentored by then president Timothy J. Rooney — son of Arthur Joseph “Art” Rooney Sr., founding owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Cirillo, who served as public relations director at the raceway from 1981 to ’84, recalled the senior Rooney always having his beloved cigars on hand to pass out to the raceway’s workers when he came to town for big events. (The love of cigars is something Cirillo shared, and his email includes the handle Johnny Cigar.)
“He was wealthy, but he had a great love for people,” Cirillo recalled of Art Rooney.
When Cirillo left for Madison Square Garden – where he was public relations director of the New York Knicks from 1984 to ’95 and then senior vice president of public relations for the Garden itself (1995-97), helping to reintroduce boxing matches there – Art Rooney sent him a note in which he remembered his son saying that Cirillo was a great employee and wishing him the best.
In 1997, Cirillo launched Cirillo World, doing public relations for Steiner Sports Marketing & Memorabilia, founded by longtime Scarsdale resident Brandon Steiner, in return for space in its Manhattan office before Cirillo World found its own place. (In 2019, Fanatics purchased Steiner Sports. Today, Steiner is owner of Yonkers-based CollectibleXchange, enabling fans to buy, sell and discover sports, movie and music memorabilia, and an author in his own right.)
Decades in sports publicity have brought Cirillo into the circle of celebrated athletes in various sports. After New York Mets right fielder Ron Swoboda made a catch off of Baltimore Orioles third baseman Brooks Robinson that helped secure the Amazins the 1969 World Series title over the O’s, Swoboda asked Cirillo to publicize his autobiography, with the PR man being also instrumental in creating a limited-edition photograph of the catch that Robinson also graciously signed “great catch.” And when catcher Gary Carter – who played for a variety of teams, including the Mets – was announced for the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003, he called on Cirillo to handle the publicity through his induction.
What Cirillo has learned is that fans do not always see athletes as the human beings they are.
“There’s so much hero worship.” And conversely, so much demonization of people onto whom we as fans project our own desires, fears and personalities. Cirillo has tried, he said, to get at the human story in a career that is more a passion than a love, he said.
“You can reach out to 10, 50, 100 media people and not get any response, and you have to make that 101st call.”
And what of the “fork” not taken? Cirillo — who was an adjunct media professor at Fordham for 25 years and a lyricist on more than 40 records — said that he got a taste of broadcasting, filling in as an announcer at Yonkers Raceway. But PR has been quite the life.
“It’s never boring.”
There will be a book signing from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 28 at Rory Dolan’s, 890 McLean Ave. in Yonkers. Lunch will be served. For reservations, email johnnycigarpr@aol.com.
