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Saturday, April 14, 2018

Boy, is my face red

There I was, complaining about Paul O'Neill's complaining, when somebody brings to my attention the travails of his sister.

I missed this—don't know why her old paper hasn't covered it, maybe she didn't want them to—but it seems that Molly O'Neill has had a liver transplant, but is still afflicted with cancer.

She says the family has carried her through most of this, but apparently not wanting to impose on them anymore, she has now started a GoFundMe site to facilitate the publication of what she hopes to  be her dream book on cooking.

This is a sad twist in what is a great New York story, brother and sister come to the big town and make good. I can only wish them both all the best.


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

This seems strange. Paul O'Neill has to be worth around $20 million judging by his baseball income through the years. He couldn't come up with $100,000 for his sister's medical expenses so she wouldn't have to go begging in public? And she didn't have medical insurance? I tried Googling this, and the details are sketchy, with no updates since November 2017. Maybe the crack reporter el duque can learn more about this.

Alphonso said...

That seems to be so often the truth in a family; one sibling gets it all ( looks, talent , fame, fortune, brains ) and the other gets struck down.



Anonymous said...

Molly O'Neill was a very accomplished food writer who was nominated for a Pulitzer prize. She spent many years at The New York Times and has authored or co-authored many highly regarded cookbooks. So Paul's talent was brawn--hers was brains. But in America the latter is seldom as well compensated as the former.

HoraceClarke66 said...

According to baseballreference.com, Paul made at least $51,652,000 as a ballplayer, and more since as a commentator, of course.

There are other brothers, and they seem to be a close family; it seems unlikely that he would Paul would deny her anything. And then, as noted, there was her own considerable success. It seems weird that she wouldn't have some kind of insurance; weirder still that she could not get a large book advance.

I wonder if all this reflects some desire of hers to do it on her own...

Anonymous said...

Molly O'Neill states, "“With the help of family, I was able to sustain the year-long recovery from the transplant including the pricy (sic) co-pays for the medications that support my new liver and other essential care. My family cannot support another 6-12 month recovery and the additional medications that I will require to replace the steroids and hormones that the adrenals produce.”

She makes it clear that her family is unwilling/unable to provide the addtional funding she needs. Perhaps she has been free-lancing for a long time and therefore has limited health insurance. Everyone in America is familiar with the crappy swiss-cheese policies that pass for health coverage in this country--the kind that place you in danger of bankruptcy if you actually have to use them.

The Daily New article acerbically notes, "Paul O’Neill played 17 years in the majors and is worth a reported $20 million. The YES Network broadcaster also backed Donald Trump on the campaign trail last year at an event in Florida where Trump told him, 'I love you!' Perhaps O’Neill can talk to Trump about fixing the broken healthcare system that has his sister online seeking help to pay for her meds."

I suspect that there might be some intra-family tension over O'Neill's embrace of Trump--maybe to the point of having caused a split between him and his sister, who is likely to harbor more liberal leanings based on her long tenure at The New York Times. Even if that is the case--and it's pure conjecture, of course--it would still be unconscionably dickish of Paul O'Neill not to get past that and bail his sister out to prolong her life. Perhaps he has since then . . . I can't find any follow-up reports.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Could well be, Anon—which would be even sadder.

Or maybe her treatments were truly, ungodly expensive, in the millions-a-month range you read about sometimes. Or maybe she's too proud to accept anything more.

The whole story is puzzling. Again: how is it that she doesn't have a nice book contract/advance as is?

We're definitely not getting the whole story here.

Carl J. Weitz said...

Paul O'Neill made at least 52 million dollars not counting post-season income. If you include investments over the years, there is no way in hell that he is worth just 20 million, today. Unless Bernie Madoff was his financial advisor. There is an 11 year difference between Molly and Paul. Several years ago, I read that Molly said that due to the age difference, she wasn't all that close to Paul. That doesn't mean they don't love each other but I don't think she knew him like she would a sibling much closer in age.

That said, it is more likely that either Paul is too cheap/unconcerned or Molly wants to do it on her own. I'd hate to think it is the former.

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