‘New Kids’ Hit Sour Note With Cancer Patient’s Friend

Having grown up in the age of Bob Dylan and the Beatles, the appeal of New Kids on the Block is a little beyond my ken.

I’m not totally unfamiliar with the genre, however, having studied as a teen-ager the works of the 1910 Fruitgum Co. and the Ohio Express, whose songs “1-2-3 Red Light” and “Yummy Yummy Yummy,” respectively, occupy a special shelf in the rock library.

So I come not to bury New Kids but to relay a tale from a La Habra woman who thought the group’s bond with youngsters could help a 4-year-old girl with a discouraging cancer prognosis.

At the outset, you need to know that perhaps more so than any other group around, New Kids identify with preteens. The Boston-based group is so hot that Forbes magazine put it in the entertainers’ Top 10 for earnings the last two years, with $78 million--sandwiched between Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey. Sales of New Kids merchandise is an estimated $500-million business.

At this point, I’m sure you join me in congratulating the boys on their fine professional showing.

But back to our story.

A month or so ago, Thresa Sarrategui, 27, learned about a 4-year-old she only wants to identify as Stacy. The child had a tumor removed from her kidney, and although doctors hoped they had contained the cancer, they hadn’t.

According to Thresa, who works for TRW in Anaheim as an appraisal coordinator, Stacy needs a miracle.

Despite her tender age, Stacy loves New Kids, especially member Danny Wood, of whom she has a poster and a doll of his likeness. Thresa thought it would be a terrific idea if Danny could write to Stacy, sort of like basketball star Michael Jordan’s visiting a sick kid in the hospital. “I wanted to surprise her,” Thresa said. “I wanted her to get a letter in the mail.”

Thresa got through to the group’s New York management firm. “When I called, I thought they’d say, ‘No problem, what’s your address?’ ” Thresa said. Instead, the woman who took the call abruptly cut her off and told her the group “wouldn’t do it.” The woman suggested Thresa go through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, an organization that grants sick youngsters their special wishes.

Thresa was stunned. “It’s hard for me to understand why it would be so hard for them to print out a letter for her,” she said. “It’s hard to believe that for a 4-year-old girl who the world isn’t giving much of a chance to live, that someone couldn’t take the time to print out a letter for her.”

Thresa couldn’t get past the woman, who she assumes was a secretary but isn’t sure. Whoever she was, she represented the public’s contact with New Kids on the Block.

“I wasn’t asking for anything but a letter for a little girl,” Thresa said. “Millions of little kids adore them. I can’t imagine them being like that. I can’t imagine that they’d only be in it for the money, but maybe they are. I can’t imagine Danny Wood, if he knew about Stacy, that he wouldn’t write a letter.”

I called the management firm, Dick Scott Entertainment. I got through to someone who identified himself only as a spokesman for the firm.

As for Thresa’s request, he said, “We get bombarded with lots of calls. Sometimes they’re legitimate, but sometimes they’re not. Young kids can get real creative. We fulfill requests all the time, and the Kids lend themselves to various charity organizations.”

He went on to say they donate money to worthy causes and gave proceeds from a record last year to cerebral palsy.

I asked him about a letter from Danny to Stacy. “In terms of an autographed photo, we can work on that and see if we can get it out to her. But a letter, that can be--”

He didn’t finish that sentence, but I got the message. He added: “Danny’s on a schedule, and he’s leaving the country on Monday. He’s going on a cruise and then coming back and going into rehearsal for the tour. But we’ll see if we can get an autographed picture out.”

That’s where things stand. I gave him Stacy’s address.

On the surface, nothing he said was illogical. They probably are bombarded with requests for items. If they gave them away, they wouldn’t do $500 million in merchandising business.

But I got to thinking how time-consuming it would have been to check out Thresa’s story. A phone call to the hospital. Maybe 10 minutes of someone’s time to dummy up a couple of lines of a make-believe letter from Danny Wood. He wouldn’t even have to be bothered. Twenty-five cents for the stamp.

New Kids on the Block made $78 million the last two years.

Oh, well.

In going through a rock music reference book, I noticed one of New Kids’ biggest hits is entitled, “This One’s for the Children.”

You get the feeling the lyrics are irrelevant to the group or its management.

Here’s what really matters: in 1989 it made it all the way to No. 7 on the charts.