Editor's note: Buffalo Bills beat writer Sal Maiorana wrote this first-person story in 2016 recalling his final interview with O.J. Simpson before FX broadcast the miniseries "The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story"

On the afternoon of Saturday, June 4, 1994, my home phone rang and at the other end was O.J. Simpson.

Finally.

And, as it turned out, just in time.

For nearly three months I had been trying to set up a phone interview with the man we knew as “The Juice” from his iconic days as a Pro Football Hall of Fame running back for the Buffalo Bills.

I was in the final stages of writing my first book about the Bills, titled Relentless: The Hard-Hitting History of the Buffalo Bills, and I wanted Simpson to provide the voice for the decade of the 1970s, during which he was far and away the Bills’ best and most visible player. I’d already procured interviews with quarterback-turned-politician Jack Kemp for the 1960s (this was nearly as difficult as landing Simpson), lovable nose tackle Fred Smerlas for the '80s, and quarterback Jim Kelly for the start of the 1990s, which encompassed the Bills’ Super Bowl run.

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Now, I finally had Simpson on the line after so much back and forth with his personal assistant, Cathy Randa. You see, Simpson, who worked for NBC Sports and was also a television and movie actor, was in the midst of filming a television pilot for an NBC series titled Frogmen. Simpson was to play the leader of a crack team of ex-Navy SEALs, and it was supposed to be like a modern day version of the old Mr. T show, The A-Team.

Week after week Randa would apologize to me and explain how busy he was, but she remained persistent, and as I recall she phoned me on Friday and said O.J. was playing golf Saturday at Riviera Country Club outside Los Angeles and that he would call me after the round.

Sure enough, late in the afternoon, O.J. came through, and he spent about 45 minutes with me reliving his time with the Bills. If you’ve read the book, I think you’d agree he provided me with some great background about his career, what it was like to play for the Bills in what was a mostly awful time for the team, and his place in the pantheon of Bills football.

I can’t be certain of this, but I may have been the last person to ever do a full-length interview with O.J. before his life came crashing down in remarkably stunning fashion. As you see by the date of my conversation with him, eight days later on June 12, Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend, Ron Goldman were murdered.

Tuesday night, the cable network FX is debuting its much-anticipated mini-series The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, and while I’m pretty sure my interview with O.J. won’t come up, I am looking forward to watching the show to see how closely it portrays what was then referred to as the Trial of the Century. The cast is certainly first-rate with Cuba Gooding Jr. as O.J., John Travolta as defense lawyer Robert Shapiro, Courtney Vance as Simpson’s other defense attorney, Johnnie Cochran, Sarah Paulson as prosecutor Marcia Clark, and David Schwimmer as Simpson’s close friend, Robert Kardashian.

The FX website says the series “takes you inside the O.J. Simpson trial with a riveting look at the legal teams battling to convict or acquit the football legend of double homicide. Based on the book The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson by Jeffrey Toobin, it explores the chaotic behind-the-scenes dealings and maneuvering on both sides of the court, and how a combination of prosecution overconfidence, defense shrewdness, and the LAPD’s history with the city’s African-American community gave a jury what it needed: reasonable doubt.”

Back then, the thought of O.J. as a murderer was simply impossible to process for anyone who had ever had dealings with him, including me. He was one of America’s leading men, star of TV, movies and commercials, the rare professional athlete who became more popular after his playing days were over. I’d had several opportunities to talk to him on his visits to Buffalo in his role as a football analyst for NBC, and he came off as the most normal mega-star that you could imagine.

When news of the double homicide broke, like many of you, I never gave it a thought that Simpson could be involved. But as those fascinating days played out leading to the infamous Ford Bronco chase down the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways, the evidence certainly began pointing his way. However, when the trial ended in 1995, Simpson was acquitted.

I had told a few media colleagues that I’d just interviewed Simpson a week earlier, and on the day of the Bronco chase, many of us were out at Locust Hill Country Club covering the second round of the Rochester International LPGA golf tournament. Suddenly, the tables were turned and I was the one being interviewed by local TV stations, asking me to assess Simpson’s mental state when he had called me.

I’m not a doctor, and I don’t play one on TV, so naturally I had no idea what was on his mind. All I know is that Simpson was in a jovial mood the day we spoke, happily recalling his playing career, and I was as shocked as everyone else by what happened.

One of the original cover ideas for Relentless was a montage of photos including Simpson, Kemp, Smerlas and Kelly. That idea was nixed because the publisher wasn’t comfortable showcasing Simpson, so we opted for the red leather cover that actually was very well-received.

As for Frogmen, unlike my book, it never saw the light of day as NBC steadfastly refused to air the pilot, and to date it remains in mothballs.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: O.J. Simpson interview: Reporter recalled conversation before his fall