I have kind of been glued to my TV set this past week. For it has been wall-to-wall coverage of college basketball—both men’s and women’s. With a healthy measure of the NBA thrown into the equation. And I cannot get enough.
This is not to say that I haven’t been living an ordinary life (for me). There are the usual chores, exercise, physical therapy, shopping, cleaning and I do the bulk of our cooking. I sometimes find time for a nap in addition to my normal night’s fitful sleeping—a thing that occurs regularly to people in their 70’s and older.
Sure, there are other sports going on. I routinely check the NHL scores, as the New Jersey Devils have had a youthful renaissance after too many miserable years. I also am more than cognizant of the Boston Bruins incredible pace to break a number of records for wins in a season, points, and home and away overall records. Plus I look to see which teams are in the playoff picture as the season heads to its conclusion; of course, in the New York area, we are clued into what the Rangers and Islanders are doing, too (both presently are in position to secure playoff berths.
Baseball is in the midst of its exhibition season in both Florida and Arizona. MLB has reinstated its World Baseball Classic, which I have little interest in—is it truly a World Series when Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer are not participating? Besides, why would I even be interested in late start times from Phoenix which could keep me up until 1:00 am with the advent of Daylight Savings Time? To watch Great Britain or Canada play the U.S.—no thanks.
Yes, I read the papers and what is online about injuries and how teams are doing. The Yankees already have a number of important players suffering maladies which will preclude them from beginning the season on time. I will be primed and ready for the season opener on March 30—even if there are other distractions and my son and I will be resuming our Devils through Canada saga with a trip to Winnipeg in early April when, hopefully, the temperatures and precipitation will be as cooperative as it was during our trip to Edmonton—when we landed five days after the last below zero cold snap.
Ranking the sports in the order I care about them, it would be baseball first, closely followed by basketball, then hockey and football. (Tennis, swimming and golf were leisure activities, no matter how much I worked at them) I can even break those categories down based on professional and college teams. Notice that football is last—I am, after all, a long suffering New York Jets fan and the talk of Aaron Rodgers coming to be a savior is irksome, to say the least.
Baseball will always be number one. I could play it with relative ease compared to any of the other sports I had any ability in—I could not stop as a skater which is why I have played only once or twice as a lad on the frozen ice of the ponds at Johnson Park in my hometown of Highland Park. With football I was too small but my stubbornness caused me to have a brief one year career on the Highland Park H.S. freshman team before being concussed (it hurt like hell for a couple of days but in 1964, you sucked it up and continued to play) and realizing I didn’t belong out there.
Whatever level I played baseball—if it was a catch on my home street or in the driveway, a pick up game at Hamilton School, stickball, or organized youth leagues, I more than held my own. Obviously, I played baseball well enough to forge a very undistinguished career at Franklin and Marshall. One thing I always knew about baseball was that I understood it and I could always hit and throw fairly well, despite my size and lack of speed.
Moreover, my baseball prowess helped me get my first real job with the Public Defender, Appellate Section and I made many friends along the way because of my love of baseball. Offer me a chance to go to a MLB park, I’ll be there if I can. This is why I am so adamant about getting to the last 5 remaining franchises’ ballparks.
Most people don’t really know my history with basketball. It is long and it is a bit complicated. I always wanted to shoot baskets—my father nailed a backboard (it had to have a net to be official) over our garage, and I was out there, in the cold or heat, with or without wind or elements. From balloon balls to more appropriate orbs, I always had a basketball.
In my youth, I watched plenty of Knicks games from Syracuse, Rochester and Philadelphia. I watched national TV games with Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell—my first NBA game was in January, 1962, when I saw the Wilt and the San Francisco Warriors annihilate the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
I played recreation league baskets all with a running clock in the Hamilton School gym. I wasn’t that bad, but I really was just okay. But I didn’t know better. That is where I learned how to keep score, which led to my high school career as the scorekeeper and statistician for the freshman and varsity teams.
Just as much as I watched the NBA on television, I watched college basketball. I saw early games such as when Loyola of Chicago won the NCAA Tournament in 1963, the National Invitation Tournament before that with NYU, St. John’s, Bradley and Dayton all coming to play at the old Garden on Eighth Avenue. Bill Bradley and his Princeton Tigers were a Saturday afternoon favorite. I thought the gyms at Manhattan and Fordham were dingy. I learned of the scandals at CCNY and LIU. UCLA was an absolute phenomenon and I read a ton about their coach, John Wooden. I became a very willing student of the game.
Besides seeing my high school play at the Asbury Park Convention Hall—the first portable floor I had ever dribbled on—I practiced with the varsity at times in my duties as a manager. I would try to make as many free throws in a row as I could and take shots from half court daily. That was because in my freshman year, I actually suited up in our road maroon uniforms with my low cut black Converse All-Star sneakers like the Boston Celtics (we lost and I did not enter the game). I did play in three games involving my high school—a trip to the State Reformatory at Annandale which I will never forget as I actually scored five points and made a foul shot—I was so nervous; a Teachers-JV game where I was horrible; and an Alumni-Varsity game in December, 1968 when I scored three points against a squad that went to the State semi-finals, which left me elated.
Did I play pick up games? You bet I did. At Rutgers; in both the Dillon and Jadwin Gymnasiums at Princeton; many times at F&M, including after baseball practice. I played on the second tier team for my intramural group and once scored 31 points bombing away. I went to the YMHA in West Orange, shooting when had the opportunity while playing vertically challenged defense. At lunchtime, while the Public Defender office was in East Orange, I played almost every work day at the Orange YMCA, with some guys who played college ball, including the legendary Feldman brothers, who were high school stars in Newark and at George Washington. They couldn’t have been nicer to me.
While I have continued my love of watching televised basketball for over 65 years, when I went to my first live college game at the old College Avenue Gym on the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers, I was hooked. Rutgers and then F&M became my teams.
I have seen Rutgers at home so many times against so many teams and I still go when I can. I have traveled to Penn State and Cincinnati to watch RU play, as well as at MSG. While in law school, I was able to get into the locker room when the Scarlet Knights faced the University of Delaware in 1974. I met stars Phil Sellers, Mike Dabney and an assistant coach named Dick Vitale.—the same one who is in the Basketball Hall of Fame for his legendary broadcasting.
Although I had studies and work for baseball, I hardly missed a game at F&M during the 3 1/2 years I was on campus. I watched Glenn Robinson win his first varsity game and I was in the stands for his record-breaking 667th win—most in Division III.
I have been to a Division III Final Four; the NIT Championship game; and a NBA Finals game. I made a pilgrimage to the old Boston Garden. I have driven by numerous arenas to burn the image in my brain. I have shot one shot—a swish—at a vacant Rutgers Athletic Center. I made a foul shot at Littlejohn Coliseum on the Clemson campus. I had to go inside the Dean Dome at North Carolina and see the beehive floor at the old Charlotte Coliseum. I was able to toss an errant ball back to Michael Jordan before a game at the Meadowlands. The list goes on and on.
On Saturday night, I watched Steph Curry go on a shooting rampage against the Milwaukee Bucks, the best team in the NBA, pulling out a dramatic overtime win. This was with me alternately watching the Duke-Virginia ACC title clash while texting my F&M roommate, an avowed college basketball junkie and a Maryland fan for many years. I probably watched games in eight or nine conferences over the course of four days, while checking on the progress of Centennial Conference teams from Johns Hopkins and Swarthmore in the DIII Tournament. This is me.
My wife and kids learned early on to stay away from me when the Selection Show comes on CBS in early to mid-March. I am always excited to see how the brackets unfold, and this year I was praying that a subpar Rutgers team gets in. Which, in my prior blogs I believed they were not worthy of getting into the NCAA’s, and I was right. Except for the snobs at the University of North Carolina, who nixed an invitation, there is nothing wrong with extending a team’s season by playing in the NIT.
On a warm night in June I will be glued to the NBA Finals. I saw the Grant Hill pass to Christian Laettner for his miracle shot. I remember Jordan hitting the winning shot for UNC just like he did for the Chicago Bulls. These are just a few of my thousands of memories.
There is so much more I can relate about basketball which is etched in my mind. I wish I still had our in ground basket on the side of our driveway. I could recreate Bobby Lloyd of Rutgers dribbling and shooting. Or Larry Bird sinking a long shot. Or I could just be lost in the fun of shooting an orange ball through a metal rim with some nylon below it.
This is my continuing love affair with basketball.
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