The beginning of my seventy-fifth year starts on Friday. This ongoing journey began at Phoebe Putney General Hospital in the unlikely location of Albany, Georgia. My parents, both Jewish and from Coney Island, a well-known enclave in Brooklyn, were there because my father was fulfilling his Air Force duty after dental school; my mother had quit her position as a Business Education teacher at Sayreville, New Jersey High School to be with him.
What they couldn’t have known is that the baby they brought into the world would become a sports-obsessed attorney who would create his own family of sports zealots who love to travel and who would shine in their chosen careers. And I don’t know if they would have approved. But that’s not my concern.
Yeah, this guy loves sports. If he could have been a sports writer, athletic director or coach, that would have been a ton of fun. This is not to say that being a Government major at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with an eye on going to law school and a career as an attorney wasn’t an admirable choice. It was a means to an end, which included sports.
I fell in love with sports at an early age. Watching the games on my parents’ black and white set embedded in me a love for what seemed to be great stuff. Whether it was Mel Allen describing Yankees games on WPIX, Marty Glickman handling Knicks games, Chris Schenkel describing the play of the Giants or watching the Rangers on Saturday night, I was hooked. National broadcasts of the NBA and NHL added to my fervor.
I saw my first Yankees game at age 7. My first Rangers game was at the old Madison Square Garden on my birthday 65 years ago. I saw Wilt Chamberlain and the San Francisco Warriors demolish the Knicks a year later. I saw my first pro football game in 1962 when the Giants and Philadelphia Eagles met in an annual pre-season battle in Princeton. Rutgers football was first on my plate in 1964 and RU hoops a year later.
My exposure at the scholastic level began at summer day camp at Highland Park High School, my hometown school. I got to know the players and I rode my bike to practice and games at Johnson Park for football and Donaldson Park for baseball. I even saw games in the old gym which, by the time I reached ninth grade, had been converted into the band room, where I would blare my trumpet badly.
Whatever newspaper my parents would read, I devoured the sports pages. And any sport I watched, I tried to play. I fell in love with baseball, and I wasn’t too bad at it. I could throw a football and my father installed a basket over the garage door. I even had hockey sticks and I would have my sister play goalie, shooting frozen tennis balls at her in our driveway. I dropped 30 pounds my freshman year of high school and took up weightlifting to be better at what I tried to play.
I didn’t know I was undersized at 5’5” until hit hard at freshman football practice by a much larger human being. Which led to my being adept at keeping score and statistics for baseball, football and basketball. To this day, the concepts I learned as a child I rely on while watching a game.
Any game I could go to, if able to, I would. Taking used stubs and heading into the visitors stands at Rutgers football games began a robust career of watching college football live.
I have seen Michael Jordan play. I have been to the US Open in golf and tennis. The World Series and two MLB All Star Games. The Stanley Cup and NBA Finals. I have seen Notre Dame, Army, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Texas all perform in football; North Carolina, UConn, Syracuse and Villanova in men’s hoops. I go to plenty of college baseball games and have seen minor league ball at all levels. I’ve been to hockey games in Canada. Heck, I have seen the Vancouver Canucks and New Jersey Devils practice.
This lifelong addiction to sports sent me to the Halls of Fame for baseball, football, basketball. I made a pilgrimage to the old Boston Garden to watch the Celtics. It sent me to ballparks related to 29 of the 30 MLB franchises, plus a number of Spring Training sites.
Wherever we go, I visit college campuses. And of course, go to famous stadiums or arenas. I have walked into Notre Dame Stadium; Ohio and Michigan Stadiums; the Charlotte Coliseum; the Dean E. Smith Center at the University of North Carolina and Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke. I have shot baskets at Princeton, Clemson and Rutgers.
Even more compelling was the fact that I played college baseball. Not permitted to freely play at Highland Park after a very troubling set of incidents relating to my height and being Jewish, I made my mind up that I would play at F&M. I made my presence known freshman year by working out every day and that caught the attention of coaches. Who knew that the kid who made up for not playing any organized baseball after his freshman year would actually start in college for two years before injuring his shoulder foolishly wrestling for his intramural team. And I still attended a Baltimore Orioles tryout camp and got a hit in their game for prospects.
Baseball got me my job as a Public Defender, as they needed a player for the softball team. True story. I met the future Secretary of Agriculture for the Carter Administration while playing softball on his House of Representatives team during my congressional internship in D.C. in 1971. Talking with my future wife when we first met, I told her I had a New York Jets playoff game the next day at Shea Stadium and we began a two hour talk which blossomed into a great love story—based on sports as one of our foundations.
I can go on endlessly about my history over the past 74 years. And here I am, as I start another year, on the precipice of watching my beloved New York Yankees play the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series. 65 years ago, I saw my first National League game in Philadelphia as the Dodgers, who would become World Champions, played the Phillies at Connie Mack Stadium. (I did see the Yankees lose to the eventual American League champion Chicago White Sox earlier that year but I have never seen LAD play NYY)
My misplaced faith in the New York Jets as a season ticket holder since 1977 is once more in the toilet after a loss to Pittsburgh Sunday night. Recreating the Aaron Rodgers Green Bay Packers won’t work—not with Rodgers nearly 41 years of age.
And Rutgers lost to a very average UCLA football team at home. They just aren’t getting over the hump and playing like an elite team. At least I was promised to see the good men’s basketball team play UCLA this year—this will be the second time I have seen the Bruins after watching then-Lew Alcindor demolish St. John’s in the 1969 Holiday Festival at MSG.
When I blow out the candles on my birthday cake, I am going to cheat a bit. I am going to make a number of wishes beyond health and happiness.
First, I am going to wish that the Yankees win World Championship number 29. It’s been an amazing and frustrating ride to get this far. The Dodgers are formidable opponents. But I can’t help myself agonizing over every pitch. Because that’s who I am.
Next, and this is complicated. I am going to hope against hope for a reversal of fortune for the Jets. I know how unlikely that is. The schedule isn’t daunting and the addition of Davante Adams at wide receiver and Haason Reddick at defensive line makes the impossible seem possible. Even if it isn’t. Moreover, I will yearn for management to draft a real game-changing quarterback and supply him with competent coaches and complimentary personnel on offense and defense.
I wish that the RU men’s basketball team will fare well this season. I always think a run like in 1976 to the Final Four is possible.
Another big wish is for F&M football to get past the top four and go to the NCAA’s; that men’s basketball be as relevant as it was under legendary coach Glenn Robinson; and that baseball reach championship heights again and again under Ryan Horning’s leadership.
I want Travis Kelce, Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs to win it all again. And that Kelce and Taylor Swift have a long and lovely life together. If KC cannot win it all this year, I am rooting for Detroit to win—because the last time the Lions won the NFL crown was 1957. (A correction to be noted here: in last week’s blog, I indicated that Cleveland, Detroit, Houston and Jacksonville were the only teams not to have won a Super Bowl—those teams are the four never having played in the big game; 12 haven’t won the trophy)
Plus I wish that my son’s idea to see the Golden State Warriors in San Francisco comes to fruition. I need go to see Steph Curry another time in person, for when I saw him in New Orleans, he left the game early with an injury.
I wish for the success that the New York Liberty reached after 28 years of futility for Caitlin Clark and her Indiana Fever, although Sabrina Ionescu’s shooting for the Liberty on Sunday night in Game 5 was dreadful. After we get through expected labor strife for the 2025 season. (The women are grossly underpaid)
Finally, I want to thank the people who take the time to read my rantings. My last wish is that you continue to do so, enjoying the words I put to paper which my intrepid editor make sensible. And that your wishes come true, too, at least in the sports world.
That’s it. Birthday wishes.
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