Growing up in ManhattanStyle with sports in the 70′s and early 80′s

My first confession is I am not from Manhattan, I grew up in Northern Jersey about 20 miles from the city, it was a 45 minute bus ride if you took the 77 from Northfield Avenue to the Port Authority on 42nd Street in Manhattan, if you avoided rush hour. But if you grew up in North Jersey in the 70′s your life was about Manhattan. My earliest memories go to the early 70′s as a ten or eleven year old, and of course New York City meant Sports to me at an early age. This was before the Jets and Giants played in the Jersey Meadowlands, they were at Shea Stadium and Yankee Stadium, all pro Sports took place in the city or Burroughs. I was a huge Jet fan (I still am today) and I loved the Knicks, the Rangers and the Mets, and as a Met fan you had to hate the Yankees. Some things never die, on the eve of the 09 World Series I will root for the Phillies. But mostly I loved the Knicks, they played at Madison Square Garden, 33rd and 8th Avenue, the center of the world as far as I was concerned. I got to go to maybe four games a year, my Uncle would take me and my brothers for Christmas and we would sit in the ten dollar seats, which were the color blue and as high up as you could be, but I didn’t care we were at a Knicks game. And once or twice a year we got to use my father’s company’s seats, they were in the Loge, Section 110, the Red seats, and they were way down near the court. These were the World Champion New York Knicks at least in 1969; unfortunately, I was a little to young to remember that one but I remember 1973 and that Championship.

These were the Willis Reed Knicks, the Walt Frazier Knicks, we had Earl “the Pear” Monroe, and “Dollar Bill” Bradley and Dave Debuschere , and Marv Albert announcing the games with his patented “yessssssssssssss”. We hated the Boston Celtics, and Jo Jo White, and Dave Cowens and there loud and hated Coach Tommy Heinsohn. But we hated the Los Angeles Lakers with Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West even more. The Knicks owned the city, and as far as I was concerned Walt Frazier, his nickname “Clyde” from the movie Bonnie and Clyde, was the coolest man on the planet. He had long sideburns and a goatee, and wore Mink Stoles, and in the 70′s he defined Manhattan Style. And he wore these German sneakers, Puma, with a stripe down the side, with then name Clyde stitched on, and every kid had to have them. Those shoes were hot fifteen years before Air Jordan came along, and guess what, they are still popular today. Winning teams and Manhattan go together, and they were the heroes who represented the city in the early 70′s.

And the 70′s were good for the New York Rangers too, Hockey was wildly popular at that time, and the rivalries with the Boston Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers were legendary. Rangers and Flyers games were so intense that the saying ” I went to a boxing match and a hockey game broke out” developed from that rivalry.

The Jets and the Giants didn’t do much but struggle through the 70′s. The Jets were looking for that never ending replacement to one Joe Willie Namath, or more affectionately known as Broadway Joe. Joe Willie guaranteed a Super Bowl victory against the Baltimore Colts in the 1969 Super Bowl and delivered. Unfortunately Jet fans are still looking for the successor to Broadway Joe some forty years later. The Jets had some exciting moments with Richard Todd in the 70′s, but being a Jet fan has been trying to regain our one shining moment. Giant fans didn’t have much to brag about in the 70′s either, their great teams of the 50′s had long been forgotten. Sure they had Fran Tarkenton but he went to Minnesota and took them to four Super Bowls leaving the Giants with nothing until the early 80′s when Bill Parcells came in and rebuilt that storied franchise.

Now, I grew up a Met fan, and there is one basic rule if you are a Met fan, you hate the Yankees. The early 70′s had some moments especially the 1973 season when they won the pennant. Now of course the “amazins” won the 1969 World series, but like the Jets who also won that year I have some memory but was a little too young to be a fan. That is the sports story of my life. But the 1973 Mets were awesome, we had Tom Seaver, only the best pitcher in baseball as far as I was concerned, and Jerry Koosman, Bud Harrelson, Rusty Staub and Wayne Garrett. I got to go to a World Series game at Shea Stadium against the Oakland A’s, and still remember how disappointed I was that we got caught in traffic and I missed Rusty Staub’s homerun in the bottom of the 1st inning. The Mets lost that series but I got to go to “The World Series.” It’s funny I have been to World Series since but as far as I’m concerned that’s the only real one I ever went too, I was eleven , they were the Amazins what could be more? Did I mention they also had the finest Baseball announcers in baseball history, that would be Ralph Kiner, Lindsey Nelson and Bob Murphy, and after the game if the Mets won we had Kiner’s corner where Ralph would interview the Met star of the game. It’s funny for all I know they weren’t very good or they could have been great, but to a young boy they were everything.

But the simple truth is, as painful as this is for me to admit, baseball in New York in the 70′s belonged to the New York Yankees. The mid 70′s Yankees brought baseball to the front page of the papers for the first time. When George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees in 1973 for ten million dollars, he changed the face of sports forever. The emergence of free agency in baseball allowed players to move freely to play for whatever team they chose. That meant the Yankees with the most money were free to pursue the biggest stars of the game and bring them to the greatest city in the world. They started going for stars in 1975 and have been doing it ever since. The 70′s brought “Mr. October” himself, Reggie Jackson, from the Oakland A’s. Reggie was the self proclaimed “straw that stirred the drink” when it came to the Yankees. Reggie, with his mustache and beard and his 500 foot homeruns, and his three world series rings from Oakland, Reggie the bachelor, always with a model on his arm, and Reggie, always the hero when the playoffs and World Series came around, thus the name “Mr. October.” But Reggie wasn’t alone, there was Goose Gossage, Catfish Hunter, Craig Nettles and the late great Thurman Munson. The day that Thurman Munson was killed in airplane crash, in the prime of his career, ranks in sadness to Yankee fans equal to the day Kennedy or Lennon were shot. And of course there was Billy Martin, the often fired and rehired manager of the Yankees, six times he would be hired and fired by George Steinbrenner, every time a front page event. The hard drinking manager was as likely to get into a fight with his own players as he was to get into a bar fight, as is remembered by his near fight with Reggie Jackson in the middle of the dugout. Yet, no one can dispute the brilliant baseball mind of Billy Martin and the three world championships he brought to New York. Yes, the 70′s New York Yankees were some of the greatest, most charismatic baseball teams of all time, and were only highlighted by the fact that they played in New York. New York City is the greatest City in the world, and sports has become so much a part of our culture that New York teams are part of the identity of the city. Owners of New York teams are not only about winning, they are about winning in style.

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One Response to “Growing up in ManhattanStyle with sports in the 70′s and early 80′s”

1. XRumerTest says:

   March 2, 2010 at 3:01 am

   Hello. And Bye.