The Newell Post

Before I moved to Florida, going to Disney in the first week of March became a ritual for my two sons and me. My daughter could never join us as she is a teacher and did not have that week off. But she was there with us in spirit.

The week became special for us because we included a trip to Legends Field as it was then called to attend a Yankee Spring Training Game.

I capitalized it because it was indeed a special time.

For one thing, coming from New York in early March, you were greeted with bright sunshine and warm breezes. Then you went to the ballpark and walked around the facility and hung out by the practice field. Our first year was the best. As we hung by the chain-link fence encircling the field, there was a high bench set up behind the batting cage.

There, perched atop the bench sat Joe Torre, Zim, Donny Baseball, and Yogi.

I could almost cry as I type.

It was just a special moment, and no matter how old you are, you just had to be struck by the sight. All that was needed was James Earl Jones giving his Field of Dreams speech.

In addition to walking around the field, we also would visit Monument Park South. This was a display of all the retired numbers with a plaque for each player. If I only had a dollar for every selfie that had been taken at the various numbers.

I attended another spring training event with my friend and, at the time, my boss. Jeffrey was as big a Yankee fan as I, and he even went to the gift shop to purchase a baseball to have autographed should we come across a player or two.

I was not that motivated and didn’t buy a ball for myself.

Sure enough, we noticed a player and a queue starting to form.
Jeffrey and I headed over there. I stayed with Jeffrey because that is what friends do. I had no interest in getting the autograph of some Single-A baseball player.
And, since I hadn’t purchased a ball, I didn’t have anything to sign.

We were at the end of a long line and couldn’t make out what player was designated for autograph duty. We speculated that it was some would-be rookie.
As we got closer, I asked one of the security guys, “Who do we have here.” He just looked at me and smiled.

Then Jeffrey looked over and recognized that it was Andy Pettitte!

SWEET MOTHER OF MERCY!

Man, I was in a real tizzy. I giggled like a schoolgirl. I had palpitations. I scrambled to get something Andy could sign. Fortunately, I had a hat. Not my new one but last year’s spring training hat.

Finally, we got up to the head of the line. Jeffrey got his autograph as I took his picture. He will tell you I didn’t take a great one with all the shaking and jittering. Then it was my turn.

Now, I should mention that Andy was protected by a chain-link fence, and we had to pass our items through a gate. As I approached the gate, I was aquiver. I had to say something, but what?

I may have blurted out, “I LOVE YOU, ANDY !” Then I pleaded with Jeffrey to take our picture. I goobered up my best doofus smile and left Andy at the gate.

Then the day proceeded to get better.

On our drive to Tampa, Jeffrey got a tweet stating that Joe Namath was at batting practice. I was disappointed that we were probably going to miss him as we were more than an hour away.

So as we entered the game and, still feeling more than a little starstruck, I wasn’t at the top of my game. I started looking towards the dugout area and saw a clearly older player sporting a number 12 Yankees spring training jersey. “Who is that?” “It looks like Ron Guidry, but he wasn’t number 12.”

Now, number 12 was soft-tossing to one of the other players, “Probably going to throw out the first pitch.”

IT’S JOE NAMATH!!!!

SWEET MOTHER OF MERCY!

I had to sit down, well I was already sitting. I could have gone home after that. We saw Joe throw out the first pitch and it was 1968 all over again for me, except that my season ticket for the Jets back then was less than the cost of my one spring training ticket.

Joe had me bubbling, almost blubbering.

Then I get a message from my friend PJ. He tells me that the head coach of the Jets, Rex Ryan, is at the game. Sure enough, there he is talking to Jeter. Man O man, the things that affect us.

I may look sixty-three and a half on the outside, but after my spring training encounters of the awesome kind, I remain a teenager in my heart.

Well, this spring training moment occurred a few years ago. Namath was at spring training that year because Derek Jeter was beginning his final season as a Yankee.

I went to the opening game just this Saturday, and the emotion for me was the same. I am nearly seventy, but I felt like a little kid because that is what spring training does to you.

People who don’t understand the power of baseball don’t understand this emotion that fans have about their team and the game.

It’s just baseball, but it’s time travel as well.

When I go to games, I can still hear my father talk about Babe and Lou and Joe when he was taking me to see Mickey, Yogi, and Whitey.

My kids have heard all this before when I started taking them to see Donny, and Paul, and Bernie. Then along came Jeter and Jorge and Judge and Gleyber and…

It’s Yankee baseball, and it’s spring training.

The Day The Music Died?

February 3, 1959, was a day I will forever remember. I can still see my brother Mike and me watching our Mother prepare breakfast. I cannot tell you what the weather was like. If there was snow on the ground, I could not tell you. What I do remember, though, is listening to the green Zenith radio that was up on the shelf over our refrigerator.

In those days, my Mother would often have on a rock and roll channel. It would be years later that she would turn to listen to Rambling With Gambling. So, back in 1959, she was probably listening to Herb Oscar Anderson or someone like him. On that particular day, it did not matter what channel you had tuned into, nor did it matter who the DJ or radio host was. That day it was all the same news and music. Buddy Holly had died, and that is all we heard that day. Even as an eight-year-old, I saw the irony in his most recent recording that every station was playing. ‘It Doesn’t Matter Anymore’, written by Paul Anka, just about summed up the feeling of that day.

We also heard that Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper had died as well, in the same airplane crash as Buddy Holly. Twelve years later, Don McLean would refer to this day as The Day The Music Died. While music most certainly did not die that day in February, it was never the same. I am not sure what impact The Big Bopper would continue to have had on the course of music, but Buddy Holly and Ritchie  Valens would surely have continued to provide terrific music and, no doubt, to inspire new artists and bring new innovations to rock and roll. It is not coincidental that The Beatles recorded ‘Words Of Love’ in deference to Buddy Holly’s contribution to music.
Twenty Five Years Later
Now it is February 3, 1984. Eileen and I are expecting our second child. The plan was that we would go to the hospital that Monday, February 6th, for the birth of our child. That taught me a lesson. There are some things you can plan and some that you cannot.

It was a Friday evening. We had a nice dinner, and I was just about to put a fire on and watch the Winter Olympics. No sooner had I had the logs in the hearth than Eileen called out from the bathroom that we would need to be going to the hospital instead. My first reaction was to push my way into the bathroom and to take a shower. To this day, I cannot fathom why I thought it necessary for me to be showered and shampooed. I guess I was recalling when Sean was born and that it was going to be a long night/day.

Now we had made plans with friends to take care of Sean on Monday, but they were nowhere to be found. So, we called our friend’s mother, who promptly drove over and picked up Sean. Eileen and I then made our way to Southampton Hospital. Upon arriving at the Hospital, Eileen’s doctor came in, shaking his head, saying, “I thought we agreed this was going to happen Monday. I was just about to watch the ice skating competition.” I told him I was too but that at least I did get my shower in.

We then made our way to the OR room, and I got the chance, again, to sit next to Eileen as our baby was being born. (Let me tell you, that’s the type of sex education we need in our schools.)

The birth of your child is always amazing. One minute she wasn’t there, and the next minute she was. Before that minute had elapsed, however, we named her Jeannine. It was 9:30 PM.

She was a sight to behold. A beautiful round face trimmed with a wisp of reddish hair. We always thought she would be a redhead like her mother. The maternity nurse took her and got her ready for her crib, and then both of us walked Jeannine up to her room. Eileen was in recovery and would join us later.

When we get to the room, the nurse asked me if I wanted to hold her. So, I picked her up out of the little crib and took her in my arms. She turned her head up to me, and I swear she looked me right in the eyes, and I think she was a little miffed for being disturbed while she was napping. She had a look, and I also think she was eying me up wondering what her fate would be with this big doofus that was holding her. Her eyes were wide open and deep blue, and her lips were puckered, and the nose that I would spend most of her early years stealing and hiding, was as cute as could be.

It was then that I first sang ‘You’re Sugar….” but it was by far not the last time.

Happy Birthday, Jeannine.

Though the music may have died back in 1959, it was resurrected in 1984.

The first Superbowl (don’t think they actually called it the Superbowl then) was in 1967, and it featured the American Football League’s Kansas City Chiefs against the National Football League’s Greenbay Packers. The Packers won.

Then in 1968, Superbowl II was played pitting once again the NFL’s Greenbay Packers against the AFL’s Oakland Raiders. The Packers won again.

In both Superbowls, the AFL never had a chance.

The Packers dominated both the Chiefs and the Raiders.

To be fair, the Packers dominated the NFL as well, but that did not matter.

What did matter is that the NFL appeared not only to be the better league but so far superior as to suggest that a merger of the NFL with a decidedly inferior AFL might not be worth the effort.

The AFL was causing NFL owners to spend much more money on salaries to keep players from straying to the new league, and that certainly was more than enough reason to quash the new league and put it out of business. Allowing the AFL to compete in the Superbowl only kept it in competition with the NFL, and why would the owners want to do that?

So, in 1969 with the New York Jets winning the AFL championship and the Baltimore Colts winning the NFL championship, many thought another lopsided victory for the NFL  would be the death knell for the Superbowl and the American Football League.

Joe Namath’s audacious boast and guarantee of a New York Jet victory would only serve to make the NFL victory sweeter and, perhaps, once and for all eliminate the inferior league.

Well, Namath was right, and professional football was forever changed so that this Sunday will make Superbowl LIV a spectacle for all of us to enjoy.

Without Joe’s Superbowl III, there might not have been a Superbowl IV much less LIV.

Derek Jeter was the Captain.

To Yankee fans, that’s all we need to know.

When he was named Captain, he achieved a status not granted to the likes of Joe Dimaggio or Mickey Mantle.

One of my earliest memories of Derek Jeter occurred before he was Captain, in his rookie year.

The Yankees were playing the Red Sox on a Saturday afternoon in September of 1996. I was there with my family sitting in Row X of the Old Stadium. The game went into extra innings, and Jeter came to bat in the bottom of the eleventh inning.

He proceeded to do what he would be famous for doing all throughout his twenty-year career with the Yankees. He got a clutch hit to drive in the winning run.

Fans would one day be calling this rookie, Captain Clutch.

Another vivid memory occurred during a game that I cannot recall when it was played or against what team. All I remember is that the bases were loaded. Jeter was on first. The count went 3 ball and two strikes.

On subsequent pitches, the carousel began, meaning all the runners would be running on the pitch.

There may have been two out, I can’t remember. I do know there were a couple of 3-2 pitches, but finally, the batter (it may have been Jason Giambi) got a single to right field.

Jeter scored.

He scored from first on a single to right.

One of the things I used to marvel at was watching Jeter go from first to third.

He was just an exciting player who, in the days of steroids and players hitting home runs by the score, was content to perfect his “Jeterian” swing by neatly putting an inside/outside bat on the ball and punching it to right field.

By the standards of the day, Derek Jeter was not a home run hitter. Nevertheless, it always seemed that when Jeter hit a homer, it was essential to a win.

At the time he began his career, there were two other shortstops to whom he was compared. Although they did not all play for a  New York team, it was a modern-day version of Willie, Mickey, and The Duke.

Alex Rodriquez and Nomar Garciaparra were superb baseball players. They were superb shortstops. They both hit more home runs than Jeter, and many thought they were better defensive shortstops as well.

In any discussion about this trio, I would acknowledge the skill of the other players and merely say, “You can have either one of them, I’ll stick with Jeter.”

I stand by my decision and, evidently, so did the Baseball Hall of Fame.

I used to love watching David Letterman, especially when he made his Top Ten List. I used to do my own for various occasions, trying to be funny and mostly failing, I suppose. I would also do my own list of music and other things.

For example, I would do a Summer Song List, a Christmas Song List, a Christmas Movie List, and even a Top Ten Best Episodes of West Wing List.

These were all positive endeavors, and sometimes they would change over time, but they were done with a smile and a good feeling in my heart. Sadly, there are other lists that we may be creating these days, given the state of division in which we find ourselves.

We need to remind ourselves of the positive things in our lives that tend to draw us together and to ignore those that tear us apart.

Over twenty years ago, I was heading to my office at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. I was in Grand Central Station heading for the Number 6 uptown local. As most New Yorkers commuting, I was steadfast in getting to where I had to be. Also, like most New Yorkers, I was walking against the tide.  My fellow commuters were looking to get to where they needed to be, which was in the opposite direction of where I was heading.

There was an aggressively rude individual who was smashing his way through the crowd disregarding anyone in his path. He happened to be African American, and when he attempted to bowl me over, I braced myself and gave him a little resistance.

He set me off.

I immediately had thoughts that would not make my mother proud nor my wife and children for that matter. These hateful thoughts gratefully remained thoughts and were not spoken aloud. I say gratefully because somehow speaking them is worse than thinking them. Of course, that’s really not true.

I finally got to the 6 train and was able to get a seat as the uptown train was relatively empty at that time of the morning. However,  these thoughts were on their way to rule and ruing my day.

As the train left the station, I felt the presence of someone hovering over me. I looked up to see another man, younger than my earlier adversary but also a man of color, smiling down at me.

Still, under the spell of my earlier encounter, I looked up and asked if there was a problem. But as I looked up at him, I had a weird sensation just looking at him smiling like that.

He asked me, “Are you a teacher?”

At that precise moment, I saw that He was Christ.

Realizing this, a wave of happiness, almost euphoria, washed over me. By his asking me if I was a teacher, He was reminding me that I was better than the guy I was when bumping into the man in Grand Central. I was better than the guy I was when I sat down on the 6 train.

I was reminded that just as I was able to recognize Christ in this man asking me if I was a teacher, I missed recognizing Christ in the African American man in Grand Central.

The lesson that I  learned that day is not always remembered when someone cuts me off or when I am watching cable news and I often have to remind myself of my epiphany or, more often, listen to my daughter and read the books she gives me.

So, as we head into what promises to be a volatile 2020, let’s remember that Christ is in all of us and pray that other people recognize Christ in us.

We don’t need a hate list.

Fifty years ago tonight, I made my one and done Times Square New Year’s Eve appearance. Along with two other friends Lou and PJ, I took the IRT 6 train from the Parkchester station in the Bronx to 42nd St- Grand Central Station.

You didn’t need to have tickets or passes, and you could just show up as late in the night as you cared. You didn’t have to wear diapers as you had access to an abundance of bathrooms in every bar that you sought Yuletide Cheer.

It was a more painless experience than tonight’s revelers will have to endure, but the sentiment of ringing out an old year while welcoming the new one remains the same.

1969 had been no picnic. To be sure, it had been better than 1968, but that was no accomplishment to hang a hat or hope on. Much like 2019, 1969 saw its share of division and discord. Some were against the Viet Nam War as much as they were against President Nixon. Likewise, defenders of the war and Nixon couldn’t understand the hippies and the freaks who were against the war.

Nevertheless, on that New Year’s Eve in 1969 at Times Square, hope reigned, and joy at starting over washed any bad memories we may have endured the previous year were erased as the ball was lowered in front of us as we sang (however badly) Auld Lang Syne.

So, tonight at the first strike of 10 (for I have long ago given up staying up till midnight and DVR the ball drop), I will once again rejoice at the dawning of a new year if not a new age of peace, love, and understanding….but hope always remains.

Happy New Year, Everyone.

I wrote the above entry precisely one year ago today.

I alluded to the upheaval of the 60s as a comparative time to our own in 2019. Indeed we were as divided a year ago as much as we were fifty years before.

I had to laugh at my reference to hope in the next to the last line of my post. I had hope then much as I have now, but who could have predicted that the trials and tribulations of 2019 would appear so trivial in 2019?

It is preposterous that over three hundred thousand Americans have died due to a virus. Equally nonsensical is that we appear headed to the America of the 1920s without so much of a roar as of a whimper.

Millions have lost their jobs; many never to return to them.

Restaurants and bars that had been landmarks in their locations have shuttered their doors forever.

But the stock market is doing well, so that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?

It’s hard not to be cynical during such times, but like talk, cynicism is cheap.

We need faith.

We need hope.

We need charity.

I can still remember my Baltimore Catechism and the listing of Faith, Hope, and Charity as leading to sharing God’s nature.

Maybe there was something to that?

Just maybe when we had faith and had the hope of a better life and lived with charity in our hearts, we actually were better off? Maybe when our neighbors’ welfare meant more to us than our 401K performance, we weren’t just better neighbors but better people?

Maybe when we worried about the homeless and the hungry more than who posted what on social media, we were better tuned in to the life around us?

2020 was a terrible year in so many ways for so many people, but we need to remember the love that also was exhibited during this time.

This blog is nothing like I first intended. I was going to write a satirical piece about a stupid inconvenience as a way of taking our minds off the problems we all experienced in the last year. But this is what I came up with, and there’s nothing more that I can add to make this entry better.

Except, we have to do better next year. We have to! We just have to!

I am still going to wish you all a very Happy New Year!

As we enter Christmas Week 2019 I am growing nostalgic for some of my recent ways of celebrating Christmas. On this day, for example, the Winter Solstice, I would always post a YouTube of Jethro Tull performing “Ring Out Solstice Bells.” Then, the next day, Band Aid singing, “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” would replace it.

Sadly, I no longer possess the enthusiasm to share such sentiments on Facebook knowing how that platform has been used to divide us. I no longer participate on Facebook. Similarly, Twitter has put me off for similar reasons.

However, my initial reason for getting off Twitter had to do with something I posted regarding Trump and an associate and I asked, “How long will it be before he throws him under the bus.”

Whatever algorithm Twitter employs to identify bad or hate speech I was effectively banned for using such a metaphor. But, other posters can use words I would not use to grace my blog.

So, during this week that celebrates the Day That Forever Changed The World let us endeavor to make social media social once more.

I do miss Facebook. I miss connecting with family who are spread over thousands of miles, with friends who you had lost contact with but with whom you can get reacquainted. It truly was a social media.

But then hate and ill will visited the neighborhood.

Where have you gone, Mister Rogers!

As I type this I long for a touch of Christmas past. Like the Magi, I need to follow a star and leave the clouds behind me.

If I abandon my tradition of posting those favorite seasonal songs of mine, haven’t I acquiesced to those who would destroy social media for us?

So, that is what I will do. Ring Out Those Solstice Bells!

There are so many things that divide us. The sources of our divisions are often deep-seated and irreconcilable, and they are all not of recent origin. Many have been formed decades ago.

It seems fitting to start with one of our most spirited debates as it is at this time of Christmas when it usually arose in public discourse. I am referring, of course, to the Lionel v American Flyer controversy.

As a child in the ’50s growing up in the Bronx, you were either a devotee of American Flyer trains or Lionel. There was no quibbling allowed. You had to choose. You had to take a stand.

It was not enough to acknowledge the attributes of each, you had to point out the flaws of your opponent’s choice of model trains.

Santa brought my brother Michael a set of American Flyers before I was born. So it was that Newell flirtation with A. C. Gilbert’s trains began. When I was six years old, Santa brought me a beautiful American Flyer freight train despite my insistence on an even more beautiful Santa Fe passenger set by Lionel. That set was listed as costing $100 in Macy’s and my father insisted Santa was bringing a freight set. To this day, I remember “hearing” fake set, and of course, I rebelled and said  I wanted a real set.

Nevertheless, I did receive a beautiful freight set with a boxcar equipped with a walking brakeman.

Three years later, however, my father and mother picked me up at Blessed Sacrament, where I was a fourth-grader. This was unusual because my father rarely got home early enough to do so.

Something was up.

As I squeezed into the front seat next to my mother, my father directed me with a nod to take a look at the back seat. There I saw a big Lionel boxed set.

And so Michael and I become Lionel devotees ever since.

Another issue that tended to divide our nation of Leland Avenue had to do with Mickey Mantle.

Most Yankee fans chose Mickey as their favorite player. By this time, 1960 or so, the days of arguing for Willie, Mickey, or the Duke were long since over. Willie and Duke were now the topics of debate for Californians.

However, there were many fans who chose Roger Maris for the subject of their adoration.

Yankee fans loved them both, of course, so the debate never reached a fever pitch. But that source of partisan scorn was on the horizon.

In 1960 The American Football League was formed to challenge the National Football League for domination over the nation’s second national pastime. The New York entry in the new league was the New York Titans, and they played in the Polo Grounds.

As New York Giant fans, my brother Michael and I scoffed at the newcomers.

How can you possibly compete in New Yorke when your New York Football Giants possess such stars as Y.A. Tittle, Sam Huff, and Frank Gifford? You just couldn’t compete.

But then in the summer of 1965, Michael was working down in Wall Street when he came home one evening with startling and incomprehensible news.

Michael had purchased a season ticket for the Titans who had been re-named the New York Jets, and they were set to play in the brand new Shea Stadium, and they had a brash new star in the person of Alabama quarterback, Joe Willie Namath.

He wore white shoes…on the field!

Now, my friend Mike had been singing the praises of Joe Namath all summer long, so I wasn’t completely shocked by Michael’s pronouncement, but I still demanded an explanation.

Michael’s one-line response was sufficient to convince me of his wisdom, “We could never get tickets to the Giants.”

In a few weeks, Michael took me to a game and I go,t to see Joe Namath play for the first time. I never saw anyone throw a ball like Namath and, it was clear, I became a Jet fan in the first quarter of that first game I attended when Namath threw his first pass.

Of course, I was the recipient of scorn and contempt by all Giant fans who regularly congregated on Hoch’s Corner.

As with the Lionel v American Flyer debate, opponents wouldn’t let you say, “I’m a fan of both teams.” You had to choose.

When it came to Mickey Mantle, there was never any other choice you could make. I was always a Yankee fan and always a Mickey Mantle fan…to this day.

But I still have some fond feelings and memories about my American Flyer trains and my New York Football Giants’ heroes.

You may think I can’t love both.

You may demand that I absolutely should not see the wisdom in any other choice.

But, not everything is binary, and I get to choose what I like.

So should you.

More than forty years ago, when we had a Republican President who obstructed justice, there were members of the Republican Party who were die-hard Nixon supporters. Nevertheless, they convinced him to step down when impeachment was an eventual reality.

These Republicans stood up for their own party by telling their leader to step down.

Today’s Republicans would be unrecognizable to the likes of John Rhodes, Hugh Scott, and Barry Goldwater. They were no liberals in Republican pinstripe suits. They were hard-line Republicans that put Lindsay Graham and Mitt Romney to shame.

Now, I don’t expect anything more from this group of Republicans; we know what they are. They are willing to abandon ideals in order to keep the president happy, in order to keep his supporters happy, in order to get re-elected.

But, to claim that the Democrats have presented an incomplete case is obscene as their president, their ideal, their party leader, has ensured that no evidence is forthcoming from the White House. You would think that an innocent man would demand that the evidence be provided.

No exoneration for Trump.

And it is also funny to hear Republicans attack the FBI, which is responsible for Trump’s election in the first place.

Forget about knowing history; these guys think we don’t know what happened last week.