The Newell Post

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.

If we still remembered history, we would know the poignancy of the word infamy.

Those of us who are boomers cannot hear or read the word without thinking of FDR’s speech following the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Nearly thirty-four years later I was sitting in the endzone of Shea Stadium for a game between the Jets and the Patriots.

Joe Namath would throw three touchdowns en route to a 36-7 rout of the Patriots but this is not what I remember of that day.

During halftime, all those in attendance were asked to stand in honor of the Emperor of Japan, Hirohito and to give a rousing Jet welcome. I’m not sure if we were asked to give a rousing Jet welcome or not but we did clap and cheer somewhat.

Hirohito was Emperor of Japan during World War II and of course on December 7, 1941.

At the time I was in the middle of my graduate degree in American History and I could not help but think at the time that there were probably a few people in the stands who had fought in World War II or lost loved ones during the war, perhaps even in the Pacific Theater of Operations.

Nevertheless, we cheered out of respect for an ally.

How far we had come in our forgiveness and understanding of a man who had once been our enemy.

It was a fascinating lesson in global politics and something I have always remembered. It is something we should never lose sight of when we determine any nation is our enemy.

The Thanksgiving-Christmas Holidays often inspire thoughts of loved ones who have left us.

You miss these people every day, but the holidays seem to bring memories to vivid life.

Yesterday, as my wife Eileen and I were getting the last preparations prepared for our Thanksgiving guests I started thinking of my mother and father,

Not unusual.

What was unusual I started a David Letterman’s Top Ten List comprised of my favorite things about my parents during the holidays. So, here they are:

Number 10: The look in my father’s eye as he brought the turkey to the table.

Number 9:  My mother’s stuffing.

Number 8: My mother’s mince pie.

Number 7: My father giving me my Lionel Santa Fe locomotive a week before Christmas.

Number 6: My mother’s exquisitely cooked turkey.

Number 5: My father’s turkey sandwiches a few hours after dinner.

Number 4: My father posing with a lampshade on his head,d mimicking a chef.

Number 3: My mother bouncing around the apartment to Bing Crosby’s Christmas In       Killarney.

Number 2: My mother’s plum pudding.

Number 1: The sound of their voices and the love in their hearts.

God bless you if you are fortunate to have such favorite things.

Hopefully, the retailers of America took in the billions they so desperately need to transform their ledgers from red to black.

It is good for America to have a booming holiday gift-buying economy. Where the American motto once declared, “What’s Good For General Motors Is Good For America”, today it reads, “What’s Good For Walmart and Target Is Good For America.”

Well, really, China.

Nevertheless, Christmas shopping makes the American world go round.

Hours after our annual day of feasting, the American appetite turns its eyes on iPhones and iPads and PlayStations. Hopefully, a few Lionel Trains will be sold.

Yet, I cannot help thinking about the forgotten people whose shopping doesn’t even take place in the commonest of bargain basements. For there are nearly 600,000 Americans, who can not shop, nor do they have a place to call home.

Our infrastructure needs mending. Our healthcare system has its flaws. But nowhere are the greatest of inequities of American life revealed than in the dire lives of those living on our streets and alleys. In all the misery that Dickens could depict about nineteenth-century England, 582,000 souls walk amongst us with nowhere to go and no one to offer solace.

These people probably did get fed yesterday but not in their home, nor was it a meal they prepared for themselves.

It just doesn’t seem right that a country as wealthy as ours has so many living in such desperation.

It’s a thought that doesn’t get you into the jolliest of holiday spirits. But it’s a thought we should have every day.