I hope there is one thing that remains clear as crystal with this column, after almost 14 years in The Post, after close to 20 writing for newspapers in and around New York City: It is a blast. It really is. It still is. Mostly, that’s because after all these years, I still do love sports, love watching them, love writing about them.
And yes, sure, there are perks to the job that you never much imagine starting out, stuff that happens when you happen to be at a ballpark or an arena or a racetrack or the right saloon or the proper auditorium. We don’t know the athletes as well as sportswriters of another generation did. We don’t hang out with them. Still, serendipity does sometimes smile …
Memory I: Port St. Lucie, spring training, 1999. The Mets had fired Tim McCarver the previous fall, replaced him in the TV booth with Tom Seaver. Seaver was due to report one March morning in his other role as a spring pitching adviser, and we were ready for him with our hard questions: me. Keegan of The Post. Quinn of the Daily News. Then, Seaver was late, and not a little late. Yes, we were going to interrogate him but good …
Then Seaver showed up, cap askance, smile on his face, No. 41 on his back, baseball in his hands, he strolled over to where the group of us was, all of us, tough guys with our tough questions queued up, and Seaver — The Franchise, Tom Terrific, 311 lifetime wins — asked, “So, who wants to have a catch?”
And with that, we had to literally physically restrain ourselves from falling over each other and yelling “ME! ME! PICK ME! PICK MEEEEEEEEEE!!!” (I don’t remember any of the questions that followed. I doubt they spilled any blood).
Memory II: Sitting in a dugout in Tampa one year, chatting on my cell phone, and I recognize Joe Namath sitting next to me. We shoot the breeze about stuff. Somehow, a Hempstead Turnpike bar I frequented in my youth came up and Namath smiled. He knew the place. Somehow, someone produced a football.
“Think quick,” Namath said, spinning the ball my way. I am grateful every day of my life that I got both hands on that football, secured it to my chest. Namath winked. I felt like Don Maynard in the AFL title game. Wouldn’t let go of the ball till they tore it out of my arms.
Memory III: This is the one I’ve been thinking about most of the past few days, understandably. This was Gallagher’s Steak House, less than three weeks after I had joined The Post in December 2002. Muhammad Ali was there to promote a magazine to which he had lent his name. Ali was … well, Ali, even though he was slowed by Parkinson’s. He performed magic tricks for the writers. Someone asked him about the reluctance of modern sporting icons — specifically Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods — to take stands about anything, let alone the ones for which Ali paid such a dear price in the prime of his boxing career.
Ali shook his head slowly.
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“You can’t do things because I did them,” he told us, the words tumbling in a painful drip-drip-drop. “It’s got to come from the heart.”
More magic tricks. More fans approaching with magic markers and old photos. All at once, he caught my eye. “Hello, young fella,” he said.
I was caught off guard, so I told Ali that my professional mentor was Jerry Izenberg, the longtime columnist in Newark and at The Post, one of the first writers who stood up in print for him. Their friendship was already 40 years old. The stories Jerry had shared with me were priceless. And remain so.
“You know Jerry?” he said, and his face formed into a frown. Then slowly, he raised his right arm, formed a fist, and nudged my jaw with a benign jab. “You’re ugly. Just like him.” And then he smiled. “Tell him I said that.”
I told Jerry. Are you kidding? I told everyone I know. I still do. Mostly, they say, “Man, you have a great job.”
And mostly, I tell them: “You don’t even know the half of it.”
Whack Back at Vac
Gray Fitzmorris: David Bowie, Prince, Muhammad Ali … 2016 isn’t even half over and already I dread what I’ll find out when my newspaper hits the driveway.
Vac: As John Lennon sang, “I read the news today, oh boy …”
Patrick Kirk: I’m just glad the Knicks got a decent coach, it wasn’t looking too good there for a while. This city is so starved for just a decent Knicks team, it isn’t funny. We wouldn’t even care about the Yanks and Mets (at least for a little while). But we’re still a [long] way from a 50-win Knicks team.
Vac: I tell younger folks all the time, and they find it increasingly hard to believe me: It wasn’t all that long ago that baseball season in New York didn’t really start until the day after the Knicks were eliminated.
@zeb01cah: Time for Rene Rivera to be the Mets’ everyday catcher. He’s just too good with the staff to be playing once a week.
@MikeVacc: He’s so impressive defensively that hitting even .230 would be a bonus. Of course, when he hits home runs, as he did Friday night …
Jim Maisano: Having watched virtually every Knicks game in 1982-83 and ’83-84, Hubie Brown was a terrific coach that dragged out every possible bit of talent possible from a subpar roster beyond Bernard King.
Vac: Jim’s right. I should have included Hubie among the good ones the Knicks have hired through the years. My memory is blinded by the Dumpster fire his tenure became at the end. But those two years especially were an awful lot of fun.
Vac’s Whacks
You may look at James Loney playing first base and wearing No. 28 on his back, and it might conjure for you an image of a former Met now playing in Washington, who played a little first in his time here. Me? Twenty-eight, first base, will forever be John “The Hammer” Milner.
It really is fascinating watching how even accomplished major league hitters have no choice but to guess and pray whenever one of Aroldis Chapman’s 102-mph heaters sizzles their way, like they’re in a strange carnival game.
I must admit: We gave up on “Bloodline” last year in my house a little before hitting the finish line. But too many TV-o-philes whom I know and trust have urged me it’s worth taking a second look, so I will. Mostly because of you, Coach Taylor.
You know who must find the notion of Ryan Fitzpatrick being a $12 million quarterback a little amusing? A certain Joe Willie Namath.
