Surviving February with warm sports memories

By Bob Gaydos

Frank Shorter, left, and Bill Rodgers.

The Super Bowl has been lost, baseball has yet to begin. The basketball and hockey professionals are passing the time until June, when their championships will be decided. lt has snowed three Mondays in a row. It must be February, the time of year when a lot of sports fans turn their attention to another favorite pastime -- talking about sports.

Forget the dropped passes and ground balls that rolled through an infielder’s legs; this is the time of year I like to remember the good stuff, the memorable stuff, the stuff that makes someone a sports fan in the first place.

I found myself wandering into such a conversation the other day. What was the best single athletic feat ever? The greatest athletic accomplishment? Too arbitrary and prone to record-book chasing, I decided. For my February reminiscence, I’m going with the moments in sports that left an indelible mark on me -- the tImes when I experienced something in person or on TV and went, “Wow!,” if just to myself.

The hope here is that you readers will share your own special moments in sports so that we can have an old-fashioned Hot Stove League discussion. Mantle-Mays-Snider? Montana-Unitas-Brady? The “Immaculate Reception?” Willis Reed’s entrance? What special moments in sports are still with you?

• I’m starting my list of most memorable moments with an effort I have often called the best single performance by any athlete -- Secretariat’s 31-length victory in the Belmont Stakes in 1973. In winning the Triple Crown and dominating the best of the rest of the three-year-olds, he set a world record time for the 1 1/2 miles distance – 2 minutes 24 seconds. Check it out on YouTube.
• Also in the category of “can you believe it?” was a more recent display of excellence in the moment -- Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit on July 9, 2011. With all the baseball world waiting for the hit that would guarantee the Yankee captain a plaque in Cooperstown, Jeter just wanted it to not be an infield grounder that he beat out. No worry. He laced a home run into the left field seats at Yankee Stadium, trotted around the bases with a big smile on his face and proceeded to go five-for-five, including hitting the game-winning single in the eighth inning. Then there were the dives and the flips, the final hit, etc. A memorable career in toto.
• Willie Mays, another New Yorker of earlier vintage, was also a player who rose to the moment. I have plenty of special memories of WIllie, including a day at the Polo Grounds in the 1950s when the Giants’ centerfielder hit three triples in a double-header (they used to play them for the price of one game). I can’t find anything on Google to confirm this, but that’s how I remember it and I’m sticking to my memory.
• Since this is just my personal recounting of memorable sports moments, I have never seen anyone better than Mickey Mantle at dragging a bunt past the pitcher and getting to first base before the second baseman got to the ball.
• When it comes to pure excellence, for me the performance by 14-year-old Nadia Comaneci at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal is in a class of its own. The tiny Romanian gymnast scored the first perfect 10 for a gymnastic event at the Montreal Olympics and added four more perfect scores that year while winning three gold medals and dazzling the world TV audience. Since the scoreboard makers didn’t think a 10 was possible, they only allowed for a 9.9. Four years later, there were updated scoreboards in Moscow.
• The fastest I ever ran was in 1956, sprinting home six blocks from Bayonne High School, where we had been listening to the game on transistor radios, to see the final outs of the Yankees' Don Larsen's perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series. On our black and white TV. It's the highest Yogi ever leapt, too, I think.
• In 1981, the Times Herald-Record newspaper sponsored the first Orange Classic, a 10K race around the City of Middletown. It invited local hero Frank Shorter, 1972 Olympic gold medal winner and 1976 silver medal winner, and his chief rival, Bill Rodgers, Boston and New York CIty marathon champion, to headline the event. They did not fail to deliver. The two turned the corner on the final stretch of the race well ahead of the field, running neck and neck for more than a quarter mile as the crowd cheered. Shorter edged Rodgers out at the end. It was as perfect a finish as the crowd could hope for and, no, I’ve never thought Rodgers held back because it was Shorter’s hometown. A truly classic moment.
• The Miracle on Ice. I admit it. I was swept up with the rest of the crowd chanting “USA! USA!” when a team of American college all-stars defeated a team of Russian professionals, 3-2, in ice hockey at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. WInning the gold medal that year was almost an after-thought for the American team following that emotional upset. An unforgettable moment.
• Finally, a purely personal moment that came far from any athletic venue. In 1973, while covering a sports-related conference in Binghamton, N.Y., I shook hands with Jackie Robinson and told him what a pleasure it was to meet him. It was more than that. It was memorable.

***

That’s it. Just a few moments that have nourished my love of sports over the years. I’d really like to hear some of yours. C’mon, it’s February. The Knicks are dismal, it’s snowing and the Stanley Cup final is months away. Reminisce with me.

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Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

…and other (hopefully) thought-provoking questions

By Bob Gaydos

• We’ll start with the summer’s top puzzler: Soft ice cream or soft frozen yogurt? They say one is healthier for you, but this is obviously a matter of taste and mine leans to the ice cream most of the time. Maybe a strawberry shortcake sundae with soft vanilla, whipped cream, sponge cake, strawberry syrup, etc. But a friend of mine swears by the black raspberry frozen yogurt at Scoops in Pine Bush. Of course, they put chocolate chips in it. Maybe that‘s what makes it better for you.
• Coke or Pepsi? Most people, from my observation, still prefer and say, “Coke” when asked. So how come waitresses at every diner in the area then ask you, “Is Pepsi OK?” Sure it’s OK. But it’s not Coke. What the heck happened to the Coke salesman?
• Google or Yahoo? Not to be harsh, but why bother with Yahoo? Really. And what the heck is Bing?
• Mac or PC? I’ve got a PC; both my sons have Macs. They love theirs; I may get one some day. I fully expect us all to be doing everything on a tablet in the not-so-distant future. Even cooking.
• Egg and cheese sandwiches made on a grill in a deli or the pre-fab Styrofoam “eggs” served up in fast-food places? OK, we all agree on this one.
• Obamacare or No Care? After campaigning relentlessly against the constitutionally acceptable Affordable Care Act with a slogan of “Repeal and Replace,” Republicans have conceded that they have no actual plan with which to replace it, in the unlikely case they actually did repeal it. They should just ask Mitt Romney to retool the plan he introduced in Massachusetts.
• Jeter or Reyes? … What’s that? That’s not a question anymore? Sorry.
• Designated hitter or unathletic pitchers trying to not hurt themselves at bat? You can deduce my vote. With fulltime inter-league play next year, the DH in both leagues is the only thing that makes sense. So they won’t do it.
• If you read a book on a Nook, is it a book or a Nook? And does that apply to Dr. Seuss?
• Really, what the heck is a Bing?
• I text. All the time. Only way my kids will talk to me. But has anybody under 25 noticed that it’s still a lot quicker and more efficient to actually talk to the other person? Honestly …
• Does anybody “get” Twitter? Am I a twit if I don’t tweet? Speaking of twits, should I care what Ocho Cinco had for lunch?
• Whether pot is legal or not, do the SUNY trustees actually think they can make every SUNY campus smoke-free in two years without putting half the students on probation?
• Which is the more dangerous job: Catching alligators (crocodiles?) bare-handed; driving tractor trailers on narrow, ice-covered roads or repossessing Subarus? I’m betting on the repossessing.
• When did the above become entertainment?
• And who did put the ram in the ramalamadingdong?
• Isn’t it true that every item on the Taco Bell menu consists of the same items, mixed in different combinations and given different names?
• Can we find that answer on Bing?
• Wouldn’t it be more popular if they named it Bong?
• Does anybody remember Frick and Frack? No? No sweat, I looked it up on Yahoo: “Frick and Frack is for any two people who are closely linked in some way, especially through a work partnership.

“The origin is from a famous partnership of Swiss comedy ice skaters, Werner Groebliand Hans Mauch, whose stage names these were. They came to public fame in the later years of a series of skating spectaculars called Ice Follies, promoted by Eddie Shipstad and his brother Roy, which began in 1936 and ran for almost 50 years. Their association lasted so long, and they were at one time so well known, that their names have gone into the language.

“Michael Mauch, the son of Hans, told me in a personal message about the origin of their names: ‘Frick took his name from a small village in Switzerland; Frack is a Swiss-German word for a frock coat, which my father used to wear in the early days of their skating act. They put the words together as a typical Swiss joke.’ ” Now don’t say you never learn anything when you read my column.

• What is the current fascination with tattoos, or body art, if you prefer? Maybe the NBA commissioner can answer this one.
• And by the way, why can’t Democrats defend their man (Obama) with the same fervor with which Republicans attack him? Don’t they care if he loses?
• How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck if a Woodchuck Would Chuck Wood? Oops, sorry, that’s not a question, it’s a new show on the History Channel.
• If I tweet that, will some twit think it’s funny?
• … and what about Naomi?

Now don’t be bashful, please. I would really appreciate comments, answers, jibes and japes (look it up on Bing) on any of the above. This is supposed to be an interactive medium, so interact, please. At the very least it will me make me feel good and at the most I may be able to get another column out of the replies. Isn’t that worth interacting?

PS: If you don’t know the Joe DiMaggio answer, look up Paul Simon. And shame on you.

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