The Closet

(And Other Confessions of a Sports Nut)

I

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

I’ve loved sports my whole life. Playing them, watching them, reading about them, even creating imaginary teams and leagues about them – I could go all ways, completely smitten by every option. It was so extreme that it periodically led to a chewing out by my teachers. In Miss Wick’s 5^th-grade class at Manor Plains School in Huntington, N.Y., she went around the class one day and asked every student what we wanted to be when we grew up.

“Centerfielder for the New York Yankees,” I said. Miss Wick’s exact response is lost to the mists of history, but her smirk told me, quite emphatically, that she either didn’t approve of my career choice, or thought it was so improbable that it couldn’t be taken seriously. A few years later, in 7^th grade, we had to keep a log of books we read outside of school. When the reading teacher  looked at my log, she found a host of entries that didn’t quite qualify as high literature. There were a bunch of Chip Hilton sports novels by Clair Bee, a history of The American League and a novel called Pivot Man, a gripping story about the challenges facing a high-school basketball player. I did have one legitimate book in there – Go Up For Glory, the memoir of Bill Russell – but here, too, I wasn’t far afield, since Russell was himself a pivot man, a legendary one, for the Boston Celtics. The reading teacher suggested I raise my literary game.

“You’re a smart young man. I think it would be good for you to branch out in your reading choices,” she said. She was right, and I eventually did.

As for the imaginary league, it didn’t have a name, but it played out dramatically on the basketball court and the hoop over the garage at the house I grew up in. It had story lines and rivalries. It had statistics and standings, if only in my head. Sometimes, I’d even do the play-by-play as I re-created game sequences, a little left-handed kid with an orange ball and a favorite player named Jim O’Bradovich. Jim was an entirely fictional character, but he was a big part of my youth, even though nobody knew about him - not even my older brother, Frank, who mentored and coached me in every sport, but especially baseball and basketball. I borrowed Jim’s last name from a Chicago Bears defensive lineman named Ed O’Bradovich. I heard his name on TV broadcasts when the New York Giants would play the Bears. I rooted hard for the Giants, because I loved their quarterback, Y.A. Tittle, and their running back, Tucker Frederickson, but I thought O’Bradovich was a cool name so I went with it for my central character.

Ed O’Bradovich, Chicago Bears

Jim O’Bradovich had it all going on. He was everything I aspired to be in life. Apart from being a superb athlete and a smart, principled person, he was good-looking, popular, kind, compassionate and yet somehow managed to be the most humble, selfless person you could find anywhere. He could always be counted on when it mattered most. And when the game or the league championship had been won, he would invariably give the credit to his teammates.

While Jim would never get rattled in the big moments, I often would. Not so much when I was playing sports, but when I was watching them. When you are playing a sport, you can often do something, take some action, to impact the outcome. When you are watching you are helpless to do anything. This is where The Closet comes in.

My customary viewing place for my favorite sports teams – Yankees, Mets, Giants, Jets, Knicks and Rangers – was our den. (I know that to some New York fans rooting for both the Yankees and Mets is considered heresy, but what can I tell you? I loved Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford and Bobby Richardson, and started watching Mets games the year they were born, 1962, on my grandfather’s lap. So I loved Richie Ashburn, Ed Kranepool and Choo Choo Coleman, too. I guess this made me a switch-hitter.) The den furniture included a sofa, two swivel chairs and a wood-encased Magnavox TV with rabbit ears and 13 channels. A lamp I won at the Greenlawn Fireman’s Fair sat atop the TV. There was a brick fireplace to the right of the TV and a closet behind one of the swivel chairs. The floor of the closet had a big box overstuffed with all manner of sports equipment: a basketball, a football, baseballs, tennis racquets, tennis balls and an assortment of baseball bats. There wasn’t much room in there, but that didn’t stop me. The Closet was my go-to place when things would get nerve-wracking in a game I was watching.

If it was fourth-and-long and the New York Giants were down late in the fourth quarter, into The Closet I would go.

If Mickey Mantle was up with the bases loaded late in a tie game, into The Closet I would go.

If Willis Reed and the Knicks were clinging to a two-point lead and one minute away from a rare road victory in Boston Garden against Bill Russell’s Celtics, there was no doubt where I would be.

In The Closet.

Understand that being in The Closet did not mean that I wouldn’t watch. Oh, no. I was watching. I was just doing it through the wooden slats in the door. This, of course, makes no sense. What exactly was I accomplishing by being in The Closet? Why would being holed up in the dark with a bunch of sports equipment allay my angst? I have no answer. All I can tell you is that, somehow, peering through the slats instead of looking at the TV head-on in the wide-open den brought some measure of comfort, if not protection. It wasn’t superstition. I didn’t regard The Closet as a good-luck charm. It’s hard to explain. I just felt safer in there.

My most vivid visit to The Closet was on October 16, 1962. I was 8 years old. The Yankees and San Francisco Giants were playing Game 7 of the World Series in Candlestick Park. I ran home from the bus stop after school to catch the end of the game (baseball fans of a certain age will remember when every Series game was played in the daytime.) I made it just in time for the bottom of the ninth.

The Yankees had a 1-0 lead behind their righthander, Ralph Terry. The only run of the game scored in the top of the fifth, when Yankees shortstop Tony Kubek hit into a double play with the bases loaded. Jack Sanford, the Giants starter and a 24-game winner during the season, had pitched brilliantly, but Terry had been even better, taking a two-hitter into the bottom of the ninth.

Pinch-hitter Matty Alou had one job leading off the inning: get on base. He did, with a bunt single. The tying run was aboard. Felipe Alou, Matty’s older brother, struck out, bringing up Chuck Hiller, the second baseman. Terry struck out Hiller, too. The Yankees were only one out away from winning the Series now, and I thought this could be a Closet-free finish, but then Willie Mays belted a double down the right-field line to put runners at second and third.

Willie McCovey, the Giants’ slugging leftfielder, came to the plate. I headed you know where.

There was plenty of reason to not feel great about this matchup. McCovey had homered off Terry in Game 2 and tripled off him in his previous at-bat. Yankees manager Ralph Houk came out of the dugout to talk to Terry. Through the slats, I was sure that Houk would decide to walk the lefthanded McCovey and let Terry face Orlando Cepeda, a right-handed hitter, instead. Cepeda was a slugger himself – he had 35 homers during the season – but it made no sense to give McCovey another chance when he was hitting Terry so well. A single would give the Giants the World Series. Houk departed, the decision made. Terry would take his chances with McCovey again.

It wasn’t pretty in The Closet. I almost didn’t want to watch. It only got worse when McCovey hit a deep foul down the right-field line. McCovey was all over everything Terry was throwing. Terry wound and delivered again. McCovey swung and smashed a line drive. It was probably the hardest hit ball of the entire game. It went straight into the glove of Bobby Richardson at second base.

Willie McCovey’s wicked line drive was caught by Bobby Richardson, ending the 1962 World Series.

I burst out of The Closet and began dancing around the den. The Yankees were 1962 World Series champions. It would be 15 years before the Yankees would be back on top of the baseball world. By then I was 23 years old. The highlight was Reggie Jackson hitting three home runs in Game 6 against the Dodgers at Yankee Stadium. I was at the game, in the last row of the upper deck in right field. I had finally outgrown The Closet.