When the New York Cosmos Ruled the World, Part I

"WE ARE MADE OF STAR STUFF," Carl Sagan said in his PBS TV series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.

The year was 1980. The astronomer and his viewers were exploring space and time via a 13-episode documentary. His oft-quoted remark was an effort to simply and concisely explain that elements helping to make up life here on Earth -- carbon, nitrogen, calcium and iron -- were formed in ancient collapsing stars, then scattered across the galaxy.

A lot of that star stuff coalesced in the form of a professional soccer team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and serendipitously called The Cosmos, the reigning three- (and soon to be four-) time champs of the North American Soccer League.

They were the league's first, last and only dynasty.

The NASL was America's original foray into big time professional soccer. The Cosmos, backed by Warner Communications, was its most dominant franchise, its biggest draw and a major cause of its downfall. 

Pelé, left, takes flight, Giorgio Chinaglia, right, exults.
from the 1977 Cosmos yearbook.

Sagan's series fell smack in the middle of an era when soccer's Cosmos were gravitically drawing star stuff from across the planet, creating an international super team featuring at one time or another players from Brazil, Yugoslavia, West Germany, Paraguay, Iran, the US, Italy and elsewhere.

The attention they garnered helped the league swell like a supernova from just nine teams in 1973, to 24 in 1978, as less well-capitalized franchises frantically tried and failed to keep pace with its flagship before the NASL collapsed in 1985.

The Dawning

Across six seasons, 1977 through 1982, the Cosmos went to the league's championship Soccer Bowl five times, winning four of those matches.

Their unmatchable accrual of talent started in 1975 with the signing of the sport's preeminent player of his time, Pelé, to a three-year deal for an estimated $7 million.

Carlos Alberto,
from the '78 yearbook

Two years later, led by the retirement-bound Pelé, German legend Franz Beckenbauer, plus the charismatic and combustible Italian import Giorgio Chinaglia -- and bolstered by the mid-season addition of Brazilian National Team captain Carlos Alberto -- the Cosmos rolled up a 15-11 record in the 18-team league, good for second in their division behind the Fort Lauderdale Strikers.

They proceeded to knock off English superstar Rodney Marsh and the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the playoffs, then the Strikers, drawing more than 70,000 to see their 8-3 win at New Jersey's Giants Stadium, the Rochester Lancers and finally the Seattle Sounders in Soccer Bowl '77. 

The Cosmos led the league that year in average attendance, 34,150, with the Sounders placing third at 24,226. For their other two post-season opponents the drop was precipitous and telling: 8,140 for Fort Lauderdale and just 6,065 for Rochester. 

At the league bottom: the Hartford-based Connecticut Bicentennials averaged 3,902.

Back to Back

Still, buoyed by the attention drawn by the upper echelon teams, the league elected to add six more: the Detroit Express, Houston Hurricane, the Caribous of Colorado, Memphis Rogues, Philadelphia Fury and New England Tea Men. Four others moved. The Bicentennials became the Oakland Stompers, and the ill-advised Team Hawaii, average attendance 4,543, turned into the Tulsa Roughnecks.

The Chicago Sting added German forward Karl-Heinz Granitza. The Tea Men, owned by Lipton and named for an anti-British rebellion, signed English forward Mike Flanagan. He potted 30 goals in just 28 games, helping his squad to a first place finish and nabbing the Most Valuable Player award.

The sweet, if unhygienic, 
taste of victory.

Now minus Pelé, the Cosmos continued shopping too, securing the services of Yugoslavian midfielder Vladislav Bogicevic and future US Men's National Team Captain Ricky Davis among others. 1978 would be their most dominant regular season ever, going a league-record 24-6, with Chinaglia scoring an astonishing 34 of the team's 88 goals, while their opponents tallied just 39.

The playoffs however proved to be a challenge. The Cosmos quickly squelched the Sounders in the opening round, then ran into a hot Minnesota Kicks team. Led by Black South African star Ace Ntsolengoe and a five goal performance from Brit Alan Willey, the Kicks trounced the defending champs 9-2 in the second round's first game.

New York regrouped for a 4-0 win before more than 60,000 fans in Giants Stadium, then took the series in a bonus mini-game with a 1-0 win. Then they easily disposed of the Portland Timbers, advancing to the final where they defeated the Rowdies and repeated as champs at home before nearly 75,000 in Soccer Bowl '78.

Great Expectations

The 1979 season dawned with the Cosmos seemingly unstoppable, starting 12-2 before a cooling stretch of merely 12-4, and seemed poised for a three-peat that didn't happen.

They reeled off a trio of dramatic road wins -- in overtime agains the San Diego Sockers, and in shootouts against the Washington Diplomats and Atlanta Chiefs fka the aforementioned Caribous -- before downing the Strikers in front of 72,342 at their Meadowlands home opener.

They posted three more wins before finally losing to the rival Rowdies and their new import, Argentine star Oscar Fabbiani, in Tampa.

That winter the Cosmos had gone shopping again, returning home with Eskandarian and Marinho (they already had a Seninho), household names, even if those households weren't necessarily in the US. 

More popular than ever, they drew an average of 46,690. Baseball's defending world champs, the New York Yankees, averaged 31,330. The pathetic last place-bound Mets, 9,621. The NASL's league-wide average draw: 14,201, except when the Cosmos arrived. Then it was 25,205.

They blew past the Toronto Blizzard in the first round of the post-season, before being staggered by the relocated Roughnecks, narrowly escaping elimination at home in front of 76,031.

Their stay of execution was brief. Only a week later, the Cosmos were knocked out by the Vancouver Whitecaps, dropping game one of the conference finals 2-0 on the road, winning game two in a shootout at home, then falling in a shootout time violation after the decisive minigame produced no victor. 

Vancouver would go on to beat Tampa Bay in the Soccer Bowl, painfully held at Giants Stadium. 

Fabbiani won the league's scoring title, but its most valuable player was Dutch import Johan Cruyff of the Los Angeles Aztecs. For the first time in league history, every franchise survived the offseason and the Cosmos hit the road.

To be continued...

-- Follow me @paperboyarchive on formerly Twitter.

The Not Ready for Prime Time '75 Islanders, an Initiation

YOU ALWAYS REMEMBER your first time, even if things didn't turn out the way you imagined they would.

What I recall most about my first time was the helmets. I didn't expect to see so many of them wearing helmets.

Fifty years ago this week, an unfathomable interval in the life of a sports fan, I went to my first National Hockey League game: the Vancouver Canucks vs. the New York Islanders, at Long Island's Nassau Coliseum.

I'm not sure how many hockey games I'd watched before that on New York's WOR, channel 9. SportsChannel wasn't yet a thing. We wouldn't get cable TV for another six years. 

But I was turning 10 and my folks had an idea. For my birthday I got a stick, a street hockey ball, a pair of roller skates and my first Islanders jersey: royal blue with orange and white trim. That and they were taking me and some pals to my very first game. 

We lived about eight miles from the coliseum and the entire guest list could fit in two good-sized 70s-era sedans. I recall writing out the invites myself, promising each kid would get a box lunch... KFC-style fried chicken in a cardboard box.

Dad had been a Rangers fan, so for him this was something of a concession. The Islanders were still very much the new kids in town. The coli had opened only a few years earlier, first housing the peripatetic Nets of the American Basketball Association and their locally-grown star, Julius Erving.

The Islanders were born out of NHL necessity, or maybe panic, in 1972 because the rival World Hockey Association was setting up and Long Island looked ripe for its New York franchise.

The visitors in their road blues.

Nope said Nassau County's government. They wanted the NHL and the NHL wanted Long Island, even if it was Rangers country. The Blue Shirts' objection to that incursion was mollified by money, a $4 million indemnity fee paid just to allow the Islanders on their turf. 

Their first year was bad. Very very bad. The Isles went 12-60-6, setting league records for the most losses and worst overall record. But badness had a reward and his name was Denis Potvin, the first overall pick in the 1973 amateur draft and a future Hockey Hall of Fame defenseman.

He stiffened the defense as head coach Al Arbour started building a systemically-sound hockey team. They won just seven more games in year two, but reduced their goals allowed by 100. The 74-75 season would be a great leap forward.

Bolstered by the acquisitions of bona fide NHL forwards J.P. Parise and Jude Drouin a month earlier they played better hockey, even if their overall talent level was still relatively modest. First season holdovers Billy Harris and Bobby Nystrom were their big guns on offense, joined by a burly rookie out of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, future Hall-member Clark Gillies.

On game day, their record stood at 24-20-15. Portentously their previous three games had been a tie and two losses.

We filed into our mid-ice seats in time to watch the players come out for their warmups, the Islanders in their home whites, the Canucks in their road blues with that weird hockey stick in-a-rink crest.

And there were lots of guys wearing helmets. Remember this was 1975. Helmets were hardly commonplace and wouldn't become mandatory for a few years yet, even then only for players who entered the league after June 1, 1979. 

Me and my friends were a bit perplexed. But this was hockey and here we were. Time to drop the puck.

The lineups.

LET'S GO ISLANDERS!!!

Fleet rookie Bobby Bourne put the home team on the board at 12:33 of the first period, his 14th goal of the season, with assists from Garry Howatt and Bert Marshall. Each team killed a two-minute holding penalty and the first period ended 1-0 Islanders.

Enter John Gould.

Enter who?

John Gould, right wing for the Canucks, in the midst of what would be the best season of his 9-year NHL career. Acquired a year earlier from the Buffalo Sabres for 6'3, 220-lbs defenseman Jerry "King Kong" Korab, Gould, 25, was coming off a season where he'd notched a modest 13 goals and 12 assists.

Today would sort of be his coming out party, starting with a tying goal at 4:24 of the second period, with assists from Mike Robitaille and Paulin Bordeleau. 

Each side killed a minor penalty during that middle stanza and the game went to the third knotted at one. 

For 10 minutes the tension mounted as the time ran down. Then Gould scored his second, beating the not yet legendary Billy Smith, breaking the tie with assists from Bob Dailey and Chris Oddleifson. Seven minutes later Gould tallied another, with a helping hand from Oddleifson and Gregg Boddy. It was his first NHL hat trick. 

With slightly more than three minutes left, it was 3-1 Vancouver. Crap!

His 1976 Topps card.

Arbour gambled, pulling Smith for an extra skater. His gambit backfired. Canucks center Gerry Meehan scored an EN and that was that. Unhappy birthday to me.

Gould had goals 24, 25 and 26, en route to a career-high 34, and 65 total points. He racked up 32 goals and 59 points the next year, after which his production faded away. 

The Canucks finished first in their division, going 38-32-10. But Vancouver was vanquished in the quarter-finals by the Montreal Canadiens, four games to one.

The Islanders, on the other hand, were poised to shock the hockey world. Finishing 33-25-22, they made the playoffs and knocked out the Rangers in a decisive first round game three, winning 11 seconds into overtime on a goal by Parise with an assist from Drouin.

They'd move on to face the Pittsburgh Penguins, lose the first three games of that series, then rally to take the next four. The Isles tried the same trick with the soon-to-be Stanley Cup champion Philadelphia Flyers, but their luck ran out in game seven of the semi-finals.

But they Islanders had served notice. Not yet the dynastic powerhouse they'd soon become, they'd be back. Armed with Potvin, Bourne, Gillies, Nystrom, Smith and more, led by Arbour, they'd be back. And so would I.

-- Follow me on no-longer Twitter @paperboyarchive

The Jets, the Pats and Death from the Sky at Halftime

FOR 60 YEARS, the New York Jets and New England Patriots have regarded one another with a wariness befitting Cold War superpowers, using whatever treacherous means necessary to gain competitive advantage. Executives have been pirated, head coaches coaxed away, star players persuaded to defect.

December 9, 1979, at
Shea Stadium in NYC

Largely led by Bill Belichick, New England has dominated on the field of play, rolling up a 67-54-1 all-time record with six Super Bowl championships to the Jets' measly one. Two times Belichick was named head coach of the Jets, only to be demoted in 1997 after the Bill Parcells ploy backfired and only to resign in evident disgust when tabbed again in 2000, all without ever actually coaching a game for them.

There's been the evil of Spygate, the embarrassment of The Butt Fumble.

Twice the Patriots/Jets convergence has had near fatal consequences and once, 40 years ago this weekend, it was actually, literally, deadly.

In 1969, just days after designing the offensive scheme for the Jets' Super Bowl III victory, Clive Rush was hired by the Patriots as their head coach. On Feb. 12, he was given the honor of introducing the team's new general manager, George Sauer Sr. (father of the champion Jets receiver George Jr.).

Rush stepped up to the podium, gripped the microphone and began screaming as electricity from a short circuit coursed through his body, according to the Boston Globe. Were it not for a Patriots board member ripping out the wires running to a wall socket, Rush's coaching career -- and indeed his life -- might have ended right there.

Then, on Sept. 23, 2001, early in Belichick's second season as the Pats' head honcho, Jets linebacker Mo Lewis slammed into New England quarterback Drew Bledsoe as he sought to escape New York's pass rush. Bledsoe suffered a torn blood vessel in his chest. Only a team doctor's prompt decision to rush him to the Mass General emergency room kept the quarterback from dying.

While the quick thinking saved his life, it couldn't save his job as backup QB Tom Brady stepped in to the starting role and hasn't relinquished it to this day.

But in between the Rush Electrocution and the Bledsoe Bleed there was a third incident, during halftime of a game at New York's Shea Stadium, that took the life of not a player or coach but of a Patriots fan. It was an accident so improbable, so tragically bizarre, that even the urban legend detectives at Snopes.com felt compelled to confirm it really did happen.

It happened on Dec. 9, 1979. I was there with my pal, Eddie, my dad and more than 45,000 other people.

Game day souvenir

It was the last home game of the season at the gusty multipurpose stadium near the shore of Flushing Bay, perhaps two miles southeast of LaGuardia Airport. The 6-8 Jets had gone into the locker room with a 17-12 lead over the 8-6 Pats.

Mid-game entertainment would be provided by the Electronic Eagles of The Radio Control Association of New York, an organization of gas-powered remote-controlled model plane enthusiasts. Only these weren't ordinary planes or even the hobby drones now popular across the U.S. They were flying contraptions, one of which was configured to look like a lawnmower.

As the innocent, if ill-conceived stunt flying exhibition got underway, my pal and I had headed off to the souvenir stand in search of swag, leaving my dad holding a pair of high-powered Bushnell binoculars I'd received as a bar-mitzvah gift a year earlier. Our seats were in the upper deck on what would be Shea's first-base side during baseball season.

Dad, now nearly 87, picks it up from there:

"The lawnmower plane was flying clockwise around the playing field at about the height of the top of the grandstand, with an occasional swoop downward and over the seating area. I was standing, following the show with the binoculars. 

After a swoop or two at the seating area across the field the plane swooped in and failed to swoop out again, as was expected. Instead, it crashed into several spectators, who went down. The crowd started to chant "Sue! Sue! Sue! It stopped when the injured party (or parties) didn't get up, when the crowd realized that the injury was more serious than originally thought. 

I don't think anyone anticipated a fatality."

The lawnmower plane crashed into field level seats behind the Patriots' bench, along what would be the third-base side of the stadium, and into a crowd of New England fans who'd made the trip to Queens for the game.

Game day program

Kevin Rourke, 25, of Lynn, Massachusetts sustained a concussion, according to a New York Times report. Another fan, John Bowen, 20, of Nashua, New Hampshire, died from his injuries four days later at a hospital in New York City.

The Queens County District Attorney's Office ruled the incident an accident and declined to bring charges against the pilot of the wayward craft, Brooklyn auto body repairman Philip Cushman.  Bowen's father later filed a $10 million federal lawsuit against the Jets, the Electronic Eagles and Cushman.

But from there the trail goes cold. I could find no official record of the case or how it ended.

In the third quarter, New England rallied for a brief 19-17 lead before the Jets added 10 more points. A late Patriots touchdown brought them to within one but New York held on to win, 27-26.

Just grown men playing a game.

-- Follow me on Twitter @paperboyarchive

Padres and Tigers and Cubs, Oh My!!!

IT WAS THE MEAL NO ONE ORDERED, a freakish mix up in fate's kitchen that swapped the expected meat and potatoes for a Big Mac and Domino's Pizza.

It was Major League Baseball's 1984 post-season, which appeared destined to feature two storied franchises, the Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs, in a rematch of the immediately post-World War II 1945 World Series.

But destiny had other plans, turning a bull into a goat and momentarily making a guy best known for his bubble gum blowing prowess into a hero.

The Cubs had been absent from the Fall Classic for four decades, biding their time playing day games only at their antique ballpark at the corner of Clark and Addison. The boys from Michigan and Trumbull hadn't fared much better, appearing only in the 1968 series where they upset the favored St. Louis Cardinals and ace Bob Gibson.

Their aggregate 78 prior seasons had yielded a grand total of two first-place finishes, one pennant and one championship, all by the Tigers.

But this was 1984. War was peace, ignorance was strength, slavery was freedom and the Cubs were contenders. Actually that last part wasn't Orwellian doublespeak, but literal truth. They were, in fact, National League East champs.

Led by budding superstar second-baseman Ryne Sandberg and pitcher Rick Sutcliffe, who reeled off a 16-1 record after being acquired in mid-June, the Cubs were for real, winning their division by 6.5 games over the second-place New York Mets.

Sandberg, 24, won the NL Most Valuable Player, Silver Slugger and Gold Glove awards. The Cubs won 96 games, their most since '45.

From Sport Magazine's April '81 baseball preview

Impressive as Chicago was, the Tigers were better. Detroit broke from the gate with a 35-5 record -- the best 40-game start in baseball history -- and led the American League East from wire to wire,  one of just five big league clubs to ever do such a thing. They finished 104-58.

Their top player was former Cubs reliever Willie Hernandez, who had compiled a 1-9 record and 4.42 ERA hurling for the northsiders in 1980. Sport Magazine's '81 baseball preview warned "it was time to get the married Cubs off the field" when he came on to pitch. The article threw Sutcliffe under the bus too.

Four seasons later, nobody was making fun of Rick or Willie anymore. Sutcliffe won the NL Cy Young award based on his virtually unbeatable two-thirds of a season. Hernandez, with nine wins and 32 saves -- more than in his previous seven seasons combined -- copped the AL's Cy Young and its MVP award too.

Detroit was also bolstered by local hero Kirk Gibson, who'd starred in football and baseball for Michigan State. Drafted in both sports, he chose the Tigers over football's St. Louis Cardinals.

But the Tigers/Cubs betrothal wasn't assured. There was the formality of league championship play, pitting Detroit against the Kansas City Royals and Chicago against the San Diego Padres making their first ever post-season appearance.

Willie Hernandez and Kirk Gibson

The Royals, who won just 84 games in '84, provided no obstacle. A mere speed bump on the Tigers' expressway, they were outscored by an aggregate 14-4, and swept 3 games to none.

The Padres proved to be more problematic.

After years of languishing as also-rans, they'd hired former A's skipper Dick Williams, acquired a handful of veterans cast off by winning teams -- ex-Yankees Graig Nettles and Goose Gossage, plus former Los Angeles Dodger Steve Garvey -- and developed a nucleus of young, talented pitchers plus one superlative hitter, '84 NL batting champ Tony Gwynn.

Chicago countered with Garvey's ex-Dodgers teammate Ron Cey, spark plug Bob Dernier and veteran Gary Matthews, whose acquisition near the end of spring training pushed left fielder Leon "Bull" Durham to first base and Bill Buckner out of town.

The Cubs won the first two games of the still best-of-five NL Championship series at Wrigley, sending the Padres back to San Diego on the brink of elimination.

There, Chicago took a 1-0 lead in game 3. After that it was all Padres. The friars scored seven unanswered runs for their first ever post-season victory, extending the series.

A back-and-forth affair, game 4 was knotted at 5 in the bottom of the 9th when Garvey stunned the visitors with a walk-off two-run homer off future Hall of Fame reliever Lee Smith, tying the series at two games a piece.

An answered prayer: playing for a pennant

Chicago's date with Detroit and destiny suddenly seemed less assured.

The next day in San Diego. Bull Durham and Cubs catcher Jody Davis homered early, staking Chicago and Sutcliffe to a 3-0 lead. The Padres tallied twice in the 6th to pull within a run, 3-2.

Then San Diego's Carmelo Martinez opened the bottom of the 7th with a walk. A sacrifice moved him to second, bring lefty-hitting Tim Flannery to the plate with one out.

Chicago was eight outs away from the World Series. What happened next is etched in Cubs lore between Leo Durocher's black cat of 1969 and the unlucky fan who reached for a foul ball at the 2003 NLCS and opened the gates of hell.

Flannery hammered a ground ball toward the Bull that shot under his glove, through his legs and into right field. Martinez scored, tying the game. Then second-baseman Alan Wiggins singled. Gwynn followed with a bad-hop hit past Sandburg scoring Flannery and Wiggins. A Garvey rap plated Gwynn.

When the dust settled San Diego held a 6-3 lead. Six Cubs outs later, the Padres were NL pennant winners headed for a showdown with Motown.

The visual contrast between the clubs couldn't have been greater. Detroit, with its olde English "D" logo, classic uniforms and pre-war rust-belt city ballpark vs. San Diego, with their contemporary brown and white uniforms trimmed with orange and yellow. Hailing from sunny southern California, they didn't even exist the last time the Tigers won a pennant.

The Padres and Tigers had two things in common. Each had a Hall-bound manager -- the Padres' Williams and the Tigers' Sparky Anderson -- and each had a tie to fast food. Detroit's owner was Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza. San Diego's owner for a decade was Ray Kroc, the man who made McDonald's famous.

Kroc died in January of '84 and in tribute, the team added his initials RAK to the left sleeves of their jerseys.

The official program had a fold-out cover
evoking that other fall classic, Election Day.

In game 1, Tigers ace Jack Morris surrendered two runs in the bottom of the first inning, but muffled the Big Mac attack the rest of the way as Detroit clawed back a 3-2 victory.

Game 2, however, belonged to the Padres, who won 5-3, and one man in particular, utility player Kurt Bevacqua, who in 80 regular season at bats hit just .200 with one homer and nine RBIs.

Playing for six teams over 14 seasons, his greatest claim to fame had been winning the 1975 Topps/ Bazooka bubble gum blowing contest, his feat immortalized on cardboard.

Now, the journeyman turned superman, slamming a decisive three-run homer in the bottom of the 5th, one of two he'd hit while leading San Diego with a .412 average in the series. Tied at 1 game apiece, the series shifted to Detroit

It wouldn't return to San Diego for 14 years. The Tigers pounced on Padres starters in each of the three games at the ballpark formerly known as Navin Field and Briggs Stadium, never trailing in any one of them.

Gibson slugged a pair of homers in game 5, Detroit catcher Lance Parrish added one too. San Diego had briefly tied the game, 3-3, in the fourth But Detroit gradually pulled away for an 8-4 win, making official what had been apparent since April, they were the best team in baseball, at least in 1984.

The Tigers' future Hall of Fame shortstop, Alan Trammell, was the series MVP. He'd led all hitters with a .450 average, drilled two home runs and had six RBI.

But, for all their heroics, neither the Padres, Tigers or Cubs returned to the post-season in 1985. Kansas City's Royals did, advancing from an afterthought to World Champions, downing the cross-state St. Louis Cardinals in seven games.

Follow me on Twitter @paperboyarchive

Mr. October's Hip Check Decks Dodgers in '78 Series

WE DRANK BEER and set off fireworks. We looked at skin mags and been bar-mitzvahed. That summer, I even had what you might call a girlfriend. We were two men in 8th grade and we were going to the World Series.

It was October, 1978, and the New York Yankees were playing the Los Angeles Dodgers. Again. A year earlier, the Bombers had beaten -- and humbled -- the Brooklyn fugitives, 4 games to 2. Reggie Jackson bashed three homers in the final game, burnishing his "Mr. October" legend.

A rematch of rivals, and
a fresh new hell for L.A.

Then, as now, the Dodgers were trying to avoid the sad distinction of losing back-to-back championships. And I was sure it was the Dodgers' year.

So sure, I put money on it, making schoolyard bets right before the morning bell at our Long Island junior high school. L.A. rewarded my faith by winning the first two games out on the coast. Let the taunting begin.

My pal -- we'll call him J.D. -- scored us tickets to game 4. I've no idea how. Visions of a sweep danced in my head. What we saw was a different side of Mr. October, a savvy, heads up move that changed the course of the Series.

But about J.D... He was one of those guys who'd hit puberty sooner than the rest of us, looked a little older (or maybe he was), and had enough self-assurance to pull off a beer buy at the local dairy drive-in without being questioned.

He was that kid who sold contraband out of his school locker, the one your mother warned you about. For reasons not clear 40 years later, I was his wingman. Maybe I was part of his shtick, the artifice, the innocent who made him look less conniving. Or maybe he was the devil on my shoulder, urging me to do bad things.

In our brief friendship, he got me into all kinds of vices that forestalled my irretrievable descent into nerd-dom. Along with the aforementioned beer, porn and gunpowder, he impressed upon me the importance of baseball and its crude street cousin, stickball.

Johnny Oates, Steve Garvey, Steve Yeager, Reggie Smith, Jerry Grote, Ron Cey,
Manny Mota, Dusty Baker, Davey Lopes, Rick Monday, Bill Russell, Don Sutton,
Terry Forster, Tommy John, Bill North, Bob Welch, Doug Rau, Vic Davalillo, Lee Lacy,
Rick Rhoden, Lance Rautzhan, Burt Hooton, Charlie Hough, Teddy Martinez and
Manager Tommy Lasorda

The tickets were a major coup, even if the seats were in the right-centerfield bleachers next to that eerie blacked out section that formed the batters' eye at Yankee Stadium. We'd get to the Bronx by Long Island Rail Road and then the creepy late '70s NYC subway.

We were 13.

Somehow, I convinced my folks we could do this. I think I told them J.D.'s big sister was our chaperone. I don't recall if she went or not. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

But about the series... As noted, the Dodgers had taken the first two games out in La La Land, closing out the second with an epic, David vs. Goliath confrontation between Reggie and Dodgers rookie pitcher Bob Welch. Momentum was on their side as the series moved east.

But, once in the Big Apple, Mighty Mo' ditched the Dodgers.

Third baseman Graig Nettles single-glovedly won game 3 for the Yanks. Though the final was 5-1, his stellar defense at the hot corner kept two to six L.A. runs off the scoreboard.

Ken Clay, Jay Johnstone, Ed Figueroa, Ron Guidry, Rich Gossage, Catfish Hunter,
Reggie Jackson, Sparky Lyle, Dick Tidrow, Mike Heath, Gary Thomasson, Thurman Munson,
Cliff Johnson, Chris Chambliss, Bucky Dent, Graig Nettles, Willie Randolph, Brian Doyle,
Jim Beattie, Paul Lindblad, Jim Spencer, Fred Stanley, Paul Blair, Lou Piniella,
Mickey Rivers, Roy White and Manager Bob Lemon

Game 4 was make or break for the Dodgers. J.D. and I made our way to the stadium and, after the obligatory souvenir stop, settled into our seats to watch the action. Tommy John started for Los Angeles, Ed Figueroa for New York.

After four scoreless frames, Dodgers right fielder Reggie Smith -- the other Reggie -- belted a three-run homer, bringing home Steve Yeager and Davey Lopes. 3-0, L.A. at the midpoint. That score held until the bottom of the sixth when, with one swing of his butt -- not his bat -- famous original Reggie changed everything.

With one out, John walked Roy White, then allowed singles to Thurman Munson and Jackson, the latter scoring White.

Then, with Munson on second and Reggie on first, Lou Piniella hit a line drive toward Dodgers shortstop Bill Russell who knocked the ball down instead of catching it. Jackson took a few steps off first base and stopped.

Russell picked up the live ball, stepped on second for the force on Reggie, then threw it to Steve Garvey at first to double-up Piniella. The ball never arrived.

Jackson, still in the baseline, swung his right hip into the throw, deflecting it past Garvey and into foul territory. Munson rounded third and scored.

Russell's throw caroms off Jackson's hip
and past the waiting Steve Garvey
(screen shot from an MLB Youtube video)

Meanwhile, Jackson retreated to first, bumping into Piniella as Dodgers Manager Tommy Lasorda raced out of the dugout to protest Mr. October's interference with the would-be double play.

His argument, though epic, was to no avail. The umps ruled Reggie out on the force at second, but not out of line.

Munson's run stood and the inning ended with the Dodgers clinging to a 3-2 lead. It wouldn't last. The Yanks would tie it in the 8th and then win it against Welch in the 10th. Once again, the Dodger rookie faced Jackson with the game on the line. This time Reggie singled to prolong a rally. Piniella delivered the kill shot.

Me and my pal made it home alive.

Though the series was tied at two games a piece, for the shaken and demoralized Dodgers, it was over. Los Angeles took a two-run lead early in game 5, only to see New York storm back with 12 unanswered runs and the 3-2 series lead.

The Yanks would take the championship two days later in Los Angeles, winning 7-2. Reggie took Welch deep in the seventh, a two-run bomb that sealed the deal. My lunch money now belonged to my creditors.

J.D. and I soon drifted apart. I don't recall a specific rupture, it was more like a widening rift. He got me hooked on baseball and then faded away.

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The ABA's Last Champions

BEFORE THEY joined the NBA. Before they sold Dr. J. Before they moved to the Rutgers Athletic Center in Piscataway, New Jersey, then to the Brendan Byrne Arena in Hackensack, and to the Prudential Center in Newark and on to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, they were the 1976 American Basketball Association champions, the league's last, and they called the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum home.

All hail.