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James Madison High |
 MARVIN MILLER ...created free agency |
Maury helps honor two
famous Madison alumni
By MAURY ALLEN
of TheColumnists.com
Fifty five years ago I was graduated from James Madison
High School in Brooklyn, New York and entered the City College
of New York.
I just thought it was time to return to my old high school after
more than half a century away. I’ll be there next weekend
for something called a Wall of Distinction induction.
I won’t be getting up on the wall just yet but I’ll
be helping to honor some other Madison High grads.
I can hear all the snickering. Big deal. Even those my age are
singing the anti-JMHS theme, “James Madison High, for two
cents I would spit in your eye.” The opposition always sang
that in all our sports battles. My two varsity sweaters made
it all tolerable. “Here’s to Lincoln, stinkin’
Lincoln,” we bellowed at our biggest Brooklyn rival.
Not to brag but, as the saying goes, Madison High includes grads
like Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Olympian Marty
Glickman, baseball pitching star Harry Eisenstat, playwright
Arthur Miller, show business producer Sonny Werblin and famed
writer Irwin Shaw.
My part in the production this time around is to introduce two
of the sports heroes being honored, basketball legend Fuzzy Levane
and historic baseball figure Marvin Miller.
Andrew (Fuzzy) Levane is one of the most unique characters in
basketball history. He is the only player whose team picture
sits in the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts
for a high school championship at Madison, a college championship
at St. John’s and a pro championship with the defunct Rochester
Royals.
“I always get a kick out of telling people I am in the Hall
of Fame three times but I’m really not in it,” said
Levane.
He was an outstanding player at all three levels before turning
to coaching and scouting. He still works for the New York Knickerbockers
and has been involved in basketball continually for 65 years,
maybe the longest reign in the game.
“I was on this Madison team with a few other players who
were Jewish. My name is Levane. I’m Italian. It was pronounced
Le-Vann-ee when I was a kid. They started pronouncing it at Madison
like it was a Jewish name, Levane like Levine, and people thought
I was Jewish, so I went along with it.”
The Fuzzy part came about for Andrew because of his dark hair
and dark beard at so early an age.
“I always looked older than my age,” he said. “Now
I’m trying to look younger but it doesn’t work.”
The other honoree I am involved with at the ceremonies is possibly
the most important figure in the history of the game, Marvin
Miller.
Babe Ruth opened up salaries for players to $80,000 in his time
and Miller opened up salaries to $26 million, the numbers Alex
Rodriguez takes home annually from the Yankees.
He was the first executive director of the Major League baseball
players union and helped create free agency, the passport to
millions for ball players.
“When I first came around in the middle 1960s,” Miller
recalled, “I walked into the Yankee clubhouse at spring
training. Mickey Mantle was bandaging his thighs and Joe DiMaggio
was walking around with an old, tattered Yankee uniform. I knew
then the players needed an association that would protect their
rights.”
Until Miller time, negotiations went something like this: Take
it or leave it, the owners said. Now the players can say that
when they are free agents, the same way columnists can say it
or editors or garbage men.
Ralph Kiner was the game’s greatest home run hitter in the
late 1940s and early 1950s. He hit over 50 homers one year and
expected a big contract.
“We finished last with you and we can finish last without
you,” GM Branch Rickey told Kiner. He accepted their offer.
“I won the Triple Crown in 1956,” Mickey Mantle once
said. “When I negotiated the next year (Yankee GM) George
Weiss told me I would get a salary cut because I didn’t
win the next Triple Crown. I had to scream like hell before I
wound up with the same money.”
Marvin Miller changed all that when he fought for the rights
of the players. Maybe the salaries have gone out of line in the
21st century but both players and owners today have the option
of refusal. That’s known in some circles as free enterprise
or capitalism.
Owners howled that free agency would kill baseball. It has been
more successful than ever in the recent years and clubs still
are being sold for millions of dollars of profit.
Miller hasn’t been elected to Baseball’s Hall of Fame
in Cooperstown but he certainly deserves the honor. It could
come soon.
At least his old high school will honor him. That’s a start.
As for Fuzzy Levane, he is just thrilled to finally get the school
honors he deserves for leading his high school to a city title.
“I just hope they pronounce my name correctly,” said
Levane. Levane. Le-Vann-nee. Whatever. He’s still New York’s
most lovable Fuzzy.
©2004 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001
by Jim Hummel. The photo of Marvin Miller is courtesy of the
Baseball Reliquary Inc. website.
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