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Shamsky's book captures
a vanished era in sports
of TheColumnists.com
Larry Merchant, now a television commentator, was a
clever writer at the New York Post several decades ago when we
were all a lot younger. He was the first to use the expression
"Toy Department" for sportswriting.
It summed up our profession on and off the field in the best
way possible. The guys who did it for a living were mostly joyous
about their participation and those of us who followed them around
the country were honestly pleased and proud of our good fortune.
Sportswriters in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s dreamed only of that
newspaper job, settled in for a lifetime when they made it and
had smiles on their faces when they checked out after decades
of expense account meals, flashy hotel living and recognizable
byline identity.
Now sportswriters have to write about basketbrawls between physical
giants and inebriated louts, the occasional rape charge, the
extortion charges involving a Gary Sheffield wife or other such
riff raff conduct.
Ohh, for a sweeter, gentler, finer time.
Art Shamsky, who played for the 1969 World Champion Mets, captured
that delicious time in his remarkable book about the incredible
run of New York sports success in 1969-1970 when all three major
New York teams were world champions.
The Jets won the Super Bowl in January of 1969 with a surprising
defeat over the Baltimore Colts. The Mets beat Baltimore’s
baseball team in the World Series with a shocking victory over
the Orioles. Then the New York Knickerbockers made it a New York
City trifecta with a stirring triumph over the Los Angeles Lakers
of Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, three of the
game’s greatest players, in May of 1970.
Shamsky’s book "The Magnificent Seasons: How The Jets,
Mets And Knicks Made Sports History And Uplifted A City And The
Country" (St. Martin’s Press, $24.95) captured the
excitement of the teams and those times.
The world was in turmoil. Battle casualties grew significantly
from Vietnam. Racial unrest reached a peak a hundred years after
the end of the Civil War. Kids believed free love and drugs,
sex and rock and roll were all the values they needed.
These three teams, made up exceptional players and amazing men,
went on to these titles in the finest traditions of sports, with
intensity, dignity, pride and togetherness. It convinced the
city and the country other values counted just as much.
Each team surprised the competition. None had ever won a title
before. The Jets won Super Bowl III over Baltimore and revolutionized
the game of football. Joe Namath became a national icon.
The Mets had never finished better than ninth and suddenly were
no longer called the Amazing Mets in sarcastic irony because
they were terrible but only because they were wonderful.
The Knicks won their title in basketball’s most dramatic
game when injured captain Willis Reed limped on the court for
the seventh game despite a severe hip injury and doubts about
his abilities under that stress.
“The drama of Willis coming onto the floor was amazing,”
recalled teammate Bill Bradley, later a United States Senator
and presidential candidate. “It was an electric moment because
we truly didn’t think he was going to play. Then he came
out and the crowd took the roof off the Garden.”
Shamsky writes, “That moment when Willis walked onto the
Garden floor for Game Seven has become an iconic moment.”
“I know it psyched the Lakers out,” Walt (Clyde) Frazier
told Shamsky in the book. “They stopped what they were doing
and watched. Chamberlain, West and Baylor. They turned around
and watched Reed. I said to myself, ‘We got these guys.’
I could see in their eyes they were like dazed for the moment.”
Reed hit his first two shots in the first minute of the game,
his only points in 27 minutes, but the Knicks whipped the Lakers
113-99 for the championship.
Shamsky, of course, was a big part of the Mets title. He led
the team at bat in the playoff against the Atlanta Braves, the
first time baseball went to a playoff round before qualifying
for the World Series.
Mayor John Lindsay entered the team’s clubhouse after the
final Series game, was doused with champagne and shaving cream
and guaranteed his reelection when he was photographed as a regular
guy enjoying the Mets title. Of course, unlike later Mayor Rudy
Giuliani, he knew nothing about baseball.
What is truly incredible about this book is that Shamsky, a baseball
player, could get these old basketball and football players,
to tell their tales of those times as if they were his teammates.
It helps to have an inside source.
What also seemed more remarkable in light of today’s misadventures
of athletes and the sour taste all of these current teams seem
to leave in the mouths of fans is their experiences and reminiscences
of those years long ago.
It is 35 years since those teams electrified the fans and themselves
with those miraculous triumphs in the three big, commercial sports
and did it all with dignity and decorum.
Maybe the recent negative sports happenings have just soured
all of us who watch these guys and write about them for a living.
It is so much more pleasant to think back 35 years and recall
those wonderful New York sports titles and those wonderful athletes
that Shamsky has presented in his intelligent and emotional book.
Sure, things always look better from a distance. Even in sports.
You know what? It really was a better, gentler, more dignified
time in sports.
©2004 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001
by Jim Hummel. The book cover illustration is courtesy of St.
Martin's Press.
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