The Knicks Fix

My BlackBerry buzzed last night just before midnight. It was my friend, Ben, who sent me a simple message: “Wow.” We exchanged a few small thoughts about the Mets loss to the Cardinals in Game 7 of the NLCS and he concluded it perfectly: “Well, baseball season is officially over.”

Winter sports can begin. I changed beats, if anyone hadn’t noticed. After seven years covering the Islanders and my beloved sport of hockey, my new assignment is the Knicks and my second love, basketball. More on that later. Let’s eulogize the summer season, which has always been a thorn in my sidebar.

In New York, Fox might as well not even bother showing the World Series, which would be fine with me. Let’s get the prime time shows back on. House. Bones. Family Guy. Whatever. I really don’t know much about prime time television. The last time I had my nights free enough to follow anything on prime time, I was watching ER and NYPD Blue. And Seinfeld.

This job doesn’t allow you too much time to watch TV that doesn’t involve a sport. Or Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

They’re funny. My wife, a teacher, doesn’t think it’s funny when I’m laughing out loud at 11:30 on a school night.

Can I get back to my baseball rant now? I don’t know how you people do it. The season is so long. The games are so long and boring (you need a shot clock on the pitcher….let’s speed it up man!). The drama is so drawn out, so slow and deliberate. And you sit there and put yourself through all of that anxiety, the highs and lows, to watch Carlos Beltran keep the bat on his shoulder? Are you kidding me? Not even going down swinging?

How did any Met fan sleep last night?

This is why I can’t stand baseball. When I was six my parents sent me off to a CYO baseball league. I loved the infield and was pretty quick. But the coach put me in left field. Yes, left-out. Do you know how many balls make it to left field in a six-year-old baseball league, where the coaches pitch to the kids?

None.

So I sat down in the grass and started picking dandelions. My dad saw this and took me home. My baseball career over at six. Fifteen years later I was 6’6” and -- wouldn’t you know? – a lefty. I reminded my father often that he cost me millions. He figured the only future I was showing back then was as the groundskeeper.

What does this have to do with basketball? Everything and nothing. You see, this season is sort of a coming home for me. My father yanked me away from hockey when I was 12 because he saw I had a growth spurt and predicted I was going to be tall. He based this theory on the fact that he was 6’8”. He told me hockey isn’t a sport for big men and sent me to a basketball camp. My first day at this camp, I wore a hockey jersey. And so began a futile attempt at using my size to any advantage.

When Eric Lindros, the 6-6 monster winger, was drafted first overall, I told my dad he again cost me millions. When Zdeno Chara, the 6-9 defenseman, became an all-star, I told my dad he would have no say in my son’s athletic career. Ever.

But my dad was quick to remind me: basketball helped pay for college. Touche, Dad.

So with him now in heaven looking down over me, hopefully guiding me (but not when it comes to decisions on my son’s athletic career), here I go back to the hardwood, where he always said I belonged (even when the ice was calling me). I am covering the team I loved as a kid in an arena I often considered a cathedral of my two sporting loves.

Here I am, once again, a hockey guy trying to make it in basketball.

When I first met Stephon Marbury, he was told I used to cover hockey and he asked me if I played hockey. I said I did and still do. He smiled, as if either impressed or amused, and, perhaps patronizingly said he liked hockey. A few weeks later he walked by me slapping my chest and repeating “Hockey! Hockey!”

We are who we are.

One post-script: This is my first blog. I thought it was necessary to explain some things. Next time, I’ll talk more about the Knicks and the NBA (and maybe a little hockey, too).