Some of My Best Friends are Yankee Fans...

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In November 1969, when I was 13, I moved to Connecticut—first to New London and then to the neighboring town of Norwich. Those two years were the best of my childhood, and it wasn't even close. I made some great friends and had some great times.

I've heard it all about how bad Connecticut is. One of the biggest complaints is that they don't have their own professional major league sports teams besides the WNBA's Connecticut Sun. Really? Spare me, please. They may not have their own major league teams, but they're dedicated fans of teams of their choosing and very passionate. Because they don't have a team of their own, they can choose any team they want. I stuck to my Boston teams when I lived there, but a majority of my friends were Yankee fans, and they were divided in football between the Jets and Giants. There were some Red Sox, Patriots, and Celtics fans mixed in, but in smaller numbers.

When I arrived, the Pop Warner football season had just ended, and basketball had already started. I wasn't in high school yet, so the only game in town was "Church League."

A friend of mine in Sharon, Massachusetts, was a really good basketball player. He invited me to sleep over his house and go to his Church League game the following morning. Sitting in the stands with his family, I wondered why Jewish kids couldn't play Church League. It made no sense to me, but who was I to change that?

When I arrived in Norwich, my father's boss, John Meyer, was very active in one of the local temples, Beth Jacob, and after he heard I was a good football player and loved basketball, he called the coach of the Beth Jacob church league team and pulled some strings and got me on the roster. Yes, in Norwich, Connecticut, there were two temples in the Church League division I played in, for a total of ten teams. The other eight teams were from different Christian denominations. My best friend, Tom Cikatz, played for Divine Providence, a Polish National Catholic Church. 

Being the new kid, I wasn't getting much playing time, and I joked with Tom that because I was 25% Polish, maybe I could play on his team. Even if I only played 25% of the time, it would be more minutes than I was getting on Beth Jacob.

As the season went on, I began getting more and more playing time and scoring some points, grabbing some rebounds, making some good passes, and playing tough defense. I could shoot from the outside, but there were no three-point shots back then, so coaches drew up plays that were designed to find the cutter for an easy layup.

Before I moved to Norwich, I lived in New London but attended Kelly Junior High in Norwich. After school, I took the bus downtown and played basketball all afternoon at the Norwich YMCA until my father picked me up after work, and we drove back to New London. At least three nights a week, my father played paddleball with his coworkers, and I stayed at the Y till 10:00. My buddy Marty Satvrou's parents owned a small diner across from the Y, and I'd go there, sit on a stool at the counter, and get a cheeseburger, fries, and a coke. The place was tiny, but the food was great.

I played basketball all afternoon, mostly with inner-city black kids. They played more of a run 'n' gun style of ball, which eventually became popular in the NBA.

We played full-court four-on-four, and the winner kept playing. I was always on the same team with a kid who could go full speed all day-all night, and I was the only one who could keep up with him. He called me "Aussie," and I never knew why.

When the white kids showed up at night, I stayed on my team with the same kids I played with all afternoon, and we rarely got off the court. By the time I got on the roster for Beth Jacob, I was primed and ready to go. All the games were played at an elementary school gym. It was a 3/4 court that doubled as an auditorium, with a stage at one end.

We made it to the finals and the championship game against Divine Providence. Tom and his cousin, Mark Kozak, were nicknamed "The Twin Towers." They were tall and could block shots and grab rebounds, but in addition to that, Tom was incredibly athletic and highly competitive. When he decided to go to the rim, he was unstoppable. Even when we played one-on-one in his driveway, he took the shit seriously. The times I beat him on his home court were few and far between, and occasionally, things got heated.

A year earlier, Divine Providence had won the championship on the back of Wally Urban, a very muscular kid whose older brother Steve became my baseball coach later that spring. Both Tom and Mark were on that team, the Red Sox. 

We knew Divine Providence was gonna be tough to beat. Once the game began, Tom started driving to the hoop, and we couldn't stop him. If you fouled him, he was usually perfect from the line.

We played tough, though, and I got hot from the outside, which, with Tom and Mark protecting the rim, was the only open shot. 

We kept it close, and with under 25 seconds on the clock, Tom drove past us and hit a short jumper, putting Divine Providence up by a point. We took the ball upcourt and lost control of it, and Paul Lapkowski had it and was making a run for the other end. I knew I had to foul him to prevent the easy layup and stop the clock.

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Paul was a great kid: bleach-blonde hair and a big smile on top of a skinny frame. I hit him to get the foul, but I might've forgotten I was playing basketball and not football and hit him a little too hard. He landed in the metal folding chairs set up around the court's perimeter and crashed into the concrete wall behind the second row. While the ref blew the whistle, special assistant Mr. McPhail, whose son was on the team, ran onto the court and got up in my face. By then, I was helping Paul up, but Mr. McPhail still looked like he wanted to kick my ass. Paul's father was the coach, and he was pretty upset, too…

Paul missed the first one but hit the second one. We immediately called time out with Divine Providence up by two.

I wasn't expecting Mr. Sohn to tell the team he wanted me to take the final shot, but he did. I was the new kid, a late addition to the team, but I had the hot hand. He told me there were only 6 seconds left on the clock, so I should dribble up court as far as I could, take the final shot, and not worry about whether it went in or not.

Divine Providence didn't challenge the inbound pass like I thought they would. Instead, they hung back and protected the rim. Larry Curland inbounded the ball to me, and as I turned and started up the court, I saw Tom starting to creep up, so I decided to let it go before I made it to half-court. 

It was a lot like a Payton Pritchard halftime shot, only on a smaller court, and when I let it go, it felt damn good leaving my hand…

It's not like I hadn't fantasized about that moment daily while shooting around in my driveway. Usually, just after my mother called me in for supper and it was getting dark, I'd take one last shot with the countdown "3-2-1-bang!" If I didn't hit it, I'd do it till I did.

Everyone in the elementary school gym stood and watched the ball descend…

Nothing but net! Tie score! Overtime…

Tom was pissed but determined to win his second championship in a row, and he had that look in his eye. Despite my heroics, he wasn't gonna be denied. I knew that look. Overtime was gonna be a battle…

Tom's cousin Mark tipped the jump ball to him, and he scored immediately. Larry inbounded the ball and threw it to me. As I turned to catch it, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. Sohn sliding off his folding chair up on the stage where the makeshift benches for both teams were. Once he hit the floor, he appeared to be having convulsions. Everything stopped, and a few men ran up on stage to help him. I just held the ball as it got very quiet in the gym…

I remember one of the men removing his belt and putting the leather part into Mr. Sohn's mouth, which had begun foaming. We were all pretty scared…

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The game was halted, and Mr. Sohn left in an ambulance. On my way home, I asked my father what had happened. He said Mr. Sohn had epilepsy and had an epileptic seizure. Despite owning his own pharmacy and being the pharmacist, he often forgot to take his meds, and that, combined with all the excitement, brought it on.

When I asked my father about the leather belt, he said during a seizure, you can bite your tongue, and if you bite onto something, it's less likely to happen.

I couldn't sleep that night, and the image of Mr. Sohn sliding off his chair and biting on that leather belt was embedded in my mind. When I got to school the following day I found out nobody else slept too well either. We all looked exhausted.

The game resumed a week later, and while Mr. Sohn was still home recovering, his assistant put together a new game plan. He wanted Teddy to bring the ball up and take the shots. He was the star of the team before I arrived and a big reason why we were in the championship.

Tom was on fire; he wanted to win badly. Teddy missed a bunch of shots, and we got behind by seven points within minutes. When I got the ball, I wasn't looking to make a good pass; I didn't want Tom to have an easy win. I made a couple of shots, but it was too little too late. Ultimately, Divine Providence went home with the trophy, and Tom was the MVP. He deserved it.

Tom busted my chops for weeks after, and 50+ years later, he's still doing it. He lives in Seattle, and he'll remind me that I scored 19 points, and he scored 23. But he's quick to recall some of my finer moments playing freshman football at Norwich Free Academy (NFA), like an 80-yard TD run he remembers better than I do.

I'm #86 (game jersey #22), sitting beside Coach Pop Congdon. To my left is #71 Major Williams (one bad MFer), and next to him is #87 Tom Cikatz. My good friend Kevin Quigley is #42, third row, first player from the right. Nick DiStasio is #82. #79 is Dan Grillo. I always thought someone should've changed his last name to "Gorilla" he was so fucking strong! This was a really good football team with a lot of great kids who became friends. ( A big thanks to Tom for forwarding me this photo, which brought back some great memories)

Weeks after the championship game, Mr Sohn called to invite me to go to a game at Yankee Stadium with some Church League players. I was a little nervous he'd have another seizure while he was driving, so I told him I had to ask my father.

I expressed my concerns to my father, who said Mr. Sohn was fine. He was back on his meds, and there was no way he would forget to take them after what happened.

I'd been to many games at Fenway Park with my Uncle Mike and cousin Arthur, but going to Old Yankee Stadium, The House that Ruth Built, was an even bigger thrill. Although Mantle and Maris were already gone, I remember seeing Mantle, who was a coach at the time. 

The history lingered like a heavy cloak over the stadium. The original copper facade, which had already been painted white, and the three monuments in centerfield were reminders of Yankee history. Staring down at the field from our third-base grandstand seats, I began imagining what it must've been like to watch Ruth, Gehrig, and Joltin' Joe in their primes…

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Recently, I texted Tom and asked if he went to that Yankee game with Mr. Sohn, and he texted back tongue in cheek, "I don't recall that. Probably just took the Jewish boys…" Tom's not above self-deprecation either, once saying, "Yes, I am Polish. It is a birth defect that I have learned to live with…" He still has that unique sense of humor I always got a hoot out of. Maybe it's a Connecticut thing?

Here's a recent photo of Tom. He was one of the first to buy a Prostate Cancer Awareness Cap. He's one month older than me, and he and his wife Lauri have two adult sons. One shares a birthday with me.

Contrary to what some people thought after I admitted to wanting Aaron Judge and the Yankees to beat LA in the World Series, I'm not a Yankee fan. But because of my childhood memories of Old Yankee Stadium and the game I went to with Mr. Sohn and my Church League teammates, I'm not a Yankee hater either. 

Tom and some of my best friends are Yankee fans…