Lionel Messi was in New Jersey Saturday night, and that caused a stir even if he didn’t actually enter the game until the 60th minute. It is instructive that there is a fairly good chance that it’s not exactly on the tip of everyone’s tongues the name of the team he actually plays for — officially that would be Club Internacional de Futbol Miami, or more commonly Inter Miami CF.
It is also beside the point.
New York City and its neighboring cousins on all sides have a long and prosperous history of welcoming stars when the stars are the main point, and the teams they play for are merely an afterthought.
This is a tradition that goes back at least as far as Dec. 6, 1925, when, officially, the Chicago Bears played the Giants in a football game at the Polo Grounds. Unofficially, of course, that game became the singularly galvanizing force that made pro football — and the Giants — viable.
That’s because the Bears were in the midst of a 19-game, 66-day barnstorming trip featuring Red Grange, who in 1925 stood alongside Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey as the most famous athletes in America and was by far the most recognizable name in his sport. Tim Mara, who’d famously bought the Giants for $500, had seen his city take slowly to his new team, and essentially put the club’s future in the hands of a man who would actually be playing for the other team.
And it worked spectacularly.
The game drew 70,000 people to Coogan’s Bluff — including Ruth, planted prominently on the 50-yard line — and more than 100 out-of-town sportswriters. And Grange himself was also equal to the task: In the fourth quarter he intercepted a ball from Giants quarterback Hinkey Haines and raced 70 yards for a touchdown that shook the stadium to its foundation. The Bears won, 19-7, and for maybe the only time in Giants history not one fan left the building unhappy.
A week more than 24 years later, on Dec. 14, 1949, another midwesterner took center stage by himself, even if he was actually surrounded by teammates as he was on any other night. That afternoon the marquee on the side of the third incarnation of Madison Square Garden, the one on Eighth Avenue between 49th and 50th, was unambiguous in what it was selling:
“GEO MIKAN V/S KNICKS”
Again, that was the first year of the unified NBA and the Knicks weren’t terribly established yet, ranking not only behind the Rangers as a Garden tenant but also college basketball in their own sport.
Mikan was always fairly embarrassed by that one. Years later he told sports columnist Dave Anderson: “My whole life I was taught — and then preached — that basketball was a team game and I believe it. And yet the first thing a lot of people think of when they hear my name is that picture.”
Mikan was worth the price of admission — he torched the Knicks for 38 points — but the Knicks sent the house home happy because they not only saw a great player at the peak of his powers, but the Knicks won the game, too, 94-84.
There have been others. When the brackets were announced for the 1970 NIT, the tournament’s chiefs immediately seized on the fact that LSU’s remarkable guard, Pete Maravich, would be playing the last games of his career — and the only postseason games of his college tenure — at the Garden. And the city responded, giving the old tournament — in its first slight shades of decline — a boost. Pistol played three games — LSU won two, then lost to Marquette in the semis — and though he sat out the consolation game against Army, the NIT had gotten what it wanted.
As you suspect the Red Bulls — and MLS — did Saturday night.
Vac’s Whacks
Have to admit, it sort of warms my heart knowing that Ralph Macchio, proud son of Huntington and Dix Hills, is a Jets lifer … ever since he was a yoot.
I can’t tell you the last time I was this excited to watch a Team USA national basketball team as I am with the one in the FIBA World Cup.
If you could find a baseball player who could turn a team’s fortunes around by himself the way Lionel Messi has with that Miami team that visited Jersey on Saturday night, that baseball player’s salary range might make Shohei Ohtani’s look like a GoFundMe.
If you’re looking for one last summer read to take you through Labor Day, I would suggest “Kingdom Quarterback,” a terrific tale of Kansas City and the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes done masterfully well by Rustin Dodd and Mark Dent.
Whack back at Vac
Bob Wallace: I totally disagree with you about Shohei Ohtani to the Mets. They can get three players for the price of Ohtani. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Jack Flaherty and Josh Hader would help the team a lot more than Ohtani, and would cost about the same amount of Uncle Stevie’s money.
Vac: I think that’s the way Steve Cohen would like to go … but there is always the fact that he can write the kind of check that can change his own mind.
Louie Rey: I’ve been a lifelong Mets fan since their inception in 1962, so I’ve seen my share of disappointments. With this much-anticipated season being the latest disappointment, I’ll take poetic license with Tug McGraw’s rallying cry from 1973 and say, “Ya Gotta Bereave!”
Vac: That’s quite an anniversary dirge.
@subwaysquawkers: I am soooo tired of hearing fans (and the media) talk about what George Steinbrenner would do. The real question is what would any other owner do about Brian Cashman. Dave Dombrowski didn’t even get a full year after getting the Red Sox a World Series title!
@MikeVacc: I suspect the forms who run the Red Sox occasionally look at how the Phillies are doing and wonder if maybe they weren’t a scant too hasty …
John Vorperian: Number 50 on a QB is great. Back to the future! Teddy Bridgewater is in line with grid greats Sid Luckman and Charlie Conerly #42. Move over Color Rush uniforms. Can’t you see it now? A midseason NFL Heritage Jersey game. Let’s make sure those jerseys have long sleeves too.
Vac: And, as a few readers were quick to point out, Otto Graham looked pretty good wearing 60 most of his career.
