“VIOLETS VANQUISHED” AND “MIRACLE WHIPPING”
#752/#751
752. NEW YORK UNIVERSITY VIOLETS VS NOTRE DAME FIGHTING IRISH
MARCH 1, 1948
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
QUALITY OF PLAY—6.48
DRAMA—6.11
STAR POWER—7.34
CONTEMPORARY IMPORT—8.25
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE—7.01
LOCAL IMPACT—9.05
TOTAL: 44.23
“VIOLETS VANQUISHED”
NYC’s biggest college hoops rivalry in the years immediately following WWII was New York University against Notre Dame, in large part because of the “subway alumni,” the large base of Irish fans who dwelled in the City, the overwhelming majority of whom had not attended the school nor could locate South Bend on a map. Nevertheless, the annual NYU-ND battle at Madison Square Garden was a monumental event for these displaced immigrants and sons of immigrants, as well as for City b-ball connoisseurs.
As the war finally ended and normalcy returned, NYU embarked on a glorious era, led by the great Adolph Schayes, the frontcourt star who had wisely dropped the ‘A’ and went by “Dolph.” Schayes, like most kids who loved hoops, dreamed of playing for NYU, having grown up in the Bronx at 183rd and Davidson Avenue, a short walk from NYU’s (bygone) uptown gym across the river in Washington Heights.
“Lower middle class kids like me rarely got a shot at a school like NYU,” Schayes told the Times decades later. ”I dreamed of a scholarship, an education and a chance to play big-time ball at the Garden every time I sneaked into the Heights gym (many times to be thrown out by an alert guard) to watch the likes of Sam Mele, John Simmons and Jerry Fleischman practice.”
His NYU scholarship to play for coach Howard Cann was no charity—Schayes was a dominant 6’8” power forward in an age when few players could match his size and skill. He was just 16 when he entered NYU, and was playing almost immediately with the varsity. He scored 16 points in his first game, not coincidentally against Notre Dame. “During the first timeout,” he recalled, “after about 10 minutes, I was so tired, I sprawled at midcourt gasping for air. I remember looking up and wondering, ''What happened to the balconies?'' Smoking was allowed in those days and the smoke had just about obliterated the balconies from view.”
The Violets (a nickname Dolph said he hated) played a rather unsophisticated brand of basketball. Cann ran what Schayes called the “Gezinta” offense, which Dolph described as “give and go; back-door; constant motion; patience in passing and shoot until the ball ''Gezinta'' the basket.” Cann had no patience for defensive stratagems. His theory was if you play an opponent man-to-man for a few minutes, you should figure out how to stop him.
NYU could have success with this l’aissez-faire method since, as Schayes once said, "All the players were from the schoolyards of New York and the style was the same all over the city. The Brooklyn players played just as we did in the Bronx.” That may sound simplistic, but in those days there were widely varying styles, even down to shooting, with many still using the set shot rather than the jump shot, and the three-man weave and other deliberate offenses were the rage. New York players, then as now, tended to be more aggressive and up-tempo, and there was little learning curve for new NYU players as a result.
In 1948 the Violets were the best team in the nation, winners of 19 straight games and the last remaining undefeated squad in the country when the Irish came to town for an early St. Patrick’s Day celebration. The game was played Monday night, March 1, 1948, at the Old Garden on 50th and Eighth. NYU played about 90% of its home games at the Garden, so the huge sellout crowd of 18,345 was unsurprising. But on this day the cheering was evenly split, as the Irish fans flooded the joint in hopes of a colossal upset. The mix was tempestuous—there were several fights in the crowd, especially as the tension mounted during the game.
Notre Dame was a decent squad that would finish 17-7 in 1948. Their stars were All-American guard Kevin O’Shea, a San Franciscan who came all the way to Indiana to play college ball for the Irish, and swingman Leo “Barney” Barnhorst, a tough defender and solid glue guy who would start 72 straight games. But they weren’t considered nearly in the class of the Violets, who had not only Schayes but high-scoring forward Ray Lumpp (who went on to run the New York Athletic Club) and playmaking guard Donnie Forman, from Boys High in Brooklyn.
The Irish were also beat up, including a lingering knee injury that hampered O’Shea. Taking the court with “stiff upper lips and handsome gold uniforms” according to Time Magazine, the Irish “limped out on the floor to play hot-shot N.Y.U., only undefeated college team in the U.S.” The Violets were solid favorites to win their 20th straight game, even though ND had beaten them the year before and were 11-3 in the rivalry game to that point.
It was rough and tumble affair, more suited to the football rivalry between the two schools. “The threat of a brawl was ever-present,” noted Lou Effrat in the Times. There were fifty fouls called, two disqualifications, and a general sense that the refs were hanging on to control of the game by a shoestring.
NYU built an early 9-point advantage, led by Forman’s shooting, but O’Shea led the Irish back to within three, 35-32, at halftime. “N.Y.U. found itself surrounded by fighting Irish, who swiped the ball, intercepted passes, and used their elbows,” reported Time. The second half was especially fraught and defensive-minded, played with howling mad fans seemingly right on top of the action, giving the game a gladiatorial feel. Neither side allowed points easily. There were nine ties and 17 lead changes in a highly tense second half. “Neither quintet had a lead long enough to enjoy it,” wrote Effrat. “A roar shook the house as Notre Dame took the lead, lost it, then edged out in front again,” noted Time.
With 4:35 left, O’Shea, playing brilliantly despite a heavily taped left leg, tapped in a rebound to give the Irish a 56-55 lead. They wouldn’t trail again, going on a 6-1 run that seemed enough. But the Violets answered as the final seconds ticked away, closing to 62-59. In the rules of the time, teams could opt to not shoot free throws when fouled and keep possession, so several late stoppages to rough play didn’t result in scoring for either team.
NYU had one last chance, down three. But with no three-point shot in the rulebook, they needed an and-one, which Schayes tried to get, slamming into Barnhorst while simultaneously tossing up a short shot. Neither gambit was successful—the shot missed, no foul was called, and after a tack-on Irish bucket the other way, the buzzer sounded, sending half the Garden into riotous celebration and half subdued into the evening streets.
The final was 64-59. O’Shea and Lumpp finished tied atop the scoring leaderboard with 18 points. Schayes had just nine, and left the court shaking his head at his poor performance in such a big game.
The seismic upset ended NYU’s winning streak, and proved once again that the Irish were able to best the City kids at the City game.
AFTERMATH:
The Violets rebounded from the stunning loss to finish 20-3 and make it to the NIT finals, the biggest game of them all at the time. Alas, they lost to St. Louis, as Forman was injured and star big man Easy Ed McCauley outplayed Schayes down low.
Schayes, of course, recovered from the defeat to become one of the early NBA’s superstars, a 12-time All-Star and Hall of Famer with the Syracuse Nationals and (for one season, after the Nats relocated) Philadelphia 76ers. His son Danny was a great player at a far better basketball school than NYU, Syracuse.
Notre Dame would end another, more notable winning streak, the 88-games UCLA won consecutively until the Irish stopped the run in 1974.
WHAT THEY SAID:
“Both sides had forgotten all about the Y.M.C.A. way basketball used to be played. Players exchanged scowls and heated words; the referees broke up one fist fight only to have another threaten. At one point, the referee wanted to keep an N.Y.U. player from shooting a foul until the hooting stopped; the player grabbed the ball, glared at the crowd, and sank one.”
—TIME Magazine
FURTHER READING:
Memories of the Biggest Times In NYU Basketball by Dolph Schayes, The New York Times
VIDEO:
Somehow the ’48 classic isn’t available anywhere online, but the 1945 game has some highlights…
And here is NYU’s NIT final against St. Louis…
751. NEW YORK METS VS ATLANTA BRAVES
NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES
GAME THREE
OCTOBER 6, 1969
SHEA STADIUM
QUALITY OF PLAY—6.28
DRAMA—6.11
STAR POWER—7.84
CONTEMPORARY IMPORT—8.25
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE—7.01
LOCAL IMPACT—8.75
TOTAL: 44.24
“MIRACLE WHIPPING”
What was the more significant, longer-lasting development of 1969—man walking on the moon, or the advent of two divisions per league and the expansion of the Major League Baseball playoffs to four teams? I’d argue the latter, and it isn’t close.
While Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin taking a lunar stroll is the far greater accomplishment, and represented the best mankind has to offer in terms of exploration, bravery and scientific achievement, the money grab by baseball is far more representative of today’s world. The constant “more, more, MORE!” and enshittification of everything that was once good may not have actually begun with the ’69 playoffs, but it often feels that way…
In 1969 baseball also added four expansion teams (Montreal, Kansas City, San Diego and the Seattle Pilots), lowered the mounds after the “Year of the Pitcher” put fans to sleep throughout 1968, named a new Commissioner, Bowie Kuhn, made the save an official statistic, and endured a labor stoppage when the players boycotted spring training. Yes, the modern era was slipping up on the horizon, and quickly.
It was July 21, 1969, when Armstrong and Aldrin went down the ladder of the lunar lander Eagle and took a zero-G hop in the moondust. At that time the New York Mets trailed the Chicago Cubs by 4.5 games in the new N.L. East, and the Atlanta Braves were up by a single game over the L.A. Dodgers and S.F. Giants (whose move west from NYC also signified the coming deluge) in the N.L. West. The Cubs would expand that bulge to nine games by mid-August, but the “Miracle Mets,” products of the 1962 expansion that backfilled the gaping lack of N.L. baseball in the City, went 37-9 down the stretch, while the Cubbies collapsed into their den for an early winter hibernation, finishing a remarkable eight games behind the Mets.
In a less heralded but equally stirring race out west, the Braves (“western” only in the liberal sports definition of the term) won ten straight to seize the division title, setting up the first-ever NLCS, a playoff series before the World Series, and also the first time the future rivals from NYC and the Peach City would meet with something big on the line.
The 100-62 Mets were led by their great pitching, exemplified by Cy Young Award winner Tom Seaver, and managed by Brooklyn legend Gil Hodges, a throwback to the recently finished Subway Series era, when NYC was the ”Capitol of Baseball.” It is difficult from this remove to comprehend just how unlikely it was that the Mets were in the postseason, even an expanded one. They had, of course, set the standard for laughably inept play in their inaugural campaign of 1962, going 40-120 (and were worse than the record indicates). Before 1969 they had never had a winning record, never finished better than ninth in the ten-team NL, and lost 100+ games in five of their first seven seasons.
So by winning 100 games and making the playoffs the Mets truly earned the appellation “Miracle.” The Braves, by contrast, were an ancient franchise, having started in Boston in 1871 (once upon a time they were the “Miracle Braves” of 1914). The lesser of the Beantown clubs, they moved to Milwaukee for a strong run of play in the 1950s, then down south in 1966. They had been no better than fifth since y’allin’, but in ’69 they broke through, helped in part by dealing away future NYC legend Joe Torre for Orlando Cepeda, who hit 22 homers. That number was doubled by the Braves totemic superstar, Hank Aaron, who hit .300 with 97 RBIs in addition to his 44 dingers in a typical season for the Hammer.
Although the Mets finished seven games better than Atlanta, and had taken six of seven in an August home-and-home, they were underdogs, in part due to Aaron and in part due to their pedigree—or lack of it. The Braves also had the first two games at Atlanta Stadium (the Fulton-County part was added a couple of years hence), with the Mets playing the last three at Shea Stadium, if necessary.
Game One pitted Seaver against the NL’s second-best hurler, Phil Neikro, and neither were great. The game was tied at four when Aaron homered in the seventh to give Atlanta the lead. But then came the Miracles. The Mets scored five times in the top of the eighth, helped by two Braves errors. The Mets won 9-5, then outslugged the Braves 11-6, despite another Aaron dinger, to take Game Two.
That brought the action to Queens for the first-ever postseason game in the borough’s history (Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn were already sated—somehow, some way, some team needs to hold a playoff game on Staten Island to complete the set). It was played at Shea Stadium, the crappy dual-use edifice in Flushing Meadow directly under the LaGuardia Airport flight path. As a replacement for the beloved Ebbets Field and Polo Grounds it hardly rated, but at least there was National League baseball back in NYC.
Game Three was held at Shea on a warm and sunny Tuesday afternoon, October 6, 1969. Gary Gentry, one of the stable of young pitchers who had revitalized the team, started for the Mets, while the 13-11 Pat Jarvis went for Atlanta.
But the lone Brave who mattered was Hammerin’ Hank. With a man on in the first Aaron crushed a Gentry fastball 410 feet over the centerfield wall, his third round-tripper in as many games. “It was a rude start,” thought Joe Durso in the Times. In the third, with two on, Rico Carty hammered a vicious liner that curved foul at the last moment. Hodges had seen enough, and yanked Gentry mid-batter for a young fireballer named Nolan Ryan. “It was the first time a pitcher was knocked out by a foul ball,” wrote famed Times columnist Arthur Daley. Ryan struck out Carty, got out of the jam, and the tide turned from there.
The Mets got to this stage with their pitching, but once again, it was the lumber that took over. Tommie Agee, not yet indelibly associated with the ’69 World Series, homered to halve the lead, and in the fourth, Ken Boswell hit a two-run shot to put the home team in front. The crowd noise drowned out the engines from the jets overhead.
Atlanta wasn’t dead yet. They scored twice in the fifth on a Cepeda homer to retake the lead, 4-3. But there was no stopping New York and their miracles. Ryan, who had just three hits all year, singled, and then (former Brave) Wayne Garrett, who managed a single home run in the regular season, that coming back on May 6, went deep, squeaking one just inside the right field foul pole for a 5-4 Mets lead. “It was obvious that a kindly providence was on their side,” wrote Daley.
The Mets scored again when a fine running catch by Aaron off his shoe tops was ruled to have been trapped, and added a seventh run on an infield hit by Agee.
Meanwhile, Ryan was awesome in what amounted to his debut on the national stage. He would go seven innings in relief, allowing just three hits, including the Cepeda dinger, and striking out seven. “Heck, we knew what he threw,” said Aaron. “I’ve seen him in the past where he was erratic. He’s nothing but a kid but he did a helluva job out there.”
Ryan set the side down in order in the ninth, and, incredibly, the Mets had swept Atlanta and would be playing in the World Series. Ryan shot his clenched fist to the sky as he was seized from behind by catcher Jerry Grote. “The infielders joined them in a stately arabesque,” wrote Red Smith in the Rochester Democrat, “and the fleetest of the yowling youngsters pouring out of the stands flung themselves into the group.”
A passel of youngsters sprinting on to the field to join in the celebratory dogpile, with nothing but joy in their hearts—it was truly a better time.
AFTERMATH:
The Mets, of course, would go on to defeat the heavily favored Orioles in the World Series, becoming a team forever and after beloved by all, save Marylanders and Yankees diehards.
Ironically, the Mets lack of faith in Wayne Garrett (who in addition to his unlikely Game Three homer was the cutoff man in the “Ball on the Wall” play) would lead them to trade for a replacement third baseman, Jim Fregosi. Alas, they had to give up Nolan Ryan to do so, a horrendous deal that would come to signify the collapse of the Metropolitans back into the gutter after 1973. Ryan went on to throw seven no-hitters, strike out nearly 1,000 more hitters than anyone in history, and stroll into Cooperstown as a Hall of Famer.
WHAT THEY SAID:
“By winning the National League pennant at Shea Stadium yesterday the Mets are now entitled to go moon walking in the World Series. They have been gathering such momentum that not even the most distant goals seem beyond their reach.”
—Arthur Daley, The New York Times
FURTHER READING:
They Said It Couldn’t Be Done by Wayne Coffey
VIDEO: