February 19, 2008, 3:18 pm
A Stairway to Sports History From the Polo Grounds
Steps that lead nowhere today once offered a clear, yet distant, view of games at the Polo Grounds. (Photo: Geoffrey Croft/New York City Park Advocates)
With the winter baseball news dominated by tales of steroids and human growth hormone drugs, hearings and investigations, and apologies and denials, a look back at a more innocent time in baseball may be in order this week, when position players are joining pitchers and catchers at training camp in Florida and Arizona.
The Polo Grounds, the northern Manhattan home of the New York Giants baseball team, has long been the site of a rather imposing public housing complex called the Polo Grounds Towers — four 30-story skyscrapers with 1,616 units.
Few clues remain about the glorious things that happened when the Polo Grounds was a sports stadium in Washington Heights — Willie Mays, the birth of the Mets, the New York Cubans, the New York football Giants, and Floyd Patterson vs. Ingemar Johansson, among them.
But one relic remains, not as the result of historic preservation, but by accident.
That relic is a staircase built down Coogan’s Bluff, the hill that overlooked the stadium, which is roughly where Edgecombe Avenue runs today. The staircase once led to a ticket booth, and was built by the owner of the Giants at the time.
Coogan’s Bluff had long been a sort of Tightwad Hill for local fans, a place where those unwilling or unable to pay the stadium’s entrance fee had a clear, if distant, view of the proceedings at no charge.
If nothing else, the Giants may have hoped a new stairway would prompt a few fans to buy tickets.
Today, the stairway leads nowhere, except for an overgrown stretch of Highbridge Park. Many, if not most, of its steps are missing; its guard rails rusting and falling apart; and some sections have disappeared into the underbrush, making an attempt to walk down them highly inadvisable.
But at a landing partway down is an inscription; like the staircase, it has been slowly disintegrating over the decades. Its letters are still clear despite rain, snow and heat, and it reads: “The John T. Brush Stairway Presented by the New York Giants.”
A New York Times article from July 9, 1913, retrieved by the Parks Department, says that on that day the baseball club would be formally presenting the “John T. Brush Stairway” to the city. The Giants’ team president, H. N. Hempstead, was to present the gift to the city parks commissioner, Charles B. Stover, to honor Mr. Brush, the Giants owner who had died in 1912.
But city officials say the long-forgotten inscription and staircase, which might be the last vestiges of the old ballpark, could be in for a reprieve.
Tonight thee Golden State Warriors traded guard Monta Ellis, Yes, the spark plug that's been making the car go, to the Milwaukee Bucks.
Look who's at one and two; throwbacks and a powder blue disney color? Come'on Man! It's football. It's supposed to reflect the strength of a warrior-like culture, not the ambiance of a baby daycare play room.
If the past rulings that have gone against the Raiders were conspiratorial, then this injustice is nothing short of a league in complete denial of it's brute history. Putting football players in powder blue is as contradictory as putting lipstick on a pitbull. Just who does NFL.com think they are, Sarah Palin? At least Palin gave a few eye winks to show she shouldn't be taken too seriously. I vote for a recall!
The 1905 "All Blacks" swept through Britain and Europe displaying a style of rugby that took the other nations by surprise. New Zealand's long history of innovation in the game really began here, as a team from "the colonies" had never before handed out thrashings of that order to any "Home Unions", let alone showed such a combination of ferocity and grace. The ball was kept in hand, and passed for the fastest to run with rather than kicked for them to chase. Shots at goal were declined in favour of spinning it wide or crashing it forward. Fear of the black jersey was born.
Other sides carried on that dominance, as teams led by the Brownlie brothers in the twenties and thirties kept our tradition of innovation alive. George Nepia is still regarded by those who remember him as the greatest player not just of that era but of all time, and set a standard of excellence for future generations of players to aspire to. Teams of New Zealand soldiers in the second World War were instrumental in bridging the gap between the two halves of the century. Most able-bodied New Zealanders enlisted for army service, but no matter which part of the world they found themselves in they would still pick sides during breaks in the fighting and play the game they loved.
The All Blacks had become the most feared opponent in the sport. Fierce rivalries existed between all the rugby powers, but the men wearing the black jerseys with the silver fern and delivering the formal challenge of the haka had a psychological edge on the opposition whenever they stepped onto the field.
Men like Colin Meads, Don Clarke, Waka Nathan and Wilson Whineray did nothing to dispel such thinking. The sixties were a decade where New Zealand's pre-eminence was unchallenged. Meads was a sinewy and raw-boned draft-horse of a man, whose outstanding lineout jumping complemented superb skills in open play. He was as famous for his uncompromising attitude as for these skills. Waka Nathan was a bullet off the back of the lineout or the side of the scrum, who terrorised inside backs all over the world and shared that same attitude. Don Clarke was the rock required at fullback, who never missed a tackle and, if the opposition infringed inside their own half, could be relied upon to deliver an almost guaranteed three points. Wilson Whineray commanded the respect of them all, and captained them to wins wherever they played.
All Black teams since then have proudly continued the legacy. Players like Sid Going, Bryan Williams, Ian Kirkpatrick, Fergie McCormick, Graham Mourie, Bruce Robertson, Buck Shelford, Stu Wilson, Joe Stanley, Sean Fitzpatrick, John Kirwan, Grant Fox, Michael Jones, Zinzan Brooke... all have given their heart and soul on New Zealand's behalf. The sport of rugby now has a World Cup tournament, held every four years since 1987, and New Zealand's success in only one of these so far is no real indication of our ongoing strength. The game here remains an integral part of our culture and identity as a nation, and the unchecked passion we have for the sport will ensure that the future of All Black rugby is as innovative, uncompromising, dedicated and successful as it ever was.
For most non-Maori New Zealanders today their knowledge of Haka is perhaps limited to that most performed of Haka called "Ka mate, Ka mate". Many sports teams and individuals travelling from New Zealand overseas tend to have the haka "Ka mate" as part of their programme. The sports team that has given the haka the greatest exposure overseas has been the All Blacks, who perform it before their matches. It has become a distinctive feature of the New Zealand All Blacks.
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