I know this is a blog about baseball, and about the Mets, but every so often things happen in the world that take us out of our sports-cocoon and remove us from the escape that baseball, and sports in general, can be for us. 30 years ago today, sports and music and the real world collided into one, when Howard Cosell, lead announcer on the NFL's Monday Night Football telecast, had to deliver the news to millions of Americans (as well as those overseas in the military) that rock and roll legend, John Winston Lennon, had been shot and killed outside his New York apartment.
I can still remember my dad waking me up to see Cosell discuss the shooting, moments after he first announced it, and watching the special news reports that started rolling in, all on the same television that, one day prior, we had huddled around to watch the weekly Giants game together. The same television that we had been watching baseball together around for 10 years, a television that my dad had purchased in 1969, in time to watch the Mets in the World Series on RCA's best color television (more furniture then TV, of course). And, for the first time, I realized that sports wasn't life and death, that it was simply an escape from life, and, for one night, from death...
Although I haven't lived in New York for far too long, I always have, and always will, consider myself a New Yorker. And I was never prouder to call myself one when, a few days after Lennon's murder, millions of us converged on what is now "Strawberry Fields" and together we shared our sorrows, our love for the rock icon that was/is John, and watched as strangers offered each other jackets if they were cold, sodas if they were thirsty, and a shoulder to cry on if it was needed. As tough as that day was, it was made easier when you looked around and saw just how many lives Lennon had touched, and so deeply. The next time I felt that way was during the parade for the 1986 Mets, as once again the city was united, this time for something far happier, and again, people were sharing, hugging, screaming together, united in their love of the orange and blue just as we were once united in our love for John.
These are the things that make up our lives...the moments we won't forget...and just as I'll never forget the amazing music that John & the Beatles gave us, I'll also never forget the moment that sports & "real life" converged, for the first time (at least for me)...life was never the same, nor could it be...
If you'd like to see some great photos from John's life, Rolling Stone magazine has posted a number of them, which you can see by clicking here
Also, this Friday, Rolling Stone magazine is releasing the transcript of the entire, final interview that John Lennon gave them, the last of his life, on newsstands everywhere.
As John once said, "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans."
I can still remember my dad waking me up to see Cosell discuss the shooting, moments after he first announced it, and watching the special news reports that started rolling in, all on the same television that, one day prior, we had huddled around to watch the weekly Giants game together. The same television that we had been watching baseball together around for 10 years, a television that my dad had purchased in 1969, in time to watch the Mets in the World Series on RCA's best color television (more furniture then TV, of course). And, for the first time, I realized that sports wasn't life and death, that it was simply an escape from life, and, for one night, from death...
Although I haven't lived in New York for far too long, I always have, and always will, consider myself a New Yorker. And I was never prouder to call myself one when, a few days after Lennon's murder, millions of us converged on what is now "Strawberry Fields" and together we shared our sorrows, our love for the rock icon that was/is John, and watched as strangers offered each other jackets if they were cold, sodas if they were thirsty, and a shoulder to cry on if it was needed. As tough as that day was, it was made easier when you looked around and saw just how many lives Lennon had touched, and so deeply. The next time I felt that way was during the parade for the 1986 Mets, as once again the city was united, this time for something far happier, and again, people were sharing, hugging, screaming together, united in their love of the orange and blue just as we were once united in our love for John.
These are the things that make up our lives...the moments we won't forget...and just as I'll never forget the amazing music that John & the Beatles gave us, I'll also never forget the moment that sports & "real life" converged, for the first time (at least for me)...life was never the same, nor could it be...
If you'd like to see some great photos from John's life, Rolling Stone magazine has posted a number of them, which you can see by clicking here
Also, this Friday, Rolling Stone magazine is releasing the transcript of the entire, final interview that John Lennon gave them, the last of his life, on newsstands everywhere.
As John once said, "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans."
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