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Sidelines Kalani Simpson |
Bronx Zoo still around
after all these yearsHERE it is. Down to one game, sports fans. Yankees-Red Sox. Clemens-Pedro. Mayhem. Mass hysteria. In fact, by the time you read this, the following dialogue may already have taken place:
Toby: Tanner got into a fight because of it.
Buttermaker: Who with?
Engleberg: The seventh grade.
Buttermaker: What?
Engleberg: THE SEVENTH GRADE.
Have we ever seen anything like this?
Yes. We have.
Peter Golenbock, bestselling author, was there to see it. Luckily, he's also here. Yesterday Golenbock addressed a rapt crowd at Iolani School as part of its "Literature of Sport" lecture series. The crowd was rapt mostly because he was the warmup guy for local (and national) broadcast legend Les Keiter. But Golenbock, who has written books about the Cubs, the Red Sox, the Brooklyn Dodgers, Billy Martin and, most famously, the 1978 Yankees, was pretty good, too.
He wrote "The Bronx Zoo," about that crazy season that ended with one final game, when Bucky Dent famously broke the hearts of Red Sox fans everywhere.
Golenbock knows the feeling. His chance at having his book become the No. 1 New York Times bestseller was famously held off by "The Scarsdale Diet."
But which is remembered?
"All these years later," he said, "they still call the Yankees 'the Bronx Zoo,' which I am very proud of."
Rocket, Boomer and fightin' Zim?
The more things change, the more they're not quite as crazy as they used to be.
Try Reggie Jackson, George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin.
"Those were three less-than-sane individuals," Golenbock said.
"This was a match made in hell."
And Golenbock was there.
"Billy, George and Reggie just FOUGHT," he said.
And yet, in some strange way, it worked.
And in an even stranger way, Golenbock remains a Yankees fan.
Yesterday, he predicted a New York win.
Today, instead, there's one game for all the marbles. Crazy. What was once old is new again.
>> Anybody who blames that Cubs fan for the Cubs' loss is insane. Yesterday Golenbock was asked about curses. Yes, he said. The Red Sox and the Cubs had been cursed with bad ownership for decades.
Now the fan himself might have a better argument. He's cursed.
>> How relieved are the five other guys who went for that foul ball and missed?
>> After six games I still don't have this Hawaii football team figured out. It doesn't help that they're playing another schizophrenic outfit, Louisiana Tech.
>> A week ago the season was over. Now the most pressing concern is finding a nickname for West Keliikipi.
>> Note to self: Get to a Wahine soccer game. Watch Natasha Kai.
>> Dear e-mailers: Jan Stephenson was stupid. Almost as dumb as the guy who wrote a column a month ago saying she knows how to handle publicity.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com
