New York Voices; 323; Big Shots and Bad Guys

A New York Voices is made possible by the members of 13 additional funding provided by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and the Norman and Rosita Winston foundation. Additional funding for big shots and bad guys has been provided by Long Island University 80 II American telecommunications incorporated. The New York Lottery PC Richard and sun and Con Edison. New York. New York Voices special edition. Of Sports History is full of heroes and villains big shots and bad guys. But something about the New York fans the size of a city the press as a

team makes our heroes and of villains bigger than life on the greatest good guys at all of the baddest bad guys in New York would agree. This city is the best place to win and the worst place to live. With the help of New York's hometown newspaper The Daily News and some top sports personalities here are the stories of this town's most celebrated sports heroes and villains. Sit back and enjoy the game. Do you have voices and the Daily News presents big shots and bad guy. Will this regained hero status tonight he earned his championship ring. It's easy to love a winner but the fans love the big shots even if he

never comes up with that championship season. You talk about main characters in The New York sports world over the past 15 20 years. Patrick Ewing is up there. I think his career is the most dissected of any of the marquee athletes. Patrick in 1985 was the beneficiary. And New York was chosen as the number one pick in the lottery. I mean people were ecstatic. I mean it would be a championship coming from this. So many great players to play in the city but it's more because you want to Cup in 1994 it's because he's won four championships. It's Lawrence Taylor because he won you know two Super Bowls It's not magic. And it's unfortunate because Patrick Ewing was a great player for a lot of years.

Long long. As if he lost and he played great and he was the great warrior in all the playoff defeats you know I think the fans to be OK with him. But there's too many times in Ewing's post-season career where he had a bad moment missing a couple free throws a lot as you won Game 7 94 so that creeps in today thinking that makes him in my eyes Mike is a little little more lenient than I am probably one Ewing I will have a lot of maybe but that makes Ewing almost very very good instead of great Ewing is never going to be regarded in that pantheon because they're way into the room. The key is a championship. And if you don't give New York that championship that moment you will never get in that special little suite where they keep those special people.

Patrick Ewing is. I really feel for the fellow I just don't have the ring and he's try he tried so hard and he was the big man on the Knicks. He carried that team. He was such an awesome person. The picture like this is down caught it with the long lines and I just didn't see it happen all that often with Patrick a reverse stock. He went up to that basket and then just turned around it over his head reversed and the roar in that mouth wide open I said wow that's a picture that's a great great picture. And he's you know you feel for the guy. You really feel for the guy but he's so intense. But he never got the ring. He's my favorite player. Other than the guys I played with I thought he was never given. Proper. Credit for much he accomplished with a team. You say well the only thing he didn't accomplish was a championship. Well you know that's the one thing that Patrick couldn't do by

himself. I mean if you put him on the same team that I played on would collide in the bush you're in a role. Dick Barnett those guys. If it were water Jim anybody with half a brain knows that the man carried the team for 15 years. Yes his disappointment had Patrick been more of a communicator with the public during those years there would have been a more of an arms around him approach by the public. But he didn't give that out and he didn't get it back. I think people judge Patrick Ewing on his public persona. He was not grumpy. He was shy. He didn't sign autographs maybe he didn't. A lot of people don't sign autographs. I always wonder when we got to the point where everybody has to be a song and dance man. I think however all fans saw was that Patrick Ewing was the star. You missed that free throw to the end of the game you missed that half dunk whatever that was against Indiana. We lost the game. I think that's all anybody sees. I. Travel. You. Go. Your

way. Thank you. Now once he retired of course there was such adulation and love when he returned to the bar. More recently one night at the garden and rightfully so the theory that a man is not judged by whether he wanted a championship or not was put out there more and more and I agree with that. The beauty part of it is if you're saying your 20s or your 30s and you've not seen a championship in your lifetime you can recall Game 6 and Game 7 of that year as it was yesterday and talk about it with the emotion that you probably had that night or the next day. And to me that's one of the real beauties. Q OK I want to believe don't we. For every Caesar that the Knicks came up short the fans learned to hate the opposing players is just no

way. It is not easy to gauge true villan status in New York but as GOING TO DIE HARD Knicks fan who is at the top of the most despised list and they'll tell you that the man they love to hate Reggie Miller. That's because he beat the Knicks again and again and he never shut up about it write your letter and Nicoletta. I just don't like the guy. Anybody they put in that man you know I don't know if I'd be so hot here and it will all be one thing and all of them I'll be right back. It's come as a sprint right. Do you. Still suffer. Spike Lee could shoot better than right E.M.. Reggie Miller pulled ahead. He's good he did up the Nets last year I hate it when he starts from way out here coming through for want to be out of here.

That's enough for him to. Be a villain. You have to be very good. That's why Reggie Miller is a villain because he's that good because he came in here and made a big jump shot after a big jump shot with the game on the line with the ability to make shots that you didn't think anyone else out there on the floor could make. If he wasn't that good. If he didn't step up if he didn't get it done in the spot like that is Madison Square Garden then he wouldn't be a villain. The Hood. Would see hill is just it. Just a. Very aggressive warning with. A lot of spirit. I kind of like. The reason people become comical villains or bad guys. Is because of their personality. Reggie Miller is one of those guys who walks in the room and the star comes with him. He loves the challenge of getting back away from

somebody and hitting a really Larry Bird. Thing. But Reggie has that smile and he just relishes it so much that he makes you crazy. There's a new killer right there. If there ever was one. Reggie Miller. This was the 1998 Eastern Conference semifinals and Reggie had three three pointers in eight seconds and killed when their kicks that Spike Lee right under him. And Spike is over used to he's frozen. It's like can't believe it. I sit right under the basket and as it happens this one was right in front of me and I remember the paces getting to getting the ball to him each time and I can I can still remember him just backing up to make sure he was

beyond the three point line and soon as he was behind the three right on that she's gotten just one quiet. Strength. While. He makes a big shot and then turns around and talks to Spike Lee. If he were your guy you think Boy is that the greatest thing I've ever seen. But because he's a pacer that rotten so and so. But if he were a knickerbocker boy he would be bigger than anybody he would be Haagen Dazs ice cream. Some people should take pride in being a villain because nobody ever talks about a 238 or or a guy who scores eight points a game. You're never going to say oh you know who's my most hated player. It's a guy who averages two point two yards per carry in the National Football League. You're not good enough you're never going to get villain status. Reggie Miller is a villain because

he's one of the best clutch shooters in the history of the NBA. During the 1990s Atlanta Braves relief pitcher John Rocker consistently beat the Mets what a nasty fastball and a nasty attitude to match. But it was his nasty comments about our city and the people who live here that transformed him from a rival pitcher to a bonafide New York villain. We live. Right. He hates New Yorkers and. New York. You make things so you know you say things about him but it's you don't know New York or something. Do you also understand the ruling there in two weeks. But I would never go down south and make that statement about down there. You have to learn

what to say when to say it. To go out and publicly put those people down. That's not the right thing to do. Because when you make that kind of money you gotta learn to subdue your passions. And shut your mouth. John Rocker was the closest thing we have had to what Absa lied bonafide villain in sports in this town in the last 10 years or so at least. And we don't think John Rocker that your being a member of the Atlanta Braves gives you license to not only espoused these views that date from the 14th century but also that cast aspersions upon New Yorkers. This slice that you take. What do you know living in this little town in Georgia which is straight out of Deliverance. And I think that's what people really really found offensive here. How about John you want to dislike a player because he always does well against you or maybe he sounds off a little bit when he does do well against you as an

expansive feel about Reggie Miller. That's one thing on the board. It's all on the field of play. John Rocker said something which was terrible and the implication was that New York is a place of so many ethnicities and races and religions and colors that that that's you made fun of that. And he took issue with that. Sorry. That's that's who we are. It's kind of like your little brother. I can make fun of the city. I can make fun of the hookers over on 12th Avenue. I can whine about the squeegee guys or the homeless or whatever. But you're an out of town are you don't tell me about what riding the subway is all about you don't tell me about the melting pot that is New York and how you can't stand it. I'm allowed to push my little brother around. No pal. You're from out of town. You don't say anything about my town. Oh. When you boil it down. We don't want to know about their politics. We don't want to know about

anything else about them their or their sexual preference their politics there were list I don't think we care about. I think we want to go to the ballpark and watch them play. If you listen to sports radio you think it's the only thing everybody else is thinking about. Go to Canal Street and talk to some Chinese shopkeeper and say What do you think of John Rocker. You know he wouldn't know how to answer that because I'm not that thin skinned that they're going to let some wacky relief pitcher get them irritated. During the early 1980s. The New York Islanders get away with one straight Stanley Cups and the Rangers. Luckily in hockey one of the few advantages of having an arch enemy is that when things go wrong you know he's had somebody else to blame in the case of Leo Carl of the defenseman Dennis Potter been approved. I want to come to the Villains have a very long memory and.

Saddam's son. Is a scumbag. I suspect you saw him from the 70s early 80s only. A single time out of 30 teams on the Rangers broke a side road race. These are the worst of the worst Rice he's ever will be. Synopsis for Ford in our boys 140 ever so I could see that her personality sucks just a. Little sick and tired of our tradition going to live forever or something. I'm afraid to go to the ranger games because they're terrified. You know what I think the only thing more terrifying is a British soccer game

but the other problem I have with Ranger fans I'm talking about hardcore Granger is they only know one one verb and the verb is. You know every now and ends up with the words there's no other verb anywhere. There's no maybe perhaps if no use of the conditional of this is it's only sucks. It was second to none. A great defenseman. Hall of Fame defenseman and the rangers at that point were in their Stanley Cup drought in the late 60s and early 70s they had a good scene with Roger Baer Brad Park John rotel and came close and then they lost to the Islanders the upstart islanders who were an expansion team from the early 70s. They lost in 1075 then the islanders became a great scene by the late 70s. The Ranger fans hated Potvin more than anybody in the league any other opponent. And of course what crystallized this

was this body check that he threw an oath Nilson who was one of the three best Ranger forwards and it elevated Potvin to the absolute top of the hate list for Rangers fans I mean like there was nobody even second to third. He had the mortgage on and being hated and so the Rangers fans took their pent up frustration from I believe all the years of not winning a Stanley Cup. Seeing the islanders win Stanley Cup after Stanley Cup in those years and took it out on Denis Potvin stemming from that check raised fans were always the most creative in terms of insulting the opposition and they started in with Potvin sucks. I was the major chant. Bad. Bad bad. Bad bad bad bad. Bad. Then we met on the phone. It's funny you go to the garden in the rain just to be up 6 1. But they could be down 6 to 1 and

the fans could be totally in the game. What's wholly out of the game when you hear the whistle start and it's time to jump in with convent socks. Everybody's ready to go. You walk out of the garden. The game is over yet in towards the subway and there is that guy out there with a trumpet who's still playing the same exact chant and while at the very one tip when you know it's a little chant It's an amazing amazing thing is that or is it a statement about New York fans. No it's a statement only about New York Ranger fans and some are tied together and some aren't. When they're playing the Chicago Blackhawks and the Rangers are playing bad hockey and the whistle start and the pot fans suck chant goes up what does that have to do with your hockey team playing a bad game against a different team. That means you're just bored that means you just got nothing better to do. I mean you're being obnoxious. X. X. City is the worst place to lose and also one teams in the players are analyzed and criticized over and over again

but the person who finally delivers the championship home long suffering city has no higher level of battery for me in this town. Mess is my biggest sports hero. Other than maybe joy NEMETH I can't give one individual more credit for a championship than I can to Mark Messier and that's not to say that they have a great team but there was there when Brian Leetch and Adam Graves had a monster you know. But in terms of individuals give him credit for championships. Nobody bigger or better than number 11. There is a presence about Nash. And he was tough and he was mean. Essentially a latter day Gordie Howe. He actually translated this most vividly in 1994 playoffs the Devils were leading three games to two. Now the day of the game

had been interview. About the Rangers prospects being down 3 to 2 and he guaranteed a victory. He said this is going to happen. We're going to go out and beat a team that we're losing to. And then he went out himself and made it happen on the ice and beaten the devils in the Eastern Conference Finals. As much as they they defeated Vancouver in the finals to win the Stanley Cup winning that game seemed to make it preordained because of what Miss years the guarantee and then the guy delivers not one goal not two goals but he delivers a hat trick. I mean come on. That's the stuff that legends are made of. That's the kind of stuff that a father tells his son and his son turns around and tells his son years later and a hundred years from now Mark Messier will still be on the lips of New York fans who are New York Ranger fans. It wasn't just the

championship. It was the fact that it took for ever for him to show up and the way they went about doing it. And Messi had been the catalyst that he was. Do you have sports heroes have changed over the years. And so of the fans. With big money big media and so many athletes not wanting to be role models is distill something left to root for. I think the fans today love their teams as much as they did 40 50 years ago. But I think they also know what the real deal is. You know this even goes back to what Charles Barkley said a couple years ago during the commercial. I'm not a role model. I'm a good basketball player if you want to watch me play ball that's great. I'm not a role model I think fans are becoming more and more aware of that now. You can be a hero every game is on television you can reach everybody you're a hero quickly. But being a role model and being someone people can look up to is actually harder because now the embarrassment of riches the hangers on the

temptations are as great as the avenue is to become great. So it's a very hard thing it's easier to be a hero a lot harder be a role model. And you hope that the great athlete can be both. I think you always can be a role model. You will be a positive a negative role model whether you like it or not. And so I think the one thing you want to do as an individual I don't keer whether it's in sports. And you always want to live a good life you want your mother and your father and your sisters and brothers and all your family be proud of you. The kids today want to have heroes. The difference is that today. It's hard to like these guys because of. The greed. It's not as easy as it was for us. Sports has taken away a lot of the joy of sports. To kids a lot of them a lot of the innocence has no innocence.

And after all. Children are innocent. They just like to see that home run. Like. See. Great catch by Jeter. You know that's what. Why do I want my daughter to be a fan of professional. What the answer is yes I surely do because I love it and it's something new we can share and I think there are still very good aspects to professional sports. Where it's lost something the beauty of it is. That's no longer there. I don't know that I'd want to watch it by yourself. The trash talk and the fighting the interaction with the fans. She might not get the right idea as to what sports is supposed to be about. Whether it'll turn into the same kind of amazing loyalty. And. Motion. That accompanies it if the World War 2. I have no idea. I think it'll be up to the kids of those. Fans to tell us. You

know they'll write their first pieces it's like I was in high school with us and. Let us know why the fathers of thanking fans who let's face it we don't know you had to know all. Until they speak. You can't know what the true emotion is underneath it. But I hope they have as much fun as we do. I hope they have something with some more important than the individual self to be able to cheer for. Us.

New York Voices is made possible by the members of 13 additional funding provided by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and the Norman and Rosita Winston foundation. Additional funding for big shots and bad guys has been provided by Long Island University 80 II American telecommunications incorporated. The New York Lottery PC Richard and sun and Con Edison.