From There to Eternity

(Originally published 9/8/20)

This past week, three people who played varying roles in my life passed away: Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, and Kevin Dobson. In a Bronx neighborhood chock-full of Yankee fans, I was a rare bird: a Met fan, nicknamed “Mr. Met.” And with that passionate devotion and youthful enthusiasm for my team came a hero worship of the biggest star of them all—George Thomas Seaver—who threw a baseball both exceptionally fast and incredibly smart. He was, too, a man who conducted himself with class and professionalism on and off the field.

As a boy in the early- and mid-1970s, I watched many Met games on the family’s black-and-white TV set and listened to others on my very own state-of-the-art radio with a super-cool circular tuning dial. It was a First Holy Communion gift from my godmother. I desperately wanted a radio in the spring of 1970 to listen to games—and for no other reason than that. There were a lot of close contests—nail biters, as it were—in those days. For my beloved Mets had a stellar pitching staff anchored by Seaver, a.k.a. “Tom Terrific,” and a not-especially productive offense. In other words, there was more than a fair share of two-to-one and one-to-nothing losses to suffer through. In Mrs. Bertolini’s fourth-grade Language Arts class, I authored an essay about my hero in which I noted: “Tom Seaver throughs with his right hand.” Close enough.

While Bob Murphy, Lindsey Nelson, and Ralph Kiner painted the baseball word picture so eloquently and free of over-analysis and gratuitous criticism, joy or heartbreak came my way day after day after day. Those win-loss highs and lows were kicked up a notch when Tom Seaver took the mound. A friend—and fellow rare bird from the neighborhood named Mike—and I fretted over our hero’s Earned Run Average (ERA) when he gave up three or four runs, which, happily, was not very often. Yes, Tom Seaver supplied us with a string of summers to remember and remember fondly.

Lou Brock, meanwhile, was one of those opposing team stars—and future Hall of Famers—that the Mets played against back in the day when baseball truly was the American pastime. He was simultaneously speedy and classy in an age when athletes were not cosseted prima donnas, mega-millionaires, and grandstanders. It was a better time to be a fan of a game steeped in tradition and lore. Nowadays, they are playing seven-inning games during double-headers and putting an automatic man on second base in extra-inning games. Lou Brock would have gotten there the old-fashioned way—singled and stole second. And just how long would that have taken?

Lastly, actor Kevin Dobson died a couple of days ago. He will always be Bobby Crocker to me, Lieutenant Kojak’s loyal, resolute, and tenacious right-hand man. Kojak was my favorite detective show in the days when I hung on every one of Tom Seaver’s pitches. Dobson was born and raised in Jackson Heights, Queens and worked as a motorman and conductor—among other things—for the Long Island Railroad before becoming an actor. His New York roots go a long way in explaining why he came across as the genuine article in his role as a young NYPD detective. It is worth noting that the police in the city were on the hot seat then due to rampant corruption and misconduct. Frank Serpico was a household name. Nevertheless, Theo Kojak emphasized the importance of the badge and what it ideally represented—maintaining order and keeping the peace. He once chastised an aggressive private detective and contemporary bounty hunter named Salathiel Harms—as played by Rosie Greer—for crossing the line. “You’re one, big angry man,” Kojak said. “But I got a badge in my pocket that’s bigger than both of us. Respect it!” R.I.P. Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, and Kevin Dobson. So much was lost this week.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Kojak Revisited

(Originally published 6/6/17)

When Kojak starring Telly Savalas debuted on October 24, 1973, I was a sixth grader at St. John’s grammar school in the Bronx. Pleading nolo contendere to charges of having accepted bribes while governor of Maryland, Vice President Spiro Agnew had resigned exactly two weeks earlier. President Richard Nixon’s infamous “Saturday Night Massacre” had occurred several days before. And a whole lot was happening in New York City, too, with Mayor John Lindsay in the final two months of his second term as mayor of the city that Theofilides “Theo” Kojak valiantly endeavored to keep safe.

In the broader historical picture, the 1970s were not especially good years for the Big Apple. A fiscal crisis and layoffs of city employees, including cops, left the metropolis dirtier and less safe than it had ever been. Nonetheless, my favorite decade is the colorfully groovy 1970s. And it is not because of the increases in crime and grime. Where I grew up, Kingsbridge, there was a fair share of both, but it was still a great neighborhood to be a kid. The old-fashioned urban childhood still existed then, but its days were numbered. Simply understood, we spent an awful lot of time in the great outdoors back then—winter, spring, summer, and fall—and thankfully were not preoccupied with technological devices that had not been invented.

Along with The Rockford Files, Kojak is my all-time favorite TV detective show. On the boxes of the recently released Kojak DVD sets I just purchased, the character is referred to as “Bald, bold, and badass.” That is a contemporary hipster’s description of Lieutenant Kojak, who was wont to say to a bad guy, “Cootchie-cootchie-coo,” while not-so-gently yanking on his cheek. He was the epitome of cool in his Bailey Gentry fedora, spiffy three-piece suits, and stylish sunglasses.

I liked Kojak for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was its New York ambiance. McCloud just did not do it for me! It did not matter that the episodes were largely filmed in Los Angeles and at Universal Studios. Kojak and company visited The Twilight Zone street, as I call it, too many times to count. You know the location: the bars are named just “bars” and the jewelry stores, “jewelry stores.” I was not even bothered that the stock shots of Kojak driving around Manhattan frequently did not jibe with where he was actually going in the scripts. I remember him heading north on the West Side Highway to visit Brooklyn.

So, does Kojak hold up for me more than forty years later? In my opinion, Telly Savalas punctuating his sentences with his Tootsie Roll Pop is timeless. Flipping an organized crime boss out of his chair never gets old. The Hollywood streets and edifices can be a bit off putting, I know. Floodlights in the windows of building exteriors do not exactly enhance nighttime realism. And location shots filmed in Los Angeles that attempt to pass for Manhattan never work. Fortunately, the middle seasons of Kojak—which represent the best of the show—filmed much more in New York itself.

In fact, season three’s two-hour debut episode, “A Question of Answers,” is filmed entirely in New York and features guest stars Eli Wallach, F. Murray Abraham, Jerry Orbach, Jennifer Warren, and Michael V. Gazzo, who plays a hooligan loan shark. The year prior, Gazzo won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Frankie Pentangeli in The Godfather: Part II. In the Kojak episode, there is a scene of Savalas and Gazzo in a parking lot just north of the Twin Towers along the Hudson River. That is what that area was like in 1975. Run down and atmospheric with parking lots—in some instances—on property now gentrified beyond recognition. A footnote on the season three opener is that Telly Savalas’s brother, George Savalas, who played Detective Stavros, is finally credited with his full name, instead of “Demosthenes,” his middle name, which was used in the first two seasons’ credits.

Theo Kojak could do no wrong then and now, with one exception that I have gleaned in watching the old shows. So far, I have seen him toss his lollipop wrapper off a building rooftop, throw its stick on the sidewalk, and fling an unlit cigarette of Eli Wallach’s into the Hudson River. Exiting his car, he has also placed his empty coffee cup atop a fire hydrant. It was the dirty 1970s after all.

One final word on Kojak’s legacy: The coolest cop is part of the Urban Dictionary. “To drive straight into a parking space, improbably available right outside the place you were headed,” which Kojak consistently did at crime scenes, midtown hotels, busy courthouses and apartment buildings, is thusly named. You have “kojaked” if you are so fortunate in your travels to land such a prime parking spot.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)