MEMORY GAMES

As schoolyard space gives way to construction projects at sites such as P.S. 113 in Glendale, the kind of ballplaying that requires a large area becomes a thing of the past. Pictured above are members of the 1990s "Wall Ball Crew" in the P.S. 113 schoolyard. (photo courtesy of Bob Koch) Considering the popularity of this newspaper's longtime feature, "Our Neighborhood the Way It Was," it seems like a no-brainer to give some space to readers of the sports section who have stories of their own to share.

Starting this week, we'll try to spark the memories of local athletes, coaches and fans.

All are invited to remember and write about it.

Maybe the story worth telling has to do with a C.Y.O. or adult softball team that won a championship— or finished last.

What's important are the people— teammates and coaches—and where the games were played.

Cheerleaders are welcome, too. For those who practiced long and hard to lead the cheers, there must be something that was particularly memorable.

Similarly, folks who have made the calls as umpires or referees are invited to share.

What kind of ball and what level of competition doesn't matter. It's all good, provided there's a local link.

Maybe a favorite sports memory doesn't involve a ball at all. Hockey players should feel free to take a spin here.

Looking back, one might have a story about a league breakfast or dinner. Maybe it involved a guest appearance by a pro athlete.

Spectators can share their memories about a particular event at a local sports venue—one that exists today or, like Dexter Park, Ridgewood Grove and Sunnyside Garden—is nothing but a memory now.

Of course, the setting for a good sports remembrance may have been a lot less formal than a ballpark or arena. For some, the best summer games took place on neighborhood streets, where stickball was the local pastime, if not the national one.

Over the years, readers have submitted stories to this newspaper about their memories of stickball games and seen them published as part of the "Our Neighborhood" column.

According to some, a local schoolyard was their field of dreams, before the size of the open area diminished .due to additional school construction on the site.

Among such schoolyards were P.S. 81 in Ridgewood and P.S. 113 in Glendale. Memories of both resulted in letters that made for some entertaing reading in the "Our Neighborhood" column.

Now this space will serve as the place for schoolyard stories.

P.S. 102 was his home turf

Recently, we heard from reader Mike Bellotti, who grew up in Elmhurst. He has great memories of playing ball in the schoolyard of P.S. 102 on Van Horn Street, starting as a boy in the late 1950s and continuing into the 1970s, when he was part of an adult group that met for touch football games every Sunday during the fall and winter months. At that time, the P.S. 102 schoolyard was so vast that there was a large, uncemented portion with grass and trees beyond the concrete area.

"In the fall, there would be so many leaves in the back, that the custodian or someone else would sweep them into a number of really huge piles," Mike recalls. "As kids, we would dive into the piles or use them to make forts."

But when he thinks of the P.S. 102 schoolyard, it brings a particular sport—and a later period in his life—to mind.

"During football season, we used to play from ten in the morning until noon," Mike states, in recalling those Sunday mornings in the schoolyard during the 1970s.

When the Jets played at Shea

In particular, he remembers his group's Sunday ritual when the Jets would be playing a home game at Shea Stadium.

Mike acknowledges that it's become trendy in recent years to bash the stadium where the Jets played from 1964 to 1983. Listening to radio's sports talk shows nowadays, one would think that there was nothing good about the old place—especially since Citi Field has opened as the new home of the Mets. All too often, the word regarded as a synonym for Shea is "dump."

But it's a key part of Mike's favorite memory regarding "Football Sunday at P.S. 102."

"We would finish our game at noon, then all of us would run down to the subway station on Queens Boulevard. We would get on the local train there and take it to Roosevelt Avenue, to connect with the Number Seven, which took us to Shea Stadium.

"We did this every Sunday that the Jets had a home game. We would get standing-room-only admission—it was a five-dollar ticket.

Cheers for Broadway Joe

"The bunch of us would stand behind one of the goal posts—we would be at the closed end of the stadium—and root like crazy for Joe Namath and the Jets.

"Let's face it, the Jets weren't very good in the seventies, but they were our team. After they beat the Baltimore Colts in the Super Bowl, which led to the merger of the AFL and the NFL, it was years before they qualified again for the playoffs. But so long as Namath was in there at quarterback, you always had hope and the potential for something that would be exciting—and memorable.

"I remember 1970 and the game at Shea where the Jets were playing against Johnny Unitas and the Colts for the first time since winning the Super Bowl. Talk about revenge— Namath threw a bunch of interceptions and broke his wrist at the end. We didn't know it at that moment, but he was done for the year and so were the Jets. Before that happened, Namath hadn't missed a start because of an injury. To me, that October game was the beginning of a long, rough road for the Jets.

'Jet weather' and cold relief

"Met fans who complain about Shea Stadium will talk about the way it looked, but people who went there for football in December were too cold to care about aesthetics," Mike figures. "We called it 'Jet weather' for a reason.

And how cold was it?

"It was so cold," Mike states, "that one time we were out there and one of the guys, Frank Faraone, was feeling it worse than the rest of us because he was wearing sneakers with holes in them. He was actually freezing, watching the game.

"Suddenly, Frank got a brainstorm for some relief. He went and bought a cup of hot chocolate, which made sense. But instead of drinking it, as we stood and watched in disbelief, he poured it on his feet!

"I don't know how long it kept him warm, but after a while, he had little brown icicles hanging off his white socks.

"If the Jets won, it never seemed quite as bitter cold as when they lost. Afterwards, we would take the subway back home to Elmhurst, where, no matter how the game had turned out, I knew that I could count on a way to get warm which was better than hot chocolate. At my parents' house on 54th Avenue, my mother, without fail, would have spaghetti and meatballs waiting for me.

"On Sunday night, some of us would meet up again for a weekly card game at the home of one of the other guys, Dom Nardo, who lived on 55th Avenue at Haspel Street. Of course, that meant more Italian food and plenty of football talk (WFAN was at least 10 years away).

"Those were some of the best times in my life—and it all began in the morning with football and friends in the P.S. 102 schoolyard, which is gone now, because they needed the space for school contruction," Mike reflects. "Sorry to say, it's an experience that today's kids in the neighborhood won't get the chance to know. We had so much fun there.

"In retrospect, those Sundays were heaven."

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There Used to Be a Ballpark Here: On the border of Brooklyn and Queens, Wallace's Ridgewood Baseball Grounds sat between Irving Avenue and what is now the Long Island Rail Road, originally from Hancock to Halsey streets; and later from from Halsey to Covert streets.

If the name doesn't ring a bell, it's probably because the farmlandturned athletic field dates back to 1885 and burned down in 1917.

The enfenced field with its wooden grandstand was named for its operator, a Williamsburgh resident named William Wallace. He organized a semi-pro baseball team called the Ridgewoods, who played there. Admission was 25 cents.

The semi-pro Bushwicks played at Wallace's Ridgewood Baseball Grounds before moving to Dexter Park in Woodhaven.

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To share a local sports-related recollection, send letters to Memory Games, c/o Times Newsweekly, P.O. Box 860299, Ridgewood, N.Y. 11386-0299, or via e-mail at b.mitchell@timesnewseeekly.com.