Fred From Fresh Meadows: Excerpts from a new Knicks memoir
Introducing Fred From Fresh Meadows: A Knicks Memoir, The Strickland Press’ first foray into books that will give 100% of all royalties to the John Starks Foundation, dedicated to giving financial assistance to college-bound high schoolers in need.
We’re doing books now? Yup, we’re doing books now!
I’m very happy to announce The Strickland’s (more specifically, The Strickland Press — how fancy!) partnership with Fred Cantor, AKA “Fred From Fresh Meadows” on his new book of the same name — Fred From Fresh Meadows: A Knicks Memoir.
In the book, Fred recounts his many experiences growing up a Knicks fan in the 1960s and ’70s, all the way up to present day, including a number of first-hand interactions with Knicks of old (and a particularly interesting case where he brought a lawsuit against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar).
Below is the press release for the book, and an excerpt to hopefully draw you in. The book is a really fun read for anyone curious about what it was like to grow up and have experiences when the Knicks were actually good (and kind of accessible! What a concept!).
Fred From Fresh Meadows is available through Amazon in paperback for the low price of $15, and would make a perfect stocking stuffer, Hanukkah gift, or, honestly, just a gift for oneself this time of year! It should also be (very importantly) noted that all author royalties from Fred From Fresh Meadows will be going to the John Starks Foundation, which gives financial assistance to students in need in the tristate area who “demonstrate academic excellence, financial need and a commitment to community service.” Neither Fred nor The Strickland will make a dime off of this book — all of the generated money will go towards helping teenagers in our area achieve their dreams in pursuit of a college education.
OK, so without further ado, here’s that press release, and an excerpt from Fred’s new book:
NEW KNICKS MEMOIR FROM THE STRICKLAND PRESS; 100% OF THE AUTHOR’S ROYALTIES GOING TO THE JOHN STARKS FOUNDATION
The Strickland Press is releasing its first book, FRED FROM FRESH MEADOWS: A Knicks Memoir, by Fred Cantor, who New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick once called a “guardian angel... who fights the good fight.”
The Strickland is a new website about the New York Knicks. Its editors, writers, and podcasters have previously written and/or done podcasts for Sports Illustrated, Posting and Toasting, Knicks Film School, and Locked On Knicks, among others.
Meet FRED FROM FRESH MEADOWS.
As a kid, Fred was at Madison Square Garden for the “Here Comes Willis!” game — that is, the one where Willis Reed got stuck in traffic and didn’t show up ’til the second quarter. In high school, he stayed up late the night before the SATs because of a big Knicks game on the West Coast; in law school, he chose where to live on the basis of which neighborhood had a cable TV package with Knicks telecasts; and, as a (in theory) mature adult, settled on an apartment in Manhattan based, in part, on proximity to Madison Square Garden.
Along the way, Fred might have inadvertently caused Jerry Lucas to have one of the worst shooting nights of his playoff career, had the great pleasure of driving with Earl Monroe to a business meeting, sued Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to get revenge for Knicks fans, and was thanked by Tyson Chandler on Twitter for a song he co-wrote: “The Minister of D.“ (Actually, the part about the lawsuit is only half-true, although he did bring a fascinating legal action against Kareem.)
In short, Fred is representative of your ordinary irrational Knicks fan who has lived a truly unordinary Knicks fan life — and FRED FROM FRESH MEADOWS: A Knicks Memoir is his (hopefully colorful) story covering six decades.
Fred Cantor is a retired attorney who has also worked on a variety of creative projects that have been the subject of articles in the New York Daily News, the Boston Herald, and the Hartford Courant among other media outlets. He most recently co-created the award-winning film, “The High School That Rocked!,” which was the only documentary short invited to screen at the 2018 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Film Series. Fred still has Art Heyman’s autograph.
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Below are excerpts from the opening of the book. We will publish additional excerpts in the near future. And here’s how to buy the book, which is available through Amazon.
We think it would make a great holiday gift for any Knicks fan. And, remember, in making this holiday purchase, you will be helping out a good cause: the John Starks Foundation, whose mission is to provide “monetary grants to NY tri-state and Tulsa area college bound high school seniors who demonstrate academic excellence, financial need and a commitment to community service.”
Two excerpts from Fred From Fresh Meadows:
TRULY LINSANE
It’s February 2012. I was 58 years old with major health issues that forced me to stop working as an attorney more than two years before that—and it seemed I had a new health problem to deal with. I had just been wheeled up on a hospital gurney from the Emergency Room to the Cardio section at Mt. Sinai Hospital to have an angiogram. Earlier in the day, my cardiologist told me she feared I had major blockage and was in danger of a heart attack.
So here I was with a TV on an adjacent shelf and a remote control on the nightstand right next to me.
It was smack in the middle of Linsanity and naturally I knew the Knicks were playing that night. No one told me I couldn’t watch TV while awaiting my procedure. Of course I know my heart rate and blood pressure get elevated when I watch the Knicks. So was I putting myself in danger by tuning into the game? On the other hand, Linsanity had been the most exciting thing to happen to the Knicks in years. How could I miss this?
A part of me was thinking: if something should go awry while I am watching, what better place to be in, right? I would have doctors and other trained staff dealing with my situation in a heartbeat, so-to-speak. I briefly weighed the pros and cons and, if you’re a longtime Knicks fan, you already know what I decided.
Thankfully, the Knicks had a very comfortable lead when I turned on the game. There was relatively little stress. And Jeremy Lin continued his superb play—he finished with 17 points and 9 assists—a good omen perhaps as I was finally being wheeled into the room where the doctors would perform the procedure.
My cardiologist turned out to be right though as the doctors ended up finding major blockage and inserting a stent. She might very well have saved me from a serious cardiac event. So, I guess you could say that, for me as a Knicks fan, it was ultimately a very good night in more than one respect.
Being a Knicks fan though has meant having more than your share of not-so-good-nights. I fully acknowledge that. My story is about both the ups and downs of being a Knicks fan going back to the 1960s, as well as the ways big and small that the Knicks have influenced my life (and some of my admittedly less-than-rational decisions made along the way).
Do I regret having spent virtually my entire life in the New York City area and thus having the Knicks as my local team? Absolutely not. Although, to be perfectly candid, I wouldn’t have been that upset if I had been born in LA around 1970. The Showtime Lakers coupled with paradise-like weather and surfing seemed like a pretty appealing combination.
In the late 1980s, my wife and I actually cut short by one day a vacation in Laguna Beach and headed back to LA before returning to New York just so I could see the Showtime Lakers at the Forum. It was a great game and I was the beneficiary of the complete Forum experience, winding up with a seat near Hill Street Blues star and diehard Lakers fan Veronica Hamel.
But the Knicks remain the only NBA team I have suffered with and one that, at least some of the time, has generated amazing emotional highs that have not been replicated in other parts of my life. (I mean, where else in your life do you get to jump up and scream happily and excitedly over something?) Hopefully those highs will return to the Garden in the not-too-distant future.
FROM COOKIE TO DOLLAR BILL
I come from a sports family. My grandfather was on the ESPN series, SportsCentury. My dad caught a championship-winning touchdown pass at Ohio State. My brother Marc, who is four years older than I am, overlapped with Julius Erving at the University of Massachusetts, and their coach loved the way my brother played the game—in fact, Marc, along with Dr. J, was named to the All-Yankee Conference Team.*
That’s not a typo at the very end of the paragraph above. You know how you frequently see a tiny asterisk alongside a bunch of claims in an advertisement for a car lease or a credit card? Well, I worked in consumer protection law for many years and, as someone who firmly believes in full disclosure, I think it’s necessary to give you some background about my family so you can get a sense of my roots as a diehard Knicks fan.
And, unlike many of those car lease and credit card ads, I’m not going to bury the real story in small print. I’m going to give it to you straight—up front—right now.
My grandfather was indeed on ESPN’s SportsCentury. His picture flashed on the screen during a documentary about Rocky Graziano—which was still a very cool experience for me. I mean, how many people get to watch ESPN and then get to exclaim: “There’s Papa!” He was in the photo because he had some connection to Rocky—exactly what, my mom is not sure. And I never asked Papa or my dad while they were alive what that connection was. What I can tell you is this: my grandfather is depicted on the cover of the paperback edition of Graziano’s autobiography, Somebody Up There Likes Me; he arranged for my mom and dad to visit Rocky’s training camp—where Rocky and my dad posed for a photo “duking it out” over my mom (who was standing between them); and, last, but not least, my grandfather lost a bundle on the third Graziano-Zale fight. My mom still has vivid memories of a shoebox filled with cash that my grandfather lost that night on a bet.
My grandfather was a passionate sports fan who also went to lots of baseball games at both Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds way back in the day. That’s something else I neglected to ask him: how on earth did he go to so many games when they were only played during the daytime way back then? Didn’t he have a regular job to go to every day? All I can say for sure about that: when I was very young, Papa gave my brother and me an autographed baseball signed by a bunch of players on the 1932 New York Yankees including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bill Dickey, and Lefty Gomez. Baseball memorabilia was not a thriving market in the early 1960s so we didn’t give any thought to trying to preserve those autographs. In fact, Marc and I even tossed the ball around from time to time.
The final factoid you should probably know about my grandfather: his nickname was “Cookie.” Come on, admit it: how many of you have—or had—a grandfather with the nickname of “Cookie?” That’s got to be a rare thing, right? And doesn’t that sound like the nickname of a diehard sports fan?
My dad clearly got at least some of his passion for sports from his father. Back in the early 1960s, when the New York Giants were perennial NFL title contenders, my dad had season tickets at Yankee Stadium and he would take me to one game a year. With stars such as Charlie Conerly, Y.A. Tittle, Frank Gifford, Rosey Grier, Sam Huff, and Erich Barnes, I was always psyched to see the Giants play in person.
My dad played softball on a regular basis back then and one of my two earliest childhood friends, Steve, recently commented on Facebook in connection with a photo of my father: “I still can remember your dad showing me a huge bruise he got sliding into a base playing softball. I must have been about 10. It made such an impression on me that I can remember it (from) 58 years ago, but now I sometimes can’t remember why I’m standing in front of the refrigerator.” I remember that bruise as well; in reality, it was a giant, very painful-looking raspberry. And, at that time, my dad frequently played on asphalt softball fields in area schoolyard playgrounds so I wince at trying to picture how that slide took place.
Another close childhood friend, Big Al, remembers how, when I was in high school, we would have two TVs lined up side by side in our den—and occasionally even three!—so that my family could watch multiple games at once.
Incidentally, my mom was an avid sports fan too (even though she grew up at a time when girls really weren’t given much of an opportunity to play sports). As an adult, she was active in local bowling leagues into her 40s. And, if she had been an assistant coach under Pat Riley, I’m convinced Patrick Ewing would have won an NBA title. (More on that later.)
As for my dad’s championship touchdown reception at Ohio State: he was only 5’6”, so that TD was not on behalf of the varsity football team under legendary head coach Paul Brown. Instead, it was in a fraternity/intramural title game. I learned about this from one of my father’s frat brothers long after my dad’s death, so I never did hear anything first-hand from my dad about that moment of glory.
As for my brother Marc and Dr. J: they did indeed both make All-Yankee Conference and they absolutely played for the same coach in the same year—but they didn’t do it on the same team, or in the same sport for that matter. And, no, I have not lost my mind. Marc’s varsity soccer coach at UMass was also the freshman basketball coach at a time when freshmen were ineligible to play varsity sports; and this was during a time too when coaches at the college level were given the responsibility for coaching more than one sport. So, yes, Marc and Dr. J both had the same coach. And, thanks to Marc—and Coach Broaca—I heard about Julius Erving long before he became a household name.
I spent the first part of my childhood in Fresh Meadows, Queens, a planned community built in the latter part of the 1940s that was hailed by the renowned land-use expert Lewis Mumford as “perhaps the most positive and exhilarating example of large-scale community planning in this country.” It was a great place to grow up. Lots of green space to play in, all sorts of stores and amenities such as a movie theater and bowling alley within walking distance, and lots of kids in close proximity to do these activities with.
My family lived in a small two-bedroom, one-bath apartment and I shared a bedroom with my brother, an all-around athlete who seemed to excel in whatever sport he tried. But, while Marc seemingly had success at everything—I even remember when he bowled a game over 200 by the age of perhaps 11 or 12—my only success in a competitive event back then was when, as a 3rd-grader, I won the combined 3rd-4th grade spelling bee at PS 179. My final two words in the contest were “moccasin” and “typhoid” and, if I had been asked to spell Bill Monbouquette’s last name, I’m pretty sure I could have done that too. I was a spelling geek—what can I say?
As much as I loved playing and watching sports, my abilities seemed to be more in the classroom than on the athletic fields. And part of my success in that area seemed to be due to my parents having encouraged my reading and my interest in current events; as a result, I was reading The New York Times on a regular basis—at least the front page and sports section—by third grade.
And it was reading something very unusual in The New York Times sports section that remains my earliest memory associated with the New York Knicks—in contrast to a typical first memory for many fans from having gone to a game at Madison Square Garden itself. My earliest memory? Reading about Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game against the Knicks, who actually scored 147 points and still managed to lose by 22! How could any individual score 100 points in an NBA game? Sure, Roger Maris had hit 61 homers the previous fall. But 100 points in a game?! That seemed impossible.
Maybe this should have been a warning of what lay ahead in the next close-to-60 years. That and the fact that the Knicks were in what turned out to be a seven-year playoff drought, at a time when only one team in the Eastern Division was eliminated from playoff participation at the conclusion of the regular season.
It was this lack of success that probably triggered less-than-enthusiastic devotion to the team from many of the neighborhood kids, especially when Major League baseball and the National Football League were far more popular as professional spectator sports back then.
Notwithstanding the lack of success of the Knicks, I (and others) enjoyed playing basketball in the playground behind PS 179. While Fresh Meadows did indeed have a lot of nicely-planned features, the basketball courts looked like those anywhere else around New York City—with metal mesh backboards and rims with no nets. The barebones setting did not diminish our enjoyment in any way and kids would sometimes try to emulate a move they might have seen on TV.
But, as another sign that the Knicks were not exactly the fan favorite and gate attraction they would become in later years, I have a distinct memory of some kids trying to model their dribbling after a Queens product who became the best guard in the NBA—but with a pro team in another city (which shall remain nameless).
There was not any kind of organized basketball league for young kids in Fresh Meadows in the early 1960s. The only organized competition in traditional team sports was Little League baseball, which kids were eligible to participate in starting in second grade.
So I never received any real basketball coaching until the summer of 1962, when I turned nine years old and started going to Camp Rosemont, a sleep-away camp in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. One of the staff members was, believe it or not, the head varsity basketball coach at Brooklyn College (Al Kaplan). And Al had played varsity basketball himself at Brooklyn College. So he was someone who was not only knowledgeable, but could readily demonstrate skills. Al was a lovely guy who was amenable to working with kids of all ages and abilities. I clearly improved my game during summers at Rosemont thanks to Al.
My game relative to that of my peers seemed to move up a notch for another reason as well: in the spring of 1963, when I was in 4th grade, my family moved from Fresh Meadows to Westport, Connecticut. Youth basketball was just not as popular as other sports in Westport at that point in time so, suddenly, I was scoring in double figures in Saturday morning recreation league games and there was at least one game where I scored more points than the entire opposing team. My scoring prowess had nothing to do with a height advantage; I was actually quite small for my age. But I could dribble with either hand—something that didn’t seem that common in Westport in my age group. I also was fairly adept at shooting foul shots underhanded. I actually had a Wilt Chamberlain-like scoring outburst in one game in 5th grade, tallying 24 points (which turned out to be my career high in any organized basketball competition for the rest of my life)!
Part of my “success” was also due to the fact that I now had my own (normal) backboard with a real net in our driveway in Westport, and I frequently practiced a variety of shots on my own after school. Among other things, I practiced and developed a hook shot patterned after the one expertly executed by Jerry Lucas. Although this was years before Lucas joined the Knicks, I paid attention to him because he graduated from my dad’s alma mater. (My first 45 record was a gift from my dad when I was around seven years old; it was the Ohio State Marching Band. So, at a very young age, I knew all about the Script Ohio and what a “Buckeye” is.)
I also had a neighbor I hit it off with right away, Alan Bravin, and we loved playing games such as “H-O-R-S-E.”
Back at Camp Rosemont during the summers, there was an event I went to that inspired me as a basketball player and fan—and it gave me the next significant Knicks memory of my childhood. In the summer of 1963 and then 1964 or ‘65, a bunch of the Rosemont campers were taken to the annual Maurice Stokes Benefit Game played at Kutsher’s Country Club in the Catskills. Many of the biggest names in the NBA came out to support the fund that had been set up by Jack Twyman to help out his former teammate who had suffered a devastating life-altering injury. It was in essence a summertime version of the NBA All-Star Game played at night on an outdoor court under the lights.
Among the players participating in 1963 was the College Player of the Year, Art Heyman, who had been the #1 pick in the draft by the Knicks. What made it even more exciting for me, if possible, was that Art grew up in a New York City suburb and was Jewish (like me), which gave me even the slightest hope that maybe I could one day play for the Knicks, that is, if I ever started to grow.
Notwithstanding the good-sized crowd, we were able to approach players to get autographs and I was exceptionally pleased to get Art Heyman’s signature. I can’t remember what, if anything, I said to him but I knew I would now be following his stats closely in The Times box scores in the upcoming season. Just getting his autograph made me feel some sort of special connection to him.
Demonstrating my relative ignorance about these matters, I only brought a pencil—not a pen—for Art and the other players to sign their autographs with. I was, however, not thinking about posterity and was simply caught up in the moment of being so close to these NBA stars.
I was also able to get Jerry Lucas’ autograph and, since I did not do very well in penmanship on my report cards in elementary school, I recognized right away that Jerry obviously excelled in that just as he excelled in traditional classes at Ohio State where he was Phi Beta Kappa. Fantastic penmanship plus a great hook shot! This man was able to do it all in a way I could only dream about.
And the icing on the cake: I was able to get Wilt Chamberlain’s autograph shortly before the start of the second half. He was sitting on one of the folding chairs that were part of the team “bench.” I approached him almost timidly. His legs seemed to stretch out for quite a distance and yet he still towered over me. But Wilt readily signed my postcard and did so right between the autographs of Jerry Lucas and Art Heyman. What a trifecta!
And looking at that faded postcard decades later I realized: this trio of autographs perhaps encapsulated the Knicks’ run of bad luck and/or incompetence during the first part of the 1960s because they had a series of poor draft choices with their top pick. Chamberlain and Lucas, both territorial picks of their respective teams, turned out to be all-time NBA greats, with Wilt widely recognized as being among the handful of greatest players in league history. By way of contrast, while Art Heyman did make the All-Rookie Team in 1963-64, his second year was a major disappointment and he was gone from the Knicks after that second season.
But, trying to look on the bright side: how many basketball fans could possibly have a vintage postcard with faded autographs in pencil of Jerry Lucas, Wilt Chamberlain, and Art Heyman side by side? This has to be truly a one-of-a-kind collectible, right?
By the way, just to show that I managed to become at least a bit wiser, I did bring a pen to the next Maurice Stokes Benefit Game. And I did succeed in getting Jerry Lucas’ autograph again, this time right next to that of Walt Bellamy. Obviously at that point there was no reason to even think that both would ultimately become key elements in Knicks’ championships in the ensuing decade. Was I somehow being prescient?
Just as an aside, I did have a dream the night before the draft lottery in 1972—I am now referring to the Vietnam War draft lottery—that my number was going to be in the 320s, possibly 323 or 324. And the very next day, as my roommates, a couple of others, and I listened to the radio in our freshman suite, my number was announced as 324!
So is it possible I was showing early signs of some untapped abilities in gathering Jerry Lucas and Walt Bellamy’s autographs side by side at the Maurice Stokes Benefit Game in ‘64 or ‘65? On the other hand, if I truly had any capability of foreseeing the future, I absolutely would have warned the Knicks, among other transactions, not to make the trade for Andrea Bargnani decades later.
In sixth grade, 1964-65, two players emerged in my basketball consciousness.
It was almost impossible not to notice Bill Bradley. He starred for the U.S. Olympic Gold Medal basketball squad in the fall of that school year and was featured...
Once more for good measure: you can pick up Fred From Fresh Meadows here on Amazon, and 100% of all royalties will go to college-bound high school seniors in need via the John Starks Foundation!
