Growing up, I had zero interest in being a writer. Almost all the books I was forced to read in school completely turned me off. The only novelist I knew with a connection to my hometown was the crime writer Mickey Spillane. Spillane had a big house on nearby Orange Lake and I’d seen him a couple of times in Lentini’s restaurant. My father was a fan and got Mickey Spillane’s autograph at the bar there. Not me. I had no interest in mystery novels.
My high-school friends figured I’d become a big-deal doctor or lawyer, which was about as good as it got in Newburgh. Not so bad, really. None of them imagined I’d become a writer. Honestly, I thought I’d probably be a doctor or lawyer myself. Probably a lawyer, since I don’t like the sight of blood. And yeah, I see the irony in that.
But my passion in those days was basketball. I played pretty much winter, spring, and summer. Didn’t matter if there was a blizzard or if the temperature was close to 100. As Skee-Lo would later sing in “I Wish”: “I was a little bit taller—I wish I was a baller.”
One of my favorite life lessons took place on a Newburgh playground’s basketball court when I was in eighth grade. Actually, I think I’d just finished eighth grade. I was playing in a pickup game against a team that included the star guard for the Newburgh high-school team, the county champs.
I was in grade school but good enough to play on the same court with the seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds. But that afternoon the star high-school kid crushed me. He blocked my shots, drove right through me, didn’t take it easy on me just because I was fourteen.
After the game, he bought me a soda and sat down next to me. He said something I’ll never forget. “Look, when we’re out there on the court, I’m going to beat the living shit out of you. Which is what I just did, right? But when the game’s over, we go and have a soda.”
I’ve always thought that was a great lesson about sports and a whole lot of other things in life. You play hard, you do your best, but in the end, have enough perspective to know it’s a game. If you’re a Yankees fan, you don’t actually hate Red Sox fans.
Well, maybe it’s okay to hate the Red Sox. Or the Yankees. Or Tom Brady. Nah. You can’t hate the GOAT. That’s “Greatest of All Time” for all of you non–ESPN fans.