It is hard to believe he has been gone 13 years, because the life lessons remain behind, dispensed whenever necessary, as if my father left them in escrow knowing just when I would need them. He taught me the value of many things, my father did. One of the eternal ones was this: modesty.
“If you can do it, you don’t need to brag about it,” he told me close to 18,000 times in the 36 years I knew him. “You just do it. People will know. You don’t have to tell them.”
It was good my father lived by this credo, because he did so many things so well. He was Will Hunting staring at math problems, scorning calculators because he didn’t need them. He was a good enough trumpet player that if he had preferred a jazzy life on the road instead of a family, he could have gone that way. He would pick up a bowling ball for the first time in a decade and roll a 225, ticked it wasn’t more.
The one hole of golf I ever played with him he stuck an 8-iron three feet from the pin. He let me putt it out. I missed.
But my father’s game was pool, straight pool. As with everything else, you had to see it because he wouldn’t tell you about it. Usually that happened in a basement at Thanksgiving or Christmas, after watching me and my cousins absolutely mangle a rack of balls. It might be the only time all year he ever would have a pool cue in his hands, but he would grab one out of mine, he would whistle the soundtrack of “Guys and Dolls,” he would dance with that stick and the chalk cube, and he would put down 30 or 40 balls in a row, making it look as easy as breathing.
Then he would wink, and he would walk away. The only other thing I ever could compare that to were the hot nights when we would be playing a summer league basketball game somewhere and my friend Billy Melchionni’s dad — who had won an NBA title with Wilt Chamberlain and an ABA title with Dr. J, and was one of the great college players ever (though unless you knew that, you never would know that) — would wander out of the stands, still in his Wall Street suit, and knock down 15 or 20 20-footers in a row while shooting the breeze with the other parents.
This is all I knew about my dad’s pool exploits the entire time I knew him, with one small glimpse he allowed: his nickname. “Mick the Pro,” they called him. And that is all he would say about that. Ever.
The story came at his funeral, old neighborhood friends I never had met gathering in Florida, telling me stories, so many stories. But all of them focused on one such tale, and when so many people agree on the details … well, I have to believe it’s true. It went something like this:
An old pro named Charlie Harmon appeared one day at Pete’s, a pool hall that stood on 52nd Street in the heart of Corona, Queens. The regulars flocked, knowing they would be crushed, able to walk away a few dollars lighter but rich with stories about the day they challenged a professional. Except (the story goes) Harmon started to talk a little too much. At which point, one of the locals said: “Find the kid.”
It was easy to find my father in that neighborhood: You listened for the sound of a trumpet forever practicing scales. Everyone agreed this took place just after the war was over, so that would make him 15 years old, maybe 16. They found him as they suspected they would, horn in hand. He reported to Pete’s, as requested.
“This is the best player you have?” Harmon asked. He shrugged. They would play straight pool, to 50. Harmon broke. He sank three balls, then found himself trapped. My father took over the table.
And pocketed 50 balls in a row.
Final: Mick the Pro 50, Humbled Pro 3.
My dad’s old friends shook their heads as they related it. He never told you? Really? I understood. If that had happened to me, I would introduce myself to strangers and then say, “Let me tell you a story …”
Actually, to be perfectly honest? I wouldn’t. Proud as that story made me, and makes me, I’m prouder still that it never even occurred to him to tell it to me. The people who were there, they knew. He didn’t have to tell them. And eventually … they would tell me. He probably knew that, too.
Happy Father’s Day.
Whack Back at Vac
John Buoagaura: As a lifelong Yankees fan, I can’t root for the Mets, but I can root for David Wright to make a full recovery and return to the top of his game. A classy guy.
Vac: Who’s on the list of baseball players the last 40 years or so who also so easily cross over the Mets/Yankees line besides Wright, Derek Jeter and Yogi Berra? Anyone?
Alan Hirschberg: If the NBA bans Hack-a-Shaq to protect a few players who can’t make free throws, can MLB abolish the stolen base to protect Mets catchers?
Vac: I’ll say this: I hate, hate HATE the hack rule. But I also think it would be wrong to outlaw shifting in baseball. And I don’t think you can support one and not the other.
@Sysyfus: The negative of LeBron James’ Game 5 and Game 6 will be that if Cavs lose Game 7, LBJ performance in Game 6 becomes a footnote.
@MikeVacc: I wish that weren’t the case. But that’s the case.
Paul Caltagirone: How could the Celtics teams of the late ’50s be left out of the lists of all-time greatest teams? Cousy/Sharman/KC and Sam Jones off the bench. Throw in Russell and Heinsohn. Add greatest all time coach/GM in Red Auerbach. P.S. I am a long-time Knicks fan.
Vac: On lists like that, the Celtics are always going to get short shrift because they’re judged against themselves. I’m fine with having the ’86 and ’65 teams on the list, less fine that Cousy isn’t represented on the list as a result.
Vac’s Whacks
It might behoove Young Mr. Curry to do a few MVP-type things this evening in Oakland, Calif.
The Yankees have owned the Twins so completely and for so long that I believe the Yanks could take two out of three if they fielded an Eddie Feigner King-and-His-Court style four-man lineup.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been as blown away by a documentary as I was by “O.J.: Made in America.” Even if I had wanted to stop watching the final five hours in the blurry binge I did, I’m not sure I could have. Astonishing work.
Last week we said good-bye to Rigby, who filled our home and our lives with so much fun and so much love for every minute of the 12 years we knew him. Godspeed, my furry brother.