A prisoner who had escaped from custody twice before got away yesterday from a detective who had brought him to the Manhattan DA’s office for questioning. The prisoner made his escape after spraying ammonia in the detective’s fave and seizing his revolver. The DA’s office said the detective suffered chemical abrasion of the corneas and was taken to Bellevue. He also suffered a broken nose and the lose of several teeth in the struggle with the prisoner, Antonio Gonzalez.
In an incident last year Gonzalez seized a state trooper’s car and gun and later took over another car, forcing four civilians to drive him to the Delaware Water Gap.
NYT 10/31/77
Monday, October 31, 1977
Sunday, October 30, 1977
Pimps Establish Recruiting Link To the Midwest
Two Minneapolis policemen will search the streets of midtown Manhattan next week for hundreds of Middle Western teenagers who have been lured into lives as prostitutes in New York.
Besides trying to get the youngsters to return to their homes, the Minneapolis officers will be looking for more evidence of a recruiting pipeline.
“We have a tremendous amount of young women entrapped into prostitution and in a short time they are taken to New York,” said one of the officers.
The pimps are targeting Minneapolis because the city has become a magnet for thousands of teenage runaways in the upper midwest.
Last year 400 teenagers from the Minn. area were picked up by pimps and sent to New York. The overall number in the last couple of years “must be a least a thousand and the problem is getting bigger and bigger.”
The first indication of a prostitution connection between New York and Minn. came in the early 1970s when vice squad detectives began arresting young blond women from the midwest for streetwalking in the Times Square area. A section of Eighth Avenue was named the Minnesota strip.
New York pimps have stepped up recruiting efforts because blond Scandinavian types are much in demand in the city. About 200 New York pimps have been identified as looking for prostitutes in Minneapolis. The women are induced to prostitute themselves in Minn. first as a training session and to earn the plane fare to New York.
“The pimps tell the girls – and this is partially true – that if they are arrested in New York, identification checks are not as thorough as in Minneapolis and their ages won’t be known.” A 16-year-old said she was arrested 40 times without her true age and identity being ascertained. There were 6,000 prostitution arrests last year in New York City.
One girl had her nose broken and her face gouged by her pimp. Another had her jaw broken. A 16-year-old who was recruited when she was 14 told Minn. police she turned over more than $100,000 to her pimp in an 18-month period.
NYT Raab 10/30/77
Besides trying to get the youngsters to return to their homes, the Minneapolis officers will be looking for more evidence of a recruiting pipeline.
“We have a tremendous amount of young women entrapped into prostitution and in a short time they are taken to New York,” said one of the officers.
The pimps are targeting Minneapolis because the city has become a magnet for thousands of teenage runaways in the upper midwest.
Last year 400 teenagers from the Minn. area were picked up by pimps and sent to New York. The overall number in the last couple of years “must be a least a thousand and the problem is getting bigger and bigger.”
The first indication of a prostitution connection between New York and Minn. came in the early 1970s when vice squad detectives began arresting young blond women from the midwest for streetwalking in the Times Square area. A section of Eighth Avenue was named the Minnesota strip.
New York pimps have stepped up recruiting efforts because blond Scandinavian types are much in demand in the city. About 200 New York pimps have been identified as looking for prostitutes in Minneapolis. The women are induced to prostitute themselves in Minn. first as a training session and to earn the plane fare to New York.
“The pimps tell the girls – and this is partially true – that if they are arrested in New York, identification checks are not as thorough as in Minneapolis and their ages won’t be known.” A 16-year-old said she was arrested 40 times without her true age and identity being ascertained. There were 6,000 prostitution arrests last year in New York City.
One girl had her nose broken and her face gouged by her pimp. Another had her jaw broken. A 16-year-old who was recruited when she was 14 told Minn. police she turned over more than $100,000 to her pimp in an 18-month period.
NYT Raab 10/30/77
Saturday, October 29, 1977
Berkowitz’s Judge Chided On Interview
Justice John Starkey of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn came under sharp criticism in legal circles yesterday for speaking freely to a newspaper reporter about the forthcoming trial of D. Berkowitz and there were indications that he might be replaced as the trial judge.
The judge, obviously upset by the furor over an article in yesterday’s Post, said:
“I’m beginning to think of taking off. My wife is very much annoyed. She shuns publicity. And when the story broke over the last week she had to cancel her beauty parlor appointment.”
He is quoted as saying he would not accept a plea of guilty if young Mr. Berkowitz continues to say that his crimes had been committed at the instigation of demons.
Justice Starkey called the newspaper article “accurate but distorted.” He denied one statement attributed to him saying the defendant was virtually certain to spend most, if not all, of his life in a maximum-security mental institution.
Excerpt from Max Seigel Oct 29, 1977 New York Times
The judge, obviously upset by the furor over an article in yesterday’s Post, said:
“I’m beginning to think of taking off. My wife is very much annoyed. She shuns publicity. And when the story broke over the last week she had to cancel her beauty parlor appointment.”
He is quoted as saying he would not accept a plea of guilty if young Mr. Berkowitz continues to say that his crimes had been committed at the instigation of demons.
Justice Starkey called the newspaper article “accurate but distorted.” He denied one statement attributed to him saying the defendant was virtually certain to spend most, if not all, of his life in a maximum-security mental institution.
Excerpt from Max Seigel Oct 29, 1977 New York Times
Friday, October 28, 1977
Court Stays Racing Suspension of Veterinarian in ‘Ringer’ Case
At Belmont a horse identified as Lebon was riden to victory on September 23rd. Investigators have found that the horse was not really Lebon, but most likely Cinzano, a much faster Uruguyan import who supposedly died at trainer/owner Mark Gerard’s in Muttontown NJ last June. Dr. Gerard is one of 20 veterinarians who maintain private practices at Belmont. He has several hundred horses under his care.
Lebon and Cinzano came to the US from Uruguay in a consignment of 17 horses. The two in the ringer case were taken to the Gerard two-acre farm. According to Gerard, Cinzano had to be destroyed soon after having arrived at the farm when he suffered a fractured skull. A $150,000 insurance policy was paid on the horse whose owner was listed as Joseph Taub.
The racing board suspended Gerard and Jack Morgan an assistant of Gerard’s, saying “Lebon wasn’t Lebon, there was heavy betting by one individual, and the answers given so far have not been satisfactory.” The 57-1 shot netted about $70,000 to the one gambler. He carried the money to his car in a brown paper bag under Pinkerton escort. The story was that the bettor was Gerard.
ex NYT Cady 10/28/77
Lebon and Cinzano came to the US from Uruguay in a consignment of 17 horses. The two in the ringer case were taken to the Gerard two-acre farm. According to Gerard, Cinzano had to be destroyed soon after having arrived at the farm when he suffered a fractured skull. A $150,000 insurance policy was paid on the horse whose owner was listed as Joseph Taub.
The racing board suspended Gerard and Jack Morgan an assistant of Gerard’s, saying “Lebon wasn’t Lebon, there was heavy betting by one individual, and the answers given so far have not been satisfactory.” The 57-1 shot netted about $70,000 to the one gambler. He carried the money to his car in a brown paper bag under Pinkerton escort. The story was that the bettor was Gerard.
ex NYT Cady 10/28/77
Thursday, October 27, 1977
4 Shot and a Bank Robber is Slain After Chase Near Gramercy Park
A bank robber who took two hostages while trying to make a getaway was fatally shot yesterday and a policeman and three civilians were wounded in a fusillade of bullets on a busy street near Gramercy Park.
The shootout capped a wild chase of several blocks through heavy traffic in which two pedestrians were run down and half a dozen automobiles including a police car and a taxi cab were wrecked.
Both hostages were held briefly as a shield and were released unharmed.
A man in his mid-twenties, who later died on the operating table at Bellevue Hospital, ordered tellers at the Union Federal Savings bank at 23rd and Third to fill a black bag with money. With $2500 in hand and his .38 the gunman jumped into a cab which got stuck in traffic. The gunman then jumped into another taxi heading in the opposite direction. Heading south on Lex they were “confronted by the steel fencing of Gramercy Park.” They turned onto East 21st. A police car making the same turn rammed into the back of a gray Ford Pinto. A block further on, the cab rammed into a heavy truck. The gunman ran for it but found himself in a blind alley. He came back out and grabbed another hostage yelling “Get away, get away or I will blow his head off,” said a witness. “There were cops all around and they were yelling, “Drop the gun or we’re going to waste you. Drop the gun! Drop the gun!” The hostage said the gunman fired 4 or 5 shots at police. “He would fire one shot at police then he would put the gun to my head, then he would fire another shot at police. In other words it was an alternating action.” At least twice while the gunman pressed himself and the hostage aainst the stone doorway, the police fired at him, according to the witness. “We thought he would be shot,” said the hostage’s wife. “I didn’t think he would be shot by the gunman. I thought he would be shot by police. There were lots of them.”
A policeman who had worked his way around in an effort to flank the gunman was spotted and shot in the leg. With that the gunman made a break for it and more than 30 shots were fired. The police said seven or eight of them hit the bank robber. The police said he had a record of five arrests and served time in California. “When the guy fell,” the witness said of the mortally wounded suspect, “the cops jumped on hime with their knees and feet. They just stomped him. He was screaming in agony. I saw them running and leaping on him.”
Excerpt from Joseph Treaster Oct 27, 1977 New York Times
The shootout capped a wild chase of several blocks through heavy traffic in which two pedestrians were run down and half a dozen automobiles including a police car and a taxi cab were wrecked.
Both hostages were held briefly as a shield and were released unharmed.
A man in his mid-twenties, who later died on the operating table at Bellevue Hospital, ordered tellers at the Union Federal Savings bank at 23rd and Third to fill a black bag with money. With $2500 in hand and his .38 the gunman jumped into a cab which got stuck in traffic. The gunman then jumped into another taxi heading in the opposite direction. Heading south on Lex they were “confronted by the steel fencing of Gramercy Park.” They turned onto East 21st. A police car making the same turn rammed into the back of a gray Ford Pinto. A block further on, the cab rammed into a heavy truck. The gunman ran for it but found himself in a blind alley. He came back out and grabbed another hostage yelling “Get away, get away or I will blow his head off,” said a witness. “There were cops all around and they were yelling, “Drop the gun or we’re going to waste you. Drop the gun! Drop the gun!” The hostage said the gunman fired 4 or 5 shots at police. “He would fire one shot at police then he would put the gun to my head, then he would fire another shot at police. In other words it was an alternating action.” At least twice while the gunman pressed himself and the hostage aainst the stone doorway, the police fired at him, according to the witness. “We thought he would be shot,” said the hostage’s wife. “I didn’t think he would be shot by the gunman. I thought he would be shot by police. There were lots of them.”
A policeman who had worked his way around in an effort to flank the gunman was spotted and shot in the leg. With that the gunman made a break for it and more than 30 shots were fired. The police said seven or eight of them hit the bank robber. The police said he had a record of five arrests and served time in California. “When the guy fell,” the witness said of the mortally wounded suspect, “the cops jumped on hime with their knees and feet. They just stomped him. He was screaming in agony. I saw them running and leaping on him.”
Excerpt from Joseph Treaster Oct 27, 1977 New York Times
Witnesses Give In; Man Held in Killing
After finally winning the cooperation of a reluctant neighborhood, Brooklyn homicide detectives arrested Joseph D’Amico yesterday evening and charged him with the murder of his neighbor, Angelo Treglia, on a crowded Bensonhurst street over the weekend.
A key role in the arrest was played by Detective Edward Zigo, who spoke to many of the residents in Italian, easing their fears and persuading them to cooperate with the police.
excerpt from Kleiner NYT 10/27/77
A key role in the arrest was played by Detective Edward Zigo, who spoke to many of the residents in Italian, easing their fears and persuading them to cooperate with the police.
excerpt from Kleiner NYT 10/27/77
Wednesday, October 26, 1977
Refusal by Police to Raid Hotel Stirs Controversy Among Agencies
The refusal by the NYC police to raid a midtown hotel Oct. 11 that was suspected of being used by pimps to house teen-age prostitutes erupted yesterday into an open dispute among city, state and police officials.
Investigators from a legislative crime committee working with the city had proposed the raid in the hope of obtaining evidence about the recruitment of teenagers in organized prostitution rings in the city. They obtained a warrant but police legal blocked the raid.
“This is part of a negative attitude by the police,” said Sidney Baumgarten, director of the city’s Midtown Enforcement Project. “The police don’t want to do anything different or innovative, even when children are involved.”
Law-enforcement officials said that news of the aborted raid later leaked out to the pimps who, together with their prostitutes, later abandoned the hotel (the Senton West at 39 West 27th Street).
Information about pimps in the hotel was obtained from a 16-year-old girl was was arrested on prostitution charges September 5. She said a pimp had recruited her in her hometown of Minneapolis and brought her to New York. (Why are they targeting Minneapolis – norwegian blondes?) She told police she had been housed at the hotel with other teenage girls.
NYT Raab 10/26/77
Investigators from a legislative crime committee working with the city had proposed the raid in the hope of obtaining evidence about the recruitment of teenagers in organized prostitution rings in the city. They obtained a warrant but police legal blocked the raid.
“This is part of a negative attitude by the police,” said Sidney Baumgarten, director of the city’s Midtown Enforcement Project. “The police don’t want to do anything different or innovative, even when children are involved.”
Law-enforcement officials said that news of the aborted raid later leaked out to the pimps who, together with their prostitutes, later abandoned the hotel (the Senton West at 39 West 27th Street).
Information about pimps in the hotel was obtained from a 16-year-old girl was was arrested on prostitution charges September 5. She said a pimp had recruited her in her hometown of Minneapolis and brought her to New York. (Why are they targeting Minneapolis – norwegian blondes?) She told police she had been housed at the hotel with other teenage girls.
NYT Raab 10/26/77
Brooklyn Terror: Youth Gang Takes Over Apartment House
A neighborhood gang has seized a six-story apartment house in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, terrorizing the more than 100 tenants by ripping out the building’s pipes, punching out its windows and smashing its furnishings. Only two tenants remain, and the gang has boasted of plans to burn the house down. As of late last week, the police seemed unaware of what had happened.
The building is in a neighborhood where gangs seeking plunder, clubhouses and turf have seized tens of other buildings, robbing some of the tenants not only of their possessions but of their homes. The residents have been forced like refugees to flee from building to building. The gang follows.
Marauders, armed with machetes, baseball bats, guns and chains have terrorized the community, battling in the middle of busy intersections, vandalizing cars and apartmentw, mugging elderly couples and finally invading entire buildings and forcing the tenants out.
For the building at 396 South Fourth Street, the problem began about a month ago when the superintendent, Freddy Espada, ordered members of the gang, called The Love Brothers, to stay away from the apartment house. He was beaten and his life was threatened. He fled, the gang moved in, and the building began to deteriorate rapidly.
“We had to get out of there,” said Manny LeBron, who fled last week with his pregnant wife Lucy. “They broke the pipes, the broke the windows, there was water all over the stairs, people were screaming in the halls and one night they started shooting bullets out the window from one apartment into another.”
“I have to stay because I have no place to go,” Mrs. Celestina Rodriguez (63) said the other day as she huddled nexxt to two pots of boiling water on the stove – the only source of heat in her ground-floor apartment. Night had fallen and a damp chill seeped through her three-room $105-a-month apartment. Several friends offered to store her things until she finds a place to live.
“I never saw myself like this,” Mrs. Rodriquez said, weeping. “I’m scared. I’m so scared.”
The police seem to have made no effort to curb the gangs activities at the building.
“We sell them to the landlords across the street,” said 16-year-old Nelson Vasquez who rattled off the going prices for a stolen refridgerator ($25); a steam radiator ($3); a stove ($35) and a sink ($10). He is the stepson of the former super.
“My father used to deliver seltzer to Bushwick. Now there’s no one left in Bushwick, it’s all burned down. We’re next.”
excerpt from Dena Kleinman NYT 10/26/77
The building is in a neighborhood where gangs seeking plunder, clubhouses and turf have seized tens of other buildings, robbing some of the tenants not only of their possessions but of their homes. The residents have been forced like refugees to flee from building to building. The gang follows.
Marauders, armed with machetes, baseball bats, guns and chains have terrorized the community, battling in the middle of busy intersections, vandalizing cars and apartmentw, mugging elderly couples and finally invading entire buildings and forcing the tenants out.
For the building at 396 South Fourth Street, the problem began about a month ago when the superintendent, Freddy Espada, ordered members of the gang, called The Love Brothers, to stay away from the apartment house. He was beaten and his life was threatened. He fled, the gang moved in, and the building began to deteriorate rapidly.
“We had to get out of there,” said Manny LeBron, who fled last week with his pregnant wife Lucy. “They broke the pipes, the broke the windows, there was water all over the stairs, people were screaming in the halls and one night they started shooting bullets out the window from one apartment into another.”
“I have to stay because I have no place to go,” Mrs. Celestina Rodriguez (63) said the other day as she huddled nexxt to two pots of boiling water on the stove – the only source of heat in her ground-floor apartment. Night had fallen and a damp chill seeped through her three-room $105-a-month apartment. Several friends offered to store her things until she finds a place to live.
“I never saw myself like this,” Mrs. Rodriquez said, weeping. “I’m scared. I’m so scared.”
The police seem to have made no effort to curb the gangs activities at the building.
“We sell them to the landlords across the street,” said 16-year-old Nelson Vasquez who rattled off the going prices for a stolen refridgerator ($25); a steam radiator ($3); a stove ($35) and a sink ($10). He is the stepson of the former super.
“My father used to deliver seltzer to Bushwick. Now there’s no one left in Bushwick, it’s all burned down. We’re next.”
excerpt from Dena Kleinman NYT 10/26/77
Brooklyn Police Appeal for Witnesses
“We urge you to come forward,” the loudspeakers of the police cars blared as they cruised along West Ninth in the Besonhurst section of Brooklyn yesterday morning. “Help bring this murderer to justice. Remember, this is your neighborhood, help protect it.”
But the unusual police effort to find witnesses to the murder of Angelo Treglia was met with silence. The well-liked plumber was shot to death on the street on Saturday in full view of many of his neighbors but, so far – to the frustration of police – no one has come forward. Police say that on Saturday afternoon there were 50 or 60 people on the block.
Mr. Treglia, a slim, well-liked plumber who often did favors for neighbors had just finished repairing a bathroom shower a few doors from his home and was loading his tools into his truck. Four shots rang out. Mr. Treglia fell dead, three bullets in his head, one in his shoulder.
“It was over a concrete job,” one said. In front of the Treglia home there is a botched concrete-repair job on the curb and sidewalk. Another man had done the job and Treglia was trying to get him to fix it. “They were out in front fighting about it the other day,” a woman said, “but then they went into Italian and I couldn’t follow them.”
The second man was known as “Crazy Joe.”
About 200 neighbors attended a mass for Treglia yesterday. Tilda Treglia, the widow, broke down at the mass. “What are they waiting for, a third murder?” she said. She referred to a recent case a few blocks away in which Frank Juliano, 22, was shot to death in front of a bar. In that case, too, no witnesses have come forward.
excerpt from John Kiener NYT 10/26/77
But the unusual police effort to find witnesses to the murder of Angelo Treglia was met with silence. The well-liked plumber was shot to death on the street on Saturday in full view of many of his neighbors but, so far – to the frustration of police – no one has come forward. Police say that on Saturday afternoon there were 50 or 60 people on the block.
Mr. Treglia, a slim, well-liked plumber who often did favors for neighbors had just finished repairing a bathroom shower a few doors from his home and was loading his tools into his truck. Four shots rang out. Mr. Treglia fell dead, three bullets in his head, one in his shoulder.
“It was over a concrete job,” one said. In front of the Treglia home there is a botched concrete-repair job on the curb and sidewalk. Another man had done the job and Treglia was trying to get him to fix it. “They were out in front fighting about it the other day,” a woman said, “but then they went into Italian and I couldn’t follow them.”
The second man was known as “Crazy Joe.”
About 200 neighbors attended a mass for Treglia yesterday. Tilda Treglia, the widow, broke down at the mass. “What are they waiting for, a third murder?” she said. She referred to a recent case a few blocks away in which Frank Juliano, 22, was shot to death in front of a bar. In that case, too, no witnesses have come forward.
excerpt from John Kiener NYT 10/26/77
Tuesday, October 25, 1977
30 New York Policemen Fail Corruption-Complaint Tests
The telephone-caller told the detectiveat the station house that his cousin had been arrested by a police office who then stole $300 from him. A caller to another precinct said that his neighbor, who he believed was a police officers, was selling narcotics.
The two officers who took these telephone calls did nothing about them. Now both – along with 14 other police officers, including a lietenant, five sergeants and eight detectives – are facing disciplinary action by the New York City Police Department as part of its continuing efforts to combat corruption.
All 30 failed an “integrity control test” that they did not know they had taken. Sixty others passed. The test was conducted by Internal Affairs.
In 1973, in the aftermath of the Knapp Comm. Finding of widespread police corruption in NYC, the department received 3,400 complaints in 74 and 75. Last year the number was down to 2,000.
NYT Buder 10/25/77
The two officers who took these telephone calls did nothing about them. Now both – along with 14 other police officers, including a lietenant, five sergeants and eight detectives – are facing disciplinary action by the New York City Police Department as part of its continuing efforts to combat corruption.
All 30 failed an “integrity control test” that they did not know they had taken. Sixty others passed. The test was conducted by Internal Affairs.
In 1973, in the aftermath of the Knapp Comm. Finding of widespread police corruption in NYC, the department received 3,400 complaints in 74 and 75. Last year the number was down to 2,000.
NYT Buder 10/25/77
Monday, October 24, 1977
Rodgers Once More Victor in Marathon
Maybe it was the crowded corridor that formed along First Avenue. Or the vision that suddenly came to Bill Rodgers after 20 miles, when his legs felt tight. Or maybe Rodgers is simply the world’s best marathon man.
Frank Shorter, Olympic Gold medalist in 1972 dropped out at mile 16.
ex NYT Amdur 10/24/77
Frank Shorter, Olympic Gold medalist in 1972 dropped out at mile 16.
ex NYT Amdur 10/24/77
Saturday, October 22, 1977
Berkowitz Is Ruled Fit for Trial; Declares He’ll Have ‘a Lot to Say.’
The defendant, who had consistently declared his readiness to stand trial despite his lawyers’ efforts to have him declared mentally incompetent, smile broadly when the judge, John Starkey, announced his ruling.
“Your honor, remember what I said,” he called out in the makeshift courtroom, “Lock the door and throw away the key. I mean it.”
The question is: can he perceive, recall, relate? Yes. Does he have rudimentary understanding of the trial process? Yes. Can he establish a working relationship with his attorney? Yes. Is he sufficiently intelligent to listen and evaluate? Yes. Is he able to stand trial? Yes.
Excerpt from Max Seigel Oct 22, 1977 New York Times
“Your honor, remember what I said,” he called out in the makeshift courtroom, “Lock the door and throw away the key. I mean it.”
The question is: can he perceive, recall, relate? Yes. Does he have rudimentary understanding of the trial process? Yes. Can he establish a working relationship with his attorney? Yes. Is he sufficiently intelligent to listen and evaluate? Yes. Is he able to stand trial? Yes.
Excerpt from Max Seigel Oct 22, 1977 New York Times
Thursday, October 20, 1977
Yankees’ Center of Controversy
“Reggie Jackson on your ball club,” Reggie Jackson said on his second day of spring training with the Yankees last March, “is part of a show of force. It’s a show of power. I help to intimidate the opposition, just because I’m here. That’s part of my role.”
His teammates did not accept him at first; then, just as Thurman Munson, the acknowledged team leader, had made a breakthrough, a magazine article appeared in which Jackson was quoted (accurately) as saying, “I’m the straw that stirs the drink. Munson thinks he can be the straw that stirs the drink, but he can only stir it bad.” (Was he provoked by Munson’s racist comments? Munson was not the leader of the black players).
Jackson, never one of the crowd wherever he was, spent the rest of the season virtually alienated from the rest of the team. Billy Martin didn’t like him either, despite his hitting ability, because he was Steinbrenner’s prize. Not the manager’s.
Jackson’s ultra-sensitivity and his insecurity plagued him during the first few months of the season. His constant show of money (he would sit in the aisle seat on the team bus and count his ‘roll,’) his frequent references to his so-called ‘160 IQ’ and his compulsive loquaciousness did nothing to endear him to the other players. Resulting slights by his teammates bothered him and affected his play.
He sees a lot of girls,” a friend related yesterday, “but he doesn’t need the East Side singles bars, the Joe Namath bar scene. He goes to bed early. One o’clock is late for him. It’s not what you would expect from a bachelor athlete living in New York.”
Jackson avoids liquor, prefering white wine and an occasional beer.
On a shopping trip in KC with Hunter, Gullet and Pinella, only Pinella, the only nonmillionare in the group, purchased anything. “Lou bought $50 shoes, but I would neve wear anything like that,” said Jackson, minutes after counting the $100 bills in his wallet. “He also got some $20 shirts, but the shirt I’m wearing now cost $60.)
His superiority (actually inferiority – result of racism?) complex created problems with other Yankees. The problems, in turn, helped plunge Jackson into periodic states of deep depression. Only Fran Healy, a seldom used catcher was able to stir Jackson out of those depths, becoming his confidant and his only genuine friend on the team.”
“He’s extremely complex, sensitive, articulate, loquacious and at times controversial,” Healy said yesterday before the parade. “One thing is for certain: he’s not one dimension. As a baseball player, under the circumstances, he had a great year.”
Jackson reached his lowest point the night of the final game against KC when Martin removed him from the lineup. One the plane ride home Jackson was severely depressed and filled with hatred for Martin.
Then, just nine days later, the dramatic and dynamic qualities soared to the top of Jackson’s being and he concluded the most trying year of his life with an exhibition that only he among present day players could have produced.
“If we win tonight,” Hunter and Ken Holtzman, also Jackson’s teammates in Oakland, had said before the game Tuesday night, “Reggie will be the hero. We’ll bet our salaries on it.”
Like Jackson, they were winners.
RECORDS BY JACKSON
Most home runs, consecutive, in game – Three
Most home runs in a Series – Five
Most total bases in a Series – Twenty-Five
Most runs in a Series – Ten
Most home runs in a game – Three tying Babe Ruth who did it twice
Most runs in game – Four – tied four other including Enos Slaughter
Most total bases in game – twelve tying Babe Ruth
ex NYT Chass 10/20/77
His teammates did not accept him at first; then, just as Thurman Munson, the acknowledged team leader, had made a breakthrough, a magazine article appeared in which Jackson was quoted (accurately) as saying, “I’m the straw that stirs the drink. Munson thinks he can be the straw that stirs the drink, but he can only stir it bad.” (Was he provoked by Munson’s racist comments? Munson was not the leader of the black players).
Jackson, never one of the crowd wherever he was, spent the rest of the season virtually alienated from the rest of the team. Billy Martin didn’t like him either, despite his hitting ability, because he was Steinbrenner’s prize. Not the manager’s.
Jackson’s ultra-sensitivity and his insecurity plagued him during the first few months of the season. His constant show of money (he would sit in the aisle seat on the team bus and count his ‘roll,’) his frequent references to his so-called ‘160 IQ’ and his compulsive loquaciousness did nothing to endear him to the other players. Resulting slights by his teammates bothered him and affected his play.
He sees a lot of girls,” a friend related yesterday, “but he doesn’t need the East Side singles bars, the Joe Namath bar scene. He goes to bed early. One o’clock is late for him. It’s not what you would expect from a bachelor athlete living in New York.”
Jackson avoids liquor, prefering white wine and an occasional beer.
On a shopping trip in KC with Hunter, Gullet and Pinella, only Pinella, the only nonmillionare in the group, purchased anything. “Lou bought $50 shoes, but I would neve wear anything like that,” said Jackson, minutes after counting the $100 bills in his wallet. “He also got some $20 shirts, but the shirt I’m wearing now cost $60.)
His superiority (actually inferiority – result of racism?) complex created problems with other Yankees. The problems, in turn, helped plunge Jackson into periodic states of deep depression. Only Fran Healy, a seldom used catcher was able to stir Jackson out of those depths, becoming his confidant and his only genuine friend on the team.”
“He’s extremely complex, sensitive, articulate, loquacious and at times controversial,” Healy said yesterday before the parade. “One thing is for certain: he’s not one dimension. As a baseball player, under the circumstances, he had a great year.”
Jackson reached his lowest point the night of the final game against KC when Martin removed him from the lineup. One the plane ride home Jackson was severely depressed and filled with hatred for Martin.
Then, just nine days later, the dramatic and dynamic qualities soared to the top of Jackson’s being and he concluded the most trying year of his life with an exhibition that only he among present day players could have produced.
“If we win tonight,” Hunter and Ken Holtzman, also Jackson’s teammates in Oakland, had said before the game Tuesday night, “Reggie will be the hero. We’ll bet our salaries on it.”
Like Jackson, they were winners.
RECORDS BY JACKSON
Most home runs, consecutive, in game – Three
Most home runs in a Series – Five
Most total bases in a Series – Twenty-Five
Most runs in a Series – Ten
Most home runs in a game – Three tying Babe Ruth who did it twice
Most runs in game – Four – tied four other including Enos Slaughter
Most total bases in game – twelve tying Babe Ruth
ex NYT Chass 10/20/77
The Two Season of Reggie Jackson
Nearly three hours after his three home runs had won the World Series for the Yankees and redemption for himself, Reggie Jackson, like almost everyone else around him, appeared in awe of what he had accomplised. “There’s a part of me I don’t know,” he was saying softly at his locker. There’s a ballplayer in me that responds to all the pressure.”
At King Arthur’s Court on the Upper East Side in July he had said: “I’m still the straw that stirs the drink. Not Munson, not nobody else in the club.”
All the other Yankees had dressed and departed Tuesday night except for Thurman Munson who was on his way out now. “Hey, coon,” called the catcher grinning, “Nice goin’, coon.” Reggie Jackson laughed and hurried over and hugged the captain. “I’m going down to the party here in the ball park,” said Munson, grinning again. “It’s just for white people but they’ll let you in. Come on down.”
The day after the Jackson-Martin confrontation at Fenway in June, there was a meeting in Gabe Paul’s office. Jackson said Billy stood over him challenged him. He stood over me and said, “I’ll make you fight me, boy.” But there was no way I was going to fight him. I’m 215 pounds, he’s almost 50 years old. I win the fight, but I lose.”
That’d be something, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Reggie Jackson. Somehow I don’t fit.”
Thurman Munson reappeared. “Hey, nigger, you’re too slow, that party’s over but I’ll see you next year. I’ll see you next year wherever I might be.
“You’ll be back.”
“Not me,” said Thurman Munson, who has talked of demanding to be traded to the Cleveland Indians. “But you know who stuck up for you, nigger, you know who stuck up for you when you needed it.”
“I know,” said Reggie Jackson. “But you’ll be here next year. We’ll all be here.”
ex NYT Anderson 10/20/77
At King Arthur’s Court on the Upper East Side in July he had said: “I’m still the straw that stirs the drink. Not Munson, not nobody else in the club.”
All the other Yankees had dressed and departed Tuesday night except for Thurman Munson who was on his way out now. “Hey, coon,” called the catcher grinning, “Nice goin’, coon.” Reggie Jackson laughed and hurried over and hugged the captain. “I’m going down to the party here in the ball park,” said Munson, grinning again. “It’s just for white people but they’ll let you in. Come on down.”
The day after the Jackson-Martin confrontation at Fenway in June, there was a meeting in Gabe Paul’s office. Jackson said Billy stood over him challenged him. He stood over me and said, “I’ll make you fight me, boy.” But there was no way I was going to fight him. I’m 215 pounds, he’s almost 50 years old. I win the fight, but I lose.”
That’d be something, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Reggie Jackson. Somehow I don’t fit.”
Thurman Munson reappeared. “Hey, nigger, you’re too slow, that party’s over but I’ll see you next year. I’ll see you next year wherever I might be.
“You’ll be back.”
“Not me,” said Thurman Munson, who has talked of demanding to be traded to the Cleveland Indians. “But you know who stuck up for you, nigger, you know who stuck up for you when you needed it.”
“I know,” said Reggie Jackson. “But you’ll be here next year. We’ll all be here.”
ex NYT Anderson 10/20/77
Yanks Revel in Unabashed Adulation
Broadway, for nearly a mile from Bowling Green to City Hall, was a huge smile and triumphal shout yesterday as hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers staged one of the city’s most memorable ticker tape parades to honor the Yankees for their first World Series victory in 15 years.
The city, it seemed, had a future again. Joe DiMaggio, one of the greatest stars of earlier Yankee teams that won World Series titles with apparent ease, caught the feeling on the stage of City Hall. With the banners of the first Yankee championship hanging over the City Hall entrance behind him, DiMaggio, who had become tearful during the singing of the national anthem, reluctantly yielded to requests to say something.
“I hope the players get a good rest and perhaps start another dynasty in New York.”
ex NYT Schumach 10/20/77
The city, it seemed, had a future again. Joe DiMaggio, one of the greatest stars of earlier Yankee teams that won World Series titles with apparent ease, caught the feeling on the stage of City Hall. With the banners of the first Yankee championship hanging over the City Hall entrance behind him, DiMaggio, who had become tearful during the singing of the national anthem, reluctantly yielded to requests to say something.
“I hope the players get a good rest and perhaps start another dynasty in New York.”
ex NYT Schumach 10/20/77
Wednesday, October 19, 1977
Yankees Take Series; Jackson Equals Mark of 3 Homers in Game
With Reggie Jackson hitting three home runs in three straight at bats, the New York Yankees swept all those family feuds under the rug last night and overpowered the Los Angeles Dodgers, 8-4, to win their first World Series in 15 years.
They won it in the sixth gme of a match that had enlivened both coasts for the last week, and that rocked Yankee Stadium last night as hundreds of fans poured through a reinforced army of 350 security guards and stormed onto the field after the final out.
The last Yankee championship was in 1962 when they defeated the San Francisco Giants toward the end of a postwar reign. And it marked a dramatic comeback from the four-game sweep they suffered last October at the hands of the Cincinnati Reds.
Jackson hit his three home runs on the first pitches off three pitchers, and he became the only man in history to hit three in a Series game since Babe Ruth did it for the Yankees twice, in 1926 and again in 1928.
But nobody had ever before hit five in a World Series – let alone five in his last nine official times at bat – a feat that the 31-year-old Pennsylvanian accomplished during his last three games in California and New York.
This was mainly a night for hitting by both the Yankees and Dodgers – late of Brooklyn – the teams that once produced the perfect game, the dropped third strike and the Subway Series.
In the ninth inning Jackson left for a batting helmet to protect himself in right field.
The Best Bonus for Martin is Presented by the Players
Martin’s day at Yankee Stadium began with a 1:30pm meeting the Paul, the club president, who had called him at his NJ apartment and asked him to come in early. “I didn’t know what he wanted. I wondered who jumped the club now.”
Paul told him he would return next year for the second year of his three year contract and a hefty bonus: $35,000 in cash, a blue Lincoln Continental Mark V that retails for $22,000 and payment of the rent on his $400 a month apartment.
ex NYT Durso 10/19/77
They won it in the sixth gme of a match that had enlivened both coasts for the last week, and that rocked Yankee Stadium last night as hundreds of fans poured through a reinforced army of 350 security guards and stormed onto the field after the final out.
The last Yankee championship was in 1962 when they defeated the San Francisco Giants toward the end of a postwar reign. And it marked a dramatic comeback from the four-game sweep they suffered last October at the hands of the Cincinnati Reds.
Jackson hit his three home runs on the first pitches off three pitchers, and he became the only man in history to hit three in a Series game since Babe Ruth did it for the Yankees twice, in 1926 and again in 1928.
But nobody had ever before hit five in a World Series – let alone five in his last nine official times at bat – a feat that the 31-year-old Pennsylvanian accomplished during his last three games in California and New York.
This was mainly a night for hitting by both the Yankees and Dodgers – late of Brooklyn – the teams that once produced the perfect game, the dropped third strike and the Subway Series.
In the ninth inning Jackson left for a batting helmet to protect himself in right field.
The Best Bonus for Martin is Presented by the Players
Martin’s day at Yankee Stadium began with a 1:30pm meeting the Paul, the club president, who had called him at his NJ apartment and asked him to come in early. “I didn’t know what he wanted. I wondered who jumped the club now.”
Paul told him he would return next year for the second year of his three year contract and a hefty bonus: $35,000 in cash, a blue Lincoln Continental Mark V that retails for $22,000 and payment of the rent on his $400 a month apartment.
ex NYT Durso 10/19/77
The Moving Finger Writes, Etc.
It had to happen this way. It had been predestined since Nov. 29, 1976, when Reginald Martinez Jackson sat down on a gilded chair in New York’s Americana Hotel and wrote his name on a Yankee contract. That day he became an instant millionaire, the big honcho on the best team money could buy, the richest, least inhibited, most glamorous exhibit in Billy Martin’s pin-stripped zoo. That day the plot was written for last night – the bizarre scenario Reggie Jackson played out by hitting three home runs, clubbing the Los Angeles Dodgers into submission and carrying his supporting players with him to the baseball championship of North America. His was the most lurid performance in 74 World Series, for although Babe Ruth hit three home runs in a game in 1926 and again in 1928, not even that demigod smashed three in a row.
Reggie’s first broke a tie and put the Yankees in front, 4-3. His second tattened the advantage to 7-3. His third completed arrangements for a final score of 8-4, wrapping up the championship in six games.
Jackson had made a home run on Saturday and another in his last at bat on Sunday. His first at bat last night was a walk so in his last four official turns he hit home runs. In his last nine times at bat, this Hamlet in double knits scored seven runs, made six hits and five home runs and batted in six runs for an average of .687 compiled by day and by night on two seacoasts 3,000 miles and three time zones apart.
Ever since the Yankees went to training camp in March, Jackson had lived in the eye of the hurricane. All summer long as the spike-shod capitalists bickered and quarreled, contending with their manager, defying their owner, Reggie was the most controversial, the most articulate, the most flamboyant.
His first home run knocked the Dodgers’ starting pitcher, Burt Hooton out of the game. His second disposed of Elias Sosa, Hooton’s successor. Jackson was the lead off hitter in the eighth. For the third time, Reggie hit the first pitch but this one didn’t take the shortest distance between two points. Straight out from the plate the ball streaked, not toward the neighborly stands in right but on a soaring arc toward the unoccupied bleacher’s in dead center, where the seats are painted black to give batters a better background. Up the white spec climbed, dwindling, diminishing until it settled at last half way up those empty stands, probably 450 feet away. This time he could not disappoint his public. He stepped out of the dugout and faced the multitude, two fists and one cap uplifted. “I must admit,” said Steve Garvey, the Dodgers’ first baseman, “when Reggie hit his third home run and I was sure nobody was listening, I applauded into my glove.”
When the last jubilant playmate had been peeled off his neck, Reggie took a seat near the first-base end of the bench. The crowd was still bawling for him and comrades urged him to take a curtain call.
ex NYT Smith 10/19/77
Reggie’s first broke a tie and put the Yankees in front, 4-3. His second tattened the advantage to 7-3. His third completed arrangements for a final score of 8-4, wrapping up the championship in six games.
Jackson had made a home run on Saturday and another in his last at bat on Sunday. His first at bat last night was a walk so in his last four official turns he hit home runs. In his last nine times at bat, this Hamlet in double knits scored seven runs, made six hits and five home runs and batted in six runs for an average of .687 compiled by day and by night on two seacoasts 3,000 miles and three time zones apart.
Ever since the Yankees went to training camp in March, Jackson had lived in the eye of the hurricane. All summer long as the spike-shod capitalists bickered and quarreled, contending with their manager, defying their owner, Reggie was the most controversial, the most articulate, the most flamboyant.
His first home run knocked the Dodgers’ starting pitcher, Burt Hooton out of the game. His second disposed of Elias Sosa, Hooton’s successor. Jackson was the lead off hitter in the eighth. For the third time, Reggie hit the first pitch but this one didn’t take the shortest distance between two points. Straight out from the plate the ball streaked, not toward the neighborly stands in right but on a soaring arc toward the unoccupied bleacher’s in dead center, where the seats are painted black to give batters a better background. Up the white spec climbed, dwindling, diminishing until it settled at last half way up those empty stands, probably 450 feet away. This time he could not disappoint his public. He stepped out of the dugout and faced the multitude, two fists and one cap uplifted. “I must admit,” said Steve Garvey, the Dodgers’ first baseman, “when Reggie hit his third home run and I was sure nobody was listening, I applauded into my glove.”
When the last jubilant playmate had been peeled off his neck, Reggie took a seat near the first-base end of the bench. The crowd was still bawling for him and comrades urged him to take a curtain call.
ex NYT Smith 10/19/77
Delirious Fans Run Wild As Some Violence Erupts
While hundreds of people gasped, and others ran to police officers to lodge complaints, a teenage boy was beaten up at third base by three men wearing blue uniforms. There were conflicting reports whether the men with clubs who hit him were New York police officers or the Stadium’s private security force.
“They sure had a little rumpus over there,” said one hospital employee, “it’s been busy all night.”
Meanwhile dozens of people in the stands who tore out the blue stadium seats were taken away.
“I bet the kids aren’t from the city. Were are they from? Yonkers? They think they can come down here and do this to us.”
At the start of the eighth inning when a Yankee victory seemed assured, cherry bombs and firecrackers began exploding in the stands and on the field. The barrage led Reggie Jackson to don a hard hat for protection.
At the end mounted police were overwhelmed in the effort to stem the tide of roaring fans.
The scene outside the stadium became turbulent as the fans departed. Police chased some fans up 161st Street and curious crowds followed.
The fans stormed out, heading for anyone in pinstripes. Jackson dodged a few and elbowed a few. Nettles swung in self-defense before finding shelter in the dugout.
Reggie Jackson, who wore a hard hat out in right field after a series of cherry bombs made the muscular slugger jump with fear, dashed away from fans as best he could. He bowled one over, chopped another down with a right hand. He ran out of fear.
His quickness impressed Don Sutton who said: “He’s the most valuable player, you bet, and his most impressive move all night was the open field run he made to get to the dugout and escape those crazies at the end of the game. He could help the New York Giants.”
ex NYT Eskenazi 10/19/77
“They sure had a little rumpus over there,” said one hospital employee, “it’s been busy all night.”
Meanwhile dozens of people in the stands who tore out the blue stadium seats were taken away.
“I bet the kids aren’t from the city. Were are they from? Yonkers? They think they can come down here and do this to us.”
At the start of the eighth inning when a Yankee victory seemed assured, cherry bombs and firecrackers began exploding in the stands and on the field. The barrage led Reggie Jackson to don a hard hat for protection.
At the end mounted police were overwhelmed in the effort to stem the tide of roaring fans.
The scene outside the stadium became turbulent as the fans departed. Police chased some fans up 161st Street and curious crowds followed.
The fans stormed out, heading for anyone in pinstripes. Jackson dodged a few and elbowed a few. Nettles swung in self-defense before finding shelter in the dugout.
Reggie Jackson, who wore a hard hat out in right field after a series of cherry bombs made the muscular slugger jump with fear, dashed away from fans as best he could. He bowled one over, chopped another down with a right hand. He ran out of fear.
His quickness impressed Don Sutton who said: “He’s the most valuable player, you bet, and his most impressive move all night was the open field run he made to get to the dugout and escape those crazies at the end of the game. He could help the New York Giants.”
ex NYT Eskenazi 10/19/77
Scrappy, Controversial Yankee Manager – Alfred Manuel (Billy) Martin
“I’m insecure too,” said Martin (in LA), “but I’m insecure because I don’t have a lot of mone, and that’s natural isn’t it?” Then he smiled and said: “How about that? One beer and I’m philosphizing.”
“I’ll never change and I never have changed.” Alfred Manuel Martin was born on May 16, 1928 in Berkeley,CA. With his father gone and him mother working, he was raised by his grandparents, who lived a few blocks away. His grandmother called him “Bellissiomo” or “Belli” for short. Other kids, hearing him called that, naturally made it “Billy.”
ex NYT Koppett 10/19/77
“I’ll never change and I never have changed.” Alfred Manuel Martin was born on May 16, 1928 in Berkeley,CA. With his father gone and him mother working, he was raised by his grandparents, who lived a few blocks away. His grandmother called him “Bellissiomo” or “Belli” for short. Other kids, hearing him called that, naturally made it “Billy.”
ex NYT Koppett 10/19/77
Tuesday, October 18, 1977
Body of Gem Dealer Positively Identified
A body exhumed by Puerto Rican authorities was identified by them tonight as that of Abraham S. the New York diamond dealer who disappeared July 28th.
The chief pathologist acknowledged that medical examiners had exhumed the body last Friday and examined it on Saturday but had failed to realized it was the body they were looking for.
excerpt from Selwyn Raab NYT 10/18/77
The chief pathologist acknowledged that medical examiners had exhumed the body last Friday and examined it on Saturday but had failed to realized it was the body they were looking for.
excerpt from Selwyn Raab NYT 10/18/77
Monday, October 17, 1977
Dodgers Rout Yanks, 10-4, and Trail, 3-2
The Los Angeles Dodgers struck a few blows for brotherhood when they mauled the New York Yankees, 10-4, and sent the World Series back east with the Yankees now leading by only three games to two. The Dodgers routed the Yankees pitching star Don Gullet on a total of 13 hits.
ex NYT Durso 10/17/77
ex NYT Durso 10/17/77
Sunday, October 16, 1977
Yankees Win, 4-2, and Can Take World Series Today
Ron Guidry threw nine sizzling innings of four-hit ball.
The Yankees buried their hatchets today, behaved with the decorum of prep school boys.
Reggie Jackson, the team leader in money, quarrels and controversy. Lou Pinella made a leaping catch above the left-field fence.
ex NYT Durso 10/16/77
The Yankees buried their hatchets today, behaved with the decorum of prep school boys.
Reggie Jackson, the team leader in money, quarrels and controversy. Lou Pinella made a leaping catch above the left-field fence.
ex NYT Durso 10/16/77
Yankee Discord
“What was your reaction to Gabe Paul’s statement?” someone asked Martin. “He gave you a vote of confidence.”
“Then I’m fired,” the manager said.
Actually, Gabe Paul had said, “I don’t believe in votes of confidence. In most cases, it is the kiss of death.”
“On any ball club,” Paul had said, “there is only one manager, only one owner and only one president.”
“And his name is George Steinbrenner,” a man responded.
Fitted together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, they make a picture of the best team money could buy, the damnedest agglomeration of clashing egos and battling capitalists that ever contended for the rounders championship of North America.
Ever since Abner Doubleday converted a cow-pasture to unnatural uses, it has been agreed that it took a good team and a lucky one to win a pennant.
Thurman Munson wants to go to Cleveland. Craig Nettles wants to go to San Diego. Mike Torrez wants to go to Boston. Mickey Rivers says he is leaving the team.
ex NYT Smith 10/16/77
“Then I’m fired,” the manager said.
Actually, Gabe Paul had said, “I don’t believe in votes of confidence. In most cases, it is the kiss of death.”
“On any ball club,” Paul had said, “there is only one manager, only one owner and only one president.”
“And his name is George Steinbrenner,” a man responded.
Fitted together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, they make a picture of the best team money could buy, the damnedest agglomeration of clashing egos and battling capitalists that ever contended for the rounders championship of North America.
Ever since Abner Doubleday converted a cow-pasture to unnatural uses, it has been agreed that it took a good team and a lucky one to win a pennant.
Thurman Munson wants to go to Cleveland. Craig Nettles wants to go to San Diego. Mike Torrez wants to go to Boston. Mickey Rivers says he is leaving the team.
ex NYT Smith 10/16/77
Saturday, October 15, 1977
Yankee Egos and Tommy John
When the World Series resumed tonight, the Yankees were in midseason form, meaning their egos were producing obnoxious fumes again. Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson were snarling at each other. Thurman Munson was hoping to be traded and protesting his ticket locations at Dodger Stadium this weekend.
ex NYT Anderson 10/15/77
ex NYT Anderson 10/15/77
Torrez Stops Dodgers on 7 Hits as Yanks Take 2-1 Edge in Series
Just when people were suggesting that brawling in public would bring them no good end, the New York Yankees put aside their family feuds tonight, overpowered the LA Dodgers by 5-3 and took a lead of two games to one in the 74th World Series.
The Yankees scored three times in the top of the first off Tommy John stunning the largest crowd to pay its way through the turnstiles of the palatial park since it opened 15 years ago.
Not many people here believed that all this success would turn the Yankees into a peaceful, harmonious clan of baseball capitalists. Gabe Paul, the president of the club, even portrayed their latest flap as “another chapter in the tumultous history of the 1977 Yankees.”
They not only defeated the Dodgers’ best pitcher, they moved to within two victories of the championship.
“We’ll go to Yankee Stadium to play,” said Tommy Lasorda, “we’ll go to Fairbanks Alaska. Look, just because a couple of kooks do something is no indication of the overall crowds. (Not so sure about that.) We’re not worried about the fans. It isn’t the guys with the hot dogs who get the hits.”
Dusty Baker tied the score in the third with a home run. This was the Yankees first appearance in Dodgers Stadium since 1963 when they were swept by the Dodgers in 4 games (a few famous Brooklyn players were still on the team).
Yogi Berra said of the Yankees turmoil, “I didn’t see nobody punch anybody yet.”
ex NYT Durso 10/15/77
The Yankees scored three times in the top of the first off Tommy John stunning the largest crowd to pay its way through the turnstiles of the palatial park since it opened 15 years ago.
Not many people here believed that all this success would turn the Yankees into a peaceful, harmonious clan of baseball capitalists. Gabe Paul, the president of the club, even portrayed their latest flap as “another chapter in the tumultous history of the 1977 Yankees.”
They not only defeated the Dodgers’ best pitcher, they moved to within two victories of the championship.
“We’ll go to Yankee Stadium to play,” said Tommy Lasorda, “we’ll go to Fairbanks Alaska. Look, just because a couple of kooks do something is no indication of the overall crowds. (Not so sure about that.) We’re not worried about the fans. It isn’t the guys with the hot dogs who get the hits.”
Dusty Baker tied the score in the third with a home run. This was the Yankees first appearance in Dodgers Stadium since 1963 when they were swept by the Dodgers in 4 games (a few famous Brooklyn players were still on the team).
Yogi Berra said of the Yankees turmoil, “I didn’t see nobody punch anybody yet.”
ex NYT Durso 10/15/77
Despite the Remonstrance, ABC Espouses Trust in Cosell
Despite a torrent of complaints from viewers around the country about the verbal excesses and melodramatic style of Howard Cosell during the World Series telecast, officials of ABC Sports said yesterday they had no intention of relieving him of the assignment.
They said they believe his abrasiveness contributed to rather than detracted from the viewers enjoyment of the broadcasts. ABC conceded that the calls about Cosell had been very heavy and virtually all negative.
A lot of people said they turned off the sound and listened to radio coverage. Ratings were substantially higher this year than they were last year when the games were televised on NBC. Nationally, the opening game drew 50% (!) of the prime time audience.
“That’s Cosell. People have strong reactions to him, but for all their complaining they watch him and seem to enjoy disliking him. It’s not our style to give into this kind of criticism and pressure. We think Cosell is one of the best announcers in the business”
ex NYT Brown 10/15/77
They said they believe his abrasiveness contributed to rather than detracted from the viewers enjoyment of the broadcasts. ABC conceded that the calls about Cosell had been very heavy and virtually all negative.
A lot of people said they turned off the sound and listened to radio coverage. Ratings were substantially higher this year than they were last year when the games were televised on NBC. Nationally, the opening game drew 50% (!) of the prime time audience.
“That’s Cosell. People have strong reactions to him, but for all their complaining they watch him and seem to enjoy disliking him. It’s not our style to give into this kind of criticism and pressure. We think Cosell is one of the best announcers in the business”
ex NYT Brown 10/15/77
Man, 82, Killed Wife by ‘Defending Self’
An 82-year-old man accused of strangling his 76-year-old wife testified today that he had killed her in self-defense during an “argument over her boyfriends” in which she had fought “like a wildcat.”
Peter Cipolla, his quavering voice barely audible, told a jury that his wife of 52 years had attacked him, scratched his face and head and bit deeply into his left hand. “I never saw her so mad before.” He told the jury that she fell and he fell and lost consciousness. When he recovered a short while later, he said she was ice cold. The retired hairdresser was arrested March 17 at his home in North Valley Stream. A pathologist testified that Mrs. Cipolla had died of “manual strangulation.”
Peter Cipolla, his quavering voice barely audible, told a jury that his wife of 52 years had attacked him, scratched his face and head and bit deeply into his left hand. “I never saw her so mad before.” He told the jury that she fell and he fell and lost consciousness. When he recovered a short while later, he said she was ice cold. The retired hairdresser was arrested March 17 at his home in North Valley Stream. A pathologist testified that Mrs. Cipolla had died of “manual strangulation.”
Excerpt from John McQuiston Oct 15, 1977 New York Times
Boy, 15, Using a Bat to Disarm Suspect, Slays Him with Gun
Swinging his baseball bat to disarm a would-be robber who had forced his way into a South Bronx apartment at gunpoint, a 15-year-old schoolboy knocked the gun out of the intruder’s hand, fielded it and fired one shot, killing the suspect.
The intruder, 20 year-old Charles Benford, was killed in the 15th-floor apartment of Bettye Ramos, 47 in a middle-income housing complex in the Southview section. He had been shot in the back.
Mrs. Ramos had left her apartment at 8:20am to walk her poodle. The gunman forced her back into the apartment. Alfredo Armentores, who was dressing for school, ran from his bedroom and saw his mother struggling with the gunman. He returned with his baseball bat and seeing his mother struck on the head with the butt of a 25-caliber pistol, slammed the bat against the assailant’s head and shoulders. The gunman fired two shots at the youth. Carol Rodriquez, a 23 year-old daughter grabbed a lamp and slammed it down on the man’s head. As he fell to his knees Alfredo batted the gun out of his hands. In a scramble for the gun, Alfredo got to it first. He then fired the fatal shot, striking the intruder in the back. After calling police, he and his sister dragged the man into the hall.
Excerpt from New York Times Oct 15, 1977
The intruder, 20 year-old Charles Benford, was killed in the 15th-floor apartment of Bettye Ramos, 47 in a middle-income housing complex in the Southview section. He had been shot in the back.
Mrs. Ramos had left her apartment at 8:20am to walk her poodle. The gunman forced her back into the apartment. Alfredo Armentores, who was dressing for school, ran from his bedroom and saw his mother struggling with the gunman. He returned with his baseball bat and seeing his mother struck on the head with the butt of a 25-caliber pistol, slammed the bat against the assailant’s head and shoulders. The gunman fired two shots at the youth. Carol Rodriquez, a 23 year-old daughter grabbed a lamp and slammed it down on the man’s head. As he fell to his knees Alfredo batted the gun out of his hands. In a scramble for the gun, Alfredo got to it first. He then fired the fatal shot, striking the intruder in the back. After calling police, he and his sister dragged the man into the hall.
Excerpt from New York Times Oct 15, 1977
A Body Is Exhumed in Gem Case To Make a Dental Identification
The charred body of a murder victim resembling a missing NY gem salesman was exhumed today in an effort to make a positive identification.
Photographs of the body and samples of hair had been identified by the victim’s brother, but the exhumation was ordered in an effort to confirm the indentification.
A reinvestigation of the three homicides was ordered this week by Colonel Hector Lugo.
Officials said that they had wanted to wait until next week before exhuming the body, buat they finally acceded to Dr. S-Hakimi’s request after his daylong appeal to them. “I’ve been waiting for two and a half months, why do I have to wait any longer for an answer if this is my brother,” he angrily told police.
Dr. S-H searched for six days here last August, looking for traces of his brother, and said local authorities had never mentioned to him the July 29 victim whose age, height and weight appeared to match his brother’s description.
excerpt from Selwyn Raab NYT 10/15/77
Photographs of the body and samples of hair had been identified by the victim’s brother, but the exhumation was ordered in an effort to confirm the indentification.
A reinvestigation of the three homicides was ordered this week by Colonel Hector Lugo.
Officials said that they had wanted to wait until next week before exhuming the body, buat they finally acceded to Dr. S-Hakimi’s request after his daylong appeal to them. “I’ve been waiting for two and a half months, why do I have to wait any longer for an answer if this is my brother,” he angrily told police.
Dr. S-H searched for six days here last August, looking for traces of his brother, and said local authorities had never mentioned to him the July 29 victim whose age, height and weight appeared to match his brother’s description.
excerpt from Selwyn Raab NYT 10/15/77
Body in Gem Death Lost in Puerto Rico
The charred body of a murder victim believed to be that of a missing NYC diamond dealer has disappeared, Puerto Rican officials acknowledged today.
The Commonwealth Justice Department ordered an immediate investigation but police said the body’s disappearance was a result of confusion atteh morgue or undertaker’s and was not a conspiracy to hide or destroy the corpse.
One body was exhumed last night and three others today. But none were the man found shot four times and badly burned last July 29.
Several officials said it was unlikely the body would be found quickly or at all. The confusion caused more distress for the brother. “Would you believe what I am going through?” he said at the cemetery. “I’m disgusted. Don’t they keep records?”
excerpt from Selwyn Raab NYT 10/15/77
The Commonwealth Justice Department ordered an immediate investigation but police said the body’s disappearance was a result of confusion atteh morgue or undertaker’s and was not a conspiracy to hide or destroy the corpse.
One body was exhumed last night and three others today. But none were the man found shot four times and badly burned last July 29.
Several officials said it was unlikely the body would be found quickly or at all. The confusion caused more distress for the brother. “Would you believe what I am going through?” he said at the cemetery. “I’m disgusted. Don’t they keep records?”
excerpt from Selwyn Raab NYT 10/15/77
Friday, October 14, 1977
World Series Shifts Across the Continent
The city of Los Angeles; which had already taken the 1984 Olympics and Joe Namath from New York, braced today for another confrontation: the 74th World Seriesm which will resume here tomorrow with the Dodgers and the Yankees deadlocked at one game apiece.
The crowd of 56, 691 in New York for game two was the largest and at times most unruly of the season in Yankee Stadium.
Five young men who had hopped out of the grandstand and run onto the field were chased, ejected and arrested – one in the seventh and four in the ninth. A smoke flare was tossed onto the grass in right-center field and delayed the game until Reggie Jackson picked it up with his glove and fipped it over the fence. And the Dodgers complained that they had been pelted by all manner of flying objects. “Whisky bottles, beer bottles, little rubber balls, they were throwing anything they could get their hands on,” said Mike Garman, who weathered the storm in the bullpen below the left field seats. “The security officers out there were doing nothing. There weren’t enough of them anyway.”
“Ice cubes, fruit, you name it,” said Reggie Smith, the right fielder for the Dodgers. “Somebody hit me with a hard rubber ball, right on top of the head. Ot was like someone hit me with a hammer.”
ex NYT Durso 10/14/77
The crowd of 56, 691 in New York for game two was the largest and at times most unruly of the season in Yankee Stadium.
Five young men who had hopped out of the grandstand and run onto the field were chased, ejected and arrested – one in the seventh and four in the ninth. A smoke flare was tossed onto the grass in right-center field and delayed the game until Reggie Jackson picked it up with his glove and fipped it over the fence. And the Dodgers complained that they had been pelted by all manner of flying objects. “Whisky bottles, beer bottles, little rubber balls, they were throwing anything they could get their hands on,” said Mike Garman, who weathered the storm in the bullpen below the left field seats. “The security officers out there were doing nothing. There weren’t enough of them anyway.”
“Ice cubes, fruit, you name it,” said Reggie Smith, the right fielder for the Dodgers. “Somebody hit me with a hard rubber ball, right on top of the head. Ot was like someone hit me with a hammer.”
ex NYT Durso 10/14/77
Martin-Jackson Feud On the Road
Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson, star performers in the Yankees’ version of “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” escalated their soap opera into a major war of words today.
The latest episode began when Martin responded to Hackson’s remarks about the manager’s use of Catfish Hunter, and when Martin repeated his implication that Jackson had been inept against Paul Splittorff in KC.
“Why do we have to have all this kind of talk now when we’re trying to win the World Series?” Martin asked, angrily ripping the baseball cap from his head and swinging it onto the desk in his clubhouse office (in LA).
“If you can’t do your job, shut up. He’s got enough trouble playing right field without second-guessing the manager.”
“His job is to play right field and hit, and he’s getting paid a lot to do that. My job
is to manage, and I’m not getting paid a lot to do that. He’s a man of many moods, and it’s too bad he is. He’s putting pressure on himself. He’s better get two hits tomorrow night.”
“I think we found out this summer I’m running this ball club,” Martin continued.
The fiery Yankee manager also referred to the first Series game, when Jackson’s tardy fielding of a single to right field almost gave the Dodgers a run.
“Did you hear me criticize him the other night? When Rivers had to come all the way over and make the play? I didn’t say a word then. If I’m going to back him, why doesn’t he back me? What is this – a one way street? He’s got a lot of growing up to do.”
“Catfish couldn’t throw in September because of his illness. He did throw on the side. You’d think some people had enough trouble doing their own job without doing mine.”
“It’s just an overheated argument,” Munson said. “Reggie’s been struggling, and he’s like to be doing better. Billy just doesn’t realize he’s Mr. October.” (Good call by Munson!)
ex NYT Chass 10/14/77
The latest episode began when Martin responded to Hackson’s remarks about the manager’s use of Catfish Hunter, and when Martin repeated his implication that Jackson had been inept against Paul Splittorff in KC.
“Why do we have to have all this kind of talk now when we’re trying to win the World Series?” Martin asked, angrily ripping the baseball cap from his head and swinging it onto the desk in his clubhouse office (in LA).
“If you can’t do your job, shut up. He’s got enough trouble playing right field without second-guessing the manager.”
“His job is to play right field and hit, and he’s getting paid a lot to do that. My job
is to manage, and I’m not getting paid a lot to do that. He’s a man of many moods, and it’s too bad he is. He’s putting pressure on himself. He’s better get two hits tomorrow night.”
“I think we found out this summer I’m running this ball club,” Martin continued.
The fiery Yankee manager also referred to the first Series game, when Jackson’s tardy fielding of a single to right field almost gave the Dodgers a run.
“Did you hear me criticize him the other night? When Rivers had to come all the way over and make the play? I didn’t say a word then. If I’m going to back him, why doesn’t he back me? What is this – a one way street? He’s got a lot of growing up to do.”
“Catfish couldn’t throw in September because of his illness. He did throw on the side. You’d think some people had enough trouble doing their own job without doing mine.”
“It’s just an overheated argument,” Munson said. “Reggie’s been struggling, and he’s like to be doing better. Billy just doesn’t realize he’s Mr. October.” (Good call by Munson!)
ex NYT Chass 10/14/77
Slain Man Identified As Diamond Dealer
The brother of a missing New York diamond dealer today identified the charred body of a murder victim as that of his brother, Abraham Shafizadeh.
Colonel Sanchez said the police were still trying to “definitely” confirm that the body was that of Mr. S before a decision was made about exhumation.
The police are unsure if this murder and two 1974 murders are linked. The police, however, were known to be looking into a connection between Mr. Acevedo and Robert Jacobs, a controversial jeweler here. Both of them have offices in the same building and Mr. Acevedo is a salaried employee of Mr. Jacobs’. The police have questioned Mr. Jacobs about a reported $100,000 debt he owed Mr. Howard Block, the diamond dealer slain in 1974. “It’s a very interesting coincidence,” said Colonel Sanchez.
excerpt from Selwyn Raab NYT 10/14/77
Colonel Sanchez said the police were still trying to “definitely” confirm that the body was that of Mr. S before a decision was made about exhumation.
The police are unsure if this murder and two 1974 murders are linked. The police, however, were known to be looking into a connection between Mr. Acevedo and Robert Jacobs, a controversial jeweler here. Both of them have offices in the same building and Mr. Acevedo is a salaried employee of Mr. Jacobs’. The police have questioned Mr. Jacobs about a reported $100,000 debt he owed Mr. Howard Block, the diamond dealer slain in 1974. “It’s a very interesting coincidence,” said Colonel Sanchez.
excerpt from Selwyn Raab NYT 10/14/77
Thursday, October 13, 1977
O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again – Thomas Wolfe
For a couple of days and nights now, it has almost seemed like old times- the Yankees and the Dodgers – with the D train an elbow-rubbing aprlor car for ticketholders as it coursed under the Harlem River to the Stadium stop at 161st Street. But it isn’t old times – even Joe DiMaggio has a hard time getting Yankee Stadium tickets.
The Yankees vs, the Dodgers – a match that once made the city stop in its tracks on October afternoons. It was the Bronx against Brooklyn, and all other allegiances were cancelled for the duration. It was Pee Wee Reese vs. Phil Rizzuto, Don Newcombe vs. Allie Reynolds, Red Barber vs. Mel Allen. It was fans lined up outside Yankee Stadium and Ebbets Field in all-night procession by the thousands. It was a city under the seige of baseball, and anyone who wasn’t interested had a week in October to play solitaire.
It is 36 years since Mickey Owen dropped that third strike, 22 since Johnny Podres beat the Yankees for the Dodgers first Series victory, 21 since Don Larsen pitched his perfect game, and a generation sice Walter O’Malley abandoned Ebbets Field for the gold mine of Chavez Ravine.
For those of us who gave up serious consideration of baseball with the passing of the Brooklyn Dodgers, this is a week for reminiscence at best, accompanied by a massive lack of interest in the outcome.
The baseball generation brought up on the Mets doesn’t know how to hate. But to those of us for whom Ebbets Field was a second home, the Yankees – even more than the Giants – were, and remain the enemy.
For, after years of futility in the National League, when the Dodgers finally won the pennant in 1941 it was the Yankees who ened our reverie and won the Series.
It was the same in 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953 before Johnny Podres shut them out in the final game of the 1955 series. But then, the Yankees won again in 1956.
In 1941 the Dodgers were all that Brooklyn thought about, and when they won the pennant, they closed the schools, had a parade, and two million people showed up. The team promised to beat the Yankees.
But unlike the Mets, who knew how to finish miracles once begun, the Dodgers found ways to undo them. In 1941 the darkest moment came when Mickey Owen dropped the game-ending third strike and the Yankees poured four runs over in the ninth and won the game.
The Yankees won in 1947 despite heroics on the field from the Dodgers. The Yankees won again in 1949, and in1952, when we had barely recovered from Bobby Thomson’s home run of the year before – a hit that will live in infamy – it was Billy Martin (ah, for sweet revenge) who did it to us with a catch he never should have made.
The victory in 1955 was sweet, but its effect short-lived.
In 1963, when the Dodgers returnedf from Los Angeles, it was still possible to root because Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax and Johnny Podres (all Brooklyn heroes) helped destroy the Yankees.
Since then it hasn’t mattered.
ex NYT Schnurman 10/13/77
The Yankees vs, the Dodgers – a match that once made the city stop in its tracks on October afternoons. It was the Bronx against Brooklyn, and all other allegiances were cancelled for the duration. It was Pee Wee Reese vs. Phil Rizzuto, Don Newcombe vs. Allie Reynolds, Red Barber vs. Mel Allen. It was fans lined up outside Yankee Stadium and Ebbets Field in all-night procession by the thousands. It was a city under the seige of baseball, and anyone who wasn’t interested had a week in October to play solitaire.
It is 36 years since Mickey Owen dropped that third strike, 22 since Johnny Podres beat the Yankees for the Dodgers first Series victory, 21 since Don Larsen pitched his perfect game, and a generation sice Walter O’Malley abandoned Ebbets Field for the gold mine of Chavez Ravine.
For those of us who gave up serious consideration of baseball with the passing of the Brooklyn Dodgers, this is a week for reminiscence at best, accompanied by a massive lack of interest in the outcome.
The baseball generation brought up on the Mets doesn’t know how to hate. But to those of us for whom Ebbets Field was a second home, the Yankees – even more than the Giants – were, and remain the enemy.
For, after years of futility in the National League, when the Dodgers finally won the pennant in 1941 it was the Yankees who ened our reverie and won the Series.
It was the same in 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953 before Johnny Podres shut them out in the final game of the 1955 series. But then, the Yankees won again in 1956.
In 1941 the Dodgers were all that Brooklyn thought about, and when they won the pennant, they closed the schools, had a parade, and two million people showed up. The team promised to beat the Yankees.
But unlike the Mets, who knew how to finish miracles once begun, the Dodgers found ways to undo them. In 1941 the darkest moment came when Mickey Owen dropped the game-ending third strike and the Yankees poured four runs over in the ninth and won the game.
The Yankees won in 1947 despite heroics on the field from the Dodgers. The Yankees won again in 1949, and in1952, when we had barely recovered from Bobby Thomson’s home run of the year before – a hit that will live in infamy – it was Billy Martin (ah, for sweet revenge) who did it to us with a catch he never should have made.
The victory in 1955 was sweet, but its effect short-lived.
In 1963, when the Dodgers returnedf from Los Angeles, it was still possible to root because Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax and Johnny Podres (all Brooklyn heroes) helped destroy the Yankees.
Since then it hasn’t mattered.
ex NYT Schnurman 10/13/77
It Was a ‘New York Night’ In and Out of the Stadium
It was a night, like every night in New York, of small battles and small victories. It was a World Series night at Yankee Stadium and the crowd that filled the stately park in the Bronx was simply New York shoehorned into a baseball field.
By the time Steve Garvey hit his homer in the ninth, the crowd had become restless and unruly. Firecrackers and smoke bombs were tossed from the stands onto the field and fights broke out in the seats. Some fans in the upper levels doused those below them with beer. The game was delayed several times as young fans raced across the field. (One fan slid across home plate in the ninth!)
ex NYT Eskenazi 10/13/77
By the time Steve Garvey hit his homer in the ninth, the crowd had become restless and unruly. Firecrackers and smoke bombs were tossed from the stands onto the field and fights broke out in the seats. Some fans in the upper levels doused those below them with beer. The game was delayed several times as young fans raced across the field. (One fan slid across home plate in the ninth!)
ex NYT Eskenazi 10/13/77
About New York: A Look Outside Yankee Stadium
From across the way in Manhattan, the ballpark beckons in cream and blue, like a saucer of light next to dark ribbons of water. The confidence of outsiders is such on a World Series night that they are willing to park their cars across the river on the streets of Harlem. These streams of baseball fans are predominantly white. They sport suburban coats as the weather chills, and they feel secure enough in numbers to be willing to walk as aliens along someone else’s sidewalks for a chance to avoid the expense and tangle of stadium parking.
North of the stadium, as the ballpark lights send a white blush up into the darkening blue city night, the outsiders park in the streets of a housing project that is home to Andre Atkins, a tall, thin, black 16-year-old who is part of a (feral) youth culture (better known as a race) that can make stadium visitors very nervous.
“It’s like the night of the Ali fight,” Andre says, describing the mass of interlopers on his project streets.
ex NYT Clines 10/13/77
North of the stadium, as the ballpark lights send a white blush up into the darkening blue city night, the outsiders park in the streets of a housing project that is home to Andre Atkins, a tall, thin, black 16-year-old who is part of a (feral) youth culture (better known as a race) that can make stadium visitors very nervous.
“It’s like the night of the Ali fight,” Andre says, describing the mass of interlopers on his project streets.
ex NYT Clines 10/13/77
From the Police Blotter:
An off-duty city correction officer, Robert Donofrio, 29 years old, fired three shots, killing an alleged gunman attempting to rob the officer’s brother’s bagel store at 357 Avenue X in the Homecrest section of Brooklyn. The dead man was identified tentatively as Barry Newman, in his 20’s, address unknown. An accomplice fled.
An attendant in a Bronx service station as shot and killed in the office of the station at 458 Southern Blvd in the Mott Haven section. The victim was Luis Font, 30, of 1920 Walton Avenue. The motive and gunman were unknown.
A clerk at a grocery store at 2060 Broadway at 72nd Street was wounded in the arm by an unknown gunman before dawn during an apparent attempted robbery.
excerpt from NYT 10/13/77
An attendant in a Bronx service station as shot and killed in the office of the station at 458 Southern Blvd in the Mott Haven section. The victim was Luis Font, 30, of 1920 Walton Avenue. The motive and gunman were unknown.
A clerk at a grocery store at 2060 Broadway at 72nd Street was wounded in the arm by an unknown gunman before dawn during an apparent attempted robbery.
excerpt from NYT 10/13/77
Jewelers’ Murders Prompt New Inquiry
Police officers here (Puerto Rico) began a “new and concentrated” investigation today into the murders and disappearance of three American diamond dealers after the charred body of a man believed to be a missing NY diamond merchant was found.
A San Juan designer and jewelry manufacturer, Hector Acavedo, acknowledged that he owed Mr. Sharizadeh about $40,000 at the time of his disappearance. He denied an accusation that he owed another $40,000 and that he had told the dealer to bring more than $200,000 in diamonds with him for potential customers.
excerpt from Selwyn Raab NYT 10/13/77
A San Juan designer and jewelry manufacturer, Hector Acavedo, acknowledged that he owed Mr. Sharizadeh about $40,000 at the time of his disappearance. He denied an accusation that he owed another $40,000 and that he had told the dealer to bring more than $200,000 in diamonds with him for potential customers.
excerpt from Selwyn Raab NYT 10/13/77
Wednesday, October 12, 1977
Pipe Bomb Explodes Outside Main Library
A pipe bomb exploded yesterday outside the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 41st Street, and two unexploded dynamite sticks with a ticking timing device were found outside the General Motors building at 59th and Madison.
Police said the design of the device found yesterday resembled one left by the group at 1270 Ave Americas in August. That device also failed to go off.
A stick and a half of dynamite, together with a detonator, were left inside a shoe box inside a wicker trash basket about 25 feet from the main entrance.
A drifter first found the dynamite while searching the basket. For unknown reasons he left one stick of dynamite and the timer in a nearby concrete tree planter. By chance, two FBI agents who were walking by noticed the dynamite and notified police.
The pipe bomb went off shortly after 4 PM in the fountain to the viewer’s left of the main entrance in the library’s east façade.
10/12/77
Police said the design of the device found yesterday resembled one left by the group at 1270 Ave Americas in August. That device also failed to go off.
A stick and a half of dynamite, together with a detonator, were left inside a shoe box inside a wicker trash basket about 25 feet from the main entrance.
A drifter first found the dynamite while searching the basket. For unknown reasons he left one stick of dynamite and the timer in a nearby concrete tree planter. By chance, two FBI agents who were walking by noticed the dynamite and notified police.
The pipe bomb went off shortly after 4 PM in the fountain to the viewer’s left of the main entrance in the library’s east façade.
10/12/77
Yankes Top Dodgers in Opener 4-3
Blair’s single in the 12th Decides First World Series Contest Here
The faces were different and the names were different, but the drama and memoires were were the same last night when the New York Yankees beat back the Dodgers in 12 innings as the old rivals opened baseball’s 74th World Series in Yankee Stadium.
And for those people who suspected that the Yankees might have run out of gas, strength or rebound ability after a summer of feuding and rallying, the smask ending showed otherwise.
ex NYT Durso 10/12/77
The faces were different and the names were different, but the drama and memoires were were the same last night when the New York Yankees beat back the Dodgers in 12 innings as the old rivals opened baseball’s 74th World Series in Yankee Stadium.
And for those people who suspected that the Yankees might have run out of gas, strength or rebound ability after a summer of feuding and rallying, the smask ending showed otherwise.
ex NYT Durso 10/12/77
Jeweler’s Body Believed Found
The badly charred body of a murder victim resembling Abraham Shafizadeh, a missing New York City diamond dealer, was been found in Puerto Rico, officials said yesterday.
The body, with numerous bullet wounds, was discovered on a road in a rural mountain town last July 2, the day after the 31-year-old dealer is believed to have arrived in Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rican police had appartently not investigated if the unidentified slain man was Mr. Shafizadeh until yesterday, when a newspaper reporter noticed the coincidence between the date of the dealer’s disappearance and the finding of the body.
Another diamond merchant was robbed in Far Rockaway Queens on Monday night ($250,000 in gems). Detectives said they made no arrests in that incident and hand made no significant progress in any of the other cases.
The conclusion of the autopsy was that the victim had been set on fire with gasoline before he was dead. (Doesn’t sound like a straight-forward robbery).
Police officials in Puerto Rico said yesterday that they were uncertain where the body had been buried but that most probably it was a pauper’s grave in a municipal cemetery.
excerpt from Selwyn Raab NYT 10/12/77
The body, with numerous bullet wounds, was discovered on a road in a rural mountain town last July 2, the day after the 31-year-old dealer is believed to have arrived in Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rican police had appartently not investigated if the unidentified slain man was Mr. Shafizadeh until yesterday, when a newspaper reporter noticed the coincidence between the date of the dealer’s disappearance and the finding of the body.
Another diamond merchant was robbed in Far Rockaway Queens on Monday night ($250,000 in gems). Detectives said they made no arrests in that incident and hand made no significant progress in any of the other cases.
The conclusion of the autopsy was that the victim had been set on fire with gasoline before he was dead. (Doesn’t sound like a straight-forward robbery).
Police officials in Puerto Rico said yesterday that they were uncertain where the body had been buried but that most probably it was a pauper’s grave in a municipal cemetery.
excerpt from Selwyn Raab NYT 10/12/77
Tuesday, October 11, 1977
It Was an Exciting Day for New York: Yankee Fervor
The triumphant homecoming of the New York Yankees yesterday with their second consecutive American League pennant created a mood of excitement that had an inimitable New York City cachet.
There were unruly surges of thousands of baseball fans at the stadium for bleacher seats in which hundreds were thrown to the sidewalks, with many trampled, while ticket scalpers nearby flourished. (This mini-bleacher riot took place on the afternoon of the Commodores riot at MSG later in the evening).
A pregnant woman was rescued from the throng by police and taken to the front of the line where she bought tickets. “I was getting squashed. I was afraid I’d have the baby in the line.”
The police were angry at times, saying the Yankees should have opened their box office during the night instead of waiting for 9am when thousands were already 8 abreast for about 5,000 bleacher seats for each of the first two games.
Officer Robert Johnson, who was in charge of the few dozen officers at the stadium said of the scene: “This is the worst I’ve ever seen.” (See Commodores riot for the same words by another cop.)
Between 3000 and 4000 fans were at Newark Airport to greet the arriving Yankee flight from Kansas City at 4 AM shouting “We’re Number 1!” A mini-riot ensued and fans broke through police barracades and “charged across the field, with some pushing up to the landing ramp.” (Thousands of fans surrounding the Yankees charter plane ?!?)
At the stadium fans watched the final game at Stadium taverns and then broke for the ticket line when Fred Patek grounded into a double play to end the game.
The first fan was on line by 11:30pm. Scalpers were cuttingdeals left and right. One guy missed out on tickets because he went to Newark airport to greet the team before heading to the Stadium.
ex NYT Schumach 10/11/77
There were unruly surges of thousands of baseball fans at the stadium for bleacher seats in which hundreds were thrown to the sidewalks, with many trampled, while ticket scalpers nearby flourished. (This mini-bleacher riot took place on the afternoon of the Commodores riot at MSG later in the evening).
A pregnant woman was rescued from the throng by police and taken to the front of the line where she bought tickets. “I was getting squashed. I was afraid I’d have the baby in the line.”
The police were angry at times, saying the Yankees should have opened their box office during the night instead of waiting for 9am when thousands were already 8 abreast for about 5,000 bleacher seats for each of the first two games.
Officer Robert Johnson, who was in charge of the few dozen officers at the stadium said of the scene: “This is the worst I’ve ever seen.” (See Commodores riot for the same words by another cop.)
Between 3000 and 4000 fans were at Newark Airport to greet the arriving Yankee flight from Kansas City at 4 AM shouting “We’re Number 1!” A mini-riot ensued and fans broke through police barracades and “charged across the field, with some pushing up to the landing ramp.” (Thousands of fans surrounding the Yankees charter plane ?!?)
At the stadium fans watched the final game at Stadium taverns and then broke for the ticket line when Fred Patek grounded into a double play to end the game.
The first fan was on line by 11:30pm. Scalpers were cuttingdeals left and right. One guy missed out on tickets because he went to Newark airport to greet the team before heading to the Stadium.
ex NYT Schumach 10/11/77
Yank-Dodger Tradition: Eight Memorable Series
This is the ninth Yankee-Dodger World Series and all eight of their previous meetings have produced something especially memorable in baseball.
No other teams have been paired as often in World Series play but it is only their second meeting since the Dodgers moved to LA 20 years ago.
ex NYT Koppett 10/11/77
No other teams have been paired as often in World Series play but it is only their second meeting since the Dodgers moved to LA 20 years ago.
ex NYT Koppett 10/11/77
Yankee Flight Home Unusually Calm
Ron Guidry, looking more like a riverboat gambler than a pitcher sits with his wife and 9-month old daughter. Bucky Dent, the exhausted shortstop slept on his wife’s lap. Billy Martin sat in the first row by himself listening to a tape player filled with country music held to his left ear. Reggie Jackson sat in the last row.
When he was benched by Martin for the fifth and final game of the playoffs, he did not gnash his teeth or kick over a clubhouse stool or criticize the manager.
Instead he said Billy Martin is the manager, and what Billy Martin says, Reggie Jackson does. On the plane, Jackson says nothing different but his face belies his words. The hurt is easily read. Martin had humiliated him by sitting him down in the most important game of the Yankee season and Jackson can never forgive him. Jackson can only wonder if it will be repeated during the World Series.
Thurmon Munson hopes to be playing his last games for the Yankees (he died in August 1979 while flying his own plane home). Steinbrenner, the overzealous owner and the reason Munson wants to be traded to the Cleveland Indians (he lives in Canton OH with his wife and 2-year-old son) sits a few rows in front of the Munsons. He looks immaculate even though Elston Howard, Martin and Cliff Johnson poured champagne on him. “That’s for almost firing me,” Martin had said in the clubhouse in KC, laughing. “What do you mean, almost?” Steinbrenner replied, laughing.
ex NYT Chass 10/11/77
When he was benched by Martin for the fifth and final game of the playoffs, he did not gnash his teeth or kick over a clubhouse stool or criticize the manager.
Instead he said Billy Martin is the manager, and what Billy Martin says, Reggie Jackson does. On the plane, Jackson says nothing different but his face belies his words. The hurt is easily read. Martin had humiliated him by sitting him down in the most important game of the Yankee season and Jackson can never forgive him. Jackson can only wonder if it will be repeated during the World Series.
Thurmon Munson hopes to be playing his last games for the Yankees (he died in August 1979 while flying his own plane home). Steinbrenner, the overzealous owner and the reason Munson wants to be traded to the Cleveland Indians (he lives in Canton OH with his wife and 2-year-old son) sits a few rows in front of the Munsons. He looks immaculate even though Elston Howard, Martin and Cliff Johnson poured champagne on him. “That’s for almost firing me,” Martin had said in the clubhouse in KC, laughing. “What do you mean, almost?” Steinbrenner replied, laughing.
ex NYT Chass 10/11/77
Sherry-Netherland Hotel is Robbed; Loot Put in Hundreds of Thousands
Four conservatively dressed robbers rifled 73 of 110 safe-deposit boxes of an estimated total of several hundred thousand dollars in cash, jewels and other valuables before dawn yesterday after handcuffing the night manager and three other employees.
The robbery was the second in less than three years at the luxurious hotel on Fifth Avenue between 59th and 60th.
The style of the New York robbers is believed by the police to be patterned after the modus operandi of thieves who took more than $100,000 from deposit boxes at the Park House Hotel in Boston in 1972.
Yesterday’s crime was made easier for the robbers, police said, because no guests entered or left the lobby while they were opening the boxes with a steel punch and hammer between 4:30pm and 5:30am. The police were hampered in their investigation because all four thieves wore gloves and left no finger prints. Witnesses said two wore wigs and one a false mustache.
Robert Clancy, the night manager said one robber wearing a well-tailored and vested three piece suit came in and pointed a revolver at him and handcuffed him. Three other employees were also rounded up and handcuffed. A timekeeper saw them leave and called police. He said they looked suspicious.
Diana Ross was looted. She is here to film a movie with Michael Jackson, Richard Prior, Nipsey Russell and Ted Ross.
In the last five to six years similar robberies have taken place at the Drake, Pierre, Plaza, Regency, and the Sherry-Netherland a previous time, in 1974. Two well dressed gunmen looted the Pierre (up the street) for $2 million in cash and valuables.
Those robbed yesterday are facing losses because each box is insured for only $500.
excerpt from E. Perlmutter NYT 10/11/77
The robbery was the second in less than three years at the luxurious hotel on Fifth Avenue between 59th and 60th.
The style of the New York robbers is believed by the police to be patterned after the modus operandi of thieves who took more than $100,000 from deposit boxes at the Park House Hotel in Boston in 1972.
Yesterday’s crime was made easier for the robbers, police said, because no guests entered or left the lobby while they were opening the boxes with a steel punch and hammer between 4:30pm and 5:30am. The police were hampered in their investigation because all four thieves wore gloves and left no finger prints. Witnesses said two wore wigs and one a false mustache.
Robert Clancy, the night manager said one robber wearing a well-tailored and vested three piece suit came in and pointed a revolver at him and handcuffed him. Three other employees were also rounded up and handcuffed. A timekeeper saw them leave and called police. He said they looked suspicious.
Diana Ross was looted. She is here to film a movie with Michael Jackson, Richard Prior, Nipsey Russell and Ted Ross.
In the last five to six years similar robberies have taken place at the Drake, Pierre, Plaza, Regency, and the Sherry-Netherland a previous time, in 1974. Two well dressed gunmen looted the Pierre (up the street) for $2 million in cash and valuables.
Those robbed yesterday are facing losses because each box is insured for only $500.
excerpt from E. Perlmutter NYT 10/11/77
Monday, October 10, 1977
Jets Defy the Odds Again, Conquer Bills
For the first time since 1974, the Jets reached .500 today, making fools of the oddsmakers for the second straight week.
The charged up New Yorkers, the second youngest team in the NFL, once again recovered a fumble in the waning minutes to position a score that led to an upset.
This was Richard Todd’s strongest game in his two seasons as a pro. The QB from Alabama (!) was hurling finely-aimed spirals and connected on 10 of 15 for a “huge” yardage total of 194. None of his passes were intercepted.
(Jets went on to a 3-11 record losing the next 7 and 9 of the last 10).
ex NYT Eskenazi 10/10/77
The charged up New Yorkers, the second youngest team in the NFL, once again recovered a fumble in the waning minutes to position a score that led to an upset.
This was Richard Todd’s strongest game in his two seasons as a pro. The QB from Alabama (!) was hurling finely-aimed spirals and connected on 10 of 15 for a “huge” yardage total of 194. None of his passes were intercepted.
(Jets went on to a 3-11 record losing the next 7 and 9 of the last 10).
ex NYT Eskenazi 10/10/77
Saturday, October 08, 1977
Escaped Rikers Island Prisoner Holds Wife Hostage for 9 Hours
A prisoner who escaped Sunday night from Rikers Island held his wife at gunpoint for nearly nine hours in East Harlem yesterday morning (Friday) before surrendering.
The prisoner, Anthony Ricco, 23, released his wife Yolanda and surrendered after negotiators including a childhood friend who is now a police officer promised not to send him back to Riker’s Island. Earlier he had robbed a garage and stolen a car.
He was remanded by a judge to Bellevue for observation but if he is reimprisoned he would not be taken to Rikers. He was arrested in Feb. 1975, shortly after the murder of a clerk at the Sutton East Hotel. He had a previous conviction for robbery. The police found the car parked and went through the building looking for the robbery suspect.
Seems they had no idea it was his address – no stake out of his wife’s apartment?)Chris Borgen of WCBS-TV was among those who talked to him on a field telephone. A large crowd of spectators, television crews and reporters gathered on the street.
A few minutes later, after the police had instructed television crews where to position their cameras, Mr. Ricco, wearing a beige sport jacket and brown turtleneck shirt was led outside and into a police car. The onlookers cheered.
excerpt from Grace Lichtenstein NYT 10/8/77
The prisoner, Anthony Ricco, 23, released his wife Yolanda and surrendered after negotiators including a childhood friend who is now a police officer promised not to send him back to Riker’s Island. Earlier he had robbed a garage and stolen a car.
He was remanded by a judge to Bellevue for observation but if he is reimprisoned he would not be taken to Rikers. He was arrested in Feb. 1975, shortly after the murder of a clerk at the Sutton East Hotel. He had a previous conviction for robbery. The police found the car parked and went through the building looking for the robbery suspect.
Seems they had no idea it was his address – no stake out of his wife’s apartment?)Chris Borgen of WCBS-TV was among those who talked to him on a field telephone. A large crowd of spectators, television crews and reporters gathered on the street.
A few minutes later, after the police had instructed television crews where to position their cameras, Mr. Ricco, wearing a beige sport jacket and brown turtleneck shirt was led outside and into a police car. The onlookers cheered.
excerpt from Grace Lichtenstein NYT 10/8/77
Thursday, October 06, 1977
Suspect Lettuce in the Lasagna
A cache of $17,200 in $50 bills – believed to be part of money allegedly stolen from an abandoned trunk by two former warehouse employees – has been discovered by detectives between the layers of frozen lasagna. The former employees had been arrested last month and charged with grand larceny. The owner of the trunk (that had been in storage) has not been identified.
Morgenthau said that the trunk might have contained as much as $5 million. When the suspects were arrested $380,000 was recovered from safe-deposit boxes. The money was found at the house of a brother-in-law on LI.
Morgenthau said that the trunk might have contained as much as $5 million. When the suspects were arrested $380,000 was recovered from safe-deposit boxes. The money was found at the house of a brother-in-law on LI.
Excerpt from New York Times Oct 6, 1977
Wednesday, October 05, 1977
Police Records List 2 More Gem Murders
Detectives and diamond dealers said they believe that many of the recent murders and robberies of gem merchants were inside jobs arranged by people who worked in the industry – many of them newcomers.
With these two new murders (in 1975 and 1976) the police now know of at least six murders of diamond brokers and others in the industry in the last three years.
John L. Keenan, NYC Chief of Detectives said that in the first nine months of the year there had been 16 robberies (actually fewer than a year earlier).
excerpt from L. Buder NYT 10/5/77
With these two new murders (in 1975 and 1976) the police now know of at least six murders of diamond brokers and others in the industry in the last three years.
John L. Keenan, NYC Chief of Detectives said that in the first nine months of the year there had been 16 robberies (actually fewer than a year earlier).
excerpt from L. Buder NYT 10/5/77
Tuesday, October 04, 1977
A Baseball Team Named Jackson
The mention of 24 Yankee players would have confused a casual visitor in Yankee Stadium yesterday. A stranger would have got the clear impression that the league’s Eastern Divison was going to be represented by a single player, a muscular individual named Reginald Martinez Jackson, who speaks as freely as he swings a bolt of mountain ash.
exNYT Smith 10/4/77
exNYT Smith 10/4/77
6-Month Losses In Gem District Put at $3M
April: two thieves took gems worth $1M from the H. Grossbard Co 15 W 47th Street
July: robbers took $550K worth of gems from the Naspro Co.
July: three gunmen took $456K from Medco Jewelry
excerpt from Leonard Buder NYT 10/4/77
July: robbers took $550K worth of gems from the Naspro Co.
July: three gunmen took $456K from Medco Jewelry
excerpt from Leonard Buder NYT 10/4/77
Uneasiness Is Felt by Merchants in the Diamond District
One merchant said “the big difference now is they are killing people the rob.”
“This talk about some kind of Mafia is nonsense. What we are worried about is all this publicity. It puts the whole block under a magnifying glass. All this talk about valuable diamonds and how much cash is being carried will just attract criminals.” (Or investigations will uncover illegal activity).
Their current fear has been exacerbated by the presence on the block of television crews. “Every criminal in the world will see your face.”
excerpt from M. Schumach NYT 10/4/77
“This talk about some kind of Mafia is nonsense. What we are worried about is all this publicity. It puts the whole block under a magnifying glass. All this talk about valuable diamonds and how much cash is being carried will just attract criminals.” (Or investigations will uncover illegal activity).
Their current fear has been exacerbated by the presence on the block of television crews. “Every criminal in the world will see your face.”
excerpt from M. Schumach NYT 10/4/77
2 Officers Suspended After Rikers Escape
Two corrections officers were suspended yesterday for alleged dereliction of duty as a result of the escape Sunday night of 10 prisoners from the Men’s House of Detention on Riker’s Island. Five, including 3 awaiting trial on murder charges are still at large.
One died trying to swim across the East River. Four others were captured on the island.
“It is a folly for the state to spend over $1 billion a year on the criminal-justice system in order to apprehend and try those who are breaking our laws only to have dozens of those facing the most serious charges break out of jails after they are caught.”
Last July, during and immediately after the power blackout, about a dozen prisoners escaped from Rikers Island. In September 1976 seven prisoners sawed their way out of the institution. (30 in 12 months?) In that breakout a prison guard was charged with providing hacksaws used in the escape. Two of these escapees had been charged with slaying two armored-car guards in a Times Square movie house. In the escape, two of the seven drowned and four were recaptured. One (?) escaped prisoner from that group is still at large.
The suspended officers will be given a departmental trial for reporting a normal occupancy of 218 prisoners in cell block 38 when 10 were missing.
The priosoners placed pillows and rolled up sheets in their beds but the officer’s station was only a few feet away. The prisoners got through a steel door in sight of the officer’s station, went down to the basement, then the subbasement, pried open another door with a tire iron, entered the yard and climged a drain pipe to the roof, crossed the roof, got back down on the ground and made their way to the river.
E. Perlmutter NYT 10/4/77
One died trying to swim across the East River. Four others were captured on the island.
“It is a folly for the state to spend over $1 billion a year on the criminal-justice system in order to apprehend and try those who are breaking our laws only to have dozens of those facing the most serious charges break out of jails after they are caught.”
Last July, during and immediately after the power blackout, about a dozen prisoners escaped from Rikers Island. In September 1976 seven prisoners sawed their way out of the institution. (30 in 12 months?) In that breakout a prison guard was charged with providing hacksaws used in the escape. Two of these escapees had been charged with slaying two armored-car guards in a Times Square movie house. In the escape, two of the seven drowned and four were recaptured. One (?) escaped prisoner from that group is still at large.
The suspended officers will be given a departmental trial for reporting a normal occupancy of 218 prisoners in cell block 38 when 10 were missing.
The priosoners placed pillows and rolled up sheets in their beds but the officer’s station was only a few feet away. The prisoners got through a steel door in sight of the officer’s station, went down to the basement, then the subbasement, pried open another door with a tire iron, entered the yard and climged a drain pipe to the roof, crossed the roof, got back down on the ground and made their way to the river.
E. Perlmutter NYT 10/4/77
Monday, October 03, 1977
Veronica’s Short, Sad Life – Prostitution at 11, Death at 12
The first time Veronica Brunson was arrested she was 11 years old. The charge was prostitution. Before another year passed, the police, unaware of her real age, arrested her 11 more times.
At age 12, she was dead – killed in a mysterious plunge last July from the 10th floor of a shabby midtown hotel frequented by pimps.
“Even a babyfaced obvious kid who claims to be 18 can parade through the entire process – arrest, fingerprinting, arraignment – without anyone asking questions.” Officer Warren McGinniss. Six agencies, which were partially aware of her difficulties and were supposedly providing aid, now cite bureaucratic difficulties and communication breakdowns for their failure to act more effectively. The agencies are the Dept of Social Services, Board of Ed, Probation Dept, the Corporation Counsel’s Office, the police and the Brroklyn Center for Psychotherapy. “You can’t tell me appropriate intervention wouldn’t have saved her life,” said Bruce Ritter, Covenant House. “The juvenile-justice and child-welfare systems in the city are chaotic. Programs just don’t exist and everyone knows it.”
Prostitution by 13, 14 and 15 year-old posing as older persons is no longer rare. But an arrest for prostitution of an 11-year-old is believed by vice squad detectives to be the youngest recorded here in decades.
In July 1976, Veronica continued to leave home for two or three day periods (after meeting an 18 year old girl at Coney Island). Her mother said she didn’t report her as a missing person because she would occasionally telephone her.
But in September her mother told a school guidance counselor that Veronica had been missing for more than a month. The counselor urged her to contact police. She was officially reported missing on September 19th, after the new school term had begun. Her family said she had been missing for 6 weeks. The next day she was arrested on a prostitution charge. She had solicited a plainclothes officer on west 42nd Street. She gave the police her real age and identity and was released into her mother’s care pending action by the family court.
She returned to school (special school for slow learners) and teachers and counselors said they noticed significant changes in her. The year before she had dressed inconspicuously, almost shabbily. Now she used facial makeup and wore expensive-looking, color coordinated clothing, jewelry, high-heeled shoes and nylon stocking. “She seemed to have grown socially out of proportion with her age.” “I’d never seen a girl that young suddenly that street wise.” She told at least two of her teachers that pimps had tried to recruit her but that she had refused. Her absenteeism reached 121 of 180 school days.
She served 12 days in the Women’s House of Detention (Rikers) with adult prisoners.
Each agency said one of the others had rightful jurisdiction in the case. Therefore no action was taken by any child welfare official in May even thought the 12-year-old girl with a prostitution record was known to be missing.
On July 29th the girl went to room 1003 in the Markwell, a dingy hotel on 49th west of Broadway. At about 8 pm “guests” at the hotel heard a fading scream and the thud of a body hitting the pavement. Veronica Bunson, almost nude, lay unconscious on the sidewalk. Four days later she died at St. Claire’s Hospital.
The room ($15.50 a night) had been registered to a Mr and Mrs Post. The couple told police that the girl had been feeling ill and come to their room to rest. Even in death, Veronica’s case was botched by the city. It took police nine days to identify her. Her fingerprints taken in adult arrests led to fictitious names and addresses. Since no one under the age of 16 is fingerprinted, Family Court records were useless. Detectives traced her through prostitutes who knew her last name.
NYT Raab 10/3/77
At age 12, she was dead – killed in a mysterious plunge last July from the 10th floor of a shabby midtown hotel frequented by pimps.
“Even a babyfaced obvious kid who claims to be 18 can parade through the entire process – arrest, fingerprinting, arraignment – without anyone asking questions.” Officer Warren McGinniss. Six agencies, which were partially aware of her difficulties and were supposedly providing aid, now cite bureaucratic difficulties and communication breakdowns for their failure to act more effectively. The agencies are the Dept of Social Services, Board of Ed, Probation Dept, the Corporation Counsel’s Office, the police and the Brroklyn Center for Psychotherapy. “You can’t tell me appropriate intervention wouldn’t have saved her life,” said Bruce Ritter, Covenant House. “The juvenile-justice and child-welfare systems in the city are chaotic. Programs just don’t exist and everyone knows it.”
Prostitution by 13, 14 and 15 year-old posing as older persons is no longer rare. But an arrest for prostitution of an 11-year-old is believed by vice squad detectives to be the youngest recorded here in decades.
In July 1976, Veronica continued to leave home for two or three day periods (after meeting an 18 year old girl at Coney Island). Her mother said she didn’t report her as a missing person because she would occasionally telephone her.
But in September her mother told a school guidance counselor that Veronica had been missing for more than a month. The counselor urged her to contact police. She was officially reported missing on September 19th, after the new school term had begun. Her family said she had been missing for 6 weeks. The next day she was arrested on a prostitution charge. She had solicited a plainclothes officer on west 42nd Street. She gave the police her real age and identity and was released into her mother’s care pending action by the family court.
She returned to school (special school for slow learners) and teachers and counselors said they noticed significant changes in her. The year before she had dressed inconspicuously, almost shabbily. Now she used facial makeup and wore expensive-looking, color coordinated clothing, jewelry, high-heeled shoes and nylon stocking. “She seemed to have grown socially out of proportion with her age.” “I’d never seen a girl that young suddenly that street wise.” She told at least two of her teachers that pimps had tried to recruit her but that she had refused. Her absenteeism reached 121 of 180 school days.
She served 12 days in the Women’s House of Detention (Rikers) with adult prisoners.
Each agency said one of the others had rightful jurisdiction in the case. Therefore no action was taken by any child welfare official in May even thought the 12-year-old girl with a prostitution record was known to be missing.
On July 29th the girl went to room 1003 in the Markwell, a dingy hotel on 49th west of Broadway. At about 8 pm “guests” at the hotel heard a fading scream and the thud of a body hitting the pavement. Veronica Bunson, almost nude, lay unconscious on the sidewalk. Four days later she died at St. Claire’s Hospital.
The room ($15.50 a night) had been registered to a Mr and Mrs Post. The couple told police that the girl had been feeling ill and come to their room to rest. Even in death, Veronica’s case was botched by the city. It took police nine days to identify her. Her fingerprints taken in adult arrests led to fictitious names and addresses. Since no one under the age of 16 is fingerprinted, Family Court records were useless. Detectives traced her through prostitutes who knew her last name.
NYT Raab 10/3/77
Jets Upset Patriots On Late Kick, 30-27
The sort of dramatic, implausible ending that can give a young team instant self-respect finally happened to the Jets yesterday before a Shea Stadium growd that alternately buried its head in its hands and leaped off its feet.
The decisive score was booted between the uprights by Pat Leahy, on a 32-yeard field goal with only 23 seconds left.
“A bunch of kids and we beat these guys. Amazing.”
ex NYT Eskenazi 10/3/77
The decisive score was booted between the uprights by Pat Leahy, on a 32-yeard field goal with only 23 seconds left.
“A bunch of kids and we beat these guys. Amazing.”
ex NYT Eskenazi 10/3/77
Link Sought In Killing of Diamond Dealers
Homicide detectives in NYC, Florida and PR widened the search yesterday for connections between the murder of a midtown diamond broker two weeks ago and a number of other cases in which diamond dealers have vanished or been slain.
Pinchos Jaroslawicz, 25, broker (dead)
Haskell Kronenberg, 27, salesman (dead in Key Largo $500K in diamonds)
Abraham Shafizadeh, 31, broker (disappeared on a biz trip to PR, $200K-$300K in diamonds)
Leo Dershowitz, cutter, (killed 3 years ago in PR, $500K in diamonds gone)
Howard Block, 34, Chicago dealer (Killed in PR 3 years ago $200K in diamonds)
Jacqueline Kane, 63,San Juan dealer (killed in San Juan in March)
excerpt from NYT 10/3/77 R. McFadden
Pinchos Jaroslawicz, 25, broker (dead)
Haskell Kronenberg, 27, salesman (dead in Key Largo $500K in diamonds)
Abraham Shafizadeh, 31, broker (disappeared on a biz trip to PR, $200K-$300K in diamonds)
Leo Dershowitz, cutter, (killed 3 years ago in PR, $500K in diamonds gone)
Howard Block, 34, Chicago dealer (Killed in PR 3 years ago $200K in diamonds)
Jacqueline Kane, 63,San Juan dealer (killed in San Juan in March)
excerpt from NYT 10/3/77 R. McFadden
9 Flee From Rikers and 4 Are Captured
The dead inmate was identified as Tony Wright. He had been admitted last June on a weapons charge according to officials. Mr. Wright, who was described as a Rastafarian – a member of a Jamican sect – was also in custody on warrants issued by the Immigration Service, New York State for parole violation and Hartford, after escaping from prison there.
excerpt from Rudy Johnson 10/3/77
excerpt from Rudy Johnson 10/3/77
Sunday, October 02, 1977
‘Love! Love! Love!’ Cries Pele to 75,646 in Farewell
It was his day and everyone was properly respectful.
Tear welled up in his eyes, and he could no longer stem the flow. He tightened his grip on himself and continued, his words shaking, his voice cracking.
Pele played the first half with the Cosmos, the second half with Santos.
With two minutes left in the first half Pele was awarded a free kick from about 30 yards out. He drove the ball low and hard, a bullet that flashed into the left corner, leaving the goalie sprawled on the ground.
“I die a little bit today. Now I am born again to another life. You see, I stop playing soccer because I want to stop, and that is important.” Everyone but Bugs Bunny was here. (Mick Jagger for example).
ex NYT Kornheiser 10/2/77
Tear welled up in his eyes, and he could no longer stem the flow. He tightened his grip on himself and continued, his words shaking, his voice cracking.
Pele played the first half with the Cosmos, the second half with Santos.
With two minutes left in the first half Pele was awarded a free kick from about 30 yards out. He drove the ball low and hard, a bullet that flashed into the left corner, leaving the goalie sprawled on the ground.
“I die a little bit today. Now I am born again to another life. You see, I stop playing soccer because I want to stop, and that is important.” Everyone but Bugs Bunny was here. (Mick Jagger for example).
ex NYT Kornheiser 10/2/77
Pele’s Legacy to His Fans: Nobody Did it Better
Pele is to soccer what Shakespeare is to the English language: he puts it all together.
He does it with physical qualities that he calls “God’s divine gifts.” He does it with charm, sincerity, friendliness and the desire to be a perfectionist. Universally acclaimed as king of the world’s most popular game.
Known in Brazil as Perola Negra, in France as La Tulipe Noire, in Chile as El Peligro, in Italy, as Il Re and in Greece as O Vasilias, Pele is a citizen of the world.
In the early Seventies, the Biafran war (Nigerian Civil War) was stopped for two days because both sides wanted to see Pele play (?). (Biafran forces surrendered Jan.15 1970)
In his career, Pele had 93 three-goal games and 31 four goal games. He scored 5 goals six times and had eight goals in one game. He led Brazil to three World Cups.
To soccer-loving Americans, however, Pele is the Beatles, Babe Ruth and Billy Graham in one package. “Now that he is gone,” said one Italian-American, “part of my blood is gone. He has taken with him part of the heart of all the people in the world who love soccer.”
NYT 10/2/77 A. Yannis
He does it with physical qualities that he calls “God’s divine gifts.” He does it with charm, sincerity, friendliness and the desire to be a perfectionist. Universally acclaimed as king of the world’s most popular game.
Known in Brazil as Perola Negra, in France as La Tulipe Noire, in Chile as El Peligro, in Italy, as Il Re and in Greece as O Vasilias, Pele is a citizen of the world.
In the early Seventies, the Biafran war (Nigerian Civil War) was stopped for two days because both sides wanted to see Pele play (?). (Biafran forces surrendered Jan.15 1970)
In his career, Pele had 93 three-goal games and 31 four goal games. He scored 5 goals six times and had eight goals in one game. He led Brazil to three World Cups.
To soccer-loving Americans, however, Pele is the Beatles, Babe Ruth and Billy Graham in one package. “Now that he is gone,” said one Italian-American, “part of my blood is gone. He has taken with him part of the heart of all the people in the world who love soccer.”
NYT 10/2/77 A. Yannis
Reggie Jackson: The Most Valuable Player
Of all the annual accolades in baseball, the most controversial are invariably the Most Valuable Player awards. When he was acquired for $3 million for 5 years, Jackson was described by Thurman Munson as “a slugger who can carry a club for a month.” Reggie Jackson has exceeded that reputation. Since being knighted cleanup hitter, Jackson has carried the Yankees for two months in their quest for another Eastern Division title.
In the early months of season Jackson feuded with Munson, a rift that is not completely healed. Jackson and Martin coexist in an armed truce.
When he became cleanup hitter on August 10th, the Yankees were struggling in third place, 5 games back. Since then he’s hit 13 home runs (32 total) and driven in 49 runs (111 total) and maintained his .286 average. The Yankees won 38 of 51.
Billy Martin had been discharged, many Yankee players believe, following the dugout confrontation with Jackson at Fenway in June, but Jackson persuaded Steinbrenner to keep him. And when Billy appeared gone shortly after the all-star break, Jackson spoke up for him again.
Jackson wasn’t necessarily supporting Martin out of the goodness of his heart. He realized that if the manager were dismissed, he would be considered the hangman.
But Rod Carew in Minnesota has won his sixth batting title and is finally being recognized for his value as baseball’s best hitter. Other Yankees sure to win votes are Nettles, Lyle and Rivers. The Red Sox have seven candidates: Rice, Bill Campbell, Fisk, Yaztrzemski, Butch Hobson, George Scott and Rick Burleson.
In the National League, George Foster has over 50 home runs and nearly 150 RBIs.
Anderson 10/2/77 NYT
In the early months of season Jackson feuded with Munson, a rift that is not completely healed. Jackson and Martin coexist in an armed truce.
When he became cleanup hitter on August 10th, the Yankees were struggling in third place, 5 games back. Since then he’s hit 13 home runs (32 total) and driven in 49 runs (111 total) and maintained his .286 average. The Yankees won 38 of 51.
Billy Martin had been discharged, many Yankee players believe, following the dugout confrontation with Jackson at Fenway in June, but Jackson persuaded Steinbrenner to keep him. And when Billy appeared gone shortly after the all-star break, Jackson spoke up for him again.
Jackson wasn’t necessarily supporting Martin out of the goodness of his heart. He realized that if the manager were dismissed, he would be considered the hangman.
But Rod Carew in Minnesota has won his sixth batting title and is finally being recognized for his value as baseball’s best hitter. Other Yankees sure to win votes are Nettles, Lyle and Rivers. The Red Sox have seven candidates: Rice, Bill Campbell, Fisk, Yaztrzemski, Butch Hobson, George Scott and Rick Burleson.
In the National League, George Foster has over 50 home runs and nearly 150 RBIs.
Anderson 10/2/77 NYT
Another Gem Dealer Is Found Murdered
Sheriff’s deputies in Key Largo, Florida, told police that the body of Haskell Kronenberg, a 27-year-old diamond salesman from New York’s diamond district had been found floating at the water’s edge of a mangrove-lined bay on 8/31.
He had been killed with a single bullet and apparently dumped in the bay. A large number of diamonds he was suppose to have had with him were missing. (?) His car was late found in Miami, 50 miles north, where he often went on sales trips.
excerpt from NYT 10/2/77
He had been killed with a single bullet and apparently dumped in the bay. A large number of diamonds he was suppose to have had with him were missing. (?) His car was late found in Miami, 50 miles north, where he often went on sales trips.
excerpt from NYT 10/2/77
Saturday, October 01, 1977
Ali, Pele and the Time to Retire
Muhammad Ali sounded as if he wished he were Pele, whose soccer farewell will occur today with festive elegance. “It’s important to get out with the title, with the briefcase, with the necktie.” (Pele visited Ali at his hotel the day before.)
The world’s two most famous athletes had never met until the 36-year-old soccer player visited the 35-year-old heavyweight champion. And if there is anything that will convince Ali to retire, at least until he makes a come back sooner or later, it might be watching the celebration of Pele’s departure.
The difference is that Pele, organized and wealthy, can afford to retire, while Ali, disorganized and a man who will always need another payday, really can’t afford to retire despite having earned more than $40 million in the ring.
Ali isn’t broke. He won’t end up like Joe Louis did. But the way he lives, he’ll always need big money. And boxing is the easiest, if not the only way, for him to make big money and stay on the big stage his ego demands.
“There comes a time when every fighter walks a tightrope, and sooner or later he falls off. This will happen to Muhammad Ali, as it happens to all great fighters. I wish he calls it a day before he falls off. I told Herbert Muhammad (Ali’s manager) that Madison Square Garden will never make Ali and offer to fight again as long as I’m here.” (Teddy Brenner promoter). “If Madison Square Garden wants him back, they will have to replace me to do it.”
“Arum says Ali’s fighting Leon Spinks,” the Garden Promoter said with a sneer. “If anybody ever suggested years ago that Ali would fight a kid with five pro fights, they’d be locked up. I don’t want to make a match like that.”
Ali lost a split decision to Spinks in 1978 (although he won back the title seven months later). He came out of retirement to lose to Larry Holmes and, a year later in 1981, to Trevor Berbick before finally hanging up the gloves.
ex NYT Anderson 10/1/77
The world’s two most famous athletes had never met until the 36-year-old soccer player visited the 35-year-old heavyweight champion. And if there is anything that will convince Ali to retire, at least until he makes a come back sooner or later, it might be watching the celebration of Pele’s departure.
The difference is that Pele, organized and wealthy, can afford to retire, while Ali, disorganized and a man who will always need another payday, really can’t afford to retire despite having earned more than $40 million in the ring.
Ali isn’t broke. He won’t end up like Joe Louis did. But the way he lives, he’ll always need big money. And boxing is the easiest, if not the only way, for him to make big money and stay on the big stage his ego demands.
“There comes a time when every fighter walks a tightrope, and sooner or later he falls off. This will happen to Muhammad Ali, as it happens to all great fighters. I wish he calls it a day before he falls off. I told Herbert Muhammad (Ali’s manager) that Madison Square Garden will never make Ali and offer to fight again as long as I’m here.” (Teddy Brenner promoter). “If Madison Square Garden wants him back, they will have to replace me to do it.”
“Arum says Ali’s fighting Leon Spinks,” the Garden Promoter said with a sneer. “If anybody ever suggested years ago that Ali would fight a kid with five pro fights, they’d be locked up. I don’t want to make a match like that.”
Ali lost a split decision to Spinks in 1978 (although he won back the title seven months later). He came out of retirement to lose to Larry Holmes and, a year later in 1981, to Trevor Berbick before finally hanging up the gloves.
ex NYT Anderson 10/1/77
Second Gem Dealer Is Reported Missing
Another broker, it was reported, had been missing for more than two months, with as much as $300,000 in gems. The brother of Abraham Shafizadeh said the he might have been slain because he had informed on several persons for cheating or violating the diamond industry’s code of honor. He has been missing since July 27, the day he was suppose to go to Puerto Rico on a business trip. His car was found at JFK. This broker operated out of the same building as Mr. J.
The police said that the missing persons squad carried 30,000 cases a year and that it this instance it had been assumed that the missing man had vanished in Puerto Rico and was therefore the responsibility of the police there.
excerpt from Leonard Buder NYT 10/1/77
The police said that the missing persons squad carried 30,000 cases a year and that it this instance it had been assumed that the missing man had vanished in Puerto Rico and was therefore the responsibility of the police there.
excerpt from Leonard Buder NYT 10/1/77
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