NEW YORK _ When the Knicks routed the expansion Seattle SuperSonics by 25 points in the season opener at Madison Square Garden, Oct. 14, 1969, the Mets were two days away from winning the franchise's first World Series title at Shea Stadium in neighboring Queens.
Shea's football denizens had already done their part to electrify New York City sports fans earlier that year, when the Jets marched to Super Bowl III victory, their brash quarterback Joe Namath guaranteeing the win over the heavily-favored Baltimore Colts three nights before the big game.
With a young Tom Seaver at the front of a pitching-rich rotation, the Miracle Mets toppled the mighty Baltimore Orioles in five games. Davey Johnson _ a future Mets manager who guided the club to its second championship _ hit a pop fly to Mets left fielder Cleon Jones for the final out of the '69 Fall Classic, and the Knicks and Rangers were officially on the clock.
"There was pressure. Cleon, Namath, they said, 'Hey man, you guys got to keep it going,' " says Hall of Fame Knicks point guard Walt (Clyde) Frazier. "Everybody was saying, 'Man, you guys got to do it. The Knicks gotta come through.'"
Rangers right winger and Hall of Famer Rod Gilbert says he and his Blueshirts teammates were "hoping every single year" to raise the Stanley Cup over their shoulders, but that the '69-'70 season felt different.
"Yeah, we wanted to have an Impact, like, 'We got to do that, too.' I had faith," Gilbert says. "I kept thinking, 'We're gonna add one piece, one guy, and then we got to go all the way.' We came close. We had a really good, complete team."
But while the Rangers lost in the first round to Bobby Orr's Boston Bruins _ the eventual Stanley Cup champions in the spring of '70, immortalized by Orr going airborne for the clinching goal over the Blues _ the Knicks fulfilled their end of the bargain, and kept the groovy sports vibes flowing throughout Gotham, after they defeated the Wilt Chamberlain-led Lakers in a thrilling Game 7 at the Garden on May 8, 1970. Frazier's teammate Willis Reed stole the show when he limped out of the tunnel before the start of the game after there had been serious doubt he would be able to play at all on a gimpy right leg. The sell-out crowd erupted.
It was a golden era for New York professional sports, when Broadway Joe, Clyde, Tom Terrific, Dollar Bill, Gilbert and other New York players ruled the sports headlines and back pages, and, more often than not, were champions of the city's nightlife scene. Namath was the devilishly handsome QB, and the first major athlete who had crossover fame in movies, advertisements, even owning his own Manhattan saloon (Bachelors III).
He and Frazier were also fierce competitors _ as athletes, and when it came to making fashion statements. Who wore the mink coats better?
"I think I did because I'm taller," Frazier says. "But I had the mink spread, the round bed, the mirrors on the ceiling. I told Joe I'm just happy with his overflow."
Will the likes of that era ever be seen again, when during one calendar year three of the four major sports champions crowned were from the No. 1 sports market? The real stars all aligned perfectly during that stretch, for New York sports fans, that is. Baltimore became the punching bag. Besides the runner-up Colts and Orioles, the Knicks ousted the Baltimore Bullets in the first round of the playoffs en route to their first title.
"Pretty good run for the city of New York. Not so much for my hometown of Baltimore," jokes 1969 Met Ron Swoboda. "They played the patsy. I have to be honest _ I love Joe Namath, 'cause he was the first real superstar in that era, before Seaver came up. But I was a kid from Baltimore, man. I was rooting for the Colts!"
