“W
hich John Halligan?! Our John Halligan?!”
Odd, how out-of-the-blue bad news can turn one instantly stupid. Why would anyone be calling with word that some other John Halligan died?
Odd, too, is how such news enters the ear then shoots downward: First the shoulders weaken, then the stomach flips, finally, the knees lose power, as if hit by a doctor’s reflex mallet. That must be at the root of the traditional bad news preface, “Are you sitting down?”
Yeah, our John Halligan. Your John Halligan, too. No matter the source from which you got your sports news — newspapers, radio, TV — there always was a good chance that the ingredients included at least a pinch of Halligan, if not in the info delivered, then through the process by which it arrived.
Halligan, 68, died in his sleep on Wednesday. If he’d been sick, few knew. That figures because the only times I heard John complain were when his stomach hurt — from laughing.
Those in the sports news business got to know Halligan because they had to. From a desk in the “Old Garden” after graduating Fordham, he became the Rangers’ public relations man, archivist, travel agent, fireman, hangover-helper, restaurant tout, fog lantern, leaning post and anything else he was needed for, including good stories and bad jokes.
Halligan was among the last wave and youngest survivors of an era when a few NYC publicists — “press agents” some were called — were more responsible for what appeared in the sports sections of the City’s many newspapers than were the papers’ sports editors.
And one continued to know Halligan not because one had to, but because one wanted to. It was our pleasure. Searching for a more decent, good-hearted man would have been a colossal waste of time.
At roughly 5-foot-8, Halligan was the world’s tallest leprechaun, a master of the set-up, then the put-on. In 1978, I was the Post’s Rangers beat man, too young and way over my head, when the Soviet Red Army team came to play the Rangers.
“The last time they were here, protesters from the Jewish Defense League threw a dead mongoose on the ice,” Halligan casually said, not even looking up.
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah.”
And then John’s wife, Janet, just as casually added, “Who can forget that?”
So I wrote it. My story included a paragraph about that last time, when the JDL threw a mongoose on the ice. For emphasis, a copy editor inserted a bold type sub-heading within my story: “Dead Mongoose.”
I’d been had. For the next 31 years, in messages left for Halligan, I identified myself as “The Mongoose.” Never had to say more than that; he’d call back.
It’s all so odd. When sports folks died, Halligan was a first-string, go-to-guy for obits — for bios, quotes and “I remember the time we were in Boston, in a blizzard” tales.
Three months ago, he handled everything after Bill “The Big Whistle” Chadwick died. Halligan passed the word, the details of his 94-year life and career, and then told the stories, fabulous stories. Who else could? Who else would?
One other thing: Whenever you’d ask him about an obscure Ranger or a long-gone sportswriter, Halligan would percolate. “Did I know him? One of the all-time greats!”
John Halligan, truly one of the all-time greats, dead at 68. Aw, geez.
’60 Minutes’ stirs up Samoa controvery
Reader David DiStefano of Sacramento, Calif., asks whether CBS’s “60 Minutes” piece on the preponderance of Samoans in the NFL reached a genetic conclusion, the kind that resulted in CBS’s 1988 firing of Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder. Well, to the extent that “60 Minutes” reported that Samoans are football-advantaged from birth — bigger, stronger and faster — yes, it’s very similar.
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Bill Boland, 40, a New Jersey guy and a YES staff original, has been named YES’s lead producer of Yankee telecasts. Boland replaces Kevin Smollon, YES’s first Yankee producer, who was not re-signed. . . . NFL Network, tomorrow at 8:30 p.m., will air NBC’s broadcast of Super Bowl III, featuring the Joe Namath Jets against the Colts. It’s the earliest surviving full broadcast of a Super Bowl. Curt Gowdy, Kyle Rote and Al DeRogatis were the announcers.
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How can this be the media capital of the world when 12-15 miles from Manhattan you can’t hear a Jets’ playoff game on radio?
Sunday, if you’re stuck in a car a few miles south or southwest of NYC, the Jets-Colts AFC Championship over 1050 ESPN, the Jets’ radio home, will be replaced with the sweet sound of static, starting, oh, late in the second quarter. The station’s signal is greatly diminished come sunset.
In fact, because 1050 has exclusive local radio rights to the game, once 1050’s signal fades, and if you don’t have Sirius XM radio (it carries the Jets, Colts and Westwood One radio feeds via satellite) start searching for Westwood One’s national broadcast from another market. Or start driving toward Indianapolis.
Last week’s Jets-Chargers 1050 broadcast was lost to much of New Jersey well before the game ended.
No good reason to play with swagger
In a season when “playing with a swagger” was for some hip-sounding senselessness, supposed to be a good thing, consider:
Last weekend’s four NFL playoff games included 11 personal fouls for misconduct. Eleven times in their team’s biggest game of the season, professionals couldn’t restrain themselves from fighting, or taunting, or from making a late hit, or kicking a flag.
Minimally, they risked a 15-yard penalty. Minimally.
For all the baloney stats, game-plan platitudes and assorted nonsense read and heard all week, every week, right through TV’s NFL pregame shows, when has anyone suggested that the team that behaves (the team whose players don’t put mindlessly macho, me-first behavior ahead of the team) will be at some advantage because it will be at no risk of having misbehavior cost them big yardage or the game?