“Braking” News
After a recent petition signed by residents of Maebeth Street, where I grew up, there are now four-way stop signs on the corner of Maebeth and Fairlawn. From time immemorial, Maebeth had been a cut-through between Wilbraham Road and Parker Street (via Sunrise Terrace), but when I was a kid most motorists interrupting our sports in the street would be somewhat patient as we cleared out of the way—the exceptions being the time Frank Herman was hit by a motorcycle when we were playing pickle, or when some bitch ran over our hockey sticks.
But as we know, today’s society is less civil, and drivers are much more aggressive. Won’t the entitled shitheads simply blow through the stop sign or speed down Granger or Catalpa instead? We’ll see.
The sign this intersection REALLY needs, though, is Springfield’s classic old-school black and white street signs, instead of the new green ones. Bring them back!
Wow, thinking about Maebeth Street for some reason brought me back to an incident in 1974, when I was 11. Keep reading, and take a walk with me down Memory Lane—excuse me—Maebeth Street:
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Boom!
Wow, an ear-splitting, bone-jarring, window-rattling explosion. Someone had set off an M-80 in the Putnam’s Puddle woods at the end of Maebeth Street. This we had to see. Rick Riccardi and I crossed Sunrise Terrace to investigate. Down the path, there was Larry Hostetter and his girlfriend, and Larry was ready to light another M-80…IN HIS HAND!
“Hi guys,” he said. “You didn’t see any cops around here, right?”
“Nope,” said Rick.
Larry flicked his lighter. We backed up. He lit the fuse. We backed up more. He waited and then threw the explosive high in the air.
Boom!
Wow. Quite the risk he was taking to see a midair detonation. But that was Larry. Always living on the edge—a guy who would later serve a couple of jail terms for drug dealing. (The exploits of the Hostetter brothers are summed up in another Hell’s Acres post.)
Whenever my friends and I blew off M-80s we were ultra-careful, the igniter instantly withdrawing and clearing the area. How could Larry, as crazy as he was, light it in his hand and throw it? We lit and tossed “Thunderbomb” firecrackers once in a while, but if one of them had a “quick wick” and went off prematurely—this happened every so often—the holder suffered a sharp pain, a trembling hand, and quite the battle to hold back tears. We would never dream of throwing M-80s—and never considered witnessing such a daredevil act, even from Larry, the craziest guy on the street.
He fished another M-80 out of his pocket. Why wasn’t Lisa talking him out of this? She just stood there with a look of amazement.
My friend Craig Stewart’s father appeared in the woods out of nowhere—the Stewarts lived at the end of Maebeth and the noise at his house must have been deafening. Craig was nowhere in sight.
“Why do you have to do that here?” he asked. “Light those somewhere else.”
“Well, that’s why we came down the pond,” said Lisa. “Away from houses.”
“Yeah, but it’s right behind MY house!,” he answered pointing back toward the street. “You think you’d have some common sense to go further down the path—"
“Sir, if you have anything to say, talk to me, not her,” said Larry. Oh God, chivalry was not dead. But it was on life support, because Craig’s father was having none of his gallantry.
“OK, I’ll talk to you, jerk,” he said. “My dog is hiding under the table! He’s shaking! So get the hell out of here!”
I thought it was going to escalate, but Larry said, “C’mon, let’s go to the other side of the pond. Jeez.” He and Lisa started walking down the pathway toward the dam to cross the pond. We started on the path the exact opposite way, because I didn’t want to show solidarity with Larry—Craig’s father might blab to my parents that I was part of this spectacle—but I sure didn’t want to get in a conversation with the guy and explain why we had been giving Larry an audience as he terrorized half the dogs on Maebeth Street. We waited a few minutes until the coast was clear, and then headed toward the dam. I wondered whether or not Larry and his girlfriend were really going to the other side of the pond, or whether they got bored and started making out in the woods or something.
Boom!
I got my answer. We kept walking, so we could see and listen to Larry torment the residents of North Brook Road and Meadowlark Lane. But we watched from a distance, because I didn’t want to get hit with one of his severed fingers.
Who said there was nothing for kids to do growing up in Springfield?
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Who remembers the Springfield Fame from the USBL, a springtime pro development league? They played in the league’s inaugural season in 1985 and won the championship, but lasted only one more year and then the franchise folded.
The team made headlines by women's basketball star Nancy Lieberman, who became the first female baller to play regular season minutes in a men's pro league.
The Fame won the title when the league canceled the playoffs because half the players had left their teams for NBA tryout camps. In a ceremony prior to a 1986 game, the four players remaining from the 1985 championship squad were honored with certificates. Guard Michael Adams (pictured below), the former Boston College star, told his fellow Famers, “O.K., guys, let's go out there and get another certificate."
My friends and I went to the USBL all star game in 1985. Curiously it pitted a team of league all-stars vs. the Fame! The other squad had the NBA’s tallest and shortest players—Manute Bol and Spud Webb, along with John "Hot Rod" Williams. It was Spud’s birthday, so the Fame had a promotion in the newspaper: make your own poster/sign wishing Spud a happy b-day and you’ll get a $5 food voucher. We got busy with magic markers making posters festooned with marijuana leaves, bongs, pipes, and other designs, but when we got to the Civic Center, the ushers were clueless about the rebate. Some security guy told us to visit a booth outside a certain section, however, it was unmanned. This probably wasn’t a scam—there were more than 5,000 fans there and the Fame probably ran out of vouchers before we arrived late because we had been pre-game partying, of course.
Nonetheless, we declared it a rip-off and during the game some of our posters may or may not have found their way onto the court in the form of giant paper airplanes and crumpled balls.
Anyway, Michael Adams’ scored 18 points to lead the Springfield Fame to an 87-75 victory.
The USBL itself lasted until 2008.
Springfield’s other foray into D-league ball was the Springfield Armor 2009-2014. Actually, the D-League became known as the G-League and was more of an NBA farm system with NBA team affiliations.
Springfield inherited the pitiful Anaheim Arsenal and they were equally dismal (7-43 their first year with former Celtics player Dee Brown as coach). In 2010-11 the Armor were an affiliate of the N.J. Nets, the New York Knicks, and after the season Brown left. The following year, the Brooklyn Nets were in sole control of the team.
In 2014 the Armor moved to Michigan and became the Grand Rapids Drive. I went to what turned out to be their final home game in Springfield with my eight-year-old son, and the contest drew 7,111 spectators because they let area youth basketball teams in for free, leading to a nightmare traffic jam. Truth be told, the Armor never attracted many fans. I went with my friend Stan Janek once and we weaselly tried to "upgrade" our seats into better ones, holding two beers each, but we were broomed out of the section by ushers.
I understand that they didn’t want beer-swilling louts like us offending those who paid for seats in primo seats, but the thing was there were hardly anybody in those sections. Certainly they wouldn’t be affected by us when we were 10 rows away from them!
Another time I witnessed an usher informing a mother that she couldn’t give her five-year-old son a juice box—that only arena-bought concessions were allowed. I mean, really—did the Armor expect this woman to ever purchase tickets again? Did they care about fans returning?
Scottie Reynolds, Dee Brown, and Vernon Goodridge
I relate these stories not to go off on what Mickey Mouse operations these teams were. I know by their very nature the franchises had to run lean and mean.
But even if you’re the only team in town you shouldn’t take your fans for granted. Hell, look at the Red Sox, whose ushers, security people, and concessionaires were assholes when I was growing up, finally realized that fan relations was important and now have kinder, gentler public-facing employees.
The attitude of the Fame and the Armor kind of reminded me of Eddie Shore running around with his flashlight and pointing it at Springfield Indians fans who had the audacity to put their feet up on the empty seats in front of them. I mean, what kind of franchise owner does that? Was the fact that there were so many empty seats to rest your feet on lost on him?
Okay, I’ll get off my pedestal now, and see you Hell’s Acres fans in October.
