- Joined
- May 8, 2002
- Posts
- 1,194,671
- Reaction score
- 59
The ticket stubs are faded, almost beyond recognition. You can still make out a few things:
Madison Square Garden, 1999 New York Knicks playoffs vs. TBA, Round 4 home game.
Section 417. Price: $60.00.
This was Game 3 of the NBA Finals, 27 years ago. “TBA” wound up being the San Antonio Spurs.
I was there with my father, brother and a friend. As soon as the Knicks won the Eastern Conference finals, we bought the tickets on the secondary market for $495 each.
Our seats for that night, a couple of rows from the roof, baseline view – are going for $7,500 apiece (as of Sunday night) as the championship series finally returns to the World’s Most Famous Arena.
The current Knickerbockers’ incredible run has unleashed a torrent of memories from the 1990s, when the Knicks of that era were, in my estimation, the most beloved metropolitan-area sports team that never won it all. It was a wild, drama-filled and ultimately heartbreaking ride that explains why these Finals are so meaningful for fans of a certain age.
You could fill a book with the crazy stuff that happened. Here are three stories of 1990s Knick Fandom that summarize the times, with the third being that expensive yet priceless night at the Garden.
Let’s start with the time my dad, Pops Carino, nearly smashed our new TV.
The high-water mark of the Knicks’ franchise since 1973 came during Game 5 of the 1994 Finals, which ended with the Knicks taking 3-2 series lead over the Rockets. We had a house full of friends and neighbors on the edge of their seats in the third quarter when the unthinkable happened – NBC stopped broadcasting the game and switched to footage of O.J. Simpson evading police in a white Ford Bronco.
This was the stone ages. There was no moving the game to an affiliated network, no streaming option, no way to follow on social media. NBC eventually put it back on, but in a small picture in the corner of the screen.
Our new TV was big by standards of the time – Pops always said it fell off a truck – but it was nowhere near today’s flat-screen giants. It was impossible for a room full of fans to follow that action in that tiny picture, so while Pops searched for something to smash the screen with, I turned on WFAN and cranked the radio broadcast to near maximum volume.
Nearly a quarter elapsed until the game broadcast resumed in full, midway through the fourth. The TV survived Pops’ wrath, barely, but two years later I was still steaming when I encountered an NBC Sports executive (the name escapes me) who was a guest speaker in a graduate-level class I was taking. During the Q&A portion of the class, I grilled that guy good about the network’s handling of Game 5. I don’t recall his response (I’m sure the decision was made above his head), but I do remember the professor rather enjoying the exchange.
It was a tiny measure of closure for me, and a lesson to boot. To this day, as I teach college journalism, I always tell my students that any question is fair game for our guest speakers.
Game 7 of the 1995 Eastern Conference semifinals took place on a Sunday, the day before my graduation from Seton Hall University. There was some sort of pre-graduation ceremony in Walsh Gym we were compelled to attend that overlapped with the game. So I went to the ceremony with a Walkman --- no headset, just a discreet set of earbuds – and whispered updates to friends seated nearby.
Someone was on stage giving a speech when, with the Knicks down two and time running out, Patrick Ewing back-ironed a finger roll. Sitting four rows from the stage, I yelled, ‘Oh no!’ and followed it up with “Ewing missed! He missed!”
The speaker ignored me and droned on. The gut punches were just beginning. Pat Riley bolted for Miami, Michael Jordan returned from exile, and the page turned on the 1990s Knicks’ golden window to win it all. Like the Walkman, the franchise would hang onto relevance for a couple more years.
Our tickets were not emailed, uploaded or texted to us. They were paper, and we picked them up at Mustang Harry’s pub in Midtown Manhattan a few hours before tipoff. We said a couple of code words to the bartender, who produced them from underneath the bar.
Our seats were high up, but we could see Allan Houston’s shots fall through the net over and over as the Knicks posted their only win of the series. And better yet, you could feel the juice pulsating through the arena. When backup center Chris Dudley scored to put New York up 10, the mecca shook. When the Jumbotron showed Bill Walton – then an NBC analyst who’d been hyper-critical of the Knicks’ physicality – the jeers poured out like a flash flood.
In Pops’ recollection, we were standing room only. He’s partially correct; we had seats, but nobody sat.
“You remember the electricity of walking into something like that,” said Lou Madris, the friend who was there with us. “It was a great time because that’s where the true fans were.”
Madris, who lives in Lake Como, has been to a Super Bowl and said there is no comparison.
“At the Super Bowl, it’s not a stadium full of your people,” he said. “It’s corporate.”
You would hope the everyman vibe survives in the Garden’s far reaches. While $495 was no small change back then, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator equates that to $991 today (almost exactly double the cost). Meanwhile, our old seats were re-selling for $3,500 when these Knicks reached the Finals and peaked around $10,000 before coming down to $7,500. The Ticketmaster surcharge alone is probably at least $495.
The Garden atmosphere will be off the hook no matter what, but hopefully there are fathers and sons like us who, years from now, will be able to reminisce on the shared glory of it all. Last week, after the Knicks won both games in San Antonio, Pops went rummaging through a closet and behold, there were the ticket stubs from ’99, clipped to the underside of the Knicks hat he wore that day.
Fandom is an unpredictable thing. As those of us who rode the 1990s Knicks roller-coaster understand all too well, you never know how long it’ll be until the magic returns. Ticket stubs themselves are a relic of the past. New York’s passion for the Knicks, quite clearly, is not.
Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. Contact him at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Knicks vs. Spurs NBA Finals ticket stub from 1999 stirs crazy memories
Continue reading...
Madison Square Garden, 1999 New York Knicks playoffs vs. TBA, Round 4 home game.
Section 417. Price: $60.00.
This was Game 3 of the NBA Finals, 27 years ago. “TBA” wound up being the San Antonio Spurs.
You must be registered for see images attach
I was there with my father, brother and a friend. As soon as the Knicks won the Eastern Conference finals, we bought the tickets on the secondary market for $495 each.
Our seats for that night, a couple of rows from the roof, baseline view – are going for $7,500 apiece (as of Sunday night) as the championship series finally returns to the World’s Most Famous Arena.
The current Knickerbockers’ incredible run has unleashed a torrent of memories from the 1990s, when the Knicks of that era were, in my estimation, the most beloved metropolitan-area sports team that never won it all. It was a wild, drama-filled and ultimately heartbreaking ride that explains why these Finals are so meaningful for fans of a certain age.
You could fill a book with the crazy stuff that happened. Here are three stories of 1990s Knick Fandom that summarize the times, with the third being that expensive yet priceless night at the Garden.
Let’s start with the time my dad, Pops Carino, nearly smashed our new TV.
June 12, 1994: The O.J. chase
The high-water mark of the Knicks’ franchise since 1973 came during Game 5 of the 1994 Finals, which ended with the Knicks taking 3-2 series lead over the Rockets. We had a house full of friends and neighbors on the edge of their seats in the third quarter when the unthinkable happened – NBC stopped broadcasting the game and switched to footage of O.J. Simpson evading police in a white Ford Bronco.
This was the stone ages. There was no moving the game to an affiliated network, no streaming option, no way to follow on social media. NBC eventually put it back on, but in a small picture in the corner of the screen.
Our new TV was big by standards of the time – Pops always said it fell off a truck – but it was nowhere near today’s flat-screen giants. It was impossible for a room full of fans to follow that action in that tiny picture, so while Pops searched for something to smash the screen with, I turned on WFAN and cranked the radio broadcast to near maximum volume.
Nearly a quarter elapsed until the game broadcast resumed in full, midway through the fourth. The TV survived Pops’ wrath, barely, but two years later I was still steaming when I encountered an NBC Sports executive (the name escapes me) who was a guest speaker in a graduate-level class I was taking. During the Q&A portion of the class, I grilled that guy good about the network’s handling of Game 5. I don’t recall his response (I’m sure the decision was made above his head), but I do remember the professor rather enjoying the exchange.
It was a tiny measure of closure for me, and a lesson to boot. To this day, as I teach college journalism, I always tell my students that any question is fair game for our guest speakers.
May 21, 1995: Ewing’s missed finger-roll
Game 7 of the 1995 Eastern Conference semifinals took place on a Sunday, the day before my graduation from Seton Hall University. There was some sort of pre-graduation ceremony in Walsh Gym we were compelled to attend that overlapped with the game. So I went to the ceremony with a Walkman --- no headset, just a discreet set of earbuds – and whispered updates to friends seated nearby.
Someone was on stage giving a speech when, with the Knicks down two and time running out, Patrick Ewing back-ironed a finger roll. Sitting four rows from the stage, I yelled, ‘Oh no!’ and followed it up with “Ewing missed! He missed!”
The speaker ignored me and droned on. The gut punches were just beginning. Pat Riley bolted for Miami, Michael Jordan returned from exile, and the page turned on the 1990s Knicks’ golden window to win it all. Like the Walkman, the franchise would hang onto relevance for a couple more years.
June 21, 1999: NBA Finals, Game 3
You must be registered for see images attach
Our tickets were not emailed, uploaded or texted to us. They were paper, and we picked them up at Mustang Harry’s pub in Midtown Manhattan a few hours before tipoff. We said a couple of code words to the bartender, who produced them from underneath the bar.
Our seats were high up, but we could see Allan Houston’s shots fall through the net over and over as the Knicks posted their only win of the series. And better yet, you could feel the juice pulsating through the arena. When backup center Chris Dudley scored to put New York up 10, the mecca shook. When the Jumbotron showed Bill Walton – then an NBC analyst who’d been hyper-critical of the Knicks’ physicality – the jeers poured out like a flash flood.
In Pops’ recollection, we were standing room only. He’s partially correct; we had seats, but nobody sat.
“You remember the electricity of walking into something like that,” said Lou Madris, the friend who was there with us. “It was a great time because that’s where the true fans were.”
Madris, who lives in Lake Como, has been to a Super Bowl and said there is no comparison.
“At the Super Bowl, it’s not a stadium full of your people,” he said. “It’s corporate.”
You would hope the everyman vibe survives in the Garden’s far reaches. While $495 was no small change back then, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator equates that to $991 today (almost exactly double the cost). Meanwhile, our old seats were re-selling for $3,500 when these Knicks reached the Finals and peaked around $10,000 before coming down to $7,500. The Ticketmaster surcharge alone is probably at least $495.
The Garden atmosphere will be off the hook no matter what, but hopefully there are fathers and sons like us who, years from now, will be able to reminisce on the shared glory of it all. Last week, after the Knicks won both games in San Antonio, Pops went rummaging through a closet and behold, there were the ticket stubs from ’99, clipped to the underside of the Knicks hat he wore that day.
Fandom is an unpredictable thing. As those of us who rode the 1990s Knicks roller-coaster understand all too well, you never know how long it’ll be until the magic returns. Ticket stubs themselves are a relic of the past. New York’s passion for the Knicks, quite clearly, is not.
Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. Contact him at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Knicks vs. Spurs NBA Finals ticket stub from 1999 stirs crazy memories
Continue reading...
