Jan 6th, 1982...
Now the extinct Pan Am flight from Seoul to Seattle takes me to the US soil for the very first time...
I remember waking up around 2-3AM the first night in NYC at the "30 Lincoln Plaza" on 63rd and Broadway and looking out the window...The first thing I saw out the window that blustery NY night was the green "OTB" signage ("Off Track Betting")... :-)
The best thing about coming to America at the age of 13, other than being exposed to outrageously big and resourceful supermarkets ("A&P"), was having access to sports broadcasts on TV....Man, did I love devouring all the Yankees, the Cosmos, and WWF's on TV 24/7!!
Roy Smalley was the man for me on that 1982 Yankee squad... Dave Winfield and Goose Gossage got all the ink, but I remember Smalley hitting some dramatic grand-slams that year (or the next)...
All the folks who went through the years of pure hell being a Yankee fan from the early 80's till the pre-Showalter years (like ME) deserved every second of four championship seasons that followed in the 90's...They were sooooooo bad that the local Yankee network (WPIX-11, I think) broadcasters like Scooter Rizzuto, Bill White, and Bob Murcer had more fun talking about the Bar Mitzvah one of them had attended than the game itself. Smalley was the only bright spot for me though...He was all or nothing kinda guy...Struck out a lot but he had the looks as well as the aura... Almost 25 years later, Roy still looks dashing and is making a ton of money, it seems like, as a financial advisor in his Minnesota hometown...
On the WWF front, "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka was my man...He had no moves other than the flying thing off the turnbuckle, but he had the charisma, ripped body, and Captain Lou Albano by his side (who once appeared in Cindy Lauper's music video in the 80's...crazy...). All along Snuka acted like he spoke no English and acted like some social outcast or a downright savage, but he sure could fly and was the master of all those bloody, steel cage matches... Too bad in the old days, all the great matches weren't available via PPV - had to be there to see it at the old Madison Square Garden where Jimmy the Superfly had some epic battles against the likes of Bob Buckland, Maginificent Muraco, and Rowdy Roddy Piper...
Wonder what he's up to now...Snuka was one crazy SOB inside the ring...Miss those good old Saturday mornings when WWF was on WWOR-Secaucus/NJ channel...
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