Dancing in the Moonlight

I love tackle football, always have, and encouraged it year round in Yorkville.

In my lifetime, I've played a tackle football game in every one of the twelve months. Many viewed this strange.

Finding a decent field to play tackle football in Yorkville was a challenge in the 1960s & 1970s. In Central Park you marked the sidelines on the rocky no drainage field by carefully placing your coats and bags in a row and making an end zone with your extra equipment. Nobody wanted to put there stuff far away from the action. It tended to walk off.

In 1973 the Asphalt Green opened ~ we played tackle football on our first authentic marked-off field. In March 1974, St. Stephen's of Hungary won the Championship.

Here's the Our Town newspaper article on that game and several photographs from 1973 and 1974.

At the conclusion of the "Pineapple Bowl," aka the "1973-1974 Yorkville PAL Football Championship" St. Stephen's celebrated on the sideline at 90th St & York Avenue. This song blasted on several radios, we rocked all day and danced in the moonlight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMc8naeeSS8&feature=related