Mark Bavaro Salutes Pryor's Book "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys"

Hi Mark Bavaro here. I just heard Thomas Pryor's book, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood," has 89 five star reviews on Amazon out of 89 total reviews. That's my uniform number, 89. To honor the book and Tommy, a big New York Giants fan, I pulled together his three favorite Tight Ends in nyg history, Aaron Thomas, Bob Tucker and me. We also invited five of his boyhood heroes, Frank Gifford, Yelberton Abraham Tittle, Sam Huff, Tucker Fredrickson and Fran the Man. All of us wish Tommy well, and I still hate Buddy Ryan.

An Irishman Gave Me the Finger

Ourselves Club on East 84th Street in 1903

St. Paddy’s morning I woke from a strange dream. It was a spring day in the early 1900s in Yorkville. I knew this when I saw isolated wood-frame houses scattered among the vacant lots along the cobblestone street lined with trees in early bloom. I rode inside a copper colored trolley shooting the breeze with the driver.

We passed Lexington Avenue on 79th Street headed towards Third Avenue, when an Irish gentleman dressed in his Sunday best, velvet green vest, spats, top hat, the works, decided to dart out mid-block and jog theatrically across the street in front of us. The driver paid him no mind and kept the trolley at cruising speed. This forced the gent to move faster than he intended and his feet tangled. The gentleman finished his cake walk crossing with a 360 degree turn with his arms flailing and remarkably kept his balance.

The Irishman fumed when he saw us giggling at him. He marched across his lawn to his porch and pulled a large wooden contraption down the steps and out on the grass ~ looked like the catapult that the French hurled the cow at the English with in "Monty Python's Holy Grail."

He set the weapon up on the lawn and started cranking a handle on the side of the device. The driver and I exchanged a look, we expected, "Incoming!" Instead, after several "Crank, Crank, Cranks," a colossus wooden fist rose up with the middle finger saluting ~ the carved hand was giving us the finger. The Irishman crossed his arms, smirked and nodded.  Erin Go Bragh!

If you enjoy my work, check out my memoir, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood," it's available at Logos Bookstore, 1575 York Avenue, or buy it online atAmazon, Barnes and Noble or other booksellers. If you do read it, please leave a few honest words about the book on Amazon and B&N. Thank you.

Central Park

Central Park

Sheep Meadow

My Favorite St. Paddy's Day ~ 1970

Buddy McMahon 1970

Just past noon, Buddy McMahon and I jumped into the St. Patrick Day parade at 61st Street joining our LaSalle Academy classmates and teachers marching up Fifth Avenue. This was non-regulation starting the parade late (we paid dearly the following day at school ~ brutal knucks to the head delivered with a smile by Brother Paul). At the Met Museum entrance we broke off and ran east to the river and spent the late afternoon enjoying a bucket of swill under the 81st Street staircase on the FDR Drive. Afterwards, five of us started a neighborhood walkabout. We ended up on the 300 block on 85th Street in front of a building where someone had thrown away a large couch, a straight up chair, and a refrigerator box.

Ekis turned the giant box into a desk, put it in front of the chair and Romano, Muller, Feldman, McMahon and I took turns hosting the Johnny Carson show, ~ Romano did a pretty good Ed McMahon. We invited people walking home from work and school to join us on the show; some did, most of the takers/guests were noticeably impaired walking back from the parade or a gin mill.






Muller was the best host. Romano served him clean “You are correct, sirs." Ekis tried to spin a plate on a stick but we told him it was the wrong show and threatened to send him over to a couple of drunks doing a Ed Sullivan Show on the other side of the street.

After we exhausted this routine and got sick of ducking crap people threw at us from their windows, we moved on. Between First and York Avenue, Muller found a standing lamp without a shade. It joined our group. Our first stop was Loftus Tavern on York Avenue.  Marching in, one of us dropped a quarter in the jukebox for two songs (a recent change from three for a quarter and one for a dime). The Beatles began, "this happened once before, when I came to your door, no reply." We sang along into our imaginary microphone on top of the standing lamp. Gathered closely around the pole in sweet harmony, we moved into the 45’s flip side, "I’m a Loser." Loose change rolled towards our feet from the bar. This was a good sign. If the coins were thrown at us, they didn’t like us, rolled meant we were entertainment (kind of). Someone fed the jukebox and we crooned Witchcraft and Night Day to our imaginary Bobby soxers before moving back into the Beatles catalogue. Done there, we pocketed our change and took our show over to Killarney Castle on Third Avenue where our reception was mixed but we blocked most of the coins coming at our heads with our arms thrown up. Erin Go Bragh!


If you enjoy my work, check out my memoir, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood," it's available at Logos Bookstore, 1575 York Avenue, or buy it online atAmazon, Barnes and Noble or other booksellers. If you do read it, please leave a few honest words about the book on Amazon and B&N. Thank you.

Loftus Tavern 1962

Loftus Tavern 1974

Things You Make Inside A New York City Apartment

"Bob, clean the table off, we're gonna eat in five minutes."

It's 1939 inside 2S at 1582 York Avenue, Bob (Dad), 10, took his art stuff to the front room facing the avenue inside the railroad apartment. On the linoleum floor he laid out his paper, crayons, pencils and the metal sharpener his Uncle Joe gave him. Uncle Joe worked in the newspaper business and sometimes brought home supplies for the kid. Bob sat cross legged and restarted his sketch of a tree while ignoring his mother's order to, "Get in here and eat!" He had to draw those leaves just right.

I miss my father's curiosity and his ability to make something out of nothing. Wherever he was he find a tiny space for his studio.

In 1957 in our small place at 517 East 83rd Street, he took over one corner near the window in our so-called living room immediately starting a new war with my neat freak mother. Things he made there continue to fascinate, inspire and please me. "There is always something to do, something to make," my favorite lesson from Dad; a Yorkville man to the day he died.

If you enjoy my work, check out my memoir, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood," it's available at Logos Bookstore, 1575 York Avenue, or buy it online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble or other booksellers. If you do read it, please leave a few honest words about the book on Amazon and B&N. Thank you.

Pictured above is a 1939 grammar school Honor Roll from the Yorkville Advance newspaper; and below are pieces of art Dad made in our 83rd Street apartment (the dollhouse was finished in our Sunnyside home) and Dad and me on the Drive in 1956 inside Carl Schurz Park. 

Beautiful Day

New York City slipped the grip of mean winter last Wednesday the 11th. Walking down Fifth Avenue through Washington Square Park I spied the result of two seasons meeting head on. Freed from cabin fever, students and others played hooky from class and other responsibilities around the fountain. The warmth of the sun melted the snow into mushy dirty piles and broad reflective puddles. The sun light sent arcs of color through the tree branches on Thompson Street trying to wake up the buds and creating a fire escape fashion show.

Many years ago, my father died on March 11th, he would have loved this NYC stroll with his Yashica 44. It was a beautiful day.

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If you enjoy my work,  check out my memoir, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood," it's available at Logos Bookstore, 1575 York Avenue, or buy it online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble or other booksellers. If you do read it please leave a few honest words about the book on Amazon and B&N. Thank you.

Dad's Paper Route

Mom & Cowboy Bob on 12.31.67

"The royal ass has been wiped!" Mom announced from the bathroom to Rory, me and our neighbors in the air shaft. In the kitchen, Rory and I drank Tang and ate burnt toast with lots of butter. Dad moaned to himself late for work in their bedroom.

Every morning, after Dad went to the bathroom, Mom examined how much toilet paper remained when he was done. If the household product was in a cardboard roll, Dad was out of control; Silver Foil, Wax Paper, Saran Wrap, TP, or paper towels. If he washed dishes of course he'd put too much soap in the sink and the bubbles exploded like a Las Vegas casino's fountain.

If the table needed drying, Dad swung out a roll of paper towel as his lasso, "Yahoo!", Cowboy Bob screamed. Around and around the roll would go, paper filling the kitchen sky like Chinese New Year. Mom went friggin nuts. Rory and I ducked.

All of it, came out of Mom's house money and the money never went up. Year in, year out, Mom made her case and Dad kept the allowance where it was, and he continued using the soap and paper products like he was auditioning to replace Shirley Booth in Hazel.

One rainy afternoon when we were pretty young, he gave Rory and I a lesson in wiping our butts. I kid you not, and Mom put him up to it because at the end of each day our underwear didn't smell that good sometimes.

Rory in 83 St tub

We sat on the edge of the tub, Dad took his position on stage at the front of the bowl.

"You see what I'm doing with my hand? See the way I'm rolling the paper around and around? That's what you do before you wipe. Cover your hand like a Civil War bandaged wound, only then, go in and finish the job."

Rory and I humored Dad with a quick nod, then gave each other a quicker look that said, "He's out of his mind."

Mom came in the bathroom at the end of the lesson, saw Dad's hand and said, "If you use that much much paper, I'll kill the three of you."

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If you would like to check out my memoir, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood," it's available at Logos Bookstore, 1575 York Avenue, or buy it online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble or other booksellers.

517 East 83 St bathroom in 2R in 2008, we lived in 4R

Bliss in Central Park

Alone in Central Park yesterday, I walked for hours astonished by the beauty of the snowy landscape. I kept saying to myself, outloud, this is the greatest movie set ever, but it was real.  My hands were frozen from taking off my they were wet anyway gloves to take photographs. My feet were numb. I foolishly wore a pair of twenty-four dollar Modell's not really waterproof boots with a single pair of my daughter's socks.

It didn't matter. I felt bliss.

My five senses were treating the park like the best amusement ride they ever rode. I slipped and fell and tasted the fresh snow stuck to my face and pushed myself up and grabbed what looked like fake landscape. I heard silence on the lake, I saw kids on sleds hooting at each other and squirrels and birds frantically looking for food, I've already told you I talked to myself and two strangers.

Take me anywhere on earth, then ask me where I want to be. I'll say, "Central Park at twilight on March 5, 2015."

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If you would like to check out my memoir, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood," it's available at Logos Bookstore, 1575 York Avenue, or buy it online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble or other booksellers.