Joe Garagiola, a major league baseball player who evolved into a long broadcasting career at the age of 90. Garagiola was a journeyman catcher who played for nine seasons in the majors for the St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cubs and the New York Giants. After his retirement from baseball, Garagiola wrote the book "Baseball is a Funny Game" (1960). That helped launch his broadcast career.
But Garagiola was better known as the backstop panelist for NBC's Today show from 1967 to 1982 and 1990 to 1992. Garagiola also did play by play and color commentary for NBC Sports baseball telecasts from 1974 to 1988. Garagiola then spent a season doing cable commentary for the California Angels. Afterwards, Garagiola did part time commentary for the Arizona Diamondbacks from 1998-2012 while his son was general manager for the Diamondbacks. All together, Garagiola broadcast for 35 years over seven decades. No wonder why Garagiola was honored with the Ford Frick Award and inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown New York in 1991.
Keeping to his lighthearted take on life, Garagiola quipped that the only way that he could get into Cooperstown was as a broadcaster.
James Dolan, the CEO of Cablevision and owner of the New York Knicks (not the Archbishop of New York) has a reputation for being cantankerous. Dolan embodied that idiosycrasy in his email exchange with an angry Knicks fan.
Irving Bierman, a 73 year old Knicks fan sent Dolan a cri-de-coeur as the Knicks are 10-41, which is the worst record in the NBA. Bierman wrote:
60 year Knicks fan Irving Bierman [photo: Mike Spencer for New York Daily News
"I have been a Knicks fan since 1952. At one stage I
thought that you did a wonderful thing when you acquired EVERYTHING from
your dad. However, since then it has been ALL DOWN HILL.
Your
working with Isaiah (sic) Thomas & everything else regarding the
Knicks. Bringing on Phil Jackson was a positive beginning, but
lowballing Steve Kerr was a DISGRACE to the Knicks. The bottom line is
that you merely continued to interfere with the franchise. As a
Knicks fan for in excess of 60 years, I am utterly embarrassed by your
dealings with the Knicks. Sell them so their fans can at least look
forward to growing them in a positive direction Obviously, money IS NOT
THE ONLY THING. You have done a lot of utterly STUPID business things
with the franchise. Please NO MORE."
Granted, Bierman's critical sentiments must have been hard for the Knicks owner to hear. But Dolan would take no guff from a plebian fan of the Knicks. So Dolan retorted with a poison pen piece.
[Front-Center] New York Knicks owner James Dolan
"Mr Bierman. You are a sad person. Why would anybody write such a
hateful letter. I am just guessing but ill bet your life is a mess and
you are a hateful mess. What have you done that anyone would consider
positive or nice. I am betting nothing. In fact ill bet you are a
negative force in everyone who comes in contact with you. You most
likely have made your family miserable. Alcoholic maybe. I just
celebrated my 21-year anniversary of sobriety. You should try it. Maybe
it will help you become a person that folks would like to have around.
In the mean while, start rooting for the Nets because the Knicks don't
want you."
Wow. How to win friends and influence people--not! It might have been a satisfying cathartic to put an angry fan "in his place" and tell him to switch allegiance but to pull out from your nether regions an ad hominem insinuation that your interlocutor is an alcoholic is remarkable.
Irving Bierman offered a measured response as he noted that he has not drank alcohol since he was 18. Bierman still stands by his critique: "[Dolan] has the audacity to tell me to become a Nets fan - you got to be kidding me. He gets belligerent because I expressed an opinion. It's a valid opinion." Bierman's wife was a little more colorful calling Knicks owner Dolan "a sick puppy".
Assuredly this exchange was not private as it was shared via social media. Last season, the NBA forced Donald Sterling to sell his ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers due to some untoward comments made in private. But Jimmy Dolan nixed a longtime Knicks fan in the arena of public opinion.
Dolan showed his contempt of longtime loyal fans in his bilious bloviation by put them in their place unjustifiable character smears. What a small man with horrible P.R. skills! What does that say about the man? With Dolan in charge, is that the sort of franchise you would want to spend your time and treasure?
In the land of the free, people should have the right to say what they want (as long as it is true) even if they sound idiotic. A league should not enforce political correctness as it did in taking the reins from Donald Sterling. That being said, that does not mean that fans do not have any sway.
The NBA is holding its All Star Game on February 15th and guess who's hosting it? New York City (Brooklyn) where Jimmy Dolan urges disappointed Knicks fans to cheer.
Joe Garagiola, a major league baseball player who evolved into a long broadcasting career at the age of 90. Garagiola was a journeyman catcher who played for nine seasons in the majors for the St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cubs and the New York Giants. After his retirement from baseball, Garagiola wrote the book "Baseball is a Funny Game" (1960). That helped launch his broadcast career.
But Garagiola was better known as the backstop panelist for NBC's Today show from 1967 to 1982 and 1990 to 1992. Garagiola also did play by play and color commentary for NBC Sports baseball telecasts from 1974 to 1988. Garagiola then spent a season doing cable commentary for the California Angels. Afterwards, Garagiola did part time commentary for the Arizona Diamondbacks from 1998-2012 while his son was general manager for the Diamondbacks. 
