By the Grace of the Game Read online

  Two of Anyu’s sisters, my great-aunts Shari and Margo, were in Budapest with Anyu when the Nazis invaded. It was March 1944. The letters from their parents stopped, and they’d heard that all Jews in Hungary, save Budapest, had been deported. Margo talked about going to Germany to try to find their parents. In her heart, she knew it wasn’t possible.

  Margo was caught by the Nazis and was one of the estimated 50,000 Jews on Adolf Eichmann’s “death march” from Budapest to Vienna. The prisoners walked nearly 140 miles in a week to the outskirts of the Austrian frontier. We don’t know if Margo survived the journey — nearly 10,000 are said to have died along the way — but we know she never made it home.

  My great-aunt Bubby was the only family member to come back from Auschwitz. She was evaluated at the camp by Dr. Josef Mengele, known by history as the “Angel of Death.” He took pleasure in deciding who’d live and who’d die. He’d hover as trainloads of prisoners arrived at Auschwitz, wearing his white doctor’s coat and signature white gloves, looking for twins on whom he could experiment. When Mengele’s shadowy eyes surveyed Bubby, he pointed to the right, indicating she was fit for labor. The prisoner before her, one of Anyu and Bubby’s aunts, had been sent to the left — directly to the gas chambers. Bubby was transferred from Auschwitz to another camp and managed to stay alive until liberation.

  Shari and Anyu both survived the War on the streets of Budapest. Shari would end up in Israel. Anyu ended up in the United States. The rest of Anyu’s family — both parents and three siblings — were killed in Auschwitz. The trains from Transylvania started on May 19, 1944. My great-grandfather was deported on a train to Auschwitz. His name was Solomon Samuel, but I would have called him Nagypapa, pronounced “nudge-papa.”

  Before his murder, Nagypapa dressed in a three-piece suit and tracked the schedules of his 10 kids from the pocket watch dangling on his hip. He attended temple every day and spoke Hungarian, German, and Yiddish. He was educated at the Pressburg Yeshiva in Bratislava, one of the most prestigious schools in Europe. He played the violin and spent hours each day reading from his collection of classic books. On Saturday evenings, under the light of a petroleum lamp, he’d sit at a handmade wooden table and play chess with a friend until the early morning. His education and integrity made him a leader in his village’s Jewish community. When the region’s most renowned rabbi visited town for a religious ceremony, Nagypapa was given the honor of hosting the distinguished guest in his home. Anyu still remembers the great Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum blessing her and her siblings in the family kitchen before the ceremony commenced.

  Almost a century later, Netflix would release a hit series called Unorthodox profiling the Satmar Jews, the ultra-Orthodox sect that Rabbi Teitelbaum started when he fled Romania for Brooklyn before the War. Anyu wouldn’t have been able to comprehend the notion that this man’s approach to Judaism could inspire a global television phenomenon. At the time of her first interaction with Rabbi Teitelbaum, she’d never before seen a television.

  My great-grandfather was also revered in town for his wisdom. When a Jewish neighbor sold a parcel of land to buy his wife the fur coat she demanded, the decision was panned as senseless and short-sighted. Why would he mortgage their future to satisfy this compulsion? What is he thinking selling land to get a coat? “Maybe it is senseless, maybe it isn’t,” Anyu recalls her father saying, opposing the common sentiment in the community. “Time will tell.”

  Years later, the Nazis came, and all land was taken. At least the fur coat had brought enjoyment and happiness when those things were still possible. Somehow, Nagypapa knew not to rush to judgment. It speaks to perspective and humility — to acknowledging that no one has it all figured out.

  My great-grandfather, Solomon, was my hero’s hero. When the Nazis loaded him onto the train, Anyu’s father was 56 years old. Historical accounts of the Holocaust make it possible to reconstruct my family’s deportation with a high probability of accuracy. On the way to Auschwitz, with people piled on top of one another inside the slatted wooden cattle car, there was no food, no place to go to the bathroom, and nowhere to lay down. Human waste piled up. The smell was overpowering. The ride lasted days. Many prisoners died on the train from hunger, suffocation, or illness. I think Nagypapa survived the journey, driven by his instinct to protect his family. His wife, daughter, and two sons were on the train with him. Accounts of Auschwitz suggest that, after Nagypapa arrived at the death camp in the south of Poland, he was offloaded onto a ramp and corralled by shouting SS officers into a line for men. That’s when he was separated from his wife and daughter — my great-grandmother and great-aunt.

  My great-uncles, Anyu’s little brothers, stayed with their dad. He held them close as they averted their eyes from the SS officers and moved forward in line. They eventually reached a man wearing a white coat. At his age, Nagypapa was not fit to do hard labor. My great-uncles, both small and undeveloped, were just young teenagers. The German physician took a quick look and pointed to the left. The Nazis had for years disguised their murderous activities as a resettlement campaign, so information about what was happening to Jews at these camps was still scarce across Europe. My great-grandfather was likely unaware of what was coming.

  Nagypapa and my great-uncles were brought to a building that said “bath” in a variety of different languages. They were stripped and led inside along with hundreds of other naked Jews. Doors were shut behind them. There were shower heads on the walls, but once the doors were locked, gas started to seep from the vents. By the time Nagypapa realized what was happening, it was much too late. He was probably holding his boys until the end.

  When Auschwitz was liberated and the walls of the gas chambers examined, they were filled with fingernail scratch marks. After the male prisoners had been killed — Nagypapa and my great-uncles included — rings were removed, and gold was pulled from teeth. The bodies were then sent to the crematoria, where my great-­grandmother and great-aunt’s corpses had also been taken. As arriving prisoners at Auschwitz pleaded not to be separated from their loved ones, the Nazi guards were trained to say, “You’ll be together again soon.” It was an unfathomable truth.

  All the bodies were placed into an oven and burned into ash. That ash was propelled out of a tall gray chimney. It floated to a universe far better than our own.

  Unaware of all that had happened, Anyu returned to her empty house after surviving the War in Budapest. Her head throbbed. The white tablecloths, the silver, the kosher dishes, the bedroom pillows stuffed to the brim with goose feathers — it was all gone. There were no animals on the farm. The crops were decimated.

  Anyu’s steps were slow as she walked around the house. Examining empty drawer after empty drawer, she eventually noticed something shimmer. Somehow overlooked by the looters, it was wedged in the back of one of the drawers. It was one of my great-grandmother’s spoons. Used in the kosher household for ladling milk, the spoon was small, metallic, and nondescript. The handle was worn, the bowl weathered and scratched. The spoon had either gone unnoticed by the looters or, more likely, possessed so little value that it was left behind without a thought. Anyu grabbed it from the drawer and held it to her heart. Aside from what remained inside her, this spoon was all that was left. She would have it in her possession for 75 years before giving it to me. I keep it in my bedside drawer, a few feet from where I sleep.

  3. The Garden & beasts

  The New York Knicks teams of the early 1990s, the ones I grew up around, were the beating heart of New York City. The players weren’t fit for the palm trees in Los Angeles or the sand beaches of Miami. They embodied the hard hats and honking horns of the five boroughs. They were a graffiti and subway steam type of group. Barbed-wire fences. Sewer rats as big as house cats.

  My dad was the general manager of the Knicks, having gone from player to broadcaster to assistant coach to running the team in the span of a few years. He was raised in the shadows of the Holocaust,
eating black market meat and going to the bathroom in an outhouse. He’d been a poor immigrant learning English in New York City. Then the city became his city. It was an extraordinary trajectory for a Hungarian-speaking Jew from Communist Romania.

  In those days, being GM of the Knicks made you a king in New York. I benefited from this stature, even though I hadn’t earned any of it. I was a typical prince born into good fortune. To relate, I tried to conceal my lifestyle from peers at school. I always felt most comfortable around other Knicks kids, since they understood. When the New York Yankees played in the World Series, our family would have seats on the dugout. We’d attend Saturday Night Live premieres, where I’d have a 30-second conversation with Jim Carrey at an afterparty and immediately declare my childhood a success. I was once the only person skating on the rink at Rockefeller Center during a Knicks holiday party. I glided across the ground with a grin as scarf-wrapped tourists peered down at me, the world’s most iconic Christmas tree lighting the night sky above, my blades shaving the New York City ice to dust.

  Around that time, I’d dropped out of Hebrew school to accommodate my basketball schedule. I was on multiple traveling teams and would usually leave Temple Beth Rishon early so I could play in some game. When sitting in my basketball uniform at Hebrew school as I stared at the clock became untenable, my parents hired a private tutor to come to our house once a week to prepare me for my Bar Mitzvah. I don’t know where my parents found Mrs. Brandeis, my persistent Torah practitioner, but I endured her weekly visits. At 4’10” with a scratchy voice and a tenacious love for the Talmud, Mrs. Brandeis stayed patient as I struggled to read Hebrew. I couldn’t understand whose idea it was to have Hebrew written right to left. It all felt backward, like a soak with no schvitz, and I told her so. She somehow kept me focused long enough to teach me my Torah portion.

  On Knicks game days, I was the young smartass running around Madison Square Garden, greeting security guards and asking how their families were, as if that were a normal thing for a kid to do in the world’s most famous arena. I was social and gregarious, the type who seemed destined to one day shake hands and kiss babies, and I schmoozed at The Garden like it was a goddamn professional networking event. “Marge make the meatloaf this week?” I’d ask Tony outside section 107. “How’s Bobby’s fastball?” I’d ask Chuck while passing 110.

  I’d sit in a team lounge before the game and chat with Red Holzman, Dad’s mentor and the greatest coach in Knicks history. A jersey with his name on it was already retired at The Garden to commemorate his 613 wins as coach of the Knicks. Whenever I’d say good-bye to Red, he’d always tell me the same thing: “Remember, Danny, 10 percent.” Red knew I loved the game and thought I had a chance to be good. He said he was going to be my agent, and all it would cost me was 10 percent.

  Anyu came to a few games a year during her visits from California. She chased me around The Garden and knew the stadium cold. The security guards greeted her with deferential smiles, not just because she was the boss’ mother. No matter how brief, her every interaction conveyed a profound kindness and respect. People felt her sublime energy and treated her accordingly.

  Madison Square Garden, the home of the Knicks, had an unmistakable smell, something like pretzels, beer, and time. Its atmosphere held the weight of what its walls had seen. John Lennon, Wayne Gretzky, Willis Reed, Rocky Marciano, Michael Jordan, Andre the Giant, Muhammad Ali, Biggie Smalls, Barbara Streisand, Bernard King. Anyone who was anyone in sports and entertainment had made a name for themselves at Madison Square Garden.

  New York is a basketball city, so nothing could tap into the heart of the people like the Knicks. Whether in a Knicks jersey or a pinstripe suit, a Knicks fan at The Garden was never more than a minute away from unleashing a screaming barrage of expletives on the other team. I once walked into The Garden before a Knicks playoff game to find the arena packed with fans already chanting New York’s famous refrain of “Deee-fense, Deee-fense.” The game was an hour away from starting. The players were still in the locker room. The fans were simply out of their minds.

  My dad watched these games from a box at the top of the arena. He made sure I sat next to him. As a kid, not long after coming to America, he’d watched Knicks games with his dad from the top of the old Garden. They sat in the rafters where they belonged, not in a skybox reserved for team executives. They were still learning the language then.

  Dad’s Knicks, meanwhile, were perennial title contenders. They’d make the NBA Finals in 1994. Their identity was toughness. They were a group of fighters and survivors. They were used to overcoming challenges and overpowering odds. None of his players knew the details of Dad’s background, but it didn’t matter. He was one of them, and they were just like him.

  Xavier McDaniel, known as X-man, shaved both his head and his eyebrows to look more intimidating, an act the locals might have referred to as “commitment.”

  John Starks, the Knicks’ shooting guard, went to four colleges in Oklahoma and was bagging groceries at a Piggly Wiggly before making an NBA roster. He’d pound his chest after a made three and dive headfirst into the stands for a loose ball. He was raw and emotional, a guy New York City could believe in. He’d become an All-Star with the Knicks.

  From Springfield Gardens, Queens, Anthony Mason started his career in Turkey, Venezuela, and the minor leagues. He boldly shaved images into his head throughout the season. Mase would run out of the tunnel with a Knicks logo on the side of his head or the skyline of New York City wrapping around his skull. Despite his humble beginnings, he’d also become an NBA All-Star.

  Charles Oakley, from Cleveland, played his college ball at Virginia Union University. When he needed stitches during a Knicks game, he’d get them without Novocain. He used to cut a slit into the top of his practice jersey because his chest was so big. People called him Oak, and it made sense.

  When Oak joined the Knicks, Dad was broadcasting for the team. On a chartered plane ride, a veteran teammate threw a peanut at the back of Oak’s head. Oak told him not to do it again. Another peanut bounced off. Oak told him that if it happened one more time, there’d be a problem. A minute later, another peanut hit. Oak calmly stood up, walked a few rows back, and buried his fist into his teammate’s mouth. Blood splattered onto the seat. “Bet you won’t do it again,” Oak murmured as his teammate tried to put his face back together. Dad was sitting several rows behind and saw the whole thing. Without saying another word, Oak returned to his seat and resumed the flight. I’m not sure if he asked the flight attendant to bring him a bag of peanuts when he sat down, but I’m not ruling it out. He was a good match for New York City.

  Patrick Ewing, the Knicks’ franchise player, played so hard and sweat so much that ball boys were given special instructions to mop the puddles that formed anywhere Patrick stood on the court. Patrick’s rookie year with the Knicks was my dad’s last as a player. Patrick carried Dad’s bags on the road even though he was the first pick in the draft on a clear path to NBA superstardom. Dad calls him a warrior, one of the best and hardest working players he’s ever been around. He was an immigrant, too, from Jamaica. He became one of New York City’s very own.

  Growing up, I eventually ran out of space for Knicks paraphernalia on the walls of my room. I’d gotten a bowling pin at a birthday party that I used as a hammer to hang posters, jerseys, magazine covers, and anything else that had a Knicks logo on it. With no spots left on the wall, I’d stand on a little blue swivel chair, grab my bowling pin and thumbtacks, and pound life-sized cutouts of the players’ faces into my ceiling. When I lay in bed at night, the rough and rugged Knicks stared down at me.

  At Knicks practice with my dad on the weekends, the players would give me fist pounds and ask how my jumper was coming along. I’d sit on the side and study them. I’d watch their moves, their mannerisms, how they worked. I’d try those things in my driveway. I wanted to play in the NBA like them. More than anything, I wanted to be t
ough like them, or at least perceived as tough. It was a difficult proposition for a scrawny Jewish kid from the right side of the tracks. The most challenging circumstance I’d faced until that point was when my sister finished the lox and bagels before I woke up one Sunday.

  Every summer, I attended Knicks basketball camp at Manhattan College in the Bronx. As I got older, my game progressed, and I became one of the best players in my age group. Each session of camp ended with an awards ceremony that coincided with family pickup. I played particularly well one week, leading my team to the championship and being named MVP of my age group. When they called my name to accept my awards, parents looked around, incredulous, then started booing me. “He’s the GM’s kid!” one yelled. “We didn’t spend our money for this crap!” another said.

  Whenever adults openly berate a child, it’s a hard thing to justify, though I understand the frustration. It didn’t matter where my family had come from. I myself was privileged and had advantages other kids didn’t. I get why parents would think my awards were a gift. I decided it was my responsibility to leave no doubt about what I did and did not deserve.

  My education on the nature of humanity was accelerated by the anti-Semitism I experienced, as all Jews do, simply by being Jewish. By this time, I knew what had happened to Anyu and her family during the Holocaust. Still, I saw firsthand that certain people would hate me because I was Jewish. I’d been called “Jew boy” by kids at school. I’d heard a classmate say “Jew me down” to describe someone trying to buy an item from him at a low price. Jokes about Jews — cheap, big noses, dishonest — were commonly told.

  I once opened a blue baseball shed in my hometown in New Jersey and saw a giant white swastika painted on the inside of the door. The paint was fresh. My heart nearly stopped. I’d seen that twisted symbol before and knew what it meant. I had a constant awareness that anti-Semitism lingered even when it wasn’t apparent to the naked eye. It was one of the world’s strongest parasites. How could that much hatred just disappear? Where would it go?