John Delach

An incomplete and stingy obituary for Mike Battle appeared in the March 13 edition of Newsday. Originally written by the Los Angeles Times, it mostly paid attention to his college career at USC with the only reference to his short pro career as follows: “He was chosen in the 12^th round of the 1969 NFL Draft by the Jets and played for two seasons in 1969 and ’70.”

Battle’s only professional claim to fame was entirely omitted  by in this obituary.

This story is an excerpt from my book: “17 Lost Seasons” published in 2009.

The Giants and Jets agreed to meet in an exhibition game at Yale Bowl on Sunday, August 17, 1969. Tickets were at a premium, but, my cousin,  Bill Christman, my brother-in-law, Tom Donlon and I were able to grab three. We left early that Sunday morning. Tom drove and Bill practically came directly from the hospital where his wife, Del, had given birth to their second son, Tom, earlier that morning.

The atmosphere building up for the game ,0was tense. Norm Miller set the tone in the Daily News:

The Jets and the Giants stage their Fun City Bowl today for the championship of the five boroughs, and never has so much fuss been made over a happening meant to be only a trial run in the town of New Haven, Conn. The Jets, champions of all football, were four-point favorites over the Giants in the clash that has whipped up more fan enthusiasm in Our Town than anything since the old-time Giant-Dodgers baseball rivalries. More than 70,000 of the “in’ crowd will buck the terrible traffic jam and the inevitable heat to sit in Yale Bowl (game time 2 p.m.) Millions will listen to the live radio broadcasts on WNEW and WABC and millions more will watch the two taped TV replays, the first at midnight tonight on CBS-TV (Ch. 2) and the second at 8:30 tomorrow night on WOR-TV (CH. 9).

Miller was right about the traffic. We left early enough to beat most of it on the way to New Haven, but leaving post-game was impossible. We settled in to play touch football with other stranded fans. The game lasted until a chap who thought of himself as a jock punted my football onto the roof of a Yale field house. It was the perfect ending for a miserable day. The Daily News’ sports headline reinforced the pain that Giant fans felt:

Jets 37, Giants 14

Broadway Joe, 14-for-16 Hurls

3 TD Passes

Norm Miller was angry with Giants and gave them no quarter. “With all the prestige of the championship of the city as table stakes, Joe Namath cleaned out the Giants and left ‘em for broke.”

The Jets took a 17-0 lead when they again stopped the Giants offense forcing Big Blue to punt.

Jets rookie, Mike Battle, became an unlikely hero as he sealed Big Blue’s fate.  Battle, here-to-fore best known for his strange ability to chew, eat and swallow glass stunned the crowd with an 85-yard punt return with 1:45 left in the second quarter. Increasing the J.E.T.S. – Jets – JETS  JETS lead to 24-0 and crushing the Giants and their fans. Battle’s superb moment came when he vaulted over a would-be Giants tackler on his touchdown run. (This play would ensure that the Jets would retain Battle for the next two years of his otherwise uneventful NFL career.)

Giants head coach, Allie Sherman fared much worse. The Giants preseason record dropped to 0-4 and Dave Klein wrote, “Well Mara reacted to the Jets loss as though someone close to him had died. Mara missed a whole week of training camp for the first and only time since the war. Gene Ward wrote a column on Thursday where he tried to balance Sherman successes and failures, but he did acknowledge that …the Sam Huff trade being a goof which the fans will never forgive.

The last exhibition game against the Pittsburg Steelers on Thursday night played in Montreal, Canada decided Sherman’s fate. The Giants  lost to Pittsburg by a score of 17-13 while the sparse crowd sang “Good Bye Allie, we hate to see you go over and over again French and English.

The Giants locker room was in disarray and certain columists  were starting to report that the team was becoming unglued and subject to player feuds and dissatisfaction.

Alex Webster was appointed Sherman’s successor. Mara admitted: Of all the assistant coaches, Alex has had the least experience. But he could be an inspiring influence on a ballclub whose morale has ebbed. He loves the game, he loves the team and his popularity will go a long way toward giving everyone a lift.

It didn’t and  the long struggle continued for another ten years.        

I joined Taproot in the Fall of 2000 after I retired from Marsh & McLennan in April of that year. The group was in full bloom when I joined with a weekly attendance of twenty or more poets and writers at each session. At best, one could expect to wait at least a week between invitations to present one’s piece.. As a novice, I kept my mouth shut while I learned from our master, teacher and poet, Max Wheat and the skilled poets and prose writers. Sooner than I expected, I believe it was after my second session, Max took me aside and said, “John, your purpose for being a member of this group is to share your writing with the other members. I expect that you will submit a piece at our next session. Reluctantly, I wrote my first piece which I presented during the next session.

Late summer in New Hampshire

October 2000

Summer ends suddenly and too soon as sunshine’s daily arrival comes later and later. The sky is Kodachrome blue providing the perfect background for the trees that burn with color. It is as if they are engulfed in a silent fire set ablaze by a sun that is already low in the sky.

In the morning, my hands and face feel that first cold sting as frost forms on grass, roofs, decks and windows of vehicles left outside overnight. The sense of football is in the air. It is time to start preparing for winter. Wood must be stored so that it is accessible once the heavy snow arrives. Pools and hot tubs must be emptied, outside pipes, pipes, faucets, traps and lines must be drained and decks protected against snow that will cover them until spring.

This is not a labor of love. I have no choice but to accept the change of seasons as I put away the toys of summer for another year.

I asked Max if I should submit Autumn in New Hampshire to be part of that session’s Taproot Journal. He counseled me that I wasn’t up to that and at that time, my task was to continue writing and learn form my fellow writer’s critiques. I did and the next year, the Taproot Journal published the first piece I submitted:            

The Big Orange Dog

March 2001

Harry was the first of the big orange dogs that came into our house and showed us why Golden Retrievers are special. He set the standard for all to come. Bright and alert, his favorite pastime was swimming in the still waters of Stone Pond in Marlow, New Hampshire. Stricken with arthritis early on, this passion continued even after walking became difficult for him. We rigged a wooden ramp covered in carpet fabric to assist him into and out of the truck. We chauffeured him to local ponds and he sensed water before he saw it. Excited and agitated, he had little patience until he arrived at his favorite destination.

Disregarding his infirmary, as soon as the rear gate was opened and the ramp raised, he rushed from the truck and into the pond. In the water, strong again, he would start swimming. And what a swimmer, fast with smooth, deliberate strokes creating a graceful wake that spread across the water as he progressed in his pursuit of the tennis ball of the moment. To accommodate his range and speed, I hit the ball with an old Prince racquet as hard and as far as my strength permitted. Upon reaching the ball and capturing it in his mouth, he would return in his graceful triumphant manner. As soon as he reached shore, he released the ball, turned and plunged back into the pond swimming in the direction where he anticipated the next ball would be hit. Watching for the telltale splash, he picked up his pace and swam in its direction. If he did not see a splash in a timely manner, he lifted his chest out of the water and started swimming in larger and larger circles until he found it. Again and again he continued to swim without noticeable fatigue or loss of interest.

His endurance only ended when I finally surrendered the notion that I could outlast him. Once out of the water, the pain and stiffness returned and he let me help him back into the truck. At times I lifted him in my arms so he did not have to negotiate the ramp. I tried not to mind getting drenched in the process.

I will never forget when I first received that journal. Overwhelmed with hope, I found my name, my piece listed on Page Six. …And there it was, my first piece in print in a literary journal. Inside, I jumped for joy.

So here I am; I just turned 81; how about that!

Guess what, whenever I finish a new piece, one that I sense is good, I still feel the same way and this is one of them. 

Saturday mornings are my favorite time for reading my newspapers. Newsday is compact with almost half the paper dedicated to sports and The New York Times includes their Sunday features in the Saturday delivery. These include, the weekend Metropolitan section, the Book Review, The Times Magazine, the Real Estate section and the weekly Arts and Leisure section.

I usually look at the Metropolitan section first. The front page of February 16^th edition featured a color photograph of a silver haired fellow wearing glasses and sporting a matching mustache standing in a cemetery covered in light snow in a tan lined overcoat, matching pants and canvas shoes inadequate for the ground conditions.

He is holding an aluminum cane / walking stick in his right hand and his coat is open reveling a navy-blue sweatshirt as he poses for the cameraman, unsmiling.  

A headline for the piece is below the fold that reads:

Respect for a Ransacked Cemetery

A Brooklyn Man honors the dead at Most Holy Trinity after grave markers are stolen.

 Ironically, the piece begins with: “Even as a small boy, Michael Hirsh loved visiting cemeteries.”

Ironic; where do I begin? First off, this piece unearthed memories, seventy-years old, and long since buried. The last time I visited Most Holy Cross Cemetery with my mother, Aunt Mildred and her daughter, my cousin Patty was just before I graduated from elementary school in 1957.

The cemetery, located in Bushwick, Brooklyn dates back to 1851 dedicated to the first Catholic German immigrants to settle in Bushwick. Stone markers or monuments were prohibited and nearly all graves were marked with wooden crosses that deteriorated with time and weather. The markers on active grave sites with living relatives would be renewed or replaced, but eventually, they all deteriorated into broken remnants of what they were.

Eventually, many of the wooden markers at Most Holy Trinity were replaced by metal markers. The Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport, CT began to manufacture a “white bronze” alternative to stone. It was actually zinc, far less expensive than bronze, but sturdy and resistant to rust. Sooner or later, all of these markers turned to rust and begin wasting away be they legitimate or knock-offs sold by unscrupulous suppliers.

In the late 1920s, the Public Service Commission authorized the Brooklyn, Manhattan Transit Company, (BMT) to build a new subway line from East New York through Bushwick into Manhattan. One section had to cross Most Holy Trinty Cemetery. The cemetery surrendered the unused land along its southern border, but the plot was too narrow to accommodate two tracks and a station.

The solution was to double-deck the structure. Manhattan-bound trains would remain in the subway while Canarsie-bound trains would travel on a concrete elevated structure. This became the great wall of the cemetery.

Okay, alright; so what is this unearthed memory all about?

Uncle Pete! So who in hell, is Uncle Pete?

Here’s what I remember. Uncle Pete lived one block away from my mother on Himrod Street. A visit to his railroad flat was always a test of my limited abilities as a kid. He was a retired recluse, no window was ever opened, the air was always stale. I don’t have a clue about his personal habits, but all I know is accompanying my mother’s visits to Uncle Pete attacked my senses. The smell was more than unique, it was overwhelming and extremely unpleasant.

My mom seemed oblivious to it. I figured she was faking it. My mother and Aunt Mildrid took turns taking care of this shell of an old man. I had the impression Uncle Pete was related to Mildred but, not directly to my Mom.

Much later, somehow, I figured why my mom and Aunt Mildrid sucked up to this shadow of a person. It seemed that Uncle Pete had acquired the honorary use of Von in front of his last name. How this came to be, I haven’t a clue. I looked it up, and while it can signify a royal blood connection, it can simply be a preposition used by commoners that means “of’ or ‘from.”

When Uncle Pete died, he was buried in his family plot at Most Holy Trinity Cemetery. It seems I vaguely remember that the metal marker was renewed to acknowledge his death and burial.

 We visited his grave several times before my teenage sense of right and wrong kicked in: Right: Let me do what I want. Wrong: Don’t make me do things I don’t want to do.

Adios, Uncle Pete.

But thank you for giving me this piece.      

My Radiation Treatment

Today was February 22, 2025, my eighty-first birthday and I spent the afternoon with nine members of my family at Peter Luger’s steak house in Great Neck, Long Island. In addition to celebrating my birthday, my reasoning for hosting this luncheon was to celebrate the ending of my radiation treatment for prostate cancer, a 28 daily ritual that consumed my life from January14th to February 21^st. (Weekends and MLK Jr. Day off.)

God only knows what these doses of radiation have done or will do to my body, but I followed doctor’s instructions in an effort to cure my prostate cancer. Sometimes I wonder…you know what I mean…what if?

Let me share with you the major daily preparations I was required to perform in order to actually receive each dose. Nobody told me about these requirements until the chief radiation technician at my facility, Ben, explained it to me. In order to protect other organs in the vicinity of the prostate gland, I had to arrive every day with an empty bowel and a full bladder. To achieve the first goal, I drank a cup of prune juice and a large cup of extremely strong coffee every morning. By George, it worked, but over time, too well. As the days went by, the results took on a life of their own. Caution became the better part of valor except for one accident that I will leave at that.

My bladder was another story. Ben told me to consume two 16.9 bottles of water every morning from 9:15 am to 9:30 am to ensure a full bladder at 10;30 am, the schedule of my daily dose. Thankfully, I was able to fulfill this every day although the time it took me to drink this amount of water increased from fifteen minutes to forty minutes.

Ben, and his assistant, Larry, were angels and did all they could to make every day, a success. Fortunately, I completed my treatment in the scheduled amount of time. This despite warnings of five separate snow storms, two that fell on weekends, one that went out to sea and one that turned out to be rain. Praise the Lord!

To celebrate, I made those reservations at Peter Luger’s and the good times rolled again.

Dear Reader

I just finished the best book I ever found on the history of Pan American’s flying boats. The book is sort of an auto-biography of the author’s experience flying these boats with wings from 1935 to 1945. His name was William M. Masland, who graduated through the ranks from mechanic in 1935 to Captain in 1943. He retired in 1966 making his way from Flying Boats to Boeing 707s. He died in 1986 at 79.  

He used his vast experience flying these boats in missions that surveyed both the Pacific route from San Francisco to Manila and Hong Kong with overnight stops at Honolulu, Midway Island, Wake Island and Guam. Pan American had to build all of the facilities on Miday, Wake and Guam to accommodate and feed their passengers and crews in first class style and service the clippers. He also flew across the Atlantic part of the PAA crew dispatched to survey the routes and stopping points for flights to Southampton such as Newfoundland, Iceland and Shannon, Ireland.

Ultimately, he became the captain who first flew around the world in 1943.

Unfortunately, since Masland was an engineer by background, he titled his book: “Through the Back Doors of the World in a Ship that Had Wings,” a title only an engineer could love. In researching this book, I discovered it had been published privately by Masland in 1985 with a price of $14.50

Needless to say, that price is long gone as are most copies of his book. Mary Ann gave me the book for Christmas and paid the exorbitant price of $91. Since then, I have found several copies for sale with prices ranging from $70 to $160.

Outrageous-without a doubt and, if you have enough of an interest in flying boats, the Pan American Historical Foundation Collection may fulfill your curiosity.

When we went to war in December of 1941, the Government requisitioned PAA’s fleet of Boeing’s B-317 Flying Boats.(*) But Uncle Sam was wise enough not to dismantle the airlines infrastructure, its flight crews or their operational staff. This included the airline’s superb navigation academy and their existing global network that was readily adoptable to military needs.

(*Back in the day, the common abbreviation for Pan American was PAA. The current abbreviation, Pan Am, came later during the jet era.)

During the war, PAA flew special missions for Uncle and a new mission, S.M. Seventy-Two was assigned to Capt. Masland. On January 7, 1943. A Colonel Milton Arnold wanted to meet Masland the following day at his Pentagon office. Masland took the overnight train from New York’s Penn Station and arrived at Arnold’s office with two other PAA officials.

Masland explained, “The colonel was a trim, military figure, as polished and effective as a pair of chrome molly pliers.” He came right to the point. “We want you to take a cargo from Ceylon to Australia. There’s a R.A.F. seaplane base there at Trincomalee on the northeast coast of Ceylon. You would make a refueling stop at Cocos Island, about halfway to Australia, then continue on to a landing at Port Hedland on Australia’s north coast. Can you, do it?”

He looked at the three of us. The other two looked at me. A major obstacle is nobody seemed to know if the Japanese controlled Cocos Island. It turned out the colonel didn’t know the status of Cocos Island either. I asked him, “Can you give us twenty-four hours to make an answer?”

He hesitated a moment then said, “Very well. Twenty-four hours. I expect to hear from you at this time tomorrow.”

Somehow the three of us found seats on the next train for New York even though this was wartime. It was then that I discovered that our proposed cargo was actually three people, three Very Important People, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin who would all be attending a conference in Casablanca, Morocco from January 14 to 24, 1943. The plan was to transport them to Australia where they would continue the summit with Chiang Kai-shek.

On return to PAA’s operational HQ located at the Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia (then still referred to as North Beach), I examined charts and records of wind, weather and geography and made as many calculations as I could think of. The answer was that the flight from Ceylon to Australia could be successfully completed without making a stop at Cocos Island. I so advised Col. Arnold the next day.

He replied, “Very well, I’ll be in your office in North Beach at noon, tomorrow” and hung up.

At precisely noon, Colonel Arnold stepped into the office. He led off by announcing, “I want a plane to arrive in Bahrein by January twenty-fifth to be ready to depart the next day for Australia by way of Ceylon, without fail.”

They wouldn’t dare. I thought, just wouldn’t dare to plan to send the president of the United States on a mission as crazy as this one. But they did.

We left New York on the fourteenth with a full crew plus two mechanics. It was a daylight flight, with an overnight stop in Miami while the army loaded the ship. From Miami, we made our way to Port of Spain them to Belem and Natal Brazil before crossing the South Atlantic, destination Lake Tanganyika or Fish Lake, as we aviators called it, located in what was then the Belgian Congo. From there it was an eight-hour flight to Lagos and we ran the engines in high-speed cruise that was good for them as they purred like contented kittens for the first time on this voyage. Next was a direct flight to Khartoum, a flight of fifteen hours.

We left in late afternoon and takeoff was awful. The temperature was over 90 degrees and the available wind, a little more than ten-knots. It took a run of 4,600 feet to free the hull from the surface of the lake allowing us to become airborne. We flew over night and after midnight, it seemed we were flying over a world that apparently belonged to no one but ourselves.

Nearing our destination, the BOAC base, we turned down a stream toward the landing area just as the sky began to lighten in the east. The station manager, a Mr. Fenton, was efficient in meeting our needs and promptly refueling the ship. An American army jeep met me and took me to an army camp in Wadi Saida where a Lt. Cammeron provided all of the information that we would need to enter Bahrein, the major destination for our outbound flight. All that information wrong.

We were up by 4 am the next morning, breakfast at 4:30 and we were off the water of Gordons Tree by five-fifty-nine, one minute earlier than planned. The sun came up twenty minutes later and we laid a course that would take us directly across the Red Sea and the Arabian Desert to Bahrein on the Persian Gulf. Communications were failing so I had Mr. Martin, our radio operator send a simple message to Bahrein: ETA GINNS 1225Z   MASLAND.

The message in clear text represented a flagrant breech of regulations but I was determined that we be expected at our next port of call. My communication worked out and Bahrein was waiting for us. We landed and tied up at one of the BOAC moorings one day early of our January 24^th due date.

Days passed and nothing happened  Meanwhile, an army captain flying through Bahrein dropped in to our lounge just before dinner. He gossiped: “Of course, you know you have to wait here until the Casablanca Conference is over. Then you are to fly Roosevelt. Churchill and Stalin out east to meet the Generalissimo.”

The crew sat stunned, mouths open and eyes popping. Of all the people in the Middle East, my crew did not know the details of our secret mission.

Continued in Part Two