Greetings from 1965

This was a photo that I love from my uncles wake. It shows the whole family. Grandma is in the middle. Uncle V is on one side and Aunt Rosie is on the other. My Uncle Angelo is directly above Grandma with his wife Aunt Marie.

That handsome Irishman is my Da who is standing behind Laverne DeFazio.

Teach a Man to Fish

My Uncle V always loved to take us fishing. He would load up his Chrysler Newport with my cousins and me. A bunch of fishing poles. A cooler. Lunch that Grandma made. Sausage Hero's. Meatball heroes. Olives and pickled eggplant.

We would leave at about four thirty in the morning. Drive all the way out to Orient Point on Long Island. It took about three hours. So we got there after people had already gone out for two hours. We would get a box of skimmers which were very cheap clams to use as bait. A box of blood worms. A big piece of squid to cut up for fluke bait.

My uncle had his own out board motor.  We would attach it to the back of skiff that we would attach the motor. Put all our stuff in and go out into Peconic Bay.

We would rig up for porgies and fluke. Two hooks below and one long stringer higher up for fluke.

The thing about porgies is when you hit a school you almost didn't have to bait the hook. You could pull them up two at a time. We would often catch a hundred fish at a time. Now in those days they didn't check you cooler so you could keep some of the small fish. Not two small but still pretty edible.

Then we would drive all the way home on the LIE which could take four hours or more. With the smell of fish in the cooler. Now there is one problem when you caught all that fish. You had to clean all that fish. So when we pulled up and parked on Henry St in front of my Grandma's house we would unload. All the old timer's on the block would sidle up to find out what we caught. My uncle would wheel and deal. He would give a couple or three fish to each of the guys. They would reciprocate with a bottle of home made wine or fresh tomatoes from their garden. It was share and share alike.

That Brooklyn is long gone. The yuppie scumbags would report you to the EPA for the fish smell or to PETA for killing the fish.

You can't go home again.

He was one tough Mo

No not Palladian. He is a big pussy. Crying all the time.

No Emile Griffith who died today after a long bout of being punch drunk. The last time I saw him at the Garden he looked like the Evil Blogger Lady in her last video. He was just gone man.

I only saw him fight once at the Garden. He fought a guinea from Carroll Gardens named Vito Antuofermo in 1974. He lost. It was a unanimous decision but as I remember it he probably should have won. The Garden was grooming Vito in those days so I think there was a thumb on the scale. Of course that was not the only reason.

You see everybody hated him. He beat Bernie "The Kid" Paret to death one night because Bernie kept calling him a maricon. Which means faggot in Spanish. Griffith hated that because that was not what you called someone in 1962. Plus it was true so he felt he had to kick his ass to prove it wasn't. Or something. Whatever.

He was a hell of a fighter though. I ran into him a lot when I used to go to the fights at the Felt Forum at the Garden back in day. Or at Jimmy's Corner the boxing bar in Times Square. He wasn't very approachable like a lot of the other fighters were so most of us just left him in peace. Maybe send over a drink but that was about it.

Rest in Peace Emile. I hope you find the Peace that eluded you here on this vale of tears.

Remembrance of things Pabst

So we had a tough day with a lot of employee problems and miscellaneous bullshit. We get a call from one of the girls who is a good friend of ours from the store who also ended up appearing on the show. Red Jen the jeweler lived in the neighborhood and used to shop in the store. As usual Lisa adopted her and I got stuck doing shit that I didn't want to do. Don't get me wrong. She is a great girl and a lot of fun in a good time redheaded Irish girl kind of way.

But one time she had to go on vacation and asked us to water her plants and take care of her pets. I said ok until we got to her apartment. It turns out that she had goldfish. Not a cat. Not a dog. Not a bird. FUCKING GOLDFISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I mean fucking goldfish are supposed to die. And then you flush them. You win them in the little bowl in the game at the feast where you get the ping pong ball in the thing and the fucking goldfish dies before you get it home. So I says to Lisa "Let's just flush the scaly motherfucker here and now and come back in two week and put a new fucking goldfish in the tank." Of course she wouldn't let me do it. Fuck.

Anyhoo Red Jen calls and says to meet at Hanley's one of the oldest bars in NYC which is on the corner of my block. Irishmen have been getting piss drunk in there since the fucking Draft Riots. Of the Civil War. We used to go there all the time. I mean I used to go there at the time when I was a kid and it was a neighborhood joint where only neighborhood guys used to go. Now it is full of yuppie scum and hipster dofous cocksuckers.

We get there and Red Jen is sitting with a couple three of her friends. One of the girls had purple hair. And her boyfriend had a fucking derby. A fucking fucking derby. He had no idea what I was talking about when I asked him if was from Kentucky. Jumping Jesus.

Oh and to add to the fun it was karaoke night. And the Knicks were getting slaughtered by Miami. I am watching Lebron windmill dunk on Tyson Chandlers fucking knucklehead while some cunt is screeching out "Total Eclipse of the Heart." WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And man did the waitresses ever suck. And not in a good way like they used to do in the "Foxy Den." One of them marched up and down like fucking Oliver Hardy in the "March of the Wooden Soldiers" and kept telling me she wasn't my waitress. And the twat that was my waitress kept disappearing for twenty minutes at a time. What's up with that shit?

But you know why should I complain. The wife let me off the leash a little. I had about six pints of Guinness's, a rare cheeseburger and double order of tater tots so what the fucking fuck I can't complain. I mean I had to listen to Derby guy talk about his job and the cackling of the other fuckin'  twats about how cool Michelle Obama is but at least I got to hang out in a bar and have a few pints and a burger. It has been a while.

And you know what.

I don't fuckin' miss it in the least.

Especially some Mo singing "Footloose."

WAITRESS BRING ME ANOTHER PINT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Chase Away Guy!

You know talking about bars and hanging out made me think of a type that you always ran into in the bar. We used to call them "The Chase Away Guy!"

He was the guy who would hit on all the chicks in an inept and sleazy way that would make them uncomfortable to the point that they would get up and leave. Now some women could stand up for themselves and would tell him to fuck off. But some of these guys would only get more aggresive when that happened and we ended up having to bounce them out of the bar. What would suck would be that if I was in a joint that didn't have a bouncer. If there was a board as the bartender as often or not they would be a friend of mine and they would ask me to tell the guy to leave. I mean what the fuck? I am just there to enjoy a drink. But I was usually the accountant for the bar and in with the in crowd so they looked at me as management. Or at least their friend who had to help them out.

One day just around this time of year I went out drinking with a friend of mine who was going through a divorce. He was still living in the same apartment with his wife so he never wanted to go home. So he would call me at my job and say "Lets go out for a few drinks after work." "I am working until midnight." "No problem I will meet you then." He wouldn't take no for an answer. I was single and ready to mingle aand I was always ready to chase down some poon so I was up for hanging out until four in the morning and then going in to work the next day. So I told him I would meet up with him at around eleven.

We decided to go to this joint on Second Avenue which was owned by the same guys that owned a joint on Atlantic Avenue where we used to go all the time. We figured maybe there would be a bartender we know working there because they worked in both places so we would get some god buy backs and shit. So we walk in and there is this girl with bunch of tattoo's that we had never met before. It was a Saturday night and it was Valentines Day. So there was me and my friend who was crying about his fuckin' divorce and two Russian douchebags at the other end of the bar who were hitting on the bartender and the waitress who was Russian as well.

Anyway this bitch keeps coming over and chatting us up. She found out that I knew the owner and the other bartenders like Dimitri who also worked there so we knew the same people. It's the shank of the evening and she comes over to complain about the Russians. She goes "I got to get rid of these guys... they are really out of line....so how are we gonna get rid of them." I look at my friend and he looks at me. "What do you mean we white man?" She goes "Com'om help a girl out. I mean what kind of loser doesn't have a date on Valentines Day?" I look at my friend and he looks at me. "We'll be right with you." We threw a fin on the bar and walked out. We took a cab back to Brooklyn and he met his future second wife that very night.

But there is a moral to this story. Every bar has a chase away guy. A guy who is so annoying that you don't want to go to that bar anymore. So if you own that bar....well you should keep that guy under control.

Otherwise people are gonna find another place to hang out.

Just sayn'

Hail hail the gangs all here!

Back in the eighties I used to hang out in this pub called the Quiet Man on 45th St. It was my home away from home. I went there every day for lunch and after work for a few pops before I went home. I might not go both times but I was there at least once a day. It is a lot like how Mat Scudder talks about Armstrongs in the Lawrence Block novels. It was sort of my office and people knew they could find me there or leave a message for me.

I was close friends with a lot of the people who worked there. Well close bar friends. We would go out for drinks after they closed. I would meet up with them in Queens where they lived in Sunnyside or they would come out to Brooklyn. We would go to Atlantic City or the track. A bunch of bartenders and busboys and cute Irish waitresses.

But one week I was busy and for one reason or another I didn't make it to the bar. I was working a lot and I was really tired most of the time so I went straight home. I didn't have time for lunch and called for take out. So you know what happened? They sent out a search party.

A couple of the waitresses came to my office and asked for me. When I went to the reception office they asked me if anybody had pissed me off or if something was wrong. I just told them I was busy but I would be back soon. That Friday I went down for a couple of pops and couldn't pay for a drink. It was a nice feeling that I not only had a place where everybody knew my name but they would miss me if wasn't around.

Or least they would miss my tips.

Anyway I hope I can make this joint be a place like that. Just sayn'

It's time for new beginings!

So on Friday I didn't post much because I went to my old office. I cleaned out all of my old files and personal memorabilia and called the car service guy to pick me up so I could take everything home. After 37 years as an accountant I am officially retired.

I fit everything into four of those cardboard file boxes. It was interesting how your whole life can fit in a couple of boxes. For about twenty years I was all about going to the game. I had a bulletin board in my office and I would tack every ticket to every game I went to on the board. There were Yankee and Giant and Knick tickets. Tickets to opening day and many World Series games. Tickets to a bunch of world championship boxing matches with Ali, Tyson, Holyfield, Joe Fraizer, Larry Holmes, Sweet Pea Witaker, and a whole bunch more. NBA finales tickets. Just a whole lot of memories. But when you took them down they didn't ever fill on quarter of one box.

You see those things were in the past. They were fun sometimes a lot of fun. But what is past is past. It is a new day. I have a lot of new fun and exciting things that I will be able to talk about soon. I love to reminisce about the old days but it is a new day. An exciting day. A new Year.

I am putting those old memories in the cellar and not worrying about them anymore.

When you close a door another one opens. Walk through that door with me. It is going to be a fun ride.

Girl in a miniskirt reading the Bible outside my window!

Sunday, I am eating a
grapefruit, church is over at the Russian
Orthadox to the
west.

she is dark
of Eastern descent,
large brown eyes look up from the Bible
then down. a small red and black
Bible, and as she reads
her legs keep moving, moving,
she is doing a slow rythmic dance
reading the Bible. . .

long gold earrings;
2 gold bracelets on each arm,
and it's a mini-suit, I suppose,
the cloth hugs her body,
the lightest of tans is that cloth,
she twists this way and that,
long yellow legs warm in the sun. . .

there is no escaping her being
there is no desire to. . .

my radio is playing symphonic music
that she cannot hear
but her movements coincide exactly
to the rythms of the
symphony. . .

she is dark, she is dark
she is reading about God.
I am God.

(Charles Bukowski, 1/13/03)

Over the hills and through the woods to Grandmothers House we go!

After we left the doctors on Amity Street we decided to take a walk and we went down Henry Street. I never get to walk down Henry St anymore because it is out of the way and we have no reason to go down there. So I haven't walked there in about ten years. But at one time I was there every day when I was a little kid.

You see my Grandma lived on Henry St between Degraw and Kane and everyday my dad would bring me there at 7 in the morning before work. Then at about 8:30 I would walk around the corner to Cheever Place to go to the schoolyard to line up to go into Sacred Hearts. So we kind of retraced my life as we were walking home.

We went past PS 29 and the site of my Grand Aunts vegetable store across the street from the school where she sold the jelly apples. Then we passed the old convent on the corner of Kane St that they sold to the Hari Khrisnas in 1972 or so. I remember when they started walking in the neighborhood with their tambourines and orange saffron robes. I remember how they started trying to talk to kids in the neighborhood to convert them and the Mafia went and beat the crap out of the head Khrisna and told him if they talked to any kids they would burn the fucking building down.

We went down the block to the front of Grandma's house. I used to go there every day before school. My Dad would bring me about 7 in the morning and I would stay there until I had to go around the corner to Cheever Place to line up in the schoolyard at Sacred Hearts. I would help my Grandma while she prepared the food for my uncles when they came home from the docks at lunchtime. That's where I learned to make fresh pasta and sausages with the grinder on the edge of the table and how to make pickled eggplant and fresh vinegar and all kinds of great stuff that I still make today. Every morning she would give me a couple of espressos to wake up from the battered pot she had on the stove. On particular cold days she would pour in a little anisette and go "Nowa donna tell the nuns what you had. Tella them I givea you the peppermint candy capeice?" I would go to the school yard all hepped up and take off my jacket and run around and the old Italian nuns would go " The Irishe....no blood...they don't feel the cold."

After looking at the old house we walked along Henry and turned on Degraw St. We passed Cheever place which used to filled with kids in their Catholic school uniforms playing and yelling and fighting and getting in trouble. We passed Tony's candy store that had a stove in the back where the old man would make the best sandwiches you ever had. Potato and sauce on a half a loaf of Italian bread for twenty five cents. Yummy.

We continued along Hicks passing where the chicken market used to be where you got the fresh killed and plucked birds. Past the old social club till Union St and down the block to Fernando's.

On the way home we walked over the Summit St bridge. We decided that this will be our new morning walk to exercise.

But I don't think I will get to eat rice balls and panale sandwiches every day.

I miss my Grandma.

King Rice Ball

"ndspinelli said...
Trooper, We have discussed our love of "Eyetalian" food[that's how they say it in Wisconsin]. Hopefully, you enjoy some of the other great food cultures."

I am glad you asked that question nd. I not only love Eyetalian food I even love Sicilian food. Which the wife and I had the other day in just about the best restaurant in Brooklyn...Fernando's Focceria!

When I was a kid in the sixties is was always a treat to go to the panale store which is Fernandos. We would leave the school at lunch time and walk along Hicks St till we got to the store where we would order potato and panele specials or rice ball specials with frosty cold Manhattan Special espresso sodas. Nothing can beat it.

We went for a doctors appointment on Monday so as a treat we decided to have lunch at Fernandos. We got potato/panale specials. A panale is a deep fried pancake made from chick pea flower topped with three deep fried potato croquet's served on a hard toasted crusty roll and covered with ricotta and shaved Parmesan cheese. It is just about the best thing you ever tasted. We also shared the Rice Ball special that you see on the plate. Your basic rice, meat and peas rolled in a ball and deep fried and smothered in sauce and ricotta. Yummy!

We had Manhattan Special espresso soda on tap and sat next to my favorite picture of Mussolini. It was a trip back in time for me.

Clean up on Aisle Seven

One summer when I was a kid I had a part time job in a supermarket. The worse part about it was when some douchenozzle knocked over a display and you had to put all of the cans and what not back on the shelves.

Back in the day they used to hire kids from the neighborhood who wanted to make a few dollars after school. Now all those jobs go to Mexicans who work off the books and get shit pay.

So having to clean up a mess in the aisle takes me back to old days. And it still really sucks when you have to clean up somebodies mess every day.

Maybe I will have to hire a Mexican. Just sayn'

How far we have fallen

When I was a kid they were having the Gallo-Profaci war. The Gallos were the local gangsters and they were duking it out with the boss Joe Profaci for a bigger slice of the pie. They used a lot of incidents from the war in the original Godfather books and movies. For example they threw Joe Jelly's bullet proof vest with a fish in it in front of one of the joints on Columbia St where the Gallos hung out.

Eventually Joey Gallo got busted and went upstate and Larry died and the war petered out until Joey got out of the joint. Then he became a high society gangster and hung out in the city with actors and authors and Warhol and the whole dirty mix. He got tight with Jerry Orbach who played him in a movie called "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight." This was from a book by that dick Jimmy Breslin making fun of the Gallos and the whole situation.

Now one of the big stories about these guys is that they had a pet lion in the basement of their social club in a Brownstone on President St. Somebody gave it to him and it was old and sick and what not but it was one of the legendary stories that shows up now and again in so many gangster movies. They played it out for comedy in the movie but it was kind of sad. But hey when you were a seven year old kid and walked by on the way to the pizza store and the lion lunged at you, well you shit your pants. You know what I mean.

Anyway those days are long gone. Joey got hit at Umberto in the 70's and the rest of those guys died in one way or another. There is only one guy left in the neighborhood who is in his eighties.

He is the guy they kind of model Feech Lamana in the Soprano's. He is a fixture in the neighborhood and all the old timers know who he is. The hipster dofus assholes don't have a clue. He did about twenty jobs or so we hear. A genuinely tough guy. In the '70's and 80's everybody walked softly around him because he had a bad temper and would shoot you in a minute if you looked at him the wrong way. Now he just sits at the cafes and has an espresso and enjoys the sun. He has a lot of money on the street and has a piece of a lot of stuff going on in Court St. He has a piece of this cafe/bakery joint where he likes to sit everyday. I always say hello when I pass by.

Anyway I was walking to the store and passed by the cafe like I always do. And they have the little hatchway on the front that leads directly to the basement. All the brownstones do. This place has their kitchen there. And right in the front, they put a stuffed lion. I quess to scare away the little yappy dogs that want to run down the steps to where they make the food.

How far we have fallen. From real lions to stuffed lions. It is just unfuckinbelievable!

Nobody wants to be Harrison Schmidt.

As had come up in a moronic discussion of the space program, nobody wants to be Harrison Schmidt.

You know you are bouncing around with your boys on a Friday night hitting all of your favorite gin mills. But one of the guys brought along this new guy from work and he is trying to fit in. You hit one of your locals and there is a superficially attractive yet psychotic babe that you should really stay away from if you know what's good for you. So the conversation goes like this:

"Hey what about this broad?"

"You might want to give that a Pass-a-dena. You don't want to be Harrison Schmidt."

"Who the fuck is Harrison Schmidt?"

"He's the twelfth guy to land on the moon."

"Oh."

Always get the onions with the liver!

Hey congratulations on successful surgery by blogger and commenter BAGOH2O who talks about his successful journey through the health care industry.

He happens to mention his liver transplant and I suggested when you get the liver you should always get the onions.

You see my Grandmother loved to cook liver and onions for my uncles who worked on the docks. They would be unloading the vegetable and fruit boats sometimes for 48 hours straight in the freezing weather. So they needed hearty food filed with tons of vitamins. And calf's liver filled the bill.

Did you guys ever have real butcher stores in your neighborhoods? Well we did. It was a store that only sold meat. You would go in and order a couple of pounds of veal cutlets or an eye round or some chop meat. The butcher would go into the freezer behind the big wooden door and slam it shut as he picked out the meat he needed to cut. Then he would bring it over to the butcher block and cut the meat to your specifications. My grandmother used to send me to the one on Henry St at Degraw. I would order a pound of veal spedini and he would cut out small round medallions of veal and pound them with his hammer placing each separately and carefully on a piece of wax paper. Then he would weigh them (making sure he put his thumb on the scale) and then would tie them up in butcher paper and tie them up with a string. Then I would bring the meat to Grandma's house and she would whip up a delicious meal. But there was something funny about the liver!

You see the liver would be displayed in a big tray on top of the counter. He didn't refrigerate it. It sat there in a pool of blood looking scary. Now they weren't as worried about germs and refrigeration and stuff like that in the sixties. So you would say "Hey Grandma wants four slices of liver." He would stick a gigantic fork in it and put it on the butcher block. Sharpen up his knife on the rounded grindstone thingy and slice some liver for you. Dripping in blood.

So I would take it the Grandma and she would take it out of the wrapper and dredge it in flour. Then she would fry up three or four sweet onions in olive oil. When the onions were half way caramelized, she would put in the thick slices of liver and fry them up. Then at the end she would put in a cup of red wine vinegar to debride the pan and make a great sauce. You would get a big slice of liver smothered in onions with the red wine vinegar sauce. You would slice off a piece of liver, get some onions on the fork and swish it around in the vinegar.

Man that was good eating.

Always get the onions with the liver.

Rain out theatre

When I was a kid, you always watched the Yankees on WPIX Channel 11. They had the greatest announcing crew ever: Frank Messer, Bill White and the one and only Scooter, Phil Rizzuto.

But if it rained and they had a delay, they would always put on an episode of "Abbott and Costello." They didn't have all that many series to choose from in those days and WPIX had all the best ones to repeat. "Abbott and Costello." "Buck Rodgers." "The Honeymooners."

I hope they have a couple of episodes ready for tonight's rain out.

HHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYY AAABBBBBBBOOOOOTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!

Remembrance of Things Pabst

My English friend used to live all the way at the end of Atlantic Avenue at Hicks Street where you were right at the entrance to the BQE. He lived over this old time bar called Montero's. Now this is joint that has been around for what fifty or sixty years I guess. It was owned by the same family. The dude I know from the family who ran it was a Catholic School teacher. It is an old school saloon with a pool table in the back but it had this crazy rep as a 'tough' bar. Maybe back in the day when everyone was young but most of the people who hung out there were old timers. They did have a metal cage in the front that you had to be buzzed in with. But I think that was more to keep people out that they didn't want coming in to terrorize the other patrons. They do have a pretty good juke box and a lot of artifacts to look at. Like a toilet seat hanging from the ceiling. If you like that sort of thing.

Anyway back in the day we might start drinking there or end up there at the end of the night. It was basically Bud and shots.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Remembrance of things Pabst

When I was a kid we couldn't afford to go to the Hamptons or some fancy vacation. I mean we would all jump in my uncles car and go out to Plum Beach out before you hit Long Island. It was on the Brooklyn/Queens border and right off the Belt Parkway. My Grandmother would have her chair and her umbrella and made us sandwiches with just tomato and olive oil and salt and oregano and lot's of love. And she would have a paper sack with an inexhaustable pile of peaches and plums and nectarines. But we only would go once in a while when my uncle was off because he worked on the docks. In those days when a ship came in it had to be off loaded right away. A ship full of banana's couldn't wait because the fruit would go bad so they worked 48 hours straight or however long it took to unload.

So I didn't get to the beach. What we used to do was turn on the fire hydrant like you see in the photo. One of the older guys would get a wrench and open it up and the water would spew out and he would take a tin can and put it on the opening and spew water out. They would always try to get it in the windows of passing cars. Some guys would roll up their windows and stop and get a quick car wash. We would run around and get soaked and cool off on the burning hot days until the cops came around and shut off the hydrant.

Then I would go up the corner to Toomey's bar and get a growler of beer for the old man to have while he watched the Mets. We couldn't afford air conditioning so we all sat in front of the fan while my mom grilled some burgers and franks on the little Hibachi we had on the fire escape. I remember we did that one night when Tom Seaver was pitching a no hitter into the ninth against the Cubs, I think Jimmy Quals broke it up with a single.

Life was simpler then.

Sleeping on the fire escape

Oldtimers love to tell you how great it was in the old days. Well now I am approaching old timer status and let me tell you I ain't gonna do that.

I love my air conditioner. I was talking to an old timer who was waxing nostalgic about the old days where you would sleep on the fire escape to catch the breeze. What a crock. I let the guy babble but this picture from Wegee tells it like it is. Sweatty, uncomfortable and dirty. Just pretty disqusting all in all.

I you ever get a chance to see any of his photo's you should jump at it. They are reallys something.

Just sayn'

I was sorry we had to skip Nathans

I mean I love Nathans. But we had two ten year olds with us and I didn't want them to get sick and barf all over the car on the ride home. Plus we couldn't buy it and take it home because it takes about half an hour and the stuff would get cold.

I remember when I was a kid me and my buddies would take a towel and go on the F train to Coney Island and spend the day on the beach. We would make a Nathan's run and get some hot dogs. Man they always tasted salty and greasy and great. The best ones was when the sweat of the girl behind the grill would run down her nose and drip on the dogs on the grill. You would flirt with her and say "Hey Foxy your dripping all over my dog." "You know I be dripping sugar." "Oh yeah Baby! You know what they say about Irish guys ain't true.... and...and.." Oh sorry I had a flashback.

Anyway speaking of that the clams are pretty great too!

Some times you got to make a change for the good of the team.

New York Post June 17, 2009

Jury orders 45 years for former slugger Mel Hall
By SCHUYLER DIXON,
Associated Press Writer
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) Former major league outfielder Mel Hall was sentenced to 45 years in prison Wednesday after being convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl he coached on an elite basketball team.
Hall was convicted on three counts of aggravated sexual assault and two counts of indecency with a child. Among his accusers during sentencing Wednesday were others who said he carried on inappropriate relationships with them.
Hall, 48, looked skyward and swayed back and forth as the verdict was read. One of his two daughters who testified on his behalf during the punishment phase sobbed.
Jurors reached the verdict on the punishment after about an hour of deliberating. They took about 90 minutes Tuesday to convict Hall. He must serve about 22 1/2 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole.
After the verdict was announced, prosecutor Kim D'Avignon read a brief statement on behalf of the 12-year-old victim and other accusers.
"We believe that the verdict does on some level show that the jury understood," D'Avignon said after the trial. "They looked in these girls' eyes and said this is worth 40 years, and we agree with them."
The defense had argued in the sentencing phase of the trial that Hall was a good man who mentored a lot of athletes and had a lot of good still to do.
"For all the good this man has done in his life, it seems like this was an excessive verdict," defense attorney Brady Wyatt said after the verdict.
The prosecution's final witness during the punishment phase testified that she was 14 when Hall touched her inappropriately and told her he wanted to have sex with her. Late Tuesday, two women testified Hall sexually assaulted them when they were underage.
On Wednesday, a woman testified that Hall was her softball coach when, during an end-of-season pool party, he made lewd noises and grabbed her around the waist.
"He just grabbed me how I thought was inappropriate," said the woman, now 19. She said Hall also would watch her take batting practice and make crude comments and tell her he wanted to have sex with her.
Hall's ex-wife and two daughters testified on his behalf.
"My dad would not do that," said his daughter, Bianca Hall, who had to stop to compose herself throughout her emotional testimony.
Hall, who had been stoic and unemotional throughout most of the trial that began Monday, smiled and nodded as his daughter spoke of their relationship. When she become emotional while describing how much she loved and trusted him, Hall bit his lip and looked away.
During the trial this week, witnesses testified that Hall was impressed with the 12-year-old girl's talent and wanted to start a basketball team. The woman testified that Hall exposed himself to her and her younger brother at home, when their parents were away. The boy testified that he thought they were playing a game and never told his parents.
"I trusted him," the woman testified. "I honestly had no idea anything was inappropriate at the time. I looked up to him. I just thought this is how normal people act."
Hall's interaction with the girl progressed to inappropriate touching and him showing her how to perform oral sex, she testified. She said he also showed her pornographic movies at an apartment Hall shared with his girlfriend and their infant son.
The two women who testified Tuesday told similar stories of how he won their parents' trust and then charmed the young girls.
One said she was 15 and Hall was in his first season with the New York Yankees when the abuse began in 1989. The other testified that she was a 14-year-old basketball teammate of the 12-year-old victim when she was raped in 1999. Hall has been charged in that case.
Hall's 13-year major league career ended in 1996. He hit .276 with 134 home runs and 620 RBIs in a career that included stints with the Chicago Cubs, Cleveland Indians, Yankees and San Francisco Giants. He also played four years in Japan.

I remember when Mel Hall was a big bat for the Yankees. He was the hero in one of the best games I ever went to in Yankee stadium. He hit a grand slam home run in the bottom of the ninth to beat the Red Sox on Memorial Day. What a game.

But Mel was always a knucklehead. He always hated Bernie Williams who had just come up to the team. Bernie was and is a gentle sort. Distracted sometimes. Mel Hall rode him unmercifully. Along with Roberto Kelly the star center fielder at the time they just busted Bernie's balls and he didn't know how to cope with it. Now they hated him because of his obvious talent. They tried to destroy him with verbal threats and harassment and if the Yankees would have let it go on, Bernie would never have developed into the perennial All-Star and possible future Hall of Famer.

So the Yankees did the right thing. They dumped Mel Hall and traded Roberto Kelly to the Reds for Paul O'Neil who became a cornerstone of their championship teams. Now a lot of guys on the team like Don Mattingly were strong enough to ignore these assholes but not everyone could and several of the guys were kind of intimidated. Sometimes management has to step in change the culture to protect those who can't protect themselves. You know stand up to the bullies even if they aren't messing with you. Because ultimately they are messing with your money.

So now like a lot of sports stars, Mel Hall is going to the joint for a long, long time. But I will always remember that sunny Memorial Day when everyone jumped up and started cheering from the minute he hit the ball, high fiving everyone you passed as you left the game on to the Number 4 Train all the way home to Brooklyn.

Insta karma always gets you in the end.