SOE: Belth: The Glory Days of ‘Jock’

Alex Belth interviews our old pal, Mickey Herskowitz…

The greatest stretch in New York sports came in 1969-70. It started when the upstart Jets won the Super Bowl, continued that fall when the previously hapless Mets won the World Series, and was capped off the following summer when the Knicks won the NBA title.

New York in this brief period has been duly celebrated—especially because the town has not seen a winning streak like it since.  Yet one chronicler of those glory days is but a distant memory, even to devotees of great sports writing.

If Jock magazine is remembered at all, it is for the cover of its first issue that shows a group of Mets players raising the flag on the pitchers’ mound at Shea Stadium, a riff on the famous Iwo Jima picture. It goes for a nice sum on eBay, but there was more to Jock than one cover. While the magazine lasted a mere eight issues, it featured the work of Red Smith, Pete Hamill, Roger Kahn, William F. Buckley and Woody Allen.

Q: You had Jerry Izenberg and Stan Isaacs, who were New York guys. But you also Pete Hamill, Red Smith and Roger Kahn. The fighter Jose Torres. Murray Chass did a story on Neil Simon. Bill Conlin later did a great piece on Dick Allen. How did you recruit all these guys?

A: Just picked up the phone and asked. They liked the idea of the magazine, so I just let them go. Let them pick a topic and write whatever they want.