Bill Conlin: Paterno deserves his own stadium

WHEN I'M KING of the World . . .

Beaver Stadium will be renamed Joe Paterno Stadium - before he retires . . . No offense, Gov. Beaver, but when it was named in your memory in 1960, the capacity was 46,284. During the 400-victory Paterno era, The Big Beav has expanded by 60,998 seats. Its capacity of 107,282 makes it the second-largest outdoor stadium in the United States, behind the University of Michigan's Big House, and the fifth-largest in the world, trailing only mammoth soccer stadiums in North Korea, India and Mexico.

My relationship with Paterno goes back 66 years and is one of those six-degrees-of-separation things. My cousin, Bill Dagher, was a starting end on the famous Brooklyn Prep team Joe tailbacked in 1944. I was introduced to my boyhood hero by my cousin after Prep's 13-7 loss to Vince Lombardi's St. Cecilia's of Englewood, N.J., for the New York Metro title. "Nice to meet you, ace," Joe said.

There was no way to predict that 19 years later I would walk up to Rip Engle's No. 1 assistant coach on a sultry early September day and say, "Joe, I'm the new Penn State beat writer for the Evening Bulletin. My cousin, Bill Dagher, introduced us after the St. Cecilia game."

"Good to see you again, ace," Paterno rasped in his unaltered Brooklynese.

My best pal growing up in Brooklyn was Edward Hawkins. His dad, Crawford, ran the Borough Democratic Party. Ed Hawkins married the daughter of Zev Graham, who coached the Paterno brothers and Bill Dagher at Brooklyn Prep. Dagher's dad, George, was president of the Prep Fathers Guild. Angelo Paterno, Joe's dad, was the vice president. George Dagher ran the Brooklyn Republican Party.

And I surfaced from that tight cluster in a borough of 3 million to cover Joe Paterno and his Nittany Lions for a quarter of a century, watching that stadium named for an 1891 governor and later chairman of the Penn State board of trustees, grow like a giant erector set.

Extreme coincidences to be sure.

When I'm King of the World . . .

The wit, wisdom and baseball genius of George "Sparky" Anderson will be translated into English.

What a joy "Sparkles" was to be around, impossible unparsables and all. He was a seat-of-his-pants baseball lifer who got what the game is all about just right and never overcomplicated any of it: Play hard. Throw strikes. See the ball, hit the ball. Get on base, somebody will knock you in.

My favorite Sparky quote, however, was delivered in a rare perfect English sentence: "Johnny Bench was goosed by God."

And didn't former Reds general manager Dick Wagner hit one of the all-time screwup quinellas? All Dick did was get rid of the two most popular figures in Cincinnati baseball history. Wagner, who passed away in 2006, fired Sparky Anderson because he wanted to put his own stamp on the rusting Big Red Machine. And he made no effort to re-sign free agent Pete Rose, a decision that proved the death knell for that once-mighty collection of superstars. What went around came around. Dick was fired by Marge Schott in 1983 - probably because all he did was sit around watching baseball . . .

If Jamie Moyer has Tommy John surgery after reinjuring his left elbow during a Dominican Winter League start for Leones del Escogido, I hope it's for the right reason. I hope it's so he can have normal use of his arm the rest of his life and not so he can try to pitch again.

And I hope he considers becoming a pitching coach or manager - before he's too old . . .

Anybody else shocked that the ESPN suits sacked their longtime lead "Sunday Night Baseball" team of Jon Miller and Joe Morgan after 21 years? Morgan had a lot of detractors, many of whom were put off because Little Joe never tried to prove his vast knowledge of the game with the help of acronymic formulas devised by men who never played it. And maybe Miller was just a little too laid-back for the Bristol Bunch, which targets a demographic that thinks it is cool for studio heads to bang cliches together like cymbals, and middle-aged sports writers, raging at the dying of the print, shouting each other down.

When I'm King of the World . . .

Andy Reid and his staff will find a way to keep Michael Vick from becoming a gurney passenger.

The Giants are coming, the Giants are coming, arm the offensive line with broadswords and cross-staves. Is it legal for the tackles to carry mace? The condition of the injury-decimated o-line presents a classic football conundrum. Go maximum protect with two tight ends and a fullback and you take space away from the speed guys. Spread the field, you invite maximum jailbreaks. Meanwhile, I haven't seen an Eagles quarterback throw tighter spirals than Vick since Sonny Jurgensen was here with his rocket arm . . .

With more and more deep depth-chart youngsters being thrown into the fray and maturing under fire, Penn State appears on the verge of becoming a really good team. On Nov. 7, 1964, Ohio State was 6-0 and ranked No. 2. Eastern independent Penn State was 3-4. With a stunned Ohio Stadium sellout watching, the Lions annihilated the Buckeyes, 27-0, holding them without a first down and to minus yardage until deep into the third quarter. Can history repeat Saturday in Columbus? Probably not.

Send e-mail to bill1chair@aol.com.

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