Last night Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Frankie Valli was performing at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.
Naturally, he put on another great performance. The hits never get old. The show on stage is definitely worth the price of admission. The trip down memory lane is overwhelming. Sherry is a song used on more movie soundtracks than just about any song in music history. Can’t take my eyes off of you … immediately makes you think of the great film The Dear Hunter. When you hear My eyes adore you, you can almost feel your first kiss as a teenager about to approach manhood. Of course, Grease is the word… Nothing else needed to be said!
In the winter of 1978, the great Yankee manager Billy Martin opened a cowboy store on 73rd Street and Madison Ave. He sold western boots and belts and naturally cowboy hats. I went to work for him doing inventory in the basement. It was a great time because even though he had been fired that season he had a new contract with the Yankees that stipulated that he would be back with the team in 1980 (Billy would actually come back in 1979 because Bob Lemon had personal problems including the death of his son) One night Billy asked me if I wanted to go to dinner with him. Naturally, I said yes because anytime I could get with Billy I loved.
He took me to a restaurant called Patsy’s on 56th Street and Broadway. It was a very fancy place. I really felt out of place. Billy was greeted at the door by a guy named Joe Scognamillo, the owner of the place. He whispered something in Billy’s ear so then Billy turned to me and told me to wait here a minute as he and Joe would disappear up a flight of stairs that was located in the back of the restaurant. Probably ten minutes passed when Joe would come over to me and tell me to follow him upstairs. As we were walking towards the stairs I could see that the restaurant was filled with the who’s who of New York. I definitely felt out of place. When we walked upstairs there was another floor filled with people. We walked towards the back. There was a beautiful curtain blocking the back part of the room. Joe held the curtain so that I could walk in. At the back left side there was a table. I could see Billy sitting with some other people. One was Sammy Davis Jr and the other was none other than Frank Sinatra. Billy introduced me to Mr. Sinatra and his guests. I had actually met Mr. Sinatra in 1976 at George Steinbrenner’s suite during the 1976 playoffs. However, this was the first time that I got to talk to him. You could definitely see that Mr. Sinatra was the leader of the pack. Sammy Davis Jr. was also very sweet. That night I would find out that Sammy was actually half Puertorican. He even knew how to speak some Spanish. He told me that his grandmother still lived in Spanish Harlem.
Mr. Sinatra said, so you’re Billy’s boy … which made me really feel great. At one point he asked me if Michael Jackson was my favorite singer because my big Afro hairstyle was a lot like Michael’s.
However, I chuckled and told him that my favorite singer was Frankie Valli. Mr. Sinatra smiled and said Frankie is a really good kid, an underrated talent that’s going to win some Grammys as a solo artist. He turned to Sammy and asked his opinion. He called Sammy Smokey… Sammy said ‘ I love his style and timing.
That was an amazing evening that I will never forget. Whenever I go to Patsy’s I can literally feel the spirits of all the greats that I met there through the years. Today Joe’s son Sal tells the wonderful stories of years gone by. They are great stories however the only one that he got wrong was that Billy Martin had known Mr. Sinatra for many years through the relationship that Joe DiMaggio had with Sinatra before their friendship dissolved.
After the Yankees won the World Series in 1977 one of the first people to contact Billy was Mr. Sinatra through a telegram which read … Tommy Lasorda is a damn liar… I was actually rooting for you! Billy laughed because he knew how close Mr. Sinatra and Lasorda were.
After the 1977 season, I went to Madison Square Garden to see Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons.
The show was so great that I told my friend Hector Pagan who had also been a Yankee Batboy that I wanted to meet Frankie Valli after the show.
We found where the talent was and I asked security if he would tell Frankie if he had time to meet a couple of Yankee batboys. I thought that the guard would tell us to go away but he actually went into the dressing room and within minutes he came back and said Mr. Valli can see you now.
I couldn’t believe it. We walked in and Frankie was standing by a table eating pasta. He was absolutely great. He really didn’t know much about baseball but said that he had always been a Yankee fan. He asked about what were the responsibilities of batboys. He also asked about Billy Martin and the fact that he loved how tough Billy was. It was a very nice meeting and I’m proud to say that we have been friends for all these years. I always love seeing his daughter Toni and her kids Dario and Broadway star Olivia at his shows and love seeing the pride they have for him and vice versa.
At the show at the Hard Rock last night Frankie was introduced to Dale Murphy by Murphy’s marketing agent Mead Chasky. Murphy is a former Major League Baseball player who won two Most valuable player awards and many other accolades yet he is not in the Hall of Fame. Frankie has probably more hits than 90 percent of the people that attended this year’s Grammy Awards yet has never won a Grammy. What’s wrong with this picture… I don’t know but I will say that Mr. Sinatra would not be a happy camper.
Mr. Sinatra never liked to be wrong and in the case of Frankie Valli, Mr Sinatra wasn’t wrong when he said that Frankie Valli would win some Grammys it’s just that the powers that be just didn’t get it right.
