chapter 407
11/1/2015
Love's Exterminating
the greatest athlete ever
In 1978 I played softball for Love's Exterminating company in the black ghetto of Albany's Arbor Hill neighborhood. We had one of Albany's Greatest Athletes of all time on our team.
I was just brought in for the playoffs along with friend Steve Juliano who I also played with on the U.S.Air travel team, Blessing's Tavern and our 1974 championship Cadillac Plastic team. This was back when I played professional. We won a few hundred dollars and had a great steak cookout at Thatsher's Park. The company made plastic parts for Cadillac automobiles on Interstate Avenue.
The Love's ball field was on a rundown playground strewn with broken glass and beer bottles. An all black team and spectators except for the hand full of token whites. It was uncomfortable parking inside the fences but safer than on the nearby streets. We did have chain link fences, bleachers, concession stand, umpires, a nicely groomed infield and an announcer.
Ticky Burden was also on our Love's Exterminating team as a designated hitter. He was a superior athlete setting all kinds of high school records in basketball etc. Mohammed Ali even came to visit him in high school bringing Bob Beamon the Olympic Long Jump champion. Ticky starred at the University of Utah and ended up playing for the NY Knicks.
Ticky was a pleasant chap but did have a troubled past, had invested in a strip club and served a couple years on a Long Island Bank robbery conviction after our meet-up. That conviction was overturned on a technicality. If I recall properly, he used to hang out with boxer Mike Tyson when he was in the area. I was sad to see his obituary this week.
Love's Exterminating (cockroaches & pests) was owned by an old mild mannered Mr. Love who would show up for games in his customized pink pimped Lincoln Continental with the heart shaped back window with shag carpet fringes all around. I think he also owned barber shops in the black districts. I stopped in one across from the Knickerbocker Arena this summer to look him up, to no avail. They might have thought I was the Feds.
Just a tid bit of trivia for most people, but interesting to me.
69 Chevelle
70 Opel GT back when rust was our middle name.
Ticky passes away Oct 29, 2015
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