Earlier this week, I was coming out of Penn Station with two friends. One of them bent to pick up an old football card that was wedged against a wall. He looked at the name, shrugged his shoulders and passed it on to me. The photo on the card was that of a long obscure New York Giants running back named Randy Minniear. The name instantly took me back to September, 1969; a memorable time in American history as well as in my own life. The news had been dominated by Apollo 11, the war in Vietnam and the debauchery at Woodstock. As my friends and I began fifth grade, however, September of '69 was when the promising summer of the Mets had transitioned in to an Amazin’ Fall. The only glitch was that my right hand was in a plaster cast to aid the healing of a broken thumb. Worse yet, it was the second edition of that cast. My original break had not healed properly – I had ignored doctor’s orders to stay away from afterschool baseball and basketball – and my orthopedist h...