Gyruss Upped the Awesome Level of Space Invaders By Playing In the Round

This early video arcade game wed the Space Invaders template to the mobility and dimension of Tempest for a more exciting shoot-em-up—set to Bach.

by Rich Watson

I first played video games in the mid-eighties, during junior high school. Enticed by alien adventures in cartoons and comic books, among the first games that attracted me were variations on Space Invaders: Galaxian, Phoenix, Galaga, Gorf. Kill the armada of alien spaceships before they kill you. Simple.

Then in 1983, a new space game provided a greater challenge: it allowed movement in three hundred sixty degrees.

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Five Reasons Why Shea Stadium is Synonymous With the 7 Train

The best way to have gotten to Shea Stadium was via the elevated train that runs through Queens. They had some things in common.

by Rich Watson 

The Shea Stadium site, says Google Maps, is seven minutes by car from the house I grew up in. Because I lived so close, I seldom relied on the 7 train to see my Mets. 

When I did use it, my perspective of the stadium changed. The sight of it, looming through the windows of the train car as it left the 111th Street station, inspired me. It recalled past glories, especially the 1986 championship season. It made me hope for future ones.

CitiField may be the Mets’ home now, but the ghost of Shea and the 7, in my mind at least, remain linked. 

They had a few commonalities.

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Yankee Stadium and Monument Park

Baseball legends were remembered in this piece of Yankee Stadium real estate, a tradition continued today in the ballpark’s namesake.

by Rich Watson

Yankees manager Miller Huggins died of a form of blood poisoning on September 25, 1929 at age fifty. The former Red and Cardinal led Babe Ruth’s squad to three championships. The American League cancelled its schedule the day of his funeral and the World Series observed a moment of silence for him.

Three years later, in his honor, the Yankees built a granite slab with his image and accomplishments inscribed on it in bronze. They placed it in front of the center field flagpole at Yankee Stadium for all to see and remember. Its inscription calls him “a splendid character who made priceless contributions to baseball.”

When Ruth and Lou Gehrig died in the forties, similar markers joined the one for Huggins. They formed the foundation of a memorial unique in all of sports, one that could only have come from the House that Ruth built.

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