A Shout Out to Marty Toole

Initially, I thought I’d write a blog about the epic achievements of Gary Lewis and the Playboys. Like you, I’m sure, I pondered the possibilities: should I concentrate on Gary’s fraught relationship with his pap, Jerry, or focus on one of his massive hits-“This Diamond Ring,” “Count Me In,” or (my favorite) “Save Your Heart for Me”?

But then I remembered a moment from my first year as a new resident of Rockland County: sliding down the hill to the high school baseball field to take my position in center field for the Senators, the Babe Ruth team I belonged to. And I thought of Marty Toole.

Ah, Marty… I met him that year; I guess it would have been 1966. After a high school career that included respectable stats as a halfback, a wrestler, and a pull hitter on the baseball team, Toole X (as we called him back in the day) would go on to be voted “best looking” in our senior class. What? And the alternative types-the girls who listened to Jesse Colin Young and The Youngbloods were into those guys, right?

Steady now… ultimately, it all comes back to Gary Lewis, and that peculiar moment in American history when a young kid, nearly devoid of talent, could somehow insert himself into popular culture and stand at the top of the mountain for two or three years.

11/27/2012