O’Donnell: McCaskey cites Giants’ Bronx tale, but what has he learned from it?

ON THE HOT AUGUST AFTERNOON when chairman Wellington Mara announced that his New York football Giants would be moving to the toxic basin then known as the Hackensack Meadowlands, the organization became historically vilified in The Big Apple.

Howard Cosell slammed him. The great Dick Schaap pilloried Mara and his family.

Larry Merchant, then an ambitious young sports columnist with the New York Post, dug deep to write: “The Bronx is no longer fit for this son of a bookmaker. It rates second, now, to a swamp in Hackensack, N.J.

“Once more and with feeling: What else can you expect from an Irishman named Wellington?”

FIFTY YEARS AND FOUR SUPER BOWL CHAMPIONSHIPS LATER, in August 2021, when the golden anniversary of Mara's stunning interstate transmission was being celebrated, that same New York Post headlined:

“Giants move to New Jersey has paid off.”

THE BRONX TALE IS RELEVANT to the current Chicago sportscape because of the ongoing stadium passion play between Arlington Heights and Hammond.

Bears chairman George McCaskey — potentially the Wellington Mara of the hour — strongly suggested this week that whether the final PSL answer is Illinois or Indiana, Bears fans will learn to live with it.

A most probable reality is that McCaskey will be proven to be correct.

MCCASKEY NOW HAS EVEN CITED the story of Mara's move as precedent.

But what different circumstances course through the old and new stories of brawny Old NFL franchises questing for new playpens.

THE NEW YORK OF 1969-71 AWOKE to vastly altered major sports energies.

Joe Willie Namath and the Jets started the flip in January 1969 with their stunning victory over Don Shula and the unbeatable Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.

Nine months later, the Miracle Mets of Gil Hodges, Donn Clendenon and all made everyone in or around the Triborough Bridge feel groovy with a most improbable World Series crown.

Less than a year after that, Willis Reed, Walt Frazier and a smart band of Garden partiers netted a first NBA championship for the Knicks.

WINNING HAD NEVER BEEN a foreign sports concept in New York, then still without question the most important media center on the planet.

But all of the professional successes had been crafted by the Yankees and the Mara family's Giants.

Now those two pillars of NY sports society were left-behinds.

And both were playing in a decaying Yankee Stadium.

THINGS AT THE HOUSE THAT RUTH BUILT were so bad that New York mayor John Lindsay — a telegenic, party-switching fellow with serious presidential aspirations — pledged $25 million for a major two-year renovation that wouldn't begin until 1974.

All well and good, but even after that makeover, Mara's Giants would remain mere tenants, not owners.

Enter the fresh New Jersey Sports Authority (now the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority) and specifically Sonny Werblin, then the agency's supremely dynamic chairman.

IF THERE IS ONE OVERWHELMING FACTOR that the Bears' stadium search lacks, it's a seasoned sports-and-business leader with the sweeping elan of Werblin.

He honed his chops with the Music Corporation of America, essentially a talent agency at birth, during the big-band era.

He then helmed MCA's TV division during the medium's start-up days. He kept Ronald Reagan working as his acting career sagged and later helped to make Johnny Carson a very rich man.

IN MARCH 1963, WERBLIN AND FOUR PARTNERS took over the American Football League's New York Titans, the new circuit's most hapless organization.

Werblin immediately rebranded the team “The Jets.” His television acumen greatly assisted the league's acquisition of a major five-year deal with NBC in 1964.

One year later, he accelerated the road to the landmark 1966 merger of the AFL and NFL by signing the spotlight-friendly Namath.

But in a lost bit of show biz irony, nine months before the white-shoed No. 12 and Co. would win Super Bowl III, Werblin agreed to a buyout by his partners.

THAT LEFT HIM AVAILABLE when New Jersey Gov. William Cahill called asking him to oversee the development of the woebegone Hackensack Meadowlands as a major sports venue.

Werblin succeeded beyond all expectations.

Mara's Giants were the cornerstone. Subsequent occupants included a national-class thoroughbred and harness track, Pele and the New York Cosmos, the New Jersey Nets and the NHL's Colorado Rockies repainted as the New Jersey Devils.

All less than 10 miles west of Madison Square Garden across the Hudson River.

THE INTERIM PARABLE as all of this applies to the Bears, Arlington Heights and Hammond is that all it takes is one man with visionary genius, connections and push to make grand sports things happen.

Sonny Werblin was self-assured, precise and persuasive. Wellington Mara was decisive.

George McCaskey comes from a branch of the Halas family tree far too predictable in its tendencies to vacillate, alienate and kick the football down the row.

His Bears can never seem to pull all limbs out of hibernation.

Fifty years from now, will the payoff be victories or vilification?

Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.