Fred from Fresh Meadows

Book excerpt: Meet FRED FROM FRESH MEADOWS. As a kid, Fred was at Madison Square Garden for the "Here Comes Willis!" game--that is, the one where Willis Reed got stuck in traffic and didn't show up 'til the second quarter. In high school, he stayed up late the night before the SATs because of a big Knicks game on the West Coast; in law school, he chose where to live on the basis of which neighborhood had a cable TV package with Knicks telecasts; and, as a (in theory) mature adult, settled on an apartment in Manhattan based, in part, on proximity to Madison Square Garden. Along the way, Fred might have inadvertently caused Jerry Lucas to have one of the worst shooting nights of his playoff career, had the great pleasure of driving with Earl Monroe to a business meeting, sued Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to get revenge for Knicks fans, and was thanked by Tyson Chandler on Twitter for a song he co-wrote: "The Minister of D." (Actually, the part about the lawsuit is only half-true, although he did bring a fascinating legal action against Kareem.) In short, Fred is representative of your ordinary irrational Knicks fan--and FRED FROM FRESH MEADOWS: A Knicks Memoir is his (hopefully colorful) story covering six decades.