“Athletics is my life,” Nick Lambros tells me. An understatement, when you consider a career that included 21 years of coaching at Hartwick College; six more at Oneonta High School; and 10 years as the Oneonta Yankees’ general manager. Add to that having been honored as Eastern Region coach of the year (1988); inducted into both the Hartwick College and New York State Basketball Halls of Fame; and by having both the gymnasium and annual golf tournament at Hartwick College named for him.
Lambros, a natural athlete, excelled in baseball, basketball, golf, tennis, stickball and more. But after morning coffee with him, I would say that people were his life — and athletics was the way he connected with them.
Lambros’ father, Harry, arrived at Ellis Island in 1913 at age 12. Having boarded a boat in Greece, he never saw his parents again. Harry Lambros would go on to open his own restaurant in 1921 — Diana’s — on Main St.
Nick Lambros, along with his older brother and sister, grew up working at Diana’s — a restaurant with a successful 70-year run. “We were all brought up in the restaurant,” Lambros told me, “I was the baby, so I didn’t get stuck working in the restaurant as much as my older brother and sister.” Despite no formal training, Lambros gravitated to, and excelled in, all sports. “My father was an old Greek guy who worked all day every day. He never threw me one pitch,” Lambros explained, “I would sneak off to play ball in the parks. There was a sport for every season. My parents didn’t know where the hell I was. I just played ball.”
No one has more Oneonta stories than Lambros and, at age 87, both his memory and passion for storytelling are as strong as ever. His first story, that morning, begins on a day in Diana’s in 1967. “My brother hands me a zipper bag with yesterday’s receipts,” Lambros recalls, “and says ‘take this to the bank and make a deposit, will ya?’” Running across Main Street, Lambros bumps into Sam Nader who is chatting with some guy in a suit who happens to be Joe Buzas, an owner of four minor league baseball teams. Buzas turns to Nader and asks, “Who the heck is this guy? He looks like an athlete. He could be your general manager.” When asked by Nader to be the GM of the Oneonta Yankees, Lambros’ shocked response was “What the hell are you talking about being the GM? I don’t know anything about that but OK, I’ll try. Then, I loved it.”
Lambros continued, “I would pitch batting practice every night, then shower and work the concession stand and do all the rest of the GM job — it was crazy. And when the game was over, I would clean up and count the money. Listen Gary, here’s the deal — I didn’t have any idea of what the job entailed. None! My first week, three boxes arrive from Yankee Stadium and they are the New York Yankees’ hand-me-down uniforms. Open them up — No. 7, Mickey Mantle! And then comes Maris, Kubek, Elston Howard and so on. I call New York to ask what to do with these and I am told, ‘Hang them on a rack by size and let the players use them.’ Wow!”
Next, Lambros laughs when he tells me about the time Whitey Ford came to Oneonta. “We’re on the 12th hole of the Oneonta Country Club and Whitey asks me, ‘What shape is this hole, Nick?’ It’s a dogleg to the right I tell him. Aim for that birch tree. Whitey then turns to me and asks, ‘What the hell is a birch tree?’”
“Gary, did I tell you about our first opening day?” Lambros asks. “I wanted to make it special with bands and festivities.” A local, named Oz Smith, was brought in to sing the national anthem. The players line up, the crowd rises, and Smith sings, “Oh say can you see, through the hills and valley…” If that wasn’t bad enough, Lambros later found himself trying to break up a fight started by comments over Smith’s singing.
“There are just so many stories to tell you about the Yankees,” Lambros continues as he shows me a 1980’s vintage photo of him and Mickey Mantle in Sam Nader’s backyard. Next came the time Nader told Lambros to pick up Jesse Owens at the Oneonta Airport and bring him to his house. With a big smile, Lambros tells me, “While driving back from the airport, I kept saying to myself, ‘I’m in the same car as Jesse Owens!’”
Changing gears, I ask about his many years coaching. “I loved coaching. Players knew I cared. If I got hard on a player, I would call him at night and say let’s go have a slice of pizza.” Lambros lights up when he tells me, “I am still in contact with many of my players, I know their kids and I have been to their weddings. How wonderful is that?”
Before we finished, Lambros wanted to talk about growing up in Oneonta. “I grew up on Main Street. As they say, the entire village brought me up. There is no place where I would have rather grown up. Parks, swimming, playing tennis, park dances, YMCA on Broad Street, hanging out by the concession stand, the kids were all together. We’d hop on trains downtown and jump off at the depot.”
His thoughts on Oneonta today? “I am disappointed. Why aren’t the kids using the parks, making up their own games with their own rules?” he asked. I closed by asking Lambros if he plans to stay in Oneonta. “Oh yeah!” he said. “Oneonta is my home and I would like to help make it the best it can be.”