Iconic NYC sports bar succumbs to COVID crisis
NEW YORK – The end of Foley’s long Broadway run was announced in a twominute video posted to Twitter.
Inside his empty bar, Shaun Clancy spoke in a measured tone, so unlike the optimistic voice with the Irish lilt that he’d raise to be heard within the crowded, memorabilia-clad walls on West 33rd Street.
“This is the end of the inning, but not the end of the game,’’ Clancy said in his coda, after thanking his staff and patrons over 16 years.
Foley’s could not survive the COVID-19 crisis, and now it goes the way of Toots Shor’s and Runyons, the legendary New York places where sports figures and celebrities mingled with fans and tipplers.
I was lucky, so lucky, to be in that sphere. Luckier still that Shaun Clancy is my friend.
Modern-day Toots Shor
Shortly after I moved to Manhattan, Clancy opened Foley’s. I was there on opening night, and countless nights thereafter.
Sweeny Murti made the introduction.
We were covering an event in Midtown on a snowy early February evening and he mentioned that a new baseballthemed bar was opening near my neighborhood, owned by a baseball-mad fellow from Ireland.
Clancy told me he wanted to create another Toots Shor’s, and he did it.
How he did it was by the force of his personality, a supremely caring nature and the unique ability to balance his business, his family, his incredible charity work, and a growing list of umpires, players, scouts, writers, broadcasters – friends he’ll move heaven and earth to make happy.
The place to be
Over the years, I’ve been happy to add to Clancy’s collection of baseball stuff; press passes, etc.
If you wanted to see posters and pennants that hung in my room as a kid, they were on the walls, the ceiling and even in the men’s room – above the classic urinals.
About those urinals: They came from the original Waldorf-Astoria across the street, which was leveled to make way for the Empire State Building.
Over at table one, Shaun’s father, John – who worked at Toots Shor’s – would hold court on afternoons and look after the bar.
David Cone and Brian Cashman would tend that bar during charity events. Jon Hamm would walk in to watch the St. Louis Blues in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
David Wright had his first meal as a big-leaguer here and made sure Foley’s was his final stop on the night he retired.
And on and on.
End of an era
No one will ever forget what Shaun did to raise money when Shannon Forde, the Mets’ media relations director, was battling cancer, or his continued work for charities such as Umps Care. And there is no greater champion of baseball scouts than Shaun.
More than occasionally, they’d be at the bar, with Shaun there to make all of the introductions.
If the game I covered at Yankee Stadium ended at a decent hour – or not – the night (early morning) often ended at Foley’s, with the West Coast games on TV.
I was thrilled to be asked to host the Irish-American Hall of Fame ceremonies at Foley’s, and thrilled again when Shaun created the “I Didn’t Know They Were Irish” award named for me and
Duke Castiglione (good customers, ’tis all).
Today, I’m heartbroken for Stephie and Sputty and Ailish and all the staff at Foley’s, people who always made me feel at home.
I’d often say Foley’s was my living room. Sometimes, it was my kitchen – like the time Shaun allowed me to transfer my perishables in his freezer during the Super Storm Sandy blackout.
“Foley’s was always about the people,” Shaun Clancy said during the farewell to his saloon.
Shaun made it all possible. Here’s to you, and Foley’s, and to the next chapter for us all.