Weekly Mail May 26, 2019

Hey:


So we've made it to Memorial Day Weekend. Summer right around the corner.  I hope all of us have a happy, restful and healthy one. And we'll leave it at that.

Let's do some book reviews. Three books came out about the same time. Two of them about the 69 Mets....


BOOK REVIEW 1

They Said it Couldn't Be Done
By: Wayne Coffey

This book got a lot of excellent reviews from the sports media, but to me was a bit of a disappointment. I mean, it wasn't a bad book, it had a few interesting stories, but not too many that caught me by surprise. I was also led to believe that the book would look at the Mets season in relation to other events like Woodstock and the Moon Landing, but those topics were only touched on. As I said, it's well written and the stories are good, just nothing earth shattering. There are much better books about the 69 Mets out there, like the one we review next.

2.5 Auggies


BOOK REVIEW 2

After the Miracle
By: Art Shamsky and Eric Sherman

Now if you are a fan of the 69 Mets, THIS is the book for you. Shamsky was an outfielder on that 69 team, the only player to bat over .300 if my memory serves correctly. Sherman has written some good Mets books recently, but this is mostly Shamsky. The best part of this book is that Shamsky reviews the 69 season in the context of planning a trip to Northern California to visit Tom Seaver at his Napa Valley vineyards. It's Shamsky and 69 teammates, Buddy Harrelson, Met SS and Seaver's roommate on the road, Jerry Koosman, the second best starter in the Mets rotation that year, Ron Swoboda, who made a game saving catch in Game 4 of the series, and Sherman.

These guys tell some incredible stories. More importantly, the way the authors frame it, makes you feel like you are sitting there, hanging out with them. Really cool!

4.5 Auggies


BOOK REVIEW 3

108 Stitches
By: Ron Darling

This book has garnered some notoriety, due to Darling's claim that Lenny Dykstra hurled a series of racial slurs at Red Sox starter Oil Can Boyd during Game 3 of the World Series in 1986.

In fact Dykstra isn't the only person Darling threw under the proverbial bus in this book. To be honest, and I'm a fan of Darling's, he comes off sounding like a real dick at times in this book.  He even takes shots at guys he claims to like, guys like Frank Thomas and Cal Ripken Jr. I've never heard of anybody complaining about former Met manager and all star Frank Howard, but Darling makes him out to be a real a$$hole. To me, Darling is the a-hole here. I just felt like many of the shots he took were gratuitous.

That's not to say that some of the stories he tells aren't entertaining. Many of them are. And the point of the title is that while there are 108 stitches in a baseball, the game itself is connected by the characters that make up the game. I get what he was trying to do. I'm not thrilled by the way he went about it. It's kind of a modern day Ball Four.

3 Auggies.



ADVENTURES IN DOGSITTING

A San Francisco woman who used the website Wag.com tom hire a dog-sitter ended up with a home made porno for her trouble.

Rosie Brown was going to a wedding in Louisiana, so she hired dog sitter Casey Brengle through the app Wag.com to watch her two dogs Daisy and Penny. Casey Brengle? Brown would have been better off with Casey Stengel.

Brown hired Brengle through the Wag app, telling KGO-TV (San Francisco's ABC affiliate) that Brengle had "210 5 Star Reviews"

They agreed to Brengle working 4-1/2 days with long walks for the dogs for a total of $315.00. Brown also told Brengle that she had a dog food dispenser/doggie cam on the kitchen counter.

Despite having that information, Brengle...

1) had her boyfriend over and took him into the master bedroom, where Brengle claims they did not have sex. There were multiple scenes of Brengle and her man playing tonsil hockey however.

2) walked around the apartment in her birthday suit. While she didn't do this with her boyfriend around, she did sit her bare a$$ down on the couch. yeesh!

3) had her parents over to the apartment, which if that was the only thing she did wrong, is probably;y not the worst thing in the world. But still is a no-no according to the Wag contract. And why would her parents think going over to a client's apartment was a good idea?

This is my favorite 4) she called Daisy "a bitch" after she saw her playing rough with Penny. And THAT"S what she feels guilty about.

No, it's not (appropriate) she said to KGO-TV reporter Dan Noyes.." but she had been acting like a jerk and I agree, that's not appropriate, I was frustrated, not at her, at myself, at other things. I had gotten in a fight with my mom and I agree, it was not appropriate."

Maybe this is another case of me not getting with the times, but isn't bitch another term for a female dog? Or was that phased out during the #metoo movement? If it was, I do apologize and promise to now refer to all dogs as Canine-American.

My point is, that Brengle's excuse for walking around commando (It was too hot in the apartment), having her boyfriend over (it's OK she {Brown} believes that {they were banging each other} but it didn't happen) and sitting nekked on the couch (I meant no malice), what bugged her the most was insulting Daisy by calling her a female dog.

This is reason number 4338 why I do not and don't plan on ever owning a pet.


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I noticed this on the train coming into the Post on Saturday. Herman Wouk, the author who wrote The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance, died on May 17, 10 days shy of his 104th birthday. Amongst the reasons I only out about the death of one of America's greatest novelists over a week after the fact, is that on the same day Wouk passed away, a f-cking cat died.

Yes you read that right....the internet sensation Grumpy Cat died also on May 17. THAT was all over the news. Herman Wouk? Not so much.


I know a lot of you were bummed about the ending of Game of Thrones. If you want to see a great ending to a long running series, catch the finale of  The Big Bang Theory. That was a very satisfying and appropriate ending to a show. The Sopranos and How I Met Your Mother were the two biggest finale disappointments I ever saw.

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Finally on this Memorial Day Weekend....



They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
From For the Fallen by Lawrence Binyon

Enjoy the rest of the weekend, but remember why we have it


and Have a Great Week