Hey:
Last weekend, it was 63 degrees on Saturday and 68 on Sunday. I went down to Rockaway to see my friends kids play basketball and I felt like I took a trip to Miami.
Saturday it snowed for my whole commute into Manhattan. It was freezing and I nearly wiped out twice walking on Sixth Avenue. At least it felt like January.
OK lets get to the news....
BASEBALL: Houston Asterisks
They'll fire you for losing before they fire you for cheating...
-former college and pro football coach Darryl Rogers
And normally, I'd agree with that, but this week we saw something completely different.
On Monday, commissioner Rob Manfred released his report on the Houston Astros sign stealing, and by Thursday three managers and one GM were all out of work, two of the managers having won two of the last three World Series.
Astros GM Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch were suspended for one year by Manfred, only to be fired minutes after the suspensions were announced by Astros owner Jim Crane.
Alex Cora was then fired by the Red Sox one day later. Cora was a bench coach for the Astros in 2017, and the Sox manager the last two years. Baseball is still investigating claims that Boston engaged in cheating during their 2018 World Series run.
I've gone back and forth on a reaction to all this, so before I started writing this week, I did what I should have done back on Monday... I actually read the commissioner's report.
So here's where I stand...
1) The first thing that jumps out at me is that this report is really what the job of a sport's commissioner SHOULD be about. I believe that the most important job of the commissioner is to protect the integrity of the sport he or she is in charge of. While that may sound painfully obvious, the fact of the matter is that is no longer the case.
Now you hear things like "The Commissioner's job is to grow the brand" (Mike Francessa was very fond of saying that) And ever since the baseball owners ousted Fay Vincent in 1992 and made Brewers owner Bud Selig the commissioner the job has now evolved in being the owner's chief stooge. Gary Bettman, Roger Goodell and the late David Stern all followed that lead. Hockey has had three major work stoppages, (including one whole season lost) basketball has had two that wiped out about half the season, and football very nearly lost part of the 2011 season. Selig presided over the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
When baseball appointed Kenesaw Mountain Landis as it's first commissioner, it did so to deal with the 1919 Black Sox scandal. He dealt with that in a way that anybody who even thought about pulling a stunt like that again would know they were risking their entire career. It's why as much as I love Pete Rose and was devastated when he was banned, I don't believe he should ever be allowed back in the game.
My point is that Manfred saw something that cut to the heart of the matter, the integrity of the game, and dealt with it. He did what commissioner's are supposed to do. Not just make rich people richer, protect the integrity of the game.
2) All that being said, did Manfred overreact?
After all stealing signs has been going on since the game was invented right? I mean if you are not trying to get your team an edge, what's the point?
My answer to that is, it's one thing if you happen to catch someone giving a sign. It's another to have it where you are using hi tech video to steal information.
You're standing on second base, and you see the opposing catcher put down two fingers, and you can somehow let your batter know a curveball is coming? Well that's on the catcher to do a better job of protecting his signs.
But if you have a camera in center field that can zoom in on a catcher and steal signs that way? That's not acceptable. How does the other team defend themselves against that?
3) The commissioner's report goes out of it's way to state that Astros owner Jim Crane had no knowledge of what was going on and that he was "extraordinarily troubled and upset by the conduct of members of his organization."
My reaction to that was to recall Claude Rains telling Humphrey Bogart that he was shocked, SHOCKED! to find gambling going on in the club in Casablanca.
I don't know how involved Crane is in the day to day operations of the Astros. Maybe he is a hands off owner and had no clue. Maybe he really did fully cooperate with the investigation. Probably, I'm so used to dealing with our scumbag owners here in NY, and am just naturally inclined to think they are all full of $h-t.
And again, being that the commissioner works for the owners, is it beyond the realm of possibility that Manfred is covering for Crane? I'm sorry, but I've seen too much not to be somewhat skeptical.
Which leads me to whether or not the Mets did the right thing letting go of Carlos Beltran, the only player who was named in the report.
You all know that Carlos Beltran wasn't my first choice to manage the Mets, hell he wasn't my 1,000th choice. And yet, as I waited to see what his fate was, there was a part of me hoping he'd survive the firestorm.
I didn't want him in the first place, but I didn't want to see him go out like this. Does that make any sense?
Again, I had not read the report before Beltran was canned, so I was kind of flying blind, having now read it, I can honestly say he had to go.
What I don't understand is why he was the only player named in the report. It's obvious he was the ringleader, but I don't for one second believe he acted alone. He wasn't the only one benefiting (or trying to benefit) from the cheating system in place. To not only single him out but not to name anyone else in not right.
But, this isn't one of those stories that was going away. In a week where the President of the United States was about to go on trial and tensions in the Middle East were still running high, this story dominated the headlines. The first day of spring training would have been an unbelievable media circus. They had to start fresh.
But to be clear, I'm not happy about it. As much as I didn't want him, it sucks that he got caught up in this, it sucks he's not going to get a shot, and most of all, it sucks that we are less than a month away from Spring Training, and we are looking for another manager.
POLITICS: The Trump Impeachment:
At work during the week, I usually go to lunch around 1 PM. At noon on Thursday, the Senate officially received the two Articles of Impeachment from the House of Representatives. I watched the managers walk the articles over from the House on Wednesday evening, in my head I had the Imperial March theme from Star Wars playing (not because I thought Nancy Pelosi et al are evil, far from it, but just the impending enormity of what was transpiring). Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley, the Majority Leader and president pro tempore of the Senate respectively, announced they wouldn't formally accept the articles till noon on Thursday. I guess they had a date or something (joking)
I missed the official receiving of the Articles, but I did see Chief Justice John Roberts get sworn in as the presiding judge for the impeachment trial. I also watched as the senators signed the oath book. Extraordinary to watch history unfold.
Now back to Wednesday for a second. One thing Nancy Pelosi has done extremely well in my opinion is mark this whole impeachment process as a solemn, serious proceeding. She has gone out of her way to make sure that her party is not crowing over the fact that the President has been impeached. She has said time and time again that this is the last thing she wants to be doing. One of my main beefs with Trump is that he has treated his job like it's a SNL skit. Pelosi has handled her job with the dignity that her office is supposed to be held.
Which is why it was a bit off-putting to see her having the articles of impeachment signed by commemorative pens. I was listening to CNN after the signing was done and even they thought that was not totally proper. Said Dana Bash....
“We are used to seeing signing ceremonies handing out pens at moments of celebration, But the House Speaker has bent over backward to say publicly and privately this is a somber, this is not a time for celebration.”
“This is history, and the people who are involved want to mark the moment, but I didn’t expect to see that,” Bash said of the pen handout.
Nia-Malika Henderson called Pelosi’s pen distribution “a little jarring.”
The whole thing gets underway Tuesday at 1 PM EST.
ELECTION 2020: Liz Vs. Bernie
So I caught some of the Iowa Democratic Debate on Wednesday night. I saw the part where Bernie Sanders was asked about Elizabeth Warren's allegation that Sanders told her that a woman couldn't win the election. And I answer the question by denying he said that.
I missed the end of the debate where she wouldn't shake his hand and told him he called her a liar on national television.
Obviously I wasn't there when any of this allegedly went down, but I do have a hard time believing that Bernie would say such a thing. On the other hand, I don't know that Warren would make that up.
What I do know is that while we are in the homestretch leading to the Iowa Caucus, and that all these candidates are vying for the nomination, they have to do a better job of stressing that no matter what, they are committed to getting Trump out in November. This kind of backbiting is not helping matters any. And if Warren is going to get this bent out of shape being called a liar by Bernie, (which he technically didn't) how is she going to handle getting a called a liar for 90 minutes in a debate with Trump?
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So it looks like Harry and Meghan were put on waivers for the purpose of their unconditional release from the royal family.
I have a question..what if in a few years little Archie finds out that instead of working at the local McDonald's, he could be living the good life at Buckingham Palace, does he have to re-apply for the job as prince, or will they waive the application process (and fees) because he didn't have a say in this whole Megxit thing?
Curious minds want to know.
Sorry we got this out late
and Have a Great Week
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