Hello All:
Friday was the second annual American Heart Association Run/Walk. With the social distancing rules in effect, it was impossible to do it the way it was done last year. So the idea was to do the 3.5 miles wherever you could do it safely.
At the Starting Gate
So Timmy and I headed to the kindergarten center in Oceanside, which has a 1/4 mile track and we did our 14 laps. We started around 7:30 by checking in with Coach Katie, and we ended around 8:40. Now I know there was a time many moons ago where I could RUN 14 laps around the track. Did it practically every day in high school. Still I was proud of us for doing it, and proud of everyone who participated.
Next year, hopefully we can get back to doing it in the traditional way. For everyone who donated, thank you so much.
OK, we are going to go a little all over the place here this week..
October 4, 1995, the day after OJ Simpson was acquitted, I was channel surfing with Karl (the Ace) Ludwig, and when we got to the E! Channel around 1 PM EST, they were showing a re-run of One Day at a Time.
"So this is what's on E! instead of OJ" Karl said.
I think a lot of people are going to have a similar reaction when they turn on the telly Monday morning around 11 and discover that the Andrew Cuomo Hour has been cancelled.
I know more than one person who planned their day around the governor's daily presser. But now that NY has gotten it's COVID-19 numbers down, he's pulled the plug. Sort of a good news bad news scenario-good that the numbers are down, bad that you now how to watch them go at it on the View again.
All kidding aside, Cuomo did a really good job keeping everyone informed, and that we've gone from the hotbed of COVID-19 to having some of the lowest numbers in the nation is a testament to his leadership. He a'int perfect, I've had my beefs with him before this and I'm sure I'll have them after, but give credit where it is due.
Some people believed that Cuomo got a haircut while the state was on lockdown. I honestly don't know if he did, but I need to give a shoutout to Eyewitness News anchor Bill Ritter who set a great example by going on TV everyday with long and curly hair. His hair even had it's own Twitter Handle. Good stuff.
LONG GONE SUMMER
ESPN last week did a documentary about the 1998 Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa chase of Roger Maris single season home run record.
Sports Illustrated would rank the 1998 season as the greatest baseball season of all time. The documentary seemed to say that it was the McGwire/Sosa that singlehandidly saved baseball from the ill will of the 1994-95 strike.
My sister Katie, brilliantly gave her recollections of that season 22 years ago. It was the first year my family did a ticket plan (a 6 pack plus one if I recall correctly)* which entitled you to Opening Day tickets and tickets to one game of the Yankee series. It was also the year the Mets traded for Mike Piazza. For the Yanks, it was the year they started 0-4 and then it seemed like they never lost another game the rest of the season. There were a couple of good playoff races, the Cubs and Giants would play a one game playoff for the Wild Card. The Mets should have won the Wild Card outright, but lost the last 5 games of the season, a choke almost as bad as the one that would occur 9 years later. Cal Ripken Jr. would finally sit out a game, ending his ironman streak at 2,642 straight games.
But it was the Maris chase that dominated the 1998 season. I spent 10 days in Ireland in late August, and was fortunate enough to stay in a place that had CNN International. I set my tourism schedule around CNNI World Sport, once we got through the myriad of Premier League Soccer highlights I didn't give a spit about, (and do yourself a favor if you go to Ireland, don't mention that you don't give a spit about soccer) they would do a 30 second segment on the home run race in America. Then they'd quickly run through the MLB scores. This was the pre smartphone era so this was my only shot to keep up.
The documentary was good, if not great. It did a good job of showing the pressure that McGwire faced daily. Sosa eventually faced it too, but being that McGwire had come so close in 1997, the white hot spotlight was on him from day one.
And I'll tell you something else, I really didn't want to see the record get broken. I had heard what Roger Maris had gone through the year he broke Babe Ruth's record, and I felt bad to see him lose it. I remember the day Maris died in 1985, I was watching TV with my mom and when they previewed the 11 o'clock news, they said they were going to look back on the life of Roger Maris. "That's so sad. I really liked him" my mom said that night. She's not the world biggest baseball fan, so that stuck with me.
But McGwire won me over, with his graciousness and his humility. The Home Run Derby was at Coors Field that year, and folks thought McGwire might hit a couple of balls 600 ft. He didn't and actually apologized to the fans for not putting on a better show. He took the time to get to know the Maris family and to include them so that Roger wouldn't be pushed aside when the record fell. I felt like the documentary didn't capture this as well as it should have.
Sosa too, was easy to root for. He brought an unbridled joy to the game, he was always smiling and like McGwire, took plenty of time for autographs and pictures. If the record was going to be broken, I had no issue with either of these guys doing it. They were friendly, classy and appreciative of the history they were making. Plus they genuinely seemed to like each other.
I've said this before and I know I might get some blowback, but I really believe the issue of steroids wouldn't have come up if Barry Bonds hadn't come along and broken both McGwire's single season HR record, or Henry Aaron's all time record. Unlike McGwire and Sosa, Bonds was a creep, nasty to the fans and to the press. Just an overall lowlife, who threw the few friends he had under the bus to cover his lying cheating a$$.
And this has nothing to do with race, before anyone brings that up. Most people would have had no issues with Ken Griffey Jr. passing Maris (and/or Aaron) who was neither nasty or a juicer.
It's a shame things turned out as they did. Both McGwire and Sosa testified before Congress on March 17, 2005, neither one of them able to convince anyone they were clean.
Watching that 30 for 30 though, brought back good memories good feelings. I was 25 that summer, but I felt younger. Watching baseball in 1998 was like watching it as a kid, when it's all you have to worry about.
Everybody stay safe
and Have a Great Week
* I didn't go with them that season. I went from 1999-2004.
No comments:
Post a Comment