Weekly Mail August 16, 2020

Hey Everyone:

Sorry we got this out late.


Lots to discuss this week.


POLITICS: Joe picks Kamala

To me, it's the coolest thing about running for President, choosing your running mate.

With COVID-19 disrupting the primaries, and turning the conventions into high priced Zoom Meetings, we still had the thrill of watching Joe Biden choose his VP nominee. He chose Senator Kamala Harris of California.

While I think this was a solid, safe pick, my gut was telling me that he was going to choose former NSC Director Susan Rice. I'm glad he went this way though. Harris is plenty smart, has a solid record, and has shown she can go toe to toe with anybody. Last time around, I thought Mike Pence won the debate against Hillary's running mate Tim Kaine. Harris should wipe the floor with Pence this time around.

In discussing this with my WM co-editors, I pointed out that the Trumpsters will probably have a field day with that first Democratic debate where Harris essentially blamed Uncle Joe for trying to keep Kamala from going to a good school. OK, not quite, she said that he voted against school busing, and that he bragged about working with segregationists. Of course there are a few morons who are questioning Harris' place of birth. Those a-holes I can't take seriously.

But there is something about how Harris went after Biden at that debate. I realize that this goes on all the time, all the way back to when George Bush called Ronald Reagan's tax plan "voodoo economics" while he was campaigning for the top of the GOP ticket in 1980. Reagan somehow got over that knock and tapped GHWB as his VP. it's part of the game.

And so it goes here. Bygones are bygones. It goes from "Joe Biden almost prevented me from going to school" to "Beau Biden and I were good friends." It's all part of it yes, but it's also part of the reason people get fed up with politics.

But at this point we have to get past all that. This was a good choice by Joe Biden, she's a solid person and has been a very good Senator for California.  She'll be an excellent VP.


CRIME: Murder in NC

I was very hesitant to touch this story, but I felt like I needed to say something about it.

Last Sunday, a 5 year old boy was shot in the head and killed by his next door neighbor in Wilson, NC. The 5 year old boy, Cannon Hinnant was white. the 25 year old neighbor is African-American.

All over social media, conservatives accused the main stream media of ignoring the story, suggesting that while George Floyd's murder at the hands of a white cop made national headlines, the story of this boy being executed was buried or ignored.

"Where's the Outrage?"  "Where are the protests?" That's what I keep hearing.


OK, so let me start by stating what should be obvious...There is not a single right-minded person, White, African-American, or any other persuasion, that is not outraged and heartbroken about this. There is not one right minded person of any persuasion, who wouldn't want to see the animal who did this either locked away for life or given a lethal injection. I don't believe that anyone either left wing or right wing who doesn't want to see justice for this poor baby.

But also, ask your self this.. If this killing was captured on video, do you really believe that the networks would ignore it?

I don't think this was ignored, I think the media didn't have enough info to go on.

And look, I'm not for a second saying that I want to see a video of that, I'd shut the TV off if they showed it. But there was footage of what happened to George Floyd. That makes a HUGE difference. I've read several reports from all different news outlets that are saying that the police in Wilson, NC have released very little if any information about what happened.

And where are all the protesters? Hey, you want to go out and protest that little kids shouldn't get shot to death,  go for it, who's going to stop you? Who's going to counter-protest that message?

Maybe it's just that 99.99% of all Americans don't need to be told that what happened to Cannon Hinnant in Wilson, NC was wrong. But can we honestly say that 99.99% of us believe what happened to George Floyd was wrong?  I've said it before, most cops I know thought that was excessive force, but more than a few people I know have said otherwise, that Floyd was a career criminal or something to that effect.

And one more thing... If you want to go protest about Cannon Hinnant getting shot, but you didn't protest when 20 kids just a bit older than Cannon were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School,  you might be more of the problem than the solution.




All right, lets get to some good news here, or at least some less serious stuff.



HOCKEY: Rangers win the lottery.

Again, one of my fearless sports predictions came true...


And many of my glass half full Ranger fans tried to take solace in the fact that now we have a shot at the number 1 pick in the draft. It's a 12.5% chance, so I'm not holding my breath on that  either. 
---From Last Week's Blogpost

Whats worse, after the Rangers were booted from the bubble two weeks ago, I went on a Ranger fan board and told people not to console themselves with the thought of winning the draft lottery.

So when that ball popped up with the Rangers logo on it last Monday, my second thought was that I'd have to go own up to what I had posted. (My first thought of course was surprise and joy).

And I have to say, the folks I spoke to were really cool about it. Didn't give me a hard time. And the funny thing is, on my way home from work Monday night, I heard that the Penguins and Maple Leafs also had ping pong balls in the hopper, so I was even more convinced that the Rangers weren't going to win.

So the consensus number 1 player is Alexis Lafreniere a French-Canadian who starred in the Quebec junior hockey league, considered to be one of the top jr leagues in the world. The older I get, the harder it is to get super excited over draft picks and prospects, but if this kid is as good as they are saying he is, well, I guess we'll have to wait and see.


Meanwhile, the hockey series that are still going on have been classics. The Lightning and Blue Jackets played a 5 OT thriller the other night, and a couple other games went into Double OT. These afternoon games have been great. Something to look forward to on the way home instead of more bad news.

BASEBALL:

Baseball writer Jon Heyman was on the FAN with Joe and Evan the other day, and they were talking about what might the solution be for teams that lost games due to COVID-19, if they can't make them up in doubleheaders.

Both the Marlins and Cardinals missed a substantial amount of games because they had multiple players test positive for COVID-19. Heyman seemed to suggest that in the event that a team can't complete their 60 games, their qualification for the playoffs would be based on winning percentage.

That doesn't seem fair.

If the Cards finish 25-15, and the Brewers finish 30-30, would the Cards make the playoffs because they won 55% of their games as opposed to the Brewers 50%?  That can't be right.

And I'm very tempted to just tell the Mets to have Jacob deGrom opt out and just bring everyone up from the farm system and forget about this year. But I can't see any of the other teams running away with the NL East, and if they stop freakin leaving guys on base, they could run off a nice winning streak. This weekend would have been a good time for that to start. They play the Yanks next week.


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OK folks that’s it. Our season finale. Thank you all for reading, writing and supporting.

Have a Great rest of the Summer






Weekly Mail returns in September 

Weekly Mail August 9, 2020

Hi Folks:

I turned 47 this past Wednesday. That's the last time I'm going to mention that.

I don't like the number 47, I never have. Even as a kid I thought it was just an ugly number. I have nothing against the number 4 or the number 7. I don't even have anything against the number 74.

But Forty Seven is just -yeesh. And I'm not someone who believes in all that zodiac crap either. I'm a Leo and Tara is a Sagittarius, I'll let you horoscope people tell me if we're compatible. This coming Wednesday will be the 16th anniversary of the night we met. We must me doing something right.

Back to my age though, I'm going to do something I haven't done since I was trying to sneak into The Bridge back in the early 90's and lie about my age, at least until February. Anyone asks, I'm 46. In February, I'll start telling people I'll be 48 in August. We're gonna just make pretend that this year didn't happen. Which, the way this year has gone, I'm guessing not too many people will argue with me about.

BTW- Despite my stance against that number, I had to put Jesse Orosco's picture on my FB page. I mean, that was a no-brainer.

WEATHER- T.S. ISAIAS

First of all, a Memo to the National Weather Service: Can you do us all a favor and name these storms something we can all pronounce? I had more interpretation of this name than I could count. My best guess is that it's pronounced EE SY EECE. I heard some say it IS SY AS. Some even called it Hurricane or Tropical Storm ISIS, which all I could think of is how confusing the headlines would be if they said ISIS Terrorizes East Coast.

In all seriousness though, we had a storm this week that knocked out power for thousands of people, because, well, why not? Like I've said before, if it can happen, it will happen. I know this wasn't a week to not have air conditioning, but with the way things have been going, this could have been a lot worse. As it was, it was pretty bad. There were trees down all over the place, and there are still people without power. I really don't get how that can happen in this day and age, but it still does. It's mind boggling, really.

Hope everyone is OK. 



HOCKEY-  R.I.P Rangers

I shouldn't have gotten as pissed off as I did on Tuesday when the Rangers were swept out of the playoffs by the Carolina Hurricanes. (How ironic that as New York City was being pounded by a Tropical Storm, our hockey team was being eliminated by a team called the Hurricanes)  They wouldn't have been in the playoffs if the regular rules were in place. They were the 11th ranked team in a 12 team bracket, and yes I should have been just grateful that they were able to play.

The problem is they announced this bracket and schedule almost a month ago, the season's been on hold since March, so there was all this hoping and waiting and anticipation for what ended up being three lousy games in four nights. After waiting all that time, my team couldn't give me a week's worth of games. That's embarrassing.

We were the only team of the 24 to not win one stinking game. Think about that for a second. What's worse, both 12 seeds advanced. The Canadiens beat the Penguins (which was a good thing IMHO) and out west, the Blackhawks beat the Oilers, which since Edmonton is one of the hub cities, had to be just as embarrassing for their fans as it was for me.

And many of my glass half full Ranger fans tried to take solace in the fact that now we have a shot at the number 1 pick in the draft. It's a 12.5% chance, so I'm not holding my breath on that  either. And anyway, I'm sick and tired on the draft being the highlight of the season for my sports teams. The Rangers, at least have been able to stock up their farm team with young talent, but the Jets and the Knicks either draft poorly or draft guys that don't want to be here.

The Rangers may have a ways to go before they are legit Cup contenders, but I believe they are better than how they played last week. The next regular season probably won't start till December, so we're talking three games in 9 months.

Embarrassing


BASEBALL- Mets messes

As we went to press last Sunday, we had all the bull with Yoenis Cespedes. Turns out he opted out of playing for the rest of the year, and neglected to tell the team. At least that's the official word.

I found it a bit puzzling that they traded a pitching prospect for all defense/no offense OF Billy Hamilton around the same time they claimed they couldn't find Cespedes.

Maybe I've been watching too many conspiracy movies, or maybe I'm just used to being a Met fan, but that whole thing smells a bit fishy.

Either way, good riddance to Cespedes. I honestly don't know why they even bothered to bring him back. He's a waste of life.


And although I was happy that the Mets finally beat the Braves last Monday night and finally scored some runs for poor Jacob deGrom, I felt awful for Braves pitcher Mike Soroka, who tore his Achilles tendon while fielding a ground ball. That was hard to watch.

I'm not sure if this is a sign of maturity on my part, being that if something like that had happened to Braves John Rocker or Chipper Jones 20 years ago, I'd be the first one up cheering. Or maybe that Soroka seems like a genuinely good kid, while Rocker and Jones were morally reprehensible.

Either way, I felt really bad for him.

And as with the Rangers, I know I should take it easy on the Mets. Just enjoy what baseball they give me. But with the expanded playoffs, I feel like if they play the way they are capable of playing they can make a run. Too often though, they don't play like that. And that's aggravating.



TELEVISION-Ellen DeGeneral

A few years ago, comedienne and daytime talk show host Ellen DeGeneres caught some flak from people who found a skit she did where she had the World's Fastest Man, Usain Bolt carry her around on his back as she ran her daily errands offensive.

At the time I defended her. I wondered aloud if anybody in their right mind thought Ellen was a racist, after all she had done for the LGBT community, all the money she had raised for charitable causes, and just how genuinely nice she seemed.

And while nobody has accused Ellen of being a racist lately, she IS now being accused of having a toxic work environment on her show, and either 1) not knowing or worse 2)knowing and not doing anything about it.

Many employees of the show have accused producers of sexual misconduct, and racial insensitivity. And while they haven't accused Ellen  of either, they have accused her of diva like behavior, no eye contact and stuff like that.

Also, while she gives cash and prizes out on a regular basis, according to reports, she didn't take care of her employees financially during the pandemic, drastically cutting their salaries and using non-union labor to produce the show from her home.

It shouldn't be any surprise that someone as rich and powerful as Ellen DeGeneres would have rubbed some people the wrong way. But some of the stuff that has come out about her and the culture around her talk show was in fact quite surprising.

Some of it I thought was a little silly. According to Vox.com, someone complained about her use of the term "spirit animal".  There's nothing offensive about that at all. But if she's allowing some of this other more serious stuff to happen, then there has to be some consequences.

I'm usually at work when Ellen comes on, but I've seen some episodes when I'm off, and yes it's entertaining. I hope it doesn't get canceled, but I do hope that she goes back to her roots, when she was up and coming, even when she came out on her sit-com and faced backlash. Now her staff is feels like they are under attack. She needs to get a handle on it. If not, all the nice and cute and funny things she does won't matter, she'll just be another Hollywood phony.




AMAZON SLIME

An Amazon delivery driver in England was caught dropping a deuce on someone's lawn.

According to Kenny Garger in Thursday's Post, Sharon Smith followed the man into her yard because she was afraid he was going to steal her firewood. Instead he left a few logs of his own.

My favorite part of this story is this moneyquote

Despite asking what the man was doing, Smith said, “he remained pooing whilst asking me what my problem was.”

She asked him if he thought this was acceptable behaviour, and he just said he needed to go. So there's that.

He then delivered an Amazon package to her neighbor.

He wasn't charged with a crime, but was fired by Amazon who said in a statement "This does not reflect the high standards we have for our delivery partners."

I say it could have been worse.. he could have been working for DoorDash.

******************************************************************************

Pete Hamill died this week at age 85. Perhaps the last of the truly great newspaper columnists this city has produced. And  never would have gotten my job at the Post if he hadn't kept the paper going while Abe Hirschfeld tried to destroy it.  If you ever get a chance, watch the HBO Documentary Deadline Artists. Also, while I'm on hiatus, I plan to finally read his memoir, A Drinking Life.


Stay safe

and Have a Great Week

Weekly Mail August 2, 2020

Hi Everybody:


A programming note as we have entered August. After this week's post, the plan is to have two more before we go on hiatus till September. Now, this means we won't be publishing during both the DNC (August 17-20) and the RNC (August 24-27) With the pandemic showing little signs of ending anytime soon, I don't think there's going to be that much to report. If anything crazy (or should I say REALLY crazy) happens, I'll either put my $0.02 on Facebook and/or Twitter, or if need be, I'll post something. But for now, the plan is to publish up until August 16.

We are halfway through the most bizarre summer of all time. Hope everyone is hanging in there.


A TALE OF TWO FRANCHISES

I'm not someone who takes the idea of contracting sports franchises lightly. I am well aware that we are talking about hundreds if not thousands of jobs going away, and in many cases a blow to the psyche of an entire city. I think that any city who gets a sports franchise should have the opportunity to make it work.

But there are two franchises who I believe should either relocate or contract. I've mentioned them before, and this week they both happened to be in the news, for as usual, all the wrong reasons.
They are baseball's Miami Marlins and hockey's Arizona Coyotes.


The Marlins haven't played a game since last weekend because over half their roster has tested positive for COVID-19. It stands to reason, as Florida has become ground zero for the pandemic. But according to an MLB investigation, the Marlins behavior while in Atlanta to play the Braves in an exhibition game could have led to this outbreak. It certainly didn't help prevent it.

According to the Bleacher Report's Scott Miller:, the Marlins were very lapse in following protocols during Atlanta trip last weekend, players going out, players in hotel bar, etc. Lots of MLB people very unhappy with Miami


The last line is what we call an understatement. This 60 game season was a very delicately set up House of Cards that if if had any chance of working at all, needed all the players and staff from the teams to follow the guidelines.  I'm sure the Marlins aren't the only team to flaunt the rules, but so far they are the ones who have suffered the consequences the most.

But that alone isn't why I feel like they need to either move or cease to exist.

They have been consistently mismanaged throughout their 28 year history. Yes, I know they are two times World Champs, but they had fire sales immediately following each of their titles, and are more often than not, scraping the bottom of the barrel in the standings. They have a fairly new taxpayer funded stadium, yet have been near the bottom in attendance since the stadium opened in 2012. Derek Jeter has been as clumsy as an owner as he was polished as a player (one of the myriad of reasons I don't want A-Rod anywhere near the Mets ownership group).

It's just been one thing after another with this franchise. I just get the feeling pro baseball isn't meant to be in Miami. What also brought this to mind was hearing that Jose Reyes officially retired this week. He signed with the Marlins after the 2011 season, and two years later found himself traded to the Blue Jays, because the Marlins couldn't afford the contract they had given him. That's pathetic.



As for the Coyotes, their GM John Chayka, suddenly resigned his position, 1 week before they were scheduled to start the playoffs. Now from what I've read, the majority of the blame for this fiasco lies with Chayka, who on the surface, just seems like another know-it-all who didn't see the need to fulfill his obligation to his contract.

In fact, the Coyotes seem to finally have an owner who has both the desire and the means to make a go of it in Arizona. But I remain skeptical.

First let's deal with the issue at hand: Chayka was the youngest GM ever hired to run a pro sports team in North America, taking over as Coyote GM in 2016 at the age of 26. With Coyote ownership in a constant state of flux, Chayka would use the little money he had in the budget to trade for draft picks.

But when new owner Alex Meruelo bought the team, he gave Chayka more money to play with, and he was able to build a solid playoff bound team.

But sometime this season, the Devils asked the Coyotes for permission to speak with Chayka which was subsequently denied. (Meruelo had already extended Chayka's contract) Chayka told Meruelo that it wasn't a job interview, but a chance to make connections with other owners to "gain market knowledge"

Which of course was total BS.

And it wasn't even that the Devils would have given Chayka a promotion in duties (as he also tried to claim) but it was the same position and responsibilities he had with Arizona.

Caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, Chayka's relationship with Meruelo deteriorated, and caused him to resign just prior to the playoffs starting. Again, it's tough to fault Meruelo here, but like with the Marlins, it's been one thing after another with these guys.

They moved to Phoenix from Winnipeg, with many predicting immediate success because after all, the year before, the Quebec Nordiques moved to Denver and lo and behold won the Stanley Cup the first year in their new city. (Which I don't know, maybe had something to do with trading for a Hall of Fame goaltender more than moving to the States?) Then they tried to sell the team to a group that had Wayne Gretzky in it (sound familiar?) That sale stalled more times than a broken down jalopy, and when it finally did go through, even the Great One couldn't get the franchise going.

They moved from America West Arena in downtown Phoenix, to a state of the art hockey arena in Glendale, AZ in 2003 a mere 17 years ago, and now Commissioner Gary Bettman says the team "needs a new arena because Glendale is not viable long term"

And that's been the biggest issue here. Bettman is determined to make hockey work in Arizona, even though it hasn't for almost 25 years. The arena is not the issue here, it's playing hockey in the desert. It's playing hockey in a city that doesn't care.

And look, I know hockey has taken off in cities you wouldn't have thought it would, like Nashville and Vegas. But this saga in Arizona is coming up on 24 years. Alex Meruelo is by all accounts and definitions of the word, a success. I'm all for giving him a shot to make a go of it, but I'm telling you the odds are not in his favor, through no fault of his own. This is Bettman's stubbornness gone mad.

Maybe Chayka's decision to bail doesn't mean anything in the long run, but to me it's just another misstep for a franchise and city that has had way too many of them.



MADONNA VS ANNIE LENNOX

 I'm not really looking to dive into a subject that I admittedly am severely unqualified to talk about, so you can count me out of the "Is Hydroxychloroquine a cure for COVID-19" debate.  What I can comment on is that one of the chief endorsers of the hydroxychloroquine cure, Dr. Stella Immanuel of Houston, TX, is a quackadoodle. She makes Dr. Conrad Murray (the dude who essentially killed Michael Jackson) look like a Nobel Prize for Medicine winner.

Amongst Dr. Immanuel's more dubious claims,

"Many women suffer from astral sex regularly. Astral sex is the ability to project one's spirit man into the victim's body and have intercourse with it," -that's according to CNN

and according to the Daily Beast....

that alien DNA was used in medical treatments and that scientists are plotting to develop a "vaccine" to make it impossible to become religious. 

Well then.

And our fearless leader in Washington says that he's very impressed by Dr. Immanuel. Of course he is. But he's not who I'm interested in.

I want to discuss another fan of this crazy doctor.  The Material Girl herself, Madonna, said that Dr. Immanuel was "Her Hero", and also put some of her out to lunch theories on her social media platforms. She managed to get herself censored on Instagram, but not before getting called out by the great Annie Lennox. According to the NY Post..

“This is utter madness!!! I can’t believe that you are endorsing this dangerous quackery. Hopefully your site has been hacked and you’re just about to explain it.”



Dangerous Quackery is as apt a description of all of this as I have heard. We've pretty much have had 4 years of it here. Madonna took the post down. I don't know if it was because of what Lennox wrote, or if she came to her senses or what. All I know is, Madge ain't helping any.


GOVERNOR CUOMO VS THE CHAINSMOKERS

So baby pull me closer in the backseat of your Rover
That I know you can't afford
Bite that tattoo on your shoulder 
Pull the sheets right off the corner
Of the mattress that you stole 
From your roommate back in Boulder 
We ain't ever getting older 

Closer-The Chainsmokers featuring Halsey 


I'm not going to lie, I liked that song. It spent 12 weeks at Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2016.

Problem was many of their fans took that song to heart in the Hamptons last week.

The charity concert in Southhampton was supposed to be a "drive in" concert. Instead videos and pictures showed that an estimated crowd of 2,000 or more stood much less than 6 feet apart with few if any wearing masks.

Governor Cuomo slammed the show and it's organizers calling it "grossly disrespectful to fellow New Yorkers...not only a gross violation of public health rules,  but also a gross violation of common sense."

The Village of Southhampton is now under investigation by the state health department. Making it even more interesting, one of the performers was the town's supervisor Jay Schniednerman.

I actually feel bad for everyone involved here. I think the organizers were trying to do the right thing, but you can't have a show like that if you can't space the fans out.  It's a shame, because the concert was for a couple of very worthwhile causes.


Back to sports for a minute, I'm thrilled that baseball is back, I'm thrilled that hockey is back and hell I'm even happy basketball is back.

I'm not thrilled that the Mets keep getting their a$$es kicked and that the Rangers lost their first playoff game.

I'm starting to get used to the cardboard cutout fans and the pumped in crowd noise. Most of the time, the crowd noise sounds like the first few seconds of Sgt. Pepper, but they're starting to get the hang of turning it up when something good happens.

But what happened with the Marlins this week, and how it affected the Phillies, Nationals and Yankees, that was pretty scary. And it just goes to show how fast this can spread. I really hope they can figure this out. If baseball were to have to shut down again because players are testing positive for COVID-19, that would really suck.



I’ll get into this bull$hit about Yoenis Cespedes next week. I’m not sure we’re getting the whole story there.


For now, stay safe

and Have a Great Week