Hey Everyone:
I spent a good chunk of the pandemic complaining about there not being sports on TV. And now that sports is back, I'm going to spend a good chunk of time complaining about the sports that are now ON TV.
BASEBALL:
The Mets not making the playoffs bothers me enough, especially in a year where half the league qualifies. What bothers me more is that the Miami Marlins made it. A team that is in perpetual rebuilding mode. A team that (pre pandemic) couldn't draw fans to a state of the art tax payer funded stadium. A team that had more than half their players test positive for COVID-19. They lost 105 games last year and now they are in the playoffs.
And the thing is? They have made the playoffs twice in their 27 year history. They won the World Series both times. That would almost be poetic justice wouldn't it? That would prove just how convoluted this whole setup was.
As for the Mets, I cut them some slack because they were shorthanded in the pitching dept. They had two reliable starters, one of whom was a rookie. Seth Lugo was a somewhat reliable starter, but started the year as the closer. Rick Porcello, Michael Waca, were disappointments and Steven Matz is washed up. Losing Noah Syndegaard to Tommy John surgery and Marcus Stroman who opted out was a big blow.
But an unreliable bullpen (something new and different) and most of all, too many guys left on base were the biggest culprits this year.
There's a few things to look forward to. The biggest is that we will hopefully have a new owner by Thanksgiving. Steve Cohen is now just awaiting to be approved by the other owners. That vote will probably happen sometime after the World Series concludes. I don't know if he is going to be the savior he being made out to be, but just getting the Wilpons out of town is addition by subtraction.
Another positive was that Edwin Diaz started to show flashes of his 2018 self with Seattle as opposed to his 2019 disaster here. Don't get me wrong, he had his Edwin Diaz moments, and the jury is still out, but he also had moments of incredible dominance. Hopefully in these 60 games, he's been able to make the adjustment to NY, and will continue to get better.
Also Andres Jimenez had emerged as the SS of the future. I still think Ahmed Rosario could be a solid player, but Jimenez is a better fielder and he hits enough to justify his playing time.
The Mets never should have allowed Yoeins Cespedes to make the team. His opting out was a blessing. It gave Dom Smith a chance to shine, and he did.
Pete Alonso was a disappointment, but hopefully a full spring training next year will help him. Also should maybe consider not trying to hit a grand slam when nobody is on base.
Overall, they finished under .500 and that's just unacceptable. And in a year where you didn't even have to finish above .500 to make the playoffs, that's a disgrace.
FOOTBALL:
The Jets were blown out by the Colts on Sunday. They are unquestionably the worst team in the NFL this year so far. That’s 3 blowouts in 3 games. They were previously blown out by the Bills and a depleted 49'ers team.
Only the most optimistic Jet fan would have thought that the Jets would have a good season. They traded their best player for draft picks, and they didn't sign any significant free agents at skill positions. They have a young QB they are hoping to develop into a champion, but they gave him nobody to throw the ball to.
Many people are blaming the coach, and while I have said often that he is clearly not the answer, I'm also not 100% sure he's the issue either. They don't have any talent. They traded away Leonard Williams and Jamal Adams, two top 10 draft picks they had the last few years. Two other top 10 picks, Quinen Williams and the aforementioned Sam Darnold haven't done nearly enough, and now there is even rumblings that the Jets might be so bad, that they'll end up with the number one pick and draft (hold on to your hats) another QB!
It never bleeping ends.
HOCKEY:
The Tampa Bay Lightning were on OT goal away from winning the Stanley Cup on Saturday night, but the Dallas Stars won in double OT, to force a Game 6. Tampa is clearly the better team, but I'm hoping Dallas can force a Game 7, for entertainment's sake. More likely, the Bolts will close out a very successful NHL restart on Monday night. Tampa has a bunch of ex-Rangers on their roster, so seeing the likes of Kevin Shattenkirk and Ryan McDonough skating around Edmonton with the Cup hoisted is just going to give me agita, but in the grand scheme of things, I guess it's not that bad.
BASKETBALL:
I have vowed to watch the NBA Finals, but I honestly don't know why I would, I can't stand either team.
For old times sake, I was really hoping to see the Celtics and the Lakers play each other, for no other reasons as to relive my golden days of yesteryear. In 8th grade, a few days before we graduated, we took a class trip to a dude ranch in Fallsburg, NY. It was the day after Magic Johnson's last second hook shot to win Game 4 of the 1987 NBA Finals at the Boston Garden. It was a two hour bus trip and we spent a good 45 minutes talking about that shot.
I rooted for the Lakers that time. If Boston would have made it this time, I'd root for them because I think the Lakers are just a bunch of mercenaries. I like LeBron James more than I liked Michael Jordan, but I respect Jordan more. Jordan didn't have to leave the Bulls to "learn how to win" and he didn't have to join the Lakers to try to win "one for the road."
Problem is the team coming out of the East are the Miami Heat, and I have no use for them whatsoever. The Heat was the team LeBron had to join (along with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh) to get his first two rings. I never rooted for them for the same reason I'm not rooting for the Lakers now.
I'm not going to rehash why I can't stand Miami as a sports city to begin with, but I'll really never root for the Heat as long as Pat Riley is involved with them. So it's really a catch-22.
Wow, am I glad sports is back LOL
POLITICS: The Supreme Court.
On Saturday afternoon, President Trump held a Rose Garden Press Conference to introduce his nominee to the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett.
So let me get this out of the way first.. Judge Coney Barrett is extremely qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice. She graduated first in her class at Notre Dame Law school, and clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia. Nobody can deny her qualifications nor question her intelligence. And from where I'm sitting, nobody has.
The fear of course is that she will help to overturn Roe v Wade and strike down the individual mandate on Obamacare. Those concerns are legitimate and I'm not going to get into whether or not they should or shouldn't be overturned.
No, my main issue is the Republicans pressing to get Coney Barrett confirmed after what they did in 2016 to Merrick Garland.
Justice Scalia died on February 13, 2016, a little less than 9 months before that year's Presidential election. President Obama nominated Merrick Garland a little over a month later on March 16. The Republicans refused to give Garland a hearing, saying that it shouldn't be done in a Presidential Election year.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away last Friday night, September 18. And now the same folks who said that March 16 was too close to election day, think that September 26 is plenty of time to get a new justice confirmed.
The hypocrisy is unreal.
If they had given Garland a fair shot, I could live with what they are pulling now. They didn't. This whole thing is horse$h-t. Pure and simple.
BOOK REVIEW:
Rage: By Bob Woodward
The last book the legendary Washington Post reporter wrote about President Trump was Fear. Trump didn't speak to Woodward in that book and felt like he had been railroaded.
So he agreed to be interviewed for this book. Actually there were three main people Woodward interviewed. Besides Trump, he also spoke to former Defense Secretary James Mattis and former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.
Mattis and Coats provide some solid insight to what went down with North Korea in the first two years of Trump's presidency. Mattis was so concerned that Trump and his big mouth was going to get us into a war with North Korea, that he literally went to church every morning before work to pray for a solution.
But to me the most fascinating parts of the book were the conversations between the author and the President. You hear Trump talk all the time, and you read his tweets and as much as you think he sounds ridiculous, it's on a whole other level when you actually read on paper the way he talks.
I mentioned Chapter 26 last week. Here is the leader of the free world, talking about meeting one of the world's most brutal dictators at the DMZ:
"This is me and him Trump said (showing Woodward a picture of him and Kim Jong Un) That's the line right? Then I walked over the line. Pretty cool. You know? Pretty cool. Right? That's the line between North and South Korea. That's the line. That's North and South Korea. That's the line. That line is big deal. Nobody has stepped across that line. Ever." (Woodward points out that Trump was not the first person to do so, but the first sitting President to do so).
There a whole bunch of these barely coherent quotes. And then he has the audacity to say this.
"I don't know. I don't think Obama's smart. See? I think he's highly overrated. And I don't think he's a great speaker."
OK, Obama, not a great speaker. Got it. I guess this is what constitutes a great speaker in Trump's mind.....
"Hey look. I went to the best schools. I did great. I had an uncle who was a professor at MIT for 40 years, one of the most respected in the history of the school. For 40 years. My father's brother. And my father was smarter than he was. It's good stock. You know they talk about the elite. Really the elite. Ah they have nice houses. No. I have much better than them. I have better everything than them, including education."
OK I’m convinced. How about you?
Another interesting point in the book dealt with Lindsay Graham. Graham has been taken over the coals for his marching in lockstep with Trump, (as opposed to his friend the late John McCain who had no trouble telling Trump where to go and how to get there) My gut has told me then if/when Trump leaves office, Graham will explain himself by saying that he did all this to stay on Trump's good side so that he wouldn't do anything really stupid (like for example, start a nuclear war with North Korea)
There may be some truth to that. Woodward points out a couple of times where Graham was able to convince Trump not to do or say something that would have been damaging. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not.
Can't say there are a ton of surprises here. Still fascinating
4 Auggies.
Gayle Sayers, the Hall of Fame running back for the Bears died this week at age 77. He died just a little over 50 years after his friend Brian Piccolo died of cancer.
Channel 13 played Brian’s Song with Billy Dee Williams as Sayers and James Caan as Piccolo on Saturday night. Almost forgot how great that movie was.
MAN CAVES
A hat tip to Ed Robinson for this: Three MTA employees converted an unused locksmith shop underneath Track 114 in Grand Central Terminal into a man cave, complete with a flat screen TV, fridge, microwave, futon and cot.
I’m of two minds about this. I think they are brilliant for creating the space, but dopey for not covering their tracks (har har) as the WiFi powering the TV was in one of their names. I commend them for converting an unused space into something useful, but condemn them if they used MTA money instead of their own to build it. It’s not a bad thing if it’s used after work hours, it’s an issue if they use it and claim OT.
Nobody appreciates a good hangout as much as I do, but I’m guessing these guys spent time they should have been working down their tying one on. With the fares constantly going up while service coming down, that’s a no-no.
Me? I’d just be afraid of rats and mice coming in. I don’t think I’d use the microwave that’s for sure.
Ok that’s all we gots. Captain Orange and Uncle Joe debate on Tuesday, I may live tweet. My Twitter handle is @W. Bill Gallagher 1.
Stay safe
and Have a Great Week
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