Hi Everyone:
According to my records, this is my 250 blogpost since we relaunched WM back in 2015. So happy that I have been able to keep this going through all the ups and downs. Just taking it one week at a time. Hopefully in 5 years or so, we'll be closing in on 500.
Onto the week that was..
BASKETBALL: Knicks pick.
It's rare that I have good news to report about our New York Knickerbockers, but this week they drafted the player I really wanted them to draft, Obi Toppin from my wife's very own University of Dayton Flyers.
I sound like a broken record here, but it's getting harder and harder to get excited about guys who are drafted, when it seems like NY leads the world in draft pick busts the last 10 years or so. The Jets are obviously the most notorious, are they are attempting to draft their second franchise QB in the past 4 years. But the Knicks aren't that far behind. You start with the night IN 1999 they decided that Fredric Weis was a better idea than drafting local star Ron Artest (Meta World Peace) and go from there.
It's ugly man. Real ugly.
On the rare chance that they actually drafted someone decent, they usually traded them away. Wilson Chandler, Kristaps Porzingis. All the other picks were disasters... Mike Sweetney, Renoldo Balkman, Jordan Hill etc.
But I actually cheered when the commissioner announced the Knicks selected Toppin. First I was surprised he lasted all the way to the 8th pick. Then relieved that as he sat there at 8, that the Knicks chose him.
Yes I'm biased because he went to Dayton, and is a native New Yorker. Yes, I know that I've been thrilled on draft day only to see these guys fade like flowers many times in my life. I have a good feeling this pick is going to work out. If last year's pick, RJ Barrett, reaches his potential and Kevin Knox a high draft pick from a couple years ago, can somehow find is game, the Knicks may be on to something here.
Free Agents still don't want to come to the Knicks. The good ones, if they want to play in NY are going to Brooklyn. Gordon Hayward who opted out of his deal with the Celtics, signed with the Hornets on Saturday, and Fred VanVleet, a PG the Knicks were thinking of signing, resigned with the Raptors. I want no part of trading for Russell Westbrook either. He makes too much money and he's on the back 9.
No the Knicks have to build a core from within. That's the only way. I believe they made a big step forward the other night when they drafted Obi Toppin.
RIP Alex Trebek:
He was the host of Jeopardy for 36 years, that is just amazing. Needless to say it's almst impossible to imagine anyone else hosting the show, he WAS that show.
I have to say that I was impressed by the outpouring from so many Jeopardy fans, and also by those who participated. It used to bug me that when someone got an answer wrong, that he would give the correct answer in a way that made it sound like the contesant was asked what was William Howard Taft's middle name. The first episode I ever saw of The View was the morning of the Mets 1999 home opener, and Jo Behar said to Trebek, "I know you don't know all the answers to those questions. You have them in front of you." He was pretty annoyed about that.
But almost all the contestants I heard said he was nothing like that, he was kind of encouraging and was able to put them at ease. If so, that's good to hear. And like I said, anybody who can produce a host a show as successfully as he did for that long a period of time has got to be someone special. Nobody can dispute that. We may never see the likes of him again.
RIP
Speaking of Alex Trebek..
I'LL TAKE COLUMNS I'D LIKE TO HAVE BACK FOR $1,000 ALEX....
Over the summer, I signed up for a Newspapers.com account. I got it for a discount because I subscribed to an on-line newspaper, and I have to say, it is so easy to get lost in a series of old newspapers.
When I first stated at the Post, I helped to put together a special about Pope John Paul II. It was near the end of his life, and I had to transcribe some Post articles that covered the Pope's 1979 visit to NY. I had to type in the 1979 articles of the Post into our processors. The old editions were bound together in large volumes. When I was done with the data entry, I'd read the old sports sections, all the predictions gone wrong from 1979.
The Post isn't on Newspapers.com, but the Daily News is.
I went back to the June 16, 1977 edition of the News, the day after Tom Seaver was traded to the Reds. The story started on the back page, and then continued on the top of another page. On the bottom of the page was the story about the 1977 NHL Draft. The Rangers had two picks that year in the top 15. The selected Lucien DeBlois with the 8th pick and Ron Duguay with the 13th. The Islanders picked 15th. They picked Mike Bossy
DOH! Talk about bad news on the doorstep.
Anyway the other night I was perusing some of Mike Lupica's old Shooting From the Lip Columns. I was in the summer of 1986, August 3 to be exact, and Lupica wrote a column basically destroying Wellington Mara, the owner of the Giants.
The Giants would end up winning the Super Bowl that season, but as Lupica pointed out, the Giants to that point had never won a Super Bowl and before that, hadn't won an NFL Championship since 1956, a 30 year drought. (Which relatively speaking is like last week for my 4 teams-but I digress). And there had been many lean years for Big Blue, including an 18 year playoff layoff.
Part of the problem was that Wellington Mara co-owned the team with his nephew Tim, and the two of them did not get along. It had gotten so bad, that NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle stepped in and mediated the hiring of George Young, who amongst other things, drafted Phil Simms and Lawrence Taylor, and hired Bill Parcells. More importantly, he didn't fire Parcells after he went 3-12-1 in his first season.
Now, when Wellington Mara died in 2005, the Giants had won 2 Super Bowls and played in another. He was considered football royalty here in NY. All the writers including and especially Lupica talked about how classy he was. And he was was all that and then some.
But it wasn't just that Lupica was bashing Wellington Mara in that 1986 column, he was also lavishing praise on someone else you all may have heard of.
It all came to mind this week because Well Mara, noted football man, had tough things to say about not only Daily News writers, but Al Davis and Donald Trump. Of course were you Mara, you would be a bit touchy about the likes of Davis and Trump too. .... Trump has a job, knows how to run a business, and wants to have a pro football team in New York City. -Daily News, August 3, 1986
If you read Jeff Pearlman's book about the USFL, or Sean Devaney's book about New York in the 1980's, you know one thing: Trump's plan to put an NFL team in NYC was basically to get the USFL to move from the spring to the fall, have the USFL fold and then have his team, the Generals merge with the NFL. Then he'd get the city to build him a domed stadium in Queens.
I realize that I may be coming off as unfair to Lupica. A lot of people thought Trump was the bees knees in the 1980's. And again, when your team loses the way the Giants did from 1964-1981, the owner is the easy target.
But I wonder if Lupica would look back a column like that and shake his head. I look back at things I said in my blogs and wish I could take it back. Do sports columnists, even the really great ones, do the same?
He was the last great sportsman. Others have won more than the Giants. Certainly others have made more money. There was never a better owner than this because there was never a better man even in bad times. He honored his team and his league.
That was from Mike Lupica's column, the day after Wellington Mara, or Mr. Mara as Lupica referred to him, passed away in 2005.
Right now, the toast of the town in New York sports is Steve Cohen, the Mets new owner. I'm not gonna lie, I wanted him to buy the Mets, and I believe he could do great things.
I just hope 10 years from now, we're not looking back at old newspaper clips or old blogposts and shaking our heads saying "How could we write that?"
FAST FOOD- Long time to get In and get Out
I've never been to California. In 2007, Tara's cousin got married in El Paso, TX, and if I recall correctly, someone made a run to the local Jack in the Box while we hung out at the hotel pool the day of the wedding. The day after the wedding, Tara and I headed to Arizona with a stop in Silver City, NM. Whilst in AZ, we hit Jack in the Box again. Those were some good burgers.
This came to mind as I heard about what was going on in Colorado on Friday.
Two In N Out Burger joints opened in Colorado this week. The one that opened in Aurora, CO, was reported to have lines up to 2 miles long, and wait times of up to 14 hours.
Not exactly fast food as it were.
I mean 14 hours for a burger? I wouldn't wait 14 hours for a steak at Lugers, how good could this burger be? Like I said those Jack in the Box burgers we had were really good. But I'm not camping out like I'm waiting for Van Halen tickets to get one.
I know this is going to be a tough Thanksgiving for many of us, but please have a safe and happy one.
Stay safe
and Have a Great Week
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