Hey:
We’re just about done with January, so I hope everybody is doing well.
This was going to be an old fashioned version of Weekly Mail. What I mean is, when I first started doing these about 20-25 years ago, I would go down to my basement around 9 PM on a Sunday night and just bang out an e-Mail. The first part was usually a recap of Saturday night, and the rest was my views on sports, politics, etc.
As I got more sophisticated, I would write some stuff and save it as a draft, that way I wasn’t scrambling on Sunday night. Now, I write most of this on Saturday night and do my editing on Sunday.
But I didn’t get to write on Saturday, so after the Rangers loss to the Penguins on Sunday, I started writing about 9:30 PM. But around 10:30 I ran out of gas, hence the delay.
Getting old is such a drag (to paraphrase the Stones)
Anyway....
POLITICS: Our new President
I woke up Wednesday morning knowing that there was going to be a change of command in Washington D.C. I should have been excited, but instead I was apprehensive and angry. Apprehensive because there was such talk of trouble brewing, both in our nation’s capital and in all the state capitals.
Angry because while we always talk about a bloodless transfer of power, we already knew that wasn’t happening. That hope had ended after the terrorist attack on the US Capitol Building on January 6.
And it bothered me that after all the trouble he caused, that now former President Trump was not even going to stick around to welcome his successor.
Turns out, Trump skipping town Wednesday morning was a blessing in disguise. With him not there to screw things up, President Biden’s Inauguration Day turned out to be a very good day.
The Inauguration went off without a hitch. President Biden’s speech was solid, if not one for the history books. Amanda Gorman’s poem will be what everyone remembers from this day (and that’s a good thing).
I could have done without J-Lo’s version of This Land Is Your Land, the first version I ever heard with the lyric “Let’s get loud” in it.
Back to the President’s speech for a minute: I know many of the Trumpsters heard Biden’s call for unity and laughed. “We’ll treat him the way Trump was treated” I heard many folks say or post on social media.
I’ve said it before, I think every new President deserves a shot, and whether you believe me or not, I’ve given every one a fair shot since I started voting back in 1992. I’m not optimistic that Biden’s going to get a fair shot from the GOP. I remember when Nancy Pelosi said that he goal was to make Donald Trump a one term President, so I’m sure that the goal for the other side as well.
I’m hoping that reasonable and patriotic Republicans can see to it to support the new administration even if they don’t agree with some of the decisions that are made. I hope Biden can use the connections he has made over the years to get things done that will benefit all of us.
I just fear that it’s the people who either supported or made excuses for the attack on January 6 that are going to be the ones trying to control the message. And that can’t happen. America still has a policy of not negotiating with terrorists.
And BTW- It was actually Mitch McConnell who said his job was to make Barack Obama a one term President, not Nancy Pelosi and Donald Trump.
BASEBALL: Bad Week for the Mets:
One of the other reasons I woke up Wednesday morning not as giddy as I might have been, was that I went to bed Monday night to the news that the Mets brand new GM had sexually harassed a female reporter back in 2016. He was fired the next morning.
Then I went to bed Tuesday night right after hearing that George Springer was signing with the Blue Jays instead of the Mets. And I couldn’t help but think that the two stories were related. They weren’t, but lets take them one at a time.
Mets owner Steve Cohen totally did the right thing getting rid of Jared Porter. He said there would be a zero tolerance policy regarding that type of behavior and there shouldn't be.
And not to make light of this, but I just want to say that I have done some stupid things in the name of trying to find Mrs. Right. But the thought of stuffing a camera down my undershorts, taking some pictures and sending them out never even crossed my mind. (We didn’t have smartphones or even digital cameras back then, so it would have been one of those Kodak disposables) I have also never met a woman who said “You know I was on the fence about this guy, till he sent me a picture of his unmentionables and that sealed it. Ten years, two kids, and still going strong!”
Let this be a PSA from WM to all you guys out there. Nothing good comes out of taking dicpics. Forget the fact that it will ruin your career and rightfully so, just don’t do it because it’s gross and offensive and nobody, man or woman wants to see that.
Now as far as it goes with George Springer, the day may come when I can convince myself that not signing him to a long term deal was the right move. That he might be good for the first couple years, but that you’ll eventually be paying $30 million to a guy who can no longer play CF and whose not hitting nearly enough to justify that money. I can convince myself that we can use what we would have paid Springer to resign Michael Conforto and newly acquired Francisco Lindor to long term extensions. I can convince myself that we needed upgrades to our catching (and we signed James MCann) lineup (and we traded for Lindor) and starting rotation (and acquired a pitcher in the Lindor deal) Eventually I will probably feel all of that.
But for now it bugs me that we are still getting outbid by the likes of the Blue Jays, Nationals (they just signed reliever Brad Hand) and whoever ends up with Trevor Bauer. I thought that the idea of having a bazillionaire owner was that we could sign an elite player or two.
I mean as psyched as I am to get Lindor and Carlos Carrasco, we had to give up a couple of good young players to get them. I’m sure Lindor will be a great player for the Mets, and if the guys in Cleveland have nice carriers like I think they will, then maybe it will be one of those deals that everybody wins. I’d just would have liked to hold on to our young players.
Again, I know the old adage “The best deals are the ones you don’t make.” The best free agent deals, many more times than not, are the one’s you don’t make.” I just don’t like the feeling like I had with the Wilpons, and that’s how I was feeling with the Mets this week.
FOOTBALL: Jets new coach
On Thursday, the Jets came to terms with 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh to be their next head coach. I have to admit, I was a bit surprised how well received this hire was, even before his introductory press conference.
The guy I wanted was Chiefs Offensive Coordinator Eric Bienemy. And the fact that he hasn’t landed a job yet, has once again began the rumblings that African-American candidates are getting screwed. I don’t know if this is the case, and I sure as hell hope it isn’t. The Jets have had two African-American head coaches, the Hermanator himself, Herm Edwards, who I loved, and Todd Bowels, who I didn’t (but is now headed to the Super Bowl-more on that in a minute)
As I said, I would have loved for the Jets to give Bienemy a shot, I think he will be a very good NFL head coach.
And I’ve learned not to get too excited about Jet coaching hires. I flat out predicted that Adam Gase would be a disaster, (which doesn’t exactly make me unique I admit) but since Bill Parcells left, none of these coaches have been anything to write home about.
From what I’ve seen and heard Saleh seems to be a good hire. He wants to be involved with both the offense and the defense, I have yet to hear a player say anything negative about him and plenty who think he’s the bees knees. He said all the right things, for what that’s worth.
Maybe this is the guy who will finally end the Super Bowl drought, or at the very least get the team back into playoff contention. I’m glad the media and many of the fans are excited about him. I’ll take a wait and see approach on this one. I’ve been burned too many times in the past to fall for that old trick again.
And in any event, this is turning out to be just another crap football season anyway. Forget that my team went 2-14 and still couldn’t secure the number 1 pick in the draft. The playoffs have been a disaster. I’ve been watching more football because I went almost 4 months with no live sports, but it’s the same old shit.
Tom Brady is once again heading back to the Super Bowl. I suppose part of me is happy that the question has finally been answered, Was Brady a great QB because of Bill Belichick? Or was Belichick a great coach because of Tom Brady. Turns out the mistake wasn’t letting Belichick walk, it was not drafting Brady with one of the picks we got.
Still I can’t root for Brady, and yeah, it’s out of pure jealousy. Shoot, last week after Tampa beat the Saints, a video went viral of Brady tossing a football to one of Drew Brees kids. I mean if Timmy wanted to catch a ball from Tom Brady, that’s one thing, I’m not an NFL QB, but when Brees kids would rather go play catch with Brady than their own future hall of famer father, I mean that just hurts.
And the worst part is, it didn’t have to be this way.Green Bay with a little more common sense, could have won that game, or at the very least, sent it to OT.
Twice, on the Packers last possession, when they had goal to go yardage, Aaron Rodgers had ample room to run the ball in for TD. Instead he threw two awful passes, one of which was nearly picked off.
Then Packers coach Matt LaFleur decides to kick a meaningless field goal with his team down by 8. All that did was give the ball back to the greatest 2 minute QB in NFL history. With 2 minutes left in the game!
If the argument is “well what if we didn’t get the TD on 4th down, then we’d still be giving the ball back to Brady AND we’d be down by 8.”
Sure, but first you have the Bucs pinned down at the 10. Plus at that point 8 points or 5 points is the same difference (unless you got a bet with Fan Duel or something) in that you still need a TD.
And that’s assuming that the Pack gets stuffed on 4th down. They may not have, we are talking about Aaron Rodgers here, probably the MVP this year.
It was just a horribly coached, horribly executed, and for good measure, horribly officiated game.
This will be Brady’s 10th Super Bowl. I’m no math major, but that means Brady has been in almost 20% of all Super Bowls. That’s just not fair.
Speaking of not fair.....
LOTTERY: Another Scam
Last week both of our Multi-State lotteries, the Mega Millions and Powerball, both had huge jackpots. Powerball was $731 million, and Mega Millions was over $1 billion.
In both cases, each jackpot was won by a single ticket.
And if you look back at the history of these huge semi national lotteries, they are almost always won by a single player.
You have millions of people playing the lottery and the winning number is just one person. That’s not a coincidence.
These numbers aren’t picked at random, no way. This has to be a computer that sees all the numbers generated and finds the one that nobody has, and so on and so forth, until they chose the only number held by one or two players.
But they don’t tell you that. They say Oh, it’s totally random.
Bullshit! It happens too often to be random. Someone or something is manipulating these lotteries.
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I would be remiss in my rantings if I didn’t mention the passings of Henry Aaron and Larry King.
Larry King apparently wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. One of my FB friends wrote a beautiful post about how King had treated him kindly at a function they both attended. Another friend right below it wrote about what a lousy interviewer he was.
He may not have been Mike Wallace, but King had to have done something right because he interviewed everybody. You had a movie coming out, you went on Larry King. An album? You went on Larry King. Running for President? Same deal.
And it wasn’t only people who were plugging stuff either. Oprah Winfrey had her own show, but she came on. I even saw the Dali Lama himself on one of the retrospectives. I thought that was pretty cool.
He definitely falls into the legends category, that’s for sure.
Many years ago, I read a feature article in Sports Illustrated about Hank Aaron and how he still had all the hate Mail he had gotten during the final days of his chase of Babe Ruth’s all time record.
I couldn’t understand why he would want to hold on to that.
But now that I’m older, I often catch myself thinking about my younger days and convincing myself that they were always good. Some of the bad memories tend to fade away.
Hank Aaron never wanted to forget what he had to go through to get that record. As proud as he was to hold the home run record, he knew that was only part of the story. He wasn’t just facing pitchers trying to get him out, he was facing racism and death threats. Lesser men may have wilted under that pressure, Aaron persevered through it.
He’s still the all time HR king from where I’m sitting. He hit his 755 without any PED’s. They are also talking about changing Atlanta’s team name from Braves to Hammers. I think that’s a great idea.
RIP to both legends.
Everyone take care.
Stay safe, wear a mask
and Have a Great Week
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