Hi Everybody:
First and foremost, I hope all the moms out there had a happy and relaxed Mother’s Day. As President Biden said this weekend, “This has been an extraordinarily tough year for Mom’s across the country.” Yes, it’s been hard for everybody, but as usual it’s the Mother’s of the world that have gotten us through it, so I hope that your day was everything you hoped it would be.
And now, onto what’s been going on...
SPACE TRAVEL- Crashing the Party
So who had the Indian Ocean in the “Where will that Chinese Rocket crash land?” Pool?
On Saturday afternoon all the cable news networks were breathlessly reporting about the 100 foot tall 22 ton Chinese Rocket that was hurtling towards earth, and nobody knowing where or when it is going to crash.
The rocket was launched on April 29, and was carrying a large part of a Chinese Space Station. According to the NY Times, the boosters would normally have fallen already and landed safely in the ocean. But because the boosters went all the way into space, there were now making what was being called an "uncontrolled re-entry into earth"
Yikes!
The Times said that the chances of the debris hitting anyone or anything are "slight, but not zero"
And I would normally have bought that explanation.. Except, what have I constantly preached on this blog for the past 5.5 years......if it can happen, it will.
So on Saturday night/early Sunday morning, reports came in that it landed in the Indian Ocean near the Maldives. I figured with my luck it would crash in Times Square around midnight, as I was making my way down to Penn Station.
And of all the ways to go, If I happen to go because a Chinese Rocket fell on me, well, that will make for some good stories at my wake.
Now if this happened 40 years ago, I'd be freaking out. Because that was the time in my life where I was convinced I was going to die like Thurman Munson died. Or should I say how I thought he died.
The only thing I knew about Munson's death was what the headline in the next day's Daily News read Air Crash Kills Yanks Munson. One of my friends in Rockaway told me that the engine fell off the plane and that's why it crashed. For a couple of years I thought a commercial airliner had crashed into his house and killed him.
Where I grew up in Woodside, especially on rainy days, it looked like planes were going to crash right into the Big 6 apartment complex. Of course that was an optical illusion, but it didn't help my anxiety.
I only found out a couple years later that, Munson was flying his own private plane. A few years after that I read the other two people in the plane with him survived, and just a couple years ago, I read that Munson himself had survived the initial crash, but actually died because they couldn't get him out before the plane went up in flames.
Good thing I got over that too, because where I went to high school was literally blocks away from LaGuardia Airport. I could practically wave to the pilot while I was running laps of the track.
Anyway back to the rocket. . Now that this thing landed harmlessly, maybe we could use it as a sign things might be finally turning around for us this century. Let’s hope so.
HOCKEY: Heads Bounce and Roll at MSG.
So last week I lamented about how the Rangers lack of grit cost them in their games against the hated Islanders this year.
The ink was barely dry on my copy Monday when a dirtbag on the Washington Capitals named Tom Wilson body slammed Artemi Panarin and punched Pavel Buchnevich in the head, then took off his jersey and flexed in the penalty box. For that, he received a mere 10 minute misconduct and was fined $5000 by the NHL. The head of the NHL Department of player safety, George Parros did not feel that rag-dolling a defenseless player or punching a vulnerable player in the head warranted a suspension.
So the Ranger organization released a statement calling Parros "unfit to continue in his current role" and accused him of being derelict in his duty. I consider both of these statements to be accurate.
But of course the NHL had to cover their a$$es, so the Rangers were hit with a quarter-million dollar fine. Potentially ending a player's career costs less than criticizing an official who screwed up royally.
Then things really got weird.
On Wednesday afternoon, I got an alert that I thought said that Rangers GM Jeff Gorton was fired by team President John Davidson, which was surprising enough, but I read the alert wrong. Both Gorton and Davidson were fired by Garden CEO James Dolan.
Gorton's been the GM since 2016, and JD's been the team president since May 2019.
Dolan might just be my least favorite person on earth. A paper-thin skinned bully in the mold of Donald Trump, Dolan has overseen 20 years of lousy basketball courtesy of the Knicks. In spite of his gross mismanagement, the Knicks look like they may be finally turning it around.
The Rangers for the most part he has left alone. Glen Sather has been with the Rangers in some form or another since 2000,(his title now is alternate governor) and I don't know how he has managed to do it, but he has had Dolan's trust for that entire time. Now in fairness to Sather, he did build the team that went to the Finals in 2014 and also went to 3 Conference Finals in 4 years. But to survive in this town that long without winning a championship is unheard of.
But now Dolan has decided that 2 years is long enough for a team president and 5 years for his GM. He has given both jobs to former Ranger Chris Drury.
The rumor going around was that neither Davidson or Gorton thought the statement the Rangers put out against Parros was a good idea, and that Dolan canned them over that.
Dolan in an exclusive interview with Larry Brooks of the Post, denied that. Instead he said the following
I saw a weakness in the team that was not being addressed and I knew it needed to be,” . “I knew that we were missing a key component to us being a Stanley Cup contender.
“And that is the overall spirit and culture that goes with being a team. I believe that as good of a job as JD and Jeff have done, in speaking with them, it is clear to me that Chris Drury was going to be the right guy to lead the team forward.”
Honestly, we have enough talent now to compete for a Stanley Cup,” he said. “I’m sure we can always do better and add more, and I will tell you that both JD and Jeff did a good job of putting talent into this organization, and we also got lucky along the way too [with lottery victories the last two years].
“But other owners, other general managers have been telling me for a year that they can’t believe how stocked we are with talent, but talent alone doesn’t do it. We’re missing this piece and we need it. And when I looked at our organization, I felt that we need to change the whole organization and change the culture.”
Let's get one thing clear here.. There was no way in hell this team was ready to compete for a Stanley Cup. Do they have some championship caliber players here? Absolutely, but not nearly enough. And if the issue was/is as I've been saying that the team needs more toughness, then why not give JD and Gorton a chance to acquire that toughness? Players that Bill Parcells used to refer to as “lunch-pail guys” Since even Dolan acknowledges that JD and Gordon were good at acquiring talent?
And then there was this from Dolan's talk with the Post...
“I started thinking about it 20 or 25 games ago at a time when the team really needed to show heart and we had key games — I won’t be specific — where we had to show up and had to come out strong, and even if we lost, it had to be our best effort,” Dolan said. “And we clearly had nowhere close to our best effort.”
OK fair enough, but what does that have to do with the team president? To me if that's your issue, that the team didn't give it their all, isn't that on the coach?
Because the one guy who kept his job throughout this whole mess is the head coach David Quinn.*
Quinn and Drury are both Boston College grads and Quinn was hired on a strong recommendation from Drury, so there's a good chance he stays. I'm not sure how I feel about this, my first instinct is that JD and Gorton should have stayed and Quinn maybe sent packing.
Now I'll be the first to admit I was extremely disappointed last summer at the Rangers performance in the playoff bubble. And that carried over to the regular season. But I also understood the team was in the final stages of rebuilding, that even as Dolan readily admitted, there was a strong stockpile of young talent. I think they deserved a chance to correct the issue of grit in the off-season.
This was a tough week to be a Rangers fan. It reminded me of how things were in the bad old days. I hope Chris Drury can put the finishing touches on this team and make it a legit contender.
I hope he gets the chance.
BASEBALL: A Rodent's Tale:
During the 7th inning of Mets-D'Backs on Friday night, a ground ball hit between Met SS Francisco Lindor and 2B Jeff McNeil ended up being an infield single. There seemed to be a communication mixup between the two infielders.
Between innings, the SNY cameras caught several Mets running down to the tunnel between the dugout and the clubhouse. The speculation was that Lindor and McNeil were arguing or even throwing hands over the play in top of the 7th.
Lindor's explanation was that he and McNeil spotted a creature in the tunnel leading from the clubhouse to the dugout and were debating whether it was a rat or a raccoon...
First of all, if I was showering and dressing that close to anywhere there might be either a rat or a raccoon, that would freak me out. But that’s not even the point. Were they arguing over that, or were they accusing each other of sloppy fielding? To me that’s important, because even though Lindor hasn’t been hitting, he has been an excellent fielder and a vocal leader in the infield. Not the type of guy who would pick a fight with a fellow infielder.
Of course NcNeil (nicknamed “the squirrel” to make this even more disgusting) is a wear your heart on your sleeve type of player, and maybe he was the one who flew off the handle. I don’t know what the hell happened down there, but I’m not buying what the Mets are selling.
Here's the deal; if they keep winning this will be a funny footnote, like Bobby V putting on the glasses and fake mustache. If they lose? It will be an example of dysfunction.
And speaking of Bobby V...
POLITICS- V is for Victory?
The aforementioned former Met manager Bobby Valentine announced last week that he was tossing his Groucho Marx mask into the ring to run as mayor of Stamford, CT.
I have the perfect slogan for Bobby V’s “If I can get an outfield of Benny Agbayani, Jay Payton and Timo Perez to the World Series, imagine what I can do for Stamford” OK, it’s a mouthful, but it works doesn’t it?
V says he’s running as an Independent, but keep this in mind: even after he was fired as manager by the Texas Rangers and their owner at the time, one George W. Bush, he and W remained close. I’d be surprised if he didn’t at least lean to the right.
But that’s just speculation on my part. What I can guarantee is that if he pulls this off, (and admittedly I haven’t checked the poll numbers) those mayoral State of the City addresses are going to be must see TV. I loved Booby V as Mets manager, but he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, because he very clearly believed he was the smartest guy in the room. (and a lot of the time he was) If he brings that swagger to Stamford’s City Hall, that should be fun to watch.
Sorry for the delay, I had to do some re-writing on this.
Again, the happiest of Mother’s Day to all.
Stay Safe, Wear a Mask
and Have a Great Week
*Quinn has since been fired. More on that next weekend
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