Hi There:
I don't know about you, but where I am this weekend, it's freakin freezing. It was a balmy 13 degrees when I woke up Saturday morning. I bundled up and went into the city. As long as I kept moving, I was OK. But when that wind whipped, that was no joke man.
I realize it's the middle of January, so I'm not really complaining, this is kind of what a NY winter is all about. The folks who are getting screwed by Mother Nature are the one's down south and in the Midwest.
Folks in Memphis are expected to have 2-4 inches of snow by Sunday afternoon, 6 inches in Nashville. Even Elvis' home town of Tupelo, Mississippi is bracing for some snow, though it's 50-50 according to the National Weather Service.
There’s a coastal flood warning in effect now until Monday morning. If this was snow coming down instead of rain, we probably be digging out to the next three weeks.
Ugh!
Onto the week that was...
ROYAL FAMILY: More Trouble for Andrew
A federal judge in Manhattan denied Prince Andrew's motion to dismiss the lawsuit that was brought against him by a woman who claims Andrew raped her when she was a underage over 20 years ago. Lawyers for Andrew tried to argue that the settlement that the accuser, Virginia Giuffre, reached with the late sleazebag Jeffery Epstein, released him from any liability.
The judge disagreed and allowed Giuffre's lawsuit to proceed. In the meantime, Andrew was stripped of whatever was left of his duties and titles in the British Royal Family. To be honest, I kind of thought that had already happened. Back in early 2021, I remember reading (and reporting) that Andrew had lost his office at Buckingham Palace, and I figured it was only a matter of time that he'd have to move into a Motel 6 in the London outskirts. Now, he can no longer be called His Royal Highness and in a statement released by Queen Elizabeth's office, he will be defending himself as a "Private Citizen" As the preacher in Blazing Saddles told the new Sherriff Bart. Son, you're on your own
I haven't written much about this whole sordid mess because quite frankly, it's nauseating. Epstein and his lover/partner in crime Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted here a couple of weeks ago, just give me the creeps.
And Andrew, I mean, is he not the oldest 61 year old man you've ever seen? Look at the pictures of him from 20 or 30 years ago. I wouldn't call anyone in that family good looking, but at least he kind of looked like a Prince. It's unreal how much he's aged. Now, if you saw him sitting at the end of a bar with a pint of Guinness in front of him, you wouldn't give him a second look, (though if he keeps losing titles, he's going to be drinking Midnight Dragon on a park bench soon.)
And if Giuffre wins this case, I don't know where he's going to get the money to pay her. I guess that all remains to be seen. If he did what they are saying he did, he really belongs in jail.
BASEBALL: Mets to retire Number 17
At WM's editorial meeting on Friday night, we discussed our thoughts on the Mets decision to retire number 17 in honor of Keith Hernandez. And while I agreed with my co-editors that it was the right call, I do understand some of the, well, I don't want to call it pushback, but....
I really believe that retiring a number can't be taken lightly. You are talking about never being able to give that number to another player. The Yankees right now cannot issue a single digit uniform to anybody else. 1 through 10 are all retired. Jeter, Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Berra, Dickey, Maris. I don't think anyone can argue those numbers 2,3,4,5,7,8 (twice) and 9. shouldn't be retired.
But Billy Martin, or Joe Torre or Phil Rizzuto? I don't know, I mean please don't look at this as a disgruntled Met fan woofing on the Yanks. I loved Scooter in the booth, I have always given Torre all the props in the world for managing the Yanks to 4 titles with George Steinbrenner on his case 24-7, and Billy Martin for all his issues, when he was the manager, the Yanks were always in the hunt.
There's a part of me that just feel like we are going to start seeing triple digits on the backs of some of these ball players coming up.
Right now, that's not an issue with the Mets, since Hernandez will only be the 6th number retired (7 if you count Jackie Robinson-whose number is retired from MLB, and rightly so). But the Yanks are going to have to deal with that one of these days. I guess that's what's called a nice problem to have.
Back to Hernandez though.... Let's face it, the Mets don't win in 1986 if not for him. The trade they made to get him in 1983 was one of the first real signs in my eyes that maybe one day I'd get to see some winning baseball at Shea Stadium. I was just 3 years old in 1976, the last time the Mets had finished over .500. I watched the 1982 World Series and saw how awesome Hernandez was for the Cardinals, and thought, "Too bad the Mets don't have anybody like that."
So I'll be watching on TV that night as number 17 goes up with Gil Hodges, Casey Stengel, Tom Seaver, Mike Piazza and Jerry Koosman. I'll be remembering all those amazing plays in the field and the clutch hits he got for us back in the day. And I hope upon hope, that night, that we'll be in a pennant race ourselves.
LAWSUITS: It's in the Cards
This story was reported in Saturday's Post by my friend, the great Kathianne Boniello.
A Manhattan man is suing his mother over two baseball cards he says belongs to him. Both are Topps 1953 edition cards. One of Ralph Kiner and one of Satchel Paige. The plaintiff, Christopher Trencher, is claiming that his mother bought the cards for him as a gift in the 80's, but she never gave them to him. According to the story in the Post, mom and defendant Carol Ivanick, had no idea her son was suing her.
She also claims that the cards were actually a gift to her from him. She says that she considered Paige to be an icon (she's right) and that she keeps the cards safe.
My grandmother, God love her, hated to throw things out, so my dad was able to bring home a whole bunch of baseball cards from 1961. He also had Met yearbooks from 1963 and 1965, and Yankee yearbooks from 1961 and 1962.
My grandmother also had what she called a "junk closet" at the top of her stairs, that me and my sisters were prohibited from entering under penalty of death.* I of course had somehow convinced myself that Grandma had a 1962 Met yearbook in there. My dad told me hundreds of times that it had accidentally gotten tossed out, but my brain wouldn't allow me to consider that possibility. If someone lit an M-80 right on Grandma's front porch, she wouldn't have heard that go off, but heaven forbid I opened the door to that junk closet, she could hear that from a mile away.
Look, there is no one who loves sports memorabilia more than I do, but what kind of a$$hole do you have to be to take your own mother to court? And that goes for just about anything, but for a couple of baseball cards? This just sounds like some loser with too much time on his hands.
NFL PLAYOFFS:
The annual battle I have with myself to not get too much into the NFL Playoffs have been mixed so far.
I watched the Raiders-Bengals game to kick off Wild Card weekend, as they are two teams that haven’t been in the playoffs in a while. Indeed the last time the Bengals won a playoff game, WFAN’s morning co-host was their QB.
The announcers were talking about how much trouble the Raiders have in the Red Zone, and I usually chalk that up to a bunch of hooey. But sure as hell, the Raiders were in the red zone a bunch of times and settled for field goals.
Alas, they had one more shot to tie it up, when they got the ball back with time on the clock and down by a touchdown. Derek Carr the Raiders QB, marched them down the field in no time, but once they got inside the 20, then the 10, they were a Pop Warner team. Should I credit the Bengals for having a bend don’t break defense? Or are the Raiders just a bunch of chokers? We here at WM will opt for the latter.
I watched the Rangers beat the Flyers, then flipped over to see the end of the Knicks beating the Hawks before I tuned into he end of the Patriots-Bills game in Buffalo. It was 5 degrees at game time with a well below zero wind chill. On a January night in Buffalo…go figure.
I picked the Pats in this one because I saw how the Bills had played against my Jets last week and figured they were ripe for the picking. Well, this is why I haven’t made a fortune in the football picks department, because by the time I tuned in, it was already 37-3 in favor of Buffalo. I always enjoy watching Bill Belichick get his a$$ handed to him, as rare an occurrence as that is. At least I don’t have to worry about a Bucs-Pats Super Bowl now. Though Tampa won bigly today, a game I did not watch.
I did watch the Nickelodeon game, Niners-Cowboys in Dallas, which really, if it wasn’t for all the bells and whistles, and the Noah Eagle, Nate Burleson, and All That star Gabrielle Naveh Green broadcast team, would have been an utter waste of three hours. Both teams played sloppy, uninspired, football, and the officiating was as usual brutal. As we go to press tonight, the Steelers are playing the Chiefs, and I’m watching an old episode of The Fall Guy.
All right, that’s all we got this week.
Stay Safe
and Have a Great Week
*Actually it was more like penalty of no Ice Cream or Chocolate Pudding (which she called puddin), which I pretty much equated to a death sentence. God I loved my chocolate puddin.
No comments:
Post a Comment