Hey Everyone:
I hope all of you had a Happy Easter/Passover. We didn't publish last week because of Easter, so we have two weeks worth of stuff to catch up on.
OPENING DAY IN QUEENS AND THE SEAVER STATUE.
The 1998 New York Yankees are remembered for having the most dominant year if not ever, at least in the last half century. They won 114 regular season games and 125 games overall en-route to another World Championship.
But that amazing season had gotten off to a not so amazing start. The team opened on the road and lost their first three games. They managed to win 3 of the next four, but still came back to the Bronx with a 3-4 record.
While George Steinbrenner was giving out to Joe Torre for the less than stellar start, the Boss was catching flak himself from then Cardinal O'Connor, who was upset the the Yanks were staging Opening Day at the Stadium on Good Friday.
Because of the lockout screwing around with the MLB Schedule, the Mets found themselves in the same predicament as the 1998 Bronx Bombers. And not only that, they had also chosen that day to unveil their Tom Seaver statue.
Thankfully I haven't read anywhere that Cardinal Dolan, (or I guess technically because it's Queens, Bishop Brennan) raising any sort of stink about Opening Day landing on Good Friday. If it makes the church higher-ups feel any better, I made sure Tim and I didn't have any meat, i.e no Hot Dogs) instead I went to my local pub and picked us up two giant Bavarian Pretzels to nosh on while we watched the Mets beat Arizona. I know I was supposed to be fasting, but like the great Washington Post baseball columnist Tom Boswell once wrote, Time Begins on Opening Day.
As for the Seaver Statue, well for a team that gets so much wrong, they got this one right on the money. The ceremony itself was a classic. Steve Cohen, Mike Piazza and Seaver's wife and daughters paying tribute to him on a perfect (if windy) sun splashed morning And they captured the essence of the pitcher, in his classic drop and drive pitching motion. I can't wait to get to the ballpark and see it for myself.
OBITUARIES
Gilbert Gottfried- When I found out he died on Wednesday, I told one of my co-workers, who said she had never heard of him. I went to YouTube and found one of his stand-up routines.
Look, I've heard a lot of raunch in my lifetime and it takes a lot to make me go, Holy $h-t when it comes to stand up comedy. But you want to talk about not suitable for work! If I even repeat it here, I'm afraid I'll not only get fired from the jobs I have now, my old bosses would re-hire me just so they could fire me for playing it. Just really lowbrow.
So I found the clip from Beverly Hills Cop II, where he played crooked accountant Sidney Bernstein. For a few years there, whenever Karl, Ray or myself saw something that we thought was a tad expensive, we'd yell "Ouch! Let go of my arm!" But that whole scene is hysterical.
Of course with a voice like that, Gottfried could pretty much stretch across genres, so many people will remember him for his voice over work in various kids cartoons and movies. Digit from Cyberchase, Barn Buddy from Back in the Barnyard, and of course from Aladdin, Iago.
I had no idea he was sick, so his death was a very sad surprise.
Many years ago, there was an afternoon show on the old WPLJ called the Rocky Allen Showgram, and Allen and his sidekick Blain Ensley had Gottfried on as that afternoon's guest. That happened to be the day that Les Aspin, Defense Secretary under President Clinton died suddenly from as massive stroke. As soon as the guys finished reading the news bulletin, Gottfried said in that crazy voice of his "You know what was the last thing he said before he died?" (Again this was just minutes after they announced the poor man's passing) "He said, Take 2 Aspin and call me in the morning"
How fast you think he would have been blackballed if he pulled that on a radio show today?
Gottfried was 67 and had a rare genetic heart condition.
Mike Bossy-Oh, how the Islanders tortured me when I was in grammar school.
4 straight Stanley Cup Championships and very nearly a 5th. In that 5 year run, the Islanders sent my Rangers home for the summer 4 times. It still stings 40 years later.
Obviously I couldn't stand Denis Potvin, we still chant his name at the Garden 43 years after the fact. Billy Smith? The dirtiest player with a stick maybe in the history of the league. Would I love him if he was on my team? Sure. But he wasn't on my team, he was on their team...THAT team.
Bryan Trottier? I don't know what makes me hate him more, how he killed us every year (and also played dirty with his stick) or his absolute failure as Rangers coach in 2002-03. Never even made it through 1 season behind our bench.
No, I couldn't stand any of them.
Except Mike Bossy.
He was impossible to dislike. Even for a Ranger fan like me. He was just a privilege to watch.
I submit that he is right up there when you talk about New York's most underrated athletes. Look at the NHL record book. If it weren't for a gentleman named Gretzky, Bossy would have a bunch more records. He was the second player in NHL History to score 50 goals in 50 games. He had 39 career hat tricks, scored 53 goals his rookie year, scored 60 or more goals in one season 5 times, and only once in his career did he not tally 50 goals, his last year, as his back was giving out, he still managed to score 39 goals. Incredible. In contrast my man Chris Krieder just scored his 50th goal of the season for my Rangers. In the almost 100 years the Rangers have existed, you wanna know how many of their players score 50 in a season?
4, including Krieder (Vic Hadfield, Adam Graves and Jaramir Jagr are the other 3).
I may have told this story before, but I was reading an old edition of the NY Daily News from June 16, 1977, the day after Tom Seaver was traded to the Reds. under the fold of where the backpage story was continued, there was a recap of the 1977 NHL draft. The Rangers had two picks in the top 15. They chose Lucien Deblois with the 8th pick and Sarah Palin's boyfriend Ron Duguay with the 13th pick.
Deblois was pretty much a bust, and Doogs, well you know how I felt about him. But guess who the Islanders grabbed with the 15th pick? I mean how can one page of a newspaper contain so much bad news?? The only thing you can say about the Rangers scouting department in 1977 was that 12 other teams also passed on Mike Bossy. To me that was worse than Kenny O'Brien over Dan Marino.
Bossy was 65 and lost a long battle with cancer.
Guy Lafleur- Another great French Canadian hockey star, also dead way too young from cancer at age 70. I didn't get to see him in his heyday. He retired from the Canadiens in 1984. Five years later, he came out of retirement to play for the Rangers. If you want to know the myriad of reasons my Blueshirts went 54 years without a Stanley Cup, here's a good one for ya.. we signed Guy Lafleur at age 38 after he had been retired for 5 years. The Canadiens signed him in 1969 at age 18 and went on to win 5 Stanley Cups with him, including 4 in a row right before the Islander dynasty of the early 80's.
But in all fairness to the Flower, he did score 17 goals for us in 1988-89, including two in a game against the Habs at the old Montreal Forum. They showed that game on Channel 9 and you could hear how loud it got when he scored. That he was as effective as he was after that long a layoff and at that advance (for hockey) age is a testament to just how talented he was.
RIP to All.
FALSE ALARM:
I was watching ABC's World News Tonight on Wednesday, when anchorman David Muir said they had breaking news that the Capitol was being evacuated because they were tracking an aircraft that poses a probable threat to the Capitol Complex."
Then they went to a commercial.
So let's start there... evacuating the US Capitol because something may be flying towards it, is not the kind of story you sit on while you show a bunch of commercials. Especially when earlier in the broadcast, they ran a story about new missiles that Russia was developing that could carry nuclear warheads.
Turns out the Washington Nationals were having an army parachuting exhibition before the Nats game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. There was a "communication breakdown", between the FAA and the Capitol police and the complex was evacuated because of that term we've all come to know and love "an abundance of caution."
Obviously I'm glad no one was hurt, frustrated that 20 years post 9/11 we still haven't straightened out these types of communication issues, and for the life of me, I can't understand how a network can justify going to a commercial with a story like that.
Saturday was an ugly day for sports here in NY. Both the Rangers and Mets, who have otherwise been playing great the past two weeks, dropped clunkers
Then there was some real ugliness at Yankee Stadium.
In the 9th inning of the Yanks game against the Cleveland Guardians, Isiah Kiner-Falefa hit a game tying double that Guardians outfielder Steven Kwan crashed into the wall trying to catch. Apparently, someone in the stands was “celebrating” the injury, which caused the other two outfielders, Oscar Mercado and Myles Straw, to go back verbally at the fan, Straw going so far as to climb the outfield fence.
When play resumed, Gleyber Torres drove in the game winning run, and the fans in the bleachers responded by tossing beer bottles and other trash at the Guardians. Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, amongst others went out to plead with the fans to stop. Just an ugly scene.
There is no set of circumstances in which fans should throw objects at players. I was at Shea Stadium for a couple of games that loudmouth a$$hole John Rocker pitched in. I yelled and screamed and called him every name in the book, but never even considered throwing anything at him. Never mind that you could end up hitting a fellow fan, it’s just unacceptable behavior. And believe me, there were Met fans who did throw $h-t at him. One bottle that made it to the field actually wizzed between me and my sister. It could have easily smacked us in the head.
Having said that, the players can’t be going after the fans either. Yes, celebrating injuries is a classless, punk-ass move, but the players have to ignore that. I’m not saying it’s easy, but its necessary. By confronting the fan, you are legitimizing him or her, making them more important than they really are. Both Guardians players were out of line, especially Straw. I always say, any idiot that runs on the field or the court deserves what they get, whether it means getting hauled off to jail or getting leveled by a strong, powerful athlete or both. I hate to say it, but players going into the stands run the risk of getting clobbered. Straw didn’t actually go into the stands, but even climbing the fence was out of line.
And to be clear, I’m not just picking on the Yankee fans here, there have been several incidents with the Mets over the years, namely during the 1973 NLCS where fans were pelting Pete Rose with garbage, leading manager Yogi Berra and players Willie Mays and Tom Seaver amongst others had to go out and plead with the fans to stop, lest the Mets lose by forfeit.
And in 1979, the Boston Bruins, led by future Islander GM Mike Milbury, went into the stands at MSG to confront Ranger fans who had been tossing crap on the ice at them.
Unacceptable then. Unacceptable now.
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Anytime New York City loses a firefighter in the line of duty, is a sad tragic day for all of us. I didn’t know FF Timothy Klein personally, but I have to admit it hit a little bit harder when I saw he grew up in Belle Harbor. Some of the most amazing people I’ve been lucky enough to know are firefighters who grew up in or moved to Rockaway. I just pray that his family can find some peace. And that our cops, firefighters and all other public servants stay safe.
Thank you so much everyone
Stay Safe
and Have a Great Week
