Weekly Mail June 19, 2022

 

The late great Ralph Kiner

Hey Everyone:

First to all my fellow dad's out there, a very Happy Father's Day. 

This week I went for my first colonoscopy. I'm only bringing this up because I'm thinking Father's Day is a good time to urge all my friends who read this, especially the guys I went to school with (specifically grammar and high school) if they haven't already to please consider having this done. We are closing in fast on 50, and the CDC recommends getting your baseline colonoscopy between ages 45-50. 

I've mentioned before that I've lost two long time friends to colon cancer and another very long time friend, who thanks to early detection and fast action, was able to survive it. I was thinking that this weekend last year I had my 30 year high school reunion at the Wharf. I want to make sure I get to see all those guys (and more) again when we celebrate our next one (whenever that might be). 

It's not an easy test, well let me rephrase that... the test itself is a snap. It's not an easy prep. Breakfast the day before, then nothing solid after 12 noon. Then you are sprinting to the can every 20 minutes or so. By the time you get to the testing site, you are tired and starving. But then they put you out and the next thing you know they are waking you up and telling you the test is over. They gave me some graham crackers that I wolfed down like Cookie Monster. 

My report came back all good too. Then I really felt like I accomplished something. 

I also know that women gets colonoscopies too, and by all means ladies, I encourage you as well. But I'm targeting the dudes here this weekend.  Please take care of yourselves 

From there we move on....

HOCKEY: The End of the 2021-22 Rangers.

October 6, 1985 was the last day of baseball's regular season. 

That year the Mets (and for the record the Yankees) were alive all the way to the second to last day of the season. Back then, there were no wild cards, you either won the division or you went home. The Mets had won 4 out of 6 games against the first place St. Louis Cardinals in September, but they ended up losing the division by 3 games. 

That Sunday afternoon, I watched the Mets play that last game of the season against the Montreal Expos and it was one of the few times that sports moved me to tears. I was so upset that I had gone on this ride with this team for 6 months, and now it was over. I was sad, but I wasn't angry, at least not at the Mets. I was proud of the fight they had put up. 

Fast forward 6 months later, April, 1986. The Rangers on the second to last game of the season, squeaked into the playoffs. This wasn't a huge accomplishment, back then there were 21 teams in the NHL and 16 of them made the playoffs. The Rangers record that year was 36-38-6. The textbook definition of mediocre. 

Their opponents in the first round of the playoffs were the defending conference champions Philadelphia Flyers, who had finished 32 points ahead of the Blueshirts, and were expected to make quick work of us in the best of 5 series. Lo and behold, the Rangers won the first game at the Spectrum 6-2. After losing Game Two 2-1, (the Rangers were outshot 44-12, and lost by one goal) they beat the Flyers at the Garden 5-2. I was at that game with my father, and I had never been anyplace so loud in my life. The Rangers ended up winning the series in 5 games, having to go back to the Spectrum to complete the upset, again 5-2.*

The Rangers pulled off another upset in the second round, taking out the heavily favored Capitals 4 games to 2. They were onto the conference finals against the Montreal Canadiens and their rookie goalie. Some dude none of us had ever heard of named Patrick Roy. 

We lost that series in 5 games. Game 5 at the Montreal Forum was on a Friday night. The next day, I had an 8 AM baseball game at Juniper Park on my Ivan Cohill coached 7th grade baseball team.  A couple of the guys on the team were giving me shit about the Rangers getting booted from the playoffs the night before. Remember, this was 1986, two years removed from the end of the Islander dynasty, and there were more Islander fans/ non-hockey fans than Ranger fans around my parts. 

Two guys who were fellow Ranger fans on my baseball team were twin brothers John and David Robinson, at the time two of my closest friends (along with Ray and Karl). John quickly spoke up "The Rangers have NOTHING to be ashamed of. Who thought they would get to the semifinals?" 

I agreed with him. I was again, sad, but proud. They were supposed to get swept by the Flyers and instead they lost to he eventual Stanley Cup Champs and a goalie who would go on to be arguably one of the best of all time. 

All these years later, I have tried to recapture that feeling. Let's face it, these Rangers of 21-22 weren't expected to get past the second round. The Tampa Bay Lightning are the two time defending champions and just laid to waste the Presidents Trophy winning Florida Panthers in a sweep. They have probably the league's top goalie (though our goalie is fast approaching that title) three lines who can score and an all-star corp. of defensemen. If I'm being honest, I didn't really like our chances that much heading into Game 1 of the ECF. 

And with all that, it's a week later and I'm still pissed off. I still can't believe they're home and the Lightning are playing for another Cup. I was freaking useless last Sunday. 

I realize that part of this is that you are never going to be as innocent as you were when you were 12 years old. You get to a certain point when you see these players as a bunch of guys getting paid handsomely to deliver, and when they don't it's aggravating. Also when you are younger, you feel like you'll get to see at least a few of your teams win championships sometime in your lifetime.  At 48 going on 49. and with only two of my teams having won in my lifetime, the chances of seeing another one are getting smaller and smaller. 

  I've cooled off some and I am starting to appreciate just what was accomplished this season, and in these playoffs. But there are three things are still sticking in my craw, and I believe will continue to do so well into the off-season..

1) They won the first two games fairly decisively. 6-2 in Game 1 at the Garden and 3-2 in Game 2 at MSG. 3-2 was close, but they held the play for most of the game. Then they went to Tampa for Game 3 and were up 2-0 early before the wheels came off. I can't help but feel that had they been able to score one more goal that day, they could have taken a commanding 3-0 lead. Of course, they could have taken a commanding 3-0 lead and still lost 4 in a row, which would have made them the answer to an unflattering trivia question and we are having a whole other discussion. I've tried to comfort myself by saying at least THAT didn't happen. It's not working. 

2) Losing Game 5 at the Garden..... Losing Game 3 with a 2-0 lead was bad. Losing Game 4 in Tampa was tough to watch but somewhat understandable. Tampa had the momentum, and for the Rangers to win that game would have been a tall order. That was probably the least competitive game they played in the series. But losing Game 5, especially in the matter that they did was really inexcusable. The place was rocking, Igor Shesterkin was lights out, and dammit we had to win on our home ice. Instead they let the Bolts score with less than 2 minutes left, and then allowed them to score an empty net goal. Inexcusable. . Where were our big guns, Krieder? Mika? The Breadman? That's gonna bug me all summer. 

But here's what's really burning my a$$ about all this...

3) As I mentioned previous, I've been listening to NHL Network Radio in lieu of WFAN since the Rangers began this playoff run. And while I believe most of the hosts have been respectful and objective towards the Rangers, there was a sense that these guys really wanted a Lightning-Avalanche Final. Only one guy, afternoon drive host Steve Kouleas, (whom I've taken to adding the word "hole" at the end of his name) openly campaigned for this and on Monday afternoon opened his show by saying "Thankfully we all got the Stanley Cup Final we wanted."  At least the other hosts, Gord Stellick and Scott Loughlin in the morning, James "Boomer" Gordon in the midday, while all saying that an Avs-Bolts final would be great hockey, also said that Shesterkin facing the likes of Nathan McKinnon would be compelling as well. 

I can't help but think that Kouleas-hole was just saying what the NHL was thinking out loud. Now I'm not suggesting any hanky-panky on the league’s part, the Lightning won fair and square, but I get the nagging feeling the powers that be are happy they got this match-up.  

So mature, thoughtful man that I am, I have decided to boycott the Stanley Cup Finals. I hope it's a 4 game sweep and a ratings disaster. The Mets and Yankees both played in the afternoon on Saturday, the only thing on TV Saturday night was Game 2 of the SCF. I ended up watching nothing. 

Of course Game 1 went to overtime and was considered a classic game. We need two more like Game 2, a couple more 7 goal blowouts. That would make me happy. 

POLITICS: The 1/6 Commission Hearings:

I was home on Thursday afternoon, so I got to see most of the proceedings.

Some of the stuff that came out on Thursday was chilling. The fact that it wasn't that surprising made it even more chilling. 

One thing that did surprise me was how close the mob of domestic terrorists were to vice President Mike Pence. At one point they were less than 40 feet away from him. Think about that for a minute. There were people in the Capitol, looking to kill the Vice-President of the United States that were 40 feet away from their target. 

Don't tell me this is being blown out of proportion either. There is sworn testimony that the Proud Boys were looking to kill both Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi, the number 2 and number 3 in the line of succession to the Presidency.  I cannot believe that there are people dismissing this as no big deal. That blows my mind. 

I also heard some people on the left who said something to the effect that "Mike Pence shouldn't be considered a hero just for doing his job."  Well, when they are threatening to kill you for doing your job, that kind of changes things as far as I'm concerned. Some folks are taking Pence to task for trying to see if there was anything he could do to change the outcome of the election. I don't get the feeling he was doing that as much as he wanted his ducks in a row to explain to Trump and his team of idiots that what they were demanding wasn't constitutionally possible. 

And when his guys testified that he refused to leave the Capitol, even though his life was clearly in danger and he had been moved out of his office, that was just unbelievably compelling. Greg Jacob, the Vice President's chief counsel, testified that 

“The vice president did not want to take any chance that the world would see the vice president of the United States fleeing the United States Capitol,” noting that Mr. Pence did not want to give the rioters the satisfaction of disrupting the proceedings more than they had already done. “He was determined that we would complete the work that we had set out to do that day.”

Don't get me wrong, I still think Mike Pence is a bit of a weirdo, and I may not agree with many of his policy positions, but I also don't think he thought he was bigger than the office he held, or bigger than the country he was a heartbeat away from leading. I can't say that about his boss, or many of his other minions. 

I recently saw a list of potential 2024 GOP Presidential Candidates besides Captain Orange. There was Mike Pompeo, Ted Cruz, Nikki Haley, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, Ron DeSantis and Pence. And while I can't see myself voting for any of them, of that list the only ones I would trust to uphold the Constitution of the United States is Pence. And maybe Haley. The others, I'm afraid have done exactly what I feared would happen. They looked at what Trump did and decided that was the way to act. That's their definition of acting Presidential. 

That's f-cking scary man. If you think $5.00 a gallon of gas is scary, how about watching our democracy go down the toilet.  That's what I saw attempted on 1/6.  That's why these hearings need to happen. And punishment doled out. The price of gas will probably go down. We lose our democracy, we're not getting that back. 

PRO WRESTLING-Trouble in the WWE

Vince McMahon announced on Friday he was "stepping back" from his position as CEO of the WWE. He is under investigation by the WWE's board of directors for misconduct. 

According to the Wall Street Journal, the investigation is of a secret $3 million settlement McMahon made with a female paralegal he allegedly had an affair with. The Journal reports that the initial investigation brought to light other payoffs and non-disclosure agreements (NDA's) and that the monies paid out were from McMahon's personal finances. 

If the last part is true, that's probably what will ultimately save McMahon's bacon here.  Cheating on your wife is utterly reprehensible, paying off your mistress even more so. When you use other people's money to make the payments, that's when they send you up the proverbial river. I could be wrong about this, but I'm predicting McMahon will be back in charge sooner than later. 

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The NBA Finals concluded this week with Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors defeating the Boston Celtics in 6 games. This gives the Dubs 4 of the last 8 Larry O'Brien trophies. I'm less happy that the Warriors won than I am relieved that the Celtics lost, as I maintain my position that Boston doesn't need anymore championships. I'm fast approaching feeling the same way about Tampa Bay as well. 

Again, a Happy Father's Day to all who celebrate. And also, a Happy Juneteenth as well. 

Stay Safe 

and Have a Great Week 

*That was April 15, 1986, the same night President Reagan bombed the crap out of Libya

Weekly Mail June 5, 2022

                                  Alexis Lafreniere

 Hey Everybody...

It's June! Almost halfway done with 2022. Beautiful weather this weekend. Hope everyone is hanging in there. 

HOCKEY: Rangers still going!

So first let's go back to last Monday night in Raleigh. The Hurricanes had been impossible to beat in their home barn, having beaten the Bruins in all 4 games there in the first round, and the Rangers the first 3 of the second round.  Of those 3 against the Rangers, Games 2 and 5 were hard to watch. The Rangers looked like the young, inexperienced playoff team the experts said they were. 

But the games at MSG, the Hurricanes looked equally inept and the Rangers looked like world-beaters. So it was hard to see how the hell they were going to pull it off. 

They pulled it off by taking it to the Canes, by not backing down, but not doing anything brainless either. Let them take the bad penalties and let us get the power plays. The Rangers power play has been a clinic. 

When Carolina cut it to 4-2 in the third period ESPN commentator Ray Ferraro was just about to say if the Hurricanes can get one more.... when the Rangers got the goal right back. All he could do was muster a "never mind" 

I would be less than honest if I said I wasn't surprised they put up 6 goals against the Hurricanes last Monday night. I'm not shocked they won, I figured they'd go down to the wire, but I thought they could win a close game. I wouldn't have predicted 6-2.

And it's hard to say what shocked me more, the 6-2 win over Carolina in Game 7 of the Conference Semis, or the 6-2 win in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final against the mighty Tampa Bay Lightning. That I did not see coming. 

I've been listening to NHL Network Radio a lot during these NHL Playoffs. On the FAN, Boomer and Gio have been covering the Rangers run extensively, so I'll listen to them for a bit. I refuse to listen to Tiki and Tierney, and with Carton and Roberts, you have one guy who doesn't like hockey (Carton) and the other guy whose an Islander fan (Roberts). So its been a lot of NHL Radio for me.

And while most of the Toronto based hosts haven't been openly hostile to the Rangers per se, few of them gave them a remote chance against either Carolina or Tampa Bay. Even our goalie, the great Igor Shesterkin called Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy the best goalie in the world. That's high praise. It's also hard to argue. What he did to the Florida Panthers, who BTW, won the President's Trophy, was insane. 

That and the fact that on account of the Bolts sweeping of the Panthers, they had over a week off before facing the Rangers, (who had one day between Game 7 vs CAR and Game 1 vs TB) and the consensus was that 1) the games would be low scoring and 2) the Lightning would prevail. 

Game 1 caught 'em all off guard. 

At the risk of sounding like Mike Francesa, there was a part of me that wasn't buying the whole "the Lightning are rested" theory, I believe that rink rust is a thing, and I felt that the Rangers could exploit that. I didn't think it would lead to a 6-2 win. 

I thought Game 1 would turn out more the way Game 2 did. Vasilevskiy was much better in Game 2, as the Rangers had almost as many chances as they did in Game 1. But he made some nice saves. 

Still the Blueshirts managed to get 3 by him, including another patented Mika Zibanejad rocket from inside the circle. What made Game 2 really satisfying, was that it was the first time the Lightning have lost 2 straight playoff games in 3 years, and also that the Lightning struck (seewhatididthere?) first, and the Rangers still came back and won. They are winning games in all kinds of ways. 

Today was a stinker though, lets face it. They were outplayed in the third period, they took a couple of dumb penalties, and spent most of the time in their own zone. Yet, the game had overtime written all over it till Ondrej Palat scored with 41 seconds left to give Tampa the W. It’s aggravating to think that they were up 2-0 at one point and had a chance to take a commanding 3-0 lead. But still, they have given the defending champs all they can handle. Hopefully they correct what went wrong and come out and try to get a split in Tampa on Tuesday.

MUSIC: What's Old is What's New.

I have never gotten into Stranger Things, the Netflix smash hit show, which just started it's 4th season last month. But I thought this was very interesting.

Apparently the show takes place back in the 1980's. and one of the character's favorite songs is Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill. Because of the song's presence in the show, it was one of the most requested/downloaded songs on Spotify the past couple of weeks. And it is re-entering the charts in several countries around the world. 

I honestly don't remember hearing the song that much back in 1985, I'm sure it was probably played a lot on alternative stations, but I've heard it more now since I listen mostly to satellite radio in the car and flip between the decades. Kate Bush has a really strong powerful voice and that is definitely a song that will get stuck in your brain when you hear it. 

I think this is a good thing, and I don't always feel that way about songs re-entering the charts. You are all witness to my annual rant against Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is You topping the Billboard Charts every December. There have been other songs too, that I feel were better left to when they were originally released. 

But if younger people are digging Kate Bush and can relate to Running Up That Hill, I say good for them. I for one would welcome seeing that song amongst the Bad Bunnys, Harry Styles, and Kendrick Lamars of the world. 

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I've said this before, but apparently since I've been hearing a lot about it lately, it bears repeating....

I have several family members and countless friends who are teachers or administrators in schools. A grand total of none of them think that packing heat along with their school supplies and textbooks is a good idea. I hate to break it to my 2nd amendment peeps (of which I'm sure many have stopped reading my pearls os wisdom) but this is one idea that's not going to happen. 

By the time I started going to school, we were past the era of nuns cracking knuckles with rulers. And I bet even those nasty f-ckers wouldn't have wanted to carry a gun. I still think less guns made available to less people is a part of the solution here, but what the hell do I know? 

Here to explain further is Hawkeye Pierce.

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS: Fantasy Football Feud 

I had to read this story a few times to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, but two MLB players got into a pre game fight over something that was going on in the Fantasy Football League these two dopes are in.

The fight took place between Tommy Pham of the Reds and Joc Pederson of the Giants. 

From Yahoo Sports…

“We were in a fantasy league together,” Pederson said. “I put a player on injured reserve when they were listed as out and then added another player. And then there was a text message in the group saying that I was cheating because I was stashing players on my bench. Then I looked up the rules and sent a screenshot of the rules, how it says that when a player is ruled out, you’re allowed to put him on the IR. That’s all I was doing. It just so happened that he had a player, [49ers running back] Jeff Wilson, who was out. He had him on the IR. I said, ‘You literally have the same thing on your team, on your bench.’ Then I guess he was in two leagues and one of them he was on the IR and one of them he wasn’t, so maybe that was the confusion, but the ESPN league we were in he was listed as out, so it feels very similar to what I did. And that was basically all of it. There’s not much more to it.”

A couple of things here…. I had this discussion with co-editors Karl (the Ace) Ludwig and (Razor) Ray McGarvey…. I’m assuming that this fantasy league is NOT being played for pride and bragging rights, and being that these are major league players, I’m also assuming they are playing for a rather large sum of cash. Essentially these guys are betting on sports. And now with all these gambling sites actually sponsoring these teams, is it maybe time to revisit the Pete Rose decision, as the Ace suggested? I’m not going to get into that this week, I promise we’ll broach that subject in the near future. 

The other thing though is that this reminds me of one of the two reasons I stopped doing fantasy baseball.

The first reason is that I stink at it. And the reason I stink at it is the same reason I usually screw up my NCAA bracket.. I don’t pick teams I won’t root for, likewise I don’t draft players I won’t root for, so I end up drafting a whole team of swell guys who can’t play. Handing the entrance fee to the commissioner was basically paying a $50.00 cover charge to hang out at the draft. That’s money I could use to go drink at Donovans. 

The other reason I stopped and reading the above story just solidifies my reasoning, is that more often than not these leagues cause more tension than Middle East peace talks. None of the leagues I was in ever got physical, but a couple times friends stopped talking to each other or got into internet name calling. Even I who really just did this for $h-ts and giggles once had a spat with a real good friend over something I did in baseball. This is a friend whose doghouse I really didn’t want to be in. Thankfully it was cleared upo quickly enough, but I pretty much decided right there I had enough. 

I don’t know how close Pederson and Pham are in real life. I’m positive that neither of them expected or wanted any of this to spill onto the inter webs. Plus, Pham who slapped Pederson, was benched for the game. That had to be embarrassing. 

Just another day in paradise. 

Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 70th year on the throne this weekend. I’ll spare everyone the lame toilet jokes and just say Happy Anniversary to the lady with the easiest job in the world. 

All right that’s all we got

Stay Safe,

and Have a Great Week