Our 350th Blog post
Hey Everyone:
Thank you for all the kind words regarding my Aunt Eileen. I'm glad I got to share my tribute with all of you Saturday night.
We've now entered March and all the goodies that come with it, extra sunlight in the afternoon, St Patrick's Day Parades, March Madness, somewhat meaningful spring training games, and even baseball Opening Day this year is March 30th. So lots to look forward to as we move along here.
COURT CASES: The Alex Murdaugh Trial
One of my co-workers was asking me if I was following this story at all, and to be honest I hadn't been. This just looked like another case of rich spoiled people doing bad things. There's enough of that $h-t going around, just look at Congress for crying out loud.
But I ended up watching some of the cross-examination of this Alex Murdaugh fellow.
Some background....The Murdaugh family have for years been a prominent family in South Carolina, famed for their work in the legal department. Both the father and grandfather of Alex Murdaugh served as the district attorney of their county in SC. Alex himself was a prominent attorney.
But at least since 2014, things have began to fall apart for Alex, his wife and two sons. In 2019, Alex's son Paul was charged in the death of a young woman named Mallory Beach. Mallory was killed in a boating accident. Paul was operating the boat with a BAC of .286 when it crashed into a bridge piling. Paul was never given a field sobriety test, and was not questioned by police the night of the accident.
Authorities began to look into the Murdaugh law practice since many believed that the older Murdaugh had used his influence to keep investigators away from his son. It was in the course of those investigations that it was discovered all the financial impropriety that had been going on, including bilking some of his clients out of millions of dollars.
On June 7, 2021 Alex's wife Maggie and son Paul were found dead of gunshot wounds at the family's hunting lodge. Alex was arrested for the murders in July 2022.*
All I can say was that watching Alex Murdaugh get cross examined was like watching the Daytona 500 just to see if anyone crashes. First of all, he admitted he stole all the money they said he stole, admitted he committed fraud as an attorney, and admitted he was hooked on more drugs than all the members of Motley Crue combined. Then he admitted he was at the scene of the crime, after he had sworn he was with his mother at the time Maggie and Paul were shot. It reminded me of when Mike Tyson testified at his rape trial that he couldn't have raped the accuser, because the only reason he invited her to his room was to have sex with her. I mean, with that kind of testimony, it took about a day for the jury to find Tyson guilty.
Here it was much less, about three hours, for the jury to convict Murdaugh. Putting him on the stand may have been the worst decision by a lawyer since Chris Darden had OJ try on the glove (kids ask you parents about that one).
On Friday he was sent away to prison for the rest of his life. If it makes him feel any better, it sounds like he's going to be spending as much time in court as he will behind bars, what with all the other criminal cases still to be prosecuted against him.
Rich people behaving badly.
HOCKEY: The Trade Deadline
The NHL trading deadline used to be one of my favorite days in sports. The baseball trade deadline is sometimes pretty cool too, but I always feel like hockey has the most deals on their deadline day.
This year they put the dead in deadline, because this was one of the quietest least consequential trade deadline days I can remember.
Now of course a huge part of that is due to the fact that most of the big trade chips were dealt in the days and even weeks before the deadline. All three of our local teams made significant pickups. We already discussed the Islanders getting Bo Horvat from the Canucks and the Rangers getting Vlad Tarasenko from the Blues.
The Devils since then traded for Timo Meier, a high scoring right wing from the Sharks, (in a trade that saw a combination of 13 players and picks dealt back and forth) and the Rangers made another big move, getting Patrick Kane from the Blackhawks.
I've been hearing about Kane coming here for years, and at 34, he's clearly on the back nine, but he has been playing well as of late, and when he is on, he can carry a team. Of course if everyone does what they are capable of, that won't be necessary. The Rangers now have two lines full of guys who can score.
BASKETBALL: Break up the Knicks..
Tim and I watched the Knick play the Heat in Miami Friday night, and while this was a regular season game, it did remind me of some of the classic playoff games these two teams played back in the late 90's.
The Knicks had built up quite a big lead, only to see the Heat whittle it down. That happens all the time, but it was really looking like Miami was going to pull this one out. Down by one with no timeouts left, Julius Randle was trying to drive to the hole, lost the ball, got it back, and fired up a wing and a prayer whilst falling out of bounds. How that ball got through the hoop I'll never know. But it did, and with 0.7 seconds left, the game was pretty much over. But an official review put the clock at 1.1 seconds, enough time for the Heat to catch an inbound pass and put one up. Thankfully the inbound pass was picked off by Knick Mitchell Robinson and the Knicks escaped with a win.
Going into tonight's tilt with the Celtics the Knicks were riding an 8 game winning streak. This team has been fun to watch.
Thank you again for all the kind words. You made a tough week easier.
Stay Safe
and Have a Great Week
* Netflix has done a documentary series on the Murdaugh family that according to those who have watched it, gives a very good account of the family history, both good and bad.
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