On Thursday evening, we did our 5th Running for Rebecca, the third one we've done at Maurice Park. A crisp, clear sunny late afternoon. We had a really nice turnout, and thanks to all of you who made a contribution, team Running for Rebecca was able to raise $7,050.80 for the American Heart Association. The Weekly Mail division of Running for Rebecca raised $1482.06. Once again you all came through and for that I offer a million heartfelt thanks.
And not too brag too much, but I completed the whole 3.5 miles. Two years ago I got there late and last year I ended up chatting with people and only did 4 laps or so. This time I did all 6.
Then on Saturday, it was the Kevin "Buck" Ludwig Memorial Golf Outing up in the Catskills.
As I was getting my golf clubs all ready for this last Friday night, it dawned on me that I hadn't played golf, no scratch that, I hadn't swung a golf club since before Timmy was born. (Spoiler Alert-he's going to be 15 in August)
And even back then, I wasn't exactly knocking on the door of the PGA Tour. So the golf aspect of the golf weekend was one I wasn't really looking forward to.
I had to said Ray, who was kind enough to drive us to and fro, I really wish Ed "Auggie" DePuy was in our foursome. When we arrived at Thunderheart Golf Course, Karl told us that our original 4th member had to pull out due to back spasms, and Auggie would indeed complete our foursome. "I should have wished for a billion dollars while I was at it" I said to Ray.
The golf went about as well as I thought it would go, I only made solid contact a few times, the rest were either all out whiffs or in baseball would be the equivalent of the 5-4-3 double play. But just being there, cracking jokes and having a blast with my best buds was worth it.
The BBQ and afterparty at Sunny Hill Resort was the highlight of the whole thing. It felt less like a cookout and more like a getaway camp for big people.
Our group shared the grounds with (I kid you not) The New York Bowhunters Associations Annual Banquet. That was a recipe for disaster, a bunch of us drinking beer and other assorted booze while a bunch of folks were hunting for their dinner. Thankfully the good folks of the NYBA didn't use any of us for target practice. I'll tell you this, I'll guarantee they were better at shooting their arrows than we were hitting our golf balls. And none of our crew decided to borrow a bow and arrow from these guys. That would be a whole different blogpost.
It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway.... as much fun as last weekend was, as great as it was to see so many people, as amazing a job we all did for the AHA, I still miss Becky and Buck tremendously, and I'd give anything for them to still be with us.
But when we do these incredible things in their honor, I'm reminded that it so many ways..
There are a few items in the news I plan on touching on, just not this week. A couple of icons died this week and I would like to discuss them.
Tina Turner- In the fall of 1984, when What's Love Got to do With It was playing constantly on the radio, I was getting my introduction to Tina Turner. I was too young or actually not even born when she first burst on the scene. I liked WLGTDWI, but back then you couldn't turn on the radio and not hear that song. PLJ and Z-100 were playing because it was Top 40, oldies radio was playing it because it was a legend making a comeback, and it was mellow enough for the light music stations to play.
The songs of hers that I really liked were We Don't Need Another Hero, and Private Dancer. (One of my St. Mary's classmates did a really funny impersonation of her singing that.-I won't mention HIS name) I also liked Simply the Best, mostly because whenever I hear it, my mind goes back to watching my Rangers skating around Madison Square Garden with the Stanley Cup in 1994.
It was only when I got a bit older that I heard her early stuff, her and her husband's version of Proud Mary, and River Deep, Mountain High. Absolutely powerful music.
There was of course the horrible abuse she suffered at the hands of her ex-husband, whose name I won't mention. The courage that she showed to leave him and eventually have the success she enjoyed in her 40's and 50's has no doubt served many as an inspiration. She was an absolute treasure. Her passing this week was a sad day for the world. But thankfully we still have her music.
Jim Brown- Now going from talking about a woman who was abused to a man who had several accusations of domestic violence against him may not be in a matter of speaking a smooth transition .But I promise we'll get to all of it.
To me, when I think of Jim Brown there are three aspects to him:
The first is the football player- When ESPN did their top 50 athletes of the century, Brown came in 4th and was the highest rated NFL player. I have always said that the greatest football player I saw was Lawrence Taylor. Yes I lived through Tom Brady and yes he is right up there, as is Peyton Manning, and Barry Sanders, and Jerry Rice and Reggie White. LT single-handedly affected the outcomes of games more than anybody I've ever seen.
Whenever I mentioned this to anybody, say my father's age, they always said "You had to see him play." Having now gotten to the age where there were so many things that I can only say to my kid and others his age, You had to be there, I really do take their words for it.
The second aspect of Brown's life was his social activism. I remember in the wake of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, that Ted Koppel on Nightline sought to bring the Crips and the Bloods together to work out some sort of truce. As a mediator, he brought in Jim Brown, who at the time was head of the social change organization he founded Amer-I-Can.
I don't know if anything came out of those discussions, but I had to admit I was impressed enough that with all the anger and hate flowing those horrible days in 1992, than these gangs would even agree to sit down with each other if Jim Brown was willing to hear them out.
Then of course there is the aspect of all the domestic violence accusations that came his way. One of those are too many and there were a lot more than one. Many times the women who had made the accusations didn't follow up by pressing charges. I lived long enough to know that there are no such things as coincidences.
It all has to be part of the story... The greatness on the gridiron (and to hear many tell it, he was an even better lacrosse player.) and the work he did to make life better for minorities and the poor, but also his bad behavior towards women. A complicated man, that's for sure.
This afternoon at 5:15 at Maurice Park, it will be running for Rebecca 2023.
Thanks to your generosity team Wild Bill once again met its goal of 1k. As of this morning, we stood at $1,180.31. Overall Team Running for Rebecca has raised just under 6k.
I can’t thank all of you enough for your generosity.
There is still time to donate before the walk, and of course if want to join us, please feel free. Just wear a red shirt and come on down. It’s at Frank Principe (Maurice Park for us old timers) and we start promptly at 5:15PM. It’s 3.5 miles (6 times around the park) you can either walk it or run it if you want to show off.
The weather should be spectacular. And the company will be even better.
Hope to see you there. And again, from the bottom of our hearts
Hope everyone is having a nice weekend. Sorry we didn't publish last week, but that just gives us two weeks worth of stuff to kvetch about, and there is plenty of that to go around.
But first....
RUNNING FOR REBECCA- Team Wild Bill currently is at 659.60, roughly 65% of our $1,000 goal.
Thank you to all who have donated so far and to all who are coming to walk or run with us on Thursday. If you can help out with a donation, that would be awesome. I'm 340.40 away from my goal as of Sunday evening . Anything you can give would be appreciated.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled kvetching...
Once again, The Worlds Most Famous Arena is now the Worlds Quietest Arena...
RIP THE RANGERS
It's been almost three weeks now since the Devils sent my Rangers packing, and I'm pretty much just as pissed off as I was the night it happened. The thought of a team not showing up to play in Game 7 of a playoff series just blows my mind.
And I have really tried these past couple of weeks to come off that stance. Keep telling myself it's easy from my couch to sit there and criticize and all that crap. I get it.
But I know what the hell I watched. And what I saw was three games where the Rangers were out-hustled, out-worked and out-classed by a very good but not great Devil team.
After winning the first two games handedly, Game 3 was a toss-up. Both teams played well and the game went into OT. A win in that game and we go up 3-0 and probably put NJ away in 5 or 6 games. But they lost and proceeded to take the next two games off. Coach Gerard Gallant himself said the team no-showed in Game 4. But then they got shut out in Game 5! You can't make this stuff up.
Then they showed some fight to win in Game 6 at the Garden. They gave you some hope that they could maybe find whatever they had in the first two games. I mean, who can't get up for a Game 7?
Apparently these Rangers couldn't because they ended up getting shut out again.
1) The most embarrassing thing for me as a fan was hearing the Devil fans at the Rock chanting "Igoor, Igooor" taunting the one man on the team who didn't deserve it, the one guy on the team who, to quote Bill Parcells, "brought a lunch pail." The Rangers lost for a bunch of reasons, goaltending was not one of them, and if I was a Ranger that night, hearing the fans giving out to the one guy on the team that broke his a$$, I'd be walking out of Newark with a paper bag over my head.
2) He has a no trade clause and he makes a $hit-ton of money, so it's going to be almost impossible, but they need to explore the possibility of trading Artemi Panarin. I was stoked when they signed him, and in the regular season he has been very good, but this is the second year in a row he disappeared in the playoffs, and it's becoming apparent that he's not built for the grind that is the NHL Playoffs. George Steinbrenner referred to Dave Winfield as Mr. May as opposed to Reggie Jackson's Mr. October. Panarin is Mr. October, which in hockey is not a good thing. Sadly, we're stuck with him, so either he needs to figure it out and make me look like a fool, or we are stuck with another overpaid, under achieving waste.
3) Gerard Gallant wondered aloud how someone who in two seasons had led his team to 110 and 107 points respectively, with a trip to the conference finals to boot, could possibly be considered to be in job trouble. When I saw that I said to myself "Welcome to the Big Apple pal" Well, he found out the hard way didn't he? Last Saturday, as I was procrastinating writing this Rangers obit and watching the Knicks get destroyed by the Heat (more on them later in this broadcast) word came down that Gallant and the Rangers "mutually agreed to part ways" Translation-they fired him and he agreed to collect his money without coaching. As pissed as I was at the team, and as much as I do say it's the coaches responsibility to make sure the team is ready to play, (and they clearly were not) I still think maybe firing him was a bit hasty. Mostly because there's nobody out there that gets my juices flowing as a replacement.
To sum it up, this wasn't a colossal upset by any definition of the word. The reason Game 7 was in Jersey and not at the Garden was that the Devils had the better record. In many ways there should be no shame in losing to the Devils. Jack Hughes is going to be a legit star if he's not already. But the Rangers made Akira Schmid look like Ken Dryden. They also made a couple of deadline deals with the sole intention of going for it this year. Patrick Kane was obviously damaged goods (and to add insult to injury-the Blackhawks won the Connor Bedard lottery) and Vlad Tarasenko didn't do enough to justify our trading for him.
I was pissed when they lost to the Lightning last year, but some time over the summer, I came to appreciate what they had accomplished. That's not going to happen this summer.
This season was a colossal and epic failure.
RIP THE KNICKS
I didn't read the entire article, but the lede in Mike Vaccaro's Saturday NY Post column regarding the Knicks in the wake of their elimination at the hands of the Miami Heat, suggested that the only Knick to show up in Miami Friday night was Jalen Brunson.
Don't get me wrong Brunson was far and away the best player on the floor for the Knicks, not just Friday night, but throughout the series. But unlike the Rangers, I feel like the Knicks simply ran out of gas as opposed not showing up.
Julius Randle was banged up, that ankle he hurt towards the end of the season had to have been bothering him. RJ Barrett had some really good games, I still have faith in him.
Yes, I feel they were on paper at least better than the Heat. Yes, this loss hurts because the Heat are one of my least favorite franchises in all of sports. Starting with them poaching Pat Riley from us back in 1995, to the battles we had with them from 1997-2000, to LeBron taking his talents down to South Beach, (and the bush league way he handled that whole thing) to their overrated coach Eric Spoelstra, they are right up there with the Patriots, Braves and Penguins as teams that can't lose enough games to suit me.
Honestly though, the only game in this series I felt like they really no-showed for was last Saturday's Game 3, the first one in Miami. They got their doors blown off and never had a prayer in that one. The most aggravating game was the first one, losing at home coming off the big win in Cleveland. In their defense though, the Heat were coming off one of the big upsets of all time, knocking off the league best Milwaukee Bucks.
The good news is that I feel the Knicks are on the rise. Maybe I'm just setting myself up for another letdown, (I'm almost positive I'm doing just that) but I really didn't think the Knicks were going to get past Cleveland, so while I wouldn't call getting to the second round gravy, I do think they have something to hang their hat on. It eats at me more that they lost to a team I can't stand rather than the belief that they underachieved. I still have faith in coach Tom Thibodeau, but he has to figure out how to better utilize the team's depth.
The season was not really a success, but I can't really call it a failure either. But they do need to go deeper next year.
The Devils were sent packing by the Hurricanes this week too. So all the NY area winter teams are done. At least we have baseball to look forward too.
Oh goody.
WTF? The Mets and the Yankees
Over the past two weeks the Mets have played such big market, big spending contenders as the Detroit Tigers, Colorado Rockies, Cincinnati Reds, and this weekend, the Washington Nationals.
The Tigers lost 96 games last year, the Rockies 94, the Reds 100 and the Nats a whopping 107.
So it would stand to reason being that we have a payroll that could be the GDP of a small to midsize nation, that we should have had no trouble with these 4 teams. Well you'd be wrong.
The Mets were swept by the Tigers, and lost 2 of 3 to the Rockies and Reds. After going almost to the All Star break last year with out losing a series, they have already lost 6 and split 1.
It's embarrassing.
The offense has been sputtering. But it's the starting pitching that has been the team's downfall. Max Scherzer is either hurt, ineffective, suspended or all three. What he hasn't been is any good. All that for the low price of $43 million. Carlos Carrasco has also been hurt, and also has stunk when he was healthy. We just got our other $40 million man Justin Verlander back, and he's the only reason we didn't get swept by the Reds (who again lost 100 games last year). Kodai Senga got lit up in Cincinnati the other day and Karl (the Ace) Ludwig pointed out at our staff meeting that he's averaging a walk per game.* And the young guns in our rotation, David Peterson and Tylor McGill have been disappointing, especially Peterson, who I'm really close to giving up on.
Like I said, I believe Francisco Lindor is just going through his usual early season slump, I expect him to come out of it. Pete Alonso is leading the majors in home runs and is second in the NL in RBIs. Lindor is actually right behind him in ribbies, which I didn't know. Brandon Nimmo made a baserunning error last week, but other than that has been fairly solid. Jeff McNeil I berlieve will come around too.
But Starling Marte has been awful. And they are getting bupkis out of the DH position, I'm starting to wonder if the NL should just go back to letting the pitchers hit.
The Yankees are currently taking up residence in the cellar of the AL East, albeit with a winning record. Part of the issue is that the Tampa Bay Rays have gotten off to a tremendous start. They look like the real deal. Giancarlo Stanton (whodathunkit) is once again on the injured list. Besides Gerrit Cole, who unlike Max Scherzer is earning his money, the Yanks pitching has been shaky at best. Nestor Cortes hasn't been as good as he was at this time last year.
But really the Yankees biggest issue is that they are playing in the toughest division in the sport. I thought and hoped the NL East would be there, but they are the definition of mediocre. I realize it's way too early and that panicking on Mother's Day is a waste of time and energy. But it's not too early to be concerned that's for sure.
A couple of Obituaries....
Gordon Lightfoot- The ultimate 70's soft rocker who passed away last week at age 81. Of all the tributes to him, this was my favorite.
In 1976, Lightfoot had a hit called The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a heartbreaking true story about a ship carrying iron ore from Wisconsin to Detroit (the song says it was heading to Cleveland) that sank during a storm on Lake Superior November 10, 1975. All 29 men on board the ship drowned and their bodies were never recovered.
In one of the last verses of the song, Lightfoot references the Maritime Sailors Cathedral, which is actually Mariner's Church of Detroit. He sings...
"In a musty old hall in Detroit, they prayed in the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral. The church bell chimed 'til it rang, 29 times, for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald."
The day after Lightfoot passed, the church rang it's bell 30 times. 29 for the lost sailors of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and once for the man who helped keep their memory alive and their story told..
Gordon Lightfoot.
Vida Blue- A few years ago I read a book called Dynastic Bombastic Fantastic, about the Oakland A's dynasty of the early 70's. There was a part in there that detailed Vida Blue's 1971 season. Stats don't do it complete justice, but I'll give them to you anyway.
And he didn't turn 22 till July 28th that season either.
Keith Hernandez compared him to Dwight Gooden and it's actually pretty scary how accurate that is. Both had one unworldly season at a young age, followed by a couple of all-star seasons followed by several mediocre seasons mixed in with substance abuse issues. Vida's starts in 1971 sounded an awful lot like Doc's 1985 starts, starts you wanted to be there for, or at least somewhere in front of a TV for.
He pitched twice against my Mets in the 1973 World Series, the Mets won both games, though he didn't factor in Game 2 loss which went 12 innings and was a hard luck loser in Game 5 at Shea.
And if you want to stump your friends, give 'em this trivia question.. who is the last switch hitter in the American League to win the MVP.
At my bachelor party, I mistakenly asked the question as "Who was the only switch hitter in the AL to win the MVP?" Someone pointed out that surely Mickey Mantle had won an MVP, to which my father incredulously said "Are you freakin kidding me? He won it 3 times!"
and yes we did baseball trivia at my bachelor party.
RIP.
HASTA LA PASTA- I wanted to do this story last week.
500 pounds of pasta was found dumped next to a creek in Old Bridge, NJ two weeks ago. It was thought that the spaghetti, noodles and shapes had already been cooked, but it appears that the rain and other elements had softened it up.
If you love spaghetti and meatballs as much as I do, stumbling upon a sight like that may have you thinking you died and went to heaven. Imagine if you will a flowing stream and next to that stream all the spaghetti you can eat, right there on the floor.
There were several different reports as to how the pasta got there, the latest I read was that it was dumped there by someone whose mother had died and had boxes upon boxes of uncooked pasta in the house. I don’t know. There weren’t any food pantries is this person’s neighborhood? I guess grief makes you do strange things. This whole affair brought new meaning to On top of Spaghetti.
Again to all the Mom’s out there, especially my Mom and my wife, I hope you had a wonderful weekend.
Stay Safe,
and Have a Great Week
*At the same meeting, Ray and I had a lengthy discussion over whether or not I should put in that I felt Eric Spoelstra is an overrated coach. Though Ray made a compelling argument with facts and figures as to why I should not, I’m afraid that his efforts were all for naught
Katie has once again put together Running for Rebecca in coordination with the American Heart Association's 2023 Wall Street Heart Run/Walk on May 18th.
Running for Rebecca will once again be at Frank Principe Park, (or as I still refer to it-Maurice Park) Thursday Evening May 18th at 5:30 PM.
We will post the link again in this week's blogpost coming out either Sunday night or more likely, Monday morning.
Again, I know that money is tight, so no pressure at all. If you want to come and walk with us on the 18th, that would be awesome. If you can spare a few bucks, that's awesome too.
You are all amazing, and for all your support these past few years, on behalf of my family and I, from the bottom of our hearts
