WB50
Hi There:
This will be our season finale, we have now completed 8 years since we brought WM back, almost as long as our original run. I can't believe how fast time flies by, especially in the summer.
Also, I want to thank all of you who helped celebrate WB50 either in person or through your texts and FB posts. I'm still kind of wrapping my head around the fact that I've been around for half a century. Like I said previously, someone says 50 years ago, I'm thinking JFK and stuff like that.
To that point, I also want to thank all of you who read my Weekly Mail Special from last Saturday. Back in the summer of 2020, with the pandemic still raging, I signed up for a subscription to Newspapers.com, which gave me access to the archives of hundreds of newspapers. Here in NY, I could access both the Daily News and Newsday (back when both were powerhouses) as well as papers from around the country. Around my birthday that year, I started reading the News and Newsday's papers from around the time I was born and I started to write a blog based on what I was reading. But then I thought if I could hold out, this would be something fun to do on a milestone birthday.
So I sat on the idea for three years and hoped upon hope that I was a) still doing this and b) that as many of you would still be reading my stuff. This was still when people were dying of COVID.
Alas, as we approached the summer of 2023, I started re-reading the two local dailies and also the Times who have their own archives. (My paper, the Post, used to keep their archives on the 9th floor, but I believe they have all been moved-If they ever put their old editions on-line, you may not see me for a few months) I also spent time on Wikipedia and youtube, plus I rented Badge 373 off Amazon Prime and watched that movie that to say the least has not aged well. I started to write towards the end of July a little bit here and there, and by Friday the 4th, we were ready to roll with it.
I put myself in the mindset of writing the way I did when I first started WM, not as a blogpost, but as an e-mail. I had the mindset of living in Woodside, going into my basement late on a Sunday night, (which 8/5/73 was) frustrated by both the world events and of course the Mets getting swept on a Banner Day doubleheader. When I read Phil Pepe's recap of the game in the 8/6/1973 Daily News, when Cards skipper Red Schoendiest admitted that he was sending an inferior pitcher up against Tom Seaver in the hopes of just gaining a split, and the Mets ended up losing both games anyway? I just thought to myself, "Can you imagine how Joe Beningo and Evan Roberts would have handled that on the FAN?
"Bro! He practically handed us the freakin game and we still lost."
"Joe, I haven't been around as long as you, but can I safely assume you never seen anything like that?"
"Ev, never in all my years bro. This is as bad as it gets"
To their credit, I also believe that on October 1st, when the Mets clinched the division on a rainy day at Chicago's Wrigley Field, they both would have owned it.
"Ev, I gotta admit, when they got swept on banner day back in August, I thought they were done bro. Kudos to Yogi and the coaching staff, and all the players for not giving up.
"Joe, Yogi kept saying it, Tug McGraw kept saying it. I didn't believe it either I thought they were both full of crap. But they did it, and now it's on to Cincinnati."
I can't tell you how much of a blast I had doing this. So I'm making an offer here to all my readers, I will do a personalized WM on your actual date of birth. Just write your name, date of birth and e-mail address on the back of a $20.00 bill and send it here to Oceanside*. Allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery.
Thank you again. If you didn't catch it last week, here it is.
METS DISASTER- So as we head to our hiatus, there is no mystery about whether or not the Mets are going to be in contention when we get back. Really at this point, the only question is how bad is it going to get.
After taking two out of three from the Cubs earlier in the week, the Mets laid an egg against the Braves, getting out scored 34-3 in the first three games of the series. (We went to press before Sunday night’s game was over).
Again, I understand the need to restock the farm system. Again the idea that Steve Cohen agreed to pay a huge chunk of the salaries owed to Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander in order to secure better prospects is night and day better than what we’ve had in the immediate past. Again, if the goal is not only winning he World Series, but being in constant contention, I’m all for that.
But to put the fans through baseball that promises to be as bad as any we’ve had around here is a huge ask. I know Cohen sent an e-mail out to the season ticket holders promising “a competitive team in 2024”, and I’m sorry but that sounds a bit too much like the “meaningful games in September” the last owners always talk about. Cohen is still in a grace period here, at least as far as I’m concerned. I’m hoping against hope that in 2025 or so we look back on 2023 as an aberration.
Like I said last week, about this newly stocked farm system. Most of these guys better turn out to be something.
Or else.
IMMACULATE GRID- (Razor) Ray got me into this and Mike Vaccaro wrote a column about it, and yes, I am now hooked on it.
Immaculate Grid contains 9 boxes, 3 across, 3 down. If the across box is the Mets and the down box is the Yankees, you have to put a player in there that played for both teams. (It’s never that easy) If the across box has the Red Sox and the down box says Rookie of the Year, you have to put a BoSox player who won Rookie of the Year in there. It’s like Wordle in the sense that you get one puzzle per day and there are no mulligans. You get one wrong, you lose your chance at the immaculate grid. There are 9 boxes and you get 9 guesses. It used to come out at midnight, now the creators make you wait till 9 AM EDT.
It’s one more thing to drive me nuts. When I manage to go 9 for 9, I strut around like I just found a solution to world poverty. When I don’t especially on days I only get 4 or 5, I question my qualifications as a baseball fan.
The Ace asked me if I tried the other sports grids (all four major sports have them- each sport’s reference.com websites are the ones who run the games) and I told him if I started doing them all, I’d probably never leave my house. For now I’m going to stick with baseball. Maybe over the winter when hockey is in full bloom, I’ll try that one.
Here is the website for Baseball Immaculate Grid
BOOK REVIEW-Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America:
by: Abraham Riesman
You really don’t have to go much past the title of the book to see what the author thinks of the main subject of the book.
The author takes us from McMahon’s rough childhood all the way to his rise to the top of the Professional Wrestling world. All the good, bad and ugly that it entailed.
For me, the book brought back some memories. My relationship with pro wrestling runs hot and cold. There was a time, in the mid to late 80’s where I followed the WWF as closely as I followed the the Mets Jets and Rangers. When it started to become too predictable, I tuned out for a while.
Ed (Auggie) DePuy, my brother in law Steve and my sister Kate kind of got me back into it in the late 90’s. By this time McMahon went from how I remembered him as the straight laced play by play announcer, to Mr. McMahon the evil boss of the whole enchilada. The truth, of course, was that McMahon was the boss the whole time (he bought the promotion from his father Vince McMahon Sr. In 1982) but he tapped into the whole ‘scumbag boss” motif and ran with it. The book discusses the evolution of that whole thing.
The author discusses how McMahon got his first gig in the WWF as the play by play guy, it was as simple as the guy who was supposed to do it decided not to show up to work that night and the old man made his son do it. The author said that the younger McMahon was a mediocre announcer but I respectfully disagree. I always thought Vince McMahon was a great announcer, as was Mean Gene Okerlund, and in the south, Lance Russell and Gordon Solie. To me they all cold have been announcers for mainstream sports.
I’ve said it before on other blogposts and commentaries, you’ll get no argument from me if you find Vince McMahon to be one of America’s most despicable human beings. There is plenty of supporting documentation to back up that assertion. There are some who defend him, and well, there are some people who will defend anybody, you need to look no further than our nation’s capital to see that. The book does a good job explaining how McMahon and wrestling as a whole got to where it is today. A well done book.
4 Auggies.
It’s heartbreaking what is going on in Maui right now. Praying that they get some relief and that nobody else dies. Just an awful situation.
I know I’m like a broken record, but as I’m sitting here finishing up this post on a summer Sunday early evening, it just blows my mind how fast time goes by. Please take some time to enjoy the good. I know there’s a lot of bad stuff, we write about some of it here, but there’s still three weeks till Labor Day. Soak it up as best you can.
I want to thank all of you who read and support my blog, whether you agree with me or not, whether I’m writing about things you are interested in or not, I really do appreciate all the words of support.
Take Care
Stay Safe
and Enjoy the Rest of the Summer
Weekly Mail returns in September
*I’m kidding about the money, but if you want me to do one for your birthday, e-mail me at WildWill45@aol.com and I’ll see what I can do.
