Hi There:
So how did everybody enjoy the eclipse last week?
My plan wasn't to look at it so much as I wanted to see what it looked like outside at the peak time. So around 3:20 or so I headed out to the front of the hospital.
That part wasn't that impressive, it just looked like an overcast afternoon, certainly not unusual, especially for April.
But then someone offered me their eclipse glasses and I was able to look up at it. I'm glad I did, because it was a really cool thing to see. It just looked like a black dot covering the sun.
Obviously, it would have been much more interesting to have been somewhere in the Path of Totality. I saw on TV that they sold tickets to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to witness the total eclipse. That must have been wild. I mean, you can fit almost 400,000 people there.
The next solar eclipse in NY isn't coming till May 1, 2079, many of us will be long gone by then. Glad I got to get a gander at it when I could. As an added bonus, Tim won his race (the 3200m) after the eclipse. Not a bad way to start off the week.
Let's get to what else is going on....
OJ SIMPSON DEAD- I've spent the last couple of days since the news broke that OJ Simpson had died of cancer at age 76, wondering how or even if I should write anything about him. On WFAN's Boomer and Gio show on Friday morning, Greg Gianotti was saying how he kept hearing the words complicated and conflicted and he couldn't understand what was complicated about the death of a murderer, regardless of the fact that he was acquitted of said murders.
What I'm conflicted about is in what direction do I want to take this... Do I want to rehash the whole trial? Talk about how late I was to the rodeo as far as believing he did this? How he has done so much more in the 30 years since the trial to prove that he did it? Or does any of that even matter at this point?
Here's where I think I'll start.. A couple of short years ago I found that the majority of the people who were working in my office at the time were either babies, or very young, while the OJ murder trial was going on. I addition to suddenly feeling very old, I was in that always unique if potentially annoying position of saying to these youngins that "Well, you had to be there."
Because unless you were alive and tuned in at that time, between June 12, 1994 and October 3, 1995 and even beyond, I can't accurately describe the phenomenon that was the Trial of the Century. I know several people here in NY who planned their entire day around the coverage*. CNN, Court TV, and E! Network all went gavel to gavel, and since it was all taking place in Los Angeles, you could get all your shit done in the morning and be done with it in time for dinner.
You couldn't get away from it if you wanted to, but like I said, some folks really got into it. Because the accused was both an ex-athlete and a movie star (star maybe debatable but he was in commercials and on TV all the time) the story was covered in the news, sports and entertainment sections of the newscasts and the papers.
It was everywhere.
And it went on for-EVER. I've also said this many times, and I had this belief re-affirmed after watching the American Crime Story miniseries on FX a few years back.... As guilty as he may have come across, I really can't tell you honestly if I was sitting on that jury that I wouldn't have come to the same verdict those 12 jurors did. I'd like to think that I would have been like Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men and held out till I got everyone to see it for what it was, but really I'm not even factoring in how those people had their lives upended for over half a year.
I mean at one point Marcia Clark said that based on the DNA evidence, the odds that the blood wasn't OJ's was like 87 billion to 1. I know math isn't my subject, but I remember thinking, if there are 4 billion people on earth, how could they have come up with that number? I'm sure there is a way, but I remember at the time it sounded like it was a made-up figure.
I've recommended several times the ESPN 30 for 30 Documentary June 17, 1994. It's easily the best 30 for 30 ever done and for my money one of the greatest documentaries in the history of the medium. One part that stuck out to me was when they interviewed one of the people standing along the freeway during the Bronco chase. When asked if he thought OJ did it, he said "No I don't. He has way too much to lose. Why throw that all away?"
As a naive 20-21 year old, who had been watching sports since I was 8 years old, I had the same thought. Why would he do that? Wasn't he already dating someone else? With all his money and fame, how come he just couldn't move on?
Of course, the more the trial went on, the clearer it became how something like that could exactly happen. As I've said, he's done more in these following 30 years to prove he killed Nicole and Ron Goldman than he ever did in those first few days after the murders. I honestly believed he would have died much sooner than this, either in a jail cell or at the hands of someone who had sat and watched that whole trial, felt a guilty man had gotten away with it and that this was the only way to get justice. Think that's far fetched? 30 years ago, it may have been. Nowadays? C'mon!
OJ is dead. Maybe he'll be judged more harshly on the other side.
As I'm writing this, I'm hearing all about Iran firing missiles and drones into Israel. And here I am wondering if anybody is going to see the next eclipse in 2079.
Let's move onto sports....
COLLEGE BASKETBALL- Calipari to Arkansas
Big Ray McGarvey, the dad of WM co-editor (Razor) Ray McGarvey and my lawyer in charge Mary McGarvey Depuy, once told me that Syracuse could have the best team in the world, they would never win an NCAA title with Jim Boeheim as their coach.
In all the years he led the Orangemen, Boeheim managed one NCAA championship, and as Ed (Auggie) Depuy pointed out, that was because he ran into "a bigger choke artist than himself in Roy Williams"
I think John Calipari has them both beat.
With all the talent he has recruited in the 15 years he was at Kentucky, he has one title to show for it. And he had a team in 2015 should have been the first to go unbeaten since Bobby Knight's 1976 Indiana team. Lately, they haven't been able to get out of the first weekend of the tournament. At a program like Kentucky that is inexcusable.
One and Done referred to Cal's practice of recruiting players that would play the required one year of college ball before declaring for the NBA Draft. He told ESPN as much in another 30 for 30. He admitted that he told recruits not to come to Kentucky if they were looking to spend more than a year there, much less try to graduate with a degree. But lately, it refers to Cal's record in the Big Dance.
So there was some speculation that Kentucky might try to part ways with Calipari, which would have been difficult being that he had several years and a lot of $$$ left on his contract.
But lo and behold, the University of Arkansas swept in and made Cal an offer he couldn't refuse and gave Kentucky a get out of jail free card.
Now Cal get to take his act to Fayetteville, where between Tyson Foods and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, the Razorbacks are swimming in billionaire booster money**. That's right up Calipari's alley, the more $$$ he gets to play with, the less scrupulous he has to be.
I'm probably the last person who should be giving anybody career advice, but Calipari should hang up his whistle and head over to TV. Whatever I think of his coaching or his ethics, I can't take away the fact that the man is charming and funny. I get why kids would want to play for him, and I remember Mike and the Mad Dog had him on all the time. Can you see him sitting there cracking wise with Barkley and Clark Kellogg and Kenny Smith? He'd fit in there like a glove. The only downside I see is that his ego would take up two spots on the panel, but that could be a cost cutting move as well.
Maybe like they wrote in the Athletic this week, this will rejuvenate Calipari and get him all sorts of motivated. I just don't see his One and Done method working in Arkansas or anywhere for that matter. I think he's great at recruiting, much less great at X's and O's. We will see how this all plays out.
One other thing that came out of the Cal to Arkansas story was a couple of the names floated around as possible replacements at Kentucky. One that made a lot of sense was Danny Hurley, who just lead UCONN to back-to-back titles. One that didn't but gave me a great amount of anxiety anyway was Rick Pitino.
Hurley said he was staying put at UCONN, and Pitino I don't believe was ever seriously considered, but yes I did flash back to 35 years ago when Kentucky swiped Pitino from the Knicks. I was afraid history might repeat itself.
Kentucky has hired former BYU coach Mark Pope as their new head coach.
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It wouldn't exactly break my heart if the Rangers did not win the President's Trophy, since it seems that they who win the President's Trophy, much more often than not, does not win the Stanley Cup.
But also, the thought of losing twice in the same week to the Islanders was putting me in a foul mood. So when they came back from 2-1 down to win in a shootout on Saturday, I was more pumped about it than maybe I should have been. The roller coaster ride that is the playoffs are right around the corner.
The Knicks meanwhile clinched the second seed in the Eastern Conference after they beat the Bulls in OT today, while Milwaukee and Cleveland both lost. I’m happy for the Knicks, but it’s hard to believe that 50 wins could clinch you the 2 seed. If they were playing out west, 50 wins got you the 5 seed.
The Knicks will play whoever wins the Heat-Sixers play-in game.
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Pete Rose turns 83 on Sunday, and I was planning to review the book I just read about him in accordance with that. But I'm going to hold off till next week.
Till then
Stay Safe
and Have a Great Week
*And I nearly got myself fired from Baskin-Robbins for suggesting this, but my boss there was one of those people. She angrily denied it, but she scurried out of the store like it was on fire every day at 1 PM ET, and she knew stuff from the trial that they didn't talk about on the news. In fact, I remember calling her from a payphone outside the Queens Center on October 2nd on my way home from school when I heard the jury had reached a verdict. "ooooooh, you know he's going to walk right Bill?" (She said from day one he was guilty) "No way they got all 12 people to vote guilty that quick" She was right again.
**Phil Mushnick in his Friday Post column, pointed out that Arkansas is the nation's 5th poorest state with 15.6% of its population living in poverty. He loves pointing out how coaches at State Schools are usually the state's highest paid employees. See also, UCONN and Rutgers. I suspect John Calipari will be more an employee of Tyson foods than the state of Arkansas.
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