Weekly Mail June 23, 2024

 

Hi There:

So, summer started technically on Thursday evening, but the last few days have been dog days of summer like weather. Friday here in the NY area there were all sorts of new high temperature records set. It reached triple digits in Newark. And the humidity has been rough as well. 

Don't get me wrong, I love the late sunsets that come at this time of year, but I would have preferred we eased into the heat and humidity. Instead, it hit us like a furnace.  

Stay cool everyone.

Will start out this week with a couple of obits, one I should have done last week, but since each of these men were icons of their respective sports, we can discuss here..

Jerry West (1938-2024)- I like to think of myself as someone very familiar with sports history, and yet, one of the things that I always seem to forget is that in his career as a player, Jerry West won only one NBA Championship. Maybe it's because he played in so many NBA Finals or that he built a bunch of NBA Championship teams as an executive, I associate Jerry West with championships. 

He played in 7 NBA Finals before winning his lone championship on his 8th trip, in 1972 against the Knicks. He was actually named the MVP of the 1969 Finals, in a losing effort against the Celtics, proving that these losses weren't his fault, though knowing the competitor he was, he probably didn't see it that way. 

Much was made a couple of years ago about the way he was portrayed in HBO's Winning Time, based on Jeff Pearlman's book about the Showtime Lakers of the 80's. The golf club breaking, MVP Trophy through his office window tossing maniac may have been exaggerated, but his intensity was well documented. 

John Feinstein most famously known for writing A Season on the Brink about Bobby Knight and the 1985 Indiana Hoosiers, also wrote a book about the infamous Rudy Tomjanovich-Kermit Washington incident in 1977 called The Punch. Washington was drafted by the Lakers in 1973, which was West's last year as a player, and he described how terrifying it was playing with West, first as a teammate, and then with West as his coach. He said he could practically feel West's eyes burning a hole in his back when he made a poor play. 

But off the court and away from the game, West was beloved. And I think that's why so many in the game came to his defense when it seemed like the TV show was making him out to be out of control. (Pearlman's book did not BTW)  He acknowledged that his silhouette was the inspiration for the NBA logo, though usually when asked about it, he talked all the great players he played with and against rather than himself. He was humble and gracious, which had as much as anything to do with the outpouring of accolades he received when he passed away on June 12 at age 86. 

Willie Mays (1931-2024)- Any relatives that I had who were old enough to have seen Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig play weren't big baseball fans so I've had to rely on reading about players from that era. I know enough people and have heard from so many who had seen Willie Mays play in his prime, and very few of them don't say that he was the best to have ever done it. 

I remember when Mickey Mantle died in 1995. I remember Channel 2 broadcast his funeral from Dallas, and watching that with my dad. I then remember later on that day seeing TV news reporters who were at Mickey Mantle's restaurant watching the funeral with the fans there. How many grown men, in their 40's and 50's crying watching the Mick's funeral. Those guys might tell you that Mantle would have been, could have been the best. Except that he was betrayed by a bad knee and then by his own admission, by poor life choices. 

Mays was blessed with a career mostly devoid of injuries. From his rookie year in 1951 through 1968 he played in at least 140 games. (He missed a year and half for military service in 1952 and 1953). Looking through his stats on Baseball Reference, the numbers are phenomenal, but they only tell a part of the story. 

I came across a clip on Instagram on Friday, in which Mays visited with Vin Scully. I didn't see the date on the clip, but it had to have been not to long before Scully retired from the booth in 2016. After telling him that he was his favorite ballplayer despite the fact that he wore the wrong uniform :O), Scully remarked to Mays that what impressed him the most about his famous catch in the 1954 World Series (VIC WERTZ!), was not just the catch itself, which Mays made with his back to home plate, but the fact that he was able to turn around and get the ball back to the infield to hold the runners. The Polo Grounds was no bandbox like the modern version of Yankee Stadium or Citizens Bank Ballpark in Philly. That was 450 feet from center field. Mays had to have had a cannon to throw that ball back to second base. 

I remember hearing George W. Bush talk about one of his earliest most cherished memories was his mother bringing him to NY to watch Willie Mays play for the Giants. There's also this picture of John F. Kennedy Jr. as a 12-year-old sitting next to Mays in the Mets before a game in 1972. Mays was a guy who sheer talent and love for baseball brought people together. 

Donald Sutherland also died this week, and if ever the term versatile actor applied to anyone, it had to be Donald Sutherland. He played heroes, villains, dramatic roles, comedic roles, you name it. He went from playing Oddball in WWII movie Kelly's Heroes, to Dr. Benjamin Franklin (Hawkeye) Pierce in the original MASH Movie the same year (1970).  

I once saw him in a movie called The Man on the Train where he played a college professor opposite a bank robber (played by U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr.). The robber and the professor became unlikely friends and as they walked past a movie theater, the professor talked about taking a date to that movie theater when he was much younger. His date attempted to make like Lauren Boebert at Beetlejuice, which prompted Sutherland's character to write a poem

A boy said to his lady friend please

As he writhed in pain on his knees

It would give me great bliss

If you took hold of this

And released your grasp upon these. 

I would have laughed if anyone delivered that poem, but Sutherland did it in such a way. Like Mays in baseball and West in basketball a true credit to his profession. 

Now to other matters....

POLITICS: THOU SHALT POST THE 10 COMMANDENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS (at least in Louisiana) 

Governor Jeff Landry (R-LA) signed a bill into law on Wednesday that requires all public-school classrooms in the state have to put up a "poster size display of the Ten Commandments in large easily readable font."  Per the AP....

“If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses” who got the commandments from God, Landry said.

OK, I'll start here. All of you know that I'm a Christain, specifically a Catholic, even more to the point, I taught CCD a couple years ago at my parish in Oceanside, and I may do it again in the near future. I also try, to varying degrees of success to live my life in accordance with the Ten Commandments, as I believe most people of good will do.

Now, other religions or even atheists may not believe that God presented Moses with two stone tablets and declared these the law of the land, but still, most of the people in that demographic call their Mom and Dad, haven't killed anyone, don't cheat on their spouses, are fairly honest, and keep their hands off other people's stuff.  If you can say that you don't make a habit of violating any of the above, congratulations, that covers commandments 4 through 10. Whether you believe in God or not. 

And if you don't believe in God, or you believe in a different God than I do, or whatever, the beauty of this country, one of the basic tenets that this country was founded on, is that there is not official government sanctioned religion. The Ten Commandments don't belong anywhere on public property. You want to put them up in your house, fine. You want to put them in your church, well that's a probably a good idea. But in public libraries, public transportation and yes, public schools, they don't belong there. 

And the true irony of all this is that the folks who are most hot to trot to get these easily readable 10 commandments posters up in the Louisiana schools, are the same people who are literally doing what the Israelites were doing while Moses was up on the mountain getting those easily readable stone tablets from the Big Guy. They are worshiping the golden calf. Or in this case, the orange calf. As I'm writing this, Captain Orange is in Philadelphia complaining about CNN's Dana Bash to a crowd of MAGA's. 

Of course, Trump gave his stamp of approval to all of this on his Truth Social app, and he made no request that the Supreme Court make a ruling about striking down commandments 6 through 10, or those that Mr. Grab 'em by the p-$$y regularly violates. And brags about violating to boot.  

John Fugelsang summed it up on Xwitter thusly:

Yep.

Now to give credit where credit is due, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 this week to uphold a law that bars domestic abusers from owning firearms. I was both surprised and happy with this decision. The one justice who thinks it’s no problem for violent criminals to own weapons? Clarence Thomas. Because of course it was. 

ROMANCE: Yeesh!

When he came to his mutual agreement to stop coaching the New England Patriots, I kind of hoped that would be the last we would hear of Bill Belichick for a while. 25 years of attempting and mostly succeeding in rendering my football team irrelevant was more than enough for me. 

But now we come to find out that the 6- time Super Bowl winning head coach is currently in a relationship with a woman 48 years his junior. 

Jordon Hudson is a 24 year old professional cheerleader according to People Magazine. She graduated from Bridgewater State University in 2022. They met on a Boston-Miami flight in February 2021. 

They've apparently been an item for some time now, but their relationship was confirmed earlier this month by TMZ. 

Look I know love does strange things to people, but if Belichick was a decent human being, I would still question her motives. The fact of the matter is he's a lying conniving creep, with the personality of a doorknob.  She couldn't beat the faultiest polygraph machine on the planet if she tried to say she wasn't banging him for his money. 

And yeah, there's a part of me that hopes she ends up taking him to the proverbial cleaners. But there is a small part of me that hates to any older man get taken advantage of in this matter. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he has really charmed her, and she is really into him for more than his $$$. I can't see that though man, I really can't. From where I'm sitting, this is just a money grab. call me a cold-hearted cynic. I can't help it. 

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I swore up and down that I would not watch one second of the 2024 Stanley cup Finals, so enraged as I was (and still am) about how the Rangers folded in Game 6 against the Panthers. And when it looked like the Panthers were going to make quick work of the Edmonton Oilers, I figured I would keep my self promise. 

But in the meantime, the Oilers have stormed back from an 0-3 deficit to force a Game 7 in Sunrise, Fla on Monday night. I had held out till the third period of Game 6 on Friday, but I had to tune in when I saw that the Oilers were up 3-0 going into the third. The Panthers scored to cut the lead to 3-1, but a pair of empty netters got the Rogers Centre and I imagine most of Canada rocking. 

The Panthers were up in arms because they had a goal disallowed off a review that showed they were offsides on the play. 

I still think the Panthers will be skating around their barn on Monday night with the Cup. but on the off chance that the Oilers join the 1942 Leafs as the only teams to come back from 0-3 in the Finals*, I'm going to watch, against my better judgement of course. 

Enjoy the late sunlight. 

Stay safe 

and Have a Great Week 

*I need not be reminded that the Islanders also came back from 0-3, however that was not in the Finals 

"No one need remind me of our responsibilities Brother"-Donald Sutherland as Brother Thaddeus in Heaven Help Us (1985)  

Weekly Mail June 16, 2024

 

I'm sorry, but this never gets old. 

Happy Father's Day!!!!

Didn't publish last week mainly because I was still licking my wounds over the Rangers getting shown the door by the Panthers. I figured the world didn't need another week of my complaining about my sports teams. Between the Rangers getting knocked out by a team I might be the only person in the world who still thinks we should have beaten, the Knicks gallant but ultimately fruitless pursuit of an NBA Title, the Mets pooping the bed on two continents, and the Jets making news for all the wrong reasons (as usual), 6 weeks away from training camp nonetheless, I have to find me some new hobbies, ones that don't wreak havoc on my nervous system. 

For now, we'll start with some politics to get the juices flowin....

CRIME: Hunter Biden Guilty

We'll do this as one of those old Bill O'Reilly Talking Points Memos...

• Was kind of surprised that the son of President Biden didn't have the full-blooded support of the NRA and other such groups. After all, just like Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, we're all entitled to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Guns*. "All the guns we want" according to comedian John Mulaney. I didn't realize the line for gun purchasing is smoking crack. You could write 100 times in a school notebook how you want to come to school and shoot up your classmates, and they'll give you a gun. But whatever you do, don't try to buy a gun while smoking rock, especially if you are a Democrat. That's a no-no. Live and learn.
• 
  
• Since my stance on guns can be summed up as less is more, I had no problem with Hunter Biden being found guilty this week. I wasn't sitting on the jury, but from what I read and heard, the evidence against him was well beyond a reasonable doubt. And I kept waiting for the President and his fervent supporters to come out and scream about how the judge, jury and the whole justice system was stacked against them. Still waiting in fact. Guess that only happens when Captain (Convicted Felon) Orange is on trial. 
• Speaking of C (CF) O- the Supreme Court on Friday struck down a ban on bump stocks, a device that pretty much turns semiautomatic rifles into machine guns. (Because we need more of those) The ban had been enacted by (believe it or not) the Trump administration in the wake of a mass shooting in Las Vegas that saw 60 people killed and over 400 wounded. I mean, this falls strictly into the "even a broken clock is right twice a day" department. Captain Orange does something smart and sensible, only to have three of the folks he appointed to SCOTUS plus three others who have clearly become his stooges**, overturn it on him. The nerve! I've been anxiously awaiting the angry Truth Social post in which he attacks those spineless, ungrateful losers who so brazenly defied him. How dare they go against their dear leader! He must not have gotten around to it yet. Father's Day and all. 
• I also saw that Newtown High School in Connecticut had their graduation ceremony this week. The graduating class of 2024 was about 20 students short, being that they were cut down 12 years ago as first graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School. That this graduation ceremony was held the same week the Supreme Court decided to let people make their already dangerous weapons even more deadly is just one of those things that makes my stomach turn.  

TV REVIEW: 

Quiet on the Set-The Dark Side of Kids TV. 

One of the perks as it were of having kids is that you get to re-introduce yourself to children's programming. When he was really young, Tim was all about Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (in particular) and pretty much whatever Disney Jr. offered up. As he got older, he bopped over to Nickelodeon's Nick Jr.  (Bubble Guppies, the Wonder Pets***) before he graduated to regular Nickelodeon. Amongst the shows he watched faithfully, were Henry Danger, iCarly, Game Shakers and iCarly spinoff Sam and Cat.  I'm sure there were others, but those are the four than come to mind.

These shows were all the creation of the guy I only knew previous as the fat kid on Head of the Class. I believe I've stated once or twice on these pages that I had a crush on Simone from Head of the Class (which has nothing to do with this topic, but I figured I'd mention it again) 

Simone Foster and Dennis Blunden (Khrystyne Haje and Dan Schneider)

Dan Schnieder went from playing Fat Dennis (best friend of nerd Arvid) to creating kids' content on Nickelodeon. He co-hosted the Kids Choice Awards in 1988, where he met some executives at Nickelodeon. Soon after Head of the Class ended, he went to work as a writer on All That. Two shows that spun off from All That were Kenan and Kel, with now 20-year SNL vet Keenan Thompson, and the Amanda Show, starring Amanda Bynes. 

Bynes has had her share of problems as an adult, and this documentary seems to very strongly suggest that many of her issues may have resulted from being mistreated either by Schnider himself or people who worked for him. 

And it goes from there. 

I'm not sure how the hell he heard about it, but Tim insisted that I watch this. He swears it's not to point out what a lousy parent I was for letting him watch these shows. I don't want to give away too much and certainly not some of the more disturbing elements of the docu-series, but there were a couple things that made it on to Sam and Cat that had me questioning my parenting credentials. Cat Valentine (played by current music superstar Ariana Grande) and Sam Puckett (played by Jeanette McCurdy) played roommates. There was a scene they showed where Cat was trying to squeeze juice out of a potato. The way she was doing it though, well, I'm sure it's on-line somewhere. You be the judge. 

Some of the stuff is truly disturbing, some of it is in the eyes of the beholder. I was happy for Dan Schnieder when I saw he was creating all these shows. Before the interwebs, it was tough to find out what happened to actors or actresses you watched as a kid. You would have thought he would have been a better person, but like the saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely. 

Again, watch it and judge it for yourself. 

I believe it is still streaming on HBO/Max. Otherwise you can check your local listings. (Do they still have local listings.?) Incidentally, I listen to a show on 107.1 FM in Westchester on Saturday nights called the 90's at Night. The DJ, Meg White (not THE Meg White) plays a lot of Nirvana, Smashing Pumkpins, Oasis etc. She watched the docu-series and thanked HBO/Max for "ruining her childhood." 

COMPETITIVE EATING- Joey Chestnut BANNED from Nathan's Hot Dog Contest..

On Tuesday the folks who run the July 4th Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney Island announced that 8- time defending champion and 16-time overall champ Joey Chestnut would not be allowed to defend his title this year because he had entered into an agreement with a rival hot dog company. 

Impossible Foods, the folks who brought us the Impossible Burger, a plant based, meatless burger, have apparently developed a meatless, plant based hot dog. Chestnut reportedly has signed an endorsement deal with the company, and that according to Major League Eating (a name I can't read, much less type without cracking up) is a big no-no. 

MLE's statement..

“For nearly two decades we have worked under the same basic hot dog exclusivity provisions,” the statement said. “However, it seems that Joey and his managers have prioritized a new partnership with a different hot dog brand over our long-time relationship.”

and also..

MLE and Nathan’s went to great lengths in recent months to accommodate Joey and his management team, agreeing to the appearance fee and allowing Joey to compete in a rival unbranded hot dog eating contest on Labor Day,

Chestnut for his part says he is "gutted" by MLE's decision, according to Steve Cuozzo in the Post. An interesting choice of words for a man who scarfs down hot dogs for a living. 

The Washington Post reported that Chestnut offered to put a stipulation in his deal with Impossible Foods to promote all foods except for hot dogs, but that was turned down.

I'd offer to take Chestnut's place on Coney Island, as Ed (Auggie) DePuy once claimed that I downed "47 one-dollar hot dogs" at the Brendan Byrne Arena on Valentine's Day 1995.****. Problem is I have to work at the hospital on the 5th, and if I attempted to eat half that many hot dogs, the only thing I'd be doing at the hospital on July 5th is having my stomach pumped and my arteries (re)stented. 

For everyone's sake, I hope cooler heads prevail and Chestnut gets to compete. It would be like not having Caitlin Clark participate in the Summer Olympics.

Whoops!

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I hope all my fellow Dad's out there had a great day today, and to the people in my life that made my Father's Day special (my wife, son, parents, sisters and in-laws) a from the bottom of my heart thank you to all.  

Also, it was 55 years ago this month that my dad was injured in Vietnam. Here is the Father's day special I wrote 5 years ago to honor him on the 50th anniversary.

Like I said in the above blogpost, you don't always have to look far to find your heroes. 

Thank you everyone

Stay Safe,

and Have a Great Week 

* It's the pursuit of happiness you say? According to John Lennon, Happiness is a Warm Gun. Though I think he had something else in mind when he wrote that. 

**I'm still holding out hope that John Roberts isn't in the tank for Trump, as it now appears his fellow Bush and Bush Sr. appointees Samuel Alito and Clearance Thomas are. I'm probably pissing into the wind on that one. 

***Timmy went to a classmate's birthday party in 2011 where they had someone dressed as Ming Ming the Duckling from the Wonder Pets. A lot of the kids got upset and wouldn't go near Ming-Ming. When someone wondered aloud what the problem was, I suggested that maybe getting someone as tall as Yao Ming to dress as Ming-Ming wasn't the best idea. Thankfully I wasn't banned from any future parties, but I'm sure the thought crossed the hosts minds. 

****It was 4 not 47. 

Weekly Mail June 2, 2024 (400th Blogpost)

 

Hi Everyone:

So yes, Blogger.com is saying that this is our 400th blogpost on Facebook since we re-launched back in 2015. When I started doing this again, I just took it week by week, not sure if I'd have the desire or the discipline to produce one every week. And while some weeks it's tough to put one together, when I do manage to get one published, it feels like an accomplishment. My hope here is still to make you smile, maybe make you think and even if I piss you off every once in a while, that's not the worst thing in the world. 

This will be one of those weeks where I may do all three, since there is a lot going on. Some good, some bad and some sad.

GOOD:

Admittedly, I didn't follow this case gavel to gavel, nor did I immerse myself in the details of the case. Even with the evidence seemingly overwhelmingly against him, many felt he would figure out a way to beat the rap. 

And of course, when the verdict came down and Captain Orange was convicted on all 34 counts against him, the case was rigged, it was Joe Biden's fault, (a criminal trial in NY was because of Biden's DOJ-when in doubt always blame Joe...or Hunter), the judge was corrupt and if they had moved the trial out of New York and into Mississippi or Alabama, then he would have gotten a fair trial. 

Right.

I got a kick out of Trump bitching about the judge while reports were coming out that a Supreme Court Justice was flying an upside down American flag outside his home, and another flag associated with the January 6th terrorists was flown outside said justice's New Jersey summer home. Not to mention another Supreme Court justice's wife who actively interfered in the certification of the 2020 election. Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are compromised judges. Judge Juan Merchan? Not so much. 

The folks who are dying to put Orange back in office because he's the law-and-order President, now sound like the same folks who want to put him back in because Jesus sent him here to save us. The one thing I agree with Trump on was that Mother Teresa couldn't beat this rap. 

No, if Mother Teresa f-cked a porn star and then paid her money not to not blab about it so that Mother Teresa's wife, who just gave birth to Mother Theresa's son, wouldn't find out about it, and also so that it wouldn't hurt Mother Teresa's chances of being elected President, and falsified documents to that effect, I don't think she would have beaten those charges. 

And with all that, these Christian Conservatives believe that Trump was sent down from the Almighty.

And now the law-and-order crowd can't wait to try to put a convicted felon back in the White House. 

You can't make it up.

BAD: Rangers Choke Job

I was considering waiting till next week after I had a chance to cool off and get over the embarrassment I'm feeling of having watched my hockey team lay down, but I can't imagine I'll feel any differently about it next week, so I may as well get it out of the way.

In his Sunday NY Post column, Post Ranger expert Larry Brooks wrote the following:

There's no shame to it. this wasn't last year's no show defeat to the devils. They left everything they had on the ice....

and

It's not everything, but it's not nothing, either.  

Alas, Brooksie and I must have been watching different games. Game 1 was a clear no-show.  Game 5 was a choke job, and Game 6, with their season on the line, they simply quit. How do you show up for an elimination game and practically get shut out? 

For the second time in three years, the team's big 3, Artemi Panarin, Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad either wouldn't or couldn't, but definitely didn't produce when we needed them. Panarin scored a late goal on Saturday which I'm sure several of you are going to point to and say "See, he didn't give up" 

Baloney, where was he for the first 59:00 minutes? 

Mika has to go. He's a one trick pony. Once team's figure out that his only play is to shoot that one-timer from the left circle, he gets shut down. It happened during the Tampa series two years ago and it happened again against the Panthers. His giveaway in Game 4 led to the Blake Wheeler penalty in OT that led to the game winning power play goal for Florida. And there were even times during the regular season when he disappeared.  That's forgivable if you show up in the playoffs. He didn't. Time to send him packing. 

Panarin had a monster regular season, the fact that he didn't finish in the top 3 for the Hart Trophy was an injustice in itself, but once again he was nowhere to be found after the first round of the playoffs. For the money he is getting, that's inexcusable. I wanted him traded last year. He needs to go now.

Kreider has been here a long time, he’s given us a ton of great games and memories. His performance in Game 6 of the Hurricanes series would have been remembered as an all timer. Now it won’t be remembered at all. Another conference final in which he disappeared. There is a part of me that would love to see him finish his career here, but another part of me says we’ll never win with him here. He folded like a cheap suit again. It’s getting harder to root for him. 

Jacob Trouba has been a bust. The Panthers pushed the Rangers around, and Trouba was supposed to be the guy to prevent that from happening. Instead he took a bunch of stupid penalties, tripping, hooking etc. You take a penalty because you gave a guy a hard hit, that’s one thing. But he took lazy penalties. Really just a waste of a player. At the very least, he can’t be the captain anymore. 

The list of guys I would keep is shorter than the ones I want to get rid of. Igor obviously as he was the reason we didn’t get swept. Vincent Trocheck’s job was to win face-offs and provide secondary scoring. He did his job. Alexis Lafrenire keeps getting better and better and is fulfilling his billing as a number one draft pick. Adam Fox played hurt, Braden Schneider tried, Barclay Goodrow and Ryan Lindgren are warriors.

The rest of them?  Time to go. 

5 goals in the last 3 games. Two of them were last minute meaningless goals. Losing Game 5 on home ice, then throwing in the towel for Game 6?  That’s a disgrace. 

It’s not everything, but it’s not nothing either. 

Bullshit.

The President’s Trophy is the most useless award in sports. It means nothing. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool. 

Joe Beningo asked after the Carolina series, “If not this year, then when?”  It’s a great question.  A co-worker at the Post said to me “I’ve been a fan since (the early 60’s). Maybe I should just be happy I got the one in 94.” 

I guess that’s how I have to look at it too. But I will say this. If I’m going to lose, let me lose with a team that cares, a team with some guts. Not a team of millionaires that don’t give a shit. 

That’s what I saw Saturday night. And it was embarrassing. 

SAD

RIP: Bill Walton (1952-2024)

I was saddened and to be honest a little surprised at the news of Bill Walton's passing last Monday.

I knew he was battling prostate cancer, but I think there is a part of you that when you see someone who is as full of life as was Walton, you think they can overcome anything. 

As I wrote on Facebook this week, so many people who saw him play in college say he was the best they ever saw. I'm not just talking about fellow players, former coaches and the basketball media, I'm talking my dad, my father in law, coaches I played for, really almost anyone of a certain age who saw what he did at UCLA. His performance in the 1973 NCAA Championship Game (21-22 shooting 44 points) is considered one of the best of all time. 

I never saw him in his prime, my main memory of him as a player was when he came off the bench for the Celtics in their 1986 championship season. 

I hate to quote him because he's become such a buffoon, but Mike Francesa once compared Walton to Joe Namath. Both were great college players who led their respective pro teams to championships but ultimately had their careers derailed by debilitating injuries. Namath had bad knees, Walton was betrayed by bad feet. 

They both also transcended their sport. Namath represented the glitz and glamour of the elite athlete. He was the original. Broadway Joe. 

Walton was known just as much for his political activism as he was for his on-court heroics. And he was considered almost as much a part of the Grateful Dead as was Jerry Garcia. 

I read his autobiography a few years ago. He was honest too. As much as he loved John Wooden, he readily admitted they butted heads and still to this day believed that on some issues he was right and the Wizard of Westwood wasn't. Fortunately their love and respect for each other overcame their differences. (What a concept right?) 

I enjoyed him as a color commentator. You couldn't help it even when he seemed to go off into La La Land, he was entertaining. And he knew his stuff.  

Anyone who spoke of him this past week no matter if they were basketball people or not, no matter what side of the political spectrum they fell on, or anything else that either defines or divides us, only spoke glowingly of him. He touched many lives , and was so full of life himself, it’s still hard to believe he is gone. 

BASEBALL; Darryl Strawberry Number Retired

I've spoken before about my mixed emotions about the Mets retiring numbers. Since Steve Cohen bought the team from the Wilpons, the franchise has retired Keith Hernandez, Willie Mays, Doc Gooden and now Darryl Strawberry. 

The trade for Hernandez was the main catalyst for the Mets going from laughingstock after the 1977 Tom Seaver trade to perreinal contenders in the mid to late 80's. Retiring Mays 24 apparently fulfilled a promise made by former owner Joan Payson to the Say Hey Kid when she traded for him in 1972. Better 50 years later than ever I guess. 

I was conflicted about Gooden and Strawberry. Gooden's first 2 seasons as a Met were other-wordly. His second season, 1985, is still the greatest season I have ever seen a pitcher have. He went from immortal, to very good to washed out in short order. I hated how his time as a Met ended.

And I'm even more conflicted about Darryl Strawberry.

He had much of the same off the field issues as did Gooden, drugs and booze ruining what could have been a career that ended with a plaque in Cooperstown. We all have our demons. I don't hold that against him. 

As much as the end of Gooden's time as a Met ended, the way Straw's time ended hurt me more. 

I didn't realize at the time that Frank Cashen the Met GM at the time, really did want to re-sign Strawberry after the 1990 season. All I had heard was that Darryl couldn't wait for the season to end so that he could sign with his hometown Dodgers. The day he left for Los Angeles, and Mike and the Mad Dog opened their show by playing Randy Newman's I Love LA was one of biggest virtual kicks to the groin I can remember. 

For years, I couldn't forgive him. When he fell off the wagon and was blasted in the media by Tommy Lasorda (It's a weakness not a sickness*), I felt bad for him, but also felt that for all the complaining he did about Davey Johnson, maybe he had this coming. I felt awful when he fell ill with cancer and prayed for his recovery. But still I thought about how he left the Mets, especially since the franchise fell apart after his departure, much the same way it had when Seaver was dealt to the Reds. 

Even (and maybe even especially) when he won a ring with the Yankees, it still stuck in my craw. Like I said, I know Cashen and the Mets didn't offer him nearly what the Dodgers did, but would that have even mattered? 

He's come back to the Mets since his retirement a couple of times, and also broke away from them again. Steve Cohen has taken a lot of well deserved heat for how things are going with the Mets these days. But mending fences with the alumni has been one of his strengths, perhaps his biggest strength.

I watched the ceremony on TV, and I mean, if you have half a heart and soul, you had to be moved by the speech he gave. I know the easiest thing to do when you have the crowd chanting your name and your number is raised to the rafters is to say you never should have left. I don’t know if I totally believe him.

I don’t know if I’ve totally forgiven him. 

But his journey from beating cancer, from having the tools to keep his addictions at bay, to going to prisons and hospitals to inspire others to overcome their demons, it’s  been quite a road that he has traveled since he broke our hearts 34 years ago. He says he’s  glad to be back.  I guess I’m glad he’s back too. 

I'm glad they retired his number.

Sorry we got this out late. Was going back and forth about venting on the Rangers. 

Stay Safe

and Have a Great Week