Weekly Mail November 30, 2025

 

hi:

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving. 

This was of course, the first one without Mom. The next big day coming up will be what would have been her 75th birthday, December 10. And of course Christmas and New Years after that. You feel that piece of you that is gone even more on holidays and milestones. But the love and support you get from family and friends really does help. A lot. And that is what I was thankful for this past Thursday. 

Now back to my regularly scheduled kvetching. 

BASEBALL: Losing Nimmo

While watching the Jets and the Giants once again pooping the bed last Sunday, the news came over that the Mets and Rangers were finalizing a deal that would send Brandon Nimmo down to Texas in exchange for second baseman Marcus Semien. 

I'm trying to take my feelings and emotions out of this one. Nimmo was one of my favorite Mets. He was drafted by them and came up through their system. He was also one player who I never had to worry about not showing up or giving 100% every day. All my fellow Mets fans, even the members of Fans Against God Squads, loved watching him play. And I always got a kick out of him thanking our Lord and Savior every time he got on base. 

Another RBI for Jesus

So yeah, it's hard to be objective. But even being objective, even considering how unacceptable last season was and how changes needed to be made, I really don't see the upside to this deal. 

Semien is 35 years old with declining numbers. Nimmo hit .262 with 25 homers and 92 RBI's. Semien hit .230 with 15 homers and 62 RBI's. Plus Nimmo is 3 years younger. I'm being told that part of the reason for the deal is that Semien's contract is shorter than Nimmo's, which leads me to ask, why are we worried about contracts? I thought our days of worrying about contracts were over? 

I'm also hearing that Semien is a tremendous fielder, which I will admit he has that over Nimmo, who was, well lets say not a tremendous fielder. Semien had better be a great fielder for the amount of offensive production we are giving up in this deal. 

Now, my co-editor Karl (the Ace) Ludwig has assured me that this is a good deal for the Mets. He was as much a Nimmo fan I as am, but he puts a lot more stock in defense than I do. He also pointed out that Semien just three seasons ago hit 29 homers and drove in 100 runs. Looking at his 2023 season, he also led the AL in hits and runs scored. Hey, if he finds the fountain of youth and comes up with those numbers here in Flushing, I'll be glad to come back here next Thanksgiving and have a little crow with my Turkey and stuffing. 

I should probably hold out judgement to see what else David Stearns has up his sleeve for the rest of the off season. He now has to add an outfield bat to his list of needs. 

But as a stand alone deal, this one looks like a stinker from where I'm sitting. 

FOOTBALL: Giants kick over the Daboll

I have nothing but respect for John Mara.

 He seems like a genuinely good guy. Unlike the knucklehead who owns my football team, I think Mara cares about his players and the fans. I have never heard anyone who played for the Giants ever say anything bad about him, and many of them sing his praises. 

Now having said all that, I think he did his team a tremendous disservice at the conclusion of last season. 

And I know some of you are going to call me a hypocrite for saying it and that's fine, hopefully I can explain myself to show you why I feel the way I do.

When Mara announced he was bringing back GM Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll for a 4th season, he put them squarely on the hot seat.

“It’d better not take too long because I’ve just about run out of patience,” Mara said after he and team co-owner Steve Tisch opted to bring back the duo.

Of everything Mara said Monday, that quote was the most telling about the expectations for Schoen and Daboll in 2025. It’s win or else.

“Not good enough” was the common refrain from Daboll and Schoen as they spoke with members of the media after Mara’s remarks. Though ownership brought the duo back in large part to maintain some consistency and avoid moving on to a fifth head coach and third GM in a decade, there is no doubt the stakes have been raised for Daboll and Schoen.

“I’m going to have to be in a better mood this time next year than I am right now,” Mara said. (New York Times- January 7, 2025)

Now I guess here is where the hypocrisy comes in. I know I am forever and for always demanding that the people coaching and general managing my teams are being held accountable. And let's face facts- since the Giants won that playoff game vs the Vikings almost 3 years ago, things have not gone well. Mara has the right to expect better for his money.

But it was pretty obvious that it was going to take more than one off season to fix what ailed this team. They brought in a washed up Russell Wilson and a mediocre Jameis Winiston to serve as bridge QB's after they drafted Jaxon Dart. Dart looks like he might be a winner eventually, if the Giants have enough patience and thick skin to overcome the media yahoos calling for his head. 

I guess my question to John Mara would have been, "What exactly would put you in a better mood this time next year?  A .500 record?  A playoff spot? To borrow and paraphrase from former Met owner Fred (coupon) Wilpon, "meaningful games in (December/January)?" 

Again I don't mean to pick on the man, because I think he meant well, but he put both Schoen and Daboll in a really bad spot. This may be the perfect case of hindsight being 20/20, but he probably should have done what (dare I say it) Woody Johnson did and send the two of them packing last year.

That, or set a more reasonable expectation. When they drafted Dart, maybe come out and say he would give them the chance to develop him. Especially since Schoen didn't draft the last Giants would be savior. Daniel Jones. 

Now maybe Mara will keep Schoen on and let him hire another coach, but I really don't see that happening. I know this is a results business and the results haven't been there, believe me, I know all about lack of results. I just think John Mara needs to look in the mirror and own up to the fans that he screwed up too, much the way Steve Cohen did at the end of the baseball season. 

The fans would respect him more if he was honest like that. 

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I've been going back and forth whther or not I should chime in about that thing who represents the 14th Congressional District in Georgia deciding to resign from the House of Representatives come January 5. I really don't like writing about her and giving her more attention, and I've gone back and forth on whether or not she was demanding the release of the Epstein files because she suddenly developed a conscience, or as AOC suggested, she was pissed the her hero, Convicted Felon Captain Orange wouldn't support her run for the Senate. 

Here is all I'm going to say about it, I don't believe for one second she is going to go quietly into the night on January 5th, 2026. The fact that she is threatening to sue Time Magazine because they reported that she was considering running for President in 2028, leads me to believe she is considering running for POTUS in 2028. She has spent the last 4 years doing everything she can to draw attention to herself and now we are expected to believe she is going to make like Howard Hughes? C'mon! 

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I consider myself a traditionalist when it comes to sports, so I still watch the Lions game at 12:30 and the Cowboys game at 4:30 on Thanksgiving, usually with Timmy and my nephew Connor and my brother in law Brian. I skip the Thanksgiving night game unless the Jets are playing, and since the infamous butt fumble took place on Thanksgiving night, I probably wouldn't watch it even if they were playing. 

But watching the two games during the day, since John Madden called Thanksgiving Day games on both CBS and Fox, both networks have dedicated their broadcasts in his honor. Which reminded me that I read a book recently about the legendary broadcast team of Pat Summerall and the aforementioned Madden..

BOOK REVIEW- Madden and Summerall: How They Revolutionized NFL Broadcasting

By: Rich Podolsky

What was great about this book for me was not only the things they discussed that I remember, but also learning things I never knew about. 

Whenever I think about Pat Summerall, the first expression that comes to my mind is "Montana to Rice!" a call I feel like I heard him make hundreds of times (it wasn't but it sure seemed that way)

What the author points out is that Summerall learned from legendary Packers broadcaster Ray Scott was to use an economy of words. Scott would call a Packers touchdown like this: "Starr, to Dowler. Touchdown!" That was it. That's all he had to say, the TV told the rest of the story.  Montana to Rice. Touchdown!" Done.

The book describes the road each man took to get to their partnership. Madden, of course, coached the Raiders from 1969-1978. In those 10 season, he made the playoffs 8 times, made it to the AFL/AFC Championship game 7 times. and won the only Super Bowl he coached in. Amongst his playoff losses was the Immaculate Reception game against Franco Harris and the Steelers, which the author said haunted Madden for the rest of his life. As a coach, he never had a losing record and never finished lower than second place. The author also said it was claustrophobia and not fear of heights/flying that led him to retire from coaching and avoid flying. 

Now as for Summerall, he played for the Giants back in the day, and after his playing days were over, held a variety of broadcasting jobs, football or otherwise. Before he was paired with Madden, he had another long time broadcast partner, former Eagle Tom Brookshier 

Now, the book someone needs to write is about that pairing. These two guys couldn't stand each other during their playing days, but became fast friends when they started working together. According to the book, they prepared for their broadcasts the same way; namely by going to the hot spot in whatever city they were broadcasting from that week and tying one on. Apparently, the final straw for Summerall-Brookshier was Super Bowl XIV in Pasadena. According to one of the producers, they spent most of the two weeks before the game drinking at the hotel pool. The broadcast was panned by several news outlets and the decison was made to split them up.

Madden prepared for the broadcasts the same way he prepared for games he coached. Watching film, studying scouting reports, etc. Putting them together rubbed off some on each of them. 

I hope I didn't give too much away, it really is worth reading, if you grew up watching them like I did, or you get a kick out of TV history, this was a fun read. 

BOOK REVIEW-Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur

By: Jeff Pearlman

If you ever look at the list of books Bob Woodward wrote, they are almost entirely of the political variety. It stands to reason, as one of the two Washington Post reporters who broke open the Watergate scandal, politics was/is Woodward's wheelhouse.

But there's one book on his list that has nothing to do with politics. 

In 1984, Woodward wrote Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi. Looking at the Wikipedia page about the book, it seems many of Belushi's friends, even those who Woodward interviewed complained the book was exploitive, that it painted an unfair and incomplete picture of the legendary comic actor. I'm not sure if the experience led Woodward to stick to political books, but from what I can see, he rarely if ever ventured out of the political arena. 

Jeff Pearlman, who I have written about several times on these pages, has written nothing but sports books. Since he and I are around the same age, the things he is interested in are usually the things I am interested in. His first book was about the 1986 Mets, of course, one of my all time favorite teams. And it's gotten to the point where even if I'm not that interested in what he is writing about, I still buy the book because I know I'll enjoy his writing style.

Still, this one was not a slam dunk. 

He wrote books about Bo Jackson and Walter Payton, guys I respected but didn't follow that closely. He wrote books about Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and Brett Favre, the first two are guys I can't stand and the third who turned out to be a POS. But at least I was familar with all of them.

Here's what I knew about Tupac Shakur. He was shot after the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon fight on September 7th, 1996*.  He died almost a week later from those injuries on September 13. 

I also knew that his aunt was convicted in the shooting death of NJ State Trooper Werner Foester and escaped from prison. She fled to Cuba, where she lived until her death this past September. 

That was it.  I could only name one of his songs, (California Love-which they play on SiriusXM 90's on 9 every once in a while) I never saw any of the movies he was in. Shoot, the first time I even heard his name was during the first ski trip I took with Ray and the Cooper Union peeps. That was the nickname they gave our buddy Shahar Harel. (Tupac Shahar- get it? You kinda had to be there). 

I went into this book, totally blind. I trusted Jeff Pearlman to tell the story.

And like every Pearlman I've read, there were times I didn't want to put it down. 

I don't want to give too much away in case you are interested in reading this, but I will tell you a couple of things. 

1) Pearlman never mentions Assata Shakur, which I was wondering if he would. He does write about Tupac's mother, who was a very interesting character to say the least.

2) Tupac's musical interests are not what you might expect from someone who specialized in rap and hip-hop. At one point, Pearlman wrote about Tupac's hatred of Vanilla Ice, not merely because he was a wannabe, but because his hit song Ice, Ice Baby, sampled from Queen/David Bowie's classic Under Pressure, "a song Tupac loved"

This book has something else in common with Woodward's Belushi book: people who knew Tupac or claim to be Tupac fans or experts, have taken Pearlman to task over the book. I follow Pearlman on social media, so he has gone into detail on some of the criticism he has received.  According to Pearlman, much of the guff he is getting is coming from people who haven't read the book. 

All I can say is, if it made it to the book, it had to have happened. Pearlman usually takes two years to interview, research, write and publish his books. This one took three years. I am positive the man left no stone unturned here. 

Both books get 4.5 Auggies.

That’s all we got this week folks

Stay Safe

and Have a Great Week

*September 7, 1996, I have often said was one of the best days I have ever had. It was just a random Saturday, but I spent the first part of the day hanging with Ace at Belmont Park, and the second part of the day at Rory Dolan’s (my maiden voyage). 1996 had been a rough year, but things started to turn around for me that day.