The main difference between my colleague Jon Minners’ Mets and my Yankees is that no matter how either team begins, come October, the Bronx Bombers are always in the playoffs while the Mets are playing golf. Santana, whose $19 million salary exceeds the entire Marlin payroll of $17 million (not including players on the DL), looked like he was worth every penny in his Met debut. He went seven innings, gave up three hits, allowed two runs, and two walks while K’ing eight on 100 pitches (68 strikes) – But that was only one start. After that, he lost two before winning his second game of the season. If we extend this through the season, he could wind up 10-20.
Greg Cote said that successes in April for baseball teams like his Marlins and Jon’s Mets is like “surmising a correlation between a tasty wedding cake and a long marriage.” This season is still in the honeymoon stage and waiting for the Mets’ usual precipitous collapse is like having a divorce lawyer hand out business cards at a wedding. So, Met fans, enjoy it while you can.
What kind of a career did Joe DiMaggio have? He played for 13 seasons from 1936-1951 and fought in the Army during WW II from ’43-‘46. He still was able to hit 361 home runs while striking out only 369 times (34 average per year). He had a BA of .325 and averaged 207 hits per year. Unbelievable, especially when compared to today’s hitters who think that a .250 average is reason enough to demand a multi-million dollar contract.
Greg Cote said that Miami’s schedule was so soft next season that it would be brought to you by Charmin.
Donnie Walsh stated that Isiah Thomas would remain in the organization and report to him. Translation – Isiah isn’t allowed to talk to the media on his own. Given the Knicks belief in the recent past that speaking out to the media was a dismissible action (see Larry Brown), if and when Isiah speaks, which he will, he will be firing himself. If that happens, the Knicks might not be obliged to pay him the balance of his contract as they would if Walsh had fired him right away.
John Daly’s life has been in a train-wreck mode for some time. His drinking excesses have derailed what was a promising golf career that burst on the scene with a up-from-nowhere win in the 1991 PGA Championship. This season he’s played in seven tournaments, missing the cut three times and was DQ’ed once for missing a tee time in a Pro-Am tournament with Arnold Palmer because, it was rumored, that he was drinking in the hospitality tent with some sponsors. The media isn’t blameless. They have to take some responsibility. They’ve been enablers who’ve marveled at his prodigious drives, laughed at his antics, and generally didn’t talk about his self-destructive actions. Sponsors must stop giving him exemptions. TV commentators must paint a true picture, and Daly, himself, must realize that the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming locomotive.
Congratulations to Laura Ramirez, a 17-year old student at Truman High School in Co-op City, for not only beating two-time defending champion Ruth Sullivan in the women’s 106-lb. division of the NY Daily News Golden Gloves by a 4-1 Championship decision, but also being selected as the most outstanding female boxer in the tournament.
Bronxite Livingston Joseph was also selected as the most outstanding male open boxer in the tournament.
My thanks also go out to Dom Pisanelli for his kindness, consideration, and thoroughness in the way I was treated at the finals for the Golden Gloves tournament.
Hillary Clinton “lied” (she said she mis-spoke) about dodging sniper fire at the airport in Bosnia when film of the photo-op proved otherwise. Then she appeared on Letterman and joked about the whole thing. A lie by any other name, is still a lie.
The Sports Curmudgeon can’t wait to hear from the Al Gore Acolytes about how the “Olympic Torch tour” has created greenhouse gases that have a footprint “equal to a jillion farting cows in feed lots around the world.”
Again, maybe it’s just me—but….
