GLASSES
My editor, Jon the Met Fan, says that I am an unabashed homer when it comes to baseball. He said that I watch the games through pin-stripped glasses. I say- what’s wrong with that?
ROYAL PAIN
KC is 24-40 against AL teams but has a 13-4 record against NL teams and THAT is why they’re tied for last place in the AL Central division 9 games out of first place. Is that a testament FOR the DH or simply evidence of the AL’s superiority over the NL- see the World Series AND All-Star games for further evidence? Even the Mets’ current manager, Jerry Manuel says his team takes a back seat to the Yankees.
GAS PUMP GOOD NEWS
Leave it to Jack Finarelli, The Sports Curmudgeon, to see something of a positive note within all of the negatives about “Big Oil.” It seems that a Harvard study said that the average American walks about 900 miles a year. The American Medical Association said the average American drinks about 22 gallons of alcohol a year. The SC reasoned, “This means, on average, Americans get about 41 miles to the gallon. Kind of makes you proud to be an American.”
The SC also talked about the release of QB Jared Lorenzen (6-4, 285 lbs.) by my Giants. Lorenzen had been called “The Pillsbury Throw-boy,” “J’Load,” and the “Hefty Lefty. “For the moment he will simply have to be known as—unemployed.”
GAME CLOCK
One of the most attractive aspects of baseball is that the game isn’t limited by a clock- at least up to this point. Now “Uncle Bud” Selig has decided (or was told that he decided by the TV people) that the game HAS TO BE SPEEDED UP. In fact Cecil Cooper AND Roy Gardenhire were “fined undisclosed amounts for failing to adhere with pace-of-the-game regulations.” Detroit’s Jim Leyland said, “They want me to run to the mound. I smoke three packs a day and they want me to run on and off the mound.” Bob Molinaro said that maybe if Leyland used a golf cart with an oxygen tank it might satisfy Selig.
A game might take 3 ½ hours but do you think TV could “do their part” by reducing commercial times? HA! NO WAY!
Managers use the slow walk to the mound before signaling for a reliever to give that reliever a littler extra warm-up time. THAT was a game strategy but not they want to take it away.
BERNA-HAZARD
Rumor has it that Tony Bernazard MIGHT be in line to replace Omar Minaya if things don’t change for the better. I wonder if Bernazard started that rumor himself. Bernazard was a 10-year major leaguer (2B/SS), had a career .262 BA, and a .726 OPS. This guy has a lot of Isiah Thomas in him and is said to have killed any good relationships that Willie Randolph had with his Latin players
LAKE PINIELLA
The Chicago Cubs announcer Bob Brenly said if the Cubbies win the World Series for the first time since 1908, they’d name a lake after Lou Piniella.
Then it’d be Huron, Ontario, Erie, Superior, and Piniella. The acronym for the Great Lakes would be H.O.P.E.S. because that’s what Cubs fans had for all this time.
SCHILLING AND THE HALL
If Curt Schilling’s 20-year major league career comes to an end because of this latest shoulder problem, I’m sure the Boston guys will start clamoring for his induction into Cooperstown’s Hall of Fame. However, I see him as ANOTHER one of the Red Sox bubble candidates His 216-146 (10-7 average) and his 3.46 ERA isn’t good enough for an automatic entry-ticket for the Hall but his 11-2, 2.23 ERA in the post season puts him on that bubble
MADDUX AND THE HALL
Pitcher Greg Maddux, 42, told the Albany Times Union, that he toured the MLB Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, “It was kind of cool seeing all the guys there that I had a chance to play against. You walk in there and say-‘Yep, I gave up a hit to him, a home run to him—‘”
BROWN BAGGING
David Thomas of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram interviewed Big Brown after the horse lost the third leg of the Triple Crown. He asked the horse if he was upset about all of the negative things that were written about him in the papers. Brown answered: I can honestly say that I don’t read newspapers, so those things don’t bother me.”
D’ANTONI’S CHALLENGE
Mike D’Antoni MUST get more out of his Knicks players. The MUST leave their egos at home. They MUST not have their stat sheet as their first daily read. They MUST learn to make the extra pass. They MUST buy into the team-play concept. They MUST realize what the Celtics did the season after they won only 24 games.
OUTCASTS ARE MFL STARS
Scott Ostler suggested that we create the rotisserie style Miscreant Football League. You can draft active, retired or currently unsigned players. You can even draft dead players because you never know when your guy could be implicated in a crime posthumously. The San Diego Union has a web site with up-to-date lists of arrests and citation involving NFL players. Points can be awarded, for example, if your player is brought to court for arraignment and misunderstands that legal terminology and he showers the judge with dollar bills- 7 points.
MULTIPLE GUESS
Norman Chad wrote about how his Dad, being like many other Florida motorists who are retired, makes educated guesses about traffic signals. He said, “I often close my eyes when he’s behind the wheel, but then I realize, that makes two of us. He also invokes his first rule of the road, from the old days in the Bronx: Make the other guy brake.”
CARLIN
George Carlin came from the Washington Heights section of NYC, an area that he called “White Harlem.” He had an off-beat and often irreverent sense of humor that was always thought provoking and was always not very far from bursting ill-conceived ego balloons.
