THE SAUERBRUN REPORT
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material on this page covers the period of 4-7-06 through 7-3-07...there is a short period of this site's existence prior to 4-7-06 where the entries that appeared here have disappeared from our records
 

 

The tail end of Mets beat writer Mark Hale’s game notes in Monday’s Post contained an interesting tidbit of information. It indicated that after Sunday’s game in Philly, catcher Paul LoDuca said “he’s done talking to the media permanently.”

If true, LoDuca is being a baby. He’s steamed primarily about two instances of newspaper coverage of incidents initiated by his own conduct and comments. The first came last year when it was reported by the tabloids that he had courted a teenaged woman from Long Island as he split from his wife. That coverage was a bit over the top and probably not newsworthy, but it is New York and it’s gonna get play in the tabloids.

Then last Thursday, after the finale of the Cards series got rained out at Shea, LoDuca was approached for questions on two major themes. The media wanted to preview the important weekend Phillies series. And reporters also wanted an update on whether - or when LoDuca and the Mets would drop an appeal of a two-game suspension handed down after he flipped his lid and threw equipment on the field after getting ejected for arguing balls/strikes on 6-23 vs. the A’s.

LoDuca was tired of discussing the suspension appeal, which had become a daily concern for the media because of its important roster implications. Instead of a polite no comment, he said something that garnered headlines: “I’ll do this (interview), but you need to start talking to other players. It’s the same three or four people every day. Nobody else wants to talk. Some of these guys have to start talking. They speak English, believe me.”

LoDuca has been a go-to guy for the media because he’s passionate, generally well-spoken and usually has something interesting to say. He’s also the catcher, a position that can bring a wider perspective on the game. He’s in the final year of his deal, and the Daily News has reported that the Mets don’t want to bring him back in ’08.

His declaration that he’s done talking to the media came two days after what seemed like a sympathetic reaction to his comments aimed at the portion of the roster that speaks Spanish first. It was speculated that LoDuca was referring primarily to Carlos Delgado who routinely blows off the media and is wonderfully bilingual.

If anything, LoDuca raised an issue that had otherwise not been acknowledged from the inside, but was considered a possible point of consideration. Is the beautiful and diverse collection of talent assembled on the Met roster complicated by the fact that a solid half of the team speaks Spanish first? That didn’t seem to be the point of LoDuca’s statement. More so, it could have been LoDuca deflecting a leadership role he’s not always comfortable with – and that nobody (other than maybe David Wright) on the Mets seems to want.

Who knows. Public perception of LoDuca may be a lot higher than LoDuca thinks it is. The two main stories that LoDuca is ticked about haven’t negatively impacted public opinion of him best we can tell. He should have continued just being himself.

His decision to clam up and cut off contact “permanently” with the writers who cover the Mets might make him feel like he’s firing a salvo at the big bad New York media. But really, he’ll be the loser. He’ll create further awkwardness in the clubhouse as quote-seekers have to find others to extract info from. He won’t be able to clarify his role in a given ballgame. If he indeed continues his media boycott, he could end up turning into a villain.

And villains can get skewered in this town.

-Great story Monday from reporter John Branch as he covers Wimbledon for the Times. He profiled the Bryan brothers, Bob and Mike, the number one men’s doubles team in the world. The 29-year-old identical twins “do not like to be apart,” says Branch. His piece includes all sorts of really funny and heart-warming examples of their quirky way of life, including the fact that they share their hotel rooms and a single e-mail account. While both attended Stanford, they initially were assigned separate dorm rooms and couldn’t stand being apart. So Branch says “Bob put a mattress on the floor of Mike’s room. They have rarely been apart since.” Branch’s story also says that during the period in which they won their first Grand Slam title in Paris in ’03, they ate at the same Chinese restaurant 29 nights in a row.

-One of the real highlights of watching West Coast baseball on the package late night here in New York is getting to see Dodgers catcher Russell Martin. What a player. He’s the best catcher in baseball right now, for sure. He steals bases, hits in the clutch, throws runners out and carries himself like a real leader on a very tough Dodgers team.

7-3-07 0114


Unable to exhibit the slightest bit of fiscal restraint or team-building know-how, Isiah Thomas continues to bury the Knicks with maneuvers that will make the once-celebrated franchise impossible to revive for several more years.

Isiah’s acquisition of selfish scorer and habitual thug Zach Randolph on draft night turns the Knicks into an ever worse mess than thought possible. Yeah, it’s nice to unload the atrocious contract of Stevie Francis but there’s a reason Portland dumped Zach and his 25 and 10 on the Knicks with Channing Frye as the only borderline chip in return. It’s because Zach has a rap sheet, he’s selfish, he doesn’t play D and he can quickly undermine the concept of team in a variety of ways. The final straw for astute Portland GM Kevin Pritchard was when the team granted Randolph a questionable bereavement leave (he missed three games to attend the funeral of a girlfriend’s cousin). Randolph ended up walking out on a Portland strip club tab during the time frame he claimed was needed to attend the funeral in Indiana.

Randolph plays much the same kind of game as Eddy Curry does – and Isiah has been saying since spending two lottery picks on Curry that the big man was supposed to be the team’s franchise player. With Randolph due $61 mil over the next four seasons, how does another ball-hog impact Curry’s development? Says Peter Vescey of the Post: “As much guaranteed scratch as the Knicks squander annually, correct me if I’m wrong, they’re still limited to using one ball on each offensive possession.”

And oh yeah, you’ve still got Starbury who wants to be the man. And what about David Lee’s minutes?

It’s really a shame. The Bulls are sitting there with Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah as the ex-dynasty rebuilds with Knick picks. The Knicks spend and spend and spend with no long-term plan. Every time the Knicks get a couple years closer to getting some kind of cap relief, they take on another bloated contract and go back to being a collection of unlikable shoot-first individuals.

Randolph’s history of violating laws and team rules makes it an even likelier possibility that the deal backfires. One bad incident from this guy as a Knick and the back pages will lower the boom in a way that even Isiah hasn’t seen yet during his brutal reign.

-We listened to ESPN radio’s coverage of the NBA draft, and its version of the Celtics/Sonics trade didn’t mention the inclusion of Glen “Big Baby” Davis. A broadcast team lead by Doug Gottlieb reported throughout the evening that the Celts were giving up Jeff Green, Delonte West and Wally Szczerbiak for Ray Allen. It wasn’t until Friday morning that we heard Davis (selected at #35 by Seattle) was also going to Boston.

If you consider that Allen may be on the downside of his great career, and that the 23-year-old West is a very underrated and tough point guard, you wonder if this deal could backfire on Boston. They could have kept Green – and continued a deliberate rebuilding program which already includes Al Jefferson. The inclusion of Davis makes it a more intriguing deal, however, because Big Baby could end up being an excellent pro, not to mention a great marketing guy.

6-29-07 2211

 

He and his band don’t do a lot of live performances, so instead of waiting for Destroyer frontman Dan Bejar to come to New York, we went north of the border to see him do the first gig of a three-stop Canadian mini-tour. It was well worth the trip.

TSR jumped on a 37-seat regional jet bound for Ottawa, Canada from Newark Wednesday to see the lyrical genius play at the excellent venue Barrymore’s on Bank Street.


About a third of the way through the show during a quiet period while Bejar seemed to be thinking about which song to play next, a woman standing near me started singing the opening couple of lines from “It’s Gonna Take an Airplane.”

He scoffed at the request. It put a bit of a chilling effect on what I’m sure would have been several verbal pleas to hear any number of great songs from his vast catalog (TSR was hoping to see him do our favorite: “Trembling Peacock”). Despite the reaction to the fan’s request, Bejar was in excellent spirits perhaps in part due to the spirits that accompanied him on stage. He indicated he had flown in from Vancouver that day and was a bit weary, but he smiled often. Well before he took the stage, he stood in the audience for the duration of the set by the first of two opening bands.

When he went on a little after ten, it was just Bejar and his electric. He played about 90 minutes and included several “new” songs as well as material from his ’06 release Rubies. Especially intense were “European Oils” and “Painter in Your Pocket.” A full band would have been nice, but Bejar did an excellent job filling the percussion layer with fluctuations in noise level that acted as a beat. His transition from soft to loud – from gentle to brash – added a depth to the sound which was delivered through a system that was constructed well above ear-level if you were standing on the main floor.

The crowd was quiet, appreciative and respectful during the performance. There was no encore, and really no significant attempt to get one.

We stayed at a Holiday Inn about fifteen minutes from the venue by foot. The late-night walk back to the hotel was pleasant. As we strode through the mainly deserted capital city of Canada just before

 

Barrymore’s (pictured above) on Bank Street is an impressive old, converted theatre that is a great place to see a show. A small, dark lounge on the first floor has a DJ and a full bar. You climb one flight of stairs to access the main space which ascends two more stories with a bar on each level. There are chairs and tables facing the stage on each floor and we’d estimate the capacity at about 500. Just over half that number came on Wednesday night leaving the place plenty comfortable and accommodating.

We had a few pre-show brews at Connor’s Gaelic Pub next to Barrymore’s. When the owner/bartender served your pint, he’d loudly say: “Incoming!”

The chicken shawarma plate and a soda for $10 at Shawarma King on Elgin was fantastic.

Ottawa is just a sixty-minute flight from New York and is a great place to visit. The #97 bus takes you from the Ottawa airport to downtown in less than a half-hour for just $3. About a quarter of the city’s population speaks French, which adds some flair and unpredictability to the social environment.

On six or seven previous visits to Canada, we breezed through customs. But this trip was different. When the Canadian customs agent asked the purpose of my visit, I told her I was going to a rock show (this is the kind of story that requires first-person vs. our normal style of “we” and “our”).

“Destroyer” I told her. A solo performance by Dan Bejar. That must have raised a red flag, because she sent me to the immigration office for a complete grilling with note-taking by a serious no-nonsense woman in uniform. “Where is the concert? Can I see your ticket? Do you have a printed copy of your return itinerary? Have you ever been arrested, for even the most minor offense? Who do you work for? What do you do?”

Whatever I said – or didn’t say – bought us yet another stop in a private and secure room for a somewhat intimidating session with an armed immigration agent who rifled through every last bit of my limited belongings on hand. “Destroyer, huh? What kind of music is that? I saw Roger Waters a few weeks ago,” said the agent with a nice haircut. He wanted to know how to pull up the stored pictures on my camera. There were none. He examined an ATM receipt with my balance that was stuffed in a wad of American currency I was carrying. Like his cohort previously, he wanted to know whether I had been arrested. This time I came clean on a minor transgression two decades ago. He raised an eyebrow. And then he thought he had me nailed. Several crumpled up Hershey’s chocolate kiss wrappers in my book bag! One by one, he unraveled them. “When is the last time you used drugs?” he said.

Not exactly a fairly structured question. So I responded in kind. “I’m not a drug user, sir.” The kiss wrappers were tossed in the bag last Christmas after candy had been passed around the office. He also unwrapped a discarded lens tissue that from his perspective could have been an illicit storage technique.

Who knows. Maybe the whole thing was random. But the intensity of the experience felt less than random. I felt a little better when the guy in the inspection/interrogation area next to me was getting the same treatment. He said he was a war photographer based in Baghdad. His interrogator asked him what his annual salary was.

On most trips to Canada, I’m with my Dad for hockey games. Maybe he’s the reason I’ve glided through customs in the past.

The early AM flight out of Ottawa was cancelled because the previous night’s thunderstorms in New York had also cancelled the flight that was to bring the airplane in. So, I made plans to hop the


Our entry today comes courtesy of TSR pal Mike who relayed an amusing story on return from a week-long business trip that included a few nights in Dallas, Texas:

Stayed at a ridiculous hotel called Hotel ZaZa each night. The place is like a “W” hotel on steroids, with an unbelievable procession of gorgeous Texas women packing the bar every night. It also attracts its share of famous people, as well as people who like to get fall-down drunk. Drunker than you typically see people at NYC bars.

Thursday night I was at the bar standing next to a massive gentleman who I later found out was Eric Gagne (pitcher for the Texas Rangers).

An incredibly drunk guy who later fell off his chair struck up a conversation (with Gagne) that I found hilarious:


Guy: "What do you do for a living dude?"

Gagne: "I play baseball."

 

Guy: "What?"

 

Gagne: "I play baseball."

 

Guy: "You play bass?"

 

Gagne (now struggling not to laugh): "No, I play baseball."

 

Guy: "Too bad you don't play bass. (imitating a bass player) Ba-BOW-bow-ba-ba-bowwwww"

 

Gagne: "Yeah"

 

Guy: "That's the way to get a lot of pussy, man. Join a band."

 

Gagne: "Oh yeah?"

 

Guy: "Yeah. You should totally play bass."


Gagne was cool with the guy. Seemed like he found it as funny as I did.

 

6-26-07 0127

Looked like quite a scene at the Soldier yesterday afternoon as the green and red colors of the Mexican fans dominated the sell-out crowd at the thrilling CONCACAF championship match. There were loud boos for Landon Donovan and the great Clint Dempsey every time they touched the ball. We watched the tape of the broadcast on Fox Soccer Channel when we got home from work this morning and haven’t seen this kind of soccer since the World Cup.

US defender Carlos Bocanegra is a tough cookie and seems like a guy who will be an important figure as the US team moves toward the World Cup in 2010. The 28-year-old former member of the Fire plays for Fulham and snuffed out several Mexico scoring opportunities. He was clearly the best player in a near World Cup-quality match.

The game-tying goal by Donovan came on a penalty kick after a close call in the box as American Brian Ching acted a bit as he was clipped by Mexican defender Jonny Magallon. When Donovan prepared to take the penalty kick, the Mexican goalkeeper Oswaldo Sanchez approached him and appeared to taunt him with words and a facial display that mimicked a smooch. It was if Sanchez was questioning Donovan’s manhood. So, it was then fitting that Donovan pooched the ball softly past Sanchez as the goalkeeper froze.

The game-winner was a right-time, right-place blast from Benny Feilhaber who proved the notion that it pays to launch ‘em instead of playing around with the ball like the US teams so often do. It capped a 2-1 victory for the US in a match that really could have gone either way.

2010 can’t come soon enough for soccer fans who may have a US team that may have found the right coach in Bob Bradley.

It’s interesting to note that a majority of the game stories appearing this morning in newspapers across the country use copy written by the AP’s Nancy Armour. In her story, she notes that the US and Mexican players failed to shake hands after the match was over, a ““tradition” in this rivalry.” Yet Chicago Tribune reporter Luis Arroyave said in his game story that “a few Mexican players, including Carlos Salcido, shook hands with US players after the match.”

-With New York’s first significant stretch of extreme heat and humidity in the forecast, we’re glad to report that TSR headquarters has been equipped with a brand new air conditioner. It’s one of those windowless units that sucks out the hot air through a thick hose that fits in your window. It dehumidifies and it filters the air in the room.

We picked up a 12-thousand BTU model at a downtown Manhattan electronics store and in our initial usages, we have mixed feelings about it.

Problem No. 1: When you turn it on, its noise level reaches that of an airplane engine at full power. It vibrates the floor and makes it impossible to hear the volume on either the television or the radio. Will neighbors think we’re enriching uranium?

Problem No. 2: When it fills with water, it automatically shuts down. It can shut down in the middle of the night which forces a jump out of bed to empty the unit before re-starting it.

But the benefits are nice, too. The fact that no windows are blocked by a bulky and heavy unit means the few windows we have can remain open on cool summer nights. The windowless portable unit will be much easier to winterize with a simple roll into the closet.

-The Post’s coverage of this past weekend’s NHL draft was the best of the city’s four major newspapers – largely because it was the insightful and witty Larry Brooks who was given significant space in each of the last three days.

The Rangers dominated the headlines with the selection of Russian phenom Alexei Cherepanov who was taken with the 17th overall pick by the Blueshirts. There seems to be unanimous agreement that Cherepanov is a potential star and his plunge to the middle of the first round is attributed to concerns about prying him away from his home country. Hockey officials in Russia have blocked efforts in recent years as the NHL tries to grab away its best talent.

Meantime, Brooks says the Islanders refused to make their GM Garth Snow available for a discussion of the draft, and Brooks suggests there’s an organizational grudge against the Post. Brooks says the Post was not invited to the conference call announcing the buyout of Alexei Yashin’s contract a few weeks ago.

With or without assistance from top Islanders officials, Brooks reports that free agents Jason Blake and Ryan Smyth have shunned sizable opening contract offers to stay on the Island. Brooks also says it’s quite possible nobody scoops up Yashin and he ends up playing in Europe.

6-25-07 0219


When New York governor Eliot Spitzer took up residence in Albany as the state’s chief executive at the start of this year, there was the expectation that he was the perfect guy to break up the do-nothing gridlock that had taken hold during the Pataki era. Spitzer had a mandate from the people and was a bulldog in his stepping-stone job as attorney general.

But now it’s becoming clear that it wasn’t Pataki that was the big problem. It’s the two-faced leaders of the two houses of New York’s legislature. Both Sheldon Silver (Assembly speaker) and Joe Bruno (Senate majority leader) have been hostile obstructionists to Spitzer’s modest agenda of government reform and progressive ideas. Spitzer laid that agenda out in a fantastic state of the state address in January. Silver and Bruno flanked Spitzer for that speech and clapped throughout. But as the two houses of the state legislature called an end to its session this week, most of the governor’s proposals had been torpedoed by Silver and Bruno.

What’s especially distasteful is the conduct of Bruno who has publicly bashed Spitzer every step of the way for his approach to getting things done at a fast pace. Bruno is a skuzzy politician. He has profited privately from his public position through the creation of a “consulting firm.” He’s under federal investigation for his dealings which include highly questionable disbursements of taxpayer-funded grants to organizations to which he’s personally connected.

Bottom line: Bruno has no business demeaning Spitzer who was elected governor because the people of this state admired his interest in clean government and fairness for the common person.

So, what did Bruno have to say as his chamber closed for business this week without passing Spitzer’s campaign-finance reform measure and several other major proposals? “The blame for that lies squarely on the governor’s shoulders due to the fact that he still hasn’t figured out how to govern.” Bruno doesn’t believe Spitzer compromises enough. Bruno is used to doing it his way or no way at all. So, Spitzer has fairly attempted to shine a light on Bruno’s tactics, and the Senate majority leader has fought back with claims that Spitzer is a bully.

Spitzer isn’t a bully. He sees a legislative branch that had its way with his predecessor for more than a decade and he’s determined to make up for lost time. Spitzer thinks expenditure of public money should be done in the full light of day. He supports modest caps on campaign contributions. Bruno blocked it. And because he apparently thinks New Yorkers are dumb, he blamed the session’s inaction on Spitzer.

Another measure blocked by Bruno was a bill that would have allowed terminally-ill New Yorkers to legally access, possess and smoke marijuana to kill their pain or revive their appetite. The Assembly passed the bill, Spitzer said he would sign it, but Bruno wouldn’t permit a vote on it in the state senate. The bill was very limited in scope. Unlike some other states, it didn’t extend the right to smoke up to those with chronic pain.

The Spitzer-backed Bloomberg proposal to charge cars eight bucks to enter Manhattan during the week to reduce congestion and pollution was also not acted on. Silver has been a key obstructionist on this matter.

-The use of music by the composer Bach at Friday’s memorial service for nine firefighters killed in a furniture warehouse fire in Charleston, SC has caught the attention of classical music writer James Oestreich of the Times. Oestreich says the Charleston Symphony played “the Air” from Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 throughout the opening segment of the service. In his piece printed in Saturday’s paper, Oestreich critiqued the performance, called it “profound” and said that orchestras had often used the piece in the past to memorialize one of their own members. But the key point from Oestreich – and the most interesting – is his contention that the use of Bach in the firefighter memorial demonstrated both the power and relevance of classical music. Said Oestreich: “With all the hand-wringing over aging and shrinking audiences for classical music these days comes a concern for how to make it seem relevant to younger listeners. At its most extreme, the concern extends to whether classical music, so much a creature of Europe, has relevance for Americans in the first place. So, the use of Bach in a populist and quintessentially American setting was all the more striking.”

6-24-07 0115


The Mets’ June swoon hit a low point last night at Shea with a lifeless loss to the Twins. The 6-2 defeat resulted in a sixth straight series loss and a 4-14 record for the month of June. Carlos Delgado (pictured above) is among several guys not hitting. Delgado went 0-4 and is hitting .223 – and just .182 with runners in scoring position. His swing is late – and seems slow. Fans at Shea booed him hard Wednesday night.

The other Carlos: Carlos Beltran – was hitting a buck-45 in the month of June entering last night’s game and busted out with three hits. Earlier in the week, Beltran was blaming his recent woes at the plate on the recurrence of a sore quad.

The two Carloses have exacerbated negative fan reaction with what seems like aloofness and indifference during their slumps. WFAN’s Ed Coleman said earlier this week that Delgado has been less than accessible at points during the rough run and is failing to grab the leadership reins. Who is the leader on this team if it isn’t Delgado - the intelligent, well-spoken, bi-lingual veteran?


Met GM Omar Minaya (pictured above prior to the game - with Beltran) will likely be tempted to shake things up if the lackluster play continues. He has a lot of trade-able commodities. Peter Gammons said a few days ago that Mark Buehrle of the White Sox was being targeted by Omar with one of the young Met outfield prospects as the return. But would it not be more prudent to just stand pat and let this team revive on its own? On paper, it’s just as good or better than last year’s roster which nearly made it to the World Series. Pedro is a month away from returning, and really, the rotation has been pretty decent.

The bullpen’s biggest problem has been Scott Schoeneweis, the lefty middle-man who got a fat, three-year deal after the Mets let Chad Bradford get away. Schoeneweis has recently revealed that he has a severed tendon at the bottom of his left hamstring that originally developed last season. That would have been nice to know before the Mets got him. That left leg clearly is a problem when you watch Schoeneweis pitch. He has no push at all and just flicks the ball. He’s getting crushed, and last night he gave up a big two-run double to Joe Mauer. If there is a move to be made, it’s to put Schoeneweis on the shelf and get him right physically instead of continually using him. The evidence is strong that this guy can’t get the job done in his current physical state.


Special instructor Rickey Henderson (pictured above with Met PR man Jay Horowitz) popped in before the game last night. His role on the Mets has always been a bit of a mystery. The king of aloofness, indifference and self-absorption played cards in the Met clubhouse during game six of the ’99 LCS, yet somehow remains connected to the franchise. Prior to last night’s game, Rickey signed autographs and had a brief chat with outfielder Shawn Green. He was a great lead-off man, yeah, but do the Mets really need a guy like that hanging around the team?


Attendance was 44,517. Cowbell Man (pictured above making noise in the loge) had a funny pair of shorts on and doesn’t seem to be phased in the slightest by the plight of his team. Don’t get the hot dogs from the stands that sell them from under the heat lamp. They’re much better from either the vendor or the outlets that pull them fresh from the rotating cooker. The 7 was a piece of cake coming home. Our crappy work schedule has locked us out of our Saturday Met ticket plan but we’ve managed to get out to Shea at a pretty good clip nonetheless.

If we had to guess where this Met season is all headed, it’s really hard to say. Our hunch is that it all comes together and it’s a great battle for the division with the Phils and Braves. Maybe another group head-shaving is in order for the Mets. We hope Omar doesn’t move any young talent – including Aaron Heilman and Lastings Milledge. Don’t panic. The Mets will right the ship.

6-21-07 1356


The White Stripes rolled out the title track from their new record on Conan early this morning – and it was a big wow of a performance. On an otherwise horrible program headlined by an evasive and dull Tea Leoni, The Stripes ripped through “Icky Thump” and blew the studio’s roof off in the final minutes of the show. On a stage carefully tailored to the band’s devotion to the color red with unusually professional lighting for a TV talk show appearance, Jack alternated between a turbulent synth and a loud, crisp, ramped-up Jimmy Page-guitar sound. Best as we can decipher, Icky Thump is a tune about a guy who has had a few too many and finds himself in Mexico. As he attempts to recover, he is offered a place to rest by a “redhead senorita.” Between dazzling guitar solos, Jack throws out this image-filled passage about the song’s subject as he absorbs his temporary shelter. “Icky thump with a lump in my throat, grab a coat and I was freakin’, I was ready to go. Yes, where beside the head she had one white eye, one blank stare lookin’ up, lyin’ there. On the stand near her hand was a candy cane, black rum, sugar cane, dry ice, something strange. La la la la la la la la la la – laa – laa – laa.”

Later in the tune, Jack (wearing red pants and a black t-shirt with Meg doing the reverse) offers commentary on so-called immigration reform: “White Americans, what, nothing better to do? Why don’t you kick yourself out? You’re an immigrant too.”

Conan came out after the four-minute, fifteen-second performance was over and seemed genuine when he said: “That was the real thing! I could hear that twice!”

Normally, on Conan and all the talk shows – the rock and roll band performance is limited to one tune before the credits roll. But on this program, the show came back from break with the Stripes sitting in the studio audience for a second song off the new record: “Effect and Cause.” What was interesting about this tune was that Jack had a triple-microphone rig. About half-way through the song, he moved his head to sing into mike to his right and the audio from the television corresponded with a single-channel shift from that mike. It was a neat and surprising trick. Jack bounced back and forth between the right and left mikes and the television viewer was the beneficiary of an interesting mix. It was a great idea and great fun for the viewer at home.

The Stripes are doing a show at Irving Plaza tonight (we refuse to call it the Fillmore NY at Irving Plaza). It has to be an impossible ticket. They’re doing gigs all over the place for the next several months including a stop in July at the Garden (the big space). The record is out today and we’re gonna pick it up for sure.

 

-Francesa and Russo took time Tuesday afternoon to mock ESPN’s prohibition on talent from the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” from appearing on the Mike and the Mad Dog radio show. Guys like Jeremy Schaap, Peter Gammons and Buster Olney had all appeared as somewhat regular guests on the WFAN radio program but a recent edict from ESPN management now bans those appearances in deference to New York’s ESPN radio affiliate at 1050 on the AM dial.

During a lengthy discussion Tuesday about the greatest right-handed pitchers in the history in baseball, Russo and Francesa indicated they had hoped to discuss the issue with Schaap. Russo said Schaap called to decline citing his employer’s policy. That led Francesa and Russo to ridicule the ESPN policy as high-schoolish.

Francesa: “He (Schaap) basically needs a hall pass to get on the show.”

Russo: “He basically has to raise his hand to ask to go to the bathroom.”

Francesa: “Are they allowed to listen (to WFAN)?

Russo: “They can’t listen in the building. They’re not allowed to listen on the premises. There is a guard when you go into Bristol who makes you turn the radio off (WFAN). And they can’t go to 1050. They can’t find it (alluding to the weakness of the signal).”

6-19-07 1720


Jack Bell of the Times is reporting that the Mets have been linked with talks about launching a second Major League Soccer franchise in the New York area. Bell cites an unnamed “industry executive” who says the Mets have had discussions with the up and coming league and could be in line to operate an expansion franchise as early as 2010. Both the Mets and MLS commissioner Don Garber failed to outright confirm the idea in Bell’s story but both parties also refused to deny it. Bell, an editor on the Times sports staff is constantly breaking soccer-related stories as the paper’s stay-in-the-newsroom soccer columnist. He suggests in his piece that the new Met ballpark and associated redevelopment of the ugly salvage yards that dominate Willets Point could include room for a new soccer-only stadium. The whole thing makes sense. There is a huge pool of soccer fans from Central and South America within a few miles of Shea. Some make the trek for international friendlies and Red Bull matches at the Meadowlands. For those same folks to take the 7 train to a 25-thousand stadium with great sightlines to see professional soccer seems like an automatic success story.

6-19-07 0146


When Angel Cabrera flicked a nerve-soothing ciggie from his fingers walking up the fairway on 17 at Oakmont Sunday, he looked like anything but an Open champion. He was gripping and ripping and near the end, he was a nervous wreck. It was a beautiful thing to see brute force tackle a brute force course while the greatest player on the planet chased him from a couple holes back in the sequence.

Cabrera no doubt won fans this past weekend with his playing style. He replaces John Daly as the hero of the hacker. And the outcome was great drama as we watched it on TV.

But really, until Tiger finally missed the long and difficult birdie putt on 18, Cabrera didn’t have the look of an Open champ.

The husky Argentinean was visibly nervous and jumpy. Cabrera circled his par-saving attempt on 17 like a guy who didn’t want to take the shot until his pulse settled. Cabrera seemed to be looking for anything to regulate his emotional state. Between the smokes, the swigs off a water bottle, and the constant adjustments to his hat, Cabrera couldn’t seem to settle.

He wore a South African Airways emblem on his yellow golf shirt. When he plays the Open next year at Torrey Pines, Cabrera will wear a logo from a much bigger company.

When Cabrera went up to the brutally difficult final hole Sunday, he again gripped – and ripped. The ball finally stopped rolling on the narrow fairway at the 346-yard mark. It was in perfect position to keep Cabrera in command on a hole that had played nightmare all weekend. He soaked up the gallery cheer on 18 and made par.

Meantime, Jim Furyk’s decision to go driver on 17 may have been the tournament. Burned by the same decision on two, Furyk’s club selection with two holes to go betrays his extraordinary shot-making talents and steady approach. He should have remained true and taken par. Furyk needed to make par and he’s at least in a playoff. (The Star-Ledger’s Kevin Manahan reports in this morning’s edition that fans on two were egging on players to choose driver vs. common sense)

As for Tiger, he played great enough to win but couldn’t get a birdie putt to fall. His near make on 18 was like so many other long attempts throughout the weekend. Johnny Miller, who said a lot of wacky things the last couple of days, suggested Tiger appeared to lack fire and intensity as he played Oakmont - linking his observation to Tiger’s impending fatherhood. But jeez, Tiger played pretty good and he looked like the same old Tiger to me. He was doing very intense and insightful interviews all weekend including a great sit-down with Costas on Saturday. Instead of whining about the course like Phil and a host of others, Tiger analyzed it, complimented it and joked about its difficulty.

At the trophy ceremony, Cabrera spoke Spanish to an interpreter who translated his answers to the American audience. NBC’s Dan Hicks noted it was the first time in US Open history that an interpreter had been used on such an occasion. Hicks’ remark didn’t sound at all xenophobic. He didn’t elaborate but perhaps he meant that it’s nice to see a nervous, ciggie-puffing, Spanish-speaking, gripper and ripper win a major US golf tournament. That’s how we saw it.

-Willie Randolph gave the camera a quizzical look during his in-game dugout interview on ESPN Sunday night when analyst Joe Morgan referred to young Met pitching star Oliver Perez as “Odalis” Perez.

6-18-07 0155

The two New York baseball teams have each zigged when the other has zagged. The Yanks have won nine in a row and the Mets have lost eight of the last nine. When the two teams hooked up for their series a few weeks ago at Shea, the fortunes of each were reversed.

Now it is the Yanks that are red hot - and the Mets can’t hit. Friday night, the two teams will meet again for the first of three in the Bronx.

It’s Clemens vs. Perez on Friday. The Rocket makes his second start. One look at the old man on the mound ought to be enough to get Met bats going. Memories of Clemens throwing a bat chard at Mike Piazza adds even more juice to an already super-charged interleague series. We think Perez will outpitch the Rocket and Met bats will get going before the loud Subway Series crowd. The Yanks are an inflated 3-2 betting favorite in this matchup because of the momentum factor. But really, the Mets have a big edge pitching-wise and it is expected they’ll respond with an emotional effort after a week of flatness in Detroit and LA.

-When Curt Schilling nearly threw a no-hitter in Oakland last week, we were disappointed when our TV feed via the MLB’s Extra-Innings package cut off immediately following the end of the ballgame. We wanted to hear Tina Cervasio’s on-field one-on-one with The Shill on NESN.

But we were pleasantly surprised Tuesday night when those at the switches of Extra Innings let us soak up the post-game of FSN Detroit’s coverage of Justin Verlander’s thrilling no-no. It included several minutes of live pictures showing Verlander’s intense on-field celebration with teammates as seagulls swarmed around the field occasionally obscuring the camera shot. Verlander also had long embraces with his girlfriend and teary-eyed manager Jim Leyland. FSN Detroit’s dugout reporter Trevor Thompson did a great interview with Verlander reviewing the key defensive plays behind him. Thompson asked all the questions that needed to be asked including two basic ones that are often overlooked: (1). When did you become aware that the no-no was a possibility? (2). Describe the actions and conduct of your teammates in the dugout in the latter stages of the game. Did they stay away from you or did they say anything to you?

Thompson’s interview was also helped by the fact that Verlander is an articulate and interesting young star.

-Without warning, Time Warner shuffled its HD channel lineup today for subscribers in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn. The best part of it is the long-overdue addition of ESPN2 in high def. The “Deuce” in HD had been previously excluded and was sorely missed on the frequent occasions it had the big MLB, college football/hoops or NBA game on its schedule. To know that an event was being broadcast in HD and yet for Time Warner to not include ESPN2 on its HD menu had been a glaring negative, especially when you consider that most major TV providers had the Deuce from the get-go of HD.

The Time Warner HD channel changes also include a more rational grouping that lumps together the big four networks separate from the sports and movie channels.

-It’s difficult watching Phil fight his way through the deep rough of Oakmont with a painful wrist injury. Johnny Miller said during NBC’s Thursday Open broadcast that Mickelson’s practice round was so bad that he didn’t think he’d finish it. Mickelson told Miller that his wrist soreness has a triple dimension with pain darting from three distinct spots.

Englishman Ian Poulter continues to show flashes that he could be a threat to win a major. The fashion-minded 31-year-old has an excellent short game. Poulter makes the mid-range putts that others miss. He’s never won a PGA tour event but has the kind of game that could keep him around on Sunday.

6-14-07 1935

 

Our weekends now fall mid-week and so we headed out today with a blank slate. We jumped on the F train with the intention of getting some lunch from Rainbow Falafel on 17th and killing some time at

Union Square
. As we exited the F at 14th, a powerful thunderstorm was dumping rain and so we ducked back down into the subway and got back on the downtown train to see where it would take us until the rain petered out. We called an audible and stayed on the F all the way down to Coney Island for a visit to the flagship shop of Nathan’s Famous (pictured above).

Nathan’s has franchise outlets all over the land and the parent company has failed to maintain consistency throughout the network of stores carrying the Nathan’s name. But at the original Nathan’s just a half block from the mighty Atlantic Ocean, the food is great. We had a regular dog and a chili dog. The frankfurter is grilled and its casing is snappy. The bun is also grilled and dispensers on the counter allow for uniform self-serve application of spicy brown mustard. The Nathan’s dog isn’t quite as good as the Chicago-style hot dog, but as you sit there on
Surf Avenue
in the salty air on a June afternoon, the dogs do the trick.

Coney Island is in part famous for the Astroland Amusement park which anchors the throwback stretch of old-school rides and entertainment adjacent to the massive public beach.

Astroland’s owner recently sold its land to a developer leading some to wonder whether the enchanting vibe of seediness blended with the ocean backdrop could be destroyed by a more sterile environment of high-rise condos and glitzy mainstream entertainment.

Coney Island draws a great crowd of fun-lovers who enjoy the permissive atmosphere of unchecked alcohol sales and consumption. There are scores of bizarre shops and amusements. It’s a very unique scene that includes an annual rock festival sponsored by the Village Voice.

But the sale of Astroland to a developer who has a record of “flipping” its acquisitions has created uncertainty about Coney Island’s future. Will it lose its buzz when Astroland closes this fall? Will Astroland be replaced or will it sit dormant? The city of New York will control the future of Coney in part through zoning decisions. Hopefully, it will retain all of its charm and remain a place that feels like you’re stepping back in time.

-The pop singer Usher gained new respect from airport workers and onlookers this morning at LaGuardia with his gracious conduct before a flight to Cleveland. The multi-platinum Grammy-award winner signed autographs, posed for pictures and patiently answered questions from those who approached the star. Usher owns a slice of the Cleveland Cavaliers and you’d presume he was headed to the city adjacent to Lake Erie to see his team play in game three of the NBA finals.

-The NCAA deserves any and all condemnation for ejecting sportswriter Brian Bennett from Sunday’s college baseball game at the University of Louisville. Bennett has been covering Louisville’s magical run to the College World Series working for his hometown paper, the Courier-Journal. As he sat in the press box Sunday, he was asked to leave in the bottom of the fifth inning by an NCAA official who confiscated Bennett’s press credential. What was Bennett’s offense? He was providing real-time updates on the ballgame that appeared on the newspaper’s web site. He was “blogging” as he covered the game. Not only does Bennett write a game story for the newspaper, but he makes frequent entries to his “blog” with tidbits of information about the event he is at. It’s a different, more informal format.

The NCAA contends that “any statistical or live representation” of the event violates exclusive agreements it has with ESPN on the television side and CBS on the internet side.

Bennett has said that he regrets being involved in a controversy that could detract from the accomplishment by the Louisville baseball team. But we applaud him for blogging in defiance of an NCAA memo issued to the working press at Louisville prior to his ejection. Bennett has initiated what could be an important test case as we move through an era in which reporters cover events using more advanced technological and innovative formats. Said Bennett on his blog: “I seriously doubt anyone was reading my blog instead of watching ESPN. I believe my blog served those readers who for some reason or another couldn’t be at the game or get access to a TV. We got more than ten-thousand hits on my blog from the Columbia (Mo.) regional final last Monday. And college baseball, especially in this area, could use all the publicity it can get.”

6-12-07 2035

A problem blamed on a government computer system that helps regulate US air traffic brought aviation to a near shutdown at LaGuardia on Friday, and the government entity responsible for the mess will likely escape accountability or examination of its lapse. The Federal Aviation Administration told the AP that its Atlanta-based computer system set up to process flight plans (the routes aircraft travel) failed early Friday. It forced reliance on a similar computer system in Salt Lake which then crashed from the added data.

The failure of the FAA’s computer systems forced manual processing of flight plans by already unhappy staffers at the FAA’s air traffic control facilities.

At LaGuardia, airplanes with engines shut down sat on taxi-ways for up to four hours on a hot, muggy Friday afternoon before finally getting ATC clearance to go airborne.

We heard several pilots at the helm of full airplanes ask air traffic controllers at LaGuardia’s control tower for even the most basic information connected with the problem, and each time the controllers were unable to give any information. Several minutes would pass before one of at least 40 airplanes on the ground would be given the green light to depart.

Some airplanes were forced to return to gates to let off angry customers and replenish ice and beverage supplies only to return to the tarmac for more waiting – and more non-explanations from air traffic controllers on the exact nature of the problem and the estimated time it would be resolved.

It it was an individual airline’s computer system that had malfunctioned and inconvenienced tens of thousands of travelers, there would be loud and widespread criticism of the airline. It would be followed by upgrades or fixes to the airline computer system to avoid the condemnation that would go with a repeat performance.

But the FAA has these types of outages somewhat regularly. And the FAA seems to get a pass because it’s a government agency which will continue to operate and preside over this country’s air traffic regardless of its performance.

The media shares some blame in the FAA’s lack of accountability. Newspapers in this town kill an individual airline after a known screw-up. But the media can’t seem to get a handle on the FAA’s role in the movement of airplanes.

The New York Times failed to even mention Friday’s ATC meltdown in its Saturday paper.

A Google News search of the subject turned up about 400 stories from newspapers across the country, but almost all of them seemed to be the same brief and basic piece of half-assed wire copy written by the AP’s Alan Zibel.

6-11-07 0114

There is no triple crown on the line, but Saturday’s Belmont Stakes shapes up as an interesting battle between two tough and tired fighters who have weathered the crown trail, and a filly ready to electrify a race that had lacked buzz in the run-up to the event.

When the connections for Derby winner Street Sense announced they would sit the Belmont out, it left Preakness winner Curlin and the scrappy Hard Spun left to do battle with a weak field.

But then Todd Pletcher announced earlier this week that the Kentucky Oaks winner and beautifully-bred filly Rags to Riches would run in the Belmont. A filly hasn’t won the Belmont since 1905 but Rags is a big daughter of AP Indy - who won the Belmont in ’92 and has fathered offspring who relish long distance races.

The announcement gave the race an immediate jolt and is among several stakes races on a card that will be run in what is forecasted to be perfect weather on the border of Queens and Long Island.

We like Rags to Riches to win the Belmont at about 7-2. She’ll be near the front end of a slow pace and her rest schedule since the first Friday in May will give her an advantage over Curlin and Hard Spun when it’s time to turn on the afterburner. Another horse that sat out the Preakness and has rested since Derby weekend is Santa Anita Derby winner Tiago. He’ll finish second and will complete an exacta that pays $58.

It should be noted that Hard Spun’s jockey Garrett Gomez asked early this week to be released from his commitment to ride the horse so he could jump on Rags to Riches. Gomez piloted Rags to an impressive victory in the Kentucky Oaks and three wins before that. But Hard Spun’s connections said no, and so top jockey John Velasquez will ride the filly and Gomez will stay put on Spun.

Gomez got the mount on Hard Spun after Spun’s regular jockey Mario Pino blew the ride in the Preakness with a wide and premature move. Gomez and his ace agent Ron Anderson took the Hard Spun mount not knowing Rags was gonna run. Now that she is, it must be taken into consideration as you bet the race that Gomez would rather ride Rags than Hard Spun.

Prior to the late decision by Pletcher to add Rags to Riches to the Belmont field, there had been little buildup and excitement going into this final leg of the triple crown. Much of the ink devoted to the race was being gobbled up by screwball horse owner Larry Roman who totally toyed with Post racing writer Ed Fountaine.

Roman had Fountaine on a string with the idea that he was going to enter the slow and unaccomplished three-year-old Digger and have 64-year-old retired jockey Angel Cordero Jr. ride him in the Belmont Stakes. He fed Fountaine a series of ridiculous quotes including a deplorable one that ripped Jim Tafel, the owner of Derby winner Street Sense. Said Roman in the Post: “We definitely want to run. I read in the papers this morning that Street Sense is not going, and I thought it was a horrible decision. The owner (Tafel) doesn’t care about the sport. That made me really angry.”

Tafel does care about the sport, and he cares about the health and well-being of his horse, which is why Street Sense will catch a breather and point for big and attainable prizes including the Breeder’s Cup Classic later this year.

Roman got a couple weeks worth of undeserved attention and ended up withdrawing Digger from consideration when entries for the Belmont were drawn. Fountaine was the sucker and Roman was the fool. Fortunately, the foolishness stopped once Rags to Riches came into the picture, and now we’ve got a horse race.

We won’t be out there on Saturday because we have to clock in for our crappy Saturday PM work shift, but we’ll be tuned in to ABC and we’ll be thinking about those who are in the stands sipping on their Bud tall boys.

-The rejuvenated and rehabilitated rock and roller Steve Earle calls Greenwich Village his home these days, and in a piece that appeared in the most recent issue of The New Yorker he described part of why he likes living in the city so much. “I need to be able to walk out my door and see a same-sex biracial couple walking down the street holding hands. That makes me feel safe.”

6-7-07 2215

New York’s decision to eliminate its law restricting ticket scalping will likely have little impact on the common sports fan. State lawmakers and the Governor have given final approval to a new law which makes ticket scalping legal as long as it is not done immediately in front of the event for which the tickets are being bought and sold.

New York’s previous legal limitation on reselling tickets put a cap on the markup at 45-percent above face value. That law was widely ignored and rarely enforced. So, instead of fighting a bogus battle against the scalp, New York is legalizing it.

As a sports fan who often finds himself without a ticket to a big game, our preferred method of buying a scalped ticket is on the web site Stub Hub. The Frisco-based company guarantees the legitimacy of tickets bought and sold on the site but has facilitated what you’d think would be technically illegal transactions under the old New York law. Stub Hub supported the new legislation, and its popularity as a ticket re-seller seems destined to increase.

Some consumer groups including the respected New York Public Interest Research Group had opposed lifting ticket scalping restrictions saying that big operations will dominate the selling side. But really, little will change.

What really needs examination is the way tickets are sold. Insider sales to brokers with kickbacks to the guys at the box office need to be monitored and eliminated. There should also be a maximum number of tickets per transaction for big events and preferential treatment given to those who are verified regular attendees at a particular venue.

-There was an interesting exchange between WFAN’s Francesca/Russo radio duo and Mets pitching coach Rick “The Jacket” Peterson on Tuesday’s program. They covered a lot of topics including the current state of great Met reliever Aaron Heilman.

Francesca: “The guy who never seems to be happy is Heilman. He doesn’t seem like he pitches happy. We all know he wants to be a starter. You almost get the impression that he’s a guy that doesn’t like the job he’s doing and maybe he’s fighting himself a little bit. Is any of that fair?”

Peterson: “I think he’s resolved to the fact that he enjoys being the set-up man for Billy Wagner. They’re very good friends. They’re golf partners. They’re throwing partners. Aaron is a perfectionist. Anything he does, nothing is good enough for him.”

As for the jacket that Peterson never takes off – regardless of heat or humidity, he says he likes the pockets. “The other day, when the temperature was 91, the wind chill was 87. If the wind chill goes over 90, I’ll take the jacket off.”

6-6-07 1448

When the color analyst on Yankee radio broadcasts had what amounted to an over-the-top on-air orgasm during the May 6th mid-game announcement that Roger Clemens was coming back to the Bronx, it was clear it would become a signature moment for a broadcaster famous for being a homer.

Suzyn Waldman freaked out with joy at the sight of Clemens appearing in the Steinbrenner box and shrieked “Oh my goodness gracious.” She suggested it was the most dramatic moment she had ever witnessed. The tape is all over the internet and sports talk radio shows had a lot of fun replaying it in the days that followed.

But unlike her broadcast partner John Sterling, who welcomes analysis of his highly-scrutinized calls, Waldman was extremely defensive about criticism claiming she went too far. She confronted WFAN’s Chris Russo at Shea during the Subway Series and loudly cussed at him for playing the tape repeatedly for comedic value.

Now, she’s telling Bob Raissman of the News that all the hubbub over her on-air Clemens reaction has forced her to check into hotels under an assumed name. She also says despite her efforts at concealing her whereabouts, she’s requested that hotels she stays in shut off her telephone. Raissman cites an unnamed “Yankee insider” saying Waldman has been on the receiving end of harassing communication as a result of the reaction to her Clemens call.

But you wonder if Waldman’s overly defensive and hyper-sensitive handling of the immediate reaction to her on-air work isn’t the big problem here. Sterling doesn’t get hot and bothered when people make fun of his occasional transgression.

The intense spotlight that shines on the Yankee team often extends to Yankee broadcasters. Waldman should look to her broadcast partner – and to Yankee skipper Joe Torre for lessons on how to handle that spotlight. Crying to Bob Raissman a month after the incident - claiming she has to travel under an assumed name isn’t the way to cool the heat.

6-5-07 1442

Cynical observers of the US government’s approach to the war on terror will point out that many of its sensational arrests and foiled plots to date have been schemes that had no real shot of coming to fruition.

What about this past weekend’s government announcement that four Muslim men are being charged in connection with a plan to blow up a key jet fuel pipeline in the vicinity of JFK airport?

The suspects may fall into the less-than-credible category. Various sources told the local papers that the ringleader was basically a half-witted stooge. He and his group had no money and no bomb - and it’s not clear they could have pulled off their plan even if they had both. But the alleged plot exposes what could be seen as a potential vulnerability and a lucrative target for those who want to create terror.

The alleged mastermind of this JFK scheme is a former employee at the airport who had plenty of time to cultivate contacts and information about targets on the air field. Authorities say his focus became the fuel pipeline that originates in New Jersey and feeds the fuel distribution system at JFK.

In announcing the terror bust, federal authorities said the desired outcome of the grand plan was massive destruction at the airport and beyond with the point of ignition cited as the jet fuel entry point near the airport’s fuel farm. The area includes fuel storage tanks and is the distribution depot for much of the jet fuel pumped on to the big airplanes which depart from the international airport in Southeast Queens to points all over the world. What adds some level of realness to the proceedings is a pattern of travel by the alleged ringleader between New York and the Caribbean. The man made contact with an extremist group based in Guyana and Trinidad. The feds also say they have recorded conversations of one of the plotters saying the JFK attack would top 9-11.

Regardless of the plot’s viability, two issues will remain important once the headlines stop blaring and the dust settles on this particular story. First, it’s no secret that New York City’s two big airports rely on the big pipeline from Linden, NJ for jet fuel. Destroying that pipeline would cripple air transportation. The Post had a story on Sunday suggesting that the pipeline is less than secure at certain points in the city. If it’s believed legitimate terrorists are eyeing the pipeline, you’d hope efforts are being made to protect it with contingencies in place in case a portion of it is destroyed. Additionally, there should probably be a greater examination of the people who work at airports and what kind of access they have. As it stands now, those that clear a very basic background check have wide-ranging access and are not screened as they enter the secure areas of the airport.

For example, airport workers at LaGuardia can enter the secure area with an unscreened knapsack and can freely move almost anywhere unchecked. Those that fly the airplanes are screened, yet amazingly, those considered to be well down on the totem pole of trustworthiness are not.

-It was noted repeatedly the last few days on local radio and TV game broadcasts that Arizona Diamondbacks starting pitcher Randy Johnson wasn’t with his team for the series with the Mets at Shea. The veteran’s three-day excused absence allowed him to avoid a re-examination of his failure as a Yankee and his inability to cope with the glare on baseball’s big stage.

-Buster Olney went on ESPN radio Sunday afternoon and said Lou Piniella is losing his team, just a third of the way into his first season. “There is a growing resentment toward him in the clubhouse,” said Olney who said several Cub players are unhappy with their manager’s public dress-downs of both the team and individuals on it.

-JetBlue’s ousted chairman David Neeleman has unloaded a big chunk of his stock in the company, a sign perhaps that he believes the airline he once led has seen better days. A government filing says Neeleman sold 2.5 million shares of JetBlue last Tuesday. The share price at the time of the sale was a shade under 11 bucks, resulting in a take of more than $27 million. He still owns another 8.3 million shares of JetBlue stock.

Neeleman was sacked as the company’s CEO last month after presiding over a week-long operational fiasco that started with an ice storm on Valentine’s Day of this year.

JetBlue spokesman Bryan Baldwin told Newsday that Neeleman’s stock sale shouldn’t send any signals to those interested in the airline’s performance going forward, calling it a “personal financial decision.”

One could counter that statement by saying that Neeleman wouldn’t sell such a big stake if he thought the stock was gonna go up. Neeleman was "unavailable for comment" and Baldwin’s Newsday statement came out of the insider stock-dump textbook. Said Baldwin: “He (Neeleman) still has the utmost confidence in JetBlue and our business plan.”

-Excellent job by staff writer John Colapinto in his comprehensive piece examining the life of Paul McCartney in last week’s New Yorker. The messy divorce from Heather Mills is off limits, but McCartney offers wide access and has new and insightful things to say as he continues an incredible career in music just days shy of his 65th birthday. Of special interest in the Colapinto piece are descriptions of McCartney strolling through London unprotected - and his deft and humble handling of random encounters with fans.

6-4-07 0133

Baroid remained at 746 and the Mets beat a soft Giants lineup 4-2 on a muggy Thursday evening at Shea. We arrived early for batting practice to watch the circus that follows Barry Bonds as he marches – or shall we say – frowns his way toward Henry Aaron’s career home run record.

All the position players minus Bonds sat together on foul territory grass and stretched a few minutes after

 

The Mets opened up their three-game weekend series at Shea with a scoreboard proclamation celebrating the team’s decision to shave their heads in Frisco a few days earlier.

The ringleader of the team unity project was the once-shy Carlos Beltran who egged on his teammates on the west coast last week.  Beltran has become more comfortable asserting himself since the arrival of fellow P-R native Carlos Delgado.  Who knows what kind of impact the group buzz-cut will have in the win/loss column, but it is funny to see guys like Shawn Green and David Newhan without hair.

It was also interesting to see which players attempted to preserve their locks.  Jose Reyes waited several days before succumbing to peer pressure.  Aaron Sele also waited, claiming he had a family photo to take before he would let the clippers clean his dome.  But the whole thing seems to be a positive from a group morale standpoint.  It’s a team that sticks together and does wacky things on the road.  We went to the Friday night Met game – the first of three against the high-flying Brewers.  New Met Jorge Sosa had his slider working, and exited the game in the seventh with a 4-2 lead. Sosa appears set to displace Mike Pelfrey from the starting rotation.  In his two starts, Sosa has shown a level of poise and control that Pelfrey can’t seem to muster despite a patient approach from Willie and the Jacket.

D-Wright, Delgado and Easley had homers on a nice 68-degree night with little wind to speak of. Easley’s shot bottom seven would turn out to be important, because Aaron Heilman had another shaky outing.  By design and tradition, Heilman entered the game in the eighth frame with a 5-2 lead.  The eighth inning has been exclusively Heilman’s when the Mets have a tight margin to protect.  But this season, Heilman has struggled and been unreliable at times.  Willie will stick with him, but you wonder for how long.  On Friday night, Heilman gave up a two-run homer to Brew-Crew shortstop J-J Hardy on a fat pitch.  Heilman ended up getting out of the inning and Wags pitched a scoreless ninth, but Joe Smith is looming as a possible guy that Willie could turn into the eighth inning set-up man ahead of Heilman.

It was a 5-4 Met win in front of 40,126.  The Brewers are an impressive bunch top to bottom.  Hardy is crushing the ball and Prince Fielder can hit it a mile.  The Brewers bullpen is solid. Billy Brewer could do a lot of chute-sliding and Brewers fans could be slathering special sauce on their brats deep into the season in a division race that could get interesting.  Nobody’s dominant, but the Cubs, Cards and Stros all seem possible of putting a run together.

After the game, we jumped on a 7 just as the doors were closing and who was standing right next to us when the train starts rolling?  Sonic Youth guitar player Lee Renaldo.  We didn’t know what to say.  We knew it was him, and the Sonic Youth book bag he was holding clinched it, but we couldn’t come up with an original line as we traversed westbound.

-Baseball commish Bud Selig is refusing to disclose what he’ll do on the night Baroid Bonds breaks the all-time home run record.  But in an interview with Bill Pennington of the Times, always-outspoken former commish Fay Vincent predicted Selig will skip it.  “He’ll congratulate Bonds from afar and give it appropriate but subdued recognition.”

We’ll never forget when Aaron broke Ruth’s record.  We were awfully young, but Dad got us in front of the TV that night and it was clear that the record Aaron broke was a big one. It is indeed one of the biggest records in all of sports.

When Bonds breaks Aaron’s record in the next month or so, it will be a big deal but it will be tainted because the guy is a big fraud.  Bonds’ hostility and resentment toward reasoned baseball observers adds to the awkwardness.

We’re glad Aaron has said he’ll not recognize 756 by the blown-up Baroid and his big head.  We hope Selig does the same.  We were hoping this day would never come.  But now that it appears imminent, we’ll hope A-Rod keeps launching him so Bonds loses the record in a few years.

5-14-07 0140


The Wall Street Journal newsroom decision to sit on and squelch blockbuster news that its business side was mulling a proposal to get bought out is indefensible.

Already-launched investigations about possible behind-the-scenes efforts to profit off the then publicly-undisclosed proposed sale could turn up links to those who suppressed the news.

Here are the basic facts as cited by a well-written piece in the Times earlier this week penned by Andrew Sorkin and Richard Pena.  Media mogul Rupert Murdoch met with the CEO of the Journal’s parent company on the week of April 9 and said he wanted to buy it (The Journal is now saying the initial contact was actually a week or two earlier).  On April 17, Murdoch sent a letter to the Dow Jones and Co. board offering $5 billion.  It’s not clear exactly when the Journal’s managing editor Paul Steiger got wind of the news, but the Times says “several days after that” Steiger got an e-mail from Murdoch about the buyout proposal.

The Journal is saying in a piece today that “several editors learned of the offer beginning on April 17. But as members of the Dow Jones senior management team, they were bound to keep the information confidential.”

Meantime, you had lots of people connected to Murdoch and the Journal who had information that could be used for financial gain if you were a market player. The SEC is looking at a spike in activity connected to the Dow Jones stock in the latter parts of April.

On May 1 – a full two weeks after the Journal’s news department knew of the proposal, CNBC finally busted the story and the stock price of Dow Jones and Co. skyrocketed fifty-percent.

Set aside the potential for shenanigans in the two-week period that a select few had juicy insider info.  The bottom line is that Steiger and those who practice journalism at the Wall Street Journal have to carry that story.  Confidentiality shackles be damned.  This is the top business and financial market newspaper in the country and the last thing they need to be doing is suppressing a major story that they’re expected to cover.

-The troubled New York-based low-fare carrier JetBlue can spin it any way they want, but the sudden removal of its CEO David Neeleman is an acknowledgement of trouble at the airline.  Neeleman had presided over JetBlue since its inception in 1998.  His airline’s near-shutdown for several days after a Valentine’s Day 2007 sleet storm exposed serious operational and logistical flaws and stranded thousands of customers.  There are additional concerns that JetBlue will see only slim ’07 profits while its key competitors pull down big bucks for the year.

So, Neeleman has been ousted and reassigned from the top spot and is being replaced by a guy with vast airline operations experience.  49-year-old Dave Barger built his airline career at Continental Airlines and is credited with overseeing the growth of Continental’s Newark hub prior to joining JetBlue as it was launching in ’98.

The JetBlue board is no doubt expecting Barger to fix the crucial components that broke down last February, including the airline’s crew coordination system.  But when you consider that Barger had already been heavily involved in the company’s day-to-day doings as chief operating officer, you wonder how much the leadership shakeup will change things at JetBlue.

Neeleman tried to downplay the significance of his removal saying that it was a “natural evolution of our leadership structure.”  JetBlue’s sinking stock price got a lift from the news, rising nearly five-percent today.

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I hate to be a whiner about the big Arcade Fire show in Washington Heights last night, but the highly-anticipated gig included several annoying aspects.  When band leader Win Butler took the stage a little after


If you wonder why the entity that operates New York City’s three major area airports does such a horrible job, look no further than a couple of revelations illustrating inefficiency, corruption and arrogance at the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey.

First is a report in the News a couple weeks back that examined the salaries of the Port Authority’s 6200 full-time employees. The average worker at the Port makes $90,200 which is hard to put into context until you find that Port Authority landscaper Ralph Berlangieri made $102,700 in 2006. Berlangieri looks after the shrubs and flowers at Newark airport. Port electrician John Manbretti made $124-K and Port cop John Rienzie took down $270,200 last year. The News analysis of Port salaries also found two employees listed as “salad makers,” who make in excess of 40-grand a year.

OK, fine. Port Authority workers make excessive annual salaries and gobble up money that should be spent on infrastructure at decrepit LaGuardia Airport. Or how ‘bout spending money to add sanity or common sense to the chaotic eyesores that are JFK and Newark airports?

Who runs the Port Authority and divvies up its $5.7-billion annual budget? The governors of New York and New Jersey each appoint six members to an oversight board that guides an executive director.

One of former do-nothing New York governor George Pataki’s appointees on the board is media services big-wig Christine Ferer. She votes on policy, budgets and projects for the Port Authority and you’d think she’d be keenly aware of the rules governing air travel. But Ferer’s conduct prior to a recent flight out of LaGuardia calls into question her management and oversight abilities at the Port Authority.

Transportation Security Administration spokeswomen Ann Davis says Ferer pulled a major power trip prior to an April 19 flight at LaGuardia, demanding the right to bypass the security checkpoint. The TSA says Ferer screamed at TSA workers and an airline ticket counter clerk when she was informed that she would have to be screened like everybody else.

All six of New York’s decision-makers on the Port board are Pataki appointees. The expiration dates on their terms vary, but one would hope that when given the opportunity, new Governor Eliot Spitzer will replace these folks with people more in tune with the sub-standard conditions at New York’s airports. A city as great as New York clearly ought to have far better airports. Eliminating inefficiency, corruption and arrogance in the management of the Port Authority would be a nice start.

5-8-07 1545


The desperate move to add Roger Clemens to the Yankees starting rotation seems sure to backfire. Of foremost concern is the unusual arrangement allowing the Rocketman to blow off team functions and travel independently on his own schedule as long as he makes his turn every five days or so.

It was an arrangement that the tightly-run Yankee organization had previously deemed unacceptable.

At the news conference following the unusual, circus-like announcement from the Steinbrenner box in the seventh inning of Sunday’s Yankee victory over the Mariners, Clemens claimed he didn’t know whether his new one-year, $28-million prorated contract allowed the special travel flexibility. He claimed he hadn’t looked at the contract. Yeah, right.

Yankee GM Brian Cashman and Clemens rep Randy Hendricks quickly reminded Roger that his contract said he could come and go as he pleases. It was a revelation that may not sit well with Roger’s Yankee teammates who need special permission to stray from the grueling team itinerary.

Considering the dough involved and the fact that the 44-year-old Clemens isn’t all that dominant any more, why would the great Yankee organization add an arrogant come-as-you please element to a clubhouse led by the dedicated, rule-abiding Derek Jeter?

Johnny Damon had to cut his hair. You can’t sport a beard if you’re a Yankee. But all of a sudden, a fading ex-great can skip road trips and pocket a million bucks a week? It’s a bad organizational decision and it could be the last big move Cashman makes because it seems destined to fail.

A few other Derby notes we failed to mention in our original write-up of the visit:

*The security screening process at the entrances of Churchill Downs Friday and Saturday was markedly less stringent than all previous Derby weekends since 9/11. There were no waves of the metal-detecting wands – no pat downs – and less vigorous searches of carry-in items. You still can’t bring a back-pack into the Downs, but as long as you have a clear plastic bag, there’s little you couldn’t get in. We made no effort to carry in any illicit items, but it wouldn’t have been a problem putting a flask in your waistband. Considering the Queen of England was on the premises for Derby Day, it’s a bit of a surprise the security process didn’t include any apparent effort to screen for guns.

*After the Derby, our group ended up at the Old Seelbach Bar, the classy lobby-level lounge inside the downtown Hilton-owned property. The dimly-lit space is a great place to cap the Derby weekend. At about

 

The joy on Calvin Borel’s face about an hour after he won the Kentucky Derby was a sight to see. As the Derby crowd of 156,635 filed out, Borel was riding another horse in the twelfth and final race on the Saturday card at Churchill Downs. A huge grin was still plastered on his face as he entered the track (pictured above), and many of the local fans who appreciate Borel’s efforts over the years yelled words of congratulations to the 40-year-old Cajun known as “Bo-Rail.”

Borel guided his horse Street Sense brilliantly in the Derby, skimming the rail much of the way as he patiently navigated a march from the back of the pack. “Bo-Rail” was forced to move off the rail on the final turn. He daringly steered through a hole between a slower-moving Sedgefield and a fading Nobiz Like Showbiz and then turned Street Sense loose to chase down the impressive pacesetter Hard Spun. Street Sense blew by Hard Spun (who earlier in the week may have lost some crucial stored-up energy by running too fast in a five-furlong workout) and won by just over two lengths.

Street Sense was the top choice of bettors to win the race. But many of those who didn’t bet on him were still rewarded with a great race and a memorable reaction of pure joy from Borel. The jockey’s life story is sure to be widely told in detail in the coming days. Borel didn’t attend high school, opting instead to ride horses and perform all of the duties associated with caring for racehorses at stables near his hometown of St. Martinville, Louisiana. He got tossed from a horse at age 18, lost his spleen, shattered his rib-cage and came out of a coma. He’s broken numerous bones over the years. A report by Marty McGee in the Daily Racing Form last week said Borel “struggles with illiteracy” and “has difficulty reading the most elementary passages.”

But Borel did read the situations that unfolded in front of him in the Derby and he spoke with great charm and emotion about winning the biggest race in the world. In a column in Sunday’s Louisville Courier-Journal, Eric Crawford said Borel’s first Derby win is viewed as a favorable and exciting achievement amongst racetrack regulars. “Every jockey he (Borel) passed on the walk back through the paddock stopped to hug him. Outriders bent down from their mounts to shake his hand. Fans who loved him before this Derby victory reached through the fences.”

The final time for Street Sense was 2:02.17 which is considered a touch slow. His trainer Carl Nafzger says Street Sense will go to the Preakness, the second leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown.

Can Street Sense become the first horse since 1978 to win the Triple Crown? We’ve been cynical about even the most capable Triple Crown candidates the last several years, but Street Sense may be versatile and talented enough to give it a pretty good go. Our pal Marc said he detected a flaw in the gait of Street Sense late in the race while watching a taped replay - which could indicate a physical problem. We saw some drifting as he ran the final furlong and he did suddenly duck right just before the finish line. But that could be fatigue – or perhaps a reaction by the horse to the whip snaps that crackled against his back side.

Street Sense will have to run a little closer to the leaders when they gather for the Preakness in two weeks. We’ll be rooting for him. It’s best for horse racing fans to limit expectations because winning a triple crown is extremely difficult. But as we’ve said many times before, it’ll be that much sweeter if and when it does happen.


The weather on Derby day was muggy and warm. It rained on Thursday and Friday but considering the persistence of the weather system in the Louisville area all week, the race track played fair throughout and was listed as “fast” for the big race. We didn’t see the Queen but on the way out Saturday, we did cross paths with Joey Fatone who generated shrieks from several young women.

Sixteen-ounce bottles of Bud that cost $4.50 earlier in the week were being sold for $7 on Derby day. There was never a difficult moment in terms of amenities. You could bet, go to the bathroom and get a beer without a problem. We brought sandwiches each day from the excellent deli chain Jason’s.


We spent a lot of time in the paddock earlier in the week. There’s a row of benches with a view of the main jumbotron just behind the garden that includes a statue of Aristides and a new bronze sculpture of Pat Day (pictured above), the all-time leading rider at Churchill Downs. As we sat there on Tuesday, trainer Steve Asmussen climbed on to the shoeshine chair and asked the shine man to clean up his muddy work boots. “Can you save me?” said Asmussen. At that time, the seventh race was being run and jockey Alonso Quinonez fell to the ground when his mount Whisper Louder was bumped by a rival. The crowd gasped and Asmussen looked up at a monitor with a look of great concern. After the shine, Asmussen pulled a giant wad of cash from his pocket and paid the shoe shiner. A few minutes later he walked back for a touch-up. When he was gone, the shine man noticed I was observing the proceedings. “Good guy,” said the shine man.

 

We’ve had great success in recent years betting on horses conditioned by trainer Bobby Barnett (pictured above with hands folded). Unfortunately, Barnett’s string hasn’t performed well this year. He’s only winning at a clip of about five-percent and all four of his runners during Derby week finished off the board.

Our Derby hotel was fantastic. The Homewood Suites on Hurstbourne on the eastern edge of Louisville was the nicest lodging spot we’ve ever had in sixteen years of attending Derbies. Our rate of $139 per night was a steal considering they were charging three times that amount to those who didn’t book early.

We ate well including an excellent dinner preceded by sampling of fine Kentucky bourbon at Bourbon’s Bistro on Frankfort Avenue.  The asparagus tart really hit the spot. Our previously mentioned pal Marc was red-hot at the windows on three consecutive days and was picking up tabs as is often the custom when someone is enjoying a run of successful wagering efforts.

All in all, the Kentucky Derby experience remains the year’s best sports trip. We’ll keep going back and one of these years maybe we’ll correctly select the winner. In each of the last two years, our Derby pick has finished second.

Our early Sunday morning flight from Louisville to Newark was packed with Derby-goers including OJ Simpson. The Juice sat in a coach aisle seat. He wore a white visor and chatted up the flight attendants prior to departure. There was no sprint at the arrival gate in Newark for OJ. He jumped into the front seat of a golf cart as travelers muttered about and mocked a guy who appears to be comfortable with the commotion he creates.

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You won’t see any updates here on TSR this week. We’re packing the suitcase for our sixteenth consecutive annual trip to the Kentucky Derby. We jump on a jet plane Tuesday and will arrive in Louisville in time to play the afternoon card at Churchill Downs. It’ll be the first of five straight days of gambling, eating and drinking in an environment as hospitable as they come.

On Saturday, look for Hard Spun to win the Kentucky Derby. The speedy colt has won five of six career starts and enters the Derby with a six-week break, after winning the Lane’s End Stakes at Turfway Park March 24. Many horseplayers will view the long rest period as a negative and many bettors may dismiss Hard Spun’s chances. But we see the time between races as a real energy-charger for Hard Spun who will have more gas in the tank than the rest as they hit the latter stages of the race. Hard Spun will likely pay about fifteen dollars for every dollar bet and he will win this year’s Derby in convincing fashion. The final time for the Derby distance of a mile and a quarter will be 2:01.77 and Hard Spun’s margin of victory will exceed five lengths.

It should be noted that we have never correctly predicted a Derby winner. Last year, our selection Bluegrass Cat finished second. Usually, our Derby pick lags well behind the rest. But this year will be the year we cash a winning ticket on the Derby .

Hard Spun will be piloted by the career leader for wins by a jockey in the state of Maryland – Mario Pino. The 45-year-old Pino has ridden in more than 36-thousand races, yet has never been in the Kentucky Derby.

He has toiled as a jockey since 1979 at Pimlico and Laurel racetracks and recently has been a regular at Delaware Park . Despite never riding in racing’s biggest event, there seems to be no doubt about Pino’s ability to ride a horse. The fact that a jockey so accomplished over such a long period is riding in his first-ever Kentucky Derby makes the Hard Spun story a special one if he wins – and even if he doesn’t.

Horse racing’s top trainer Todd Pletcher has five horses in this year’s Derby and many expect this could be the year he wins his first Run for the Roses after sending 14 horses to the big race since 2000.

The most buzzed-about horse in the Derby this year may be Curlin. Trained by Steve Asmussen, Curlin is undefeated in three starts and looked fabulous winning those races by a combined 28 lengths. But both his lack of experience and the ease of his victories may work against him in the Derby. Since there will be twenty horses in the Derby vying for position, a horse who has experienced adversity can better handle the challenge.

We have a new Derby hat this year and can hardly wait to get to Louisville. A full report on return.


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The New York Post (referenced constantly on this site as “the Post”) has announced that it is raising the price of a weekday newsstand copy to 50 cents starting on Monday. It had been just a quarter since 2000. The cheapness hasn’t reflected the quality of the product and served a useful purpose for the newspaper. Circulation rose (currently estimated at 704,000) and they’ve got readers (us included) addicted to the daily offering. So, after some initial resistance next week, you’d think most readers will cough up the extra quarter and continue buying it.

When TSR first hit town, we were fed the myth that the Post was a conservative rag worth ignoring, while its main competitor – The Daily News – was the more reputable tabloid. We mixed and matched our newspaper buying habit for a few years before finally settling on the Post and the Times mostly ought of mathematical convenience. At that time, the Times was 75 cents and the Post was a quarter which made it easy to just stuff a dollar into the hand of the news-seller for a quick getaway. That convenience ended when the Times went up to a buck in December 2002, but by that time we had already become content with the excellent contrast the two provided. The Post was the dessert for the main course of the Times. At a total cost of $1.25 since late 2002, we would just hand the clerk two dollars and then accumulate the quarters for laundry day. Now, we’re looking at $1.50 for the two and we’ll be glad to pay it.

The Post is better than the News (also 50 cents per weekday copy). Yeah, the Post editorial pages driven by the Murdoch doctrine can be a little wacky, but the rest of the paper is a great read. Fred Dicker covers the statehouse better than any scribe in town. Page Six is often entertaining. Larry Brooks, Joel Sherman, Mark Cannizaro and Lenn Robbins highlight a sports staff that whips the News on most days.

-Speaking of the newsstand, we were waiting in line this morning to get the papers, and who is standing just ahead of us? Today show co-host Matt Lauer. He was buying the Post and a copy of The Economist. As he dashed off to make a flight, he was joined by his wife Annette Roque carrying their five-month old son in one of those baby holders attached to the body. At the same time on TV, NBC’s David Gregory was opening the Today show alongside Merdith Vieira as a fill-in for Lauer.

-The Post’s Peter Vescey says Larry Brown’s interview for the Memphis Grizzlies head coaching job yesterday isn’t a serious attempt by Brown to get the job. Vescey said it was simply a way for Brown to demonstrate his relevance. “This wasn’t a visit to Memphis; this was an ego trip by Larry to exhibit, the last two contentious buyouts notwithstanding, he’s still in demand.”

Vescey touts ex-Knicks point Mark Jackson for the Pacers vacancy. “Who needs head coaching experience or time on the bench as an assistant when you’ve orchestrated half a dozen outfits to the playoffs?” Jackson has never coached in the NBA. He currently does Nets games with Marv Albert on television.

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It didn’t seem possible a few months ago that USC wideout Dwayne Jarrett would be available when the Jets draft at number 25 overall this Saturday. But Jarrett’s stock has dropped and if he’s sitting there when the Jets go on the clock with their first pick, he’s gonna be hard to pass up despite more pressing needs for Gang Green.

Star-Ledger football writer Mike Garafolo says Jarrett “could go somewhere between the late-first and early-second round.” A slow 40-yard dash time is cited as the reason by many draft evaluators for Jarrett’s drop.

Jarrett told Garafolo that Arizona pro-bowl receiver Anquan Boldin ran an ever slower 40 prior to his first season as a pro. He thinks the knock on his speed is unjust.

We saw a lot of Jarrett the last couple of years. He’s tall, strong and has sticky hands. He’s gonna be a big-time receiver in the NFL. Jarrett is a big target who’s acrobatic and fights for balls. The Jets likely are hoping to bolster their defensive backfield, but if Jarrett is available – we’re hoping GM Mike Tannenbaum realizes what kind of impact Jarrett could have on a Jets offense that now has a legit rusher in Thomas Jones.

The Giants pick five slots ahead of the Jets and brought Jarrett in for a workout. But you’d think Big Blue has much bigger problems to solve, especially on its offensive line.

-When Lincoln point guard Sebastian Telfair made the jump straight from high school to the NBA three years ago, it was a decision that had risk written all over it. He could have gone to the University of Louisville to grow up and hone his skills under a great teacher in Rick Pitino. But Telfair was lured by the cash and so-called experts who thought he had game. He was taken with the 13th pick of the first round of the 2004 draft by Portland. He was given fair minutes in each of his last three pro seasons, didn’t make a big impact and was twice arrested on gun charges.

His most recent bust came in Yonkers last week when cops stopped his Land Rover in the middle of the night going 77 in a 45. A loaded gun under the front passenger seat was found and Telfair couldn’t produce a driver’s license. Telfair and his passenger both denied ownership of the gun and both were charged with felony possession of a weapon.

Telfair’s team – the Boston Celtics promptly said they were cutting ties with Telfair. To be fair, Telfair’s previous gun infraction was dropped and it could turn out this latest one could be too. But you wonder where Telfair would be right now had he taken the opportunity to spend at least a couple years in college.

NBA writer Mitch Lawrence of the News says Telfair was a victim of unreasonable expectations. “The fact that he was a 6-foot guard without a jumper and very little of what it takes to run a team was enthusiastically overlooked by everyone who continues to promote the lie that New York City produces the world’s finest playmakers.”

Lawrence and others believe Telfair may still end up getting another chance once the dust settles on this latest arrest. Lawrence says the 21-year-old’s speed in the open court is enticing. “All that can be definitively deduced from the events of the past few days is that the Celtics are done with him after only one season, and the myth of the great New York City point guard has been shattered once again.”

-The Times food section has struck a blow to one of its best features. In a note to readers in Wednesday’s paper, the Times said it was eliminating its “$25 and under” restaurant review once every two weeks to replace it with a new column called “Dining Briefs.”

The “Briefs” debuted Wednesday with short capsules on two restaurants and a tavern. The items are less-than-filling finger-foods if you will - instead of the full course review of an affordable city restaurant that is typically done so well by writer Peter Meehan in “$25 and under.” The food section already has an excellent couple of spots for small briefs at the top of page two, and so Wednesday’s change seems unnecessary. It reduces in half the frequency of the column we like the most.

4-27-07 1820


Mayor Mike’s proposal to impose an eight-dollar fee on cars entering Manhattan from

 

On a Saturday afternoon as nice as they come, the Mets beat their longtime arch-rival with an excellent outing from always-improving, always-exciting Oliver Perez. The Mexican lefty (pictured above) alternated a mid-90’s fastball with an electric slider, striking out nine.  Of his 98 pitches, 72 were strikes.  He didn’t walk a batter.

The speed gun at Shea consistently produced readings of 92-93 mph on the Perez fastball.  The device used by SportSouth (the regional sports network that carries Braves games) clocked Perez as high as 96 mph.

Perez is here to stay.  His acquisition by Omar Minaya last season in exchange for Xavier Nady (the Mets also got Bert Hernandez in that deal with the Pirates) appears to be a possible steal.  When the trade was made, Minaya took heat because of serious command/control problems that had Perez fighting to even remain in the big leagues.

But the Minaya formula is easy to see.  Acquire struggling pitches with raw talent (usually ones with a good fastball) and let pitching coach Rick “Jacket” Peterson go to work.  Peterson was brought to New York by Art Howe, and thankfully stayed on when Willie took over.  He’s credited for detecting mechanical flaws and then effectively working with young pitchers to eliminate them.  Peterson is a fixer.

When Perez was lifted by Willie in the seventh inning, the packed house gave him a standing ovation.  Perez hurdled over the foul line and proudly raised his cap in response to the appreciative fans.  That same inning, righty reliever Joe Smith struck out Andruw Jones with the bases loaded to kill the biggest Braves threat of the day.  Smith is quite a story.  The 23-year-old was cut by his college team, fought back to make the squad at Wright State and then suffered another setback that forced him to miss his senior season with an arm injury.  He pitched most of last season (his first as a pro) for the Brooklyn Cyclones.  Smith was lights out in spring training and made the team in part because Duaner Sanchez got hurt. Smith has been great in ten appearances this season and hasn’t given up a run.

Backup catcher Ramon Castro had a two-run homer into the loge seats that extend into left field.  He continues to be a valuable Met.

Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes kept most of the 55,143 on hand in their seats ‘til the end because both went into their eighth inning at-bats with a shot at hitting for the cycle.  Both fell short, but both are red hot.  The Mets won 7-2.

A teenager sitting in front of us in the mezz had an AM radio with an earpiece and was relaying updates on the game one playoff victory for the Nets.  His father and younger brother all shared a strong knowledge of New York sports and provided a stark contrast to the profane louts that were sitting a row behind us.  The MTA’s decision to remove the turnstiles from the bottom of the stairwell leading to the pedestrian bridge entering the 7 train has made getting on the subway as easy as can be.

 

Whenever Chipper Jones (pictured above) steps into the batter’s box, the fans at Shea boo loudly and chant “Larry, Larry, Larry” - his given first name.  Jones has crushed the Mets during his career, with 200 hits (37 homers) in 603 at bats vs. New York.  He named a son Shea - after the Stadium – which is odd given the way he’s treated by New York fans.

 

The Braves could hang around and force the Mets into a race deep into the season.  The Atlanta lineup is strong and the bullpen was made a top priority in the off-season. Smoltzie (pictured above) is back for his 19th season and appears as fit as ever.  Since returning to the top of the rotation after four seasons as a closer, Smoltz has pitched 230 innings in each of the last two years and has compiled an ERA in the low threes.


Rightfielder Jeff Francoeur is off to a slow start, but Bobby Cox puts him out there every day because his throwing arm is wicked and he hits for power.  Francoeur (pictured above) is just 23 years old.  He and the league’s best catcher Brian McCann are friends.  They are fellow Georgians who played little league together and are two future cornerstones of the Braves franchise similar in importance to the duo of Reyes/Wright.


We watched the Friday and Sunday games of the Braves series on television and an incident in Friday night’s game got a fuller explanation in the Sunday papers. As we sat in the home office Friday evening, we scratched our head a little when the game was stopped for a couple minutes in the bottom of the eighth.  Braves shortstop Edgar Renteria asked an umpire to stop the game and requested that a fan sitting behind home plate be removed.  It wasn’t clear at the time what was happening, but Queens DA Richard Brown announced yesterday that the fan had a high-powered flashlight and was shining it into the eyes of Braves pitcher Tim Hudson (pictured above) and Renteria.  40-year-old Frank Martinez is charged with reckless endangerment and interfering with a professional sporting event.  The unemployed former exterminator from the Bronx has been permanently banned from Shea according to the News.


About five hundred dogs were at the game Saturday.  The Mets allow dogs to attend two games a year.  The dogs and their owners paraded around the field prior to the game.  Proceeds from the sale of tickets required for each dog went to the North Shore Animal League, the famous shelter and hugely successful advocacy organization.

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All of the major presidential candidates are going to make mistakes as they move down the trail toward ‘08’s presidential primaries, but John McCain can’t repeat the kind of blunder he committed Thursday.  Speaking before a group of war veterans in South Carolina, McCain fielded a loaded question about how to handle Iran.  His pat campaign rhetoric leaves the military option open but not imminent.  This time, McCain strayed from the book and busted into song.  Using the Beach Boys melody from the hit Barbara Ann, McCain started to sing “Bomb, bomb, bomb – bomb, bomb Iran.”  He actually caught himself before completing the chorus, but he entitled the ditty “Bomb Iran” and was laughing about it.

Given the current state of US foreign policy, it was a horrible thing to see for those who hope American leadership will view Iran’s nuclear ambitions with a serious and mature approach that doesn’t include a further outbreak of war.

The crack could open a window on McCain’s cellar of ideas.  Or as McCain said after extensive coverage and criticism of his song/comment – “My response is: ‘lighten up and get a life.’”

Voters who see this stuff ought to squirm at the lack of seriousness by McCain on the use of military power, even if it was a brief slip of the tongue.

-The Chicago band Sharks has rotated four more fresh tunes into its My Space page and the song “Apocalyptic” has us humming it everywhere we go.  Between what they offer on their regular, neglected web site and http://myspace.com/thesharx - Sharks are compiling enough great stuff to make us want to go out of our way to see them live.

-An unexpected result of the torrential rains that fell at LaGuardia Airport last Sunday and Monday was widespread contamination of gasoline that fuels many of the airline’s ground equipment fleets.  The primary fuel source for most of those doing business at LaGuardia is Servisair & Shell Fuel Services, a French-owned company.  Servisair/Shell is under contract to fuel many of the airplanes at LaGuardia and that aspect of their business was unaffected by the storm’s eight-plus inches of rain.  But Servisair/Shell also sells the gas that goes into devices used for handling flights including beltloaders.

Beltloaders are engine-powered mobile conveyors that feed luggage into the plane’s cargo holds.  Several airlines lost the use of a majority of their beltloaders early this week and the cause being widely cited is the addition of rainwater into the gasoline that was pumped into those loaders.  It slowed the ability of many airline ground crews to keep up with their schedules early in the week, and it forced ground equipment mechanics to either siphon out the contaminated gas or pour additives into fuel tanks that reduced the water content.

Last Sunday’s 7.57 inches of rain at Central Park was the highest one-day total in more than a hundred years.

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Is it too early to discuss A-Rod having a shot at the single-season home run record?  He has ten homers in fourteen games which puts him on pace for 115.  The record is 73 and what better way to overshadow Baroid’s chase for Aaron’s all-time total than for A-Rod to march for 74.  Rodriguez is well-protected up and down the lineup and the weather hasn’t even warmed up yet.  Let’s see how many A-Bombs he can launch in the month of May.  If we hit June 1 and A-Rod is at or near 25 homers, it becomes an exciting prospect.  With 38 games between now and then, A-Rod needs a homer once every 2.5 games to put him in some kind of realistic striking range.

-The top man at the Chicago Transit Authority is being pushed aside to make way for a Daley bureaucrat at a time that public transit in the Windy City is facing major problems.  CTA president Frank Kruesi is out after a decade – and 35-year-old Ron Huberman is in.  Huberman told a news conference today that his transit background is limited to three years as a school bus driver back in college.  He’s been a cop, and held a city emergency services post before becoming one of Richie’s right-hand men two years ago.

A story in the Sun-Times today suggests that Daley ousted Kruesi in an effort to improve the CTA’s relations with key state lawmakers who will be asked for huge transit subsidies in the coming years.

City councilman Joe Moore of the Rogers Park neighborhood has been the loudest public official to raise concern about the downward slide of public transit in Chicago; a decline in service that regular riders have had to endure for several years.  Said Moore earlier this year as he tried to apply pressure for a public hearing on the CTA’s woes:  “The CTA has assumed the aura of a third world transit system, bringing shame upon our great city.”

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Our favorite city high school senior hoops player says he’s going to play for Tommy Penders.  Boys and Girls guard Zamal Nixon tells Kristie Ackert of the News that he has verbally committed to play at the University of Houston.

The Houston program has never returned to anywhere near the success of its Phi Slamma Jamma years, but Penders has brought steady improvement the last three seasons and is signed through 2012.  The vagabond coach restored the Texas program, resigned amid a cloud at GW and made national headlines last year when he got called for a technical after collapsing from a heart condition during a game as coach of Houston.

Nixon told the News that he likes the fact that Penders has a reputation for player development.  Not sure whether Nixon will love the basketball atmosphere at the Conference USA school.  Houston plays its home games at Hofheinz Pavillion, an on-campus arena with a capacity of 8500.  Last year, despite a winning record, the team drew just 4300 a game.

-It’s an intriguing and unusual situation for the New York sports fan this evening.  Every active pro sports team has a game and all of them are on TV.  Within the span of an hour, seven locals will start their games: Nets, Knicks, Devils, Rangers, Islanders, Mets and Yankees.

-The folks at Fox television have to be delighted when they see their competitors hype the American Idol program.  News departments at the other big three network’s affiliates can’t resist talking about Idol even though it steers viewers away from their own programs.  We watch the early morning news on New York’s ABC affiliate every day and we can’t believe the coverage Idol gets as a straight national entertainment story.  Yeah, people are talking about Idol in big numbers.  But it’s a program on a competing network and you’d think there would be greater loyalty to a network’s own shows.  Ignore Idol if you are ABC.

4-18-07 1650

Brand-new electric-powered, “clean-air hybrid” buses have become the norm on the morning runs of the Q33 bus route the last couple weeks.  Nearly every day, we’re getting on the new Orion VII model carrying the distinctive blue and white trademark colors of the MTA.  The front end of the bus is square and features a brightly-lit message screen showing the route number and final destination.  The bus rides low to the ground which makes it an easy step into the entrance, important for older riders.  But the seating configuration once inside the bus is horrible.  There are short benches on both sides for the elderly and handicapped in the front, three single seats on the right side of the bus beyond the bench, and a few rows of tightly-spaced doubles on the left.  The aisle is wide.  As you get about two-thirds of the way back, there are a couple steps up into the rear of the bus with a few cramped seats that are too small for anybody that stands above five-foot-six.  Total seating capacity on the bus is at most about 30.  There’s a lot of room for standees, but the set-up is ill-conceived.  A bus that big ought to seat twice as many people.

The new bus lurches more drastically on starts than the standard diesel models and the low ride makes the view less appealing.  The Q33 was among several bus routes operated by Triboro Coach, a private company up until a couple years ago.  When the state folded several private lines (Triboro among them) in the outerboroughs into the MTA, it was hoped that the bus-riding experience would improve.

It has.  Service is better.  The drivers seem happier wearing the MTA uniform.  The equipment is more reliable and cleaner-smelling.  Our only beef is the seating configuration on these new hybrids.

New York has quickly become the largest user of hybrid buses in the world according to clean-energy advocates.  The diesel-electric engines on the hybrids use 30-percent less fuel - a cleaner-burning type of diesel.  More importantly, emissions of all types are sharply reduced.  It’s just too bad that the inside of the bus forces more people to stand, and the seats that do exist are spaced too tightly.

4-17-07 1655


It’s always exciting to make that first ballpark visit of the year.  We hit Shea on Saturday for Mets/Nationals, the fifth of a six-game homestand that started with the home opener last Monday.  We got there when the doors opened, anxious to see what was new, and to inhale that incredibly rich ballpark smell.  It’s a pleasant odor created by batches of grilled onions sitting in oil running off from cooked Premio Italian sausages.

What is new at Shea?  Not much.  There’s this big replica cup of Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee sitting in left field next to the visitor’s bullpen.  We’re not sure if it bubbles over or explodes if the Mets hit a home run, because they didn’t hit one Saturday - but it’s pretty gaudy advertising display.  Beyond that, we didn’t detect anything that was new other than slight increases in the cost of concessions.  Playing a day game after a night game, the Mets didn’t take batting practice. But Aaron Heilman (pictured above), joined a half dozen teammates for an early session of toss and wind sprints.


The previous night’s Met starter Mike Pelfrey (pictured above) was also out on the field early Saturday and spent several minutes engaged in what looked like intense discussion with pitching coach Rick “Jacket” Peterson.  Pelfrey is the fifth starter for the Mets and was hitting 95 on the gun Friday night.  Look for him to stick this season and become an important part of a rotation that currently combines two accomplished veterans with three dynamic young pitchers.

Construction on the new Met ballpark (Citifield) just past left center field of Shea is proceeding at what seems like a rapid rate.  Large concrete and steel columns are in place as the ballpark’s shell begins to take shape.  The Mets are hyping progress on the new stadium by playing the Starship tune “We Built This City” over footage of construction action on the video board at Shea.

We sat in what will be our Saturday seats all season long in section 29 of the mezz.  They reside in a shaded, rain-protected area just inside the right-field foul pole.  They’re not great seats but they’re on an aisle and the Saturday plan guarantees a Yankee game and limited post-season privileges.

 

El Duque’s mid-80’s fastball was easy pickins for the Nats and the wind was blowing out, which helped on all three gopher balls he yielded.  The Cuban (pictured above) with the high and fancy leg kick plunked Nats starter Shawn Hill top six after the third home run and was promptly ejected by home plate umpire Mike Winters.  El Duque went wiggy and had to be restrained by Willie who was likely about to pull his starter anyway.  Winters had an ever-changing strike zone throughout the game and before Duque was ejected, Carlos Beltran nearly got tossed after Winters rung him on a ball outside the zone in the fifth.

The game also featured a rare mental mistake by fan favorite David Wright.  With two out in the fourth and runners on second and third, Wright fielded a grounder and should have made a prompt throw to first.  Instead, he chased the runner caught between second and third and applied a tag after the runner at third had crossed home plate.  Later, the best Met chance to rally ended when Wright crushed a ball to right with two men on and Ryan Church snagged the ball at the wall. D-Wright hasn’t had a homer yet this season.

The Mets stranded nine runners and lost the game 6-2.  Attendance was announced at 53,560 - which is about seven-thousand more than actually went.  Gametime temp was 50 but if you weren’t sitting in the sun, it was pretty chilly.  As we exited Shea, we were pleasantly surprised by a new tactic employed by the MTA to speed access to the 7 train.  All the turnstiles at the bottom of the main pavilion entrance leading to the stairwells and walkway to the platform have been removed.  You now slide your card at platform level for Manhattan-bound trains. I can’t really explain why, but it makes entry to the train a lot faster.  The same total number of turnstiles exists, or so it appears, yet delaying the card swipe until just before one gets on the train makes things go faster.

In past years, there would be major clogs and delays in that ground level pavilion as clueless and cardless 7 riders blocked earnest and prepared subway riders.  That bottleneck is gone now.


Chris Russo did his solo Saturday morning program (pictured above) from the Met radio booth at Shea. Starting Monday morning, Russo and his partner Mike Francesa will do double-duty at ‘FAN as they hold down the fort in the vacated Imus slot for two weeks.  They’ll take a three-hour breather in the mid-day before returning to do their regular afternoon drive program.  It’s expected that sometime in the next two weeks, a permanent replacement will be named for the morning drive slot Imus long occupied.

4-15-07 1515


A caller asked Mike Francesa flat-out Friday afternoon if he’d be interested in moving into the WFAN morning slot vacated by the firing of Imus, and Big Mike didn’t seem prepared to answer the question.  He stammered and hesitated while trying to issue a no-comment as a gesture of respect for the guy he may replace.  “Wait a second, I, uh, I, that would be, for us to discuss right now.  No.  Wait.  You’re not putting me on the spot because I don’t think that’s a fair question for anybody to be discussing that right now.  I don’t think this is the right time for anybody to be discussing that. I don’t think it’s fair for that to even be discussed. I really don’t.”

As Francesa stumbled through his response, Russo tried to bail him out.  Said the Mad Dog:  “The seat is still warm!”

-When it’s time to demolish Shea Stadium after the 2008 season, there won’t be a tightly-orchestrated and sudden implosion.  That’s the word from Met second-in-charge Jeff Wilpon whose comments in a Mike Puma story in the Post indicated the city won’t allow it.  Wilpon said the stadium will be dismantled gradually with many of the artifacts contained within to be sold off to souvenir collectors.

4-13-07 1711


With the final and complete removal of Don Imus from WFAN, attention now turns to who will fill his morning slot on the radio.  It seems likely that whoever steps in will lack the ability to regain the MSNBC simulcast, many of the radio stations that carried the Imus show in syndication and the millions in ad dollars produced.

One possibility likely being considered by WFAN and parent company CBS radio is moving Mike Francesa from the hugely popular, highly-rated Mike and the Mad Dog program into the Imus slot, leaving Francesa partner Chris Russo solo in afternoon drive.  Francesa is generally well-respected and well-liked as a sports talk show host, but probably couldn’t pull off a program with a more general-interest tilt.  But his authoritative and passionate style discussing sports (some cynics call it bluster) seems like it could work in the morning.

But there’s two problems moving Francesa to the AM.  One, much of his material relies on him having personally watched the previous night’s sports action on television.  With three new kids in his house, a commute from Long Island and much of the New York sports action drifting into the


That crawl across the bottom of your sports television programming could be another Todd Sauerbrun news flash.  For a punter, he sure finds a lot of ways to make the news.  The latest Punt King drama has the NFL Players Association submitting a technical objection to a clause in the contract Sauerbrun signed with New England with two games left in the 2006 regular season.

Sauerbrun had been out of the league for much of last season.  He served a four-game suspension for a positive ephedra test to begin the schedule and then the Denver Broncos cut him loose immediately after the ban lapsed.  Sauerbrun lingered without a gig for the next two months and then joined the Pats for two regular season games and two playoff games.  He punted well and you knew he was back on track.  At 34, with a cannon for a leg, Sauerbrun could kick well into his 40’s if only he could steer clear of trouble and stay healthy.

So as a free agent, Sauerbrun agreed to a one-year contract last week with of all teams - Denver.  It’s said to be an incentive-laden deal worth up to $1.4 million.  You’d think a solid year back in Denver and Sauerbrun sets himself up for a multi-year, multi-million-dollar deal.

But not so quick.  Perhaps because Sauerbrun was desperate to re-enter the league late last year, he allowed the Pats to insert a contractual clause that gave them specific rights to match any deal with seven days to consider.  Normally, Sauerbrun’s twelve years in the league would give him immunity from any kind of restricted status.  But anxious to play football, and perhaps insecure about his future, he agreed to the clause.  That much seems not in dispute.  It’s also not disputed that New England announced its intention this week to match Denver’s offer and retain Sauerbrun.

But several reports today indicate the player’s union has been granted a hearing next Tuesday before an arbitrator to consider the union’s contention that the Pats failed to follow procedure on the match clause.

Sauerbrun’s agent has indicated the Punt King would prefer to go back to Denver in part because the Broncos have hired Scott O’Brien to coach special teams.  Sauerbrun and O’Brien have a history from their days together in Carolina.

Three questions not addressed in the widespread coverage of the story: (1) did Sauerbrun seek the union’s intervention (2) do the Pats resent Sauerbrun’s failure to honor the contractual language after bailing him out (3) how much of the $1.4 million is up-front in the form of a signing bonus?

Either way, Sauerbrun will end up in Denver or New England with a solid deal.  It’s how he’s getting there that is unfolding in a sequence that seems unusual for a punter – but very typical for Sauerbrun in its outbreak of commotion.


4-11-07 1703

 

Updating our previous mention of Don Imus:

His show is going off the air for two weeks starting Monday and NBC says when the radio program resumes, it will keep a close eye on the content that airs on MSNBC’s simulcast of the show carried locally by WFAN.  Imus is getting hit with a two-week suspension for his racist comment aimed at the Rutgers women’s hoops team.  You’d think that the suits that handed Imus the suspension will use the time to further assess whether the veteran radio star deserves to come back. A key factor in the decision may well rest with the sponsors who buy commercial time on the Imus program.

Credit Filip Bondy of the News, who was the first scribe from the city’s dailies to express outrage on the Imus comments.  Bondy’s column last Saturday was the momentum-starter that created the storm of coverage that led to the suspension.  In fact, the Daily News collectively has covered the Imus story better than any media outlet in town.  But even the News has an awkward conflict connected to the matter.  Its lead columnist Mike Lupica is an Imus pal and frequent contributor to the radio program.


Imus co-workers Mike Francesa and Chris Russo weighed in on the suspension this afternoon and while their statements were less than full condemnation of Imus, they at least put the kabosh on a theory floated by Bob Raismann of the News.  In his column this morning, Raismann suggested that all those who speak on WFAN were under a gag order on the matter.  Hogwash, says Francesa: “No one tells us what to say. We’ve reached this stage in our life where no one tells us what to say…thankfully.”  Mike and the Dog took calls for the duration of the program, a full airing of opinion.  Many of the calls were critical and many callers detailed previous offensive transgressions by Imus.

As we said yesterday, momentum is building for an end to the kind of backwards radio program Imus churns out nearly every day.  This two-week suspension – coupled with a huge amount of analysis and attention – will most likely lead to the eventual termination of Imus.

The Imus program is the only non-sports show on WFAN.  Why not make the ‘FAN a 24-hour sports talk radio station with the soothing and intelligent voice of Richard Neer in the 530 to 10 AM slot?

4-10-07 1717


It took way too long, but the backwards and often vile comedy of Don Imus is catching up with him.  We won’t repeat what he said on his radio show last week about the women’s hoops team from Rutgers, but David Carr of the Times today said “the slur was the kind of unalloyed racial insult that might not have passed muster on a low-watt AM station in the Jim Crow South.”

So knowing he’s in big-time trouble, Imus went on the air this morning and tried to salvage a career that is about to get taken away from him.  His voice cracked and he said repeatedly “I’m a good person who said a bad thing.”  No, I-Man.  You’re a powerful broadcaster who’s gotten away with humor that hurts too many people no longer acceptable on American airwaves.  The Imus apology included multiple excuses and poor rationale typically used by folks who can’t come to terms with what’s inside them.  He said he was an equal-opportunity offender and raised millions of dollars for his charitable organization whose beneficiaries include blacks.  Imus said his radio program spanning three-plus decades used a comedic formula that has become outdated and is probably due for an overhaul.

But if he was truly contrite and committed to changing his radio show’s approach, he wouldn’t continue to feature an archived audio clip of a parody of Mets GM and proud Dominican Omar Minaya on the WFAN web site.  The Imus show mocks Minaya in large part because of his accented English in an attempt to make him look dumb.  Bits like these litter the Imus show nearly every day, and that observation is based on the very small sampling of the show we can stomach before being shocked into turning the dial.

If Imus was truly sorry, he also wouldn’t have immediately moved on from the apology this morning and put one of his pals on the air.  Former Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant went on the program to back Imus and state that a less forceful apology issued late last week should have been enough to make this controversy go away.  That’s fine if Oliphant believes that. But Imus should have devoted this morning’s program to a more critical analysis of his behavior.

Imus will find that many of his other high-profile guests will no longer serve the role as enabler.  It isn’t worth it for legitimate journalists and regular Imus guests Tim Russert, Andrea Mitchell or Anna Quindlen to be linked with such a hateful production.

After Imus made it through his own program this morning, he appeared on Al Sharpton’s radio show a few hours later.  Sharpton is the region’s leading black voice and he will serve an important role in this controversy.  In what was described as a combative dialogue between the two, Sharpton continued his call for Imus to be fired and vowed to ratchet up the pressure if it doesn’t happen by the end of the week.

CBS radio will make that decision and the show’s financial success will weigh heavily on the suits as they consider right vs. wrong.  The other player here is MSNBC, the cable news network which simulcasts Imus using live pictures from the studio in Secaucus.  MSNBC’s decision to pull the plug on Imus should be an easier one given its mission as a news organization.  The fact that CBS and MSNBC have both done nothing to publicly punish Imus since the comment last week is a strong indication that broadcast executives can fail in their responsibilities when faced with the loss of revenue.  But you get the sense that time is short for Imus.  This comment was so brutal and ugly.  Pressure seems to be rising.

One guy I do feel bad for as I listened this morning was Chris Carlin, who does the brief sports reports on the Imus program.  Carlin was on vacation last week when the controversy erupted.  He’s the play-by-play voice of Rutgers football and his linkage with Imus could make his job much tougher on the Rutgers campus.

 

4-9-07 1750


With a month of solid preparation, Nobiz Like Showbiz won New York’s big Kentucky Derby prep race Saturday against a weak field that totaled just six participants. The mile and an eighth Wood Memorial at dreary Aqueduct is a rite of spring for area horseplayers. It’s the first real significant horse race of the year on the local circuit, although it seems to have diminished in intrigue for gamblers after it lost wagering linkage to Derby prep races to be run next weekend in Lexington, KY and Hot Springs, AR.

Nobiz Like Showbiz hadn’t raced in five weeks but had a series of good workouts in Florida and was the horse to beat on paper. He broke from the inside post (above far right), insisted on participating on the front end and worked hard to shake off one rival and hold off another late-charger to win by a half-length.

Those who bet two dollars on Nobiz to win were given $3.40 in return. His finishing time of 1:49.46 is considered slow but the raw time can sometimes be deceptive because of the varying condition of surfaces horses run on. The Aqueduct track is considering about average in the raw times it produces.
The most positive aspect of Nobiz’s performance (pictured above just after crossing the finish line) was his elimination of an earlier tendency to get sloppy in the final stages of a race. In his prior two races as a 3-year-old, Nobiz ducked, veered and appeared distracted coming for home. Perhaps it was the blinkers added to the horses eyes – or the cotton balls trainer Barclay Tagg inserted in the ears of Nobiz prior to the Wood that made the horse more focused this time around.

Tagg is a solid New York-based horseman best known for training the hugely popular 2003 Derby winner Funny Cide. Tagg said he will leave Nobiz in New York until just a few days before the Derby and wait ‘til as late as possible before shipping to Louisville to avoid commotion in the barn area at Churchill Downs during Derby week. Nobiz will be the Derby pick of many, but his inclination to ignore his rider’s pleas to sit back and deliberate the scene in front of him could be his undoing.

It’s now just one month to go before the Derby and for many of the horses that make the trip to Louisville, their final prep race is crucial in determining their readiness for the big one. That wasn’t the case for Any Given Saturday (pictured above wearing the 1A saddlecloth – with jockey John Velasquez on board) who was considered to be Nobiz’s main rival in the Wood. Only two winners of the Wood have gone on to win the Derby since 1981. That’s because some trainers don’t necessarily want their horses to go all out for the victory in their final prep hoping to leave gas in the tank for the Derby. That may be the case with Any Given Saturday who had already expended a lot of energy just three weeks earlier in a fierce duel with Street Sense at Tampa Bay Downs. Any Given Saturday raced wide throughout in the Wood and didn’t dig in during the final stage which probably suits his trainer Todd Pletcher just fine. Any Given Saturday will be a major threat on Kentucky Derby day. A tip about who Pletcher believes is the best of the several he’ll enter into the Derby will be who his top jock John Velasquez ends up riding the first Saturday in May.

Attendance at Aqueduct Saturday was 7848. Double and triple that number usually attended the Wood card just a few years back. Why the sharp reduction in attendance? Simple – it’s become a bleak, unattractive facility with much of it off-limits to the fan. A majority of the grandstand is closed off because of what the track has said are renovations in preparation for a new slots parlor. But because of a series of missteps by the track’s current operator, the slots are on hold, there are no visible renovations taking place, and racing fans are penned into an area just a fraction the size of the entire facility. Paint is peeling everywhere you look and the few human tellers that are left are inconsistent in their dealings with patrons. The prospect of a new track operator offers hope for a turnaround, but right now Aqueduct is clearly going downhill. With temps in the 40’s, it was a bit chilly on the apron between the facility and the track. But many fans like it out there to get a better glimpse of the horses prior to the race.

The greatest jockey of the current era – and perhaps ever – worked the ESPN telecast of the Wood from an outdoor set at the finish line. Jerry Bailey (pictured above center – flanked by colleagues Randy Moss and Hank “The Hammer” Goldberg) retired a year ago after racking up nearly six-thousand wins over a thirty-year career. After calling it quits with his body intact, Bailey made a seamless transition into the broadcast booth and does an excellent job educating viewers of varying interest levels. He represents the sport well. While we stood near the ESPN broadcast location, one fan yelled at Goldberg. “You look great Hank! If I knew you were here, I would have stayed at home and watched you on TV.”

Aqueduct carries the signals of several tracks on televisions throughout the facility and accepts wagers on races at those tracks. If it weren’t for that opportunity, we would have lost money. But a win bet on 29-1 Santa Anita Derby winner Tiago and an exacta hit on the Illinois Derby allowed us to walk out with more than we walked in with.

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You would have thought that a collection of vital US media properties being sold to a calculating, pure bottom-line guy who launched his empire as a flipper would have garnered a more negative reaction. But it seems like those interested in strong journalism are approaching the sale of the Tribune Company to Sam Zell with caution - even some optimism. Working at one of the Trib’s properties, Hartford Courant columnist Stan Simpson told the NY Times this: “The big issue is, does he have a vision for the new company and a plan for the digital age? It’s potentially exciting, but it’s a little bit unnerving because you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

The Trib Co. has gutted the LA Times (the most important newspaper in its corporate family) in recent years and perhaps the feeling is that any change at the top, especially one that involves a pseudo employee-ownership role would lead to a rebound at the staff-depleted newspaper.

But you still hope that Zell elects to spin off the LA Times and put it in the hands of business interests with local community ties. The paper has drawn interest from responsible parties in Southern California who believe that newspapers aren’t all about raking in bucks. It needs immediate salvaging. Maybe Zell understands that newspaper stewardship is different than most businesses. His deal to take over Tribune properties came at little personal expense relative to its total (dwindling) value. Zell has made comments indicating knowledge about untapped potential revenue linking journalism to the internet. He recently made a statement to students at Stanford that may tip one element of his strategy going forward. “If all the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content for nothing, what would Google do, and how profitable would Google be?”

The other interesting aspect of Zell’s plan to take over Tribune Co. is how it will impact the Cubs. The deal includes a commitment that will lead to the sale of the baseball team and you’d think Zell is hoping the buyer is also the high-bidder. But MLB commissioner Bud Selig has gone out of his way to say that new owners aren’t always the ones that make the highest offer. A green light from influential Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf seems to be a prerequisite which could dampen Mark Cuban’s aspirations. Add Zell’s comments that the sale of the Cubs may not include Wrigley Field as part of the package. That’s a scary prospect for those that love the ivy because a new owner without full control of the ballpark may get a built-in excuse to seek a venue with greater revenue potential. It’s crazy, but let’s say the new owner gets a ‘burb to build a skybox-filled retractable dome and Zell converts the shrine at Clark and Addison into some other entity without violating landmark status regulations. Obviously, that would be a bad mistake given the greatness of Wrigley. But when economics get in the way, it’s not totally far-fetched. Hopefully Selig will wield as much influence on the status of the new owner’s commitment to Wrigley as he does on the sale itself.

As far as the short-term impact the proposed sale will have on the team on the field, well, just a guess, but it could mean a moratorium on big contracts for mediocre talent like the ones handed to Jason Marquis and Ted Lilly.

-Of all the baseball openers at his disposal last Monday, commissioner Selig chose to attend White Sox-Indians in Chicago. Was it because he wanted to address questions about the approaching sale of the Cubs? Or was it because of the furor over the relocation of the press box at US Cellular? It seemed odd, no matter the reason considering the Brewers played their home opener against the Dodgers on the same day.

A week earlier, USA Today’s Hal Bodley did an excellent profile on Selig’s obsessive-compulsive nature. Bodley says Selig has the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day: orange juice, a banana and a cup of tea in the morning and a hot dog and a diet coke at mid-day. He gets a haircut once a week on a Friday. Bodley’s story also said Selig uses profanity regularly and stays up at night until the last west coast baseball game has ended.

-On our recent trek that ended in Columbia, South Carolina, our car radio dial-spinning found an excellent college radio station. It’s so good, we are now importing its signal via the web and enjoying it for long stretches. WUSC-FM, 90.5 throws a good signal in that region. It can be found at http://wusc.sc.edu/ and its stream includes a real-time song identifier.

-A night before our stop in Columbia, we stayed in the much-hyped Buckhead district of Atlanta. Not sure what the buzz is about. It’s an unimpressive hodge-podge of high-rise hotels, high-traffic roadways, scarce parking and pedestrian hazards. But at least there’s good barbeque to be found on

Irby Avenue
. The One Star Ranch serves an excellent pork plate and makes an excellent tomato-dominant baked bean dish. The outdoor deck has lots of space.

4-6-07 2110

 

It’s the most well-organized, well-run major sporting venue we’ve ever visited. We got up early Wednesday morning in Atlanta for the two-hour, 45-minute drive east to Augusta and entered the south gate at about

 

In the vicinity of Amen Corner, an information board on practice round participants is updated manually. The man pictured above left said he lived in upstate New York and volunteered annually at the Masters in exchange for the one-day privilege of playing Augusta. The man said this year’s special day for volunteers will come May 22 and includes a free round of golf followed by a grand buffet.

Another course support worker, William Young of Rochester, NY was working security on the front nine. The retired police chief said he had dreamed for years of seeing Augusta but was always under the impression that it would be impossible to ever get in. So early this year, he secured a low-paying security job from a firm in Atlanta and was at Augusta for his first-ever Masters week. It was fun to watch Young excitedly observe the lawn mower crew roll down the fairways near his post. “They get in formation like they’re in the freakin’ Army,” said Young as a dozen lawn mowers hummed in a tightly-organized series of maneuvers. Young pulled a digital camera from his pocket and snapped shots every time the mower crew passed by. Course renovation is a fine science here. At

 

As we walked from hole-to-hole, our path kept crossing that of Sergio Garcia who played multiple balls as he went through the course for a final walk-through. As he finished his round, he passed by near the clubhouse. A fan with a British accent asked Garcia to stop for a photo, and the temperamental Spaniard (pictured above) who most recently made news for spitting in a cup while playing Doral kept walking.

We had lunch on a bench near the north entrance. The turkey sandwich on wheat was $1.50 and a cup of cold Bud is $2.00. All the food is good and all of it is cheap. My brother had two egg salad sandwiches – also $1.50. The lines for bathrooms were long at times but once inside the men’s room, you enjoyed even that experience at clean, well-maintained fixtures.

With everything in full bloom, and lots of grass-cutting, allergy-sufferers are sneezing constantly.

 

After most of the players finished their practice round, a large field participated in a nine-hole, par-three contest on a special course east of the putting practice green. We found a perch just above what seemed like the prettiest hole on the par-three course with an elevated tee location looking down to the green below about 125 yards away. It wasn’t clear which hole it was. Information about pairings, scores, hole order and contest rules was tough to obtain. The contest is extremely low-key with many of the players including their children in the proceedings. The competitive feeling one could expect to feel during tournament play was absent. Phil Mickelson was flanked by his two daughters as he walked up to our location. Lefty (pictured above) aimed his shot high and left of the pin as his kids pulled bottles of water from the cooler at the tee. Earlier, a heavy-set Fuzzy Zoeller sweating through his dark shirt put one in the drink and laughed heartily.

O’Meara won the par-three tourney with birds on five of the nine holes. The huge crowd roared after holes-in-one by David Toms and Rory Sabbatini. But what got the fans most excited was when the threesome of Arnie, Jack and Gary Player would enter a tee box on the short course and launch their lobs. Masters champs – especially those whose accomplishments cover a long span – are held in very high regard at Augusta. It seems like golf fans on hand reacted with more excitement to the legends of the past than the stars of the present.

Palmer, at age 77, appears fit, his wit sharp. He launched the tournament with an honorary drive off the first tee and at a news conference on Wednesday, he was bombarded with questions about Tiger’s influence on the game. When a reporter asked Palmer if he’d stay at Augusta the rest of the weekend to watch the action unfold, Arnie said no, he was going home to watch it “with a beer – on TV.”

That’s what we’ll do, too. As great as it was to see the course, the participants and all of the supporting staff, the best way to watch the tournament unfold is on the tube.

4-5-07 2127

 

As TSR wraps up its short visit to Chicago, we’ve been disappointed to hear more details about the city’s high-impact public transit project officially under way today. Track and station renovations will force thousands of “El” train riders to decide whether to join herds of other commuters vying to wait for fewer, more crowded trains – or – to find alternate ways to get around. Some will switch to buses, others, unfortunately will drive.

Thirty-one trains on northbound routes along the red, purple and brown lines have been eliminated between 3 and 630 PM during the week. According to the Trib’s transit reporter Jon Hilkevitch, the reduced train activity will mean the elimination of about 18-thousand spots for riders. The project and its corresponding reduced ability to move passengers will last more than two years.

The Hilkevitch account of the CTA train station/line renovations and its impact on riders is rich in detail but it raises several unanswered questions.

*Will frustrated riders displaced by the project come back to the system when it resumes normal service in late 2009?

*Between 530 and 630 PM, northbound service on the red, brown and purple will be cut nearly in half. Those trains were packed on a normal day. If let’s say 75-percent of that normal ridership continues to show up for the ride home at the usual time, what kind of chaos will that create at platforms, turnstiles and train-door entrances? How quick will those frustrated customers modify their departure times? Are the aging platforms along the affected lines able to handle large swarms of people that will be now forced to cram on those decks as they wait for fewer trains?

*When the CTA suggests using the blue line as an alternative, do they realize that the blue’s northwest trajectory will be of little practical use to those who live along the lake? And will the blue’s already crowded pm rush trains be able to take on additional people?

CTA operators say the renovations are long overdue and necessary immediately. It just seems unfortunate that in an era in which people are already prone to excuse-making when citing avoidance of public transit, they’ll be given yet another reason to stay away.

-ESPN2’s Sunday night telecast of Cards/Mets used Peter Gammons as its dugout reporter and went to him often. After Tommy Glavine’s night was through, Gammons did an excellent live Q & A with the lefty in the Met locker room. MLB rules governing in-game access to its players and managers have been relaxed in recent years. In the capable hands of Gammons, that access is a win-win for both the game and its fans.

-TSR heads down to Atlanta tomorrow and then will drive 90 minutes east early the next morning for Wednesday’s Masters practice round and par-three event a day before the tournament starts. It’ll be our first visit to Augusta National. In a recent essay for ESPN the magazine, Phil Mickelson describes the golf course fully – and in a way that captures why we’ve wanted to see it so badly for many years. “For every golfer out there who has dreamed of playing Augusta National, I can tell you that it’s even better than what you’ve imagined. The fairways are like carpet, and the greens are so pure you feel like you’re in heaven. Even the driving range has the most pristine grass. The place is surreal. History is made there every year. I can’t get enough of it.”

Back on Thursday with a full report. We join much of the rest of the golf world in hoping to see Phil and Tiger in that final pairing on Sunday. Our outside pick to contend for a green jacket is a serious longshot: Ian Poulter.

4-2-07 1745


TSR has taken to the road and says hello from Shytown. Soriano fever is in the air here on the north side. Fans at the corner tavern last night yelled and cheered when Tayshaun missed a shot at the buzzer giving the Bulls their fourth win in a row. Tyrus Thomas continues to impress every time we see him and he really ought to get a guaranteed 20-25 minutes a night.

We came to Chicago first and foremost to see our brand new nephew Sam. In case you haven’t heard, Sam is The Man.

We’re also set to participate in a fantasy baseball draft. The last thing anybody wants to hear about is somebody else’s fantasy team, but the league that will gather this evening in suburban Bartlett epitomizes all that is good about fantasy sport participation. The BGBL draft will be a raucous, beer-fueled affair that includes pizza, comedy, side bets and in-depth sports discussions. And then as the baseball season progresses, league members will argue about the game of baseball, the league, old girlfriends, and the Cubs - on a portion of the league web site that catalogs commentary. There’s a league historian (The Guz) who has extensive records on all league activity dating back to its inception in 1982. There’s a league comedian and a league pessimist. There’s a league commissioner and as with any league, there’s a member who starts the season but then annually lets his team fall into disrepair. There are a few bucks at stake but the real motivation for being a member of the BGBL is the long social bond and uniqueness of the league’s members.

-There’s no reason to be worried about a dismal spring training record racked up by the Mets. The team is about to break camp with a won/loss mark of 11-20. It comes after more than a month of meaningless split squad affairs, pitch count limitations, lineup experimentation and excused absences. It’s hard not to be confident that the Mets will win another NL East division title, put up at least 90 victories and produce at least as many thrills as we got last year. All they key pieces are back minus Bradford who was replaced by Schoeneweis. The rotation has some what ifs but there are young, live arms in three of the five starting slots. Moises Alou takes over in left field and if form holds, he’ll miss a bunch of games but hit .300 in the games he plays. When Alou sits, Endy the legendy will be crashing into the left field wall. The left side of the Met infield is a year wiser and incredibly talented. It appears the only positional debate is in right field where Shawn Green seems headed for the exit at some point to make way for Lastings Milledge and the bundle of energy he provides. Ticket sales at Shea are through the roof and the new stadium is emerging in the parking lot just past left-center field. Met fans are ready to take the next post-season step. The Philles are improved and will make it a race. But a race would be good. It’ll toughen a Met team that coasted through the schedule last September with nothing to play for.

Hey, it’s really fun to be a Met fan right now. There’s homegrown talent, a skipper from Brooklyn, more great players playing down on the farm, and a likeable mix on the big league roster from many spots on the globe. Sure, there will be adversity and pressure to contend with. But the Mets are the here and the now and what’s most fun is the dissection of the day to day. It all starts Sunday in St. Louis.

-We came into Chicago’s Midway airport via a 50-seat Embraer regional jet as the sun was setting last night and the most striking sight on arrival was the new soccer-specific stadium on Harlem just west of the airport. The 20-thousand seat facility is home to the Chicago Fire of the MLS. It looks beautiful from a distance and it appears to be designed from the same mold used by the great European soccer palaces.

3-30-07 1231

 

TSR doesn’t have what you’d probably need in terms of credentials to be able to call PSAL Boy’s Basketball Commissioner Mel Goldstein on the telephone to ask him questions about the mess at MSG last weekend. But Goldstein has an e-mail address publicly listed on the PSAL web site, so we sent him a message on Wednesday to ask him for his insights. He’s probably a busy guy, and you’d hope he’s frustrated by the complexities of the problems faced by his league. So, he probably doesn’t have time to respond to an e-mail from some dude in Queens. As we wait on a response from Goldstein (pictured above left), we’ll answer the questions submitted to him working under the hypothetical idea that TSR is now the PSAL Boy’s Basketball commissioner.

Question: Police say hundreds of people attending the PSAL title game at the Garden last week brawled, mauled and rioted – at first inside MSG, and then on a larger scale on the streets outside the arena. How sad are you to see what happened Sunday night given the damage it does to the PSAL?

Answer: It’s saddens me deeply. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time in the PSAL’s history and it is especially frustrating when you consider the people that were involved. The folks who rioted are not true high school basketball fans and have no real affiliation with our league.

Question: If MSG says it doesn’t want to host the PSAL title game next year (it’s already expressing reservations), where would it go?

Answer: I don’t know, but we’ll find a suitable venue in either Brooklyn, Queens or the Bronx and we’ll come up with crowd management solutions that insure what happened will never happen again. It will never happen again, because it is destroying a critical youth program that we must fight for and preserve.

Question: Do you think the grandiose aspects of the Garden make it tempting for hooligans to act up? In other words, if the title game was played at a more non-descript facility (like St. John’s or St. Francis or Lehman College), would that reduce the temptation to cause a ruckus?

Answer: That’s a question with human behavior implications and I think it’s a valid suggestion. There might be something about the bright lights of Times Square, the Garden and the location that make it an inviting place for those with tendencies to act out on a big stage.

Question: To what extent were you aware of the violence outside of MSG while it was happening?

Answer: The PSAL commissioner is in constant contact with the school safety division of the NYPD and PSAL officials were well aware of what was happening inside and out.

Question: Why does the PSAL web site make zero mention of the violence connected to the title game?

Answer: The thinking here is that if the league’s web site doesn’t discuss it, the story will go away. That of course is flawed logic and as commissioner, I would prefer dealing with the issue in an up-front kind of way. Let’s publicize what happened, show the city’s residents what happened, let’s discuss it and let’s correct it and stop it.

Question: The proposal to make tickets to future PSAL title games available only to those with connections to the two participating schools would exclude a lot of NYC high school hoops fans. Is this really a serious consideration?

Answer: I would hope not. Where are we headed? Do we want to be like the European soccer teams that play before empty stadiums because of security problems? To restrict who watches our games in such a limited way will destroy our league. For young people to play in a healthy and competitive environment there must be fans in the stands. The people that support our league by coming to games are critical and we can’t make any of them persona non grata. If there is one bad apple in a bushel basket full of fresh ones, you extract the bad one and let the others remain.

Question: Additionally, it’s been proposed that all PSAL playoff games be played during daytime hours. What’s the logic of this proposal?

Answer: There is no logic. As long as games start at a reasonable hour, the PSAL shouldn’t get hung up on making a connection between the violence and the time of day. This problem must be dealt with using crowd control techniques that go beyond simplistic, knee-jerk responses. We need to look at who started those problems in the stands, ban them from future PSAL events, and play the games at smaller facilities. Let’s sell advance tickets at a price that weeds out the non-fan and let’s examine our crowd management policies in a way that insure this incident isn’t repeated. Let’s have open discussions. And let’s do it all with an urgency that recognizes that public high school athletics in this city is something worth fighting for.

-Two Cow Garage is about to release a new record that contains a song that will become the summer night theme song for rockers who have rides once those summer nights eventually arrive. It’s called Camaro (track 9), on Two Cow’s April 24 release “3.” The record is great top to bottom and the hard-touring Columbus band is streaming it live on its web site twocowgarage.com.

-Stan “The Maven” Fischler interviewed Joe Nieuwendyk after the second period of Devs/Panthers Saturday night and asked the future hall of famer what he thought of the current form of the game of hockey as it is played today. Nieuwendyk’s response: “I like the fact that players can skate more freely now, but I certainly miss some of the passion that was in the old game and I think the fans do too…Somehow it doesn’t seem as intense any more from the standpoint of having hatred for your opponent. You’re not allowed to get too mad at the other guy.”

 

3-25-07 1515

 

CBS war correspondent Lara Logan appeared on the Letterman show earlier this week. The South African reporter was hired by CBS as she was covering the fall of Kabul for British television and she’s among a half-dozen or so correspondents we get to see on TV in the US who truly impress. She’s been on the front lines of conflict for nearly twenty years, and Letterman asked Logan what she aspired to do if and when Iraq and Afghanistan find peace. Logan responded that the world will never cease to have war, but she indicated that she’d like to go back to her native continent and cover the under-reported stories of suffering.

Late in the interview there was this exchange:

Letterman: “Africa seems to me to be a place of endless trouble that we’re now finally starting to learn about.”

Logan: “Well, after we took all of its diamonds, and all of its minerals, and all of its gold, and put tribes in countries that didn’t belong together and decided who would live with who – then it became a place of endless trouble.”

 

3-23-07 1030

 

Mike Francesa, who claims to have decent sources in the college hoops world, says the University of Kentucky already has focused on a couple candidates for its coveted men’s basketball vacancy. “I called somebody who happens to be pretty tight with that situation who said (Billy) Gillispie and (Rick) Majerus are definitely on the short list.” Of the two, Gillispie seems like the more lucrative candidate. The A&M coach was profiled by Pete Thamel in the Times today and has had a logical career progression that makes him ready for a gig like the one in Lexington.

Lexington basketball writer Jerry Tipton believes Tubby Smith could have stayed had he shook up his staff. Tipton added that Billy Donovan is at the top of most U-K wish lists.

About an hour after Francesa floated Majerus for the Kentucky job, Billy Packer appeared on WFAN and immediately shot it down, citing health concerns. “I have great respect for Rick’s knowledge of basketball, but the Kentucky job is an all-consuming job…and it takes a guy that can withstand that.”

Packer also chimed in on the hard Greg Oden shove of Justin Cage of Xavier last Saturday at the end of regulation. Oden decked Cage and it was not called an intentional foul. Said Packer: “An intentional foul is when you have activity that has nothing to do with the play of basketball. Pushing a guy in the chest and knocking him down is not a basketball play so without question it was an intentional foul. It should have been called because no matter what the situation is in a game you should make the call as you see it whether it’s the first second of the game – or the last.”

 

3-22-07 1702

 

CNBC’s stock-tip shouter Jim Cramer finds himself under scrutiny after discovery of taped comments in which the mad money maven brags about price manipulation techniques. Cramer is high on himself and to some degree, deservedly so. He’s made bundles on the market. But he may regret taped boasts in which he suggests that he at the very least is familiar with ways of driving stock prices through dissemination of unsubstantiated information. The Post busted news of the Cramer comments and their existence on You Tube. It’s a ten-minute video that was intended for web viewers on thestreet.com and the view count on the video at You Tube is over six figures. The Post’s follow-up story today said Cramer could also be in hot water at CNBC because on the tape, Cramer said rumors about companies could be fed to the “Pisanis of the world.” Bob Pisani is a reputable floor reporter and Cramer co-worker. The Post says Cramer’s CNBC contract may contain what’s called a “disparagement clause” and he may have violated it by suggesting Pisani is a tool for any party interested in manipulating the price of a stock. The more you hear Cramer speak on the tape, the more you hope the SEC calls him in for a chat, makes him sweat and shuts him up.

-Buried in the wave of news that British mogul Richard Branson has gained US approval to start up an airline in America is the reaction of the airline it could hurt most. Branson is set to start up a sister carrier to his successful transatlantic operation Virgin Atlantic. It’ll be called Virgin America and it will look and act much like the model established by JetBlue, or so it appears. So, you’d expect JetBlue to join almost all the other US airlines who are complaining that Branson – a Brit – a foreigner - shouldn’t be allowed to do business as a US domestic carrier. No. Not the case. In the Times today, JetBlue spokesman Jenny Dervin said JetBlue didn’t oppose Branson’s venture and welcomed the competition. That’s either a lotta bravado or a lotta craziness. Once Branson gets in, his airline will make some hay.

 

3-21-07 1715

 

New York City’s public high school basketball program is already in shambles, but a horrible night of violence connected to its Sunday night title game threatens to sink city hoops into further turmoil. Late in the third quarter of the PSAL championship at the Garden, several scuffles broke out behind one of the baskets. Lincoln was extending its lead on Boys and Girls at the time and went on to win the game, 77-50. As the in-house rumble was controlled by a huge contingent of uniformed security, thugs by the hundreds took it out onto

Eighth Ave.
and rumbled their way up to
42nd St.
Police and witnesses told all three of the big dailies that gunfire erupted and several people were found to be carrying knives. In all, the mayhem netted 21 arrests and multiple injuries.

A cop quoted in Monday’s Post said there were large groups of people fighting over a large area. “Kids got trampled all over the place,” - between 34th and 42nd -said the police source. The story was played hard on papers and TV on Monday. It added another ugly chapter to a PSAL history that includes numerous violent incidents in connection with its basketball games.

What’s unfortunate is that the folks who engage in this kind of nonsense aren’t basketball fans – and their actions will hurt kids who already play in a league that is underfunded and underappreciated. The Garden is talking about refusing to host future title games and the league is saying it will move all future playoff games to daytime hours. Additionally, the PSAL is saying that tickets for future title games will be made available only to students, faculty and family members from the two participating schools. That leaves out the city’s dedicated high school hoops fans, and that really sucks.

Incidentally, the PSAL web site does not make mention of any violence at its title game either in the arena or outside it. Nothing.

As for MSG’s live telecast of the game, play-by-play Mike Crispino threw a rug over the violence as well. The extent of his observations on the brawls was limited to one sentence at the start of the fourth quarter. “There’s been a little bit of un-needed activity in the stands,” said the chipper Crisper.

Crispino’s partner, MSG analyst Mike Quick took note of the crowd from the start. He chastised fans that either ignored or refused to acknowledge a rendition of God Bless America to start the game. “I just can’t understand. Everything that we’ve gone through since September 11th, and people can’t stop and take two minutes out of their life and pay respects to this country. The more and more I go around to high school sporting events the less and less respect (there is) for our country, and it’s disturbing. It really is.”

And if you didn’t catch Jimmy Cavallo’s halftime interview with Lincoln coach Tiny Morton, it was also a bit embarrassing. Here’s how it went down:

Cavallo: “Hey Tiny, good old fashioned Brooklyn battle in the city championship. A one-point game.”

Morton: “Just like you’d expect it to be. One and two (seed) going against each other. It’s a real tight game.”

Cavallo: “What’s your preference? You’ve played these guys three times (this season). This is the fourth time. Would you rather have it like that or see the team for the first time in a city final on MSG?”

Morton: (looking baffled and shaking his head) “I didn’t understand that question.”

Cavallo: “This is the fourth time you’ve played them. Do you know too much about them?”

Morton: “Not really because every game is different. I mean, you know what certain players do but coaches come up with different game plans so you gotta watch that.”

Cavallo: “What can we look forward to from the (Lincoln) Railsplitters in the second half?”

Morton: “A little bit more defense. A little bit more offense. A little bit more everything.”

 

3-20-07 1740

 

The troubled European airplane maker Airbus will send two of its new “superjumbo” A380 jets to the US on Monday and you wonder why the company even bothers. Aside from the public’s fascination with the airplane’s record size and the thrill of watching a machine so big soar into the air, the US aviation industry has turned its back on the A380. Only one American company placed an order for the airplane. FedEx signed up to buy ten of the planes, but backed out of the order after a string of production delays and internal company turmoil at Airbus.

At JFK, the beastly air ship is scheduled to touch down at 1230 Monday and park at terminal 1 for a photo op and media show-off session. There’s been little publicity about the plane’s arrival in New York.

Los Angeles aviation officials have been far more astute and aggressive in organizing public viewing opportunities. The operator of LAX has conducted a formal public relations outreach disclosing sites and times for airplane enthusiasts to get a look at the airplane.

The operator of JFK is the notoriously inept Port Authority and it has buried the A380’s arrival. Its internet home page makes no mention of the historic arrival of the superjumbo. You have to dig to find a terse, one-page news release. An edict in that press advisory is sure to be ignored: “Reporters and camera operators must wear flat shoes with rubber soles to access the viewing area.” What, will earplugs be mandatory, too?

Individual airlines will have flexibility on how the new jumbos are configured – and what kinds of features are included. There’s plenty of room for air-lounges or duty-free shops, but anything of the kind will cut into seating capacity – and by extension – revenue. The standard setup will include 555 seats with three levels of service.

-A new catch-phrase has entered the lingo of airline customers sitting on taxiing airplanes unable to immediately reach a gate. Our pal Scooter reports that on a recent American Airlines flight to Los Angeles, he was sitting on the airplane that had just landed, at a standstill in a lineup of aircraft at LAX. A person talking on a cell phone in a neighboring seat could be heard telling his waiting ride that he was “Jet-Bluin’ It” and wasn’t certain when his inbound flight would reach the gate for deplanement.

-Bronx product Edgar Sosa had a Big Dance performance that few freshmen will ever top on Saturday afternoon. The Louisville point guard was dazzling for all but the last minute. He hit clutch shots from downtown, flashed speedy moves to the hoop and swarmed on defense as his team pressed full court the entire game. He finished with 31 points against an A & M team that makes a habit of shutting down offenses. Unfortunately, his game for the ages will be remembered for three missed shots to end a battle his team lost by three points. Sosa missed two late free throws after making his first fifteen attempts and then was errant on a misguided trey-attempt down one with seven seconds left. Sosa took the blame for his team’s loss, but his coach Rick Pitino was correct when he said Louisville would have lost by 20 had it not been for Sosa. The kid will be back in the tournament next year, when two of his freshman contemporaries (Greg Oden and Kevin Durant) are playing meaningless March NBA games for losing teams. Sosa may not stay in college much beyond that, but he clearly is something special and we look forward to watching him next year. A & M marches on and could go all the way.

We watched March Madness in Manhattan barrooms on Friday and Saturday. With ice and snow falling Friday night, we trudged over to Proof on

3rd Ave.
for the televised evening sessions of the tourney’s first round. The place is equipped with numerous TV’s, they’ve got the Direct TV package that makes all of the games available and they cook up a solid personal pan pizza. But Proof caters not to the hoops fan thirsting for a look at all the games – instead they show the feed of the team with the most dominant alumni group in the tavern at the time. So, when Florida fans packed the place at

If federal regulators are as inept as the congressional panel that held a hearing on the proposed Sirius/XM merger earlier this week, you can consider the deal dead. Carried live on C-Span3, Sirius boss Mel Karmazin attempted to explain the benefits of a combined satellite radio product to the House Anti-Trust Task Force. But the bi-partisan sub-group of the House Judiciary Committee voiced near-unanimous skepticism and opposition to Karmazin’s eloquent explanation of the merger.

Karmazin made some impressive previously undisclosed claims. If the FCC and the DOJ allow Sirius and XM to combine, Karmazin says prices will remain constant or lower, all current hardware will pick up the combined signal and more off-beat programming will be offered. He said the new company is willing to consider binding promises on just about every aspect of pricing and programming to get the deal done. Karmazin scoffed at each and every congressional skeptic who says the new mega-service will jack up monthly fees. He pledged to keep subscriber rates at the current level and says even without a verbal promise – or regulatory mandates – satellite radio will keep its price low simply because it has to. “We compete with free. That’s the pricing point.”

That free competition that Karmazin refers to is terrestrial radio. The free signals you get on your AM/FM dial are a powerful counter-force to any temptation by a single satellite radio entity to charge anything more than the market can bear. Terrestrial radio was represented at the Congressional hearing by the slick and powerful National Association of Broadcasters. N-A-B president David Rehr sat a few feet away from Karmazin and called the proposed merger a “government-sanctioned monopoly.” Rehr attacked efforts by satellite radio to combine into one entity saying it was anti-consumer and would “undermine audio content competition.”

Shame on Rehr whose own clients’ failure to responsibly pursue diverse and interesting terrestrial radio offerings led to the emergence of satellite radio in the first place. Rehr isn’t a true broadcaster or a journalist. He’s a professional lobbyist. He’s a hack for Clear Channel and the conglomerates that dominate free radio today. Rehr’s previous gig was representing big breweries in the halls of Congress. Now he’s trying to stomp out a move that further threatens to expose the weaknesses of companies he represents.

Most everybody on the anti-trust panel marched in step with the Rehr claims of monopolization.

Wisconsin congressman James Sensenbrenner – whose statements about technology indicated he’s still living in the 1970’s – shouted at Karmazin: “Just one provider of a service is a monopoly!”

Texas congresswomen and notorious blowhard Sheila Jackson Lee embarrassingly called Karmazin (one of the more famous broadcast executives in the history of the business) “Kar-Moo-Zin.” She then tried to indict Karmazin for opposing diversity and she attempted to link the proposed merger to less opportunity for minority programming when in fact there’s no basis for that claim.

One of the few lawmakers at the hearing who seemed to understand the idea that a combined Sirius/XM would benefit the consumer was Queens Congressman Anthony Weiner. He outlined the identical basic capabilities and missions of both satellite radio and over-the-air free radio. He implored the panel of speakers and his committee to halt claims of monopoly by the proposed combined satellite company when it’s clear the concept doesn’t apply in this case. “While it might serve to send shivers into the spine of regulators, it doesn’t have much effect if it has no foundation in the realities of the world today. In fact, it’s hard to imagine how you can describe satellite being a monopoly when they have no ability to exercise monopoly power in any meaningful way.” In other words, if the satellite merger is approved there are still plenty of competitive forces in the form of thousands of AM/FM stations, I-Pods, internet radio and who knows what kind of technology in development.

Weiner chastised Rehr and the NAB for claiming concentration of radio ownership is inherently bad. “Take a look at Clear Channel. Take a look at the number of communities that have less choice in terrestrial radio. You should be just as much against concentration among your members as you are here today.”

In the end, it’s not Congress that will have any say about whether the Sirius/XM merger is allowed to happen. It’ll be the FCC and the Department of Justice. However, the hearing this past week is a nice glimpse of bureaucratic shallowness and stubbornness. It has to be a maddening feeling for Karmazin to hear powerful government officials latch on to the word monopoly when what he proposes is nothing of the kind.

-The arrival of Ryan Smyth on Long Island has Islander fans thinking playoffs. The gangly winger was acquired at the trading deadline for two top Islander prospects and a first round pick. Smyth is a great hockey player and adds so many things the Islanders lack: scoring, leadership, a presence around the net, emotion, courage and toughness. Smyth had spent his entire brilliant career as an Edmonton Oiler. He cried at an impromptu gathering of the media as he was about to board an airplane taking him to New York. The free agent-to-be said his heart is in Alberta. There’s nothing that keeps Smyth from re-signing with the Oilers this summer which would essentially make him a high-priced rental player as the Islanders make a playoff push. When he stepped on the ice last night for his Islander debut in Uniondale, he was cheered loudly. But you wonder what he was thinking when he looked up into the mezz and saw thousands of empty seats. The Islanders blew a 2-0 lead to the awful Blues as Ricky D let in two goals with two minutes left, got a penalty at the end of regulation and gave up another goal in OT for a brutal loss to the Notes.

3-2-07 1239

Drawing from the behind-the-scenes picture painted by various reports, it’s surprising the Nets couldn’t attract better trade proposals for their two big stars being dangled in the days before last Thursday’s NBA trade deadline. J-Kidd was there for the taking. Kidd said he was ready to pair up in the backcourt with Kobe and dish his way deep into the Western conference playoffs. But the best the Lakers could come up with is Kwame Brown, Jordan Farmar, expiring contracts and maybe some picks? All it would have taken was Andrew Bynum and some throw-ins to even the money and the deal is done. Why wouldn’t the Lakers make that deal? Yeah, Kidd is beat up a little physically right now, but he’s as tough as they come and he could help make that Lakers team a threat to do damage in the playoffs this year and the next two for about 20-mil per year.

Both Kidd and Vince Carter should be valuable pieces coveted by other teams. Carter makes 15-mil and has an opt-out at the end of the season. The Nets thinking really should be focused on being ready to open up their new building in Brooklyn with a bang in 2009. At that time Kidd and Carter will be past their prime and/or gone and Nets architect Rod Thorn knows the duo will have no higher trade value than now. He openly shopped the two and couldn’t make a deal. Why?

We were hoping the Nets would get picks or young players and were ready to sacrifice watching a quality product with rebuilding in mind. But with Kidd and Carter here together for at least this season, we’ll savor seeing their talents and hope they can get in the Eastern Conference playoffs and take it from there.

-Mets bench coach Jerry Manuel wants another shot at being a major league manager, but if he has to wait much longer it sounds like he’s gonna give up. Manuel tells Ben Shpigel of the Times that if he doesn’t get a big league skipper’s job within two years, he’s going to go home and become the first manager of the baseball team at William Jessup University. Jessup is a 600-student college near Manuel’s house in Sacramento and it is set to start up a baseball program in 2009. Manuel managed the White Sox for six seasons. He joined the Mets staff when Willie Randolph took over and has had several interviews for manager jobs.

-Nice job by the Montreal band Arcade Fire last night on SNL. Despite the usual murky sound mix typically produced when an act appears on the national TV shows, Arcade Fire’s frontman Win Butler found a way to make the performance memorable. Playing a standard acoustic guitar emblazoned with the homemade message “Sak Vide Pa Kanpe” in silver tape, Butler and the band came out in the first segment and played the great song “Intervention.” About two-thirds of the way through the tune, Butler broke a string. Perhaps out of frustration (or maybe it was showmanship), he began ripping more strings out. As the tune ended, he smashed the guitar to the floor in unison with the final drum beat. It seemed unplanned. His bandmates showed no emotion at the exhibition. In just two additional swipes at the ground, the guitar was completely destroyed. It was intense. It was great. Guitar-smashing can come off as phony, but this was the best one we’ve seen in a while.

-The Post’s Brian Lewis says he expects Seton Hall to play its home hoops games at the new Devils hockey arena in downtown Newark starting next season.

2-25-07 1713

It can get a little tedious in the “virtual waiting room,” but that’s where we spent much of Friday trying to score tickets for the big Mets/Cubs series at Wrigley the first weekend in August.

Online ticket sales started at

 

A mid-week snow/ice storm has exposed the darling upstart air carrier JetBlue as a paper tiger and news of the airline's meltdown has become a major national story. The news media which previously fed the belief that JetBlue can do no wrong has finally caught up to the airline's fundamental weaknesses and has reported mercilessly on several days of chaos at the carrier’s hub at New York’s JFK airport.

It all started on Valentine’s Day when an early morning snowfall in the New York metro area gradually turned to a wintry mix of snow and ice pellets with a gusty wind out of the northeast. The forecast issued the night before was right on the mark. Most flights out of New York were booked full in advance of the President’s Day holiday weekend. Some carriers elected to cancel a majority of their 2-14 schedules and wait out the storm. Other airlines, including JetBlue elected to operate throughout the nasty weather. Arrivals weren’t horribly impacted, but departing flights were tricky because of federal requirements on de-icing and anti-icing applications prior to takeoff. Airplanes sprayed by anti-icing fluid have narrow time windows to take off and without expert ground handling and juggling of de-icing equipment and personnel during that process, an airline operation can collapse into a crisis quickly. That’s what happened to JetBlue. With arrivals landing at JFK and departures unable to take off because of icing that exceeded the carrier’s ability to keep up, JetBlue had more planes on the ground than gates. It left several jets packed with cooped-up, pissed-off passengers - parked for upwards of ten hours. JetBlue flight 755 from JFK to Aruba became the focal point. It pushed the gate sometime after 8 AM Wednesday, never took off, and people on board weren’t able to deplane until 6:30 PM. JFK’s airport operator – The Port Authority – said it extended an offer to remove passengers from remotely parked airplanes with portable stairwells and shuttle buses once it sensed a crisis – but JetBlue nixed the proposal.

A day later, New York’s newspapers carried prominently-placed stories on the fiasco. The front page of the Post said: “JET BLUES – Fliers trapped 10 hours on JFK tarmac.” Looking exhausted with dark circles under his eyes, no necktie, and uncombed hair, JetBlue CEO David Neeleman went on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” program Thursday afternoon and fielded questions from Maria Bartiromo.

He started out blaming the weatherman: “We had a forecast that said the cold weather was gonna turn to rain and we were gonna be able to get everyone to their sunny destinations. It (the forecast) never materialized. We pushed planes off the gate and were just minutes from taking off. The ice pellets started which is a condition the FAA has deemed that they don’t want any planes flying. We waited and expected it to clear up and it never cleared up and then things kinda spiraled out of control.”

Neeleman sprinkled in apologies and acceptance of responsibility throughout the interview but couldn’t resist suggesting that JetBlue wasn’t alone in suffering from brain-freeze. “There were other airlines that had people on planes for long periods of time, but we seem to be getting all the attention.”

Perhaps most disheartening about Neeleman’s nationally-broadcast appearance was when he missed an opportunity to lift the spirits of his young workforce, which no doubt must feel overwhelmed by all the negative attention. Bartiromo ended the Q and A by asking if Neeleman would lower the boom on staffers who oversaw the Valentine’s Day debacle.

Bartiromo: “Are you going to be holding people accountable – will people who made the decisions to keep those passengers on the flights be leaving the company, or what? What kind of actions have you taken?”

Neeleman: “It’s way too early to tell that. We made a decision that we wanted ‘em (passengers) off. It’s was just the logistics of icy runways and slippery conditions that didn’t allow us to do so. We need to come up with a better mechanism to do that and we’ll be having discussions as soon as we get through this.”

What Neeleman should have said – and what other CEO’s in the midst of a company crisis would have said was this: “We will learn from this experience and our hard-working and dedicated employees will now exhibit a resilience that will carry us through this episode and return the airline to greatness.” Even if he doesn’t believe in his employees, the ultimate outcome of a crisis like this will rely on the positive morale of his workforce and Neeleman blew a shot to voice confidence in his people.

At about the same time Neeleman was on CNBC (4:30 PM Thursday), Chris Russo on WFAN-AM was doing his radio show and fielded a call from Mets beat reporter Eddie Coleman who had been waiting the entire day at JFK for word on the status of his JetBlue flight to Palm Beach International. Coleman described an out-of-control scene at the JetBlue terminal in which hundreds of travelers waiting to go points south had been sitting all day unable to get solid info on the status of their flights. Coleman ripped the carrier for keeping passengers in the dark and said the situation was tense. Coleman said customers bound for Florida got especially irate when agents boarded a big jet to Buffalo with just a small group of outbound customers – while at the same time the airline was citing a lack of available aircraft as the reason for delays on the crowded Florida-bound flights. Coleman said he would never fly JetBlue again before Russo reminded him that JetBlue was a potential future sponsor of Coleman’s Met pre-game spots. Russo then punched up a caller from New Jersey who recited his tale of woe in dealing unsuccessfully with JetBlue the previous night. Normally, Russo’s sports talk radio show avoids such topics but it seemed like the story was being discussed everywhere.

Citing displacement of crews and aircraft, JetBlue’s problems lingered into the weekend. Hundreds of flights were cancelled and thousands of customers were stranded. Port Authority police had to intercede at JFK Friday after friction between JetBlue customers and company reps escalated.

JetBlue’s inability to re-book customers on other airlines because of its stand-alone philosophy and lack of interline agreements further ties the company’s hands in situations like this. A customer with a JetBlue ticket on a cancelled flight must now wait until the airline regroups, catches up and has an available seat - and that could be several more days.

So instead of being a one-day story, the JetBlue situation has appeared in newspapers now for a fourth straight day and seems destined to linger for several more days at least. Reporter Jeff Bailey wrote a story that appeared in the Times on Sunday suggesting serious internal failure of JetBlue’s operational/logistical structure as well as its leadership. “The cancellations raise new questions about whether JetBlue’s management is equal to its ambitions,” said Bailey.

-Congressman Jerrold Nadler, who represents parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, was one of six members of Congress to be absent for Friday’s vote on the Iraq war resolution. A statement on Nadler’s web site said he couldn’t make the historic vote because of concerns over his wife’s health. Nadler had spoken in favor of the resolution earlier in the week. Nearly every member of the House went to the podium in the last week to speak on the measure – up or down. The most stirring speech we saw came from Harlem congressman Charlie Rangel who supports reinstatement of the military draft as a way of more evenly distributing the burden of war without regard for privilege or economic status. Says Rangel: “The forced, repeated deployments of nominally volunteer troops not only violates the spirit of the contract with these soldiers, it is a cruel and unfair erosion of the principle of shared sacrifice which has totally been absent in the prosecution of this war.” CSPAN broadcast every minute of the five-day debate.

-One of the best reporters writing for a daily newspaper in this country is quitting the New York Times. Charlie LeDuff tells Richard Prince on the Maynard Institute web site that he’d become frustrated with his situation at the Times: “I can’t write the things I want to say. I want to talk about race. I want to talk about class. I want to talk about the things we should be talking about.” LeDuff has a new book out. It’ll be interesting to see where he turns up next.

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In one of the better high school basketball games we’ve ever seen with multiple “wow” moments, Lincoln rallied to beat arch-rival Boys and Girls for the Brooklyn borough championship Saturday night, 75-74. The clash at a packed St. Francis gym on

Remsen St.
featured the two dominant public high school programs in the city. Lincoln has won four city championships in the last five years but has recently found a worthy competitor in Boys and Girls, the school in Bed-Stuy that produced Connie Hawkins, Lenny Wilkens and Pearl Washington.

Boys and Girls is coached by Ruth Lovelace, the only active woman coach of a boy’s hoops team in the city. Her team reeled off twelve straight to start the season and finished with just one loss – a January defeat at Lincoln. But at last night’s game for the borough trophy, Boys and Girls appeared headed to victory up 11 late in the contest.

Boys and Girls dominated the inside with excellent play from 6-7 center Wayne Allison, who finished with 18 points and 17 rebounds. Allison has a bit of Barkley in him and the public league web site says he’s being recruited by Akron and Rider. Guard Frederi Nixon had 20 points for Boys and Girls including an amazing dunk with four and a half to go in the third that had the entire joint saying “oh my gosh.” Nixon is listed at 6-2 but is probably on the short end of 5-11 and elevated over a rival at least a half-foot taller on a stuff shot that you just don’t see in high school hoops. Nixon is said to be on solid academic footing and could end up at one of the area division one programs next fall.


But despite the apparent edge in play by Boys and Girls and a big lead down the stretch, it was Lincoln’s star sophomore Lance Stephenson that saved the day with a memorable Jordan-like late fourth quarter. Stephenson (pictured above wearing the #1 Lincoln jersey) is being called the next great New York City point guard. Fans call him “Sir Lance A Lot,” and Lincoln grad Stephon Marbury has said Stephenson will “have the opportunity to be in that elite class of New York City point guard legends.”

At 6-5, 205 pounds with a game full of exceptional moves, it’s hard to believe Stephenson is a sophomore. He’s bound to grow and the hype is all real. He scored 15 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter including a pro-distance trey after demanding the ball. He can dish, he can block, and hits his free throws. They call him a point guard, but his offensive game is so diverse, he can play the one, two, three or four. With Lincoln down two on their final possession, Stephenson found an open Darwin “Buddha” Ellis in the corner instead of forcing a shot. Ellis nailed a trey with 5.9 seconds left and Lincoln survived one last scramble from Boys and Girls and will now get the number one seed headed into the city playoffs. Boys and Girls deserves the number two seed, and if all goes according to plan, the two teams will meet for the city title at the Garden on March 18th.

The spotlight has just started to shine on Stephenson after the Times did a big feature on him a few weeks ago. If hoops observers want to get picky, there are flaws to find in the kid’s game. He doesn’t play great defense. He swipes his hand at guys with the ball instead of manning up, hands in a ready position. He barks a lot at his teammates, the refs and his coach, Tiny Morton. He’s a whiner. And he sulks when things don’t go his way. But his raw talent is immense. He’s only a sophomore and you just hope that the people who support his athletic endeavor are true and positive. He’ll need some grounding. That’s easier said than done for a talented kid in the big city. In interviews, he’s expressed interest in going to college. That would be smart, no matter how great he becomes his final two years of high school. The NBA now mandates at least a year of college, and Stephenson need look no further than Lincoln’s own Sebastian Telfair’s misguided decision to skip college, flounder in the NBA and find himself buried on the Celtics’ bench.

St. John’s has had representatives of the basketball program in the stands at Stephenson’s games. It’s a long ways off, but wouldn’t it be great to see Stephenson stay in the city and help restore glory to the Johnnies program and go to school in his backyard?

Tickets for the game at St. Francis were five bucks. The Public School Athletic League rotates the sites for the borough title games and the big city playoff games. We like St. Francis the best of all the venues because of the gym’s sightlines and proximity to the subway. Plus, if you concede that Brooklyn is the dominant hoops borough, why not play all the big games there?

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St. John’s all but clinched a spot in the Big East Tournament with an exciting 60-55 win over Rutgers at their on-campus gym in Queens last night. The Johnnies have been so bad the last three seasons, they haven’t qualified for their own sixteen-team league tourney which takes all but the worst four squads. But at 6-7 in the conference now, St. John’s is gonna get in this year for the first time since ‘03. They might get beat in the first round, but so what. The program is moving in the right direction and will allow its diminishing fan base to get a taste of great Big East Tourney excitement.

There’s no better conference hoops tourney in the land, and since the league expanded, tickets are near-impossible. Each league school gets a small supply and there’s no public sale for the four-day, six-session get-together at the Garden. And while progress under Johnnies coach Norm Roberts has been slower than hoped for by fans who want a quick return to the days of long marches through the big dance, it must be remembered that Roberts inherited the program from a low-down muck-trader.

Previous coach Mike Jarvis took what little Lou Carnesecca magic that was left on Union Turnpike and torched it with NCAA violations and double-talk. Roberts (in his third season) has slowly started to restore respectability to the program and is attracting a few blue-chip local recruits from a city full of raw, but talented high school players. Right now, he doesn’t have the kind of team to compete with the elite programs. But he’s got an intriguing freshman swingman in Qa’rraan Calhoun (who nailed a huge three down the stretch last night), a mostly-steady point in Eugene Lawrence (four of four from three point land last night), and sophomore shooter Anthony Mason Jr. (the son of you know who). Their only bangers – Lamont Hamilton and Aaron Spears – are done after this season and Roberts is gonna need to find a big man.

Rutgers has fallen badly since losing their star player Quincy Douby to the NBA. The Scarlet Knights are 10-16 overall and 3-10 in the Big East under first-year head coach Fred Hill. How Hill got the job at Rutgers is a controversial story. Previous head coach Gary Waters had a pretty good grip on the job, turning the program into a fringe contender. He had a 79-75 record over five seasons in Piscataway. But last season, Waters flew to the site of his previous coaching stint to accept the honor of induction into Kent State University’s hall of fame. He couldn’t get back to New Jersey for a home game the next day against Marquette because of a big snow storm. Then-associate coach Fred Hill stepped in with Waters stranded in Ohio and Rutgers got a big win against Marquette. Waters came back and finished out the season but it was reported widely that the Rutgers athletic department was furious about their coach missing the game. Waters got canned at the end of the season and is now head coach at Cleveland State. Hill got his job thanks in part to a snowstorm.

Attendance at Carnesecca Arena for last night’s game was 5503 about five-hundred short of a sellout. It was a late-arriving crowd on a bitterly cold night. We climbed over snow banks to get on the Q46 bus after the game which took us to the F train. Legendary ex-coach Louie Carnesecca usually attends all home games, but in our scans of the crowd, we didn’t see him in his usual spot. A ticket for a seat in the upper deck was an over-priced $30. We had a decent hot dog and a diet coke for $5.50. No beer is served because of the arena’s on-campus location. There’s been some talk of the Johnnies playing all of their home games at Carnesecca instead of the Garden. That might be a good idea at least until the program demonstrates that it can expand on its currently small fan base.

-We will go to Brooklyn tomorrow night to see the next big NYC point guard everybody is talking about – Lance Stephenson. The 6-6 Lincoln HS sophomore comes from the same high school (point guard factory) that produced Stephon Marbury, Sebastian Telfair and the aforementioned St. John’s point Eugene Lawrence. Stephenson’s Lincoln team will play arch-rival Boys and Girls HS for the Brooklyn borough championship at the St. Francis gym. It should be a very intense and raucous setting. When these two teams get together, it usually produces a wild game that is uniquely New York City in style, stage and sideshows. It’s nothing like the post-season basketball we loved so much as a youngster in suburban Chicago but there’s a dramatic aspect to it that you’re not gonna get at any other level of sport.

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There were a lot of dull performances in the three and a half hour program, but the Grammys ceremony hit a clear low when the band Rascal Flatts did a brutal version of Hotel California. The Recording Academy is correct in recognizing the importance of country music and incorporating it heavily into its big night. But handing Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood a long slot that allowed them to perform two songs each as the program entered its second hour really killed any momentum that had been built earlier by Shakira, Mary J. and yeah, even Justin Timberlake. We like country music and listened to a lot of it on small commercial stations in small-town Missouri and West Virginia in the 80’s and 90’s. But it’s hard to understand how Rascall Flatts and Underwood became hit-makers for the genre off the live performances we saw Sunday night. Rascal Flatts performed Hotel California and Life in the Fast Lane as a tribute to Don Henley, who was honored as a lifetime achievement award winner. That same award was bestowed upon the Grateful Dead earlier in the program. Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann appeared on camera for two seconds and that was it. Henley gets a double-tune tribute from an awful Rascal Flatts and the Grateful Dead get two seconds. Those are the Grammys for ‘ya.

We always get a kick out of the red carpet show. After losing their red carpet host Joan Rivers to the TV Guide Channel, the E Network has found an excellent and more serious replacement in Ryan Seacrest. Since we don’t watch Idol, Seacrest has been off our radar, but he’s perfect on the red carpet. He’s sharp, up to date, and he’s not afraid to throw the gossipy question at the big stars that stop by. At one point Sunday night, Seacrest tried to reel in John Mayer for a quick chat but had to get clearance first from Mayer’s agent Ken Sunshine. Dripping with self-importance, Sunshine (the ex-chief of staff for David Dinkins) eventually gave Mayer the green light after a few final whispers in his client’s ear. All the while, Seacrest was gearing up for the logical Jessica Simpson windup which Mayer diffused by answering in Japanese. Since it’s live, and since Seacrest is a talented and aware entertainment reporter, the exchanges with stars can be interesting. Certainly more interesting than the awards ceremony that follows the red carpet show.

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One night before the music industry gathered in downtown Los Angeles to hand out Grammy awards, indie rockers got together in New York for their own awards ceremony. Just five years in the making, the Plug independent music awards have gained a footing as a platform to honor artists that had previously toiled outside the scope of the awards morass.

The Saturday night celebration had wonderful intentions and an excellent live music lineup. But the event turned into a bit of a circus because its hired emcee David Cross tried and failed to deliver a night-long comedy act that busted and broke.

TSR stood near the back of a packed Irving Plaza and enjoyed an excellent 25-minute set by “best new artist of the year” nominee The Silversun Pickups. Silversun’s bass player Nikki Monninger (pictured above) lit up the room. She whirled – hair flying into her eyes as the rising LA band hit the crowd with its big number “Lazy Eye.”

The Pickups (Monninger above with lead singer/guitarist Brian Aubert) are about to embark on a big tour opening for OK Go and Snow Patrol. Their short set for the Plug awards will be a nice warmup for what will certainly be plenty of abbreviated slots before yet-to-arrive crowds in big venues. Hopefully they’ll survive the experience and return to a touring existence at the top of a bill someday soon.

 

Steve Malkmus (pictured above) headlined the ceremony and received a “Plug Impact” award - which equates to something like a lifetime achievement award. He noodled his way through a 40-minute set of solo material with his band the Jicks. The performance was fine but before it started, Malkmus appeared unhappy about an awkward skit with Cross. Just prior to the gig, Malkmus sat down with Cross on stage for a Q and A. Cross dressed up like James Lipton of Inside the Actor’s Studio and peppered Malkmus with silly personal questions. Malk wanted no part of the routine and as it dragged on, the discomfort level was palpable.

Cross is capable of delivering funny stand-up material. But he didn’t seem to be prepared to fill the large gaps of time between live acts. He was winging it and it didn’t work.

Most of the artists that won awards including Band of Horses, Arctic Monkeys, Neko Case and Sufjan Stevens were nowhere to be found, proving that Plug has a long way to go. But the concept is a good one, and hopefully next year the organization will find a host who can even the seams without imposing shtick.

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Yeah, it’s weird but we’ve been having these dreams the last few nights that fixate on a hockey fight between the Rangers and Capitals – and wouldn’t you know it they play tomorrow night. Newly-acquired tough-guy winger Sean Avery will go down to Washington Saturday night with the rest of the Blueshirts – and Avery will drop the gloves and get into a toe-to-toe with Donald Brashear of the Caps. Brashear antagonized the Rangers like a flame-blowing monster when they last met. Avery has just arrived and is trying to shake up a team that is sitting on the fringes of the playoff race. What better way to prove the toughness that Avery’s reputation carries than to neutralize a lesser rival’s main physical menace?

In attempting to research whether Avery and Brashear have ever engaged in an in-game fight, we were surprised to find the excellent internet resource: hockeyfights.com. The site logs hockey fights by bout and compiles recaps and statistics on the subject. It’s a great web site that’s easy to navigate and obviously has some smart people behind it. According to the site, Avery has never fought Brashear but it’s interesting to see that many of his top fight partners are also excellent players. He’s fought Trevor Linden, Jerome Iginla, Steve Thomas and Ed Jovanovski.

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The architect of one of the greatest and most improbable victories for organized labor in recent history has passed away at the age of 78. George Becker died last weekend after a bout with prostate cancer. An obit in the Times earlier this week nicely summed up his career which included an eight year stint as president of the United Steelworkers of America.

As a young observer of newsmakers in West Virginia in the early 90’s, we thought Becker stood out for his competence and credibility. We watched Becker help lead 1700 union steelworkers through a bitter and violent two-year labor dispute with a cool determination to score a rare victory for local union 5668. It was October 1990 when the Ravenswood Aluminum Corporation in rural Jackson County (on the Ohio River dividing WV and Ohio) locked out its workforce and replaced them with scabs. Unions were starting to get rolled over at that time, but Becker and the Steelworkers union engaged in an exhaustive and well-organized counter-effort that inspired union workers across the country. For every well-financed strong-arm tactic employed by the company to demoralize its union workers locked out of the plant, Becker and the steelworkers union had an answer. Much of the union playbook was original stuff – and much of it was written by Becker.

At the time of the Ravenswood lockout, Becker was V-P of the Steelworkers International based in Pittsburgh and primarily negotiated contracts on behalf of big locals. He had risen through the union ranks starting from his first job at a steel mill in Illinois through a shop steward position at a Dow Chemical plant with long stints in the Marines and Army in between.

During the Ravenswood lockout, Becker initiated a multi-pronged campaign that included direct pressure on big beer and soda companies to stop using aluminum produced by the plant’s replacement workers.

 

He led a delegation to Europe that spotlighted the company’s ties to fugitive Marc Rich and he found ways to rally support from a cross-section of organized labor. Becker overcame initial skepticism from a tight-knit community and turned the small town on Ravenswood into a cheer squad for a demoralized union workforce that wasn’t sure if they’d ever go back to work.

After a hard-fought victory that allowed union workers to re-enter the plant with important contractual safeguards including major safety improvements, Becker later became president of the Steelworkers international. His efforts on behalf of the blue collar worker and his cordial and professional ways with this observer will be remembered fondly.

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Mike Ditka can be a blowhard. He can spout off sounding like an uninformed, sentence-mangling Dickie V. But Ditka has taken an admirable risk becoming the most prominent face in the rising campaign to expose a disgusting and deliberate refusal by the league’s power structure to financially support disabled NFL retirees. HBO’s Real Sports did a segment a few weeks back that showed a hobbled and painkiller-addled Conrad Dobler barely able to walk, yet unable to get certified for disability coverage. NFL pensions for retirees are a pittance compared to those of baseball players. And the Times has done stories that following the Real Sports segment documenting the struggles of ex-players who can’t get coverage for knee replacements or neurological problems caused by years of hits to the head. Ditka is ticked and he’s speaking out. He called the NFL player’s union the weakest in all of sports. Da’ Coach has prominent broadcasting gigs and puts them at risk by rocking the boat. His courage in leading the campaign to raise awareness about the plight of players from his generation deserves praise.

-They come and they go, but St. Louis has lost a legendary music venue that hosted a lot of important rock gigs over the last two and a half decades. Mississippi Nights closed it doors January 19th to make way for a casino interest. We saw lots of big shows in the late 80’s at the oddly-shaped room that had a capacity of about one thousand. Near the nightclub/entertainment zone called Laclede’s Landing, Mississippi Nights was a frequent platform for our favorite band of all time - Uncle Tupelo. According to various databases documenting Uncle Tupelo’s tour history, the band played Mississippi Nights about fifteen times. We were there for a few of those, as well as a memorable rock and roll date night that started with the Subdudes – and ended with the best thin-crust pizza in the world at Bartolino’s on Hampton near the old Checkerdome.

-We had a few cold ones with pals in Brooklyn Friday night and ended up at the warm and hospitable Prospect Heights tavern Freddy’s on Dean just off Flatbush. One of the first things patrons notice behind the bar is a sign displaying Brooklyn Brewery’s insignia with a diagonal red line slashed through it. Freddy’s stopped selling Brooklyn Brewery products last April. Brooklyn Brewery (which makes Brooklyn Lager among a lineup of beers) has publicly supported Bruce Ratner’s sprawling and controversial $3.5 billion development which includes a new arena for the Nets. The Ratner project will lead to the demolition of Freddy’s. A woman serving drinks to patrons at Freddy’s said Friday night that the Brewery’s support of the stadium and associated development has made it impossible for the bar to serve its products despite a long relationship between the bar and the brewery.

As a supporter of new stadium projects within certain parameters, TSR had previously lacked a feel for the expansive reach of the project and can now better understand those who oppose the project and its size. Losing a place like Freddy’s will be a blow to the neighborhood, no doubt. Hopefully, the businesses that sprout up and others that benefit from the influx of visitors will offset those that are displaced.

You’re not gonna get even a sniff of balanced reporting about the new Ratner project on YES, the sports network that carries Nets games. In a four-minute piece shown on the Nets pre-game show today, Christa Robinson did woman-on-the-street interviews with passers-by. Amazingly, everybody included in the piece was gung-ho positive about the new stadium. Robinson ended her report with the following conclusion: “As with any major construction project in New York City, there’s always going to be those that are ‘for’ and those that are ‘against.’ But ask just about any Brooklynite what Brooklyn is missing, and they’ll tell you: It’s a team to root for. So, in 2009, Brooklyn will truly have it all.” Either Robinson got marching orders on the piece, or she’s clueless about the concept of balanced reporting.

-ESPN’s weekly program devoted to horse racing is off the air. The excellent recap show “Wire to Wire” hosted by Randy Moss featured replays of big races from the previous weekend and was an excellent way to keep up with the sport. The program disappeared a month ago. An internet search on the show yielded little more than a news release from horse racing’s loosely-organized and ineffective governing body (The NTRA). Without explanation, the release said the show can now be seen in what the NTRA is calling “webisodes” on NTRA.com.

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Bud Selig and MLB have sold out and screwed thousands of baseball’s best fans in a deal that takes the great Extra Innings package away from cable and hands it exclusively to Direct TV. The seven-year, $700-million deal (starting this season) will make Direct TV the lone provider of the package which shows most out-of-market baseball games.

Like many urban baseball fans, TSR resides in an apartment building with no ability to subscribe to satellite television. We have an extensive cable package through Time Warner and have gladly paid the $150 annually for the Extra Innings package in each of the last three seasons. It allows us to watch the Cubs and Sox. And late on a Friday night, our favorite aspect of Extra Innings comes when the Dodgers are playing on the west coast and we can listen to Vin Scully call a game as nobody in the sport can do.

Rich Sandomir of the Times reports that Extra Innings had 600-thousand subscribers last year. So, clearly MLB is boosting its revenue stream in the $700-million deal with Direct TV.

Direct TV wins big by polishing its reputation - becoming the exclusive provider of out-of-market MLB and NFL games. They become a coveted TV provider. They’ll crush all competitors.

But what’s unfair is where this leaves the cable subscriber who has no place to put a dish and can’t get Direct TV even if they wanted to. MLB pulls the curtains shut on those fans. Selig and the baseball owners have a media giant waving so much money at them they’re willing to shut down the best niche media product they’ve got to a crucial segment of fans.

A US senate committee is examining anti-trust issues connected to the deal. But that won’t go anywhere. The NFL has done the same thing with its package for years.

TSR is bummed, but will now have a greater reliance on the XM package which gives you radio play-by-play of every game, all season.

-C-Span is carrying live coverage of the Democratic National Committee meeting this weekend. At today’s session, we saw speeches from John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich. In what should be considered an embarrassment to organizers of the meeting, Kucinich was rudely told to halt his remarks just as his speech was hitting a crescendo. After ten minutes and 19 seconds of spinning a stirring tale about what he witnessed on a 2006 visit to war-torn Lebanon, a C-Span camera showed a woman holding a red poster board with the word “TIME” in big black letters as a cue to Kucinich to end his speech. Soon thereafter, the party’s top candidate Hillary Clinton spoke for a solid 17 minutes without interruption. Yeah, we know Kucinich has no shot. But the party needs to allow each candidate to air their views from an even playing field.

As for Clinton’s remarks, we’re starting to see her shape what could be a crucial stump routine that attempts to move her away from her vote and body of work supporting the war. Today she said that if she were president in October 2002, she wouldn’t have started the war. She expects Congress to pass a non-binding resolution in the coming weeks that repudiates the President’s plan to send more troops to Iraq. But Clinton says the Senate can’t muster the 60 votes necessary to block funding for the war. “If we in Congress don’t end this war before January 2009, then I will!” said Clinton to a loud, standing applause of party loyalists.

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An arbitrary and unfair age limit for men and women who fly commercial airplanes in this country is about to get changed. The nation’s top aviation regulator is pushing a proposal to increase the mandatory retirement age for pilots from 60 to 65. FAA Administrator Marion Blakey announced the change at a gathering of the National Press Club televised on C-Span earlier this week and expects the new limit to be enacted in a year or two. The International aviation governing body (ICAO) has already raised the limit and international flights entering this country from elsewhere are being staffed by pilots over age 60.

The age 60 limit was put in place by the US government at the request of American Airlines in 1960 as a safety precaution. But Blakey says the limit is outdated and forces premature exits for healthy airmen whose experience can be of significant value to younger pilots. She admitted to the Press Club that ICAO’s passage of the age limit increase helped force the FAA’s hand. “If you have rules that directly controvert an international principle, especially a rule that is increasingly more difficult to defend, it’s time for a change.”

Surprisingly, the union that represents a majority of the pilots at big US carriers has resisted changing the mandatory retirement age. The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) represents 60-thousand pilots. You’d think they’d be looking out for their most senior members who sit at the top of the pay scale. Instead, ALPA’s leadership has attempted to keep the current lid and has been less than clear about why. In a muddled, horribly-written news release issued to coincide with Blakey’s remarks, ALPA president John Prater said: “ALPA policy is to support the (age 60 limit) rule as it is.” He failed to offer a single reason for the union’s opposition.

Why ALPA’s lack of compassion for its oldest members, most of whom took deep cuts in pay post-9/11? An extra five years of flying would help those pilots recoup some of the cuts they took to both their hourly wage and their pensions. Yeah, pilots make good money. But many had hundreds of thousands of dollars stripped from their retirement plans by airline executives who were careful to protect their own nest eggs as they exited bankruptcies and trimmed operating costs.

Speculation by those in the aviation community suggests ALPA’s opposition to the increased age limit is tied to concerns from younger members whose advancement will be postponed somewhat by senior pilots who stick around. But that doesn’t wash. Those younger pilots will someday be older, and five more years of earning power will exceed any kind of hit they take from the slower promotion rate.

Safety isn’t a legit concern as it relates to this matter. Pilots take twice-a-year physicals and unhealthy ones are weeded out. Plus, the rule as proposed would only allow one of two pilots in the cockpit to be over 60.

Pilots who turn 60 before the new FAA rule is enacted won’t be able to take advantage of the change according to Blakey. She says a retroactive application of the rule is impractical.

But for those travelers who fly, this pilot age-limit increase is a positive change. If you fly, feel good when you see a pilot who looks old. The longer they’ve been around, the more real-life flying challenges they’ve navigated through. That experience is far more valuable in dealing with the occasional in-flight problem than any simulator can produce for a pilot still wet behind the ears.

2-8-07 1726

 

Bill Finley of the Times reports that Barbaro’s vet became angry at yesterday afternoon’s news conference discussing the Derby winner’s death after a reporter asked the doctor how much the bill would be for horse’s hospitalization. Finley says Dr. Dean Richardson “refused to answer the question and barked at the questioner,” citing the question’s lack of relevance.

But the question is indeed relevant. After Barbaro shattered his leg in the Preakness eight months ago, numerous experts familiar with equine injuries predicted that any kind of reasonable recovery was extremely unlikely. Most racehorses would have been humanely sent to horse heaven on the spot.

But because of the owners’ (Roy and Gretchen Jackson) attachment to the Derby winner, and perhaps partly because of the horse’s overwhelming popularity, the decision was made to put Barbaro into high-level (think Mayo Clinic on the human scale) veterinary care despite the slim odds of survival. When a reporter asks about the tab for that care, it is not necessarily meant to be a second-guess on the effort to sustain his life.

Yeah, both the vet and the Jackson’s can keep that information private, but the question is relevant from the standpoint that Barbaro’s treatment went way beyond that of a typical racehorse with a similar injury. The cost associated with that care would demonstrate in part how much the Jackson’s were unwilling to let go – and really – how much the thoroughbred community cared about the horse.

Media coverage of the Barbaro death was extensive. When the story crossed the wire, CNBC flashed the headline under a “breaking news” graphic. CNN carried the Richardson news conference live. The New York tabloids splashed the story with photos of Barbaro on its back pages and the Times devoted two full pages of coverage to the story. A Harvey Araton column carried the headline “Horse’s Desperate Struggle Gripped an Anguished Nation.”

Yes, Barbaro’s injury and ultimate death has saddened many sports fans. But it’s probably an overstatement to say his situation “gripped the nation.” People paused when he got hurt, and even casual fans hoped for a recovery. But it was pretty clear to folks that see these beautiful animals break down on a regular basis that when a race horse shatters a leg, it’s all over.

Put in further perspective, Barbaro’s convalescence occurred in a setting far better than the final hours, days, or months of most racehorses recovering from injury. Certainly his ultimate fate was better than that of many over-the-hill thoroughbreds not considered useful on the racetrack that often disappear into the hands of dealers who slaughter them, and export their meat to Europe.

1-30-07 1047

The first weekend without football in five months can feel a bit empty, but TSR had a visit from the family matriarch and there was much fun on what was the coldest two-day stretch in the big city in two years.

Among the highlights:

-A neighborhood screening of the stirring film “Saint of 9-11” which tells the story of Franciscan priest Mychal Judge. The body of Judge was carried out of the dusty rubble of the Trade Center soon after he rushed to the twin towers in his role as chaplain of the New York Fire Department. His tremendous work as the spiritual leader of the fire department was well known and he’s considered to be a hero to the rank and file. But the excellent film in limited release makes a case that Judge should be considered for sainthood. Judge had an extraordinary compassion that gave comfort to some of society’s most persecuted and overlooked people. He stepped into the AIDS crisis head first at a time when his own church was issuing cruel edicts condemning homosexuality. The movie delves into Judge’s own gayness and the difficult tightrope act he performed that allowed him to retain some ability to exist in the communities he ministered to. Ultimately though, the movie is about a priest who touched a lot of people from many different backgrounds. His dramatic death on 9-11 came just one day after a sermon to firefighters which is played in parts throughout the film. The DVD version of the movie is available in the usual places.

-Lunch at Tavern on the Green. The two-week “restaurant week” special at many of the city’s top dining spots is a fixed-price 24-dollar lunch deal. It allows diners on a budget to hit places normally out of reach. The bright dining room just east of

67th Street
in Central Park near the Sheep Meadow calls itself the “highest-grossing independently-owned restaurant in the United States with annual revenues in excess of $34 million.” It’s a food factory and the service is a bit impersonal. There’s a mandatory coat check charge and a photographer comes to your table, snaps your picture and then tries to sell it to you before dessert. But the view and setting is beautiful and the food is good. We especially loved the cream of wild mushroom soup.

-Mary Poppins, the musical. It was an exciting Friday night on Broadway with the thousand-seat New Amsterdam theatre packed with kids who ooohed and ahhed when the nanny’s umbrella carried her into the sky. 24-year-old Ashley Brown carried the leading role with authority and the two youngsters who played the Banks children should be commended for extreme professionalism given the pressure of the setting.

-We bet on the Knicks at plus one and a half against the Bucks this afternoon and check out this luck. The Bucks were up one with eight-tenths of a second left and Mo Williams of Milwaukee had two free throws. He missed the first one and the Knicks called time out. Williams went back to the line with his team up one and purposely tried to miss the second attempt to keep the clock running and to force the Knicks into a full court near-impossibility. Williams chucked up a hard bank shot with his second attempt – and it accidentally went in! The Knicks called another timeout and misfired on a final attempt. Bucks won by two and covered the point spread. Ouch. Incidentally, the Knicks were 14 of 24 from the free throw line. And Jamal Crawford came back to earth shooting 9 of 24 from the field.

1-26-07 1843

When the snow intensified at about the same time the Bears took control of the NFC championship game, it was an obvious reminder of the last time the Monsters of the Midway powerfully won a game to go to the Super Bowl. It brought back a lot of memories, and it erased all the skepticism many Bear fans had felt entering the tilt with the Saints.

We’re happy for Urlacher and Lovie, and yeah, even Rex. The safety seemed to be a turning point, and aggressive play-calling on the ensuing drive capped with the great catch by Berrian was a signal that the coaching staff remains confident in its QB’s abilities despite the cracks in his approach.

Was New Orleans unable to handle the ball because of Bear weather? Or was it the aggressive clawing for the pigskin that created all the takeaways?

Two weeks of hype will play out as the Bears prepare for an even tougher opponent. But the current state of the team has to be in a much better place given the dominance of the victory. It’s a ride that Bear fans who truly believed in this team the last month should especially enjoy.

-Political science professors can point to the effort this past week of a state senator from Missouri for a textbook example of the term “filibuster.” Republican Matt Bartle of suburban Kansas City attempted to block an otherwise routine nomination to the state university’s governing board by refusing to cede the floor for an amazing 17 hours. Bartle’s speechmaking and stalling included a verbatim reading of an economics textbook. The AP’s Chris Blank reports that Bartle gave up his filibuster in the middle of the night (

In an era dominated by construction of new sporting venues that emphasize revenue-generating skyboxes, there is much to be said for the breathtaking 92-thousand seat stadium that hosted the big ND/USC game over the weekend in Los Angeles. The 83-year-old LA Coliseum on gritty Figueroa Street sits a few miles south of downtown and is a fitting site for a big football game. The Trojans have played football at this venue since it opened and it has hosted Super Bowls and a World Series. The Raiders played there for over a decade and there’s no reason the NFL shouldn’t be back in there with a franchise.

As expected, Notre Dame’s defense was overwhelmed by USC’s multiple-weapon offense, and got beat convincingly 44-24.

Bound to be a top pro receiver, Dwayne Jarrett had three TD receptions and seven total catches for 132 yards. He’s 6 foot 5 and he made a great one-handed catch at the start of the second half that helped dispel any thought of Irish comeback magic. Jarrett often lines up on the left side with the quick pass-catcher Steve Smith on the right. It’s a combination that’s difficult for any defense to deal with, and then you throw in freshman tailback CJ Gable (pictured above standing at his own 49) and a big offensive line, and it’s trouble for a defensively-challenged team like ND.

If USC beats UCLA as expected this Saturday, the Trojans will play Ohio State for the national title. Who plays in the Rose Bowl against Michigan is less than clear. Some have speculated it’ll be Notre Dame. But with ND’s non-competitive failure against USC, it raises questions about their fitness to play a high-caliber team. TSR believes LSU would be the best opponent for Michigan. Rose Bowl officials have complete power to pick the two best teams not playing in the title game, and Michigan/LSU is the way they should go.

Meantime, if the Rose Bowl does the right thing, it would put ND in the Sugar Bowl against the winner of Saturday’s Florida/Arkansas game. It’s the kinda matchup Notre Dame is gonna have to take seriously and find a way to win. ND coach Charlie Weis has yet to win a big game through two seasons at the helm in South Bend. If he loses the Sugar Bowl, the same ND power brokers that ran everybody else out of there will start making noise. We like Charlie ok, but his gameday outfit is horrible. When he slapped hands with each player doing stretching exercises before the game, we thought his frumpy, oversized sweatshirt was for the pregame only. When he marched out of the tunnel for the actual game wearing same, we were surprised. One seatmate said it appeared he was wearing a shower curtain. When he gathered the offense for a strategy-session early in the contest (pictured above), you wonder if a more professional appearance might matter to a team of young men from a program that preaches professionalism and maturity.

USC’s head coach Pete Carroll is now an amazing 64-11 and has turned the program into a powerhouse. When he took over the Trojans in 2001, attendance at the Coliseum for USC home games averaged 57-thousand. Now, USC sells out just about every Saturday. For the ND game, attendance was announced at 91,800. A story in the LA Times the day after the game said USC handed out one-hundred game tickets to prospects considering their college options. Aside from the actual game experience - which rivals any sporting contest atmosphere we’ve seen - the pregame scene on campus is something that could entice prospective recruits. It certainly was enjoyable from a fan’s standpoint. The USC marching band plays for hours as it winds its way through the campus. Thousands of fans set up elaborate tailgate parties which include what appear to be no limitations on consumption of alcohol regardless of proximity to school buildings. And since it is Southern California, the tailgating crowd includes California girls. The Beach Boys called them the “cutest girls in the world.” We’re not totally sure about that, but as we stood on the quadrangle north of campus under sunny skies Saturday afternoon, the famous Beach Boys tune did pop into our mind. One ‘SC fan wore a t-shirt that said: “All About Booty” (pictured above). The clever t-shirt is a tribute to USC quarterback John David Booty who succeeded Matt Leinart to start the season and threw three TD passes against the Irish. Booty also had two passes picked off and it’s hard to get a handle on how good he is because of guys like Jarrett, who basically catch anything thrown in the area.

Bathrooms and concessions at the Coliseum were more than adequate considering the size of the venue. We had authentic Mexican food and sampled the “Kettle Corn.” The one item we did not try but seemed popular was the “Turkey Sausage.”

The game program sold at the entrance gates includes pictures and brief biographical information about each member of the USC football team. The most favored subject of study among the team by far is sociology. Maybe that particular subject is considered the easiest academic path for an athlete at an institution known for its all-around excellence. But if you spend much time in and around downtown Los Angeles and the neighborhood USC sits in, you’d see that all those sociology majors have an expansive real-life laboratory to study within right outside their dorm room doors. Never have we seen such a thick concentration of mentally ill, drug-addicted, powerless and desperate citizens. Men and women sleeping in boxes, wearing tattered and stinky/dirty clothes are everywhere. They push shopping carts. They talk to themselves, their heads and limbs move involuntarily, they shriek, and they walk around in circles. They get on buses, fail to pay a fare and are greeted by indifference from those whose job it is to collect the fare. They beg for help and their presence in massive numbers seem not to be a menace as much as an accepted part of the landscape.

LA is clearly overwhelmed by large stretches of blight and lots of people unable to participate in a life that includes hope and happiness. Unlike many cities we visit, and even the one we live in, LA seems like a place that has chosen not to hide its problems. Or perhaps its problems are so widespread and complicated, solving them are difficult. Whichever the case, it is tough to reconcile the region’s stretches of beauty and affluence with the devastating scenes of brutal living we have witnessed on our recent stays in the downtown area and our travels on public transit to areas south of the city.

Lacking the ability to transition from those thoughts to the next, we’ll simply say that the day after the USC win, we bought three upper level tickets from a scalper for that evening’s Lakers/Nets game at the Staples Center. Total cost: $90. Not bad considering the box office had nothing but $135 seats available the day before.

Our view from the first row of the upper level behind the basket was excellent. The Nets played a good first quarter, but then slept through the rest of the game en route to a 99-93 loss. Had the Nets scored less than 90, the crowd of 18,997 would have walked away with a coupon valid for two free tacos.

Lakers rookie Jordan Farmar is the real deal. A confident shooter, he scored 11 points off the bench in just 16 minutes. Luke Walton has turned into a capable all-around player and with young big men Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum, Laker coach Phil Jackson may see a shot at a deep post-season if he can convince Kobe to share the ball.

One of the best things about going to a Laker game is hearing the competent and smooth voice of public address announcer Lawrence Tanter. He does public address better than anybody. We laughed every time the Laker girls completed a routine, because Tanter would open the mike and simply say in his trademark low-toned manner with a hint of a lisp: “Laker girls.”

The Laker crowd is diverse and quiet. The Staples Center is cut from the same mold as the United Center and most of the new hockey/hoops venues.

One food experience in Los Angeles was so over-the-top fantastic, it’s worth mentioning in case you ever make it out there. Tucked away in a little strip mall in the Little Tokyo neighborhood near LA’s city hall is Sushi Gen. They don’t take reservations, but we only waited a half-hour to get into one of the most buzzed-about Japanese restaurants among diners who use the web site Chowhound. We sat at the sushi bar and were treated to a thrill ride of creatively prepared raw fish by an entertaining trio of boisterous chefs. Never have we had a fresher, richer, and more flavorful piece of toro. Freshness as it’s connected to taste is hard to describe, but the smell and taste of extreme freshness can be a really fantastic thing. You never really feel like you’re in a strip mall as you sit with a mostly Japanese dining crowd. Thanks to the readers of Chowhound for the very heavy duty tip on Sushi Gen.

11-29-06 2225

TSR wishes all a Happy Thanksgiving and says goodbye until next week. It's off to the left coast to attend the big ND-USC game. We also hope to eat Japanese food and who knows what else. We’ll predict a convincing USC victory but are hoping for a repeat of last year’s classic. A report on return.

11-23-06 1652

Thanksgiving travelers here in New York and everywhere scrambled to get in and out of town today on what’s billed as the busiest travel day of the year. In year’s past, we’ve seen mass chaos at the air-strip in Queens. Long delays and overbooked flights with stressed-out once-a-year-travelers can create out-of-control crying tantrums and threats against overwhelmed airline employees. But today’s Thanksgiving Eve at LaGuardia was smooth despite a spinning nearby weather system that is packing rain and winds. Yeah, there were delays. But they were generally tolerable. And with a beefed up presence from the government screeners and workers from individual carriers, we saw no long lines as we walked the terminal areas during the afternoon peak period.

Perhaps months of big loads on most airlines have made this day just another day. Incidentally, the Sunday after Thanksgiving is actually the busiest flying day of the year statistically.

-Florida coach Urban Meyer is coming off as a cross between bad politician and whiny problem-child as he publicly campaigns for the BCS title game with preemptive strikes on the system. He’s hurting the Gator case if they win out.

-Citing a link with Donna Shalala, Lee Corso said on WFAN today that he expects Barry Alvarez will be the next football coach and athletic director at the University of Miami. Shalala hired Alavarez at Wisconsin when she was chancellor in Madison. Corso also predicted that Notre Dame would play Michigan in the Rose Bowl if USC beats ND on Saturday.

-When NFL coaches Jack Del Rio and Mike Nolan wore suits on the sideline during their games last weekend, it begged a question: why don’t more coaches do it? Well, absurdly, it’s because the NFL prohibits it. That’s right. The NFL mandates that all head coaches wear items from a set of Reebok clothing because of a marketing deal between the league and the athletic-wear label. Showing some flexibility, the league recently relaxed the policy and said coaches can wear Reebok-made suits twice each season. Why not just let coaches were whatever they want?

-The Times came back a day late with extensive coverage of the Michael Richards story. Virginia Heffernan wrote a solid analysis piece. And Bill Carter had a scoop with behind-the-scenes details about Jerry Seinfeld’s involvement with getting Richards on the Letterman program. Still lacking is reaction from the broadly-attacked targets of Richards’ mad and vile verbal outburst.

11-22-06 1722

The print edition of the Times has buried the Michael Richards racist-rant story thus far, giving it just one paragraph in the “Arts, Briefly” column on page E2 today. The story has been out there for a day and a half, and one would expect the story to garner more coverage in a paper that devotes lots of resources to arts and culture. Perhaps the Times is working on something, but today you’d need a magnifying glass to find their one sentence of wire copy on the subject. The Daily News referenced the story on its front page today and the Post played it prominently as well.

A couple other thoughts about the Richards incident: (1). Appearing on the Letterman show to issue the mea culpa is not the proper setting. Richards needed to respond quickly, but going on a comedy television show with a live audience (which could be heard laughing at times) is not the way to appear contrite to those he hurt. Why not sit down in a serious setting with a serious reporter and attempt to explain yourself without pal Jerry Seinfeld holding your hand via satellite link. (2). Seinfeld is taking a risk standing up for his longtime friend and co-star. While Seinfeld condemned the outburst, he defended Richards’ character. He established linkage with Richards just three nights after the incident when most top line stars would have protected their own image by keeping distance. The Richards incident will likely forever change how many viewers feel when they watch Kramer on Seinfeld re-runs. What came out of his mouth a few nights ago is impossible to justify. Richards isn’t even trying. Maybe his lack of an excuse is a start towards re-claiming his reputation, but the vile nature of his comments seems likely to be the type that won’t be forgiven or forgotten.

-What’s happening with the Bulls? After blowing out the Heat to start the season, they’ve gone 2-7 and aren’t handling what ought to be winnable road assignments. Yeah, I know, the last guy you want to hear from on the matter is Peter Vescey of the Post. But he had an interesting comment about the Pax/Skiles decision to start the season with both PJ Brown and Ben Wallace on the front line: “PJ duplicates some of what Wallace offers and much of what he fails to offer. Starting two people in the frontcourt that the defense can all but ignore is not a statute or even a sketch for success.” Brown has since lost his starting role, with Nocioni in. It seems clear the Bulls need another consistent points producer.

Why not put Ben Gordon back in the starting lineup? He’s the team’s most lethal scorer, and yeah, he’s inconsistent. But it’s time to rely on the guy rather than get wrapped up in the sixth-man approach that may be interfering with his progress.

-At least the Bulls are interesting to watch. The Knicks are tough to take. Last night, check out the stat line for starting point guard (if you can call him a point guard) Stephon Marbury in a seven-point home loss to the Rockets: 19 minutes, one for two shooting, three assists, four turnovers. He spent all but four minutes of the second half on the bench sulking with his head in a towel. After the game, Marbury went to the locker room to criticize his head coach. Isiah Thomas then declared there would be no practice the next day. Oh, did we mention that Eddie Curry was two of ten from the field in 21 minutes and he managed to grab a total of two rebounds?

11-21-06 1731

Murray Chass of the Times says the giant contract the Cubs have agreed to give Alfonso Soriano is a signal that the Tribune company is gonna sell the team. But really, whether the team changes hands or not, why can’t the big free agent deal simply be viewed as a big market team spending big bucks to get the best guy on the market? That’s what the Cubs did. They blew Soriano’s mind using a negotiating tactic that usually ends up with the buyer over-paying. They blew his doors off with an eight-year deal worth $136-million, making it impossible for Philly to counter-offer.

It’s such big money that Soriano is expressing total flexibility about what position he’ll play. He’s professing love for Chicago.

Don’t be fooled by the 22 outfield assists he racked up last year. He’s not that good defensively. But the deal seems moderate to low risk from the standpoint that barring injury, Soriano is gonna put up consistently big offensive numbers the length of the contract. Carlos Beltran got $119-million over seven years, making Soriano’s money too much - but not insane. He’s good for 40 homers, he’ll steal bases and he’s an electric, free-swinging presence. He’s an extremely entertaining player and now becomes the number one active athlete in Chicago. He’ll be an adventure in the outfield and he’ll strike out a lot, but the Cubs are participating in the win-now plan right now and probably feel pressure from the strides made by the White Sox. No matter the motive, there are a lot of good Cub fans that have bought a lot of tickets and a lotta cold Old Style to watch a lot of losing baseball. On a day like this, those fans get something in return from a front office that has a history of staying away from these types of players. So what if they overpaid a bit? And who cares if they’re handing out a contract that a new owner will inherit someday. The Cubs got the top free agent out there, and they got a guy who can put the ball on

Waveland Avenue
every time he takes that big cut.

11-20-06 1710

 

It didn’t matter much that North Carolina and North Carolina State were two bad football teams hanging around the bottom of the ACC conference standings.  When these two teams got together in Chapel Hill Saturday afternoon on a glorious day for football, the intense Tobacco Road rivalry had great meaning.  Aside from the fact that fans of the two schools harbor distaste for one another and can’t stand losing this annual get-together, the head coaches on both teams are sitting on hot griddles and badly wanted a win. 

 

Tar Heels coach John Bunting (pictured above with blue sleeves and his head lowered in reflection) was told on October 22 that he’ll be fired at the end of the season.  Earlier in the week, UNC announced that ex-University of Miami head coach Butch Davis will take over at season’s end.

 

In six seasons at Carolina, Bunting has a record of 26-45, and this year his team had gone winless in the conference prior to this big game with NC State. 

 

On the other sideline, NC State head coach Chuck Amato may have sealed the same kinda doom faced by Bunting.  The Wolfpack played horribly in Saturday’s 23-9 loss to the Tar Heels.  NC State racked up 82 yards in penalties and committed four turnovers.  Amato has lost three straight to NC and his team has lost six in a row overall this regular season.  Fairly intense speculation has made Steelers coach Bill Cowher a candidate to replace Amato if the Steelers wave Cowher goodbye.  Cowher is a NC State alum and owns a house in Raleigh.   

 

There were six made field goals in the game with no misses.  We scoffed when Bunting sent out junior kicker Connor Barth to attempt a 54-yarder halfway through the third quarter.  But the bushy-haired junior from Wilmington nailed it with about ten yards to spare and put a charge in the proceedings.  It was the second longest field goal in UNC history. 

 

Interestingly, NC State’s kicker John Deraney (pictured above hitting a 41-yard fourth quarter field goal attempt) handles every aspect of the Wolfpack kicking game.  He punts, he kicks off and he tries field goals.  His impressive ability to do all three well made him a semi-finalist for the Lou Groza award last season.  Don’t be surprised to see Deraney kick in the NFL next year. 

 

TSR has mixed opinions about Kenan Stadium, UNC’s home football venue.  It sits among a forest of pine trees on campus in a beautiful setting.  Attendance on Saturday was announced at 54,000 even.  Capacity is 60,000.  We purchased three tickets from a scalper for a total of $100 and sat in the upper level on the southwest side of the stadium at about the goal line.  As you enter the seating area, sections are well marked and the bleachers have back supports.  But the space between rows is so small, it’s near-impossible to get to one’s seat without stepping on feet or banging legs with those you are trying to get past.  The space between rows is so tight, it makes you never want to leave your seat.  It was fifty degrees at game time, but the south end of the stadium is in the shade which made it feel a bit cooler.  The picturesque Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower looms to the west of the stadium. 

 

We parked about a mile west of the venue in a ten-dollar lot.  As you walk to the game, you pass fraternity houses with festive pre-game parties that reminded us of the good old days.  They don’t sell beer at the stadium, but it was apparent that many in the crowd had brought in small glass bottles of brown-colored booze to mix with the plastic cups of soda being sold on the concourse.  About one-fifth of the crowd made the trek from Raleigh to cheer for NC State.  The Tar Heel crowd was spirited and fun.  A group of undergrads painted their bodies and braved the chill to fire up the faithful (pictured above.) 

 

After Carolina scored off an NC State fumble to go ahead by two touchdowns with two minutes to go, we bolted to find a place to watch Ohio State/Michigan.  We ended up at a place called the Top of the Hill, a tavern with several televisions and a roster of homemade beers.  It was a crowded, popular spot for the post-game crowd. 

 

You can put Troy Smith’s name on the Heisman trophy. Too bad Michigan linebacker Shawn Crable couldn’t hold up on the late hit on Smith in the fourth quarter, because that mighta been the ballgame.

 

It now comes down to next weekend’s USC/Notre Dame game.  If USC can win, which they probably will, then they will meet the Buckeyes in the title game.  If the Irish can win, then you gotta believe Michigan will get another crack at Ohio State.  That’s what should happen.  Yeah, Notre Dame is Notre Dame.  But they don’t deserve to go ahead of Michigan based on their head-to-head outcome alone.

 

11-19-06 1519  

 

Talk about irrational exuberance.  US airline stocks skyrocketed today off news newly-constituted US Airways wants to hook up with bankrupt Delta in an eight-billion dollar merger deal.  Yeah, the airline industry in this country would obviously benefit from fewer airlines, but the reaction today is over the top. 

 

Really, all that happen was that US Airways CEO Doug Parker sent a letter today to Delta’s boss Gerald Grinstein that publicly taunts him into considering a get-together.  Grinstein has rebuffed merger overtures by Parker as Delta stumbles through a horribly painful and difficult bankruptcy.  He has said Delta wants to emerge from bust and go back to being a leaner, meaner Delta. 

 

Parker thinks he’s hot stuff because he engineered America West’s recent takeover of US Air.  The integration of those two airlines is still being hashed out and now Parker sees a wounded giant he thinks he can gobble up by putting out this fancy letter slim on details.  Parker thinks he can do an end-run around Delta’s management with fancy talk about how a newly-created mega-carrier would save huge bucks through “synergy.”  Being a slow news day, the business media gave Parker exactly what he wanted:  widespread coverage of the letter which then generated a heavy-duty market reaction that saw airline stocks shoot through the roof. 

 

Apparently it didn’t matter that Grinstein immediately repeated Delta’s intention to remain as is.  Nor did any of the usual talking heads who comment on the airline industry unfurl big red flags on the significant anti-trust roadblocks – much like the ones that scuttled a proposed US Air-United hook-up a few years back. 

 

Seemingly innocent bystanders in the industry saw their stock prices surge.  Continental was up almost five bucks a share (12-percent) after starting the day at 38.  United was up nine-percent.  JetBlue rose seven-percent.   American was up five-percent.  The theory here is that one big merger would spawn others.  

 

The initiator of the day’s news, US Airways, saw its stock go up a whopping 17-percent.  All of this occurred after Parker – a guy who got his MBA in 1986 – sent a letter to a guy who didn’t want to hear from him. 

 

We don’t know much about business.  But this appears to be what they call a hostile takeover attempt/overture.  Pressure the lenders, stake-holders and plus-minus dollar-sign bean-counters to jump up and down about synergy and create a mega company.  To heck with the men and women who wear the Delta logo on their shirt and have made the Atlanta corporation an effective air carrier for more than 75 years. 

 

Yeah, we understand the economics of it.  But how is it that an established company like Delta gets pushed around by a young CEO who barely steered America West out of trouble with help from a 9-11 federal bailout?  You’d think Parker would have his hands full trying to mesh America West employees with mostly senior US Air employees before trying to take on what seems like an even far more difficult integration of work groups. 

 

Is it possible that Wall Street minds are so simplistic that the mere suggestion of consolidation would send airline stocks up?  Shouldn’t more concrete business accomplishments, business plans and actual earnings be the real driving force behind stock price increases like the ones we saw today? 

 

And finally, do regulators look to see if any short-term stock buyers are making money on a day like this.  Because you gotta believe tomorrow or the next day will bring a more sober analysis of a proposed deal like this - and then the realities of fuel prices, passenger load factors and terror threats bring those stock prices back to a level based on the here and now.

 

11-15-06 1718 

 

You get triple bang for your eight buck admission fee at the Brooklyn Museum the next couple of months.  The beautiful facility on Eastern Parkwayon the fringe of Prospect Park has three exhibitions worth checking out.  Most interesting is the wonderfully arranged collection of about 200 photos taken by Annie Leibovitz.  You’ve seen many of the photo-portraits in popular magazines over the years, but what’s especially interesting is a series of shots documenting author Susan Sontag in both the prime of her life and then in her very recent dying days.  Leibovitz and Sontag were very close.  Their mutual trust for one another is evident as Leibovitz captures Sontag at work and off the job in Paris, Sarajevo and New York.

 

As you exit the Leibovitz space on the fourth floor, you enter the startling presentation by sculptor Ron Mueck.  Spread out on a massive wood floor with empty space galore, you see large and incredibly realistic depictions of sad-looking humans.  Most stark is a nine-foot sculpture of a bearded, flabby dead-head look-alike sitting on a chair naked.  Another effort from Mueck features a spooning couple with distant and emotionless expressions.  TSR isn’t inclined to appreciate or really understand a lot of art, but we stopped in our tracks to gaze at the two previously mentioned works.  It was interesting to watch a long line of art students studying Mueck’s pieces and their fine details such as body hair and bone structure.

 

If you have enough energy left, check out the first floor and a wonderful set of photographs and instructional items that take one through the World Trade Center’s planning, inception and construction into its eventual destruction.  There’s been plenty of heart-tugging photo shows documenting the hours and days after 9-11, but this one includes broad coverage of lower Manhattan’s development in the mid-20th century and the eventual inclusion of two behemoth towers in the city’s financial and business center.  

 

-The line for this Saturday’s mammoth Michigan/Ohio St.game has opened at 6.5, making the Buckeyes a solid favorite despite the fact that it’s extremely difficult to run on the Wolverines.  Michigan is allowing just 1.4-yards per rush.  This game has potential classic written all over it and could well come down to a late field goal.  We’ll definitely play Michigan getting the points. 

 

-This is kinda hard to believe, but TSR’s brother says he and a group of seven other guys will take temporary custody of Johnny Lattner’s 1953 Heisman trophy next month.  At a fundraiser in Chicago this past weekend, Lattner put the trophy up for auction.  My brother and his ND pals put up just over a thousand bucks and had the winning bid.  They will have the entire month of December to share the trophy and do with it what they want before returning it to Lattner on January 1.  Our brother says the straight-arming bronze statue will be on display at “parties” hosted by individual members of the group of seven.  When asked what kind of protection or guarantee Lattner receives on the trophy’s safe return, our brother said:  “No protection.  Apparently he loans this thing out all the time.  I will definitely carry with caution.”

 

Incidentally, at the time Lattner won that award, his margin of victory in the Heisman voting was the closest in history.  He edged Minnesota tailback Paul Giel by just 56 points.  Giel’s 366 first-place votes remain the highest total by a second-place Heisman finisher.

 

11-13-06 1727 

 

Is Todd Sauerbrun being blackballed into football exile or will an NFL team wait until the season is over to pick up the Punt King?  It’s been more than a month since Sauerbrun was to return from a four-game suspension for a pre-season drug screen that revealed the existence of ephedra, a banned substance.

 

But as fast as that suspension lapsed, the Denver Broncos cut Sauerbrun and announced he was being replaced by Paul Ernster, the guy who punted solidly in Sauerbrun’s absence. 

 

It seemed like a shocking development at the time.  Especially to Sauerbrun’s agent David Canter who told the Rocky Mountain News:  “Has he made bad decisions?  Yeah.  But there’s convicted felons, guys who have killed people on NFL rosters right now.  He’s never done any of those things.  He’s never cost his team games.  He’s never hurt anyone other than himself with the decisions he made.”

 

That was about five weeks ago, and at the time, Canter was confident Sauerbrun would get snatched up by another team. “He’s the best punter in the history of professional football.  And any teams that want to improve their franchise, he’s better than 30 of the 32 punters already out there, and arguably better than every punter out there.”       

 

No doubt there are some bad punters out there.  Chris Kluwe of the Vikings is having a brutal year playing half his games in an environment conducive to kicking.  Josh Bidwell of Tampa and Derrick Frost of the Skins are punting badly.  And Eagles fans love to boo their punter Dirk Johnson. 

 

Sauerbrun would be a sharp punting upgrade for all of those teams.

 

But is Sauerbrun’s baggage becoming more than a team wants to take on? 

 

Commenting on the Bronco decision to cut Sauerbrun in favor of the mediocre Ernster, Charlotte Observer football writer Pat Yasinskas said: “If Coach Mike Shanahan thought Sauerbrun could handle a second chance, he would have kept him.” 

 

Bill Williamson of the Denver Post says Sauerbrun had a recent workout with Tampa, and there were reports out of Detroit that the Punt King was invited to audition for the Lions but skipped the session when he learned that the Lions didn’t want to make a punting change mid-season. 

 

-The point spread in tonight’s big Bears/Giants game has bounced around quite a bit, but remains befuddling.  It opened with the Giants at -3 and currently sits at -1.  On Friday, it fell to a pick ‘em.  The Giants have been decimated by injuries and will play tonight without Strahan and Umenyiora.  The Giant pass rush is gonna be weak and Rex is gonna have some time.  Yeah, the Giant offense is potent but the rain could neutralize it to some extent.  We like the Bears tonight and played them at plus two.  The fact that the Bears are getting points against a Giant team beset by injuries could either be a lack of respect or an unwillingness to believe in a team that hasn’t been as effective away from Soldier Field. 

 

-Bill Plaschke of the LA Times probably has it right about USC when he says “three wins, and they’re in.”  Losses by Louisville, Texas and Auburn have vaulted the Trojans back into the title game picture.  They’ve got Cal, Notre Dame and UCLA left.  Florida will argue that it plays in a tougher conference and its one loss to Auburn on the road is more excusable than ‘SC’s loss at Oregon State.  If both teams win out, there’s gonna be a controversy.  Arkansas is Florida’s likely opponent in the SEC title game.  Too bad it isn’t Auburn, because then the Gators could answer more loudly.  

 

As a longtime supporter of a playoff format for division one football, TSR hopes as many of the top teams as possible lose down the stretch to further muddy the title picture.  The more disarray as it relates to the BCS polling, the closer we get to a playoff.

 

11-12-06 1551 

 

The sting from Bernardini’s loss in the Breeder’s Cup Classic had us in the dumps for a stretch, but we’re finally back with a report.  A combination of a tough near-miss at the betting window and a persistent chest cold can send anybody into a funk.  But a week later, TSR has scraped itself off the curb and is determined to march ahead. 

 

Alive in the pick four with Miesque’s Approval ($50.60), Round Pond ($29.80), and Red Rocks ($23.60), all we needed was for Bernardini to do what nearly everybody at Churchill Downs expected.

 

Hammered down to even money in the win pool, Bernardini was far and away the best horse on paper in a field of 14.  We envisioned a multiple-length victory and a finishing time under 2:00 for the mile and a quarter.  Our pick four play had worked better than we projected.  Longshots popped in each of the first three legs of the bet and now we simply needed the superhorse to do his thing - and we walk away with in excess of eleven grand. 

 

Bernardini got brushed around a bit coming out of the gate and was bothered in the early stage of the race.  But he ran mostly uninhibited from that point on and then made what appeared to be a winning move into the stretch to take a lead.  With just an eighth of a mile to go, he appeared to be on his way to victory, but then out of what seemed like nowhere, here came the Argentinian horse Invasor.  Bernie lost by a length.  The bet was lost and the air had come out of the balloon.  What happened?  Who knows.  Or as our friend Jim’s Greek dad always says:  “Whose nose.” 

 

In the end, it comes down to an age-old canon in horse racing and gambling.  Never count on the sure thing.  We were so sure of a Bernardini victory, we could feel the folded stack of hundreds in our pocket.  Instead we stumbled out of the Downs broken and beat. 

 

We walked across the street to the Central Ave.home of ex-Pavement drummer and eternal horse racing optimist Bob Nastanovich.  A fridge full of Bud and a house full of racing fans who have had big scores and tough beats combined to be the perfect antidote for the Bernardini loss. 

 

Ex-NHL goalie Gary “Suitcase” Smith had us laughing so hard that beer was coming out of our nostrils.  He told stories about his three-year-old colt Brother Bobby.  Suitcase guaranteed victory for Brother Bobby in his next race out and wouldn’t you know it, the son of Out of Place won in dramatic fashion just a week after his prediction. 

 

Attendance at the Downs for Breeder’s Cup day was a comfortable 75,132.  The weather was spectacular and the crowd enjoyed itself.  There was never a line to wait in or a problem encountered.

 

We went to the races on the Thursday and Friday before the Cup.  Both days we flirted with big pick four payoffs and both days we walked out empty.  On Thursday, it was the Mike Matz-trained filly Sangrita (pictured above) that knocked us out.  The three-year-old daughter of Mr. Greely won the Chilluki Stakes, beating a very tough field.  But, how can you not be happy for Matz?  He won a Cup race with Round Pond in the Distaff, and Sangrita on Thursday.  It has to be some kind of redemption for all the pain he went through when his colt Barbaro broke down in the Preakness.

 

Friday, we launched our pick four successfully with a 9.5-1 filly, Unbridled Sidney who went wire to wire in the Cherokee Run stakes.  We had the Euro-mystery horse Bayeux at 23-1, but got beat in the second leg of the bet by a Bob Holthus horse at 55-1 that didn’t really make any sense other than the fact that it was old Bob Holthus that got the job done.

 

What made the previously mentioned Bayeux mysterious was that he was making his American debut with non-competitive Timeform speed figures.  Timeforms are the European equivalent of Beyer speed numbers and are generally translated by reducing the raw number by 14 for comparison’s sake.  Bayeux was ice cold on the tote board eventually going off at 23-1.  But the odd thing was that the best jockey in America, John Velasquez (pictured above) picked up the mount and won with the longshot in a cakewalk.  What we should have done was put a few shekels on Bayeux in the win pool instead of using him purely in the multi-race wager.  Oh well.  Lesson learned. 

 

There were lots of Euro fans and Churchill sold Bass and Guinness to keep them happy.  Next year, the Cup goes to Monmouth, and lots of racing fans we talked to say they’re gonna take a pass on the small track on the Jersey Shore.  It’s bound to be cold and cramped with little to do in the immediate area.  But hey, it’s the Cup and TSR doesn’t miss it regardless of the venue.  So, we plan on attending no matter what. 

 

One bonus of Breeder’s Cup weekend in Louisville was the big college football showdown between the Ville and West Virginia on Thursday night before the Cup.  We had a ticket that we bought through Stub-hub late summer and really enjoyed both the game and the stadium.  Our seat was in the last row of the lower bowl at about the ten-yard line behind the Louisville bench in section 127.  Sandwiched between friendly Louisville season-ticket holders, we quietly cheered for WVU getting two points.  If it weren’t for an inability to hold on to the football and bad punt return coverage, the Mountaineers would have won.  They were the better football team.  But turnovers killed ‘em and really, when you get down to it, their defense was porous, and the Ville won 44-34.  Fans stormed the field after the game and Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm demonstrated that he is a pro-caliber quarterback. 

 

There were 43,217 in the house, an all-time high at Papa John’s.  Gametime temperature was 39 degrees, but as the night went on it dropped into the upper 20’s.  Papa John’s Stadium is a great place to watch a game.  Each and every seat is an individual bucket seat, not a painted number on a bleacher.  They sell beer and bathrooms were plentiful.  It’s among the nicer college football venues we’ve ever been to. 

 

There’s serious talk of expanding the capacity at Papa John’s to 63,600 with a massive deck of seats opposite the Louisville sideline.  It’s a tough call.  Right now, the stadium (pictured above) is loud and cozy.  But I suppose if you buy into the idea that Big East football is on the way up, why not?  If Louisville can schedule attractive non-conference games, perhaps it can fill an expanded venue on most dates.  It’s a city that loves high school football and lacks high-level sports entertainment.  Plus, current coach Bobby Petrino has demonstrated he can recruit and coach with the best of them.  

 

Our flights to and from Louiville included interesting sights and discussions.  On the trip out, the first segment of our trip was a flight to Cleveland.  Sitting near the front of the fifty-seat jet, NBA VP Stu Jackson sat quietly for the ride that we guessed would take him to the Cavs season opener.   

 

As TSR awaited the connecting flight to Louisville in the D terminal at Cleveland, a young man about 20 sitting across the way in the waiting area saw TSR fiddling with a boarding pass and asked if he would need one to get on the flight, too.  After a TSR sigh suggesting the question wasn’t a smart one, the young man quickly responded:  “I’ve never flown before.  I’m not sure how all this works.”  His statement seemed genuine so we advised him to have his boarding pass ready when they announced it was time to board. 

 

“I’m going to boot camp.  I’ve joined the Army,” the man said – his hair combed straight down in a Midwest kinda way.   

 

Here we were – one headed to Louisville to drink, gamble and watch sports for three or four days.  And the other going to Louisville to get on a bus to Fort Knox and then a fast track to a dangerous war that is about to claim its 3000th American victim.  “They tell me I’m going to work on tanks,” the man said. 

 

“What do you mean?  You mean you’re gonna fix tanks?” said TSR. 

 

“I don’t know,” the soldier-to-be said in a tone that suggested optimism. 

 

It put a lump in our throat.  Where do these kids come from?  We only spoke to him for five minutes and we never discussed his decision to join the military.  It was more nuts and bolts stuff related to boot camp – how much he’d have to run, etc.  He was a really smart and likeable young fellow.  

 

It’s impossible to understand - knowing what we know now about the situation in Iraq - how anybody could send a guy like this into a place like Iraq.  Young men like the one we met at the Cleveland airport need to stay here – in one piece – rather than ship out, tote a gun, drive a tank and be exposed to the violent sectarian hostilities of a culture we understand little about.    

 

On the way back, we flew Delta out of Cincinnati.  Chris Fowler sat in first class wearing a Bears hat.  He grabbed a yellow taxi at LaGuardia.  Joe Drape sat in the first row of coach and read the newspaper.  And Daily Racing Form columnist Mike Watchmaker chatted with hall of fame jockey Angel Cordero Jr. near the rear of coach as the flight’s customers waited to exit the aircraft.  We spoke with Drape prior to the flight and asked him if there was any way possible for Louisville to get left out of the national title game if they ran the table.  At that time it appeared they would win out the rest of their schedule.   Drape’s response was that there was no way the Ville would get left out if they were undefeated.    As we know now, Louisville lost a week later at Rutgers making the point moot.  But it’s good that college football fans will be spared a national title game that includes an undefeated Big East team.  Louisville would have gotten trounced by the winner of Ohio State/Michigan and we don’t want to begin to hear it from Rutgers unless they go into Morgantown in a couple weeks and blow out the Mountaineers.

 

11-11-06 1600

 

One of these days, we'll get a computer we can take on the road to keep the entries flowing.  There's no shortage of things to discuss.  The NBA season is upon us and Bulls fans are justifiably excited.  The elections are a week away and man, there's a lot at stake in many jurisdictions which could potentially change the balance of power in this country.  But TSR is hitting the road tomorrow and the site will be silent for a week as we enjoy the next several days in Louisville.  We'll be in the house for the huge WVU / Louisville game Thursday night with a potential title shot on the line.  And we'll take in a couple of cards at Churchilll Downs in advance of the Breeder's Cup at the historic track on

Central Avenue
on Saturday.  It's the super bowl of horse racing and it's great fun.  It's a wonderful gambling opportunity in the friendly environs of Kentucky.  A full report on both the football and the horse racing upon return.

 

10-31-06 1656 

 

As the Cardinals wrapped up game five to end the ’06 World Series on their new home field, it seemed pretty clear that David Eckstein was going to win the Series MVP award.  But there were four other Redbirds whose contributions nearly equaled those of the pesky and clutch Eckstein.  Closer Adam Wainwright had a perfect post-season ERA, and other than the Inge double in game four, he was tough as nails to deal with.  His curveball is wicked.  Wainwright’s emergence on the big stage was huge because the injured Izzy would have blown games if healthy as he always does, and Looper is unreliable.  Wainwright was a key.  So was Yadier Molina who was specifically cited by Eckstein as deserving of the Series MVP.  Molina is the greatest defensive catcher in baseball, but his World Series performance was marked by his hitting.  He was seven for 17 with a big RBI double in game four.  Scott Rolen was eight for 19 with five runs scored and he was a solid presence at third.  His great World Series came after he had publicly feuded with Tony LaRussa about losing a start in the Met series to Spezio.  Ya’ gotta be happy for Rolen who appears to be fighting through back and shoulder pain and is the kinda guy who you’d think badly wanted a ring with his future clouded by his physical condition.

 

Maybe the biggest surprise of the Series was the performance last night from Jeff Weaver.  The long-haired California guy who was bounced out of Anaheim by the emergence of his hard-throwing brother says he was “supported from the get-go,” by LaRussa and Duncan after getting picked up in June.  He could have been shuffled around at various points during the last two post-season series because of rain postponements, but LaRussa stuck with him.  His game five win was dazzling and intense.  And now he’s a free agent who will get big bucks despite a career ERA of 4.58.  Weaver’s post-game news conference was impressive.  With a bottle of champagne sitting in front of him, he answered each question with detailed, thoughtful, intelligent and appreciative responses.

 

\Detroit will go down as a great turnaround story, winning the ALCS just a few years after losing 119 games in a season.  But they really stunk against the Cardinals.  Their pitchers couldn’t make defensive plays and other than Casey and Inge, nobody in the lineup could muster much at the plate.  Still, Jim Leyland put the franchise back on the map and the city of Detroit had a taste of big time baseball. 

 

Not sure how Jeanne Zelasko of Fox Sports got the job of emceeing the trophy ceremony.  Fox needs to get somebody of stature in there with the commissioner and the winning connections at such a big moment.  Zelasko’s on-air persona is phony, nasally and annoying.  Her presence is bad enough on the pre-game show.  Fox needs to dispatch Joe Buck onto the field to handle the celebratory moments.  It’s an excellent opportunity to glean memorable comments and recollections from the victors with a national baseball audience watching - hungry for intelligent queries.  You’re not gonna get any of that from Zelasko. 

 

We had no rooting interest in this Series but were hoping for a game six simply to see how Kenny Rogers would perform.  We also wanted the baseball season to last as long as possible.  The void will now be filled with football, hockey and soon-to-start NBA and college hoops seasons.

 

10-28-06 1511 

 

The New York City taxi fare hike approved this week seems like a fair one.  Instead of an across-the-board increase, the Taxi and Limousine Commission approved a higher rate component within the fare structure that assesses a higher charge for sitting in traffic.  As it stands now, a rider pays 20-cents per minute whenever the taxi travels at a speed below 6 miles per hour.  The new fare structure will double the cost to 40-cents a minute and raises the “sitting in traffic” threshold to 12 miles an hour.  Estimates vary, but the TLC says it will raise the cost of an average taxi ride by a buck.  What is interesting about the increase is that it doesn’t factor in the distance of the trip.  Two years ago, the TLC raised that fare component to $2 a mile that clicks off on the meter every fifth of a mile.  That increase took the base distance component of the fare up 26-percent. 

 

This latest fare-hike approach could mean more taxis on the streets of Manhattan during busy times.  If a hack can make more sitting in traffic, why not take advantage?  It’s good for them, and it’s good for all the hotshots flowing out of Manhattan buildings with arms in the air looking to go uptown a few blocks at

 

From TSR’s perspective, the “sitting in traffic” premium seems to lessen the fare-hike impact on those who can afford it least.  The only time we take a cab is at odd hours to odd places when traffic is light.  In Manhattan, the public transit web is so far-reaching, you can get just about anywhere faster on a train. 

 

Senior citizens who use taxis can hopefully avoid traveling during busy traffic periods and perhaps the extra revenue generated by the increase can end up in the pocket of those who drive taxis.  They surely deserve to make a decent buck with all the nonsense they endure.

 

-Mark Hale of the Post says in today’s paper that the Mets will not pursue Barry Zito or Alfonso Soriano.  Citing a source “familiar with the situation,” Hale says the Mets also will not seek to acquire Manny Ramirez in a trade despite his possible availability. 

 

-We finally got around to picking up the much-discussed Hold Steady release “Boys and Girls in America.”  The latest from Craig Finn and company is getting major treatment from the alt-weeklies and glows from rock critics at a lotta major dailies. 

 

TSR watched and appreciated the band from inception as Finn transitioned from Lifter Puller to the current lineup.  We attended a card of horse races at Belmont Park in a group that included Finn and have run into him at rock shows and at the club Hi-Fi.  He comes off as a solid, down-to-earth fellow who loves talking Twins baseball. 

 

But an unpublicized behind-the-scenes decision by Finn and band to cut ties with its original manager as the group started to ascend had TSR a bit surprised and disgusted.  A choice motivated by ambition at the expense of loyalty was the view from a distance.  It happens all the time in the real world I guess.  TSR still likes the band because there are few outfits that perform better live right now and Finn’s delivery alone is worth the price of admission.  The new record is great, although a notch below Separation Sunday.  The third track on Boys and Girls  - Hot Soft Light - might end up being a signature song for the band.  It definitely is well written and significant for the picture it creates.  As it goes along, the song brings us back to an early Hold Steady show here at a small Irish pub in Queens on

Roosevelt Avenue
a few summers back.  The ridiculously catchy tune ends with Finn singing:  “There are nights.  There are nights.  There are nights.  There are nights where it all comes on a little bit too bright.  There’s a cross.  There’s a cross.  There’s a cross.  There’s a cross and in the center there is a hot soft light.”   

 

-TSR pal Scooter turns the big 4-0 today.  If you see him wandering the streets of Shytown anytime soon, tell him he’s getting old.

 

10-27-06 1549 

 

A TSR trip to Boston this past weekend for a pal’s wedding included heavy reliance on that city’s public transit trains and street cars.  We stayed at a Holiday Inn in Newton, just a five-minute walk from the Riverside station – the final stop on the “D” branch of the green line.  It was a 45-minute ride on that particular branch between the city’s center and the Riverside station.  We also rode the red line upon arrival at 

South Street
station which is just a five-minute ride away from the green line connection at
Park Street
.  Taxis are really expensive in Boston.  Through the roof expensive.  And our experience shuttling back and forth between Cambridge and Fenway for the Met/Red Sox series in June had us feeling good about the subway system.  This most recent weekend lessened our opinion a bit. 

 

The “T” in Boston is America’s oldest subway system.  The antiquated street cars make sharp, herky-jerky movements between downtown stops on the green line.  It’s a steep climb up three steps to get on the street cars that are unique to the green line.  The cars seemed to be crowded most times. 

 

The fare structure and fare collection methods on the “T” are really confusing.  When we hit town, we started off buying a ten-dollar stored fare card but then found out certain stations don’t have the equipment required to read the fare cards.  So, at those stations – including Riverside – you either pay cash, use a token, or pay some combination of both. 

 

How much one pays is really a crap shoot.  It totally depends on where you get on, and in some cases where you get off.  The basic fare is $1.25 which is great, but there are several exceptions to that and they are applied inconsistently.  At Riverside, it was $3 to get on and one night we handed our cash to a fare collector without any formal work uniform.  It felt like a scam, but it wasn’t, because even seasoned green line riders were paying the dough.  After Riverside, customers waiting at stops along the way into the city had to enter the front car and the street car’s pilot made sure your fare was dropped in coins or tokens only.  Tourists in town for some kind of rowing competition up in Cambridge were entering the street car dazed and confused by the coin requirement and fare amount.   Going the other direction, the fare was free depending on the stop. 

 

Jeez, it would take you a year to figure out all the various fare rules.  Simply, what they need to do is streamline their fare structure and wait on selling the fare cards until they have turnstiles that can read them at all the subway’s stations.   An internet search of articles posted by users of Boston’s subway system produced information that indicates there are proposals to both raise and simplify fares. 

 

In a city as great as Boston, users of public transit – especially visitors – would be much better off with a basic fare that applies no matter the distance of the trip. 

 

One striking aspect of the “T” was what appeared to be a more civilized and polite behavior level by patrons.  Whenever a woman entered the street car along the green (no matter the age), a man would quickly stand up and offer his seat.  It was un-New York-like. 

 

When we checked out of the hotel to head home, we arrived at Riverside station to find that the green line was shut all the way to the Reservoir station (about half of the D branch).  A free shuttle bus ran instead and was slow going.  No fare was collected at Reservoir and we took the green to Government Center to connect to the blue line for the four stop ride to the Airport.  At Logan’s subway stop, a free shuttle bus drops you off at the terminal.  Total length of the trip from Riverside Station to Logan International via public transit:  140 minutes with zero cost.  The taxi would have been at least $60. 

 

Happy with our public transit adventure, TSR completed its visit to Boston with a stop at the airport’s Legal Seafood restaurant for a bowl of New England clam chowder.  Loaded with flavorful chunks of clams, the chowder at Legal is the bomb.  But don’t say bomb at the airport.

 

10-25-06 1712 

 

High-speed rail service is par for the course in most of Europe and Japan – but in this country the most ambitious effort in that regard has been the Acela service from Amtrak.  We rode it to Boston from New York this past weekend, and one wonders why the concept hasn’t spread beyond the route connecting New York with Washington and Boston with limited stops in between.

 

It’s fast.  It’s convenient.  There are no security hassles getting on board.  The basic seat is pretty big and comfortable.  Lots of business people were working on laptops throughout the journey and some were plugged into the electric outlets that were available at each seat.

 

The day we took it, there was heavy rain and strong winds at the airports in New York and Boston.  So, we called an audible and bought a ticket on Acela for $135.  We departed Penn Station a few minutes after

 

The train is said to reach maximum speeds of 150 miles per hour but the ride is smooth.  The only way you really know you’re moving fast is that the sights outside the window begin to blur in spots.  Overhead bins allow for the safe storage of bags that one would normally take on a trip. 

 

We can see why business people like Acela.  They can yap on the cellphone throughout the trip (unless seated in the “quiet car”), and can be a little more sure of their arrival time during inclement weather.  Tomorrow, we’ll discuss our transit travails once arriving in Boston.

 

10-24-06 1714 

 

When Carlos Beltran struck out looking with the bases loaded to end a dramatic game seven of the NLCS at Shea last Thursday night, it got so quiet you could hear the Cardinals celebrate on the field all the way up in the mezz.  The Wainwright hook paralyzed Beltran on 0-2 and home plate ump Tim Welke made the right call.  Jeff Suppan was brilliant for seven, Flores pitched a great eighth and Wainwright showed serious mettle to close it out despite getting into trouble. 

 

Unbelievably, some in the crowd of 56,357 headed for the exits after the Molina homer top nine, but after the Beltran strikeout to end the game, there were some that couldn’t leave until the ushers starting rousting folks out.  People cried.  People slumped in their seats.  Some lit up cigarettes. 

 

After Chavez robbed Rolen of a home run top six and doubled Edmonds off first, the crowd at Shea went more berserk than any other sports crowd I’ve witnessed since the 80’s.  Right before that, Willie Randolph went out to get Oliver Perez but left him in to face Rolen.  The crowd cheered.  In one night, Met fans made the Mexican left-hander one of their favorites because he had come ready to throw flames in a high-pressure environment.  When Chavez bailed out Perez with one of the greatest catches in post-season history, there was the feeling that it was a Met night.  Then Rolen throws a ball away the bottom half of that same inning and the bases are loaded and the stage is set. 

 

But Jose Valentin, who was 6 for 33 in the post-season, struck out and Chavez tried to hit a home run and flew out.  Readers know what happened late, but you wonder if Aaron Heilman would have pitched the ninth if Wags hadn’t stunk in games two and six?

 

Heilman (pictured above) was overpowering in the eighth.  He had only pitched a single inning in 10 of his previous 11 outings.  But because of Wagner’s shakiness the previous night, Willie decided to let Heilman go another frame.  It didn’t work.  After striking out Edmonds, Rolen cracked a single to set up the Molina at-bat that ended with the ball in the Cardinal bullpen in right-field.

 

The 97-win regular season and sweep of the Dodgers had Met fans hungry for a showdown with the Tigers despite starting pitching woes.  But in the end, aside from the Trax disaster in game three, the starting pitching held up well.  It was Wags and Mota that blew game two – the key game in the series.  It was Willie’s decision to go with Mota too long in game two.  There were blown clutch hitting opportunities and D-Wright had a bad series. 

 

Luckily, there’s nothing really to second guess about what went down in game seven.  I mean, I guess you could question Willie’s decision to use Cliff Floyd in the ninth with guys on first and second nobody out.  Floyd never should have been on the LCS roster with what was described a near-severed left Achilles tendon.  But Willie probably had visions of Floyd hitting a homer a la Kirk.  Instead, he struck out.  We heard some say that Glavine should have batted and bunted the runners over.  Who knows.  Floyd’s presence on the LCS roster put a crimp on the Met bench as did the no-hit presence of Anderson Hernandez. 

 

As we walked out of the stadium with the Heilman jersey still on, just one fan made a crack.  Entering the seven train station in a steady rain, one foul-mouthed fella said Heilman would go 3-17 with the Royals next year as a starter and inserted the obligatory expletives for good measure. 

 

Aside from Floyd, Valentin and Trax, it looks like most everybody will be back next year.  The next four months will fly by, spring training will start and we’ll be back in the upper reaches of Shea next April to do it all over again.  Hot stove talk is hot in New York straight through the hiatus.  Let’s hope Heilman can bounce back mentally and doesn’t blame himself.  He was great much of the way and he did everything asked of him. 

 

TSR had a lot of great fun at home and on the road watching the Amazins – most of those games with Heckler Bob – and on the road trips to Beantown, Denver and Pittsburgh with Jackie and Leo.  Our memories of the 2006 season will last a long time and it is TSR’s hope that the 2007 Mets will take it to the next level. 

 

-Tony LaRussa’s message to baseball fans upset about Kenny Rogers and the alleged dab of pine tar below the pitcher’s left thumb is simple:  Yeah, it’s cheating - but baseball is a game that requires a measured and professional response to the age-old tradition of doctoring a baseball.  LaRussa had seen the video and had heard the whispers during the recent Rogers run of success.  The dark dab is as plain as what one would see on the forehead of a Catholic on Ash Wednesday.  But instead of going to the mound, getting Rogers ejected and suspended for the rest of the Series, LaRussa got word to Rogers that the dab must be removed immediately.  It was.  And Rogers still pitched brilliantly. 

 

Would the Cards have won with a Rogers first-inning ejection?  Maybe.  But LaRussa is old-school.  He’s had players of his own who may have sought an advantage outside of the rules.  He’s tight with Leyland.  Other managers would have made an issue of it in the first inning with a World Series game on the line.  LaRussa is different.  And ultimately, in this situation, he probably handled it about as professionally as one could.

 

10-23-06 1735     

 

Just back from game seven, and you all saw it.  Wouldn't you know it, but as we sit here, the photo processing software on the computer here at TSR HQ has crashed and we've gotta get up in a few hours to catch a train to Beantown for a big wedding.  So, we'll just say that it was a memorable evening in Flushing and our hats our off to Suppan, Molina and the Redbirds.  We wore our Heilman jersey tonight in the green seats and with a few exceptions, most everyone on the way home didn't say anything about #48.  The Chavez catch was something we'll never forget and Oliver Perez pitched his heart out.  It was a great season, and despite losing to a team that the Mets should have beat, there's a foundation loaded with great young players and there's much to feel positive about. 

 

We will be back in a few days with more to say.  Enjoy the World Series. 

 

10-20-06 0125

 

Well, here we go to a huge game seven tonight at the old dump on Flushing Bay for a baseball game with everything on the line.  Winner goes to the Motor City.  It’s been an exhausting, illness-inducing last week as we’ve tried to pull for the team with depleted starting pitching into a spot in which the fierce Met lineup carries the load.  Jose Reyes finally got his wheels going and led the charge in a big elimination game.  Young John Maine, who has been living in the Ramada right by the ballpark, did a great job.  Willie made the unusual decision to let Mota face Duncan in a pinch and it worked.  Everything Randolph did worked.  He exuded confidence before the game announcing Detroit travel plans and giving individual player hugs without ra-rah speeches.  And here we go.  A big game seven in the big city.  TSR will have an aluminum bottle of Bud in one hand and a fanny in the upper reaches at Shea on the edge of the seat.  Perez v. Suppan.  All hands on deck.  55-grand in Queens hoping for magic.

 

10-19-06 0001

 

The Lou Piniella hire at Wrigley seems to insure that the Cubbies are not going to take the patient, build-from-the bottom-and-within approach that would have diverged from recent failed efforts to win now.  Joe Girardi was a better fit for a franchise that needs a teacher.  Piniella got his payday during three miserable seasons in Tampa and is now in the twilight of his career.  He’s 63, and if you listen to him on the Fox telecasts, he’s nowhere near as coherent as Girardi.  He’ll flip his lid once in a while, and the crowd that goes to Cubs games these days will love Piniella’s antics.  But Piniella is an over-the-hill skipper who will likely demand a loosening of the Tribune’s purse-strings and support free agent pursuits rather than a more concerted organizational approach that nurtures young talent.  Perhaps Piniella can persuade A-Rod to drop his no-trade and let Rodriguez move back to his preferred position at the Friendly Confines?  

 

Wonder if there will be an explanation for why the Cubbies bypassed Girardi, because he seemed to be the logical choice.  And do you think Joe Torre gets additional comfort now in knowing that the candidate to replace him is now locked up in Chicago?

 

-Not sure if you saw the tape, but it was clear that Bill Parcells was shaking his head on at least one of TO’s TD celebrations yesterday.  It was a public repudiation of his crazed star pass-catcher who spent the week before embroiled in controversy that’s not even worth detailing.  This much is clear:  Parcells does not like TO.  Parcells pal Mike Francesca tacitly confirmed this today by saying he wouldn’t divulge the Parcells position on Owens but said that the head-shaking in Irving yesterday said a lot about the Tuna’s take on T-O.  

 

-Rain is in the forecast for St. Lou tonight.  A postponement helps Tommy Glavine avoid a start on three days rest but does it cool the Met bats that heated up last night?  The series is tied at 2 now and is coming back to New York no matter what.  This isn’t a bold statement, but we’ll say that whoever wins game five wins this series.

 

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When they cued up Enter Sandman in the top of the ninth of NLCS game two, it didn’t sound right.  Wags is the kinda closer who seems to thrive only in strict save situations.  Tied at six, Willie had already burned through most of his options and it’s not unusual to insert your closer late in a tie game at home.

 

It’s not a second guess, because if he had inserted his only remaining viable option – Roberto Hernandez – and Hernandez gets lit up – then everybody would have said:  “why didn’t you put in Wags?” 

 

So, you know what happened.  Taguchi took Wags deep and then Pujols, Spezio and Encarnacion piled on and sucked the life out of the building on Flushing Bay.  Final 9-6 St. Louis with the series tied going west for three in a row.  The headline in the Post blared:  “Billy Goat.”  Fans booed Wagner when Willie gave him the belated hook 24 pitches into the outing.  But make no mistake:  Wags is no goat.  He may have some kind of block connected to mental approaches in non-save situations, but he’s been a solid closer for the Mets.  Those who booed him are just a slice of the Met fandom and they’re not acting rationally. 

 

As we said yesterday before the game, Met manager Willie Randolph has come a bit undone, straying from the bullpen blueprint that worked like clockwork in the second half.  He suddenly has blind faith in Mota, and has forgotten about the stone-faced Heilman and his sure-fire reliability.  Really, that’s what cost the Mets the game last night.  Mota should have been pulled either after the Pujols single or the Edmonds walk with two out in the seventh.  It was more than evident by then that Mota was floundering.  Yet Heilman had barely even begun to warm up.  Why?

 

 And as TSR opined a few days ago, the decision to put Cliff Floyd on the roster for the LCS has turned out to be a bad one.  Ben Shpigel of the Times reports that Cliffy is available for pinch-hitting duty but “there is a chance that Floyd’s Achilles tendon could snap at any point.”  Shpigel says Floyd’s delicate situation has created more than just a one-man deficiency:  “They are unwilling to use Ramon Castro, their only backup catcher as a pinch-hitter, and Anderson Hernandez, a reserve infielder, is a very modest hitter.  So, in a sense, the Mets are not down to 24 players, but to 22.”

 

Last night, Willie used Tucker, Franco and Anderson Hernandez as pinch-hitters.  None of the three have looked that great at the plate in recent weeks. 

 

Attendance was announced at 56,349.  The number 7 train ran with greater frequency going Flushing-bound before the game on what is a busy rush hour on the rails even without the ballgame.  The MTA deserves credit for backing up their pledge of adding service to accommodate baseball fans. 

 

A TSR pal got us into an MLB “reception” after the game.  The tough Met loss dampened the festivities a bit but they served beef and chicken on skewers and had unlimited Bud products sitting in tubs of ice.  The best part of the party was that it was held in a tent behind left field adjacent to Gate A and an open gate near the road team bullpen provided access to the playing field.  It wasn’t clear if Met officials approved of our presence on the field, but nobody said anything as we walked the length of the warning track and attempted to recreate Shawn Green’s attempt to haul in Spezio’s screaming liner in the seventh. 

 

Tonight it’s Trax v. Suppan with the series tied at one.  The momentum meter is tilted toward Red.  But no matter what – no matter the ups and downs – the fatigue – the drama swings – it sure is nice to cheer for a team playing in October.

 

10-14-06 1509

 

Has Guillermo Mota displaced Aaron Heilman as the top Met set-up guy?  That’s how manager Willie Randolph played it last night, handing the ball to Mota starting the eighth to bridge the gap between Tommy Glavine and Billy Wagner.  With a 2-0 lead in the late innings, that situation usually followed a strict script the entire second half of the season and into the post-season.  But it appeared Heilman never got up in the bullpen.  Mota was solid, retiring the bottom two of the Card lineup before walking Eckstein and then getting Preston Wilson to pop up. 

 

A reporter asked Willie in the post-game news conference why he went Mota instead of Heilman in the eighth?  “Just trying to win the ballgame.  (Mota) was warm, ready to go.  I trust him.  When you get into the playoffs, you’re thinking situations, you’re trying to win the ballgame.”  Will the decision by Randolph be viewed as a snub by Heilman who seems to suddenly overlooked and underappreciated at key junctures?  Or was Randolph saving Heilman for the battles that are sure to brew since Wednesday’s rainout eliminated the travel day and has forced to two NL teams to play five nights in a row? 

 

Big Al Pujols made a bad baserunning blunder and was chippy with the media throng afterwards.  “I can’t make a mistake?  Am I perfect?”  Nobody’s perfect, but reporters are gonna ask how such a reliable star could zone out with a big lead off first on a fly ball that was sure to be caught.  Pujols was so ornery after the game that he discredited the performance by Glavine.  “He wasn’t good.  He wasn’t good at all…He did the same thing he always does.  Throw a changeup, a fastball, and that was it.  I just think we should have done a better job than we did.” 

 

St. Louis has its ace on the mound tonight for a game two that will start in windy, 40-degree weather.  A win by the Cards tonight and the series goes to St. Louis for three games – all of which will likely feature starting pitching edges for the Redbirds.  Glavine is positioned to pitch in game six on normal rest with the buzz last night indicating that Willie may turn to Darren Oliver for a game five start.

 

10-13-06 1120 

 

The fast-moving story on the Upper East Side of Manhattan took on a pretty big scope this afternoon when two key facts emerged mid-afternoon.  In no discernible order, an official at Teterboro airport revealed that the Cirrus single-engine aircraft involved in the incident was registered to Yankee pitcher and free-agent to-be Cory Lidle.  And then a New York City official said Lidle’s passport was found at the crash scene.  In deference to a yet-to-be notified family that included a wife and a son, NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg conducted a news conference that included numerous details about the crash but a refusal to confirm Lidle’s death.  But by that time, the media swarm had declared Lidle dead.  At

 

Mike Francesca and Chris Russo were doing their afternoon radio show at Shea and immediately weighed in.  Both were shocked and stunned, largely because they had a 14-minute confrontation with Lidle on Monday’s radio program about comments made by the pitcher regarding the Yanks’ post-season preparedness level (archived audio of the exchange remains up on the WFAN web site). 

 

Lidle’s Yankee career was a short one, and he was likely headed elsewhere next season.  But he’ll be best remembered in this city for his quote-ability and frankness.  Tyler Kepner’s story about Lidle’s fascination with flying – which appeared in print in the Times just a month ago – was fresh in the mind when today’s story broke. 

 

Coming out of the

 

But what is maddening is that MLB had already postponed the game.  You likely won’t get this info from mainstream media, but a TSR source close to the decision-making process said MLB had already made up its mind to postpone game one by 6 PM.  They waited until just before

 

Why the one-hour gap in the official release of the postponement information?  MLB needed time to try to cajole the Tigers to move the start time for Friday’s ALCS game

 

Most frustrating though is that when MLB finally announced tonight’s postponement, they had not completed the logistics on start times for Friday’s games.  Currently, the MLB web site says the start time for NLCS game two is “to be determined.”  The Tigers web site says its game Friday will start at

 

The net effect on the baseball field could be advantage Redbirds.  Chris Carpenter, who last pitched Sunday, now can go Friday in game two.  Suppan can go in game one, and the New York-averse Jeff Weaver can now pitch at home in game three.

 

10-11-06 2036 

 

Everybody is picking the Mets to beat the Redbirds but think a little deeper, baseball fans.  The starting rotation for the Mets remains in tatters from the loss of Pedro and El Duque.   

 

The Met pitching staff coasted through its series with the Dodgers mostly from huge bullpen assistance.  Maine and Trax failed to get out of the fifth.  The Mets didn’t need fourth starter Oliver Perez and got a great start from Glavine.  In a seven-game set with the Birds, that good fortune may change.  The bullpen will be relied upon heavily, and yeah, maybe it continues to be great.  But it’s a bit much to continue to expect fourth inning bailouts from the middle-men.

 

Tom Glavine has the clear edge in tonight’s matchup with Jeff Weaver, but after that, the starting rotation favors St. Louis. 

 

St. Louis catcher Yadier Molina is a good bet to snuff out the Met running game.  Molina could be a huge factor.  If somehow the Cards snatch a game one victory, it’ll be a tough road for the Mets.

 

Met skipper Willie Randolph made two huge in-game mistakes against the Dodgers and got bailed out by both miscues.  He inexplicably let reliever Guillermo Mota bat for himself with the bases loaded in game one, apparently more interested in squeezing an ineffective inning out of the lanky reliever rather than scoring runs in a tight affair. 

 

And then in game three, he let lefty Darren Oliver face Jeff Kent with a man on up by two.  Kent crushes lefties and he crushed Oliver.  Willie should have brought in a righty, or you could even argue he could have walked Kent to get the statistical edge against the left-handed batter Drew. 

 

Willie does some curious stuff.  It didn’t matter in the division series.  But now he goes against a skipper who has been around the block and seems to push the right button most times. 

 

So, we’re not gonna predict, but we’re gonna hope for a Met series victory to take the team from Queens one step closer to a title.  The power of the Met lineup is great, but at some point this post-season the starting pitching will turn into a problem.  St. Louis may have struggled down the stretch, and you wonder about whether they’ll be able to preserve late-inning leads.  But we’re seeing red over this matchup and we’re just gonna sit back and enjoy. 

 

-You wonder if Omar and Willie are being over-emotional/sentimental in keeping Cliff Floyd on the post-season roster.  He can’t run a lick on a damaged left achilles and Endy Chavez has demonstrated he can play left at a high level while contributing top-notch small ball.  Cliffy should have been left off with Lastings Milledge gaining the spot.  That way, you’ve got a guy with pop that can run in a pinch and you go with Chavez in left.  Instead, Floyd is on, Ring was dropped and Anderson Hernandez is added for what?  Defense at second?

 

-It’ll be interesting to see what Bud Selig and MLB does with tonight’s game one of the NLCS at Shea.  A light rain is expected to fall straight through the evening hours.  A week ago, fifty-thousand Yankee fans gathered in the Bronx for game two of the ALDS, and waited until

 

This situation could be different from the standpoint that we may not see any heavy showers.  Does MLB want to play a critical game one in a persistent, light rain?  Or do they use Friday’s travel day to make it up?  The weather forecast is clear, dry and cold for Friday.  We’re told by a scheduling insider that tickets for tonight’s game would be honored Friday in the event of a postponement tonight.  That would allow game two ticket-holders to avoid impact.

 

10-11-06 1325  

 

It’s only a hundred miles away, but for whatever reason we hadn’t been to the city of brotherly love since becoming a New Yorker.  But it was brotherly love that took us down there last evening for a night on the town.  TSR’s youngest brother was wrapping up a week of business at Philly’s convention center so we made the easy trip on the rails.  Amtrak goes there, and one-way fares range anywhere from $42 on the regional train up to $109 on the Acela Express which can get you there in an hour and ten minutes. 

 

But if you’re not in a hurry and don’t mind an easy transfer in Trenton, the cheapest way to go is New Jersey Transit with a connection to the SEPTA train.  It’s only $18.50 one-way and will take you about two and a half hours from New York’s Penn Station to Philly’s

30th Street
Station.  That’s how TSR made the trip and it was seamless and pleasant both ways with impressive fall colors on display especially in the vicinity of New Brunswick.

 

We had dinner at the Continental on Second and Market.  A good stiff martini started things out as we sat outside on a warm October evening.  The service and food both were top-notch. 

 

We stopped by the Khyber and took advantage of that legendary establishment’s happy hour featuring one-buck domestics. 

 

And then it was off to a Philly outpost (the 11th and Walnut location) of the Atlantic City institution The Irish Pub.  Not near as festive or historic as the AC location, we watched the Monday night football game and sampled the mediocre chili and cheese fries.  The ease and low expense of the rail trip to a city loaded with fun places and sports venues has us thinking we may return someday soon. 

 

-Items in both Philly papers this morning reported a scary acknowledgement by the Philadelphia Eagles organization that a “lateral vibration” on an exit ramp at Lincoln Financial Field is causing that ramp to “sway” as fans leave the stadium.  The Philadelphia Daily News reported that one fan leaving Sunday’s victory over the Cowboys said the ramp leading down from section 231 swung four feet in either direction and some fans lost their balance.  In a news release from the Eagles cited by the Philly Daily News, the team said:  “This is not uncommon in large structures that accommodate large numbers of people.”

 

At Shea, a sway can be felt as a disconcerting up and down bouncing sensation when the Mets do something big on the field.  And we were in the Stick when the quake of ’89 violently shook the building and bended the walls.  So, we buy into the idea that a concrete and steel structure can absorb seismic or fan-induced activity.  But it is nonetheless a concern when you hear what’s coming out of Philly.  I mean, it’s only natural when you’re standing on concrete a couple hundred feet above ground level to want a feeling of solidness beneath you.

 

-It’ll be interesting to see how News baseball scribe Billy Madden removes the egg from his face after confirmation from the Boss today that Joe Torre is staying put as Yankee skipper.  Madden reported in Sunday’s edition of the paper that Torre was about to get the ax and was to be replaced by Lou Pinella.  His story was assembled in a shoddy fashion but its credibility wasn’t questioned because Madden is tight with Steinbrenner.  Was Madden misled by a confused and aging Boss?  Or was Madden so desperate for a scoop that his report was a hunch play?  The latter scenario is a journalistic offense that few newspapers would tolerate.  But when it comes to New York tabloids, the traditional ethics often don’t apply.

 

10-10-06 1814

 

As is typical in these type situations, the New York tabloids are playing hunches rather than reporting facts on the future of Yankee manager Joe Torre.  Bill Madden of the Daily News started the irresponsible chain of events with his item Sunday morning that said that George Steinbrenner was furious and would likely replace Joe with Lou Pinella.  Madden’s report didn’t state definitively that Torre faced imminent and final termination, but said his firing was “expected.”  The source for his report?  “Sources.” 

 

The Post waited an extra day and its double-byline item from Joel Sherman and George King today says Steinbrenner is “leaning toward firing” Joe according to “sources.” 

 

The Yanks and Steinbrenner have said no decision has been made.  Heck, given the current physical/mental state of Steinbrenner, it may not even be the Boss that truly makes the final call. 

 

Six playoff failures the last six years with the highest payroll in baseball might be starting to offset Torre’s four World Series wins in his first five years at the Yankee helm.  But the Yankee brass needs to consider whether the post-season meltdowns ought to be blamed on the sure-fire Hall of Fame manager.  And the Yankee brass, apparently led these days by Steinbrenner’s son-in-law, should deliberate whether a hot head like Lou can handle the day-to-day glare in New York as well as the cucumber-cool Joe. 

 

Torre has a year left on his deal, and he’s been through this wind-twisting with George before.  He must alternately chuckle and groan at the hub-ub.  Even his old ally Mike Francesca was green-lighting his firing on the air yesterday morning. 

 

But is there a better guy to preside over a dysfunctional stable of over-paid stars?  For eleven years, Torre has calmly juggled egos and watched as his best friends and coaches have been pushed out the door by an unstable owner.  Torre never flies into a rage or betrays the guys in his clubhouse.  Maybe it’ll be a relief for Torre to see the end.  His legacy is cemented and he’ll be a hero in this town no matter what happens going forward.  The decision for the Yankees is whether they truly believe anybody can do it better than Joe. 

 

In the end, perhaps the best way to go is to let Sheffield and Mussina walk.  Find a different shrink for A-Rod and deny all trade offers for him.  Sign a Zito or a Schmidt and let Hughes step into the rotation.  Keep the payroll high and get younger incrementally with the knowledge that shakeups are impossible with the current collection of bad contracts. 

 

Our sports book has made the Tigers a slight favorite to beat the A’s in the ALCS.  To win a hundo, one would have to lay down 115 mussels on Detroit. 

 

-We don’t find the Mellencamp “sellout” troubling because his spot for Chevy is actually pretty good.  I mean, we know where the Indiana boy stands on most things and the commercial doesn’t really do anything to remove legitimacy from his body of work.  Not sure he really needs the cash knowing he’d take a hit, but it must be a ton of dough.

 

10-9-06 1046 

 

Tommy was terrific, Chavie stepped up, and old man Franco legged out what looked like a double-play ball in a neat and easy 4-1 win for the Mets in game two of their division series with Dodger Blue.  Now up two games to none, the Mets are on the brink of advancing to the LCS just 48 hours after the team was racked by doom and gloom. 

 

With El Duque and Pedro out for the season, Met fans were in a panic about how the rotation would hold up minus its two key pieces.  John Maine was adequate in game one, and Tommy Glavine was excellent last night giving the Mets a cushion headed to the left coast.  It’s a cushion the Mets may need.  Trax is coming off a long layoff and an undisclosed personal issue when he goes tomorrow night against Maddux.  After that, the starters for games four and five (if necessary) are up in the air. 

 

With a brisk Northeast wind at a packed Shea last night, you had a feeling that small-ball was in order.  Endy Chavez – starting in right in place of the less-energetic Shawn Green – reached on a bunt in the third, and then took second on a wild pitch elicited through the patience of Glavine at the plate.  Glavine then got Chavie over to third on a swinging bunt that turned the ball into a dead-mouse in front of the plate.  Jose Reyes then did his job with a ground out to score Chavez. 

 

More small ball in the fifth when two sacrifices scored Jose Valentin.  And then the key play in the sixth came with one out and the bases loaded with Mets.  48-year-old Julio Franco pinch-hit for Glavine and hit what looked like a sure double-play ball to short.  Furcal to Lugo to Kent that came up a split second late because Franco was flying down the line.  One run scored on the play and it allowed Reyes to drive in another right after.  It was a 4-0 lead that held up except for Heilman’s no-harm gopher ball to Wilson Betemit. 

 

Furcal, Lofton and Nomar have gone 3 for 23 in the series and now Garciaparra is limping.  He was lifted in the sixth after re-injuring his left quad.  You’d expect the gamer would play tomorrow, but he’s really limited with his movement. 

 

There was 57,029 in the house and the upper deck was bouncing at times.  The Yankee loss earlier in the afternoon added to the glee.  The crowd was loud although it’s clear that many of those who are along for the post-season ride have crawled out of the woodwork and did some recent shopping at the Mets clubhouse shop.  One fan near us in the upper deck boxes last night said he had never known about the existence of Cowbell Man.

 

The line to get on the subway was slow going, so our pal Mike recommended that we re-enter the ballpark and hit the Diamond Club for a couple rounds.  On the way in, we walked right past Jerry Seinfeld and his pal Matthew Broderick.  Without seeking permission, we snapped a photo.  The flash caught Jerry’s eye and he threw a glance of annoyance in the direction of TSR.  Unfortunately, in our haste to take a quick picture, the auto-focus failed to kick in. 

 

Nearing

 

10-6-06 1241 

 

Japanese horse racing fans stormed the legendary Longchamp Racecourse in Paris this past weekend to see Japan’s star equine Deep Impact come up short in the Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe.  Roughly one of every four in the crowd of fifty-thousand-plus that packed Longchamp on Sunday was waving a Japanese flag, cheering for Deep Impact and wagering big money on the superhorse from Japan.  Wagering numbers on-site smashed the all-time record.  As the field of eight left the gate, Deep Impact was bet down to 2-5 and the more accomplished Hurricane Run and Shirocco were off at 4-1 and 6-1 respectively.  We liked the three-year-old son of Galileo- Sixties Icon- who had the benefit of wise veteran jockey Frankie Dettori as his pilot.  The owners of Sixties Icon paid sixty-thousand Euros to get into the Arc, and he was coming off a nice win in Britain three weeks earlier.  His win price was hovering in the 30-1 range as we plunked down a hundred Euros on Sixties Icon about a half-hour before the race. 

 

But to the surprise of many, it was French trainer’s Andre Fabre third-stringer Rail Link who made a big late move with a furlong and a half to go to win at about 25-1.  Another longshot – Pride - also had late run to finish second as the top two’s tactics left Deep Impact short a length and a half in third.  It caused a large portion of the crowd on a beautiful late afternoon to groan.  But credit goes to the Japanese fans who took the defeat without a ruckus.  Sixties Icon finished seventh. 

 

Deep Impact will now go back to Japan to prepare for another high stakes race against weaker competition on his home turf late this year.  Fabre says Rail Link will pass on the Breeder’s Cup turf and sit out the rest of the season.  But he says Shirocco will end up in Louisville the first Saturday in November to defend his Cup Turf title.

 

Deep Impact’s strong support from Japanese fans was great to see.  He is truly loved by the country he runs in and a large contingent made what you’d think is a long and difficult trip to Paris to see him run in the Arc.  We saw that kind of star treatment with Smarty Jones and to a lesser extent Funny Cide and Cigar in the US and it shows that horse racing fans can get attached to a winning race horse. 

 

Deep Impact’s Japanese fans skewed the on-track betting pool so disproportionate to his true chance of winning, it made for an excellent wagering opportunity.  TSR didn’t capitalize, although my cousin’s boyfriend had ten Euros on the winner and walked away with a smile. 

 

Longchamp was beautiful.  Free shuttle buses from three Paris Metro stops seemed to work well.  We took the one from Porte D’Auteuil.  It was just eight Euros to get in to the track and large stretches of marble steps were available to sit on as part of the general admission.  The steps got crowded and uncomfortable as the day went on, so we wandered and inspected the facility.  We purchased a Racing Post which is the British equivalent of the Daily Racing Form.  The Racing Post has a confusing past performance presentation that annoyingly cross references horses that appear in identical prior races.  We had been told by some racing fans that the Racing Post was superior to the Racing Form, but our first impression had us thinking the opposite.

 

Even so, the Racing Post was a lifesaver on a day when use of the French language was mandatory and at times, suffocating.  Betting was a bit tricky.  Luckily, the Racing Post had a little guidance box that told English speakers how to phrase their bet requests in French.  Betting machines appeared to take action only on the exotics and there were no pick threes or fours.  So we would get in line before each race and then place win bets (gagnant) on a single horse with a human teller.  Aside from Sixties Icon, our other big play came in the Prix de l’Opera, a Group 1 for the world’s best grass fillies.  We bet big on short-priced three-year-old Alexandrova, a pretty Irish daughter of the great Sadler’s Wells.  She must have wanted more distance, because she never really threatened, finishing third.  Mandesha won. 

 

Behind the main grandstand, a beautiful backyard (pictured above) included numerous stands selling champagne/beer, sandwiches, waffles and strange-looking orange-colored frankfurters.  The paddock/saddling area was easily accessible to all customers and the grounds were perfectly kept.  Aside from the large Japanese contingent, there were large numbers of fans from the UK.  The beer stands sold 1664, a product from the Kronenbourg Brewery in France.  It had a sharp, pleasant taste. 

 

Overall, we’re more comfortable betting on horses at facilities in which we can lay down money using the native tongue with a wagering menu that includes multi-race props.  But the beauty of Longchamp and the enthusiasm of the international crowd made it a memorable experience. 

 

The same can be said about Paris.  We stumbled our way through parts of the city with an extremely limited ability to communicate with the natives.  Luckily, our cousin led the way on most transactions including several wonderful meals at neighborhood brasseries which dominate the dining landscape.  The Paris Metro system offers frequent service and takes you quickly to most parts of the city.  The trains were crowded, in part due to a seating configuration which wastes space and sacrifices comfort.  But public transit is the way to go in a city with high energy and architecture that dazzles from its age, uniformity and upkeep.  Many of the residents’ living quarters include fresh flowers on narrow ledges and large windows which open inward.  The river Seine winds through the city which creates a huge set of natural spots for romantics to gather and sip wine.

 

Our side trip to Brussels to eat mussels was a success.  A high-speed train on the rail carrier Thayls took us from Paris to Brussels in 85 minutes.  An eight-hour flight from Brussels to New York went off without a hitch. 

 

Nice to be back on home soil and tonight we head to Shea to see if the Mets can hit a lefty and retain the home field advantage.

 

10-5-06 1800

 

What to make of the Mets right now?  They’ve lost seven of the last eight, look listless at the plate and their crying ace has declared himself unfit for the role envisioned for him when he was made the cornerstone of the franchise.  Pedro got rocked last night as his floating off-speed pitches lounged over the middle of the plate.  He kept looking to the upper deck – and then to the sky for help.  But his trunk (the parts of his lower body critical for push-off) is failing him.  He’s not the same Pedro and he’s crushed.  It is overwhelming him emotionally and perhaps it is impacting the psyche of the whole team. 

 

Pedro’s post-game comments included bitterness and deep frustration that make you wonder what happens with him the rest of the way.  If his performance wasn’t enough evidence, he flat-out said he wouldn’t be ready to go in game one but lobbied to stay on the post-season roster.  He offered his services as a reliever.  But what was a little disconcerting was a verbal shot at the team’s effort to get him ready for the post-season.  Said Pedro:  “At this point, I should probably be pitching a rehab game somewhere, and I’m doing it in the big leagues and putting my numbers in jeopardy, putting everything in jeopardy, putting myself in jeopardy by doing it this way.”  It’s five days from the start of the post-season and Pedro is worried about his “numbers.”  

 

What needs to happen is for this team to finish out the regular season with passion and effort before returning to a packed Shea Stadium to do battle with whichever team in a tussle makes it to the post-season and draws New York in the first round.  You go El Duque, Glavine, Trax and Maine and you take your best shot.  It’s not going to be easy, but this is a team that showed great toughness for long stretches. 

 

-TSR has its suitcase packed and is getting on a bird to Paris tonight for this weekend’s big gathering of the world’s thoroughbred racing community at Hippodrome de Longchamp.  On Sunday, they will run the Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe and several other high-stakes grass races on the banks of the Seine. 

 

The Arc is considered by many to be the biggest, most important horse race in the world.  You may get an argument on that point from horse racing fans in this country who gather annually the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs in Louisville.  Either way, TSR eagerly anticipates its first ever visit to a European race track for what should be a spectacular afternoon of gambling on foreign soil. 

 

Defending Arc champ Hurricane Run is the likely post-time favorite for the featured event.  His presence and current form has scared away several potential challengers with a short roster of eight expected.  The field will include Japanese super-horse Deep Impact and last year’s Breeder’s Cup turf winner Shirocco.  The connections of Ouija Board, among the greatest female horses of all time, have decided to pass on the Arc    Ouija Board’s trainer Ed Dunlop said he was concerned about what could be a very soft turf course with lots of rain forecast for Paris the next few days. 

 

TSR will be joined on the big trip by the man and woman who raised the TSR publisher along with a fun and favorite European-based cousin and her boyfriend.  We’ll have a day or two to see the sights in Paris, and then TSR will join Mom and Pops for a side trip to Brussels to eat mussels before returning a day or two after baseball’s post-season gets underway.  Perhaps by the time we return, the Mets will have a playoff win under their belts. A full report on the big trip when we get back.  Au Revoir.

 

9-28-06 1000 

 

It’s hard to make a definitive judgment on this latest Terrell Owens fiasco, but after watching the coverage throughout the afternoon, a few comments: 

 

-The fact that Owens went into the Cowboys media room after practicing with the team and said with a straight face that the police report was a mistake is a strong defense, even though the statement came from the crackpot himself.  Somehow, he presented himself as credible.  Not only did he appear fine physically, he worked out on the practice field.  Painkillers can do funny stuff.  When taken with other natural concoctions, who knows.  You’d think the attending physician can clear this up - and it’s surprising somebody who treated Owens has not stepped up yet. 

 

-Cowboys coach Bill Parcells doesn’t do the Dallas organization any good when he publicly expresses exasperation for several minutes on live national TV before waiting until this whole thing sorts itself out.  As highly entertaining as the Parcells news conference was, it only added fuel to the incident’s fire.  His intense display of frustration also added to the theory that Parcells never wanted any part of Owens and his constant circus act despite owner Jerry Jones’ belief that T-O could be a positive contributor to the team.

 

-It’s not unusual for some people who attempt suicide to fail, and fail miserably.  There are plenty of sure-fire ways to pull it off, but some of those who fail are seeking attention.  Some who fail have a change of heart.  Some of those folks may not even be trying to off themselves but are surrounded by people who think they’re at risk.  Owens’ publicist may have overreacted to the scene, and perhaps law enforcement did the same.  You’d think at some point very soon, if allowed to speak, a medical doctor who made contact with T-O at the hospital can reveal exactly what was in the receiver’s system when he arrived.  Police claim Owens says he was depressed.  T-O says he isn’t.  Maybe the truth never comes out.  Despite a broken bone in his right hand, and a day’s worth of hoopla questioning his mental fitness, Owens says he wants to play on Sunday.  It’s hard to picture that happening.  It’s very difficult really to predict where this story goes.  And whether T-O asked for this chaos or not, he sure got it.

 

9-27-06 1905

 

TSR’s final regular season Met game of the year lacked importance, but produced a milestone from free-agent-to-be Alfonso Soriano.  The Dominican second-baseman forced to start the season in left field to accommodate Jose Vidro hit a double in the fifth inning, his 40th  two-bagger of the season.  Soriano had already come to New York with 40 steals and 45 home runs. 

 

His 40th double made him the first player in history to put up 40’s in all three of those categories.  With an off night Thursday for the Nationals, Soriano was fittingly honored for his feat that evening by Jay Z at his “40-40” nightclub in Manhattan. 

 

Back in March, Soriano initially resisted the move to left field, but he has actually played the position ok.  Playing every day, Soriano committed just nine errors and threw out 21 baserunners, many who tested him early in the season.  His amazing offensive stats have come playing in a home ballpark not known for yielding easy offense. 

 

The conventional wisdom had Soriano being dealt prior to the trading deadline to help a contender down the stretch.  He could have brought the Nationals young players to rebuild with.  But when the Nationals failed to trade him, it made you wonder whether they’ll make a run at him this off-season. 

 

What is more definitive is that Nationals manager Frank Robinson is about to be handed his walking papers.  Working under a one-year deal, Robinson’s Nats are headed for a third straight last-place finish in the NL East.  Robinson has been classy during his stewardship of a team that made a move from Montreal to Washington with few resources along the way.  But various reports say that Nationals GM Jim Bowden has refused to discuss plans for the future with Robinson, and that’s not a good sign.   

 

The Nationals won the game last night 3-2 before a happy-to-be-there crowd of 42,788.  El Duque pitched a solid seven, striking out eight.  Reyes, LoDuca and Beltran watched the game from the bench.  Ricky Ledee hit a 435-foot home run that sailed past the loge seats in right field.  According to ESPN.com’s impressive “home run tracker,” it was the longest homer hit in the major league’s on Friday night. 

 

After a quick ride on the 7 and a stop for Korean noodles, we got home in time to see Joe Randa break up Chris Young’s no-no with a pinch-hit home run with one out in the ninth.  We then flipped over to see Vin Scully guide us through the end of a  Dodger nail-biter which included a JD Drew homer and another big hit from Marlon Anderson.   

 

As expected, Fox Sports made the purely ratings-driven decision to move Mets/Nats up to

 

9-23-06 1229 

 

If Florida Marlins owner Jeff Loria had any smarts, he’d put a stop to his organization’s trashing of a guy who could be NL manager of the year.  The report of Joe Girardi’s imminent termination in today’s Florida Sun-Sentinel contains multiple criticisms of the rookie manager from an unnamed source with connections to the front office.  Written by the Sun-Sentinel’s Mike Berardino, the story relies on a source who says Girardi is “introverted” and lacks “people skills.”  The source reels off specific in-game moves that bothered the front office including a recent decision to continue the outing of  rookie Josh Johnson after an 82-minute rain delay.  Johnson went on the shelf after the game in question with arm trouble. 

 

Girardi has two years and $1.5-million left on his deal - and the Marlins won’t have to pick up that tab if as expected he gets hired by the Cubs.  But if people in the Marlin front office keep bad-mouthing him, Girardi could make Florida pay him to sit at home.  You’d think Girardi is an automatic to get the Cubs job soon to be vacated by Dusty.  But then again, from a distance, you also thought Girardi was a lock to continue what’s been a pretty incredible job of re-building oversight with a roster of young players in Miami.

 

9-22-06 1432 

 

What a disappointment to discover this morning that US golf fans who turn on the Ryder Cup are watching tape-delayed coverage.   Radio and internet outlets are bombarding you with information.  Darren Clarke off the death of his wife gets hugs from Mickelson and DeMarco.  Furyk makes a big putt on nine.  Controversy is brewing about the pace of play.  Yet the USA network is turning the clock back four or five hours and running tape for its

 

The Ryder Cup web site offers a live video feed.  But you’re staring at this little box on your computer rather than the big box you’re used to looking at while watching a top sporting event. 

 

The European team has won the fashion matchup on day one, unveiling beautiful green sweaters over tan golf shirts and tan slacks.  The US team has decided to wear grey and white argyle sweaters with black pants, a misguided and drab get-up on a day when the sun is shining on the emerald isle.

 

The next Ryder Cup in two years will be played at Valhalla in Louisville and then Medinah four years after that.

 

9-22-06 0842 

 

College football writer Pete Thamel of the Times suggests in an item printed today that USC could escape any heavy-duty sanction despite serious allegations linking sports agents and cash with Reggie Bush.  Thamel quotes an unnamed veteran compliance officer at an unnamed university who says the NCAA doesn’t appear to be interested in punishing athletic programs outside of the south.  Thamel says the NCAA has a history of leniency with its “hallmark programs.”  Ohio State escaped punishment for serious claims associated with Maurice Clarett.  Thamel says the NCAA is virtually powerless to investigate players who have already left college because it has no subpoena power. 

 

The internet sports site run by Yahoo has driven the Bush story with a jaw-dropping series of allegations with multiple sources detailed in a story still up on the web.  Mainstream media has lagged far behind.  But Yahoo has documentation and witness statements that reel off an itemized list of money and benefits that went directly from guys interested in making money off Bush as a pro to Bush as an undergraduate.  In other words, Bush and his family got much-needed short-term financial relief knowing he would break the bank once he entered the NFL - allowing him to pay back his up-front backers in the form of employing them as agents.  Along the way, one agent got jilted and assisted in the Yahoo report. 

 

No matter how one feels about college athletes generating huge sums of money for university athletic departments all the while forced to live like a pauper, the bottom line is that the NCAA chooses to operate this way. And for that reason, it’ll be interesting to see whether USC gets cooked from what appears to be a gun with a lot of smoke coming out of it. 

 

-Our favored sports book has the European team at 4-5 to win its fifth Ryder Cup title in the last six tries.  The US was crushed in Bloomfield Hills two years ago.  New captain Tom Lehman has sought guidance from John Wooden and scheduled a charter outing to Ireland a month ago to build US team camaraderie – but the moves sound a bit forced and don’t exactly inspire confidence.  What’s needed in part is for Tiger to step up.  The greatest individual player in the world has a 7-11-2 Ryder Cup record.  

 

It’s easy to see that members of the European team really like one another.  Monte, Paddy, Luke and Sergio display a proper mix of intensity, spirit and boosterism that is conducive to this event.  They’ve artfully mastered the fantastic concept of team golf and have made the Ryder Cup something to be treasured by the sports fan. 

 

We’ll predict another European rout this time around.

 

9-18-06 1711 

 

TSR went to Pittsburgh Friday to celebrate a division title, but returned to New York with the magic number still stuck on one.  The Pirates knocked around Pedro in his return from a month-long stint on the DL.  Pirate starter Paul Maholm, a left-handed first-round pick out of Mississippi State, stymied the Met offense. He gave up just two hits in seven innings to lead the no-quit Bucs to a 5-3 victory.  The Mets have had trouble hitting lefties, batting just .255 against southpaws compared to .269 vs. righties.  Luckily, most potential playoff foes aren’t stacked with left-handed starters, but you gotta believe opposing managers have spotted the Met weakness.

 

When Pedro was removed from the game after 68 pitches and just three innings, he was seen in the Met dugout with his head in his hands and a concerned Willie Randolph trying to console him.  Met fans briefly wondered if their ace had re-injured his hip or calf.  Pedro appeared to be fighting back tears and then glumly slipped back to the clubhouse.  After the game, Pedro revealed that he was simply frustrated by the performance after working hard to return.  But one must understand that as bad as Pedro looked last night, the outing has to be considered in context.  It was essentially a rehab start that the Mets could afford to schedule in a big league contest because their lead is so large.  Pitching coach Rick Peterson had mapped out a three start progression leading up to Pedro’s first post-season outing - and while Pedro had major control issues last night, he reported no flare-up of any of his pains.  His widely-reported and televised drama on the bench and in the clubhouse afterwards is typical Pedro.  This is an extremely sensitive man who badly wants to perform at a high level in the postseason and he sees the regular season slipping away.  He internalizes the huge pressure and it seeped out a little last night.

 

Luckily, Randolph (pictured above reacting to Met fans chanting his name) has displayed great skill in handling the various complexities of his players’ personalities.  When you saw the tape of Willie putting his arm around Martinez at the end of the bench last night, you had a hard time picturing a guy like Art Howe or Bobby V. ever pulling off something like that.   

The turning point of the loss came in the fifth inning when home plate ump Jeff Kellogg rung up Paul LoDuca on a pitch that was at least eight inches off the inside edge of the strike zone.  It was 4-1 Pirates at the time with Met runners on the corners.  LoDuca went nuts and got booted.  Kellogg called it wide all night, although it seemed like he especially called it wide on Met hitters. 

 

At least one-third of the 24,410 in attendance were cheering for the Mets.  Many drove in from great distances east and it’s too bad the Mets didn’t win, because it would have been a fun party in and outside of the ballpark.  We couldn’t stay for the rest of the series, but our first-ever visit to PNC Park was enjoyable regardless.  Opened in 2001, the park seats 38,496 and is filled with fantastic quirks.  The mighty Alleghany River flows just past right field and your view in center is dominated by the beautiful Roberto Clemente Bridge.  The Alleghany separates PNC and neighboring Heinz Field from downtown Pittsburgh and its impressive skyline. 

 

We stayed at the Hyatt adjoining the airport and took the public 28X bus downtown for $2.25.  The 45-minute ride ends with a drop-off near the city’s Golden Triangle – a park that sits at the intersection of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers.  A safe and scenic pedestrian walkway on the Fort Duquesne bridge offers a breathtaking view of Heinz Field and lush hills to the west, and the rushing, muddy Alleghany below you.  Once across the river, PNC Park is just two blocks to your right.  An impressive statue of Clemente is located near the right field entrance.  He is also paid respect by the height of the right-field wall, which stands at 21 feet (Clemente wore #21). 

 

A half-dozen or so sports bars are located within a block of the park.  We downed a few at Hi-Tops, which must have some connection to the sports bar popular near Wrigley.  The wings were solid.  Twelve-ounce beers were four bucks.  After the game, the same tavern had changed personas with a decidedly different vibe that seemed less accommodating to the sports fan.  When we asked a burly bouncer if they were showing the Phillies/Astros game, he brushed the query aside with a thoughtless “don’t think so.” 

 

Turns out the Phils won that game to keep the magic number at one.  So, it’ll be up to El Duque (pictured above – always with a smile and gleaming eyes) tonight to get that champagne out of the boxes and the Cubans out of the humidor. 

 

-The big story dominating discussion in the city of Pittsburgh during our visit was the unlikely ascension of a 26-year-old city councilman to the position of mayor.  Luke Ravenstahl is the youngest mayor in the history of any major American city.  He got the job a few weeks back after the sudden brain cancer death of first-term mayor Bob O’Connor. 

 

-The other big item making news during our visit was the misdemeanor conviction of an area T-ball coach for ordering one of his young players to throw at and injure an autistic teammate.  Nine-year-old T-ball team member Keith Reese Jr. told a jury that his 29-year-old coach, Mark Downs of Dunbar offered him 25 bucks to hurt 11-year-old Harry Bowers Jr. 

 

Before a T-ball playoff game a year ago June, Reese says he threw a baseball that hit Bowers in the groin.  Not content with the damage it had done, Downs ordered Reese to “hit him harder,” which he did.  The second throw hit the mildly retarded child in the left side of the face and effectively knocked him out of the playoff game.  After seven hours of deliberations on Thursday, a jury convicted Downs of conspiracy to commit simple assault.  When Downs is sentenced on October 12, the judge should make sure that a prohibition on any kind of youth sports oversight is included in the punishment.

 

-High school football clearly dominates the sports scene.  More than a dozen Friday night games were carried on local radio stations.  Three full pages in the Saturday Post-Gazette recapped the action including news that Bill Bair of the Mars High School Fightin’ Planets ran for 300 yards in a 41-35 loss to Shenango. 

 

9-16-06 1442 

 

The Met magic number has finally reached a point that is easy to understand – and it has prompted TSR to make the rash decision to find an airplane that will take us to Pittsburgh on Friday.  So, TSR is again hitting the road for a first-ever visit to another ballpark.  We’ll file a full report about Pedro’s first start in a month, PNC Park and what could be a division clincher upon return on Saturday.  Hey, we gotta make it back in time to watch Louisville/Miami on the tube.

 

9-13-06 1819

 

Chicago mayor Richie Daley made a big mistake this week when he vetoed an ordinance that would force Wal-Mart to pay its workers ten bucks an hour and another three bucks in benefits by mid-2010.  Dubbed the “big-box” ordinance, the measure contained provisions that targets retail giants famous for exploiting its workforces and putting mom and pop stores out of business.  Wal-Mart’s formula is simple:  use vast purchasing power and a massive distribution network to sell goods on low-margin, hire cheap labor and thrive on its ability to handle large volume of customers hungry for simplicity and oblivious to the destruction of small business in their community. 

 

When Chicago’s City Council passed its “big-box” ordinance they were saying to Wal-Mart:  yeah, you can do business here – and we acknowledge your popularity – but we’re gonna impose a different standard on you because of your history of ruthlessness and hostility toward small business and indifference to your workforce.  Call it a “greed-tax,” if you will - with all the proceeds going directly into the pocket of the low-paid worker.  

 

Really, what makes any city or community great?  It’s a network of businesses owned and operated by the people who live there.  There’s greater accountability between business, citizen, and community when all are one and the same.  In Wal-Mart’s case, profits earned at the individual store get sucked out of the community to a large degree and perpetuate the Wal-Martization of this country.  Here, you have a city taking a stand, and the supposed blue-collar mayor blocks the move. 

 

Today, the city council failed to muster enough votes for a veto over-ride.  Bad job by Daley. 

 

-In the cruel world of NFL kickers, one bad week can mean career trouble.  After missing two short field goals and an extra-point in the season opener, Jets kicker Mike Nugent is on the ropes.  Rich Cimini of the Daily News reported today that the Jets brought in Paul Edinger, Owen Pochman and Tyler Jones for looksies at practice yesterday.  Edinger is a side-winder who can really boot it, although he couldn’t stick with the Vikes after a so-so season in the dome last year.

 

-We watched the opening couple of segments of the Today show this morning to see how Meredith Vieira would perform on her first day.  Two impressions:  First, it appears she brought her confident, blurt-it-before-thinking-it-through approach with her.  And that’ll get her into trouble at times.  But that’s cool, because it’ll make for good morning fare. And second, Matt Lauer appears to genuinely like her and seems to be glad to have a partner with a sharp wit.  Allesandra Staley is sure to have a lot to say when she pens a piece to appear in the Times tomorrow on the Vieria debut.

 

9-13-06 1822 

 

New Yorkers went to the polls today and found a Democratic ballot loaded with lopsided races.  Here in Jackson Heights, we hit our polling place on the way home from work and climbed the two flights at a neighborhood K through 12 charter school to cast our ballot.  At about

 

No identification is required.  You simply state your name and then sign the book.  If you need any help knowing what your signature ought to look like, it’s right there in the book for you to look at.  Then they hand you a card which is your ticket into this contraption that appears to be a hundred-years old.

 

New York has long neglected its voting machinery – and currently it is failing to meet federal mandates to update its system.  So, you walk into this booth with a big red handle, pull it to your right, and then begin turning knobs next to your favored candidates.  Often times, the handle to submit your selections is bent and as you exit the booth, you have doubts about whether your important effort and duty has been properly recorded.  Why not an ATM machine that records your votes – asks if you’re sure about them – and then spits out a receipt?  As long as the machines are free of outside interference and the tabulation data is verified independently?  All this talk about Diebold’s political alignments scares people, but there has to be a better way than these crazy antiques that we use to vote here in New York. 

 

In addition to the concern about the voting machines, today’s ballot was loaded with blowouts because well-financed candidates are trouncing their primary rivals in the polls.  It’s no wonder the voter feels disenfranchised. 

 

At least we had a hot local state senate race here to weigh in on.  Incumbent state senator John Sabini has faced a strong challenge from rising political star and city councilman Hiram Monserrate.  Sabini is a party activist popular within the organization.  He flooded TSR with taxpayer-funded mailings in recent months to boost his case outside of his own campaign efforts – a questionable tactic.  Monserrate comes off more as a regular guy – a Hispanic ex-cop, ex-marine who is visible in the community.  We turned the knob for Monserrate although we wouldn’t be surprised to wake up tomorrow to see the machine-backed incumbent with a bigger total. 

 

We also lodged a protest vote against Hillary who has shamelessly pitched a tent on middle-ground to boost her ’08 shot at the big prize.  She’s turned her back on New York Democrats who despite that will vote for her in droves as she seeks another six-year term in the US Senate.  We voted for her primary opponent, Jonathan Tasini – a capable fellow who mounted a serious campaign within a tight budget and clearly articulated his position on Iraq.  His motto was a “REAL Democrat for US Senate.”

 

-The announcement that the Chicago Wolves have snared Pat Foley to do its TV play-by-play is a major coup for the American Hockey League franchise.  Foley will join his old broadcast partner Billy Gardner to team on the Wolves’ telecasts.  It’s a surprising development for Foley - a guy who called NHL games for 25 years and seemingly could have named his next gig.  Instead of another NHL job, Foley will stay in Chicago to call minor-league games for a franchise that will no doubt benefit from the prestige that comes with a broadcaster that is considered among the best in the history of the sport.

 

Every single Wolves game is televised and while attendance dipped to about 8000 a game last season, this is a high-level minor league franchise.  Their aggressive marketing efforts have always made the Blackhawks uncomfortable and hiring Foley will add to that friction.  You wonder if that wasn’t a factor in Foley’s decision since he was unceremoniously dumped by the Hawks over money. 

 

The reports on Foley’s hiring today didn’t indicate the terms of Foley’s arrangement with the Wolves.

 

9-12-06 1707

 

A hand-written poster-board hanging outside one of the neighborhood churches today said:  “Come in and join us to pray for peace.”  It was not a message that this church normally promotes but today it was one of several reminders in this city that it was no ordinary, sunny, late-summer day. 

 

It seems like most people in this city know either somebody who evacuated from of the Trade Center five years ago to the day or failed to make it out.  Naturally, one’s thoughts turned to 9-11 from all the reminders of the anniversary on television, at the airport and as one circulated in a city that has struggled to bounce back. 

 

For all the big talk of resilience and toughness, the city really hasn’t bounced back completely.  Polls show that many citizens here since the attack are still impacted emotionally.  There’s growing evidence of horrible respiratory illnesses appearing in the men and women who worked at the site in the days and months of the dusty recovery effort.  And perhaps the worst symbol of the failure to rebound is inaction at the site itself.  It’s still little more than a concrete pit surrounded by chain-link fence to separate the gawkers and hawkers from a place that should already be booming again. 

 

 New York’s do-nothing Governor George Pataki has presided over five years of squabbling and zero building on a piece of prime real estate just a few blocks from Wall Street.  

 

The Times today had an excellent special section devoted to a lengthy analysis and recap of the horribly botched handling of the rebuilding effort.  A cross-section of key players agrees it is Pataki who bears the bulk of the blame for inaction at the site. 

 

When we watched the bagpipers on the local TV station walk down a concrete ramp into the undeveloped pit to launch the memorial service this morning, we wondered if the perpetrators and planners of the attack could have imagined their target’s slow and divisive pace to recover from their wicked act.

 

Living in this city, many citizens also wonder what those terror planners next have up their sleeve.  I mean, you don’t obsess about it – but when is the encore coming? 

 

We’ve been basically terror-free on home soil since 9-11 and it’s sure not vigilance and increased safeguards from the Department of Homeland Security that keeps us going day to day.  There are holes in our security system all over the place.  Why no exploding back-pack at Grand Central Station during morning rush?  There’s nothing to stop it, really.   

 

Some theorize the terror planners won’t execute a plan until they feel it can top 9-11.  Who knows.  But thinking about it – and worrying about it - brings us back to that sign outside the church.  It probably falls on deaf or non-existent ears, but perhaps a request for imposed peace from a higher power is the best way to go.

 

9-11-06 1824 

 

The problem with Greg Maddux these days is his endurance.  The guy can’t go deep in a ballgame any more. 

 

So, in Saturday’s 3-2 Dodger loss to the Mets, Maddux can’t complain about the questionable moves of his manager – or a bad ball/strike call by the home plate umpire if all the ex-Cub and ex-Brave can do is bring 72 pitches.  If Maddux toughs it out and stays in the game, the Dodgers probably would have won a crucial stretch-drive game. 

 

With the knowledge that his week ahead included an extra day’s rest, Maddux took a 2-1 lead into the sixth inning and appeared to be cruising.  But with one out, Maddux yielded a well-hit double to Jose Valentin and summoned Dodger skipper Grady Little to yank him despite the low pitch count.  Maddux says he was fatigued in part because of a run-down he got in the top half of that same inning.  So, Little had Maddux intentionally walk Carlos Beltran (mistake number one because you’re putting the go-ahead run on) and then replaced him with lefty reliever Tim Hamulack to face Carlos Delgado. 

 

Delgado hit a deep fly to center, and both Valentin and Beltran advanced a base.  So, now you’ve got David Wright coming up with first base open and runners at second and third with two out.  Baseball logic says you must walk Wright, who bats .380 with runners in scoring position.  It’s clear as day.  You walk Wright and let Hamulack face Shawn Green who is still feeling his way around in a Met uniform.  Little had already ordered the intentional walk putting on the lead run, but for some reason,  Little brought in Brett Tomko and decided to have him face Wright straight up. 

 

What does Wright do?  He rips a single to score Valentin and Beltran and give the Mets a 3-2 lead.  Home plate umpire Gerry Davis appeared to blow what should have been strike three on a two-two Tomko slider right down central.  The next pitch was a 96-mph fastball that Wright cracked.  Green then came up and struck out.  

 

El Duque pitched a solid seven for the Mets and got it to Heilman and Wags for a Met victory that lowered the magic number to six.  Attendance was announced at 47062 on a perfect day up in the green seats. 

 

Part of what makes Dodger/Met games in New York so fun are all the Brooklyn Dodger fans who come to see their old team come back home.  There’s a large number of men in their 60’s and up who come to Shea with Brooklyn Dodger hats (like the one pictured above).  Many of them have become Met fans.  Some remain loyal to the Dodgers.  But either way, you can feel the pull of this team almost fifty years after it lef

 

Out of nowhere, the Dodgers got a huge starting pitching performance from an unexpected source on Friday night.  In his first major league start, Hong-Chih Kuo of Taiwan was lights out, throwing mid-90’s to put a clamp on the Met offense and lead Dodger blue to a 5-0 win.  There was a full moon above Shea (pictured above) on a perfect evening with lots of Taiwanese fans among the 52,077 in the house. 

 

The turning point of the game came early when David Wright fielded a routine grounder then made an errant throw to first.  Instead of inning over with no damage, two runs scored and it gave Kuo a comfort zone to throw his blazing and tricky stuff.  Let’s hope Wright gets all these errors out of his system before the post-season starts.   John Maine was human for the Mets, allowing homers to Nomar and Rafael Furcal.  But that’s ok.  Maine has turned into a composed and confident young pitcher who appears to have a solid spot on the post-season roster.

 

We got to the ballpark when the gates opened to watch BP on a nice late afternoon.  You wouldn’t know the Dodgers are in a pennant race (now up a game and a half in the NL West) based on their extremely calm collective aura.  Everybody on the team seemed loose, except of course for the tightly-wound Jeff Kent.  The potential hall-of-fame second baseman is back from an injury at just the right time.  Watching him do his pre-game routine (pictured above warming his throwing arm) is a sight to see.  Nobody goes near him and he appears to have intense focus on his preparation.  He launched a few into the Met bullpen during his BP session and every step and action he takes prior to the game is with a perfect, confident posture that radiates professionalism. 

 

The aforementioned looseness on the Dodger team is likely a result of the tone set by its manager Grady Little (pictured above chatting with ESPN’s Erin Andrews).  Known for his laid-back demeanor, the ex-Red Sox skip seems to fit nicely in a laid-back baseball town.  But you wonder if he’s the right guy to steer a team loaded with youth going forward.  He’s flanked by an excellent coaching staff which includes Eddie Murray and Rick Honeycutt. 

 

Little says the next test for Kuo will come Thursday at Wrigley.  Because of Kuo’s successful debut, Little said after the game that Greg Maddux (who pitches today) will get an extra day of rest and start next Friday for what will be the start of a huge series with the Padres. 

 

Tommy Lasorda was in the house for a second straight night.  He’s a “special advisor” to the Dodgers but the hunch is that he goes on road trips when the itinerary includes stops with great Italian restaurants.  

 

Also in attendance last night as special guests of the Mets was the Staten Island little league team that advanced – and then got drummed out of the Little League World Series.  The man who oversees the Staten Island team blasted the Mets a few weeks back for failing to donate money to defray costs associated with travel for the parents on that team.  So, it was cool of the Mets to look past the inappropriate words of a blowhard parent and allow the kids to have a special night at the ballpark.  

 

Today, we go back to Shea to see a great pitching matchup:  El Duque vs. Maddux.  Could it be a playoff preview?  

 

-Mike and the Mad Dog peppered retired broadcaster Keith Jackson with questions about great people and great games in the history of college football yesterday.  It was an excellent interview.  The best part came when Chris Russo asked Jackson for his favorite memories of Bear Bryant. 

 

Jackson paused, took a deep breath, and in that deep, serious voice said:  “Quiet times and a little J-D.”

 

 9-9-06 1013

 

Almost all of the workers at the Canadian discount airline CanJet will be without jobs after Sunday with the announcement that the carrier is calling it quits.  Based in Halifax, CanJet sold cheap tickets to customers in Eastern Canada and took them in 737’s to Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, New York and points in Florida.  In business just over four years, the airline seemed to be gaining traction.  Its Toronto to New York flight was almost always full and the airline’s performance had increased markedly since its rocky debut. 

 

In abruptly announcing its shutdown, the company cited fuel costs and competition.  But insiders at the company have said that efforts by various work groups to unionize may have prompted the decision. 

 

CanJet is saying they will continue a bare-bones effort to operate as a charter outfit and will keep about 50 workers.  But the net effect is that Canadians are now left with West Jet as the only airline to legitimately compete with the mighty Air Canada. 

 

CanJet claims it will offer refunds and re-accommodate passengers with tickets to ride after Sunday.  What’s most sad about this story of course is the fate of the airline worker who toiled optimistically with the hope of making it a go.  Unionization should not scare any company, necessarily.  It is merely an attempt by the worker to get a seat at the negotiating table every few years to gain a say in the terms of one’s employment. 

 

-British actor Sacha Baron Cohen is being shielded by the 20th Century Fox movie studio as it approaches the wide US release of Baron Cohen’s blatantly anti-Semitic flick that expands on his character popularized in the Ali G show.  Baron Cohen plays “Borat,” a Kazakh reporter touring the US - and reviewers say he targets Jews and gay in many of the one-liners in the film which has been screened at Cannes and was shown at a big film festival in Toronto last night.  Baron Cohen’s tact in the film mirrors what he did on the Ali G show, and now it’s hitting more than two-thousand screens in the US November 3.  That’s fine; the film can sink or swim and will probably do just fine at the box office.  There’s a market for outrageous humor.  But what’s chicken-shit is that Baron Cohen and Fox have refused to be interviewed by the Times about the film.  The Times says Baron Cohen will do select Q and A’s but only in character prior to the US release.  The bottom line is that you’ve got an actor who says he’s Jewish playing a guy who might be a Muslim who is getting laughs with the crudest of anti-Jew humor at a time when we need anything but these two particular groups adding strain to the equation on a big stage.

 

-When Hideki Matsui started his road back from a broken wrist with a rehab start for the Trenton Thunder two nights ago, the team was unable to provide him with a batting helmet that was big enough for his famously huge skull.  So, Matsui wore his Yankee helmet and ended up going 1 for 3 before a huge contingent of Japanese reporters.  The Yanks say Matsui will be limited to DH once he returns to protect his wrist, although the logic is curious because if the wrist is healed enough to take hacks, why isn’t good enough to play the field?

 

-Normally, NFL punters find themselves low on the leadership totem pole, but Jets punter Ben Graham is different.  The Aussie boomer has been elected a co-captain by his teammates as he begins his second season in green. 

 

 - If the Dodgers want to win the NL West, Grady Little ought to consider starting Kenny Lofton in center field every day from here on out.  Matt Kemp is lost out there.  Lost.  Give up the stick for a veteran outfielder who can make defensive plays.

 

9-8-06 1040 

 

It was a shaky start for the long-time Today show host Katie Couric as she made her debut tonight as the anchor on the nightly CBS Network news program.  She’s the first female ever to preside solo over a network evening newscast and her debut was preceded by significant hype.  Couric’s long career at Today involved co-hosting a show that was a majority of fluff recited from the comfort of her studio chair and goofing around out on the plaza with Al and sign-toting fans hooting and hollering.  But Couric had a couple months between gigs to get serious and you wondered who would show up at the big desk tonight. 

 

Unfortunately, Couric’s day one at the helm of something bigger and different may be an indication she remains attached to her soft news approach.     

 

Couric led with the Afghan war and renewed strength of the Taliban in what she touted as an “exclusive” piece by Lara Logan.  It was a slow news day that didn’t have a logical lead story but the Logan piece didn’t really have a time peg and didn’t exactly suck in viewers on the fence.  Over on NBC, Brian Williams led with the discovery of a new domestic oil source in the Gulf of Mexico.  Couric waited until 12 minutes into her ‘cast before giving us that item.  Both Couric and Williams followed their lead pieces with coverage of the president’s continuing efforts to prop up mid-term GOP candidates with more tough talk on terror.

 

Couric was barely under way before she went to a taped interview with Times columnist Tom Friedman.   Producers (with what you’ve gotta believe was Couric’s approval)  used a cutaway during the interview that deliberately reminded viewers of the nice set of legs we saw so much at 30 Rock.

 

About half-way through, Couric launched a segment called “free speech,” which tonight gave Morgan Spurlock a platform to riff on the merits of civil discourse. 

 

Couric made two early plugs to visit the CBS News website (including her first reference to the site just nine minutes in) which seemed excessive for a network newscast. 

 

Wearing a white jacket over a black shirt and skirt, and zero jewelry,  Couric looked weary, her voice creaky at times.  She stumbled at one point, attempting to say “US soil,” but instead blurted “US soul.”

 

Couric has said in recent days that she was merely a “conductor,” leading a great orchestra of news gatherers at CBS.  It seemed to be an attempt to lower expectations surrounding her debut.  But her first night on the job is not a good sign of things to come.  Her true test will come when something big goes down and she’s forced to break into programming and query her staff in the field and the big newsmakers of the day.  Or what about the long plane ride to the war zones or disaster areas to go head-to-head with Brian and Charlie.  Can she cover hard news and muster up the knowledge necessary to talk on the fly in difficult conditions?  We’ll find out soon enough.   

 

Tonight, Couric closed her show soliciting viewers for help in developing a catchy sign-off, and yes, she again referenced the CBS web site as an outlet for those ideas.  Who cares about the sign-off Katie.  That’ll come naturally.  What you need to worry about is working on filling the most important news slot of the day with a show that covers the big stories for an audience that is hungry for a straight-ahead and concise product.

 

9-5-06 1935

 

The departure from tennis by Andre Agassi is being discussed as if it will kill the sport.  When we were in Colorado last week, the Rocky Mountain News columnist Bernie Lincicome wrote:  “Tennis may not need so appealing a figure as Agassi at the top, but it certainly needs an American there.  Without one, the game might as well be ski jumping or sumo wrestling…The regret for seeing the last of Agassi also is the regret for seeing what is left behind him, a collection of visitors with purple passports…”

 

And in today’s Daily News, Filip Bondy said that Agassi leaves behind a sinking ship.  “(Tennis is) a sport that cannot right now afford to lose even the tiniest bit of momentum or energy.  Agassi was the last bridge remaining from America’s glory days, from Jimbo and Mac.  He was the last piece of the golden generation.” 

 

Yes, Agassi will be sorely missed for his great flair and steady play.  In recent years, he displayed great courage and heart playing through injuries.  The violent forehand and serving motion needed to succeed in the men’s game threw his back out, yet here he was the last week taking cortisone shots and anti-inflammatory injections so he could fulfill his plan that this year’s Open would be his swan song.  The wins over Pavel and Baghdatis thrilled the New York crowds at Ashe Stadium.  But when Benjamin Becker started firing 135 mph serves in yesterday’s mid-day match and Agassi’s back flare-up despite the meds stopped his feet cold, it was the only merciful way to end a glorious career.  Especially so if you consider that a win over Becker would have led to an impossible matchup with Andy Roddick on just 24 hours rest.

 

Agassi cried when it was over, and tennis fans either cried themselves or fought not to.  A brilliant and thoughtful speech at center court by Agassi through the cracks in his voice is what you’d come to expect from a 36-year-old gentleman who had reformed himself from earlier days when he was bratty and rude.  Fans generally loved him through his entire career and in his speech yesterday, he seemed to credit the fans for helping him grow up:  “Over the last 21 years, I have found loyalty.  You have pulled for me on the court and in life.  I will take you and the memory of you with me for the rest of my life.”

 

But Lincicome and Bondy are wrong about the impact of Agassi’s retirement.  Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are head and shoulders above the rest of the field - but are a beauty to watch.  And when you consider the fact that Becker was ranked 112th in the world before beating Agassi - and is a former NCAA singles champ – imagine all the great players ranked above him.  National origin shouldn’t matter.  Both Federer and Nadal speak English and have their own unique personalities.  Roddick is being coached by Jimmy Connors and seems to be regaining his form. 

 

Agassi will be missed real bad, but the sport will continue to flourish and his void will be filled.

 

-Don’t bother going to see “Invincible,” the film based on the true story of a Philly bartender who walked onto the Eagles football team.  It’s not that good.  At age 30, Vince Papale made the Eagles in 1976 despite zero college football experience.  He was a solid special-teams player for three seasons and his story is an interesting one.  But when Greg Kinnear (playing Dick Vermeil) approaches the final round of cuts by watching game-film from the pre-season, you momentarily think you’re watching “Auto Focus.”  Kinnear is not the right guy to play Vermeil, that’s for sure.  Worse, is the performance of Wahlberg’s love interest, Elizabeth Banks.  She’s supposed to be a Giants fan from NYC who relocates to Philly for a “fresh start.”  But she mangles the Brooklyn accent and has numerous phony exchanges with Philly fans about the rivalry between Big Blue and the Eagles. 

 

-No surprise that the Times endorsed Hillary Clinton in next week’s Democratic primary race for her New York Senate seat.  But what was lame was why the Times dismissed her opponent Jonathan Tasini.  The best the Times editorial board could come up with was:  “It is hard to imagine him working well in a large body of egotistic and generally conservative politicians.” 

 

Tasini pulls no punches on his positions on Iraq, health care, gay marriage and the death penalty.  Clinton has spent much of the last few years confusing people with straddles, waffles and vagueness about the issues of the day.  

 

Yet Clinton’s powerful, well-financed campaign machine has overwhelmed her opponent.  It’s how most incumbents keep their grip on power.  But it is most disappointing to see the Times hand her an endorsement without Clinton earning it through any sort of courageous stand or strong resistance to the opposition party.

 

9-4-06 1655

 

TSR had always wanted to add Coors Field to the list of recently-constructed ballparks to visit - and boy are we glad we went.  With the Mets in town, TSR made the trip to the Mile High city and caught the last two games of a three-game set.

 

Rockies fans have given up on the season, and are not a rabid bunch.  The stadium was better than half empty both nights we attended and the atmosphere is mellow.  But the open concourse encircling the entire ballpark at about 35 rows above field level makes the stadium great.  Baltimore does it, and so do Detroit and the White Sox.  It is such a pleasure taking a lap around the stadium to see all of its quirks up close.  And it creates a more equal-opportunity concession situation for the fans.  Luckily, the ballpark that will replace Shea in ’09 will use the open concourse approach.  Because, when the game gets out of hand, isn’t it fun to explore and wander around a ballpark?  The bullpens at Coors are in right-center field and fans on the concourse hover above the activity.  Vendors sell Blue Moon and foot-long bratwursts.  The peanuts are fresh.  We had seats both nights in left-center field at the concourse level.  Just above the “pavilion” seating area in right field, our section was patrolled by an usher named Barb who both entertained and informed us on Wednesday and Thursday nights.  A retired elementary physical education teacher, Barb (pictured above) commutes to every Rockies home game from Cheyenne, Wyoming.  During between-inning sound blasts of popular rock music, Barb would attempt to dance in a way that had little flair but lots of spirit.  She was intensely interested in maintaining order in her section and could spot imposters a mile away.  Whenever somebody roamed into section 155 who didn’t belong there, Barb was all over it.  But she made exceptions.  If she deemed the fan to be somebody who wouldn’t threaten Barb’s behavioral code, she’d let ‘em stay.  

 

The other character worth watching in the left-field seating area is a beer vendor known as “Captain Earthman.”  The 50-year-old guy with a handle-bar mustache is celebrating twenty-years as a vendor in Denver and wears an elaborate space-man-like costume.  What makes him unique is that he encourages fans that are ready for another round to call him on his cell phone.  He then immediately responds with prompt service.

 

The Mets romped on Wednesday beating up Rockies starter Josh Fogg early and often. D-Wright hit a grand slam in the first inning that went into and out of the glove of an adult Rockies fan who took his error hard.  But Wright (pictured above during BP) is busting out of that slump that had him batting about .200 for the month of August.  You knew he would.  He’s such a sturdy player mentally.  Jose Valentin had two home runs and the Mets won 11-3.

 

On Thursday, TSR had a pre-game moment with our favorite player Aaron Heilman.  After he finished chatting with his mentor Roberto Hernandez (both pictured above – Heilman on the right), we yelled at the clutch middle-reliever from Notre Dame and showed him the back of our jersey – with the big 4-8 and the last name Heilman emblazoned on the home pinstripes.  He nodded, said thanks and continued to quietly lope around the outfield on a beautiful and sunny late afternoon.  As far as we know, nobody else is wearing the #48 Met jersey these days.  But soon they will.  Ever since the Mets lost Duaner Sanchez for the season, Heilman has stepped up and dominated both lefties and righties. 

 

We also blurted out the following to lefty long man Darren Oliver:  “Darren, there’s gonna be some big spots for you in the post-season.”  Oliver did not respond to that statement. 

 

We did get a response from WFAN’s Met pre-game show host Eddie Coleman.  When we told him that he was “the man,” Coleman smiled and waved. 

 

The Mets lost the Thursday finale of the series 8-4.  Newly-acquired Oliver Perez got shelled – giving up seven runs and 12 hits in just three innings.  Again, location is this guy’s huge problem.  His off-speed stuff is very erratic.  You can see a heap of talent in Perez, and pitching coach Rick Peterson seemed to spend a lot of time explaining technique – but you wonder if the youngster from Mexico will ever get it together.  He has so much enthusiasm and energy, but lacks control. 

 

Rockies manager Clint Hurdle has been using ex-Met Kaz Matsui as the lead-off man.  In Thursday’s Denver papers, Hurdle had high praise for Matsui:  “He has shown us a dynamic at the top of the order we haven’t had since Pierre’s been here.”  Hurdle might not be seeing straight.  Matsui swings at a lot of bad pitches and he can’t be counted on defensively.  He’s nowhere near the kinda player Pierre is. 

 

With a playoff spot out of the question, the Rockies called up 21-year-old Troy Tulowitzki for the Wednesday game.  He went hitless in his debut but made a nifty play on a LoDuca grounder.  Clint Barmes has fallen out of favor, and it sounds like it may be Tulo-Time in Denver.         

 

There is a real feeling of permissiveness as it relates to drinking in Denver, or so it seemed.  Liquor ads dominate the two daily newspapers.   And at the ballpark, it appeared that a large number of fans were enthusiastic about making repeated trips to the numerous well-staffed stands selling plastic pints of draft beer for six bucks.  Even the team’s list of fan regulations includes what seems like a very gentle nod to the drinker (pictured above – excerpted from signs posted all around the ballpark). 

 

Outside Coors Field, there are several nearby eating and drinking establishments, many equipped with outdoor seating areas.  To compete with one another, the bars offer drink specials reminiscent of the college days.  Downtown Denver showcases a pedestrian mall which runs along a stretch of  16th Street, well within walking distance to the ballpark and several reasonably priced chain hotels.  

 

Denver’s relatively new international airport (opened 11 years ago) is a fairly impressive facility.  It’s a gargantuan airfield that occupies 53 square miles. Its long runways and spacious setup reduces congestion experienced at smaller-sized airports.  It takes about an hour to get to downtown on a public bus operated by the RTD.  One way fare is $8.  Large permanent white canopies cover the main terminal building and look kinda odd.  United and Frontier have hubs in Denver and battle it out for most of the customers.  We tried Frontier for the first time on the return leg of our trip and found the airline to be a notch below the majors in terms of customer service.  The Airbus-319’s interior was frayed and less than clean.  The cabin crew was a little too shticky on the PA.  But the hot, fresh-baked oatmeal-raisin cookies served on the redeye into LaGuardia were a nice touch. 

 

The high altitude in Denver never presented a problem.  The air is dry and the sun is intense.  The people of Denver seem highly interested in physical fitness.  Bicycles are everywhere.  We found an excellent breakfast spot near the state capitol called the “Delectable Egg.” 

 

Before we left, we visited the Taste of Colorado food festival held at the Civic Center grounds across from the state capitol.  The architect most involved with designing a replacement for the World Trade Center was in Denver a few days earlier to unveil a plan to beautify and re-organize the Civic Center property.   Daniel Liebskind has put forward a plan that has elements of Chicago’s successful Millennium Park concept and an editorial in the Rocky Mountain News applauded the proposal.  “For too many years, Civic Center has been a faded urban glory.  It remains at center stage of many public celebrations and protests, but with its splendor dimmed from neglect and its benches no longer warmed by everyday throngs.  This week’s presentation should become the catalyst for a major effort to bring it into the 21st century, restored but also updated."

 

9-2-06 1203  

 

A couple of days after the horrible crash of Comair flight 5191, a couple more significant stories have emerged.  One debunks a theory, the other bolsters a little-reported contention. 

 

First off, the wife of the flight’s captain Jeffrey Clay has stepped forward to defend her husband’s competency and professionalism.  Amy Clay told the Cincinnati Enquirer that her 35-year-old husband’s work routine included lots of takeoffs from the airport in Lexington.  “He was an excellent pilot, and my heart is broken for everyone involved in this, but I know with all my heart that they could not have been in better hands than they were with Jeff.”  Ok.  Most widows will defend the honor of their fallen husband.  But what was significant about Mrs. Clay’s series of statements to both the Enquirer and the Lexington Herald-Leader was that she detailed how her husband spent the day prior to the early Sunday morning flight that crashed.  Mrs. Clay says she drove down with their two daughters from Burlington, KY to Lexington to meet her husband who had flown into Blue Grass Airport as a “dead-header” at

 

Mrs. Clay told the Herald-Leader that the entire family went to a diner called Ramsey’s in Lexington for dinner.  She says in order to get the kids back to Burlington for bed, she dropped off her husband after the meal at the Radisson Plaza Hotel in Lexington.  Mrs. Ramsey indicated she spoke with her husband for the last time at

 

The Herald-Leader also spoke to the hotel shuttle driver, Jarrod Moore who said he took the three-member flight crew from the Radisson to the airport at

 

Sure, Captain Ramsey could have gone out on the town after speaking to his wife.  But all indications are that the guy had what amounted to a pretty normal night which at least partially dismisses the fatigue theory.  Toxicology results will follow, and we don’t have the blow-by-blow of the first officer’s evening in Lexington – but the Captain of the flight had what sounded like a leisurely evening with his family. 

 

The other significant development is an announcement by the FAA that it is adding a second controller to staff the tower at Blue Grass Airport on weekend mornings.  Just one person was at the helm when 5191 was cleared for takeoff, taxied to the wrong runway and crashed after running out of airstrip.  Few have reported what level of involvement the tower played in the wrong runway takeoff, but the FAA announcement bolsters the contention that the staff sitting in a control tower has a tremendous opportunity to intervene when confused airplane crews make wrong decisions.  Now, instead of just one controller at Blue Grass early on a Sunday morning, you’ll have two.

 

The flight’s first officer James Polehinke remains touch and go at a hospital in Lexington but that didn’t stop the Daily News from uncovering a negative detail from his past.  The News says Polehinke’s wife shot him in the abdomen at their Florida home seven years ago after he allegedly threatened her with a bow saw.  The wife was charged with attempted murder but Polehinke refused to cooperate in the case. 

 

-TSR heads to Denver tomorrow to make our first-ever visit to Coors Field.  Two night games as the Mets try to move closer to a division clincher.  Back with a report on Saturday.

 

8-29-06 1805 

 

The NTSB has confirmed the leak that lingered much of Sunday by saying yesterday evening that the crash of Comair flight 5191 was preceded by an attempted departure off the wrong runway at Lexington’s Blue Grass Airport.  The NTSB cited the compass heading recorded on one of the jet’s black boxes at takeoff -  and today, the Board’s Debbie Hersman said the tower tapes had been pulled.  She disclosed that the tower cleared the flight for takeoff from runway 22, but says evidence shows the plane took off runway 26. 

 

What Hersman won’t say – and what remains troubling – is whether the lone person working in the tower at Blue Grass said or did anything when the airplane taxied to the wrong runway.  Many controllers will visually confirm that tower instructions are followed by cockpit crews to fruition.  They will remain in contact with the plane and can offer commentary on a plane’s failure to follow instructions.  After all, the tower knows the lay of the airport.  It’s their home turf.  Pilots find themselves in different cities every work day and might not be well versed on airport layout.  Add to that the disclosure that there were confusing runway lighting issues, a new and different taxi route to the runway, and a just-completed re-paving project on runway 22. 

 

Yes, Hersman says the controller correctly cleared flight 5191 for takeoff from runway 22, but she won’t say whether that controller observed or attempted to verbally notify the crew when it strayed to the shorter runway 26. 

 

Few media outlets have raised the possible inaction of the controller as a potential issue in this case.  The only story mentioning the controller’s involvement was an item in the Louisville Courier-Journal which quoted St. Louis University aerospace engineering professor emeritus Paul Czysz.  He told the paper that the tower typically guides the plane during its taxi.  “So the tower should have been able to see what (runway) threshold he was at.  That’s why you have a tower,” said Czysz.  Indeed.  Perhaps the tapes – or the evidence that is retrievable will never verify what that controller did or didn’t do when the plane’s crew taxied to the wrong runway.  But it does seem curious that the NTSB is saying that the tower cleared the airplane from the correct runway but won’t expand on whether there were further conversations between tower and crew.  And it won’t say whether there was an attempted intervention by the tower prior to the ill-fated takeoff. 

 

The other issue that may or may not come into play here is the issue of crew rest.  Comair and the NTSB have not publicly disclosed as far as we can tell what time those two pilots completed their last flight prior to their departure shortly after

 

As air carriers have gone bankrupt and lost money, they have scheduled pilots in ways that favor company profit margins over. realistic scheduling approaches that would promote human soundness and alertness.  While technically within allowable federal mandates, some air carriers schedule pilots in ways that are asking for trouble.  This may not apply in this case, but let’s hear from Comair or the NTSB what kind of schedule those two airmen had in the days before the early-morning crash. 

 

-Yesterday’s Post cites a “well-imbedded” source in reporting that Joe Girardi will get fired as manager of the Marlins at season’s end.  The Post says Girardi “has his eyes” on the Cub job which will undoubtedly open when Dusty Baker is shown the door.  The report makes sense and has been discussed widely.  The Post says Braves third base coach Fredi Gonzalez is Girardi’s likely successor.  Girardi has feuded with eccentric Marlins owner Jeff Loria on mostly trivial matters related to Loria’s hands-on ownership approach.  Girardi has done a nice job nurturing a roster loaded with young players and he’d be better off career-wise staying in Miami.  But if Loria does indeed make the rash decision to ax Girardi, there will be several teams that likely put Girardi at the top of their wish list. 

 

-The best news-talker on night-time radio has been abruptly taken off the air.  The John Batchelor show has had a great run that started the day after 9-11 on WABC-AM and expanded to a network that included both satellite radio services and other major market AM stations.  Batchelor’s show focused on international affairs, economics, war and space.  Little is known about why the show was cancelled.  Batchelor’s web site offers no clue.  But hopefully Batchelor will find another outlet to continue the program.

 

8-28-06 1715 

 

If it proves accurate that the pilots of Comair flight 5191 departed off the wrong runway at Bluegrass Airport in Lexington this morning, the blame for the crash that killed 49 shouldn’t necessarily fall squarely on the two men flying the plane. 

 

It’s now a full eleven hours after the crash and the government isn’t telling the public which runway that airplane took off from.  That is information that they now know.  The FAA-staffed control tower at Lexington verbally authorizes landings and takeoffs at that airport.  The people on duty this morning in that tower – which the airport’s director acknowledges was fully staffed – has to know what runway that plane took off from. 

 

 Yes, the NTSB must be given time to perform a thorough investigation and has no obligation to the media to rush the release of facts.  But it is a bit disturbing that major media outlets are citing unidentified sources claiming the airplane departed a runway one-half in length of the one normally used by scheduled airlines.  The media (CNN at

 

At a news conference, Blue Grass Airport’s security director Scott Lanter further railroaded the question.  “The only people who know where that aircraft took off was the pilot and the copilot.”  Not true!  The people working in the tower know.  And what about any number of people working at that airport on a Sunday morning – loading baggage – driving vehicles – watching out a window – any of them with familiarity of the airport might have had their eyes open and think it odd to see a commercial flight depart on a runway used for much smaller airplanes. 

 

As the story unfolded, the media scrambled to pin down a cause through conjecture and speculation.  First it was the weather.  Seven miles of visibility – dry - dark.  Non-issue.  But CNN went to its weather woman every ten minutes needlessly to show radar images of thunderstorms in distant counties.  They had to latch onto something. 

 

When Comair president Don Bornhorst addressed the media in Erlanger, KY at

 

CNN then went down another bad path, going live repeatedly to correspondent Randi Kaye at Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport.  Flight 5191 was bound for Atlanta and CNN was looking for reaction from people waiting for loved ones who would never arrive.  Problem is, airlines have learned from past disasters, and they hide those people quickly before the media can stick microphones in their faces.  Oh well, since Kaye couldn’t talk to victim’s families she tried talking to people to ask if they were scared to fly.  Great. 

 

Really, the only guy we saw throughout the day’s coverage that genuinely offered any kind of factual information was the Fayette County (KY) Coroner Gary Ginn.   He visited the crash scene and said the plane was largely intact after the crash.  Ginn said that he believed the autopsies will end up showing that the victims died from burns rather than the crash’s impact.

 

8-27-06 1742 

 

The Mets unveiled their new right fielder and completed a sweep of a potential playoff foe at Shea last night, beating the Cardinals 6-2.  In a salary dump by Arizona, the comparatively rich Mets got richer and added Shawn Green at a discounted rate without giving up a player of significance.  Green will be the every-day right fielder and the demotion yesterday of Lastings Milledge to Norfolk punctuates that fact.  Green (pictured above in his first at-bat as a Met) had been on the Wilpon radar long before Omar got here.  The fact that he’s a Jew is a big deal and it adds to the already fantastic diversity on the team - much like its fandom.  Green got big ovations last night from the United Nations-like crowd.  It’s a crowd that’s always got a good number of yarmulkes in the house – some we’ve seen customized to show Met pride.  Green is a longtime pal of Met first baseman Carlos Delgado and is clearly happy to be here.  He told reporters that he will live in Manhattan and soak up the city - and he says he relishes the opportunity to make some hay in the post-season.  “There’s so much energy here,” said Green after his Met debut.  “I definitely feel like I had a little extra focus.  That’s what these fans bring.  There’s something special here.” 

 

Delgado smashed a huge home run estimated at 450-feet, his fourth dinger in four nights.  There were a lot of Redbird fans in the house announced at 45,497.  Pujols hit a couple deep fly balls but Met pitchers limited the great Cardinal first baseman to a single in four at bats.  The Mets have won eleven games in a row at Shea and are now thirty games over break-even.  There is an aura and a feeling surrounding this team that makes you wish the post-season would start right now.   

 

Before the game, which was delayed by rain for about a half-hour, we spent the afternoon at the US Tennis Center a short walk across the planks from Shea.  The US Open qualifiers are being played this week and it’s always fun to watch low-ranked tennis pros try to fight their way into the tournament which starts this Monday.  It’s great from a fan’s standpoint, because it’s free.  And you can wander from court to court and see the action up close.  The US Open is an extremely well-organized event at a complex that is a treasure to be seen.  Organizers use the week of qualifiers as a test run for its enormous staff of workers – from concession stand personnel to ball boys to on-court officials.  With a week of qualifiers under their belts, the two-week tournament runs incredibly smooth thanks to the preparation of all the workers who use qualifying week to hone their skills.

 

TSR covered a lot of territory yesterday at the Tennis Center, but focused mainly on two matches.  The first included a guy who probably deserves to get into the main draw.  Robert Kendrick (pictured above) rallied from a set down to beat fellow American Bobby Reynolds 3-6, 6-4, 6-3.  Kendrick may be best known for taking Rafael Nadal five-sets deep at Wimbledon in a second-round 2006 loss to the dominating Spaniard.  He makes a lot of unforced errors, but he’s got a blazing serve and quick lateral movement. 

 

The other match that we got interested in featured 22-year-old Croatian Ivana Abramovic against 27-year-old Tatiana Poutchek of Belarus.  Abramovic (pictured above) jumped out to a three-game lead and seemed poised for an upset over the much more accomplished Poutchek.  Abramovic has done little in her professional career, getting knocked out in the first round of this year’s Wimbledon love-love by eventual champion Amelie Mauresmo.   Poutchek is ranked 117 in the world and has won over $700,000 in her career, much of it through a successful run in doubles play.  So, it seemed like we were about to witness a surprising result.  Abramovic has a wiry but muscular frame that delivers little power and little finesse.  So, we sat there and rooted for the kid from Croatia.  But it wasn’t to be.  In a sloppy three set match, Abramovic lost 4-6, 6-2, 0-6 and probably is trying to figure out how to get back to Zagreb for cheap. 

 

The finest set of concessions of any sporting venue includes sushi, Mexican food, crepes and gyros.  Everybody makes light of the fact that the Open charges nine bucks for a Heineken, but they’re only $6.50 during qualifying week.  We had a couple Heinies and a falafel platter when the rain started and we hope to make it back a couple of times once the tourney starts.

 

8-25-06 1043 

 

The sports books have set the over/under for Jets victories at six.  That might be a bit high given the extreme difficulty of the first part of the schedule which includes road games at TN, JAX and BUF and home games with NE, MIA and INDY.  Head coach Eric Mangini’s first Jet training camp has been incredibly secretive with little said about who will start at quarterback and the status of Curtis Martin. 

 

You can bet that Chad Pennington will be the starting signal-caller and Martin will eventually retire given the small signals obtained independent of Mangini’s information lock-down.  It’ll be Chad by default.  Despite a twice surgically-repaired throwing shoulder, Pennington’s smarts and nifty ability to fool opponents on play-action will be plenty to win the job over a so-so Patrick Ramsey and the rookie Kellen Clemens.  You’d think the fourth QB in the mix, Brooks Bollinger could get cut. 

 

As for Martin, the fourth leading all-time NFL rusher has a bone-on-bone right knee that might spell the end of his career.  Mangini has been tight-lipped about Martin’s status and he keeps the future hall-of-famer isolated during workouts - out of the media’s view.  But a story in the Daily News this week provides a big tip on Martin’s future.  Beat writer Rich Cimini’s story cites an inside source in reporting that Martin cut a deal with the Jets earlier this week that basically provides for a “golden parachute” in the event his career is over.  And the deal protects the Jets in the event Martin is placed on injured reserve.  It provides cap relief and it allowed the team to go out and get Niners loudmouth ball carrier Kevan Barlow. 

 

Prior to the ’05 season, the Jets had dynamic back Lamont Jordan all ready to go as Martin’s heir apparent.  But then-GM Terry Bradway made a huge mistake committing cap space to John Abraham instead.  Bradway says it was an either/or situation, and you knew it would burn them.  Abraham is a whiny malcontent who got traded to Atlanta, Jordan is a Raider, and now the Jets have a running back problem. 

 

But there’s still hope for this franchise.  Mangini is a huge upgrade over the clueless game manager and previous head coach Herm Edwards.  While Mangini doesn’t cater to the public’s need to know, he was molded by Belichick and Parcells and will turn this team around eventually.  Probably not this year, but you can already tell that with Mangini’s insistence on bolstering the offensive line, he has a methodical approach that will pay off with time. 

 

-When they left in a bus for Williamsport, PA a week ago, the little league team from Staten Island was a heartwarming story of a spirited and over-achieving group of kids from working class families.  The New York media was all over the story and committed to major coverage.  But the team’s three and out exit from the Little League World Series turned into one embarrassing incident after another.  It all started last weekend before World Series play was under way.  Mid-Island Little League of  Staten Island president Bob Johnson went into fund-raising mode saying the team’s middle-class families couldn’t afford the hotels and travel associated with the exciting run to Williamsport.  Instead of a professional solicitation of funds from local companies as you often see with kid’s leagues, Johnson tried to publicly embarrass the city’s two major league ball clubs.  In comments to the Post, Johnson ripped Yankee owner George Steinbrenner and third baseman Alex Rodriguez for not opening their wallets.  In fact, Steinbrenner had donated five grand.  Johnson’s response?  “For Steinbrenner, $5,000 is throwing bills in the air.”  And A-Rod?  “He plays $1000 a hand in poker, he might as well throw $1000 in our dugout.  I don’t want Steinbrenner’s money.  I want A-Rod’s money.  He’s making $20 million dollars a year.”  The Mets donated nothing, but with Johnson’s approach, who would. 

 

In the team’s second game of the series, trailing by a run, 12-year-old Staten Island outfielder Matt Davis was caught by ESPN’s in-dugout microphone saying:  “We need to get one f----ing run.”  The game was a national prime-time telecast, and the incident has forced ESPN to go to a five-second delay for the rest of the series.  Staten Island manager Nick Doscher hit Davis on the bill of his cap as a reprimand but his reaction a day later was even worse.  When the governing body of Little League warned both manager and player to cease “unsportsmanlike behavior,” Doscher threatened to pull his team from the tourney.  Said Doscher in the Daily News:  “We’re here fighting for our baseball lives, and they want to pick on something like this to distract us.”  Staten Island ended up getting eliminated on Tuesday, but not before league president Johnson went on Chris Carlin’s WFAN radio show to continue defending his belligerent approach to fund-raising.  Carlin was tough and called Johnson an extortionist.  Johnson dug a deeper hole for his league with more criticism of the Yankees and Mets (the archived audio of the blistering exchange between Carlin and Johnson can be found on the WFAN web site). 

 

As with so many of these youth sports controversies, it’s the parents who taint an overly-competitive athletic endeavor with disturbing behavior that you hope doesn’t remove the joy these kids are supposed to experience. 

 

-As the three big networks re-tool their major news programs to counter Katie Couric’s launch at CBS and Meredith Vieira’s arrival at NBC, there was an interesting personnel move at ABC.  Effective September 5, the top weather forecaster at New York’s ABC affiliate, Sam Champion has been given the weather slot on the Good Morning America program.  Champion says he plans to travel extensively to the sites of major weather events and will contribute journalistically to the network’s weather and environment beat.  TSR watches Champion’s nightly forecast on the

 

It should be noted that Sam Champion’s eighteen-year run as weatherman here in New York inspired a local rock band to call itself Sam Champion.  They’re a pretty solid outfit that is active on the local scene. 

 

When Mike Piazza had that infamous news conference two years ago to declare his straightness, it was an alleged link to Champion that many believe pressured Piazza to make that declaration.   

 

-The football coach at the University of Colorado says he plans on letting his kicker attempt to break the collegiate record for longest field goal in history.  Senior Mason Crosby has the leg to do it.  He’s kicked a 75-yarder in practice and Colorado coach Dan Hawkins says “I firmly expect him to set the history books straight this year.”  The division 1-A record shared by Russell Erxleben and Steve Little is 67 yards.  A NAIA kicker from Abilene Christian named Ove Johansson kicked a 69-yarder in 1976.  Crosby is the favorite to win the Lou Groza award this year and hit a 70-yarder and several other long distance kicks in the team’s spring game.

 

8-24-06 1159 

 

We’re just a couple weeks away from the start of football season and the storm clouds over the offshore sports books remain dark.  What is the sports bettor in this country to do?  Is it back to the old days of the corner tavern bookie?  Or phone calls to intermediaries who make cash calls at odd times and places? 

 

It was all so easy and clean when you could sit down a half hour before kickoff and get all the action you needed with a few clicks of the mouse.  But when the US government arrested and jailed the top man at the Costa Rican-based site Betonsports.com, it sent shockwaves through the gambling community and effectively shut down the site.  An estimated fifty to seventy thousand US customers had dough in the offshore Betonsports.com accounts when the bust went down and are left with nothing.  The US government says it has ordered the web site to return money in US-based accounts, but that’s a dubious claim by the feds because their prosecution of the book may have given the operation an excuse to pocket the money.  A Betonsports.com executive who asked to be unnamed told the Associated Press that the pending government case has scared third-party payment processors - making it difficult to return the money.  US attorney Catherine Hanaway has also stifled the process by saying the money could be seized. 

 

The exec’s claim that third-party processors are nervous is also suspect.  An item on the web site theonlinewire.com says the biggest processor of funds – Neteller – is denying that it has blocked any fund transfer from the book to US players. 

 

The big question is whether the US government wants to take down Betonsports.com solely – or is this just their first move in a series of attempts to block off-shore books from doing business with Americans.  A Times story today in the business section says American investment houses are yanking funds from publicly-traded online casinos.  A statement contained in the Times story by an unnamed online gambling executive doesn’t exactly re-assure the player:  “None of us know whether this indictment is specific to Betonsports or a sweeping attack against online gaming per se.  We’re keeping our heads down.” 

 

In the meantime, we’re just weeks away from billions of dollars flooding into a marketplace reeling with doubt.  Does the player continue to patronize his/her sports book knowing it could be the next to fall? 

 

And is the deposit of funds into an off-shore account a risk that outweighs the thrill of action on all the great games that await? 

 

As we’ve said before, the solution here is for the US government to legalize and regulate sports gambling in this country – on this soil.  Instead they’re shooting in the dark, hoping to hit something while doing disrepair to the already shaky relationship between sports gambler and Caribbean-based bookie. 

 

-Interesting item in the Post today about how several New York City council members spend their $260,000 annual office budget.  Perhaps the most glaring misuse of the taxpayer-funded budgets comes from Bronx council member Maria Baez.  According to records dug up by the Post, Baez signed up for Verizon cell phone service with a monthly allotment of 1350 free minutes at a rate of $79.95.  That’s great.  City council members on the run need to be accessible.  Problem is, Baez ran up 7385 minutes in talk time last December causing a huge overage and a monthly bill of $1948.50.  Way to go Maria.  Nice awareness of your chargeable minutes.

 

8-21-06 1645  

 

They set off a few fireworks (pictured above) after Billy Wagner closed out the 6-3 win at Shea last night.  Trax worked his slo-mo act seven strong to notch his twelfth win with help from home plate ump John Hirschbeck’s fat strike zone. Trachsel is trying to make a case that he deserves the third slot in the post-season rotation over El Duque.  It seems unlikely but what happens if Trax ends up with 17 wins using his formula of throwing strikes and getting run support? 

 

David Wright broke a 3 for 25 funk with a two-rib double in the third and the go-ahead run-scoring single in the fifth.  Colorado starter Byung-Hyun Kim was ineffective.  He had several Korean supporters with fancy cameras sitting near us in the mezz.  They all went nuts when Kim drove a run in with a sharp single in the third. 

 

Attendance was announced at a disappointing 35,325 on a night in which the crowd was handed a Pedro Martinez t-shirt on the way in.  The weather was perfect.  Tonight, you’d think Shea will be packed when they honor the ’86 Mets with a special ceremony.  We’ll watch it from home and think about that magical night that the ball dribbled through Billy Buck’s legs.  We were in a dilapidated two-flat in Columbia, MO watching it with the college roommate and we couldn’t believe what we were seeing.  Funny, we weren’t a Met fan back then but the magic of that moment certainly planted a seed. 

 

-They claim it was unscripted, but Steve Dahl and Garry Meier reunited at a Stever Air and Water show remote broadcast at Oak Street beach yesterday.  It sounds possible the pair could be getting back together.  Those who heard the program on ‘CKG says there was warmth and genuine good vibes between the two.  Meier has been in radio exile for three years since failing to reach terms on a contract with ‘LS to continue the success of his pairing with Roe Conn.  The biggest hurdle to a permanent Dahl/Meier daily program would be the cost of inking Meier - who must know that listeners and advertisers would salivate at the content the two would create after 13 years apart. 

 

 -The Bears are imposing measures to reduce drunkenness at the Soldier this fall.  Starting with last night’s game, fans can only buy one beer per purchase – and the Bears are shutting down beer sales in the concourse areas just five minutes into the second half for all night games.  Both are consistent with policies that have already been implemented at the pro football venue here in New York.

 

8-19-06 1228  

 

The camera-work was poor, but TNT caught a fan at Medinah hand-swatting Tiger’s errant first hole tee shot out of serious trouble this afternoon after it bounced toward the ropes that separate the big crowd from the playing area.  Without the help, the ball appeared to be headed for an area that included deeper rough and a cart path.  Jim Nantz seemed disgusted by the fan’s conduct.  Lanny Wadkins said it may have saved Tiger at least a shot, although even from the preferred position, he still had to hit a conservative shot to the fairway instead of firing for the green.   Later in the telecast, Wadkins cited a PGA rules guru who said that the ball should have been played from a location estimated by an official to be where it likely would have ended up without the fan’s assistance.  But since Woods and his caddy appeared to not know what happened, they played from the spot the fan deflected it to and Wadkins said there would be no after-the-fact penalty. 

 

Nice work by Wadkins explaining the situation.  The guy who swatted it needs a lecture on fan etiquette.  And it’s not like Tiger needs the help.   

 

The course looks lush.  Tiger’s paisley-print orange shirt with black pants is a bold statement-maker. 

 

Meantime, the Yanks and Red Sox are playing the first of five at Fenway.  We have no rooting interest, but it is a great rivalry with a lot on the line this weekend.  We’ll be at Shea tonight to see Trax slo-mo it against the Rockies.  The division lead is 13 and we find ourselves thirsting for games with playoff race implications.  Sox/Twins is a huge series.  We’ll say right now that it’ll be Mets/Astros and Cards/Dodgers in the NL.  Red Sox/White Sox and Tigers/Angels in the AL.

 

8-18-06 1519

 

TSR has dug into the electronic mailbag and found a few readers with things to say.  The first one comes from a reader in Chicago who writes in part: 

 

“Is it really a good thing that half the population in an area doesn’t speak English?  I mean, I’m not militant about that – if people tend to stick in their own ‘hoods, then fine, speak any language that you want to speak.  I guess I’m having trouble understanding why the above would be such a good thing.” 

 

A few days ago, TSR referenced newly-released census-type information showing the strength of the immigrant population in New York City.  The data indicates that a majority of households in Queens and the Bronx do not speak English at home.  Why is it a good thing?  Because the influx of European immigrants that flooded into New York a hundred years ago and helped make this city what it is today continues through yet another wave of new citizens from other countries.  What language they speak should be no more a concern now than it was a century ago.  The dizzying diversity and array of languages spoken from one neighborhood to the next adds energy and beauty to every interaction.  And while there are plenty of people that speak Spanish in the home, it is quite common for most of those same people to handle a conversation in English if need be.  New York City – and heck – many cities in this country can serve as proof to the regions that are skittish about an increase in immigration that an influx of new faces and voices can add tremendous energy to its culture, workforce and daily existence. 


 

The next mailbag item also comes from Chicago – a North-Side hacker who still wastes his time at Wrigley -  the author had this to say in response to our suggestion that Phil Mickelson was among the greatest golfers of our time: 

 

“Mickelson is a smarmy New York kiss ass.  Tits Mickelson is one of the greatest golfers of our time?  Only if our time is the last two years.” 

 

TSR should more clearly define “our time” and perhaps remove Phil from the same category as Tiger.    When Jack ended his run in the early 80’s and before Tiger took over in the late 90’s, we watched the game of golf and enjoyed the level playing field that made it a wide open affair week-to-week.  When Phil came on the scene, we fell for the happy lefty and much preferred his approach to that of the whiny and overly intense Tiger.  Mickelson’s label as the “best golfer never to win a major” was taken away at the ’04 Masters after a bunch of collapses on the big stage and we thought he was the clear number two in the world after winning another green jacket this year.  Then, he imploded at Winged Foot and you worry about his head and whether he’ll continue to be the clear number two.  Maybe not.  But our point was that Phil and Tiger in the same threesome at a major needs to be on live TV and the highlight package on TNT doesn’t do the round justice.  As for the contention that Phil is a “New York kiss ass,” there’s no doubt that what went down at Bethpage Black a few years back sealed the relationship between New York golf fans and Mickelson.  But it’s cool and it’s true mutual admiration. 

 

Our final reach into the mailbox finds correspondence from the upper West side and a style critique: 

 

“You need to fix the type running wider than the screen…You should pay more attention to the traditional rules of punctuation and capitalization.  The lax notions of this stuff online are a travesty.”

 

TSR hasn’t heard any similar formatting beefs or type-spillover concerns from other readers.  We’d be curious to know if other readers  can’t see TSR normally and we’ll see if we can fix it.  As for punctuation and capitalization deficiencies, we plead guilty.  We love the dash and the ellipsis and can’t kick ‘em.  Our teachers and editors back in the day used a lot of red marker trying to snuff out the bad habits, but the current software’s checking device is so easy to ignore. 

 

Thanks to all those who send in any kind of feedback.  Aside from the very rudimentary hit-counter, it’s the only way we know anybody is out there.

 

8-17-06 1549 

 

WFAN’s Mike Francesca is reporting that the PGA cleared the way for TNT to expand its PGA Championship television coverage of Thursday’s first round to include Tiger and Phil’s early tee-off, but TNT declined.  So, as it stands now, the incredible threesome of Mickelson, Woods and Olgilvy will tee off at 8:30 AM Central from Medinah - and TNT won’t go on the air until 1 PM Central. 

 

It’s hard to believe, but now you’ll get two episodes of ER and two episodes of Judging Amy on TNT while the two greatest golfers of our time do battle together in a major.  If you have the Golf Channel, you may get snippets on its show “Live from the PGA Championship” which starts at

 

-Just released data from a new annual census report says surging immigration has pushed the number of foreign-born and their children to sixty-percent of New York City’s population.  The report from the American Community Survey – an annual and more concise version of the once a decade census report - says more than half of all residents in both the Bronx and Queens do not speak English at home.  Why immigration (legal or otherwise) gets tossed around like a dirty word with numbers like that – in a city this great – is beyond understanding.

 

8-15-06 1835   

 

Legendary New York rock band Sonic Youth remains a powerful and very interesting live act twenty-five years after inception.  As part of a three-band bill at the long-abandoned McCarren Park swimming pool, Sonic Youth played a memorable twelve-song set on a glorious Friday evening in Brooklyn.  Kim Gordon (pictured above-  far right - with Thurston Moore, Lee Renaldo and Steve Shelley right to left ) danced her way through much of the gig which focused on songs from their ’06 Geffen release Rather Ripped.

 

“Do You Believe In Rapture” and “Turquoise Boy” sounded especially great – both cuts from the new record. 

 

The biggest and best surprise of the night was seeing the grinning mug of Pavement bassist Mark Ibold (pictured above) on stage.  Ibold is the touring bassist for Sonic Youth on the current tour and gives real depth to the sound.  On “Incinerate,” Ibold adds a Pavement-y touch and his contribution overall is very strong.  He fits in nicely and seemed to thrive on the strong connection between the crowd and the band.  Ibold is a frequent, friendly and appreciative attendee at lots of NYC rock shows and it’s nice to see him in the spotlight on such a big stage.  

 

McCarren Park pool is a beyond-great place to see a show.  For two decades, it sat vacant and neglected on a stretch of Lorimer between Williamsburg and Greenpoint.  Druggies used it as an unchecked playground.  Blood on the Wall’s guitarist Brad Shanks said on stage last night that he had taken acid at the pool during the blackout of ’03.  We’re not sure how long it will remain a viable rock venue for big shows with all the new construction sprouting up nearby.  Noise complains seem a certainty.  But the crowd of about 3500 (pictured above) seemed awestruck as it gathered in the four-foot deep massive swimming pool minus the water.  Brooklyn Brewery had sixteen tents set up serving five-dollar cups of lager.  Numerous porta-potties were available and the sound was great.  Blood on the Wall opened up, and believe it or not, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs somehow were handed the headline slot.  Karen O dressed like a peacock and sprayed water from her mouth generating huge cheers from the crowd.  The Yeah Yeah Yeahs placement as the headliner ahead of the Youth seemed odd given their comparative contributions to rock, yet Karen O seemed to justify the decision by promoter Live Nation when the crowd mushroomed in size and rowdiness for the final set. 

 

Thursday afternoon took us away from terror on TV and over to Shea for a matinee with Piazza and the Pods.  Piazza didn’t play but got a big ovation when they showed a video image of him standing on the top step of the dugout.  The night before he had two home runs, so it was a bit curious that Padre skipper Bruce Bochy didn’t at least find a pinch-hit spot for the Pizza man in the 7-3 Met win.  The two newly-signed Mets who make up the left part of the infield both had big hits.  Jose Reyes had a big two-run triple in the second and David Wright (pictured above) had a game-winning rbi double in the seventh and stole two bases.  At least half the crowd of 39,649 was made up of young day-campers who thought every fly ball hit was destined to be a home run the moment bat hit the ball.  The big discovery was the Mama’s of Corona sandwich concession on the mezz level near the entry point for section five.  There’s no sign or fanfare, but a dude with a small space is selling Mama’s subs for $9.50.  We had the turkey and fresh mozzarella sub with mushrooms.  When we bought the boxed-up sandwich, the vendor asked if we’d “like gravy with that.” 

 

 

“Gravy on a sub?” we said – but accepted.  And boy, was it great.  Smoked turkey, super-tasty mozz on Italian bread soaked with spicy brown juice.  Wowee-Zowee. 

 

8-12-06 1450

 

It’s hard not to be jaded or skeptical about government proclamations of imminent terror and adjustments in threat levels, but today’s news out of the UK is a real jolt for the airline industry.   Authorities say they have rounded up a band of British nationals with possible links to Pakistan who had designs on mixing up batches of chemicals in-flight in what’s described as a coordinated attack on US-bound airliners coming out of the UK.   You know it’s serious when British Airways has cancelled most of its flights for today and tomorrow in and out of Heathrow.  Domestic carriers in this country have scrambled to inform its passengers of just-released directives from the Department of Homeland Security which prohibit “liquids or gels” beyond the checkpoint.  According to the guidelines, things as innocuous as toothpaste, contact lens solution and suntan lotion must be put in one’s checked luggage.  One can imagine what kind of confusion this would cause with no notice for hundreds of thousands of fliers at a time when air travel is at its absolute peak.  You’ve got already strained and underpaid airline employees, federal screeners and an odd mix of short-tempered and level-headed business and leisure travelers who face a new layer of rules with no notice. 

 

UK airports have banned all carry-on luggage – which is unbelievable.  That country’s guidelines allow a limited and specified number of items to be carried past security in a clear plastic bag only.  Laptop computers are being banned from carriage in the cabin.  It’s a stunning situation that is gonna kill business travel short-term and you wonder where all of this goes. 

 

Air travel in the US is already a tightly-wound ball of frustration over delays, security and over-booking.  Throw in this new threat during the busy summer travel season and it’s gonna require the same kind of compassion, resilience and patience displayed by passengers and airport staff in the months after 9-11.

 

There’s been no disclosure yet on the precise nature of the liquids that were planned to cause explosions.  You wonder if the government response forcing everything into the cargo hold won’t prompt the terror-minded to shift their strategy in that direction.   

 

CNN is reporting that American, Continental and United were targeted in the attacks.  A half-hour into the trading session on Wall Street, CNN is saying that “trading imbalances” have put a halt to all sales of Continental and American stock. 

 

Stung earlier in the week by concerns of reduced domestic oil flow, airline bottom lines are getting crushed at a time when it appeared they might finally be getting back on their feet.

 

8-10-06 1003 

 

Welcome back Mike Piazza.  The face of the Met franchise for seven years makes his homecoming at Shea tonight in a Padre uniform.  The sure-fire hall-of-famer is having a nice season out in San Diego – better than expected – and will definitely get a warm welcome when he steps into the box.  We’re going to the game Thursday on an afternoon in which he probably sits, but we’ll best remember him for his game winning home run at Shea in the first home game after 9-11.  It was September 21, 2001 and the first baseball game since the attacks in a city that was badly bummed.  TSR sat in an Irish tavern that night and the place exploded with joy when Piazza hit a dramatic two-run homer in the eighth to help the Mets win 3-2.  The above photo is pulled from the archives.  It was taken on the last day of the 2005 season when the Shea faithful said goodbye to Piazza on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. 

 

-Jack Bell of the Times says the Red Bulls have sold sixty-thousand tickets to their Saturday friendly against FC Barcelona at the Meadowlands.  The match will mark the Red Bulls coaching debut of Bruce Arena.

 

8-8-06 1821 

 

The cryptic warning from Met catcher Paul LoDoca a few days ago all made sense this morning when we picked up the Post and the front page screamed the news that his wife was divorcing him.  Whew.  What a relief. 

 

LoDuca had told Met beat writers last Thursday night that he was done talking to the press and the reason why would come out in a few days.  Turns out, LoDuca was miffed that the Post had dug up the divorce filing from a San Antonio courthouse.  LoDuca had been among the most gracious and hospitable Mets this season according to journalists who cover the team.  His threat to stop talking caught people off guard, and the last few days forced Met fans to speculate on what he was upset about. 

 

But today’s revelation is a relief to those who were worried about something much worse in terms of LoDuca’s ability to contribute down the stretch.  That’s not to say we don’t sympathize with LoDuca’s plight, but at least it’s not steroids or worse. 

 

As it often does, the Post overplayed the story because they had a picture of LoDuca’s wife that editors knew would likely titillate its core readership.  That’s what the Post does.  Tomorrow, the Daily News will follow with some effort to advance the story, and then if as LoDuca maintains, it’s a straight-up divorce case, the story goes away and the Met catcher goes back to being himself.  He already ended his media boycott last night. 

 

-A couple of interesting primary election battles get settled tomorrow when voters go to the polls in Connecticut and Georgia.  War supporter and socially-conservative Democrat Joe Lieberman trails in the polls to wealthy Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont.   National pundits have already written the Leeb-man off, saying his support of the president’s Iraq policy will sink his 18-year US Senate career.  Lamont has hammered Lieberman with an aggressive campaign financed largely through his own pile of cash. He has held wide leads in the polls, as much as thirteen percentage points.  But not so fast.  Lieberman has to be encouraged by the latest polling data which shows him making a dent in the Lamont lead and there’s got to be a lot of machine-types in that state who will grease the wheels for the guy that started his political career in Connecticut’s state legislature in 1970.  Lamont hasn’t paid his dues as a lawmaker, his career limited to just locally-elected municipal posts.   The Leeb-man’s recent slogan that the state “doesn’t need a Senator who’s going to need training wheels,” may be catching fire.  We’ll predict a narrow victory for Lieberman.  Although, the fact that Lamont’s dominant strategy of campaign success has played on failures in Iraq shows you where Democrats in the Northeast are right now.  

 

The other race is an ugly one with two bad choices and we mention it only because we saw the televised debate over the weekend between Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and her challenger Hank Johnson.  McKinney represents the Fourth district in Atlanta’s East suburbs, much of it in DeKalb County.  She has been an embarrassment to her constituents and to those who follow Congress nationally.  She’s most famous for an incident earlier this year when capitol police in DC claimed she struck an officer who asked her to submit to screening as she entered a House office building.  She’s made wacky claims linking Bush to 9-11 and has a paranoid approach to dealing with mainstream media.  McKinney needs to be ousted, but Johnson is being propped up by GOP donors and he coughed his way (literally) through much of the TV debate shown on CSPAN this past weekend.

 

8-7-06 1720     

 

A shaky first inning for Tom Glavine and a dicey ninth from Billy Wagner couldn’t keep the Mets from an exciting matinee victory over the Phils at Shea yesterday.  Glavine notched win #287.  He overcame a bad first inning to settle into six scoreless after that.  Wagner isn’t the stone cold stopper you thought you were getting at $43 million for four years, but with runners on first and third up a run in the ninth, Wags got bailed out by David Wright.  Phils pinch-hitter Mike Lieberthal blistered a shot down the left field line that would have at least tied the game, but Wright dove for the ball near the bag, got up quickly and fired to first in time to seal the 4-3 victory (fans pictured celebrating above immediately after the play).  

 

The Met lead for first place is back up to twelve games, and perhaps most encouraging is that Glavine had his first good start in a while.  The 40-year-old lefty needs to be big come post-season, and recent shellackings at the hands of the Cubs and Braves had you worried.  Phillies starter Jon Lieber was great, retiring 17 straight Mets before choking on what should have been a routine toss to first base to end the sixth.  The bad throw allowed Carlos Beltran to reach first and open a door that should have been shut.  Lieber’s mistake was compounded when David Wright lifted a lazy fly ball to left that Pat Burrell totally went lazy on, scoring Beltran.  Then Endy Chavez came up and ripped a double off the wall to score two more runs including the game winner.  Chavie had entered the game in the second after Cliff Floyd re-aggravated a bad Achilles.  Chavez has been a key and versatile guy all year with big hits in big spots. 

 

Yesterday was our first in-person look at the great Phillie first baseman Ryan Howard (pictured above).  The 26-year-old giant of a man hit his 38th homer of the year off Glavine in the first with an effortless swing that propelled the opposite-field shot deep to left.  Howard won the ’05 rookie of the year award and this year’s home run derby – and will be launching moonshots for a long time to come.  He has 99 ribs to lead the league.  Along with Chase Utley, he will no doubt be a guy who will be the rare athlete who can satisfy the unusually demanding fans in Philadelphia. 

 

The weather was perfect at 88 degrees and low humidity.  Attendance was announced at 44,829.  We sat in the first row above the aisle in the loge and had a perfect view of Wright’s three great defensive plays.  TSR spoke to Cowbell Man about last week’s profile piece in the Daily News and he seemed generally pleased with the pub except for the item’s suggestion that he’s disliked in section five.  “There’s just one guy over there who doesn’t like me,” said Cowbell Man. 

 

Meantime, yesterday’s News had a brief item about Paul LoDuca that seems potentially troublesome.  Contained in beat writer Adam Rubin’s miscellaneous notes was this four sentence passage:  “Paul LoDuca clearly was irate about something when he told print and broadcast media that he no longer will be giving interviews this season.  Until yesterday, LoDuca had actually been one of the most helpful and available players in the Mets clubhouse. And he was still speaking with news media Thursday night in Miami after the loss to the Marlins. He would not, however, explain the reason he's going silent, except to say it would become obvious in a couple days.”

 

Now, what the heck is that all about?  What is gonna happen in the next couple of days that will justify LoDuca’s decision to clam up? 

 

8-6-06

 

The governing body of tennis in this country is bypassing a ton of money to honor one of its greats.  The United States Tennis Association announced this week that it will begin calling the massive tennis complex in Flushing the “USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.”

 

Experts believe the USTA could have generated $5 million annually by selling the naming rights, but the USTA’s top man Arlen Kantarian told Richard Sandomir of the Times that he and his board didn’t want to go that way.  “In this day and age of selling names on venues, it’s clear that some things are not for sale.”

 

She might not be the greatest woman’s tennis player of all-time, but King’s total package makes her impact as big on the sport as anybody - and she was bowled over by the honor.  She told Sandomir:  “This is a show of faith and respect.  And with it a sense of responsibility.  I don’t think I’ll ever comprehend this.” 

 

So, now it’s the King Tennis Center with Arthur Ashe Stadium as the main venue.  King and Ashe.  It’s cool.  And it’ll put more pressure on the Mets to reconsider what they’re doing with the naming rights on their new stadium which is starting to sprout up right across the street.  The Met owner is saying he’ll sell to the highest bidder while the Post has editorialized in favor of calling it Jackie Robinson Stadium. 

 

-Chase Utley came into Shea last night trying to extend his consecutive game hitting streak to 36.  It didn’t happen.  He had five cracks at it, his best shot in the seventh on a sharp grounder up the middle.  But just-inserted second baseman Jose Valentin made a nice play and his throw nipped Utley at first.  Had starting second baseman Chris Woodward still been in the game at that point, the streak continues    We wanted Utley to get a hit, because we’re going to the game this afternoon, but this particular streak is really hard to keep alive.  What was most disappointing about last night was that Met fans booed Utley.  You’re kidding me, right?  What’s not to like about Utley?

 

8-5-06 1042 

 

The three-day NYC heat wave broke up at just about the time we walked into the smokin’ rock show by LA’s Silversun Pickups at Mercury Lounge last night.  Singer/guitar player Brian Aubert is a fidgety fella between songs, but is possessed with immense talent when he unleashes his alternately beautiful and screeching vocals.  Bassist Nikki Monninger smiled with appreciation as the capacity crowd erupted with approval for the new material off the just released Carnavas LP from Dangerbird.  The tune “Well Thought Out Twinkles” was intensely strong and when Monninger chimes in on the song “Little Lovers So Polite,” her sweet contribution perfectly endorses Aubert’s feeling of decline, lack of control and effort to feed “core needs.” 

 

Without question, the best single song released in 2005 was “Kissing Families,” off the band’s debut Pikul.  The band rolled it out mid-set and the place went nuts.  Aubert saved “Lazy Eye” for near the end and just when it appeared the lights would come on to end the evening, the persistent crowd begged for one more and got a killer version of “Comeback Kid.”  Heckler Bob timed the show at eighty minutes.  At the end, Aubert invited the crowd over to Piano’s for a special late-night bonus set, but TSR was all worn out and jumped on the F train. 

 

Monninger may not be the driving force in the band, but without her energy, smile and appreciative connection with the audience, the Pickups wouldn’t have what seems like a huge opportunity to be a smash in terms of future audience size.  She’s something to be seen. 

 

Some in the crowd last night were making Smashing Pumpkins comparisons.  Yeah, I guess Aubert’s howl is Corganesque.  But Monninger blows D’Arcy away and the Pickups don’t appear interested in stooping to “Tonight, Tonight” type stuff. 

 

If you get a chance, the Pickups are on the road most of August and are hitting the big cities in the East and Midwest before heading back to their home base.

 

-Mets management won a big front office victory by signing superstar shortstop Jose Reyes to a deal the kid may regret.  Reyes signed away the next five years of his career at what seems like a big discount with a contract that will pay him $23.25 million over the next four with a club option on the fifth year.  Yeah, it’s a lotta dough but we’re talking about an all-star shortstop who may be the best at his position in a couple of years.  His agent Peter Greenberg defended the decision to avoid arbitration and defer free agency until 2012 alluding to hamstring problems for Reyes early in his career.  Says Greenberg in the Daily News today:  “Jose is a player who has had some injuries in the past.  He’s a player who plays the game very hard – 110%.  This takes a weight off his shoulders.” 

 

-Met skipper Willie Randolph’s decision to use Aaron Heilman a third straight game in Miami predictably blew up in his face in the 4-1 loss to the Marlins last night.  Coming off two great one-inning stints on Tuesday and Wednesday, TSR considered Heilman unavailable and was surprised to see him warming up in the eighth in the doozy of a battle between Pedro and Dontrelle.  When he entered the tie game in the eighth, you just knew it was trouble – and Met fan screams at the bar-room TV set couldn’t jar Willie into avoiding the train wreck even when Miguel Cabrera came up with the bases loaded.  New rule Willie:  when you get confidence-boosting efforts from Heilman on back to back nights, stay away from that well on the third night and put a clipboard in his hand or something.  With Duaner Sanchez out for the season, Heilman has become a critical bridge between the starter and Wags.  But he’s still shaking the starter mentality and Willie needs to think more about Ring or Bradford in addition to Bert when he’s cobbling late-inning adventures.

 

8-4-06 1201   

 

We’re a little late with the recap, but TSR took a trip down the shore to see the horses run on the newly-installed turf course at Monmouth Park Saturday.  The 90-minute train ride from Penn Station takes you past the chemical tanks of Sopranos-land, Newark-Liberty International Airport and then into the revived shore communities just twenty or thirty miles south of the big city.  Round trip train tickets cost $18 and can be bought at the self-service machines at Penn – but don’t cut it too close – because the line can get long. 

 

Saturday was a classic, sunny summer day.  The walk from the Monmouth train stop to the track is about ten minutes.  The crab cake sandwich, fries and tall plastic cup of Budweiser at the third floor Salvator Bar and Grill all were excellent.  Our betting action focused on the late pick-four.  The proposition started with the seventh race won by the favorite He’s Got Grit.  Then, with what looked like a dry, hard turf course mysteriously labeled as “good” rather than “firm,” the eighth race was a grass sprint affair at 5.5 furlongs.  It’s a suicide sprint which usually favors horses who go quick early and hang on for dear life.  That’s what the winner did.  At odds of 14.3 to one, Man of Danger (pictured above) came out of post position eight and with the guidance of jockey Alan Garcia veered over toward the rail and went wire to wire.  TSR was alive on six pick-four tickets with several remaining combinations.  The third leg of the pick-four was won by the overwhelming favorite – an impressive two-year-old named Bella Shambrock trained by red-hot Todd Pletcher.  So, with one race to go, TSR was sitting on an opportunity to collect some cash.  We needed either of the top two betting choices to win, and it looked like a lock.  Problem is, these horses are Jersey-breds racing with a $7500 claiming price and don’t always run according to form.  Our top pick Salt Flat Kid grabbed the early lead, gave it up to Graze, came back in the stretch to take our breath away, and then gave it up to Graze again prior to the wire.  The real kick in the pants was that Graze was a horse who had cost us dough in the past.  The nine-year-old gelding was a big shooter for Dick Dutrow in his prime and it seemed that whenever we bet on him in the early years of his career, he lost.  We thought about that as we omitted Graze from our pick four, but his spring and summer running lines were brutal and we viewed a victory in this spot as unlikely.  It always seems to work this way.  Ignore the horse that you had bet on before and he’ll win when you walk away. 

 

Attendance at Monmouth was reported at 9292.  The turf course that cost $3.5-million to replace was not visually impressive by any stretch and horsemen have complained that it is rock hard and unkind to their horses’ feet.  The friendly vibe from vendors, tellers and patrons is distinctively Jersey shore - different than the gruff and tough stuff you get from the tracks in New York. 

 

Monmouth Park is slated to host the Breeder’s Cup in fall 2007.  The smallish grandstand size is apparently offset by its proximity to New York and an influential and political track leadership. 

 

-A big congrats to Matty Loughlin who has been handed the Devils radio play-by-play job.  Loughlin is best known for being the Mets dugout reporter for a decade until Fred Wilpon launched SNY and replaced him with Chris Cotter this spring.  Loughlin is a big hockey guy too – sharing the pre-game and between-period  TV spots with Stan Fischler in recent years.  Loughlin is funny and insightful.  Whatever he lacks in smoothness as he calls Devil games, he’ll make up for with the education he’ll give New York hockey fans as he goes along.  The Devils have not yet announced who they’ll pair up with Loughlin, but you’d think it’ll be an ex-player.  This will sound crazy, but it would be a real kick if the Devils gave Fischler the analyst job.

 

8-2-06 1849 

 

The chairman of New York’s Public Service Commission tells the New York Times in today’s edition that he didn’t know whether he and his colleagues have examined annual ConEd reports which raised red flags about the utility’s infrastructure in Queens.  William Flynn made the embarrassing admission in response to a Times analysis which shows startling numbers of feeder cable failures in the area where last week’s week-long blackout occurred.  News of the failures comes directly from ConEd’s own annual reports on its service.  Flynn is paid $127-thousand annually.  He was given the job by do-nothing Governor George Pataki who was absolutely nowhere to be found the duration of the blackout. 

 

Meantime state assemblyman Mike Gianaris of Astoria tells the Times today what TSR said a week ago:  “I believe ConEd low-balled the number of customers affected by the blackout purposefully to disguise the severity of the problem.  It seems like they were hoping they could figure out how to fix it before anybody noticed.”

 

-Updating a fact contained in an earlier item which referenced the number of refugees in Lebanon, the United Nations is estimating that 700-thousand Lebanese have been forced from their homes.  That’s about one-fifth of the population. 

 

-The Post’s long-time Jets beat writer Mark Cannizzaro says yesterday’s opening of training camp “represented a low point in public relations for the Jets.”  Cannizzaro says first round pick D’Brickashaw Ferguson twice ran away from assembled media seeking comment on his newly-inked contract.  Cannizzaro says late in the day the Jets issued a news release announcing that Curtis Martin and Justin McCareins were placed on the physically unable to perform list without any explanation as to why.  Coach Eric Mangini refused comment.  Today, Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum appeared on ‘FAN with Mike Francesca and said that McCareins is on the shelf because he appeared to camp out of shape.  Incidentally, the 52-year-old Francesca and his wife (who he refers to as Mrs. Met) are expecting their third child in November.

 

-An oddly placed but excellent story in the Thursday “House and Homes” section of the Times says longtime columnist Art Buchwald is dying – and living out his final days with good humor at his summer home on Martha’s Vineyard.  The piece written by Joyce Wadler says the 80-year-old Buchwald has failing kidneys, recently lost a leg and has declined dialysis treatments aimed at prolonging his life.  Wadler reports that Buchwald entered a Washington hospice with the intention of slipping away peacefully in February, but checked out in July to spend the final chapter at his vacation home.  Wadler spends a day with Buchwald and finds him to be happy, witty and content.  She quotes him as saying:  “I think for most people summer houses have more meaning than homes in winter, because all the memories, usually, of a summer place are happy ones.  When you’re in the city, you’re just in the city, but here I have been happy.”

 

7-28-06 1701

 

Early morning explosions outside the TSR headquarters added excitement to the off day and a lesson on the proficiency of the New York City Fire Department.  Three loud booms shook the windows just before 6 AM and tall flames created an orange hue never before seen from our view of 79th Street. Our first thought was electrical transformer overload and another ConEd fiasco.  But when we looked out the window (pictured above), we could see three cars on fire along with all the Friday morning garbage set out for pickup.  The heat against the window pane and the threat of three more parked cars directly in front of our first floor apartment had us thinking quick evacuation.  We assembled our person, grabbed some cash and a camera, went outside and were surprised to see thirty firefighters and four fire trucks already arriving on the scene. 

 

The NYFD has a clear command structure and carries out its operation with a very methodical approach.  With a huge number of people living in buildings just fifteen feet from the blaze, firefighters calmly waited on instructions from superiors who assessed the threat.  TSR at first thought the NYFD was moving too slow – as the blaze grew closer to our HQ – and another car exploded.  But then New York’s bravest went to work (pictured above).  A street’s worth of car alarms set off by the explosions provided a frenetic soundtrack.  Guys with names like Abbruzese, Peters and Derry stitched on their heavy coats sprayed water on the building side of the fire to protect the population.  They let the cars burn.  Then a separate team brought in a hose connected to a chemical tank truck.  A man in a white hat who appeared to top the chain of command gave the go sign.  The burning vehicles were doused with a brownish foam that quickly contained the blaze.  Last in was a fire-eater with the word “AXMAN” stitched into the bottom of his jacket.  He started pounding away at the now destroyed vehicles looking for more potential fire threats.  Fellow building residents filed back into their dwellings now safe that the event was over.  TSR applauds the fire department for a quick response and an impressive display of professionalism.  The cause of the blaze?  Unknown.  But one would lean toward the tied up bundles of cardboard for recycling or the other garbage out for pickup as a possible source.   

 

-Teddy Greenstein of the Trib has been out front every step of the way on the Blackhawks hockey broadcast shuffling and today he says Dan Kelly is close to becoming the TV play-by-play voice.  Kelly is the son of the late, great Dan Kelly Sr. who called Blues games for two decades ending in ’89.  The younger Dan’s brother John currently does Blues games on TV.  Greenstein expects the Hawks to announce as early as next week that Kelly will join Eddie Olczyk in the TV booth.  John Weideman and Troy Murray will do radio.  The best hockey announcer of his generation, Pat Foley, was mysteriously let go by the Hawks after the season – perhaps because Foley would have been on radio only starting this fall.  It’s believed the Hawks didn’t bowl Foley over with its financial offer, either.  Now the Hawks are left with two mediocre play-by-play voices.  TSR saw Kelly do the HDNet games this past season and he’s way too much bluster.  Weideman comes off five dull seasons as the voice of the Islanders.  He’ll put you to sleep and he stays away from critical analysis of the home team.

 

7-28-06 0832

 

 Instead of leadership that works to solve world problems, this country’s top decision-makers always seem to throw money at them instead.  We write a check of about $3 billion a year and send it to Israel – and then stand by as they bombard the living daylights out of Lebanon. 

 

So when Condi Rice landed in Beirut yesterday, she came offering 30-million bucks to Lebanon to help offset the massive damage Israel has done to the struggling country.  It seems to be a direct contradiction to offer aid to a country which is getting pummeled in large measure by the bombs we bought.  You’d think the Arab world sees right through Condi and her smile.  Yet, Israel’s current efforts fit nicely with the Bush administration’s desire to crush “evildoers” and fight the global war on terrorism without regard for the mess left behind.

 

Yeah, Israel has a right to defend itself.  The looming threat of Hezbollah fighters with short-range rockets backed by a loony Iranian regime bent on destroying Tel Aviv is worth meeting head-on.  But Israel needs to be more precise and specific with its targets.  Too many civilians are dying in Lebanon simply for living in the same vicinity as Hezbollah terrorists.  What about the Beirut airport?  Why did Israel find it necessary to shut down a key international airport with massive bomb craters up and down the runways?  It’s hard to understand the possible justification for destruction of an international airport.  It is a critical escape point for innocent civilians – and yes – thousands of tourists.  Now, the airport is basically shut and we’ve got US military going in to evacuate citizens whose lives are at risk because of a $3 billion dollar a year ally which wants to blow up every bit of infrastructure in Lebanon. 

 

Not every truck that passes into Lebanon from northern access points carries Hezbollah weapons.  There are relief supplies to aid the injured and displaced – and Israel is bombing those vehicles.  Israel validates its actions by claiming that Hezbollah violates the rules of war by using civilian human shields and other tricks to elude eradication.  Yeah, that’s what terrorists do.  But the burden should be on mighty US-backed Israel to fight fair regardless of its opponents’ tactics – and to fight proportionately to the threat.  The current - seemingly indiscriminate Israeli bombing is destroying Lebanon and creating thousands – maybe hundreds of thousands of refugees.  Those folks are Muslims – many of whom were living some kind of stable life in Lebanon.  Now they’re pissed and they’ll add to the growing number of their brothers and sisters elsewhere in that region who hate Israel and the United States.    

 

President Bush has vowed to reshape the region by inspiring democratization.  Yet, it seems that all that’s happening lately is death, destruction and more and more angry people. 

 

So far, the only solution advanced in the discussion stages the last few days is a peace-keeping force on the border consisting of Turks and Egyptians.  It’s hard to imagine the Israelis being thrilled with that idea. 

 

You wonder where all of this is headed.  Despite the long history of war in the region and world, somehow the recent events in Lebanon and the loss of control on the ground in Iraq make the current direction of this country’s foreign policy feel more screwed up than ever.

 

 7-26-06 1827  

 

El Duque seems to have developed a pattern of never repeating two bad starts in a row since joining the Mets two months ago.  Coming off the Sunday night shelling at Wrigley, El Duque started shaky at Shea yesterday giving up bombs to Lance Berkman and Preston Wilson in the first.  The natives were already restless after sitting through a 63 minute rain delay before the game, and a lot of folks wanted Willie to give Duque a quick hook.  But as seems typical with the veteran knee-kisser, El Duque settled into a rhythm, struck out eight, and cruised through a solid seven innings for another Met win.  

 

The X-factor was Met right-fielder Xavier Nady (you can barely see him in the batter's box above - facing Astros pitcher Brandon Backe) who ripped a three-run homer in the fourth to put the Mets up 4-3.  That was the final score as Sanchez pitched the eighth, and Wags closed it out for his 20th save just about the time the rain returned.  Nady is playing through a sore wrist and has said he limits the amount of swings he takes in the on deck circle.  He’s so-so defensively and talk persists that Omar is shopping for a right-fielder.  But Nady is clutch.  He’s home-run clutch.  Everybody moaned when Omar got Nady straight-up for Cameron, but Nady appears to be a guy that can effectively hold down right field with help from Endy Chavez.  Why not stand pat with this roster?  TSR fears Omar is gonna get trigger-happy at the deadline and deal young talent to plug holes.  But where are the holes?  Let’s go to war with what we’ve got. 

 

The most rampant trade talk surrounding the Mets has Omar getting another starter who can be the three/four guy in the post-season.  But El Duque should be that guy with backing from either John Maine or Mike Pelfrey, who both seem poised to be ready for prime time with a couple months more seasoning.  El Duque (pictured above) is exactly the kinda guy you can picture handling a big post-season start in St. Louis or San Francisco, or wherever the Mets end up as they try to get to the World Series. 

 

The announced attendance on a windy, humid, but pleasant afternoon was 46,574.  About 45 minutes before the game, the skies dumped buckets of rain and so TSR fled back to the home base to wait it out  -and then jumped back on the train about

 

Met fans who ride the subway should be advised that you cannot enter the main 7 train station from the east after the game.  It appears that construction associated with the new ballpark is to blame for a total closure of that access point.  There are no signs to help people on this matter, so if your seats are on the east side of the ballpark as ours were, you need to go the long way to get on the subway. 

 

-Post hockey writer Larry Brooks has not discussed the embarrassing recent behavior and decision-making of Islanders owner Charles Wang up until today.  But you knew Brooks couldn’t resist, so in Sunday’s edition he reported that the supposedly fired GM Mike Milbury represented the team at Mike York’s arbitration hearing on Thursday.  Milbury was axed by Wang when Neil Smith was hired six weeks ago. But then Smith was abruptly fired as GM this past week and replaced by the Isles backup goaltender Garth Snow.  Wang said he canned Smith because he couldn’t live with a complicated command structure that involved a half-dozen guys including Wang and ex-players Pat LaFontaine and Bryan Trottier.  LaFontaine quit the same day Smith was fired.  So, now the Islanders are being run by a corrupt computer executive, a backup goalie with no management experience and a coach who was blackballed by the league (Ted Nolan) for fighting with management in Buffalo.  And as reported by Brooks, now Milbury is back in the picture despite his termination six weeks ago.  Says Brooks:  “Wang’s idea that he can reinvent the puck by operating without delegating authority to responsible decision-makers in the hockey department is a crackpot notion and should be recognized as nothing less.” 

 

 -A profile of Jet receiver Laveranues Coles written by Karen Crouse of the Times buries a key and previously unreported fact in today’s edition.  The Crouse story focuses on efforts by Coles to build a mega-mansion on 21 acres in Jacksonville and has quotes from Laveranues saying the house will allow him to remove himself from the real world.  Coles has lingering emotional issues after suffering sexual abuse at the hands of his step-father at gunpoint while in junior high.  That aspect of Coles’ life has been reported, but the Crouse story breaks new ground when Coles says that after the last Jet game of last year, a Bills player approached him and made what Crouse calls a “coarse homophobic comment.”  Coles doesn’t identify the player but says an on-field official heard what transpired and told Coles:  “Laveranues, you have nothing to be ashamed of.” 

 

You’d think somebody is gonna review the tape of that game and its aftermath to see if it’s possible to determine both the player and official who were party to that incident.

 

 7-23-06 1657 

 

The maddening power outage impacting several neighborhoods here in Queens is into its fourth day, and finally the media is starting to pick up on it.  Just 24-hours ago, WABC-TV was reporting that the total number of Queens residents impacted by the blackout was 700.  That was impossible for even the casual observer to believe since the wide area without power contains thousands of residents.  Con Edison effectively sandbagged the impact through a PR campaign of denial but angry and hot residents in Astoria, Sunnyside and Woodside are starting to turn this into a major story. 

 

The Associated Press is now running an item which reports that New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg believes the number of Queens residents without power could be 100,000. 

 

A TSR co-worker in Astoria with a young baby has lost a refrigerator full of food, is at wit’s end and has fled to Forest Hills to sleep at a brother’s cool dwelling.   Many have no place to go including elderly and sick according to a story in this morning’s Times.  Con Edison is acknowledging now that part of its problem is not knowing which customers are still in the dark.  In a press release issued a few hours ago, Con Ed is asking those in impacted neighborhoods with power restored to leave a light on overnight so their crews can figure out who is still in the dark.  At the same time, the utility asking people in the same neighborhoods to curtail electrical usage.  Go figure. 

 

 -CBS news anchor-to-be Katie Couric is already admitting she’ll be a lightweight in one of this country’s most important news slots.  Katie has told the tabloid TV show “Access Hollywood” that she would refuse to report from a war zone like the one we’re watching Brian Williams report from this week on the northern border of Israel.  Says Katie:  “I think the situation there is so dangerous, and as a single parent with two children, that’s something I won’t be doing.”  Wonder if her new $60-million contract gives her that type of say about whether she can stay in the studio while her counterparts on the other big two network shows are in the middle of it all?

 

7-22-06 1801 

 

Bettors who place sports wagers through off-shore books on the internet are nervously watching the US government’s two-pronged attack against online gambling.  Last Sunday, the feds shockingly arrested the CEO of Betonsports David Carruthers as he attempted to make a connecting flight in Dallas en route to his company’s operational base in Costa Rica.  Carruthers is charged with racketeering in connection with what the US government believes is his stewardship of an illegal gambling enterprise.  Betonsports.com has stopped taking bets and has been ordered by a US judge to return money held in the accounts of American customers.  Congress is also moving on the multi-billion-dollar industry.  Last week, the House passed a bill to tighten the noose on internet gambling by prohibiting US credit card companies from acting as a conduit between the US bettor and the off-shore accounts. 

 

 The legal questions are tough.  All the internet betting shops used by Americans are set up in Caribbean countries.  The US Federal Wire Act of 1961 criminalizes gambling but is less than clear on the current relationship between US bettors on computers placing sports wagers on the internet through books in other countries. 

 

The internet books may have hurt their cause by openly and blatantly courting US customers with billboards and full-page magazine ads.  The government’s case against Carruthers also includes charges against the marketing firms who prepared ads on behalf of Betonsports.

 

Carruthers and hundreds of books have openly defended their ability to exist and up until now have mostly been left alone by the US government.  Carruthers in fact has advocated US regulation as a form of legitimacy. 

 

Meantime, the US has acted in a hugely inconsistent manner as it relates to gambling.  It’s everywhere you look with mindless slot machines sprouting up everywhere.  It’s fine for 75-year-olds on fixed incomes to fritter away their monthly check on a machine that does little more than make computer-generated sounds and slurp up your dough.  It’s fine to drop bucks on a fifty-million to one draw of the ping pong balls.  Heck, even the House bill passed last week carves out an exception for betting on horses.  But why the extreme sensitivity and morality as it relates to sports wagering on the internet? 

 

If the feds wants a slice of the action, why not figure out a mechanism to tax winnings.  As it stands now, you win a thousand bucks on the Army/Navy game and it’s all yours minus the juice.  While Carruthers sits in a federal lockup, all of his competitors on the internet remain open for business.  Our favorite site based in Antigua is business as usual.  They even accept credit card deposits masked by a third-party handler with a non-sports gambling name.

 

And isn’t it better for bettors in this country to place sports wagers through companies that are publicly traded (albeit in other countries), than at the corner tavern where the juice often ends up in pocket of organized crime?  Ideally, the US would wake up and allow companies at home to reap the billions of dollars associated with sports gambling.  Instead, it appears they’re gonna try to shut it down – which as we’ve seen with the prohibition of any substance or activity – it drives the activity into the hands of the criminals.  Prohibition doesn’t work.  The answer is regulation – and taxation.

 

 7-21-06 1028 

 

New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni surely lost some credibility among those in the newsroom when he suggested that the Grey Lady’s decision to reduce the size of the paper won’t have much of an impact on readers. 

 

Earlier in the week, the Times buried what should have been a front page story deep in the middle of the business section.  It announced that effective April 2008 the paper will reduce the width of its pages by an inch and a half.  It’s an 11.5-percent size reduction that executive editor Bill Keller says will end up reducing overall content of the paper by five-percent after additional pages are added.  Keller boasted that better editing to reduce “flabby or redundant prose” would actually make the paper better in the smaller, USA Today-like size. 

 

It’s often an iffy contention when big companies say they can become leaner and meaner, but when newspapers do it, it’s ridiculous. 

 

Worse was Bruni’s statement to the NY Observer:  “Do you succeed in reading 95-percent of the paper every day?  It suggests to me that we could lose five percent and probably live.” 

 

Yeah, Frank – there are plenty of readers who pay a buck for the paper every day and read it cover to cover.  It’s worth reading every bit of it because of its great coverage of all topics. 

 

Newspapers in this country are cutting content and the staff that gathers it.  They think readership is shrinking because of the internet – or a new generation disinterested in getting ink on their fingers – but they ought to consider whether the decline in print journalism has to do with decisions to squeeze as much money out them without putting out a quality product.  The Times will remain a great paper when it goes smaller in a couple years, but this most recent decision is definitely a bad one for those who appreciate its current size and everything that is in it.

 

 7-20-06 1929 

 

It was a scene of barely-controlled chaos at LaGuardia airport today as the extreme heat led to power outages that shut down the operations at American Airlines and the Delta Shuttle.  Both operations are big players at LaGuardia and both handle big passenger numbers on a summer day like today.  But without electricity, critical functions are lost and inbound airborne aircraft were diverting elsewhere once it became clear there was no way to process customers.  No way to move the jet bridges to board or deplane customers.  No way to issue boarding passes or create crucial paperwork associated with the departures.  So for hours on end today, passengers arrived at LaGuardia only to find darkened and hot terminals and little ability on the part of airline passenger service staffers to convey information effectively – or sanely.  Most passengers were turned away and told to call 800-reservations numbers.  Some were transported to Newark or JFK for flights that had available seats. Late in the day, American used large buses to take groups to Kennedy and we spoke with one customer at LaGuardia with a ticket to Raleigh who was rebooked on the 9:30 PM out of JFK.

 

The question must be asked.  How does a city as great and important as New York allow its main domestic airport to have such vulnerabilities?  Thousands of companies do business in Manhattan with air conditioning cranked up to the max, cold air rushing out the front door.  Yet a key transportation center in this country’s biggest city loses a portion of its power for much of the day.  The Port Authority is pointing the finger at Con Ed and blown feeder lines.  But the Port Authority should keep quiet.  This is an entity which runs an airport that must use hundreds of garbage cans every time it rains to catch the water dripping from the terminal’s roof.  It’s a corrupt public agency which charges the users of bridges, tunnels, air strips and seaports lots of money in exchange for the kinda nonsense we saw today. 

 

Yeah, the mercury nearly hit a hundred today.  But this city must find a way to protect and reinforce the viability of one of its most strategically important places of business.

 

 7-18-06 1849

 

The best summer song in a long time comes off the great new Eleventh Dream Day record Zeroes and Ones.  It’s called “Pinwheels” and the harmonies contained in the tune by Rick Rizzo and ex-wife Janet Bean are as good as they’ve ever been in their long career together.  Incidentally, Rizzo has been putting up some of his recollections of rock and roll over the last thirty-plus years up on the sharkforum.org website.  There’s lots of good stuff including a recounting of Dream Day’s brutal experience while under contract with Atlantic Records.

 

-A month off his dominating professional boxing debut at MSG, Tom Zbikowski sings “Take Me Out” during the stretch at Wrigley tonight.  Billy Buck did it yesterday and stunk up the joint. 

 

-TSR had touted the live arm of right-handed Met reliever Henry Owens a week ago, but after getting torched yesterday by the Cubbies, Willie handed the converted catcher a ticket back to Binghamton immediately after the ballgame.  Hope you make it make it back to the show quick, Henry.

 

7-16-06 1728 

 

On an uncomfortably hot and humid Friday afternoon, the Mets opened the second half with a nice 6-3 victory over the Cubbies at Wrigley.  Cliff Floyd made a couple of good defensive plays in left and MVP candidate David Wright (pictured above) drove in a run – his 75th.  Met starter Steve Trachsel lobbed his junk with long periods between pitches and won his seventh straight start.  Chris Woodward had a home run taken away from him when third base ump Wally Bell mistakenly determined that the shot into the left field seats bounced off the front of the basket.  It didn’t matter though because Woodward scored to make it 6-2 and both Heilman and Sanchez pitched scoreless frames against a punchless Cub offense.  Both Heilman and Sanchez are popping up in trade rumors with one or the other going to the White Sox for either Sweaty Freddy or Javier Vasquez.  It’s an enticing prospect, but why mess with a good thing. 

 

Meantime, for a franchise forever known as a lovable loser, one senses the Cubs are reaching a boiling point with multiple issues swirling around the team:

 

-Dusty Baker is on the brink of getting fired and the daily questions about his job status sound as if they’re wearing him down.  Some reports have suggested Dusty is safe through the end of the season, yet the questions about whether he’ll get fired continue with GM Jim Hendry talking vaguely about an ongoing evaluation of the situation.  TV analyst Bob Brenly is on record expressing interest in the job, which you’d think could be awkward for Dusty.  

 

-The great Wood/Prior top-of-the-rotation tandem that was supposed to be the foundation for the Cubs this decade has become an almost daily dose of bad news.  Prior tweaked an oblique in BP last week and was placed on the DL yesterday - and the latest discussion of Wood has him out indefinitely with major shoulder surgery under consideration.  Whether either or both are snakebit – or intolerant to to pain – the bottom line is that both great talents have become major sore points for Cub fans.  Wood seems to be almost certainly gone at season’s end.     

 

-There’s snippiness galore with Todd Walker complaining about Brenly’s interpretation of a botched double-play ball in the fourth.  Brenly said on TV that Walker had trouble getting the ball out of his glove, Dusty called it a bobble and Walker fumed that neither occurred.  “Y’all need to go look at the replay.  It kind of handcuffed me, but it didn’t stick in my glove and I didn’t bobble it.”  Who cares, really.  Why Walker cares or knows what Brenly is saying on TV just a couple hours after he said it shows you the edginess that exists on the Cubs.  Jacque Jones got into a conflict with fans near the dugout late in the game and Derrek Lee told the press that his team was “a little sluggish coming off the break.”  It sounds as if Greg Maddux, yesterday’s losing pitcher could be moved before the deadline and there’s overwhelming sentiment on talk radio to bench, deal or drop Phil Nevin in favor of younger talent in left field. 

 

To make things worse, the crowd at Wrigley (pictured above) continues a slide of a different sort – with huge swaths of the sold-out house oblivious to the game at hand.  We sat in section 242 down the right field line and were surrounded by young fans who had little interest in the action on the field.  One self-annointed “huge Cub fan” in the row in front of us was surprised when Trachsel came to bat in the fourth.  “Did this guy start the game?  I can’t believe Trachsel is still in the bigs.  This guy used to pitch for the Cubs.”  About that same time, four young ladies arrived after having missed almost half the game to occupy the four $28 seats next to us.  Bad language and boorish behavior without regard for women or children seems to be on display at a higher rate than other sporting venues.

 

We know plenty of great Cub fans – and the ballpark remains among the sport’s best – but you can no longer call it the “friendly confines,” nor can one imagine what it’ll take to ever undo the frat party/cocktail hour atmosphere that a Cub game has become.  Losing doesn’t seem to matter.  Attendance yesterday was announced at 40,782.  Old Style out of both the tap and the sixteen-ounce can cost $5.75 and tasted excellent. 

 

When the skies opened up in the fifth, a heavy downpour forced much of the crowd into the narrow concourses below the seats for a 45-minute delay. 

 

A friend of the family who owns a nearby apartment supplied a primo parking spot just a block from the ballpark and Pops was the designated driver for the ride after the game.

 

7-15-06 1425 

Day two of jury duty ended with TSR’s almost immediate dismissal from the pool of twenty vying to hear the case of three men injured in an elevator here in Jackson Heights about a decade ago. Lawyers for both sides made it their first order of business yesterday morning to issue walking papers to TSR and another man which sent us back to the big room for more waiting. We never got another shot and finally were told our services were no longer needed late in the afternoon. TSR was able to polish off the debut novel of N plus 1 editor Benjamin Kunkel. Indecision is the name, and it’s a great read about the journey of a mixed-up 28-year-old New Yorker who ends up in an Ecuadorian jungle caper. It’s out in paper, and it’s a quick and fun look at the way a smart kid in a dysfunctional family decides to cure his indecisiveness.

Jury duty day number two also offered yet another long lunch break which took us to the Jamaican beef patty hot spot Golden Krust on Sutphin Blvd. We had the curry chicken platter and a soda for nine bucks. Very tasty. Too bad jury duty had to end. There’s a ton of intriguing lunch spots an easy waltz from the court building and the hours of the daily court sessions are much like banker’s hours.

Too many jurors try to play the role of big-shot being burdened by the one-every-six-years obligation. Really, it’s a great way to step away from the rat race – read a lot – and get rejected.

-The state assembly district in New York which perhaps needs leadership and integrity from its representative more than any instead has a crook at the helm. State assemblywoman Diane Gordon represents the economically-ransacked, drug-filled streets of East New York in Brooklyn and the D-A this week released a tape showing Gordon offering to trade her influence for a half-million dollar home. Prosecutors say Gordon promised to use her influence to secure development rights on a chunk of land owned by the city. In exchange, Gordon asked for the developer to build her a half-million dollar home in Queens with an elaborate set of provisions to hide the transaction. Problem is, the unnamed developer recorded the dirty negotiations. What’s worse, the government offered to let Gordon, a democrat off the hook if she resigned her state assembly seat and cooperated with the investigation – but that’s not happening. Gordon says she’s running to retain her seat in Albany this fall. After an initial hearing on the multiple charges against her Monday, the Post reports Gordon hopped into a Cadillac Escalade registered to Democratic state senator John Sampson. If you could see the condition of Gordon’s district and then think about what she’s doing on the public’s dime – you’d get sick.

-No respect. The Saturday night game of the MLS New York Red Bulls against Colorado at the Meadowlands has been moved to 2 PM Friday. Why switch the game to a time few can attend? Because there’s a big Bon Jovi show set for Tuesday night and crews need three days to set up for it. Yet another reason the Red Bulls need their own stadium.

-Off to Chicago tomorrow for Friday’s Met invasion of Wrigley. A report on return.

7-12-06 1857

Sure beats workin’. TSR had day one of jury duty today at the Queens County civil courthouse in Jamaica. We ripped through magazines and newspapers awaiting the call from a big holding area to a smaller jury selection room. The treasured civic duty has never landed TSR on an actual jury. At about 3 PM, we got the call. Twenty Queens residents of all stripes and ages are to be whittled down to six jurors and two alternates on a case involving mechanical equipment and injured victims. TSR was quizzed extensively and remains in contention to make the jury as far as we know - although it’s possible the lawyers didn’t buy TSR’s vow of impartiality. Juror questioning will continue tomorrow at which point we’ll either make the jury or get kicked back to the big holding area. That’s about all that should be disclosed at this point even though lawyers in the case never instructed us prospective jurors whether or not to discuss our experience thus far.

The generous hour and fifteen-minute lunch break allowed us to visit Frank’s Pizza, Pasta and Deli on 146th and Jamaica Ave. – just two blocks from the courthouse. The veal parm hero was excellent at $7. Flags celebrating the penalty-kick World Cup victory for Italy hung in the windows. The family operation did a big lunch business with lots of lawyers in nice suits eating salads and pasta.

-Nothing to do with above, the personal injury law firm which employs New York’s state assembly boss is actively recruiting clients with claims against the state. The Post “exclusive” today reports that Speaker Sheldon Silver’s firm Weitz and Luxenberg is “aggressively shopping for clients injured at state-run facilities.” Silver controls much of the state’s legislative agenda and holds perhaps the most powerful post in state government other than the governor. You’d think his main obligation would be to the taxpayers of New York. Yet the democrat’s law firm is “ambulance chasing” with the state’s coffers in its crosshairs. You can’t have it both ways Shelly.

-TSR didn’t plan on getting hooked on another regular television series when the mediocre Sopranos season closed out last month. But we watched episode number one of Brotherhood and we’re gonna go back for more. A deal-making committee chairman in the Rhode Island legislature and his mobbed-up thug brother do business in Providence. There was a clever Buddy Cianci reference right off the bat and the chairman’s pot-smoking wife is an intriguing character played by Annabeth Gish. TSR is hooked.

7-10-06 1835

The physically imposing 22-year-old Met rookie right-hander Mike Pelfrey (pictured above) made his major league debut at Shea yesterday and you might say he got some run support. It was 9-2 after two in the second game of the double-dipper, and as shaky as the kid was, you at least hoped he could go five to pick up the W. He struggled early, but settled in, pitched five frames and was replaced with his team leading 16-3.

The six-foot, seven-inch round one draftee was hitting mid to upper 90’s on the gun the duration of the 104-pitch outing . His fastball has sinking action but his off-speed pitches need polishing. Pelfrey agreed with Willie on the post-game that he was over-amped emotionally. Met fans hope the rookie gets at least a few more big league starts this season because of the prospect for incremental improvement with calmer nerves. I mean, we’re talking about a big starting pitcher with a very fluid motion that delivers some sinking gas. It’s a very enticing thought to see Pelfrey learn on the big league level without immediate “must-win” pressure. But John Maine pitched well again in the first game of the double-dipper and Mets brass may prefer giving him the five-spot in the rotation so Pelfrey can get more seasoning at Binghamton. It’s a nice problem to have. And then you have this other kid Henry Owens who has been called up out of nowhere to get the last right-handed spot in the bullpen in favor of Heath Bell. Owens is a converted catcher who throws high 90’s and looks like a fireplug but throws like a fireman.

Things got a little testy top nine of the first game when Met reliever Duaner Sanchez plunked star Marlin third baseman Miguel Cabrera. Two Mets had been hit by pitches earlier in the game, and Cabrera barked at Sanchez when he got hit on his left hip - thinking it was retaliation (although it seems unlikely Sanchez would hit the lead-off man down a run in the ninth). Regardless, when Sanchez struck out Miguel Olivo to end the inning, Cabrera restarted his yelling campaign at Sanchez from the basepath (a friend watching on TV who can read lips in Spanish said Cabrera called Sanchez a slur generally associated with someone who is weak). Cabrera was immediately ejected, and the benches cleared (pictured above). It was the first time Cabrera has been tossed from a game in his major league career. Willie said the incident may have been the impetus for the second game shellacking. The Mets won the nightcap 17-3 after losing the first game 3-2. Attendance was announced at 41,477 on an absolutely perfect afternoon. No humidity. Good seats. They didn’t cut off beer sales until the fifth inning of the second game.

-The US Cellular cell phone service company will pay the Chicago Transit Authority $2.9-million for a ten-year right to attach its transmission equipment to the underground antennae setup of the CTA subway system. It will mean cell phone service for users of US Cellular on trains below ground. Other companies like Verizon and Sprint will probably soon follow once they see US Cell’s marketing campaign touting the unique benefit of talking in the tunnels.

-Hard to believe, but the Silver Jews are doing live gigs in Jaffa and Tel Aviv, Israel on Monday and Tuesday. The rock band led by reclusive David Berman has been famously reluctant to tour, yet has continued its run of 2006 dates with a bunch in Europe and now Israel. Amazing.

-Credit Michael Kay for cornering his slippery broadcast partner in the seventh inning of last night’s YES Yankee broadcast. Kay brought up the awkward claim that Al Leiter played a role in one of the most lopsided trades in the history of baseball. Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano. Kazmir was pitching against the Yankees last night and Kay used the opportunity to ask Leiter what’s been alleged for two years: “The story goes that you went up to the Wilpon’s (Met owners) and asked that he (Kazmir) be traded.”

Leiter was among a clubhouse clique on the Mets that allegedly had the ear of Jeff Wilpon, the son of owner Fred Wilpon. Newspaper reports at the time of the 2004 trade suggested that Leiter didn’t like Kazmir’s attitude and pushed for his departure. It was impressive to hear Kay ask Leiter about it, but Al’s answer was lame: “To think that I have to even answer this is ridiculous,” said Leiter.

7-9-06 1741

It hasn’t been confirmed by the league yet, but the Denver Post is citing a source which adds credibility to an item in the irreverent web site profootballtalk.com claiming Todd Sauerbrun has tested positive for ephedra. In fact, the league’s web site - NFL.com is running a story using “wire reports” saying the same thing.
Sauerbrun is the veteran NFL punter who came out of West Virginia University in the spring of 1995 to play for the Chicago Bears. He inspired the name of the publication you see on this masthead. The print version of this publication ceased in 1997 and resumed early this year as an online newsletter. TSR had not discussed Sauerbrun since the relaunch largely because of more diverse interests – but it’s worth noting this news today for historical purposes.
Now a 12th year pro for the Denver Broncos, Sauerbrun never embraced the newsletter dedicated to his incredible punting skill.

His career on the field has been spectacular enough that borderline Hall of Fame consideration is something worth discussing if his booming punts continue for several more seasons. But Sauerbrun’s off-the-field misdeeds are starting to pile up.

The Punt King got popped for drunk driving in December 2004 after blowing .19 during a stop in which police said Sauerbrun was driving 64 in a 35 mph zone. Sauerbrun eventually copped a plea in that case, paid a $100 fine and got a year’s probation. He also got caught up in a steroids scandal in Carolina that likely helped lead to him getting moved to Denver. Out of nowhere, the TV program 60 Minutes broke a story last year that Sauerbrun was among three Panther players who obtained steroids from a South Carolina doctor. The report alleged that Sauerbrun obtained testosterone cream, syringes and stanozolol from Dr. James Shortt who admitted filling illegal prescriptions. The feds have said they have Sauerbrun and Shortt on tape discussing their dealings. The NFL never announced any type of discipline for Sauerbrun in that case.

This latest infraction for ephedra carries a stiff mandatory four-game regular season suspension and it’s too bad, because how much can the Punt King really gain from taking the stuff. Ephedra is a pretty basic speeder that can make your heart race and expand your bronchial tubes. If indeed the positive test is valid, one can only assume Sauerbrun used ephedra to aid in his weight lifting routine. Although, really, how much can a substance like that really help you pump iron? Especially knowing that you’re doing potential damage to your heart.

Profootballtalk.com says Sauerbrun stands to lose $328-thousand in salary for the four missed games – a quarter of his $1.4-million 2006 salary.

Now back to regular programming.

-The White Sox/Red Sox series this weekend in Chicago is a fun one. Lester, Beckett and Schill going in order against Buehrle, Freddy and Contreras. We’ll get two of the three games here: ESPN tonight and INHD on Sunday.

-We’ll hit tomorrow’s double-dipper at Shea to see the major league debut of Mike Pelfrey, the 6 foot, 7 inch wonderkid from Wichita who throws mid-90’s. It might be a bit of a rush throwing the 2005 first-round pick into the big leagues, but with a 12.5 game lead in the division and holes in the rotation, why not see what the kid’s got?

7-7-06 1507

Front page of the Post today: “Before they put Cheato Lay’s coffin in the grave, CHECK HE’S IN IT”

That’s a little harsh just a day after Ken Lay’s death at the age of 64. But’s that the Post, and perhaps the view of those who got burned by the Enron collapse. Those with vengeance wanted Lay to taste life as a federal prisoner after the CEO was convicted on ten counts of presiding over the lying and manipulation that made Lay and top Enron executives rich – and both investors and employees of the company shattered.

The headline also reflects suspicion that Lay and his right-hand man Jeff Skilling wouldn’t have the guts to face the jailer after the multiple felony convictions a jury handed down six weeks ago. Both were free on bail awaiting sentencing this fall and faced twenty-plus years behind bars. When CNN flashed the news of Lay’s death yesterday morning, the first hunch was suicide. Skilling had already been deemed suicidal prior to the trial and the timing of the Lay death seemed unusual. A forensic pathologist in Colorado named Rob Kurtzman cited coronary artery disease as a cause of death. You gotta believe a federal investigator is verifying the autopsy independently. Perhaps the grueling trial in Houston and the prospect of the rest of natural life in prison contributed to the weak ticker. The need for vengeance as reflected in the Post headline is probably excessive upon reflection. I mean, Lay is dead. It’s the fate he ultimately would have suffered anyway, whether in luxurious Aspen or on a bunk at the Federal Correctional Complex in Beaumont. But according to a story in the Times, Lay’s death “effectively voids the guilty verdict against him.” Efforts on the civil litigation side to take every last bit of Lay’s ill-gotten assets may become more difficult now according to the Times story because of the nullified verdict.

Skilling now becomes the lone focus of the scandal when he gets sentenced in October. And if the venom of today’s Post headline is any indication of public sentiment, there’s now even a stronger desire to see a secure medal door slam behind him.

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Excellent piece in the LA Times today about a 25-year-old suburban Chicago man who lost both legs and an arm when a roadside bomb exploded near the humvee he was driving in Baghdad last fall. It’s a great story because the soldier, Bryan Anderson, is making progress because of what his caretakers say is his “relentless optimism and capacity for pain.” Anderson got a purple heart and people near his folks in Rolling Meadows, Illinois have raised enough cash to modify living quarters so he can live near his parents when he gets out of rehab at Walter Reade Hospital later this year.

Walter Reade in DC is where our war amputees go. And the reporter who wrote the LA Times story, David Zucchino points out that the Iraq war has seen double the rate of amputees vs. previous wars because of advances in body armor and medical care. Not sure if that’s good or not. Anderson is glad he survived, but you wonder if all feel that way. Zucchino reports that 432 men and woman have had amputations as a result of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts – 73 have had double amputations. Many of these soldiers might have died in previous wars. In Anderson’s case, a trained combat lifesaver traveling in another humvee applied effective tourniquets to stop bleeding from three of Anderson’s major arteries.

The Times story contains no quotes from Anderson or his family calling for a withdrawal from Iraq. It’s more a story about a young guy that survived a horrible trauma and faces a tough road with determination to be positive. But with all the death (2540 US soldiers dead as of today according to Reuters since the Iraq invasion started in March 2003), and all the physical and mental devastation to those who get out, TSR believes those who advocate a complete and immediate withdrawal are guided by intentions no less responsible than those who say we must stay. Whether it’s a vacuum left behind to be occupied by terror organizations – or an embarrassing failure to create democracy – or even if it somehow decreases our national security – exiting Iraq will at least put a halt to the death and destruction of young, often resource less Americans who are fighting on behalf of an administration whose aim and planning is suspect.

7-4-06 1625

The founder of a new $93 million sports museum to be built in downtown Manhattan might be shooting himself in the foot with boasts that the venue will attempt to profit from the idea to the tune of $20 million annually. Philip Schwalb tells Richard Sandomir of the Times that he recruited investors in the National Sports Museum project by claiming they’ll get a thirty-percent annual return on their money once the facility is up and running. Schwalb told the Times that ground will break on the project late this summer and should open in early 2008. It sounds great with all but the baseball and football halls of fame agreeing to contribute artifacts. Downtown Manhattan could always use an interesting place for visitors to explore and the idea of a national sports museum under one roof is appealing. But museums aren’t profit centers – and people that go to museums may be hesitant to enrich their knowledge and appreciation of sports history if they find out that their $20 admission fee is lining the pockets of investors like an officer at BlackRock, Inc. (cited in the Times story). Yeah, the wax museum – or the “visit the freak” exhibit may profit from what’s on display – but a serious museum in this country is a non-profit venture that either pumps its revenue back into upkeep or new material, or sets prices with a break-even approach.

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The Post’s Marc Berman continues to hammer away at Isiah’s puzzling decision to draft a mostly unknown role player from South Carolina with the 20th overall pick in the NBA draft. Today, Berman says Renaldo Balkman’s coach at South Carolina, Dave Odom “was as stunned as anyone by the controversial selection.” Odom told Berman that he relayed his concerns about Balkman’s deficiencies to Isiah when the two met at a pre-draft camp in Orlando. Balkman failed to crack South Carolina’s starting lineup in twelve games last season. Odom says: “Looking over his career, every third game was a great game. But two of the three have been OK, sometimes not OK. Consistency has been a problem.” Not exactly a glowing endorsement from his college coach for a guy who was selected with the 20th overall pick ahead of such players as Marcus Williams, Jordan Farmar, Steve Novak and Craig Smith.

Odom says Balkman’s skills won’t be immediately conducive to playing perimeter defense or participating in halfcourt sets on offense. The 6-8’er was a power forward in college, but will now be expected to guard quick smalls one-on-one. Numerous NBA experts say Isiah probably could have signed Balkman as an undrafted free agent, but the Knick GM said he feared Phoenix would grab him with one of their two first-round picks. Berman quickly scuttled that rubbish from Isiah by citing several Suns sources who said they had no interest in Balkman.

-We like the decision of by Bulls GM John Paxson to maneuver with the number two overall to ultimately acquire LSU power forward Tyrus Thomas. The 6-9 freshman could be a huge impact player for the Bulls – probably more than anybody selected when all is said and done. Who cares if his addition conflicts with the role of Tyson Chandler. Thomas will prove to be a much better shot blocker and rebounder than Chandler and there is much room for offensive development after just a year of college.

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Back from Boston and four days in a city with a fantastic ballpark and great baseball fans. The Red Sox dominated the Mets with stellar defense and great starting pitching. And as much as the sweep put a hurt on all the Met fans that made the trek, TSR will long carry the memories of three consecutive summer nights inside Fenway Park.

Entering and exiting the facility is an intense experience because of the high-level buzz on the streets near the ballpark. Taverns, sporting good shops and sausage sellers line a portion of Fenway’s perimeter. Because of the incredible demand for tickets, buyers outnumber sellers by a large margin. Once inside, you’re in the way-back machine – a 94-year-old ballpark loaded with quirks, inconveniences and beauty that you fall in love with regardless of what is happening on the field.

And that was important this past week, because the Mets did not play good baseball. Rookie outfielder Lastings Milledge blew a couple of routine fly balls in left on consecutive nights. Both plays were turning-point disasters that set the stage for blowout losses. The Monster has eaten up a lot of out-of-town left-fielders. Add Milledge to the list, and expect the kid to think about his Boston experience a lot after Willie punched his ticket back to triple-A Norfolk Friday.

Pedro got great ovations each night from a fandom that still very much appreciates what he did in a Red Sox uniform. We got chills when Pedro sauntered from the Met bullpen to the dugout prior to his Wednesday night start - the crowd went nuts. Martinez soaked it all in and tried to return the affection through various acknowledgements – but you wonder if he may have been a little distracted by it all because he stunk up his start and got the hook after three. Contrast Pedro’s repeated interactions with the crowd this past week to the intense game-face of Curt Schilling who refused to make eye-contact with adoring fans prior to his Thursday night start.

The weather forecast called for rain all three nights but it never materialized. The first game of the set on Tuesday opened with brilliant sunshine in our eyes from our location in the deep right field grandstand area (pictured above). Our group totaled six and our tickets were acquired via the third-party seller “Stub-Hub.” The Mets lost 9-4 and the attendance was 36,250.

A TSR pal recommended Cornwall’s Pub on nearby Beacon Street for fun pre and post-game brews, so we checked it out on arrival and made it our home base the first couple of days. The pub sandwich with mushrooms and onions is a good way to avoid ingesting a Fenway Frank at the ballpark. And a couple of beers after a night game at Cornwall’s allow a bulk of the crowd to jam on to the “T” – so when you exit the pub, you can jump on a green branch of Boston’s subway line without fighting a crowd.

Boston’s subway system – especially the green line – is a herky-jerky experience which requires you to climb steep steps to get on the train at the platform. Sudden terminations and service changes seem the norm. But the frequency of service is excellent and we used a three-day unlimited ride pass for 18 bucks.
Our single obstructed-view seat for the Pedro game on Wednesday truly was an obstructed view. A three-foot wide steel girder (pictured above) forced TSR to sway back and forth to get a glimpse of the action. Those who passed laughed at the sight of a Met fan staring at a post. A lung doctor from White Plains sat in the seat next door and had a perfect view. We both groaned when Milledge had his second fiasco but we jelled well on this chance encounter with intense baseball and life discussion. The final was 10-2 Sox and they announced attendance at 36,035. Juliana Hatfield sang the National Anthem and did an excellent job. The SRO crowd packed the aisles but you could still easily reach the bathroom and beer line. Earlier in the day, TSR made its first-ever visit to Suffolk Downs, the ailing thoroughbred track near the airport that runs live racing three days a week. Reading the uneven past performance lines for the cheap claimers that filled the card on a wet track was like reading Russian. So, after blowing a few bucks, we turned our attention to the Belmont simulcast and walked out of the joint up enough to cover beer for the whole week. Suffolk Downs was a dump, but the courtesy van ride from the train stop to the grandstand entrance provided the perfect comedy skit. Eight old men wearing tattered attire hurled insults at the van driver and cursed recent tough wagering beats. With everybody but one slow moving patron seated on the van, one guy said: “Leave without him.” When TSR (wearing a #48 Heilman jersey) hit the admission gate, one of the old men told the cashier: “Chaahge him double!”

Thursday, we decided to make a half-baked effort to be a bit of a tourist. We went up to the campus of Harvard University and had a bowl of lobster bisque at the Boston Chowda Co. in the Garage at Harvard Square. We went to the main university bookstore and shopped for a t-shirt but then realized we didn’t really know anybody who would wear a Harvard t-shirt out of concern that somebody might ask them a question which would require an intellectual response. But it was cool seeing the campus – the venerable institution which has produced so many great thinkers. Our next stop was the state capitol of Massachusetts in the heart of downtown Beantown. We wandered into the grand, well-kept seat of the commonwealth and believe the rotunda is the nicest we’ve ever seen. Wearing a #7 Reyes jersey, TSR watched a portion of a Massachusetts House of Representatives session from the fourth-floor gallery on a day that legislative body passed a bill that would raise the state’s minimum wage to eight bucks an hour.

We went to the game that night with a true Bostonian who scored a pair just fifteen rows from the field a bit past the bag on the first base line. Our pal had worked as a vendor at Fenway for many years and was a wealth of knowledge and history on the ballpark and city. Schilling and Tommy Glavine dueled beautifully on a humid final night of the three-game series. Bosox centerfielder Coco Crisp was the star, scoring the go-ahead run after reaching on a bunt single, stealing second, advancing to third on a bunt and then scoring on a sac fly. Up a run in the eighth, Crisp made an incredible diving catch on a screamer from David Wright that saved at least a run. Schilling told reporters after the game that he couldn’t remember seeing a better catch. Red Sox rookie closer Justin Paplebon retired the side in the ninth to record his 24th save and preserve a 4-2 win which included a Big Papi (pictured above right with Manny) eighth inning home run. Attendance was announced at 36,028. It was a sweep for the Red Sox and an ego check for the Mets who remain solidly atop the NL East but now know there’s some better baseball being played in the AL.

-As nice as the Red Sox fans were to Pedro – and really to Mets fans in general – they do have venom. They hate the Yanks – and they hate Johnny Damon. One woman sitting in front of us Wednesday night wore a Damon jersey that was manipulated to express her disgust with the ex-Sox centerfielder who left via free agency. She put a piece of masking tape over the “o” in Damon and wrote “Yankee” below the jersey’s numeral to have the jersey read: “Dam-n Yankee.”

-We were consumed by baseball this past week, so the NBA draft didn’t get our full attention. Boston fans were debating the merits of trading the number seven overall in a package deal that brought Brooklyn point guard Sebastian Telfair from Portland to the Celtics. You’d think the Knicks couldn’t screw up the number 20 pick overall, but it sounds like they did. Isiah took South Carolina small forward Renaldo Balkman who wasn’t even among the one-hundred players written up in the NBA’s draft media guide. In defending the selection, Isiah said he feared that Phoenix would take Balkman with the 21st or 27th pick. The Post’s Knick beat writer Marc Berman later reported that his multiple Suns sources (including one “within the organization") disclosed that Phoenix wouldn’t have drafted Balkman period – even if there were a third round of the draft. Meantime, the Nets took three great players – all who could contribute. Marcus Williams and Josh Boone from UConn – and Hassan Adams of Zona were taken at 22, 23 and 54.

-Say what will you will about China and their horrendous human rights record – they accomplished a transit feat that would be considered politically impossible in this country currently. At an estimated cost of $4.2 billion, the Chinese have opened up a twelve-hundred mile rail link connecting China’s Qinghai province to the Tibetan capital of Lhasa. What’s remarkable about it is that the average height of the route is more than 13,100 feet over tundra and rough terrain. Tibetans are skeptical that the increased accessibility to their land by the Chinese is a way to consolidate power over the region. We don’t doubt that, but are impressed by the enormity of the project.

A five-day TSR trip to Chicago for a wedding included a wonderful return to the city’s south side to see the world champion White Sox. We caught the first flight into O’Hare out of New York Thursday in order to make kickoff of US/Ghana on the tube. We settled in for breakfast at Cans Bar and Canteen on Damen and Milwaukee, a tavern which had a pretty good crowd of soccer fans considering the time of day. The chili/cheese fries were on the money. The unfortunate and controversial penalty-kick goal by Ghana right before the half was deflating in light of what Italy was doing to the Czechs at the same time. But the US didn’t deserve to advance this time around. Being out of sorts against Ghana and the Czechs for long stretches was justification enough to send the Americans home regardless of the great effort against Italy. Heck, if a country with the wealth, size and opportunities of the US can’t beat a country like Ghana, then they need to make way for countries that can. Landon Donovan showed why he couldn’t make it as a German pro. And as much as we like Brian McBride, he failed to put a ball in the net. Bruce Arena knows his time is over. He should be commended for taking US soccer to a place better than when he inherited it – but his negativity immediately after the Czech loss and his lineup uncertainties going into the tournament seemed to unnerve his squad.

But back to the White Sox. TSR had not been to the ballpark at 35th and Shields since the dismantling of the upper deck and a series of cosmetic changes to what was called the “new” Comiskey when it opened fourteen years ago. They call it the “Cell” these days (pictured above) as a way of disguising the fact that a cell phone service provider bought the ballpark’s naming rights. We were flat out impressed by what we saw on Thursday night. We parked in the cash lot northwest of the stadium for 18 bucks and tailgated heartily with no restrictions. Our lower reserved seat in right field is a great place to watch the game. They’re growing ivy in center field and the upper deck looks beautiful. Those who sat up there tell us that you no longer need mountain climbing equipment and oxygen tanks to enjoy the ballgame.

Sweaty Freddy Garcia scattered four hits over eight innings and Jim Thome hit his 24th homer for a 1-0 White Sox win over the Cards on a 75-degree night with no humidity. Thome’s big shot to right was the only hit for the White Sox. The game was played in just two hours even. Bobby Jenks pitched a perfect ninth against the three, four, five hitters including Al Pujols who was coming off a three-week sit to recuperate from a strained oblique muscle. White Sox fans and Cardinals fans were nothing but hospitable to one another and the vibe in the ballpark was strongly upbeat. A world championship will do that I guess. Attendance was 39,509 which is pretty close to full. Cardinal starter Anthony Reyes is worth watching.
The ballpark’s chicken fajitas were so-so. And vendors (the guy pictured above goes way back) were selling what appeared to be nothing other than Miller products for six bucks a pop.

The quick ballgame left plenty of time to hit one of the best ballpark taverns we’ve ever been to: Jimbo’s at 33rd and Princeton serves cold beer in the can for four bucks. McCuddy’s used to be the easy choice when it was open right across from the old Comiskey, but it got knocked down. So, if you’re looking to wet your whistle before or after a Sox game, head to Jimbo’s. It’s a good crowd with good bartenders minus the pretentiousness of a lot of the Wrigley taverns. The proprietor, Jimbo Levato (pictured above) has been greeting patrons with enthusiastic Sox analysis for a long time and the success of the 2005 team is a payoff for all those years he’d sit with us mopes during the lean years. His place was packed post-game.

Sox manager Ozzie Guillen was all the talk, all the time on the radio talk shows for his tirade against Sun Times columnist Jay Mariotti. It wasn’t enough for Ozzie to call Mariotti a gay slur. He had to compound his mouthy mistakes with defiance and more smack after the commissioner’s office gave Oz the light punishment of no suspension and mandatory participation in a sensitivity class. Said Guillen in the Friday papers: “If they want me to do it (sensitivity training), make sure it’s after 12 o’clock. I don’t get up until after 12 o’clock.”

Guillen’s long string of outbursts and offensive language is gonna get him fired. Not anytime soon because of his team’s success. But Sox management will grow tired of putting out Ozzie’s fires.

That’s not to say Guillen doesn’t have a point when he wonders how Mariotti can write a column critical of players/coaches/managers without actually ever meeting his subjects face to face. Numerous scribes have pointed out in recent days that Mariotti doesn’t do locker rooms. His opinion pieces use quotes obtained by his colleagues. Mariotti is not the only sports columnist to do much of his work on a home computer or in a newsroom, rather from a pressbox. The current era of sports blogging and web writing has changed the way games are covered. Ozzie believes Mariotti and writers like him should appear in the flesh when lowering the boom on subjects. Most sports bloggers don’t have that access – Mariotti does.

-An item by Teddy Greenstein in the Trib says Islanders play-by-play man John Weideman is “among the favorites” to get the Blackhawks top radio job vacated by Pat Foley. Still no word on what Foley’s plans are.

-Three notable Chicago dining experiences during the visit:
Soft shell crab and banana ice cream at Sola on Lincoln and Byron // Bratwurst at Hot Doug’s on California and Roscoe // Chicken Shawarma at the Pita Inn on Dempster in Skokie

-TSR heads up to Boston tomorrow for the three-game Met/Red Sox series and a few bowls of chowder. A full report on Fenway and the series upon return.

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Much to our surprise, the NTSB web site offers what appears to be completely open access to most if not all of the preliminary investigative details related to the Southwest jet that slid off a snowy runway at Midway airport in Chicago last December. The mainstream media coverage thus far has been disappointingly slim and TSR had hoped to digest and then discuss the information – but we ran out of time, and now we’re hitting the road for a vacation that will take us to Chicago and Boston.

Updates here will be infrequent over the next ten days or so. But when we get back to it, you’ll see a full report on our first visit to 35th and Shields since the championship. We’ll recap our much anticipated trip to Beantown for all three games of the Mets/Bosox series - and we’ll report on some significant aviation news including an analysis of that Southwest incident. In the meantime, enjoy the start of summer and try to take a few days off if those you answer to allow it. Or heck, even if they don’t.

6-21-06 1839

We wuz robbed. The US soccer team played gutsy all the way against Italy and escaped with a draw despite horrendous officiating from a ref named Jorge Larrionda of Uruguay. After the reasonably assessed ejection of Daniele DeRossi of Italy for elbowing Brian McBride and opening a gash below his eye, the US appeared set to dominate up a man and tied at one. But then Larrionda stunned everybody by pulling a red card late in the first half on Pablo Mastroeni of the US for nothing more than a hard foul. Our thought was that Larrionda wanted to even the sides as refs often do in any sport. But not so. Playing even to start the second half, the ref who was suspended for “irregularities” by his home country’s soccer federation earlier in his career then almost immediately ejected Eddie Pope of the US for what appeared to be a clean, aggressive play. So, Italy played ten on nine the rest of the way.

Never has a team in World Cup play scored a goal playing with just nine men. Yet the US nearly did with multiple chances against a lethargic Italian team. American DeMarcus Beasley, who came in as a sub in the second half and played as if disinterested, actually put the ball in the net in the 66th minute. But it was disallowed on what was described as either offside or goalkeeper interference on McBride. Brilliant US striker Eddie Johnson never got in the game despite the fact that coach Bruce Arena had another sub to use.

Clint Dempsey, who failed to play in the first contest against the Czechs really sparked the US with his fancy footwork. Landon Donovan, McBride and Oguchi Onyewu all played balls to the wall for the entire game. Donovan especially looked great after a poor first game.

Now soccer fans in this country will wait until Thursday morning when the US will play its final group match and advance to the single-elimination round of sixteen under the following scenario: The US must beat Ghana and the Italians must beat the Czech Republic. All four countries are still alive and both those matches will be played simultaneously at 9 AM east coast time. We’re no soccer expert, but we were on the edge of our seat this afternoon, yelling at the TV screen and waving the flag for a US team which competed at a very high level, especially in light of the brutally unfair officiating.

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Like most of the interleague matchups this weekend, the Mets/Orioles three-game set lacks any kind of serious intrigue. It’s not as bad as Royals/Astros – and Saturday’s middle game of the series features Pedro vs. Benson – but last night’s affair at Shea was about welcoming home the team from Queens off a 9-1 road trip. There was the eight-game winning streak and a perfect warm night with 45-grand in the house. We sat in the loge behind the plate and were impressed with Oriole left-hander Erik Bedard who was hitting 95 mph consistently and mixing in a nice change of pace. Met batters were guessing quite a bit and we knew the eight-game win streak was at risk when they didn’t score in the first inning – something they did in each of those last eight victories.

Even so, Met rookie Alay Soler pitched pretty well after initial turbulence and exited after six innings and 101 pitches thrown. With the Mets up 3-2, you could tell Willie wanted to preserve the lead with a predictable bullpen formula that he badly wants to continue. Aaron Heilman for one, Duaner Sanchez for one and then Wags to close it out. But Heilman has struggled horribly since those perfect three innings in the May 19th win over the Yanks. He’s given up sixteen earned runs in 12.2 innings pitched since that point. Willie has not lost confidence in Heilman, nor has there been any kind of role change. But you wonder how long that will last because last night Heilman walked the first two batters he faced, and eventually got tagged for two more hits including a home run blast by Melvin Mora on a hanging change.

Heilman finished the seventh inning, but gave up four runs and had blown the game. Met fans booed Heilman which is an off-base reaction in a town that boos way too much. The concern is that Heilman (pictured above) is cooked from the routine of relief pitching. He’s a starter by preference. But Met pitching coach Rick Peterson believes he has isolated Heilman’s problem. Peterson says the ND grad is delivering the ball from an over-the-top postion when his past success came from something closer to a semi-sidearm angle. It sounds like a simple prescription from Peterson, but let’s see if Heilman can fix himself.

Things are going very well for the Mets right now. Even with last night’s 6-3 loss, they remain 9.5 games up on the Phils and 13 up on Atlanta. Still, you hope Heilman can get things figured out because the Met rotation is old – and is going just six frames a pop. Heilman is that seventh/eighth inning man that all good championship teams need.

-Home plate ump Dana Demuth tossed Oriole catcher Ramon Hernandez in the third inning after punching him out on a couple of borderline strike calls. Hernandez said something and Demuth gave Baltimore’s good-hitting, great-throwing catcher the heave-ho. We understand you can’t argue balls and strikes, but there ought to be a brief opportunity for upper echelon hitters to verbally editorialize on iffy strike calls.

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Things we like about the World Cup:

-The player procession pre-match beats any kind of pre-game hoopla we get here in the USA. Both teams enter the field (pitch) simultaneously and escort young soccer players, their hands clasped. And then they play the anthems of both countries with each team’s rosters singing along with enthusiasm. If you watch the ESPN/English language broadcast, you’ll miss the playing of the anthems. Most American sports broadcasts view this window of time as a perfect opportunity to play commercials and make money. But they’re spoiling a critical element of the telecast. We discovered a few days into the tournament that you have to switch to Univision if you want the anthems.

-We like the fact that nobody grumbles about the lack of scoring. In this country, sports fans thirst for scoring. International soccer fans don’t care. The scoreless tie between France and Switzerland was a thing of beauty. So was the 1-0 German win over the Poles. If a match goes an entire half without a goal, you still have the sliding tackle, the corner kick and the yellow card. You have the header, the little chip pass and the deke.

-We like the embattled Togo coach Otto Pfister who wore a dress shirt buttoned down halfway down his chest for his team’s opening game against South Korea. Pfister’s reckless fashion statement could have been a sign of protest over that government’s refusal to properly compensate that country’s players.

-Our favorite team to watch has been England whose star of stars David Beckham repeatedly kicks these looping shots toward the net in hopes of finding the head of six foot, five inch Peter Crouch.

-We like the time certain compactness of a match’s length of play. They kick off at 8:55 AM local time and the game is over by 11. There are two or three minutes added to each half to make up for stoppages within a half, but there’s no TV stoppages or team-called timeouts.

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On his weekly radio appearance on WFAN, Met Manager Willie Randolph had an interesting and previously unknown assessment on sensational rookie outfielder Lastings Milledge. In explaining why Milledge has been playing left field with Endy Chavez in right during Cliff Floyd’s absence, Randolph says Milledge has a “below average” throwing arm. We’ve been watching Milledge for two weeks and have seen nothing but blistering, long-distance laser beams on throws from deep left and right. Chavez also has a great, accurate throwing arm but jeez, ‘ya wonder what Randolph is looking at.

Randolph also confirmed that Pedro will pitch in the Wednesday 6-28 Red Sox game at Fenway as the rotation and rest gaps are set right now. TSR will be at all three of the Met/Red Sox games. Our “obstructed view” seat for that huge Pedro return game on the 28th is behind a post.

-Page Six reported this week that Zibby celebrated his lickity-quick knockout at the Garden with a post-bout gathering at Foley’s on 33rd Street. Among the guests reported in attendance: Lance Armstrong.

-They’re playing the US Open just twenty miles up the road this weekend and the weather forecast is fantastic. Everybody wants to bill it Tiger vs. Phil, but Tiger hasn’t played a tourney in months and Phil hasn’t been playing at the level he was prior to the Masters. We’re predicting an upset and putting a few pesos on Camilo Villegas at 80-1. Villegas is the big-hitting Columbian who attended the University of Florida. He will be a major player on the men’s tour before you know it. Watch him this weekend and be delighted by his antics – the way he sizes up a putt – the outfits he wears – the swagger and the huge drive.

6-14-06 1823

The Notre Dame safety who came to New York to show he could box stepped into the ring before cheering thousands and mauled his opponent in a successful professional debut Saturday night. Tom Zbikowski immediately smothered Robert Bell (pictured above) with a flurry of lefts to the head and body of Bell.

His bell rung hard, Bell went down just thirty seconds in and when referee Arthur Mercante Jr. cleared the boxers to resume fighting, Zibby went in for the sealer. He delivered a right to Bell’s head that prompted Mercante to stop the bout after just 49 seconds.

Zbikowski’s 214-pound frame was trim and tough-looking. Bell weighed 227 pounds just prior to the fight and was clearly overmatched. Said Zbikowski to the boxing media afterwards: “I wanted to prove to everyone that I’m a fighter. I can fight. I’m not just a football player. This was too much fun. I’d like to come back to the ring.” But the senior at Notre Dame won’t be fighting anytime soon. It’s back to school and a senior season on what should be a great Irish football team. And then it’s a professional football career for a guy whose playing style reminds football fans of the great retired Chicago Bear Gary Fencik.

We’d love to see Zbikowski return to the ring and test his skills against top-level heavyweight boxers. But if that doesn’t pan out, at least boxing fans and Zbikowski himself got a shot at experiencing a moment on boxing’s biggest stage.
The main event was dominated by WBO junior welterweight champ Miguel Cotto who retained his belt with a unanimous decision over Paulie Malignaggi. Cotto opened a cut over Malignaggi’s eye in the first round and the challenger never could get on track after that. Malignaggi was courageous in defeat and was taken to the hospital after the bout for what’s being reported as a broken right orbital bone and a possible broken jaw. Cotto becomes a potential box office smash now and replaces Felix Trinidad as a top Puerto Rican hero. Prior to his victory over Malignaggi, the fans pictured above laid out a road map for Cotto as he ascends the ladder for a potential blockbuster against Floyd Mayweather Jr.

The most entertaining fight of the night was the slugfest won by “Irish” John Duddy over Freddie Cuevas of Chicago. Duddy extended his record to 17-0 when the corner of Cuevas asked for a stoppage just prior to the eight round because of too much accumulated punishment from the hard-hitting Duddy.

Attendance was announced at 14,369. The Garden’s top tier was closed and empty. A solid 75-percent of the crowd was cheering for Cotto, many of them waving Puerto Rican flags on the eve of the big Puerto Rican Day parade up Fifth Avenue. There were also a lot of Irish fans who gave Zbikowski a memorable welcome when he entered the ring.

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The big day has arrived. Tom Zbikowski will enter the ring for his professional boxing debut at MSG to face an opponent he is supposed to beat. Zibby’s opponent is Robert “Ring My” Bell, who has fought at about 240 lbs. while compiling a 2-2 record. Bell will wear the colors of Ohio St. University and Zbikowski (210 lbs) will be surrounded by a huge contingent from Notre Dame, where he still has one year of football to play.

We’ve only seen a few great two-sport stars in recent history, and Zbikowski may never be able to fully devote future energy to a high level boxing career. But after an amazing junior season as an elusive punt returner and crushing open-field tackler for ND, this kid is stepping on to the greatest of all sports stages tonight to get a taste of the sweet science. He’ll get drafted in the first two rounds of the NFL draft a year from now and will enter a league that is far more organized and above board than the sport of boxing. But at least he’ll have given boxing a shot. After 90 amateur fights, he’s debuting as a pro on an excellent fight card that includes the junior welterweight title bout. Zibby may get disenchanted with dealing with the likes of Bob Arum, Don King and the promoters of the sport. But the sport at its most basic is just as great or better than football when the sideshows are eliminated.

Speaking of sideshows – tonight’s fight card at the Garden won’t have the undivided attention of boxing fan nation. Incredibly, HBO has what could be a greater draw in its fifty-buck pay-per-view showing of Tarver/Hopkins from Atlantic City. Arum says he secured the Garden date a year ago and couldn’t be talked out of changing it by HBO. But it’s a shame that boxing fans have to decide between the two. The Zibby/MSG pay-per-view event – if you can find it on your cable/satellite system is selling for $40.

There were lots of great newspaper stories on Zbikowski’s debut in publications across the country, but the Lacy Banks/Sun Times story had the best nuggets we could find:

Trainers Danny Nieves and Sam Colonna will join 85-year-old hall of famer Angelo Dundee in his corner.

Gospel singer Bebe Winans will sing the Notre Dame fight song when Zibby walks out to the ring. Winans will then sing God Bless America.

Zibby will enter the ring with a black right eye that hasn’t healed from a recent sparring session. Says Dundee in the Banks story: “It just makes him look even more like a fighter. I told him to put the (steel) pancake over the eye. But he’s so tough, he doesn’t even want to do that. He’s tough, like so many other guys I had.”

-Post radio/tv writer Andrew Marchand says the Devils have sacked their radio team of John Hennessey and Randy Velischek. Would this open the door for the hiring of a more seasoned, high-profile broadcast voice like Pat Foley?

-After a mysterious banishment into an eight-year exile, the Islanders have hired Ted Nolan to become its ninth head coach in the last eight years. Nolan had huge success as coach of the Sabres in the mid-90’s but after a dispute with GM John Muckler got him canned from Buffalo in ’97, he couldn’t even get a sniff of a job offer. It was hard to figure. He was just off winning the league’s coach of the year award. A young, dynamic coach with Keenan-like qualities suddenly becomes blackballed. Nolan denies rumors that he had a drinking problem or got involved with the wife of then-Sabres goalie Dom Hasek. He has distanced himself from comments suggesting the league avoided him because of this Ojibway Indian heritage. His absence remains a mystery, but it’s fitting that he takes over an organization like the Islanders which are again at risk of slipping into the abyss. Owner Charles Wang’s real job is running Computer Associates, an outfit marred by scandal. The Isles play in a building with a lease that makes it impossible for them to make any kind of money. So, why not make a bold coaching pick to join with new GM Neil Smith in a desperate attempt to make the Isles matter again. We like it - and whatever got Nolan banished – we’re glad the statute of limitations has expired.

For the record, since we’ve become a fan of the Islanders in 1998, we’ve had the following coaches behind the bench: Rick Bowness, Mike Milbury, Bill Stewart, Butch Goring, Lorne Henning, Peter Laviolette, Steve Stirling, and Brad Shaw.

-Nothing fancy about our Belmont Stakes pick today: Bluegrass Cat at a price of probably about 5-2.

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A story by George Diaz in the Orlando Sentinel says Tom Zbikowski will make $25,000 for his Saturday night four-round professional boxing debut at the Garden. Zbikowski’s four-round bout with Robert Bell of Akron is on the undercard of the junior welterweight title fight between Paulie Malignaggi and Miguel Cotto. Zibby’s ND roommate and teammate Jeff Samardija will be among the entourage which joins Zbikowski for his dramatic ring entrance. Samardija, known as “The Shark,” was drafted by the Cubs earlier this week in the fifth round of the amateur baseball draft. The Shark brings the heat and has been a pretty solid starting pitcher for the Notre Dame baseball team, but when faces a decision to choose between baseball and football, his clearer path to professional success may be as an NFL wideout.

-The federal response to a series of claims by Jason Grimsley’s lawyer in the Arizona Republic is notable for its failure to rebut the notion that Grimsley was asked to wear a wire. Grimsley obtained the services of Edward Novak after the feds grilled the vagabond reliever about steroids and Novak attempted to counter with a campaign to question the government’s efforts to squeeze the admitted human growth hormone junkie. Novak says the feds wanted to wire up his client to get dirt on Baroid. How that could be strategically effective with Grimsley wearing a D-Back jersey is unclear. But in a response by Luke McCauley, spokesman for the US Attorney’s office for the Northern District of California, the feds defend their efforts. “The investigative procedures involved were conducted in an entirely appropriate and legal fashion,” said McCauley in a story on the Times web site. That same story suggests the federal investigation of perjury and tax charges against Bariod is picking up steam. Written by Jack Curry and Murray Chass, the item says the attorney for Bonds’ ex-mistress has told baseball’s steroid investigator George Mitchell that his client can’t assist him while the fed probe is ongoing.

Bottom line: there’s a lot more coming down the pike on steroids in baseball and there’s a shot that Barry Bonds gets indicted this baseball season. The blacked-out names of baseball players in the Jason Grimsley statement about use of illegal substances will likely get leaked and perhaps baseball fans at least get the enrichment of knowledge about the players they pay to see. You don’t wanna see a witch hunt, but at the same time, if the drama can help erase the scourge of unfair competitive advantage and dangerous manipulation of athlete body chemistry, I guess you want an aggressive investigative campaign.

6-9-06 2110

We look forward to the the month-long World Cup soccer tournament kicking off with host country Germany playing Costa Rica. Every game is televised in high-def and so much is on the line for the fans of the participating countries. Except for the US, where relatively few share the over-the-top fervor for their national team. Daily News columnist Filip Bondy has been exceptional with his quirky coverage both in print and on a separate blog which includes his humorous, off-beat and sometimes whiny observations about his experiences in Germany. Bondy said in his print story Thursday that national teams should be worshipped, not ignored as the US team is. “It is all a bit of a mystery. Americans probably fly more flags and speak of patriotism more than any other nation in the world. Yet they are indifferent to their national sports teams, which have become very bad, in part, because of that apathy.”

Success in the Cup would be the best thing to happen to American soccer, but that’ll be hard this go-around given the extreme difficulty of their four-team group. Only the top two squads advance to the single-elimination round of sixteen, and the US may not be able to beat the Czechs, Italians or even Ghana when the math will probably require them to earn at least a win and a tie.

Kids in America play soccer in increasingly big numbers but is that growth translating into support for the US national team? Is there a buzz as we enter this month of high-intensity once-every-four-years competition? It doesn’t seem so unless you’re surrounded by immigrant populations who honk horns and wave flags when their home countries win a Cup match. We’ve got that here in Queens in a big way, but what about anytown, USA?

Brazil is the overwhelming favorite and has a roster loaded with mega-stars who do incredible things with the soccer ball. England, as usual is under insane pressure to win its first cup in forty years. That pressure creases the brow of their intense coach Sven-Goran Ericksson. We caught England’s friendly last weekend vs. the Reggae Boys and will root for the English and their exciting striker Peter Crouch. We’ll also root hard for US forward Brian McBride who turns 34 in two weeks and is viewed as the wise vet on the American squad.

-Nice piece on ESPN tonight by Jeremy Schaap on the blatantly racist behavior exhibited by soccer fans in some European countries. Schaap concluded the story aired on Sportscenter by asking FIFA President Sepp Blatter what would happen if that kinda crap rears its ugly head in Germany this month. Confident it won’t, Blatter said if fans in the stands conveyed racist sentiment, the tournament would shut down and be “abandoned.”

-Shaq, Dwayne and the Heat are getting five points in game one of the NBA finals tonight in Dallas. We’ll take that. We like the Eastern Conference champ to put the defensive clamps on the very likeable Mavericks coached by the very likeable Avery Johnson. Heat in six.

-The swagger was back briefly this morning when the Texas cowboy went to the White House podium to say that the death of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi was a “severe blow” to al Qaeda. But do the two five-hundred pound bombs that leveled his hideaway spawn or inspire more enemies who grow tired of our military brawn?

6-8-06 1926
United Airlines has joined Chicago’s other big boy in pulling out of Midway Airport on the city’s south side. United is citing a lack of customer interest for the withdrawal, but you know that’s not true. There’s plenty of interest in flights from Midway, it’s just that Southwest is gobbling most of those passengers up. The Chi Trib says United and American were down to just five daily departures at Midway as it was, and so a pullout isn’t all that surprising. United had been running three daily Denver flights with the Ted paint job. Frontier runs five daily non-stops to Denver from Midway with cheap fares.

It’s worth mentioning because for decades, United and American would muscle out competition in many markets through schedule domination and selective under-cutting or fare matching. Now the shoe is on the other foot with carriers like Southwest, Frontier and Jet Blue using business models that allow them simply to run flights for less than the old school big-boy airlines.

-Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell is scheduled to visit Derby winner Barbaro tomorrow as the horse recuperates from a shattered leg in a vet hospital in his home state. You wonder if Rendell’s fall gubernatorial election opponent Lynn Swann will follow suit. Then instead of a political horse race, you’ll end up with a political race that includes kissing horses.

-All of a sudden, there’s a state senate race brewing in TSR’s home district. City councilman Hiram Monserrate has announced he’ll take on incumbent John Sabini in the fall democratic primary. Monserrate has an uphill battle since Sabini has deep support from the Queens democratic party machine. But this district is dominated by Hispanic voters these days, and it’s noteworthy that Monserrate broke through as the first Hispanic council member to be elected out of Queens five years ago. The only blemish on Monserrate’s record that we’re aware of was his effort to extract financial promises from the Mets in exchange for city council approval of their new stadium plan. In a story earlier this week in the Times, reporter Jonathan Hicks said: “The race could well be the most hotly contested one in Queens, because it pits two elected officials with high name recognition in the borough against one another. Moreover, it could become an ethnically charged race in an area of Queens whose Hispanic population has grown significantly.”

6-7-06 1816

The buzz topic in the tabloids, on the radio and in the workplace today was the decision by Met rookie Lastings Milledge to parade down the right field line and slap high-fives with fans as he took his position in right field in the top of the eleventh inning at Shea yesterday. The 21-year-old rookie hit a dramatic, game-tying, two-strike, two-out home run in the bottom of the tenth and the place went bonkers. Milledge stayed in the dugout during an extended period of fan insistence that he appear for a curtain call. But when the tenth inning ended on a Cliff Floyd strikeout, Milledge couldn’t resist sharing the fans’ joy on the way to his position. It was a wonderful display of mutual admiration we can’t remember ever seeing during a ballgame - and it was stirring.

But the unwritten rule of baseball prohibits “showing up” your opponent, and that’s why Met manager Willie Randolph scolded the rookie when he returned to the dugout in the bottom of that inning. Met radio beat reporter Eddie Coleman of the FAN says some Met teammates expressed disapproval with the Milledge celebration because of their great respect for Giants manager Felipe Alou. Coleman says Milledge’s penance came on the team charter last night to LA when he was forced to high-five every single passenger and crew member on the airplane. Milledge has vowed to never repeat the spontaneous response to the Shea crowd’s love. He called it a “rookie mistake.” TSR calls it a pure and fantastic emotional response to a fandom which is head over heels crazy about Milledge.

We agree with Mike Golic who said on the radio this morning that the Milledge display was the baseball equivalent of the “Lambeau Leap.”

A few Giants had the gall to criticize Milledge which is inappropriate given the numerous Mets who have done nothing but stood up for Baroid Bonds and the PR circus that follows that team.

-A curious piece in the Times today by arts critic Caryn James, who attempts to discredit the actress Jennifer Anniston. Yeah, Anniston has participated in some bad movies but James comes off as unprofessional when she writes about Jen’s unconfirmed relationship with Vince Vaughn. Says James: “The relationship with Mr. Vaughn may have cost Ms. Anniston sympathy. In terms of her image it doesn’t even matter if that relationship exists; the public believes it does. And while replacing (Brad) Pitt with a new trophy guy would have seemed like vindication for the wounded princess, instead she has reached beneath her on the celebrity food chain. Mr. Vaughn seems smarter than his on-screen persona, and his mega-hit “Wedding Crashers” gave him some Hollywood clout. Still, nobody says, ‘how did she get him?’ Just the opposite.”

6-5-06 1810

The rain system that wiped out the Friday night Met game against the Giants resumed in a big way just in time for the start of Saturday’s double-header. A big crowd sat through a two-hour forty-one minute rain delay before the double-dipper got underway a little after four pm. There wasn’t much to do other than wait it out. Baroid was booed strongly in each at bat of the first game (he pinch-hit in the second game). There were a few signs (one pictured above simply expressed a sentiment we share) and a few chants. But mostly, Bonds failed to draw the predicted hostility from a seasoned baseball crowd that would much rather boo Armando Benitez.

El Duque pitched around Bonds in the first (pictured above), and a baserunning blunder by the hobbled home run cheat ended what could have been a bigger inning. Later, Bonds was intentionally walked, had a couple of hits and a strikeout. He looked solid at the plate but horrible in the outfield. It’s clear he can’t play in the National League next year and Giants manager Felipe Alou is handicapped by Bonds’ inability to field his position and run the bases. You hope American League teams don’t get tempted by his still effective power stroke. They should engage in some old-fashioned collusion and freeze the guy out this off-season.

Beer sales were cut off in the fifth inning of the first game, an apparent judgement call based on tbe long rain delay. Willie blew an opportunity to pinch-hit for Ramon Castro bottom nine and the Mets can’t be thrilled with El Duque’s performance. The 6-4 loss almost turned into a thrilling rally when Benitez pulled his usual meltdown, but what the heck. It was 7:15 PM when the first game ended, and we were cold, wet and had to work early the next day - so we passed on the nightcap. Too bad, because it was an extra-inning Met win. Attendance was announced at 45,576. We sat in the loge seats down the right field line after sneaking down from our mezz seats. We got to see Lastings Milledge take his position to start the game with some of the flamboyance that Sammy would generate as he greeted his fans at Wrigley. It was cool. The kid is cocky and he has this strut when he jogs. But he’s already hugely popular among the Shea crowd. The starting pitcher for the Giants Matt Cain is gonna be top-notch pitcher once he adds another out pitch to his repertoire. He brings the heat and can dominate at times.

-The Post’s Joel Sherman cites an unnamed AL GM in reporting that the Marlins turned down an offer of Justin Verlander and Curtis Granderson for Dontrelle Willis prior to the start of the season.

-Met shortstop Jose Reyes goes one-on-one with Steve Serby in the Post today and says he believes he can steal 100 bases in a season, if only he could get on base at a higher clip. Reyes names Yadier Molina of St. Louis as the toughest catcher to run on.

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They called the Friday night Met/Giant game at about 5:45 PM. They probably could have tried to play it on a normal night, but the 4:15 PM monsoon that rolled through the city dumped a huge amount of water. So much so that the underground city subway system that millions rely on was paralyzed. We walked out of the homestead at 5 PM to hit some dinner and head to the ballgame hoping to see some baseball. When we tried to get on the train to the game at 6:15 PM, we got word that the game was scrapped. A few cold ones later, we saw that the trains were still shut down and Jackson Heights was a cluster of mad end-of-the-work-weekers who wanted to go somewhere but couldn’t get on a train (pictured above). Nobody could get on anything other than the 7 (elevated), so people flocked to the buses and made hopeless attempts to score a taxi or car service. It was a nutty Friday night scene.

They’ll play a single-admission double-dipper at Shea tomorrow if the rain stops, and it works out for this ticket-holder. We’ll get to see two tomorrow, and trade in our tickets for tonight for another game down the road.

We got back to the TSR headquarters in time to watch a stirring introduction of the ’71 Pirates as they celebrated the 25th anniversary of their ’71 World Championship in a rain-delayed home game at that great-looking new ballpark in Pittsburgh. Bruce Kison, Manny Sanguillen, Jackie Hernandez and Al Oliver all ran out and looked great. Dock Ellis had earrings in both ears and a big smile on his face. It was raining and the crowd in Pitt was dead, but it was a swell ceremony.

6-2-06 2121

Just a week away from the pro boxing debut of Tom Zbikowski, the promoter of the June 10th card has announced his opponent. Bob Arum and Top Rank says Zibbie will fight Robert Bell of Akron, Ohio just prior to the main event. Bell has fought just four times. He was knocked out in the first round of his last fight in Atlantic City, losing to Travis Kauffman on the undercard of the Rahman/Toney bout back in March. He’s 2-2 overall and all four of his fights have ended in a knockout. Bell’s first three matches were in Akron. Who knows what kinda boxer he’ll be next Saturday. He made his debut in May of 2003, and then fought again in October of that year. He then took two years off before resuming his career last October. No doubt this will be Bell’s biggest opportunity, but the boxing skeptic in all of us wonders if Arum has selected the 240-pound Bell for his ability to get crushed in Zibby’s debut.

It’ll be a pretty crazy night of boxing at the Garden in terms of the crowd. You’ll have most of the Notre Dame football team in attendance, and I’d expect Charlie Weis to be in the house. You’ll have thousands of Puerto Ricans cheering for headliner Miguel Cotto on the eve of the Puerto Rican Day parade. You’ll have Italians all over the place cheering for Cotto’s opponent Paulie Malignaggi. You’ll have a bunch of Irish fans cheering for popular undefeated Irish middleweight John Duddy of County Derry. And then you’ll have the run of the mill boxing nuts taking in a card at the world’s most famous arena. Not even a crook like Arum can screw up a night like that.

In his conference call yesterday, Arum said this is how the card would be presented:

Numerous preliminary bouts starting at 7 pm. The pay-per-view telecast starts at 9 pm. Manuel Lopez vs. Sergio Mendez start things off. Then Bobby Pacquiao (brother of Manny) takes on locally popular Kevin Kelley. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Aaron Drake. Duddy vs. Freddy Cuevas of Chicago. Zibby vs. Bell. And then the main event, Cotto vs. Malignaggi, both undefeated for the WBO junior welterweight belt.

-The weather radar is showing a rain storm the size of Montana bearing down on New York, but we’ll head to Shea tonight regardless to see the first place Mets and Glavine take on the sideshow and the Giants. Bonds has been off the last three nights, so you’d expect him to play, but a sloshy left field may lead Felipe to sit the big head one more night. A full report tomorrow.

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The big bubble on the Hudson River at west 23rd Street in Manhattan is bubbling into a big problem. Most pressing is the facility known as Basketball City which includes six top-notch basketball courts inside that big bubble. Problem is, the entity controlling the land on which the bubble sits wants to demolish it and turn it into a park. The Hudson River Park Trust has been planning the beautification of the river property on the west side for years and Basketball City has ‘til next week to shut down and get out. What makes it such a pressing problem is that Basketball City isn’t just any commercial outfit profiting off the rental of basketball courts. It voluntarily serves as the full-time home courts of dozens of girls and boys high school basketball teams in NYC which lack their own facilities. The schools use the facilities for free in exchange for the performance of community service projects. In an open letter printed in the Post today, athletic director John Sarci of the Beacon School said: “Over 50 New York City teams with no gyms in their schools rely on Basketball City for practice, home and playoff games. All of these schools would not have basketball programs without Basketball City.”

TSR believes this dilemma exposes a much wider problem in New York City. It’s a failure on the part of education leaders in recognizing the importance of high school athletics. It’s very sad visiting the horrendous athletic facilities available to kids in this city. We attend high school athletic events in Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn and there are a lot of hard-working educators trying to coach kids with solid athletic aspirations. But they have few decent places to conduct their athletic contests. If Mayor Mike Bloomberg and schools chancellor Joel Klein want to continue trumpeting their successes on school reform in this city, they oughta realize that athletics is crucial to the development of a lot of young people.

Yeah, in the end Basketball City will get kicked out of the bubble and probably find a new place to set up shop. But that’s not the answer. This city needs to independently establish its own facilities for public school kids to participate in athletics activities that will shape their teenage years and in some instances provide an alternative to aimless street shenanigans. The idea that all of these schools rely on a commercial entity to bail them out because they don’t have athletic facilities is not the way public schools ought to be run. Not when per-pupil spending in New York City is higher than most all of the big cities in this country.

-Dying on the vine and considered to be mostly irrelevant these days, The Village Voice has hired a new editor-in-chief. The once-respected tabloid with a circulation said to be a quarter-million lost a bunch of key people last fall when its parent company merged with New Times, a chain of free weeklies. Now comes word that the newly-merged parent has hired 41-year-old Erik Wemple to right the ship at the Voice. The Times story tried to throw cold water on the appointment saying that Wemple has never worked or lived in New York. Who cares. Few have before they got here and gave it a shot. Let’s see what the guy who spent recent years writing for the Washington DC City Paper can do.

-We opened the mailbox to find a letter from the Meadowlands this afternoon. We excitedly ripped it open and reading it felt a bit like a college rejection letter: “Thank you for submitting an application for tickets to the 2007 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship East Regional to be held March 23 and 25, 2007 at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, NJ. The total number of ticket applications received exceeded the number of tickets available so a random selection was held. Unfortunately, your ticket application was not chosen in the random drawing and as a result, you will not receive the number of tickets requested on your order form. With regards to payment, your original check is enclosed with this letter.” Somehow, I picture something other than a truly random drawing happening over there at the Meadowlands.

6-1-06 1712

The Lastings Milledge era is under way in New York. The hotshot outfielder with the fast wrists got the call up and made his major league debut at Shea last night when rightfielder Xavier Nady went on the DL earlier in the day after an emergency appendectomy. It’s exciting to have a home grown product make it to the big leagues and you wonder what’ll happen when Nady returns. Baseball columnist Bill Madden of the News suggested in a piece today that the Milledge promotion was just as much about instilling humility in the 21-year-old than it was about his ability to contribute in Nady’s absence. Madden says Milledge came off as selfish in spring training when he barely reported in time for daily stretching exercises while most of the team had arrived an hour-plus earlier. Madden quotes an anonymous team “insider” as saying: “This is a real team here and these guys are really playing their butts off for Willie. Everyone’s ego is in check, and from what I saw of (Milledge) in spring training, he’s got great talent but he needs to tone done the stylin’ and all that other stuff.”

Milledge wears a large wooden cross around his neck that appears to be potentially dangerous in the event of a sliding catch on the stomach. Manager Willie Randolph said on the FAN this afternoon that he had asked the rookie to remove or tuck it in for future games.

-It was hard to watch Katie Couric’s teary farewell from the Today show this morning. We had been overloaded with segments promoting her departure for the last ten days and the actual goodbye program seemed like a party that had lasted too long. But credit the Times today for an excellent profile in the Arts section about a Vietnam vet from the Bronx who has been attending the show at 30 Rock nearly every day for the last twelve years. 63-year-old Linny Boyette told Times reporter Lola Ogunnaike that he leaves the Bronx every morning at 4:40 and gets in position after a cup of tea. Boyette says his constant presence initially made Katie nervous but that he now knows all the cast and their family members. Boyette told the Times his sister can’t believe he makes daily treks to watch the show: “My sister thinks I’m a bit mental.”

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We caught Baroid’s 715th on the FSN Bay Area feed this afternoon. Byung-Hyun Kim fed him a pretty juicy pitch right down central and Bonds ripped it deep to right center. A no doubter that flickered off a few fans and landed in a concession area below the seating area. I guess you’d have to talk to people that were there, but as a baseball fan, it’s a shame not to feel even a shred of joy as it left the yard. Bonds’ teammates gave what appeared to be a lot of half-hearted hugs (except for Todd Greene who seemed to be genuinely happy) to the robotic sulker.

We were hoping Bonds would sit on 714 ‘til he hit New York next weekend for a three-game set at Shea. That way we could relish the opportunity to see guys like Glavine and El Duque attempt to deny him in a hostile setting. But oh well. Now, all we can hope for is that his chemically-engineered body breaks down before he passes Hank.

Happy Memorial Day to all. It’s a meaningful day loaded with extra punch these days what with all the flag-draped coffins getting shipped back to families who have to be conflicted in their feelings about what the heck is going on in this world of ours.

5-28-06 1738

I guess like most of working America, we were glad to see the jury in Houston hand down convictions against Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling for their deceptions and greed as overseers of the Enron collapse. Credit the government for simplifying a complex series of off-the-books entities and accounting tricks into a presentation the jury could understand. And of course, credit the media for exposing the company as a fraud when it could have gotten lost in the 9-11 haze of that period. Interestingly, Skilling and Lay are scheduled to be sentenced on September 11 of this year. During trial, Skilling used the 9-11 attacks as an excuse for his effort to sell 500-thousand shares of Enron stock before regular shareholders found out the company was a sinking ship. Problem is, the government caught him in a lie because records indicate he attempted a sale of 200-thousand shares on September 6.

Both Skilling and Lay are out on bail with no confinement to the home provision. I wouldn’t worry about Lay making the sentencing date, but Skilling’s record of unstable behavior makes you wonder if he shouldn’t be wearing a bracelet. This is a guy who just a couple of years ago was questioned by police here in New York City for babbling incoherently outside an upper east side tavern claiming bar patrons were spying on him. Skilling allegedly lifted the skirt of a woman outside the bar and said he was looking to see if she was wearing a recording device. He scuffled with other patrons and was taken by police to a hospital for observation.

-Chicago restaurateur Jim Photopoulos will milk his recent victory in Chicago’s “fastest hot dog maker” contest with a couple of major publicity stops coming up this week. On Memorial Day, Jimmy Photo will appear on the “Fox and Friends” morning program on the Fox News Channel. Officials at Vienna Beef are joining Photo for the three-day trip to New York and are said to be providing all supplies necessary for a fully-dressed Chicago dog down to the celery salt. Picture this: Photo, the consummate Chicagoan making Chicago-style hot dogs on Memorial Day morning in mid-town Manhattan. New Yorkers are gonna walk past the grinning, bald-headed Photo and wonder where this guy came from.

And then on Thursday morning, Photo will be back on home turf when he appears on the WGN-TV morning news program. Photo tells TSR that he hopes the two nationally-televised appearances do more than simply promote his two suburban Chicago restaurants. Photo, in all seriousness says he hopes the TV spots will showcase his acting ability and produce a response from Hollywood.

-Veteran jockey Garrett Gomez appeared on Mary Ryan’s “Talkin’ Horses” program on the NYC OTB channel this afternoon and it’s clear he doesn’t read the Racing Form. As Ryan usually does when a jockey appears on her show, she asks about the rider’s mounts that day. She inquired about each of Gomez’s four rides on the Saturday card including his mount on the early line favorite in the grade two Sheepshead Bay Handicap. Each question from Ryan garnered the same basic response from Gomez. “I don’t know anything about that horse.” Gomez is represented by Ron Anderson who was Jerry Bailey’s jockey agent until this past winter when Bailey retired. When Bailey appeared on the Ryan show, he would always discuss his mounts that day in-depth in part because he was an avid reader of the past performances in the Racing Form.

Gomez’s complete lack of knowledge of the horses he’s riding may not necessarily impact performance when he’s riding for guys like Todd Pletcher, but as a bettor I’d prefer high-level mental preparedness from a jockey. Gomez says he’ll ride the Baffert-trained Bob and John in the Belmont stakes.

5-27-06 1611

The print coverage of a government report examining the shooting death of a bipolar Florida man killed by federal sky marshals last December is just as confusing as the incident itself. Yeseterday’s Times buried a short item written by Abby Goodnough with a headline: “Man Killed by Air Marshals Was Shot 11 Times.” Goodnough’s story says 44-year-old Rigoberto Alpizar was “wounded 11 times – in the chest, abdomen, shoulder, hand, wrist and forearm,” according to autopsy findings included in the report.

A story written by Maya Bell of the Orlando Sentinel the day before said: “It was unclear how many times Alpizar was hit, but a medical examiner found four bullets in his body.”

The AP’s Curt Anderson said in his story: “The two marshals…fired a total of nine rounds from their .357-caliber handguns.”

The Miami Herald’s piece by Nicholas Spangler – the most detailed of all the stories written on the report also says nine shots were fired.

So, was it nine or eleven?

Regardless, it’s no surprise that the sky marshals were found to be “legally justified” by the report and will soon be back on the job. Alpizar was returning from a church trip to Ecuador with his wife of twenty years and was on board for the final leg of his journey – a short hop from Miami to Orlando. Problem is, Mr. Alpizar was off his meds for whatever reason and was acting nutty by all accounts. With a backpack in hand, Alpizar tried to flee the plane just before it was to leave the gate with his wife chasing him, yelling: “he’s sick.”

Witnesses report that Mr. Alpizar was seen reaching into the pack, and in a post-9/11 world that might be enough to get you shot. He was - and he died on the jetway connected to the American Airlines aircraft.

The early reporting of the incident failed to include independent verification that Alpizar yelled “bomb.” But the government report finds that passengers heard Alpizar use the word. Worse, one of the flight’s pilots says Alpizar verbally urged the sky marshals to shoot him.

A TSA spokesman told Spangler: “Now that this report has cleared them (the sky marshals), they will be back flying shortly.”

5-26-06 0902

Initial reaction to the just announced trade of Jorge Julio from the Mets to Arizona for El Duque: seems like a sensible deal from a Met perspective. They need a starter and El Duque is a post-season veteran who could excel down the stretch and into the playoffs if that’s where the Mets end up. We were one of the few Met fans who actually like Julio’s stuff. But we can’t help but think about the job El Duque did for the White Sox in game three of their playoff series against the Red Sox last fall.

Is El Duque healthy? Sure looked like it when he struck out nine Pirates in seven solid innings the other night. El Duque’s arrival could also be a boost to Met rookie starter Alay Soler. Both are Cuban nationals who came to this country under similar circumstances.

Julio got off to a rough start in New York and couldn’t shake the home crowd boo-birds despite lighting up the speed gun and being generally effective recently. We wish Jorge good luck and welcome the arrival of El Duque.

5-24-06 1830

You wonder how much longer they’ll continue selling Bud products in the aluminum bottle at Shea Stadium this year after a bad incident at Sunday’s Met/Yankee game. According to a report in the Post, 23-year-old Jason Schmeider of Bay Shore was arrested for throwing one of the aluminum beer bottles at a security guard who was working an unrelated incident late in the game. Schmeider is charged with assault, harassment and weapons possession under a new state law created in the wake of fan misbehavior at Shea in recent years. The security guard suffered facial injuries. The bottles have been embraced by fans. They keep the beer cold for a long time – and they’re easy to carry from the big icy tubs you buy them at on the concourses back to your seat. But you know that incidents like this from bad apples are going to force the Mets to consider liability/safety concerns and perhaps a return to the plastic cup.

-Once you’re in, you’re in. That’s the problem with the Democratic machine here in Queens. The party has endorsed veteran state senator Ada Smith for a tenth term despite a horrendous string of misbehavior and boorishness by the lawmaker in recent years. Earlier this year, a Smith staffer in Albany said the Senator threw a cup of coffee in her face. Smith is accused in several reports available on the internet of throwing trash cans, desk organizers, piles of papers and ice cream bars at other staffers over the years and she once held up a butter knife to the neck of a terrified staffer. Those who cover Albany and those who work there have said Smith is an embarrassing off-kilter terror – yet somehow the Queens Democratic organization endorsed her for re-election at a meeting yesterday. The Times reports that Smith was the only candidate nominated and present for the meeting.

Elizabeth Bishop-Goldsmith is running against Smith in the Democratic primary, yet she told the Times she was deliberately misled by the party about the meeting’s starting time and missed it.

A web search shows that Bishop-Goldsmith is the president of an organization called Mothers Against Guns. She lives in Rosedale. Her inability to garner support from the Queens Democratic party is no surprise. In our eight-plus years in Queens, we’ve seen a lot of legitimate, smart public servants and activists step up seeking to contribute to state and local government only to be denied by a corrupt band of cronies who control the process.

-A funny observation by Post TV writer Michael Starr today when he asked the question: “How can we miss Katie if she won’t go away?” Katie Couric’s last day on the Today show is a week away, yet viewers have already been subjected to several days of farewell schmaltz - and it’ll only get worse before she leaves next Wednesday. Katie takes the CBS evening news anchor chair in September and TSR believes she’d be wise to push for a tone-down in the Today farewell parade in order to gain cred for her next gig.

5-23-06 1654

John DaSilva of the Post reports today that Barbaro’s jockey Edgar Prado was booed by New York racing fans at Belmont yesterday when he made his first appearance since returning from Baltimore. Said DaSilva: “Escorted by a security guard (prior to the third race), Prado made his way to the paddock amid cheers when, all of a sudden, loud boos were hurled his way. Everyone in the paddock was in shock at the unjust display toward the jockey.” If DaSilva recorded his observations correctly, this is hard to believe. Prado appeared to do an excellent job harnessing Barbaro’s desire to run with the shattered leg and seemed to handle the incident as professional as could be.

Still, instead of absorbing the tragic end of Barbaro’s racing career with reverence and sadness, you have all sorts out there floating crazy theories. On talk radio, the most dominant suggestion is that Prado appeared to look back several times at Barbaro’s hind legs during the post parade. On the FAN this afternoon, we heard one caller suggest that it was possible that Barbaro’s connections were hiding an injury prior to the race in order to collect what the caller described as “gate insurance.” The caller implied that somehow the trainer and/or owner of Barbaro had entered into a side agreement protecting them financially if somehow Barbaro lost the Preakness – as long as he started.

Forget all that. Barbaro got hurt because he’s a horse. Because he’s a fragile animal who may have taken a bad step. Just because there was a ton of money gambled on him doesn’t mean anything sinister happened, necessarily. Not at this level. Barbaro’s trainer Michael Matz is known to be a patient, above-board guy with high concern for his animals’ welfare.

Doctors say Barbaro’s surgery went as well as could be but still only give him a “coin-flip” chance of surviving.

5-22-06 1822

It was a difficult and dramatic day in sports as we watched the horrible breakdown of Barbaro, the meltdown of the Met closer Billy Wagner and a stunning, violent punch at Comiskey.

The Kentucky Derby winner busted through the gate prior to the start of the Preakness and was led back around as those who wagered the horse down to 3-5 gasped before the race even started. As the field eventually broke and Barbaro tried to gain track position, his rear right leg started rotating improperly and jockey Edgar Prado tried to save the horse’s life by stopping his ambition to run. At this moment tonight, it seems doubtful that a great horse who suffered what is reported as two bad fractures can ever be immobilized through a recovery period and live a life as a stallion. The bottom line is that horse racing fans are crushed and torn emotionally after watching the suffering by an animal who runs for our entertainment and wagering fun. Gary Stevens, an ex-jock nearly broke down himself on the NBC telecast. His analysis with a cracked and shaken voice was exceptional. Not the same could be said of Frank Stronach, the owner of Pimlico Race Course who seemed insensitive and cold in the post-race trophy ceremony honoring the winner Bernardini.

An emotional breakdown with long-term effects is the concern at Shea. Billy Wagner was improperly called on to finish things off in what was a 4-0 Met lead against the Yanks this afternoon. Wagner’s cheeks were flush from the get-go and something was amiss as he walked the ballpark and was left dangling by skipper Willie Randpolph. You hope Wagner can recover and find the strike zone when he next appears. He probably will. But why did Randolph put his closer in that spot and why did he refuse to take him out despite a clear set of signals that Wagner was in no condition to record outs?

As for the Michael Barrett cold-cock to the chin of AJ in another Cub loss: not much more needs to be said than the complete lack of defense and support from his own manager Dusty Baker.

What a day in sports. We sat here comfortably in front of a television but felt like we had sat through a day of Cyclone roller coaster rides. Let’s hope tomorrow brings a more cheerful set of happenings and results in the sports we love.

5-20-06 1928
 
When the Yankees scored four runs on the Mets in the first inning last night, the home crowd wasn’t sure what to think. The Big Unit of old would have cruised with that kind of cushion. But this is a Big Unit that hangs sliders, lacks control and tops out at 94. He came in with the cushion and immediately walked the leadoff man Jose Reyes. It was a classic from that point on. Notre Dame alum Aaron Heilman was the star of the show. He came in with the game tied at six in the sixth. He pitched three perfect innings to get it to Wags who struck out the side in the ninth. Then David Wright won it with a line drive hit to center that we thought Damon would catch up to. He hedged a lot of territory in case he had to throw out the runner trying to score from second and he couldn’t reach the Wright liner. Met fans hugged and danced in the aisles. 7-6 Mets.

Heilman has said over and over he wants to be a starter. Last night was a great example of how valuable and versatile he is. He shuts the door when it’s most important. Gonzalez may get one more start, but he’s no long term solution to a rotation that right now consists of Pedro, Glavine and Trax and that’s it. Eddie Coleman of the FAN says the rookie Mike Pelfrey may enter the rotation as early as Thursday. If the Mets are gonna lose the NL East, it’s going to be the rotation that is their undoing. The attendance on a chilly evening was 56,289. Traffic problems on the Grand Central quashed our party’s dinner plans, so we had a dry Shea cheeseburger. Beer vendors ignore the upper deck – understandably so given the incline. Numerous stands sell Bud products on the concourse although it is recommended that you line up early for last call because it’s a real scramble bottom seven for the last round.

Cowbell Man (pictured above) paid a visit to the upper deck well down the first base line early in the game and didn’t seem to mind not being the center of attention. Belligerent Met and Yankee extremists engaged in alcohol-fueled sideshows in the bathroom, on the concourses and in the stands. The ratio of Met fans to Yankee fans was about 70-30, a mix that was more Met fan dominated than previous Shea subway series encounters. The 7 train home was lickity-quick and pleasant.

A hearty congrats to Jim Photopoulos (pictured above courtesy of the PR Newswire) for his big victory in the highly competitive hot dog making contest held in downtown Chicago this past week. Known by most as Jimmy Photo, the lifelong restaurateur and TSR friend beat out 24 other top city Vienna Beef dog sellers by dressing 32 Chicago-style hot dogs in five minutes. Photo owns two classy and family-fun hot dog joints in Chicago’s northwest suburbs. He told TSR that he was proud to take down a title surrounded by great city institutions. Photo says he expects a nice publicity boost from the title. He has already appeared on the Johnny Brandmeier showgram and says more media spots are on the way. Way to go Photo!

-Cub catcher Michael Barrett is gonna get suspended for a long, long time. FOX cut into the Met/Yank game this afternoon to show the second inning play at the plate which was clean by Pierzynski all the way. The punch by Barrett was jaw-droppingly violent and totally out of line as a response to what is a normal baseball play by Pierzynski. Yeah, the Sox catcher can be annoying to his opponents but I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when they showed the replay. Pierzynski celebrated the shot to the jaw as he approached the bench and was inexplicably tossed. It'll be interesting to see what is said and done in the aftermath, but we’ve never seen a bare-fisted haymaker quite like that one on any sporting field.

-One of the original six NHL franchises has sunk to a new low with the announcement that it’s parting ways with the great broadcaster Pat Foley. The Chicago Blackhawks web site says the organization has withdrawn a contract offer that had been on the table since May 9. The Sun-Times cites an unidentified source saying Foley was lowballed. It’s a sad day for Blackhawk fans because Foley had done the games for 25 years in a way that drew you to the radio. The Blackhawks are owned by the Wirtz family who have a long history of cheapness and disregard for its shrinking fan base. So far, Foley hasn’t commented. But you know he will and you know he’ll be in great demand if he wants to continue doing hockey. TSR hopes he remains on radio. The Blackhawks had announced earlier this month that they wanted Foley to do only radio, rather than be the voice of a TV/radio simulcast. We thought that was a good idea, but we didn’t expect the Hawks to fail with an inadequate financial offer to a guy who was as skilled and popular as they come.

-The French Tickler, Julien Leparoux makes his New York debut tomorrow with four mounts at beautiful Belmont Park. The 22-year-old jockey leads the country in wins. Leparoux made a huge impression on bettors and fans Derby week with a bunch of unlikely victories.

5-20-06 1445

It’s a big sports weekend here – and everywhere really as interleague play begins. Cubs/Sox in Chicago. And in New York, it’s Mets/Yanks at Shea. We’ll be sitting in what feels like the structurally unsound upper deck tonight cheering for the Metropolitans at plus-130 against a Big Unit that has sputtered this season. The crowd will be nuts, boozed-up and rowdy with ugly chants and taunting directed at the opponent’s fans. Nearly all the tickets to the sold-out series were snatched up through the sale of multi-game ticket packages which are enticing in large part because of the guaranteed seat for one of the Subway series games. Jeremi Gonzalez gets the start for the Mets. Pedro pitches tomorrow on five days rest. He should be pitching tonight but because TSR is going, he won’t pitch. He never pitches when we go. Never. Gonzalez, you’d expect won’t give you more than five or six innings – and he’ll get hit. But you just hope that the Met lineup can do what the rest of baseball has done to Randy Johnson this year. A report tomorrow.

As if the Subway Series wasn’t enough, the NBA playoffs have a double-dipper tonight featuring the last two champs in must win situations. The Pistons are reeling after three straight losses to the Cavs and must go to the arena formerly known as Gund and get out of there with a win over King James and a surrounding cast that has played well the entire playoffs. That’ll be followed by Spurs/Mavs with Dallas minus Jason Terry and Spurs coach Avery Johnson certain to hatch a plan to double Duncan the whole game and avoid a game seven at all costs. Spurs win this game with a big night from Tony Parker.

Then after all that excitement, you can rise tomorrow, put some money in your phone account and bet against Barbaro in the Preakness. Barby will be the overwhelming 3-5 favorite to win the second jewel of the triple crown, but he’ll see Like Now, Diabolical and Brother Derek ahead of him early. Will he fire and use that long stride of his to blow past them nearing the final turn? He could. But we won’t play it that way. We’ll use Greely’s Legacy, Brother D, Sweetnorthernsaint and Bernardini in multi race wagers and hope for the upset. It’ll be the first triple crown event we haven’t attended in a long time and so it’ll be interesting to watch the NBC broadcast and see what it all looks like from that perspective.

-An excellent item in the May 15 issue of the New Yorker examines the marketing success of organic foods, now a $15 billion a year industry. Food market chain Whole Foods has led the way on this front with nearly two-hundred stores nationally including an incredible location in the Time Warner building here in New York. Among the interesting disclosures in the story written by Steven Shapin:

*Whole Foods is as “ferociously anti-union as Wal-Mart.”

*The founder and CEO of Whole Foods John Mackey has referred to unions as “parasites.”

*Despite the anti-union approach, Whole Foods limits the pay of its high-level execs to no more than fourteen times the salary of the rank and file.

*Early proponents of organic farming have become disillusioned by a takeover and domination of the concept by mega-growers, suppliers and retailers.

-The MTA says the average weekday New York City subway ridership in March 2006 hit 4.9 million, up 3.1% from the same month a year ago and the highest number since the transit agency started compiling statistics in 1970. If you include bus riders, the number is 7.4 million daily. That’s a lotta people riding public transit. And the best part of it is that it all works pretty darn good.

5-19-06 1429

Many members of the print and broadcast media in New York throw around the word “incompetence” without justification. The media in New York lacks patience. They treat hard working athletes, coaches, general managers and owners as if they’re disposable and replaceable if they don’t win and produce immediately. But what’s happening with the Knick organization is deplorable and reeks of incompetence. Check it out: next season the Knicks are on a $98 million hook for Allan Houston, Stephon Marbury, Jalen Rose, Steve Francis, Maurice Taylor, Shandon Anderson, Malik Rose and Jerome James. Of those eight players, only the surly and selfish guards Marbury and Francis have a chance to contribute something. Houston and Anderson are gone but still collecting huge checks. OK. It’s brutal. But this Larry Brown furor of the last few days has brought incompetence to its pinnacle. Prior to last season, Knick owner Jim Dolan signed the vagabond Brown to a five-year, fifty-million dollar deal. It’s a deal that everybody assumed Brown wouldn’t complete because of his own lack of commitment to any one franchise. It didn’t make sense for a lot of reasons, primarily because Larry shapes and builds teams that are on the brink of being good – and are willing to play defense. Larry walked into a mess – much of it created by GM Isiah Thomas who has had zero success at any endeavor since his playing days. Isiah brought on many of the bad contracts and bad attitude players.

So, Larry trudged his way through a 23-59 season with a band of misfits led by Marbury who feuded with the coach publicly much of the way. It was excruciating. But it wasn’t Larry’s fault. And with the huge paycheck and his personal comfort level in this city he announced after the season was over that he’d be back and the Knicks would be better next year. He reportedly told Isiah that he wanted the team gutted – which is unrealistic given the ridiculous salaries of the malcontents littering the roster and the cap limitations imposed by the league. But hey, Larry wanted to come back, preach defense to whoever would listen and at least collect another ten mil a season.

But then this is where the incompetence comes to a new high. Last Sunday, Peter Vescey broke a story that Dolan is tired of Brown’s act and wants him out. He wants him out so bad he’s willing to buy out most of the rest of the deal. You didn’t know whether the story was true because it was Vescey, but then the other papers confirmed it and what can you say? Larry has four years and forty-mil left on his deal. He’s a hall of fame coach who’s done it all and Dolan wants to run Brown out and let Isiah take the coaching reins. All the papers cite league sources which you gotta believe are getting the info from Dolan. Jim Dolan is refusing to deny the story. Brown’s agent says Larry will not accept a buyout. The papers are saying Dolan is offering $25 mil for the separation, which if accepted would mean that Brown would collect $35 mil for one year of coaching. What is Dolan doing? He may be forced to fire him outright given the public handling of the crisis and Brown’s insistence that he won’t accept a buyout. And if that happens, then Isiah and the misfits win and the franchise goes deeper into the muck. As Selena Roberts wrote in the Times, Isiah “for once would have to confront his own chaos.” Roberts suggests that Isiah is protected from termination because of a pending sexual harassment suit against him by a female ex-Garden official - and Dolan (for the sake of his company) wants Isiah to beat that rap. Jeez. Incompetence to the absolute max.

-Some Gordon Bethune-like frankness from Continental Airlines president Jeff Smisek at a Bear Stearns airline industry conference in New York last week. Bethune retired from Continental in 2004 with a legacy of bold, abrasive language and insights on the airline industry. Bethune was replaced by numbers-cruncher and plain-spoken Larry Kellner. But Smisek – the Houston-based airline’s number two didn’t hold back when he spoke last week much like Bethune would do. As reported by Ted Reed of thestreet.com, Smisek said the following:

“Our network competitors have screwed their employees by defaulting on their pension plans and taking away wage and benefits in a very hostile manner.” Smisek is referring to the pensions at US Air and United with this comment. Additionally, the pension plans at Delta and Northwest are badly underfunded and drastic pay cuts at all four airlines have been obtained during bankruptcy proceedings. Relations between those four companies and their workforces have all been hostile. But Smisek should not boast here. Yes, Continental has avoided bankruptcy, and yes, Continental has continued contributing to its pension funds. But the pilot pension plan was restructured and reduced going forward and the company obtained a half-billion dollars in pay cuts from its workforce with a not-so-tacit threat of bankruptcy of its own.

“Our competitors have got a lot of gas-sucking pigs for aircraft.” The target of this remark is probably Northwest, whose fleet still includes a lot of DC-9’s – and American – which still retains a lot of MD-80’s.

“We did not follow our competitors in a race to the bottom to achieve a crappy product. We did not take off pillows, we did not take off blankets, we did not take off meals at mealtime and we will not charge fifteen bucks for an aisle seat.” After 9-11, most carriers looked for any and all ways to reduce costs and most airlines stripped away amenities. Northwest has taken major heat for imposing a charge for aisle seat requests and don’t be surprised if that policy is rescinded. The company has already dropped the charge for its frequent fliers.

“They are a low-cost carrier (Jet Blue)…and their customers don’t pay them a penny to watch those I Love Lucy reruns … it’s a wasted investment in my mind.” This is a commentary on Jet Blue’s offering of satellite television to all of its customers in flight. This quote appears not to attack the concept, but the contradictory cost associated with the technology vs. Jet Blue’s boast of low fares. Jet Blue offers 36 channels of Direct TV programming, and the passengers we’ve talked to enjoy it. But what Smisek appears to be saying is that Jet Blue may not be able to retain its low cost/low fare structure by spending money on frills.

“Our successful international expansion is being copied by a lot of people, including at least one bankrupt airline in Atlanta. They’ve already gone through their stockholders’ money; now they are going through their creditor’s money. They are throwing a lot of capacity into the market. I predict they will lose their shirts on it.” A clear dig at Delta, which has started beefing up its number of flights to Europe out of JFK and Atlanta. Continental had led the charge to expand international routes the last few years, and Delta has started an attempt to match that strategy. What is somewhat hard to understand is why Smisek would publicly criticize, chastise or question competitors. Especially Delta and Northwest which share a code share agreement with Continental and work cooperatively to steer customers to each other in certain instances.

5-17-06 1847

The recently released film United 93 will have you slumping in your seat, squirming at the real-time depiction of the hijacked 9-11 airliner and the confused bureaucratic response to it. We caught a matinee at the Kaufman Astoria Stadium 14 complex. Only about a dozen moviegoers were in the theatre but there was sobbing and gasping. It’s an intense movie experience and we’ve not seen a more accurate portrayal of the day-to-day working life of a flight crew member. We saw no serious flaws or mischaracterizations as it applies to aviation or air traffic control. There’s some occasional clumsy dialogue and scripting, and there’s an unrealistic moment when the first officer verbally tells the fueler to throw more gas on the airplane, but this flick is the real deal. It’s basically an apolitical film, although the military’s response is shown in a poor light primarily because it lacked direction from the White House.

It’s two hours on film as they were spent that sunny September morning at various air traffic control facilities in the Northeast and in Cleveland. You spend time in the main FAA control center and the NORAD facility in upstate New York. And you get every little bit of flight 93 from the time it’s boarded ‘til the moment it goes down. What happened up there is not known for sure, but phone conversations between passengers and the ground have pieced some of it together. The rest of it is the creation of the filmmaker Paul Greengrass who will garner an Oscar nomination for best director. What you get on board is a terrifying period in which two Arab men take the two seats in the cockpit and two others try to keep the 40 others on board at bay. How the cockpit was penetrated isn’t known. The movie adopts the most violent of theories. United Airlines clearly cooperated in letting this film project happen, because their equipment and logo is front and center. There’s no Hollywood cheese and no trickery. It’s an excellent flick and it’s highly recommended.

-When we bought our movie ticket, the woman who sold it said the film would start precisely at the 11:55 AM showtime with no previews. We thought that was a reverential way to begin a movie of this type. The only problem was that they ran all the previews from about 11:35 AM right up until 11:55 AM.

-We must have been in Kentucky when the news broke, because we’re just finding out about the newly unveiled “Grand Slam” wager being offered at Belmont Park. It’s similar to a pick four – except you only need to have your selection finish in the top three slots in each of the first three legs – and then you need to pick the winner in the final leg. Interesting. The wager has potential value and intrigue if you believe there’s a horse in the sequence’s first three legs that will take heavy money yet has a shot to finish off the board. There’s a danger that the New York Racing Association’s additional wager will dilute the pick four pool, but it seems like bettors may not yet know about the new opportunity. Yesterday at Belmont, the late pick four had $221,587 in the pool and the new Grand Slam wager took in just $14,407.

-Bob Uecker paid a visit to the Sports Net New York booth and managed to make Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez laugh through most of a half-inning during last night’s Met telecast. We laughed too at a guy who said he’s been in baseball for an amazing 41 years – 35 years as a broadcaster, and as Uke said: “plus 6 years as a player – or should I say a sitter”

-Nice job by sixth man Cliff Robinson of the Nets who must have been unable to resist puffing up. He got suspended five games prior to last night’s crucial game three loss to the Heat for violating the terms of the NBA drug rules. The assumption based on Robinson’s track record is that must have tested positive for pot. That’s fine. But the timing stinks. It’s one less body to bang Shaq and his absence last night was big. Rod Thorn knew Cliffy had a couple of pot busts under his belt prior to acquiring him, so he can’t be totally shocked. Robinson’s teammates were publicly supportive. It’ll never happen, but the NBA really should look the other way when it comes to personal consumption of marijuana.

5-13-06 1723

The security-conscious Israeli airline El Al has asked the US government for permission to supplement the routine baggage screening by federal screeners at Newark International Airport with a more intense screening process of its own. A Times report today gives a nod to the Newark Star-Ledger as the paper that originally broke the story. You can see this story two ways: either El Al doesn’t trust the TSA or it has an almost obsessive level of interest in making sure its fleet operates safely and freely from what you’d have to believe are any number of groups that would like to attack the Israeli airline. It could be a combination of both. El Al takes security very seriously in ways both visible and invisible to the public and their safety record is impeccable. When you notice an El Al aircraft sitting empty at airports across this country, you always see an armed guard in a vehicle stationed next to the aircraft. This is a procedure unique to El Al as is the fact that its fleet is the only one to employ anti-missile technology.

But I guess the question raised by El Al’s request – and their use of supplementary screening at other US airports - is why this country’s screeners aren’t good enough? After 9-11, Congress and the current administration created the Transportation Security Administration to screen all checked luggage. The TSA has been criticized for its competency level and cost. Politicians, the public and domestic carriers have all raised questions about the new bureaucracy's effectiveness. But this request by El Al may be a worse indictment.

-Richard Sandomir of the Times reports progress on the new hockey arena in downtown Newark. “The horseshoe shape of the lower bowl is clearly in focus. So is the main concourse. Construction has begun on the luxury suites.” The Devils are slated to open up the ’07-’08 season at the 17,500 seat stadium. Most exciting is the fact the building will sit an easy walk away from Newark’s Penn Station.

-The broken wrist suffered by Yankee left-fielder Hideki Matsui in the first inning of Thursday night’s loss to the Red Sox could be a death blow to a team already racked with problems. The two corner outfield positions are now in the hands of Melky Cabrera, Bubba Crosby and Bernie Williams. Who knows how long the moody Gary Sheffield will sit with a wrist problem of his own. The Big Unit looks horrible and the AL East is no picnic with a pretty tough Blue Jay team joining the BoSox as the two contenders to worry about. The spoiled Yankee crowd is booing A-Rod and getting restless. As Post columnist Mike Vaccaro said today: “They’d boo free pie.” On that note, we’re punching a betting slip on the A’s tonight at plus-126 with Zito in the Bronx going against Wang and the Yanks. It may take a while for the betting public to realize what kind of impact the loss of Matsui has on the pinstripers.

5-12-06 1558

They held a funeral mass here in Queens not too far down 37th Ave. yesterday for a 23-year-old soldier killed in Iraq. Jose Gomez was killed in a roadside bomb attack a few weeks ago and he leaves behind a mother who said her son went into the Army because he couldn’t afford college. An excellent story written by Michelle O’Donnell of the Times today details the funeral and profiles the young man and his family. A photo on the front page of today’s Metro section shows Gomez’s coffin inside Our Lady of Sorrows in the Corona neighborhood as his mother Maria weeps on the shoulder of a servicewoman. Gomez’s step-father looks on from behind with a look of anger on his face. It’s the kind of photo that you look at and can’t help but get stirred up.

Gomez didn’t want his mother to know he was in Iraq when he died because it was his second tour of duty. So, he told her he was working and studying in Texas.

Other facts of note in the O’Donnell story:

-Gomez had called New York from Iraq the day before he died to arrange for the delivery of flowers to his mother for Mother’s Day.

-Gomez’s death followed the death of his fiancé by 31 months. The fiancé was an Army private who had been killed in a roadside bomb in Tikrit.

-During the mass said in Spanish, O’Donnell says the Rev. Thomas Healy expressed concern for Gomez’s mother. She quotes the priest as saying: “Twenty-five hundred of these around the country. Can you imagine?”

Reports in the Chicago dailies say the Blackhawks are gonna end the practice of simulcasting their radio and tv game coverage and will begin splitting the two broadcasts next season. That’s what most teams do. Longtime Hawks play-by-play man Pat Foley has had to cater to both mediums while doing the simulcast and the radio audience has suffered, as great as Foley is. The item says Hawks broadcasting director Jim DeMaria hopes Foley will accept terms that would put him behind the radio mike solo or with a partner - with a separate tandem doing the tv coverage. Foley has done Hawks games for 25 years with all but about five of those using the simulcast system.

It’s a bit hard to believe that Foley has stuck with the Hawks for so many lean years given his talent. Add to that the fact that the only TV broadcasts allowed by Hawks owner Bill Wirtz are road games with few exceptions. You’d think other teams in the league would love to have a guy like Foley – who has a thrilling, descriptive and humorous approach to his game call.

No matter what Foley does however, this decision by the Hawks to have radio and tv broadcasts become unique from one another is a long time coming.

-As we predicted here on TSR about six weeks ago, the winless colt Here’s Ya Souvenir was on the brink of breaking through. Sure enough, he won on the turf at Belmont yesterday. The five-year-old New York-bred had been winless in 35 career attempts but came alive in the ninth race with a length and a half victory at odds of 5.7 to 1. After a long career of futility, how can you not be happy for Here’s Ya Souvenir?

5-11-06 1706

One of the more prominent unions representing airline workers has announced they’ve gathered enough authorization cards to trigger a vote on whether to unionize baggage handlers at Jet Blue Airlines. The International Association of Machinists will seek an election that if certified by the National Mediation Board would be conducted later this year.

If Jet Blue officials adopt a strategy used by other air carriers trying to stave off unionization by its workers, expect a campaign of mild intimidation and rampant misinformation in an attempt to defeat it.

Ultimately, it takes a simple fifty-percent plus one majority among the work group to gain union representation. But sadly, the current climate of economic fear and insecurity makes unionization difficult. Add to that the steamrolling of unions by companies in bankruptcy courts and the organized labor movement has really flamed out in the private sector of this country. It’s all too bad, because the basic idea of union representation is nothing more than a seat at a bargaining table every few years in which the employees can negotiate the terms of their employment. Sometimes those terms aren’t economic. They can be safety issues. They can be retirement or health care issues. Unions helped build this country and now they are demonized for isolated corruption and occasional miscalculations on demands. But the basic idea of a union is one that all workers deserve if they so choose. We support the IAM’s efforts to organize unrepresented airline workers and will be watching the union campaign at Jet Blue closely.

-Jack Bell’s weekly soccer column in the Times has a couple of interesting notes as we approach the World Cup. Bell says the US team bus to be used in Germany will not be emblazoned with the national flag, while all other 31participating countries plan to display large national flags on the rear sides of their buses. Bell also reports the US will wear their blue jerseys for the games against the Czech Republic and Germany and their white ones for their first-round finale against Ghana.

-A report in the Post says the woman leading efforts to raise money for a stalled memorial and museum at ground zero has an annual salary of $350-thousand. Gretchen Dykstra is trying to raise half a billion dollars in private donations, but sources told the Post that the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation is spending $450-thousand a month. Just build it already.

5-10-06 1716

Barbaro’s seven-length victory in the Kentucky Derby was as impressive as they come on a beautiful afternoon at Churchill Downs, but can we relax a bit with all the Triple Crown hype? Yeah, the strong acceleration down the stretch from an unbeaten colt bred to run long has racing fans thinking this might be the first Triple Crown winner since 1978. But there’s a reason the grueling feat hasn’t been accomplished in so long. Barbaro has to win twice more in the next five weeks after basically resting for thirteen weeks with just a single race in between prior to his visually impressive Derby domination. Barbaro is a baby. He was pampered not prepped going into the Derby. Aside from a stumble out of the gate, he had a near-perfect, trouble-free trip on Saturday with a tailor-made pace scenario for a stalker-type. His finishing time of 2:01.36 was fast but it came on a day the track was producing fast times. He’ll have fresh horses waiting to pick him off at each of the next two stops and he may not enjoy the post advantage he had over Brother Derek when they meet in Baltimore.

The spacing by trainer Michael Matz produced a prime effort on Derby day, but now the son of Dynaformer must win in Baltimore in two weeks – and if he wins that – he must come back three weeks later and try to run a mile and a half in front of 120-thousand racing fans in New York who are desperate for a crown winner.

We don’t think this is the horse. His Derby win was terrific but history has shown that the modern thoroughbred and the current approach to training doesn’t equate to an ability to win three tough crown races spaced five weeks apart. Racing fans and media members have declared Barbaro the best shot to get the job done of all the recent impressive Derby winners, but we’re not getting our hopes up.
There was another star to emerge last week – apprentice jockey Julien Leparoux (pictured above sitting on the French three-year-old filly Stadore) won five races last Wednesday and had twelve victories on the four race cards prior to Derby day. On Oaks day, Leparoux won two stakes races without the five-pound weight break given to bug boys in non-stakes events. The 22-year-old Frenchman is the leading rider in the country this year. He racked up many of those wins at Turfway Park south of Cincinnati against riders not considered to be the best riders in the nation. But then, eyes opened when he had a great spring Keeneland meet. It’s his dominance this past Derby week that opened the lid on this kid. He’s a daring rider and he’s winning on horses that don’t appear to be the best in the field. TSR pal C-Dub has given Leparoux the nickname “The French Tickler.”

French trainer Patrick Biancone has served as Leparoux’s mentor and was the one who suggested the rider learn his trade at Turfway, where the fields are full and the racing is competitive. With the sport losing great jockeys Jerry Bailey and Pat Day in recent months to retirement, it’s nice to see a young new star step forward.

As we have since we scored our Derby tickets legitimately through Churchill Downs about five years ago, we sat in section 223 next to Terry and Rebecca Kaye of Newport, Kentucky (pictured above). The Kaye’s have a pretty amazing dedication to horse racing and sports in general. This year, the Kaye’s were attending their 38th consecutive Kentucky Derby and in two weeks, they will attend their 39th straight Preakness. They have season tickets to Florida Atlantic basketball games and they attend horse racing cards all over the country with great frequency. Prior to each race, the couple navigates its way through the huge Derby crowd to place their bets. Their amazing run of consecutive Derbies is an inspiring feat; although the experience on the first Saturday every May is so addictive one can imagine trying not to ever miss the great event if at all possible.

Our pick to win the Derby was Bluegrass Cat trained by Todd Pletcher (pictured above). At odds of 30.0 to 1, Bluegrass Cat had a good trip and at one point looked like a potential winner. But he finished second to Barbaro and will probably now sit out the Preakness and wait to run at the big sandy oval here in New York with a chance to ruin the Triple Crown effort. The 38-year-old Pletcher is now 0 for 14 with his Derby starters although five of them have finished in the top five. Pletcher is a great trainer and he will win the Derby one of these days. Attendance on Derby day was 157,536, the second highest in history. Sixteen-ounce Buds in the aluminum bottle were selling for six bucks. The weather was perfect and betting machines on the clubhouse side of the paddock made wagering easy. Bourbon’s Bistro on Frankfort Ave. is a recommended dinner spot and our room at the Baymont Inn off Hurstborne Parkway was a notch above adequate.   

When we weren’t handicapping or betting on horses, we saw a couple of things on TV worth mentioning last week:

-The HBO documentary on Billie Jean King is excellent. It’s the first really well-done television piece we’ve seen examining King’s struggle related to her sexuality, her amazing career and efforts to fight gender inequities in sports.

-We got a kick out of C-Span’s airing of a house subcommittee grilling UN ambassador John Bolton. Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich was especially aggressive in quizzing Bolton about a Sy Hersh story suggesting the US is preparing a military strike on Iran. Bolton was extremely bothered by legitimate questions from Kucinich and referred to Hersh’s piece as “fiction.”

-We saw the footage of Lebron James delivering trash-talk to Gilbert Arenas prior to the deciding free throw misses in the Cavs’ game-six clincher at Washington. Our reaction? How is that not a technical foul? Completely unsportsmanlike. MJ never woulda pulled something like that.

5-9-2006 1843
An interesting acknowledgement by Barbara Walters in the Times confirms our suspicion that Rosie O’Donnell’s upcoming move into the moderator’s chair at the View could make it unbearably awkward for Star Jones. Says Babs in a story written by Jacques Steinberg: “Rosie will be there, and if Star wants to continue to be there, she is welcome.” Rosie has publicly ripped Star’s fakeness and desperate attempts to put herself in the celebrity fast lane. Now, the polar opposites will sit next to each other on the daily show geared towards women. For the record, TSR is not a regular viewer of the View. But sometimes we can’t help but tune in to enjoy the tension and mean-spirited discussions between Star and Joy Behar. To think that we may get another, more complex layer of tension is compelling. Maybe that’s what Babs was thinking when she hired O’Donnell.

-Mizzou quarterback Brad Smith is coming to New York. The Jets took the exciting runner and passer in the fourth round and plan to convert him to wideout. Smith finished his brilliant career at Missouri as the top rushing quarterback in NCAA division 1-A history. A player of his type can be iffy transitioning to the NFL, but Smith’s size, speed, smarts and elusiveness make him a steal as a fourth-round project. Plus, his quarterback skills will allow the Jets to consider him a third-stringer behind Pennington and Ramsey.

-TSR heads to Louisville tomorrow for the first of five full race cards at Churchill Downs ending with Saturday’s Kentucky Derby. We’ll start things off Tuesday afternoon watching 2002 Derby runner Easy Grades and 2000 Derby trail contender Elite Mercedes. Most out-of-town visitors don’t arrive ‘til Thursday, giving us a couple of days to enjoy Churchill’s hospitality among more manageable crowds.

Our Derby pick? We’re going with Bluegrass Cat, a son of Storm Cat trained by Todd Pletcher. He’ll be at least 25-1, will sit off a hot early pace and roll to a narrow victory in a time of 2:01.99 seconds. A full report when we return.

5-1-06 1914

The horribly deflating four-game sweep suffered by the Rangers ended on home ice yesterday with a standing ovation by the most cynical crowd in all of hockey. It was shocking to see a Garden crowd that can do, say and chant some nasty things at their own team show appreciation for a squad that collapsed the last two weeks. This is a crowd that cruelly booed Sandis Ozolinsh Wednesday night despite the fact the man had indicated his every day existence is touch and go following severe battles with alcohol. Ozolinsh made jittery defensive mistakes that twice in the series led to Devil goals - and the Garden crowd showed no mercy on him. When he was scratched prior to yesterday’s game four, the crowd erupted in approval. This is a crowd that picks on Tom Poti and Kevin Weekes for past transgressions. It’s an unforgiving crowd. And for that reason, it was very surprising to see them show appreciation for the Blueshirts despite the collapse.

The Rangers gave their fans a lotta thrills in ’05-’06 but when Lundqvuist got hurt March 30, things went sour. And then in the Devs’ game one rout of the Rangers, any hope of making it a series vanished when Jagr suffered a ridiculous late-game shoulder injury that never would have happened had coach Tom Renney planted his star on the bench - as most coaches would have done with their best player in a lopsided contest.

The Devils have the look of a team that can win the Cup. They’ve reeled off fifteen straight, they have a hot goaltender and they don’t commit stupid penalties.

-What would have been the price for the Jets to move up from the four slot to the number two pick to draft Reggie Bush? Reports today indicate the Saints were asking for the Jets’ two first-rounders (number 4 and 29) and a third rounder. The Jets balked, preferring to fill three holes instead of selecting a guy who some are calling a guy with a possible Gale Sayres-like impact.

-The president of the NFL Network tells the Post that he believes the two major cable companies in New York will strike a deal to add the network before football season starts. Steve Bornstein told the Post’s TV writer Andrew Marchand: “Anybody who doesn’t carry us is brain-dead as far as I’m concerned.” Based on the few times we’ve watched the NFL Network, we would agree. Time Warner wants to add the station to its sports tier, an acknowledged hangup in the negotiations. Cablevision didn't comment for the Post report. Ultimately, TSR would like to see the NFL Sunday Ticket package (which carries all NFL games for an annual fee) accessible to cable subscribers. Currently, Direct TV has an exclusive arrangement with the NFL to offer that package.

4-30-06 1635

With the New York tabloids urging the Jets to go after Reggie Bush or Matt Leinart, we’re glad the new Jet management team made the smart decision to stay in the four slot overall and take offensive lineman D’Brickashaw Ferguson. Bush is gonna be a great pro and we’re surprised Houston didn’t take the best pure talent in the draft but the Jets were right to add a lineman.

The stunning Friday night announcement that Houston had decided on Mario Williams had New York buzzing that Bush might be within reach – just two slots away. But New Orleans took Reggie at number two and you wonder if the allegations surrounding Bush’s financial arrangements with outside parties scared off the Texans. Tennessee reportedly wrestled hard over whether to take Vince Young or Leinart and probably did the right thing taking Vince. And so, with guys like Mike Lupica pushing for the Jets to take Leinart you weren’t sure what was gonna happen. But coach Eric Mangini and the Jets already have two quarterbacks in Pennington and Ramsey, so they did the right thing and took an awesome physical specimen and filled a serious long-term need in grabbing the smart Ferguson. Good for Mangini for not bowing to pressure to make the sexy pick. He beefed up his line additionally by taking Ohio St. center Nick Mangold with the other first-rounder at 29 overall.

You’d think Bush has to be disappointed going from the far and away top choice to landing in New Orleans, where the haunted Superdome will re-open this fall.    
 
-When Sportsnet New York’s not-ready-for-primetime sideline reporter Chris Cotter tripped his way through a one-on-one in the boxes with ex-prez Jimmy Carter during last night’s Braves/Met game, at least there was one entertaining aspect. The camera angle was wide enough so we could watch a carefree Roslyn Carter in sunglasses eat a foot-long hot dog. Cotter didn’t know what to ask the greatest ex-president of our era but it was interesting to watch Roslyn unwrap her concession item to expose a foot-long that had neat, diagonal, intertwined ribbons of ketchup and mustard.

-TSR will normally cite major media when discussing events of the day, but with Monday’s massive immigration event planned for the major cities, we’d point to an old pal’s blog for what we believe is the best take on the controversial subject to date. Check out the 4-12-06 entry on http://www.popnarcotic.com/ for a smart, well-written case in support of amnesty for illegal immigrants. The most misunderstood aspect of the debate seems to be whether the millions living in this country in violation of immigration law are paying taxes. They often do. And they work for less-than-fair wages which one could argue is a form of taxation on their risky effort to create a better life. One of the more maddening inconsistencies in the controversy is the fact that many of the most vocal Americans in support of building walls and barriers are the same people who benefit from cheap immigrant labor. They’re talking out of both sides of their mouth and it’s part of the reason why Congress can’t reach agreement on the matter. Those at the top moan about the Mexicans yet love the idea that they clean their bathrooms, cut their lawns and wash their dishes for little in return.

4-29-06 1805
When the movie United 93 opens with a wide release tomorrow, there’s one work group that may not be running to go out and see it: airline pilots. Based on a random sampling of discussions held with captains of a major domestic carrier over the last week, a near consensus indicated there was no interest on the part of pilots in seeing the film. They say the actual events that inspired the movie are too raw – and the potential thoughts they may trigger are ones that most pilots would prefer not dealing with. And we’re talking about a pretty tough and steady bunch of people. Many are retired military – and many flew or fought in Vietnam. And while pilots have the same ability as the rest of us to compartmentalize life events that can alter one’s ability to cope and focus mentally, the feelings from pilots we talked to is that a Hollywood depiction of a violent airliner hijacking ending in a horrific crash is a set of images they’re not much interested in.

Yet, if reviewers say the movie is anything but horrible in the papers tomorrow, TSR plans to get an early ticket to the flick. Yeah, it takes a leap of faith for a filmmaker to document an event which nobody survived. But early indications are that a number of respected airline and air traffic industry workers were consulted for this project.

The one objection to the film we’ve heard doesn’t have merit: “Too soon.”

Too soon for what? If the movie is well done, accurate within reason, and recognizes the courage, fear and general profile of the victims, what harm is done? The influential group of 9-11 families deserve a voice, no doubt. But their sensitivity to any number of artists and groups who have been inspired by the tragedy must not stifle examination, discussion and artistic expression as it relates to 9-11.

-New York based airline Jet Blue is putting the brakes on its rapid expansion plan to dominate the Northeast with budget fares. When it announced its second straight quarterly loss this week ($32 million), Jet Blue tried to reassure its stockholders with a promise to reduce future growth and sell off at least two and as many as five of its Airbus-320’s. This is a clear sign and admission by Jet Blue that it is moving too fast, too soon with its product in a market that some claim may have excess capacity. Yeah, consumers love a low-cost product - but when that product is sustained by a honeymoon-period with an aircraft supplier promising low initial maintenance costs – and low labor costs extracted from workers excited about the new endeavor – eventually the piper must be paid. And eventually that low cost product becomes a product with the same costs as its competition. That time is coming. Additionally, a government regulator has told people in the industry that Jet Blue is “teething” on its new and expanding fleet of Embraer 190’s. The 190’s are made in Brazil and seat just under a hundred passengers. By “teething,” the regulator means difficulty by the airline to pass regulatory muster as it incorporates the fleet into its daily operation.

-Heck of a job Brownie. The Times reports that Mike Brown has formed a consulting firm with clients that will make money from the ongoing disaster response in New Orleans. Brownie bragged to the Times’ Eric Lipton that he will be making “significantly more” as a consultant than the $148,000 he made running FEMA.

FEMA is the federal agency that stood by and watched New Orleans starve, dehydrate and die in front of a downtown Convention Center surrounded by cesspools. For a stretch during that horrible week, Brownie was denying the existence of that problem on network television at the exact same time those networks were broadcasting live pictures of the suffering.

4-27-06 1735

Politics can make strange bedfellows. Just ask observers watching the Enron trial in downtown Houston who had to be surprised to see democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee show up yesterday to offer moral support to Ken Lay on his first day of testimony. Why in the world would a prominent African-American politician so closely linked with causes important to those on the lower rungs offer an appearance of support to an alleged millionaire fraudster whose corporate leadership destroyed middle-class lives? Simple. Congressional campaigns early in Jackson Lee’s career were bankrolled by Lay and his network of big shots.

Jackson Lee ought to think twice about risking the contempt of her Houston constituents. She’s already despised by a segment of workers in her district. Airline workers cringe when she boards airplanes and makes unreasonable demands. She’s downright difficult to deal with at times and her outbursts are well documented in the major media and on the internet. A simple internet search using Jackson Lee and airlines is worth a series of entertaining reading opportunities which detail her impossible on-board diva acts.

-The three aesthetically-challenged New York-area airports will become even more unbearable on the eye under a deal struck by the famously inefficient Port Authority. The Port runs the three airports and has cut a deal with banking giant HSBC that will allow it to put their logos/advertising on all of the jetways at JFK. Similar deals are expected at LaGuardia and Newark. All three airports are in a constant state of disrepair or construction and fail to properly symbolize a city of its stature. According to the Times, the Port will split six-million dollars a year with its tenants at Kennedy for the right to slap stickers and signs on what little visually un-tainted space is left at that eyesore of an airfield.

-A worker at Air Tran says one of its airplanes at LaGuardia went on a long mechanical delay today after striking a bald eagle. The once endangered bald eagle species is making a comeback, but never have we heard one of its kind colliding with an airplane. The Air Tran worker says an identifying band from the bird was recovered.

4-25-06 1842

It’s an almost impossible situation tonight for the Rangers in game two of their best of seven series on the Jersey side of the Hudson. Their clear cut MVP Jaromir Jagr will sit out with a still undisclosed upper body injury sustained late in game one’s blowout loss. Blame Ranger coach Tom Renney for even playing his star at that meaningless juncture. Asst. Ranger GM Don Maloney said on the FAN this afternoon that Jagr is only 50-50 for game three and who knows beyond that. Add Renney’s panic-driven decision to start backup goalie Kevin Weekes tonight and we’re seeing a team that is in a difficult position to make this the great series we were hoping for.

We wish Renney would just stick with the goaltender who got the Rangers this far: King Henrik Lundqvist. But he must feel the need for a shake-up, and with Jagr and Darius Kasparitis on the shelf with injuries, we’re afraid the Rangers are gonna get smothered by the Devils. Let’s hope Renney’s pre-game speech tonight includes a mandate that the Blueshirts stay out of the penalty box. Game one included 13 power play opportunities for Jersey, most of them on careless Ranger penalties.

-Bad job by David Stern, Stu Jackson and the NBA discipline arm for the decision to hand Ron Artest a one-game suspension. Artest delivered a forearm to the head of Manu Ginobili of the Spurs Saturday. It didn’t appear intentional. Careless and over-aggressive maybe, but this is the NBA post-season. Artest has been on his best behavior (on court) since the long punishment last year for participating in the melee in Auburn Hills. Now he must sit out a critical game two in Sacramento’s series against the Spurs. Let ‘em play already.

4-24-06 1902

It was a triumphant return for the great New York rock band Home last night at Cake Shop. The band shipped to New York from Tampa more than a decade ago and the three permanent members have all individually and collectively waged a tough struggle to survive as rockers. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of last night’s show unveiling material from Home’s latest release on Brah Records was the electric performance of Andrew Deutsch. Health concerns have kept Deutsch from extensive touring and all-out exhaustive rock band doings, but last night the bushy-haired and weathered-looking kid blew everybody away with his determination. He attacked his axe and beautifully belted out the new record’s third track “Raging Angel.” Deutsch also knocked ‘em dead and elicited a huge grin from bassist Brad Truax on “I Don’t Wanna No,” a tune off Home XV which never got released in this country.

Keyboardist Eric Morrison, whose excellent side project The Leels has kept him busy during gaps in Home activity wore a bizarre outfit. Early in the gig, Morrison removed his sports jacket to reveal a woman’s black satin camisole. Morrison, Truax and Deutsch rotated instruments and stage positions to demonstrate their versatility. Brah Records is run by the band Oneida and is linked with the folks at Jagjaguawar in Bloomington, Indiana. A significant number of Home tour dates are planned for the coming months and last night’s impressive generally glitch-free effort ought to be incentive to go see these guys when they stop in your town.

Cake Shop’s small space was comfortably uncrowded last night. The cover was seven bucks. The F train home at 12:30 AM was timely and smooth and got us home in time to catch the last few frames of the extra-inning Met loss in San Diego.

The previous night, we hit the Robert Pollard gig at Irving Plaza. Bob is the karate-kicking, microphone-twirling mastermind of Guided By Voices who declared GBV null and void in 2004 and ended the entity with a “final show” in Chicago on New Year’s Eve of that year. Pollard has said he felt boxed in by GBV but Bob is GBV and so the current solo billing backing his latest double-disc release really doesn’t mean much to his fans. If Bob feels better touring as Bob rather than GBV then good for him. What inspired us to see Bob was in part the inclusion of under-appreciated and hard-knocking guitarist Tommy Keene. Plus, we liked From a Compound Eye, the double record put out by Merge in January. Bob got an especially enthusiastic reaction from the less-than sold out crowd when he played the great song “The Right Thing.” “The Numbered Head” and “I’m a Strong Lion” also sounded great. We can’t say that Keene is better than long-time GBV guitarist Doug Gillard, but he’s more interesting to watch.

When Bob walked on stage, he sarcastically said it was good to be home. Pollard seems to have a love/hate relationship with New York, in part because of the smoking ban which he chose to ignore on this stop. But also because it seems like the fun-loving guy from Dayton views New Yorkers as hurried and self-important. As is the case at all Pollard/GBV gigs, Bob usually has a running dialogue critical of a popular current artist. His target Thursday night was Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips. By our count, Pollard consumed twelve Miller Lites, a half-bottle of Cuervo and three-quarters of a pack of Camel Lights while on stage. How he maintains his health after years of seeing him repeat this routine in gig after gig is beyond understanding. But Bob is a giver. He plays until the venue cries uncle or until whatever local curfew takes hold.

Tickets were twenty bucks. We took the R to the 7 on the way to Queens and got home in time to see 47-year-old Julio Franco go deep in San Diego.

4-22-06 1131

Hockey fans in New York are buzzing about the first-round matchup between the Devils and Rangers. Two weeks ago, the Blueshirts seemed to have the Atlantic Division in hand but the team collapsed down the stretch. The Devs have played unbelievable, closing the regular season with eleven straight victories. On the final night of the regular schedule, New Jersey won at Montreal and edged past the Rangers to steal the division and home ice for a playoff series that will start Saturday at the swamp.

The Rangers are no doubt unhappy and nervous about their level of play going into the playoffs, but this is a team that Sports Illustrated said was the worst team in hockey before the season started. And now they’re playing post-season hockey for the first time since ’97. So, Ranger fans have mixed feelings.

Saturday’s game one crowd at the Meadowlands will include at least one-third Ranger fans. Last Sunday, Devils playoff tickets were widely available. As soon it was determined that the Rangers would be their first-round opponent, those tix disappeared. Tickets for the games at both team’s buildings start at two-hundred dollars via the scalpers.

Oddsmakers have made the Devils a square 2-1 favorite. The series, like most in the Stanley Cup playoffs, will come down to goaltending. Hall of famer Marty Brodeur vs. the rookie from Sweden, Henrik Lundvquist. King Henry helped Sweden win gold in Turino but he tweaked a hip down the stretch and missed the last two and a half weeks of the season before returning for the final Ranger game Tuesday. Is King Henry ready to roll? It’s a big question mark. You know Marty will be ready.

The Devils are heavily favored not just because of their recent hotness and the presence of Brodeur. This is a team loaded with tough and talented hockey players: speed skater Scotty Gomez, pesky pipsqueak Brian Gionta, and Czech sniper Patrik Elias.

Also a major factor for the Devils is their current head coach Lou Lamoriello, who reluctantly went behind the bench when Larry Robinson left under somewhat mysterious circumstances last December. Lou is a masterful team-builder and architect, one of the great sports general managers of all-time. And we’re seeing now that the guy can coach too.

All that said, we like the Rangers to come alive and win this series in seven. Jagr, Prucha and yes, Tom Poti will lead the way. King Henry will regain his form. And New York hockey fans will enjoy an intense opening round playoff series.

-A disappointing bit of news buried at the end of Jack Bell’s weekly soccer column in the Times this week. Bell examines the new owners of the newly re-named New York Red Bulls franchise and indicates that a proposed soccer-only stadium that was to break ground this fall in Harrison, NJ may be scuttled. The German-based company that makes Red Bull energy drink bought the Metro Stars of the MLS earlier this year and immediately changed the name of the team to the Red Bulls. They installed grass at Giants Stadium and appeared headed down a positive track. But then earlier this week, GM Alexi Lalas got pushed out the door and now Bell is reporting that Red Bull owners may want to remain at 80-thousand seat Giants football Stadium.

Most successful soccer franchises in this country have found that a more intimate soccer-only venue with seating at about 20-thousand is the best way to create a festive, positive soccer environment for both fans and team. The stadiums in Carson, CA and Columbus - and a new one to open in suburban Chicago are held up as models. The Metro Stars had cut a deal for similar venue on the banks of the Passaic at a 275-acre site in Harrison with hopes of beginning play there in 2008.

It should be noted that Bell, perhaps the most insightful soccer writer at the Times will not be headed to Germany to cover the World Cup. We’re told by a sports scribe at a competitor that Bell is a stay-in-the-newsroom sports editor and does his weekly soccer column on the side.

4-20-06 1631

When former Illinois Governor George Ryan walks into the clink as early as this fall to serve multiple felony corruption convictions handed down by a jury in Chicago yesterday, he will remain a hero to opponents of the death penalty. Say what you will about Ryan. The law caught up to a guy doing what a lot of Illinois office-holders have done for decades. He got busted. But he’ll be remembered fondly in the history books for the evolution of his thinking on capital punishment. As governor, he studied the subject deeply despite his long support for executions in Illinois. He met with a lot of folks on the left while most of his GOP colleagues remained content with a system that exacts hollow, violent revenge and kills innocent people. Inspired by a Northwestern journalism class and others who dug up evidence leading to exonerations of thirteen condemned inmates, Ryan shocked the world when he put a halt to the death penalty in Illinois just before he finished his term as governor in 2000. Now Ryan himself is going to jail. But the misdeeds for which he’ll pay a large price mean nothing to an anti-death penalty movement that got a huge boost from his bold final action in office.

4-18-06 1811

As one circulates in this city, it’s not at all unusual to see people talking to themselves. Not on cellphones. Not people singing or humming. We’re talking about people who are literally having conversations with themselves. People who have issues. And living in this city can exacerbate those issues. So today as we waited for the Q33 bus at the airport, we watched a sturdy middle-aged man carrying a large and heavy-looking black knapsack with several combination locks attached to it. He was talking to himself. It wasn’t clear if he had just gotten off a plane (probably not, although if he did, it was probably Airtran. The unstable-looking people fly Airtran). The man was muttering not only to himself but shrieking at passers-by. You couldn’t really tell what he was talking about, but he alarmed a few tourists who passed by him.

The Q33 pulled up and about fifteen passengers filed on and the last to board was muttering-knapsack-man. Oh great, here we go. This is gonna be interesting. The man put his knapsack on a seat about half-way back of the bus and just stood there in silence. More passengers filed on and off the bus, some brushing against him as he stood there in the middle of the aisle. No muttering. Complete peace. Just another passenger taking a ride.

The point of the story? ‘Ya get on the bus and all is good. It’s the waiting part that can make ‘ya a little antsy.

-Great, great piece penned by Gary Smith in the latest SI about Max and his late brother Sam Kellerman. Bipolar ex-boxer James Butler murdered Sam about a year ago in LA and the facts of the case have been well reported. But Smith’s story delves into the details of Sam and Max’s loving brotherly relationship prior to the killing and the overwhelming impact it’s had on Max. It’s a fascinating read. The information about the weeks before and after the incident as it relates to Max is a real crusher.

-The Times reporter covering the Moussaoui trial, Neil Lewis, files a “reporter’s notebook” story today filled with interesting facts. Among them:

In the latter stages of the trial, courtroom officials have started walking Moussaoui into the courtroom at the exact time the judge walks in. Most defendants typically are seated prior to the arrival of the judge. But since Moussaoui refused to stand when the judge entered as is the custom, he now in effect is standing (or walking) as a nod to decorum.

Moussaoui is sporting what Lewis calls a “large and nasty bruise on his forehead, apparently from banging his head on the floor.”

Lewis says that whenever Moussaoui exits the courtroom, he typically says: “God curse you, America.” But strangely, Lewis says, he has twice started singing “Burn in the USA” to the tune of Bruce Springsteen’s similar sounding song.

4-17-06 1917

As the Post’s Pat Reichart reminds us today, the deal that sent Kris Benson to the Orioles for Jorge Julio may end up turning out ok for the Mets. Julio has gotten shelled in all four of his appearances and he’s target number one of the Shea boo birds. But fans forget that the Orioles also included right-handed starter John Maine in the deal, and if Julio is banished, Maine could still someday offset what many fans think is an unfair trade. Maine is 24 and pitched a gem in his debut at Norfolk. Post columnist Joel Sherman is suggesting the Mets send Julio packing and call up Heath "Knee Socks" Bell. TSR believes Julio deserves a longer look. He's hitting 95-plus on the gun and Rick "Jacket in August" Peterson can turn guys like this around. Give Julio time and stop the booing and negativity aimed at a player who needs moral support - not heckling.

-Also in the Post today, the town’s best day-to-day hockey writer has a pretty surprising scoop. Larry Brooks reports that Islanders owner Charles “Book-Cooker” Wang has put a hockey neophyte at the top of his wish-list to become the new general manager. Brooks says Wang is eyeing John Weisbrod to run the once-storied franchise even though the only hockey experience on Weisbrod’s resume dates back to his playing days on the Harvard team. Brooks suggests that legitimate hockey management talent doesn’t wanna go near the Island with ex-GM Mad Mike Milbury lurking as a so-called “president.” Heck, if Wang can’t get anybody legit to do the gig, just re-hire Mad Mike for the GM job.

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One of our pals celebrated the big 4-0 last night with a dinner at the flagship restaurant of TV chef Lydia Bastianich. Our group of ten was seated at 7:45 PM at the entrance table of Felidia and was working off a 75-buck fixed price menu. Everything was great – the beet salad, the paccheri, the bass, and the crepes. All the dishes justified the once-in-a-blue-moon kinda night with a giant tab. But the service was a bit off. It was our waiter’s third day on the gig, and he had the vegetarians at the table scratching their heads when he stated that he wasn’t sure if he could alter the arrival of a suckling pig dish that was part of a two dish pasta sampler. The waiter contributed to the 3.5-hour marathon length of the dinner with minor fumbles which weren’t a big deal, but not something you’d expect from a classy joint like that. The restaurant’s maitre-d also served as the jovial wine consultant and he indicated that Lydia was likely at home in Queens during our dinner. No Budweiser was available. By the time the dinner was over, my buddy had already turned 41. Little did we know that the F train was running on the V line after midnight which made the return trip to Queens yet another marathon.

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CSTV carried yesterday’s Notre Dame/St. John’s double dipper, giving us our first look at Jeff “The Shark” Samardijza on a pitching mound. Samardijza is coming off a huge season for the Irish football team as the sticky-handed wideout opposite Maurice Stovall. Samardijza’s stuff was so-so, spreading out eleven hits over seven innings with three walks and five k’s. The Irish beat their Big East rival in both games of the double-header to push their winning streak to 17. The Shark appears to be a better football player – his fifteen touchdown catches this past season made him a first team All-American and a likely first round pick after one more year in the Weis offense. But Samardijza has not yet indicated what he’ll do after he exits the Irish program.

-There’s still no word on who Tom Zbikowski’s opponent will be when he makes his professional boxing debut at Madison Square Garden on June 10. But at a press gathering in South Bend Wednesday, Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis announced that the Irish football team voted Zibby the team’s defensive captain.

-Road trip? Much-maligned bottom-of-the-barrel thoroughbred track Fairmount Park outside St. Louis has announced it will run a big money stakes race August 26th. The purse of $250-grand for the inaugural running of the St. Louis Derby will be the richest race in the history of the track. It just so happens that the Cubs are in St. Louis to play at the Cardinals’ new ballpark that weekend.

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The punter for the New York football Giants has changed his mind and is coming back for a 19th NFL season. Jeff Feagles had previously announced his retirement after a great 2005 season punting in the swirling winds of Giants Stadium. But he’s coming back after Coach Tom Coughlin and the Giants made a surprising decision to allow Feagles to commute between his Phoenix home and New York during the ’06 season, skipping meetings and practices along the way. Coughlin and GM Ernie Accorsi must have struck out in their search to find anybody remotely close as capable as Feagles, a master of the inside-the-20 poocher. Coughlin is usually a stickler on timely attendance at all meetings and practices. Feagles balked about the rigors of team participation when he retired saying he wanted to spend more time with his family. The deal to coax Feagles out of retirement with an offer of flexible team participation is an unusual concession from the tough Coughlin. It’s similar to the arrangement the Astros had with Roger Clemens last year which allowed the pitcher to skip road trips so he could attend family events. It’s a good deal for Feagles, but bad for the team concept and it only reinforces the football myth that punters are one-dimensional athletes isolated from their teammates.

4-13-06 1931

For those outside the New York area, WFAN-AM has started streaming its radio signal over the internet. The “FAN” created and launched the format of sports talk radio eighteen years ago and remains a powerful force. Now there are hundreds of sports radio formats attempting to mimic the FAN on stations across the country. The FAN has excellent hosts at all times of the day, but what make it such a great listen are the die-hard fans who call from the region. The FAN’s web site prior to today had been a neglected and weak arm of the radio station with nothing more than audio highlight clips. Now folks in distant places will be able to listen online.

On today’s afternoon drive show, Met manager Willie Randolph flipped his lid under questioning from FAN hosts Chris Russo and Mike Francesa. Mike and Chris questioned Willie’s decision to use closer Billy Wagner in the ninth inning of yesterday’s 7-1 Met win over the Nationals. Wagner threw 32 pitches in a non-save spot leaving him in a possible unavailable situation on Thursday if he pitches tonight. Russo also criticized Randolph for relegating the usually reliable Steve Trachsel into the fifth spot in the Met rotation behind the shaky Victor Zambrano . “It’s my team,” was about the best explanation an uncharacteristically testy Randolph could offer.

TSR’s favorite caller on the FAN is “Bill from Brentwood,” an older man who regularly calls evening host Steve Somers. Bill likes both New York baseball teams and has a Rainman-type ability to recite dates connected to obscure events in New York sports history. Somers often jokes that Bill is recalling the dates with the aid of books in front of him at home in Brentwood, but it’s clear that this unique gentleman is the real deal given the speed in which he comes up with these dates. Our second favorite caller is “Joey from Yonkers” who calls on the graveyard shift and often discusses his wide-ranging gambling plays. A passionate sports fan, Joey has a sharp take on sports media.

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White Sox television play-by-play man Hawk Harrelson claims the baseball being used this year is “juiced.” “We are seeing a hot baseball,” said Hawk after Reggie Sanders took Bobby Jenks deep with a soft stroke in the Sunday Sox victory over the Royals. Joe Crede made two huge stabs on blistering line drives. Jenks was 97 on the gun. Hawk’s contention might not be crazy. The balls we saw hit by Reyes and Jacobs two nights ago at Shea really jumped off the bat. And I guess if you’re gonna think conspiracy, perhaps baseball is finding a way to make sure the home run makes a comeback. Bud’s thought: with steroids and speeders off the table, we gotta do something.

-Jim Gray and Bob Papa handled the bulk of Westwood One’s Sunday radio coverage of the Masters. Both showed great skill in creating a picture for those who were listening.

-Phil and Freddy were talking an awful lot to each other considering they were both battling for the lead in the biggest golf tournament in the world. What could they possibly be saying to each other?

-The high-def feed of the Masters is the best sporting event in HD we’ve seen so far. Stunning. And the audio mix from CBS was incredible. Between the chirping birds, the post-drive grumbles and the whoosh of the ball strike – what can you say. I don’t know how CBS does it. You never see their camera operators or sound techs, yet they must be everywhere.

-Stub Hub was selling tickets to the Masters as late as a week ago for a grand for each of the first two rounds. Double that for the weekend sessions. That’s a lotta dough, but it shatters the myth that you can’t get into this event.

-USA flashed this graphic this morning upon completion of the third round: The Masters winner has come from the final pairing in each of the last fifteen years. Hard to believe, but it’s true.

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It’s going to be some kind of year at Shea. The rain system predicted for last night passed before game time. Rick Peterson and the crowd in the stands needed nothing more than a jacket. The five dollar ticket offer for seats above the aisle in the upper deck drew a big turnout. Attendance was announced as 39761. Me and Pops sat in the blue section down the right field line. Dynamic leadoff man Jose Reyes led off the Met first with a double. He hit a home run and played stellar D. Wright jacked one and Trax settled into a nice 96-pitch, six-inning job that let the awesome offensive lineup take care of business against a rookie-filled Marlin team. Andy Hernandez had his first hit of the season which brought a sarcastic round of cheers.

Ex-Met and current Marlin first baseman Mike Jacobs hit a monster shot just inside the right field foul pole that had the crowd shaking their heads in awe. The scoreboard said Wright’s homer was 470-feet which had to be over-estimated by about 80 feet.

Aside from the fact that Met crowds are gonna be much bigger this season, they are gonna much more diverse. The so-called Minaya-Latinization of the club has sparked what appears to be a commensurate impact in the stands. It’s great. It’s fun and it adds a healthy edge and enthusiasm that most sports crowds don’t have in the current era. There was lots of World Baseball Classic apparel. Lots of chants and singing. Waving Dominican flags. And the backlash toward the crowd’s treatment of Beltran on opening day was in full view. Last night, fans over-compensated when cheering for Carlos. If the Mets do as they’re expected in 2006, you can expect an intense buildup of excitement as the team in Queens mounts an effort to win a championship on the twentieth-anniversary of their last one.

Cow-Bell Man is back (pictured above in sunglasses) and appeared ready for a big season. The 7 train home was routinely efficient.

A tip for 7 train riders post-game: when you’re battling a big crowd to get on the train, walk to your left as you enter the platform and go as far as you can to where the last car on the string opens its doors. You’ll always get a seat.

Best sign seen at the game last night: “Crushing in Flushing”

Along with the new Cuban sandwich concession offering, it's worth mentioning that Shea is selling Bud products in the new aluminum bottle. The unique non-breakable bottle keeps the beer colder than other containers and it's easy to handle. They were selling 12-oz bottles on the loge concourse last night for $6.75. The availability of the aluminum bottle flies in the face of most sports venues who insist on pouring all liquid into plastic or paper cups to keep projectiles out of the hands of trouble-makers. Hopefully, the aluminum bottle isn't abused at Shea this summer so regular fans can enjoy them all season long.

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It was TSR’s final regular season Ranger game at the Garden last night from our usual perch in the blues (pictured above). Pops is visiting for back to back sporting events, and it was his first visit ever to the Most Famous. Back in the day, he’d lift a young hockey fan by the armpits so his son could see above the cheering crowd. Last night, Pops was in the bathroom when everyone in the house believed Jagr had scored his 53rd, which would have set the team record for goals scored in a season. With less than a minute to go in the second period, Marty Straka made a centering pass that appeared to be knocked in by Jagr. Fans chanted “MVP” and Tolly the PA man announced that Jagr had scored the goal. But as soon as the period ended, Jagr huddled with the referee. We had thought he was seeking out custody of the puck. But we found out after the intermission that Straka’s pass had instead deflected off an Islander, and Straka was credited for the goal. Jagr, we found out later, told the ref to change the scoring on the play. So, Pops didn’t miss the historic goal after all. The Blueshirts won 3-1. It says something about the state of the Islanders that the Rangers could beat them with such a lackluster effort. Weeksy made a couple of huge saves early –but the lone Isles goal was a soft knuckler. Typical Weeksy. And typical Ranger crowd for cheering him wildly just weeks after their frosty treatment of the backup goaltender forced Tom Renney to start him on the road only.

-Give credit to power couple Robbins/Sarandon who sat six rows behind the Panasonic sign at the game last night, and stayed ‘til the final horn. Their guest last night was Heath Ledger who knocked back bottled water and chatted with Sarandon throughout the contest. Most celebs blow out early. The sight of Ledger with the first couple of the Rangers caused zero stir in neighboring seats. It seemed nobody even knew or cared about the actor who probably should have taken home the Oscar a month ago.

-Tonight, it’s our first Met game of ’06 on a chilly night with rain in the forecast and Trax – the human rain delay on the mound.

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