Hello from Lexington, Kentucky where they’ll stage this year’s annual Breeders’ Cup at beautiful Keeneland Race Course.  I’m naturally skeptical about how this event will go off given the string of Cup failures at sites of this size.

You gotta give it a chance, I suppose, given how special this place is, but we’ll find out tomorrow and Saturday.

I flew from Newark to Nashville on Thursday morning.  Jeff D picked me up at the airport and we enjoyed the 3.5 hour car ride to Lexington under sunny skies.  We stopped on the perimeter of Kentucky Downs to see it and then stopped for lunch in Uno, KY at a great down-home spot on a rural highway called Mama Lou’s Barbeque and Gifts.  We both had the pulled pork platters.  “Welcome to Mama Lou’s,” is the greeting to each customer on the way in.

On the flight to Nashville, I was discouraged to read Tom Pedulla’s story in the Times about Keeneland’s upcoming two days on the big stage.  He spoke to the Presidents of both Keeneland and the Breeders’ Cup.

Bill Thomason (Keeneland) and Craig Fravel (Breeders’ Cup) told Pedulla independent of one another that Keeneland’s switch back to a dirt surface on the main track from the artificial, cushioned surface was NOT a condition or requirement for Keeneland to get a turn hosting the Cup.

This is a dubious claim.

More of a problem is an overt boast by Fravel that running the Cup at Keeneland is full-on deference to the corporate crowd even if it keeps 30-thousand or more of the sport’s more regular guy racing fans at home.

Said Fravel on the Cup’s shifting philosophy in returning to small tracks which will offer live views to no more than 20-thousand fans instead of the more reasonable 75-thousand plus at Santa Anita, Churchill or Belmont.  “We’re more tuned into the overall experience, to provide premium seats and premium activities,” said Fravel.

Ugh.  At a time when the sport is trying to hang on to every last guy who wants to attend this event, why not make space for him?

It’s because the Cup wants to tip its cap the sport’s breeding industry which does its business here.  And it has a twisted view on who its real fans are.

-On the last several departures out of Newark, a new security hurdle has emerged and it appears to get under the skin of travelers.  Third party vendor workers wearing blue sport coats oversee entry to the three large security checkpoints that feed into terminal C.  Their primary function is to insure passengers have a boarding pass and are conforming to baggage limitations prescribed by the airline that operates out of that building.  On the last half-dozen trips out of Newark, I’ve noticed that these workers are making a habit of denying access to a checkpoint for what appears to be no good reason – instructing them to use a different entry point up the escalator (if it’s working) and perhaps 60-70 yards away.  All three checkpoints funnel into the same terminal and this tactic isn’t being applied to evenly distribute people across the three checkpoints.  In fact, on the last couple departures out of Newark, I was asked to walk from a near-empty checkpoint with TSA workers at the ready to one that was overwhelmed with a line that backed up a good 20 minutes.  All I can surmise is that the blue jackets are attempting to link one’s gate of departure with the nearest checkpoint.  If that’s the case, it’s a head scratcher because all three checkpoints lead to the same single terminal.  When folks get to the airport via assorted modes of transport, they inevitably go to the nearest checkpoint to get that part of it over with.  To be told they have to walk to another checkpoint that leads to the same Promised Land makes ‘em crazy.  The donning of blue jackets give some illusion that it’s the airline that’s imposing this disorder.  All this before you even reach the TSA and you’ve got the New York crowd all worked up.

It feels like too much time in between the time the Mets sprayed champagne in the visitor’s clubhouse at Wrigley and Tuesday night’s first pitch of game 1 of the World Series. I hope the Amazin’s magic doesn’t get lost in the layoff.

Even if there was no schedule rigidity for TV, I guess the earliest the Series could have started was Sunday given it wasn’t until Friday night that KC finished off their series. So you do what Terry’s done and say we could use the time off.

Before it was clear who would come out of the AL, Met fans didn’t seem to be too choosy about their next opponent. I preferred the Royals given the scariness of the Toronto lineup and the advantage that seems to come with a dome but then that stat surfaced on KC’s superiority on making contact vs. plus-94 heat. I actually most feared the Cubs, Cards and Pirates going in. When the Mets made mince meat of the Cubbies like they did, the prevailing theme here in Queens has been “there’s no stopping us.”

There was a little bit of a debate about which way to go with the rotation. I would have preferred to reset – and go back to Jake, Thor, Knight, Matz in that order but it’s not a big deal that Terry’s using the Knight to open things.

I’m happy for Howie who finally got to yell into a live microphone that his Mets won the pennant. I’m also actually happy for Francesa – who is a Yankee fan – but has been a huge believer in what was being built by Omar and then Sandy when the cries of cynics were the loudest. Mike’s been so spot-on so many times about the Mets when he easily could’ve gone sour or distant on them – especially against the backdrop of the switch to WOR and the corresponding difficulty of getting Met players to come on the air with him.

A lot of people from outside New York have asked me what the city’s been like during this great Met run. It’s actually not that crazy given the way this place works. It’s so busy and so diverse and people are just trying to get to where they’re going and then back home. I mean, my day-to-day has been fun because people I interact with know I like the Mets and so there’s been a lot of congratulating and discussion of the previous game’s highlights. The Utley takeout of Ruben got things really wound up in the papers and Murph’s theatrics have kept things spooled really tight.

I don’t have cable so I mainly listened in bed and went to the bar for a couple of the games. The Series is on free TV so that’s good. I’ll be in Lexington, KY for the three home games but will watch with Cardinal fan Jeff D. No prediction on outcome but Met fans have great faith in the rotation.

-The announced attendance at Madison Square Garden for Sunday night’s Flames/Rangers game was 18,006 which is what they say it is for every game. I went with double-L and sat up in section 417 in the last row of the blue seats. It was the quietist “sellout” crowd I’ve ever been in. You could hear a pin drop for the entire first period and a half of the contest. Our view of the near net (the one the Rangers shot at in the first and third periods) was blocked by fans of normal height seated in front of us. A TV monitor bolted to the support beam/flooring for the sky bridge above us showed the game broadcast but the feed was about a second and a half behind the live action which made it an unhelpful visual aid. I got the tickets via the team’s resale site. No mention was made of the obstructed view. It probably should be. The seats cost about quadruple what you’d pay for a similar seat at an Islanders game. Sixteen ounce plastic cups of beer were $11.50. I really like Rangers defenseman Dan Girardi and so I was glad to see him blast one home on the end of the ice we could see. Kevin Hayes set up the first Blueshirt score with a dazzling behind the back pass. Former Blackhawk Antti Raanta was solid in net for the Rangers. Hopefully, Raanta plays a lot to spell Hank so he’s fresh and healthy for the Cup run. This team is ridiculously loaded with talent. Mats Zuccarello is a pleasure to watch. He’s back from that frightening injury sustained in the Penguin series last spring when he got hit in the head with a McDonagh slapper. One other small knock on the Garden. Why not just let the escalators run downward after it’s over? The fact you have to walk down a dozen flights of stairs that smell like piss to exit the world’s most famous arena after a one-billion dollar renovation is ridiculous.

-Talk about burying the lead. Today’s front-page Times story about US concerns that Russia is exploring ways to sever and sabotage deep-sea cables critical to world commerce waited until the very end of the piece to drop in this little nugget. “Russia is also building an undersea unmanned drone capable of carrying a small, tactical nuclear weapon to use against harbors or coastal areas, American military and intelligence analysts said.” That’s great. Yeah, we’re gonna lose internet and oh by the way…