There are times when sports become secondary to every day life. Today is one of those days. In the past hour I have learned of neighbor’s death and a shooting at a synagogue in suburban San Diego. Two tragedies on two different levels. Two events which I wish had never happened.
I dedicate this blog to my neighbor and friend, Mark Weber. Mark was a fervent Giants, Rangers and Yankees fan. We went to a Giants home game in Giants Stadium. I gave his daughter Jets tickets when I could not go. Whenever we saw each other it resulted in a long conversation about our teams, town and family. I would always bust him about how the Devils were doing in the championship years or how badly the Giants would play on any given weekend and he would reciprocate about the Jets. We would commiserate about the Yankees woes and hope that the successes would continue.
Mark was nearly a lifelong resident of Springfield and a graduate of its public schools. He was passionate about the town and kept track of its sports teams. One of his two daughters attended the high school here; the other went to Union Catholic. His girls competed on the sports teams, for which he was very proud. He had played football in high school, although he no longer kept up his football shape—then again, how many of us really do?
We were politically similar in our views. Both of us took joy in watching what went on in the neighborhood and laughing about something we had seen.
Every Fourth of July we met in his driveway to watch the Springfield fireworks close by lighting up the skies, with the superior Millburn aerial show behind us. It was great fun to fight off the mosquitos and hope that any rain would not fall, or the temperatures would not be oppressive. After all, it was my way of celebrating his birthday as it concluded every July 4th.
I know that Mark would have had a fit about the Kate Smith/“God Bless America” scenario. First of all, he hated the Philadelphia Flyers, as all Rangers fans do. Kate Smith’s rendition of the anthem was a good luck charm for the team during crucial games or in the Stanley Cup playoffs, dating back to the 1970’s Stanley Cup winners, when the organization would even bring in Kate to sing the song live and rile up the already fervent Philadelphia mob inside of the Spectrum. Secretly, he would think it’s good—one less thing for the Flyers.
But the compassionate Mark would have said what reasonable people would have said. This was a prevalent thing that happened in the times of the late ’30’s and ’40’s. As much as she sang politically incorrect songs, so did the Rutgers alumnus Paul Robeson, an All-American football player who was a distinguished civil rights advocate in a time when there were few. Robeson was black.
Mark would agree that the removal of the statue outside of the Comcast Center was too much political correctness and a wrongfully belated attempt at political correctness involving someone who was deceased and was an entertainer, not a social activist. If anything, Mark would have said, she raised a ton of money for the war effort in World War II with her singing “God Bless America.” She was a patriot, not necessarily a racist.
He would hope the the Yankees would rethink their removal of the song for the seventh inning stretch. However, he would have little faith that the management would restore it as part of the ballpark experience, even if the song was patriotic in nature because she was a patriot.
We continually revisit the wrongs of the past and cast them in an unfavorable light by applying judgements to actions that weren’t applicable back then. I don’t know how many people look at Paul Robeson and apply the same standards to his singing and life when he sang the same song which is so inappropriate now yet not so much then.
If there is a backlash from this movement, it comes from the one email the Yankees supposedly received from a fan objecting to Kate Smith’s “God Bless America” which started the chain events which has banished the song from games. I can understand that if there was a solid agreement from the African-American community, those most offended by Kate Smith’s song about black people, then I can understand permanently shelving the song. Unilaterally deciding to take her statue away in Philadelphia as an exercise in revisionist history removes her rightful place in team lore and does nothing to cherish her good deeds as a patriot.
Mark and I would have discussed the Giants shocking move of drafting Duke QB Daniel Jones as the sixth pick in this week’s NFL Draft. He would have noted that Jones had stats at Duke were not that impressive compared to Ohio State QB Dwayne Haskins. Jones threw for 52 TD’s but had 29 interceptions and 17 rushing TD’s in 36 starts. Meanwhile, Haskins accumulated 50 passing TD’s and threw for only 8 interceptions in his one season as a starter. Haskins threw for 20 TD’s and only 6 INT against ranked opponents.
He would have excoriated Giants’ GM Dave Gettleman, who fell in love with Jones’ potential at the Senior Bowl, and saw him as the future successor to Eli Manning in—3 years—after sitting on the bench and absorbing the action like Aaron Rodgers did behind Brett Favre at Green Bay. Except that Mark would have agreed with the experts that Jones should have been ready to step in as the starter for the aging Manning given he was the sixth pick. Mark would have hated that the Redskins made a better move with Haskins and that New York didn’t wait until their 17th pick in the first round to take Jones, which would have been a more reasonable scenario and would have offered some great defensive talent to the team.
I am certain Mark would have placed Gettleman on thin ice. He would have shaken his head and said “What was he thinking?” Which echoes the sentiments of the legend of Giants’ fans opposed to this pick.
For now it looks horrendous. One can only hope that Gettleman is right and remains in the front office to see this to fruition. After all, Gettleman traded star wideout Odell Beckham, Jr. to Cleveland, with whose antics, on and off the field, he was not enamored. Just because Gettleman believes his history with the Giants, Carolina as their GM among other teams qualifies him to be a savant, doesn’t resonate well in this market without success. The fans have seen Manning’s decline and, as beloved as Eli is in the annals of Giants fans, they are spoiled by prior success and demand what have you done for me lately.
In contrast, embattled GM Mike Maccagnan seemingly has done fairly well with his choices in the draft. He has addressed needs of the club starting with the #3 pick DT Quinnen Williams from Alabama. Mark would begrudgingly admit that, at least for this year, the Jets did better than his team. Of course, he would not too subtly remind me how many Super Bowl wins the Jets have had since Joe Namath led the franchise to its only win in Super Bowl III.
Mark was not a fan of the NFL and Roger Goodell. He thought that Goodell was paid obscenely and the product was not that good. Mark would not have been happy that Chiefs’ WR Tyreek Hill had allegedly committed child abuse and he would have said that a suspension from the team was a minimal response.
He was in the sporting goods business, so he knew all about the lack of player safety at all levels of the sport. He wished that the NFL would more actively help those who played and suffered the consequences of the violent hits. While a part of the game, it still was tragic to see the level of mayhem which has grown in tandem with the speed and the size of the players. Physics is an exact science, and the level of physical activity exacts a tremendous toll on its participants—dare I say combatants. While not quite as barbaric as the MMA or UFC, the carnage in football and hockey has too much become an accepted part of the game.
Mark would have been happy with the results of the substitute team the New York Yankees have fielded. The 10 wins in the last 12 games with this B-list cast of characters would have temporarily made him happy. Like me, he wondered when this will implode. He loved Aaron Judge, bemoaned Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, Giancarlo Stanton and Dellin Betances for their underachieving. Mark would have shaken his head in amazement at Luke Voit’s 38 game on-base streak, the longest in the majors; he would have said bye-bye to oft injured Greg Byrd, anointing Voit as the starter at first base. Mark still would have questioned the moves of Manager Aaron Boone, who is already a candidate for Manager of the Year after 27 games, piloting the Bombers to a 16-11 mark. And he would have reminded me this is only the end of April; Boston has to get better and how many more injuries will occur like hot hitting Clint Frazier going on the IL after suffering an ankle injury in Anaheim. Such is the fragility of the true Yankees fan—even more so this year—just like the team…
More a Knicks fan than for any other NBA team, he would have said that the team is bound to either screw up free agency or not land top pick Zion Williamson in the NBA Draft Lottery. He, like I, knew the karma wasn’t there with James Dolan running the Knicks and Rangers. It infuriated him how the Rangers have risen to the level of a Stanley Cup finalist only once (2013-14) since their historic win in 1994 ended a 54 year drought. Remember, the Knicks have not won an NBA championship since 1972-73 and have not been in the Finals since 1999 when the underdog team lost in 5 to the San Antonio Spurs. He would have not been enchanted by the Knicks sending former star center Patrick Ewing to represent the team at the lottery, to attempt to replicate the luck of Dave DeBusschere when he was present and the Knicks landed the rights to select Ewing as the number one overall pick in 1985.
Nor would Mark have put much belief in the Golden State Warriors defeating the Houston Rockets in the next round of the NBA Playoffs. Having been extended to a tough Game 6 by the upset-minded Los Angeles Clippers and suffering a season-ending injury to DeMarcus Cousins along with some tweaks to Steph Curry and Klay Thompson on Friday night, we both would have thought that the chances of the Warriors beating the surging Rockets were diminished and that the great run of Golden State was likely coming to an end. I don’t think that he would like Kevin Durant joining the Knicks when free agency started, no matter how well Durant was playing, as demonstrated by his unreal 50 point effort versus the Clippers to clinch the series.
Mark would have thought it was good for Phillies’ slugger Rhys Hoskins to take Mets pitcher Jacob Rhame deep on Wednesday night at Citi Field after Rhame had fired two consecutive fast balls towards Hoskins’ head the night before. The leisurely stroll around the bases was a response to Rhame and the Mets. He would have said “c’mon” to the whole beanball attack and even to the trolling of Rhame after hitting the homer. “Play baseball” Mark would have said, indicating it was, after all, the Mets, followed by his pet phrase: “What do you expect?’
Mark was a religious man, Catholic by choice in support of his wife and daughters. He was active in his church community and naturally liked by all. He would have been appalled by another senseless shooting like in California today or in Pittsburgh exactly 6 months ago. His wife and one daughter are teachers and Mark was none too happy with any of the horrific automatic assault rifle massacres in schools. Like me, he cannot fathom how there isn’t more done to stop this new wave of violence, making peaceful people targets of deranged individuals, full of hate imbued in them, encouraged by counter culture political activity all too prevalent in our political climate today.
Like all rational men and women, Mark would have been disgusted with the machinations at the National Rifle Association, which had internal fighting within the leadership between President Oliver North, he of the Iran Contra infamy, and long time CEO Wayne LaPierre, who usurps the Second Amendment for the NRA’s advancement instead of agreeing to reasonable solutions to the epidemic of gun violence plaguing our nation. Mark and I have concurred that the politicians who are in lock step with the NRA based on PAC contributions, are just as much at fault as the NRA leadership.
We suffered the loss of a great friend and neighbor on April 27th. I am going to miss those conversations and the July 4th fireworks. Our prayers go out to his wife, Barbara and their two daughters.
My hope is that the Yankees win the World Series, the Rangers get better, the Giants exit this draft a better team, the Knicks land Zion and the world comes to its senses at some time. These thoughts will stay with me whenever I think of Mark Weber.
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