You know that you are having a day when the traffic report on WINS 1010 tells you to not go near the George Washington Bridge when you and your wife are en route to Queens for an anticipated Greek food lunch date in Astoria, Queens with our son and his partner. I always take heed of the words “ABORT!! ABORT!!” while driving. Moreover, there were accidents on the RFK Triboro Bridge and the Whitestone and Throgs Neck Bridges were bottlenecks. Cutting through Manhattan to the 59th Street Bridge would have been a nightmare, too—think that I am the only one who thought of that alternative (including my car’s navigation link)?
So my wife came up with the idea of trying a relatively new Greek restaurant in Summit since we were salivating over the Greek food idea. While their menu showed lemon potatoes as side dish along with a garbanzo salad, when ordering on line those options weren’t there to go with a wrap and kebob. Nope, not getting our business.
Choice #2 was for the Ritz Diner in Livingston. We hadn’t been there in a while, so why not check out their menu. So we thought. Except that we could not locate a menu. Another zero.
We contemplated Manny’s Diner in Clark, but with all of the driving we did—the New Jersey Turnpike had fairly heavy traffic towards the Lincoln Tunnel and then on our return from the Meadowlands and on I-78. We had enough driving in traffic for the day, figuring that a lunchtime run down the Garden State Parkway and back wasn’t worth it.
Our final decision was to go with an in-town reliable—Cioffi’s. But instead of a chicken parm sandwich or a pizza, we went with the grilled chicken special sandwich. It comes on rosemary focaccia bread with mozzarella, roasted peppers, baby greens and balsamic vinaigrette. Which proved to be the right choice. Yum.
However, we encountered a non-moving line of cars on Mountain Avenue, one of the streets which bisects the township. Due to a police presence at the E.V. Walton School, where parents had descended to pick up their children with the 12:45 dismissal.
After sitting for a bit, a u-turn got us out of the jam and we headed to Route 22 as a roundabout way to Cioffi’s. Which worked. BTW—the student pickup was over when we arrived at Cioffi’s and it was clear sailing back up Mountain Avenue with the scent of the sandwiches enraging our hunger pangs even more.
Our Friday morning/early afternoon craziness aside, there is plenty to discuss since we last spoke. It’s May and the flowers are blooming and the pollen count is high. With the cicadas ready to shortly burst from the ground after their 17 year nap and mate. Noise alert.
Speaking of noise, the Yankees fans had it in for the visiting Houston Astros. The memories of Yankees fans are not short and they wanted to let the Astros know in no uncertain terms how they felt the loss to Houston in the 2019 A.L.C.S. was tainted by the cheating which occurred.
Central to the booing, foul language and signage were two Astros. Infielders Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa, integral cogs on that 2019 team, received far and away the most attention. Without any mercy.
As to the games—the Yankees extended a season-high winning streak to five with wins over Houston in the first two games of the series. DH Giancarlo Stanton, mired in an April slump, has broken out of that muck and has been torrid. Everything he has hit during his current 12 game hitting streak has been hit hard and, many times, very far.
While Aaron Judge got warm for a little while, he has been in a horrible slump as of late, which included striking out seven consecutive at bats. Manager Aaron Boone’s strategic move placing Stanton behind another slumping hitter, D.J LeMahieu, who is presently sporting a .267 batting average, and in front of Judge evidently was the trick which untracked Stanton.
Unfortunately, Boone can only make so many adjustments to his batting order. Aaron Hicks, Gleyber Torres, Brett Gardner and Clint Frazier have been unproductive. Gary Sanchez? Please. He is now the backup catcher to Kyle Higashioka, who now finds himself in a mini-slump. Mike Ford is actually batting .091—recently retired Jay Bruce was doing better than that.
But help is on the way. Reigning AL home run king Luke Voit is playing games at Triple AAA Scranton-Wilkes Barre and his return to the lineup is anticipated for next week. That should help.
Yet productive third baseman Gio Urshela and recently-acquired Rougned Odor both suffered knee injuries this week. Which had created some further holes in the lineup which might have been patched up with the recall of Miguel Andujar, the forgotten incumbent at third until Urshela surprised everyone with his bat.
I have liked the starting pitching over the past couple of games. Closer Aroldis Chapman has been confounding opposing hitters while giving up no runs. Chad Green has shown signs of wear in his 15 games thus far, as he is 0-3 after serving up a three run blast to Altuve on Thursday, as the Astros salvaged the final game of the series and another top notch start by ace Gerrit Cole was wasted.
The Yankees fortunes have gotten brighter heading into this weekend’s interleague home matchup with the Washington Nationals, currently last in the NL East. It still is early into the season—the Yankees have played in 31 games thus far and are a game over .500, trailing the division-leading Red Sox by only 2.5 games. By the end of the month much will change. For that matter, by the end of next week, with the addition of Voit, there could be some meaningful change. Stay tuned.
Reviewing MLB, only the Rockies and Tigers seem destined for an early demise. Colorado fired its GM, the architect of the trade of Nolan Arenado to St. Louis.
Baltimore is a much improved team, as per its 15-16 record. Pitcher John Means, sporting a 4-0 record and with a 1.37 E.R.A., just no hit the Seattle Mariners, missing a perfect game by a strikeout/wild pitch. He is brash and the team takes no prisoners. There are no easy games in the AL East.
This was the third of four no-hitters this the season (Wade Miley of Cincinnati no hit Cleveland on Friday night)—which is very early for these games to occur. That leads to speculation about the low batting averages due to the pitchers dominating the hitters. Some pundits are calling for moving the mound back to give the batters a chance against the 100 mph flamethrowers dominating the pitching landscape. Let’s see how the averages improve as the season progresses.
Across town, Francisco Lindor isn’t hitting, so the Mets replaced hitting instructors. Then ace Jacob deGrom experienced tightness and inflammation on his right side, which resulted in his being scratched from a start in St. Louis. He is scheduled to play catch on Friday, and if he passes that test, he might start on Sunday against Arizona. Mets fans are collectively holding their breath.
In a tightly bunched NL East, the Mets 13-13 record is good enough for second place, training Joe Girardi and his Philadelphia Phillies. St. Louis and Milwaukee are ahead in the NL Central, with the Pirates falling to an accustomed spot in last place. The Giants are still the leader in the NL West, just in front of the Padres. The Dodgers have suffered injuries and bad luck during a 2-8 span; it will be interesting to see if they can get healthy and right the ship.
Oakland and Seattle are on top in the AL West; Houston is right behind them. Off of an 8-2 run, Cleveland leads the AL Central, as the Royals have been falling and the Twins are surpassingly 11-19.
One more note. The Angels designated for assignment surefire Hall of Fame Albert Pujols, based on Pujols’ .198 average along with his age, which is 41. It was not a pretty parting. While Pujols believes he can still be productive, he was never the same player who left St. Louis as the best player in the game, and was middling at best in Anaheim.
I recognize that some team will take a flyer on him. In the end, I don’t see it changing his trajectory much. It was a great career. They sometimes end unceremoniously.
I veer to hockey as the regular season winds down. I haven’t watched much this season, with the Devils being so bad. But after seeing what Washington goon Tom Wilson did to a couple of New York Rangers players while only receiving small fine, I was aghast.
Evidently, so was Rangers management. They issued a statement lambasting NHL overseer, George Parros, himself a former fighter in the NHL, for not suspending Wilson for his dangerous play. Their public outcry cost the team $250,000 but showed how the NHL is still operating in the dark ages.
Knowing how hockey operates, I tuned in to the telecast on Wednesday night. At center ice, right after the puck was dropped, three fights broke out. More occurred, including the first time Wilson was on the ice. In all, over 100 minutes in penalties were assessed. In the first period.
It was ugly. It was a total black eye for the league. Guys like Wilson shouldn’t be playing. My wife asked me if criminal complaints could have come from his activity on Monday night. While I told her no, the answer was that the enforcement powers in the NHL failed. Miserably.
Steph Curry continued to throw up monster numbers as he kept the Golden State Warriors in contention for the Western Conference play-in games. He was actually shut down on Tuesday night in New Orleans when a light failure darkened Smoothie King Arena. That coincided with Golden State losing the lead and then the game, as Curry was suddenly cold.
Conspiracy theory advocates think that maybe the Pelicans, desperately fighting to be included in the aforementioned play-in tournament, might have resorted to this measure to silence Curry. Probably not. Notice I didn’t say definitely—even if the weather on Tuesday night in NOLA was not very good.
The Kentucky Derby was won by a 12-1 shot, Median Spirit. Trainer Bob Baffert won his seventh Derby and compared himself to QB Tom Brady, who has seven rings with New England and Tampa Bay. Whoa, Mr. Baffert. Thoroughbred racing and the NFL are two different types of sports, even if both Baffert and Brady used different horses to win. Besides, Baffert didn’t have Rob Gronkowski to throw to.
I was in the Hilton Garden Inn in Hattiesburg, Mississippi last Thursday night when I watched the NFL Draft. We stopped there, in the midst of driving our daughter’s car to New Orleans, as she is now working there.
It felt strange to watch the Draft in a hotel room after driving 600 miles through four sites earlier in the day. The New York Jets did well with their first round picks. Welcome to NJ, Zack Wilson. The Giants traded down and came out okay. New England, San Francisco and Chicago got their quarterbacks. Plus we passed by Tuscaloosa and the University of Alabama earlier in the afternoon, which was fortuitous, as the Crimson Tide sent 6 players to the NFL in the first round.
I jokingly asked my wife if she wanted to detour off I-59 to see Tide Head Coach Nick Saban. While she declined the offer, she asked if Saban had ever been an NFL head man. I told her that he had been the leader in Miami, but came back to the college ranks and never looked back.
I love that Saban and Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick, the two winningest college and pro coaches, are best buddies from Saban’s days on Belichick’s first NFL staff in Cleveland. It’s sort of like attracting flies with honey. The best seem to hang with the best.
What has proven to be the major story is the desire of Aaron Rodgers to leave Green Bay. There are multiple reasons that have been offered for his decision. Which is buttressed by his threat to retire and host Jeopardy, where he was one of a number of fill-in hosts for the late Alex Trebek, the great master of ceremonies for the show.
Rodgers is headed to Canton. No doubt on that one. When Green Bay picked QB Jordan Love in the 2020 Draft and didn’t send a heads up to Rodgers, he was pissed. So angry that he went out and won the 2020 NFL M.V.P. Award for his brilliance on the field.
Aaron Rodgers supposedly wanted to remain a Packer for life. However, he had zero use for the team GM and upper management after this. The rumor was that Green Bay offered to make Rodgers the highest paid player in the league, which he nixed.
Currently, there is a standoff between the principals. Green Bay says they aren’t trading him. Rodgers isn’t budging about not coming back, despite overtures from the Packers’ brass.
Perhaps this is a rift which didn’t need to happen. See the bungling of circumstances with the NHL and Albert Pujols.
Maybe Rodgers' fiance had a bit to do with this. Fueling his angry demeanor even more. She is an actress and she currently lives in Boulder, Colorado. Which is why the Denver Broncos are on his list? The distance between Denver and Boulder is a mere 27.5 miles. A little like Prince William and Meghan Markle? After all, Rodgers is NFL royalty and she is an actress…
As I stated before, we were on the road for the first time for more than a day trip. A lot of commercial traffic, with more vehicles than I expected. Probably a result of the vaccination effort.
In Virginia, I kept seeing signs for different schools for Emory & Henry College. Yet I bypassed stopping in Emory to see the actual college. Time constraints.
In reality, the only school I chose to see was the University of Southern Mississippi, which was two miles from our inn in Hattiesburg. A pretty campus, empty of students. The azaleas were in bloom. It is not Ole Miss or Mississippi State.
The former Mississippi Southern does have a rich tradition in football, which dates back to 1912. The Golden Eagles have amassed a 594-425-27 record and a couple of College Division Championships. The most well-known players are former Packers, Vikings, Jets QB Brett Favre maybe the greatest punter ever, Pro Football hall of Fame member Ray Guy. Guy has a street named after him, adjacent to M.M. Roberts Stadium, a 36,000 seat venue built for free by local unemployed workers during the Great Depression.
I was also impressed by the size of the stadium at James Madison University. We have traveled I-81 beginning in the late 1990’s, and we have seen the growth of the campus and Bridgeforth Stadium, hard by the Interstate. A lot of money has been poured into JMU, and its athletics are among the great beneficiaries. Ironically, four days later, JMU hosted North Dakota in an opening round FCS Playoff game, won by the #1 ranked JMU Dukes by a score of 34-21.
I did eschew the chance to see the Bristol Motor Speedway when we stayed in Bristol, VA overnight on Wednesday. Opened in 1961, the 162,000, 0.533 mile raceway, which is scheduled to host racing this Saturday night, is billed as “The Loudest Half-Mile.” Shucks.
When driving into New Orleans, I marveled at how the Smoothie King arena looks like an afterthought to the gigantic Merceds-Benz Superdome. My thoughts turned to the Warriors arrival the day after we left for home. Just another irony.
Watching the local news in NOLA, I watched WDSU Sports Anchor Fletcher Mackel report on the Tulane prospects in the NFL Draft. I researched him and learned his twin brother was a field reporter for the station.. Local products, they were the sons of a golf pro and played baseball at Loyola University in New Orleans. Very novel, indeed.
This was our first adventure outside of the area. We took all of the precautions we could in our travels and on the flight home from the new terminal at the Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans.
It was fun. It was scary. We went into a hotel gym for the first time, just after it had been cleaned and renovated. We exercised masked.
We still aren’t ready to eat indoors, especially down South, where the vaccination rates are lower and mask use is not as diligent as in NJ and NY. We had plenty of hand sanitizer, wiped down a lot of things, washed our hands religiously.
I recognize that places are reopening. Stadiums have the green light to permit vaccinated fans in, to capacity. There are restrictions in place for those not vaccinated. Infections are reduced significantly in the sports world, more so than in the regular population.
But there are pockets in Oregon and Colorado where the coronavirus is going strong. There is a slowdown in the pace of vaccines being administered, largely due to ongoing reluctance based on a myriad of reasons, logical and otherwise.
Things are getting back to more normal ways. Last year fans couldn’t vent on the Astros. This year they could. I hope the progress continues. I want to feel confident enough to see the Jets this fall; the 2021 schedule is released on May 12.
For now, with some upcoming trips scheduled, it felt great to hit the road again. And even today, with the traffic woes we encountered, it is a better place we are now in, even while we carry our two masks with us.
As the late comic, Jackie Gleason, would say to open his TV show: “ A little traveling music, please.”
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