It's Halloween

A sigh of relief. That’s what originated from Yankee Stadium on October 18th around 7:30 in the evening. That was when the Yankees survived the best of five series with the Cleveland Guardians. 

A chorus of groans and boos emanated form that same ballpark one week later, when the Houston Astros eliminated the not-so-vaunted Bronx Bombers. In four games. 

Manager Aaron Boone was said to be gone, the scapegoat for everything wrong with the team. Except that owner Hal Steinbrenner said not so fast and is keeping Boone on for another year.  Having supporters like Derek Jeter and C.C. Sabathia didn’t hurt him.    

The Yankee faithful also want GM Brian Cashman gone. They blame him for everything which went wrong. While that is partially true in relation to players like Josh Donaldson and Aaron Hicks who looked old, he did bring in blossoming star Harrison Bader, perhaps the shiniest light for the Yankees in the ALCS. Expect Cashman to sign a new contract to continue to strive towards that elusive 28th World Championship. 

Those same fans may have gotten too carried away when they booed Aaron Judge for underperforming in the playoffs. He gave it his all to break Roger Maris’ record in a gargantuan regular season likely to result in his winning the American League Most Valuable Player Award. They liked him aplenty for how he literally carried the team into the playoffs. 

But their fickle nature may have been the last straw in whether the soon-to-be free agent leaves New York. His displeasure with the Yankees front office with their public airing of his spring contract offer, coupled with his enormous dislike of how the fans treated underperforming Joey Gallo—forcing to remain inside his apartment as a refuge from vitriol until he was mercifully trade to the Dodgers— or how they castigated Hicks, did not sit well with the big man. 

This drama will play itself out once the World Series is over. My wife asked me if I would be mad at Judge if he left. The answer is no—should he decide to play for the San Francisco Giants, the team he rooted for in his childhood, who am I to question how he reached his decision? 

However, I sure will be angry at the Yankees management and the fans for ruining what could have been a lifetime of love. For which none of the above will accept any responsibility.

Meanwhile, there has been an underdog in the National League that has come from the final playoff spot in the expanded format to reach the World Series. Those Philadelphia Phillies have exactly what the Yankees don’t have—a team which can hit, field, run the bases and is resilient. 

The fact that the Astros, a big favorite to win it all, and the Phillies are tied at one apiece when the Series resumes at Citizens Bank Park in South Philadelphia on Monday night, should not be a surprise the day the Phillies have dominated their opponents. Ask the Cardinals, Braves and Padres what happened and they will say they were swallowed up by a hot team. 

Moreover, the denizens of Broad Street will be very vocal, looking to rattle the Astros and bring a championship to the City of Brotherly Love by displaying anything but that. I am in sync with them—I loathe the Astros for their cheating, even if many of the perpetrators are gone. 

It’s kind of like my dislike for the New England Patriots from their multiple attempts at tilting the competitive advantage. Hey, Tom Brady isn’t in Foxborough any more, with his career  in the toilet at the moment as he shows his age, and his personal life apparently in shambles. 

Might I add that the Eagles are a legitimate Super Bowl contender and the Philadelphia Union is in the MLS Final Four. The Flyers are playing quite well and the Sixers are destined to get better. This is a great time to be a Philadelphia sports fan. I can just imagine how sports talk radio is afire. 

Somehow, I have managed to attend football games on three of the last four weekends. I saw the New York Jets beat the Miami Dolphins. I watched Franklin and Marshall retain the Conestoga Wagon Trophy with a True Blue Weekend victory over arch rival Dickinson. And the this Sunday I painfully watched the Jets unravel in handing a win to the New England Patriots. Again. 

When the Jets beat a below par Green Bay team with an ailing Aaron Rodgers, I thought there was some hope for the Jets. With a win over Denver, I said, maybe this team has a chance to make the playoffs. 

Until the team can get quarterback Zach Wilson to not throw balls into the hands of enemy defenders and the team can make up for the loss of RB Breece Hall, they aren’t going to win many more games. And perhaps, those prior wins were mere illusions, blips on other teams’ radar which could have had a different result. 

I was warmed by Rutgers finally winning a Big Ten contest, outlasting Indiana at home. As soon as they headed out on the road, Minnesota, a so-so Big Ten power, shut the Scarlet Knights out 31-0. #4 Michigan comes to Piscataway next. Oh boy. 

So, too, was I hopeful that F&M might travel to Allentown and upset Muhlenberg. Into the third quarter, it was a nip and tuck battle. Then the Mules asserted their superiority. 

Alabama is no longer undefeated, thanks to a trip to Knoxville where Tennessee downed the Crimson Tide in front of over 100,000 and football alum Peyton Manning, better known as the brother of Eli, the great Giants QB. Ohio State is second to Georgia in the polls. I still don’t see a Big Ten team winning the national title. 

I have seen some NBA games, mostly the one involving the Golden State Warriors. The Nets, with the unhappy duo of Kevin Durant and the foot-in-mouth Kyrie Irving, are floundering. I couldn’t be happier. Ditto the Lakers, who have yet to win a game. Lebron James, Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook are not to be confused with Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. The latter trio has won four rings.

Plus, the New Jersey Devils are leading their division. Let me let that sink in. The Devils are on top. Who would have thunk it!!

There is a lot of zany stuff going on right now in the sports world. I have a theory. It’s Halloween. 

A Tossed Paper Cup

  Where do I begin? How about Sunday morning at around 10:20 a.m.? 

That’s when my wife and I got into our 2016 Rav 4, the cute shocking blue SUV we had to help our daughter purchase when her vehicle had been flooded out in New Orleans a couple of years ago. For a simple trip to the Meadowlands for the Dolphins-Jets game. 

By my standards, we left a little late. I like to leave for the game around 10:00, as the zealots fill up the parking lots fairly quickly, monopolizing the good spots near the exits which might allow a quick escape after another desultory Jets loss. 

Part of the problem is entering the complex from Route 3 East, perhaps the easiest to access because it places my car near two large lots which I can access once inside the gates and still get me headed towards Route 3 West when I want to leave for home. Many times, the traffic merging onto Route 3 from Route 17 gets caught in the right lane headed to the stadium. That, in turn creates a major bottleneck involving vehicles not going to the game along with those out for a Sunday morning excursion. 

That’s exactly what’s happened. Route 3 was an absolute mess. The line exiting to the stadium was enormous. And it moved at a snail’s pace. 

Time was starting to become a small factor, as we like to begin our walk to the stadium just under an hour before game time, which allows us to get through security, play with my phone to access the mobile tickets, ascend the escalators to the top tier and hit the rest rooms before settling into our seats. This experience wasn’t making me all that happy, and I was getting hungry, perhaps because we made our own turkey sandwiches and I wanted to devour mine before the anointed time to pack up our belongings and trek to the ballpark. 

In watching the line snake slowly to the exit, I noted an oddity. There was an 18 wheeler stuck in our line. I thought that there was no way he was heading to the parking lots or the stadium on a Sunday morning. Yet he was barely moving and a large number of cars decided to move past him and cut in front of the truck to get closer to the exit. He was creating a mini-bottleneck. 

After having watched this unfold, I made a quick move to get into the next lane to my left and pass the truck, like so many others had, thereby moving us up in the queue. It proved to be a good move that went bad. 

At that moment, the truck driver decided to exit the line where he didn’t belong. I beeped at him and skirted past his vehicle. His loud horn sounded in an angry response. 

I found a spot further up and secreted the Rav 4 into a better position. Or so I thought. That was the good move. 

It was a beautiful day and I had rolled down the windows to have the fresh air enter our car. Which proved to be the bad move, for as the truck burst past me on my left, the horn sounded loudly and the driver threw a paper cup with a top and a straw protruding from it into my open window with a loud ricochet off of the door frame. 

The car was splattered with whatever carbonated beverage was in the cup. I was struck  in my face with the lid. I immediately threw the cup out of our car. I was stunned and shaken. 

The truck had sped off, so I could not obtain the license plate. No one seemed to care very much, for nobody asked if we were okay. But we weren’t okay. Not at all. 

We made it to the gate. Part of the holdup was that of the four gates at that point, one was manned by an attendant who made me look young. 

With the traffic so bad inside the complex, we entered Lot K, the one furthest from Met Life Stadium. We were a stone’s throw away from the New York Football Giants facility. 

Then we assessed the damage. There was plenty of liquid on the rubber floor mat beneath the steering wheel. There were large stains on the window and the dashboard. Wiping them didn’t make it any better and in fact made the window in front of the wheel more than a bit blurry.

We tried to enjoy our time in the lot amongst the other tailgaters. We tossed the whiffle football we took from LBI in the summer of 1982. We did finish our sandwiches. Entering the stadium in a timely manner proved to be no problem. 

As for the game, it was over with the first play from scrimmage. “Sauce” Gardner, the Jets first round pick for 2022, blitzed Miami QB Teddy Bridgewater, knocking him out of the game and resulting in an intentional grounding in the end zone safety. 2-0 Jets. 

While the Dolphins waged a good battle, the Jets had the answers. In the fourth quarter, New York put an end to any Miami comeback. Final score was 40-17, and the Jets really deserved to win. 

They played like a team on the rise. QB Zach Wilson was excellent. Offensive tackle Alijah Tuck-Vera was outstanding. Running back Breece Hall played like a beast, in one play dragging two Miami defenders nearly ten yards before being stopped just short of the goal line. 

Despite the stadium being half filled with Dolphins fans, the atmosphere was much better than when we went to see the Jets lose to Cincinnati two weeks earlier. We left happy with the result and perhaps a little bit giddy for the future. 

Until we returned to the car. Once more did I see the mischief that cretan trucker had created. Which angered me.

We had to wait an eternity for the lot to empty before we could easily access Route 3 and head home. It was then I realized what really had happened. I had escaped certain injury and possible death had the cup hit me in the face. 

Although it was a little precarious driving home with a half-blurred windshield with the sun at a low angle, the car will get cleaned and look like new. I’ll be out a couple of hundred dollars.

Yet within my anger I felt lucky. Exceptionally so. For this was the third time that I escaped from a predicament to live another day unscathed.

While at Franklin and Marshall, my senior year roommates decided to head to Beaver College for a mixer, since women weren’t very plentiful yet on campus. The driver drank way too much whiskey and drove his Buick at over 100 m.p.h. on the three lane highway known as Route 30. He wanted to die and he was going to take us with him. Somehow we didn’t and he is a doctor in Illinois. 

The second time was coming from my then-finance, who lived on Long Island. I had just passed through the toll plaza on Staten Island after driving across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. A car pulls up to me and forces me onto a sidewalk. He reaches down as if the had a gun. I screamed and took off. We reached speeds of over 90 m.p.h. as he chased me on the Staten Island Expressway. 

I was sure my life was over. There is a narrow turn before the Goethals Bridge and a concrete barrier. I felt my destiny was to hit it. Except that the other car exited the highway at the last exit before the bridge. 

Three times I lucked out. While I am still a bit shaken, this incident gave me greater perspective. Any morbid thoughts I have had have disappeared. I reached a goal—with all of the injuries I have had to my lower extremities in the past five to six years, I decided to run a cumulative mile out of the three miles I normally walk on Tuesday and run no more. 

I look forward to my 50th class reunion at F&M next week, for I feel fortunate to even be in position to attend. I have perused the 2023 MLB schedule and have mapped out games to see in June in St. Louis, Kansas City, Milwaukee and ending in Chicago with a White Sox game. If I want to watch a game on TV, I’m going to watch it. 

Trips which have been put off are back on the table. My son and I are on for an early April jaunt to see the Devils in Winnipeg.

Seeing friends is a priority. Ditto with family. Getting down over injuries or losses by my teams, at least for now, is in second place. 

We never know how much time we have on this Earth. In this precarious nuclear age a second crisis like we faced 60 years ago in October is upon us. 

I turn 72 on October 25th. I may be a bit heavier than I like and my clothes are a bit more snug—some of it is muscle from all of the upper body weightlifting. I survived COVID and recently received my newest booster. 

I have a lot to look forward to. J-E-T-S cheers make me happy. I love my Yankees. Steph Curry enthralls me. I enjoy sports. So much so. I love writing this blog.

All because a paper cup tossed wantonly from a moving vehicle reminded me about all I have to live for. 

Did I Say That The NHL Starts on Friday?

  What a week! It began with an intrepid reader on the sidelines in Lancaster offering subjective color commentary from the Johns Hopkins stands while wearing his newly-purchased F&M hat in honor of our alma mater. With Hopkins picking on a particular cornerback, the #8 Blue Jays outlasted a comeback by the Diplomats to remain undefeated along with Susquehanna, as Centennial Conference play is in a bye week for all teams. 

Then a friend from the Public Defender’s office who now lives in the Charlotte area provided a history of the kickoff celebration for the Charlotte FC team. It has a grecque origin, done to a fusion song by Farruko. If that wasn’t enough, he shared that fans of Deportivo Alaves, a Spanish team, do the Ponzan to the 1969 or so Pippi Longstocking TV series theme. Really. 

Even more interesting was that the Adelaide 36’ers, a low level Australian professional team, landed in Arizona and bombarded the Phoenix Suns in the opening 2022-23 exhibition game. While the Suns were belted out of the NBA Playoffs last season, they are considered to be in the hunt for the title once more. Unless last season’s drubbing and this beat down were not flukes. Who knows?

Thus it was no shock that the New York Jets found a way to defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers on the road this past Sunday. The Jets, with this win, went 2-2 against teams from the AFC North. And what that really means is that Baltimore and Cincinnati are pretty good while Cleveland and Pittsburgh, the teams the Jets beat, are not. 

Look, the Jets are trying to find their identity. There are a lot of moving parts, and at times they connect beautifully, like the way QB Zach Wilson masterfully led the offense to the winning score. 

But the defense and special teams can be exasperating at times. Moreover, the offensive line is in shambles at the tackle position, which has caused Wilson and Joe Flacco, who started the first three games under center, to constantly be running for their lives. 

Up next is Miami. Teddy Bridgewater has taken the helm in the absence of Tua Tagovailoa while the latter is in concussion protocol, a place he should have been before the start of the game with Cincinnati last week. He is a competent QB who, if given the chance, can work the field for the offense. 

With Tua leading the Dolphins, the team soared to a 2-0 start, including a win over the very formidable Buffalo Bills, a team many believe can win it all. I see the Dolphins as a very wounded animal. How wounded remains to be seen. 

Nonetheless, when I am in my seats at Met Life Stadium on what looks like it will be a cool Sunday afternoon, I don’t anticipate leaving at the half like we did when the Bengals shredded the Jets defense and the offense looked inept. 

I’m not necessarily predicting that the Jets will emerge as a 3-2 team. But I wouldn’t be as surprised to see them come out victorious, making the trip to Green Bay something to look forward to, given that the Packers are in London this weekend, facing a fairly good New York Giants team, albeit with their QB, Daniel Jones, iffy with an ankle sprain. 

I read some pundit who said that the Philadelphia Eagles could go undefeated this season. After four games this guru can see that clearly? Sure, the Eagles are playing great ball. Wins over Detroit, Minnesota, Washington and Jacksonville are nice. And the schedule isn’t full of tough AFC squads and only a few NFC contenders.

However, this is definitely not the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the last team to run the slate and attain perfection. Talk with me in five weeks, when the Eagles have played half their games. Then we might have a better idea how legitimate a contender this team is. 

It has taken a lot of time and mental torture for Aaron Judge and for those who intrepidly followed his quest to overtake Roger Maris as the American League home run champion, to reach that magic number. 

Thus, when he finally took a hanging slider and parked it in the seats at Globe Life Field on Tuesday evening, there was an exultant exhale around Yankees Nation and everywhere that was watching his exploits. It felt like the great toilet flush at the half of any Super Bowl. 

Questions abound about how legitimate Barry Bonds’ 73 home runs stands as the record. Judge definitively stated that he believes it is. As do I. 

It may stink that he purportedly cheated to get to 73 by taking steroids. Bonds has never admitted to that, and it is clear he thought that Sammy Sosa and Mark Mc Gwire, who exceeded Babe Ruth’s record of 60 homers in a season, were not his equal as a hitter. 

What Judge did this season did not diminish one iota what he accomplished. He almost won the Triple Crown, missing the batting title by .004. His leading the majors in so many offensive categories in this age of relief pitchers throwing absurd breaking balls and 100 m.p.h. fast balls is a season beyond what anybody has accomplished. 

This is not to demean the season Shohei Ohtani just completed. He is the first player to qualify for recognition in both hitting and pitching. Ohtani passed the 162 inning mark and compiled 219 strikeouts. He also hit .273 with 34 home runs, 30 doubles and 95 runs batted in in 157 games. Truly remarkable, as he is the first since Babe Ruth in 1913 to do this. 

Judge and Ohtani are the two greatest offensive forces in the game right now, and Ohtani offers a dimension that no one else can. It’s too bad that only one is going to be the A.L M.V.P. That should be Judge, who will land a contract surpassing the 1 year, $30 million deal Ohtani received on October 1. 

Baseball now heads into its post-season. With a new format that awards byes to the two winningest teams in each league. While the opening rounds start on Friday and are played on consecutive days in one park for each of the four series, it offers two more teams an opportunity to have a chance to continue their seasons, with the hope that they catch lightning in a bottle and make it to the World Series. 

Philadelphia and St. Louis start things off. While the Phillies are a pretty good hitting club, I just don’t see them getting past the Cardinals. N.L. M.V.P. candidates Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado anchor a deep team which has a distinct home field advantage. 

The Mets could not outlast the Braves, swept by their antagonists this past weekend in suburban Atlanta with the NL East title on the line. As a result, the San Diego Padres come to Citi Field for what might be the best pitching matchups in any series. Without Starling Marte in the lineup, the Mets have struggled a bit. This might be the difference between continuing or packing their bags for a long off season. 

Tumbling Tampa Bay, playing to a losing record in the last 25 games, heads to Cleveland where the youngest team in baseball awaits. I can easily see the Guardians emerging to meet the Yankees in the next round. 

Finally, troublesome Seattle travels to Canada to take on the Blue Jays. I see this as a toss up, with either team winning and then facing the very tough Houston Astros. 

Certainly a fun time of the year. Rutgers faces a make or break home game Friday night with Nebraska. The SEC continues to sort itself out; Georgia had to come from behind in the fourth quarter to beat Missouri on the road. Which cost the Bulldogs the top spot in this week’s poll. 

Pro football enters Week 5 with a crucial contest between Cincinnati and Buffalo, both harboring Super Bowl thoughts. And will Tom Brady be distracted by the divorce rumors swirling around when the Buccaneers take on the Falcons? Can the Rams come back and down the Cowboys after the 49’ers took them apart on Monday Night? 

So many questions. So much to watch. Did I say that the NHL starts on Friday?