It's All About The Money

  Money. The root of all evil, it is said. Can’t live without it. Or as the late sage Yogi Berra once said: “If you get hurt and miss work it won’t hurt to miss work and they give you cash which is just as good as money.” I bet AFLAC paid Yogi handsomely to be himself. And remember, older New York metro area residents, the WABC radio commercial for Dennison, The Men’s Clothier, located in Union, New Jersey—“Just bring money. Money talks, nobody  walks…”

It is the almighty dollar which was front and center in the recent Presidential election. Inflation has been hurting almost every pocketbook in some capacity, and the populace let be known that they don’t like how much it costs to live on a daily basis. Except that there is a monied class which seems unaffected by the cost of living. 

That would be the athlete and the team owner. Somehow they seem to be surviving okay. Together. For now, until the next labor negotiations, when invariably there will be the specter of a strike when the players want more of the pot and the owners are unwilling to cede a dime of their vast riches. 

A few things provoked this rant. First, in baseball, this is free agency season and the number one topic is where will mega-talent Juan Soto be landing and which team will be anteing up the big bucks for his services. The lineup of suitors is a hierarchy of the rich franchises—the Yankees, who Soto played for in 2024; the crosstown Mets, with perhaps the richest owner in the game in Steve Cohen, who is willing to break the bank and sign the biggest fish to make the biggest splash; Toronto a long shot, is supposed to be proposing a mega deal; and other interested parties such as the World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers, suddenly money-infused Baltimore Orioles with a rich and very determined ownership; and even his first club, Washington. 

Let me say this—this courtship is madness. The sum of $700 million dollars over 10 years for a baseball player is patently absurd. I can’t wait to learn how much, if not all of it will be guaranteed, if his super agent Scott Boras needs to convince the feeding frenzy how worthwhile their deal is going to be. 

Last year it was Shohei Ohtani who was going to become a very wealthy ballplayer when his time in Anaheim was up. We now know that the Dodgers spent a ton of money, wisely deferred by Ohtani and his agent, to secure a World Championship. For this is the here and now, and whatever sum will be paid to the Japanese slugger in the future will have been well worth it. It brought a championship in the first year. 

But let’s look a little closer at Ohtani. He’s already two surgeries into his career—the first  was a major elbow procedure, the second one he has had for his UCL, which foreclosed him from pitching or playing the outfield this past season. Then in the World Series, Ohtani partially dislocated his left, non-throwing shoulder in a headfirst slide into second base. This week he had surgery to repair his labrum as a result of the injury, and simultaneously had a procedure done to his foot. 

While the Dodgers have the belief that Ohtani will be ready by Spring Training, will he suffer any setbacks and will this further delay his return to pitching? Could it be that Ohtani is partially damaged goods right now and that even if he rehabs well, his long-term future may have become a bit more murky? 

There are so many players who end up injured and have to go under the knife. “Tommy John” surgery, named after the pioneering pitcher who resurrected his career after a devastating arm injury, has been a godsend to baseball. It is almost routine that big league arms undergo such surgery. What is more frightening is how many have had the surgery out of necessity to try to make it to the next level—whether it is the pros or college—to fulfill a dream.

I look at another great player—Mike Trout. The Angels went way beyond their budget to lock up the New Jersey native with a lucrative deal. Since Trout inked his contract, he has been on the Injured List far more than on the field slugging home runs. He may have been the best player in baseball at the time LAA locked him up, but now he too is a question mark as to how well he will perform as he goes, let alone remain on the field and help make the Angels respectable if not competitive. 

So now Soto is the chosen one. He didn’t outperform Yankees teammate Aaron Judge this season; Judge is the presumptive American League M.V.P. Yet Judge’s $360 million deal over 9 years, averaging $40 million per year, is going to be paltry compared to Soto’s fleecing some franchise. 

Hal Steinbrenner, principal owner of the Yankees and son of the legendary George, who made his club into a powerhouse through free agency spending and shrewd drafting, has to come up with a figure he can live with which he thinks General Manager Brian Cashman can negotiate a deal to keep Soto in Yankees pinstripes. If that is possible, given the greed of Cohen and the bargaining power which Soto yields in this crazy marketplace. To satisfy the Yankees fans who are rabid after the collapse of the team in the 2024 Fall Classic. 

But what if the Yankees took a different tack and reduced the payroll slightly and bringing in talent through trades and some free agency. This would actually make the team stronger and reduce the already brutal luxury tax (actually called the Competitive Balance Tax) enacted on the teams which overspend compared to the smaller market teams where revenue is not as great as in New York, LA, Chicago or Atlanta. Play Judge in right field where he does not burn out like he did in center field in 2024. Put Jasson Domínguez in his natural spot in center field. Even think about bringing back Alex Verdugo to patrol left field—he would love to play more in the Bronx. Shore up the pitching and garner more power at first and third base. 

Let Steve Cohen blow through his billions and put the bulls eye squarely on his team. If the Yankees can work towards the future and not have constant payroll issues, then I am all for it. 

What also threw me was that it is renewal time for my New York Jets season tickets for 2025. Talk about continually overpaying for a very diminished product while there is only one Super Bowl trophy on display at team headquarters in Florham Park, and that goes back to the 1969 season. I fortunately didn’t foolishly spend for a seat license for the privilege of sitting in the lower bowl of the sterile Met Life Stadium. 

While it is my unfortunate goal to be a season ticket holder for 50 years, which will be reached in two years, it galls me to see that the franchise is worth $6.9 billion and I am paying a robust amount to support the operating expenses of $138 million. And the team once more has come out flat despite the promises of quarterback Aaron Rodgers to bring the team to the Super Bowl. Which simply isn’t happening given the number of teams which are better than NYJ in the AFC, where there is a team in Kansas City that is undefeated and has a QB going to be  paid $450,000,000 over 10 years, with a $10, 000,000 signing bonus and over $140,000,000 is guaranteed. 

From time to time I remind myself of the cost of watching these athletes perform. Whether it is in person, which costs plenty in ancillary amounts for food and beverage, travel costs and clothing to wear in the changing seasons. (I cannot wait until I complete my trips to all 30 MLB franchises with a visit to iconic Fenway Park; that Boston trip is going to cost me a lot of money just with the ridiculous ticket prices with Fenway’s limited capacity) Or the home viewing on cable or streaming channels which adds plenty to the monthly expenses. Again, this is plain absurdity. 

Is the revenue sustainable? We as a nation have faced inflation and avoided a recession or, even worse, a depression. But what if this economy suddenly tanks? What will happen to the pay for these stars in all leagues—Lebron James and Steph Curry come to mind with bloated salaries—when the fans revolt over the costs of attending a game or watching exclusively on Amazon or Peacock? 

And don’t think that the colleges are immune from this money train. They overpay coaches while underpay professors. Players receive scholarships but are enriched by name-image-likeness payola. 

I was tracking the cost of a ticket for this weekend’s Washington-Penn State game in 

State College. Three weeks ago a nosebleed seat was going for nearly $350. Until the Nittany Lions lost to nemesis Ohio State. That same ticket is now available for $95. 

Rutgers, now fighting for bowl survival, plays at home Saturday when suddenly hot Minnesota comes to Piscataway. A ticket can be had for $5.00. And it is more likely that somebody will purchase the $95 seat than go to Piscataway for $5.00. which was the cost I paid as a senior for last week’s F&M-Kean football game. Watch for the increasing number of empty seats at most NFL games—a sign of the unaffordability of attending one game for everyday people. A ticket to MSG for a Knicks or Rangers game on the secondary market is astronomical while the New Jersey Devils continue to inundate me with requests to buy ticket packages because they need the revenue. 

The perspectives are skewered. The competition for the entertainment dollar has reached an entirely new level. People are far more comfortable watching movies at home, yet they will willing travel to Canada to watch Taylor Swift because a ticket is far more reasonable. When sanity will return is anybody’s guess. 

Moneyball was the nickname of a sabermetics-based philosophy which allowed the Oakland A’s to become highly competitive and thrive against the big market opposition. Over 20 years later, the A’s are still starving the payroll while gambling on a major windfall when the team moves to Las Vegas.

The movie was fantastic. The premise was fine. Yet we are in a different environment which will have to self-destruct for the good of sports. It’s just a matter of when. 

For now, it’s still all about the money. 

Nothing But Agita

  It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Sometimes, but not too often, there was some middle ground. Kinda sounds like the 2024 Presidential campaign, but this is a sports-themed blog and I am certainly not going there. Very diplomatic of me. 

My birthday was a day of happiness. It was the first day of the 2024 World Series. Long time opponents from the past—they hadn’t met in the Fall Classic since 1981. Lots of history here. Brooklyn and Ebbets Field; the LA Coliseum exhibition game which drew over 93,000 Angelenos to see Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra and crew; Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine, which first hosted the West Coast/East Coast version of this tableau. And of course the three versions of Yankee Stadium—the House That Ruth Built; the refurbished version of the late 1970’s; and this century’s monolith. 

I had hopes that this might be the year that the Yankees would once more win it all. I had never been solidly convinced that this squad was a worthy champion. Winning the American League in the manner that they did made me want to believe in them. Then again, pyrite isn’t real gold. Just fools gold. 

So, after cake for my birthday celebration, it was time for baseball. The Yankees took it to LAD behind Gerrit Cole and playoff monster Giancarlo Stanton, who hid during the regular season yet reminded us once more why he was a rising star in Miami with almost unrivaled power at the plate. 

It was a pitcher’s duel between Cole and Jack Flaherty, a late season addition to a depleted Dodgers rotation. By default, he became the ace of the staff. This was a Game 1 which would head to extra innings. 

New York took a lead in the top of the 10th inning. Only to falter in the bottom of the frame. Manager Aaron Boone made a critical miscalculation, brining starter Nestor Cortes, nursing an arm injury which ultimately might require surgery, to face LA first baseman Freddie Freeman. 

Freeman had starred in the World Series when he was in Atlanta. Although he was nursing an ankle injury at the start of the Series, he was out there to help the Dodgers. (It was also later disclosed that Freeman played despite a very painful rib injury, too)

Did he ever. With one gigantic swing, Freeman sent a ball flying into the right field pavilion for a grand slam home run. Nobody had ever hit a walk off grand slam in the history of the World Series. Game 1 to LAD. In actuality, it was World Series to LAD. 

New York managed to go ahead in Game 2, but there was Freeman with a home run. He would hit homers in the first four games, which, along with one in his last World Series game while a member of the Braves, set a record. The Dodgers recovered to win Game 2, now up 2-0 with the games switching to Yankee Stadium.

Yankees players talked tough and were relying on the extra man in the stands. Some took their job too literally, trying to yank the ball out of Dodgers’ right fielder Mookie Betts glove  when he went over the wall and into the stands to make a catch in foul territory in Game 4. 

Still, the Yankees bats weren’t coming alive while the LAD pitching was neutralizing much of the power. Sure fire American League M.V.P. Aaron Judge didn’t awaken from his disastrous at bats until game 4, and that was only momentary. 

With a 11-4 Game 4 blowout, NYY sought to do what no other team had done. When down 3-0, only four teams had made it to a Game 5. No team ever made it to a Game 6. The odds were stacked against the Yankees, no matter how much their power display gave its fans hope. 

With Cole on the mound, New York staked him to a 5-0 lead while he had given up no hits through four innings. Things looked promising, although I did say to my wife that this wasn’t enough runs. Was I ever prophetic. 

In an inning which will be remembered in World Series history like Boston’s Bill Buckner booting an easy grounder against the Mets which would have allowed the Red Sox to win in 1986, the Yankees completely unraveled. By the time the carnage was done—the errors in commission and omission—it was a tie score. 

NYY would forge ahead on a Stanton sacrifice fly. Only to have LAD come back to take the lead. For good. 

With Walker Buehler two days removed from starting in Game 3 coming on in the ninth inning to close the game out, the Yankees were finished. What epitomized the way the team petered out was how closer Luke Wilson ran out of gas in Game 5—over used and tired—finished in what was a game but futile effort. Season over. 

Now the Yankees have a lot of decisions to make about retaining personnel. Cole, Juan Soto, Anthony Rizzo, Gleyber Torres and Alex Verdugo may all be leaving the Bronx. The defense and fundamentals need to be shored up (see Cole not covering first on a Betts grounder to Rizzo which would have ended the inning without a run scoring instead of opening the flood gates). There cannot be intermittent power shortages, nor should reliance for extra base hits have been placed on the shoulders of young Anthony Volpe, whose grand slam ignited the Bombers in Game 4. 

Los Angeles was the best team in baseball. In my mind, San Diego was second, the Mets third, then the Yankees and Cleveland round out the top 5. The National League was the better league—all of the NL playoff teams were good and Houston plus the AL wild cards— Baltimore, Detroit  and Kansas City—simply didn’t match up with Philadelphia or Milwaukee. 

It looks like Boone will be back for another year. Same with GM Brian Cashman. I don’t know how any of the coaches might fare. Whatever group emerges in Tampa next Spring, it will be different . What won’t be gone is the sting of such a bitter defeat. 

The New York Jets needed to play better. Heading to Foxborough to take on the New England Patriots, NYJ had a chance to get back into the playoff race. Except that the team which cannot get out of the way of itself, gave its fans a clunker. 

A battered and bruised 6-2 Houston Texans team came to Met Life Stadium for a Thursday Night Football extravaganza. The Jets played the first half in a trance, drawing the ire of those in attendance. “Sell the team” chants were heard loud and clear on the Amazon broadcast—a not so veiled indictment of how poorly this team played and how owner Woody Johnson simply did not hire the right people to make the right decisions. 

The a funny thing happened. The defense took over and the offense awakened. Ancient Aaron Rodgers benefitted from a miraculous catch by wide receiver Garrett Wilson for a spectacular touchdown confirmed by a shin hitting in bounds after a replay review, along with a sideline sprint after a pass for a TD by Rodgers’ Green Bay favorite, Davante Adams, who somehow escaped concussion protocol after hitting his head on the unforgiving Met Life turf after being tackled hard. 

I am no more enthused over the Jets chances going forward. The schedule isn’t daunting, beginning with a road game in Arizona. 

The mentality has to be one game at a time. With the history of this team—losing to Denver and New England in winnable contests—are their chances really that good? Stay tuned. 

I did manage to see Franklin and Marshall thoroughly out play an undermanned Mc Daniel team. As my daughter astutely said, it was going to be a long bus ride back to Westminister after being vanquished 24-0 in a yawner of a game. 

I once more saw F&M at Kean University this Saturday, a mere four miles from my house. Kean wass 2-5;  I hoped the team could play better on the road—unlike when I saw them lose at The College of New Jersey in September (for the  first time since college, I will have seen F&M play football in September, October and November thanks to a schedule which placed the team in NJ twice—which never have happened before in my lifetime). F&M prevailed by a 34-14 score. Kean was better than Mc Daniel, which was shut out 42-0 Saturday at home by 8-1 Ursinus.

My college roommate remarked that maybe I should stick to college football. Maybe he’s right. The pros I root for have given me nothing but agita.

Birthday Wishes

  The beginning of my seventy-fifth year starts on Friday. This ongoing journey began at Phoebe Putney General Hospital in the unlikely location of Albany, Georgia. My parents, both Jewish and from Coney Island, a well-known enclave in Brooklyn, were there because my father was fulfilling his Air Force duty after dental school; my mother had quit her position as a Business Education teacher at Sayreville, New Jersey High School to be with him. 

What they couldn’t have known is that the baby they brought into the world would become a sports-obsessed attorney who would create his own family of sports zealots who love to travel and who would shine in their chosen careers. And I don’t know if they would have approved. But that’s not my concern. 

Yeah, this guy loves sports. If he could have been a sports writer, athletic director or coach, that would have been a ton of fun. This is not to say that being a Government major at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with an eye on going to law school and a career as an attorney wasn’t an admirable choice. It was a means to an end, which included sports. 

I fell in love with sports at an early age. Watching the games on my parents’ black and white set embedded in me a love for what seemed to be great stuff. Whether it was Mel Allen describing Yankees games on WPIX, Marty Glickman handling Knicks games, Chris Schenkel describing the play of the Giants or watching the Rangers on Saturday night, I was hooked. National broadcasts of the NBA and NHL added to my fervor. 

I saw my first Yankees game at age 7. My first Rangers game was at the old Madison Square Garden on my birthday 65 years ago. I saw Wilt Chamberlain and the San Francisco Warriors demolish the Knicks a year later. I saw my first pro football game in 1962 when the Giants and Philadelphia Eagles met in an annual pre-season battle in Princeton. Rutgers football was first on my plate in 1964 and RU hoops a year later. 

My exposure at the scholastic level began at summer day camp at Highland Park High School, my hometown school. I got to know the players and I rode my bike to practice and games at Johnson Park for football and Donaldson Park for baseball. I even saw games in the old gym which, by the time I reached ninth grade, had been converted into the band room, where I would blare my trumpet badly.

Whatever newspaper my parents would read, I devoured the sports pages. And any sport I watched, I tried to play. I fell in love with baseball, and I wasn’t too bad at it. I could throw a football and my father installed a basket over the garage door. I even had hockey sticks and I would have my sister play goalie, shooting frozen tennis balls at her in our driveway. I dropped 30 pounds my freshman year of high school and took up weightlifting to be better at what I tried to play. 

I didn’t know I was undersized at 5’5” until hit hard at freshman football practice by a much larger human being. Which led to my being adept at keeping score and statistics for baseball, football and basketball. To this day, the concepts I learned as a child I rely on while watching a game. 

Any game I could go to, if able to, I would. Taking used stubs and heading into the visitors stands at Rutgers football games began a robust career of watching college football live. 

I have seen Michael Jordan play. I have been to the US Open in golf and tennis. The World Series and two MLB All Star Games. The Stanley Cup and NBA Finals. I have seen Notre Dame, Army, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Texas all perform in football; North Carolina, UConn, Syracuse and Villanova in men’s hoops. I go to plenty of college baseball games and have seen minor league ball at all levels. I’ve been to hockey games in Canada. Heck, I have seen the Vancouver Canucks and New Jersey Devils practice.

This lifelong addiction to sports sent me to the Halls of Fame for baseball, football, basketball. I made a pilgrimage to the old Boston Garden to watch the Celtics. It sent me to ballparks related to 29 of the 30 MLB franchises, plus a number of Spring Training sites. 

Wherever we go, I visit college campuses. And of course, go to famous stadiums or arenas. I have walked into Notre Dame Stadium; Ohio and Michigan Stadiums; the Charlotte Coliseum; the Dean E. Smith Center at the University of North Carolina and Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke. I have shot baskets at Princeton, Clemson and Rutgers. 

Even more compelling was the fact that I played college baseball. Not permitted to freely play at Highland Park after a very troubling set of incidents relating to my height and being Jewish, I made my mind up that I would play at F&M. I made my presence known freshman year by working out every day and that caught the attention of coaches. Who knew that the kid who made up for not playing any organized baseball after his freshman year would actually start in college for two years before injuring his shoulder foolishly wrestling for his intramural team. And I still attended a Baltimore Orioles tryout camp and got a hit in their game for prospects. 

Baseball got me my job as a Public Defender, as they needed a player for the softball team.  True story. I met the future Secretary of Agriculture for the Carter Administration while playing softball on his House of Representatives team during my congressional internship in D.C. in 1971. Talking with my future wife when we first met, I told her I had a New York Jets playoff game the next day at Shea Stadium and we began a two hour talk which blossomed into a great love story—based on sports as one of our foundations. 

I can go on endlessly about my history over the past 74 years. And here I am, as I start another year, on the precipice of watching my beloved New York Yankees play the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series. 65 years ago, I saw my first National League game in Philadelphia as the Dodgers, who would become World Champions, played the Phillies at Connie Mack Stadium. (I did see the Yankees lose to the eventual American League champion Chicago White Sox earlier that year but I have never seen LAD play NYY)

My misplaced faith in the New York Jets as a season ticket holder since 1977 is once more in the toilet after a loss to Pittsburgh Sunday night. Recreating the Aaron Rodgers Green Bay Packers won’t work—not with Rodgers nearly 41 years of age. 

And Rutgers lost to a very average UCLA football team at home. They just aren’t getting over the hump and playing like an elite team. At least I was promised to see the good men’s basketball team play UCLA this year—this will be the second time I have seen the Bruins after watching then-Lew Alcindor demolish St. John’s in the 1969 Holiday Festival at MSG. 

When I blow out the candles on my birthday cake, I am going to cheat a bit. I am going to make a number of wishes beyond health and happiness. 

First, I am going to wish that the Yankees win World Championship number 29. It’s been an amazing and frustrating ride to get this far. The Dodgers are formidable opponents. But I can’t help myself agonizing over every pitch. Because that’s who I am. 

Next, and this is complicated. I am going to hope against hope for a reversal of fortune for the Jets. I know how unlikely that is. The schedule isn’t daunting and the addition of Davante Adams at wide receiver and Haason Reddick at defensive line makes the impossible seem possible. Even if it isn’t. Moreover, I will yearn for management to draft a real game-changing quarterback and supply him with competent coaches and complimentary personnel on offense and defense. 

I wish that the RU men’s basketball team will fare well this season. I always think a run like in 1976 to the Final Four is possible. 

Another big wish is for F&M football to get past the top four and go to the NCAA’s; that men’s basketball be as relevant as it was under legendary coach Glenn Robinson; and that baseball reach championship heights again and again under Ryan Horning’s leadership. 

I want Travis Kelce, Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs to win it all again. And that Kelce and Taylor Swift have a long and lovely life together. If KC cannot win it all this year, I am rooting for Detroit to win—because the last time the Lions won the NFL crown was 1957. (A correction to be noted here: in last week’s blog, I indicated that Cleveland, Detroit, Houston and Jacksonville were the only teams not to have won a Super Bowl—those teams are the four never having played in the big game; 12 haven’t won the trophy) 

Plus I wish that my son’s idea to see the Golden State Warriors in San Francisco comes to fruition. I need go to see Steph Curry another time in person, for when I saw him in New Orleans, he left the game early with an injury. 

I wish for the success that the New York Liberty reached after 28 years of futility for Caitlin Clark and her Indiana Fever, although Sabrina Ionescu’s shooting for the Liberty on Sunday night in Game 5 was dreadful. After we get through expected labor strife for the 2025 season. (The women are grossly underpaid) 

Finally, I want to thank the people who take the time to read my rantings. My last wish is that you continue to do so, enjoying the words I put to paper which my intrepid editor make sensible. And that your wishes come true, too, at least in the sports world.

That’s it. Birthday wishes.