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.

Could Have. Should Have. Would Have.

  Could have. Should have. Would have. Those are great words to express a fan’s take on sports—especially when their team failed to do something critical. 

I know that those words apply to the New York Jets. Owners of a 2-4 record after losing to Buffalo on Monday night, there has always been a lot of second guessing and misgivings associated with this team through the years—and now again in 2024.

The Jets would have won the game had kicker Greg Zeurlein not hit two uprights attempting field goals in the swirling winds at Met Life Stadium. Zeurlein is a good kicker but his failures cost the team a win. Not that Buffalo’s kicker didn’t have his own troubles when he missed a field goal and extra point. These were kicks the two should have made. 

Rodgers threw a pass near the end of the game which was intercepted. Former LA Chargers wide out Mike Williams seemed to slip when reaching for the ball. Had he caught it, New York would have been in great position to tie or go ahead. Fans were lamenting about what could have been. 

New York finally was able to trade with Las Vegas to obtain disgruntled wide receiver Davante Adams. Adams was the top receiver for Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers when the two were together in Green Bay. They formed a dynamic duo. If the team comes up just short of making the playoffs, Jets fans will cry about what would have been if Adams had not been absent for the six games he was still in Vegas. 

Former New England head coach Bill Belichick now gives his opinions about the NFL for good money. He has no regard for the Jets and, in particular, owner Woody Johnson. So forget about any rumors of him coaching the team next season. It’s not going to happen.

Where it is much more likely that Belichick will resume coaching after his one year sabbatical, if he so chooses, is Dallas. There is a team with great expectations—seemingly every year—that has been hoisted by its own petard. 

In Dallas, owner Jerry Jones controls the team. He is the General Manager and he has final say on all personnel matters. Jones is receiving much greater criticism this season for his team’s shortcomings—which rightly falls on his head. 

It is just a question of whether Belichick wants to strut into a toxic situation only to be constantly criticized by his boss. Hadn’t he had enough of that in New England with Robert Kraft? And are the Cowboys really good enough to win the Super Bowl—are they once more merely pretenders? I think the latter is applicable here.

A tough Detroit Lions team demolished the Cowboys in Arlington on Sunday. The Lions looked like one of the teams to beat in the NFC and, for that matter, in the NFL. That was until star defensive lineman Aiden Hutchinson went down with a gruesome leg injury which required immediate surgery at a Dallas hospital. If Detroit misses the opportunity to finally win a Super Bowl—they are one of four franchises (Jacksonville, Cleveland and Houston are the others) not to have walked away with the trophy—their long-suffering fans will rue the day Hutchinson was injured.  

I did watch much of the Washington-Baltimore game on Sunday. It was a battle between a team which has Super Bowl aspirations and one which seems to be ahead of schedule in coming back from the doldrums. With a riveting performance, he Ravens’ Lamar Jackson reminded everyone why he was a M.V.P. winner. 

However, Washington rookie QB Jayden Daniels, the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, once more showed how much of an up side he has in leading the Commanders. With no clear cut favorite to win the NFC East, his on the field heroics have given DMV fans a lot of reason to believe in their team—now. 

in college football news, Texas remains at the top as they prepare for their battle with #5 Georgia in Austin on Saturday night. It should be a doozy. 

Speaking of doozies, #2 Ohio State traveled to Eugene to face #3 Oregon. This was a back and forth contest between two highly-ranked Big Ten teams. (It’s still hard to think about Oregon, USC, UCLA and Washington being in the Big Ten)  

Had OSU QB Will Howard—a really gifted player who I think will have a nice future in the NFL—not decided to run on the final play and slid a little earlier, OSU might have been in position to attempt to kick the winning field goal. Instead, time ran out for OSU. Moreover, an offensive pass interference penalty on a long completion didn’t help the Buckeyes’ cause. 

And a slick move by Oregon placing 12 players on defense at the end of the game, which would have been a dead ball foul and not cost yardage but instead allowed greater pursuit of Howard was another nail in OSU’s carcass.  There is a great example of could have, would have and should have. I wouldn’t have the courage to say that in Columbus. Conversely, there is plenty of elation in Oregon with the big win. 

A quick comment about Rutgers. What looked to be a promising start for the Scarlet Knights has devolved into the same old, same old. Wisconsin, a very average Big Ten squad, demolished RU Saturday in Piscataway. Head Coach Greg Schiano, a very nice man and solid recruiter, might be on shaky ground if the team doesn’t get better in its final six games, especially with a new AD coming in. There is only so much the downtrodden Rutgers fans can take. 

Caitlin Clark was named First Team All-WNBA. Rightly so. The WBA Rookie of the Year deserved the accolade. 

Right behind her, on the second team, was Sabrina Ionescu. You might remember that she went head-to-head with Steph Curry in a three point contest at the NBA All Star Game, pushing the greatest long-distance shooter to the limit before falling to Curry. 

Ionescu’s New York Liberty is facing the Minnesota Lynx in the best-of five WNBA finals. With the teams tied 1-1 after the first two games in Brooklyn, the Liberty found themselves tied with the Lynx as the time ran down. The ball was in the hands of Ionescu, who deftly executed a feint to create space from her defender and heaved a shot from nearly the center court logo. 

Nothing but net for the WNBA star and after that dramatic win, Brooklyn now has a chance to close it out on Friday. She showed her inner Curry on that one—a brave shot executed with great confidence like the one Curry hit at the recent Olympics. 

Besides the Jets, no greater place for what might have been is in New York. That goes for the Giants, whose fans are always in an uproar over their quarterback and head coach. 

Same applies to the residents of Madison Square Garden. The expectations for the Knicks and Rangers have always been high, even if the number of championships in my lifetime—soon to turn 74 next week—is two for the Knicks and one for the Rangers. The amount of bellyaching that goes on after each frustrating lost season is enormous. 

But where the biggest scrutiny is in baseball. Mets fans are always arguing every bad move or play that prevents the team from its third World Series title. I feel a little for them. 

For Yankees fans are too spoiled with 28 World Championships and the mantra of late owner George Steinbrenner channeling his best imitation of the late, great Green Bay Head Coach Vince Lombardi that winning is the only thing. If Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Gerrit Cole and the rest of the Yankees underwhelm and don’t win a title, the amount of howling over the littlest of things and the calling for the heads of General Manager Brian Cashman and Manager Aaron Boone will sound worse than a swarm of cicadas. 

Could have. Should have. Would have.

It's Rough Being A Jets Fan...Once More

  I figured this would be an easy week to write something about the MLB playoffs, college football and some thoughts about the NFL and the start of the NHL season. Which I will get to. 

One of the topics I was going to write about regarding the NFL was the New York Jets and the team’s abysmal performance against former Jets quarterback Sam Darnold. The 23-17 dreary loss in London made it seem like the Jets were in a fog. Minnesota ran its record to 5-0, looking every bit like a playoff team in the NFC—even if the NFC North has roadblocks to an undefeated season or even the divisional title, as strong teams are in Detroit and Green Bay and improved Chicago also lies in wait. 

I got the post-game could have beens, should have beens from Head Coach Robert Saleh and quarterback Aaron Rodgers. The team would lick its wounds on the flight back from England and start to prepare for divisional foe Buffalo on Monday night. 

Except my phone began to light up like a Christmas tree on Monday morning. I recognize it is October, not December. 

Team owner Robert Wood Johnson IV, a.k.a. Woody, had enough of the inexcusable start. Losses to San Francisco, Denver and now Minnesota had the team heading in the wrong direction. Again.

So Johnson did something atypical for him. He fired a head coach in season. His way of doing things had been to fire them at the end of the season. 

Gone was Robert Saleh, who said plenty of nice if not vacuous things. His 20-36 record placed him 181st of 201 head coaches who have coached into their fourth season. 

Given that Johnson had been told by Saleh and GM Joe Douglas that this was a team which was to legitimately compete for the Super Bowl, he saw this was heading towards another disastrous season—this time with Rodgers not on the shelf as he had been after five plays in 2023. So he reacted and made Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich, a former NFL player of some note and leader of a staunch NYJ defense acting Head Coach, in an effort to immediately breathe some life into the team with his energetic style of coaching. 

A day later, Ulbrich demoted Offensive Coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, a close friend and confidant of Rodgers, making Quarterbacks Coach Todd Downing, a former OC most recently in Tennessee, as the man in charge of the offensive game plan and making the play calls during the games. Rodgers has purportedly signed o to the changes while steadfastly denying he had anything to do with Saleh’s ouster. 

Whether this awakens the offense remains to be seen. Rodgers seemed to be fighting for his survival behind an offensive line which either allowed too much pressure on him or caused the future Hall of Fame QB to throw quickly, at times before the receivers were ready or had completed their routes. And it was a line which committed way too many penalties, forcing the offense to start drives with longer yardage to the first down marker. It wasn’t a pretty picture. 

What has been the common denominator here is Johnson, the heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune and a former ambassador to Great Britain. Since becoming co-owner in 2000, this now marks the seventh had coach fired by the owner. This includes chasing away Bill Belichick and forcing Bill Parcells to move on. 

In that time, the Jets have drafted five quarterbacks in the first round and acquired two aging Green Bay Hall of Fame QB’s who seemingly had lost their stuff. With a points differential over a negative 1000, it is hardly surprising that the Jets have a cumulative record well below .500. 

The team can’t get it right because the owner and his General Managers repeatedly bring in the wrong people because they, themselves, are a bad fit for what his team desperately needs—a winning culture. The swagger and talent of the Joe Namath Super Bowl III winning team is not here. Hasn’t been for a long time. 

Since 1999 through last season, the Jets have won a grand total of six playoff games. The last time the team won the AFC East was 2002. The team’s last trip to the AFC Championship was on January 23, 2011, when, after victories over Indianapolis and New England, the Jets lost in the title game to Pittsburgh. That game also marked the last time the made the playoffs. 

I saw an article by Mike Vaccaro in the New York Post calling Johnson the worst owner in New York. That moniker had rightfully belonged to James Dolan, the owner of the Rangers and Knicks. But now there are good vibes at MSG, along with the Yankees and Mets in their respective League Championship Series; the Giants have recently been playing much better; the Islanders and Devils have promising futures; only the Brooklyn Nets seem to rival the Jets for the worst franchise in New York right now. 

I knew three things coming into this season and now well into the games. All of which could impact the team. Rodgers, coming off of his Achilles tendon surgery, was an aging 40 year old. How much rust would there be and how agile could he be? The early returns haven’t been encouraging. 

Second—what kind of relationship did Rodgers have with Saleh? When I saw Saleh go to hug his QB on the sidelines during the New England victory, I realized the chemistry wasn’t there. 

And third—what was happening with All Pro defensive lineman Haason Reddick? The demand echoed by Johnson to the holdout, whose agent, Creative Artists Agency (CAA), disengaged with their client, with rumors that Reddick was being counseled by someone else, didn’t help. The fact that the Jets wouldn’t discuss a new contract until Reddick reported to Florham Park, where the Jets training facility is, showed me an unwillingness to really compete. 

Add it all up. The history. The quarterbacks. The general managers. The ownership. It is hard to envision a meaningful change which might propel this team into the playoffs. The AFC East is not that strong. 

Could the Jets win it with a 9-8 record, the figure I predicted before the season began? Yes. And that would only mean a worse draft choice for  a team which will have to start over sooner than later. 

I look longingly at Washington, Chicago and Houston as teams which made the right call on young and able quarterbacks. Then I think of who New York has drafted and I wonder if there will ever be the right move in a franchise so bereft of talent—on the field and from the top down. 

I wanted to write about the Yankees winning a tough series from a gritty Kansas City team—without Aaron Judge hitting a ton and actually led by the apparent playoff monster, Giancarlo Stanton. The Bombers draw a tough team in Cleveland, winners over Detroit in a five game ALDS series. 

The there are the Mets. First they take apart the NL Central champion Brewers. Then they easily dismantle Philadelphia, the NL East champs. Now the Mets can go for the trifecta and beat the NL West champion Dodgers for a trip to the World Series.  

The New York Rangers look even tougher this season. I wonder how much the fallout from top goaltender Igor Shesterkin’s rejection of a record 8 year, $88 million contract offer will impact his play?

And finally, I was stunned, as the college football world was, with Vanderbilt’s monumental upset of then-# 1 Alabama last Saturday night in Nashville. Vandy is now 1-61 against Top 5 teams. Top 5 and Top 10 teams have had their hands full this year with no shortage of upsets and tight battles—see Ohio State and Oregon’s battle Saturday night in Eugene as proof. Which will continue until the College Football Playoffs begin. Thankfully there are 12 teams instead of 4; heaven knows who will still be standing strong when the selections are made. 

However, with what has happened with the New York Jets, how could I have devoted time to other subjects? It’s rough being a Jets fan…once more.