Several weeks ago, before I was hospitalized with blood pressure so low it was mistaken for the final score of a Princeton basketball game, I wanted to share a story with you, one that still strikes me as impossible.
Or as Ralph Wiggum said, on “The Simpsons,” “Me, fail English? That’s unpossible!”
I’d planned to write it on the passing of one of my all-time all-timers, Brooks Robinson, whose baseball card I wouldn’t trade for a Yankee, not even Tom Tresh. My pal Doug Gibson only recently forgave me for losing his Brooks autographed model mitt on a Rhode Island beach, circa 1974. But I sense he’s still bitter.
Anyway, this happened more than 30 years ago, when my late friend Mark Brickley was assigned to rep the Equitable Old-Timers Series to benefit indigent former big leaguers on a Saturday afternoon at Shea Sadium.
The deal was for each renowned player to receive $1,000, a hotel room, two first-class airline tickets and cab fare to and from Manhattan.
Most graciously got it. Others badly missed the point. Brickey told me Reggie Jackson demanded twice the honorarium then insisted that Mark walk behind him, never beside him, perhaps to provide New Yorkers an unrestricted view of greatness.
That Friday night, Mark had invited me to a reception in SportsChannel’s suite. It was in part hosted by Fran Healy, who called SC’s Mets telecasts and was an SC ad rep.
So, on a rainy Friday night, I stepped in to see Brooks holy moley Robinson. I introduced myself then took a seat before I could say something stupid. Or was I too late?
The rain never quit and that night’s game was a goner. Then I overheard a chat about running into Manhattan for drinks and dinner. That’s when I involuntarily volunteered, “I have a car.” Well, it barely qualified. It was my dad’s rusty and untrustworthy Chrysler New Yorker, a gas pig though it comfortably fit 80.
And that’s how I wound up with Fran Healy, Harmon Killebrew, Ralph Kiner and Brooks Robinson in my old man’s Chrysler. Mushnick’s Believe It Or Not.
On the way in, Kiner, anointed the front passenger seat and smoking his cigar, hit on a topic:
“Do you realize that in this car there are over 1,000 home runs. And Fran, you hit five of them.”
Boeheim, ESPN fit together perfectly
While ESPN continues as another sports staple to devour itself from the inside out, its decision-reaching capabilities remain incomprehensibly vapid.
Last week, ESPN hired Jim Boeheim, who as a coach was among the most relentlessly rude and callously dismissive of media, including ESPN’s own — unless you kissed his fanny.
Clearly, it didn’t matter to Syracuse or ESPN that cheating on Boeheim’s watch was staggering, at one point costing 12 scholarships over four years and forcing the college and coach to vacate 108 wins — roughly five seasons’ worth! He’s hardly the first scalawag hired by this mixed-up-messages, hypocrites-on-the-march Disney network.
The hiring of Boeheim brought to easy recall ESPN’s engagement of bully Bobby Knight, whose relentlessly abusive behavior of players, students and media, was collected, chronicled and condemned on ESPN — especially that growing Bobby Goes Bonkers reel ESPN regularly featured. That reel vanished the day Knight joined ESPN, returning only after Knight left.
And harsh but true: If not for recidivist cheating that had him fired, Jim Valvano would’ve never been available to ESPN.
So welcome to ESPN, Coach Boeheim, where your record and ESPN’s speak for themselves.
Given the plummeting state of the art, it’s astonishing that during MLB’s postseason, TV would present a calm, thoughtful team such as Bob Costas and Ron Darling.
It again stands to contemporary logic that Vin Scully wouldn’t be hired today, as he didn’t scream, was not married to gimmickry and perceive his audience to be too intelligent to even try it.
Experts whiffing on Volpe
We can read and hear all we can about Anthony Volpe from experts, but what we witnessed can’t be dismissed or ignored:
He must cease trying to uppercut the ball, in the mostly inconsequential quest to hit 20 or so home runs, or he’ll always be a .200 batter who strikes out far more than good sense would allow by swinging over otherwise hittable pitches.
There’s no reason beyond hack analytics and Aaron Boone that Volpe struck out 167 times this past season. He ain’t The Mick. Keep your head dead still and hit line drives.
A hearty congratulations to Fox for landing an exclusive interview with Fox employee Derek Jeter, another big-name, big-ticket hire quickly ignored as uninteresting and overly guarded. Much like he was off the field during his career with the Yankees.
But how could Fox be expected to know something that significant before hiring him?
Well, Shaquille O’Neal is back to busting rims and shattering backboards in TV commercials. It wasn’t long ago that shortsighted, cheap thrills media helped denude basketball courts throughout the country by cheering him on, relegating courts more fit for hanging out and doing nothing.
In one case detailed here from 1993, Brent Bowers Jr., 11, who idolized O’Neal, used a small trampoline to launch himself to hang from the rim. The rim snapped, the kid landed headfirst on the driveway then died. He was buried in his cherished NBA-issue Shaq O’Neal Orlando Magic jersey.
I know he was hardly the only kid to pay such a price for sports hero emulation as a predictable endgame to dangerous sneaker marketing.
And now Shaq is back to give it another roll. Vandalism is good for business.
List in order those we could live happily ever without: James Harden, Paige Spiranac, Peter Rosenberg, Ryan Ruocco, Stephen A. Smith, Kirk Herbstreit, Phil Mickelson, the Williams Sisters, Jerry Jones, Jay Bilas, Rob Manfred, Steve Gelbs, LeBron James & Sons, Richard Sherman, Erin Andrews, Joe Micheletti, Fireman Ed.
Pencils down!
GoFundMe: Gee, the Manning Clan is a collection of endorsement hogs. Only things left to shill are kitty litter, curb feelers, room-temperature steakhouses and lemon-lime Pixy Stix.
The recent death of Dick Butkus reminds me of the time closed captioning brought word of the winner of the Butkus Award for best college linebacker. It read, “The butt kiss award.”
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