Just before COVID hit, my wife, threatening credit card abuse, forced me to escort her to the local mall. Ugh.
I dislike malls. They remind me of my mother taking me to Robert Hall to buy “school clothes.” My mother would hand me four pairs of pants through the dressing room curtains to try on while standing in my socks — sharp pins scattered on the floor. My wife now does that.
But this time she attached a carrot to her stick, broom optional. If I behaved, we’d have lunch at a department store cafe that had fabulous tuna salad on fresh grain and nut bread.
When seated, I rejected the menu as unnecessary. “I’ll have the tuna on that grain and nut bread.”
“We no longer have that,” the server said. I figured she was kidding.
“Really,” she said, “all our tuna sandwiches have been discontinued.”
“Discontinued? But weren’t they popular?”
“Very popular.”
“Then why has it been discontinued?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
I don’t know has become a common, acceptable answer to all good questions. It’s now a substitute for logic, reason and examination.
Friday, with the Mets down 7-0 to the Padres in Game 1 of a best-of-three, Eduardo Escobar hit a home run to make it 7-1.
As he rounded third, he began to smile and throw kisses at the nearest TV camera, which he seemed to know where to find. When he returned to the dugout he continued to blow kisses at the nearest TV camera. ESPN’s announcers Karl Ravetch, David Cone and Eduardo Perez said nothing about his joyful behavior.
Why did Escobar, his team being blasted in a postseason game, do that? I don’t know. Why did ESPN’s trio say nothing about it, their silence discerned as approval? I don’t know.
Tuesday, the Mariners had Game 1 versus the Astros nearly won. But leading 7-3 into the eighth, M’s manager Scott Servais had already removed two effective relievers in search of one who’d be blasted. He found three! Seattle lost, 8-7.
Why did Servais choose to do that? Perhaps. Yet, he and most other analytics-hypnotized managers would do it again, then again. Why? I don’t know.
One of the decisive moments in Sunday’s Giants-Packers went widely ignored. Why? Don’t know.
At 20-20 late, the Giants had second-and-goal from the 10 when Darius Slayton caught a pass for 6 yards. Third-and-goal was to follow, as his forward motion immediately ended and the whistle had blown. Yet, Packers cornerback Rasul Douglas flung Slayton hard to the ground. Unnecessary roughness.
First down from the 2, the Giants scored the winning TD on the next play.
Another NFL game determined to some large degree by mindless misconduct, yet no news is no news. Again. Why? I don’t know, but plenty more to come.
Apparently, the only folks who don’t know that John Smoltz on MLB regular and postseason telecasts talks much too much, analyzing every pitch until he sounds like those podcasts that induce sleep, remain his Fox bosses.
Do they sit there and say, “Gee, Smoltz makes great live TV”? Or have they tuned him out, too? Nine years with Fox, why haven’t they tried to fix him? I don’t know.
That Josh Donaldson, even during the postseason, and his manager, Aaron Boone, continue to think that running to first base is not essential — in Game 1 against Cleveland, Donaldson’s “home run” off the wall led to him being thrown out trying to retreat to first — remains staggering.
Why is this allowed to persist? I don’t know.
This time, Donaldson was aided by first-base coach Travis Chapman, who took his eye off the ball to glad-hand Donaldson rather than insist Donaldson run hard to second. Why? I don’t know.
Throughout Giants-Packers in London, NFL Network sideline reporter Laura Okmin could not be heard, thus a steady waste of time, presence, money and our attention. And they twice sent it to her with the Giants deep in Green Bay ground. Why wasn’t this immediately fixed? Tuna sandwich discontinued.
Despite host Kevin Burkhardt’s efforts at relevance, Fox’s MLB studio show showcasing the forced belly laughs and useless platitudes of Alex Rodriguez, Frank Thomas and David Ortiz remain an insult to all, including Fox-targeted morons.
Missed the name of the local radio reporter who called that 15-inning, 1-0 Guardians win over the Rays “a classic,” but it was the antithesis: 16 pitchers, 39 strikeouts, just 11 hits as batters, even with two strikes, swung like madmen trying to hit home runs rather than the ball. How’d you like to sit through such “a classic” for a second time?
ESPN’s Boog Sciambi repeatedly said that the pitching was dominant, but the batters ensured that. Why? I don’t know.
Was Cleveland’s Oscar Gonzalez hit in the foot by a pitch Saturday? The umps said he was. ESPN couldn’t show an unobstructed view because it was hidden behind its info/promo crawl. That’s why. It’s ESPN! Finally, an answer to a good question!
Troy: Leave outdated misogyny in past
Troy Aikman’s “take the dresses off” crack on ESPN was startling even by cavemen standards. I’d hear such all the time, but a long time ago. When guys left putts short, you’d hear, “Hit it, Alice.” It wasn’t merely misogynistic, it was cheap and stupid.
Not that with Aikman having signed for $90 million over the next five years to bolt Fox for ESPN, anything was going to happen to him.
Somewhere in California, Doug Adler, fired by ESPN because an N.Y. Times stringer tweeted a lie, claiming Adler called Venus Williams “a gorilla” — he clearly did not — remains the victim of a life-destroying injustice indulged by gutless media and cowardly current and former tennis stars, all of whom knew — and still know — better.
Not that I’d advocate your financial demise by buying into exclusively streamed sports, but Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit have made a good pair on Amazon Prime’s Thursday night NFL.
Herbstreit, with Michaels, has mostly abandoned his ESPN-centric approach of trying to dazzle with a bunch of gridiron gibberish. He even sounds modest, as in not knowing everything — even after it happened.
Jets really exciting!
Sunday’s early NFL games were in violation of the Geneva Convention. If you couldn’t take CBS’ “Hollerin’ ” Kevin Harlan making like he was being hit with a cattle prod on every pass during Dolphins-Jets, you could turn to Jets radio where Bob Wischusen, as usual, became hysterical with every Jets first down.
Or one could’ve switched to Fox, where “Speech! Speech!” Daryl “Moose” Johnston was destroying Falcons-Buccaneers. Put you down as “undecided”?
It helps to be an idiot. Sunday, CBS noted that Miami’s substitute starting QB, Teddy Bridgewater, is a career 33-30. No ERA or strikeouts-to-walks given. He was removed with a head injury after one snap, thus he’s now 33-31.
