the rix mix

Major snowstorm in Central Jersey yesterday, Elizabeth was right in the middle of a 100 mile wide storm from the southwest, a foot of snow. But we're also in a sustained cold spell that could last ten days or more with hardly a nudge above freezing, & those do not occur every winter  in Central Jersey.  Plus the first long-range forecast put another storm in the vicinity of Superbowl weekend. Opinion here is mixed on if that would be a good or bad thing, worth a snowstorm to see what happens.

My friend Bruce Longstreet would tell a story about his first winter in Vermont. He was convinced Vermont was his true home but underestimated winter in Montpelier. He parked his car in a public lot before a snowstorm & when he went to retrieve it afterward discovered it had been plowed under & was essentially encased in a block of ice. Rather than chip it out, he decided to wait until it thawed. But Montpelier was not Jersey, where long spells of subfreezing temperatures are actually uncommon. He walked for quite awhile.

 Bruce would have been unbelieving then if someone had informed him he was really temperamentally suited to the climate around Mendocino County California, & by nature a haiku poet. Certainly I wouldn't have believed it. I think maybe one winter soured Vermont for him, but it took a few years for him to admit it to himself, he had so long dreamed of living there.

Labels: New Jersey, sports, weather

Congratulations. Historic &  deserving World Series win in six games over the Cards,  Entertaining Series for me, having no particular like for either team, I found myself rooting for the Sox to win one at home.  Emotionally, deeply satisfying  for a city still dealing with the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings. & they beat some great pitchers.

Labels: baseball, in the news, sports

Difference between this August & last August. Mets 9 games under .500 but not acting or playing like it. They go to L.A., lose three close ones to the Dodgers - two of which they should have won except the Dodgers aren't losing to anyone right now, they're the best team in MLB, on an amazing run.   The Mets shrug it off, go to San Diego & beat the Padres in the series opener.  Without David Wright. There's players on The Mets, rookies & vets, who want to be with The Mets next year. Manager Terry Collins & management have made it clear that August & September are   judgment time. There's some major holes to be filled on this team, from the inside or the outside. Collins stands a fair chance of coming back next year.

Yankees have finally assembled a lineup with some pop in it. Might be too little too late. Six games back for  wild card. Do-able, but they have to jump four other teams & accomplish it with mediocre starting pitching, except for Kuroda.

Labels: baseball, sports

Labels: in the news, New Jersey, Rutgers, sports

The tale of Notre Dame football player Manti Te'o's imaginary or fake girlfriend is quite bizarre. Nobody is fully buying Notre Dame's official statement that it was a totally a cruel hoax on Manti. Perhaps it was. But there are some curious matters involving his own statements  & his reaction to news of her "death."

However, the naivete of Mormons should not be underestimated. & for a young, single Mormon of  large size & Samoan extraction, The Notre Dame campus in South Bend, Indiana might be a very lonely place even for a Heisman Trophy candidate.

Labels: in the news, sports

Later: Alabama 42, Notre Dame 14. Ouch! Whadda nightmare!

It's more that I grew up in an Army football family with a connection to the glory teams of WWII, an uncle at West Point then.  There was still some national prestige attached to Army in the late Fifties, with Heisman Trophy winner Pete Dawkins.  For years, the Army - Notre Dame game at Yankee Stadium was a national event. Army usually got its butt kicked. The series is Irish 38, Army 8, one tie - that 1946 scoreless contest one of the "Games of the Century." But it was an honorable rivalry, filled with tradition dating back to the famous 1913 "forward pass" game with Knute Rockne making the catches. It's generally forgotten that Army won in 1914.  Army fans will gladly point out that Navy has played Notre Dame nearly twice as many times, winning only 12 games.

The game Notre Dame won for "The Gipper"  was against Army. (See Ronald Reagan, whose career might have taken a different path had he not played George Gipp in "The Knute Rockne Story.")

Both teams still have their traditions & pageantry. No matter how awful Army is, a game at historic Michie Stadium  at West Point is an unforgettable experience. There  is a bond between the two teams.  Whatever one thinks of Notre Dame's conceit & arrogance (fueled by a relentless P.R. machine), The Joe Paterno / Penn State scandal showed that hubris takes many forms, even quietly evil ones masquerading as sainthood.

I'm not forgetting that there is at Notre Dame an unresolved sexual assault tragedy involving a current player & a St. Mary's student who later committed suicide. Notre Dame thinks it has been resolved, the dead student's family does not, nor do some Notre Dame alum sitting out this Championship Game because of it. It's received pitifully little attention over the past month. There may also be a second incident. Should Notre Dame win the Championship (I think "Bama will prevail), there could be a ticking time bomb inside it the Irish publicity machine cannot defuse.

Labels: education, in the news, sports

Mets pitcher Johan Santana set a negative club record tonight by giving up six runs in his sixth consecutive game. Johan is the Mets' ace who pitched the first no-hitter in Mets history back on June 1. He's pitched a couple of good games since, but mostly he's been awful. He had Tommy John surgery last year & was on the disabled list for three weeks this season with a sprained ankle.

Mets manager Terry Collins was so deeply moved by Santana's gutsy no-hitter & what it meant to Mets fans that he called Johan his "hero" & could not restrain tears. We all felt that way that night. But Collins also expressed anxiety in his post-game press conference over leaving Santana in the game to throw 134 pitches on his recently repaired arm. Of course, he had no choice. But he had plenty of call to worry. Collins is an emotional man & he cares deeply about his players; most of them are kids up from the minors he had over-achieving for half the season until they ran outta gas. Santana is an old pro. Maybe the no-hitter did something not good to Santana.

Labels: baseball, sports

Johan Santana makes Mets' history, throwing franchise's first no-hitter in 134-pitch epic

In year 51, in game 8,020, in ballpark 3, the New York Mets have a no-hitter of their own.


Johan Santana threw the first no-hitter in Mets history Friday night, the 275th in major-league history, and New Yorkers at Citi Field celebrated a moment more than a half-century coming, through the likes of Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Doc Gooden, Frank Viola, David Cone and equally capable pitchers.


But it was Santana, the Venezuelan-born left-hander, the two-time Cy Young Award winner whose career was threatened by major shoulder surgery in 2010. He stood on the mound after a grueling 134 pitches against the defending World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals, punched his glove, raised his fists and became the first with an 8-0 Met win.

Labels: baseball, sports

Find me ten women, no, not even ten, find five women wealthy enough, social prominent enough, successful enough in business, that Augusta National Golf Club would consider them for membership if they were men; only five qualified women angry enough at being prohibited from membership in Augusta National they're willing to say so in public,  & I will change my mind on the importance of country club equal rights among the one-percenters.

Labels: in the news, sports

C. Vivian Stringer, the Rutgers Women's Basketball coach, is one of the most successful coaches never to have won a national championship. John Calipari at Kentucky removed himself from that list this year. Among active Div 1 coaches she's the winning-est.

The 2011-12 Rutgers Scarlet Knights, a team stocked with players who arrived with gaudy high school reps, was knocked out in the first round of the WNCAA. They played erratically all season, went 2-6 against ranked opponents (Lost to St. John's before Red Storm were ranked), 22-10 overall. They were expected to be better. Not Notre Dame or UConn better, or Baylor or Stanford better, but maybe better than Tennessee, Miami, St. John's & Georgetown. A Sweet 16 or Elite 8 team. They had five game mid-season losing streak.

Rutgers went to the Championship Game in 2007 led by an All-American, Cappie Pondexter. Stringer has been looking for another Cappie ever since. But none of her highly-rated recruits develops into a true "go-to" leader. There's a flaw somewhere, in Stringer's recruiting judgment, in how she develops young players.  She has another potentially great  freshman class  for 2012-13. But Rutgers fans are running out of patience. The Big East is changing over the next few years; Syracuse, West Virginia & Pitt, three schools quitting the BE, are not the consistent powers in the women's game they are in the men's. UConn, Notre Dame, Georgetown, St. John's aren't going away.

Labels: New Jersey, Rutgers, sports

Glen Jones & Gina (my neighbor) with the late, great Bert Sugar at  Silverball Pinball in Asbury Park. Bert walked in around midnight one night with a local boxing promoter. He has his trademark fedora & cigar, all that's missing is his glass of scotch & water, which Gina & Glen would've supplied had they expected him. A boxing expert, prolific writer, unforgettable New York City character, for me Bert was one of the greatest of raconteurs. You didn't need to know anything about boxing to enjoy Bert. He had an instantly recognizable voice. He was the complete package. I treasured his appearances on WFAN. Bert sounded most alert & loquacious when he was on the air at 1 or 2 am.

Labels: obituary, sports

happened last night, makes to day the shortest day of year, then we begin inching toward March equinox.

Last night a large building in the  huge old Burry Biscuit complex caught fire. A total loss of the  building, they have to let it burn &  hope it doesn't spread.  The fire   chief describes the inside as "a maze." It's over a mile east of here, with breeze blowing from west we have no smoke in this neighborhood.  Burry moved out over a decade ago. Burry had a Girl Scout cookie contract & was a major local brand. Interlaken Bakery was in there for awhile, they mainly made wafers for ice cream sandwiches. The facility was subdivided & had several businesses. It's a pretty crummy stretch of road now near the Newark border.

When I was a kid, Burry had a unionized workplace, you could earn a living there. The company was  renowned for its men's & women's  softball teams, playing  in the highly competitive industrial leagues,  considered semi-pro because it was believed that companies recruited ballplayers & gave the best ones special privileges. The teams also played  "traveling" independent ball clubs.  The men's teams  had  some   former college & high school men stars;  I don't know where the women learned to play at such a high level back then.   Newspapers assigned sports reporters & photographers to cover the most important games (Burry, Esso Refinery,  Linden Arians, Raybesto Brakettes, Budweiser Belles. The Arians & Belles were still playing in the '80s,  I used to go to their games, their league was struggling).

That vast  adult amateur  sports scene lasting from the '30s to the '70s, including bocce clubs & thousands of bowling leagues, is gone now. I played in one of the last bocce leagues in the late-'90s, for Renna Graphics, on  a  lousy gravel court behind Rahway Library,  just a goof for us except when we played an Italian-American club & got destroyed.

(By the numbers bowling remains a very popular game, but the leagues have collapsed, which may say something about our social order. My mom played leagues for years, I was never under the impression she was into bowling, it  was her weekly night out. )

Labels: baseball, Elizabeth NJ, holidays, sports

Rutgers women's basketball team is 8-1, ranked No. 11 in the AP poll. Their first loss came  last night to No. 9 Miami, in double-overtime, after blowing a 16 point  second half lead. A game they probably would've won in regulation had it been played at Rutgers Athletic Center with Big East refs & not in Florida. They proved they deserve a top 25 ranking.

The difference between this year & last year's disappointing team is more experience, a bench of talented Freshmen, & multiple scoring threats. Always known for Coach Stringer's defense, Rutgers had lagged  behind in a women's game that more frequently requires 70 points to win. A week from today they have a home game against No. 7 Tennessee, THE game  (UConn doesn't come to the RAC this season). Two elite coaches, Pat Summitt's  teams  usually get the better of  Stringer's. We shall see.

Labels: Rutgers, sports

I probably would've voted for Matt Kemp of the Dodgers by a hair over Ryan Braun of the Brewers as National League MVP. They were really close. Braun won.  Braun had the pressure of a divisional race. Kemp had the pressure of a mediocre team with an owner having serious legal problems. It was rumored several times during the season that the Dodgers wouldn't make their payroll. Yet the Dodgers finished three games over .500. Kemp hit 39 homers & stole 40 bases in 2011. He's says he's going for 50 & 50 in 2012. I think he's serious.

Labels: baseball, sports

College basketball season is beginning, the baseball hot stove is heating up, & until there are more sordid revelations I have little more to say about Penn State. But here's how I respond to those defending Joe Paterno on the grounds that he did what was legally required [& no more].

I say, terrific, now you've pulled Paterno down to the level of a college coach plausibly denying he knew alumni were providing his players with gold jewelry & hookers.

Sports fans like me scoff at those incidents, & at the hypocrisy of the NCAA, the Bowl Championship Series, the TV contracts, & so-called amateur status. We mock rules that punish  innocent athletes  while  scuzzball athletes & coaches are rewarded with fat pro contracts.  Under the current system we  have no objections to football underwriting women's field hockey. What school & program did we point to as proof that you could  be honest & great in the midst of corruption & cynicism?  Joe  Paterno & Penn State football. A clean program that generated enough money & prestige to construct & fill  the second largest stadium in America.

Paterno didn't build his great program by taking NCAA standards as his benchmarks. He used his own higher standards. Sure, he had some bad apple students on his teams through the years.  But the Paterno quote on the seven-foot statue of Joe Pa outside Beaver Stadium doesn't say,  "I never received an NCAA sanction." It reads:

"They ask me what I'd like written about me when I'm gone. I hope they write I made Penn State a better place, not just that I was a good football coach."

Labels: sports

Paterno, president out in Penn State abuse scandal

STATE COLLEGE, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Famed U.S. college football coach Joe Paterno and the president of Penn State University were fired on Wednesday over allegations that a former assistant coach sexually abused young boys for years.

"Graham Spanier is no longer president of the university," John Surma, vice chairman of trustees, told a news conference. "Joe Paterno is no longer the head football coach, effective immediately."

Joe Paterno hired a PR firm & on Wednesday issued a statement written for him by the firm  saying he would resign at the end of the season. It was not an official statement from Penn State. In the afternoon he had a tearful meeting with his players. He still believed he could stay ahead of the scandal rapidly enveloping him.

Paterno, also known as "Joe Pa" & "Papa Joe," & occasionally as "The Pope," is 84, coached from the press box without headphones. He no longer went  on recruiting trips.He was head coach at Penn State since 1966, on the coaching staff since 1950.

So it happened that a football program once modeled on Notre Dame became one resembling the Archdiocese of Boston.
***

It will get worse. The number of a serial child molester's victims can run into the many dozens. Pedophilia is a lifestyle, a driving obsession, & Sandusky, if he did as alleged, structured his life to bring him into contact with hundreds of boys. He created a large charitable organization that could deliver  troubled, fatherless boys to his doorstep - & not only his.  He  had a bedroom set aside for them in his basement. He took in foster children. He had the cover of his coach status & later "coach emeritus"  privileges at  Penn State; the insularity of the football program & sacrosanct reputation of a  head coach who looked in the mirror & saw a legend instead of a person;  the use of the school's sports facilities, & a knowledge of when they would be deserted.  A pedophile with this kind of system is certainly tempted to share it with other pedophiles. Especially other powerful men whose perverted needs would push them toward Sandusky.  You don't have to be an investigative reporter to look at Sandusky & Penn State & suspect the existence of a "network."

It's not an overstatement to suggest that this scandal could become  the worst to ever befall an American  college campus or a sports program.

Labels: in the news, sports

Great fighter, Smokin' Joe Frazier. Best heavyweight left hook of all time, says boxing historian & raconteur Bert Sugar.

Joe achieved boxing immortality through his three fights with Muhummad Ali, the first probably the most hyped event in sports history, the third one - Thrilla in Manila - one of the greatest, most titanic fights of all time. 14 rounds in tropical  heat. Ali, who was battering Frazier but couldn't take him out,  was about to quit when Frazier,  fighting blind by then, was made to quit by his corner man.

He was great fighter  & champion in his own right. Standing alone.

But even after that first fight, which Joe won, Ali retained top billing. It was always Ali-Frazier.  Joe probably could have accepted that, except Ali unfairly & cruelly mocked Frazier. Joe had supported Ali's stance on the draft & Vietnam,  over which  Ali's boxing license was illegally lifted. Joe didn't ask to become the proxy for white, anti-Ali,  pro-Vietnam Americans. Unlike some other boxers who fought Ali, Joe couldn't laugh off the insults. They were too personal. It was a betrayal. I liked Ali, but there were several instances where he was too damned mean, & how he treated Frazier was one of them.

Smokin' Joe never got over it. Who could blame him? 

Labels: culture, obituary, sports

I like Penn State football, I like  head coach Joe Paterno, I like the  defensive style they play. I wish Rutgers  played like Penn State.

This is ugly:
Sex abuse case against ex-Penn State coach jolts state

Joe Paterno is like those white-haired Catholic Bishops who for decades said to their underlings, "I don't want to hear about it. You take care of it." They thought they could  dodge around the legal culpability, & most of them did, personally. They didn't accept the  moral responsibility. Joe Paterno, himself an old conservative Catholic, was given two chances to do the right thing. But in 1999 he let his assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, under a cloud of suspicion, walk away into comfortable retirement, retaining his Penn State privileges, an office, parking sticker, access to sports facilities.

In 2002,  with an eyewitness report of a boy  anally raped [allegedly] by Sandusky  in a shower in Paterno's  campus  facilities, his attitude again was, "You take care of it" to Penn State Athletic Director Timothy Curley & University VP Gary Schultz. The latter two now face  serious charges. But Papa Joe? Well, he's not legally culpable. Or maybe he's too sacrosanct in Happy Valley.

This isn't about law, Joe Paterno.  You had all the power & then some to do something & didn't do it. All it would have taken was a phone call, perhaps just buzzing your secretary, maybe only snapping your fingers. Has anyone contacted the police? Who was the boy? Sandusky was my guy, this is my school, my program,   therefore I'm in some way responsible.

Other people are responsible, too. But Joe Paterno  could have stopped it. He didn't know because he didn't want to know.

Nine years too late to make amends. Time to go, Papa Joe. Like now. Go now, explain later.
 ***
Penn State has produced many sports journalists. Today, some of them are talking about the erosion of traditional Penn State football events over the past decade,  due not only to Paterno's age & frailty, but also because of Sandusky's continuing involvement with Penn State, as former players tried to distance themselves from him.

Labels: in the news, sports

Ever since Hall of Fame Tennessee basketball coach Pat Summitt announced she had early onset dementia at age 59,  I'm sure many of us around her age have been observing ourselves.  Summitt said she had been forgetful (she also says skip the "pity party"). Forgetful for Summitt probably isn't the same as for the rest of us. As a high profile  coach of marquee basketball program, she's also an executive. She has assistant coaches handling aspects of training, defense & offense. She has personal assistants doing paperwork, taking her phone calls & e mail. She has interns working as statisticians & doing basic research on high school prospects.  She has scouts, a network of spies, trusted former players &  high school coaches who contact her personally,  She has PR people. She has to  keep a handle on all of those, recruit, deal with alumni,  make public appearance s & do charity work,  still be a mentor to her team. She's the boss. One wonders what it was she forgot  & how she remembered she forgot?

I was standing at the branch library check-out desk across from a clerk about my age. She's a bit ditzy. While she was checking out my books I was reading a flyer about a musical program at the main library on Thursday Oct 20 at 7 pm. I mentioned it to her. She said it was free but I needed to sign up for tickets, which she had in her drawer. I said, "It's this Thursday."  She said, "No, next Thursday,"

Suddenly I became very confused.  Next Thursday? What date is today? I didn't know today's exact date.  But it's Monday & a week after Columbus Day & more than halfway through October. I also remembered "True Grit" was written by Charles Portis, because I ordered  the novel  from the main library without writing it on a post-it.

As I was sticking the books in my backpack, I asked another clerk filing books what the date was. "October 17th," she said with no hesitation.

As I walked past the main checkout book, I got the other clerk's attention, tapped on the flyer & said, "This coming Thursday."

I ain't the one with early onset dementia.

As for Pat Summitt, it'll be no big surprise to anyone including herself if she wins another National Championship this season.

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, mental health, sports

Detroit beat the Yankees in five games, tonight a close one at the Stadium. Yanks outscored Tigers, their two wins were blowouts. Yanks had their chances, Tigers had the pitching,  I hope Tigers beat the crap out of the Rangers.

Yankees actually know how to lose with class. Personally, I like many of their ball players. But you can't say that about Yankee fans, especially the younger ones who know nothing but winning. 2008, the only year since '94 the Yankees missed the playoffs, is to many Yankee fans what Katrina is to New Orleans, so tragic they consider it, so outraged they were. Losing to a very solid Detroit team  isn't like what happened to Boston this season. Be good to have a Rust Belt series, Detroit & Milwaukee, a baseball fan's series.  Impossible for Fox to promote it. Any series without  the major market Yankees or Dodgers sort of lacks broad appeal outside of baseball unless there's some other compelling story (like the Red Sox "idiots" breaking the "curse" in 2004). Dodgers haven't won a pennant since 1988, since the O'Malleys sold the team.  The World Series now  gets second billing to the NFL season.

Labels: baseball, sports