Got my Target shopping in Tuesday. No telling how I’ll feel later this week if things don’t go too well for the Yankees at Target Field Wednesday and Thursday nights in their first round playoff games against the Minnesota Twins.
Despite what Gilda might tell you, I’m not a really rabid fan. I don’t get too ballistic when my team loses. I usually get over it in a day or two. There are lots of fans, however, more crazed than I, so I’m wondering, if the Twins beat up on the Yanks, will New York fans take out their frustration and disappointment on Target and boycott its stores? At least until the Twins are eliminated?
Anything’s possible...
As long as we’re on the subject of retailing, some people think the appearance of in-store Christmas decorations signals the arrival of the holiday selling season. To me, the harbinger is the frequency of newspaper, magazine and TV news articles on retailing.
Saturday’s NY Times provided a case in point—a page one article on Macy’s efforts to rev up sales by tailoring assortments to local markets and a front page of the business section story on Toys “R” Us’ plan to revive F.A.O. Schwarz by placing boutiques of the specialty retailer inside the mass market TRU stores.
Macy’s and Toys “R” Us...hmmm. Now, the good people at The Times editorial desk would deny any ulterior motives, but what a coincidence that two of the newspaper’s key advertising clients wound up with mostly flattering articles?
Perhaps I’m being too cynical (it goes with the territory of being a journalist, even a retired journalist). Let’s give The Times the benefit of the doubt that the Chinese wall between editorial and sales still exists with no holes in it and end with a nice retailing story.
The other day I needed a replacement knob for a floor lamp. I walked into a local lighting store, the type that looks and feels like an old hardware store where they are more attuned to repairs than to selling new throwaway lights. Sitting at a table was an elderly gentleman I recognized as the proprietor. He was wearing a travel photographer’s vest, you know, the type with multiple pockets in front and back. I told him what I needed, he said, “OK.” He reached into one of his vest pockets and fished out a knob. When I asked what else he had in there, he said, “Everything. No charge.” Now that’s what I call service. I left the store smiling.
Showing posts with label baseball playoffs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baseball playoffs. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Heads Up; Throw Strikes; Weekdays with Maury
Heads Up: The National Football League, and all other football organizations, are rightfully concerned about the number of concussions sustained by players. Many come from helmet to helmet butts, almost all of which are intentional. The NFL tries to eliminate the head crashes by invoking a 15 yard penalty. But the practice persists.
My solution? For a first offense, a team flagged for a helmet to helmet tackle should be penalized 15 yards. AND, the offending player should be required to sit on the bench until the next change of possession. Furthermore, his name should be added to an ongoing list of transgressors. If he locks helmets with a player again, aside from the mandatory 15 yard penalty, he would receive an immediate suspension for that game and the following game. If he does it again when he returns to the field in two weeks, his suspension would involve four games.
One more proviso—if a helmet to helmet tackle injures an opponent, the offending player would sit out as long as the injured player cannot return to the field, be it that game or subsequent games.
Only through pressure from coaches and teammates will a player stop behaving badly. When a player realizes he is hurting his team’s chances, only then will he control his actions.
Throw Strikes: Baseball playoffs begin Wednesday. At stadiums across the land, in taverns and homes, you can be assured of hearing a common cry: “Throw Strikes!”
It’s one of the most frustrating plays in baseball—the unintentional walk.
How is it a professional pitcher cannot simply throw the ball over the plate. Let ‘em hit it. Statistically, more often than not the batter will make out, so why give a free pass? Make him earn his way on. The Minnesota Twins pitch to this philosophy; they are frequent championship contenders. Indeed, they are hosting the Yankees in the first game as the winners of the American League’s Central Division.
I’m as frustrated as the next fan when I see A.J. Burnett or some other Yankee walk someone. The frustration level rises geometrically when another unintentional walk follows. But as a former pitcher (fast pitch softball league), I’m here to tell you it’s not as easy as you may think.
“Throw strikes,” I’d hear Howard scream from the outfield. What did he think, I wasn’t trying?
Over 25 years on the mound I was pretty good at limiting walks. Occasional bouts of wildness did surface. More often than not, when the count was 3-0, and with a walk seemingly in the offing with the next pitch, under no pressure I’d fire in two quick strikes. The sixth pitch, however, usually wobbled in outside. Or high. Or bounced to the plate. Pressure would get to me. Of course, I wasn’t being paid millions to toss a ball over the plate. Major league pitchers are trained to rise above pressure, to simulate repetitive motions so they are subconsciously controlling their body to perform flawlessly.
The great pitchers can tune out the pressure, the noise of the stadium. For the rest of us (and I include myself in their number), not throwing strikes is as frustrating and bewildering as to those watching.
Weekdays with Maury: Growing up in Brooklyn, mine was a New York Post family. Not the Rupert Murdoch right-wing tabloid screed of today. No, we bought the Post of Dorothy Schiff, the liberal daily led by James Wechsler whose column about The Front Page propelled me toward a career in journalism. It was a NY Post of progressive thinkers, with columnists like Max Lerner, Murray Kempton and Mary McGrory.
Plus, it was a NY Post of outstanding sports writers—Milton Gross, Larry Merchant, Vic Ziegel, and Maury Allen. It was from these canny observers of the playing fields that I, along with countless others, ingested the lore of sports. We learned to appreciate the stories behind the numbers, behind the statistics of each game.
Maury Allen died Sunday. He was 78. He wrote for the Post from 1961 to 1988. I stopped reading the Post after Murdoch bought it in 1976 and changed its bent. But I still managed to get a serving now and then of Maury Allen. He was a contributor to the Journal News, the Westchester, Putnam and Rockland Counties newspaper.
My solution? For a first offense, a team flagged for a helmet to helmet tackle should be penalized 15 yards. AND, the offending player should be required to sit on the bench until the next change of possession. Furthermore, his name should be added to an ongoing list of transgressors. If he locks helmets with a player again, aside from the mandatory 15 yard penalty, he would receive an immediate suspension for that game and the following game. If he does it again when he returns to the field in two weeks, his suspension would involve four games.
One more proviso—if a helmet to helmet tackle injures an opponent, the offending player would sit out as long as the injured player cannot return to the field, be it that game or subsequent games.
Only through pressure from coaches and teammates will a player stop behaving badly. When a player realizes he is hurting his team’s chances, only then will he control his actions.
Throw Strikes: Baseball playoffs begin Wednesday. At stadiums across the land, in taverns and homes, you can be assured of hearing a common cry: “Throw Strikes!”
It’s one of the most frustrating plays in baseball—the unintentional walk.
How is it a professional pitcher cannot simply throw the ball over the plate. Let ‘em hit it. Statistically, more often than not the batter will make out, so why give a free pass? Make him earn his way on. The Minnesota Twins pitch to this philosophy; they are frequent championship contenders. Indeed, they are hosting the Yankees in the first game as the winners of the American League’s Central Division.
I’m as frustrated as the next fan when I see A.J. Burnett or some other Yankee walk someone. The frustration level rises geometrically when another unintentional walk follows. But as a former pitcher (fast pitch softball league), I’m here to tell you it’s not as easy as you may think.
“Throw strikes,” I’d hear Howard scream from the outfield. What did he think, I wasn’t trying?
Over 25 years on the mound I was pretty good at limiting walks. Occasional bouts of wildness did surface. More often than not, when the count was 3-0, and with a walk seemingly in the offing with the next pitch, under no pressure I’d fire in two quick strikes. The sixth pitch, however, usually wobbled in outside. Or high. Or bounced to the plate. Pressure would get to me. Of course, I wasn’t being paid millions to toss a ball over the plate. Major league pitchers are trained to rise above pressure, to simulate repetitive motions so they are subconsciously controlling their body to perform flawlessly.
The great pitchers can tune out the pressure, the noise of the stadium. For the rest of us (and I include myself in their number), not throwing strikes is as frustrating and bewildering as to those watching.
Weekdays with Maury: Growing up in Brooklyn, mine was a New York Post family. Not the Rupert Murdoch right-wing tabloid screed of today. No, we bought the Post of Dorothy Schiff, the liberal daily led by James Wechsler whose column about The Front Page propelled me toward a career in journalism. It was a NY Post of progressive thinkers, with columnists like Max Lerner, Murray Kempton and Mary McGrory.
Plus, it was a NY Post of outstanding sports writers—Milton Gross, Larry Merchant, Vic Ziegel, and Maury Allen. It was from these canny observers of the playing fields that I, along with countless others, ingested the lore of sports. We learned to appreciate the stories behind the numbers, behind the statistics of each game.
Maury Allen died Sunday. He was 78. He wrote for the Post from 1961 to 1988. I stopped reading the Post after Murdoch bought it in 1976 and changed its bent. But I still managed to get a serving now and then of Maury Allen. He was a contributor to the Journal News, the Westchester, Putnam and Rockland Counties newspaper.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Handwriting on the Wall
I’ve got a handwriting problem. I can’t always read notes I’ve written down for blog entries.
I walk around with a pad and pen in my back pocket to jot down notes, even to longhand full stories, whenever the muse hits me. Trouble is, my scribble is so hasty that unless I sit down to transcribe it right away I often have a hard time discerning what I wrote.
It was always this way. My illegible handwriting drove my parents crazy, so much so that when I received an “A” in penmanship in fourth grade my father made my mother go up to the teacher to complain her standards were too low. She explained she based the grade on the penmanship of homework reports she assigned. Knowing that, I painstakingly toiled to make these reports works of cursive art. Even at the tender age of eight I knew how to game the system.
I think I might qualify to be a banking executive. Today’s New York Times showcased troubles with the mortgage foreclosure process. One problem involved the signature of an assistant vice president of American Home Mortgage Servicing assigning a mortgage to another bank. As shown in a photo of three documents, the AVP’s signature differs widely in each instance. The clear inference is that three different people signed the paperwork, meaning at least two were forgeries.
That’s the logical conclusion, but if American Home Mortgage Servicing needs an expert witness on its behalf, I’m available. You see, I, too, have multiple signatures, and I’ll be darned if I can remember which one I’ve used for, say, the safety deposit box form, my regular checking account or any other official paper that requires a John Hancock.
It’s always a crap shoot wondering which way to sign and if the people scrutinizing my chicken scratchings will ask for further proof of who I am. When they don’t I silently say, “Fooled them again,” but then I begin to wonder how safe my money and identity are if I am not questioned when my signature clearly does not match the official record.
Does God need a better GPS? It might appear so after last Friday’s weather.
On Thursday, Jews all over the world prayed for rain, part of the annual fall holiday of Shemini Azeret. They were praying for rain in Israel, which, by the way, is enduring a years long drought. Instead, God sent torrential rain up and down the East Coast, with more rain expected this week. In Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, meanwhile, it’s been nice and sunny.
Perhaps God was confused because there might be as many Jews living on the East Coast as there are in Israel, especially when you consider the number of Israelis who have moved here.
Driving home from Queens the other day, two things occurred to me. First, too often there’s no music I like playing on any of my 12 preset FM radio stations. I don’t do enough driving to invest in satellite radio so I’m stuck with FM fare. Oh well...
Second, why is it during a traffic jam whenever I switch lanes my new lane almost always comes to a standstill and my old lane starts moving faster?
At his town hall meeting at Washington, D.C.’s, Newseum two weeks ago President Obama got an earful about the stalled economy and shattered dreams. One poignant moment came when a woman, a supporter of his, asked, "My husband and I thought we were beyond the hot dog and beans (stage) of our lives. ... Is this my new reality?"
Funny thing, Gilda and I like the occasional franks and beans dinner. But it’s easy to understand why a constant diet of franks and beans would be disheartening. If Obama and the Democrats hope to keep their majority influence in Washington they have just four weeks to convince voters that a Republican/Tea Party victory would guarantee many more franks and beans meals.
Compassionate Conservative is never mentioned these days. Instead, the candidates on the right hammer home a message of lower government spending which can only mean less assistance for the needy. And more tax breaks for the wealthy.
Incidentally, on your next visit to Washington, take time to visit the Newseum. Set aside several hours. There’s lots to see and absorb there.
The regular baseball season ended with Boston denied a post-season slot but gaining some measure of satisfaction by denying the Yankees a first-place finish in their division, though the New Yorkers still qualified for the playoffs as a wild-card entry. It's too early to say if the Red Sox did the Yanks a favor by making them play the Minnesota Twins, and not the Texas Rangers, in the first round.
Over the weekend the Yankee announcers were reminiscing about the 1978 playoff game between Boston and New York, won by Bucky Dent's dramatic three-run home run off Boston's Mike Torrez. They wondered why they had been home to watch the one-game playoff to determine the winner of the American League East crown (this was before the wild card option). They speculated they played hookey from school that Monday, Oct. 2, 1978.
I, on the other hand, easily remember why I wasn't at work. It was the first day of Rosh Hashanah. After we returned from my parents' synagogue and ate lunch, we retired to the TV room to watch the Yankees begin a wonderful year for our extended family, capped by the birth of my son Dan, my sister's son Ari and my brother's daughter Karen. And, oh yes, the Yanks won the World Series that year.
I walk around with a pad and pen in my back pocket to jot down notes, even to longhand full stories, whenever the muse hits me. Trouble is, my scribble is so hasty that unless I sit down to transcribe it right away I often have a hard time discerning what I wrote.
It was always this way. My illegible handwriting drove my parents crazy, so much so that when I received an “A” in penmanship in fourth grade my father made my mother go up to the teacher to complain her standards were too low. She explained she based the grade on the penmanship of homework reports she assigned. Knowing that, I painstakingly toiled to make these reports works of cursive art. Even at the tender age of eight I knew how to game the system.
I think I might qualify to be a banking executive. Today’s New York Times showcased troubles with the mortgage foreclosure process. One problem involved the signature of an assistant vice president of American Home Mortgage Servicing assigning a mortgage to another bank. As shown in a photo of three documents, the AVP’s signature differs widely in each instance. The clear inference is that three different people signed the paperwork, meaning at least two were forgeries.
That’s the logical conclusion, but if American Home Mortgage Servicing needs an expert witness on its behalf, I’m available. You see, I, too, have multiple signatures, and I’ll be darned if I can remember which one I’ve used for, say, the safety deposit box form, my regular checking account or any other official paper that requires a John Hancock.
It’s always a crap shoot wondering which way to sign and if the people scrutinizing my chicken scratchings will ask for further proof of who I am. When they don’t I silently say, “Fooled them again,” but then I begin to wonder how safe my money and identity are if I am not questioned when my signature clearly does not match the official record.
Does God need a better GPS? It might appear so after last Friday’s weather.
On Thursday, Jews all over the world prayed for rain, part of the annual fall holiday of Shemini Azeret. They were praying for rain in Israel, which, by the way, is enduring a years long drought. Instead, God sent torrential rain up and down the East Coast, with more rain expected this week. In Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, meanwhile, it’s been nice and sunny.
Perhaps God was confused because there might be as many Jews living on the East Coast as there are in Israel, especially when you consider the number of Israelis who have moved here.
Driving home from Queens the other day, two things occurred to me. First, too often there’s no music I like playing on any of my 12 preset FM radio stations. I don’t do enough driving to invest in satellite radio so I’m stuck with FM fare. Oh well...
Second, why is it during a traffic jam whenever I switch lanes my new lane almost always comes to a standstill and my old lane starts moving faster?
At his town hall meeting at Washington, D.C.’s, Newseum two weeks ago President Obama got an earful about the stalled economy and shattered dreams. One poignant moment came when a woman, a supporter of his, asked, "My husband and I thought we were beyond the hot dog and beans (stage) of our lives. ... Is this my new reality?"
Funny thing, Gilda and I like the occasional franks and beans dinner. But it’s easy to understand why a constant diet of franks and beans would be disheartening. If Obama and the Democrats hope to keep their majority influence in Washington they have just four weeks to convince voters that a Republican/Tea Party victory would guarantee many more franks and beans meals.
Compassionate Conservative is never mentioned these days. Instead, the candidates on the right hammer home a message of lower government spending which can only mean less assistance for the needy. And more tax breaks for the wealthy.
Incidentally, on your next visit to Washington, take time to visit the Newseum. Set aside several hours. There’s lots to see and absorb there.
The regular baseball season ended with Boston denied a post-season slot but gaining some measure of satisfaction by denying the Yankees a first-place finish in their division, though the New Yorkers still qualified for the playoffs as a wild-card entry. It's too early to say if the Red Sox did the Yanks a favor by making them play the Minnesota Twins, and not the Texas Rangers, in the first round.
Over the weekend the Yankee announcers were reminiscing about the 1978 playoff game between Boston and New York, won by Bucky Dent's dramatic three-run home run off Boston's Mike Torrez. They wondered why they had been home to watch the one-game playoff to determine the winner of the American League East crown (this was before the wild card option). They speculated they played hookey from school that Monday, Oct. 2, 1978.
I, on the other hand, easily remember why I wasn't at work. It was the first day of Rosh Hashanah. After we returned from my parents' synagogue and ate lunch, we retired to the TV room to watch the Yankees begin a wonderful year for our extended family, capped by the birth of my son Dan, my sister's son Ari and my brother's daughter Karen. And, oh yes, the Yanks won the World Series that year.
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