Making the Right Call

While Gilda tried to fall asleep beside me Saturday night, I watched the end of the third game of the World Series with the sound off. As the last play of the tie game in the bottom of the ninth inning unfolded, I said to myself, “Runner interference should be called.” I was wrong. It wasn't interference. Rather, it was obstruction. The umpires ruled the Boston Red Sox third baseman impeded the St. Louis Cardinal runner from advancing unobstructed toward home. It didn't matter if he did it inadvertently or with intent. The rule book makes no distinction.

The result—the Cardinals edged the Boston Red Sox 5-4, taking a 2-1 lead in games in the best of seven series. It was unfortunate timing for Boston, but a clear case of obstruction. Despite what Bosox diehards believe, the umps had to make the call. (For those not familiar with the disputed play, read about it or watch any newscast today. It no doubt will be shown.)

I can sympathize and empathize with the umpires’ plight of having to decide the outcome of a game rather than letting the players determine it outright. I, too, made a critical call during a game I was refereeing that cost Dan’s basketball team a victory.

Dan was 12, playing on a school squad of fifth and sixth graders. As fate would have it, the paid referee failed to show up for a game. Having reffed some while a counselor in summer camp two decades earlier, I volunteered my services. As both coaches knew me, my integrity and ability to be impartial as a ref were not questioned.

The game was a nail biter. With just seconds to go Dan’s team led by one point. The other team’s best player had the ball near the foul line. He faked a shot and started to drive toward the basket. He shot, and missed, but I had blown my whistle. He had been fouled in the act of shooting. Parents of Dan’s team, my wife included, went ballistic. How could I call such a foul with only a few seconds left on the clock?

The ride home after the shooter made both free throws to propel his team to a one point victory was not a pleasant one. No amount of explaining could console Dan or reassure him and Gilda that a foul is a foul no matter when it occurs and it is the obligation of the ref to call it. 

Later that season the same two teams played for the league championship. I didn't ref that game. Dan’s team won.

Winter Is Officially Over; Men Still Behave Badly

The calendar proclaimed it happened March 20, but I declare today the official end of winter and the beginning of spring. Today marks the day I ran the motor dry in my snowblower and stored it away in the shed, took out Gilda’s gardening wheelbarrow and removed the cozies from two of our outdoor faucets. 

Yes, spring was definitely in the air today, sunny with almost no breeze. I even fed the birds, giving them leftover Passover-version Cheerios (they’re really vile tasting, but the birds don’t seem to mind), and crunched up whole wheat matzah. D’ya think it will have the same binding effect on the birds? 

Is it a surprise to anyone that men behave badly? Specifically, men with authority who coach athletic teams and other groups where discipline is demanded. 

The abusive behavior of Rutgers men’s basketball coach Mike Rice toward his players led to his dismissal Thursday, days after a series of videos surfaced of him taunting his players with homophobic slurs, hitting them at close range with thrown basketballs, kicking them and otherwise manhandling them. Sadly, it wasn’t the first nor will it be the last time a coach acts badly. It happens in almost all sports.

But as I tuned into the last few minutes of a segment on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show today, I was intrigued by the comments a sportswriter guest made. Rice’s behavior toward these collegiate athletes was no worse than they might have experienced had they been new soldiers undergoing basic training in the Marines or Army. I am in no way trying to justify Rice’s actions. But it seems we surely have reached a point where college sports have stepped over a line that separates it from the rest of our society. Sports have transcended the educational purpose of higher education. I’m not sure we will ever rebalance our priorities, not when athletics produces oodles and oodles of dollars for universities, nor when the commander-in-chief’s picks for March Madness command as much if not more air time than wars in the Mid-East or hunger in America.

As if to reinforce that thought about war in Iraq and Afghanistan, Lehrer noted the intense interest in the compound leg fracture sustained by Louisville’s Kevin Ware during a game against Duke last weekend. Many people want to watch the video of the mishap. Yet, Lehrer pointed out, as gruesome as the injury was, it was not as bad as what happens every day in war zones, to civilians and to military personnel. We are shielded from viewing those traumas. The wars, it seems, are not for public consumption.

  

News of the Last Few Days

Reason to Celebrate: Sorry for the delay in reporting on my jubilee bar mitzvah day last Saturday. You can exhale now—all went well, especially Ellie’s singing. As usual, she emotionally charged the congregation, even bringing one woman to tears, according to our cantor.

As mentioned a few days ago, my secular birth date is March 6, a day I usually have associated with the fall of the Alamo. But thanks to an article in today’s NY Times, I can now relate March 6 to a happier occasion, the anniversary of the first sale by the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) of an Oreo sandwich cookie in 1912. To control my blood sugar and triglycerides levels I no longer indulge in Oreo binges, but I just might buy a package to put out for the poker game I’m hosting that evening. Hopefully my friends will be kind enough to let me win for a change.


Hearing My Age: Overall, I thought the Academy Awards Sunday night was a feh, or in today’s word, meh, show. No real excitement. If the academy brain trust was trying to convince a younger audience that going to the movies was more special than watching a DVD at home or on your computer, they could have picked actors more readily identifiable with their demographic. Heck, even Adam Sandler, for all his adolescent movie persona, is 45.

As for Billy Crystal, what I could hear of his opening act was okay, but let me be honest, I couldn’t hear half of his lyrics either because he didn’t sing loud enough or the band overwhelmed him. And speaking of the band, the breakaway shots showing the band playing before commercials were really bad.


Playing Hooky: The bar mitzvah weekend was capped by a Saturday afternoon visit from our niece Julie, husband Matt and their children Maggie and Harrison. The kids were interested in playing with Finley who found it fun to be entertained by bigger folk just eight and six years his senior. Maggie, however, soon retreated to the couch and wasn’t feeling up to staying with us during dinner. She felt a little warm so Julie asked if we had a thermometer.

Under the mouth it went. By the time Dan found Finley’s Exergen Temporal Thermometer, the one you scan across the forehead, Maggie’s temperature clicked in at 101.2. The Exergen quickly recorded a temp just 0.1 degrees higher. By the next day Maggie was diagnosed with pneumonia, but she’s doing better today, glad to report.

Meanwhile, the Exergen lived up to its advertised claims as being easy to use and virtually mistake free. A far cry from a temperature-taking incident when Ellie was a little older than Finley’s two and a quarter years. We were using a rectal thermometer back then. Gilda stuck it in and during the three minutes it was supposed to reside in Ellie’s butt, my dear wife fell asleep. So did Ellie. When they awoke about two hours later, Ellie whimpered, “Mommy, the thermometer is still in my tushy.”

Yes, the Exergen Temporal Thermometer would prevent any such mishaps from occurring. But had such technology existed back in the 1980s we might well have missed such classic movies as E.T. and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, as Elliott and Ferris would not have been able to fake their illnesses to play hooky. Off they would have trooped to school.


Passing a Compliment: About 10 days ago Ellie complimented me for being “prolific.” At least I took it as a compliment. Anyway, it’s hard not to find something to write about when there’s so much going on and, with a discerning eye, so much worthy of comment or just simply noting.

Take, for example, a recent headline of an Op-Ed piece in the NY Times: “How to Halt the Butchery in Syria.” How could I not point out the irony of the author’s name: Anne-Marie Slaughter!?!

As long as we’re on the subject of Syria, the plaintive cries for help by those opposed to the Assad regime are heart-rending. But I wonder why it seems the cries are aimed at Western ears when it should be fellow Arabs that should be the first responders. It’s not as if Arab princes and potentates do not have the money or the means to provide relief.


Bottled Up: The economy is said to be improving, but the other day, for the first time in a long time, I noticed someone culling through the recycling bins on our cul de sac looking for redeemable bottles.


Back Page: Okay, after several comments from loyal readers wanting to know why I haven’t written about Jeremy Lin of the Knicks, let me remind people I am not a basketball fan. I did try a few times to see what all the hype was about, but every time I tuned into a game, Lin either was on the bench because the Knicks were way ahead or the Chinese-American sensation was in the middle of a not very productive stretch where he turned the ball over repeatedly and looked just plain overmatched. Still, there’s no denying the Knicks are playing better because of him.

P.S. I hope everyone noticed—no gratuitous Lin-puns.

Topics Today: Giants, Titanic, Blue Ivy, Dieting, Europe, January 15

I won’t keep you in suspense any longer—I watched the NY Giants defeat the Green Bay Packers on the wall-mounted 52-inch LCD, High Definition Sharp Aquos television in my bedroom, thus shattering the superstition that my team needed me to view its success on the 35-inch Mitsubishi TV in our den.

One superstition down, one more to go. Can the Giants beat a Ryan-less team? Over the last four weeks the Giants have vanquished four teams with Ryans on their roster of either players or coaches: They thumped coach Rex Ryan’s NY Jets, his brother and defensive coordinator Rob Ryan’s Dallas Cowboys, quarterback Matt Ryan’s Atlanta Falcons and running back Ryan Grant’s Packers. I checked. There are no Ryans on the San Francisco 49ers squad, their next opponent, unless someone is hiding a middle name.

I’m never confident going into any game, and I also have a logistics issue, now that I no longer fear watching the game in my bedroom. You see, we DVR two shows at 9 pm (Downton Abbey on PBS and CBS’s The Good Wife) on the bedroom TV, meaning the technology wouldn't permit me to concurrently watch the game on that set. Should I start the game in the bedroom before shifting to the den and hope the Giants are sufficiently ahead to hold onto a lead on the TV in the den, or should I maintain consistency throughout by starting and finishing in the den? For those wondering, there is absolutely no option of staying in the bedroom.

Who knew football was such a baffling, complicated sport?


The Hand of James Cameron? Surely anyone following the tragic capsizing of the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia had to think back to the sinking of the Titanic after it struck an iceberg in the Atlantic 100 years ago this April 15.

Perhaps their thoughts also locked onto James Cameron’s epic film recreation of the disaster. How could they not if they read a NY Daily News article on survivors’ stories with the following account of a British dancer’s posting on her Facebook page:

“My name is Rose, it’s Friday the 13th and I’m one of the last survivors still on board the sinking cruise ship off the coast of Italy. Pray for us to be rescued.”

Rose Metcalf was saved, “plucked off the slanted deck by a rescuer hanging from a helicopter,” the Daily News reported. In Cameron’s version of Titanic history, Rose DeWitt Bukater was plucked out of the icy Atlantic waters after her love, Jack Dawson, sank beneath them.


How should Beyoncé feel? Not worthy enough, apparently, to have persuaded rapper-husband Jay-Z to stop calling women bitches. It took the birth of their daughter, Blue Ivy, to elicit a promise from the music and media mogul to disdain from slurring women in the future, at least when it comes to using the “b”-word. Here’s an excerpt from a poem he wrote eight days after Blue Ivy arrived on the scene:

Before I got in the game,
made a change,
and got rich
I didn’t think hard about using the word bitch.
I rapped, I flipped it, I sold it, I lived it
Now with my daughter in this world
I curse those that give it.
I never realized while on the fast track
that I’d give riddance to the word bitch,
to leave her innocence in tact.

Let’s hope Jay-Z stops his misogynous attacks and that he influences fellow rappers to see the light. Let’s also hope he realizes he dissed Beyoncé by waiting until Blue Ivy showed up. She, and all women, deserved better.


Suggestion of the Day: Not sure what the over-under betting line is on how many days it will take Beyoncé to regain her pre-Blue Ivy shape, but here’s a dieting suggestion I heard this morning on WCBS 880 news radio—one way to eat less is to switch your fork to your less dominant hand.

Seems your dominant hand works without your thinking too hard so it mindlessly shovels food into your mouth. Switching to your other hand will slow down your intake and make you think if you really want to clean every last morsel from your plate, or, heaven forbid, go back for seconds.


Hackergate: I think The NY Times has hacked into my notebook. No, not my computer notebook (actually, my Mac), but rather the spiral notebook I carry in my back pocket in which I jot down story ideas and even occasionally long-hand blogs.

I have no other explanation for the fact The Times once again printed an article I intended to write but never got around to inputting. This one I had tentatively titled, “What’s So Wrong About Europe”, meant to compare economic, educational, health and social indices for the United States vs. Germany as a counterpoint to incessant Republican accusations that president Obama and the Democrats want to turn our country into Europe.

I had dated the entry in my notebook January 12, 2012. Three days later, just three days!, an Op-Ed piece by Nicholas Kristof titled, “Why Is Europe a Dirty Word”, appeared. He gets paid a lot more than I do, so here’s his commentary to read: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/kristof-why-is-europe-a-dirty-word.html?_r=1


Coincidence? Here’s another interesting coincidence from January 15.

Perhaps no current sport is more identified with the Afro-American experience than basketball. Isn’t it fascinating that January 15 is the birthday of Martin Luther King, one of, if not, the greatest Afro-American leaders, and the date in 1892 Dr. James Naismith published the rules of the game he invented, basketball? I think so.

This Magic Moment

Perhaps you heard him on some sports radio talk shows today commemorating the 20th anniversary of the day he, Magic Johnson, one of the premier basketball players of his and all-time, stunned the world by announcing he was HIV+. Unlike other HIV+ celebrities, such as Rock Hudson, Johnson was at the peak of his career, leading a vibrant life. He was still an active member of the Los Angeles Lakers.

Magic’s admission helped transform the public perception of HIV patients. Johnson became the face of HIV and its successful treatment.

Twenty years ago Gilda was the research coordinator of the Division of Infectious Disease at NY Medical College/Westchester County Medical Center. She studied Hepatitis, Lyme Disease, and HIV, contributing to numerous research papers.

Among the first studies she worked on was one that directly affected Magic Johnson and all other athletes. The study explored whether the HIV virus could be transmitted through sweat. To gather the sweat, HIV patients were placed in steam rooms. Their sweat dripped into plastic gloves to be tested.

The bottom line: HIV was not passed on by sweat. It was safe for Johnson and other athletes to continue playing together without fear of contracting HIV from the sweat of an infected player.

Marathon Man and Other Sports Updates

It’s NY Marathon Sunday.

I’ve never run a marathon, never took up jogging for that matter. Bad for the knees, I always reasoned, only to have my precautions wasted. My knees were assaulted during a basketball game some 15 years ago when they hooked up with a much stronger set than mine. Knee on knee contact is supposed to be among the most intense of injuries. I wasn’t bothered by the contact when it occurred but within two years I underwent surgery on my left knee. After returning to the hardwood upon completing my rehabilitation, my right knee started acting up. Rather than undergo another operation, I stopped playing basketball. It was no big loss to the game James Naismith invented.

My physical problems not being the intended reason for this blog, let me continue with my marathon memory. Gilda’s brother Carl did run marathons, so one Marathon Sunday some three decades ago we decided to brave the chilly weather and cheer him on. We waited behind blue police barricades at the 20-mile point, up in the Bronx. Carl was a good runner. We expected him to pass within an hour of the leaders.

We waited and waited for nearly four hours. No Carl. Numb from the chill and hungry, we headed home, figuring Carl must have pulled up lame before our vantage point. Being pre-cell phone days, we had to wait until we returned home to contact him.

Turned out Carl was not injured, that he indeed had kept to his expected pace. But the stress of the race had so contorted his image that we didn’t recognize him as he loped by. Ah, well...

Carl doesn’t run marathons anymore, but he jogs almost daily with his German shepherd dog Pas in Riverside Park and environs.


Swimming Update: I still need water wings. Or those pastel water noodles to stay afloat. A couple of things conspired to thwart my effort to learn to swim last summer.

First, my friendly, competent instructor Ken and I couldn’t maintain a consistent lesson schedule. I think it had something to do with Ken and his need to go to something he called “work.” We managed just three lessons, including the one where Ken had to “rescue” me in deep water. Perhaps that led to reason number two—Ken needed angioplasty shortly thereafter. Well, there’s always next year, but I’m going to insist Ken take a physical before he gets back into the water.


Kim and Kris: If you’re waiting for my thoughts on the nuptuals that are no more, sorry to disappoint you. I do hope, however, the public is not being set up for a spin-off reality series on Kris Humphries’ comeback attempt to be Mr. Kim Kardashian or his battle to re-enter the real world.

I Am America

Did you see the article in Monday’s NY Times about the unofficial anthem of the Tea Party, I Am America, a song Herman Cain is using to jazz up his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination? Here’s a link to the story: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/us/politics/krista-branchs-i-am-america-aims-to-be-tea-party-anthem.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=krista%20branch&st=cse

And for those who are curious, here’s a link to the song itself, sung by Krista Branch, wife of the composer, pastor Michael Branch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0heL2Czeraw . That’s right, Michael Branch is a pastor, so if the song has some evangelical tones, cut it some slack.

My problem (I always have a problem, it seems) with the song and its positioning as a Tea Party/Cain standard is the implication that those who don’t share its views are not real Americans, that they’re un-American, that they’re not patriotic.

I’d rather see politicians choose uplifting songs, such as Bill Clinton’s use of Fleetwood Mac’s Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow, than a song that pits one group against the other.

Speaking of pitting one group against another, did you hear about the Republican state representative in Florida, Ritch Workman, who wants to repeal the 1989 state ban on dwarf tossing in bars because it would provide employment to dwarfs. Though he told the Palm Beach Post dwarf tossing is “repulsive and stupid” and he would never watch it, Workman said of the ban, "All that it does is prevent some dwarfs from getting jobs they would be happy to get. In this economy, or any economy, why would we want to prevent people from getting gainful employment?"

See, Republicans do have a jobs program, albeit for little people only.

For Ritch Workman (you just gotta love that perfect name for a Republican politician) it comes down to Big Government intruding into the lives of ordinary citizens. Dwarf tossing is "none of the state's business," he told the Post.

From small people to giants: I, for one, am not too distressed about the NBA lockout. I’m not a basketball fan. Maybe it stems from my basic ineptitude on the court. That being said, I do feel sorry for everyone but the players and owners who are affected by the lockout, people such as the concession stand workers, the restaurant owners and their staffs who depend on game night traffic, parking lot attendants and others whose income is dependent on the games. “But if you want to watch millionaires throwing elbows,” Stephen Colbert said Tuesday, “there’s still the Republican presidential race.”

Watching Tuesday night’s Republican presidential candidate debate in Las Vegas (I hope you appreciate the sacrifices I make to bring you this blog), I was struck by how often the contenders blamed government regulations for tamping down job creation. It’s hard to disagree with the regulatory burden argument on the same day the U.S. Senate displayed rare bipartisanship by voting down a proposed Dept. of Agriculture mandate to limit the amount of potatoes and other starches in school meal programs. Instead of focusing on the foodstuff, perhaps the USDA should have tried to control the preparation technique. Outlaw frying, not potatoes.

So, yes, regulations can go too far. Big government can be destructive and intrusive. But then there are regulations that are helpful, such the one issued by the Federal Communications Commission requiring cell phone carriers to alert customers when they are approaching their monthly contractual minutes, enabling them to avoid huge overage charges. Unless you’re an executive with a cell phone company, or a Ron Paul libertarian, I seriously doubt you’d find that regulation objectionable.

Thursday's News

High-end jeweler Tiffany & Co. reported today first quarter sales increased 20% over a year ago to $761 million while earnings jumped an even higher 25% to $81.1 million.

It’s another sign the luxury market is back.

I wonder...will Newt “$500,000-Tiffany-credit-line” Gingrich consider signing on as a celebrity corporate spokesman once his presidential nomination bid flames out?


Elaine’s, the literati’s Second Avenue watering hole on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, closes tonight, five months after the saloon’s namesake owner, Elaine Kaufman, died. Brian McDonald, an ex-bartender at Elaine’s, provided his reminiscences for the NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/opinion/26mcdonald.html?ref=opinion.

One question McDonald sought to answer was the secret to the restaurant’s success, as it was generally acknowledged Elaine’s did not serve haute cuisine. He discounted the appeal of seeing the rich and famous as well as seeing Elaine herself. His conclusion: she was simply a good businesswoman who didn’t worry about tomorrow but cared more for “the names in the reservation book for that night.”

Last December I chimed in with my reflections on the night Gilda and I visited Elaine’s and sat with the editors of the NY Post (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-night-at-elaines.html). I can’t tell you why a restaurant becomes an “in” place, but I do disagree with McDonald that Elaine was not a “crowd pleaser.” She didn’t have to play to the crowds. She did what any good host does—she made each individual feel important, that she cared they stopped in for a drink, for a meal, for a snack. Any good restaurateur knows that it’s the personal touch that makes an establishment successful. It’s that way with any service business. If the proprietor doesn’t care about his or her customers, they won’t care about his or her service. They’ll take their business elsewhere. It’s hard to sustain that intimacy in a chain store world. That’s why places like Elaine’s are to be cherished.


I’m a traditionalist when it comes to many things, including sports. That’s one reason, perhaps, I find it hard to watch today’s version of basketball, aside from my being a less than stellar performer on the hard wood, attributed mainly to my inability to dribble and therefore drive to the basket.

Today’s Times carried an article and video on “The Crossover: Genealogy of a Vicious Move” (http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/05/25/sports/basketball/100000000831937/the-crossover-on-display.html?ref=sports). The crossover is a dribble move used to free the ball handler to either shoot a jump shot or drive to the basket for a lay-up.

Aside from not being able to execute such a move, my problem with the crossover is that it should be illegal. Pure and simple, it’s a carry, a palm, an illegal transmission of the ball. Allen Iverson, reputedly one of the players who popularized the move, admits so on the video. But basketball let it become acceptable because of a need to pump up scoring and dazzling dunks (oh yeah, I can’t dunk, either).

Today’s basketball players are superb ball handlers. You can’t compare them to the icons of the 1950s and 1960s, guys like Bob Cousy, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor or Walt Frazier who had to play by the rules.


I watched a tape of Oprah’s final hurrah on regular TV Wednesday. No guests, just Oprah spouting her wisdom and philosophy. I thought I’d be cynically put off by its cheesiness. I wasn’t. She did a good job.