Quick Hitters II — Observations of a Sportslifer

Eddy Curry sure went from franchise player to benchwarmer pretty darn quick.
Nice to know the Knicks gave away two lottery picks for a guy who’s not even getting playing time. And paying him $56 million to boot.
So let me get this straight. Isiah has Curry, yet deals for Zach Randolph, then 20 games into the [...]

Joe and Eli

Joe Namath

Eli Manning
He’s Joe Namath without the llama skin rug, the white shoes and the bravado. Broadway Joe and Easy Eli. Eli Manning plays Richie Cunningham (an older Opie) to Namath’s Fonzie; or Bill Gates to Namath’s Donald Trump. Where Joe squired stewardesses and models around Manhattan every night, Eli stays home [...]

The 1962 Mets — Simply Amazin’

The 1962 New York Mets
Really now, just how bad were the 1962 New York Mets? Pretty darn bad.
The Mets, an expansion team in the National League along with the Houston Colt 45s, had a rather inauspicious debut. After half the team got stuck in an elevator at the Chase Hotel in St. Louis, the [...]

Top Ten Best NFL Championship Upsets Ever

Joe Namath and the Jets

There was a lot of banter and cocktail talk around Super Bowl XLII and its ranking among the list of all-time upsets.The “Miracle on Ice,” Team USA’s stunning 4-3 victory over the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics at Lake Placid is generally considered the greatest upset in sports history, [...]

Presidents-Kings Day

Studies have shown that the Monday after the Super Bowl is the least productive work day of the year in America. That should come as no surprise — the typical SB Monday worker is a partied-out, hung-over, bloated sports freak more concerned with touchdowns, turnovers and Super Bowl pools than deadlines, dollars and decisions. [...]

Three-Point Stance for NHL

There’s a problem with the NHL’s current system of awarding a team two points for a win and one point for an overtime or shootout loss. The way it stands now, a team that dominates a game and wins in regulation earns the same number of points as a team that wins in a [...]

Quick Hitters….Observations of a Sportslifer

You know that motion Roger Clemens used when he threw the piece of shattered bat at Mike Piazza in the 2000 World Series. Is that the same motion he uses to throw people under the bus?
And it’s getting pretty crowded under that bus by the way — Debbie Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Brian McNamee, [...]

My Favorite Baseball Card

My Favorite Baseball Card
This is my all-time favorite baseball card. Oscar Gamble had one of the great afros — his hair added about four inches to his height and often popped his batting helmet off his head.
Gamble was traded to the Yankees from the Indians for pitcher Pat Dobson following the 1975 season. When [...]

The Lifeline That Is Football

On a November afternoon in 1963, five days before President John F. Kennedy is assassinated, a 12-year old with this mother, father and cousin sees Y.A. Tittle and the Giants pound the 49ers in Yankee Stadium.
A son arrives in May of 1986, and that fall Big Blue, fueled by the great Lawrence Taylor, dominates the [...]

Sam The Butcher and Moose The Yankee

Allan Melvin

Bill Skowron
Sam The Butcher and Moose The Yankee
My uncle, Allan Melvin, recently passed away from cancer at the age of 84. To generations of TV viewers, he was known as Sam the Butcher, Barney on Archie Bunker’s Place, Corporal Henshaw on the Phil Silvers Show, and the voice of Magilla Gorilla. He [...]