MARLBORO, NY – The 2017-18 NHL season is now over and done with and so is another uneventful NBA season. So what’s a diehard New York Mets fan – or a mild one like me – to do for the next four months? Words like fire sale are closely associated with the team as it is currently constructed; an all-pitch/no-stick team that is murder on the eyes. Meanwhile across town, the Yankees are tearing sh!t up and it makes for a miserable summer into autumn. My question today is, “What else is there in the way of sporting events to fill the tremendous void?”
Soccer? This sport has grown on me to the point where I can watch the World Cup every four years and with serious enthusiasm. Being predominantly Italian, it’s always worth my time watching the National Team vie for the top honor while the U.S. tries to figure out how to compete with the game’s big boys. 
But there’s a huge problem for the 2018 World Cup in Russia: Italy and the United States failed to qualify for the tournament, so now I’m left with two other choices determined by my DNA… Ireland and Germany. And like the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, you hope a Cinderella emerges and ride the wave with them. Never, ever being a soccer fan growing up due to the boredom of a 1-0 score, I can sit through these games without bother these days and can’t wait for the World Cup.
Though I never really understood the fascination of watching a bunch of souped-up automobiles making four left turns to complete one lap of hundreds around an oval track, there is NASCAR. There’s a lot of country folk and hillbillies that enjoy drinking beer. Viewing these races that make it a money-making spectator sport. But what about the big city people like most of us in New York? Not a chance in hell that you’ll ever see me tuning in for a minute of this crap!
WNBA… Haha! How does this league survive? It’s early in the season for the women’s brand of the NBA but watching gals play a man’s game has never appealed to me. Call me a chauvinist pig if you will but I have been known to check out NCAA Softball games and find them entertaining. As for the WNBA, no thank you is all I’ll say as network television tries to ram this sports league down our throats.
With the culmination of the Belmont Stakes yesterday, even the busiest time for thoroughbred horse racing is over. Yes, you can take a trip to Long Island for the remainder of the Belmont meet or take a jaunt up to Saratoga for their summer schedule to quell the monotony of baseball and little else.
As always, the little Boys of Summer will be taking to the baseball fields across the globe in July to compete for the Little League World Series Championship. This is an alternate option and a great escape from the MLB millionaires. Watching young kids play baseball is the purest form of our national pastime, as it’s played out of a true love for the game…
Speaking of lovers for the game, come back tomorrow for DJ Eberle.
