NIAGARA FALLS, NY – Welcome to the in-between day of the 2-5 day weekend – depending on your boss! I really don’t know who would not put in for this day off at a job. I am sure some will be grumpy as they drew the short straw. On the other hand,I gladly report for duty because it’s now become a part of my weekly schedule. With that, let’s focus on today’s topics: Weekly Mets Update, NBA Off-season & Susie Kolber.
Weekly Mets Update
The New York Mets finally won a series! I was the first time in a month. Since my column last week, they lost the series with the Brewers but beat the Giants, managing to go 3-4. That was better than previous weeks, so we’ll take it.
Tommy Pham and Brandon Nimmo have remained hot but Pete Alonso isn’t back to normal… Jeff McNeil l isn’t back to batting title-hitting and Francisco Lindor is looking like overpriced poop, with glimpses of greatness.
The All-Star vote was released yesterday and featured a couple of Mets. That’s disappointing but might be good for time off and chance to regroup a bit. There are a few more games left before they break, so hopefully they can do something positive first… One positive is the starting pitching has improved greatly.
The bullpen is terrible/ a real pain in the a$$. I’m not talking about Ottavino or Roberts – who are less than confidence-inspiring. It’s the guys who pitch, the 6th, 7th and occasionally start the 8th that are really scary. Last week, they turned two wins into losses. I don’t know what changes can be made there, that’s up to Buck Showalter and the front office. – They may need to go get one or two middle guys with experience that can handle pressure.
NBA Off-season
The NBA has had a busy off-season. The NBA Draft, plus all the trades and re-signings and signings. I can’t keep up the amount of action and I won’t bother right now. There’s still a long off-season to go and a lot can still happen. It looks like teams are really focusing on wrapping all business up before the preseason… We’ve seen Sacramento re-sign Domantas Sabonis… The Mavs resigned Kyrie Irving but it looks like nobody wanted him, so we’ll see how it goes in Dallas with Luka… The rebuilt Suns, not to mention the Lakers, are trying to upgrade. There’s a lot of talk about Chris Paul with the Warriors – which seems a weird fit – but I’ll let Angry Ward touch on that. In the East, the Knicks traded Obi Toppin for two 2nd round picks and signed four-year, $50 million contract with free agent guard Donte DiVincenzo. I’m hoping that I’ll pull off the trade for Carl Anthony Towns but we’ll see how that goes maybe they get some depth.
Susie Suzy Kolber
Susie Kolber has been laid off by ESPN after 27 years. I don’t know if she’ll find work again but she deserves to. Over the years, a lot of networks have tried to be better and included female reporters. Kolber was rare in that she was one of the few women that hosted the pregame Monday Night Football show most recently for ESPN and also reported from the sideline. After reading the news about her, turns out she was always huge into football and one those girls that it took a lawsuit for her to stop from trying to be a player in Pop Warner… She’s turned into fantastic person to watch. One of the few female reporters that I see who seems legit and not just a token female they put on for the sake of having one. I’m sure she’ll land on her feet with another one of the networks. Maybe she can host Inside The NFL. I’ll be looking out.
Thanks for reading and feel free to comment below. Check out Ben Whitney, who will give us his thoughts on the Stankees or maybe the runaway Rays.
