*I want to send thoughts and prayers out to the people of Hawaii and those affected by the fires in Maui.
NIAGARA FALLS, NY – Happy Monday! It was a lovely weekend and the past sports week was easier to cope with – as I gave up hope in the Mets. That said, it’s time to focus on the job at hand here; talking sport(s). Today’s topics, via your Sports Rain Man: Mets Update, Early Jets Buzz, Bienemy Intensity and K2 Porter Tragedy
Weekly Mets Update
The New York Mets won their series against the Cubs and then got destroyed by the Braves in the first three games of their Atlanta is really impressive when you consider they’ve been the top team in the NL East for over 25 years – more or less. They’ve gone from Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz and Chipper and Andruw Jones to Acuña, Albies, Olson and Riley. They are going to be good for years to come. How do they do it? They manage to draft well, find the right players, and develop well.
The Mets will never be as good. Organizational pressure historically ends any rebuilds prematurely, to sign a top player or coach. New York teams don’t have that luxury of most other cities because New York fans have plenty of other things to do than watch their teams suck. Thus, these development plans get blown up real fast. We’ll see how far the Braves go this year but the Metsies obviously are in rebuild mode and hopefully they can turn some of these draft picks into a competitive team for the next few years.
Early Jets Buzz
The 2023 New York Jets may end up being the New York Mets of football. There’s a lot of hype and expectation about this team, similar to what the Mets had, based on their signings. The Mets, if you didn’t notice, fell flat. I have not really been watching Hard Knocks but for highlights. I was really impressed by the meeting of the Jets defense where the defensive coordinator showed a highlight of a practice drill where the defense seemed to do a great job but Rodgers made a back shoulder throw for a touchdown. The coach reminded them that not many people can make that kind of throw – that they have one of the few. “He’s our quarterback,” he said. You saw the defenders smiling and high-fiving each other. If the offensive line can hold up and provide the right kind of support, I really think this Jets team is going to be competitive because the offense is going to be good for about 21 to 24 points a game and I believe the defense is good enough to hold teams till about 17 to 21 a game, so anything can happen.
Bienemy Intensity
There has been a lot of noise regarding Eric Bienemy apparently being a little too tense on players. Ron Rivera – for some reason – is talking about it. Rivera should have kept his mouth shut, based on the idea that things are kept in-house. Nobody really knows why he aired this but I guess he forgets sometimes. The players should keep their mouths shut because this offense was terrible last year. They don’t really have a right to complain about getting a guy with Bienemy’s credentials there but we’ll see what happens after 17 games and where the team is on offense.
K2 Porter Tragedy
The has been a lot of discussion in the mountain climbing world about this video footage, which shows a mountain climber on K2 and her team climbing past a wounded porter. The correct term is porter because the term Sherpa is the ethnic name of people in Nepal, India – and Mount Everest is in Nepal. The people who do the porter work on K2 are just called porters, as K2 is in Pakistan.
This porter was injured and rather than helping, they focused on setting some supposed time record for fastest climb, leaving the porter to die. There has been a lot of debate about if they should have stopped trying to break some record and help. Many feel that when it’s the rich western money (usually white) who do these climbs, everything stops when it’s an injury to them. But when it’s just the run-of-the-mill porter, the life is not worthwhile.
Climbing mountains is not what it used to be when Sir Edmund Hillary and Matthew Henson make their treks. Over the last 10 years or so it’s become the thing for rich jerks. The porters do all of the equipment lifting, food carrying, and everything else. They also set up the ropes so all the supposed “climbers” have to do is just follow the rope and they’re good. Again, all the risky, heavy donkey’s work is done by the porters so somebody gets an escort up the mountain to say they climbed or did something big. You can likely tell from my tone I have such disdain for these people. I hope they find themselves abandoned/in need on the mountain and think about the poor man they abandoned.
Thanks for reading and feel free to comment below.
