NEW YORK, NY – I recently cancelled my cable service—the one James Dolan used to own—because two separate customer service agents were completely unable to process a simple request for a service downgrade. When life throws baloney mazes at you, the best thing you can do is burn those mazes to the ground and move on. They’re still attempting to build more mazes and put them in my path, but I have some kerosene left in the tank and my zippo handy.
I may start fresh with another provider, but losing basic cable hasn’t been as remotely life-altering as Big Telecom would have you believe. Sure, I miss SNY for Mets games and TCM for great old movies, but the Mets are playing fairly lousy and I can stream great old movies virtually anywhere these days. Also, unlike the Yankees, I can still occasionally catch the Metropolitans on that ancient platform known as regular free TV on WPIX. Pix! Pix! Pix! Even in my current unplugged state, some sports stories have come floating across the transom.
Lindor and Vogelbach Both Homer, Get Multiple Hits. Monday night in Houston, Francisco Lindor and renowned CHUD Daniel Vogelbach had a combined four hits, two homers, and eight rbi in an 11-1 blowout of the Astros. People, I assure you I’m no alarmist but: THE END IS NIGH! If this wasn’t a sure sign that the apocalypse is upon us, nothing is. It’s time to stop going into work, start injecting heroin into your eyeballs, and get ready for it to rain giant feral cats from outer space. This concludes the public service announcement portion of today’s offering.
Some White Guy You Never Heard of Won The U.S. Open. I imagine somewhere there were a bunch of guys wearing flowing robes, counting their money going: “Who the fack is this guy?” That’s the way it goes in post-Jack, post-Tiger golf, boys. You don’t always get marquee names, sometimes you get something closer to the country club version of Bucky Dent narrowly beating out Brian Doyle for the 1978 World Series MVP.
Kim Ng. Not sure how many of you know the name Kim Ng, but she’s the General Manager of the Miami Marlins. Not only is she the first woman to hold a GM position in any of the four major sports, but her team is looking pretty damn good right now. As you might imagine, she’s taken more than her share of crap from lunk-headed fans and pundits. But she’s persevered and has quietly made some shrewd moves, not the least of which was fleecing the Twins this offseason for AL Batting Champ Luis Arráez. In a time when most players are struggling to hit .250, Arráez has been hovering around .400 for a like a month now. He’s only 26-years-old and has only hit under .300 once (.294 in 2021). He’s not Tony Gwynn (who is?), but give Kim Ng credit for acquiring what has become a rarity in today’s game, an honest-to-goodness singles hitter. Miami is 11 games over .500 and 4.5 behind the Braves in the NL East, but they could be stalking Atlanta all season long. Whatever the case, good for Ng—who grew up playing stickball on the streets of Queens and later was an assistant to Brian Cashman—for continuing to prove the doubters wrong.
That’s all for today. Come back tomorrow for Buddy Diaz, who has nothing left to prove.
