Today is the day folks go to the polls in many locations in New York State, everywhere except in the largest cities and vote for the school budget and the school board members. For some reason, the city of Albany only votes for the budget now, and the school board in November. More on that and Rex Smith speaking at the Friends of the Albany Public Library annual meeting this eveninghere.
***
Don’t care about Dancing with the Stars, but I do care about my wife, and SHE cares about DWTS. So I got the phone number from the end of the taped performance and tried to call in a number of times, but kept getting a busy signal. Then I went online to do so, but it required to be registered with ABC.com. Lo and behold, I WAS registered with ABC.com, though I don’t recall why. Five votes for Kristi Yamaguchi & Mark Ballas, who got 60 out of 60 points from the judges (the competition got 51 and 52 votes.)
***
I haven’t sent out my mixed CDs yet because I saved them to the drive, then the burner failed to put the data on the disc. I have figured out a workaround, but can’t get to until this weekend; sorry. It is sequenced and I do like it; Gordon will recognize the inspiration immediately. So far got mine from Gordon (like it), Tosy (listened to about half), and Lefty (haven’t played yet). Details to follow.
***
Best wishes to Edward Kennedy after his medical episode. I was looking at my Bushisms calendar, where W. referred to him as Theodore, one of the more understandable mistakes in the gaffe-filled daily.
***
The Subway series played out this past weekend. For me, the excitement is tempered, maybe because they are, at least so far, two mediocre teams, though the Mets, who swept, less mediocre than the Yankees.
***
The only parts of the NBA playoffs I have watched has been when I’ve taped ABC World News and the game has run over. For instance, I saw the last 18 seconds of the Celtics Game-Seven win over Cleveland, which took about 10 minutes, with all the fouls and timeouts.
***
Happy birthday, PixieNona!Are you sure it was a cold and not allergies? Your symptoms were very similar to mine last week.
***
In answer to a comment to this story DNA cleared them, but they’ll never feel free and some of the comments: “There’s particular disdain for the prosecutors of these crimes because, often, the prosecution withheld evidence that could have exonerated the defendant, esp. in Dallas County, TX. At least some of these people were home and with their families or at work; the assertion that ‘people doing the right thing don’t get mixed up in this stuff’ is simply inaccurate much of the time. There is also mistaken identity by witnesses far more often than most people realize. With all that, there’s no way to blame the juries, who can only weigh the evidence presented.”
ROG
Category: New York Yankees
TV REVIEW: The Bronx Is Burning
Because I’d finally caught up with almost everything else, over a two and a half week stretch recently, I managed to watch all eight segments of the ESPN miniseries The Bronx Is Burning, ostensibly about the New York Yankees’ 1977 World Series win, their first since 1962, despite the tension among Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, manager Billy Martin and outfielder Reggie Jackson. It was also about the .44-caliber killer known as Son of Sam, and the general decay of New York City.
I had a personal interest in this story, for I was living in Jamaica, Queens from May to September. I was hanging out partying late at night and was just a tad paranoid about Son of Sam, and I remember the screaming red-letter headlines on the New York Post when David Berkowitz was caught in August of 1977.
The production featured the actors in scenes, interspersed with footage of the era, both in the baseball scenes, and in the atmospheric segments about the blackout, the mayoral race between Ed Koch and Mario Cuomo (I voted for Cuomo, BTW).
The good things about this production: John Turturro as the Billy Martin, and I say that not because Turturro graduated from my alma mater of New Paltz, but because he seemed to embody, rather than imitate, the fiery manager. Erik Jensen as Yankee captain and catcher Thurman Munson. Kevin Conway, who plays Yankees Prez and GM, Gabe Paul; he doesn’t really look like Paul, but his caught-in-the-middle performance rang true. The great background pieces at the end of each episode featuring Jackson, Steinbrenner, Yankees Chris Chambliss and Fran Healey, Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, and Billy Martin’s son, Bill Jr. (Martin was killed in a one-car crash in Binghamton, NY – my hometown – on December 25, 1989.)
The so-so parts: Oliver Platt as Steinbrenner; he looked like Oliver Platt playing Steinbrenner. Joe Grifasi as Yogi Berra, who didn’t seem all that bright and was there to share Italian-American insults with Martin. Leonard Armond Robinson as Mickey Rivers, and whoever played Fran Healey were OK. The guys playing the cops in the Son of Sam investigation, featuring Dan Lauria (Wonder Years). The use of the real video, although seeing the cheesy ABC Sports logo was a hoot.
The not so hot parts: Daniel Sunjata as Reggie Jackson; it wasn’t just the look, it was the feel of the character. Most of the other supporting players, especially the women, were ciphers. The guy playing Lou Pinella looks nothing like him, while a press guy reminded me of Yankee pitcher Catfish Hunter. And most of all, the Son of Sam killings, which almost all involved a couple of Noo Yawkers babbling something to each other before they were shot by Berkowitz; they all felt the same.
So, it wasn’t great, it wasn’t awful. I’m glad I saw it because it was a good reminder of the era. If you rent the DVD, which will be out later this month, I have the sense that the extras will be more enjoyable than the core item.
***
Here’s a weird TV thing: I was watching a rerun of Scrubs recently. The original episode aired on May 10, and was 40 minutes (more like 38). But when it was rerun in the last week or two, it was in the 30 minute slot. How did this work? Cuts. J.D. and Turk’s voice-over dialogue as they were driving away. Kelso’s dis of a woman his age or younger at a convention as too old. But mostly, the whole scene with J.D. and Turk at a lecture conducted by J.D.’s pregnant ex-girlfriend was broken in half in the original, with a “Busta move” piece of verbiage, but continuous in the repeat, sans “Busta move”. I wonder if both versions will show up on the DVD?
ROG
Play ball!
Today is the beginning of baseball season.
WHAT? you proclaim. The Yankees, Mets, Red Sox and the other teams have been playing for nearly two months. Indeed they have, but I wasn’t talking about Major League Baseball. I was talking about Minor League Baseball, specifically the Class A New York-Penn (NY-P) League.
When I was growing up in Binghamton, my father or grandfather (but seldom both) would take me to see the Triplets. They were team in the Eastern League from 1923 to 1963 and again in 1967 and 1968. They were called the Triplets because they represented the Triple Cities in New York State’s Southern Tier: Binghamton, Johnson City, and Endicott (the fact that only Binghamton was a city and the other two were villages is not germane to the discussion). The out-of-town papers referred to the team as Binghamton. They were an affiliate of the New York Yankees from 1932 to 1961, so I was a fan of the Bronx Bombers as a kid.
I saw Al Downing pitch there. He eventually became a Yankee starter. (He was best known, though, for being the Dodgers pitcher when Atlanta Braves’ star Hank Aaron hit home run #715 in 1973, breaking Babe Ruth’s record.)
The Triplets were a Kansas City Athletics affiliate in 1962 and 1963. The team spent three years (1964-66) in the lower level NY-P League, linked with the Milwaukee Braves the first year, and the Yankees subsequently before their brief return to the Eastern League, still affiliated with the Yanks. Then nothing, as Johnson Field was torn down after the 1968 season so that a newer Route 17 could be built west of Binghamton.
That Yankee Class A NY-P team that was in Binghamton in 1965 & 1966 ended up in Oneonta for over 30 years before moving again. Oneonta is now a Tiger affiliate in the NY-P.
Albany has had trouble fielding a team. For a time, they had an Eastern League team in Heritage Park in Colonie (near Albany) that was affiliated with the Oakland A’s (1983-84), then the New York Yankees (1985-94.) I saw Bernie Williams play there. But those arrangements eventually collapsed.
Then there were the Diamond Dogs (alas, no David Bowie) in an independent league not affiliated with major league baseball. I went to a few of those games and they were quite a bit of fun, though not always the highest caliber of play.
Now, the Capital District has a new team, the Tri-Cities Valley Cats (the Tri-Cities in this case being Albany, Schenectady and Troy — all CITIES) in the NY-P League.
The out-of-town papers referred to the team as Troy. Today’s opener is against the Oneonta Tigers at the Joseph L. Bruno Stadium, nicknamed “The Joe”. (The running joke at the time: “It’s a good thing his name wasn’t John.”) Joe Bruno is the Majority Leader in the New York Senate.
One of the cool games this season will be on July 30, when the same two teams meet in Cooperstown at Doubleday Field. The Oneonta team has, for many years, gotten a “home” game there, and I understand that it’s quite a thrill for the players. Since my father-in-law has had season tickets to the Oneonta Yankees -he saw Ricky Ledee play for them- and now the Oneonta Tigers, I’ve seen a couple games there myself.
It’s a bit surprising that a market the size of Albany/Schenectady/Troy has a Class A team, especially since Binghamton, which is about the size of Troy and half the size of Albany, once again has a team in the Class AA Eastern League, with a higher caliber of player.
Last year, for the first time, I went to the stadium in downtown Binghamton where the Binghamton Mets have played for a few years, after a nearly three-decade gap for baseball in Binghamton. The program had third baseman David Wright on the cover; he’d already been promoted to the New York Mets, but that’s baseball. It’s a lovely stadium, but I have to think that foul balls must hit the cars driving by on Henry Street.
In any case, if you like baseball, but have gotten cynical over Major League Baseball because of the salaries, or whatever, check out Minor League Baseball.