Ironically, it was a hit that may have ended Robinson Cano’s Mets career. Two weeks ago, Cano smacked a perfectly placed ball down the left field line. It should have been a standup double.
Instead, Cano was thrown out at second base, and it wasn’t close. At age 39, it seemed apparent both Cano’s legs were betraying him. His hitting wasn’t adequate either, as his batting average stood at .195 when Mets owner Steve Cohen bit the bullet and agreed to release Cano despite his hefty contract.
New York Jets General Manager Joe Douglas has been in his current position for three years, and the results have not exactly been an overwhelming success. Last season, the Jets won a measly four games. The “good news” was that was double the …
Last Tuesday the Mets played their first doubleheader of the 2022 season as they swept the San Francisco Giants by scores of 5-4 and 3-1. This was the first doubleheader in two years in which both games were scheduled to go nine innings inste…
One of the big questions going into the 2022 season was “Will Aaron Judge sign a long-term contract with the New York Yankees, or will he test free agency waters at season’s end?” Judge made it clear he did not want to negotiate a new pact du…
Most Mets fans were not happy when they learned the only way they could watch their team play the Washington Nationals last Friday night was on the streaming service Apple TV Plus.There was plenty of interest about this game because it marked…
Mets fans needed to step off the proverbial ledge after processing the news ace pitcher Jacob deGrom was diagnosed with shoulder inflammation and will not throw a baseball for the next month.It was especially frustrating because the Mets’ 202…
The legalization of sports team gambling in many states, including New York, has been, pardon the pun, a game changer. States now have a new source for raising revenue while gamblers no longer must flock to Nevada to place sports bets.It also…
It didn’t take long for Mayor Adams to dampen the joy of Mets and Yankees fans almost as soon as the Major League Baseball lockout ended.The Mayor’s Office announced that the “Kyrie Rule,” under which unvaccinated athletes employed by the hom…
Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred was the No. 1 villain for fans and the media during the recent lockout. He didn’t help with deadline threats or when he seemed to be inappropriately smiling or laughing as he announced another br…
Baseball fans were understandably disgusted at the breakdown of talks between club owners and the Major League Baseball Players Association last Tuesday, particularly after things had looked promising the day before.The refrain heard on sport…
Marcus Stroman was a terrific pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays for the first five years of his MLB career before being traded to the Mets on July 31, 2019. The Mets’ general manager at the time, Brodie Van Wagenen, hoped Stroman would be the…
Brooklyn Nets general manager Sean Marks will recall the translation of Scottish poet Robert Burns’ famous line from his poem “To a Mouse” whenever he thinks of James Harden. Burns wrote, “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”A …
Last Tuesday the New York Mets announced they’ll have the first-ever Old-Timers’ Day at Citi Field Aug. 27 before their game with the Colorado Rockies. The last time the Mets held an Old-Timers’ Day was in 1994 at Shea Stadium. And yes, 1994 …
Super Bowl week is normally a time for National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell to enjoy a victory lap. This time around, however, I have a feeling he is not looking forward to giving his State of the NFL address and handling the e…
I was amused at the Sturm und Drang that occurred on social media after the results of the 2022 National Baseball Hall of Fame voting were announced.The issue getting folks worked up was whether baseball players who were suspected of using pe…
The first Grand Slam tennis tournament of 2022 wraps up Sunday, and it will best be remembered not by who won the men’s and women’s titles but the Novak Djokovic controversy. Djokovic, the world’s top male tennis player, wanted to play in the…
Last Tuesday the New York Mets announced they will be retiring No. 17 in honor of the greatest first baseman in their history, as well as longtime SNY broadcast analyst, Keith Hernandez.The Mets hosted a Zoom press conference for Hernandez th…
The Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame held its induction ceremony last month at the Waldorf-Astoria after missing 2020 because of the pandemic. Charles Barkley became the first former NBA player to be inducted into both the Basketball and Spor…
When I met John Madden at a press event about a decade ago, I asked if most people knew he was the head coach of the Oakland Raiders in the 1970s, where his won-lost record remains the best percentage in NFL history. “Older folks know me from…
One of the surprising sports-related business stories of 2021 is how All Elite Wrestling has become the Pepsi to World Wrestling Entertainment’s Coca-Cola. For decades WWE was synonymous with pro wrestling. The notion of having a credible riv…
New York Mets owner Steve Cohen has always said he doesn’t want people learning on his dime, so it wasn’t a shock when he tweeted last Saturday that Buck Showalter would become the 23rd manager in Mets history. He joins Casey Stengel, Yogi Be…
Although it has been almost 50 years since he graduated, Ernie Grunfeld remains the greatest basketball player to come out of Forest Hills High School. Grunfeld had a stellar college career at the University of Tennessee, where he teamed up w…
As expected, a work stoppage occurred last Thursday when Major League Baseball club owners and the MLB Players Association failed to achieve a new collective bargaining agreement.The issues are bit more nuanced than they were during the Marvi…
New Mets General Manager Billy Eppler knew he would have hands full building a below-average roster — especially a paper-thin pitching staff — something he acknowledged at his introductory press conference.Eppler generated goodwill from Mets …
Most observers were surprised when pitcher Noah Syndergaard spurned the Mets’ qualifying offer of $18.4 million and signed a $21 million, one-year contract with the Los Angeles Angels. As the 2021 season was nearing its end, Syndergaard was p…
New York radio became a poorer place when Steve Somers finished his last air shift on WFAN last Friday night. Somers had been part of “the FAN” since the station debuted on July 1, 1987, and he quickly became one of its most popular air perso…
Although there was no official press release from the Mets, word filtered out last week the team’s acting general manager, Zack Scott, had been terminated.Scott had been on administrative leave since Sept. 1 after he was arrested in White Pla…
The New York Mets announced last week that pitching coach Jeremy Hefner will be returning in 2022.The move raised eyebrows because the Mets hadn’t named a new manager, let alone gotten their executive suite in order, which quickly became a po…
The task of finding a new president of baseball operations has quickly become a holy grail for Mets owner Steve Cohen and team President Sandy Alderson. Given the job’s importance, lofty title and the fact the Mets play in the nation’s larges…
The Brooklyn Nets finally acted decisively with their star guard Kyrie Irving when they told him if he does not get vaccinated against Covid-19 he is not going to be on the team.Earlier, Nets head coach Steve Nash had foolishly indicated Irvi…
The term “sports legend” gets frequently tossed around and many times it is hyperbolic. Longtime Bayside resident Herb Turetzky is unquestionably a sports legend, and he was never a professional athlete.He has been the official scorer for the…
You didn’t have to be the Oracle of Delphi to predict the New York Mets were going to dismiss their manager, Luis Rojas, at the end of the season. Managing teams in big markets with decent-sized payrolls that finish with more losses than wins…
All Elite Wrestling, the two-year-old startup, made its New York debut on Sept. 22 in front of a packed Arthur Ashe Stadium for a two-hour card that was televised nationally on cable’s TNT as part of the AEW’s weekly “Dynamite!” show.It was c…
Offensive linemen, such as guards, tackles and centers, rarely generate any buzz. Fans rarely clamor for their favorite NFL teams to draft them; callers to sports talk shows rarely mention them; and they are an afterthought at best for those …
When Major League Baseball released the 2021 schedule, showing the second round of the Subway Series would take place at Citi Field during the weekend of the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Mets knew they had to deliver a ceremo…
Jimmy Kimmel, the host of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” grew up a Mets fan in Brooklyn, and his family’s move to Las Vegas when he was in elementary school did not alter his fandom. He was 18 when the Mets won the 1986 World Series, and it remai…
The death of Rod Gilbert, one of the most popular players in New York Rangers history, at age 80 last week unleashed a torrent of tributes. He played most of the 1960s and ’70s for the Blueshirts, and he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of F…
All Elite Wrestling, which began operations two years ago, has quickly developed into a very serious challenger to the behemoth of the grappling game, World Wrestling Entertainment. A sign AEW means business is it is holding its first-ever Ne…
When I was growing up, Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game was a far bigger deal than it is today. There are myriad of reasons for its decline.It’s safe to say the ASG was a major beneficiary of baseball’s reserve clause which bound a playe…
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell took a hard line with players who refuse to get vaccinated against Covid-19 when he unilaterally declared that if an NFL game is canceled because an unvaccinated player caused a team outbreak, then the team that…
At their Friday post-trade deadline press conference, Mets President Sandy Alderson and acting general manager Zack Scott put the best spin they could on the only move they made, trading minor league outfield prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong to t…
Former Mets starting pitcher Steven Matz, who was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays over the winter, returned to Citi Field Friday night to start against his old team. His old buddy, Mets first baseman Pete Alonso, rudely greeted him in the fir…
Until Mets outfielder Michael Conforto, who has had a miserable season trying to get his batting average over .200, hit a 9th-inning, two-run homer Sunday to give the Mets the decisive runs in a 7-6 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates, this past …
In 2020, Major League Baseball initiated a rule that made all doubleheaders seven-inning games. The thinking was it would reduce injury and fatigue for players at a time when hospitals were overrun with Covid-19 patients. Shorter doubleheader…
The Mets hobbled into Yankee Stadium having won just six of their last 17 games. Their hitting was anemic and there was an overall malaise about them. Granted, the Yankees have their own issues, but on paper, this was still the same lineup th…
While it is now commonplace for professional sports organizations to have a night devoted to honoring the LGBTQ community, it is a recent phenomenon. The Chicago Cubs became the first MLB team to salute the community 20 years ago when they he…
The conventional morning-after wisdom was that the Brooklyn Nets let everyone down in losing their second-round NBA playoff series to the Milwaukee Bucks in seven games, with the decisive Game 7 resulting in an overtime loss. Given the injuri…
Last Friday night was a reminder of what life was like in prepandemic times as the Mets drew around 26,000 spectators for their largest crowd since September 2019. The pitching matchup was stellar, with two recent Cy Young Award winners: the …
2020 US Open and 2021 Australian Open champion Naomi Osaka made news last week when she withdrew from the French Open after winning her first-round match. Osaka cited depression as the reason. She said she could have continued in the tourname…
Mets fans have become all too accustomed to seeing their beloved franchise get decimated by injuries, but 2021 has been a doozy even by pessimistic Flushing standards. Pitchers who undergo surgery especially seem to have trouble returning in …
The third week of May is traditionally when the television industry introduces its fall programming to advertisers in the hopes of locking up ad sales with presentations known as “Upfronts.” Sportscaster Jim Nantz spoofed himself at this year…
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