Musings1. With the passing of George Carlin, I look forward to reports clarifying that he was in no way anti-religious, but merely opposed to religious coercion.
2. It is not Ehud Olmert's fault that Israel has not secured the return of the captured soldiers. As tragic as the fate of a captured soldier is, Israel cannot pay a limitless price for their return.
3. I am not naive enough to believe that French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who addressed the Knesset today, is really a friend of Israel, as he is being described by Israelis on both the right and left. But it cannot be denied that there has been a positive change of tone from western Europe toward Israel over the last few years. It remains to be seen what effect a Likud election victory would have on all this.
4. I'm all for paying as little as possible in a salary cap era, and I have concerns about giving a long-term contract to a player as physical as Sean Avery. But in the end the Rangers would be crazy to let Avery leave as a free agent. If Avery does depart, the Rangers will spend the new few years trying to find someone similar. They won't succeed in that quest.
5. It appears that when the new stadium opens, the Jets will charge season ticket holders thousands of dollars for personal seat licenses. For many avid Jets fans like me, that might mean the end of attending Jets games.
Sports is very big business, so I'm not going to rail about PSLs.
There's something about the Jets that bothers me in particular, however. Without going into specifics, I have reason to believe that for the Jets, business comes first. Winning would be nice if it ever happened, but as long as the seats as sold and the PSLs raise a few hundred million dollars, everything's fine.
Contrast that to the Yankees. It's not cheap to go to a Yankee game, but nobody doubts that the Steinbrenners desperately want to win. Sure they sometimes do and say stupid things, but winning is as important as money - a season in which the Yanks make tons of money but don't win the World Series is never deemed a success.
6. Enough already about Willie Randolph. Yes, the Mets botched his firing very badly. But his team was not performing and it was time for him to go. Randolph is not exactly Byron Scott, who the Nets fired at the urging of Jason Kidd after he took them to the NBA Finals in consecutive seasons. Yet very few even questioned whether Scott was treated fairly by the Nets.
posted on 6/23/2008
