Life In The Slow Lane

Nothing unusual about this:

Ramirez homers in Marlins 5-3 win over Atlanta

Here’s the sad part:

MIAMI (AP)—Hanley Ramirez homered and doubled to lead the Florida Marlins past the Atlanta Braves 5-3 Wednesday in front of an incredibly sparse crowd of just 600 fans.

Some Florida players even joked in the locker room before the game about trying to guess the total number of fans, throwing out figures between 200-500. Florida is used to a lack of support, but even Wednesday’s game was a stretch for the Marlins, who are by far the majors worst in attendance with an average between 16,000 and 17,000 fans.

Imagine that - 600 people watching a professional baseball game.

We get more fans for a high school hockey game.

Florida is notorious for not supporting the Marlins. They’re lucky if they get a handful of sell-outs a year. Seems they don’t appreciate the Marlins - who if memory serves me right have the lowest payroll in all of baseball, yet somehow manage to stay in playoff contention until the end.

They’ve even been World Series champions.

So why won’t Florida fans show up for the game?

Seems to me the Marlins could be better served playing in another community.

How about Massena?

If we can get 600 people for a high school hockey game, imagine how many we’d get out there for your professional ball games.

If you build it, we will come.

Remember when you were young and had these lofty goals and aspirations and your parents told you, “You can do it?”

Remember when your teachers and your friends and your aunts and uncles and grandparents and the next door neighbor told you the same - “Go for it!”

Remember the Olympics? All those athletes from around the world with their eyes on the prize - a gold medal.

Well, apparently being good isn’t kosher anymore - at least in Little League Baseball.

9-year-old boy told he’s too good to pitch

League attorney Peter Noble says the only factor in banning Jericho from the mound is his pitches are just too fast. “He is a very skilled player, a very hard thrower,” Noble said. “There are a lot of beginners. This is not a high-powered league. This is a developmental league whose main purpose is to promote the sport.”

If he’s that good right now, imagine how good he’ll be in a few years.

If he’s still pitching.

The league is pretty much snuffing out Jericho’s dreams and aspirations because he knows how to pitch.

Jim Deshaies used to throw a pretty mean pitch when I played against him in Babe Ruth baseball. He was good, damned good, so good he spent a few years pitching in the majors.

But did they tell him, “Sorry Ace, you can’t pitch because nobody can hit you?”

Not a chance.

He pitched and we dug in and if we struck out we struck out and if we got hit by the pitch we took first base and if we lost the game we said better luck next time.

It was none of this wimpy, “You’re too good for us” crap.

So everybody, join me today in a chant that will be heard around the world:

“Let Jericho play. Let Jericho play.”

As of 3:45 p.m. today this blog is up and running again.

Minus, of course, the postings since March.

That’s a whole other issue - and maybe one I’ll be able to resolve.

I think I’ve certainly earned my money’s worth this weekend, don’t ya think?

But not as much as Carl “My Butt Hurts” Pavano, pitcher for the New York Yankees.

Pavano has started only 19 games for the Yankees since signing a four-year, $39.95 million contract before the 2005 season. Just two of those starts have come since June 2005, after his latest injury resulted in elbow ligament replacement surgery last June and a 14-month rehabilitation period.

Imagine that, he’s worked 19 - well, make it 20 after this weekend - days for $39.95 million.

I think I’m definitely in the wrong line of work. I slave away for 80 hours a week and don’t even make $39,000.

I should have taken my Babe Ruth Baseball more seriously so the scouts would have come looking for me.

Unfortunately, they didn’t want somebody with a .001 average who couldn’t catch a fly ball if it was hit right into his glove.

Unless, of course, you’re the New York Mets.

So I’m driving through downtown Thursday and thought maybe my bifocals were playing havoc with my eyes.

The sign at the local Sunoco gas station had gas at $4.27 a gallon.

It had been $4.33 for, oh, about the last three centuries, no matter how much the price of crude oil dropped on the market.

Could it really be? Or was I simply dreaming? Or were my eyeballs just not reading things right?

Nope, it was true. Every single cent of it was real. The price of gas had gone down.

It made me want to fill up the car’s tank and head home and get all my gas containers and fill those up because it surely won’t last long.

And, at least according to John McCain, we can thank Bush, George W., president, one each, for getting the price down. The article said he made that statement during a town hall meeting, but I don’t know for sure because Mr. McCain’s been focusing his recent efforts on the throngs of people who crowd the tomato display at the local supermarkets and the bratwurst buffet at German restaurants and it’s hard to imagine him actually visiting any place that has significant campaign value.

McCain credits Bush for drop in oil price
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. - Republican John McCain on Wednesday credited the recent $10-a-barrel drop in the price of oil to President Bush’s lifting of a presidential ban on offshore drilling, an action he has been advocating in his presidential campaign. The cost of oil and gasoline is “on everybody’s mind in this room,” McCain told a town-hall meeting. Bush recently lifted the executive order banning offshore drilling that his father put in place in 1990. He also asked Congress to lift its own moratorium on oil exploration on the outer continental shelf which includes coastal waters as close as three miles from shore. “The price of oil dropped $10 a barrel,” said McCain, who argued that the psychology of lifting the ban has affected world markets.

Hmm, maybe you’re right, Johnny Boy. Or maybe it’s just that the bloodsuckers we call oil companies realize they’re not gonna make their regular billions in the next quarter because the average person can’t afford their gas anymore. So maybe, just maybe it’s time to drop the price to make it look like, yes, the price of gas really does fluctuate and doesn’t just hit the stratosphere every time somebody says “boo.”

It’s all part of the “me, myself and I” culture we have in today’s world. The world revolves around me and to hell with everyone else. Let ‘em suffer. I don’t care. As long as I’ve got my money.

Need some more proof?

Take Devin Hester, a two-time Pro Bowler for the Chicago Bears football team who says he’s not reporting to training camp until he gets a new contract.

“I’m not coming,” Hester told the Chicago Tribune in a phone interview. “I have to make a statement. I showed by going to (organized team activities) that I was a team player. But then, I just felt like they weren’t taking it seriously that I wanted to get a new deal.”

It’s all about me, me, me, according to Hester.

“I can’t go out and play this year making $445,000. Come on, man,” he said.

Ahem. Did you say $445,000? As in six figures? As is nearly a half million buckeroos? And you say that’s not enough?

Here’s some food for thought. Screw you, Hester, because a lot of people would love to be in your shoes.

Only $445,000.

Oh, but wait, there’s more.

Andrew Giuliani, the 22-year-old son of New York City’s former famous mayor, is suing Duke University, according to the Associated Press, who says he’s “claiming his golf coach manufactured accusations against him to justify kicking him off the team to whittle the squad.”

Giuliani says he had dreams of becoming a professional golfer and was dismissed without cause from the golf team in February without a chance to defend himself.

Well, Andrew, maybe your golfing prowess had something to do with it.

His best - yes, best - finish last season was a tie for 36th at the Fighting Illini Invitational in Olympia Fields, Ill. His season competition average was 74.5, good for the 12th best on the team.

But Duke’s wrong, wrong, wrong to say he can’t make the cut on their team.

Huh?

Screw you too, Andrew.

I had dreams of becoming a sergeant major in the Army, but I never did because I couldn’t make the cut, so should I be suing the Army?

I have dreams of becoming the next managing editor of our newspaper, but I’m nowhere near that goal. Should I be suing St. Lawrence County Newspapers for derailing my professional growth?

And I have dreams of the price of gas going down.

Oh wait, that happened.

Maybe life isn’t so crappy after all.

Did you hear that Tim Russert died?

How could you miss it? It was tossed at television viewers hour after hour after hour after hour.

I was beginning to think that perhaps Mr. Russert was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ himself - or least the pope - with the gushing tributes that were paid hour after hour after hour after hour after hour.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m sure Tim Russert was a very nice guy. I’m not a big fan of Sunday morning television, so I can’t comment on just how nice he was.

I’m sure he was a good, loving family man. I’m sure he was a good journalist. I’m sure he was a good friend.

But he wasn’t a head of state or a prince or a pope or a person who had eradicated AIDS from the world.

He was simply a very nice journalist who had medical issues that likely contributed to his passing.

His untimely death should not have gone unnoticed by the media, but don’t you think hours of tributes were just a wee bit over the top?

Where were the tributes to 22-year-old Army Sgt. Shane P. Duffy from Taunton, Mass., 23-year-old Army Sgt. Cody R. Legg from Escondido, Calif., 20-year-old Army Spec. Jonathan D. A. Emard from Mesquite, Texas, 19-year-old Pfc. Joshua E. Waltenbaugh from Ford City, Pa., 26-year-old Spec. Quincy J. Green from El Paso, Texas, or 22-year-old Spec. Justin R. Mixon from Bogalusa, La.?

They’re June’s casualties (so far) among the 4,083 members of the military who’ve died during Operation Iraqi Freedom - and we treat them exactly like that. Just a number.

I guess they just weren’t as famous as Tim Russert.

Did you hear that Saudi Arabia plans to increase its oil production by 200,000 barrels a day next month, according to Saudi officials, who are quoted as saying, “The king believes that the current oil prices are abnormally high, and he is ready to restore prices to their appropriate levels.”

Well, isn’t that sweet of him.

Today’s news headlines report that crude oil declined for a third day amid concerns that slower economic growth will curb consumption of oil products. Oil has retreated more than $7 from yesterday’s record of $139.89 a barrel.

So how does that translate to you, the consumer?

It doesn’t.

Anytime there’s negative news like a hurricane that might threaten oil supplies, the price goes skyrocketing - and you pay dearly at the pump.

When the king says oil prices are too high, the price goes down - for everybody except the consumer, who’s watching the Sunoco sign day after day for some hint that $4.29 a gallon might actually become $4.19.

It’ll probably be a cold day in hell before that happens.

What goes up doesn’t necessarily need to come down in the world of high-stakes oil production.

Did you hear that it really doesn’t matter how companies perform because CEOs are gonna grab their megachecks and laugh all the way to the bank?

According to an Associated Press Article, “Collectively, the 10 best-paid CEOs made more than half a billion dollars last year. Yet half the members of this stratospheric club were leading companies whose profits shrank dramatically.”

Rick Wagoner, chief executive of General Motors Corp., announced earlier this month the company had to close four plants that make trucks and SUVs because of lagging demand as fuel prices soar. That followed the posting a $39 billion loss in 2007, a year when its stock price fell by about 19 percent, without adjusting for dividends.

And Wagoner? His pay rose 64 percent, to $15.7 million.

If I had that kind of a year as a reporter, my ass would have been booted out the door a long time ago.

Only in Corporate America can you be rewarded for your failures.

And speaking of failures…

Did you hear that Willie Randolph was fired as manager of the New York Mets and reporters found out after Mets management waited until the wee hours of the morning - and I’m talking like 12:15 a.m. PDT - to send out a mass e-mail announcing the change.

Hey, I’m not a big Willie Randolph fan simply because he doesn’t have the fire in him to light up his ball club. I can’t think of the last time he was thrown out of a ball game after battling with an umpire for one of his ball players. Hell, I don’t think he’s ever been thrown out of a ball game.

But Willie shouldn’t be the hit man for an underperforming bunch of babies who collectively are earning paychecks of $138 million.

This group, by and large, is older than the over-the-hill gang, and it shows on the field because they’re never there. Pedro Martinez has barely thrown a pitch because of injuries. Moises Alou came off the disabled list and went right back on it again after his calf began to hurt. You’ve got a bullpen that implodes at every opportunity and cast of characters who couldn’t hit their way out of wet paper bag.

Or maybe they’re not trying hard enough because let’s face it, it’s not their ass that’s on the line. It’s their manager’s, and now Willie’s gone and the players are still around cashing their megachecks when they should be in Double A ball trying to work on their hitting - and attitude - issues.

Maybe they should have kept Willie and just let all the other jokers hit the road.

It’s the arrival of the event we all knew was coming, but just couldn’t wait for.

Gas has crossed into newly uncharted territory of $4 a gallon.

Oh, they couldn’t make it easy by rounding it off to $4 so you’d put $16 worth of gas in your car and knew you had four gallons.

Nosiree, they had to make it interesting - $4.01 or $4.02 or $4.03 or higher.

Do I hear $4.10?

$4.10 going once, $4.10 going twice, $4.10 gone, never to be seen again once summer kicks in.

Go ahead, run down to your nearest Sunoco and inhale the fumes. It’ll cost ya about 10 bucks.

Oh, to be rich and famous…

ATLANTA (Ticker) - New York Mets left fielder Moises Alou left Wednesday’s game against the Atlanta Braves due to a cramp in his left calf. The 41-year-old Alou walked off the field with one out in the bottom of the third inning and was replaced in left by Marlon Anderson. In his only plate appearance, Alou grounded out to third base to lead off the second inning.

I guess when you’re making $7,500,000 you can afford to take a day or two off.

For a cramp.

Kids, do not try this at home.

Your employer won’t appreciate it.

Amazing, ain’t it, that the folks making millions - no, let’s make that billions - sucking consumers dry at the gas pumps can say the costs aren’t excessive.

Begs the question, how do you define excessive when it costs more than $40 bucks to fill up a Chevy Cavalier.

The price for a gallon of regular hit a record Monday - Nationwide on Monday: $3.29; a month ago: $3.17; a year ago: $2.67.

Not excessive at all.

Remember those days of gas below a dollar. Ah, yes, the good old days. Now you’re lucky if you can get a whiff of the fumes for that price.

D.C. pumps oil leaders on gasoline
House hearing into energy profits opens as prices reach new heights

The House hearing came just one day after prices at the gas pump hit a new record of $3.29 a gallon, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report.

Gas prices are so out of whack…

How out of whack are they, Bob?

Gas prices are so out of whack that it seems the only person who can afford them is Alex Rodriguez from the New York Yankees.

A-Rod Makes More Than Marlins Roster

For the first time in baseball history, the average salary topped the $3 million mark. The 855 players on opening-day rosters and the DL averaged $3.15 million, up 7.1 percent from last year’s starting average of $2.94 million.

Whatever happened to playing for the love of the game?

Happy Labor Day. Hope it was a long, restful weekend for everyone.

In usual Labor Day fashion, Jerry Lewis is back on the air looking for money for “his kids.” God love him for doing it for the last 50-some years. And not to degrade his loving effort in the least, but I just have a couple of quick questions…

(1) Why aren’t there any telethons for other diseases that affect as many, if not more people? Like cancer. I don’t ever recall seeing any major fundraising efforts for cancer, but we’re no closer to solving that disease than we are muscular dystrophy. And, at least up here, we have a lot more people dying of cancer than we do muscular dystrophy.

(2) Just where does all this money come from that plops into Jerry’s lap year after year? Nearly $60 million right now. Maybe it’s because I live in a small community, but I see major sponsor after major sponsor - supermarkets, firefighters, real estate companies - coming into Jerry’s studio and presenting him with checks for millions. Yet I recall very few, if any, fundraising efforts in this neck of the woods that would raise that kind of money. Maybe I’m just too much in the boonies. The only time I see folks around here get serious about muscular dystrophy fundraising is when the calendar says it’s Labor Day.

So again, where is all this money coming from? And along the same lines, I’m curious about how many people pledge money and then don’t fulfill that pledge. Not to be a party pooper, but there have to be some folks out there who get caught up in the passion of the telethon and run to their phone and say, “Put me down for $500.” But then when it’s time to pay the piper, they don’t have $500.

Just food for thought…

Every time I watch the telethon it reminds me of when I was young and we knew summer was coming to an end. The days were getting cooler. Our houses had the smell of brand new clothes and supplies that we’d be taking to school when it started in a few days. We celebrated the end of summer by grabbing the pigskin and engaging in some rough and tough tackle football in the back yard in preparation for the upcoming NFL season.

And now we’re adults and if we tried that football stuff in the back yard, we’d up in the Massena Memorial Hospital emergency room with doctors putting splints on our legs and arms.

NEWS FLASH: Now they’re up to nearly $62 million. The money keeps rolling in. Harold from the International Association of Firefighters is back with his final check of the telethon. Only a few more million, bringing their total this year to $25,230,000.

I didn’t know firefighters were that rich. Maybe I’m in the wrong job.

But I digress…..

In case anyone cares that I haven’t posted as regularly as I used to, let me explain.

I’m being worked to death.

I have a ton of work to do around the house when I’m not being worked to death at the office.

I’m in the process of rebuilding my computer with all the goodies I used to have before it crashed.

It wasn’t a pretty sight watching a grown man sit at the computer and cry as the blue screen of death repeatedly came up saying it couldn’t boot up. Everything - pictures, movies, financial data, etc. etc. - gone with the wind. So needless to say, when I’m not working at the office or at the house, I’m in the rebuilding process. Sliding CD after CD into the drive and searching high and low on the Internet to find programs. Reconstructing my financial files from the credit union so I know what my checking account balance is. Making sure every picture I had on my computer is safely tucked away on the file storage website, Flickr, and keeping my fingers crossed that Flickr doesn’t suffer a meltdown.

It’s getting there. Some of the programs aren’t being cooperative this time around for some reason, but I suppose I can do without having Front Page Sports Baseball on my hard drive since I do have High Heat Major League Baseball. Concessions, concessions, concessions.

Actually, what would be really cool is if I just bought a new computer and started fresh.

Maybe Jerry has a few dollars he can lend me.

OK, so I wasn’t quite done with my last post. But once I get on Georgie Boy’s case, there’s no stopping me unless I just post it and get it done and over with.

But I forgot to tell you about the Christmas tree.

We put one up. Is that really such a big deal?

It is when you have five cats.

The tree went up this afternoon and, when I got home from work, the fun began. It started rocking and rolling and two eyeballs were peering out from the branches. That would have been Tabu.

I thought, “Well, let her be if she just wants to lay in the branches.” But she wasn’t content. She had to climb to the top and that tree was a shaking away and that’s when I said, “Okey dokey, you’re banished to the bedroom.”

Round one - Bob wins, Cat Loses.

Next.

Now I’m sitting here watching the NFL Network’s coverage of the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings. Don’t ask me why. I’m just a glutton for punishment I guess. But there’s only so much one person can take from Bryant Gumbel, the lead announcer for the telecasts. To put it bluntly, Bryant, you’re boring as hell and you don’t have a clue what’s going on.

How else could you explain his lack of vision when a play is blown dead because the offense jumped off-sides. “Oh,” he says, “there seems to be a whistle. And there’s this yellow thing on the ground. We’ll have to find out what that it.”

Tip to NFL Network - seek new announcers for next year. Please put that on top of your list for New Year’s resolutions.

And here’s a tip to the person who e-mailed us a Christmas card at work. Has anyone told you it ain’t kosher to list every freakin’ addressee in the “To” space? Ever hear of sending the e-mail to yourself and doing a BCC so none of the addressees shows up in everybody’s box? Don’t know about you, but I don’t like having my e-mail address broadcast to the entire world. In this case, it was the office e-mail address, but the same principle applies. BCC, folks.

Since he happens to head a branch of our federal government, you can guess some of the e-mail addresses I’ve harvested from this. Not good - particularly when you’re sending them to snoopy reporters who might have a need to contact someone on that list but doesn’t know how. Now they do.

Santa’s bringing him a refresher course on personal e-mail etiquette.

Oh, and by the way, Happy Holidays to you too. And thanks for the card.