It wasn’t exactly “The Shot Heard ’Round the World,” but it sure made it to Chicago in a hurry.
After Wilmer Flores’s soap-operatic home run ended Friday’s Nationals-Mets game, even Michael Kay and Paul O’Neill, working the Yankees-White Sox game on YES, couldn’t resist recapping and marveling at “Wilmer’s Excellent, Tear-Filled Four-Day Adventure.”
Just when it seems time to swear off sports as a business predicated on doing one-way bad business, something happens to cause a reconsideration. Friday’s Nationals-Mets, start to finish, did the trick.
There hasn’t been a New York infielder since Brian Doyle to elicit such empathy, wonder and joy than Flores. Doyle, who finished his career a .161 batter, replaced injured Willie Randolph at second during the 1978 World Series. He had seven hits in 16 at-bats to bat .438. Three of his 16 career RBIs were for the Yankees in the 1978 postseason.
Whatever’s ahead for Flores, “Wilmer Week” in New York — starting with the sudden cancellation of his trip to Milwaukee — has been entered into the annals of “Unforgettable Good Stuff in New York Sports.”
And, on a personal and professional take, I’ll never again question the usefulness of SNY and YES carrying managers’ postgame news conferences.
Terry Collins, after Friday’s game, was on the brink of tears, first reminding us that while New York’s a rough town to play in, its fans’ “standing O” responses to Flores for a great play and before his first at-bat — hours before he went Bobby Thomson — proved they’re soft-on-the-inside, right-headed souls.
And then, to the gathered media, Collins said that the room is filled with “great writers,” but none so great that they can describe Wilmer Flores Week without themselves having trouble believing what Flores left them to write.
Thanks, Wilmer, we needed that.
Another mess of a guess by Mike
Mike FrancesaPhoto: GC Images
Here’s an on-air, show-ending quote from an expert among experts on Wednesday. Guess who said it:
“I can confirm for you now that the Mets and [Yoenis] Cespedes is out. So that is out. So I don’t know where it went; it doesn’t matter. It’s out. There’s no Cespedes. So he’s off the list. It’ll now be elsewhere. So it will not be him. Scratch him off the list.”
Other inside, all-knowing claims made by Mike Francesa included that neither the Rockies’ Troy Tulowitzki nor the Brewers’ Carlos Gomez would be traded.
Watching CBS on Saturday, if you didn’t know better, you’d have figured that either Tiger Woods was the only one playing in the PGA event or that he was the runaway leader — not seven back and headed to nine behind.
The leader, at 14-under — he had just shot 61! — was a relatively anonymous fellow named Troy Merritt, and CBS seemed devoted to protecting his anonymity.
On a busy golf weekend, one might think that something sold as Golf Channel would have its studio show serve golf fans as opposed to Woods-only fans. But one would be wrong.
And as long as CBS’s Peter Kostis and Ian Baker-Finch told us that Woods is playing a ball that “finds the water,” maybe he should switch brands.
Forget reality! Friday in Toronto, the Royals were up, 6-3, when Kansas City’s Ryan Madson entered to start the seventh. He faced four batters, allowing three singles and a double.
Madson was replaced by Kevin Herrera, who walked his first man, but Justin Smoak next grounded into a double play, the tying run scoring. The next batter grounded out to end the inning.
Although Madson clearly blew the game — KC went on to lose — before Herrera snuffed the fire Madson started, the blown save, or BS, was given to Herrera.
‘Going forward’ with grammatical guff
Michael KayPhoto: Anthony J. Causi
If I don’t see you in the future, I’ll see you in the pasture: From “armed robbery gone bad” to “score the basketball,” nonsensical, faux-hip idioms are the most likely to be copied. Sunday, during YES’s Yankees-White Sox game, Michael Kay read the on-screen graphic containing the day’s “Conversation” on social media:
“Which player traded at the deadline will have the biggest impact on his new team, going forward, and why?”
When did obvious referrals to the future begin to include “going forward”? Ya mean the just-traded players won’t be playing in the past?
Look What They’ve Done to My Game, Ma, Continued: Gorgeous Saturday and Sunday afternoons in New York for baseball. But not as per Bud Selig’s legacy, nor, apparently, Rob Manfred’s.
Colin Cowherd to Fox is not dead, but in hibernation until the fall or winter — when the heat goes down.
Although golf’s called “a game of honor,” its networks continue to treat us as too stupid to know we’re being treated dishonestly. CBS’s weekend coverage was loaded with “Live” coverage (on tape), but nothing more transparent than the ostensibly live shot of Ollie Schniederjans holing a putt from about 90 feet. Surprise!
Looking for a good pool/beach book? “Fun City” by Sean Deveney (Sports Publishing arm of Skyhorse Publishing). It’s about the roiling stew of 1960s NYC politics (emphasis on John Lindsay), mixed with the radical changes in the city’s sports scene (emphasis on Sonny Werblin’s Jets and Joe Namath).
Rumor is Urban Meyer suspended those four Ohio State football players after he caught them in the library.
Rowdy Roddy Piper was only 61? In WWF/WWE years that’s like 95.
Absurd golf-speak continues: On Sunday, CBS’s Bill Macatee said that on Thursday, “Two players were able to record a hole-in-one.” In real life, that’s spoken as “make” or “made” a hole-in-one, not “able to record” a hole-in-one.
Larry Brown’s SMU basketball program is accused of cheating by the NCAA? Shocking! When he coached Kansas, Brown was able to recruit Danny Manning. Think KU allowing Brown to hire Manning’s father as an assistant coach helped?
The You Can’t Be Serious ESPN Stat of the Week (heads-up provided by reader Rich Monahan): After Anthony Rizzo’s home run gave the Cubs the lead against the Brewers, “First go-ahead homer of his career with his team trailing in eighth inning or later.” Nurse!
The announcement SEC football programs are conducting seminars to teach its recruits that it’s wrong to beat women means what? SEC colleges regularly recruit players to their campuses who don’t know right from wrong, or often choose wrong?
Ya suppose that Chris Russo, who called Barbaro’s awesome, seven-length win in the 2006, 20-horse Kentucky Derby “boring,” thinks yesterday’s Haskell was named for Eddie?
