Tuesday 6/9/20
I'm exhausted. I gave a lot to my work today. Waiting to go on Downtown now. Have not left this death-trap in two days. Have hardly stood up from the desk. Have just written.
I should put up something jolly while I am waiting. Not actually jolly--more like something light and not consequential, pertaining to sports.
Last week NESN was playing old Cam Neely games. I know that Neely had no four-goal games--surprising, right?--but in a career that featured, I would say (I don't feel like looking it up), two dozen hat tricks, only two, I believe, were on the road.
Watching Neely, even diminished in 1994, I was reminded of how dominant he could be. Wasn't just a goal scorer. Excellent hands. Good passer. He tipped in a goal on a point shot that was waist-high, through his legs, on his backhand.
I love Fred Cusick, but Derek Sanderson was a fine color man. I guess I didn't notice that so readily as a kid. He knows a lot about what makes a good player, or a good game by a player, a long ways from the stat sheet.
No one says "Score!" better than Fred Cusick. You'd think there'd only be so much one could do with one word. Well, Handel knew differently, with the Amen chorus in Messiah, and Fred Cusick knew differently with "Score!"
I watch Joe Juneau in these games, and I see a guy who should have had 70 assists every year. I wonder what caused him to lose it so fast.
Yesterday I learned that Mark Grace had the the most hits in the 1990s. I would not have picked Grace. I think maybe I would have said Ripken. Or Gwynn.
Recently I made mention of players in various sports who should be Hall of Famers who are not. I left out a glaring one for me--Vladimir Krutov. Sergei Makarov was perhaps the best Soviet player of that time period, but not by a lot over Krutov, and the latter had his spells when he was better than Makarov.
Jody Davis was a random player I liked as a kid. It's cool that you just like a random player--it's what happens--who is not a star for whatever personal reasons. I liked catchers in general. I'm probably more inclined to like a catcher.
NBA people are so hypocritical when it comes to China.
I pitched something yesterday on this Sammy Sosa/Mark McGuire 30 for 30 episode. It is so hard doing everything at once such that the 2000 word piece becomes something that must be done in an hour, and it must perfect, ready to go, better written than what anyone else can do. And it has to be like something that's not doing anything, that doesn't take away the energy. Any of these things that I have to execute like that, would be someone else's month. Then I just see them get awards for doing nothing.
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