Tuesday 8/29/23
Wrote a 3000 word short story and ran 5000 stairs today. That was by 12:15. Don't know what I have with the story, but shall see and act accordingly.
I really need to have good discipline and get through many things. Works I need to write and complete.
Lot of Powell and Pressburger of late. Watching more now.
Need to reach out to my buddy Howard to see if he can locate copies of this big new Grateful Dead box set, Here Comes the Sunshine, and Wake of the Flood: The Angel's Share. Howard is the unrivaled master of the find. He was ways. I don't even know what they are. They're beyond me.
Patriots cut Bailey Zappe and Malik Cunningham. Somewhat surprising. That you'd cut both to bring in Brian Hoyer or Colt McCoy is dumb to me. Those guys are both junk. Zappe at least is versed in the playbook to some degree and knows the deal there and his teammates.
I thought they'd keep Cunningham because Belichick likes those guys who can play multiple positions on offense. Edelman, for example, who of course was a QB. My guess is this has more to do with Bill O'Brien and power he has been given in this new operation.
I do think Alex Cora basically tried to lose that game on purpose last night in an act of defiance. He's now in his last five weeks or whatever it as Red Sox manager. Remember that "They hate their coach" Belichick thing from back in 2003? Alex Cora hates his boss. Cora would have told the Red Sox to stuff it by now, if they hadn't brought him back--he owes them--after his cheating ban. Can't bite that hand. You have to take it.
He took it, and soon the gig will be done. I'm sure he looks at dealing with Chaim Bloom and his analytic drones as his penance. I don't believe there are many people in this world with any character at all, and Cora has revealed plenty about his lack of character, between things like last night--though that was an extreme example of that kind of behavior--and his cheating.
He'll get another job fast and be successful. It's interesting: There are some managers who need to manage winners. They can't take non-winners and make them overachieve, but put them in charge of a roster with talent, and along they cruise. Other managers are better at taking not-so-talented teams and making them hard to play against and even tough to beat--Billy Martin was that way, and even though he won a World Series with the Yankees, he was a neurotic basket case making lots of gaffes and panic moves that year. His natural environment was managing the 1974 Texas Rangers, not the 1978 Yankees.
I know, talent is the thing (in sports). And then it's talking to the media, keeping players happy, etc. Cora can do that. Francona was that way, but with a less aggressive managerial style than Cora. Francona could have won more than he did in Boston. Too often there wasn't enough urgency.