CAN'T ANYONE DO ANYTHING RIGHT?


 Baseball’s Hall of Fame voters got it wrong AGAIN when Billy Wagner fell short … this time by five votes. Check his numbers. The lefthand relief pitcher from Marion, Va., who went to Ferrum College, averaged 11.9 strikeouts per nine innings and limited batters to an overall average of .187 – best by 12 points of any HOF-worthy reliever … The rap against Wagner is that he ONLY appeared in 903 innings during a 16-year MLB career that ended in 2010 when, at age 38, he walked away after a personal-best 1.73 ERA for the Atlanta Braves to spend more time with his family … You could go on and on with his numbers … but easily one of the most intriguing things about Wagner was … he was born a natural right-hander. At age seven he twice broke that arm and became a southpaw whose fastball was measured at 100 mph-plus.



IT COULD BE that Peter Laviolette is doing Zac Jones a 

favor … by making him a perpetual healthy scratch while the 

New York Rangers continue to crash and burn. They’ve lost 

nine of 14 including three of four on a road trip that ended 

Tuesday night with a 3-2 overtime setback against arguably 

the NHL’s worst team, the San Jose Sharks … Jones is the 23 

year old defenseman from Glen Allen who, except for a 10-

game stretch in November when Adam Fox was sidelined by 

injury, has been the Rangers’ forgotten man. Never mind the 

team went 7-2-1 to build a nice lead in the Metropolitan 

Division. The Rangers still cling to first place … but only 

because both No. 2 Philadelphia Flyers and No. 3 Carolina 

Hurricanes hit the skids at the same time … In his first season 

as NY coach, Laviolette is said to be pro-veteran, and he 

doesn’t like to change his lineup … all of which helps to 

explain why 33-year-old Erik Gustafsson has remained 

among the team’s top six defenseman – ahead of Jones – 

despite becoming progressively worse, even embarrassing at 

times. Twice at Anaheim he fell down without being touched,

 trippingover the blue line after tumbling in the Rangers’ end 

and leading to a breakaway by the Ducks who are only 

marginally better than San Jose. 


IN RESPONSE to news WWE Raw will move from the USA 

cable network to Netflix, a streaming service, by January 2025 

… for an estimated $5 billion-plus over 10 years …

 America1st commented: 

"$5 billion for fake wrestling? … Only in America!”

To which crusherverdu (not her real name) wrote: 

“That’s why they’re all crossing the border to come here.”

-- From The New York Post, Jan. 23, 2024


Sad – but true – to say … print journalism is going, going … 

almost gone. Latest example: The Los Angeles Times gave 

pink slips to a reported 100-plus employees this week … 

among them beat writers for the Dodgers and Angels … We 

keep hearing the Times-Dispatch could cut back to three or 

four days a week … which will be the fate of all bottom-line 

Lee Enterprise-owned papers that aren’t totally wiped out. 

The end game for Lee is a dot-com operation only that is 

packed with advertising. See Richmond.com which, at the 

moment, is run by bean counters who have no idea how bad 

their product really is – or worse, don’t care.


UNTIL NEXT TIME ...




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