By Hal Cohen

I am a huge baseball fan. More accurately, I am a huge New York Mets fan. However, I do love baseball. I also have a reputation, neither earned nor deserved for knowing a lot about baseball. I personally never claimed this supposed massive knowledge of the sport, but I do know who Nick Adenhart was.

Contrary to my friends’ opinions, I do not obsess about baseball. I’ll watch a game regardless of participants if its on. I play fantasy baseball. I am more than happy to call on my fantasy league opponents to attest to my actual lack of knowledge about players- but I do know who Nick Adenhart was.
Whenever people ask me a question about baseball, and sometimes I’ll walk into a bar to, “Oh good, Hal’s here. He can settle this,” I know the answer. This is not due to my intense passion for the game, but rather due to a perverse reverse Murphy’s Law where people only ask me questions that I happen to know the answer to. No one’s asked, and yet I do know who Nick Adenhart was.

Without Google, I feel confident that could name the Mets current 25-man active roster, but not the 40 man roster. I could probably name the Yankees starting lineup and most of the starting rotation. I know the names of most of the Aces (for the uninformed, that’s #1 starting pitchers for each team), but I might not be able to place them on the correct team. Be that as it is, I still know who former Los Angeles Angels starting pitcher Nick Adenhart was.

At this point, you may be wondering who Nick Adenhart is and why I continue to mention that I know who he was. Well, the only reason I know who he was is because he’s dead. A mere hours after his 4th Major League start, he, along with two of his friends were killed when a drunk driver ran a red light in Fullerton, CA. So often, when we hear about drunk driving and professional athletes, it’s the athlete that is drunk.
We do not know whether Nick Adenhart was drunk or not, and for once it doesn’t matter, because he was not driving. Wednesday night, several hours before Nick Adenhart was to take the mound for his 4th ever Major League start, I was sitting down to a Passover Seder with my family. This year, Passover coincided with a holiday that occurs every 28 years. This rarely occurring day celebrates the Sun, Earth, and Moon in the exact positions they were in when they were created.
Passover specifically celebrates the liberation of Israelites from Egyptian slavery. Easter which is always celebrated near Passover acknowledges Jesus rising. Both holidays are in effect a celebration of rebirth. Indeed that is what spring is all about- a reaffirmation of life.

In pre-historic times, this time of year was celebrated. In Washington D.C we will be hearing about the Cherry Blossoms any day now. Life springs up all around us. Baseball has always served as notice that life begins anew. Not for Nick Adenhart. We do not get to appreciate his life. Just as his bud appeared on the branch that branch got pruned.
I find myself crying for a person I never even new existed. But, I’m not crying just for him. Two friends of his were killed in the same crash. They may not have been professional baseball players, but they were young people just budding as well. I don’t know their names.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim will no doubt memorialize Nick Adenhart on their uniforms for the rest of the season, as well they should. We should also remember and memorialize his friends. My heart and condolences go out to those three young people who had so much life to look forward to. Given a choice, I would gladly give up my hopes for Mets playoffs if it meant that there was a different reason to know who Nick Adenhart was.

Santana's Namath Moment

Big game bravado is epitomized by Broadway Joe Namath’s Superbowl guarantee.  Here in New York, the city whose fan’s benefited from his “take the points” assurance, we’ve seen many star athletes attempt to emulate him.  Perhaps the two most famous were Patrick Ewing’s perennial failures to deliver on his promises at the time that Mark Messier scored a hat trick in New Jersey that eventually led to the Ranger’s bringing home Lord Stanley’s Holy Grail ending our “curse”.

Set side jingoism, and regional pride, for a moment, the fact is that in America, New York City is the biggest stage.  Why?  We’ve got more people.  Let’s be clear, as much as I might believe New Yorkers are better because I am one, I acknowledge that its not empirically true.  Purely as a matter of money, however, New York teams generate more money for the simple fact that there are more New Yorkers.  This leads to greater media coverage, more scrutiny, and as a result more pressure.

The well-known refrain, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere” from New York, New York, whether you prefer Liza Minelli’s or Frank Sinatra’s version, may not be accurate.  However, there are people who’ve been successful everywhere but here.  Many New Yorkers remember that Yankee Stadium is where Ed Whitson’s career went to die.  For me, though, Kenny Rogers, hated in both boroughs with baseball teams is a more definitive character.

Kenny Rogers, who has thrown one of only 17 perfect games in the history of Major League Baseball, had great years before, between, and after his New York tenures.  Every superstar that comes to New York (Randy Johnson, Carlos Beltran) is now rated as though their pre-NY stats don’t count.  Which brings me to the latest member of the club, and the title of this piece.

Johan Santana is an elite pitcher, but does he have the stuff to be a great NY pitcher?  His won-loss record in his NY debut is not the stuff of legend.  Albeit, through no fault of his own.  In baseball, If you don’t score, you can’t win.  Many people question whether or not he’s justified the huge contract he signed with the Mets.  His passion was called into question because he hadn’t pitched complete games until he did in back to back starts.  Additionally, he didn’t seem to get mad or disappointed when the team didn’t hold his lead, and told the media that he had done his part to get the win.

Well, here we are, the 161st game of the season.  Santana was scheduled to pitch the season finale.  However, after yesterday’s loss to the Marlins, coupled with the Brewers’ victory over the Cubs, the Mets find themselves 1 game out of the playoffs.  A loss today, and Santana’s start tomorrow could be meaningless.

What does Santana do?  He asks for the ball.  On short rest he said, let me guarantee that tomorrow’s game means something.  Pitching on short rest for only the second time in his career, and after a game where he set a personal high pitch count, he took the ball and said, I’ll get you to tomorrow.

He did not offer a guarantee in the vocal way that Namath, Ewing, and Messier did.    But he effectively said, while I can pitch we will not be eliminated.  In sports parlance, when you are cut from the roster, it is often said that the “Turk” has visited you.  Whether the Mets make the playoffs or not, today, Johan Santana said to the “Turk” Like Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings “You Shall Not Pass!”  Or as was told to the Albino in the DaVinci Code, “thus far you have come, but no farther."

I have a friend, well, actually more than one. For the purpose of this story, I’ll call this friend Tom. This should be easy to remember because it is actually his name. Tom LOVES golf. No, love doesn’t quite cover it. Tom’s relationship with golf goes deeper. He needs golf, like he needs oxygen. He is obsessed with it, thinking about golf constantly. I imagine the only time he doesn’t think about golf is when he makes love to his wife. Otherwise he’d finish too quickly.

Tom also thinks he’s a great golfer. In fact, he imagines himself the second coming of Phil Mickelson, but he plays right-handed. In contrast, I compare my game to Jackie Mason in Caddyshack 2, and I ask your forgiveness for putting that image in your mind. Tom doesn’t think my game is as bad as I say, and likewise I don’t think his is as good. He’s always telling stories about having great rounds, and either I’m a jinx or he’s a liar, ‘cause he never has one when we play together.
I’m not saying Tom doesn’t have game. One time we had a disagreement about whether his tee shot went 311 or 316 yards. I finally told him to, “Take those five yards, and shove them up your ass.” Although, as you may have heard, “Pride comes before a fall.” Sometimes he angers the golfing gods. There are 2 things that you are never to say on a golf course: 1) I’d better wait, I can reach this green; and 2) I’ve got this shot.
Tom violated both of them on the same round, and the result was typical. The first time, he sliced it off a tree, and made forward progress of about 10 yards. The second time he put it over the green. The gods made him pay further when he had to watch my tee shot land 12 feet from the stick.

So, one day we’re playing a nice course in southern New Jersey, with another friend. I’ll call him Mike for the same reason I decided to call Tom, Tom. Now, as a native of New York, it pains me to use the words “nice” and “New Jersey” in the same sentence but it was nice. Well, the six-pack to go in the insulated bag was nice in any event.
Tom is having a decent round, but nothing that’s going to get him on tour. On the back nine, we come to a hole where the left side of the fairway is lined by trees. Tom’s shot goes out of sight over some of those trees. I end up near Tom
on the wrong side of the trees. As I approach my ball, Tom asks if I’m looking for his shot. “No,” I tell him, “mine.” Not everyone is as obsessed with Tom’s game as he is.
My shot is fairly easy; I have a clear view of the green. I don’t reach it, of course, but I’m closer. Tom on the other hand is in trouble. His ball is just a few feet from the tree line. Now, there is an opening in front of him so he can fairly easily chip it onto the fairway. There is another opening further down the line, but its angle is so slight, as to make even contemplation of it insane.
Did I mention Tom is insane? He is not even thinking about the simple chip onto the fairway. Let me add some context here, New York has old buildings with narrow windows. They are called casement windows, and I don’t know why, but even they are wider than the opening Tom was aiming at.

There is a scene in Apollo 13 where they are discussing the re-entry angle of the ship into earth’s atmosphere. A softball represents the moon, a basketball- the sun, and a piece of paper held so that its thickness represents the narrow window for re-entry angle. Did I mention I’m prone to hyperbole? Our golf game was hardly life and death. The only thing we had in common with those astronauts is that there were 3 of us.
Mike tried to reason with Tom, saying he’s having a good round and should play safe. But, reasoning with Tom is like trying to teach a pig to sing- it wastes your time and ticks off the pig. Before you could say, “Tom there’s so much to live for,” he was into his backswing. The ball sailed through, we didn’t hear it hit any wood, and Tom was thrusting his arms up in victory.

Now, you might think the story ends there, but it doesn’t. Getting it through the opening in the trees was quite an accomplishment. Mike and I returned to the fairway to finish the hole, and ignore Tom. That soon became impossible. The ignoring Tom part, not the finishing the hole. Tom let out a shout of joy heard as far away as Ontario, Canada. Then he proceeded to do a tumbling run of back flips, lay-outs, and cartwheels worthy of an Olympic gymnast. It turns out that his impossible shot landed on the green and he would be putting for birdie.
He 3-putt for bogie 5.

A Tale of Two QBs