Sports Shorts

  • “No plans to do that. … My plate is overflowing, so I don’t see that.”—Jeff Vinik, on speculation that he may get involved with the Rays.
  • Granted, it’s an “All-Star” game, which means it’s an exhibition, however high profile. But when you mic-up baseball players in the field and talk with them while the game is ongoing, it’s beyond gimmicky and disrespectful to the game, if that still matters.
  • “It’s weird because the Lightning sell out, and Tampa Bay is not a hockey town.” That was Mets All Star and Plant High alum Pete Alonso, weighing in on the Rays chronically poor attendance and the team’s two-city alternative. It caught some eyes and raised some brows. Tampa’s not a hockey town? Yo.

But we know—we think—what Alonso meant. There had been zero tradition for hockey here. Obviously. So how ironic that an MLB franchise in a market steeped in baseball tradition doesn’t do nearly as well as ICE hockey in this Sunshine State market. A lot of well-documented factors. But the juxtaposition is blatantly ironic, although this is, to be sure, a hockey town. Go, Bolts.

  • It was sad—and sobering—to hear that Dwight “Doc” Gooden had been charged (in New Jersey) with cocaine possession and being under the influence of drugs. The Hillsborough High alum who won the Cy Young Award with the New York Mets in 1985, has had drug problems in his professional career and afterwards.

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