This morning, I read Bill Madden's (NY Daily News) column spelling out his thoughts on why Joe Torre was not fired ... the big news that he couldn't bring himself to share during his SNY appearance yesterday. Underwhelming. Money. [7mil plus maybe 5 more to get Lou.] Knew that. Joe wanting to stay/loyalty. Knew that. Madden didn't think either reason was compelling, suggesting a third. Don Mattingly (former captain, hitting coach now) the next in line (basically knew that was a good possibility), not ready to come in, and Lou Piniella likely to cause chemistry problems. George likes Lou, so he didn't want to put him through that. I guess.
But, isn't the whole point of the move to rile people up? To change things, hopefully along with other things like no more A-Rod? Settling for a few more wins than teams with half your payroll, teams that actually are going further than you in the playoffs not acceptable. Anyway, not really worth the wait, and given the special Mets wrap (previewing the second round), no one would not buy the paper or something if he talked about it. Overall, it makes a veteran reporter look a bit stupid, and such coyness was annoying. He did look a bit uncomfortable doing it, but still.
Serge Leveque: I came here to save my wife and my two children and... six billion lives... it's too much. I just hope I'm, I'm smart enough and brave enough to save three.
-- The Core
I was orginally not going to include these comments -- after all enough with the Yankee focus and my opposition to the move really is neither here nor there at the end of the day -- but a bit of insanity occurred. A small plane crashed into an Upper East Side Manhattan apartment building across from the East River. Mixed reports, but overall, we soon learnt it was clearly an accident, and at worse only a few people died. [The mayor said only those on the plane, the pilot and flight instructor -- rather amazing really.] The word fits since we are talking about a plane, even a small one, crashing in an urban area. And, then we learn (unofficially, since the family has to be found*) that soon to be ex-Yankee pitcher Cody Lidle's (not very popular of late) passport was found on the street and it was his plane.
Given the timing and such, including it occurring not too far from Shea Stadium (Lidle's former pitching coach is now doing that job for the Mets), that is some weird coincidence. Just insanity. Meanwhile, the Mets game was rained out. Also, we learn from a Lancet report:
We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654 965 (392 979–942 636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2·5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601 027 (426 369–793 663) were due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire.
More with links to a few who provide useful perspectives that suggest the study sounds reasonable provided here. A third of that would be over 200K people; comparably speaking, over two million Americans (Iraq has a population of around 24 million). Not that we should blame ourselves any. Let us be appalled at the loss of two people though.
They are "ours" after all, one a medium range American baseball player with connections to three playoff teams (NY/Oakland).
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* The NYT reports "a high-ranking city official confirmed late this afternoon" confirms Lidle died.