Bits & Pieces

Letting Loose

By Kim J. Harmon

Sometimes this business …

Yankees fans – and Yankees haters, for that matter – know that Alex Rodriguez, the best (and highest-paid) player in major league baseball) is in a terrible slump (for him) and fans have been booing him unmercifully.

A-Rod commented on Monday (it wasn’t even a complaint) that, in essence, the media is making too big a deal out of it.

Well, that just set off Jason Smith, the overnight guy on ESPN radio, who complained that A-Rod is now blaming the media.

Gosh darn it, the media IS to blame, at least in some part. The media made such a big deal about A-Rod’s slump that hosts from Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic to Michael Kay spend an hour or more talking about it and, at the same time, trying to defend A-Rod and telling fans they shouldn’t be booing one of the best players in the history of baseball.

Well, booing has gone from simple frustration to the “in” thing to do at Yankee Stadium. I don’t doubt there is a group of guys who get together and say, “Hey, let’s get tickets to the game tonight so we can boo A-Rod.”

I saw a guy wearing a plain white t-shirt with the imprint, “A-Rod S**ks!”

If you don’t think the media, constantly and incessantly harping on the slump and examining the psychology of the fans from every conceivable angle, has something to do with that then you are just fooling yourself.

It reminds me of something I saw on television a year or so ago. Dan Patrick was doing one of those silly ESPN segments – the Budweiser Hot Seat or whatever it might have been – and he spent the whole time baiting the athlete. The two of them were talking in the same way two buddies talk – with bluster and a lot of good-natured jabs.

It was in that frame of reference that Patrick asked the athlete a question that turned into a jab at a fellow athlete.

Well, Patrick spent a fair portion of his afternoon show the next day decrying the comments and condemning the athlete for making them when Patrick BAITED HIM INTO SAYING THEM! It drove me crazy!

I tell you, the media …

Now that I’m all in a lather I got some other complaints and these are just about everyday life …

aI know it’s a state law that I have to stop when there is a pedestrian in the crosswalk, but what really burns me up is these people who jump out into the crosswalk WITHOUT looking and WITHOUT seeing if I will be able to stop safely to keep from running them down. More than a few times I have had to lean on my brakes so much I thought my feet would punch through the floor of my car and I would look like Fred Flintstone stopping his car with his heels. At the same time, why is it when I step out onto a crosswalk eight out of 10 cars just breeze right through without stopping?

aPeople, is it so hard to say THANK YOU – or at least make eye contact, for Heaven’s sake – when someone is kind enough to hold a door for you? Just this weekend, heading out of a restaurant in Willington, I came through the front door and held it for a small group of people and all three walked through without so much as a glance in my direction. Holding the door is not my job, people!

aI’ve said this before … if I’m in the passing lane on some major highway like the Massachusetts Turnpike and already doing more than 75 miles an hour don’t ever flash me with your high beams to try and get me to move over. It ain’t happening. And if you attempt to pass on the right, I will do everything I can (while remaining reasonably safe) to block you off. Nothing ticks me off more than someone flashing me.

aIf I narrowly avoid hitting one more car that drifts into my lane because its operator is busy on a handheld cell phone, I’m gonna’ have a conniption.

Someone save me.