WFNY Book Review — Jacobs Field: History and Tradition at The Jake
April 4, 2014WFNY Roundtable: The Kipnis Contract
April 4, 2014While we’re waiting? I really left you waiting this week. Sorry for the delay.
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Have you noticed that everyone’s talking about paternity leave lately? Boomer Esiason is the latest to discuss New York Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy missing two games to start the season. Well, they’re all late to the party. Denny and I discussed it recently as well on the WFNY Podcast. In case you missed it, Denny discussed how he took time off when his baby was born and loved it. (Paternity leave AND the baby.) I talked about how I didn’t take much time off at all and that worked out pretty well for me due to the fact that I have a pretty flexible schedule. Denny and I didn’t argue or fight about who was right or wrong. You know why? These are circumstantial and largely personal decisions.
There shouldn’t be a lot of hard fast rules about how these things go. No two couples are exactly alike. Now two child births are exactly alike. So all these people discussing this while trying to paint everyone with a singular paint brush are painting the wrong picture. I know in sports media we’re supposed to have strong opinions on everything, but this doesn’t have much to do with sports at all. Everyone should try not being so judgmental and hyper-aware of everyone else’s personal life. That includes an MLB player who decided to be with his wife for an amount of time he deemed fitting.
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It’s opening day and whether or not the game actually happens with the rain, I wanted to think about Danny Salazar for a minute. His experience as a Cleveland Indian so far leaves me wondrous. While we’ve been following along in agony as Eric Wedge and Manny Acta pushed this barge down the river and as Cliff Lee, C.C. Sabathia and Victor Martinez departed (among others) Danny Salazar’s experience with the Tribe and its fans is so much different.
The fireballing potential phenom shows up in his first year to a playoff year, gets to start that playoff game and then nabs the home opener. I have to remind myself of that sometimes. No matter how bitter and jaded Tribe fans might be, there are some fresh faces that couldn’t care less how annoying the era of “the Grinder” was for Tribe fans. David Dellucci and Jason Michaels might as well be actors from the movie Platoon let alone an attempted Indians outfield platoon.
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A few weeks ago, I told all of you that I was watching The League, and some of you warned me that it would “jump the shark” at some point. Some of you said season three. Anyway, I’m here to report that for me it never did jump the shark. I think it must be something about watching these shows in marathon format. All the things that you guys had living in your brain for three years and that you subsequently got sick of? When you take down five seasons of a show in four or five weeks, you don’t have time to get sick of them. As far as I’m concerned The League is just as great as the first season.
It’s probably weird for you longtime fans to hear. Now maybe if I continue to watch and it goes another four seasons I’ll have time to live with some of the more repetitive themes and jokes and I’ll tire of them too. Just seemed interesting to me. I was watching out for that point where it wouldn’t be funny to me. It has impacted my philosophy on TV. Maybe the perceived quality of a show has more to do with me and how I digest a TV show over time and less to do with the content itself.
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With that, go bask in the glory that the Indians have both Kipnis and Michael Brantley locked up for the foreseeable future on the 2014 edition of opening day. Go Tribe and have a nice weekend!
11 Comments
That would be the worst Playoon remake ever. Though this was often my reaction to seeing either of those two in the lineup:
I never took official paternity leave for any of my 3 kids, but I did take varying amounts of time off (vacation time by the books). 2 weeks for our first, 1 week for our second and 2 weeks again for our youngest. It had more to do with the amount of support we had at the time than anything, but I just do not understand how anyone can get up on a soapbox and ridicule a man for being there for his family.
Craig, I actually thought you were delaying this thread as a way of preparing us for what seems like inevitable delays for tonight’s game 🙂
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9czr1Koad1rutbklo1_500.gif
BREAKING NEWS: NY area radio hosts are equal parts blowhard and dbag!
Although I have to say, Boomer’s comments surprised me. I know he has (or had) a kid with a serious health condition, so you’d sort of expect in the fraternity of fatherhood, he’d get it: Murphy is a human being. Family–his wife and children–are rightfully his reality, his priorities. Baseball, or any sport, is just a glorified job.
Whether Boomer gets it or whether he’s just stirring the pot, pretty classless comments.
Whining Indians fans at least it’s not 2007 again, well, weather wise that is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRytYG2gMmw
well, considering how many of these players have children out of wedlock maybe the pundits have never really had to deal with the issue.
I know the Cavs are happy they never had paternity leave – Shawn Kemp would’t have been able to play for 2 and a half seasons.
You should have heard Mike Francesa, who nobody can stand (how does that guy still even have a job?).
http://nypost.com/2014/04/02/francessa-delivers-screeching-anti-paternity-leave-rant/
and Terry Collins backing up his second baseman:
http://nypost.com/2014/04/03/collins-defends-murphy-over-francesas-paternity-leave-criticism/
Exactly. What’s even more absurd is that it’s written into all MLB contracts – he’s not taking off extra time, he’s taking off as much as his employer allows.
Is Murphy going to look back on his life and think “man, instead of being there for my kid’s birth, I wish I’d have played those three games?” Come on.
Good for Collins. Apparently Boomer apologized today (at the urging of the charities he supports). As for Francesca, agreed on that tool. The only thing I can think of is that in the ecosystem of the sports world, we need the foils, the blowhards…
Even though it started in a very disjointed way, I thought the current season of The League was pretty strong.
Particularly, the baby jesus episode was quality.
“I got hotdogs coming and going.”
if opening day snow leads to the 2007 season, then I would gladly take it. also, you’re a bit feisty today.