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Never got to this one at the end of the day yesterday. Spurred on by the kitty sighting early Sunday morning, we made more contacts around the neighborhood, eventually settling on a yard that backs up to Steve and Veronica's (where Bronzini was seen early that day). We found a hole in the fence between them that looked promising, and last night we moved the trap with some fresh noms to Mike's side of that fence. As of this morning, nobody was inside and nothing was eaten, so we're figuring this may be a long haul. It was almost balmy most of the day yesterday, but, this being Buffalo, there are snowflakes on the weather app for Tuesday night into Wednesday.
Before and after that, we began watching a BBC series on Prime called The Outlaws. I only heard about it for the first time yesterday when co-star and showrunner Stephen Merchant guested on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. The portion I heard suggested it was a lighthearted caper comedy, more in the vein of The Office (Merchant co-wrote the UK original with Ricky Gervais), and it is quite funny, but more in a Sopranos kind of way. There's a definitely dark and dangerous element to the plot, but at least through the first two of the six Series One episodes, it never gets to Tony's level of graphic violence, so we're both able to stay with it. In addition to Merchant playing a self-deprecating lawyer, the ensemble includes Eleanor Tomlinson (late of The Nevers which is also out there somewhere to return), Dolly Wells (of Doll and Em among others), and the immortal Christopher Walken as an American expat who deadpan-chews his way through the scenery as only he can. By the time episide 2 was done, so were we, but I did have time to post a Facebook recollection of my connection to one of the Three I wanted to write about.
I began with the classic question from American Grafitti- "Where Were You in '62?"- and concluded, I was two years old, so probably in a playpen watching Captain Kangaroo. But fast-forward fifty years beyond that, or ten years into our current past, and I can tell you exactly where I was this week:
I was with this guy. Tomorrow marks ten years since the beginning of the only academic conference I've ever presented at, on the subject I know best:
My contribution was on a panel where I discussed the history of Mets baseball on the radio, and the "network" of stations that is now basically one flagship on a million different smartphones. The event was the brainchild of a writer and blogger of Mets history, who began planning this conference well before the 50th anniversary year of the team but who tragically died in May of 2011. The university resolved to complete the project in his memory, and it was taken over by his fellow English professor and friend, our fellow Met fan, and my favorite all-time palindrome, Paula Uruburu, who pulled it off with the help of dozens of Hofstra faculty and staff, hundreds of writers and bloggers, numerous Met alumni, and virtually zero support from the idiot then-owners of the team itself. (They did at least send Mr. Met to hang out with us, so we had that going for us, which was nice.)
This being a Mets-related event, it was not without its uckfups. The university reserved a block of rooms for speakers at La Keenta Een een
One thing that didn't happen around that time was the on-field Mets actually being good. That, however, was nothing new, and that is what led to the actual point of this piece: this April, the now 60th anniversary of the Mets founding, is the first time in my sentient life that I can remember all three of my beloved sports teams being good at the same time.
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It was thus once, and really only once. Met alum Art Shamsky wrote a book about it-
- which chronicled the consecutive 1969-into-1970 championships of the Jets, Mets and Knicks, all of them defeating teams from Baltimore on their way to each achieving their first-ever league titles. The Jets would never return to the winners' circle after that one Super Bowl, and the Knicks only did once more, three years later. By then, though, my roundball alliance had shifted to Long Island's Nets and then disappeared when they decamped to Jersey; and I'd replaced hoops with pucks, with the hometown Islanders eventually giving way to my new hometown Sabres. The Jets, likewise, faded in favor of Buffalo's state religion, Da Bills.
Mets, Bills and Sabres. The three teams I've followed the past forty years- with one ring to show for their efforts in over 120 tries among them, and that one's getting tight on my finger since it dates from the Mets' second and last championship in 1986. They've had their moments in the other 39 years, but far more of them have sucked than elated.
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The football trajectory was the most full of ups and downs, with heartbreak marking the near misses. When I moved here in 1981, I barely knew anyone on the team- Orenthal having slashed his way out of town a few years earlier- but you could not walk around outside or in stores on a Sunday without the soundtrack of Van Miller calling every play. They hit rock bottom in the mid-80s with successive 2-14 seasons and perhaps the dumbest coach in NFL history, but the resulting draft picks turned them into the AFC dynasty that went to four straight Super Bowls, losing them all. Only the first was even close, and that game, decided on the final play by an attempted Bills field goal, resulted in "wide right" becoming part of the local lexicon. Those words would be joined in 1999 by "forward lateral," and just this past January by "13 seconds" in experiencing this team snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. As dumb coach Bullough indeed once said, “That took the sails out of our wind."
In between '99 and '21 were 17 straight years of not even qualifying for playoffs, still among the longest droughts in league history. But a funny thing happened in and just after the 18th year. After years of trying and failing with more experienced and famed coaches, the Bills' newish owners went with a first-time head man out of the Carolina organization and soon added a GM of similar provenance. They made it to the playoffs by the skin of their pigs in 2017, losing their only game, but that meh showing gave them a decent position in the following spring's draft of incoming players. There were a number of quarterbacks coveted by teams that year, and two of them were taken by Cleveland and the Jets before the Bills went on the clock. They picked a guy from a small western college whose stats weren't the best but whose upside was considered high. He missed the playoffs in his first season, but as the new coach and GM added talent around him, they returned for each of the past three seasons, and Josh Allen's performance has been nothing short of what my other team would call Amazin'. Both Cleveland and the Jets have moved on from their higher picks from that draft. Going into the 2022 season, the Bills are among the favorites to win it all. A new stadium is on the way, the schedule will likely be filled with packed prime-time appearances, and things in Orchard Park are definitely making me want to....
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Or, if you prefer, shoot.
My drift from Islanders to Sabres was slower, but it had definitely taken hold by the spring of my graduation from UB in 1984. The Blue and Gold were regular playoff contenders (not hard when more than half the league qualified), but rarely got out of the opening rounds until a combination of strong defensive coaching and lights-out goaltending got them to the Stanley Cup finals in 1999. That's when "no goal" joined the local lexicon of depression.
Buffalo, down three games to two, needed a home win to send the series to a Game Seven, and in a third overtime, Dallas Star Brett Hull scored the sudden-death game winner. Or did he? Replays immediately questioned whether he'd interfered with all-world Sabre goalie Dominik Hasek by sticking his foot in the crease. Today, millimeters of skate lengths take hours to review on replay, but back then the tech was much more limited, and the NHL was determined to award its Cup and had the red carpet on the ice before all the replays had even been reviewed. Would the Sabres have overcome that and won two straight? Probably not, but we'll never know.
We do know that things went mostly bad after that. A bankrupt and criminal owner put the team under league control until a cheapo Rochester owner "saved" them from being relocated, and a young team came close in the mid-oughts to making the Cup finals. Only a rash of injuries in a semi-final series kept them out, and then said cheapo owner failed to re-sign the two best players on the team, leading to, what else?, a lengthy drought of even making a playoff appearance.
Yet the same funny thing happened with this team's future. After finally firing their longtime strong defensive coach Lindy Ruff, the Sabres tried all kinds of different approaches, none of them working. They brought up the coach from their Rochester affiliate, who stunk out the joint. Then they brought back a pre-Ruff coach once beloved for his lunch-pail "hardest working team in hockey" and put him in charge of what is derisively known as the "tank year," where they were losing games almost on purpose to acquire a top draft pick. The next years were cursed from that effort, as a former Cup-winner from Pittsburgh, a Sabres alum from Nashville, and a reverse Ted Lasso hire from English soccer were brought in as coaches and all tried and failed to put a winning product together. When they finally fired the soccer dude, the newer less cheap owners looked around and said, Fuck, nobody's left, let's give it to this guy. "This guy" turned out to be an assistant on the Sabres who we'd never heard of in his first head coaching gig, but who somehow connected with his ragtag bunch of players, taught them how to both play and enjoy what they were playing, and in the final months of yet another losing non-playoff season has turned the record and the attitude completely around. The Sabres traded away their cursed tank acquisition, got two excellent everyday players and a draft pick in return, and are looking extremely hopeful for returning to, if not exceeding, their long missed playoff experience in 2022-23.
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And the Mets went with a recycled old fart. Yet somehow even THAT is working.
Since 1986, Da Boys have had only a few flashes of decency: a brief return to playoffs and a World Series in 1999-2000, some success in the mid-oughts where they just missed a Series visit, and a return in 2015 losing to a team from Kansas City (like the Bills have been making a habit in recent years:P). Other than those, it's been season-ending collapses and season-long suckage. Managers have come and gone, and ownership finally got replaced last year by Steve Cohen, a true fan of the team who has not only spent money but has spent wisely. When their pre-Cohen manager and GM were sacked following their 2021 season-ending collapse, they chose, not a first-timer like my Buffalo teams did, but went with a longtime former skipper in Arizona, Texas, Baltimore and the Bronx. Widely regarded as an ancient throwback (he's three years older than I am), Buck Showalter has won all five of the home and away series put before him in his first month, and holds the second best record in baseball, all without his ace pitcher being available. The team is a mix of old and young, of superstar and striver, and like my other followings, is giving me immense hope for the year ahead.
Let's go Mets. Buffalo. Allayas.