Crazy horse victory is amazing
ONE NEED not be a horse-racing fan to be stunned by this: Last week at the Listowel track in Ireland, a 6-year-old gelding, Costalotmore, won by an officially declared 39 lengths! Nearly as stunning is that Costalotmore went off at 20-1.
➤ Who wasn’t a fan of “This Week In Baseball”? Last week, one of its top youngblood producers of the 1980s, Bob Bodziner, died at 62.
➤ Now hear this: Sunday’s local team games have Kevin Burkhardt and, uh-oh, Daryl “Moose”/“The Speech Maker” Johnston calling Fox’s 49ers-Giants. CBS has Hollerin’ Kevin Harlan with new partner Trent “The Underappreciated ”Green working Jets-Colts to follow.
➤ Do Michael Kay, Paul O’Neill and David Cone not yet realize that every game, often all game, they laugh out loud at what YES’s audience recognizes as barely worth a grin?
➤ Larry Wilson, ubiquitous No. 8 formerly of the NFL’s St. Louis Cardinals and ounce-for-ounce the toughest defensive back I can recall (he once intercepted a pass with a broken hand and nearly returned it for a TD), died last week at 82. The Hall of Famer was listed as 6-feet, 190 pounds, but that defied the eyes. He was smaller, and almost always, by far, the smallest man on the field.
➤ New York State AG Letitia James talked tough back in April when she threatened going after cable and satellite systems for charging for undelivered and unplayed sports telecasts. Yeah! But after four months and tens of millions dollars of subscriber fees pocketed in exchange for nothing, James’s threats, which I mistook as genuine, were hollow.
➤ Bill Belichick in ads for Subway sandwiches? I figured he’d endorse something closer to his persona, like a stool softener.
➤ Now NBC is relegating 175 English Premier League matches to its new Peacock streaming pay network. Sports as bait-and-switch chum continues.
➤ Intrepid Post baseball beat man George King is retiring after 25 years of raking valuable diamond muck. I had no idea that he was British royalty — or was named after his grandfather then father — until he retuned a call. The caller ID appeared as “King George III.” No fooling.