Poor Patrick not first bigwig to be asked for ID
THOUGH one can understand Patrick Ewing’s frustration in being asked for ID to enter the Garden — a minor annoyance, despite Ewing publicly sharing his anger — he is hardly the most important man ever to be asked by a mere grunt to produce his ID.
In December 1944, as American GIs, mostly green replacements, were being battered during the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans infiltrated U.S. positions with soldiers who spoke English and were wearing captured American uniforms. The call came to tighten security.
As no less a soldier than highly recognizable Gen. Omar Bradley — then commanding 43 divisions and 1.3 million men, the largest number of U.S. soldiers to ever serve one commander — entered the battle zone, his jeep was stopped by a sentry. Bradley was asked to provide identification.
There’s famous footage of Bradley, a rather blank look on his famously stony face and taciturn demeanor, producing his ID to a soldier who inspected it before waving Bradley through.
I’ve read much about and from Bradley, but never a word about being inconvenienced by a soldier who was following instructions in a brutal and critical war zone. But Ewing? He was appalled!
➤ So let’s see how this is supposed to work: Gary Bettman and NHL team owners plan to further grow their sport by diminishing their games’ appearances on mass access regional TV. In the near future, one can anticipate attractive games in large TV markets, such as RangersBruins
and Rangers-Islanders, will be dangled for purchase exclusively on those streaming networks. The NHL soon will become the exclusive property of extrapay streaming enterprises as sold to ESPN and Hulu for a reported $2.8 billion over seven years, and then marked up.
Now you see it, now you don’t! Brilliant strategy! And if we didn’t know better we’d think that untreated greed, and not the good of the sport, was the determinant factor.