Harry Caray died in 1998, but he can still make news today.
Caray announced for 25 years for the Cardinals before he was fired by owner Gussie Busch. I have heard, from people who were in a position to know, more than one version as to what specifically got Caray fired, though the general detail is consistent, as reported by Chicago Sports Memories:
After the 1969 season, his 25th with the Cardinals, Caray was abruptly fired. “I expected a gold watch,” he later joked, “but what I got was a pink slip.” It was a devastating blow, but not a complete surprise in light of allegations that he had become amorously involved with the attractive young wife of an Anheuser-Busch executive. Caray never denied it. “I’d rather have people believing the rumor and have my middle-aged ego inflated,” he said, “than deny it and keep my job.”
The other version, by the way, was that he “had become amorously involved” with the girlfriend of a very, very, very senior “Anheuser–Bush executive.”
After one season in Oakland, Caray moved to Chicago to announce for the White Sox.
But most baseball fans know Caray from his years announcing the Cubs.
After the Cubs improbably won the 1984 National League East title, Caray said in the Cubs’ locker room …
According to this Chicago Sun–Times story, Caray usually got his wish, even keeping records:
Grant DePorter, CEO of the Harry Caray’s chain of eateries, inherited the diary, one of eight, all from the ’70s and early ’80s, in four boxes of memorabilia, World Series tickets and cashed checks, that the executor of Caray’s estate found when he cleaned out his office.
Knowing my interest in all things historical, DePorter asked if I wanted to take a peek at one, and I swung by Harry’s and walked away with 1972.
I should say right away that this is not a Dear Kitty, pour-out-your-heart, frank-assessment-of-my-friends kind of diary. Old Harry was not big on introspection, as he was the first to admit.
“I’m a convivial sort of guy. I like to drink and dance,” he told an interviewer once.
Caray was the Cardinals’ color broadcaster for many years in St. Louis. Driven out of town in 1969, he migrated to Chicago, via a misfire year in Oakland, to announce first for the hapless White Sox, finishing his career in a golden twilight glow with the Cubs.
In 1972, he had just begun his tenure with the Sox. A savvy businessman, Caray cut a deal pegged to ballpark attendance, which doubled, largely thanks to his flamboyant presence. It would make him very wealthy, though in 1972 he was still tallying each bar tab.
“Remember, you used to be able to deduct a three-martini lunch,” DePorter said.
Saturday, Jan. 1, lists four bars: the Back Room, still on Rush Street, plus three long-ago joints: 20 E. Delaware, Sully’s and Peppy’s, with expenses for each $10.30, $9.97, $10, and $8.95. This in a year when a six-pack of Old Style set you back $1.29.
You needed to cite who you entertained to get the write-off, so on New Year’s Day he lists Dave Condon, the Tribune sports columnist; Billy Sullivan, who owned Sully’s; and Joe Pepitone, the former Yankees first baseman who had been traded to the Cubs.
And so it begins. A chain of old-time Chicago bars — Riccardo’s, Boul Mich, Mr. Kelly’s. A posse of early 1970s sports figures — Wilt Chamberlain, Don Drysdale, Gale Sayers. Plus a few unexpected blasts from the past: boxer Jack Dempsey, comedian Jack Benny.
“These guys did nothing but go out and have a few cocktails,” said Jimmy Rittenberg, who owned Faces, which Caray visited 14 times in 1972. “I don’t know how they did it. They were 20, 30 years older than me and I couldn’t keep up with them.”
Jan. 16 something unusual happens. Caray is in Miami, yet there are no expenses, just one enigmatic word, “Super.”
After that break, if indeed it was, comes 288 consecutive days in bars, not only in Chicago, but New York City, and of course on the road with the Sox, beginning with spring training in Sarasota.
The unbroken streak pauses Nov. 3, when all we get is “to K City @310.” The only completely blank day is Monday, Nov. 6 — what must THAT have been like? Then off to the races again.
Clay Felker, founder of New York magazine. Caray’s former boss, A’s owner Charlie Finley. A few surprises: Sox owner John Allyn. Several times. That surprised me, though it shouldn’t have. All I knew about their relationship was that Allyn fired Caray, and Caray replied with this timeless retort:
“I can’t believe any man can own a ballclub and be as dumb as John Allyn. Did he make enough to own it, or did he inherit it? He’s a stupid man. This game is much too complicated for a man like John Allyn.”
But that was 1975, the epic year when White Sox players complained they did so poorly because of Caray’s critical broadcast booth assessments, drawing my favorite Caray line: “Hey, you can’t ballyhoo a funeral.”
So what was it like to stand in the Pump Room (16 visits in 1972) and hoist a few with Caray?
“I was out with Harry Caray a couple of times,” the Tribune’s Rick Kogan said. “It was always at the Pump Room. He was one of the most charming people in the world.”
How so?
“Drunk but joyful,” Kogan said. “It always wound up being a joyful, laughter-filled time.”
Caray was always surrounded by friends like TV sportscaster Tim Weigel.
“He really liked Tim Weigel,” Kogan said. “I was an audience, at best, with those two characters around. They had incredible mutual affection. There was no better place to share that mutual affection than over way too many cocktails.”
I assumed that White Sox broadcasters today do not hang out in bars every night fraternizing with ballplayers and other assorted celebrities. But, not liking to assume things, I phoned the Sox and asked whether current announcers Steve Stone, who shared a mike with Caray, or Ken Harrelson, burned the midnight oil.
They declined to comment.
That kinda says it all, huh?
Toward the end of the diary, on Dec. 24, comes the kicker. After spending at least 354 of the previous 357 days in bars (DePorter counted 61 different tap houses) Caray writes, in a bold hand, “Vacation in Acapulco. Then “Vacation” every day until the year runs out.
Which makes me wonder how he knew he was on vacation. I guess if nobody was playing baseball in front of him and when he looked over the rim of his drink he saw Mexico, then he knew he was on vacation.
But give Caray credit. As old-fashioned, and perhaps even pathological, as the bar-crawling seems today, there is another truth worth mentioning: Harry Caray could have taken his drinks at home. He went out because it was his job.
“He felt the bartender and bar people were his fans,” Rittenberg said. “He felt he was responsible He would stop in 10 joints. He was just a gregarious guy.”
Jimmy Rittenberg, former proprietor of Faces—a bar Caray visited 14 times over the course of 1972—says Caray and his drinking buddies could outlast men 30 years their junior at the bar.
“These guys did nothing but go out and have a few cocktails,” Rittenberg said. “I don’t know how they did it. They were 20, 30 years older than me and I couldn’t keep up with them.”
Well, this being Wisconsin, it is hardly our place to criticize one’s drinking habits as long as one can hold one’s liquor. As far as I know, Caray was never arrested for drunk driving, and Caray was well known for drinking, not for incidents resulting from said drinking.
After Caray died, his son, Braves announcer Skip Caray, told the story of Harry, his then-broadcast partner Jack Buck, and young Skip going out the night before a Cardinals spring training game. The next day’s game against the White Sox included a catcher (who later ended up with the Brewers) named Gerry McNertney, whose last name proved difficult to announce for the presumably hung-over older Caray and Buck. “McNertney” proved so difficult, in fact, that the two decided to replace him before his third at-bat, despite the fact that McNertney was still playing. Radio is theater of the mind, after all.
(I might as well point out here that I have never broadcast while inebriated, though I have occasionally had a beer or two before games, and I have never imbibed during games. There is no opportunity to do so in high school and college games, unless you figure out a way to sneak in a bottle. I assume that announcing while impaired in today’s society is a good way to make that game your last game as an announcer.)
Skip Caray was known to hoist a few, too, or at least make drinking references. More than once, he said, “The bases are loaded, and I wish I was too,” sometimes replacing himself with the manager having to deal with the bases-loaded mess. Caray would also, until Braves owner Ted Turner made him stop, announce the bottom of the fifth inning by saying, “We’ve come to the bottom of another fifth.” Unlike his father, however, Skip’s health — according to one account, diabetes, congestive heart failure, an irregular heartbeat and reduced kidney and liver function — made him stop drinking, though after Harry missed a few games after becoming overcome during a game in Florida he reportedly switched to nonalcoholic beer.
Skip Caray died at 68. His father, Harry, was reportedly 83 when he died. Skip claimed Harry reduced his age every time he got a new employer, which, whether true or not, certainly adds to the aura, doesn’t it?
I took this photo (untouched) with my new smartphone in Kieler, Wis., at my oldest son’s baseball game last night. The temperature was in the 70s. I was wearing one of my 32,754 polo shirts and shorts. The only problems were the gnats, which are nasty enough this year to carry off someone.
The weather is expected to be similar today, when I travel to Cassville to cover a baseball regional final game between the Comets and their archrival Potosi (one of the state champion teams I’ve gotten to cover, back in 1993). The game comes on at 4:45 p.m. on http://www.theespndoubleteam.com.
After the craptacular damnable winter we lived through, I think we deserve this.
Right Wisconsin’s Savvy Pundit could have opened with “Please allow me to introduce myself,” from the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil”:
Hello, my name is Evil. I know I am not a welcome guest at your societal garden party. I know most of you like to ignore me or pretend I simply do not exist. I know acknowledging me makes a lot of you queasy because it runs counter to the polite, oh-so-politically-correct, anti-absolutist, relativistic fantasy world you have created for yourselves.
But let me warn you, and state this unequivocally: I will not be ignored.
Oh, I know you’ve tried. I concocted shootings and drugs and gang violence. You relegated these occurrences to “news in brief” or ignored them completely as if I didn’t even exist that these were just normal byproducts of urban life and not clear evidence of my presence. How rude of you.
Since you callously wouldn’t acknowledge my presence when the killings and shootings were merely one thug on another, I upped the ante and brought an innocent 10-year old on a playground into the mix. Surely that would get me noticed.
Instead, you gave the credit to others. You blamed the gun used. You blamed poverty. You blamed race. You blamed Scott Walker. (Seriously, isn’t that becoming a little cliché? What, George W. Bush wasn’t available? You’re embarrassing yourselves.)
But as I noted, I WILL NOT be ignored. And so now I give you the Slender Man stabbings. Who or what are you going to try to blame this time?
Race? Ha! Whites
Urban male culture? Try again. 12 year old girls.
Guns? Nope, A knife.
Gangs? Don’t insult me! A pajama party sleepover.
Poverty? Better luck next time: Middle class.
Milwaukee? Try Waukesha.
Poor, underfunded, failing schools? Not a chance. Just to drive that point home a little more clearly I even used the modern-day mark of an affluent school – the school-issued iPad for every kid – as part of my play on this one.
And yet you continue to resist admitting my tangible existence. You cling doggedly to your relativistic claptrap. You live in a constant state of denial concerning the state of human nature. You try to wish away the Hobbesian reality, even after I give you example after nasty, brutish and short example of unfettered individuals living in their own state of nature. You believe that trying to constrain behavior by declaring the existence of any absolute of right or wrong makes you “intolerant,” something that you seem to believe is literally a fate worse than death. You believe that your children are blank slates of creative virtue and it is society’s role not to besmirch them with judgment, rules or absolutes instead of realizing that from birth they are self-centered bundles of depravity for whom virtue is an inherently unnatural act that can only be instilled in them intentionally over time by patience, persistence, and discipline.
We are supposed to be comforted by David Ignatius, I guess:
Perhaps it’s a consequence of the United States being a relatively young nation that had to tame a wild frontier, but through our modern history, Americans have had a tendency to worry about whether our leaders are “tough enough” for the world’s challenges. Presidents who talk about their yearning for peace, as Eisenhower often did, are frequently pummeled by commentators for being too “soft.”
We’ve recently been in one of those cycles ofnational worry, as critics attack President Obama’s supposedly feckless and weak-willed foreign policy. The particulars of the case against Obama involve his reluctance to use military force after the frustrating wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Economist magazine raised the basic question of Obama’s credibility, asking in a May 3 cover headline: “What would America fight for?”
I agree that Obama’s foreign policy has not been as firm, especially in dealing with Syria and Russia, as it should have been. As a result, the United States has suffered some reputational damage. But listening to the recent debate, I have increasingly been struck by its recurring cyclical themes, as opposed to the specifics involving Obama. Yes, this president may be overly cautious. But a retreat to lick the nation’s wounds is fairly common after wars — and rarely does lasting damage.
A useful compendium of anxiety about U.S. weakness is a book called “Taking on the World,” about columnists Joseph and Stewart Alsop, written by Robert W. Merry. He explains that at nearly every point from the late 1930s to the late 1960s, the Alsops (especially Joe, the dominant voice) were warning that weak and irresolute U.S. leaders would open the door for our adversaries — in Europe, China, Korea and Vietnam. Sometimes the Alsops’ jeremiads proved correct. But often, they were flat wrong.
The Alsops’ suspicion of Eisenhower was especially sharp. They feared Eisenhower’s willingness to make peace in Korea would open the way for Russian and Chinese aggression. “The future of Asia may well be at stake” in maintaining French power in Vietnam, Joe wrote in 1954. Similarly, wrote Stewart in 1955, the French retreat from Algeria “could fatally weaken the Western alliance.” The Atlantic alliance would “founder” if the British were defeated over Suez in 1956, wrote Joe. U.S. defenses would be gutted if Eisenhower cut $5 billion from the $40 billion defense budget in 1955. And on it went.
The Alsops’ concern about Eisenhower reached its apogee during the debate over a supposed “missile gap” between Soviet and U.S. strategic forces. In a 1958 column, Joe accused Eisenhower of being “misinformed” or “consciously misleading the nation” about the “flaccid” U.S. shortfall. Joe even pushed then-Sen. John F. Kennedy to make a 1958 speech about the “peril” represented by this imagined gap.
Ike knew from intelligence that the gap was nonexistent, but he feared blowing his sources, so he let the worriers rant on. When Kennedy became president, his secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, finally seeing the intelligence, announced that the gap was a myth. Joe at first thundered that McNamara had been “hoodwinked by the bureaucracy.”
Then came Vietnam, a war that Joe chronicled and championed — and that he saw as an ultimate test of U.S. willpower. He brooded that Lyndon Johnson would display “presidential weakness” and applauded every escalation that showed Johnson would not “subside by degrees into surrender.” The United States finally retreated from Vietnam, but over time U.S. global power remained greater than ever.
The worriers get one big thing right. A strong, forward-leaning United States is essential for global security. But many of the fulminations about supposed weakness and retreat of U.S. power tend to be mistaken.
Ignatius is a political writer, and he appears to have no background in business journalism. You are familiar with the phrase “past performance does not necessarily lead to future results.” Apparently Ignatius is not.
Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson didn’t have to deal with radical Islam, fanatics who are ready to force others to submit to their perverted vision or destroy those who refuse to conform. None of them had to deal with Vladimir Putin, who wants to reassemble the old Soviet Union, and like the U.S.S.R. has nukes, while lacking the U.S.S.R.’s bad economics. The world views a five-terrorist-for-one-deserting-soldier prisoner swap, and laughs at us. Think China is afraid of us? Perhaps some Chinese leader will resurrect Nikita Khrushchev’s prediction, “We will bury you.”
Believe it or not, the U.S. has enemies. Russia, for one. Iran, for another. No country has ever lost a war because it was too strong, but countries lose when they are too weak. And that is now us under our spineless, feckless administration.
You have to be either willingly ignorant, a blind optimist or an Obama-lover to not believe the U.S. is worse off, and getting worse, under Obama and his America-weakening foreign policy.
The National Hockey League Stanley Cup Finals begins tonight, with the New York Rangers at Los Angeles.
I wrote last week about my geographically unusual affinity for the Rangers, the result of being able to see Rangers games, and no one else’s, when I was growing up.
I was hoping the Stanley Cup Finals would feature the Chicago Blackhawks, which arguably are the NHL’s most popular team now, but the Hawks lost their conference final in overtime to the Kings. Though Los Angeles is no one’s idea of a hockey hotbed, the Kings won the 2012 Stanley Cup and figure to be the favorite in this series, for, among other reasons, their better record, which is why the series opens in L.A. tonight.
The Kings have one Wisconsin connection — their TV announcer. Bob Miller was one of the UW hockey radio announcers in the early ’70s. Miller left for Los Angeles after the Badgers won their first NCAA championship in 1973. (Proving once again that announcers’ careers are helped by their teams’ winning championships.) Miller was selected for the job by the legendary Chick Hearn, long-time L.A. Lakers announcer, who was asked by Kings and Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke to recommend a candidate out of a pile of audition tapes.
The Rangers have a more direct Badger connection, forward Derek Stepan, who played two years for the Badgers. (Stepan is also a second-generation Ranger; his father was drafted by the Rangers.) The Rangers’ most direct connection is probably former goaltender Mike Richter, who played two seasons for the Badgers and was the goaltender for the 1988 Olympic hockey team.
I detailed the Rangers’ history starting when I started following them. The Rangers for many years had what might be called George Steinbrenner Syndrome, except that it probably predates Steinbrenner — pick up name players and coaches, whether or not the acquisition improves things. One Stanley Cup-winning coach, Fred Shero (with Philadelphia), wasn’t able to win another. One Stanley Cup Finals-appearing coach, Roger Neilson, wasn’t able to win one in New York. Nor was Herb Brooks, of the 1980 gold medal U.S. Olympic hockey team.
The coach who did win a Stanley Cup, Mike Keenan, was in New York for one season. Keenan was of the improve-fast-but-wear-out-your-welcome style of coach, comparable perhaps to baseball’s Billy Martin (though without the legendary drinking problem). Keenan, who last month won a Russian league title, contributes his opinion:
Henrik Lundqvist is the reason the Rangers are in the Stanley Cup finals. And Henrik Lundqvist is the reason why the Stanley Cup will be coming back to New York and the Garden.
Lundqvist can win this series on his own. You need strong defensive play, you need timely scoring, you need special teams, which have worked well for the Rangers in the playoffs, but Lundqvist is the key.
I expect to see the best goaltending exhibition he has ever put on in his life. I have that much confidence in him — his leadership skills, his technical skills, his competitive skills, and he’s completely, as has the rest of the group, capable of doing whatever it takes to win.
Then I look at some of the experienced players. Martin St. Louis has inspired the group emotionally, through some of his own personal hardships, but certainly, he’s captured the room in the sense that he’s the emotional ingredient they perhaps didn’t have at the same level prior to his arrival. Not to say that Ryan Callahan didn’t have it, but St. Louis is on a mission.
St. Louis and Brad Richards have won the Cup, and that’s going to be critical because there’s going to be breaking points in every game, and in the evolution of the series itself, they will need guidance and confidence from the leadership group in the locker room.
Chris Kreider is a kid that’s come out of nowhere and continues to get better. Speed is a very, very important part of Stanley Cup championship, and Kreider brings a great deal of speed, he’s got size, he does get to the net.
Derek Stepan’s played well, Mats Zuccarello has scored some timely goals for them. They have a big centerman in Brian Boyle — he will be a big factor in this series because of his size and strength down the middle.
Rick Nash has got a skill set where he can be a game-breaker, and I’m sure that he’s up to that task. Nash has to be a big contributor here, not necessarily always scoring, but he has to create offensive opportunities that might result in somebody else getting a scoring chance or getting some goals. He’s a big, strong, determined winger, much like the wingers the Kings possess.
And belief can take the Rangers the distance, because that’s exactly what you need, you need a sense of mission. And they’re on a mission now, just as the Kings are. Our Stanley Cup team in ’94 had that same sense of mission, and it came right from the top players, from Mark Messier and Adam Graves, and I can start naming most of them now. There has to be that sense and confidence and the feeling that they’re capable of elevating their play. …
I coached against Alain Vigneault in Calgary a lot — don’t underscore his presentation. He’s a pit bull. And he’s a competitor. And it may not look like it, but his teams play like it. His demeanor on the bench isn’t as overt or demonstrative maybe as some others. Sutter’s pretty calming as well in terms of his presentation.
Alain’s going to make some adjustments on the bench and on the fly in Games 1 and 2 and find a way to neutralize as best he can the advantage the home team has with the last changes. …
Los Angeles has a great deal of championship experience in the core group. You look at the size and strength of their team, but that starts with the centermen, they’re really strong and deep down center, they’ve got some flexibility to move some of the centermen to wings if they want to shorten their bench. They’re big, they’re strong, they’re fast, they’re deep … and they’ve got a superstar defenseman, much like Brian Leetch for us when we won the Cup, in Drew Doughty. He commands respect of everyone that plays against him, and their goaltender Jonathan Quick is outstanding.
It won’t be enough.
Keenan points out probably the number one factor to success in the playoffs — the goalie. The other, if you’re not the team with home-ice advantage, is to win one of the first two to take away home ice advantage. The Rangers’ chances of winning the Cup improve greatly if they go to New York for games three and four tied 1-1 instead of down 2-0. In the Eastern Conference final, the Rangers improbably won the first two in Montreal, and went on to win in six.
Grantland has an interesting analysis of how the Rangers’ roster was built:
It’s been an inspiring run for the Rangers, who weren’t widely considered a Cup favorite when the playoffs began. The NHL is a copycat league, so there will no doubt be plenty of teams looking at New York’s success and trying to come up with a way to duplicate the blueprint.
But those teams will run into a problem: There doesn’t seem to be one.
No team is built by following just one strategy; every roster is pieced together in a variety of ways. But with most teams, there’s at least some tendency that stands out. This year’s Canadiens have been largely built through the draft. The Kings and Bruins draft well and then trade aggressively. The Red Wings specialize in finding gems late in the draft. The Maple Leafs trade well and sign horrible free-agent deals. The Oilers draft first overall.
But no such pattern stands out with the Rangers. A look down their roster reveals key players acquired in just about every way imaginable. If there’s an overarching plan in place beyond “go out and get good players,” it’s well hidden. And needless to say, whatever they’re doing is working.
It wasn’t always this way. For years, the Rangers were the poster child for the NHL’s big spenders, throwing dollars at the biggest free agents and using their wealth to pluck aging stars out of smaller markets in trades. And as we’ll see, they still do those things. But their ability to flex their financial muscles has been limited by the salary cap, and they’ve responded with a more balanced approach …
The blockbuster: Martin St. Louis
Martin St. Louis [as of the conference finals was] the Rangers’ leading postseason scorer. That’s not bad for a guy who wasn’t even on the team three months ago, and likely wouldn’t have wound up in New York at all if Lightning GM Steve Yzerman hadn’t left him off the initial Canadian Olympic roster. That move was reportedly the final straw that led to St. Louis requesting a trade — and then using his no-trade clause to specify New York as his desired destination.
Despite the circumstances, the former MVP didn’t come cheap. The Lightning did a good job of extracting value, including then–Rangers captain Ryan Callahan and two first-round picks. But it was an example of the Rangers doing something they’ve specialized in over the years: identifying another team’s star player who wants out, and then moving aggressively to make sure he ended up landing in New York.
It worked for guys like Eric Lindros, Jaromir Jagr, and (going even further back) Mark Messier. And it also worked for current Rangers winger Rick Nash, who came over from Columbus in a 2012 deal under somewhat similar circumstances.
The marquee free agent: Brad Richards
No NHL team has been as active as the Glen Sather–era Rangers when it comes to spending big money on free agents. The sheer volume of names is impressive: Bobby Holik, Scott Gomez, Chris Drury, Darius Kasparaitis, Wade Redden … whenever there was an offseason bidding war, the Rangers were right in the middle of it. And they usually won.
That held true again in the summer of 2011, when the free-agent class basically consisted of just one major name: Brad Richards, the former Lightning and Stars center who’d been about a point-per-game player over recent years. The Rangers were widely assumed to be the front-runners, and they got their man, thanks to a nine-year, $58.5 million offer.
The deal was a throwback to the team’s big-spending ways, but with a modern wrinkle — it was heavily front-loaded, with several low-salary years tacked on to the end to keep the cap hit low. Given that Richards was already on the backside of his career at 31 years old, it seemed like the Rangers were gambling on a few good years up front to offset the contract’s later seasons (and maybe also banking on a wink-nudge agreement that Richards would retire midway through the deal).
So far, Richards has largely lived up to expectations. His 0.72 points-per-game with the Rangers is down from his career average, but still in borderline first-line territory. But he struggled in last year’s playoffs and was scratched by then-coach John Tortorella in a move that made headlines and led to suspicion the Rangers would make him a buyout casualty. That didn’t happen, and so far Richards has put up 11 points through three rounds while centering the team’s most productive line. …
The robbery: Ryan McDonagh
Sorry, Habs fans. We have to talk about it.
When New York signed [Scott] Gomez to a seven-year, $51.5 million deal in 2007, it was easy to be skeptical just based on the Rangers’ track record alone. But Gomez was a well-respected player, posting solid offensive numbers and playing a reliable defensive game. He had two Cup rings from his time in New Jersey, and the Rangers were stealing him away from a divisional rival. After the first two years of the deal, though, some of the luster had worn off. Gomez had been fine, but at a $7 million–plus cap hit, his name was starting to crop up in the dreaded “worst contracts” discussions.
And that’s when the Canadiens stepped in, making an inexplicable deal to acquire Gomez that will go down as one of the worst in recent league history. In fairness, Montreal needed a center and had the cap room to make the move, and Gomez was still reasonably productive. With five years left on his deal, taking a chance on him was risky, but not indefensible. If the Canadiens were simply sending a few spare parts to New York in exchange for taking on what was left of Gomez’s deal, the move would have made some sense.
But instead, they negotiated a seven-player deal that cost them McDonagh, a former first-round pick and one of the team’s best prospects. By now, you know how that turned out. Gomez had one decent year in Montreal, and then hit an extended slump that at one point saw him go a full calendar year between goals. The Canadiens bought him out last year.
Meanwhile, McDonagh was a Ranger regular by 2010 and has established himself as one of the league’s best young defensemen.
The first-round pick: Chris Kreider
Conventional wisdom says today’s contenders need to be built largely through the draft, especially with blue-chip prospects obtained with high draft picks that often come from years of losing. A quick look through the list of recent Cup winners supports that theory — each of the last five champions, and 16 of the last 18, have featured at least one player the team drafted with a top-three choice.
But the Rangers apparently missed that memo, because their roster is remarkably short on their own first-round picks. Their recent draft history is littered with first-round busts like Hugh Jessiman, Bob Sanguinetti, and Pavel Brendl (plus one tragedy in Alexei Cherepanov). That’s left them with only three players on the current roster who were Rangers first-round picks: Kreider, Marc Staal, and J.T. Miller.
But while none of those players is a franchise-defining pick like Jonathan Toews or Drew Doughty, all three have contributed. Staal is a dependable defensive presence who logs 20 minutes a night, while the 21-year-old Miller has chipped in when called upon as a roster fill-in.
Meanwhile, the speedy Kreider missed the first 10 games of the postseason with a hand injury, but has been a steady contributor since returning. He’s had a pair if multipoint games and put up four points in the Montreal series. And of course, Habs fans will point to his collision with Carey Price as a defining moment in the series.
The late-round steal: Henrik Lundqvist
While the Rangers’ success rate with first-round picks has been underwhelming, they struck gold in the late rounds of the 2000 draft. That’s when they used the 205th pick on Lundqvist, a relatively unheralded Swedish goaltender. In a draft that featured NHL busts like Mathieu Chouinard, Brent Krahn, and first-overall pick Rick DiPietro, a total of 21 goalies had their names called before Lundqvist did.
He wasn’t the first goaltender picked by the Rangers — that honor went to Brandon Snee, who never made it past the ECHL. And he didn’t even manage to be the first member of his own family taken — that was his twin brother, Joel, a forward picked by the Stars in the third round.
Lundqvist didn’t make his NHL debut until five years after he was drafted, but he established himself as an elite goaltender almost immediately. He finished in the Vezina voting in each of his first three seasons and finally won the award in 2012. He seems likely to be remembered as the top goaltender in Rangers franchise history. …
The undrafted free agent: Dan Girardi
Lundqvist may have had to wait around all day, but at least he got his name called. Not so for Rangers’ alternate captain Dan Girardi, who went undrafted in 2003 and eventually signed as a free agent with the Rangers’ AHL affiliate.
He’s gone on to become a top-pairing mainstay in New York. In 2011-12, he made the All-Star team while leading the league in minutes, and has been a steady defensive presence over the course of an NHL career that’s now in its eighth season. Not bad for a guy every team in the league passed on. Girardi has some company as a key Ranger who went undrafted — forward Mats Zuccarello, who led the team in regular-season scoring, was also passed over. He didn’t even sign an NHL deal until he was 22.
Want a reason to root for the Rangers? Read about Dominic Moore, whose goal in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals got the Rangers to tonight:
There’s is nothing that can take away the pain that New York Rangers forward Dominic Moore has felt in the last couple of years, but what happened Thursday should have at least offered a temporary reprieve for the NHL journeyman.
Moore scored the only goal in the Rangers’ Game 6 win over the Montreal Canadiens, which clinched the Blueshirts’ first Stanley Cup Final appearance in two decades. By all accounts, it couldn’t have happened to a better guy.
For those unfamiliar with Moore’s story, he’s been through hell and back. He lost his wife, Katie, to a rare form of liver cancer in January of 2013. In a move that no one could blame him for, Moore decided to sit out the 2013 season coming out of the NHL lockout. The heartbreaking story was documented on an episode of ESPN’s “E:60″ earlier this season.
The 33-year-old decided he’d return for the 2013-14 season, and he signed with the Rangers in July. Moore has played for nine different teams during his career, but going back to the Rangers was a return to the team he started with when he broke into the NHL during the 2003-04 season.
Moore had a serviceable year on the Rangers’ fourth line. He appeared in 73 games, scoring six goals to go along with 12 assists. He helped add to New York’s forward depth — a big reason they’re going to play for the Cup starting Wednesday. He’s been even better in the playoffs, tallying three goals and four assists. His third goal, coming on Thursday night against Montreal, was the biggest of his career. …
One of the best parts about Moore’s story is that his teammates swear by him. Moore is close friends with all-world goalie Henrik Lundqvist, and Lundqvist was there beside him as Moore went through that extremely difficult time.
His other teammates have gotten a chance to see what kind of player and person Moore is over the course of the season, and you won’t find anyone saying anything bad about him. “To get that game-winner, it couldn’t happen to a better guy. He deserved that one,” Rangers forward Mats Zuccarello said, also according to NHL.com. “He’s been working hard all year and been a great teammate. It was nice to see him get that.”
Rangers head coach Alain Vigneault said Thursday night that he thinks Moore has been able to find “refuge” in going to the rink and being around his teammates every day. That certainly was apparent in Game 6.
There is, of course, a long-standing animus toward New York teams among fans of non-New York teams. (Similar to the long-standing animus toward L.A. teams among fans of non-L.A. teams.) The New York Post’s Mike Vaccaro writes a nice analysis of what happens when a Noo Yawk team is a winnah:
It is quite simple, of course: 20 years ago [Adam] Graves and three other names and numbers flanking him in the ceiling from his blue crew — Mark Messier’s 11, Brian Leetch’s 2 and Mike Richter’s 35 — won a Stanley Cup championship, outlasted the Vancouver Canucks in a gritty seven-game series, delivered generations of Rangers fans to the mountaintop…
And have been celebrating ever since.
Been celebrated ever since.
“It goes without saying that not a day goes by without somebody telling me how much that Cup meant to them,” Graves said. “But I’m not lying when I tell you that rarely a few HOURS go by without someone wanting to share that. It’s incredible, how much that means. And still means.”
Ours is a demanding town. Ours is an exacting town. We boo you when you strike out, and we kill you when you throw an interception. We are quick to fire you when we think you’ve lost your team, quicker to exile you when we think you’ve lost a step. Maybe it shouldn’t be that way. Tough. It IS that way. Babe Ruth was booed. Joe DiMaggio was booed. Phil Simms was booed. Clyde Frazier was booed.
But here’s the thing: we are also a town that will embrace you forever if once, just once, you prove yourself equal to our expectation. You win a championship? It doesn’t matter if you’re a star (Joe Namath, Eli Manning, Tom Seaver, Willis Reed) or a sub (Phil McConkey, Art Shamsky, Mike Riordan, Brian Doyle), you’ll never buy a beer in this town again, never buy a meal with your own money, and never walk more than two blocks without the love of a grateful city parting your path.
“Winning here isn’t like winning anywhere else,” said Reggie Jackson, who knew about winning like few athletes do. “It’s amazing, times a thousand.”
So that is what awaits these 2014 Rangers, if only they can win four games across the next 14 days in any combination, using as much or as little of this Stanley Cup final as necessary. For now, for many, these are just anonymous names found mostly in agate type — Moore, Zuccarello, Richards, Girardi, Boyle — with a few bold-faced names — ST. LOUIS! LUNDQVIST! — sprinkled in.
Get those four wins, though?
“Your legacy,” Graves said, “is written in concrete.”
Or in cloth. Graves was a terrific player, and he scored 52 goals for those ’94 Rangers; Vic Hadfield was essentially the same player. Brad Park (Hall of Famer, 14 All-Star games) had essentially the same career as Brian Leetch (Hall of Famer, 15 All-Star games, two Norris Trophies – without Bobby Orr perennially in the way, as Park had).
But Hadfield doesn’t share 11 in those eternal rafters, and Park doesn’t share 2 with Leetch. Why? Because unlike those ’94 Rangers, the ’72 club that captured so many imaginations and spawned so many hockey fans couldn’t seize on its one chance at the Cup, falling two games shy against the Bruins.
Make no mistake, that ’72 team and those players are still warmly received when they come back to the Garden, same as the ’79 team is. They are still cornerstones of the Rangers’ history book. But there IS a difference. Yes, ours is a demanding town. But you give us a reason to love you, we can become Tuscaloosa in a big hurry.
And we stay that way forever.
Pregame postscript: NBC is carrying game 1 of the series tonight. But NBC will not have its lead hockey announcer, Mike Emrick, due to the death of Emrick’s father-in-law. Tonight’s play-by-play announcer will be Kenny Albert, the Rangers’ radio voice, who also announces football for Fox. Shades of Ray Scott calling the 1965 World Series for NBC and the 1965 NFL championship for CBS.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the Democratic Party of Wisconsin is holding its convention in the Wisconsin Dells this weekend. (No, I’m not going.)
On Wisconsin Public Radio Friday we discussed two of the Democrats’ campaign platforms, same-sex marriage and legalization of marijuana. To the first, I said that what the Democrats (or for that matter Republicans) did was immaterial since the same-sex marriage issue is in the process of being decided in the federal courts.
As for the second, I pointed out that though there may be majority support for decriminalization, if not full legalization, of the wacky weed, no one who counts in a political sense appears to favor it, including gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke, beyond medical use. The Democrats controlled all of state government in 2009 and 2010, yet failed to decriminalize or legalize pot.
To the extent that party platforms are interesting or pertinent to normal people, though, it’s more interesting to read the parts of the Democratic platform that differ with the Democrats’ presumptive top-of-the-ticket candidate, as Nathan Schacht observes:
As reported by mainstream, liberal and conservative media sources, Burke’s family business – Trek Bicycles – has taken advantage of foreign workforces to replace U.S. manufacturing jobs in the vast majority of their bike production.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in 2004 Trek move some of the jobs at its Whitewater,Wisconsin facility abroad. According to the report, Trek said it wanted to transfer some bicycle assembly work to China. Trek seems to have accomplished their assembly work transfers as according to Trek they only produces about 10,000 of the 1.5 million bikes they sell each year in the United States. The liberal magazine, The Progressive, points out that the Trek 520, one of the company’s most well-known bikes, is made in China as of 2013.
According to the DPW platform that Burke would be expected to back, outsourcing is a major problem:
We must resist outsourcing by eliminating tax breaks to employers who ship jobs overseas and creating incentives to bring jobs back to the U.S.
Presumably, this means the Burke campaign should begin pushing for policies that actually attack Trek to force them to bring jobs back to the U.S.
Another Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report from last fall reported that the U.S. Department of Labor found that “up to 20 former Trek Bicycle employees are eligible for special federal aid via the Trade Adjustment Assistant program because they lost their jobs due to foreign trade.” As The Progressivenoted, “while it is nice to hear Mary Burke bemoan unfair trade deals, the reality is that she in past has fought for them and personally profited from them.”
Not to worry, because the DPW platform addresses “unfair trade” as well. “We oppose unfair trade,” the DPW platform states. According to The Progressive:
During her time at Trek, Burke served as a board member on the Bicycle Parts Suppliers Association (BPSA), a powerful trade association that, among other things, has lobbied for weakening tariffs and free trade. In addition, they’ve defended Chinese manufacturing and fought regulations during the recent Chinese manufacturing lead paint scare.
If Burke is to support the DPW platform, as the platform demands, she would have to begin campaigning against Trek’s outsourcing, and the very trade practices she pushed for as an executive.
Actually, Burke’s candidacy represents an opportunity for her to educate her party, which has been anti-business with rare exception (see Lucey, Patrick) since the old Progressives were absorbed into her party in the late 1940s. Whether or not Democrats care to admit it, Wisconsin competes against every other state, and other countries, for businesses. For the most part, Wisconsin doesn’t get businesses to move into this state, because of our unfavorable taxes and overregulation; Wisconsin’s schools and workers’ work ethic are overrated, and quality of life is usually last on the list of priorities of businesses looking to relocate. (As if Wisconsin’s Siberian winters could be considered part of our “quality of life.”) The businesses that are here were created here.
Burke’s company made a bottom-line decision to move manufacturing to China based on what was good for the company. That is because profit — more money coming in than going out — is the number one priority of a company. Nothing happens without profits. Moreover, the purpose of a business is to serve its customers. Employment is the result of serving customers; it is not the purpose of a business. (And, by the way, paying employees more than they’re worth to the business is a good way to eliminate your profit.)
It makes you wonder how serious Burke really is about running for governor. The Democratic Party espouses policies that are and would be bad for state businesses generally and Burke’s family’s business specifically. (Even though Burke claims to not be involved in management anymore, she is still an owner, and thus still gets a share of Trek’s profits.) Burke to date has not done one single thing to change her party’s wrongheaded views, and she’s supposed to be the top of the Democratic ticket.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 