The surgeons who got sued for talking smack about a patient. Robbie Cano with a great skit on Fallon. And an interesting new movie on churches and MMA

Damn Rangers. Gotta make it torturous for us. Always. Always, always, always. Game 7 tonight. Those are usually fun (when other teams are involved). Gonna be a long, long wait until 7 p.m. I wish I didn’t care so much, I really do.

This story sounds completely believable except for one part. See if you agree with me about which part sounds ridiculous.

A colonoscopy patient in Virginia says he used his cellphone to record instructions given to him prior to his April 18, 2013 procedure.

The patient said he accidentally left it on and recording. The patient, “DB” says doctors mocked him relentlessly. A sampling:
Dr. Tiffany Ingham is heard saying to the unconscious patient: “And really, after five minutes of talking to you in pre-op I wanted to punch you in the face and man you up a little bit.”
Ingham, who sounds like a swell lady, also allegedly called him a “big wimp” and a “retard,” joked about firing a gun up his rectum, made fun of his alma mater (Mary Washington College), and threatened to falsely note on his chart that he had hemorrhoids.
The medical team joked about a rash on the patient’s penis, speculating it might be syphilis. Then Ingham allegedly said, “It’s probably tuberculosis in the penis, so you’ll be all right.”

So the patient is suing the doctors for $1.35 million. And the patient should absolutely win, because I completely believe the doctors, thinking the patient was out cold, would make awful jokes about him.

But the part that makes no sense? Who has their cell phone with them during surgery? I mean, where would you put it? Don’t you think they would take that away before you were knocked out?

This story says the phone was left in the room, but man, it seems a little odd to me.

**When multiple people send me a Jimmy Fallon bit, I know it’s good. And this one is pretty classic.

Robinson Cano left the Yankees in the offseason for a garbage truck full of money from the Seattle Mariners, in what was clearly a case of Cano choosing money over winning (hey, it’s his right).

He was back in New York Monday to play the Yanks, and the Jimmy Fallon staff thought it would be funny to put a huge cardboard cutout of Cano in Manhattan, then encourage Yankee fans to boo Cano.
Except Cano was standing inside the cutout the whole time. I love the last guy’s reaction. It’s funny how “brave” people can be in booing, until they meet the guy face to face, and suddenly it’s “I love you, man!”

**Finally today, I heard about this on NPR’s Only A Game show, which I never miss, and thought it was fascinating.

Around the country, youth pastors in churches are using their church gyms to train mixed martial arts fighters. There are 700 or so of these “training centers” all over the U.S., and it’s been wholeheartedly endorsed by many in these communities. A new documentary called “Fight Church,” takes a look at the phenomenon.

Really interesting to see the juxtaposition of “a couple of God-fearing men punching each other in the face.”

“Tonight we gonna fight. Tomorrow we talk about Jesus in church,” one fighter says in the trailer (above).

I would love to see this movie, looks really good. No word on when it’s due to come out.

A kindergarten play is cancelled for “college prep.” The great Gary Smith retires from SI. And a great answer to racism from a soccer player

So this is definitely one of those stories that sounds like it came from The Onion‘s brilliant satirical minds. But right here in my backyard of New York, it appears to be 100 percent true.

One of the traditions of Harley Avenue Primary School in Elwood, N.Y. on Long Island (Elwood’s about 10 minutes from where I grew up in Commack, if you care. And I can’t imagine why you would) is an annual kindergarten play held in May, allowing the 5-year-old adorable tykes the chance to shine on stage.

But this year, there will be no singing and dancing, no carousing at all for the kids at Harley Avenue.

The reason, as outlined in a letter sent home by the principal, Ellen Best-Laimit, is that it would take away from the students’ college prep time. Seriously.

An excerpt from the letter: “The reason for eliminating the Kindergarten show is simple. We are responsible for preparing children for college and career with valuable lifelong skills and know that we can best do that by having them become strong readers, writers, coworkers and problem solvers. Please do not fault us for making professional decisions that we know will never be able to please everyone. But know that we are making these decisions with the interests of all children in mind.”

You have to be absolutely kidding me. First of all, I know kindergarten has gotten more serious since I was in school, and that’s fine. Kids are expected to know how to read at that age, and they start to learn the building blocks of math and science then, too.
But COME ON! The kids can’t take time out of a few days in May to put on a play for their parents??? They have the next 11 years of school to get ready for college, can’t we give them a few days of stress-free fun in kindergarten?

There’s a petition going around with 1,500 signatures already, asking the school to reconsider. I’d sure as heck sign that.

**Next up, you may have heard about this from over the weekend: An African-American soccer player named Dani Alves was playing for his FC Barcelona team at Villareal, Spain when a Villareal fan threw a banana at him.

What did Alves do? He picked it up and ate it.

European soccer fans and their racism never fail to offend, do they? The fan was caught and banned from the stadium for life. So there’s that.
Plus, Alves got a little mid-game snack, so I’m sure he enjoyed the little energy boost.

**Finally, a few words about one of my writing heroes, Gary Smith, who announced Monday he was retiring from magazine writing. For almost 30 years Smith wrote the most sublime prose of anyone doing magazine features, in the pages of Sports Illustrated.

I need both hands and all my toes to count my favorite Smith pieces; he was extraordinary gifted in getting inside the mind of his subjects. He was so good, that when the news on broke on Twitter Monday and everyone was immediately linking to their favorite Smith stories, I found 7 different favorites among the first 7 people I saw writing about him.

My favorite Smith story? It’s always been this one about high school basketball star Richie Parker (pictured above), and the consequences of a sexual assault allegation against him. I’ve read it at least 20 times, and have borrowed (OK, stolen) from its structure and beautiful prose a few times in my career. It’s so balanced, and so even-handed, that you go back and forth from sympathizing with Parker, and with  his accuser, at a half-dozen places in the story.

Nobody in any writing genre was ever as good at the longform magazine story as Gary Smith. Here’s a great appreciation of him by current SI wordsmith S.L. Price.

 

I run through NYC in memory of Pat Tillman. A very cool stop motion body art video. And thoughts on a crazy weekend of NHL/NBA playoff action.

Saturday was a beautiful day in New York City. A good day to run for a good cause.

A couple of weeks ago a friend of my wife’s mentioned that the Pat Tillman Foundation was holding its 10th annual Pat’s Run race in New York on April 26, and would I be interested in doing it (she knows I’ve become a bit of a runner; I usually jog between 4-5 miles per day, a few days a week, and this would be a 4.2 mile run).

Pat Tillman, of course, was the former NFL player who after 9/11 decided to chuck his football career and enlist in the Army, and then tragically was killed by friendly fire in 2004. I’m not going to get into the whole mess of his death here, about how the U.S. government lied about his death’s circumstances, then lied to Tillman’s family for years in an apparent cover-up; that’s all well-covered territory.

Today I just want to talk about the race, which benefits the Pat Tillman Foundation, helping children and spouses of U.S. servicemen and women go to college (they’re raised $4.6 million in the past decade).

It was really a wonderful run, with 500 of us lined up in our bright-yellow T-shirts at the start (there’s me, above, after finishing in 41 minutes, not terrible, not great, for the 4.4 mile run. Yes, that’s right, it was actually .2 miles longer than we were told it was.)

We started on the West Side Highway, running past all the pretty piers in Manhattan, and as usual when I run these things, I tried to pace myself off certain people. OK, I said, as long as the girl in the gray sweatpants is near me, I’m doing fine. Then it was the dude in the Pat Tillman Cardinals jersey I wanted to stay near, followed by the woman with a purple cast on her wrist.

We ran along the river, and all the way down to the World Trade Center and the Freedom Tower, which was a great place to finish. What they didn’t tell us was that we’d have to run up some stairs, about 25 of them, and then down 25 more, which seriously slowed us down.

Still, it felt great to be running for a good cause. I don’t enter too many races because for me, running is a solitary activity, and I don’t really feel compelled to race with a big group. But every once in a while, a race is a great change of pace.

For more info on the Tillman Foundation, click here.

**Next up, this is unlike any video I’ve ever seen. It’s called “Painted: An Adventure in Stop Motion Body Art, and it’s from a man named Elvis Schmulianoff. Watch in amazement at what he does to this woman.

**Some thoughts on a pretty darn exciting weekend in the NHL and NBA playoffs, starting of course with my New York Rangers with their best game of the series, winning 4-2 over the filthy Flyers on Sunday. Slow start to the game, but much better as it got going. Lundqvist was big when he needed to be, the fourth line was fabulous (Dominic Moore, what a great story he is), and the defense was stellar.
Now please, for the love of all things Pierre Larouche, don’t put us Rangers fans through another Game 7, like we’ve seen so many times the last few years. Go up to Philly, kick their butt, and come home. Thank you.

— Vince Carter hit a game-winning 3-pointer for Dallas on Saturday was just about as unexpected as it gets; Vince hasn’t hit a big shot in at least a decade, it seemed.
— My Brooklyn Nets wasted an opportunity to all but clinch their series with Toronto. The Nets had me shouting at the TV in the fourth quarter, when they committed, I think, 428 straight offensive fouls. Just awful. The Raptors tried really hard to give that game away, but now the series is 2-2 and anyone can win it.

**So, about this Donald Sterling racist stuff that became huge news on Saturday: First, the man is a repugnant human being, always has been, always will be. Second, I found it fairly amusing at how outraged and shocked NBA players, coaches and Sterling’s fellow NBA owners acted about these latest comments, as if they didn’t KNOW what a racist, bigoted schmuck Sterling was before Saturday. Folks, the man has been saying and doing things against blacks, Mexicans, etc. for THIRTY YEARS. Is it just because now he was caught on tape?
I have no idea if new NBA commissioner Adam Silver will suspend, fine or do anything else to Sterling. But what I do know is that Sterling loves being an owner, and I’m not sure legally the NBA can do anything to force him to sell.
Would be nice to see the Clippers players have a Tommie Smith/John Carlos 1968 Olympics moment and refuse to play, or protest some other way, but that’s probably a fantasy.

A beautiful Powerade commercial about a 1-legged soccer player. Remembering the 1964 New York World’s Fair (it’s why I exist). And a hockey player makes a little boy’s day

And a Happy Friday to you! We start Good News Friday this week with a remarkable young man named Nico Calabria.

He’s 19 now. He was born with only one leg. He became a soccer player anyway, and he doesn’t use a prosthetic leg. He plays with crutches and kicks the ball pretty damn hard with that one leg, and he’s on the U.S. National Amputee Soccer team, and Powerade has made a commercial about him, as they start to hype the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

And it’s stellar. Just stellar. What a terrific kid.

**Next up today, this week is the 50th anniversary of the 1964 New York World’s Fair, which may not mean that much to you, but it marks a very important moment in my life: My father and mother’s first date was at the 1964 World’s Fair, and without that, you wouldn’t be reading this blog.

The New York Times did a cool story to mark the occasion, looking at people whose lives were changed by the Fair. (By the way, the “exciting new innovations” at the Fair that year included Belgian waffles and touch-tone telephones). Check it out here.

**Finally today, a simple, joyous, 16-second video to make you smile. Jordin Tootoo is a former NHL player now playing for the Red Wings minor league team. On his way off the ice a boy shouted his name (which, let’s face it, is fun to shout) and Tootoo stopped.
And then this happened, making the boy’s day 1,000 times better.

Ethopia’s drivers are the craziest I’ve ever seen. ESPN’s 30 for 30 on the Bad Boys Pistons was great. And Letterman does right by Colbert

Man, these Stanley Cup playoffs have been bananas. Your bleary-eyed blogger was mesmerized by Columbus’ huge comeback win in OT, and Dallas-Anaheim and St. Louis-Chicago Wednesday night. Man, I love playoff overtime… as long as it doesn’t involve the Rangers.

We begin today with one of the craziest videos I’ve ever seen. It looks like it could be a fake but I can’t find anything disproving it.

This is what traffic looks like in Meskel Square, in Addis Abeda, Ethopia. (The video is from 2012 but it was just featured on website DangerousMinds.net)

Can you imagine the stress level of driving in these conditions? And there were no accidents in the video, that’s what’s amazing.
This makes driving in Manhattan look like a nice Sunday afternoon drive in the country.

**I know I’m a few days late on this since it premiered last week, but I finally got around to watching ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary “Bad Boys” on the 1980s Detroit Pistons, and man oh man, it was fantastic.

Chronicling the rise of Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer, Joe Dumars and their gang of thuggish villains who also could play basketball really well, the movie is sensational in showing how first Detroit had to fail many times against Boston, before finally breaking through in 1989.

The personalities on that team: between Laimbeer, the perfect villain, Isiah, the smiling assassin (maybe the best under 6-foot player in NBA history), Dennis Rodman, back when he was normal, the super-underrated Dumars, the great coach Chuck Daly… the movie had it all.
It was fun to remember when Michael Jordan was a big underdog, and how hard he and the Bulls had to fight to topple the Pistons;  it was great seeing just how amazing a competitor Isiah was; he’s been such a joke and a disgrace in his post-playing life that you almost forget how good he was.

“Bad Boys” is engrossing, and fabulous. It’s on again on ESPN2 at noon on Saturday and on Sunday on ESPN2 at 11 a.m. If you’re a sports fan, it’s must-see viewing.

**Finally today, unlike the awkward and awful transition from Jay Leno to Conan O’Brien on “The Tonight Show” a few years ago, the passing of the torch on CBS seems to be going much better.

Two of my all-time favorites, David Letterman and Stephen Colbert, sitting around chatting the other night on Dave’s show, soon to be Colbert’s show. Really liked the first few minutes of this, especially… Late night is in very good hands, with Colbert and Fallon.

 

 

 

A cool night out at the TriBeca Film Festival. Brian Williams raps again, brilliantly. A harrowing tale of a major leaguer’s journey from Cuba.

So with Yet To Be Named Baby Lewis due to arrive in our apartment this September, my wife and I are trying to get as many fun, new, New York City experiences under our belts before our lives get turned upside down and we no longer have time for anything except diapers, formula, and not sleeping.

The TriBeca Film Festival is something we’d both always wanted to check out; started by Robert DeNiro about 15 years ago, it brings together an eclectic mix of indie films, bigger-budget flicks, and killer documentaries over a two-week span in a hip neighborhood in Manhattan.

After perusing the schedules of more than 50 movies and getting shut out of tickets for a few we really liked, we went out Monday night to see a new Toni Collette comedy/drama called “Lucky Them.”

It was a much different moviegoing experience than usual; first off, we had to wait on line outside for about 20 minutes just to get in, and there was a red carpet and some paparazzi around, taking pics of Collette, Oliver Platt and Thomas Hayden Church, three of the stars of the movie who were present for the screening, and did a short Q and A afterward (love Toni Collette, and happy to report she seemed nice in the Q and A).

The theater itself was enormous, an 1,100 seat auditorium that is usually used for college lecture classes (a dead giveaway was that attached to the arm of our seats were those mini-desks I hated so much in college), and it’s fun seeing a movie that way because at the funny parts, the laughter is so much louder than in a usual theater.

As for the flick itself, it was pretty good; it’s about Collette’s character Ellie, a grizzled Seattle rock journalist who tends to occasionally sleep with the musicians she writes about, and her search for a reclusive ex-musician named Matthew Smith, who was once her lover but suddenly stopped recording music a decade earlier, and basically dropped off the face of the Earth.

Church is an ex-boyfriend who tags along on the search and tries making a documentary about their adventure, and the always-stellar Oliver Platt is Ellie’s magazine editor.

I’d give it 2 1/2 stars; the beginning and ends were good, but there was a ridiculous storyline tangent halfway through that wasted 20 minutes and had no point.

Still, it was a very cool experience to go to the TriBeca Festival; if you’re ever in New York in mid-April, check it out. If you’re here now, here’s the schedule for the rest of the Festival.

**Next up today, I know I keep writing about these Jimmy Fallon/Brian Williams rap mash-up videos, but I swear every one of ’em cracke me up every time.

This one might be the best yet; can you imagine Peter Jennings or Dan Rather ever doing this? Love me some Brian Williams.

**And finally, the stories of Cuban baseball players risking their lives to defect to America for the chances of riches in the major leagues have been told for decades. But this Yasiel Puig story is something else... a brilliantly reported tale by Jesse Katz in L.A. Magazine, about just how dangerous, and how complicated, Puig’s life has been since he left Cuba.

 

A Boston Marathon run peacefully, and won by an American. Playground legend Lloyd Daniels, remembered. And 20 years of pop culture in 4 minutes

Sometimes, real life sports events turn out better than any Hollywood script could have written them.

Monday morning, the third Monday in April, the Boston Marathon was run again. It was run by 32,000 people, all of whom remembered what happened last year, and all of whom were determined to finish the race this time.

There were great human interest stories all over the 26-mile course, my favorite being the last Boston Marathon ever run by the incredible father-son team of Dick Hoyt and his son Rick, two men who define the word dedication.

The race went off peacefully, and a million spectators came out to cheer, and an American runner named Meb Keflezighi, who became an American citizen a few years ago because he loved this country so much, won the race, becoming the first USA marathoner to win Boston since 1983.

He won, with names of the bombing victims written on his bib (above). It was an incredible scene to watch on TV as he came down to the finish line, with so many screaming for him, and Meb waving his arms in joy, and in relief, that the race had gone off without a hitch.

What a wonderful story. After last year’s tragedy, this was exactly the race Boston deserved.

**Next up today, there have been many, many playground basketball legends who emerged from the rough streets of New York City. Some of them achieved incredible heights and NBA glory, like Tiny Archibald and Kenny Anderson.

Others threw their life away with drugs or other distractions and never made the big-time; I’m talking about Earl “The Goat” Manigault, Lenny Cooke and Fly Williams, just to name a few.

Then there was Lloyd “Swee’Pea” Daniels, who seemed destined to fall into that second group, but remarkably showed he had nine lives on the hardwood and actually made the NBA for a few years.
Swee’Pea was one hell of a player; I remember seeing him in college as a kid and being amazed at what he could do.
Some filmmakers are trying to raise money for a full-length documentary on his life, including his drug arrests and his comeback. Here’s the trailer they put together; I would see this movie in a New York minute:

http://vimeo.com/90719202

**Finally today, you know I’m a sucker for any 1980s and early 1990s nostalgia; check out this super-fast and pretty cool four-minute video that basically sums up two decades of pop culture in two minutes (man, just seeing that Atari 2600 logo makes me want to play Space Invaders or Air Sea Battle!)

“Parenthood” goes out on a great note. Mental Floss pays tribute to the late, great “Freaks and Geeks.” And the Rangers-Flyers series has divided my family

Another season of the infuriating but fascinating and often lovable NBC show “Parenthood” has just finished up, and as usual, the season finale is so good and heartfelt that I almost overlook all the things wrong with this year’s show.

Like the insane storyline of Kristina running for mayor of Berkeley, or even more insane idea of her and Adam opening up a charter school for autistic kids. Or Sarah Braverman being a horrendous mother and all-around not-great person, yet getting more men chasing after her than any woman her age in history.

But dammit, as often as I get mad at the show, I still love it. The season finale (SPOILER ALERT) was beautiful in so many ways; Amber reuniting with her still-majorly damaged physically and mentally ex-fiance Ryan was beautiful. Ray Romano’s Hank, who I’ve completely turned around on and now root for, pouring out his heart to Sarah a week earlier, and now trying so hard to be the man she can date; and the Joel/Julia separation storyline, which has dragged on forever, continues to be interesting because of the great acting. (Completely improbable that Victor would win an essay contest and read so flawlessly out loud given what we know about him, but that scene in the school library was just so touching.)

The finale was sweet and tender with the whole Braverman family house being sold storyline coming to an end, and Drew going to see his new girlfriend, and Haddie suddenly being a lesbian (my wife and I both thought it was hilarious that the kid grew up in free-love Berkeley, yet discovered she liked girls at Cornell).

I don’t know if NBC is going to renew “Parenthood,” it seems to always be up in the air. But this show has tremendous heart, and for all its flaws, continues to win mine. Please, NBC, keep it on the air.

**Next up, the great website Mental Floss has been on a roll lately writing about beloved former TV shows, and this weekend they put out a list of “20 Things You Didn’t Know About” one of the all-time greats, and a show I’ve talked about several times on this blog already, “Freaks and Geeks.”

Couple of great nuggets in this story: Everything that happened to the characters on the show actually happened to one of the show’s writers (man, that episode with the fake keg party must’ve been hilarious in real life, too), Lauren Ambrose from “Six Feet Under” was almost Lindsey Weir (she’d have been great), and there were some awesome storylines for Season 2 that never got to happen (Daniel in jail? Yeah, that would’ve fit).

This was such a classic show; so wrong that it only got one season.

 

**Finally today, Sunday was a great day (mostly) for me. My mother hosted a post-Passover lunch for our extended family, and I got to see some people I hadn’t seen in a while. We ate, we laughed, we ate some more, and I got to play catch with my 9-year-old nephew, which is always a good thing.

So everything was great… except when we watched the hockey game together. I was born and raised a Rangers fan, just like my father taught me to be. My sister married a man from outside Philadelphia, who is a die-hard Flyers fan and is raising his child to be one, too. (Hey, he has other good qualities, but she had to marry a Flyers fan???)

Anyway, the Rangers and Flyers played Game 2 of their Stanley Cup playoffs first-round series Sunday, and me and the enemy watched some of the game together. My bro-in-law and nephew cheered when something good happened for Philly. I cheered when something good happened for the Rangers.
They got to cheer more. I didn’t get to taunt a 9-year-old, which is probably a good thing.
The Flyers won. Then we ate.

Playoff hockey is life.  But family’s family. Still, I ain’t watching no more games with any Flyers fans this year…

 

Good News Friday: A beautiful time-lapse video of the first 14 years of life. A wonderful “Acts of Kindness” website. And a great Aaron Sorkin parody

An electric night at Madison Square Garden Thursday night. Screamed my lungs out and had a blast. Course, the Rangers pummeling the Flyers 4-1 helped…

We start off this week’s GNF with a pretty terrific time lapse video: A Dutch artist and proud father named Frans Hofmeester took a video of his daughter Lotte every week since birth until age 14, and presents her incredible growth and maturation in this four-minute video.

The expressions on Lotte’s face in the video are priceless; just watching the changes in her hair, for one thing, are pretty great.

They really do grow up so fast…

**Next up today, while working on a story about running groups across the country raising money, and flying to Boston to compete in Monday’s Boston Marathon, I learned about this fantastic woman named Elizabeth Pederson, who trains with the San Francisco Road Runners Club.

Pederson competed in the Boston Marathon last April but fortunately wasn’t hurt in the explosion, but she felt motivated to take a stand against hate. She wanted to something, anything, to try to improve the world, so she started a website called KindThis, where she invites readers to post examples of one kind thing they did that week to make the world a slightly better place.

Hundreds of submissions are already on the site, including simple ones like “I gave my best friend’s brother Lindor truffles for Valentine’s Day” and
“My mom was working late at the office and my Dad was not home from work yet. My two little brothers were hungry so i made a dinner for my whole family.”

It’s a great concept and if you just scroll through a page or two, I predict it’ll brighten your day.

**And finally today, I don’t regularly watch the Comedy Central show “Inside Amy Schumer,” but I saw this clip on Twitter and I laughed out loud. If you’re an Aaron Sorkin devotee like I am, and were so disappointed by “The Newsroom,” or even if you like it, this will make you smile. With an assist from Josh Charles, recently killed off “The Good Wife,” here’s “The Foodroom”, a short parody of any Aaron Sorkin show.

So great…

The Stanley Cup playoffs are awesome, and tonight I get to see them live. Skateboarding with dogs looks fun. And a minor-league team hosts a “Seinfeld” night.

The Stanley Cup playoffs began Wednesday night, and like I do every year, I looked forward to it like a Christian kid on Christmas.

We had great action in all three games, a hellacious overtime between Tampa Bay and Montreal (note to the Lightning: You need a better goalie if you’re gonna win this series, because Anders Lindback ain’t gonna get it done), and a wasted chance to steal a win by Columbus.

I’ve preached it here many times before, but the hockey playoffs are by far the best postseason in sports, for drama and excitement.

Tonight, though, is the night I’ve really been looking forward to: For the first time in my life I’m going to a Rangers playoff game live, and I am super pumped. Rangers-Flyers, Game 1.

It’s funny, I was a sportswriter for so many years, going to hundreds and hundreds of games as an impartial observer, that you almost forget what it’s like to go to a “big game” as a fan.

The nervous excitement all day, the anticipation of walking up to the gate and handing your ticket to the usher, the rush of walking into the arena. As a reporter, you ignore such things, mostly: You’re worried about Internet access, how far your seat is from the playing field, what your deadline is, yada yada yada.

But the last couple years since leaving the daily grind has made me appreciate being a fan even more. I plan to savor every moment tonight, and scream my lungs out, and curse anything in orange and black.

Should be a great time. It’s the Stanley Cup playoffs, what could be bad? For my hockey fan readers, here’s the alway s-goosebump-inducing Hockey Night in Canada 2014 playoff montage…

**Next up, this is definitely an event I will try to get tickets for: On July 5th the Brooklyn Cyclones minor league baseball team is holding a “Salute to Seinfeld” night at their game.

There will be Keith Hernandez “Magic Loogie” bobbleheads given out, the Cyclones will take batting practice in puffy uniform shorts (but they’re not playing in cotton uniforms, amazingly! Love that episode where George convinces the Yanks to play in cotton), and there’ll be an Elaine dance competition.
My favorite part is that the Cyclones’ home park is going to be renamed Vandelay Industries Park for the night, and latex salesmen get a special prize.

Can’t wait.

 

**And finally, nothing to see here, just a man skateboarding really fast with a handful of dogs on a leash: