Rant #1,884: No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach's In)

How was your Easter weekend?

I did pretty much what I said I was going to do, which was to do pretty much absolutely, positively nothing.

My wife and I went food shopping on Saturday, I watched baseball on both Saturday and Sunday, and I basically decompressed from a rough workweek and prepared for another five days of horror starting today.

And for the first time in the past four years or so, I do have "matzoh stomach," an affliction that one can get when they eat too much matzoh during Passover and it kinds of builds up in your system.

Last week, I was really suffering. It felt like I had a bowling ball in my stomach, with no way to relieve the pressure ... and the grinding noises coming from my stomach were loud enough to keep me awake at night.

Without getting graphic, that is the only way I can describe the feeling, but yes, I had it, and still have it to a degree.

It is getting better--I guess my body is getting used to the matzoh at this late point in the holiday, a celebration which ends at sunset tomorrow--but I had it, and I don't know why I had it this time around, what I did differently this year as compared to other recent years when I did not suffer.

Personally, I think that I am under a lot more stress this year, and I think that that added to the discomfort, but as we speak, I am managing, and it really doesn't bother me anymore.

What does bother me--and here is my segueway to something completely different--is the way the media, including the local New York media, is covering the Yankees, currently owner of a seven-game winning streak.

Yes, it is early in the season, and this could all be false bravado way to early in this young season, but the Yankees are the hottest team in baseball--but if you watch local TV in New York, and if you watched the game last night on ESPN, well, the Yankees are ho hum.

The Mets were supposed to run away with their division, and be likely World Series participants this year, and that may just happen. But with poor situational hitting, the team from my old borough of Queens isn't really playing well, having lost three of four to the Marlins this weekend.

With the Yankees winning seven in a row, you would think the local sports broadcasters would at the very least mention them in their broadcasts during local newscasts, but I counted at least two local newscasts--on CBS and ABC--where they weren't even given a mention yesterday.

Sure, playoff hockey is on tap in New York with the Rangers in the playoff chase, but the Mets were the top story, not the Rangers ... and where did the Yankees fit into all of this?

Evidently, not.

And on the ESPN broadcast last night, the Yankees-Cardinals game was simply the backdrop for the announcers' shilling for the World Baseball Classic, which really isn't important at all, and something that few really care about--unless one of their players gets hurt in it, including the Yankees' shortstop, Didi Gregorious, who got hurt in the WBC this year and hasn't played an MLB game on the field yet this season.

And what was with that extended, all in Spanish interview with Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina right in the middle of the game yesterday?

That was as misplaced as an interview can be, and to not have it in English, and to have it run so long with subtitles, just goes to show how low MLB and ESPN will go to be PC correct.

And let me remind the announcers that Molina did not "play for his country" during the WBC, as Puerto Rico is part of the United States, and has been for quite a while since the last time I looked.

And that begs the question, why does Puerto Rico have its own teams during the WBC and the Olympics, for that matter, when Puerto Rico is part of the United States, yes, not as state, but nonetheless, part of our country?

Ah yes, the matzoh stomach has gotten to me during this almost completed Passover holiday, and I will knock down anything in my path to get past it.

And there's more matzoh today and tomorrow.

I just started a new box yesterday.