Rant #2,431: Over and Over

Well, I received my weekly stipend from the New York State Department of Labor, so I can stave off retirement for at least another week.

I am not going to go into chapter and verse about the reasons I got what I got, or why the website has contradictory information on it that can make one's head spin. (See graphics below, all from the NYS DOL site.)

But whatever the case, I guess I am still on the dole, and while I don't like to be where I am one bit, it is not for lack of trying, and I will keep at it until the end, even though at this point, all that I am doing is banging my head against the wall, if not right through it.

That situation is bad enough, but the situation with sports in America today, amid a pandemic and rampant unemployment and other unhappiness, is simply the pits, even for non-sports fans who just want us to get back to whatever "normal" is or can be.

Case in point is Major League Baseball, who can't get out of its own way to have its two sides--the owners and the players--agree on anything at this point.

Things are so bad between these two warring factions that I will bet they couldn't agree on who the first president of our country was if they were asked.

Being such a baseball fan as I am, I actually did something I had not done in decades. I actually had the audacity to call sports radio to air my views of what is going on with baseball, and yes, I actually got through to one of the most popular sports radio shows on the planet.

I called the Michael Kay Show on ESPN Radio to air my views. If you know me, I generally hate sports radio. It tends to be a "my pop is better than your pop" environment, where participants stumble over themselves trying to show how smart and knowledgable they really are, and I have never been a fan of this format.

But on occasion, I do watch the Michael Kay Show, hosted by the New York Yankees venerable play-by-play announcer, on the Yankees' YES Network, and I have been tuning in here and there to hear what they have to say about baseball and what is happening to our National Pastime.

Yesterday, I got so fed up with the carping and the yelling and the screaming and the accusations between both sides that I actually called up the show, and after about a 45 minute wait, was put through to Kay and his two cohorts, Peter Rosenberg and Don LaGreca.

I have no tape or video of what I said--if anyone has it, please contact me--but the gist of what I said is that both sides are right, both sides are wrong, but in the midst of what is gong on today--millions of people out of work while we battle a pandemic that seems to be endless--their carping over money is a huge turnoff, in particular to me, being out of work and such.

I told them quickly--I was on for two or three minutes tops--that I have been out of work since October, have been a huge baseball fan since I was eight years old in 1965, and I would have more respect for each side if they were arguing over how to handle the coronavirus rather than how to handle millions of dollars.

I said that what message is that sending out to me--our of work for more than eight months, with absolutely no hope of ever finding a job, worried about my finances and just basically in a holding pattern?

Michael Kay told me point blank that while he completely agreed with me, that the owners and players don't care about people like me, and he is correct, of course. If they did, they would already be playing baseball NOW.

As my time ended and they were moving over to the next segment, he asked me a question: "Larry if they had a 50-game schedule, even with the way you are feeling, and if you were able to, would you watch the games?"

And I said to him, "Yes, I would, because I am a sucker."

And that ended that.

And I guess I would.

I have become such a sucker for punishment lately, that I would love for there to be baseball to watch, and being sort of a "sucker hypocrite," I would watch the game I love even if the stench coming from it was worse than from the local garbage dump.

And talking about garbage dumps, earlier in the day, it was announced that the just about brand spanking new Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum was perhaps closing for good, because the owner has decided it is not worth keeping open and operating right now, what with the pandemic and large debt hanging over its head.

The owner wants to sell the venue and have the new owner take over not only the operation of the arena but the tremendous debt that it has--who in their right mind, even with deeper pockets than the Grand Canyon, would take over such a mess, in particular during this horrid period we are going through now?

There is way more to this story than that, but the fact is that this project--which will certainly go down in history, no matter what happens to it, as one of the greatest white elephants we have ever seen--was obsolete before the first hoe hit the ground in its rebuilding/refurbishment or whatever you want to call it.

The arena, originally designed as a major league sports venue to house major league basketball and hockey, was state of the art in its time--the early 1970s--but was allowed to vegetate by its various owners over the years, and became what amounted to a third-class arena in a major league market.

And then, through its link with the brand new Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn, it was reborn as a companion venue, which would serve the market as a minor league arena showcasing lower-level sports and concerts and other attractions.

It was downsized, and was supposed to be the hub venue of the emerging Nassau Hub, a major expanse that would site not only a sports arena, but other venues related to technology. medicine and yes, even retail and housing.

That was the vision, but in reality, the Nassau Hub became the Nassau Flub because its hub center, the Nassau Coliseum, was so ill conceived and poorly planned.

Few came to the Coliseum to see any of the sports events--including minor league basketball and professional lacrosse--and while the music concerts and professional wrestling shows brought out the fans in droves, it was to a minor league arena, whose entire purpose for being was already usurped by the newer, swankier Barclays Center, which operated in the suddenly very hip borough of Brooklyn.

The Coliseum became the poor stepsister to the Barclays Center, but there was a ray of hope--the New York Islanders franchise was playing some games at its old stomping grounds in Nassau County, and the team was welcomed with open arms there, unlike in Brooklyn, where the arena was not really built for hockey and the populace showed disinterest.

All was still fine and good when it was announced that the venerable Belmont Park would be the site of what the Islanders wanted all along, an arena for themselves that they could really call home, and even when digging started at the site, the Nassau Coliseum still had a reason for being, as the Islanders would play their home games there while it waited for the Belmont venue to rise from the ground.

The intentions were good, the Nassau Coliseum could still serve in disinterest with at least one sterling tenant, and its future sounded OK, if not great.

The Nassau Hub was still gurgling in its formation, but with the economy at its peak performance, it would only be a matter of time that this hub and its own hub facility would be solvent and a force to come not only at the present, but for years to come.

But then the pandemic hit us out of nowhere, throwing a curve ball to everything in its path.

Arenas and stadiums around the country went dark, and the Nassau Coliseum became the afterthought that it was really from the beginning of its refurbishment.

Things happened both before the pandemic and after it--Barclays Center was sold, and the deal did not include the Nassau Coliseum, so the two entities basically parted ways--and the Coliseum stood empty as the first hoe went into the ground for a similar, better planned venue just 10 miles away from its address.

The owner of the Nassau Coliseum saw the writing on the wall--no way to generate any income from it during the pandemic, mounting debt, and nothing to draw anybody to it today or in the future--and decided to throw in the towel, and yesterday was the day.

The building is only three years old, the Nassau Hub is really the Nassau Flub, and politicians are jumping over themselves making excuses and stating that the arena--one of the biggest political footballs in American history since it opened in the early 1970s--will survive even this latest onslaught.

They say that because the future of the Nassau Hub depends on its survival and existence, but the fact of the matter is that the arena was obsolete before it was redone, and is even more obsolete--and unnecessary--now that the Belmont Park arena is rising from the ground.

How stupid the politicians were for counting on this venue to survive as a minor league, at best second string outlet, and it proves once again that the pandemic has not only destroyed peoples' lives, it has also destroyed things that have no heartbeat.

My career, Nassau Coliseum and Major League Baseball aren't in rubble yet, but they are all heading in that sorry direction.

Can any one of these be saved?