This Week on the Blog

Alright, this was a week when our 4 teams continued to muddle through the strange conditions of this time. Yanks scrimmaged, the Giants got ready for camp, the Rangers got a start date, and the Knicks continued their coaching search. Let's take a look at what's next.

Yankees: this will be the last complete week without baseball. Thank goodness. One thing that happenned during the first scrimmage was that Clarke Schmidt was filthy and looked like the absolute goods making major leaguers swing and miss at his plus curveball. Wow.  Cole was filthy, too, but Miggy went oppo taco on him - find that kid a spot!  Unfortunately it's hard to see scrimmages, and so it's tough to really examine the changes being implemented in the pitching culture. That could be the big story for the Yanks this year. We've seen other teams' pitching situations revoltionize with new approaches and it will be fascinating to see that happens with the young Yanks and even the more veteran guys like Paxton. Twelve more days.

Giants: The Giants are a little over two weeks away from the start of camp. One thing that has been noticeable is that Andrew Thomas and Xavier McKinney were a lot more impressive in their latest interviews then they were during their draft weekend appearances. That could be a comfort factore, but here's hoping it's enculturation, and the new coaches and teammates have gotten to them. Also, it appears that the Giants will not have to go through state quarantine's to return to play,

Rangers: The Rangers will start back on August 1.  The NHL has really mucked this up, and the draft will now be in October. Thought these guys were a bit tougher and could have used this deadzone to really up interest in the sport. MLB screwed things up, with their short draft, and there was time to learn from that. Both the NHL and MLB are heading to new CBA's but the owners of both sports didn't make a TV opportunity out of this dead zone and they should have. Ranger Camp should restart this week.

Knicks: The Knicks are continuing their coaching search. This is getting scary. They've put together an impressive fron office and that should help the draft, but if they blow it here, it won't matter who they draft. Here's where it's scary: this weekend MSG is marketing Thibs, Kidd, Woodson and Atkinson as the top candidates and each one of them would be the same kind of retread they've been hiring for decades. The Knick need to swing for the fences with this hire, like the Giants, Yanks and Rangers did and not draw again from their losing play book. This is hugely important.

So there it is, three teams getting ready to play and one team still looking for a coach. Wishing all your preferred normalcy this week. Best wishes,