Sunday Morning Coffee — March 29, 2026 — Sunday Morning Scramble
By Roy Berger, Las Vegas, NV
Good morning. Plenty of Scramble items today but before we get started, and while waiting for Iran to tap-out, the question du jour: How can a certain someone who is so good driving a golf ball be so bad driving vehicles?
A great response to the SMC of two weeks ago—Too Busy To Be Scared (royberger.com)—about Jill Metlin and her group of 14 Israel tourists getting out of danger and back to the United States in the face of Middle East uncertainty and chaos. The best among many comments was from Howard Weiss of Tucson, Arizona, who humorously wrote: Three thousand years after Moses spent forty years trying to get us OUT of Egypt, Jill’s group did it in reverse — in one night, with an envelope of cash and a guy who knew a guy. No burning bush required, just a sealed envelope and unpaved roads in the dark.
Big news on the family front. Granddaughter Harley and her mom and dad are moving back to the States. After two years in London, Scott, Cayla and Harley return today to Los Angeles where Scott has accepted the position as general manager of the Waldorf Astoria in Beverly Hills. Good for them and great news for us. It’ll be nice to have them so close after being so far.
And speaking of five-star luxury hotels, the one I stayed at in Birmingham, Alabama, a couple of weeks ago was anything but. No Frette’s bedding; no cushy robes and as far from fluffy bath towels as can be. In fact, I’m certain the hotel towels are used by the maintenance crew during the day as sandpaper and returned to the guest room towel rack by night. I took an evening shower before going out to dinner. I took a look at my sandpaper towel, now turning red, and then in the mirror. It took about ten minutes for the bleeding to stop. The next morning, in advance of a breakfast engagement, I showered and totally forgot about the towel. By the time the bleeding finally stopped again, I only missed the first cup of coffee.
Maybe it’s best if United States hockey hero Jack Hughes, who scored the winning overtime goal against Team Canada in the Olympic gold medal game, keeps his gap- toothed mouth closed. The game winning puck as well as the one scored by Megan Keller, also against Canada in the women’s gold medal final, now reside in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto donated by the International Ice Hockey Federation. Hughes wants the puck telling ESPN, “In my opinion that’s bullshit that the Hockey Hall of Fame has it.” No Jack, it’s not. It was never yours and it’s where it belongs. Plus, what could be better than displaying the US gold medal winning pucks in Canada?
If you are a podcast listener you’re not alone. The Wall Street Journal reports that nearly 60% of Americans ages 12 and over listen to at least one podcast a month. And the programming menu has exploded with almost three million pods available on Apple Podcasts, triple from six years ago. However, not all is gravy— nearly half of all advertising revenue goes to just 500 podcasts, leading to a fairly rapid consolation of the industry.
Can anyone say voter fraud? In last Tuesday’s special election for State of Florida legislative seats Palm Beach County resident Donald J. Trump, an outspoken critic of mail-in ballots, nevertheless voted by mail. In what looks like a clear case of election fraud Democrat Emily Gregory, a first-time candidate, beat Republican Jon Maples in the House district that includes Mar-a-Lago.
Very quietly and under the radar in all of the March Madness noise was the NYU women’s basketball team ending their incredible 91-game winning streak. The lady Violets, who play in Division III, hadn’t lost a game in three years since losing to Transylvania (KY) University on March 11, 2023. NYU brought a 29-0 record to this year’s Final Four where they bumped into the University of Scranton who was 30-0. Scranton stopped the NYU streak with a 60-52 win. However, NYU’s impressive winning streak is not the longest in NCAA women’s basketball history. That belongs to UConn with 111 straight between 2014-17.
He’s been dead for over 30 years but the sports memorabilia market is still mesmerized by Mickey Mantle. According to the New York Post, the Mick ranks first in all baseball memorabilia sold over the last 50 years with more than $162 million in sales. His 1952 Topps baseball card fetched $12.6 million alone. Second? Well, that’s the Babe with over $131 million sold.
No, you are not losing your mind. Back in the 1960s and for two, three decades afterwards male psychologists dominated females in the biz. Over 80% were males as patients’ main concerns were aggression, conflict and trauma. In the 1990s the prevailing areas of need flipped to love, meaning, friendship and cooperation. That according to the Wall Street Journal produced a sea change in the industry driven by clients’ needs. Today the number of therapists has done a total flip with females now making up about that same 80% of the profession. And don’t discount the impact that tough-guy Tony Soprano seeing Dr. Jennifer Melfi had on the female side of the profession.
How’s this for a bottomless tub of popcorn: longtime Today Show film critic Gene Shalit celebrated his 100th birthday last Wednesday. Shalit was an NBC television mainstay from 1973-2010 featuring his bushy handlebar mustache, Jewfro and oversized glasses.
The music industry lost a good one on Thursday as Darrell Crofts passed at age 87. Crofts, known as Dash, was part of the great Seals & Crofts soft rock duo of the 1970s with time-tested music for the ages: hits like Summer Breeze, Diamond Girl, Get Closer and We May Never Pass This Way Again. They broke up in 1981 but reunited again in 1989 for a couple of years and then one final bow in 2004. The native Texans were boyhood friends. Jim Seals died at 79 in 2022; Dash Crofts, from complications of heart surgery last week in Austin.
And speaking of Seals & Crofts music it was always a mainstay back in the day over a game of backgammon accompanied by too much vodka and some of that funny stuff we inhaled. Our games of backgammon however were seemingly much more mellow than the ones Middle East envoy and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner plays. Addressing a conference in Miami on Thursday Kushner compared Iran to a struggling backgammon player. “When you are losing at backgammon, the strategy is basically to create as much chaos as possible, hoping you’ll find an opening,” he said. That’s fine but let’s just keep the doubling cube away from them.
The winter sports wagering season was good to me hitting totals on both the NBA Spurs and the NHL Ducks. Now we’ll go to dinner on baseball — by far the best sport for season totals as there’s action almost every day for six months. So, for our appetizer we bet the projected worst team in the game — the Rockies — to win over 54 games, or in Rockies jargon, only lose 107. The main course is a serving of the Twins to go under the projected win total of 74. Side dishes with the Twins entree are both the Mets and Yankees to win their divisions and for dessert, the trendy selection the last couple of weeks is action on the Pirates over 79 wins, so we took a small scoop of that. Interestingly, the lowly Pirates over the last decade have for the first time ever a payroll in excess of $100m. In tandem they are surprisingly only a notch over 2-1 odds to make the playoffs. I think that might be a stretch but, first things first, let’s get to 79 wins.
Fun to see the Buffalo Sabers included in this year’s upcoming NHL playoffs. The Sabers will break the second longest playoff drought in American team sports. The last time Buffalo was in the postseason goes back 14 years to 2011. Who still has the longest non-playoff streak in sports doesn’t really matter.
And speaking of the New York Jets, 56 years after our only championship and 15 years after a playoff appearance, laughter has become the antidote for the pain inflicted upon us year after year. The latest head shaking belly laugh was a couple of weeks ago on March 11 when the Jets traded for quarterback Geno Smith allowing them to dump previously heralded but inept Justin Fields to the Chiefs. Geno was a Jets’ second round draft pick in 2013 out of West Virginia and started as a rookie. He was a less than impressive 11-18 in two seasons before getting punched in the jaw during the 2015 training camp by a teammate over an alleged unpaid debt. That ended his Jets career or so we thought. He was shipped across town to the Giants as a back-up, then to the Chargers for a season before going to Seattle for five where he showed signs of quarterback life. When his Seattle head coach Pete Carroll came to the Raiders last season he brought Geno with him. To say the 2025 season in Vegas was a train wreck would be unfair to the railroad industry. The Raiders finished worst in the league at 3-14. Geno was a disaster, leading the league in times sacked, 55, and interceptions with 17. On the verge of being cut by the Raiders the Jets, as the Jets do, decided he would be worth a sixth-round draft pick and brought him back to New York to continue the debacle. However, there is some good news. The Jets were the only team in the league last year without an interception. Zero. They should get plenty of experience this season picking off passes during practice.
If you didn’t see the movie Nuremberg in the theaters it’s now on Netflix. Of course, it’s the story of the post-Holocaust 1945 Nazi war crime trials and is especially good. It stars Remi Malek and Russell Crowe but the real sleeper in the cast is Michael Shannon as the lead prosecutor. Since I first saw him in Boardwalk Empire, anything Shannon does becomes better. Definitely worth the watch.
And finally, Passover starts this week with Seder dinner on Wednesday night. It’s a major Jewish holiday that the Book of Exodus celebrates when the ancient Israelites escaped from slavery in Egypt. The holiday runs for seven days and it’s a grueling seven days for modern Jews. Lore has it back in the day the Jews fled oppression in such a hurry that their bread didn’t have time to rise so they were forced to eat unleavened items during the exodus. It was an exit so fast that we pay for it today. Therefore for the next week observant Jews don’t eat anything leavened. That’s no bread; instead matzah for the masses. And that’s not all—no products from wheat, barley, rye, or oats—which means no bread or pasta or cookies. Or cakes, crackers or tortillas for Mexican night. Or pizza. Or pretzels. Or my Sunday salt bagel. Or liquor or beer derived from those grains. Popcorn? Fuhgetaboutit. It’s matzah, matzah and more matzah which just ties up your digestive kishka’s into knots. So if you are celebrating, I’d wish you a happy Passover but with the dietary restrictions, that’s not really possible. Instead, let’s make it a peaceful one. Something we all can easily digest.
I’m proud that Medjet is sponsoring Sunday Morning Coffee. I spent 20 wonderful years with Medjet in Birmingham, Alabama, and can tell you unequivocally they are the standard-bearer for medical assistance membership programs. A talented staff, who cares about its members, is at the forefront of the company’s success. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, domestic or international, a Medjet membership should be an important part of your travel portfolio before you leave home. Check out the Medjet website at medjet.com or just tap on the Medjet logo and you’ll be able to get a look at Medjet’s services, rules and regulations, pricing, and an overview of the organization. And remember, any opinions expressed in Sunday Morning Coffee content or comments belong to the author and not the sponsor. Safe travels with your Medjet membership! — Roy Berger