Sunday Morning Coffee — Sunday, December 8, 2024 — Sunday Morning Scramble

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We had to brush off the Yiddish-English glossary to try and capture the Thanksgiving holiday weekend for the macher-in-chief and the macher-elect. Macher i.e. bigshot. We came to the conclusion it’s certainly good to be connected. In the midst of the Thanksgiving weekend festivities for the Bidens and Trumps, both machers, the president and the president-elect found a few minutes to take care of business. Despite telling us over and over that he would not pardon his son Hunter for tax and gun transgressions, President Biden, like any good politician and father, flipped and gave his son a full, far-reaching pardon. Meanwhile, at Mar-a-Lago President-elect Trump took care of the mechutin, one of our favorite Yiddish words describing your married kids’ in-laws. Right after the pumpkin pie, Massad Boulos, Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law was appointed the macher-elect’s adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs. Earlier over the holiday weekend another mechutin, Charles Kushner, daughter Ivanka’s father-in-law, was appointed U.S. ambassador to France. Back in 2020, as Trump’s first term was concluding, Mr. Kushner got the Hunter Biden treatment and was pardoned from his conviction for preparing false tax returns and witness retaliation. Whether it’s right or wrong, by constitutional law, the office of chief macher has the sole discretion, authority and chutzpah to do this.

London diners beware.

How would you like that steak cooked, mate? For decades, maybe centuries, cuisine in London was considered the dregs by visitors and tourists. It was a culinary punchline. Then in the late 1980s through the 90s as the city became increasingly more of an international cultural and business hub, there was a great infusion of restaurants and menus prepared by some of the world’s finest chefs. Today London, while not quite New York or Paris, doesn’t take a back seat to many other cities around the globe for dining. And that has become problematic for Londoners. Most foodies are having a tough time getting into some of their favorite trendier eating establishments now overrun with tourists. So an ambitious group of Brits went on the social media warpath. They banded together on Reddit and decided to play a prank, which has now gone viral. They were joined by other London food connoisseurs in the con. They promoted the Angus Steakhouse as London’s best kept secret. However, visitors didn’t see it as tongue-in-cheek. So now tourists are flocking into any of the five Angus Steakhouses in central London that have become the recipients of glowing reviews by the prankers. In the States an Angus Steakhouse would be on par with a Sizzler, Texas Roadhouse, Outback or heaven forbid LongHorn chain. Calling Angus Steakhouses mediocre would be a stretch but getting a table at one of them is now problematic. They are overrun by both locals and tourists. One food critic, after eating at an Angus, posted his steak was, “a hellish, tough, teeth-testing beast,” while another told The Wall Street Journal, “Our meal here was calamitous. What baffled me was not just the spitefully cooked food, but that the place was heaving full. Who are these people and where do they look for their recommendations?” If for some reason on your next trip to London the only reservation you can get is at an Angus, forgo the béarnaise sauce and ask for a side of watery ketchup. Cheers.

Will someone remind me again why the New York Giants, without a fight, let Saquon Barkley go down the New Jersey Turnpike to Philadelphia?

The in-season Hard Knocks is back on HBO premiering this past Tuesday. Instead of behind the scenes of a particular team, the outstanding series will highlight a division, the AFC North, and go to Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

If you thought Taylor Swift tickets were tough, try getting a pair for the World Champion Dodgers 2025 season opener on March 18 & 19 against the Cubs. The two-game series will be played in Tokyo marking the return of prodigal son Shohei Ohtani. Good luck and bring a lot of yen.

The Beatles get the credit for the British Invasion of rock ‘n roll to our shores. Their I Want To Hold Your Hand became number one on the U.S. top 100 in early 1964 and opened the gates to dozens and dozens of top hits from the U.K including 20 from the Beatles alone. However IWTHYH wasn’t the first Brit hit to head our countdown. Two others preceded it— in 1962 Stranger on the Shore, a great clarinet piece by Acker Bilk, and 1963’s Telstar by The Tornados, another instrumental, topped our charts before the Beatles.

Happy birthday to Jethro and Petula and remembering Looie and his sweaters.

Happy 87th birthday to Max Baer Jr., Jethro Bodine, and a happy 92nd to legendary singer Petula Clark. Hope she had a chance to go Downtown and celebrate.

Lou Carnesecca, one of the great original personalities of college sports, died last Sunday only a month shy of his 100th birthday. ‘Looie’ won over 500 games as the St. John’s head basketball coach from 1965-70 and again from 1973-1992. He was a character before coaches became characters. He was a fun guy who stunned the college hoops world in 1985 while St. John’s was on a run to the Final Four by trading in the traditional coaching attire of a suit for gauche sweaters which became his trademark norm.

Condolences to the family of Canadian doc Ronald Weiss who died on October 29 at 68. He was known throughout the great North as the “Wayne Gretzky of vasectomies” credited with an unprecedented 58,789 zips during his 40-year medical career.

I go to the gym seven mornings a week but I’m still not in good enough shape to twist off the cap of a bottle of Gatorade. Those who drink the stuff know exactly what I mean.

It looks like the old fashioned formal mail invitations for weddings, b’nai mitvahs, graduations and the like have now, by and large, given way to email or text prompts. For Seinfeld followers, if that happened in 1995, Susan Ross would still be alive and George absolutely miserable in 30 years of marriage.

And speaking of unhappy marriages, The Wall Street Journal tells us that the new buzzword among family law practice is “gray divorces.” In 2010, 27% of the couples divorcing were over 50. Last year that percentage shot up to 40% or over 700,000 gray couples filing. The shade of gray really becomes enhanced for those over 65 where the divorce rate has increased by 65% since 2010.

Some television recommendations for a chilly day: if you watched the first season of The Diplomat on Netflix make sure you catch the second. Keri Russell is outstanding and so is the six-episode season with a fantastic ending. If you haven’t seen any of it, put it on the list. On Apple TV, Disclaimer is sneaky good. It’s one season, seven episodes starring Cate Blanchett and a really strong supporting performance by Kevin Kline. Stay with it and you won’t be sorry. And I just finished and loved the newly released The Madness on Netflix.

I won three of four of my college football season win/loss total wagers. I’m not particularly proud that the largest of which was betting Alabama to have less than 10 wins. They cooperated, finishing with nine. I thought the coaching change from retired Nick Saban to Kalen DeBoer would be enough to knock the Tide off course for at least three games. I figured losses to Georgia, Tennessee and LSU. Instead it was Tennessee, Vandy and Oklahoma. Either way the loss total was three. A rarity, but I actually got one right. Going forward over the next few years if Alabama football was a stock, I would short it. I think the switch from Saban to DeBoer has yet to have its full impact in recruiting and transfers. The SEC will continue to achieve more parity and Alabama will slide backwards to the pack with multiple losses a year.

So who do you like for the final spot in the new 12-team College Football Playoff?  It comes down to three-loss Bama and two-loss SMU revealed today at noon Eastern. All things being equal, on a neutral field, Alabama probably beats the Mustangs but SMU’s last second loss in the ACC championship game might be enough to sway the committee.  No quibble from me which ever way it goes.

One more over/under season totals note.  The Yankees chances to repeat as American League champions in 2025 took a great leap forward on Friday when the Mets signed Clay Holmes. Holmes, the Yankees closer in 2024, blew 13 saves before being banished to the end of the bullpen bench mid-summer.  He created havoc for anyone that bet the Yankees over 93.5 season wins which included yours truly.  Despite Holmes’ ineptness, the Yankees finished with 94 wins. For some reason the Mets wanted him. For a guy that barely could finish an inning without being shellacked, the Mets see the potential of Holmes as a starter.  If this materializes, the Mets become my leading candidate for an under play next season.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred must have a good sense of humor. At least I hope he does. Last week he floated the idea of MLB experimenting with something called the Golden At-Bat which would allow, one time during a game, a team to bring any batter in the line-up to the plate when it’s not his regular turn to hit. Which means Judge, Ohtani, Witt, Soto et al can be used any time during a game potentially getting an additional 150 or so at-bats during a season. Eighty or 85 home runs for a slugger becomes very do-able. Surely Manfred is kidding. Isn’t he?

Every year on the day before the holiday my favorite satirical sports columnist, Jason Gay, publishes in the WSJ his annual guide to the traditional family touch football game on Thanksgiving day. He offers 20 or so suggestions. Like— if you are new to the family game and you try too hard, you’ll never be invited back. He recommends missing some blocks or dropping a few passes on purpose. Or who would you rather have as your quarterback in the game— your 82-year-old uncle with twin hip replacements or Aaron Rodgers? In keeping with the times, this year Gay advises “If someone’s absent from your Thanksgiving touch football game because of a breakup or divorce, don’t say breakup or divorce. Instead, just say “They’ve entered the transfer portal.”

I had no idea, when I left last Tuesday night’s NHL game between Vegas and Edmonton, that I and the 18,000 others who were at T-Mobile Arena had just seen something that hasn’t happened in the NHL for 80 years or virtually all our lifetimes. Vegas won 1-0. That’s not uncommon. However, a 1-0 game with no penalties hasn’t happened since February 20, 1944, when FDR was chief macher, not a highway in New York, and the Maple Leafs and Blackhawks played on their best behavior.

And finally, Brigham Young University, a Mormon institution has 35,000 students. Three of them are Jewish. The school completed it’s 2024 regular season football schedule last weekend with a record of 10-2. BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff is one of the three Jews on the Provo, Utah, campus. Go figure. He is also the only starting Jewish quarterback in college football. Adoringly, Cougar fans affectionately call him the “BYJew.”