The Bench Jockeys

Two big races take place on Memorial Day Weekend – The Indy 500 and The Coca Cola 600.  Generally, open-wheel racing and stock car racing are very different sports, but Sunday, both races ended in similar fashion: the leader was well ahead of the competition – could all but taste victory – but couldn’t cross the finish line first.  In the Indy 500, the leader rookie driver JR Hildebrand crashed into the wall right on the final turn just before the finish line, allowing Dan Wheldon to pass him and cross the finish line first.  Wheldon lead the Indy 500 for only 825 feet, but it was the last 825 feet.  And that’s what counts.

Down in Charlotte for the Coca-Cola 600, after four time champion Jimmie Johnson blew his engine with four laps to go, a few extra laps were added to the race.  Avid race fans will tell you that adding laps adds excitement and a lot of fuel saving frustration.  On the restart, Dale Earnhardt Jr. – who hasn’t won a race in 105 starts – was poised to finally break his losing streak.  With two laps to go, Junior pulled out to a comfortable lead, leaving the ten cars remaining on the lead lap in his dust.  On the Final Lap, it was Junior’s to win, through the first two turns he was on fire, uncatchable.  The crowd was on their feet, even people who don’t normally cheer for him were shouting his name.  In the final turn of the last lap, with the finish line in his view, his car RAN OUT OF GAS…. he coasted across the line in 7th position, losing the victory to Kevin Harvick.

And that’s racing.  You spend four hours watching a race and it all comes down to the last turn.

US Representative Jim Jordan, Republican from Ohio says, “Spend what you take in. That’s what every family has to do.” (Yes, that quote is correct.) But wait, how many families in this country have a mortgage on their home?  (Don’t forget, part of the mortgage you pay actually to REDUCES the principle, a concept unheard of in Washington).   How many have a loan on their car?  Let’s not forget those magic pieces of plastic in your wallet.  And don’t many families contribute to their retirement plans?

That’s the problem with Washington these days (OK, years, decades…). They just don’t get it.  What we should be doing  Read more »

For over a decade now, Japan has required manufacturers, retailers and citizens to adhere to its Home Appliances Recycling Law that mandates that large appliances such as air conditioners, televisions, washing machines/dryers and refrigerators must be recycled and not simply thrown in the trash.  Consumers are responsible for the transfer of used appliances to one of 46 recycle sites throughout the country and must pay fees to the original retailers which in turn pays a fee to the manufacturers who then must either recycle the appliances into future products or strive to eliminate the footprint of the product.  Each appliance carries an allocated recycling fee of between $20 and $40 US dollars for the consumer, while the retailer and manufacturer incur process costs.  Recycling actually occurs in Japan and an entire industry of disassembly workers was developed.  As my old boss, The Duke, used to say, Read more »

May 22 – Although the rapture did not occur yesterday, another viable candidate from the Republican field was carried away from consideration.

With Barbour, Huckabee, and Trump already standing on the sidelines, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels is the latest to decline to square off with the remaining Republican candidates in an effort to wrestle the White House away from President Obama.

The Bench Jockeys thought that Daniels had a legitimate chance to secure the nomination as an 8:1 contender – the third highest ratio from our oddsmaking team.  Citing Read more »

NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, has been using his idle time to reach out to NFL Season Ticket Holders to offer his support and assurances during this period of uncertainty.  I have not received my call yet, but I am certain it is coming any day.  Roger recently told a Pittsburgh Steelers Season Ticket holder that he is confident that there will be a full 2011 season played.  In the unlikely event that the work stoppage seeps into the Fall, his goal is that there will be a Superbowl.  That technically gives him until February 5th, 2012 to get a deal done to save the 2011 season.  No wonder he has plenty of time to reach out and touch us with his wisdom.

NFL Season Ticket holders are being assured that they will receive 1% on their money if any games are not played.  Wow, that’s reassuring.  If we have to miss an entire year of football, my $3500 investment in my team will be Read more »

Watching Jorge Posada struggle to hit my weight (when I went off to college) I began pondering the age old (ok, actually since 1973) debate of whether or not there should be a Designated Hitter in baseball.  The theory being that it is more exciting to watch a professional hitter bat rather than a pitcher attempt to hit.  (However, Jorge may be letting the air out of this argument.)  With the implementation of the DH Rule in the American League, older positional players who would normally have been put out to pasture when their fielding skills diminished, could extend their careers while keeping their accountants happy.  But should some new blood have a chance?   Clearly more strategy is involved in  Read more »

Never one to shy away from the media, Donald Trump, has turned off the Klieg light on his potential run for the Republican nomination.  With his usual bluster, The Donald stated, “I will not be running for president as much as I’d like to,” but then opined, “I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and, ultimately, the general election.”  So if he wanted to run and he thought he would win:  a) why not run, and b) why end the speculation before the 2012 race is even off the ground?  He surely could have milked the political pronouncement to throw his toupee into the ring into a made-for-tv event like LeBron’s axis-altering decision to move to South Beach.

Although we only considered him a fringe player in terms of actual candidacy for the Republican nomination, we did fear Read more »

May 15, 2011 – Wasting time arguing over whether the American public would benefit from ending subsidies for Oil companies is just another symbol of how well our political system operates.  Granted, the Feds did promote a delightful dog and pony show by holding a hearing on May 12th designed to explore the rationale behind subsidizing the oil industry.  However, the best part of the hearing on was  Read more »

Mike Huckabee – a Bench Jockeys top five contender for the 2012 GOP nomination – has stated that his heart is not in a Presidential run, and for now, he is out.  The Former Arkansas Governor, Southern Baptist minister and Fox News host opened at 9:1 to win the Republican nomination.  This surprising turn of events shakes up an already convoluted field and allows some of the second tier candidates an opportunity to make a move.   As a result, fellow social conservative Michele Bachmann gets Read more »

Gary Bettman cannot be too thrilled about the looming pairings for the Stanley Cup finals. In the East, Gary better be wearing his Bruins underoos as the puck drops on Boston-Tampa Bay series on Saturday, May 14th. Boston is the only team from the original six and the only large market team left in the Conference Finals. Although the Lightning have a couple players with some fire-power in Steven Stamkos and Marty St. Louis, the Florida market for hockey is one of the leagues weakest – the Lightning and the Panthers round out two of the NHL’s five lowest rated fan bases. The fans in San Jose seem to care about the Sharks, but  Read more »

Well, we have earned another ‘Pat (Riley) on the back.’  Over a month ago – on April 9th to be exact – with a handful of games left in the regular season, The Bench Jockeys guaranteed a Celtics-Heat post-season match-up and we told you it would not end well for the Celts.  We surmised that the newly-inked Unholy Alliance between the Fenway Sports Group and LeBron James was an affront to everything Boston and would result in chaos in the streets of the North End and on Landsdowne.  We even suggested that ol’ 33 would have been a more appropriate partner for the FSG venture and questioned the wisdom of such a union, ripe with such frightful potentialities for the Boston faithful. http://thebenchjockeys.com/2011/04/09/a-cursedly-simple-answer-for-red-sox-slow-start/  We even told you how it would end… a Read more »

 May 6, 2011 –   So it wasn’t the Legion of Doom line from the 1996 Philadelphia Flyers (Lindros, LeClair and Renberg) but five of the GOP hopefuls did appear in Greenville, South Carolina to offer their respective campaigns’ spin to the foreign and domestic issues of the day.  I sat through this sound bite event – which was inexplicably termed a “debate” – for its entirety and I felt like I learned a bit more about Gary Johnson who looked uncomfortable in his own skin (and The Bench Jockeys have downgraded him accordingly) and underestimated the “everyman” appeal of a very well-spoken Herman Cain (who earned a boost in his odds).  Tim Pawlenty looked very presidential and at ease.  Although T-Paw was a bit scripted, he offered tight answers and knew when to admit he had made an error rather than executing the standard politician rope-a-dope.  Ron Paul, who was well-supported by the South Carolina audience, looked frail; I think that his window may have closed.  (The Bench Jockeys will be tweaking him downward as well.)   Fellow DSL alum Rick Santorum stood out in the quintet as overly moralistic, and even in this 86 octane mid-grade candidate field, the Rooster did not finish in the Top 3.

Pluses go to Pawlenty and Cain/ A Minus goes to Johnson/ No goals against & no goals scored for Paul and Santorum.

The next Republican gabfest will be Iowa on August 11^th.

After returning from five days and nine rounds of golf in Myrtle Beach with my new favorite golf club – a hybrid – it got me to thinking how there’s more and more combo platters these days.  Every day we come across two ideas/products/life forms that have somehow been combined into one presumably preferable concept.  For example, words (bigamy, from the Latin meaning: twice and the Greek meaning: wedlock), convertible bonds (what’s better than that), dogs (I prefer the Dorkie, a Dachshund/Yorkie hybrid), mermaids (obvious upside), plants (peppermint is actually a hybrid between spearmint and water mint), fruit (grapefruit is a hybrid between a pomelo and the Jamaican sweet orange), sports (Frisbee golf & Horseball [a combination between polo and basketball]) and of course, politicians.

When President Obama extended the Bush tax cuts, his donkey’s snout became an elephant’s trunk.  When President Bush enacted TARP, his elephant ears shrunk to the size of a donkey’s. Maybe this country would be better off if  Read more »

The field for this Saturday’s Run for the Roses – the 137th Kentucky Derby – with post position, horse’s name and Read more »

Although Ireland’s largest bookmaker, Paddy Power, has made Barack Obama a 2:5 favorite in winning re-election, The Bench Jockeys are not quite so sure.  The election is still 18 months away and anything can happen.  Obama will not face any competition from his fellow Democrats so he can hold onto his war chest until a worthy opponent is identified, whereas each of the GOP candidates will need to use his/her fundraising money early and often to gain separation and party traction.  History tells us that only four incumbent presidents have been denied a nomination to run by their own party:  Millard Fillmore, Chester A. Arthur, Andrew Johnson and Franklin Pierce.  Quick Pop Quiz:  What do three of these four men have in common?  Answer: Read more »