A damp meeting between a bus boy and a future President

George H. W. Bush, the 41^st President of the United States, died three weeks ago at the age of 94, the longest living President in U.S. history.

President Bush 41 had a remarkable career as a public servant, going from U.S. Congressman to Ambassador to the United Nations to the chairman of the Republican Party to the Director of the CIA to Vice President and eventually becoming the President of the United States in 1989, succeeding Ronald Reagan, the man he served under as Vice President.

Long before he was ever elected to public office, George H.W. Bush served as a Lieutenant in the United States Navy and fought for this country in World War II, serving as a fighter pilot, conducting 58 assorted air raids with hundreds of successful hits on enemy planes. Once, his plane was shot down in the Pacific Ocean and he spent hours floating on an inflatable raft, wondering whether he would ever be rescued. He eventually received several awards for his military service, including the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Presidential Unit Citation.

When you collect all the pieces of Bush 41’s service to this country, he just might have the most storied and distinguished career of any U.S. President.

And he just might be the only U.S. President to ever have had a pitcher of water spilled on him. Well, he wasn’t the President yet, just the Vice President. 

But it remains the story of how the future President of the United States got doused with a pitcher of water -- by none other than yours truly.

You see, it was the summer of 1981. Bush 41 was just sworn in as the Vice President earlier that year, on the same day that Reagan became the 40^th President of the United States.

At that time, I was a student at Marquette University, but during the summer break, I had a job that I loved, serving as a bus boy at the Stadium Club in Giants Stadium, working for the Harry M. Stevens Corporation.

I initially got the job as a bus boy in 1979 because I had a host of friends who worked as bus boys at the Pegasus Restaurant at the Meadowlands Racetrack. I was all set to join my buddies as a bus boy at the track. The paperwork was taken care of. I was interviewed by the hierarchy. They liked me and hired me. However, there was only one problem. They didn’t have a uniform jacket big enough to fit me.

I was just about ready to be sent out the door with no job, when someone mentioned that they needed bus boys at the Stadium Club. I was asked if I would be willing to work there instead of the track.

As it turned out, it was probably a blessing, because if I stayed at the track, the compulsive gambler and harness racing diehard in me would have plunked all my earnings on the No. 6 horse in the fifth race on a nightly basis.

Instead, I got shipped over to the Stadium Club, where I couldn’t do any damage. Or so I thought.

Eventually, I became comfortable at the Stadium Club. I was well liked by the waitresses, the kitchen staff, the maitre d, the entire organization. I was a hard worker and moved up the ranks, eventually becoming the supervisor of bus boys and porters.

I even knew the most important words to work as a supervisor of bus boys and porters, which were “limpios platos,” meaning clean dishes in Spanish, and “sucios platos,” which of course meant dirty dishes.

I worked all the big events at Giants Stadium, especially at the time, soccer games. The New York Cosmos were the biggest draw at Giants Stadium back then, so I worked all the Cosmos games. People who went to the Cosmos games wanted to eat and drink before and after, so they came to the Stadium Club, where we would have thousands of patrons before and after each match.

Sometimes, the players would come in, so I got to take care of superstars like Pele, Giorgio Chinaglia, Franz Beckenbauer, Ricky Davis, Carlos Alberto and the coach, Prof. Julio Mazzei, who was instrumental in bringing Pele to the Cosmos and who led the Cosmos to the North American Soccer League championship in what was dubbed “The Soccer Bowl” in 1982.

The Professor loved me to no end and greeted me after every game with a huge hug. He was a wonderful man and I enjoyed seeing him at the Stadium Club all the time.

So I was a fixture at the Stadium Club for a long time, even after my disastrous association with the future President of the United States in July, 1981.

There was a huge political fundraising dinner held at the Stadium Club for the Republican Party of New Jersey and for Tom Kean, the Republican candidate for Governor. Kean eventually won the election in November of 1981, defeating Jim Florio in the closest gubernatorial election in New Jersey history. Kean won by less than 2,000 votes.

People paid hundreds of dollars per ticket for a chance to hear the Vice President and former U.S. President Gerald Ford speak. Kean and Ford were close friends, especially since Kean once served as the campaign chairman in New Jersey when Ford ran for President unsuccessfully in 1976.

So here was this big fundraiser with all the major political people on hand. I was a 20-year-old college student, of course already having Democratic ties, being a Hague from Jersey City.

Like I had a choice in that matter. My father was a popular Democratic committeeman in Jersey City for over 30 years and was instrumental in helping to bring John F. Kennedy to make a campaign stop in Jersey City in the fall of 1960, before Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon. There were the Democratic ties by being a Hague from Jersey City and long-time Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague, a distant relative.

Prior to this huge fundraising dinner, I was screened by the Secret Service, asking me questions about whether I had any problems with either former President Ford or Vice President Bush. I replied that I did not and just wanted to my job to the best of my ability, like every time I put on the blue jacket to lead my bus boys and porters. When I worked at the Stadium Club, I had no favorite teams or political affiliations. I was more concerned with sucios platos and limpios platos and whether or not water was poured in every glass at the tables prior to the customers’ arrival.

Since I was the head honcho of the bus boy patrol, I was the one who took care of the head dais and poured all the water and cleared away all the dirty dishes. I had three years experience prior to this dinner and I never had a single incident.

But lo and behold, disaster reared its ugly head on this fateful July evening.

As Vice President Bush went to take his seat at the head dais, the bus boy in charge proceeded to pour water all over his lap.

And when I say all over, I mean all over. It was probably close to 24 ounces of water that ended up in the future President of the United States’ lap, all on his suit pants and even got some on his suit jacket.

Right away, the Secret Service whisked me away and brought me to the bowels of the stadium, away from the dinner. I never got the opportunity to offer my apologies for my disaster. I wanted to meet the man, perhaps shake his hand. After all, this was royalty at this head dais, the former President, the future President and the future Governor all within a few seats of each other.

And I screwed it all up by not paying attention to what I was doing and dousing the Vice President with a pitcher of water. It was an embarrassing disaster.

The Secret Service asked me if I did it on purpose and if I had any political motivation to throw water on the Vice President. I honestly did not. I just wanted to do my job.

For more than 200 events working for Harry M. Stevens, I did my job and obviously did it well. I eventually moved on to become a security person/bodyguard at the Brendan Byrne Arena for concerts. 

I worked for people like John Denver, Kenny Rogers, Styx and REO Speedwagon. I drove John Denver over to the Meadowlands Racetrack in 1982 to watch the harness racing in the pouring rain before his concert on Saturday night. We stood together and watched a few races and no one noticed that it was him.

So I did my job well during my days at the Stadium Club. Except for that one fateful evening when I inadvertently dumped a pitcher of water on Vice President George H.W. Bush, who was more than gracious after getting doused.

In fact, Bush sought me out after I was taken away quickly by the Secret Service. Luckily, Bush was given another suit that he changed into. He wanted to talk to me and let me know that he understood it was an accident. He asked me what I did most of the time. I told him I went to Marquette and his response was, “Oh, that’s a good school. Don’t worry about this, young man. We all make mistakes.”

I didn’t give much thought to that evening until George H.W. Bush finally passed away three weeks ago. I watched most of the funeral proceedings on television and heard the eulogies, especially the one delivered by his son, the 43^rd President. I then realized what a remarkable life he had, how much service he gave to this country. And how wet I made the man that night – and he didn’t hold it against me.

The college basketball season is only a few weeks old and there’s a lot that can be said about the current No. 1 team in the land, the Duke Blue Devils, with their much heralded freshman class of R.J. Barrett, Tre Jones, Cam Reddish and of course, the freakishly talented Zion Williamson, who is already earning rock star status and drawing big crowds wherever he plays.

No question, Duke is extremely talented. The Blue Devils have more talent than any college basketball team in recent history. Probably the only team that draws any comparison would be the 1990 Running Rebels of UNLV.

But there’s something about this Duke team that I don’t like. I can’t put my finger on it and maybe I’m wrong.

They play out of control most of the time. They are not running any sort of offense. It’s all transition, up and down the floor, firing up the first 3-pointer they see. They are playing AAU-style basketball. Will it work? Sure, for most of the season, it probably will. It will make crowds explode in excitement.

But the basketball purist in me thinks that Coach Mike Krzyzewski might have lost control of this team and is letting the inmates run the asylum. It just appears that way. If the Blue Devils run one half-court offensive set any time soon, then maybe I’ll change my mind. It’s also hard to argue with success, when you’re the No. 1 team in the land.

However, there have been a lot of No. 1 teams that have fallen by the wayside en route to the NCAA Championship, including the aforementioned Running Rebels, who lost in the NCAA semifinals that year to – oh yeah – Duke and All-American players Christian Laettner, Grant Hill and fellow Jersey City-ite Bobby Hurley.

Maybe, just maybe, this Duke team will prove me wrong. But the jury is still out, despite the team’s early success.

I will state one thing: Zion Williamson is the most all-around talented creature I’ve seen in college basketball since Anthony Davis was a freshman at Kentucky. Before that, it was when Shaquille O’Neal was a freshman at LSU.

Williamson is scary good and does everything. I’ve never seen anyone of his size (6-foot-7 and 285 pounds) who can handle the ball, run the floor, block shots, rebound and shoot like him. And that includes the newest member of the Los Angeles Lakers, namely LeBron James. We all know that LeBron never played college ball. I think Williamson does more at this age than LeBron did.

We have to see what happens with this Duke team. There’s just something missing there.

You can read more of my work on www.theobserver.com and www.hudsonreporter.com. Both publications will soon have the Top 10 Stories of the Year for each circulation area. Both year-end stories are interesting and fun reads. Check them out.

Please don't blame Eli for all of Giants' woes

Unless you’ve been living in a deep dark cave and the wireless connections in the cave are poor and your I-Phone 26 wasn’t sufficiently charged for three days and after you jumped into the pool to continue your workouts for the American Ninja Warrior tournament, you didn’t put the phone in a box of uncooked Minute Rice for a week to dry it out, you don’t know that the New York Football Giants – yeah, those guys – currently own a 1-5 record and appear to be a bunch of dead men walking.

And yes, if all of those factors have played a part in not understanding that Big Blue could actually be so damn dismal and piss poor this season, then you didn’t hear all the theorists offer their incredible expertise as to the reasons why the Giants are dead in the water.

Most of the finger pointing has been directed at one man – Eli Manning.

And we know that Eli is the easy target. After all, he’s been the signal caller, the head honcho, the main man, since 2004. He’s survived the purge of Coughlin, the ascent and subsequent dismissal of that fiery genius Ben McAdoo and the first six games of new head coach Pat Shurmur and like Sir Elton John once warbled, “He’s still standing after all this time.”

Sure, Eli has slowed down considerably since his Super Bowl MVP days and he’s not nearly the signal caller he once was. That’s totally understandable and verifiable.

But to think that Eli is the main reason why the Giants are so awful right now is ridiculous.

Sure, he’s the easy target. He’s the face of the team (well, he should be, but really isn’t now) and he’s the one taking every snap, so it would make sense to blame him for the mess that the Giants have become.

Honestly, Eli may be somewhat at fault. But he’s not the main reason. Not by a long shot.

If I’m doing finger pointing here (and that’s why I get paid the REALLY big bucks to write this blog), I will start with people not even in uniform.

I have to start my blame with general manager Dave Gettleman.

Now, I know it’s pretty low of me to slap a man when he’s down. Gettleman is battling cancer these days and that should be his main concern. I applaud Gettleman’s courage in facing the hideous disease head on, the way anyone who gets that kind of diagnosis should. Gettleman has been steadfast and strong since he was diagnosed and that approach deserves all the credit in the world.

However, Gettleman didn’t fully address the main problem the Giants had – namely a weak offensive line. More on that later.

So Gettleman decides that the best way to address the problem is to move the brutally awful Ereck Flowers from left tackle to right tackle, to sign former New England Patriot standout Nate Solder to a gigantic $62 million contract with $35 million guaranteed (I definitely missed my calling) and then draft the highly regarded Will Hernandez to play left guard. It all looked good on paper.

Well, it’s been a disaster. Solder has not been as good as advertised, Hernandez is really not as good as anticipated and Flowers has been released, only to be signed by Jacksonville, where incredibly he may start this weekend.

So there’s the reason I blame Gettleman. He knew that the offensive line was the biggest area of concern and he really didn’t fix it, because every time Eli drops back to pass, he’s running for his life.

Now, the second layer of blame has to fall on the new head coach.

Shurmur is already better than McAdoo, no doubt, but he’s made his share of mistakes thus far. His clock management skills leave a lot to be desired. His recognition of down-and-distance is sometimes mind boggling.

Off the field, Shurmur seems to be on the defensive ever y time he’s asked a question by anyone. It’s taken him all of two months to become as paranoid as McAdoo was. That approach doesn’t work. To be successful as a head coach of any sport in New York, you have to have the same even keel, the same demeanor win or lose. It took Tom Coughlin almost two full years to realize that. The same can be said for Terry Collins with the Mets. If you think the media is the enemy, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble here, because as it has been proven over the years, the media can be blood thirsty villains.

I can’t say that I’m one of those, because I don’t have the same avenues as others. But the pressures of coaching in New York can swallow you like Orca if you allow them to. Shurmur arrived with the positive approach. It has disintegrated with the first five losses he has endured here as the Giants head coach.

I have to include the bleach-blond media superstar as someone else who deserves blame. Odell Beckham Jr. now has a gigantic contract, to the tune of $95 million, some $65 million of it guaranteed, in his back pocket. He got his money. His talents were rewarded, even after some of his ridiculous antics like making it look like he was peeing in the end zone after a touchdown in Philly and proposing marriage to the kicking net on the sidelines.

So now Beckham has been rewarded and he will be here for a while, so he should do one thing right now. Shut up!

There’s no room for him to air out his grievances with a reporter (with the rapper Lil Wayne sitting alongside nodding his head in affirmation the whole time) on national television. There’s no room for him to throw his quarterback under the bus by saying that he’s just no good anymore.

You see, the last time I checked, to be a successful receiver in the NFL, you have to have the quarterback throw you the damn ball. You can’t go get the ball on your own. You need that quarterback that you’re blasting.

So the whole interview that Beckham did with Josina Anderson of ESPN made no sense. He then tried to say it was done to fire up his team and make them play better. Well, if Beckham wanted to inspire his teammates, he should have found a better venue than national television. It would have been more efficient to go into the locker room and lock the door behind him, making it players only. Or do it during lunch time in the cafeteria. But not airing out your problems on national TV.

I said from the first time I laid eyes on the kid in rookie training camp after he was drafted four years ago. I came away from that first time, saying that the Giants drafted Jerry Rice. I knew right away he was that talented.

But here’s my gripe. Never in his storied career as the best receiver in the history of the game did you hear Jerry Rice ever throw his quarterback under the bus like that. Never. Jerry went about his business catching passes from Joe Montana and Steve Young and every other Schmeldrake that threw him the ball and never said a peep. Beckham goes on national TV. There lies the difference.

Now, I’m not saying Eli is guilt free here. He’s obviously not the same player he was 14 years ago when he was drafted. He’s also not the same player he was when he led the Giants to the two Super Bowl victories.

But anybody and everybody thinks that  Eli is the biggest reason for the Giants’ dismal 1-5 record. Hey, even Eli’s numbers support my stand. He’s completed 68 percent of his passes, has more than 1,600 yards passing with six TDs and four INTs. He had a nearly perfect game in their lone win against Houston.  If he’s given the time, Eli could still be a very effective QB.

The Giants did not do the wrong thing in drafting Saquon Barkley. The kid is the most gifted combination back I’ve ever seen in terms of running and pass catching. People want to coronate Todd Gurley right now as being the best. I’m convinced Barkley is better. The kid has it all.

But there’s no way all the blame has to be thrown at the feet of Eli Manning. Giants fans cannot second guess drafting Barkley ahead of Sam Darnold. As good as Darnold has looked with the Jets, Barkley is a better player.

The Giants screwed up by overvaluing Solder and Hernandez and thinking they could solve all of the offensive line’s woes.  That’s where the blame has to fall before Eli gets the short stick.

If you’re a movie fan, run, don’t walk, to the theater to go see “A Star Is Born,” with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga.

If you haven’t seen it already, the movie is tremendous and it will be an Oscar winner. I can’t say it will win Oscars for Best Picture or even for Best Actor/Director for Cooper and Best Actress for Gaga. It wouldn’t shock me if nominations come for them in all categories. Their performances are that worthy, especially Gaga as an actress and Cooper as a first-time director.

Cooper’s attention to detail as a director is incredible, like camera angles on emotional scenes and concert footage. Cooper did a masterful job and is definitely worthy of earning an Oscar nomination in his first movie, much like people like Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner and Mel Gibson did as rookies before him. Not joking here at all, but the late and great Jerry Lewis was a genius when it came to being a director and that side of his talent is so grossly overlooked. Redford’s work in “Ordinary People” was astounding and earned him the Best Director Oscar. Same for Costner with “Dances With Wolves” and Gibson with “Braveheart.”

But where “A Star Is Born” is a lock to win an Oscar is with the Best Original Song. Pick one, but there are three that will get nominated and one of the three will most definitely earn Gaga her Oscar as the singer/songwriter.

If we’re giving out four stars for a movie’s excellence, well, this one gets five stars. It’s that powerful of a movie and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

On the TV scene this season, I’m already hooked on “God Friended Me” on CBS on Sundays and “A Million Little Things” on ABC on Wednesdays. Both series are beyond excellent and have joined “This Is Us” on my must-watch list every week.

I’m still watching “New Amsterdam” on NBC, but not totally crazy about it like the other two.  It’s good, not great.

As for the “Murphy Brown” reboot, I say “Eh.” I was excited to see if it had the same juice as the “Will and Grace” and “Roseanne” reboots, but it’s really not the same. I still watch “Will and Grace” but I’m not experiencing the same belly laughs that I used to have. Maybe because there’s a lot less belly these days. I watched “The Conners” the other day and I will give it a few more tries, but it’s really hard to watch that show without Roseanne. As stupid as what she Tweeted was, she still was the lifeline of that show and without her, it’s going to take some getting used to.

OK, I know, here come the darts at me. Hey, Hague, stick to sports. I get it.

Two things about Hudson County high school football: One, if you get a chance to catch the exploits of Jamar Casey of Lincoln play, do so. Go to www.hudl.com and watch some of the kid’s highlights. He’s electric when he touches the ball. He’s not the biggest kid in the world, but he does some amazing things with the ball in his hands. And he’s one of the most respectful and considerate young men I’ve ever interviewed. He’s a credit to Robert Hampton and the Lincoln coaching staff, but he’s more of a credit to his parents for raising him the right way. He has excellent grades and it’s hard to determine if he’s a better student or a better football player.

And I’m telling you this: Jamar Casey is one of the most electrifying football players I’ve ever seen in my nearly 40 years of covering high school football.

Secondly, kudos go out to Union City and head coach Wilber Valdez, who now own a 6-1 record after manhandling North Bergen, 49-7, Friday night in what was dubbed as “The Battle for the Boulevard.”

Well, thanks to standout running back Jean Alvarez, who scored an incredible five touchdowns, the Soaring Eagles soared their way to the top of their divisional standings in the New Jersey Super Football Conference (please don’t make me look up which division it is – OK, it’s the Liberty White Division) and have pretty much sealed the deal on a divisional title.

The Soaring Eagles lost a lot of players that went all the way to MetLife Stadium for the NJSIAA North Jersey Section 1, Group V championship game last year, so one might have thought that this would be a rebuilding year for Valdez and his team.

But the Soaring Eagles are right in the hunt for another push towards MetLife in December and that’s a credit to Valdez, who has done an absolute masterful job this season.

You can read more of my stuff at www.hudsonreporter.com and www.theobserver.com

Jersey City Board of Ed drops ball with ridiculous budget cuts

It got lost in the shuffle recently, but it was a move that will have major ramifications to the kids of Jersey City for many years to come.

The Jersey City Board of Education voted recently to eliminate all freshman athletic teams in an attempt to save approximately $1 million in the district’s overall costs. In addition to slicing all freshman teams, the Board of Education totally wiped away golf and bowling as varsity sports, cut the number of assistant coaches for each athletic team and eliminated any further spending in terms of new uniforms and equipment.

What that all adds up to is an absolute screw job to the kids of Jersey City.

This move is an absolute disaster, both on and off the playing fields.

First, from a competitive standpoint, how in the world does a football program intend to get better without having a freshman team? How does a player develop and improve without having a chance to be nurtured and learn, playing and competing against kids their own age? Especially in a sport like football, having a good freshman program is essential if you want a varsity team to be successful.

Teams like Lincoln, Ferris, Dickinson and Snyder will be at a disadvantage from now on, facing teams that had the benefit of a nurturing freshman program. The Board of Education is essentially throwing these kids to the wolves and asking them to compete against schools and teams that have solid freshman programs.

Totally eliminating golf and bowling as cost-cutting moves is just an imbecilic gesture. Especially now that there is a legitimate, professional nine-hole golf course in Jersey City that could be used for development. I remember the Lincoln golf team getting the chance to play at the luxurious Liberty National Golf Course in the past, but I don’t think that was a regular opportunity. However, the nine-hole course right off Route 440 is an outstanding course and would have been a perfect locale for a Jersey City kid to learn to play the game. 

Not anymore.

And bowling? Are you kidding me? How costly is it to field a bowling program? The teams are not big to begin with, with nine, perhaps 10 kids to a team. The people at Hudson County Lanes in Bayonne are glad to accommodate the high school teams. It’s another move that made absolutely no sense.

Some critics of the cuts have stated that it might lead to a rise in the crime rate, that kids will have more free time on their hands and get into trouble instead of playing sports.

That remains to be seen.

But just from a common sense angle, we should want to encourage our youngsters to participate in sports. Playing high school sports is a healthy, extracurricular activity that encourages teamwork and unity and togetherness and camaraderie. We should do anything and everything in our power to want kids to play sports, not take the chances away from them simply because of budgetary reasons.

There should be a way to have the freshman sports continue. There should be a way to have the kids who play golf and who bowl to continue playing the sport they love. It should be a priority to keep athletics going, not eliminated simply to make line items on a spreadsheet balance out.

High school sports are essential to the development of our youth. Memories are made playing high school sports that last a lifetime. You cannot put a price tag on the importance of high school sports. It’s totally immeasurable, regardless of who wins and who loses. Just from the social angle alone, high school sports are vital.

There should have been a way for the Jersey City Board of Education to realize that high school sports should be a priority, not a line item elimination. When a budget is introduced, high school sports should be just as important as purchasing new textbooks or updating the information technology in the school’s computers. It should be just as essential.

There should never be a day where the powers-that-be determine that the way to have a budget more palatable would be to hack away at athletics.

I have an idea. Why not start hacking away at the ridiculously high salaries that the administrators all receive? Why not take a few thousand away from those already collecting better than six figures in their annual take? 

That would be a better way of attacking a budget problem instead of punishing innocent teenagers.

But of course, that will never happen.

If no one hears or learns of these cuts, then the Board of Education will take the approach that no one is complaining about it, so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal.

Guess what? It is a big deal. These cuts will be felt by the results of the teams down the road, who simply cannot fairly compete against other schools, programs and teams that field competitive freshman teams.

But these cuts hurt the ones that should matter the most in the Jersey City Board of Education. These cuts hurt the kids, the ones we’re supposed to be educating. How do these elected officials actually justify these cuts? That they had no other choice? That they reluctantly had their hands to the fire and were faced with the dilemma of finding the cuts from some place?

Well, athletics should not have been the place where they looked to save a few bucks. Plain and simple, there should have been a better way. These cuts were nothing short of moronic and simple minded. Shame on the people who were elected and entrusted to take care of our youth. They have basically turned their backs on these teenagers.  It’s an absolute disgrace.

It’s only two weeks into the new NFL season, but the Giants sure look like a complete disaster.

Thanks to new general manager Dave Gettleman and new head coach Pat Shurmur, the Giants entered this season with eternal optimism that Saquon Barkley was the savior at running back, that Eli Manning had found the Fountain of Youth, that the newly formed offensive line was going to be sensational and the defense would be revitalized and rejuvenated.

Well, two weeks in and Big Blue is a big mess.

Let’s start with the offensive line, because it’s probably the most glaring problem right now. Gettleman and Shurmur were convinced that Ereck Flowers would need nothing more than a shift from left tackle to right tackle, that the former first round draft pick just needed a change of scenery to jump start his career.

Well, on the first play from scrimmage this year, Flowers was called for an idiotic tripping penalty. On the third snap, he was flagged for holding. He’s been beaten at least 15 times in two games trying to make a simple block and he’s whiffed badly, like Gary Sanchez wailing at an outslde slider.

It’s safe to say now that Flowers is a complete bust. The Giants would never say that they wasted a first round draft pick three years ago on a guy who can’t play. But I’ll say it for them. Ereck Flowers cannot play the game of football. He’s slow, clumsy, has worse feet than Herman Munster, can’t block Betty White and worst of all, he will not admit to the fact that he’s been absolutely lousy since he mistakenly put on a Giants uniform four years ago. It would be easier to just cut bait, release him and admit he was a mistake, but the Giants won’t do that because they don’t have a viable backup on the roster.

Poor Eli Manning will have to continue to take the brunt of the Giants’ mistake of drafting Flowers.

But Flowers is not alone with his horrific play thus far. You have to wonder what In the world the Giants were thinking when they gave Nate Solder a four-year, $62 million contract ($35 million guaranteed), making Solder the highest paid offensive lineman in the NFL. Well, after two weeks, that contract is downright offensive, because Solder has been dreadful. He’s missed block after block. I can’t even begin to think what he’s graded out the first two weeks, but it can’t be pretty.

The Giants drafted Will Hernandez in the second round to play left guard next to Solder, giving the Giants what appeared to be a dynamic left side of the line. But the rookie has been brutal as well, forcing Eli to run for his life every time he drops back to pass.

The Giants have electrifying offensive players like Odell Beckham, Jr., Sterling Shepherd and Evan Engram, but if Eli doesn’t have more time to drop back and allow these receivers some time to get down field to run their routes, their talents are wasted. Beckham was thrown to a total of five times against Dallas. He has to touch the ball a lot more than that. Eli used the safety valve so many times that Barkley set a new team record for receptions in a game. The rookie had 14 catches. For 90 yards. That gives new meaning to the “Dump down” pass.

Here’s my slap at Shurmur. Yes, he’s only coached two games, but he made a glaring mistake in the Dallas game that I think changed the face and complexion of the entire game.

Dallas scored the first touchdown early and led 7-0. The Giants then got the ball and were moving the ball methodically up the field. They get to just outside of midfield where the drive stalls, giving the team fourth down and inches. And when I say inches, it wasn’t like a foot’s worth of inches. We’re talking two, maybe four inches tops.

Instead of rolling the dice early, Shurmur elects to punt the ball. It was a pooch punt by Riley Dixon (who looks like a keeper in the early going) that gets caught for a fair catch at the 25-yard line, a 27-yard punt that didn’t exactly pin the Cowboys back on their heels.

Shurmur had to go for it there. He did later in the game on two QB sneaks by Eli that worked.  But he should have done it right there. It would have shown that he was in control, willing to take a chance and shown that the Giants meant business. If it didn’t work, then the Cowboys got the ball at midfield and the Giants would have to suck it up a little and play a little harder.

But it was a chance for Shurmur to show he was in charge. And he muffed it. The Giants had to go for it there. It changed the entire game.

I could go on and on like Stephen Bishop (bad 70’s music reference there) about the Giants, but I’ll say this: 

They now have to win this Sunday against the Houston Texans. On the road, against J.J. Watt and Jadeveon Clowney and the Honey Badger and Deshaun Watson and DeAndre Hopkins.  That’s a very good football team the Giants are facing. Very good. Winning on the road in the NFL is never easy and beating a very good team that is also 0-2 in their building is a pretty tall task.

So we will see, but I think it doesn’t look good for the Giants this week.

I’m also going to say that it doesn’t look good for the Jets as well. In fact, I think the Cleveland Browns’ awful losing streak comes to an end Thursday night against the Jets. Just a feeling I have.

But the picture that is being painted isn’t a rosy one for the locals.

You can read more of my stuff at www.hudsonreporter.com and www.theobserver.com

Just wondering, as we honor the life of Sen. John McCain

It’s been a while, so I decided to go back to the roots of my writing career and fire off another version of “Just wondering,” Labor Day style.

Just wondering if anyone gave a good thought about Sen. John McCain’s funeral services over the weekend. I found the entire ceremony to be classy, respectful, joyful and loving. I found all of the eulogies to be picture perfect, from the emotions of his daughter Meghan, to the former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, to his friend and colleague Sen. Joe Lieberman. They painted a splendid verbal portrait of the man, of who he was and how much he truly loved our great nation.

I don’t seem to care now that the President was not there. And shame on the clowns that were questioning Ivana and Jared Kushner’s seating in the church. Are you kidding me? It wasn’t like they were pushed to the 47^th row. They were in a place of prominence and I give them credit for even being there.

But the one thing that I got out of the whole ceremony was this. Political parties were tossed aside to honor a true American hero, a servant of our great nation for more than 60 years of his life. Democrats shook hands and greeted Republicans. George Bush was clowning around and giving candy to Michelle Obama. Comments were issued by both parties. It was a day that brought everyone together.

And especially in this tumultuous and trying time in America, isn’t that a great message to derive from Sen. McCain’s passing? In the immortal words of the late Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along?” There’s always someone who has to bring up politics on a day like that, but sorry, when we’re all saying farewell to an American hero, it’s time to put politics on the backburner and just honor him the way he truly deserved that honor.

I mean, I’m a Democrat through and through, but I watched John McCain’s funeral start to finish and honored him by singing “America the Beautiful” at the closing of the ceremony. I still believe that should be the national anthem and sung only by Ray Charles, but what do I know? I think it serves the great nation better than the bombs bursting in air and the flag still flying.

So maybe, just maybe, both political parties can try to get along with each other, like they all did on Saturday in the National Cathedral, when they were all saying farewell to an American hero. Maybe we can put our differences aside for a little while and focus on the matters at hand that mean the most. After all, everyone wants to see America to be a better place than it is. No one likes the backstabbing and biting that is going on back and forth between the two parties. No one likes the hatred that is certainly fueled by the man elected to be the 45^th President of this great nation.

In honor to John McCain, patriot and hero, let’s all try to get along better in the months and maybe years to come. If we can all do that, then that will be John McCain’s eternal legacy. Although he was pretty damn good when he was the host of Saturday Night Live in 2002 and again in 2008 after the election.  So that’s an eternal legacy as well.

Just wondering if all the Giants fans are over the fact that the team cut Davis Webb on Sunday, admitting that the second-year signal caller from California wasn’t the future like everyone believed he was going to be.

Webb showed during the preseason that he had a ton of flaws. He overthrew practically every receiver on every route, either the little screen or mid-range slant to the long ball. He had almost a robotic release, like he was the QB on the old Electric Football game. He wound up and tried to throw the ball. Everything in football is supposed to be precise and quick. Webb was slow and predictable. He also was slow afoot and took too long to get in proper throwing position. All in all, Webb wasn’t any good and it proved to be a waste of a third-round draft pick.

Kyle Lauletta, although a little smaller in height and weight the NFL wants quarterbacks to be these days, has the potential to be a good backup to Eli Manning. But this all proves that last year’s removal of Eli as the starter was a total disaster and was the perfect reason to send Ben McAdoo packing. It also proves that the new regime of Pat Shurmur and GM Dave Gettleman hope that Eli is able to stay around for three, four maybe even five years.

Just wondering why the Jets took so long to announce that Sam Darnold was going to be the starting quarterback to start the season. Once the team shipped Teddy Bridgewater to the Saints, it was clear as a bell that Sam was the man.

And it’s evident that the team believes that Sam is going to be the face of the franchise for the next decade or so. He’s a keeper and they all realize it. But there was really no suspense In the fact that Darnold was going to start Week One. Head coach Todd Bowles should have said so officially weeks ago.

Just wondering if anyone else has gone to the movies to catch BlackKKKlansman yet. It’s a cinematic gem, an absolute wonderful trip back to the early 1970s and the troubled times our country faced in terms of the divide between the races. I’m not going to reveal the plot or anything else, other to say that this was Spike Lee’s best picture ever (although Do The Right Thing is close). Obviously, producers must trust Spike these days, because the budget for this one had to be high.

Anyway, Denzel’s son John David Washington was brilliant as the leading man and watch closely at the end to see if you catch a little of the old man in John David. I also like him because he had a brief stint as a running back with the Rams in 2006. But this movie will catapult John David into stardom.

Adam Driver was also excellent and will be worthy of Best Supporting Actor nominations come January. And Topher Grace from “That 70’s Show” was spot on as David Duke, the grand wizard of the KKK.

It’s a must see for all movie fans. It’s so well done and I was blown away with the overall brilliance.

Just wondering if anyone else is convinced that Jeff McNeil is the second coming of Daniel Murphy and can actually be our second baseman of the future. The kid can definitely swing the bat and I just wonder why it took so long to get him to the big leagues.

And the Mets are just so backward in their thinking of not promoting slugging first baseman Peter Alonso to the big club, just because they don’t want his free agent clock to start ticking a year early. It’s just so backward and not the way to conduct a Major League team. Shame on the Wilpons for their backward thinking.

The fans deserved to see Alonso and not traipse the dreadful Dominic Smith and all three of his RBI back to playing first base for the last month of the season. I’ve seen enough of Smith to realize the kid just can’t play and also doesn’t give two enough to deserve the attention he gets.

It should be Alonso at first with McNeil at second for the last 30 games or so and see what they can do as we look toward 2019.

And please, oh please, oh please, can they leave the starting pitchers alone? They are all pitching lights out right now, even the scary bad Jason Vargas, who we have to keep for next season. But please, leave deGrom, Syndergaard, Wheeler and Matz alone for next year. I don’t think there’s another team in baseball with a better four-man rotation than those four. I kid you not. They are all that good. The records don’t indicate that because the offense doesn’t score any runs.

I think the Mets could be pretty good next year if they spend money to construct a bullpen and get rid of the pile of dog doo they have out there now. Keep Lugo and Gsellman. I think Drew Smith has some potential. Maybe the lefty Daniel Zamora has a shot. But the rest are God awful and they have to address that as the main priority going forward.

They also need a catcher big time. They could also use a third baseman if someone would take Todd Frazier off of our hands. And hope and pray that a healthy Jay Bruce can return to the Jay Bruce who hit 30 homers for us for three-fourths of 2017.

If all of that happens, I think the Mets could be pretty good. But that’s a big if.

Just wondering if anyone is as excited for the start of the football season as I am. After all, I am a true-blue dyed in the wool long-time suffering Los Angeles Rams fan and I truly believe we have the team that could make a legitimate run at the Super Bowl this season. The pieces are all there. They just have to make sure that Todd Gurley stays healthy.

I’m the defending champion of my fantasy league and I have the first overall pick in this year’s draft. I’m not letting out any secrets in saying right now that my first pick will be the one and only Gurley man. There’s no reason for suspense like the Jets  did with Sam Darnold. I’m going Gurley.

So let’s go Rams and let’s go Gurley, early and often.

Just wondering if that’s enough for this blog. Yeah, I think it’s more than enough.

Memories of my boy OC

The phone rang on that February morning in 2014 when the familiar voice was on the other line.

“Jim, it’s OC,” the voice said, but I knew who it was by the time “Jim” came out of his mouth. “Listen, Jay Williams, Ray Cella and I were talking the other day and we all decided that we wanted to bring you lunch.”

My friend OC, the member of the Basketball Hall of Fame for his contributions as the premier college basketball writer in America for the Associated Press for more than 40 years, was going to come to my front door in Kearny to bring me a sandwich.

“OC, you don’t even know where the hell Kearny is,” I said to him. “You’re crazy.”

But sure enough, OC showed up at my door – albeit after getting lost while driving just a little bit on the way – holding a box full of sandwiches and chips and “these Italian cookies to die for,” OC said, bringing me and Jay-Bird and Aldo Cella lunch.

OC had heard that I had spent some time in the Kessler Rehabilitation Institute and that I was still having a tough time walking. I was still confined to my home at the time, already certain that I wasn’t going to make my annual sojourn to the NCAA Final Four with my Maguire University buddies, and so totally afraid that I may not have been able to walk freely ever again.

As the true friend that OC was to me for the last 35 years, OC helped to organize the trip to Kearny to bring me lunch. The four of us sat in my living room for a couple of hours, laughing and telling stories. If there was one thing that OC did better than anyone, it was telling a story. He was the Stephen King of storytelling novellas, turning even the slightest meeting into a saga.

I will forever remember the image of OC walking up my walkway with a box full of Italian sandwiches from a deli in Queens that he loved and a box of these Italian cookies that diabetics like OC and myself should not have been eating.

OC knew that one of his good friends was sick and feeling down in the dumps, so he wanted to do whatever he could to cheer him up.

That was OC at his finest. That’s the story I’ll always remember. And that’s what came to mind almost instantly Monday morning, when I received word that OC had indeed passed away at the age of 64. His health was in decline over the last couple of years. He lost a toe here and a half of his foot there due to his battle with diabetes. His heart was failing.

But he never once forgot one of the poor schlubs that he dealt with during his early heyday at AP, back when we met in the 1980s, when I was the Sports Information Director at St. Peter’s, when Jay Williams was the main man at the MAAC offices and when Ray Cella was the SID at Iona.

That was OC. Whether it was helping a friend and colleague who couldn’t walk by bringing him an Italian sub and a smile or whether it was spending the entire length of a basketball game just laughing and kidding around, that was Jim O’Connell in a nutshell.

He was quick witted and funny and always willing to tell a tale. But he was also loyal and faithful as they come on this planet.

I also don’t know if OC had any enemies. I know there were some in the world of college basketball that he didn’t particularly care for, but as a mortal enemy, no way. As for having friends, well, OC had thousands. Literally thousands of people called OC “friend.” I was so very fortunate to be one of those people for the last 35 years.

I was a friend long before I started to work for Associated Press 17 years ago.  I used to speak to OC two, maybe three times a week, when I was at St. Peter’s and there was no other form of communication like e-mails, Twitter and Facebook, other than the phone call and word of mouth.

OC and I became good friends from those phone calls, talking about Willie Haynes and Alex Roberts and Ted Fiore and the Peacocks. No text messages, no Tweets. Just the old fashioned phone calls and the liquid lunches in New York City. There were plenty of those. Sometimes, those lunches dragged out into dinners because there was storytelling going on in some bar like P.J. Clarke’s outside the campus of Fordham University or Dohoney’s or the Park Tavern in Jersey City after a Peacock home game.

OC was enamored with my recall of college basketball, all stored away in the back of my noggin. We constantly told stories back and forth, reliving our greatest memories.

I’ll never forget OC’s friendship to me. He was a mentor, a teacher, a colleague for the last 17 years, but first and foremost, he was my friend. I loved OC. I know I’m not alone. There will be countless other tributes written and said about him over the next week or so. His list of friends stretches far longer than mine.

But he was truly the best friend anyone could want. He was beyond just the premier college basketball writer in the country and a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame. He was OC. It’s about as simple of a tribute I can give to anyone. He was OC. Two little letters put together to utter a sound. It’s a sound that is so melodious because it represents only one person.

I grieve for wife Annie and his two wonderful sons, Andrew and James, both of whom I got to know pretty well over the years. I met Annie for the first time after a golf outing that OC ran every year and had no idea that she was a great college basketball player in her own right at Fordham and that’s how the two met.

God bless OC. I’ll treasure those days of covering Seton Hall basketball games together, telling him about how bad of a player Ty Shine was or how no Seton Hall player could make a jumper from “the corner of doom.” Sitting next to OC during a basketball game was like sitting next to royalty, because he knew everyone and had a story to tell about practically everyone.

I know people get sick, get old and die. But I didn’t want my last conversation with OC to be over me having a tough time filing a story to AP about a Seton Hall basketball game. But that’s what it was. Back in January, I covered Seton Hall-Georgetown for AP and my computer was acting weird. So I had to try to recover my story off the laptop and cut and paste it into an email in order to have OC edit it for me.

“It’s OK, Hague, I’ll cover your ass once again like I always do,” OC said.

Damn straight he did.

I hope God shines a little light on my buddy. I wish I could have said goodbye, wish I could have told him how much I truly loved him, how much I cherished that visit with Jay-Bird and Aldo and the Italian subs when I was sick and scared. The laughter and the stories brought me back to reality. I hope to carry on in OC’s memory. Rest in peace, brother.

Father's Day memory---Courtesy of the movie Field of Dreams

This column was first printed in the pages of the now-defunct Hudson Dispatch on June 29, 1989. It ended up winning several different awards from the New Jersey Press Association, the North Jersey Press Club and the Garden State Society of Journalists. It was also reprinted in Reader’s Digest later that year (although I never got credit, the paper did).

For several years, the clipping sat in an old Avon box in my basement. We had a major flood two years ago that ruined a lot of my old clippings, including several of the old Dispatch articles. But somehow, this one survived. It’s very weather beaten and faded, but it survived.

I’m re-typing it today and posting it, because after all, it’s Fathers’ Day.

I ventured to the movie theater the other day. No, not to see “Batman” or even “Ghostbusters II.” I’m not a trendy type of guy. In fact, I’m a little behind the times. I saw “Field of Dreams.”

OK, so the rest of the western world has already plunked down the cash to see “Field of Dreams.” We’re in the midst of a blockbuster movie season. “Field of Dreams” is old news to movie freaks. After all, it was only released nine weeks ago.

But “Field of Dreams” is about baseball _ sort of. And besides, “Batman” is not about Don Mattingly. I am a sportswriter _ at last check. And I’m a movie fan. Just a tardy movie fan, that’s all. I had to go see it. Who cares if I’m late?

I heard so many things about the movie. It was supposed to be the best thing ever to happen to baseball movies _ which wouldn’t be a hard feat, considering that most baseball flicks flounder.

I went with an open mind, waiting to be disappointed. I left feeling wonderful, feeling alive, feeling good. “Field of Dreams” touched me more than any other movie. It was clearly the best picture I’ve ever witnessed.

And my strong feelings about “Field of Dreams” had nothing to do with baseball. It had to do with life. Or, for that matter, afterlife.

For those who have not had the chance to see “Field of Dreams” _ like all seven of you _ you can stop reading here. Take my word for it, the movie is excellent. It’s the best thing you’ll see all year.

Now, for you other fortunate folk.

Let’s face it. “Field of Dreams” has its flaws. I mean, Shoeless Joe Jackson batted left-handed in real life and threw right. In this movie, the exact opposite. He batted right and threw left.

Brings up a good question. Do your extremities become mirror images after death? Only Elvis can answer that one. Remind me to ask him the next time the King is spotted at a 7-11 in Michigan. Elvis probably shoots at TVs with his left these days.

Gil Hodges is mentioned to be on the “Field of Dreams.” But there were no Brooklyn Dodgers uniforms to be found.

Still, this movie was absolute perfection to me, because it was able to touch me in a way that some people can relate to _ but hopefully not many.

Because of one movie, I got in touch with the huge vacancy that has been dominating my life for the last 18 years _ namely the absence of my father.

I was 10 when cancer snuffed Jack Hague away from me. He was sick, dead and gone within one month’s time in 1971. He was my everything. He was my inspiration, my motivation, my life. He was my Little League manager, my friend. He taught me so much about life in 10 short years _ and then he was gone.

It left me with a brother who was 60 miles away with his own family, a sister who was maturing rapidly _ and a loving mother, who had to be both parents from that point on. It was not easy.

Especially because of my obsession with sports _ something I shared with my Dad. We would watch ball games together, talk baseball constantly, play catch in my backyard.

With no father, those times came to an abrupt halt. I longed for the days of playing catch in the yard. They were long gone.

“Stop throwing like a girl, James,” I could hear him saying. “Step and throw.”

There were so many times in 1972, the first year after my father’s death, that I would stand in the yard, hoping he would come back. I just kept standing there, smacking the ball into my empty glove.

Little League was no longer fun without my Dad. It was a struggle to play for some other manager.

That summer, my mother bought me a “Pitch-Back,” the net that snapped the ball back to you after you tossed it. However, the damn thing never offered advice. It never told me what I was doing wrong. It just stood there.

And the “Pitch-Back” could never tell me what I was doing wrong in life. Of course, my mother did _ and worked hard at it. But living with two women and no man’s view of life certainly was no breeze for a moody kid who found his only release through sports.

As time went on, I tended to forget about my Dad. Not entirely, but enough that he wasn’t a major part of my life anymore. I lost his set of values, his standards. I forgot what Jack Hague stood for. I wanted to be independent, my own person. I couldn’t fill the shoes of a memory.

Sure, sports remained my one constant _ and still is today. Without it, I would be lost. But most of all the other values I thought I had disappeared.

People think I’ve lived a good life, an exciting life. But it’s been fairly shallow. I never realized that until recently _ and never more so until I saw “Field of Dreams.”

It was a total awakening for me. I knew how important my father was _ and still is. Sure, my father was gone, but I should never let him stop being my parent. I should have left his values live on in my life instead of being pigheaded and stubborn and wanting to be something and someone else.

“Field of Dreams” touched me so much that I wanted to build a field in my backyard, albeit a small patch of brown grass nestled in Jersey City. And all the greats of yesteryear who are now departed could come back. They wouldn’t even need an invitation.

Gil Hodges would wear a Met uniform and run the show. Thurman Munson would be behind the plate. Satchel Paige on the mound, Lou Gehrig at first _ and Jackie Robinson stealing bases all night.

And the players would leave a little spot where right field would be, just enough for a grey-haired man with a three-finger glove could throw some high hard ones to his son.

“Field of Dreams” did what it was supposed to do _ make us all dream. It made me dream _ of the days when my father taught me about baseball and life.

I almost took those days for granted. I look back now and cherish. I never realized how much I truly missed my father.

So this is somewhat of an open call to all our readers. Stop, take time out and realize how important your father is.

Sure, there may be some differences and there may be some strife, but the day may come when your father is suddenly not there _ and that vacant feeling of his loss almost gets a stranglehold of you.

I know what that feeling is like. I knew it 18 years ago _ and I rediscovered that huge gap 11 days ago. Yes, Fathers’ Day, the day I saw “Field of Dreams.” I had totally forgotten it was Fathers’ Day. It was so totally ironic I saw the movie on that day.

I’ll never forget Fathers’ Day again. That’s why I love the movies so much _ and why “Field of Dreams” is the best movie I’ve ever seen. I found my Dad. I’m grateful for Hollywood for that.

That’s why I’m asking all of you to find your fathers, too. While he’s still around.

Stick a fork in them. The Mets are dead

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”– Winston Churchill

Obviously, the legendary prime minister from Great Britain never saw the New York Mets play baseball.

Well, Churchill died in 1965, so it was long before the Mets even conceived thoughts of being somewhat decent. In 1965, they were still the laughingstocks of the Great American Pastime.

But if Churchill was alive today, he would have very little to be optimistic about with the Mets.

Because as they prepare to face the cross-river rival Yankees tonight, the Mets are deader than Churchill ever was. Paraphrasing another great Brit John Cleese, the Mets are deceased, they’ve expired, they have moved on to meet their maker, they’re pushing up daisies, they cease to be, they are no longer, they are an ex-team.

Don’t give me that line about that it’s only June 8 and that there are 103 games left in the schedule. Don’t sell me a line that they are only 7.5 games out of first place in the NL East standings.  Don’t tell me that they’re going to improve immensely now that Yoenis Cespedes is closer to returning (is he really?) and that Todd Frazier is back. Don’t be like the moron we hired as a manager and spew crap that the pitching has been really good over the last couple of weeks.

Don’t do any of that, because the Mets are dead. They’re a dead team, a dead franchise, a dead organization from top to bottom. They’re also cursed, but that’s another matter for perhaps another day.

Right now, as the latest version of the Subway Series is only a few hours from beginning, can there be more of an unmitigated mismatch than what will transpire this weekend?

The Yankees are absolutely rolling along. They have a young, vibrant, alive roster filled with this generation’s superstars. How can anyone not get excited by seeing Gleyber Torres play second base for that team? The kid has it all. He hits and hits for power. He runs. He fields his position and plays with a smile on his face. Torres is the real deal and then some.

And then there are the other youngsters. Miguel Andujar is getting miggy with it on the hot corner (I can’t say I invented that one—it was a John Sterling creation that almost made me spit out my Arnold Palmer Zero the other night when I heard it). We all know what Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez can do. Greg Bird is back at first and if he stays healthy (which is a big IF right now), he’s scary. Austin Romine is hitting .373. Tyler Austin is a stud. We haven’t even mentioned Clint Frazier – because he’s in Scranton. There’s no room in the Bronx for his talents right now.

All of those aforementioned guys are under the age of 26 years old. All of them! They’re all good and they’re all superstars in the making.

And the Yankees are flirting on a daily basis with the Red Sox for both first place in the AL East standings and the best record overall in baseball.

The Mets? They currently have 11 players on the disabled list and that number was increased today, when Jeurys Familia was added to the DL with some sort of shoulder woes. Who do the Mets have as a closer right now? Who knows?

The old players on the Mets appear to have become even older as I write this. Someone obviously kidnapped Jay Bruce, because this is not the same guy who hit 36 homers and drove in 101 runs last year. I applauded the Mets for bringing Bruce back. I thought it might turn out to be as brilliant as what the Yankees did to get Gleyber and then bring back Chapman. But there’s only one problem with that. Bruce, owner of a $39 million contract, has three homers and 15 RBI and is hitting .220. It’s the second week of June and Bruce has 15 RBI. Are you kidding me?

We can go on. I understand Michael Conforto had major reconstructive surgery to his shoulder after hurting it last year on a swing. But Conforto has 16 RBI and is hitting .228 this season. He had 27 homers, 70 RBI and hit .280 in 109 games last year, earning a spot on the NL All-Star team. Tell me if you didn’t think this kid was our version of Judge. There was a tabloid backpage feature last year that compared the two. Can that even be considered now? No way.

The Mets thought they had the shortstop of the future with Amed Rosario. But the moron we hired as a manager (I can’t even mention his name, because I may start to laugh and cry simultaneously) continues to bat Rosario ninth and the pitcher eighth. Abner Doubleday is chuckling at the big ballpark in the sky with this daily disaster. Rosario is hitting .251 with three homers and 18 RBI. Yes, he has more RBI than Bruce and Conforto.

Need we go on? OK, let’s. Adrian Gonzalez was a pickup from the waste basket. You know when you walk by a garbage can and see a Bic ballpoint that has some life left in it, so you pick it out of the trash and give it a try. That’s what the Mets did with Gonzalez, once one of the most feared hitters in the game. Well, Gonzalez, who finished as high as fourth in the MVP voting three times in BOTH leagues, seemed to have a little bit of life in him and they weren’t paying his $22 million contract (the Atlanta Braves are), so it was worth the chance.

But lately, the Bic pen is not writing anymore and Gonzalez looks absolutely feeble. He’s hitting .244 with six homers and 26 RBI, but he didn’t get the ball out of the infield in two losses to the dreadful Orioles this week (yes, the Orioles with the worst record in the game beat the Mets twice, albeit 2-1 and 1-0).

The Mets did the same reclamation attempt with Jose Reyes after his domestic violence arrest and subsequent release by the Colorado Rockies. But the once-exciting Reyes has been relegated to a bench player and even there, Reyes can’t do a thing, batting a hideous .141 with one homer and three RBI. He appears finished, much like Gonzalez, but he’s not costing the Mets much, so he remains.

The Mets also scooped up another former All-Star in Jose Bautista, after Joey Bats was given the boot by the Atlanta Braves. Bautista isn’t costing the Mets hardly anything as well, as his $18 million contract is being paid by the Toronto Blue Jays. He’s another player who has finished among the top eight in the AL MVP voting four times in his life, but his career is also being held together with Elmer’s glue and rubber bands. Bautista has not been bad with the Mets, batting .280 with three RBI in 32 at-bats. But again, here’s a 37-year-old reclamation project.

The Yankees have youth, vim and vigor. The Mets basically have a dead roster.

We didn’t address the pitching situation, because in honesty, the pitching hasn’t been too bad. Jacob deGrom, tonight’s starter, has been lights out, pitching to a 4-0 record and a 1.54 ERA, after he hurt his pitching elbow swinging the bat. Steven Matz has a 2-4 record, but his ERA is a manageable 3.54 and has looked good in recent starts. Noah Syndergaard, who is currently on the DL like everyone else, but is scheduled to face the Yankees Sunday night, has a 4-1 record with a 3.06 ERA. But Thor really hasn’t been the dominating force that he was before he got hurt last year.

Zack Wheeler has a 2-4 record with a 4.57 ERA and he has also looked good in recent outings. He pitched seven scoreless innings Wednesday against the Orioles and appeared dominant. But the Mets once again failed to score for Zack and they lost 1-0 on a run fueled by Rosario’s fielding miscue.

Jason Vargas (2-4, 7.71 ERA) has been a disaster signing. He got $18 million for two years. That may be the biggest heist since the Lufthansa theft at JFK in the 1970s. Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman have been solid. One of those two has to be the closer now that Familia is gone. Maybe it’s Anthony Swarzak. Who knows?

But at this point, who cares? Because Churchill, this team is dead in the water. They started off like gangbusters, posting an 11-1 record to start the year. It looked as if they were going to run away and hide from the rest of the division.

However, since that time, they are 16-31 and plummeting faster than Roseanne Barr’s approval ratings. Can they turn it around? Sure, they’ve proven me wrong before. I thought they were so totally dead in July of 2015, but they miraculously turned it all around, won the division and the National League pennant. God, that feels like so long ago.

But can they turn it around and win this time? It’s highly unlikely. I’m not one that says the Mets have to trade off their desirable commodities. In fact, I want them to lock up deGrom and Thor long term. I’d even throw Matz a contract and see if he bites. Will it happen? Not the way they operate. They allow the market dictate how they sign contracts. If some other team offers a solid contract, then the Mets might counter offer. They are never the aggressors. They allow the market determine how they approach contracts, which is a stupid approach.

I don’t think Sandy Alderson has been a bad general manager. His hands have been tied by the financial restraints laid down by the stingy ownership. But Alderson had a chance to make this team better in the offseason and really wasn’t aggressive enough to address the team’s needs, like depth in the bullpen.

But Alderson’s biggest blunder was hiring a new manager. I know it’s only 59 games, but Mickey Calloway (there, I finally got to him) is the biggest disaster the organization has ever made – and they’ve had their fair share of loser managers.

In fact, they haven’t had a decent manager since Bobby Valentine. I was never a Terry Collins fan at all, but the Gray Fox is light years ahead of Moron Mickey, who continues to make moves that make me scratch my head and shake that head faster than a Taylor Swift song.

I can’t even begin to put together the words to describe Moron Mickey, but he was supposed to be a pitcher’s manager and obviously the strength of the team was going to be pitching. But Calloway has no idea how to handle the pitching staff, taking out starters too soon, bringing in the wrong relievers, having a short leash on all of the pitchers. He parades Jerry Blevins out there regularly and he can’t get anyone out. The same for the atrocious Paul Sewald. I have always been a Hansel Robles fan, but he’s pitched 15 innings this year and given up six homers. Who does that?

And Calloway’s game strategy is just scary. It’s like he’s never watched a baseball game in his life. That Kumbaya attitude he displayed at his first press conference, when he was going to get everyone together in a group hug, is long gone. His ability to manage this team doesn’t exist.

So there we have it. First pitch awaits and we have two teams in the same Big Apple going in opposite directions. Do I dare say “Play Ball?”