Axcess Baseball
2020 Season: Who’s Overwhelming and Who’s Underwhelming?
by Jasper Abrahams As the 2020 Major League Baseball season is up and going, many players are off to a hot start, while others are off to a rocky start. Here are two players that are overwhelming expectations and two others who have been underwhelming expectations. Who’s Overwhelmed: Charlie Blackmon: Colorado Rockies, RF Off to a scorching hot start in his 2020 campaign, Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon is on pace to shatter record books. The left-handed hitter currently stands head-and-shoulders above other competition in batting average. His league leading .437 average is rarely seen — even during a shortened season. Blackmon’s batting average touched its peak at .500 when the slugger was 34-for-68 at the dish. To put this into a larger perspective, good hitters hit .280, great hitt...
Who Would Be A Good Candidate To Replace Rob Manfred?
2020 has not been a great year by any standard – but it’s been especially awful for MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. Entering the year, most non-die hard fans couldn’t even identify him if they had to but then came the Houston Astros scandal, his public comments on it and the PR nightmare that was the MLBPA-owners negotiations to start the season. At the end of the day, the commissioner’s job is to be the face of baseball, speak on behalf of the owners, try to help the owners and the players get along and take the heat from the public when the fans are not happy with a decision that was made. Some of the heat he takes is due to decisions that were not his but that’s the nature of the job – you have to be able to take the criticism and he doesn’t reall...
MLB Moves to Play 60 Game Season
It’s been a disaster of a negotiation for the better part of a month – on display for everyone to follow in realtime – but it may finally be reaching a conclusion. Last night, Jeff Passan of ESPN tweeted “Major League Baseball has asked the MLB Players Association if players can report to camp by July 1 and will sign off on health-and-safety protocols. The union has been asked to respond by 5 pm Tuesday. In order words: MLB is planning on a season.” This would be a 60-game season beginning the weekend of July 24-26. Baseball is (almost) (maybe) (sort of) (hopefully) (please make it true and spare everyone on this website any more talk about labor fights) back. pic.twitter.com/xlXFFVs9rC — Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) June 23, 2020 The bottom line is that for the ...
Father’s Day Reminiscing
One of the first things I remember is having a catch with my dad in the front of the house when I was about six years old. I recall that once I started getting better and was able to throw the ball further I would take a few steps back. “Don’t move too far back I can’t reach,” my dad said. It didn’t make sense to me. He was in better physical shape than most men in their late 30s and played baseball in his youth, how could he not reach? “I’m not a lefty,” he said. “I just wanted you to be able to get used to seeing it,” he added. That was my dad in a nutshell. He went out of his comfort zone to acclimate me to facing lefties. Bear in mind, I wouldn’t be facing an actual pitcher for a couple years. At that age, the batters face a pitching machine. That was only the beginning. Everything my ...
ESPN Dropped The Ball With the McGwire/Sosa Documentary
ESPN had a golden opportunity with no sports going on this Sunday night to satisfy the appetite of sports-craved fans like myself and millions of others. After the incredible success of “The Last Dance” documentary in April and May, they raised the bar for sports documentaries – especially ones that occurred in the modern era where most fans remember it in real-time. The summer of 98 was 22 years ago – long ago that the memories may have faded or some young fans weren’t alive for it but recent enough that they didn’t need to act like it’s news to us. They did a very poor job on this one. When it comes to the 30 for 30 franchise, they have done a remarkable job of bringing historical and nuanced moments to life. As a journalist myself, I love this b...
Breaking Down the Results of the Mock Draft
On Tuesday, I hosted a mock draft using players that played Long Island high school baseball between 2010-2020. It was a fun project and I solicited the help of three trusted baseball people that have watched Long Island baseball for the entire decade Tom Downey – Area Scout, Philadelphia Phillies/ Blue Chip Prospects Jon Mauchan – Area Scout, Minnesota Twins/Northeast Regional Sales, Rawlings Alex Brosnan – Pitching Coach, Molloy College Team Messana Manager: Steve DeCaro Assistant Coach: Mike Ninivaggi Bench Coach: Ryan McSherry Breaking It Down: I may be a little bias here but this is clearly the best team. It’s very simple: Whether you want to argue that ‘pitching wins championships’, ‘you need to score to win games’ or ‘defense is...
The Fallout
By now, you are aware that both Section VIII and Section XI have decided to cancel the 2020 spring high school sports season on Long Island. The CHSAA has not made an official decision yet – it will be determined whether the schools go back in session, so we will remain cautiously optimistic on that front. As far as my opinion goes, I don’t have a scorching hot take on that. We are in unchartered waters and although the death rate has plateaued and we have “flattened the curve”, we still have 1,300 new Covid hospitalizations per day and 430 people died today. So it doesn’t come across great if you are screaming that your season got canceled. Would I have liked a modified season in June? Absolutely, but that’s not happening. With that said, I would be lyi...
My Takeaways From “The Last Dance” Documentary
The most highly-anticipated documentary ever has already become the most widely-viewed original content ever. The best part is that we have eight more hours to enjoy. I want to give a few of my biggest takeaways from the first two episodes. I will start by saying that people in my age range are infatuated with Michael Jordan because it reminds us of our formative years. He is also the ultimate winner, winning six NBA titles in the 1990s, and being named MVP each time. Many people that discredit him also did not watch basketball in the 90s so it’s easy to use stats in favor of their argument. People need to remember that to disparage the talent in the 90s is to completely ignore that great players existed then too. Yes maybe they weren’t 6’8 270 lbs, but players evolve ove...
Transcript From IG Live With Jack Ryan
I want to go back to your last game on March 12. Can you explain to our audience what it was like being down in Florida and receiving the news that the season was over? It was a very wild 72 hours. We were leaving on a Thursday to head down the Florida, and that Wednesday we were hearing murmurs about schools canceling for a couple weeks, some people were canceling trips. We were just worried about getting down there. And then once we got down there, we heard the same thing. People were starting to shut down their conference play for the next few weeks. And I think mentally our team was a little unsure of what was going to happen with the future of the season, but we played that first game against Stonehill, and then during that game we caught wind that NCAA was suspended until I think Apr...
Which Restaurants Do Long Island Athletes Miss The Most?
Like most people, I enjoy food. Not being able to dine-in at my favorite restaurants is frustrating. I’m definitely looking forward to once the stay-at-home order is lifted and I can go to Tap Room and The Meetball Place and Ciao Baby’s and Hummus Mediterranean and Brook House Deli the rest of the amazing places we have on Long Island. So yesterday I put up a simple question on Instagram which asked “which restaurant do you miss the most?” and here’s the responses. Some were asked to explain what they miss about it and here’s what they said. Chris Amato (St. Joseph’s) – Avocado’s Why: Avocado’s is a small Mexican American takeout restaurant located on Lakeland Avenue in Bohemia and has some of the best burritos on Long Island. Bei...
Q & A With Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Rajeev Fernando
Vinny Messana (VM): To give a proper introduction, Dr. Rajeev Fernando, an infectious disease specialist at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. Thank you for your time and helping combat this deadly disease that has turned everything upside down. Dr. Rajeev Fernando (RF): It is a pleasure and honor. When we get into medicine, this is what we get in for. I am so happy to be on the front lines and I know everyone in our hospitals are working so hard too. It is really a team effort so, thank you. VM: It hits close to home for me. As you know, my fiance works at the hospital so she should be home in a minute. She’s been doing 13 hours days. It’s crazy. I hear everything that is going on and it is not an exciting time. We got a lot of kids that sent in questions. First, you see a lot of m...
Five Team Skills We Can Learn from Hospital Staffs Working the COVID-19 Pandemic
By Brendan Duffy RPSGT St Charles Sleep Disorders Center Clinical Sleep Health Educator These have been trying times for all of us and have disrupted the schedules of everyone. As a health care worker I get to see firsthand the time, effort, and compassion of the healthcare “teams” out there every day seeking to win daily against this COVID virus. I want to start out with a “shout out “to my teammates in hospitals throughout the country! I salute you all and admire your dedication and hard work under stressful conditions! I also want to thank the community that has shown so much love for our local medical teams here on Long Island with their adherence to isolation directives, kind touching notes, care packages, supplies etc.! It means a lot! If you are an athlete or a coach, you kno...
