Bobby Murcer, Rest in Peace

Today marks a sad day. Bobby Ray Murcer has passed on due to his battle with brain cancer. Another one of MY Yankees has passed on. Bobby played on the Yankees of the late 1970's and early 1980's that I grew up watching. As when Thurman, Billy and Scooter passed on, I feel a sadness that part of my youth is gone. The era of the Bronx Zoo evokes a time for me where life was simple. Baseball, comics, baseball cards and stickers. There was nothing else to life but that. But as an adolescent, why should there be anything else?

Bobby Murcer is a man with values and beliefs that in today's cutthroat society seem to have been lost. Makes you wish that more people like him who have such values and beliefs would be celebrated more in life than how we do when they pass on. I recently watched an episode of Halls of Fame with Fran Healy who interviewed Bobby Murcer about 7 months ago. He spoke of the struggle with the brain cancer with such candor and ease that made you wish that he would as he put it "Not be part of the bell curve". Meaning that the Bell Curve for those living with the cancer was 14 months. Bobby lived for 21 months. How can you not root for someone who even though he knew the end of his story continued to move forward and working in the field that he loved: Baseball. His strength through adversity, his love for his family and the fans is truly something to be admired. With a tear (or two) I bid you farewell. Thank you for the memories and may you Rest In Peace.

Bus Rant

Been a while since I've ranted on something appropriate of a rant. Here goes. It must be a Bronx thing. This whole idea by people of varied ages that they are ENTITLED to just go on the bus through the back doors without paying. At first I thought it was young people who were mainly doing it but as of late, age has not played a role in it. I've seen both men and women of different ages sneak on the bus, thereby not paying their fare.

Now I know some will say that the MTA deserves it because they raised the fare and will do so again in the near future. But you know who gets screwed in the end? Us, those of us who pay our fare each and every time. What happened to responsibility. What happened to people doing the right thing. People just want to get theirs and the hell with everyone else. To make matters worse, there are people who insist on sneaking on first before letting those passengers that are getting off the bus, off the bus. And as with what happened to me, you say something and they get mad at you. I've had to get loud with people to let me get off of the bus with my kids without having to navigate through those who chose to sneak on through the back. Really now, is that where we are as a society?

As it is, I see that the fine for not paying your fare has gone up to $100 dollars. What's next, undercover cops riding the buses to catch people not paying their fare to levy the fines? It's not like the cops don't have more important things to do. But if it means less and less freeloaders abusing both us and the system, why not. I give credit to those bus drivers who stand up to those who sneak on the bus. On more than one occasion, I've seen a driver either stop the bus until the fare beater got off of the bus or continue on his route, flag down an officer and report the fare jumper. The person is removed from the bus and I assume given a ticket (Hopefully). Like some bus drivers have said, if you don't have the fare ask to get on, the driver will most times let you on.

It sucks that I, as a fare paying member of society, has to take a back seat to some punk ass person who isn't man or woman enough to put their two bucks back into the system. It's truly time to get the hell out of Dodge.

Later
FHJ