"Ya Gotta Believe!"

"Ya gotta believe!”  Tug McGraw shouted those words after a meeting Team President M. Donald Grant held in the lockerroom after another loss entering the final weeks of the 1973 season.

It became the rallying cry for the team as they marched through late August and all through September, 1973 until the last day of that season . They had been 12 ½ games behind in mid-August and ended up at 82 and 79 to clinch their second division title. They may have had a just over .500 season record, but for the final six weeks, they dominated all of Major League baseball with their play.

They went on to beat Pete Rose and the Cincinnati Reds “Big Red Machine” for the pennant. And almost completed the trifecta against the Reggie Jackson-led mighty Oakland A’s, coming up short after leading the World Series three games to two.

But the cry “ya gotta believe” inspired the team and the fans to actually believe in the impossible, because it almost happened. Because a quirky, funny relief pitcher showed in his insolence that it could be done if you believed.

The Wilpons never really took to retiring numbers of the Mets great ballplayers until 2016 with Piazza.  Seaver’s number was retired by the Doubleday-owned team, and Stengle and Hodges were retired by the Payson ownership. It seems to this Mets Fan that the Wilpons did not appreciate or respect Mets’ history.

But thankfully, Steve Cohen has righted that wrong, by retiring Koosman, Hernandez, Mays, Gooden and Strawberry, since he bought the team at the end of the 2020 season.

Now he needs to retire one more from the distant past, #45, Tug McGraw, because without his swagger, the 1973 Pennant would not be flying above the stadium.

“Ya gotta believe!”

The Usurpation By Evil People of the Religion of "Peace"

 

The Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have their roots in the Old Testament where God gave to Moses the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. In all these religions, while the order may be different, they all speak of the same precept: how man needs to get along with his fellow man in order to receive entry into God's Kingdom.

 In Arabic, salaam is translated as peace and is considered as one of the holy names of God. Islam is a religion of universalism, tolerance, peace, and reconciliation. Islam teaches that life is sacred and that the believer has a duty to uphold truth and justice. But for some, these precepts are not considered and instead, are ignored.

 I have asked my Muslim friends how they can still support Hamas as that entity continues to murder helpless innocents. The answer, cited like a talking point, is that Israel practices Apartheid.

 I have looked at them in amazement and disbelief, knowing that they are spewing the BS that Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar espouse, filled with rage and hate.

I have tried to have rational conversations with them to no avail. I have explained there are Palestinians in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. But they tell me they are only token representatives, put there by Netanyahu to shut up criticism.

 Today, I read that Hamas murdered two more hostages who were actually both over eighty years old, Amiram Kuper and Yoram Metzger. Both were kidnapped alive and even filmed by Hamas for their terrorist propaganda video.  This was after five young girls were filmed, brutalized and raped last week by these same barbarians.

 And yet, the world sits by and says nothing. It seems that the dream which the Mufti of Jerusalem and Adolf Hitler had in 1941 has become a reality in today’s world.  And they are rejoicing in Hell to see it come to pass.

 Even American Jewish “leaders” like Charles Schumer and Bernie Sanders remain silent as these atrocities unfold each day for the world to see. They stand with Tlaib and Omar, their sympathizers and Iran as innocent Jews are slaughtered indiscriminately without regard to any sense of humanity.

 It is said by Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and their supporters that the Holocaust never happened, and instead, it was a “Jewish Conspiracy” to put the Jews into what is now Israel. But, General Eisenhower knew that this statement would come to be believed and so, he made certain there was film and pictures to show the Holocaust was real.

 And today, with the support of Joe Biden, the Demo-Nazis in the Demo-Nazi Party, the uneducated,  spoiled, rotten to the core college antisemites, students, professors and administrators alike, and those who stay silent, like the Germans of the 1930s and 1940s, the Twenty-First Century Holocaust is raging in the US and Israel with abandon as the whole world watches and does nothing.

 So, with my apologies to any Muslim who still believes that Islam is a religion of peace, look again. Your religion has been usurped by the most vile, the most evil people who ever existed. Any resemblance to the religion you were raised in is gone and exists in its name only.

 Too many are violating the Fifth Commandment, “thou shalt not kill”, and the Second Commandment, “thou shalt not take the name of God in vain”. I believe when one cries “Allah Akbar” as you kill or mutilate another person, you have violated both these commandments. And when you stand by and do nothing, you are as guilty as the one who does the killing.

 And God is watching, taking notes. Take heed.

 

 

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