Monday, April 14, 2008

Max Kellerman's Monday Musings Vol. VIII - Of controversies, Phil Hughes and the Conflict of Work and Family

Today's Max Kellerman and Brian Kenny show dealt with some very human issues in addition to the sports conversation. To start the show there was an admission by Max that any controversial topic that is raised on the show always gets attributed to him. He joked that if someone were to have said "Hitler had a point" it would have been automatically have been attributed to him.

Leaving aside the credit/blame game, there were also some interesting discussions about the Yankees. Max Kellerman said that if you look at Phil Hughes' stat line, he did not perform as poorly as it looks. I am unsure how you can actually spin a stat line of 2 IP, 6 Hits, 6 ER and 3 Ks as a positive. To me, it hearkened back to last year's discussion about how positive the Knicks were in defeat - Eddy Curry being the greatest low post scorer in the NBA or Randolph Morris being a "bonus" First Round pick. Bottom line - the Knicks stunk last year and my nine year old daughter could have had a better stat line then Phil Hughes on Sunday night. Heck, the only pitcher with a worse line on Sunday was Tom Glavine who left the Braves-Nationals game without recording an out. Somewhere, Louie Gold must be smiling about this (he was out today because his wife was ill - I wish her a speedy and complete recovery).

Other baseball talk involved the recovery of the Ortiz shirt from under Yankee stadium, certain decisions made by Joe Girardi over the weekend and whether Steve Phillips will come on the show to debate Max and Brian Kenny.

So where was the Mets talk? Max Kellerman admitted that he had not watched the Mets game because, "sometimes you just have to take your wife out for lunch, or brunch." Brian Kenny then chimed in with an interesting discussion about his early career in broadcasting when he needed to stay home and watch all the NFL games, while he really wanted to go out and throw a football around with his five kids. Max later returned to the topic with a further discourse about how sometimes you need to take your wife out, referring to how they were in their weekend place and he wanted to show Erin some attention and take her out for "lunch or brunch" (he never actually clarified which one, although since the Mets game started at 1 PM, its safe to assume it must have been lunch).

Max's reference to the need to sometimes make time for a spouse's personal needs finds its roots in Torah thought as well. A prime example is that during the first year of marriage, a husband who wishes to learn Torah with a chavrusa outside the home must seek permission from his wife to do so, despite the weight that is normally accorded to learning Torah. Although learning Torah is certainly important, being there with your spouse is more important to establish a firm foundation for the marriage.

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