Bruce Slutsky was born in New York City in 1949. I retired 8 years ago after working as a Science/Engineering Librarian at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark for 25 years. I was married to Karen until she passed away in February 2021. I have a son Lee who is now 38 years old. I am very much interested in the popular music of the 1960s, especially Bob Dylan and the Beatles. I am interested in rock and roll radio. I am an enthusiastic fan of the New York Mets.
I have been a subscriber to Time Warner Cable since October 1986. I remember staying home from work on the day the parade celebrating the Mets World Series win waiting for the installation. I must say that over the years the service has been pretty good with few outages.
When I got home from work today at about 5:45 the system was down. Lee was able to watch the broadcast TV channels, but the phone and wifi were out. This article from CNN states that a cable cut accidentally by third party construction caused the failure. By 7 PM everything was restored. All's well that ends well.
Pitchers who must bat in the National League are rarely very good at it. Bartolo Colon has spent most of long career in the American League but has 228 lifetime at bats according to Baseball Reference. His batting average is .092 while he has struck in over half of his at bats. Last night a "miracle" happened as he hit a two run homer in the second inning. You can see it and hear Gary Cohen's called in the video above. He is now the oldest player to hit his first home run. A lifelong Met fan living in southern California caught the ball and gave it back to Bartolo as described in this article in the New York Daily News.
Karen and I always go to a Broadway show to celebrate our birthdays in April. This year we had to wait until after Passover to see a show. I left it up to Karen this year and she chose On Your Feet which tells the story of Gloria and Emilio Estefan. It was very enjoyable and I recommend it for my readers.
The NJIT community received an email today stating:
The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office has charged two men in the slaying of Joseph Micalizzi, an NJIT junior from Freehold who was shot in the course of a burglary early Monday at the Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) house at 317 MLK Blvd. One of the men, an 18-year-old from Irvington, is in custody, while his accomplice, a 22-year-old from Newark, is being sought.
We read too many stories when police act inappropriately, but we know that the police are always very diligent in doing their job in protecting their respective communities. Kudos to all involved in capturing one of the perpetrators. I am certain the second one will be captured shortly.
WCBS-TV News reports the second suspect was also captured.
Recently people's accounts have been hacked while the culprit posts porno on these sites. It is really a shame. I guess some people have nothing better to do.
I am really rooting for the NJIT and Newark police departments to catch the two criminals who shot and killed a student at a fraternity house this past week during a burglary. The student was awake at 3 AM studying for final exams and is killed. How sad.
It seems that for this season so far the Mets are the hot team in NYC while the Yankees are cold. The Yankees should not have given long term contracts to players in their thirties. Any athlete's skills will erode as they age.
Here I go again googling people I haven't seen in many years. Regular readers of Bruce's Journal likely saw my stories about finding out that Valerie and Harvey whom I knew in the early 1970s had passed away. For some strange reason today I thought about Lou Mintz whom I knew at the New York Public Library where I worked from 1983-1990.
I worked in the Science and Technology Division while Lou was the Chief of the Stack Maintenance Divison. He was responsible for maintaining miles and miles of book stacks as NYPL is one of the largest research libraries in the world. He supervised many young pages who would retrieve books and periodicals for library patrons. As the collection grew he had to move the books around to make room for new arrivals. My experiences with him were always very pleasant.
Today I found a post written by his son Gary in a blog titled Faith an Fear in Flushing by two Met fans named Greg Prince and Jason Frye. Here is what Gary said about his dad who sadly passed away in 2003.
My dad was Louis Mintz. Family man, librarian at the New York Public Library for over 40 years, father, Giants Fan. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of him. He was always upbeat with an infectious smile that stayed with him even as cancer ravaged his body. Nobody ever said a bad word about him, the testament to his greatness. He loved my mom, loved his three boys, my wife, and worshipped the ground of his three granddaughters (his girlies, my daughters) and his grandson. Then there were the Giants. His love of the New York Giants somehow continued when the orange and black moved to San Francisco. I, wanting to be like him, started following the San Francisco Giants in 1969. Up until 2010, I claimed it was the only wrong thing my father ever did. That all changed of course when Nelson Cruz swung and missed on a Brian Wilson pitch on November 1, 2010. It was the most compelling moment of my sports life as a fan. Forty-one years I waited, forty-one years!! In one night, all the hurt and pain was suddenly gone. Then viola!! The Giants stun the baseball world by winning it all again in 2012. Two World Championships in three years!! UNBELIEVABLE!! Then 2014!! Make it three World Series championships in five years!! My only regret is that “Sweet Lou” wasn’t around to savor it with me as he passed in 2003. See more at: http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2015/06/21/the-fathers-days-of-our-lives/
In all the years that I knew Lou, I can never remember talking about baseball with him. I didn't know that he was a big fan of the New York Giants.
I was trying to think of a song that I could associate with Lou. He always called me Cousin Bruce and as far as I can remember he was the last one who did that. So in memory of Lou I am posting the Four Seasons singing the Cousin Bruce theme.
It rained all morning and it seemed doubtful if the Mets would play. We left the house a little after 12 noon and took the bus and #7 train to Citifield. When we entered the gate we were surprised to get Curtis Granderson socks as this giveaway was limited to the first 15,000 fans. I heard that people arrived at the stadium several hours before yesterday's game to get a Noah Syndergaard gnome.
The game started on time as there was a light drizzle throughout. The announced attendance in the box score was 39,000 but obviously there were many no shows. It was a matchup of two pitching aces Noah Syndergaard against Madison Bumgarner. The Mets had won 8 in a row, but the hitting just wasn't there today. Granderson and Duda were rested as the Mets were facing a left hander. Michael Confort who has been as hot as fire went 0-5. The Mets lost 6-1.
I just hate it when a pitcher is brought in to face just one batter. The Giants had a substantial lead, but manager Bruce Bochy made several lefty right switches.
