The fans got it wrong again.

Julian Edelman (11) makes a difficult catch in a 2014 game against Denver.

I have been a member of the Patriots Hall of Fame Nomination Committee since 2007, when the committee was founded. Of the 17 times the committee has met since then (we all missed the COVID year and it was unnecessary with Tom Brady), I have missed only one meeting, when work commitments got in the way.

And in all those years, I've been happy and honored to do my job -- to be involved in the nomination of three former players or coaches and then to let the fans finish the job by voting for the player they feel is most worthy of enshrinement.

Only twice have I felt with all my heart that the fans got it wrong. The first time was 2016, when Kevin Faulk was selected. The second time? This year.

On Monday, the Patriots announced that the fan balloting had chosen wide receiver Julian Edelman to become the 37th inductee to the team's hall of fame. Edelman outpolled another first-time nominee, kicker Adam Vinatieri, as well as offensive guard Logan Mankins, a three-time finalist.

Edelman was often the center of attention.

Before I say anything else, I want it clearly understood that I fully believe Julian Edelman is worthy of enshrinement. A former quarterback from Kent State, Edelman became one of the more clutch receivers in team history as well as a highly accomplished kick returner. He made quite possibly the greatest catch in Super Bowl history in Super Bowl 51 against the Atlanta Falcons, and was the MVP of another Super Bowl. He even played defensive back on more than a few occasions, and was always one of the more interesting and entertaining players that was able to radiate some personality out of an otherwise lead-lined locker room during the era of Bill Belichick's philosophy of radio silence to the outside world.

Yes, Edelman is worthy. But this year, I was certain that someone else was more worthy. Far more worthy.

Without Adam Vinatieri, there may have been no dynasty.

I have never shared the league-wide notion that kickers are not real athletes, and little more than a necessary evil. You've heard the jokes -- the big guys do all the grunt work, spilling blood and fending off pain, and then the little kicker runs on the field and says. "I keek a touchdown! I keek a touchdown!"

Vinatieri celebrates the winning kick in SB 36.

No, Adam Vinatieri was an athlete from Day One of his career. He was in rock-hard physical condition. He ran sprints and gassers before and after practices with the running backs and wide receivers, and not just prancing down the fields with the punters. He even ran down the United States of America's ambassador to the Bahamas, Herschel Walker, on a kick return in one of the league's more memorable special-teams plays in its history -- which, I assume, Walker has yet to live down.

But more than anything else, Vinatieri was clutch. He was money. He had ice in his veins -- especially when he nailed the two field goals against Oakland in the Snow Bowl at Foxboro Stadium that saved their bacon on the path to Super Bowl 36 in New Orleans. Those, and the game winning kick against the Rams, were the foundation of the first of two Patriot dynasties in the 21st century.

He spent 10 seasons with the Patriots and won two of their three Super Bowl championships in that period with late-game field goals. He had so many game-winning kicks in his career, I lost count. And for those who scream, "But he left the Patriots and played 14 more years for the Colts," I counter with the observation that it wasn't Vinatieri's choice. Bill Belichick had his ideas of what kind of money kickers should make, and after a decade in the league, Vinatieri was never going to be offered a contract by the penny-pinching Patriots that fully reflected his accomplishments and worth.

Clearly, Belichick undervalued this asset. Stephen Gostkowski, who succeeded Vinatieri, proved to be a very good kicker -- but he never attained the same level of "clutch" as his predecessor. Meanwhile, Vinatieri went on to become the NFL's all-time scoring leader. And yet, the Pro Football Hall of Fame still thumbed its nose at him during its last round of nominations.

We committee members aren't really supposed to reveal the actual deliberations that go on at our meetings, just as the actual vote totals -- both for our nominations, and the eventual fan balloting -- are not revealed to the public. Frankly, I think there should be more transparency in all of those areas. But I'm not afraid to reveal at least my involvement in the whole process.

I'm the one that stood first before the committee -- and the only one that actually stood, come to think of it -- to nominate Vinatieri for the ballot. I didn't bog down my brief oratory with a long list of statistics or minutia, but instead, I dedicated my comments to his place in team history -- the seminal moments when his actions rose above the game itself to become the stuff of NFL legend. It seemed a no-brainer to me, that the player that provided the Patriots with the most memorable moments in their history other than those authored by Tom Brady should be not just nominated, but immediately enshrined.

But even before I offered Vinatieri's name in nomination, there was already support for him in the room. New head coach Mike Vrabel had visited the suite to thank us for our participation in the process, and before he left, one of the committee members asked him which former player would have his support.

Vrabel stopped in his tracks and thought for a moment, then spoke. "Oh, Adam. Adam, of course," he said, also commenting on Vinatieri's reliability and toughness.

Several other players were nominated over the course of the meeting, and it was not at all surprising that Edelman would be nominated in his first year of eligibility. But the discussion quickly turned to whether Edelman's more recent popularity would give him an advantage among younger fans, and thus shut out the player that just about everyone in the room believed to be the most worthy candidate for this year.

Parcells: Finally in.

We were reminded by those in charge that our job was to nominate individuals because of our belief in their worthiness, and to not be concerned about whether that person would be voted in by the fans. That's a situation we've faced several times over the years, because we put Bill Parcells on the ballot so many times, knowing full well that bitter fans would claim that his negotiations with the Jets during the weeks before Super Bowl 31 automatically discounted his actual value to the franchise. 

And you know what? If team owner Robert Kraft hadn't finally given in and put Parcells in the Hall as a "contributor," we probably would have put the Tuna on the ballot again. And again, and again, and again.

When the time came to vote, I put three names on my ranked-choice ballot -- Vinatieri, Mankins and wide receiver Wes Welker. I had a feeling I was going to lose that last battle, however. Welker has far better statistics as a slot receiver over his tenure with the Patriots than Edelman, but fans still wrongfully blame him for "dropping" a pass Brady threw that could have made a big difference in the outcome of Super Bowl 46 against the Giants. I and many other media members that were there in Indianapolis have contended for a long time that the ball was thrown behind Welker, and it was almost a miracle that he even got a hand on it.

The folks in charge always say that the votes of the committee are almost always borne out by the results of the popular vote. That's hard for me to confirm because we never see the results of either vote, but I don't mean to suggest any dishonesty on the part of the Patriots' organization. It's probably true, although I have little doubt that when there's a challenge between a player from an earlier era and one from more recent times, the recent player has the advantage.

But I'll also cite one circumstance where I believe the voting was unfairly influenced by events that transpired during the balloting. 

During the 2015-16 offseason, the NFL Draft also coincided with the voting period for the Patriots Hall of Fame. The nominees selected by the committee were Raymond Clayborn, Kevin Faulk and Mike Vrabel. The voting period and draft also coincided with the ongoing battle over "Deflategate," the controversy about whether Brady had illegally reduced the air pressure in the footballs he used in the previous season's playoff game against Indianapolis so he would have more control over throwing the ball.

Brady had already been suspended for four games in the coming 2016 season by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, but the veteran quarterback took the league to court trying to get the suspension reversed, and it all was literally the talk of the nation.

Kevin Faulk makes his case for Brady.

So, during the draft, Faulk was invited to announce one of the Patriots' picks during a portion of the proceedings that would receive the full attention of the national viewing audience. As he took the stage, Faulk opened his jacket to reveal a Tom Brady No. 12 jersey, sending a clear message of his support for his QB. Needless to say, the next day, Faulk's recorded vote on the Internet-based Patriots Hall of Fame ballot absolutely skyrocketed -- something that was later and very quietly admitted by those administering the vote.

I don't think I ever voted to put Faulk on the ballot in the first place; he was a good soldier and a very capable third-down back in his later years, when he stopped fumbling the ball in crucial situations, but in retrospect, I believe James White was much better in the role over the full range of his career. In any event, I believe Faulk joined the Hall of Fame fraudulently because of his publicity stunt during the draft.

Edelman's case is different in that I feel he is much more enshrinement-worthy. But I just wish that it could have been put off for a while. Vinatieri will now have no chance to outpoll Rob Gronkowski next year when he gets on the ballot -- in fact, I'm not even sure what the point of a meeting will be, because anyone else we put on the ballot will be sacrificial lambs to the star power of Gronk. 

BB and Jordon Hudson.

And not long after that, Bill Belichick will be on the ballot. Right now, I don't think either Robert or Jonathan Kraft will be willing to consider Belichick as a "contributor" given the contentious nature of their relationship with him in the waning days of his tenure. And no matter what else goes on with Bawdy Bill and his 24-year-old squeeze and personal manager, Jordon Hudson, in the weeks to come, none of that will derail Belichick's entry to the Patriots Hall of Fame. In fact, if social media posts are any indication, Belichick has become even more of a hero among the thirsty incels in Patriot Nation that worship not only his coaching, but now his swordsmanship with the young ladies.

And as is usually the case in situations like this, Vinatieri's chances may wane the farther from his Patriots' career he gets -- unless there's a circumstance like 2017, when Clayborn broke through because he had lesser competition from players from the more modern era. I may not even be around when that time arrives.

If it sounds like I'm bothered by this, you're absolutely correct. I am.

In a way, the Patriots Hall of Fame could be considered an artificially manufactured thing. After all, it's for a team that experienced one-third of its history with actual glory, and about two-thirds of its history in abject futility -- yet there are now 37 members in its shrine, including a former cheerleading coach. Several of its earliest Hall of Fame members wouldn't even get a second look today. And nobody seems to care a lot that players like Michael Haynes and Nick Buoniconti played at least half of their careers elsewhere and were actually better players with their later teams. 

It's already been discussed, and summarily dismissed, that deserving players will be passed over because of logjams in the fan balloting, It's been suggested that some provisions should be made for multiple inductions. But aside from Kraft's own choices, or the selections by a senior committee members' panel that rarely meets to consider players more than 20 years post-retirement, that just isn't going to happen.

So we're stuck with the procedure. The nominating committee may have its flaws, but at least it attempts to give a broad cross-section of those "in the know" a chance to have their say. There are current and former writers and broadcasters on the panel -- although, sadly, much fewer of the older crowd than when the committee was first formed -- as well as former players and coaches and team officials. There are a lot of qualified people in that room, but at the end of the day, we still have to trust our work to the fans that have the motivation to actually vote, and personally, I'm not sure that the cross-section of voting fans is as all-encompassing and knowledgeable as the people that give them the three-name ballot in the first place.

I don't see any of that changing any time soon. 

So we will likely continue to see deserving players slip through the cracks for years to come -- with the only hope for correction coming from the fact that 2018 through the present have produced absolutely no players worth considering in the future. We may need that gap, all the while hoping that Vrabel, Drake Maye and some of the interesting talent that has come on board lately will start to restore the Patriots' fortunes to past levels of excellence.

But I'm not holding my breath waiting. At 71, I can't afford to.

MARK FARINELLA covered the Patriots for The Sun Chronicle, The Patriot Ledger of Quincy and the Associated Press at various times from 1977 through 2019. And he hopes he won't be getting a phone call from the folks at Patriot Place saying he broke too many rules here to stay on the Patriots Hall of Fame Nomination Committee.

The Owner's Box After Dark, Ep. 60.

This Boston Globe story outlines Alice Cook's courageous battle with ALS.

I have been reminded quite a lot lately about the passage of time and the frailty of our existence on this earth.

I don't suppose I should be surprised by any of it. After all, it knocks on your door even when uninvited and pushes right past you to take up an unwelcome residence.

For instance, I've been flat on my back for almost a month because of a nasty viral infection -- not COVID, not pneumonia, more likely something I would have shed after a week or two when I was a lot younger. In the grand scheme of things, it hasn't been much more than a nagging aggravation, and it even had the surprisingly positive side effect of dropping several pounds off my frame through lack of appetite, so I may actually have come out of it on the plus side of things.

But that will be the extent of the whining you will read from me on that topic. People that I know, and care about, are facing much greater challenges with much greater resolve and determination.

One of those persons is someone with whom I developed a lasting friendship over the many years that I covered the New England Patriots for the local newspaper.

Former WBZ-TV sports reporter Alice Cook is currently in the final stages of her training for a run in the Boston Marathon. It will be her third participation in the annual Hopkinton-to-Boston jaunt of 26.2 miles, which is something I couldn't accomplish unless I was behind the wheel of a car. The kicker here is that it will be her second marathon following her diagnosis for ALS (popularly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) in 2023.

Alice Cook

Alice has a form of the disease that has attacked the area of her brain that controls her facial muscles; to date, she still has very good control of her mobility, but she has lost the ability to speak. There is no known cure and the disease is relentless in its progression.

A more detailed explanation of the challenges facing Alice appeared in a Boston Globe article that appeared on April 3, written by veteran reporter Kevin Paul Dupont. I've put a screenshot of that article at the top of this post. It's easily accessible on the Globe's website and it contains a video snippet of how Alice can still "speak" with the use of remarkable technology -- she types her words into an iPad, and software translates them into sound. And with the help of her former colleagues at Channel 4, old recordings of her interviews were used to teach the software how to present that sound in a very close approximation of her normal voice.

I first met Alice in the mid-1980s, when the Patriots held their annual summer training camp at what was then Bryant College in Smithfield, R.I. At the time, she was the first woman that had been hired as a full-time sports reporter in the Boston TV market, and despite a series of challenges that came from being a woman in what was then a close-knit and male-dominated media corps, she persevered and emerged as one of the region's most respected TV reporters -- and never lost her characteristic enthusiasm or optimism on the way there.

Alice and partner Bill Fauver.

A lot of that resolve came from her background as an Olympic athlete. She was a pairs skater that competed in the Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria, in 1976. She and her partner had finished second in the U.S. championships, 12th in the Olympics and then ninth in the following World Championships before she left the ice to finish her education at Boston College and then head on to sports journalism. You don't endure the sacrifices of a lifetime of training and competition without developing a pretty tough backbone, and there was always a steely will to succeed lurking just under the surface of Alice's always-pleasant demeanor.

Those are topics we touched upon when she and I sat down at Gillette Stadium on the 25th anniversary of her hiring by WBZ (Oct. 15, 2009) to record an interview for the frequent Patriots-related podcasts I did for The Sun Chronicle's website that I called "Mark Farinella's Audio Blog." I found that interview in my archives after reading the Globe story, and then turned it into the 60th episode of my current video podcast as a personal tribute to my friend. 

In the interview, Alice and I talk about her background and what it took for her to overcome the challenges that she faced when female reporters were just beginning to make inroads in the industry. She readily admitted it was difficult -- remember, she started almost five years before the notorious sexual harassment of former Boston Herald reporter Lisa Olson in the Patriots' locker room -- and from her description, you learn a lot about the strength of character it took for Alice to advance past it all.

And I will admit, it was so very good to hear Alice's voice again after so many years. And I'm so happy that technology will keep her voice front and center in the lives of her loving family.

I hope you will enjoy this trip in my personal time machine.

A despicable man, a disheartening day.

Trump signs executive order banning transgender athletes from women's sports.

I've made it known many times that I despise Donald Trump, and have since the mid-1980s, when he destroyed the United States Football League in a misguided quest for revenge and retribution against the National Football League for denying him a franchise. If you don't know that story, look it up on Google. I can't waste my time retelling it. 

Of course, way back then, I never thought there would be the chance of an icicle in hell that Trump would ever become President of the United States. I never thought the American people, who had been known to make a few colossal mistakes during my lifetime (Richard Nixon being one), would ever be that alarmingly duped by the nepo baby from Queens -- a racist, a misogynist and definitely a moron of shockingly low intelligence whose only apparent skill was the ability to take his rich daddy's money and piss it away on bad investments, stupid schemes, and settlements to quash potential legal action against him for sexual assaults.

Donald Trump is a bad man. I despise him. Now, if you can't handle reading that, then just fuck off and don't return to this site.

But if you'd like to see what has pissed me off almost beyond the point of personal tolerance, read on. It happened Wednesday afternoon.

This came as no surprise, but the Moron-in-Chief signed an executive order that purports to ban all transgender athletes from competing in women's sports in the United States, at all levels, in any organized sport that can somehow draw federal funding. Trump has framed the action as a redefinition of Title IX, the groundbreaking section of the Education Amendments of 1972 -- supported and signed by Nixon, of all people -- that prohibited discrimination against women at educational institutions supported by federal funding. 

Title IX is rightfully regarded as the turning point of women's athletics, ensuring a fair shake to athletes that were not getting equal access to facilities, equipment, training methods and quality coaching that propped up men's programs for decades prior. 

I was there from the beginning. In my sophomore year in high school (1968-69), my girlfriend's basketball team played that peculiar six-girl game that kept three players behind the center stripe and restricted them to one dribble before being forced to pass the ball. Girls weren't allowed to play the real game because of outdated fears that athletic prowess was an enemy of femininity, or that girls' uteruses would fall out of their vaginas from too much running, or that they'd never be able to nurse babies if they were hit in the boobs by a basketball. Stupid stuff.

And even when they changed over to five-player rules in 1969-70, the school was under no mandate to hire anyone that knew anything about basketball to coach the team. So they handed the reins over to a female English teacher that was eventually dismissed for having an affair with a male student. Great role model.

That all changed in 1972, when the federal government made equality the law of the land. Gradually, things improved. The girls got real uniforms instead of bloomers, and equal gym time and locker facilities. Their schedules became the equals of the boys. And gradually, better coaching was made available to them as coaching salaries were equalized. 

It took a lot longer for attitudes to change -- and even now, 53 years after the fact, there are still knuckle-dragging morons that want to denigrate the women's game. Not a single one of those nitwits could last three trips up and down the court in a game of one-on-one with Caitlin Clark. But for the most part, girls' and women's basketball are enjoying new levels of acceptance and prosperity, as are most women's sports.

Coarse, ignorant and unfit for the presidency.

But equality continues to be an elusive thing in America. It's written into the Constitution as one of our most cherished national goals, but it has taken almost 250 years to draw even remotely close to being achieved. And now, there's a bitter, angry and senile old fuckwad in the White House that is bound and determined to reverse many of those efforts on behalf of women, people of color, people of differing religious beliefs and people whose sexual identity may not adhere to the "only two genders" decree that Trump enacted on the first day of his second administration. 

Right now, it's the height of fashion in MAGA World to demonize transgender individuals. 

False narratives have been manufactured about how the majority of transgender athletes are simply sick males whose mental illnesses are enabling them to dress up as women and take athletic opportunities away from their dainty little daughters, who apparently need to be protected from too much athletic violence as they prance around their athletic fields during breaks in their study of the Scriptures. And these zealots claim that there's an army of young males lurking in the shadows, just waiting to tuck their dicks between their legs (or snip them off) and seek fame and glory as female athletes, taking opportunities away from deserving girls.

There aren't. Trust me on that. 

If there's one thing I've learned in 71 years on this planet and 55 years in one form of journalism or another, it's that there are infinite possibilities for every situation, and very few situations are so identical that they can be defined by one sweeping conclusion that covers all possibilities.

I have known transgender athletes in my lifetime. Identities will not revealed here to satisfy anyone's morbid curiosity. I respect confidences, but more than that, I don't believe it's really anybody's goddamned business to know anyone's personal and private information unless that person decides it should be revealed.

I'm sensitive about this issue, yes, because I've felt the sting of prying eyes that questioned my sexuality because I became an ardent supporter of women's sports at an early professional age. Some people called me a predator or a pedophile. Others suggested I was gay (back when that was supposedly a source of shame and a cause for ostracization). 

Well, I'm not gay -- but I apologize if that infers there's something wrong with it. I'm unmarried and childless, yes, but people that know me well are aware of the reason for that, and if you don't know me that well, then it's none of your fucking business. And no, I am no pedophile or predator. I have always maintained a respectful and appropriate distance between myself and the individuals I covered. I am proud to say that many of them became lifelong friends of mine in their adulthood, and I'm a better person for it.

In other words, I have never walked through a girls' locker room looking to see female athletes naked -- unlike our current President, who openly bragged about being able to stroll through the dressing rooms when his organization owned the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA beauty pageants, checking out the contestants in various states of undress as if it was his God-given right to do so.

Back in 1991, I covered the Big East Conference's women's basketball tournament when it was held at the McDonough Gym at Georgetown University. After one of the games, I went to the entrance of the Providence College locker room with Sean McAdam, then a writer for the Providence Journal, looking to interview the PC players. We were told upon our arrival that we could enter the locker room if we so desired -- it seems the Big East was operating under the premise that equality also included post-game access to athletes inside the locker room, just like men's sports, instead of waiting for the young women to venture into the hallway.

Sean and I looked nervously at each other, and then we turned to the media relations person and politely declined the offer. Equality is fine, but respect for privacy took precedence. That's something a pervert like Donald Trump simply cannot grasp.

Even when the information about transitioning was willingly offered to me by the athletes I've known, I never asked for details about what that entailed or what "equipment" they had or didn't have. It was none of my business. They came upon their circumstances for reasons that were intensely personal and probably traumatic, but first and foremost, their reasons were their own. And that absolutely demanded my respect, and a suspension of any personal curiosity I might have.

Instead, I have always tried to simply walk in someone's else shoes. 

How would I have felt if I had been born with conflicting genetics that caused confusion about my own identity as I was growing up? Or what if I had been born with both sets of sexual organs? For those of you Bible-thumpers out there that believe "God doesn't make mistakes," let me assure you that if indeed there is a God, He or She surely does err on occasion. Human beings are merely the products of cell division, and our development is guided by the genetic code passed down from each parent through DNA. And sometimes, that code can go awry -- maybe tragically, maybe far more subtly. 

And what if I had been the parent of a child that was facing such traumatic conflicts? What would I want, knowing that there was no simple "quick fix" or magic pill that would restore the so-called traditional norms? And every time I ponder these questions, I know that my answer is that I would want either a solution to bring me in line with the person I believed myself to be, or as a parent, to do whatever I could to prevent my child from spending a lifetime in deep personal conflict. My child's happiness would take precedence over all other concerns.

America's favorite Fifth-Place Girl,
anti-trans activist Riley Gaines

Those are questions that a person such as Riley Gaines has yet to consider, I believe.

Gaines, if you aren't aware, was a swimmer of some talent at the University of Kentucky. She was an 11-time All-America selection in various events, but peaked as an athlete at UK and was unsuccessful in several attempts to qualify for national or Olympic teams. Still, she remained a big fish in a small pond, and that's nothing to sneeze at.

The following passage is from a Wikipedia article on Ms. Gaines.

"In March 2022, while swimming for the University of Kentucky in the 200-yard NCAA freestyle championship (her final competitive event race before retiring from the sport), Gaines tied for fifth place with University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who subsequently became the first openly transgender woman champion in the NCAA women's division after winning the 500-yard freestyle later in the same event. Gaines said that Thomas shared locker room space with her while still intact with 'male genitalia,' that the championship trophy was to be given to Thomas for 'photo purposes' and that Gaines was expected to go empty-handed while waiting for her trophy in the mail."

At that point, Gaines became a fervent and tireless activist opposing all participation in women's athletics by transgender individuals. Along the way, she became the darling of the MAGA movement -- and why not? She's blonde, fit and deeply prejudiced. And it matters not to her if she's railing against a late-transitioning individual such as Thomas, or someone that may have begun the process much earlier in life. To Riley Gaines, transgender individuals are an all-encompassing evil that must be purged from the earth because God knows that there couldn't be any other reason why she couldn't finish any higher than fifth place in a meet populated overwhelmingly by women just like her.

Would this have even been an issue if Gaines had finished third or fourth, which was apparently outside her capabilities? 

Riley Gaines is a despicable person, totally devoid of any possible understanding of circumstances outside her narrow-minded understanding of normal. You'd think that it would be karma or poetic justice if she and her new husband were "blessed" with a conflicted child -- but that might make me a very bad person for wishing that upon the poor child. 

Still, all this made Ms. Gaines look right at home on Wednesday, standing behind the Mango Mussolini as he scratched out his illegible signature on the executive order document. With those child-like Sharpie strokes, Trump gleefully pronounced to a room filled with acolytes, bigots and brainwashed children that the scourge of transgenderism had ended. And so, Donald Trump echoed the 90-year-old acts of a demented Austrian paper-hanger by codifying his hatred of minorities into legal discrimination and persecution.

This is intolerable. This is not what America should be. Let's forget for a minute that America has always persecuted people that didn't look like the Founding Fathers' reflection in a mirror, and be encouraged otherwise by the fact that America has frequently amended its Constitution and changed its laws to correct past mistakes. But in Trump World, we may as well stick six-pointed yellow stars on transgender individuals and ship them off to the camps -- but they'll have to stand in line behind the people of color that are first in line to get the Trump demonization treatment.

And the worst thing? This executive order barely caused a ripple in public discourse. 

Everyone was still buzzing Wednesday over Trump's pronouncement that he wanted to "take over" war-torn Gaza, relocating the surviving Palestinians from their shattered homeland to other countries and sending in U.S. troops to oversee the conversion of that region into the new Mediterranean Riviera -- presumably, with a few Trump pockets being lined with a hefty percentage of the billions of dollars that it will require.

The Orange Turd has been president now for just 2½ weeks, but he's already shredded the foundations of American democracy with no regard for the Constitution. His top advisor is a South African billionaire who might actually qualify for deportation under Trump's goal to purge America of illegal immigrants. His Cabinet members are a mishmash of MAGA loyalists and billionaires that have neither empathy for nor understanding of the hundreds of millions of Americans whose lives they now control. Trump has the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court under his ketchup-soiled thumb. He wants to annex Canada and Greenland, go to war with Mexico, and otherwise infuriate every other allied nation that once saw America as the beacon of democracy.

The only thing missing is the Reichstag fire and the brown shirts.

I wish I could do something to end it. But I've already done all I can. Anything more, as Nixon famously said, "would be wrong."

I didn't vote for the asshole last time and I didn't this time, either. Neither did Massachusetts -- a state which, by the way, still guarantees the rights of the LBGTQ+ community thanks to two pieces of legislation from the early 1970s that piggybacked upon the federal Title IX, the state's Equal Rights Amendment in 1979, and a 2011 amendment that specifically included the LBGTQ+ protections into the ERA's wording. 

Trump can write all the executive orders he wants, but there's little chance he can legally overrule a state's constitution with a stroke of his crayon. Unfortunately, the only "legality" he respects is the sound of his own voice.

That must end. And I fear that it won't end without plunging our nation into its darkest days. 

MARK FARINELLA has voted in 14 presidential elections. He fervently hopes to live long enough to experience an America that still has free elections -- and one that does not include Donald Trump.

Mike Babul, 47.

Mike Babul, left, and his brother Jon, pose for a photo before the 1995-96 season.

I learned earlier today that North Attleboro High School and Mansfield High School have agreed to reschedule their upcoming boys' and girls' basketball games from Friday, Jan. 10, to Thursday, Jan. 9 -- the boys playing at North Attleboro and the girls at Mansfield. The reason is to accommodate the calling hours for the late North Attleboro basketball star, Mike Babul, on Friday.

These two schools are fierce rivals, but they are totally united in showing appropriate and deserved respect for Babul, who died earlier this week of a heart attack at the all-too-young age of 47.

Since I heard the news from former colleague Peter Gobis, I've been having trouble wrapping my head around this. Everyone dies, I know. We all will. There are timely deaths and deserved deaths, but of late, there have been far too many tragic deaths of younger people I knew that had bright and fulfilling futures snatched away from them in an instant.

Until today, I have hesitated to offer my thoughts publicly on this news other than to put short posts on social media to inform others of this tragedy. That is my nature. I spent more than a half-century covering the news and passing it along as quickly and accurately as I could, as if it was still my sworn duty to the public to uphold an unspoken oath.

Mike Babul on the collegiate sidelines.

Most others reacted as I did -- with shock and sadness at the loss of such a highly regarded individual who had positively impacted multitudes of young people through his coaching and his participation in basketball camps, as well as through his positivity and his energy. 

One individual, however, called me a "douche" for having blurted out the bad news before anyone had time to grieve, or so he claimed. I did not. I checked the time stamps. I had not even read Gobis' email to me until two hours after he sent it. Social media accounts from various organizations and individuals were already reporting the news three hours before I wrote my first post. 

It did have a residual effect, however. Asked to comment on Mike's passing by other news organizations, I deferred to Gobis, because not only had he written the first story that appeared in The Sun Chronicle about Mike Babul's passing, he was also closer to the local boys' basketball scene in the mid-1990s than I was. I don't always have to have the first or last word on everything that happens, especially when there are others that might have better perspective to offer.

Another such individual with great perspective is Mike Kirby, another former colleague at the local newspaper, who started there as a sportswriter before becoming the big boss in the newsroom over his 40-year career. Mike has always been plugged into the heartbeat of his hometown of North Attleboro, and that was reaffirmed today by a column he wrote for the paper. 

Mike clearly states that North Attleboro, usually regarded by the Massachusetts sports community as a football town, surged to the forefront of the basketball community when Mike Babul and his twin brother, Jon, first stepped onto the court inside what would later be known as the Ken Pickering Gymnasium.

Mike scored 1,423 career points over his Rocketeer career, and Jon scored 910 -- I remember pulling openly for Jon to get to the 1,000-point plateau as well because it would have made their legacy even more impressive. But Mike (even at 6-6) was the shooting guard and primary scorer, and Jon (an inch taller at 6-7) was the pivot around whom much of North's halfcourt offense was designed, with him serving as more of a facilitator and rebounder. They averaged 18.8 and 12.2 points respectively as seniors, and almost got the Rocketeers to a state title.

My only quibble with this retelling of history is that North already had some great basketball chops before the Babul brothers' emergence -- the girls' team had already won two state Division 2 titles, in 1987, defeating Athol, and in 1991, defeating the Rebecca Lobo-led Southwick team. But for some unknown reason, the girls don't seem to get the respect they deserve in Big Red Country. I know -- I've had many debates with a lot of individuals about that over the years.

Sadly, we have also lost two members of that 1987 team, center Alyssa Gutauskas in 1997 and shooting forward Heidi Deppisch in 2022. Both are still sources of personal joy from having known them, and deep sadness from their passings.

Mike Babul, at right, defends
Attleboro High's Jason Smith (4).

There is no denying, however, that Mike and Jon Babul were outstanding ambassadors for their sport and that they did raise North Attleboro's hoop profile significantly. First coached by their father, Mike Sr., and then by Don Johnson, both were hard-working and dedicated young men, personable, and totally respectful of their sport and their places in it. They understood and embraced their responsibilities as role models -- a very difficult thing for anyone to do, no less a pair of twin teenagers.

I remember fondly one particular day, not long before the start of their senior seasons at NAHS. I wanted to create a special design for our annual boys' basketball preview, so Sun Chronicle photographer Mark Stockwell and I commandeered the boys' locker room and posed the two twins -- Mike in his red No. 43 uniform, Jon in his white No. 44 togs. We tried several different poses (one of which topped this column), but we struck gold with a low-angle shot that made the twins look like giants. And of course, the headline to the preview declared them to be the "Twin Towers." I was very proud of that presentation.

Who would have known that about six years later, that title would come to represent a moment of staggering national heartbreak upon the destruction of New York City's World Trade Center?

Both Babul brothers made lives in the sport for themselves after high school. Mike was a defensive standout at UMass and Jon played at Georgia Tech. Mike had been recruited by John Calipari, who had built UMass into a national power, but then raced off to the pros and left Mike to be coached by Bruiser Flint. There was no transfer portal in those days, but Mike held true to his commitment, and I respected him immensely for it.

They both got into coaching and basketball management positions afterward. Jon works in the front office of the Atlanta Hawks. And Mike's résumé included coaching jobs at several colleges and the Brooklyn Nets' G-League team before he decided to accept the North Attleboro High School coaching job before the 2023-24 season.

It should have been a tremendous and hopefully triumphant return home for Mike, who was already familiar to a new generation of Rocketeers because of his work with AAU programs and local basketball camps, including those run by him and his brother. But for reasons that are unknown, and I resist speculating why, he decided to re-apply for the Thayer Academy coaching position and he was given it just before the new season was to start. 

He was in his second season at Thayer, and had them on the winning track, when his life came to an unexpected end early Monday morning.

I've been reading most of the heartfelt tributes to Mike that have appeared in social media -- not just from individuals that knew him or may have had children coached by him, but also from elite basketball organizations or individuals whose lives were also touched by him. Even John Calipari weighed in on Twitter/X ... and he only recruited Mike.

Part of me wonders what would have happened if Mike had taken the reins at North Attleboro. Basketball there has been in the doldrums for some time now, but I have to believe he would have used everything he learned every step along the way to restore enthusiasm to the boys' program.

Yet in pondering that, I fear that it might be construed as a criticism of those presently in charge. I intend no disrespect at all to Derek Smith -- himself the son of another famous North Attleboro coach, Rick Smith, who brought that 1987 girls' team to the pinnacle of Massachusetts basketball. I have no doubt that Derek is doing everything he can to reverse North's basketball fortunes, and it is patently unfair for anyone to play the "what-if" game. 

More than anything else, Mike's death has reminded me of the preciousness of life. 

Too many young athletes of superlative ability have left us in recent years. North Attleboro has suffered more than its share of loss in the deaths of Mike Babul, Alyssa Gutauskas and Heidi Deppisch. Attleboro's Leland Anderson died earlier this year from lung cancer, and Rebecca Hardt passed in her sleep in a few years ago. Many recall the tragedy of Bishop Feehan's Cheryl Warren, who died giving birth to twins. There are others as well, all of whom are forever young in my memory -- pictured in my mind's eye as they were, running up and down basketball courts, joy and determination concurrently expressed on their faces, always looking to improve their skills, to refine them and to succeed.

In a time in which we need to derive positive reinforcement and inspiration from any available sources, I can only hope that the basketball community of the Attleboros and beyond, young and old alike, will embrace the life Mike Babul led and let it serve as a guide for their futures.

MARK FARINELLA wrote for The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, Mass., for 42 years.

The Owner's Box, Ep. 58.

AI recreates my first meeting with delivery magnate Cristoforo Cringlione.

Fifty years ago, I met a businessman in a very unusual way, and the result was a life-long friendship and decades of column material for my job at The Sun Chronicle.

The gent was a portly and ruddy-faced, but impeccably dressed, Sicilian man in his late 40s. He was driving from Toronto to Chicago in his spectacularly appointed gold 1974 Cadillac Eldorado convertible, trying his best to brave bad weather and slippery roads to make it to the Windy City in time for a meeting with the hierarchy of the Teamsters. The result of this very important meeting would determine whether his fledgling overnight delivery service would take the next step up to national and international prominence, or forever be consigned to small-route insignificance. 

He was weary from the long drive and his mounting business pressures, took the wrong exit and became disoriented in the heavy snowfall, and returned to the highway driving back the way he came. Realizing his error and succumbing to his fatigue, he made a last-second decision to turn into a rest area just outside of Ann Arbor, Mich., where he could get a cup of coffee, re-orient himself and maybe even just rest for a few minutes. But he entered the exit too fast for the road conditions, and skidded the huge Cadillac into a snowbank.

Only a few feet away was a 1968 Plymouth Fury with its occupant inside, also weary from getting a late start on his final drive back to Massachusetts from college in Chicago. He was dressed in the warmest of winter ski suits so he could keep from freezing to death while gaining a little shut-eye, but sleep did not come easily thanks to the 10-degree weather. He was easily snapped back into consciousness by the sound of the huge Cadillac barreling into the nearby snowbank. 

That was me. 

I surveyed the situation quickly and leaped out of my car, intend upon helping the Caddy's occupant. Almost as quickly, the businessman exited from his driver's side door and unleashed a torrent of Sicilian-dialect expletives that I did not understand.

"Hey, mister," I yelled. "Are you OK? Are you hurt?"

The man turned to me and shouted back in a thick New Jersey/New York accent, "Whadda you looking at, pal? Mind youse own business."

A more recent snapshot of Kringle.

It was the first time Cristoforo Cringlione and I spoke to each other. And while it didn't seem very promising at first, I managed to convince him that I only wanted to help and make sure he wasn't injured. He settled down quickly enough and I suggested that I might be able to help him get his car out of the snow, given that the pile was relatively soft from fresh plowing and that the Caddy did not appear to be damaged. After all, I was a strapping lad of 21 at the time and I believed all things were possible.

Well, they were. He got back behind the wheel and I dug in my boots behind the trunk of his land yacht, and I pushed and pushed and he spun his wheels a lot before the golden behemoth finally edged forward and emerged from its temporary trap. The artificial-intelligence generated photo at the top of this column depicts our first meeting surprisingly accurately from my recollections -- the second-best thing to having had an actual camera to record the moment.

Cold and exhausted, we agreed to meet inside the adjacent Howard Johnson's for warmth and coffee (although I really didn't like coffee at the time). It was then that I learned of Cringlione's rich history as am immigrant from Sicily at the age of 8, whose dogged determination to succeed in his adopted land led him to this pivotal moment in his life.

He offered to pay me handsomely for my efforts to free his car, but I refused. At the time, I thought this man was going to need every dollar he had to achieve his dream. Also, having seen "The Godfather" a few years earlier and noting the similarities in the stories of Don Corleone and my new friend, I simply said, "Someday I may call upon you, and that day may never come, to perform a service for me."

Cringlione chuckled and handed me his business card. "Call my girl when that day comes," he said. And them he was gone, heading in his Cadillac for the fateful meeting that would forever change the landscape of the international overnight delivery service.

A few years later, relatively new in my job at The Sun Chronicle, I called Cringlione's girl to ask my favor. Cringlione called back from his company's headquarters in Point Barrow, Alaska.

"Don Cringlione," I said, "I need your help. You have become synonymous with the Christmas spirit. They even call you 'Kris Kringle' now. But I have trouble getting into that spirit, and the newspaper expects me to write a holiday column every year. I just can't do it. Can you help as a means of repaying your debt to me?"

It took only an instant for Cringlione to agree to send me a holiday missive every year, for as long as I needed it, as long as he could offer his unfiltered perspective. I agreed, and for nearly 35 years after that, the "Kris Kringle column" became a staple of The Sun Chronicle's sports section at Christmastime.

Although I am no longer at the newspaper, I have maintained my friendship with Kringle, who is still active in the operation of the most successful holiday-time overnight delivery service on the planet. And for the first time since 2019, I managed to convince him to join me for an hour's worth of conversation on my podcast. His first appearance was in Episode 7, and now, he returns for Episode 58.

I hope you will enjoy it. Cringlione was animated and energetic for a man pushing 100, and he even sounds much younger and vital than he did in his last visit. Clink on the link below to hear a true American icon sharing his wisdom and experience. As he often said, "Ho ho yourself. I'm a businessman." And one hell of a friend as well.

The Owner’s Box, Ep. 57.

Marcus Vaughn, Del Malloy and some old man prepare to announce a high school title game.

Sometimes, there’s nothing better after a big dinner than to sit down at the mixing board and create an audio podcast.

That’s exactly when I did last night, as Episode 57 of The Owner’s Box was borne from the sedentary satisfaction of having stuffed myself with prime rib at my favorite beef restaurant in Mendon.

That followed a day at a basketball jamboree in Medfield that involved many of my area’s girls’ basketball  teams, so it was a good opportunity to get my “unofficial co-host,” Foxboro coach Lisa Downs, to spend a few minutes chatting about her team as it prepares to defend its two straight state championships. I also talk about the recently concluded high school football season, in which four of the teams from my region competed in the state Super Bowls. The North TV crew, pictured above, was there to announce King Philip’s game against Catholic Memorial, just as we were present all season long.

And finally — but for the first time on the audio podcast — I offered my thoughts about the results of the presidential election in November. I promise, it will be the last time.

It’s all for you in Episode 57 of the best little podcast in all the land. Enjoy.

The Owner's Box After Dark, Ep. 59.

 

I remain extremely proud to have cast my vote for Kamala Harris.

The election is history, and it didn't turn out as hoped by me and by millions of other Americans. So, given that I had implored everyone to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris as our next President in the previous episode of the After Dark series, I thought it was best if I returned to the camera and microphone to offer my reaction to the verdict at the polls.

Here's a warning to the supporters of the guy that won: This is not a concession speech. This is not a soulful acceptance of our fate and an attempt to reach out to the MAGA world with open arms. I'm not happy about what happened on Tuesday, what has happened to our country to result in this outcome, and what may happen to our country because of it.

If you don't like that, don't watch it. In fact, you are advised to stop watching or listening to any of my podcasts going forward. There's plenty of other crap on the Internet that will probably be more to your liking.

In the meantime, I will not abandon the ideals and matters of conscience that led me to vote the way I did.

If you can handle that, please watch Episode 59 of this long-running series.

The Owner's Box After Dark, Ep. 58.

We're back, baby -- with the traditional Election Day episode of After Dark.

Don't worry, I don't spend the entire hour ranting about why the Orange Man is bad. It's there, of course --- but in the last of three segments. 

First, I explain why I'm always wearing a hat these days. In a nutshell, I had a patch of skin removed from my scalp because of a less-threatening form of skin cancer. I should be OK, but it will radically alter my appearance for a while.

And in the second segment, I speak fondly of my old friend Carlo Imelio, former Patriots' beat writer for the Springfield (Mass.) Newspapers, who passed last week at the age of 88. For greater depth, check out my previous post from Oct. 30 here on Blogging Fearlessly.

And finally, I spell it all out -- why I was quick to cast my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States, and why you should too.

All here in the 58th episode for the video podcast to end all video podcasts.

Remembering Carlo Imelio, 88.

Carlo Imelio, right, listens to Patriots' PR chief Stacey James during a 2014 meeting.

This has been a very painful year, given the number of beloved individuals that have left this mortal coil. And today, I just learned of another passing that leaves a void in my heart.

Carlo Imelio had been a sportswriter covering the Patriots for the Springfield Newspapers for a long time before I covered my first day of training camp in the summer of 1977 for The Sun Chronicle. But given his gregarious nature, it didn't take long for him to become a friend and mentor.

Former Patriots' writer Carlo Imelio

Carlo graduated from Agawam High School in 1954 (the year I was born), and served in the U.S. Navy for two years after graduation. In 1966, he joined the staff as a sportswriter for the Springfield Union, the Springfield Daily News and the Springfield Sunday Republican, which all eventually came under the banner of The Republican in 2003. Not long after he joined the staff, he became the beat writer covering the Boston Patriots.

The Patriots trained during their early days at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, which was ideal for a writer based in western Massachusetts. But Carlo had to make the long trek from "Springy," as he called it, to Boston -- and then to Foxboro from 1971 on -- every day once the regular season began.

By the time I joined the beat in 1977, the Patriots were enjoying widespread media interest -- even without the benefit of being any good. Reporters covered the team from not just the Boston papers, but from Bangor and Portland from the far north, Concord, Manchester and Nashua from New Hampshire; Lawrence, Lowell, Salem and Lynn from the near north; Quincy, Brockton, New Bedford, Fall River, Hyannis, Milford, Framingham, Worcester and Attleboro on this side of Massachusetts; Providence, Pawtucket, Woonsocket and Newport from Little Rhody; and Norwich, Springfield and Hartford from the western hinterlands. And all were here on a regular basis. 

But by far, respect was afforded to the beat reporters that had covered the team the longest. It wasn't easy for a cocky young pup from Attleboro to crack that clique at first, but one of the first to extend his hand in friendship was Carlo. And that circle of friendship grew once The Sun Chronicle offered me a higher level of commitment by sending me on the road to cover the team.

Carlo was a solid journalist and fully versed in the day-to-day demands of covering a pro team, but above all else, he was a funny guy. He could tell jokes with the best of them -- and regardless of how bad the joke might be, he could find a way to get a few chuckles out of you from it.

Carlo could make Parcells laugh.

Carlo brought those moments of humor to the press conferences with the coaches of the Patriots over the years he was on the beat. Even Bill Parcells, who preferred his reporters to be serious in their questions to him, could be disarmed by Carlo's self-effacing quips. There were times when the Tuna would get a little testy when the electronic-media reporters would ask questions that he thought were too simplistic or seeking the "gotcha" sound bite, but Carlo always seemed to know when he could drop in something guaranteed to lighten the mood and get the press conference back on a less-contentious tack.

Carlo left the beat at about the time when Bill Belichick came on board, and I often wondered during the worst of Belichick's stonewalling of the media if even his cold heart could be warmed by a perfectly-timed Carlo malaprop. I suppose I'll never know the answer, but I'd like to think that even Belichick's formidable defenses could be breached.

It was on the road where the veteran beat writers had the most fun. We went to the best restaurants and visited the best attractions -- as long as the expense accounts held out -- and that left us with many stories to be told and re-told and embellished over the years.

One particular story was of the night at the Amherst Marriott on the outskirts of Buffalo, where most of the media stayed before a game against the Bills. It was on one of those Saturday nights, early in Robert Kraft's ownership of the Patriots, when his wife, Myra, joined several of us in the hotel lounge for an impromptu getting-to-know-you bull session. Carlo, Ron Hobson of The Patriot Ledger, the late Dick Cerasuolo of the Worcester Telegram, myself and a few others pounded down the adult beverages as Myra proved herself quite capable of holding court with the boys.

There's another story -- or "starry" as Carlo would pronounce it -- that I'll have to clean up a little.

We were all in Chicago early in the 1985 season (yes, the season of Super Bowl XX), and most of the media arrived at the downtown hotel at the same time. So once we got our keys, and with me having spent a lot of time in that area of Chicago during my college days at Northwestern, I asked a young woman reporter from one of the Boston TV stations to join me for a walking tour of Michigan Avenue.

We spent quite a bit of time together that day, and had a terrific time. We even ran into the former TV and radio voice of the Chicago Cubs, Jack Brickhouse, as he sat with his wife and enjoyed afternoon drinks at the Drake Hotel's sidewalk cafe. But somewhere along the way, Carlo and the guys noticed that I wasn't around for thje usual evening festivities.

The next morning, I joined the others for something that was a tradition during the Billy Sullivan ownership. Sullivan would reserve a meeting room for a pre-game breakfast with the regular beat writers, and he would usually invite leading Catholic clergy from the city to join us. I was a little late to the gathering on that particular morning, and all my fellow reporters were already seated, although Sullivan and his other guests had yet to arrive.

As I took my seat, and knowing that I was out with the young lady from Channel 7, Carlo had his opportunity. He shouted out something that I can't quote here -- basically, a somewhat shocking inquiry into whether I had found a way to spend the night with the woman (I didn't, by the way). It got a huge laugh -- but for reasons neither Carlo nor I could anticipate.

I don't think Billy got the joke.

You see, Carlo was seated with his back to the door that led to the hallway. What he didn't know as he blurted out the somewhat inappropriate query was that in that very moment, Billy Sullivan and his guest -- Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, archbishop of Chicago -- entered the room.

Nothing was said. It probably wasn't fully understood by either of the new arrivals, as Carlo didn't use graphic language in his query. But for years thereafter, that moment became the stuff of legend on the Patriots' beat.

Readers of The Sun Chronicle owe Carlo a debt of gratitude for something they enjoyed for more than three decades. In the late 1970s, Carlo created the "Beat Carlo" contest where readers of the Springfield Newspapers could make their own picks for the weekend's NFL games and compare them with Carlo's picks, winning prizes if they bettered his results. Seeing how wildly successful that game was in Western Mass., other beat writers asked if we could borrow (or steal) the format for contests of their own. Neither Carlo nor his newspaper objected, so similar contests popped up all over New England -- including The Sun Chronicle's "Beat Fearless," which became a staple of our pro football coverage for decades.

For many years after his retirement, Carlo remained active on the Patriots' scene as a member of the Patriots Hall of Fame Nomination Committee. His perspective as one of the true veterans dating back to the pre-Foxboro days was invaluable, and his humor was much appreciated. But a few years ago, he stopped making the ride from the other side of the Connecticut River. 

There aren't many of us ink-stained wretches left from the days when the Patriots were the chaotic frontier of Boston sports instead of the gold standard, and we are now poorer for having lost another one.

Carlo joins his beloved wife Midge, who had passed on April 12, in the afterlife. He is survived by his son Nicholas and his daughter Joanne, their families and a legion of friends. 

Mark Farinella covered the Patriots for The Sun Chronicle, The Patriot Ledger of Quincy, and the Associated Press, from 1977 through 2019. Respond to his commentaries here or via email at theownersbox2020@gmail.com