Jay Horwitz, one of a kind

Excellent piece in today's WSJ by former Newsday scribe Jeff Pearlman about Jay Horwitz, the Mets' one-of-a-kind p.r. man for the past 32 seasons.

Speaking of Pearlman, I thought about him Tuesday morning as I listened to a long, entertaining, insightful rant by Magic coach Stan Van Gundy about the current sports culture in which forever looking forward has come to devalue the games themselves.

Pearlman recently wrote a thought-provoking piece in the Journal that looks at the same topic, but from a different angle.

Here is the column I wrote that was inspired by what Van Gundy said in the morning, followed hours later by a conversation three New York writers and one Orlando scribe had with Dwight Howard in the Magic locker room.

I wrote other Knicks and Yankees stuff during my whirlwind five days in Florida. You can find it all on our Knicks and Yankees sites if you're interested.

It certainly has a historic week. Sunday I covered my first Knicks road game since Game 7 of the 1994 Finals, and Monday was my first spring training game since A's-Angels in Palm Springs in 1980.

All I remember from that game is that Billy Martin was managing the A's and Dick Enberg was shirtless and sunning himself on top of the press box.

Thanks to Hahn and Boland for their help. I forgot to include this Patrick Ewing quote via Hahn in my Howard column: "He's staying in Orlando. He ain't going nowhere. I told him if he goes anywhere I'm chopping his legs off."

I'm back in the basement now. Normalcy has returned.