I look at YouTube every day mostly to see old boxing matches, which continue to thrill me. I mean I’m in love with Rocky Marciano, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Floyd Patterson, Sugar Ray Leonard, etc. Every once in a while YouTube presents me with something of a literary nature and then I’m hooked. YouTube recently put on my screen a young woman named Liza Libes who is literate, smart, engaging and is in love with the Great Books. She calls her feed Pens and Poison and it’s worth a watch if you are into fiction.

She put up a video commenting on a list of great novels by Ben Shapiro. I always considered Shapiro a political geek who knows nothing about fiction. Boy, was I wrong. His list is gorgeous and shows he is deep, thoughtful and has terrific taste. His list includes ‘East of Eden,’ a masterpiece by John Steinbeck. I immediately gained tremendous respect for Ben. FYI, if you drive to Salinas, you can visit the house Steinbeck grew up in. They even serve lunch in the parlor – it’s really good and inexpensive – and the servers can answer any question you have about this wonderful writer.

Liza also has a list of her top ten novels – you can go on YouTube to see their lists. Neither of them included on their lists ‘Ulysses’ which some people claim is the greatest novel ever written in English. I applaud Liza and Ben for this omission. I’ll get to my dislike of ‘Ulysses’ in a moment. But first I want to list novels I love that did not make their lists. I am not quarreling with them – they are deeply into Russian writers, which makes perfect sense. I am merely giving more options, So, here goes:

Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

Vanity Fair by Thackery

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Madame Bovary by Flaubert

Seize the Day by Saul Bellow

The Red and the Black by Stendahl

The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald

Pere Goriot by Balzac

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

Nothing by Hemingway – that’s not the name of a novel. It’s my opinion.

As I Lay Dying by Faulkner

Barchester Towers by Trollope

Lolita by Nabokov

Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Stoner by John Williams

A River Runs Through it by Norman Maclean

Great Expectations and Bleak House by Dickens

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

Beloved by Toni Morrison

I have one quibble with Liza and Ben, and this is more about me and my attitude than their lists. When discussing books, they almost immediately go to the theme. Like what is the theme of this book, or what is the author getting at, or what does the author tell us about life and the human condition. Those are my words, but I think they apply to Liza and Ben. I understand why they do this. When I studied literature at Lafayette College and Stanford professors taught me to look for themes to, in a sense, leap out of the text and try to distill the novel in a smart and convincing argument. That is what Liza and Ben do very well.

It’s just that I’m not a literary critic anymore. I’m a writer. So, I look for things other than themes.

Who is the main character?

What does he or she want or need?

Does he or she get it?

What does he or she do to get it?

Is it worth it?

Does the main character grow or compromise himself/herself?

Is there a bad guy in the book?

Does the bad guy make the book better? Think of Shakespeare’s Iago as the ultimate bad guy and understand ‘Othello’ would be a sappy love story without him. Sure ‘Othello’ isn’t a novel, it’s a play, but come on.

How good is the prose? This is key. You cannot write a great novel if you can’t write. The prose has to fit the story – Huck’s innocent sentences portray his innocence about life and death. In ‘Lolita’ Humbert Humbert’s elevated prose shows him as a sophisticated creep and rapist who could use words to seduce a young girl.

This is why I’m suspicious of translations. I think Dostoevsky is tops, but I never have read his real words or heard their music – if there is music.

OK, finally to ‘Ulysses.’

There is an entire academic industry which tries to interpret, get to the bottom of, figure out what Joyce meant in this dead-on-arrival book. Well, forget about it. It is indecipherable to even learned readers. You don’t read the book. You study it. You don’t enjoy the book. You appreciate it if you can. It is out of the grasp of most readers, if they are honest with themselves. I mean, who really wants to read this stuff? Who wants to pay for a copy of ‘Ulysses”? Joyce seemed to like the idea of most readers not getting what he wrote. What a literary snob.

Why is Leopold Bloom unknowingly following the journey of Odysseus inherently interesting and not just another gimmick? Why should I care how he mirrors ‘The Odyssey’? What is the value of that journey?

Hey, James Joyce, make Leopold a more interesting character on his own without having to carry the weight of Greek mythology on his over-burdened shoulders.

Well, Lowell, you might argue. The book is great because it shows stream of consciousness. That’s a big deal. OK, but stream of consciousness writing is so dated – see Virginia Woolf and lots of Faulkner, also dated. And get this. I don’t think people really think like Joyce’s characters do in their stream of consciousness. I think it’s all a put-on.

Hey, aspiring writers, if you want to write fiction, use your over-weight copy of ‘Ulysses’ as a doorstop, and have some fun reading Donald Westlake, Stephen King – yes, Stephen King – Harlan Coben, Ann Patchett, E.L. Doctorow. They show how to construct a plot, how to create characters, and each writes excellent prose.

If I offended you by what I wrote about ‘Ulysses,’ I apologize. If you think I’m a dope, I probably am.

How does he bring me – and you – into baseball?

He tells the story of the game from the pitcher’s point of view. What a gift. What a necessity.

Because at the instant the pitcher throws the ball, the only three people who matter are the pitcher, batter and umpire. They are the entire world for that split second and so much will be decided in that split second. In fact, the pitch isn’t even a pitch when the pitcher throws the ball. It merely is a thrown ball until the umpire (or the ABS) calls it a strike or a ball, gives it a relevant definition.

Krukow lives for that split second. He tells us what the pitcher may throw – a slider, four-seam fastball, etc. – and he tells us why, and he tells us what previous pitch set up the current pitch, and he tells us what the batter is thinking or should be thinking. And then reality happens – the batter swings or doesn’t swing -- and Krukow almost always is correct.

He takes us right onto the field. We are on the pitcher’s mound and in the batter’s box and in the pitcher’s head and the batter’s head. We live baseball as a former baseball player lived baseball. It is like sitting next to Shakespeare when he wrote “Hamlet” and getting to ask him questions.

I’m not even getting into Krukow’s relationship with his broadcasting partner Duane Kuiper which is healthy, funny and loving – they are great together. When I used to visit them in the broadcasting booth, Duane still called Krukow “Mikey” like they were back in the old clubhouse in old Candlestick Park. I liked them more than most players I ever covered. How could I not? And after retiring from ball, they’ve had this whole new career, and they have it together.

Once a long time ago, I was doing a column on bad teams. It was so long ago, the topic floats in the haze of memory. But I remember this. I went to Krukow at his locker before a game – he wasn’t pitching – and told him I was writing about bad teams. He laughed. He said I could ask him anything. He said – and I quote – “I am a connoisseur of shit.”

It was a wonderful sentence linking the unlikely combination of connoisseur and shit, and it showed his humor and sophistication. And I agree Krukow is a connoisseur of that and he is a connoisseur of beauty and baseball, and most important, he is a connoisseur of life.

They fired him.

I have experienced very cold behavior covering sports. This is among the coldest.

KNBR should have made this statement: “We are behind Greg Papa all the way, he is family and we love him. He has a job here whenever he is ready to return and we will continue to pay him because it is the right thing to do.”

But KNBR didn’t do that. Tell me why.

Was each driver tested for drugs and alcohol?

How did the Palo Alto police make a clerical error in the crash report saying the woman driver was at fault considering assigning blame at the scene is crucial and fundamental? Shanahan said that report was wrong and he was at fault.

Did the Palo Alto police engage in a coverup to help Shanahan? I don’t believe Shanahan asked for a coverup because he was seriously hurt and not thinking about stuff like that, but I could be wrong.

Why did Shanahan call Adam Schefter about the accident?

Why did it take 11 days for the 49ers to go public about the accident?

Why did Schefter wait 11 days before publishing his article for ESPN?

Why did Schefter have his story ready to go one minute after the 49ers revealed the accident?

Why did ESPN replace Schefter as lead investigator on this ongoing story?

Even though Shanahan, in the interest of full disclosure wanted to go public with the police report, why did the 49ers head of security say he (head of security) could not do that?

Why does the collision report say there were two injured drivers?

Does the police report indicate the woman driver suffered more than minor injuries?

Is there stuff in the police report that would help or hurt Shanahan?

My questions do not mean I think Shanahan did anything underhanded, but the way this story has come to light raises questions. If I’ve missed any pertinent questions, please leave a comment.

So, instantly I became very interested. And instantly it became personal for me because Whitlock proceeded to dump on the eight beat reporters, including my son, who spoke with Shanahan in his office on Tuesday.

First let me tell you about the setup for Whitlock’s stream. It was Whitlock and three other commentators arranged in boxes on the screen, one box for each guy. I’m looking at it and I’m thinking Hollywood Squares. I hadn’t thought of Hollywood Squares in years and there right before my eyes were four new squares on the Whitlock show.

Whitlock is the Master Square.

The Master Square went on to explain there was something fishy about Shanahan’s private news conference. He emphasized that there were no cameras and another of the squares wondered if the beat writers even were allowed to ask questions.

I understand Whitlock’s skepticism. Journalists are programmed to be skeptical and to think – assume? – there is something suspect in what famous people say. I, too, am programmed that way, so I know where Whitlock is coming from and I even respect it. With one difference.

Before I went public, I would have done research, even minimum research so I wouldn’t sound ill-informed or silly. Minimum research would have helped Whitlock who didn’t even know what car Shanahan drove. He said it either was a Mercedes or a Tesla. Well, it was a Tesla and that’s a matter of public record. Sloppy reporting that makes you doubt everything else he said. Anyway, after putting down my son for calling Shanahan a “standup guy” – he didn’t use Grant’s name – he went on to give his own theory of what happened. Take a deep breath right now because you may pee your pants.

“Somebody beat this man up,” Whitlock said. He asserted Shanahan got into a fistfight and the story about the car accident is a coverup.

Why is this theory laughable? Because Shanahan didn’t get into a fistfight. He was in a car accident.

Whitlock very easily could have learned the basic facts, that it was a car accident and not a fight. He could have phoned one of the beat writers and asked some questions. If he had done that, he would have learned (1) the beat writes certainly were allowed to ask questions. (2) There were no cameras in the room because Shanahan’s face is a mess. (3) The accident is a matter of public record because there is a police report detailing everything. I repeat there is a police report.

We’re talking Journalism 101 here. As far as I know Whitlock made no phone call to beat writers – he sure didn’t phone Grant. And Whitlock didn’t know or bother to find out about the police report which sits on a government website for everyone to view.

Come on, Master Square. Instead of doing research you sat in your square speculating – bullshitting? – about a fistfight that never took place. And we’re supposed to take you seriously. And get this, Whitlock wondered if there even was another driver. Really?

There’s more.

Whitlock wondered how Shanahan could have been seriously injured at 20 miles per hour in an accident he didn’t believe took place.

It wasn’t a mere 20 mph. The 21-year-old driver of the other car also was going 20 mph. Twenty plus twenty equals forty. Put Whitlock in that head-on collision at those speeds and he’d look pretty beat up, too.

There’s more.

One of the Lesser Squares compared Shanahan to Ted Kennedy killing poor Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick. That means the Lesser Square compared Shanahan to a man who killed somebody, but Shanahan didn’t kill anyone. Don’t any of these squares think before they talk?

There’s more.

One of the Lesser Squares said the 49ers have a good relationship with the San Francisco police – they do? – and maybe the cops did a coverup for the Niners.

San Francisco?

If any of the squares bothered to look at a map he could have learned that Palo Alto, where the accident took place, is 38 miles from San Francisco right down Highway 101. As far I know the Palo Alto Police Department is separate from the San Francisco Police Department.

But that factual inaccuracy didn’t bother Whitlock who barreled right ahead with the San Francisco angle. He went on to say the 49ers will finance a lot of Pride activities in San Francisco, I guess, as a payback for the alleged coverup. I admit by this time, my head was spinning. But why would the Niners finance Pride activities in San Francisco for an accident that occurred in Palo Alto?

And why did Whitlock even bring up Pride? Does this guy have a problem with significant parts of the San Francisco culture?

All things considered, I prefer the original Hollywood Squares with Paul Lynde telling his corny jokes from his permanent position as center square. Whitlock’s squares aren’t funny. They’re kind of pitiful.

But tops on my list, without a doubt, is the big hotdog for a buck fifty plus a drink, which all comes to $1.66 including tax. Such a deal.

I love the dog because it is kosher style which means it reminds me of my childhood in Brooklyn, the same taste, the same smell. I am 12 years old again. And the Costco dog is big, a full meal and the bun is top quality.

Historical fact: the Costco dog used to be kosher for real – Hebrew National made the dogs for Costco 1984-2009, but costs ran high and Costco took over production itself. Fair enough. I still love the taste and I love the fact that on Sunday (yesterday) I noticed Costco recently had included deli mustard among its condiments. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this was new. Think Gulden’s spicy brown mustard and you’re cruising the Brooklyn streets with me listening to Frankie Lymon singing ‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love.’

I have one suggestion. Costco needs to provide sauerkraut. Any hotdog-loving New Yorker knows kraut is the piece de resistance on a superb kosher-style dog. It provides the crunch a dog needs and the sourness to cut through the fat. It completes the experience. Be still my heart.

So, whoever runs Costco, please put out kraut on the condiments table. If that doesn’t happen, I’ve been thinking of providing my own kraut. I could sneak some into a baggie and hide the baggie in my pocket and when I put the spicy brown on my dog, I could stealthily slip the kraut into the bun when no one is looking. There is a God.

Of course, if I get stopped on my way to Costco and a cop asks me to exit my car and empty my pockets, the cop would find the kraut in the baggie and get suspicious.

“Are those illegal drugs in that baggie, sir?”

“No.”

“Well, it looks funny. What is it?”

“Kraut for my Costco dog.”

Sneering, “You expect me to believe that? What nut brings kraut to Costco, and who in his right mind puts kraut on a dog?” Clearly a Californian who smears ketchup on a kosher dog. Ugh!

“It’s the truth,” I say. “It’s sauerkraut and I’m a law-abiding citizen.”

“Sure,” the cop says, and then I find myself in cuffs on the way to jail for possession of contraband kraut. Costco, please save me.

The mayor’s job is to fill potholes and make sure the five boroughs are safe. I don’t think his job is to create city-owned supermarkets, but that’s a topic for another time. And, yes, Mamdani is allowed to express distaste for Netanyahu. Every joker is entitled to an opinion. But to arrest the Israeli Prime Minister because some international criminal court we are not even part of issued a warrant for his arrest. Come on.

Mamdani doesn’t like Jews. I really believe this. You can say his issue is only with Israeli policies. I say he doesn’t like Jews and I can’t imagine my father, a lifelong Democrat, would have voted for this guy. My dad would have noticed Mamdani’s moral outrage is limited and specific. Mamdani would love to arrest the Israeli Prime Minister, but what if Putin comes to New York? Would Mamdani whine and moan about him, and threaten to arrest this guy who invaded Ukraine?

Would Mamdani want to arrest China’s Xi Jinping, certainly a war criminal who put at least a million Uyghurs in concentration camps? Talk about a genocide.

The answer is no and no. Mamdani, this son-of-privilege Dime-Store communist, goes after one little country, the only democracy in the Middle East, because he hates Jews.

Trump, for all his colossal faults and colossal ego, made Mamdani back off on his stupid threat to Netanyahu, kind of humiliated the guy. For that I am grateful. Sue me.

On Wednesday night, a group of us took an Uber from Oakland to a San Francisco restaurant to celebrate a friend’s birthday. We drank a lot of good wine and got delightfully buzzed. I don’t get buzzed much anymore and it felt great.

Sitting across the restaurant were three women in their early-to-mid thirties. They were sufficiently far away so they could not hear us. Somehow our group found ourselves discussing, in whispers, what percentage of those three women shave down below – you know where.

“One hundred percent of them,” said a woman in our group.

“No shit?” I said, surprised that my friend thought, to use a baseball term, the three women were batting a thousand.

“It’s cultural,” she said, “and shaving the (insert whatever word you choose here) is in these days. Fashions come and go.”

I sat there quiet. I never actually thought about this stuff and the alleged percentage took me aback.

My woman friend laughed. “Men do it too,” she said. “Haven’t you ever heard of a Manzilian?”

A Manzilian?

She said it was a Brazilian for men. I said I never heard of a Brazilian let alone a Manzilian. Today I looked up those, for me, new words.

To quote: “A Brazilian wax is a hair removal treatment that completely removes pubic hair from the front, labia, perineum and buttocks.”

I could picture that as it applies to women.

A Manzilian, or a male Brazilian, on the other hand, “is the complete removal of all pubic hair – including the base of the penis, the scrotum, the perineum and the buttocks. It takes 15 to 30 minutes, costs between $50 and $80, and typically lasts 4 to 6 weeks.”

Well, I’ll be. And you thought my dinners out aren’t educational.

Take what just happened. I mean tonight. Willy Adames, overpaid and not very good, hit a two-run homer in the top of the ninth to tie the game 3-3 with the Royals, a rare team with a worse record than the Giants. For a brief moment – call it a blip – Adames was a hero. I knew it couldn’t last and, boy, was I right.

With a Royals runner on first in the bottom of the ninth, the batter bunted and Giants catcher Daniel Susac threw to second for the force on the runner coming from first. The throw to Adames was on the money and the Giants certainly had the force play at second except – blow the trumpets here – Adames forgot to step on the bag. I mean he forgot to step on the base. He stood in front of the base like a spectator, like a fan who wandered in from the stands eating a hot dog, while the runner ran safely to second.

OK, now the Royals got a runner to third with one out. I’m thinking, of course, the Giants will lose a walk-off with a sac fly. I mean a loss was guaranteed, but silly me. It was even more scintillating than your standard sac fly. Batter bunts down the first base line to Eldridge who needs to throw home to get the lead runner but, you guessed it, he can’t handle the bunt. Winning run scores. And, yes, I know it wasn’t ruled an error on Eldridge but a good first baseman makes the play.

So, that’s two horrendous plays in the bottom of the 9^th, quintessential Giants, getting beat by two bunts. And remember they got rid of Bob Melvin because they said he didn’t have the team playing fundamental ball. Well, you call what’s happening now fundamental ball? I call it fundamental comedy.

I always took it for granted I understood that line, but did I really? I think Billy means if you are “good,” a pejorative in this song especially for Catholic girls, you will miss out on the fun of life. You may die at an old age, but you will be young in experience and will have wasted your time on Earth.

Does my analysis satisfy you, or do you have a different interpretation? Please help me out here.

For additional (brownie) points, can you see a similarity between Billy’ song and “To His Coy Mistress,” by Andrew Marvell, a poem published in 1681?

Had we but world enough and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the flood,

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires and more slow;

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart.

For, lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found;

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try

That long-preserved virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust;

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Through the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

I’ve been eager to mention a very good column about Tony Vitello by my friend and former colleague Bruce Jenkins. In it, Bruce says Vitello deserves another season as Giants manager and Bruce also says it will be fair to give Vitello another season. I’m going to quibble a little here so, Bruce, don’t be sore at me. You know how much I respect you.

Vitello doesn’t actually deserve another chance. I don’t know what he deserves. If I were grading him, I’d give an incomplete. Giants pitching is so disastrously bad I can’t really judge Vitello’s work. He may be good, bad, mediocre, but it’s impossible to tell. If the Giants fire him at the end of the season, well, life is tough.

I agree with the second way Bruce explains Vitello. It would be fair to give him another chance. Yes, it would. Because he was given such crummy pitching – really bad – it would be fair to see him work with better tools. Fairness is good.

We OK, Bruce?

But I want to move on to Buster Posey, someone we absolutely can judge. It was Posey who hired Vitello, a Major-League novice. It was Posey who gave ridiculous, expensive long-term contracts to Willy Adames, Rafael Devers and Matt Chapman. I mean, why is Chapman even on the team?

Get a load of these contracts:

Adames, a no-trade, 7-year contract for $182 million.

Chapman, a no-trade, 6-year deal for $151 million.

Devers, a 10-year contract totaling $313.5 million.

You want to throw up.

If Posey wants to emphasize youth going forward, actually develop young players, he is stuck with the three over-priced guys who will be old by the time the young guys develop in two or three years – Adames is 30, Devers 29, Chapman 33. Posey has created a roster that works against itself.

He was a great player, but he is a crummy executive who never deserved his new job in the first place. The issue is surely not Vitello. It is Posey. Does he deserve another chance? I wouldn’t give him one.

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that states can ban transgender women and girls from playing on female sports teams, a bitterly fought issue that has been a political and cultural flashpoint.

I agree with the Supreme Court. I believe that in general men have major physical advantages over women in sports.

I disagree with trans groups who say people born as men have a right to compete against women if they consider themselves women, and/or if they take hormones. As far as I know there is no right that says men can compete against women. If there is, please show me the right. Where is it written?

Rights are generally things the government cannot take away from you like freedom of speech. Rights, as I understand them, are not something the government gives you like the so-called right of men to compete vs. women.

My heart goes out to men who believe they are women and want to compete against women, but I don’t think men competing against women or girls is fair to women and girls. Fairness matters and I want athletic competition to be fair.

Some people say there aren’t that many trans athletes, so what’s the big deal. I say that argument doesn’t hold. One girl or woman losing to a trans man is too much. And I’m not even getting into safety issues in games like volleyball or basketball.

Some people say it hurts the feelings of trans people when they can’t compete against girls and women. I’m sure it does. But what about the feelings of the girls and women who lose to people born as men? I think the feelings of girls and women matter as much as the feelings of trans people.

If trans people – people assigned male at birth – want to compete let them compete against men. No one is stopping them. I know this seems hard, but life is hard. Competition is hard. Sometimes fairness also is hard.

Let me start by saying if I were a Giants player I would have worn the cap. I would have been proud to support my LGBTQ+ friends, and I would have understood the culture in the Bay Area is one of tolerance of all lifestyles and points of view. So that’s where I stand.

But I would NOT have been angry with my teammates who wrote Bible verses on their caps or wore the regular cap. I would have tried to understand them, and I would have respected them, and I would have supported them.

I part company with people who demonize the objecting players. Pride is all about tolerance, about respecting others’ point of view and lifestyles. But the LGBTQ+ community is not being tolerant of players who have sincere – I believe incorrect – objections to gayness etc. The LGBTQ+ community is saying, “We are tolerant of your point of view as long as you agree with us, and if you don’t, we will make your life hell.”

Tolerance?

I would add the objecting players didn’t ask for this problem. The team imposed it on them that night. They were the victims in this scenario, not the LGBTQ+ community. As a matter of free speech, the players were asked to endorse a symbol of a movement they don’t believe in. The whole thing seems authoritarian.

It took guts for the players to go against the tide of a team and an entire region of the country. I don’t agree with their position, but I support their right to protest silently and like gentlemen.

Many people who watched my discussion about Aiyuk on the podcast The Cohn Zohn with my son Grant absolutely hate Aiyuk. One said he should rot in hell. Speaking of unhinged, that’s pretty harsh language.

Why do people hate Aiyuk? Because he quit on his team. Because he said bad things about 49ers ownership. Because he wore red shorts on black-shorts day. Because the 49ers don’t like him.

All of those reasons are valid for the 49ers not keeping Aiyuk on their team. I get that. I endorse not keeping him on the team. But the 49ers should release him, let him get on with his career and his life. In fact, a report appeared today saying the 49ers will release him before training camp. I hope that is correct.

If the 49ers don’t release Aiyuk, they can ruin his career for years to come because he is under contract to them through 2028. They can make him a non-player and a non-person. If they do that, I am afraid of the consequences. I worry for Aiyuk, worry that he may do something stupid to hurt himself or someone else. If this worrying makes me a pitiful jerk, OK I’m a pitiful jerk.

The 49ers should release Aiyuk to show they are good people, not vengeful people. They should release Aiyuk so he can sign with another team. They should release him because they already have won.

I repeat – they already have won.

How have they won?

Aiyuk gave up the guaranteed money he would earn in 2026, gave up 26 million dollars. That is 26 million the 49ers never will pay him. I call that winning, and I wonder why Aiyuk gave it up without a fight. I’ve always thought there are two sides to a story, and I wonder what Aiyuk’s side is, why he surrendered the dough.

Every fair- minded person would agree the 49ers won this sad little war. Let the victors be kind to the vanquished. Set him free.

And that got me to thinking about a circumstance I’ve never written about. When I was a sophomore at Lafayette, I had a girlfriend named Barbara – we’re still dear friends. Some weekends I would hitchhike to Philadelphia where she lived and spend the weekend with her and her family. One Saturday I was standing by the road with my finger out when a van pulled over – screeched over is more like it. A side door flew open and someone said, get in. I got in.

There was the driver, one guy in the passenger seat and one in the back with me. We had barely got back on the road when the guy in back whipped a knife out of his pocket and shoved the blade against my throat. I figured I had been picked up by the wrong guys. I saw myself dying and heard my parents at my funeral saying, “Who told him it was OK to hitch rides in Pennsylvania?”

The knife man held the blade at my throat and asked what the hell I thought I was doing. I said I wanted to see my girlfriend. The knife guy announced to the others, he wants to see his girlfriend, and they laughed hysterically. I wondered what my chances were of ever seeing my girlfriend.

I started shaking. I mean really shaking. The knife guy said, hey this kid is scared. He don’t know we’re just fooling.

Just fooling? You could have fooled me.

They pulled over the van and they got out, and all took a leak. I wanted to get out and run away but there were three of them. When they got back in, they were normal. I mean totally normal. They said they had been drinking beer all morning, but they’d stopped just before they picked me up and now that they’d pissed, they felt all right. Well, all right. They asked if I attended Lafayette. I wanted to lie but I thought it was kind of obvious, so I said yes, I attend Lafayette. They said I didn’t seem stuck up like the other scumbags at the college on the hill. These obviously were townies. They told me they were brothers. I will call them the Byrd Brothers, although I’m making up that name in case they’re still around and have the knife.

They said guess what we’re doing today. I said I had no idea what they were doing. They said they drive to Philly every Saturday, steal a car, drive it back to Easton, Pa where Lafayette is located, break it down for parts and sell the parts on the black market. They wanted to know if I thought they were enterprising. I said they were the height of enterprising and what’s more they epitomized the American can-do spirit. That made them happy.

They wanted to know if I was in a fraternity. I told them I was. They wanted to know which one. I told them – I felt like an informer, but I was scared shitless. They said I should invite them to our next frat party or there’d be trouble for me. They laughed again. I promised I would invite them, although I didn’t think my fraternity brothers would welcome the Byrd Brothers, especially after the three of them held everyone up, stole their wallets and their cars. I never told the Byrds about our next party.

When we got to Philly, one of them said, we had a good time, didn’t we? I said we had a great time. They offered to drop me off at my girlfriend’s house, but I said that would be out of their way. It really wasn’t but I didn’t want the Byrds ripping off my girlfriend’s father’s Chrysler for parts, so they dropped me off at a shopping center and Barbara picked me up.

So, here’s what I want to know. Was the escapade with the Byrds part of my Lafayette learning experience or was I merely just a young schmuck?

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens

That’s the entire poem, a real short one that’s just one sentence. Here’s my question: What depends? Or to put it another way, if we take out the words “so much depends upon,” does the poem have the same power? I encourage your feedback as I’ve been thinking about this poem for more than 60 years and never quite understand it.

My first year at Lafayette College in 1962, I took Introduction to Logic with Dr. Clark, head of the philosophy department. He was a no-nonsense guy. If you arrived to class one second late, he marked you absent, did it with a smile. After a while, everyone was on time. Dr. Clark introduced us freshmen to the idea of ad hominem arguments – this is attacking the person you are debating instead of discussing his ideas. He said ad hominem is a guaranteed loser and shows you are unable to compete.

I apply this rule to Kelly. She got into a beef about foreign policy with Levin and went on her podcast and said he has a micropenis. Dr. Clark would have lectured her about ad hominem. I guess she meant Levin is insecure. I guess she meant he’s insecure because he has a small dick. Gee.

First off, how would she know about the size of his penis? Did she follow him into the men’s room with a ruler? I doubt it. Second off, what does the size of Levin’s member have to do with foreign policy? Zilch.

Kelly temporarily lost her mind when she pulled out the penis card. I no longer watch her. I don’t like people who punch below the belt.

Let’s talk about journalistic standards which the Times used to have. I sure hope the paper still has them. But, get this. Kristof interviewed 14 people for his article. That’s not a lot of people. And 12 of them were anonymous sources. Who in the world were these people and can we believe them? From what I read – and I read a lot – some of his sources have Hamas ties, even one of the so-called human rights organizations Kristof cited. Hmm.

Then there’s the issue of dogs penetrating prisoners in the anus. Kristof’s sources say this routinely happens, but according to testimony from experts I read this is highly unlikely when you account for the physiology of dogs and people.

I grew up reading the New York Times. In my family it was the Bible, the writing, the reporting, the intelligence. When I left the SF Chronicle for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, the PD was owned by the Times, and the Times treated me beautifully. They sent a big-deal editor to Santa Rosa to welcome me to the family, and when I covered a story in New York, the Times put me up at a private club and gave me a desk in the Times building. So, I used to love the Times.

It came to prominence after a Jew, Adolph Ochs, acquired it – did you know that? But his descendants, the Sulzberger family which owns it is not Jewish anymore, and the Sulzberger who runs it now seems to have what we would have called in Brooklyn a hard-on for Israel. I read the paper online and almost every day I open the tab I find an article implying Israel sucks. OK, I can live with that, although Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, is daily fighting for its life while surrounded by enemies and is a fierce ally of the United States.

A lot of Americans – often college students -- who think Israel sucks also think the U.S. sucks. What a world.

Here’s something you may not know. Kristof’s article preempted by one day an official Israeli report about what happened on October 7, Hamas’ rapes including cutting off women’s breasts, Hamas’ killing of babies, Hamas terrorists laughing about stuff like that and even filming themselves in the act. As opposed to Kristof’s 14 sources, Israel interviewed more than 430 people for its report and saw 10,000 photos and videos. It seems to me Kristof and the Times were trying to weaken the Israeli report by portraying Israel as just as bad as Hamas. The timing is so suspect.

Which leaves me in a bad position – not that I matter in this discussion. It’s just that the Times is part of my life, one of my last ties to where I grew up and to my happy childhood. But I don’t like it anymore. I don’t trust it. I have cancelled my online subscription out of pure anger – out of wanting to say, “Fuck you, New York Times.” But my subscription is good until early June – I prepaid. If I cancel my cancellation, I’ll feel like a sellout. If I go ahead with my cancellation, I’ll feel – what is the word I’m looking for – free.

Coda: Earlier in this piece I wrote the Times has crummy columnists. And how. Consider Michelle Goldberg and Thomas Friedman. Well, Goldberg, because of her atrocious prose style and limited ability to think, is irrelevant. But Friedman is a serious writer. Except that when it comes to the Iran War, he said he’s “torn.” What did he mean by torn?

He said he wants Iran defeated but he doesn’t want two people he disapproves of, Trump and Netanyahu, to be strengthened. Friedman is freaking torn? There’s no torn. Iran can’t have a nuclear bomb or continue to louse up Israel and the Middle East no matter who accomplishes that. I consider Thomas Friedman a sellout Jew.

Then we looked beyond the regular season. At 10-7 or 11-6 we see the 49ers squeaking into the playoffs and perhaps winning their first game but then being eliminated. Same scenario as last season, which was a pretty good season but not a hell of a season.

If next season turns out this way – and we didn’t even factor in injuries – what would we do with John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan? That’s if we owned the team. Of course, we don’t own it or want to own it. This was just pretend.

We agreed we would let Lynch go. If the 49ers get eliminated early in the playoffs, we’d say he’s had his run, not a bad run, but he has gotten the team as far as he can. The team would need a new general manager more steeped in personnel, someone who doesn’t appear to be a mouthpiece for the head coach. We would bring in a new GM who would have more power than coach Kyle Shanahan and would be in charge of the draft and free agency and constructing the roster.

If Kyle doesn’t like that he can leave. Grant and I agreed we might give Kyle one season with a new GM to see how that works out. Or we might not. I feel sure Eddie D would have fired Kyle a long time ago, certainly after he appeared not to know the overtime rules in the Super Bowl. Eddie cut ties with George Seifert who won two Super Bowls and as we all know Kyle has won no Super Bowls and won’t win one in the upcoming season.

This all comes down to Jed York and his parents. Do they burn to win the Super Bowl? Do they have the passion Eddie had and has? Or are they content to be almost good enough, almost special, almost champs? The Yorks’ tenure has been about the eternal almost.