Too boot, I now doubly despise him for being such a rabid Yankee fan, the Yankees S-U-C-K. And they S-U-C-K because they epitomize a typical New Yorker - you can buy anything - including a World Championship (hardy-har-hah).
Posted on 08/18/2007 8:54:45 AM PDT by hardback
Giuliani said he spent as much time at ground zero as many rescue workers. Where was he really? Much of the time, at baseball games.
By Alex Koppelman
Aug. 18, 2007 | On Friday, a New York Times story examined Rudy Giuliani's schedule in the months after 9/11 to verify his controversial claim that, like rescue workers, he'd spent long hours at ground zero, and so was "in that sense ... one of them." In fact, the Times found, he only spent 29 hours at the terror site between Sept. 17 and Dec. 16.
What was he doing instead? Giuliani's beloved New York Yankees made it to the World Series in 2001. We decided to compare the time he spent on baseball to the time he spent at the ruins of the World Trade Center.
The results were, considering the mayor's long-standing devotion to the Bronx Bombers, unsurprising. By our count, Giuliani spent about 58 hours at Yankees games or flying to them in the 40 days between Sept. 25 and Nov. 4, roughly twice as long as he spent at ground zero in the 60 days between Sept. 17 and Dec. 16. By his own standard, Giuliani was one of the Yankees more than he was one of the rescue workers.
During three postseason playoff series that began Oct. 10, 2001, and ended Nov. 4, 2001, Giuliani attended every one of the team's home games, with the possible exception of the third game of the American League Championship Series, for which Salon could not confirm his attendance. According to Salon's arithmetic, Giuliani spent about 33 hours in stadiums -- this includes two World Series games he watched in Phoenix -- during the Yankees' 2001 postseason run, four hours more than he spent at ground zero. (We do not know if he stayed for every pitch, but famed baseball writer Roger Angell described Giuliani in the the New Yorker as a "devout Yankee fan, a guy who stays on until the end of the game.")
Giuliani also attended the first regular season game the Yankees played in New York after the attacks; that game lasted almost three hours. (We do not know if he was present for any of the Yankees' other seven post-9/11 home games.) And he spent one of the away World Series games in a specially reserved box with his son at the ESPN Zone in Times Square, London's Daily Mail reported. The Daily Mail said he did that, in fact, for every away game of the American League Championship Series and the Yankees' first-round Division Series against the Oakland A's, but Salon could not independently verify that report. (Giuliani watched the first game of the World Series from his City Hall office.)
Then there's the whirlwind tour Giuliani made traveling back and forth to Arizona for games six and seven of the World Series. Granted, he and his now-estranged children were traveling with a small entourage composed of the families of some of 9/11's victims; Major League Baseball had chipped in free tickets, Continental Airlines had donated a charter jet, and hotel rooms were comped as well. Still, once those families were in Arizona, Giuliani -- who had been predicting that game six would bring a Yankees victory and an end to the series -- made an extraordinary effort to ensure that he could attend to his responsibilities in New York and still make it back for game seven.
Giuliani left game six midway through, the Associated Press reported at the time, so that he could make his 12:30 a.m. flight back to New York, where he needed to spend some time discussing the U.S. anthrax attacks, which by then had touched New York's City Hall. The mayor was in Staten Island by 9:30 a.m. to kick off the New York City Marathon. Then it was back to the airport a few hours later, and on to Arizona for game seven. That, in total, meant 22 hours in the air.
But Giuliani's involvement with the team went far beyond a time commitment. He was, in fact, a visible, constant presence at the postseason games and, more than once, a participant in the team's victory celebrations. Dave Johnson, executive sports editor of the Evansville Courier & Press, even wrote a column at the time bemoaning Giuliani's omnipresence and saying, "If I didn't already dislike the New York Yankees, I'd root against them just because of Rudolph Giuliani ... Who anointed Rudy baseball's new Super Fan?" The mayor was pulled on the field after the Yankees clinched both the American League Division Series and Championship Series, and spent time in the clubhouse after those victories as well.
Nor did Giuliani's involvement start as some attempt to boost the city's spirits after the tragedy it experienced. As the Village Voice's Wayne Barrett has previously reported, Giuliani has four Yankees World Series rings from the time he was mayor; by contrast, Barrett reported, no mayor in any other city that's won a championship since 1995 has any Series ring at all. Barrett also reported that Giuliani attended at least 20 of the Yankees regular season games each year he was mayor.
Giuliani also found time during the period studied by the Times to, for example, make a call to slugger Jason Giambi exhorting him to leave the A's and sign with the Yankees. Giambi did, on Dec. 13. A day later, Giuliani introduced Giambi at City Hall, where, according to the Associated Press, Giambi said, "[Giuliani] was going to help me find somewhere to live, so I'm going to take him up on it."
And though the final budget he submitted as mayor called for serious belt-tightening around the city -- cuts as high as 15 percent for most agencies -- in the wake of the attacks and the $40 billion debt New York faced, Giuliani wasn't quite prepared to subject the Yankees or their counterpart Mets to the same penny-pinching. In fact, though nearly everyone expected 9/11 to cause the city to abandon the plans for new stadiums for the teams -- Long Island's Newsday reported that "since Sept. 11, several city officials, including [then-Mayor-elect Michael] Bloomberg, have said the projects were on the back burner because of the city's other pressing needs" -- Giuliani wanted to push forward. The stadiums were projected to have cost $1.6 billion in city, state and private funds.
Giuliani did need a place to play, after all. Though rumors were swirling at the time about what his future held after the end of his final term as mayor, Giuliani was generally unwilling to give specifics. He was willing, however, to jokingly suggest one possibility -- "right field for the Yankees," the Associated Press quoted him as saying while swinging an imaginary bat.
A spokeswoman for Giuliani did not return a voice-mail message left seeking comment
Giuliani is his own worst enemy. Despite his reputation, when either under pressure from the media or replying to criticism, he appears to speak without thinking of the consequences.
Extremely Extreme Extremist should get out of FR threads now and save whatever reputation he has remaining before it becomes completely shredded
Lefties like Alex here just don’t get it. Which did more for the people of NYC? Seeing the Mayor standing around Ground Zero wringing his hands or seeing him at a Yankee’s game showing the Islamoterrorists that we are not going to cower in the face of their murder and tyranny? Worthless article. Just another Clinton-loving, America hater.
Anyone here have an example of a NYT story examining any of Hillary's claims?
Bueller?
Anyone?
I’ll bet dollars to dough-nuts, that Hillary was at some fundraiser.
My guess is that the Fred hit pieces will get the same or more attention than the ones on Rudy because the MSM fear FDT winning just as much.
Rudy, you’ve just been Swift-Boated. Devestating.
“this is another crock of sh!t.....like the hit pieces claiming President Bush has taken move vacation than any other president....I’m glad the NYSlimes runs with garbage like this- it just further proves how pathetic they are.....”
I agree. What’s more bothersome to me is that people are so anti-Rudy that they post all these articles from the NY Times, AP, Salon etc. Talk about eating your own. When I hear people say that if Rudy or Romney wins they aren’t going to vote I just want to bang my head against the wall.
I’m pro life partly because I despise the politics of those who are pro choice. I’m starting to feel the same about those who are so rabidly pro life that they would cut their nose off despite their face and allow Hillary to become president. She will probably nominate at least 2 socialists to the Supreme court! We had 8 years of Bill and people still love him. Wake up! People aren’t going to learn a lesson from a Hillary presidency and become conservatives! Geez!
This is going to be tailor made fodder for opposition candidate TV ads in Iowa and New Hampshire come December.
What a stupid article.
My remembrance of post-9/11 was the intense need to reassure the nation and especially those in NY and DC that life can go on and that it was safe to gather at public events. So, Rudy’s attendance at Yankees games and other public gatherings was part of that plan.
Why would he have spent all his time at the site? He would have been a distraction.
His job was confidence building and marshalling resources for the recovery, not picking up concrete and steel.
I am not a Rudi booster, but he did a good job post 911.
That’s a great point. Rudy was the epitome of optimism after the attacks.
What really hurts Rudy about this is it shows a “public” face and a “private” face. Publicly he’s saying he’s at the clean up site all day. He’s with the brave firemen. But privately he’s living it up with professional athletes. If this is an isolated incident it does nothing, but when you add marital infedelity, family trouble and other questional decisions in his private life, one could come to believe that Rudy has one face in public, and another in private. Somebody could exploit that.
Too boot, I now doubly despise him for being such a rabid Yankee fan, the Yankees S-U-C-K. And they S-U-C-K because they epitomize a typical New Yorker - you can buy anything - including a World Championship (hardy-har-hah).
It will be interesting to see whether Mitt goes after Rootie on this issue later on in the winter, it could make some hay for him just like the “sanctuary city” designation put the favorite on the defensive.
About the Yankees in the last few years, they have been using more their own home grown players and they have been relying less on free agents.
And over the last few months they don "suck". In fact they have the best record.
You're right about not supporting Rudy, though.
It would make quite a contrast. After 9-11, Mitt saves the Winter Olympics, presides over the 9-11 flag brought in to the Stadium, while Rudy hobnobs with baseball players and starlets at Yankee Stadium. Leader vs. Spectator.
That was a great moment in Salt Lake City back in 2002, especially the USA Olympic athletes saying they would not be there to present the official colors if the IOC made them carry any other flag but the WTC banner from Ground Zero.
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