There are about 8 million people in New York City, and something happens to each and every one of them every day. Obviously, this something in most cases is fairly ordinary, but even if only 1% of the city has a newsworthy event happen to them, that's still 80,000 stories. After you cover all the obvious crime and political stories, you still have to pick the lighter pieces, the sports and human interest stories. What's a news director to do?

Big ships are good: the Queen Mary, the QEII, and, of course, Fleet Week, always good for human interest. New Yorkers love to pretend that On the Town isn't just a Fred Astaire movie.

Animals are good: Escaped circus tigers on the freeway, coyotes in Central Park, cats stuck in the walls of restaurants for two weeks, people love this stuff. And animals are not only cute, they don't have to be interviewed.

Home Runs are good: New York is a baseball town, after all. One really long one is good enough, if it's a game winner even better. Two home runs by the same player in one game makes a great teaser. And if someone should happen to hit three home runs, one a walk-off game winner, well, that's just --- what? He doesn't play for the Mets or the Yankees? He doesn't play for a team that was playing against the Mets and Yankees today? He doesn't even play for the Red Sox? Oh, well, stick him on there anyway -- those homers were MONSTERS.

Congratulations to Albert, for getting even local New York sports reporters to pay attention (and on a day when the Mets and Yankees both had plenty of offense of their own, the Nets won, and the Devils were playing the Flyers with playoff/divisional crown implications, no less). I believe it is now time to put up the Cardinal color scheme on this blog.