COHEN'S CORNER SPORTS

Led by an impressive showing from quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis, Rutgers found a way to hold off Ohio 34-31 in the season opener at SHI Stadium, Thursday in Piscataway.  A game that featured a combined 863 total yards and 48 first downs between the two teams, served as a showcase for a Rutgers offense that appears to be more "air-friendly" as compared to the past few years when the Scarlet Knights pounded the rock with the likes of Kyle Monangai and Isiah Pacheco.  "He's a winner," Head Coach Greg Schiano said of Kaliakmanis when describing his quarterback's conversion on a game-icing fourth and seven in the final minutes of the game. "I think his growth and development keeps showing."  "I am very encouraged about our offense, wide receivers, running backs, offensive line. There is depth there."  Drew Miller (7) celebrates his blocked punt TD. Michael Cohen  Rutgers spent much of the night with its offense in the shotgun formation, and Ka...

While the 2025 season is hitting the stretch drive,  Major League Baseball quickly gave fans a glimpse at 2026 as the league wide schedule finally dropped on Tuesday afternoon.    The Yankees will open the season on March 25 against the San Francisco Giants in the Bay Area. It will be the earliest regular season game on U.S. soil ever! Of course MLB has opened even earlier, including this year, when games were played internationally in Japan or Australia.  That won't be the case here.  Of course there is lot to like about a Giants-Yankees match-up to kick things off. 1) It's Aaron Judge's return to his home city; 2) Two flagship franchises that once played across the East River from each other with the Giants, formally at the Polo Grounds, and the Yankees, of course, in the Bronx.  Should be a fun one.  The rest of the league opens up the next day on March 26. The Mets will host the Pittsburgh Pirates that day.  The Yankees and Mets will have six ...

 The Tommy DeVito era is over with the New York Giants.  Big Blue was never going to keep four quarterbacks on its roster, and at the end of the day waived DeVito in a series of cuts as teams trim down rosters to the standard 53.  DeVito became a popular figure both on the team and among the fan-base when he lit a charge into the team a couple of years ago, winning games, and bringing some needed energy to the offense during the doldrums of the 2023 season.   Here was the local kid from New Jersey, who went from unknown third stringer to Italian-American superstar overnight.  From his family that felt like it was out of central casting, to his dapper agent, to the pinched fingers gesture, DeVito became a cultural figure.   What's next ?  DeVito could wind up on the Giants practice squad if he clears waivers. But there will be teams that could use him. One of them is in this town: the New York Jets.  The Jets (as usual) have issues at quarterback. ...

One-time top Yankees prospect Anthony Volpe sat again, as the Yankees beat up the Washington Nationals 10-5 on Monday night.  Volpe has spend the last two games on the bench as he mulls things over after leading the league in errors (17), coupled with his lack of production has made him the symbol of Yankees' fans angst.  Even with his benching, Aaron Boone remains stead fast in returning to the struggling infielder rather than play veteran Jose Caballero at short stop.  The Athletic reports the Yankees have no idea why Volpe is struggling. That is a huge indictment of the organization if it has no clue what is wrong with, and how to fix the guy who was positioned as the "next Derek Jeter" since he was in the Yankees farm system in 2021 and 2022.  Sure Volpe has 18 homers and a career best 65 RBI, the man is hitting .208 and looks lost at the plate. That and he is an automatic error at shortstop. We haven't see that since the days Chuck Knobloch was throwing baseba...

 Are the Mets figuring it out?  The Amazin's blew the doors off the Philadelphia Phillies 13-3 on Monday night to move to within six games of first place. More importantly, a loss by the Cincinnati Reds on Monday night, helped the Mets increase their lead for the last wild card to 2.5 games.  With 31 games to go, could the Mets finally be figuring it out?   They are offensively at the very least. In three of their last four games the Mets have scored 12, 9, and 13 runs respectively against the Braves and Phillies. They are 3-1 in those games.  Mark Vientos is sizzling at the dish. He's riding an eight game hitting streak heading into Tuesday with five homers and 13 RBI during that span.  The Mets have been waiting patiently all year for Vientos to turn it on, and he has finally figured out, resembling the hitter that was the Mets most lethal batter in the postseason last year.  Starling Marte, is another one, who finally healthy, is red hot right ...

 Leave it to baseball fans to jump the shark, if you will, and make wild assumptions online all while acting like whatever Rob Manfred was trying to say on Sunday Night Baseball when posed with the question of expansion and realignment, is the absolute end of the world.  Yankees and Mets in the same division? No?   Here is what Manfred said : "I can see that. The first two topics (expansion and realignment), "I think if we expand, it provides us with an opportunity to geographically realign," Manfred said. "I think we could save a lot of wear and tear on our players in terms of travel. And I think our postseason format would be even more appealing for entities like ESPN, because you'd be playing out of the east and out of the west."  Here is what most fans and pundits acted like Manfred said, (and we are making this up based on the reaction): "We are going to realign the divisions so the Mets and Yankees are the same division with the Phillies...

 The suddenly red-hot Yankees spanked the Tampa Bay Rays out at Steinbrenner Field, Tuesday night, to the tune of 13-3, as New York got back to flexing it's power with nine home runs, tying a club record.  The last time the Yankees offense was this potent was on March 29 when they corked nine bombs in a 20-9 beatdown of the Milwaukee Brewers that sent baseball fans into a tizzy over the use of the turbo bats.  Remember those days!?  Cody Bellinger and Giancarlo Stanton each launched a pair of home runs in the win, and Aaron Judge cracked his 40th moonshot of the year. All three players contributed to hit back-to-back-to-back home runs for the Bombers in the first inning to take a 3-0 lead.  Jazz Chisholm and Ben Rice also went deep for the Bombers. Even newly acquired Jose Caballero hit a solo shot in the ninth to cap off the scoring against his former team.  Since joining the Yankees at the deadline, Caballero is hitting .364 in 11 games with two homers an...

 Things have not exactly gone the Mets way of late.  Prior to winning two-of-three over the weekend against the Seattle Mariners, the Mets had lost 14 of 16 games, putting them in a huge hole in the NL East, and watching their status in the wild card plummet to the last spot in the postseason.  And low and behold the Mets sit with only a one-game lead over the Cincinnati Reds, who are tied in the win column with New York entering play on Tuesday.  The Mets will play the next 13 games in the division, and they could use every win they could get to fend off the surging Reds.  The Mets enter the week where their starting pitchers have failed to give them the required length they have been looking for, while the bullpen has been heavily taxed.  Check out our weekly vlog! 

 The 2025-26 NBA Schedule has been trickling out slowly over the past several weeks, and now, finally, we get the full release.  The New York Knicks with new Head Coach Mike Brown leading the way, will open the season against the Cleveland Cavaliers on October 22. The game will broadcast nationally on ESPN. It will be a reunion of sorts for Brown, who served as Cavs head coach for two stints from 2005-2010, and again during the 2013-14 season.  The Knicks will also face the Cavs again on Christmas Day at 12 noon.   A couple days after the opener, the Knicks will welcome the Jayson Tatum-less Boston Celtics into the Garden on October 24, in the first battle between the two rivals since the Knicks knocked out the Celtics in seven games of the Eastern Conference Semifinals.  The Knicks first match-up with the Indiana Pacers, in a rematch of last spring's Eastern Conference Finals will be December 18.  The Lakers come to the Garden on February 2.  Th...

 Pete Alonso etched his name into the history books when he broke the long-standing New York Mets home run record held by Darryl Strawberry for the past 35 year, when he cracked home run number 253 over the right field wall at Citi Field on Tuesday.   It was the first of a barrage of Mets homers on Tuesday in a much needed 13-5 laugher.    When Alonso watched the ball land in the Mets bullpen, a grin creaped across his face, then pumped his fist in the air as finally made the long-standing record all his own. Alonso is now the fourth active player to lead a franchise in home runs, the others being Mike Trout with the Angels, Manny Machado with the Padres, and Giancarlo Stanton, when he was a member of the Marlins.  "I love this city. I love this fanbase." Alonso said in post-game.  "Congratulations on breaking the home run record," Darryl Strawberry said i n a recorded video posted to X last night.  "It's well deserved. You are a home grown player...

 If things couldn't get any worse for the New York Mets, well it did on Sunday.  The Mets jumped out to a 5-0 lead. Cedric Mullins had his first home run in a Mets uniform. And then Sean Manaea and the Mets bullpen blew it big time!    The Brewers stromed back to tie the game at six on a Joey Ortiz single in the eighth inning. Then an inning later, Issac Collins won it for Milwuakee with a walk-off solo blast off Edwin Diaz to send the Brewers to a thrilling 7-6 victory.  As for the Mets their skid hit seven games with the defeat.  Their lead over the Reds in the NL Wild Card race shrunk to 1.5 games, and with a daunting schedule coming up with games against the Braves and Seattle Mariners upcoming, things are not going to get any easier.    The Mets simply aren't hitting well enough in situational baseball, and the starting rotation is failing consistently to get out of the fourth inning. On Sunday, Manaea only gave the Mets four innings before h...

 The New York Jets took their first steps with new head coach Aaron Glenn and new quarterback Justin Fields leading the way. And the results weren't bad at all in a 30-10 victory over the Green Bay Packers.  Fields engineered a scoring drive on his only possession of the game, and Glenn's defense was ferocious all night, although New York was flagged for 10 penalties that irked coach.   The Jets play the Giants on Saturday at MetLife. 

 Is it possible that the Mets and Yankees could both miss the playoffs this year? It sounds inconceivable! And if you posed such an idea even a week ago, hell, a month ago, it would be downright blasphemy.  But with the way things are going right now? The Mets have lost seven of their last eight games. They threw away a game that was within their grasp as the Cleveland Guardians came away victorious 7-6 in ten innings on Monday. Then on Tuesday the Guardians shut down the Mets offense as New York managed only four hits in a 3-2 loss to Cleveland on Tuesday.  Meanwhile the Yankees can't stop a nosebleed. The Yanks beleaguered bullpen coughed up a 5-4 lead on Monday only to see Joc Pederson and Josh Jung win it for Texas with home runs in the ninth and tenth innings respectively.  Then on Tuesday, the Yankees got Aaron Judge back and couldn't hit the ball. Rangers won 2-0 with both runs coming in on a bases loaded knock off Devin Williams in the eighth. Make that fiv...

 Brian Cashman would not be deterred from improving his struggling New York Yankees baseball team, as he went all in on improving a beleaguered bullpen and bench. In the hours before the 6 p.m. MLB Trade Deadline on Thursday the Yankees made a flurry of moves that left baseball insiders heads spinning, and a critical fanbase, actually delighted. Brian Cashman wheeled and dealed at the 2025 deadline. Getty Images The biggest move came in the seventh inning of a game against the Tampa Bay Rays when New York acquired Rays short stop Jose Caballero in exchange for Everson Pereira and a player to be named later. How often is it that a player gets to move from one dugout to the next literary? The Yanks wanted Caballero for his defense more than his bat (.226, 2 HR and 27 RBI). He's made only three errors all year at short. Considering Anthony Volpe's struggles at the position this year with a League leading 16 errors, the Yankees needed help here. With Ryan McMahon and Ame...

The New York Mets were another winner on Trade Deadline day after they acquired the outfield bat they desperately needed in Baltimore Orioles center fielder Cedric Mullins. Mullins, who is a free agent this coming off-season is known as a defensive wiz in the outfield, delivering numerous web-gems in his time in Baltimore's hitter friendly Camden Yards. Offensively, while he has struggled with a .229 batting average, he brings some pop and speed to a lineup that could also use another jolt. CEdric Mullins - Getty Images  This season Mullins has 15 homers and 49 RBI, and 14 stolen bases. While he won't reach the level of production he had during his All-Star season in 2021. He is still on pace to drive in close to 75 runs, hit 20-plus homers and finish with 20-plus steals. Moreover, the Mets didn't have to give up too much to get him, giving away three minor league relievers including the number 14 and number 30 prospects in the Amazin's farm system. Moreo...