This being my first blog entry on our newly-launched New York Post site, allow my to introduce myself. I’m Mark Cannizzaro. I’m the Jets’ beat writer and golf writer who does some occasional columns and helps out with our NCAA Tournament coverage as well as some other occasional fill-in spots.
I’m passionate about all sports, not only the ones I cover, but the ones I’ve followed since I was a 10-sport kid growing up in Connecticut waiting patiently for my father to return home from the train station with the New York Post in hand _ the old-school all-day-deadline Posts with the partial Cubs boxscore stripped along the bottom of the back page.
These are obviously the roots from where I would become the newspaper junkie I am today.
OK, that’s well enough about me for the moment. I want to talk about Curtis Martin for a moment, firstly because Curtis Martin is the classiest and most special professional athlete I’ve ever covered in my 23 years in this business, and secondly because everyone has been asking me about him.
Unfortunately, I have no news to break to you on Martin _ if I did, you’d be reading it in today’s editions of The Post.
Martin has been mysteriously residing on the physically unable to perform list, called PUP.
He’s eligible to come off that list this week, but Jets head coach Eric Mangini _ who is as forthcoming about injured players as the secret service is about the whereabouts of the President’s plans this week _ said on Monday that the Jets will wait until at least after the Jets’ Oct. 29 game in Cleveland before thinking about bringing him back.
This is a plea from me: Bring Martin back. Let us all see him run a few more times. He was taken away too suddenly for any of us to catch our breath and tell him how much we’ve appreciated him.
The problem with Martin has always been that his complete lack of flashiness or self-promotion has left him virtually unnoticed as one of the greatest player ever to play the game. That has left too many of us taking him for granted.
When I saw Curtis return to the locker room from knee surgery last December, I saw a guy with a new-found bounce in his step and never for one second thought I’d seen the last of him as an NFL running back.
Yet, months later, here is his career hanging in the balance with no guarantee that he’ll ever play again.
That’s disturbing. I’d like to see Martin darting in and out of traffic again, gaining the critical rusing yards the Jets have lacked this season.
Most importantly, I’d like the fans who miss Martin right now to have one last chance to let him know how much they’ve appreciated him but forgot to let him know before.
As for me, I’d get the chance to tell Martin how much of a priviledge it’s been for me to cover him for the last nine years.