Todd, Dean and Joe

Now that he’s agreed on a new contract with the Reds Todd Frazier can concentrate on more important things, like coming up with the right Valentine’s gift for his wife Jackie.

Toms River’s favorite baseball player on Sunday avoided an arbitration hearing by agreeing on a two-year $12 million contract with Cincinnati, .a deal that will pay him $4.5 million this season and $7.5 million in 2016. Frazier, who turns 29 on Thursday, is coming off his best season which earned him a trip to the All-Star game and saw him finish runner-up in the Home Run Derby. The Toms River South grad batted .273 with 29 homers and 80 RBI’s and played a terrific third base for the Reds. Todd and the rest of his Reds teammates begin full workouts in Goodyear, Arizona in two weeks.

Many coaches have an impact on their players when it comes to the court or field but the true measure of a great coach is the impact they have away from the action.
If you heard or have read any of what his former basketball players at North Carolina have said about Dean Smith then you know he’s someone that can’t be measured by just wins and losses.

Smith died over the weekend at the age of 83 and his greatness goes beyond two National Championships,11 trips to the Final Four and 879 career wins which was a record when he retired in 1997. How about 97% of his lettermen received their degrees, he help champion the cause of African-Americans and women and left a lasting impression on just about everyone he came in contact with from Michael Jordan to Monmouth University coach King Rice.

I was saddened to learn this morning of the passing of Joe Merry at the age of 74. Joe actually started out as a news and sports reporter at WOBM and broadcast football games with Bob Levy around 1970. I first met Joe a few years later when he was broadcasting football for what was then National Video Systems which was the cable TV outlet that covered Seaside Heights and other parts of the barrier island.

I was a teenager interested in broadcasting and ended up doing color commentary with Joe as the play-by-play voice. He could not have been nicer to a young kid who didn’t know much and we stayed in contact over the years. His obituary in today’s Asbury Park Press includes the following….he was a good-natured, honest, likeable man. I couldn’t agree more.