The Jimmy Awards

My last post was for Festivus in the year 2020 so it was pretty negative.  I’ll end the year with something positive.  Today I listened to Dave Dameshek’s annual Sheky Awards.  So I’m stealing the idea and giving out the First Annual Jimmy Awards.  Most of his awards fall under the umbrellas of sports, food, and entertainment so that’s pretty much what I’ll be doing, but I’m not using the same categories that he used for the most part.  Before I get to the awards, I have a couple of notes.  We’ll see if this actually becomes an annual thing.  There’s a decent chance that I’ll completely forget about this by next year or I just won’t be motivated to write the post again.  And I definitely don’t like being called Jimmy (my old friend Bill was the only person who I didn’t mind calling me Jimmy and I haven’t seen him in at least 10 years), but my awards can be the Jimmy’s.  Let’s get started.

Best Game Jim Attended This Year- Long Island Nets 111, Maine Red Claws 102 on January 17.  This one wins by default as it’s the only professional or college game I attended in 2020.  I don’t really remember much about it.  Tacko Fall played for the Red Claws.  I thought the Red Claws won, but apparently they didn’t.

Best Trip Jim Went on This Year- March for Life on January 24.  It was definitely a good trip, but it had no competition.  This is the only time I left the state of New York in 2020.  Hopefully these two categories will have more nominees next year.

Candy of the Year- Reese’s Peanut Butter Christmas Trees.  This one is an upset as the Reese’s Easter Eggs are the favorite to win every year.  I didn’t have many of the Christmas Trees, but the ones I had were really good this year.

Vegetable of the Year- The biggest of all the Sheky Awards is Fruit of the Year.  Pretty much the only fruits I eat are bananas, pineapples, mangoes, strawberries, and blueberries so I’m doing Vegetable of the Year.  I’ve probably eaten more vegetables this year than ever before.  The winner is Green Giant’s frozen Tuscan Seasoned Broccoli.  That gets included every time I get groceries delivered from Target.  It’s good stuff.

Snack of the Year- The three big ones for me this year were peanuts, Boar’s Head Everything Bagel Hummus (with carrots, crackers, or pretzels), and Sun Dried Tomato & Basil Wheat Thins.  And the winner is Sun Dried Tomato & Basil Wheat Thins.  They came on really strong at the end of the year.

Ice Cream of the Year- Vanilla came back strong this year.  I have never been a huge fan, but I developed more of an appreciation for it this year.  Of course, vanilla is the ice cream used in cookie dough ice cream, which is a strong contender for Ice Cream of the Year, but it’s not the winner.  The winner is the classic ice cream sandwich, but from Stop and Shop.  I got them one time from Target and they weren’t as good as the ones from Stop and Shop.  And it has to be the classic kind.  Stop and Shop did peppermint ice cream sandwiches for Christmas and they weren’t as good as the classic.

Fast Food of the Year- My fast food consumption was definitely down this year.  I gave it up for Lent and then with the pandemic I didn’t have any fast food until I got Chick-Fil-A delivered on June 23 (delivery apps are helping me with the food categories).  I think Chick-Fil-A might have been the winner from 2017-2019, but that was the only time I’ve had it in the last nine and a half months of the year (I don’t remember if I had it at all before that, but I probably did).  Other places that would have been in the mix for the last few years would have been Shake Shack and Five Guys.  I haven’t had Shake Shack since the pandemic started and I’ve only had Five Guys once.  So the Jimmy goes to Chipotle, which would have won many times before they started having issues in 2015.  I’ve always liked Chipotle, but it’s just the easiest for me to get delivered with their app (I always use their app any time I get Chipotle and apparently I had it six times this year) and they occasionally offer free guacamole so it’s a runaway winner for Fast Food of the Year.

Pizza of the Year- Little Vincent’s cold cheese slice would have won this award in many previous years, but I don’t know if I had it at all this year.  If I didn’t have it between January 1-March 10, I didn’t have it (I might have had it in that time frame, but I don’t remember).  Jimmy’s of Greenlawn’s buffalo chicken slice definitely could have won this in the past and Johnny D’s of Greenlawn’s barbecue chicken slice had a good run for a little while before the quality declined (there’s now a third pizza place in the location that both of those places once occupied).  And Chef’s broccoli cheddar slice is always in the running and it probably had the early lead.  But the Jimmy for Pizza of the Year goes to the buffalo chicken slice from Jimmy’s of Centerport (I miss Jimmy’s of Greenlawn, but Jimmy’s of Centerport is alive and well).  It was one of the things that I had given up for Lent and then by the time Lent was over, the pandemic had hit and Jimmy’s wasn’t on Door Dash or Uber Eats.  But then they added online ordering and delivery to their website (which is better than Door Dash or Uber Eats because they don’t charge any fees) and the buffalo chicken slice from Jimmy’s finished the year very strong to narrowly edge out the broccoli cheddar from Chef’s.  I hope the cold cheese slice from Little Vincent’s gets back into the running in 2021.

Beer of the Year- This is a strange year for Beer of the Year.  Sam Adams Summer Ale would have been a dynasty if I had been doing this for the last decade and a half.  Sam Adams Chocolate Bock might have snuck in to win a couple of times.  But this year, I wouldn’t have had any Summer Ale if not for my friend John.  Last year was a down year for Summer Ale, but I think it was better this year. Sam Adams Octoberfest has had some really good years recently, but I did not have any Sam Adams Octoberfest this fall (I probably had at least one back in January on my birthday, but that’s not enough for it to be considered) or any other varieties of Oktoberfest either.  The pandemic has affected how much beer I drink (definitely less this year than in the past) and how I obtain beer.  I definitely haven’t gone out to buy beer since the pandemic started so that meant I relied on delivery.  There were a couple of websites that I used for delivery where I was able to get an interesting variety of beer, but they won’t do contactless delivery anymore so I’m better off just getting my deliveries through Drizly even if the selection isn’t the greatest because I have much more control over when it will arrive than the other websites I had used earlier in the year.  It’s too bad because I was never able to try the Yuengling Hershey’s Chocolate Porter.  It might not have been good, but there was the potential for greatness.  Anyway, I have two very specific beers that tie for Beer of the Year.  The Jimmy for Beer of the Year goes to the Brooklyn Lager and the Boston Lager I drank after the Dodgers won Game 6 of the World Series.

Restaurant of the Year- I’m not considering fast food here (but no fast food restaurant would have won anyway).  Restaurants that would have been contenders over the last couple of decades would have included Torcellos, Nicky’s, Campania, Dave’s Goldmine Mexican Grill, European Republic, and Canterbury Ales.  Torellos and Canterbury Ales don’t exist anymore and Nicky’s doesn’t do delivery.  So the other three are all contenders, but the winner is a restaurant that I think I only had twice before this year.  And actually, I only ordered from it twice this year, but it’s great for ordering lots of food and saving some for leftovers (one of the orders was right at the beginning of the pandemic when I could only get groceries delivered like every two weeks).  The Jimmy goes to Old Fields Barbecue.  My next order will probably be on my birthday.  It’s really good.

Best TV Show Jim Watched This Year- There are some interesting choices here.  I watched Parks and Recreation and Community for the first time this year.  Seinfeld is always in the running.  The Simpsons and South Park are annual contenders, but I didn’t watch them as much as in the past.  South Park has been hurt in recent years because I watched the new episodes.  This year I only watched the first episode and that definitely didn’t help it.  If I limited South Park to season 4 through the Black Friday Trilogy, it might win.  I think I watched X-Files this year.  I watched at some point recently on Amazon Prime, I think that at least spilled into 2020.  But the winner is The Office.  If I watched as much Seinfeld or Simpsons (seasons 2-8) as I watched the Office, it would be a much tougher decision, but I watched a lot of the Office so it gets the award (it was even able to overcome the fact that I watched seasons 8 and 9, which are terrible and bad until the last few episodes respectively).

Best Movie Jim Watched This Year- I didn’t watch a lot of movies this year, but even if I did, there’s a good chance the winner would still be the same:  The Naked Gun.  It inspired an early pandemic blog post.

Best Player on a Team Jim Likes- We have a newcomer for this one.  It has to be Mookie Betts.  And it was a loaded field.  He beats out Clayton Kershaw (who would have won this award several times), Walker Buehler, Corey Seager (who won the NLCS and World Series MVP Awards), Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Ian Book (the best Notre Dame quarterback since Tony Rice), and Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah.

Jim’s Favorite Athlete of the Year- He might not be the best player on a team that I like anymore, but Clayton Kershaw is still my favorite.  If I did this every year, the last decade would have looked like this:

2010- Paul Pierce (who also would have won in 2008 and 2009)

2011- Clayton Kershaw

2012- Manti Te’o

2013- Clayton Kershaw

2014- Clayton Kershaw

2015- Clayton Kershaw

2016- Clayton Kershaw

2017- Clayton Kershaw

2018- Clayton Kershaw

2019- Clayton Kershaw

If there were any close calls in the last decade, it might have been Justin Tuck in 2011, but his second Super Bowl victory came in February 2012.  Ian Book would have won in 2018 if we had won our playoff game.  John Shuster deserves an honorable mention for 2018.  If it had been a bad year for the Dodgers and Kemba Walker stayed healthy and the Celtics made it to the Finals and won, Kemba Walker probably would have won.

Best Game Jim Watched on YouTube- Starting in April, I pretty much watched an old game on YouTube every day until baseball started in late July.  Many were games that I had never seen before.  There were a lot of classics in there that don’t win the award:  Game 7 of the 1965 World Series, Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, Clayton Kershaw’s Opening Day home run and shutout in 2013, Clayton Kershaw’s no-hitter in 2014, Game 3 of the 2018 World Series, the Miracle on Ice in 1980, the Curling Miracle on Ice in 2018, Isner-Mahut’s 11-hour match from Wimbledon in 2010, Game 5 of the 1976 NBA Finals, Michael Jordan’s 63-point game against the Celtics in the 1986 playoffs (a game that the Celtics won), Game 4 of the 2008 NBA Finals, Game 7 of the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals, the Ice Bowl, the 1981 NFC Championship Game, Super Bowl XXIII, Super Bowl XXV, Super Bowl XXXIV, the Monday Night Miracle, Notre Dame-Miami in 1988, Notre Dame-Penn State in 1992, Notre Dame-Florida State in 1993.  But the Jimmy for Best Game Jim Watched on YouTube is the Sugar Bowl from New Year’s Eve in 1973.  Notre Dame and Alabama were both undefeated and Alabama was ranked number 1.  We beat them 24-23 to win the National Championship (yet Alabama still claims that year as one of their National Championship years).  We dominated the first quarter, but we only led 6-0 after one.  There were six lead changes in the rest of the game (and like I said, it was 24-23, not like 42-38 or something).  And the style of football was so much more interesting.  The different formations and the creativity in the running game really stood out.  Hopefully we’ll beat number 1 ranked Alabama again tomorrow.

Best Game Jim Watched Live This Year- There are two that stand out and it’s a tie.  The winner is not Game 6 of the World Series, which was a very good game for a playoff game and it’s what I had been waiting to see for pretty much as long as I’ve been a sports fan.  Clayton Kershaw was 4-1 with a 2.93 ERA and 0.91 WHIP in the playoffs (and that includes 2-0 with a 2.31 ERA and 0.86 WHIP in the World Series), but it’s not one of his starts.  The best Dodger game of the year was Game 7 of the NLCS (a neutral fan might pick Game 4 of the World Series, but I did not consider that one).  In Game 7, the Braves went up 2-0, but Will Smith drove in two with a single in the third to tie it.  Then the Braves went up 3-2 in the fourth, but Justin Turner created a crazy double play to prevent any further damage.  Mookie Betts took a home run away from Freddie Freeman in the fifth (his third straight game with a great catch).  Then Kiké Hernandez and Cody Bellinger homered in the sixth and seventh to put the Dodgers up 4-3.  Julio Urias pitched three scoreless innings to finish the game and pick up the win.  And that game is tied with Notre Dame-Clemson 1.  Kyren Williams put the Irish out in front with a 65-yard run to start the game.  We led by as many as 13, but Clemson tied it in the third and took the lead in the fourth.  After Dabo Swinney overturned a pass interference call, we punted back to Clemson and they had an opportunity to run out the clock.  But we stopped them and got the ball back with a minute and 48 seconds left and 91 yards to go to tie the game.  Ian Book completed a long pass to Avery Davis and then found Davis again for a touchdown to tie the game.  We went 91 yards on eight plays in a minute and 26 seconds.  Clemson scored quickly in overtime, but Kyren Williams scored two touchdowns and then Clemson needed to score to keep the game going.  We got back to back sacks and Clemson faced third and long and they couldn’t really do anything on their last two plays and we had our biggest win in at least 27 years.  Notre Dame-Clemson 2 was not fun.  I hope there’s a Notre Dame-Clemson 3.  I don’t think we’re going to beat Alabama, but Notre Dame-Clemson 3 would be an appropriate way to end this college football season.  And hopefully that will get the Jimmy for the Best Game Jim Watched in 2021.