11/27/2006

Collapse of the Giants

What’s this? An NHL Quiz? Name the 16 who have scored 600
goals (through Nov. 19). Answer below.

Long weekend for the kid (30th high school reunion), so just
some stuff, and in no particular order.

--College Football Review

AP

1. Ohio State 12-0
2. USC 10-1
3. Michigan 11-1
4. Florida 11-1
5. LSU 10-2
6. Louisville 10-1
7. Wisconsin 11-1
8. (t) Oklahoma 10-2
8. (t) Arkansas 10-2
10. Boise State 12-0
13. Rutgers 10-1
16. Wake Forest 10-2

BCS

1. Ohio State – 1.000
2. USC - .9460
3. Michigan - .9216
4. Florida - .8897
5. LSU - .8106

Let’s face it, after USC’s rout of Notre Dame, it’s playing out the
way the vast majority of college football fans should want it, an
Ohio State – USC title game. Yeah, if Florida wins the SEC title
game on Saturday they’ll bitch a bit, but that just gives us
something to talk about and at the end of the day it’s about
supporting your local barman, or wasting time around the water
cooler at work.

Us Wake Forest fans are basically stunned at the success of the
fall sports program, let alone the football team. The men’s
soccer team has advanced to the Final Four in St. Louis this
coming weekend [Wake vs. UC-Santa Barbara; Virginia vs.
UCLA], we were runners-up in the NCAAs for field hockey, and
now we’re one win away from an Orange Bowl berth. Wake’s
football team is the first to go 6-0 on the road in ACC play after
beating Maryland on Saturday.

We also have to acknowledge South Florida’s upset of West
Virginia.

As for my betting selections .you’re now down $750,000.
What can I tell you 13-16-1.

I had Boston College, giving 4 to Miami and Miami won 17-14.

I had Syracuse, taking 14 vs. Rutgers, but Rutgers prevailed
38-7.

And I had Nebraska, giving 14 to Colorado, with the
Cornhuskers winning 37-14.

One last week coming up one last edition of PICKS TO
CLICK!

--Since I mentioned that in my recent trip out west I went
through the town of Chadron, Nebraska, home of Division II
powerhouse Chadron State, I saw where running back Danny
Woodhead ran for 252 yards and four touchdowns in the second
round of the Division II playoffs and became the all-division
single season rushing leader with 2,740 yards (in 12 games thus
far).

--What a pitiful effort on the part of the University of Miami
community following the shooting death of Hurricanes’ lineman
Bryan Pata. According to Robert Andrew Powell of The New
York Times, the reward for information leading to the arrest of
Pata’s killer is just $1,000, “the minimum amount offered in all
homicides.” Miami did pull off a nice win over Boston College
on Thursday, but coach Larry Coker was fired anyway.

And now .the New York Giants

Before we get to Sunday’s debacle, a few words about the
previous week’s effort.

--No way will I defend Tiki Barber after his latest tirade. Yes,
Barber is a great back, but he’s just a flat-out jerk at times and
after carrying the ball 10 times for only 27 yards against
Jacksonville last week, Barber blasted the coaching staff.

“I felt insignificant for the first time this season,” Barber said as
he went on to call it a “cop-out” that the coaches didn’t call more
running plays.

Of course this isn’t the first time the soon-to-be-retired Barber
has acted up. Mike Vaccaro of the New York Post had some
thoughts.

“If Tiki Barber should ever begin to harbor second thoughts in
the coming weeks and months, if he starts to acquire a bad case
of retiree remorse, he should realize that the longer he sticks
around here, and the more often he opens his mouth, the more
people are going to realize that the polished fa ade he likes to
show the public is too often a camouflage for a me-first
clubhouse lawyer

“Whenever things are going for him the way they went for Frank
Merriwell in all of those old Burt L. Standish books, whenever
football life throws him a long chop block, Barber’s reaction is
always the same.

“Blame someone. Blame anyone. But don’t blame me.”

Barber had noted that the game of football isn’t “rocket science”
in decrying the play selection.

Vaccaro:

“Actually, you know what isn’t rocket science? Being a good
teammate. Being a good soldier. That should be the easiest
thing in the world. It should be much easier than being one of
your generation’s greatest running backs, which Barber clearly
is. No one has ever seen to dispute Barber’s wonderful bona
fides as a star athlete .

“But his act has officially worn thin. It started a few years ago,
when Barber sniped at Michael Strahan (another accomplished
locker room litigator) during a protracted contract negotiation. It
first really manifested itself after the Giants lost a terrible game
to the Texans in Houston in November of 2002, lost a 16-14
game, in part, because Matt Bryant hadn’t been able to make a
late field goal.

“ ‘We couldn’t kick a freaking field goal. That was the
problem,’ Barber said that day .

“That, of course, was the warm-up. This was Barber’s famous
valedictory last January, after the Giants got blitzed by the
Panthers in the playoffs:

“ ‘They just had a good scheme. I think in some ways we were
out-coached,’ Barber said that day, when he was, not
surprisingly, limited to all of 41 yards (it seems Barber is never
quite as chatty after he has a good game). ‘Our game plan
wasn’t the right one.’

“Of course Barber backed off that a day later, and only a cynic
would suggest this was at the behest of handlers who want the
public to believe Barber is an infallibly genuine and humble
servant of the people .

“One thing’s for sure: When Tiki doesn’t take kindly to
something, you’ll know. It’ll be ringing in your ears. And
stinging in your back. Where the knife sits.”

But then there was yesterday, when the Giants blew a 21-0 fourth
quarter lead vs. Tennessee.

The New York Daily News’ Tim Smith:

“This was a collapse so massive, so gargantuan, that they don’t
even have a name for it. This meltdown is so corrosive that it
has the ability to eat away at the rest of the season, burn a hole
into those remaining five games on the Giants’ schedule and
leave New York’s playoff hopes in a smoldering heap on the
floor.”

Paul Schwartz / New York Post

“Every awful, dreadful loss; every head-shaking, stomach
turning collapse. Every choke and embarrassment and mind-
numbing defeat no one ever saw coming that suddenly rose up
and sucked the life out of an entire franchise.

“Light some incense and summon up the evil spirits that caused
The Fumble back in 1978 and the historic San Francisco playoff
collapse of 2002. Round up the hit-list of worst moments in
Giants lore and then find room for the atrocity that was
yesterday’s 24-21 loss to the Titans.

“ ‘We’re going to be sick about this one, forever,’ coach Tom
Coughlin said.

Steve Serby / New York Post

“When your reeling quarterback wrecks the game after you bend
over backwards for him not to wreck it, you deserve every bit of
New York’s scorn and derision.

“Eli Manning, a 24-21 loser, could not put the dismembered
Titans away, and in the end, he put the Giants away.

“When you blow a 21-0 fourth quarter lead to the Vince Young
Titans, you have no killer instinct, and you do not deserve to call
yourselves a Super Bowl contender .

“(Manning) was 2-for-7 for 13 yards and two picks in the fourth
quarter.

“This was a collapse of unconscionable, unacceptable
proportions, and The Good Ship Coughlin is sinking at a time
when a man-eating Tuna is once again lurking in the NFC East
waters.

“You can blame Mathias Kiwanuka for giving up a game-
deciding fourth-and-10 sack because he thought Vince Young
threw the ball on the play that ignited the drive that tied the game
with 44 seconds left. You can blame Frank Walker for roughing
Young unnecessarily out of bounds to keep alive the Titans’ first
TD drive. You can blame the battered, ragtag bunch that made
Young feel like he was back again at Texas and needs to be
sitting on the bench behind Coughlin more than it needs to be
disgracing the uniform.

“Blame the quarterback instead.

“Blame the quarterback because he threw the momentum away
and eventually threw the game, and maybe even the Super Bowl
dream, away.”

Ah, the joys of playing in New York, especially when you suck.

--Johnny Mac commented that perhaps Sunday’s effort signals
that Vince Young might become what Michael Vick should
have. For his part, Vick, who rushed for 166 yards but still lost
31-13 to New Orleans, showed he is a real “Jerk of the Year”
candidate when he flipped off Atlanta fans (first with his left,
then with his right) as he walked off the field.

[In his defense, the Falcons have the worst receiving corps in the
history of the game.]

--NFL tidbits. New Orleans QB Drew Brees has thrown for
1,954 yards in his last five games, a new NFL record (though
he’s won only two of them). Matt Leinart broke an NFL mark
for yards by a rookie quarterback, 405, but it too was in a losing
effort. And LaDainian Tomlinson has now scored a record 16
touchdowns in five games.

--Did you see how the Russian cosmonaut shanked his six-iron
from the International Space Station? What a choke job. It turns
out Mikhail Tyurin is a rookie golfer and didn’t take too kindly
to advice from Moscow Mission Control. Now, having shanked
it, he’s bound to take his frustrations out on an unsuspecting
public upon his return to Earth.

--Animal Chat:

From the December 2006 issue of Smithsonian.

“Mammal species rise and fall with a baffling regularity – most
survive about 2.5 million years and then go extinct. Now a study
led by Utrecht University in the Netherlands offers an
explanation: wobbles in Earth’s orbit. The scientists analyzed
the fossil record of rodents from Spain over 22 million years.
Extinctions tended to coincide with either a shift in Earth’s tilt,
which occurs every 1 million years, or an increased roundness of
its orbit, which occurs every 2.5 million years; both cool the
Northern Hemisphere. We are entering a round of orbit phase,
but extinctions implied by this study may not begin for tens of
thousands of years.”

Still time for the Cubs, I guess.

I was reading a sad story from the AP concerning Ethiopia’s
Lion Zoo and I have an increasingly queasy feeling about the
WyoBraska Wildlife Museum I went to when I was out in
Scottsbluff, Nebraska.

In Addis Ababa, the Lion Zoo is sending some rare Ethiopian
lions, famous for their black manes, to the taxidermist.

“There is a shortage of space and a shortage of budget, and when
they are overpopulated, most of the time we send them to
taxidermists,” said a zoo official. The facility costs $6,000 to run
each month and entry fees are less than that. So I just hope I
wasn’t viewing any animals from Ethiopia when I was out at
WyoBraska.

Uh oh from Reuters:

“A fence along India’s disputed border with Pakistan designed to
keep out militants is curbing the movement of wild bears and
leopards which are now wandering into villages and killing
people, officials say .

“More than a dozen people have been killed so far this year by
wild animals and scores more injured.

“At the weekend, a man was dragged from his mud house in
Baramulla district by a leopard as he slept and a woman was
mauled by a black bear in the Kupwara region.”

These folks have to learn to lock their doors.

Actually, India has 8,000 leopards. In fact, according to the
London Times, big cats are making a comeback in some areas,
such as in Serengeti National Park (Tanzania), thanks to anti-
poaching initiatives. Population increases have also been cited in
elephants and black rhinos.

But, lastly, we have the tale of three known mountain lions in the
coastal range of the Santa Monica Mountains, all fitted with
radio collars. A young male gave off a “mortality signal” after it
appeared it hadn’t moved for at least 8 hours and when Seth
Riley went out to investigate, he found the dead cat with its
forelegs chewed and its head bearing puncture wounds. “P1”
had struck again.

“P1, short for Puma 1, is the dominant male mountain lion in the
Santa Monica Mountains and the father of the dead cougar.”

Yikes. Turns out P1 had mated in 2004 with the only other
known big cat in the Santa Monica’s and she bore four kittens.
Since then, P1 has killed his mate and three of the four cubs.

Scientists monitoring the radio collars have actually heard some
of the fighting, but their policy is not to interfere. [Los Angeles
Times]

--Re: “For Better or For Worse,” this trial better wrap up by
Wednesday. For his part, Anthony has aged like 40 years. And
as my brother has noted before, the only thing that could save the
strip would be an incident involving a drunken Eskimo, where
the cop, Paul, becomes the central figure in a Christmas hostage
drama.

--Here’s a real jerk Dartmouth’s athletic director, Josie Harper.
Harper apologized for a hockey tournament that includes North
Dakota’s “Fighting Sioux.”

“I must offer a sincere apology to the Native American
community, and the Dartmouth community as a whole, for an
event that will understandably offend and hurt people within our
community.”

I’ve gotta tell ya, if there is one person that is truly offended,
they need to get a grip.

--Sports Illustrated’s “Sign of the Apocalypse”:

“A man in China has applied for a trademark to market women’s
sanitary pads under the brand name Yao Ming.”

--And this blurb from SI a sign of the times.

“Signed by prized recruit O.J. Mayo, a letter of intent to attend
USC. Mayo, 19, a 6’5” guard is ranked as the top high school
senior in the country.”

Mayo sees the city of Los Angeles as a “great marketing city .
Hopefully, if everything goes well, I can market myself better for
the next level.”

This of course presumes we all give a damn, O.J.

--We note the passing of former pitcher Pat Dobson at the age of
64. Dobson pitched for a number of teams from 1967-77 and
compiled a 122-129 record with a 3.54 ERA. These days he’d
no doubt receive a $35 million, 4-year contract for his efforts,
which included a 20-8 mark in 1971 for the AL champ Baltimore
Orioles (who then lost in seven to the Pirates).

That 1971 pitching staff featured four 20-game winners; Dobson,
Jim Palmer (20-9), Dave McNally (21-5) and Mike Cuellar (20-
9). The 1920 Chicago White Sox are the only other team in
major league history to have four win this many.

--College Basketball

As Mark R. said, Break up the Butler Bulldogs! What a great
start to the season wins over Indiana, Notre Dame, #21
Tennessee and #23 Gonzaga. On Saturday they then beat Kent
State in double overtime and are 7-0.

So let me be the first to say this team has the potential to finish
the regular season undefeated. Hoops junkies may want to
glance at their remaining schedule; without knowing much about
the likes of Wisconsin-Green Bay and Wright State, it looks like
pretty clear sailing to me. [I had superscout Johnny Mac check
out the road ahead for Butler and he concurs an undefeated
season is a distinct possibility.]

--I supported Michelle Wie’s efforts earlier in the year to play a
few events on the men’s tour, but in her 12th tournament against
the boys, this one in Japan with an incredibly weak field, she
finished next to last to some university student; firing an 81-80.
In her two previous men’s events she finished dead last, 78-79
and 77-81. In another she withdrew after 27 holes, suffering
from heat exhaustion.

Wie, now 17, is getting some poor advice and as I’ve noted
before she is losing the support of many on the PGA Tour. It
doesn’t help when she comments as she did before her opening
round of 81 the other day.

Asked about criticism from the likes of Scott Verplank that she
should concentrate on dominating the LPGA Tour first before
attempting to play with the big boys again, Wie said “Get used to
it.”

--New York Times columnist Dave Anderson had a missive last
week titled “Those Who Deserve an Extra Helping of Pie,”
thank-you notes for being good guys in the sports world.

Like Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams of the San
Francisco Chronicle for putting the heat on Barry Bonds. But
now they are threatened with jail time for refusing to disclose
their confidential sources.

“Edgar Prado, the jockey who apparently saved Barbaro’s life by
bringing him to a hobbling stop after he snapped his right hind
leg at the start of the Preakness Stakes.

“David Eckstein, the Cardinals’ shortstop, who proved that while
a good little man might be hard to find, he is still big enough to
be the most valuable player in his team’s World Series victory.

“Jim Johnson, the basketball coach of Greece Athena High
School outside Rochester, who arranged with an opposing coach
the insertion of 17-year-old Jason McElwain, his autistic team
manager, into the last few minutes of a game. When the 5-foot-
6, 145-pound McElwain scored a quick 20 points, those shots
seen around the world on video prompted book and motion-
picture deals for him.”

--Carlos Lee hit the jackpot. The free agent signed a $100
million, six-year deal with the Houston Astros; this after Alfonso
Soriano signed a nearly $140 million, 8-year contract with the
Cubs. Soriano is an offensive powerhouse, no doubt, but 8
years?! And what of Gary Matthews Jr. and his $50 million,
five-year contract with the Los Angeles Angels? At age 32 he
finally has a decent season, but $50 million?! C’mon.

--I stumbled on the results for the men’s World Cup super-G
slalom (not sure where it was held) and couldn’t help but notice
Bode Miller finished 14th. So it’s comforting to see he still
sucks. [Canadian John Kucera won.]

Top 3 songs for the week of 11/26/88: #1 “Bad Medicine” (Bon
Jovi) #2 “Baby, I Love Your Way” (Will To Power) #3
“Desire” (U2) and #9 “Giving You The Best That I Got”
(Anita Baker) #10 “The Loco-Motion” (Kylie Minogue)

NHL Quiz Answer: 600 goal club

1. Wayne Gretzky 894
2. Gordie Howe 801
3. Brett Hull 741
4. Marcel Dionne 731
5. Phil Esposito 717
6. Mike Gartner 708
7. Mark Messier 694
8. Steve Yzerman 692
9. Mario Lemieux 690
10. Luc Robitaille 668
11. Dave Andreychuk 640
12. Brendan Shanahan 612
13. Bobby Hull 610
14. Dino Ciccarelli 608
15. Jaromir Jagr 602
16. Jari Kurri 601

Next Bar Chat, Thursday.