04/05/2007

A Coaching Legend

Atlanta Braves Quiz: 1) How many Cy Young awards did the
staff garner in the 1990s? 2) Who was N.L. Rookie of the Year
in 1971? 3) Who was the last hurler to win 24 in a season? 4)
Who is the single season leader in RBI, post-1900? 5) What
years was the team in Milwaukee? 6) Who was the manager from
1968-72 record 379-373? Answers below.

It’s Florida again

Let’s just say the entire Final Four action was far from riveting,
but your editor did win with Florida, thus upping his record of
picking major champions to 2-30, the other win being Maryland
in basketball back in 2002. But the Mets will win the World
Series this season and by end of October you’ll all be saying,
“Goodness gracious, sakes alive. That editor is on one helluva
roll.” Granted, anyone following my picks throughout is still
down $13.2 million, but I’m assuming you sold your homes
before the crash and opted to rent for a spell.

I do have to add it was nice to see Greg Oden have a solid game
and shut Billy Packer up for at least a few minutes. Speaking of
which, there is no doubt Packer knows his stuff, but do we need
to know details on every screen and freakin’ pass? I didn’t think
so. He’s doing television, after all. We’re supposed to be able to
see what’s happening in front of our own eyes without being
treated like a bunch of morons.

Of course what Florida has achieved with its back-to-back
basketball titles, with a football championship sandwiched in
between, is remarkable.

Eddie Robinson, RIP

Unfortunately, I’m running up against a deadline as news of
Eddie Robinson’s death comes across. I’ll have more on this
next time.

Sadly, Robinson, who died at the age of 88, suffered from
Alzheimer’s the past ten years but he has left an indelible mark
on the sport of football.

Eddie Robinson coached at Grambling and retired in 1997 with a
stupendous 408-165-15 mark. Only John Gagliardi of St. John’s,
Minn., has more wins with 443.

“The real record I have set for over 50 years is the fact that I
have had one job and one wife,” Robinson once said.

From the AP’s obituary:

“When he began his career, Robinson had no paid assistants, no
groundskeepers, no trainers and little in the way of equipment.
He had to line the field himself and fix lunchmeat sandwiches for
road trips because the players could not eat in the ‘whites only’
restaurants of the South.

“He was not bitter, however. ‘The best way to enjoy life in
America is to first be an American, and I don’t think you have to
be white to do so,’ he said. ‘Blacks have a hard time, but not
many Americans haven’t.’”

Robinson loved to bring up the Founding Fathers.

“The framers of this Constitution, now they did some things,”
he’d say. “If you aren’t lazy, they fixed it for you. You’ve got
to understand the system. It’s just like in football, if you don’t
understand the system, you haven’t got a chance.”

In just Robinson’s second year as head coach, Grambling went
9-0 and didn’t allow a single point. But it wasn’t until 1949 that
the school gained national notoriety when Paul “Tank” Younger
signed with the Los Angeles Rams and became the first player
from an all-black college to play in the NFL.

Michael MacCambridge, in his book “America’s Game: The
Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation,” writes:

“So complete was the willful ignorance among the rest of the
NFL teams about players in black college football that the Rams
didn’t even use a pick for Younger in the 25-round draft held in
February 1949 .

“In July, before Younger left for the Rams’ training camp, Eddie
Robinson sat down with him and methodically explained what
Younger might expect: a cold shoulder from many of his
teammates, late hits and dirty play from opponents, and
likelihood of racial slurs wherever he turned. ‘You have to let it
go in one ear and out the other,’ Robinson implored, looking into
Younger’s eyes. ‘You have to make the ball club.’”

Robinson knew the stakes. “Tank, if you go up there and you
don’t make it, there’s no telling how long it’ll be before
somebody else gets a chance. They’ll be able to say, ‘We took
the best you had to offer, and he wasn’t good enough.’”

When Younger arrived in Los Angeles, each afternoon Robinson
went to the Grambling library to read sports pages, looking for
clues to Younger’s progress. Once the Los Angeles Times noted
“Younger, the continually surprising Negro, virtually nailed
down the No. 1 right-half position with his vicious blocking and
running.”

Younger went on to have an All-Pro career, as did Grambling
lineman Buck Buchanan, a Hall of Famer, who helped anchor
Kansas City’s Super Bowl win in January 1970. That Chiefs
team was the first in pro football to field a lineup in which more
than half the 22 starters were black.

Another Grambling grad, Doug Williams, became the first black
quarterback to win a Super Bowl with Washington in 1988.

In all, Eddie Robinson sent 200 players to the NFL, including
Willie Davis, James Harris, Ernie Ladd, Willie Brown, and
Charlie Joiner.

---

Tiger

Ten years ago, 21-year-old Tiger Woods won the Masters by 12
strokes. Following are some thoughts pieced together from
articles written by Golf Digest’s Pete McDaniel, the New York
Post’s Mark Cannizzaro, and the New York Daily News’ Hank
Gola.

Carl Jackson [Masters caddie for 1984 and ’95 winner Ben
Crenshaw]: Tiger did something I really respect. At the ’96
Masters, his last year as an amateur, Tiger played a practice
round with Ben. He followed Ben and me around as we talked
about likely pin positions, and it was obvious he was paying
attention. He missed the cut that year [after rounds of 75-75],
but on Friday, before he left, he looked me up and said, “Mr.
Jackson, those pin positions were exactly where you said they
would be. Thank you so much.” And I remember thinking,
‘That young man was raised right.’

In 1996, Jack Nicklaus had predicted that Tiger would “win more
Masters than Arnold and me combined,” which was quite a
statement considering the two had collectively garnered ten
green jackets. After Tiger’s second-round 66 in 1997, Nicklaus
had this give-and-take with the media.

Q: Did you ever go for the green on 3? [A 360 yard, par 4 that
year.]

A: Go for the green?

Q: Drive the green on 3.

A: Did I?

Q: Yeah. Did you ever try it?

A: No, I never liked that chip from down there [over a large
mound.] No, of course not.

Q: Well, he [Woods] had it pin-high left of the trap.

A: Nicklaus [incredulous]: Come on!

Entering the third round, Colin Montgomerie, who would be
paired with Tiger, said “I’ve got experience, a lot more
experience in major golf than he has. And hopefully I can prove
that.”

“Woods watched a replay of Montgomerie’s words on TV at the
house he was renting and said, “I totally understand his point,
which is totally valid. But I kept saying to myself, ‘He hasn’t
won [a major], either.’ How can you make this statement when
he hasn’t won one? It’s a push. Now, who’s playing better?""
[Mark Cannizzaro]

Woods waxed Monty, 65 to 74, leaving Colin in a state of shock.
Saturday night, before he went to bed, Tiger and father Earl had
a little chat. Earl told Tiger:

“You know, it’s going to be the most important round of your
life, but you can handle it. Just go out there and do what you do.
Just get in your own little world and go out there and just thrash
‘em.”

Tiger had a nine-stroke lead heading into the final round. Golf
Digest’s Dan Jenkins later wrote, “Tiger Woods on Sunday at the
’97 Masters was the biggest lock in sports since Secretariat at the
Belmont.”

David Feherty: After Tiger won by 12, there was the whole issue
of, well, nobody else played any good; the rest of them must
suck. Three years later, Tiger went on to win the U.S. Open by
only 15, the British Open by eight. What he does, and it’s not
that Els or Mickelson or any of the other second-echelon players
suck – I think they’re some of the best players in history – it’s
that he makes them try things that they’re just not capable of.
Everyone’s got a long iron in their hands and they think, ‘S---,
I’ve got to hit this close.’ In the back of their minds they’re
saying, ‘I can’t hit this close.’

After Tiger won and had dinner at Augusta National, the
celebration continued at the rental.

Tiger: I went back to the house and had a few adult beverages. I
ended up falling asleep, holding the jacket, cuddling it like it was
a little bear. I woke up in the morning, still holding it, and said,
‘Huh, I did win it.’ And boy, my head hurt.

Of course Woods’s win had a profound impact on the sport.

“I thank him profusely because he deserves it,” Phil Mickelson
says, “not only for what he’s done for the Tour but for the game
of golf.”

Tiger’s influence on the purses is so great, Charles Howell III
admits, “I should send him 10% of all my winnings.”

But as Hank Gola notes, all the promise of 10 years ago has
meant nothing when it comes to African-American kids and the
sport.

“While kids clinics abound Woods is still the only African-
American face on the PGA Tour. Tim O’Neal, 33, is still trying
to make the leap from the Nationwide Tour while a couple of
young players, Kevin Hall and Stephen Reed, are on the mini-
tour circuit, looking for exemptions into bigger events. And the
pipeline isn’t all that promising, either.”

In fact, “there were more black players in an era when
discrimination was still a major factor. An all-time high 12
African-Americans played the PGA Tour in 1976, the year after
Tiger was born, and from 1964 to 1986, Pete Brown, Charlie
Sifford, Lee Elder, Jim Thorpe, and Calvin Peete combined for
23 PGA Tour victories. Peete’s 1986 win at the Tournament of
Champions is the last by an African-American other than
Woods.”

One big problem is that there are so few caddies these days.
Except for Peete, the other black touring pros of yesteryear
started learning the game while lugging bags.

Stuff

Baseball bits

--The New York Mets lead all teams with 15 foreign-born
players on their opening-day roster, while the Yankees are
second with 13. And wouldn’t you know Vegas oddsmakers
have them 1-2.

29% of major leaguers are foreign-born, including 98 from the
Dominican Republic, 51 from Venezuela and 28 from Puerto
Rico. [There are also 19 Canadians and nine Japanese among a
record 246 from outside the U.S.]

[Bloomberg News]

--66 players have salaries of $10 million or more for 2007,
topped by Alex Rodriguez’s $27.7mm. The Yankees occupy the
top three slots with Jason Giambi following at $23.4mm and
Derek Jeter at $21.6mm. Atlanta’s Mike Hampton, injured since
mid-2005, is still raking in $15.4mm for this season.

--With the acquisition of Tribune Co. by real-estate giant Sam
Zell, one of Tribune’s assets, the Chicago Cubs, will be sold.
Analysts estimate the Cubbies could go for around $600 million.
Tribune picked up the team for $20.5 million in 1981. But as the
Wall Street Journal pointed out, one complicating factor is the
Cubs’ $300 million in long-term contracts, including $136
million for Alfonso Soriano and $75 million for Aramis Ramirez;
plus it’s expected they will re-sign pitcher Carlos Zambrano to a
long extension.

--Selena Roberts / New York Times, on Barry Bonds.

“By inching no closer in his pursuit of Hank Aaron’s No. 755 [on
opening day], by remaining 22 home runs behind history, Bonds
simply delayed the inevitable – not the sexy record, but his own
indictment.

“However you keep stats, remember the feds have home-run
tickers, too.

“There is conceivably a point this summer – with Bonds at No.
748 or No. 752 – when federal prosecutors could decide to play
legacy interruptus. There may be a convenient time this summer
– with [former trainer] Greg Anderson still lip-sealed in prison –
when the BALCO sleuths could ride into the season and play
baseball saviors by handing down an indictment of Bonds.

“ ‘I think the lead investigator has been fixated with taking Barry
down,’ Bonds’s lawyer, Michael Rains, said in a telephone
interview, referring to special agent Jeff Novitsky. ‘I think he is
so fixated on Barry getting the record that he would want to take
him out first.’”

Dear Lord, please make it so.

--There is no more disingenuous man on the planet than Alex
Rodriguez. It’s frankly sickening listening to him speak like
before Opening Day when he was asked to talk about Yankee
pride.

“It’s just so special .I’m just happy to be here.”

Bleh.

--Great piece in the London Times by Bernard Lagan on the bar-
tailed godwit of New Zealand. Scientists have now been able to
successfully track this bird and one just set a record for flying
6,341 miles nonstop. You’re reading that right. No other bird
flies that far on a single tank of gas.

A female godwit known as E7, monitored by a tiny tracking
device implanted under the skin [that alone is incredible],
departed New Zealand around midnight on March 17 and landed
a week later on the mudflats of North Korea. So E7 flew north
across the Tasman Sea, east of Papua New Guinea and north past
the island of Guam into the mouth of the Yellow Sea and on to
North Korea. By the time they land godwits have lost half their
body weight.

E7 and her compatriots will now rest for five or six weeks before
making the final leg of their journey, another 3,000 miles or so,
to their breeding grounds in Alaska.

The tracking device acts like a flight data recorder, which is why
they know the bird didn’t land. The tags cost over $3,000.

Godwits make their first flights to Alaska when they are four or
five years old and afterwards make it every year thereafter. One
godwit now being tracked is said to be 15.

In June, the godwit chicks are hatched in Alaska and they set out
for New Zealand when they are ten to twelve weeks old. They
take a more direct route, southwest across the Pacific.

The Arctic tern, by the way, flies 12,000 miles, each way, from
pole to pole each year; spending summers in the northern
hemisphere and winter in the southern hemisphere, but it stops
along the way.

--Gorilla Kingdom has opened at the London Zoo, an attempt to
breed lowland gorillas. Bobby, a 23-year-old male, is being
matched up with two females, Zaire, 32, and Effie, 13, according
to the BBC. Which means there will be a lot of role-playing; like
one day Bobby can be Eddie Albert, Jr., who dated Merle
Oberon, 94 years his senior, and then the next he can be Roman
Polanski, who, you know, still can’t reenter the United States
because of his, err, you know, with a minor. But in this later
instance, for his part Bobby is in no danger of being brought up
on charges.

--A spider monkey escaped from the Mexico City zoo, boarded a
bus and proceeded to terrorize passengers and the driver.
According to the AP, “The animal sat next to the bus driver for
almost an hour as he drove through the city.”

Now you talk about a nightmare. Supposedly, the monkey
compounded matters by constantly asking the driver, “You
talkin’ to me?”

--With “The Sopranos” resuming on Sunday for its last episodes,
I just need to restate what I wrote on 6/8/06 when I discussed my
scenario for the final scene.

“Christopher (Michael Imperioli) will overdose in the final
episode while Tony is killed by A.J., Tony lying on a raft in his
swimming pool. As he then closes his eyes in this pool of
blood (get it?) the ducks land, a la the premiere episode. The
final song is Sinatra’s ‘It Was A Very Good Year.’”

--Note to now former West Virginia basketball coach John
Beilein. You gave up WVU for Michigan? No offense to my
Wolverines friends, but to me that’s a lateral move.

--New Jersey Devils GM Lou Lamoriello is one strange dude.
His team was in second place overall in the Eastern Conference,
had three games to go, had won four of its last five, and
Lamoriello fired the coach, Claude Julien, and put himself in
charge. Lamoriello said the team didn’t have the right frame of
mind heading into the playoffs. Once before he fired a coach late
in the season, Robbie Ftorek, and replacement Larry Robinson
led the Devils to the Stanley Cup.

--I watched a few minutes of Tennessee’s victory over Rutgers in
the NCAA Women’s basketball championship and I can’t say I
was blown away by the spectacle. Christine Brennan of USA
Today commented before the title game.

“The women’s game has come a long way in a relatively short
time, but because it still doesn’t get the publicity the men’s game
does, when the women make it to the national stage, they really
need to take complete advantage of the airtime.”

--Jeff B. and I are astounded at April’s transformation in “For
Better or For Worse.” As Dr. Patterson said to wife Elly, “That’s
our youngest daughter at 16.” Elly replied, “She’s going to drive
us crazy.”

Well it’s your own damn fault, Dr. and Mrs. P. You’re the ones
who let her get away with murder and party until 1:00 am the
other night.

Now April, back at school and looking like Lindsey Lohan, is
ticked that Gerald is talking about his hot evening with her.

April: “Why are you telling the guys about things that are totally
PERSONAL?”

Gerald: “Hey, you’ve told your girlfriends, haven’t you?”

April: “That’s different. To us it’s a SECRET to you, it’s a
score!!”

This is one reason why I focused on poker in high school.

--When the New York tabloids both feature Keith Richards on
the cover Wednesday over his statement that he snorted his
father’s ashes, there’s nothing I can add, except there is a solid
chance it’s not true.

Top 3 songs for the week of 4/1/72: #1 “A Horse With No
Name” (America) #2 “Heart of Gold” (Neil Young always got
these two tunes mixed up as to the artist) #3 “Puppy Love”
(Donny Osmond) and #4 “Mother And Child Reunion” (Paul
Simon) #5 “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (Robert John) #6 “I
Gotcha” (Joe Tex” #7 “Without You” (Nilsson) #8 “Jungle
Fever” (The Chakachas) #9 “Rockin’ Robin” (Michael
Jackson easily his worst and possibly one of the worst of the
century, including Richard Harris’ version of “MacArthur Park”
or Deodato’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” Come to think of it,
Walter Murphy’s “Fifth of Beethoven” also makes the dreadful
list) #10 “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” (Roberta
Flack Clint gets it on with blond bombshell to this tune in
“Play Misty For Me” as Jessica Walter prepares to go bonkers)

Atlanta Braves Quiz: 1) Braves pitchers won six Cy Young
awards in the 1990s Maddux (93,94,95), Glavine (91,98),
Smoltz (96). 2) Earl Williams was Rookie of the Year in 1971.
3) Tony Cloninger was the last to win 24, 1965 (24-11). 4)
Eddie Mathews is the single season leader with 135 RBI in 1953.
5) The Braves were in Milwaukee from 1953-65. 6) Luman
Harris was the manager from 1968-72; replaced by Mathews in
’72.

Next Bar Chat, Monday pm Jackie Robinson and your
EXCLUSIVE one week into the season baseball stat projections.
Will the Mets go 150-12? Will Jeff B.’s Pirates go 135-27? The
Washington Nationals 14-148? And will El Duque go 21-1 with
45 RBI? Stay tuned .