---

Bar Chat

04/15/2019

Tiger Roars! Golf Wins!

[Posted early Sunday PM....being a “Game of Thrones” viewer and all...]

NBA Quiz: 1) James Harden led the NBA in scoring at 36.1 point per game this season.  Name the last two to average that many for a season.  2) Name the other four to average more than 27.0 ppg this year.  Answers below.

The Masters...a tradition unlike any other...on CBS....

Remarkable...I sure can’t think of a greater comeback in the history of sports than what we saw today, Tiger Woods winning his fifth green jacket, his 15th major, his first in 11 years, after all the personal and physical trauma he has undergone, including four knee and four back operations.

At age 43, the second oldest winner in Masters history, next to Jack Nicklaus, he pulled to within three majors of the Golden Bear’s 18, while picking up PGA Tour win No. 81...just one behind Sam Snead, which is getting lost in all the other numbers tonight.

Next up is the PGA at Bethpage Black, where Tiger has won, and then the U.S. Open, at Pebble Beach, where Tiger has also won.

But as Tiger put it himself in Butler Cabin, “It’s come full circle...my dad was there in 1997, and now I’m here with my kids,” his mother able to share both the first and now fifth as well.  That was a great scene coming off 18.

I know I’m not the only one who is just kind of tired of today’s America. But this was another example of why many of us say, ‘Thank god for sports!’

And so this is how it all unveiled...a Masters for the Ages.

After round one...

DeChambeau -6
Koepka -6
Mickelson -5
Poulter -4
D. Johnson -4
[Woods -2]

After round two*...

Molinari -7
Day -7
Koepka -7
Scott -7
Oosthuizen -7
D. Johnson -6
Harding -6
Schauffele -6
Woods -6

*The first time in Masters’ history with five tied for the 36-hole.

After round three*...

Molinari -13
Finau -11
Woods -11
Koepka -10
Simpson -9
Poulter -9

*The first time in Masters’ history with three rounds of 64 (Finau, Simpson and Cantlay).

So round four...players going off in threesomes, from both 1  and 10, due to the impending storms....

And after a slow start to the final 18 for the field, Tiger hit a brilliant approach on No. 7, picking up his birdie, with Molinari bogeying the hole and we had....

Molinari -12
Woods -11
Koepka -10
Finau -10
Poulter -10 ...all thru seven.

But Molinari rebounded with a birdie at 8, Woods and Finau also birdieing the hole.

On No. 9, Woods hit a sweet 50-footer within inches to secure par.

Woods then bogeyed 10, parred 11...Molinari parring both....

Molinari -13 thru 11
Woods -11 thru 11
Day -10 thru 15
Watson -10 thru 15
Cantlay -10 thru 13
Schauffele -10 thru 12
Finau -10 thru 11

On to the historic par-3 12th for the leaders, and out of nowhere, both Molinari and Finau find the water, while Woods puts it safely on.  Molinari and Finau would both double the hole, Woods with the par.

Schauffele -11 thru 13
Molinari -11 thru 12
Woods -11 thru 12
Day -10 thru 16
Watson -10 thru 16
Rahm -10 thru 16
Cantlay -10 thru 14

But then Patrick Cantlay, who barely made the cut at +2, eagles 15, the new leader at -12! Koepka eagles 13, now -11!

Cantlay, however, hits a poor tee shot on the par-3 16th and would go on to three-putt.  Xander Schauffele birdies 14 to get to -12!

Back on the par-5 13th, Tiger hits his approach safely on the green in two and gets a birdie.  Molinari birdies.

Schauffele -12 thru 14
Molinari -12 thru 13
Woods -12 thru 13
Cantlay -11 thru 16
Koepka -11 thru 13

Suddenly, Dustin Johnson birdies 15 and 16 to get to -11!  Schauffele pars 15.  Cantlay bogeys 17.  Woods and Molinari par 14.

Schauffele -12 thru 15
Woods -12 thru 14
Molinari -12 thru 14
DJ -11 thru 16
Koepka -11 thru 14

Koepka on in two at the par-5 15th.  Johnson birdies 17 to get to -12.  Koepka gets his birdie.  Webb Simpson misses a short birdie on 15 that would have taken him to -11.  Schauffele grinds out par at 16.

DJ -12 thru 17
Schauffele -12 thru 16
Koepka -12 thru 15
Woods -12 thru 14
Molinari -12 thru 14

Tiger puts his second at 15 safely on.  Koepka hits a poor tee shot on 16.  Molinari hits it in the water at 15 after a lousy layup!  He goes on to double bogey his second hole on the back nine.  Tiger gets his birdie and takes the lead! Koepka salvages par on 16.

Woods -13 thru 15
DJ -12 thru 17
Schauffele -12 thru 16
Koepka -12 thru 16

Johnson pars 18.  Tiger sticks his tee shot on 16 to three feet!  Schauffele with a good two-putt for par at 17.  Tiger gets his birdie, up by two!

Woods -14 thru 16
DJ -12 F
Koepka -12 thru 16
Schauffele -12 thru 17

Tiger nails his approach shot on 17.  Schauffele with a clutch par putt on 18 to finish -12. Tiger gets his par.  Koepka with a great approach shot on 18 to keep his hopes alive.

Woods -14 thru 17
Johnson -12 F
Schauffele -12 F
Koepka -12 thru 17

But Koepka blows a great birdie chance on 18 that would have applied the pressure on Woods.  Tiger’s tee shot on 18 hits the fairway.

But then Tiger’s approach comes up way short, leaving him a dicey flop shot for his third, which he leaves about 15 feet from the hole, needing two putts for the win.  The first slides by, but only by a foot.  Tiger taps in for the win and an emotional celebration, greeted by his family, including his mother, who was there 22 years ago.

The final leaderboard....

Woods -13
DJ -12
Schauffele -12
Koepka -12
Day -11
Simpson -11*
Molinari -11
Finau -11

*Yes, as some of you wrote, I was kind of excited late Saturday with my 66-1 bet on Webb.  But I’m proud of my fellow Deac, who really is an elite player these days.

--Among the other finishers, it was kind of startling that Justin Rose (and Sergio Garcia) didn’t make the cut.

And Rory McIlroy, despite a fine 68 final round, finished just T-21, along with Jordan Spieth.

Phil Mickelson finished T-18 with a dismal 72 today.

--Tiger took home a record amount, the Masters cracking the $2 million mark for the first time, $2.07 million, up from the $1.98 million that Patrick Reed cashed in last year.

More on Woods’ triumph next time...from the leading scribes on the topic.

--Finally, 50 years ago, George Archer won The Masters, but until I read a piece on the tournament by Curt Sampson in Golf Digest, I never knew Archer was illiterate, a secret held between his wife, his daughters and a few others, until he lay dying of cancer in 2005.

Imagine; Archer won the green jacket at age 29, but as Sampson writes, “His failure to master this most basic means of communication caused him immeasurable pain and humiliation, and, when he was a kid, thoughts of suicide.  There was no help from his parents, no praise, never any reading aloud. ‘This is my son George,’ his father would say, ‘He’s so dumb he can’t even write his own name.’”

Archer, at 6-foot-6, 185 pounds, was the tallest ever major winner, a man resembling then TV star Jim Nabors’ Gomer Pyle character.  Yet Archer would win 13 PGA Tour titles.

But because of his issue, he never cashed in on his Masters triumph, being helplessly suspicious of those offering him endorsements. He disdained agents.  Nor did he monetize his incredible short-game with a book or video.

His longtime wife, Donna, said that George was worried “that if he spread his tentacles too far, he’d get busted. He never came out.”  He never really learned to read or write.

But when he died, he gave Donna permission to reveal his secret and the George Archer Memorial Foundation for Literacy was born.

--One college golf note, the Wake Forest men’s team is ranked No. 3 in the country behind Oklahoma State* and Arizona State, the Deacs having just won their third tournament in a row for the first time since 1976.  It was their fifth victory of the season, the most in a year for the program since 1983-84, Cameron Young leading the  way.

The Deacs now play in the ACC Championship this week, Thursday through Saturday.  Georgia Tech is eighth in the country, Duke ninth.

*Viktor Hovland, the low amateur at Augusta this week and the first to qualify for the event from Norway, is on the Oklahoma State squad.

NBA

The playoffs are off and running....

Saturday, Brooklyn opened at Philadelphia, 76ers star Joel Embiid questionable due to his ongoing knee issues.

Well Embiid did play, scoring 22 points, hauling down 15 rebounds, and blocking five shots, but the numbers were deceiving.  He was painfully slow up and down the court and finished -17, the Nets prevailing 111-102, Philadelphia fans excessively booing their team and leaving in droves before the end of the game.

But the story became Embiid and teammate Amir Johnson, Embiid caught by ESPN cameras looking at Johnson’s cellphone as they sat on the bench, a violation of NBA rules – commissioner Adam Silver in attendance – and a move that had Sixers coach Brett Brown saying afterwards was “completely unacceptable and we will deal with it internally, very soon.”

As Brian Lewis of the New York Post put it:

“Very soon turned out to be within hours, with the 76ers fining Johnson for ‘conduct detrimental to the team,’ GM Elton Brand said in a statement.”

What a bunch of jerks. Embiid caught heat from broadcaster Doris Burke and on social media, but Embiid said after, “I just looked down because he said that his daughter was extremely sick, and he was checking on her.”

Johnson later apologized.

Game 2 Monday.  This will be interesting.

Meanwhile, in Toronto, as Raptors fans know all too well, some very good seasons have gone to naught in the playoffs and this 58-24 edition was facing the 42-40 Orlando Magic in Game One, Orlando prevailing, 104-101.  The Raptors’ Kyle Lowry, who has a history of coming up small in the playoffs, was 0 for 7 from the field (0 for 6 from three) and there’s your ballgame, essentially.

And out in Oakland, the Warriors coasted 121-104 over the Clippers behind Steph Curry’s 38 points (8 of 12 from three), with a postseason career-high 15 rebounds, along with 7 assists.

Today, in Boston, in what had to be a truly hideous game to watch (I didn’t), the Celtics opened with an 84-74 win over the Pacers, Indiana shooting 33.3% from the field, Boston 36.4%.

--As expected the Lakers fired Luke Walton (officially he resigned by mutual agreement) as coach after three losing seasons, Walton going 98-148, including a dismal 37-45, 2018-19 campaign, despite having LeBron James on the squad.  The move came days after the abrupt resignation of president of basketball operations Magic Johnson.  Johnson had wanted to fire Walton but was reluctant to, because Walton is close to Lakers owner Jeannie Buss.

So then Walton and the Sacramento Kings agreed to a deal in principle the next day to make him the team’s new head coach; the Kings having fired coach Dave Joerger on Thursday.  Sacramento finished 39-43 this season – the most wins for the franchise since 2005-06.  But with point guard De’Aron Fox, they have one of the bright young stars in the league.

Bill Plaschke / Los Angeles Times

“Luke Walton, you lucky dog.

“In finally getting dumped Friday by the Lakers, their former head coach made his escape like a man staggering up the embankment from a ditch occupied by the twisted metal of steaming wreckage.

“Walton gets to walk away from a basketball operation being run by the ‘backstabbing and whispering’ of the widely unpopular and generally unsuccessful Rob Pelinka.

“Walton gets to depart a basketball team being run, occasionally, when he feels like it, by distracted Hollywood mogul LeBron James.

“Walton gets to separate himself from a franchise being run by a formerly beloved owner who has presided over the sort of off-court drama that has turned the Lakers into the New York Knicks.  Nobody, but nobody, has been more disillusioning in this mess than Jeanie Buss.

“ ‘I want to thank Jeanie Buss and the Buss family for giving me the opportunity to coach the Lakers,’ Walton said in a statement.  ‘This franchise and the city will always be special to me and my family.’

“Don’t be surprised if there was a third quote omitted from the press release, something along the lines of, ‘Yippee!’

“Walton soon could be coaching again in the NBA, maybe in Sacramento [Ed. Plaschke was writing a day before the announcement], and maybe there he will be allowed to continue growing with a young team.  He never had that opportunity here.  After two seasons, just when he was finally connecting with some of the over-hyped kids, Walton was handed the headstrong James and a handful of oddballs and the dynamic became unworkable.

“For much of last season, it was like he was coaching three teams – the kids, the oddballs, and James.  Rarely did all three factions agree on anything.  Walton never stood a chance... Even Golden State coach Steve Kerr took the unusual step of calling out the Lakers when asked about Walton’s firing during a media briefing Friday in Oakland.

“ ‘In this job, as a coach in the NBA, you are 100 percent dependent on your circumstances; the strength of your organization, the momentum, the unity, everything has to be in good order,’ Kerr told reporters.  ‘Because if it’s not, as we have witnessed with the Lakers, then there’s going to be casualties, and usually the coach is the first one.’

“Let’s dissect that quote, charge by charge, for the purposes of clarity and accuracy.

“Strength of organization? Nope.  Momentum?  Nope.  Unity?  You’re joking, right?”

--Cleveland announced it was not bringing back coach Larry Drew, who led the Cavs to a 19-57 record after Tyronn Lue was fired back in October, after an 0-6 start.  [Lue is a favorite for the Lakers job now, he being a favorite of LeBron.]

--In college basketball....

Auburn rewarded coach Bruce Pearl for taking the Tigers to the Final Four with a contract extension that will take him through the 2023-24 season.  Pearl will be paid $3.8 million next season, escalating $125,000 per year after.  And he has a hefty buyout, beginning at $8 million the first year.

You know, I never liked the man, but I admired the classy way he handled the loss to Virginia in the semis.

MLB

--The Mets are off to a solid 9-5 start as they get set for tonight’s ESPN game against the Braves, New York taking the first two of the 4-game series 6-2, 6-3, before falling Saturday 11-7, though in this one they set a franchise record by scoring at least six runs for a seventh straight game.

The problem is while their top four in the starting rotation can be as good as any front four in baseball, and they need to be if the Mets are to play meaningful games in September, they have a black hole in the fifth spot, Jason Vargas, who was beyond hideous Saturday night.

And with nothing in the minors to call on, their better pitching prospects at least a year away, if the Mets want to harbor serious playoff hopes, they have to go after Dallas Keuchel and overspend on a one-year deal. And they have to do it now, like today, because there are 4 or 5 other teams, including the Yankees, who recognize early in the season they need to consider the veteran lefty free agent who, if nothing else, can eat up innings.

Separtely, Mets fans were rather startled to hear from Ron Darling during Saturday night’s broadcast that he was undergoing surgery next week in New York to have a large growth removed from his chest.  He revealed he hasn’t been feeling well for several months and doctors have been monitoring his condition.

Darling said he’ll be back by June and he said this has nothing to do with his being sued by former teammate Lenny Dykstra for defamation.  But you know what they say about stress.  Good luck, Ronnie. 

*One note on the Braves since my last chat.  The club signed an extension with 22-year-old All-Star second baseman Ozzie Albies, seven years, $35 million, in a deal that includes a pair of team options that could make it worth $45 million for nine seasons.

This is an incredibly team-friendly contract and there are many in baseball who are upset with Albies.  The guy would have doubled or tripled this amount in arbitration and then free agency.

But as we’ve seen the last month, the players are giving up arbitration and free agency for guaranteed security and still life-changing income.

Albies said: “I mean, I see it this way. If I left dollars on the table, I’m going to play hard to get it in four or five years, seven years.  If I left it on the table, it’s good now I know I can get it then, coming back.”

Albies is off to a good start in 2019, after batting .261 with 40 doubles, 24 homers, 72 RBIs, 14 steals and 105 runs last year.

Albies’ deal came after NL Rookie of the Year, teammate Ronald Acuna Jr., agreed to a $100 million, eight-year contract.

“We’re more than best friends,” Albies said.  “We’re brothers to each other....I love being part of the Braves and I want to be a Brave for the rest of my life.”

It is funny watching these two in the dugout.  Totally inseparable...and what a great future fans of the Braves can look forward to.

--Going back to Dallas Keuchel, everything is magnified tenfold here in the New York area vs. most cities when it comes to major sports, and the Yankees’ early season slump has had fans calling for manager Aaron Boone’s head, as the injuries pile up.  In the last few days Gary Sanchez was put on the DL, a big blow after his quick start at the plate, Sanchez out with a calf injury.  And we learned key reliever Dellin Betances will be out far longer than first thought (six to seven weeks at best).

Sanchez and Betances joined ace Luis Severino, out until at least July, outfielder Aaron Hicks, third baseman Miguel Andujar, Giancarlo Stanton (due back soon), Troy Tulowitzki and Didi Gregorius.

Right now, $88 million in 2019 salaries is on the injured list for the Yanks – more than the entire opening-day payrolls of the Pirates, Marlins, Orioles, and Rays (who happen to be 12-4).

But they did get their first injured player back Saturday, CC Sabathia, and the potential future Hall of Famer, who has announced this is his last season, threw five shutout innings, just 62 pitches, as the Yankees ended a four-game losing streak, beating the White Sox 4-0, a combined one-hit effort.  Sabathia was limited to 70 pitches and Aaron Boone opted not to throw him out there to start the sixth.

But GM Brian Cashman is now catching heat for not going after free agents Manny Machado and Bryce Harper, or Dallas Keuchel.

So today the Yanks lost 5-2 to the White Sox, falling to 6-9.  It is the first time since 1982 the team has lost its first three series at home.  It’s almost time for Yankees fans to riot.

--Baltimore’s Chris Davis’ long national nightmare is over. After going a record 0-for-54 going back to last Sept. 15, Davis had a two-run single against the Red Sox in the first inning, Saturday, against Rick Porcello.  Davis ended up 3-for-5 with 4 RBIs in the 9-5 win.

Davis had been just 1-for-70 since Sept. 8.

But he resumed his hitless ways today, 0-for-4, 2 strikeouts, in a 4-0 loss to the Red Sox and David Price.

--Mike Trout has been out of the lineup since Tuesday with a groin strain, but the Angels hope to have him back in the lineup this week without going on the DL.  Los Angeles has been doing a good job in his absence, 8-7 now on the young season.

--The Royals’ Whit Merrifield saw his team-record hitting streak end at 31 games after he went 0 for 6 in K.C.’s 7-6 loss to the Mariners on Thursday.  Merrifield had passed George Brett (1980) for the longest streak in franchise history on Wednesday.

Wake Forest fans know of Whit because of his father, Bill Merrifield, who was a fantastic ballplayer at Wake, where he was drafted by the Angels after his junior year in 1983, but never made it to the majors after a very solid six seasons in the minors.

--Bob S. in San Francisco has been extolling the virtues of Oakland outfielder Ramon Laureano and his beyond amazing throwing arm.  So on Tuesday, Laureano uncorked a one-hop laser from center field to nail Baltimore shortstop Richie Martin at the plate, which had the Baltimore players looking at each other.

But as the Washington Post’s Dave Sheinin put it, “Don’t you have cable?”

“Anyone who watches MLB Network, follows baseball Twitter or deploys advance scouts already knows of Laureano’s singular talent to throw a baseball from all corners of the outfield, in any situation, from any contorted body position, to any base, with a staggering blend of power and velocity.”

But Laureano’s assist Tuesday at Camden Yards was his fourth of the season, and his 13th in just 61 big league games to that point.  How good is this?  It was eight more than any other outfielder in history over the first 61 games.  Earlier this season, he threw out Boston’s Xander Bogaerts in back-to-back games.

--Follow up...Washington reliever Trevor Rosenthal does have a real ERA now, having thrown one inning the other day, allowing one earned, after not recording an out in his previous four outing.  So it’s one inning, eight earned, overall...a cool ERA of 72.00, which kind of screws up the baseball card were his season to end there.

30 years from now... “Dad, what happened to this guy Trevor Rosenthal in 2019?”  “Bobby, it’s an ugly story...I don’t want you to have nightmares.  Why don’t you pull out the Mike Trout card from that year I bought you for $84,000 last week.”

--Seattle opened up the season 13-2, becoming just the third team since 1987 to win at least 13 of their first 15.  They also became the only team to homer in each of their first 15.

But then the Mariners lost two to Houston, Friday and Saturday, 10-6, 3-1, though they increased their MLB record to 17 straight with at least one home run, 38 in 17.

NHL Playoffs

My Rangers aren’t in the playoffs, and thus my interest is, frankly, minimal, but I am following the hated Islanders, because it’s great for the New York sports scene and I want them to win.

So today, the Islanders beat the even more hated Penguins, 4-1, in Pittsburgh, to take a 3-0 series lead.

The defending champion Capitals have a 2-0 lead over the Hurricanes, Game 3 Monday.

But the biggest story is Tampa Bay, which ran away with the NHL points title, 128 (62-16-4), the next best Boston and Calgary at 107, who are down 2-0 to the Columbus Blue Jackets, as they play Game 3 tonight in Columbus, the Lightning having lost the first two, 5-1, 4-3, at home.

And Tampa Bay is playing tonight without the league’s leading scorer, Nikita Kucherov, who was suspended one game for boarding in Game 2. This would be a shocking upset.

--And in college hockey, Minnesota Duluth won its second straight men’s hockey title, beating Massachusetts, 3-0, on Saturday night in Buffalo.  The “Bulldogs” are the first program to successfully defend the title since Denver did so in 2004 and 2005.

UMass was making its first appearance in the championship game, so good on them.

NFL

--We note the passing of Pro Football Hall of Famer Forrest Gregg, the great offensive lineman for the Green Bay Packers of the 1960s that Vince Lombardi called the “finest player I ever coached.” Gregg was 85.

Gregg, who died in his wife’s arms from complications of Parkinson’s disease, earned the nickname “Iron Man” for playing in a then-record 188 consecutive games during his career.

Gregg is one of four NFL players to win a half-dozen NFL championships, including the first two Super Bowls with the Packers.  He finished his career with another Super Bowl title with the Cowboys in 1971.  He was a six-time All-Pro and nine-time Pro Bowler.  Gregg was also selected to the NFL’s 75th anniversary team.

--Dwayne Haskins said he will not be one of the prospects in attendance at the NFL draft in Nashville, a possible sign his stock is slipping.  The other top quarterbacks – Kyler Murray, Drew Lock, and Daniel Jones – will be on hand on April 25.

Peter King recently wrote in his “Football Morning in America” column that “Haskins could plummet” in the draft.  I find this shocking.  It’s all about this perception he’s not mobile enough.  I don’t get it.

I mean, yeah, Kyler Murray is off the charts mobile, but his career could end on one crushing hit, whereas Haskins can merely shrug off a lot of the edge rushers with his size and strength.  And he clearly has the arm...and a super attitude.

Paid for by the Dwayne Haskins Fan Club.

Premier League

In Big Six action this weekend, as the season dwindles to a precious few....

Tottenham whipped last-place Huddersfield 4-0 at New Tottenham Stadium, while Manchester United was beating West Ham 2-1 on Saturday.

Today, Liverpool stayed on top with a 2-0 win over Chelsea, which helped Tottenham, while Manchester City beat Crystal Palace 3-1.

So the standings...38 matches in the season...

1. Liverpool 34 games – 85 points
2. Man City 33 – 83
3. Tottenham 33 – 67
4. Chelsea 34 – 66
5. Man U 33 – 64
6. Arsenal 32 – 63*

*Arsenal plays Watford Monday.

NASCAR

I watched a fair amount of the race at Richmond Saturday night, including an exciting finish, as New Jersey’s Martin Truex Jr. fought off Clint Bowyer and Joey Logano for his first win on a short-track (track shorter than a mile).  It was the sixth win in nine races this season for Joe Gibbs Racing, and Truex’s 20th career victory, 17th in the past four seasons.

The series takes its traditional week off for Easter before resuming at Talladega in two weeks.

Stuff

--Valerie J. Nelson / Los Angeles Times

“Charles Van Doren, one of the first intellectual stars of the television era as a contestant on the NBC show ‘Twenty One,’ who quickly became the country’s leading villain after admitting that his winning streak on the popular game show had been rigged, died Tuesday.  He was 93.

“As many as 50 million Americans tuned in to watch who they thought were ordinary people hitting it big on the show. But in fact ‘Twenty One’ had been scripted down to the dramatic pauses and theatrical stutters as Van Doren ‘struggled’ to recall the answers that producers had fed him beforehand.

“In a 90-minute confession before a congressional committee, the charismatic Van Doren – whose popularity in the late 1950s had been compared to Elvis Presley’s – admitted, ‘I have deceived my friends, and I had millions of them.’

“The fallout was nothing short of a morality play acted out on a national stage.  President Eisenhower called the deception ‘a terrible thing to do to the American public.’  The writer John Steinbeck raged against ‘the cynical immorality of my country.’  Editorial writers wondered about the moral fiber of America.

“Some saw the quiz show scandal, in which about 100 contestants and producers lied under oath, as the first major crack in the façade of a more trusting era.  A public that had believed in the integrity of the fledgling TV industry became uniformly skeptical, a trait that would be honed in the turbulent 1960s.  Not since members of the Chicago White Sox conspired to fix the 1919 World Series had there been such a widespread violation of public faith.”

An extensive investigation led to almost all prime-time quiz shows being pulled from the air in the late 1950s.

Van Doren and nine other contestants who had appeared on one of three NBC shows – ‘Twenty One,’ ‘Tic Tac Dough’ and ‘High Low’ – pleaded guilty to perjury but were given suspended sentences.  The producers lost their jobs and were unofficially blackballed from the industry for years.

It was felt for the contestants that national scorn was punishment enough.  Asked after his legal proceedings were over what he planned to do, Van Doren responded, “For me it will never be over.”  He ended up landing a job as an editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica, where he stayed for more than 20 years.  As of 2008, he was teaching English at the University of Connecticut.

Van Doren grew up in New York City, the son of intellectual parents.  His father won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and his mother was a novelist and an editor of the Nation.

There were various stories as to how Van Doren was first cast for “Twenty One,” but in 1993, David Halberstam wrote in his book, “The Fifties,” that Van Doren, who impressed producers with his intelligence and telegenic upper-crust looks, became interested when told he could win prize money in six figures.  Deputy producer Al Freedman told him that every show was controlled in some way, because it was show business.

In 1994, the feature film “Quiz Show” revived interest in the scandal.  Directed by Robert Redford, it starred the rakish Ralph Fiennes as Van Doren.

Part II of the Van Doren story next time.  How it all unraveled.

--I have written of the cassowary, a large, flightless bird that can reach 6-feet in height, from my travels to Australia, where it is a native species (along with New Guinea).  It was in 2010 that I took a trip to Cairns and saw a cassowary, having read up on the bird, that has been described as a prehistoric turkey (similar looking to an emu), as researcher Brendan Borrell wrote in Smithsonian once, a turkey that could “disembowel me with a swipe of its nearly five-inch claws. Luckily, she just wants the mango, which she scoops up whole and mashes with her beak.”

A cassowary “ranks as the world’s most dangerous bird...(it) can charge up to 30 miles an hour and leap more than 3 feet in the air.  On each foot are three claws – one slightly curved like a scimitar, the other two straight as daggers – that are so sharp New Guinea tribesmen slide them over spear points.”

There are an estimated 1,500 in Australia, mostly in Queensland.  You don’t want to come across one while picking fruit, let’s just say.

So by now many of you have read that a 75-year-old Floridian was killed by a cassowary this weekend, the bird attacking the man after he fell.

For some reason the guy has been breeding the birds (I guess for zoos).

--These stories on Johnny Depp becoming a “monster,” in the words of then-wife Amber Heard in a court filing, have Warner Brothers s---ting bricks, because of his role in the Harry Potter films, “Fantastic Beasts 3” set to begin filming shortly.  Depp denies Heard’s charges he abused her.

Top 3 songs for the week 4/16/77:  #1 “Don’t Give Up On Us” (David Soul)  #2 “Don’t Leave Me This Way” (Thelma Houston)  #3 “Southern Nights” (Glen Campbell)...and...#4 “Hotel California” (Eagles)  #5 “The Things We Do For Love” (10 CC)  #6 “Dancing Queen” (Abba)  #7 “I’ve Got Love On My Mind” (Natalie Cole)  #8 “Love Theme From ‘A Star Is Born’ (Evergreen)” (Barbra Streisand)  #9 “So In To You” (Atlanta Rhythm Section)  #10 “Rich Girl” (Daryl Hall & John Oates...I was finishing up my freshman year at Wake Forest...it would go very badly from there...as music also grew worse...)

NBA Quiz Answers: 1) Last two aside from James Haden to average 36 ppg for a year are Michael Jordan, 37.09, 1986-87, and Wilt Chamberlain, 36.85, 1963-64.  2) Other four to average 27 points per game this season are Paul George, 28.0; Giannis Antetokounmpo, 27.7; Joel Embiid, 27.5; Stpehn Curry, 27.3.  [Devin Booker and Kawhi Leonard each averaged 26.6 ppg.]

*1969 Mets....

April 12, the Mets lost the second game of their 3-game home series against St. Louis 1-0, Dave Giusti with the complete game shutout, Don Cardwell the complete game loss for the Metropolitans.

April 13, the Mets and Tom Seaver fell to Bob Gibson 3-1, Gibby with a three-hitter, Seaver giving up three runs on six hits over eight.

And then April 14, the Mets lost at Philadelphia 5-1...the Mets falling to 2-5, having scored two runs their last three games.

The season was over.  On to next year...though I guess we’ll play this out a bit longer.  Ken P., I’m going to be happy with something like 75-87.

Next Bar Chat, Thursday.

---