Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year Quiz (first awarded in
1954): 1) Who is the only auto racer to win the award? 2) What
five male golfers have won it? 3) What individual with the
initials J.L. bagged the honor? Answers below.
Stuff
You’ll have to forgive me. I spent a good part of Sunday flying
around this great country of ours and it’s a mini-bar chat this
time.
I was in Pensacola for a few days and discovered this super
restaurant O’Briens on Bayou Blvd. I had two delicious feeds
there and when I asked my main man Clyde what they had for
beer, he started naming the usual domestic brands and then he
adds “Grolsch.” That’s when it hit me. I was in Amsterdam and
never saw or heard of Grolsch the whole time I was there. I love
Grolsch…but why wasn’t it featured prominently in its native
land? Heck, Grolsch has been brewed since 1615, for crying out
loud. I mean Grolsch is one tasty beer. So suffice it to say I had
a few at O’Briens. [And if you go, get the bread pudding; it’s
out of this world.]
I was down in Pensacola because it was my base for a trip to
Mississippi to check out the Katrina damage and to see if I could
help one or two folks. I’ll discuss the details later this week in
that other column I do.
But for now, I checked out Gulf Islands National Park which had
just reopened two weeks ago; the visitors center having been
flooded so the park service is operating out of a trailer. I was the
only tourist there and the ranger told me I could ignore the
barriers blocking some of the trails, so I dutifully complied and
found myself along the bayou, in total peace and quiet. Just me
and the brown pelicans. Then I heard some rustling in the
undergrowth and checked one of the brochures I had just picked
up; the one on camping in the area, not that I was about to.
“Hazards to Campers”
“There are alligators, but insects and sunburn cause many more
problems for campers. Ironically, people are more often
responsible for any close encounters. When visitors see an
alligator, the tendency too often is to look closer. For your safety
and theirs, don’t feed, harass or consider alligators a potential
pet. If we stay away, alligators keeps (sic) a natural fear of
humans. Fortunately, dense vegetation deters human access to
these ancient reptiles. Respect them as survivors from another
era who have managed to survive on a small island.”
Geezuz, how stupid are the people around here?! “A potential
pet”? And alligators don’t have a natural fear of humans.
They’re out to kill us. Ever see the movie “Gator”?
Needless to say, as I stood there on the hurricane ravaged trail, I
suddenly had second thoughts. Then I read further.
“Poisonous snakes also naturally fear humans. Keep your
distance and don’t go walking into brush where you can’t see
hands or feet.”
Whose hands or feet? The cottonmouth’s? And of course once
again I was without my Swiss Army knife. So much for my
nature adventure.
–Here was an item from the local Pensacola paper:
“Redneck Christmas Festival begins today in Chumuckla”
“Today’s activities are from 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. and will include
a motorcycle show, a tractor show, live entertainment, food and
craft vendors, games and Redneck Wrestling Mania I.”
Well I’m not a real redneck, but I can play one on TV and I
thought this could be fun. Alas, I ran out of time.
–We note the passing of comedian Richard Pryor. Reginald
Hudlin of BET told the Los Angeles Times, “Every new piece
(of Pryor’s) kind of transformed the game. He was a culturally
transcendent hero. His influence is bigger than black comedy;
it’s bigger than comedy. He was a cultural giant.”
Comedian Keenan Ivory Wayans once said: “Richard Pryor is
the groundbreaker. (He) showed us that you can be black and
have a black voice and be successful.”
For you younger folks who aren’t too familiar with his best
work, get “Richard Pryor – Live in Concert” (1979). He made
whitey a little uncomfortable at times, but it was good for us.
The guy was brilliant.
–And then there was the passing of former senator and
presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy. This guy was a total
jerk, sports fans. Trust me.
–Dec. 13, 1931
Sir Winston Churchill was in New York for a 40-lecture tour
which was to bring him a substantial sum of 10,000 pounds. On
the 13th he was at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and after a quiet
dinner with Clementine, his wife, decided to accept an invitation
from Bernard Baruch to meet a few of his friends at Baruch’s
Fifth Avenue apartment, about a mile uptown. Biographer Roy
Jenkins (“Churchill: A Biography”), describes what happens
next.
“(Churchill) set out by cab, without the exact address, but
apparently thinking that the driver would know how to find it.
On this basis he would have been lucky in New York to have got
to the Plaza Hotel, let alone a private residence. The result was
an hour’s frustrating search. Eventually he thought he saw a
familiar doorway, stopped the taxi on the Central Park side and
endeavored to cross Fifth Avenue on foot. On the way he was
knocked down by a car traveling at rather more than thirty miles
an hour.
“His injuries were highly disagreeable without being destructive
of either life or limb. ‘Temperature 100.6. Pulse normal. Head
scalp wound severe. Two cracked ribs. Simple slight pleural
irritation of right side. Generally much bruised. Progress
satisfactory,’ Clementine cabled Britain.”
[Churchill had a lengthy recovery, both in New York and the
West Indies, but managed to resume his lecture tour on Jan. 28.]
Sir Winston immediately admitted the accident was his fault.
Fifth Avenue was a two-way street in those days and Churchill
clearly didn’t look both ways, nor was he used to the fact
Americans drove on the right. As for the man who hit him,
Jenkins writes “his Italo-American accidental assailant, a
temporarily unemployed truck driver, not only visited Churchill
in hospital, but also attended, somewhat beyond the call of guilt
or duty, Churchill’s first lecture of his resumed tour.”
But this wasn’t Churchill’s only health problem during this
period. In the spring of 1932, he developed paratyphoid fever in
south Germany and had to “retreat across the Austrian border to
a Salzburg sanatorium for two weeks. Just as he had assured the
New York police that it was his fault and not that of the
assaulting driver that he had been run down, he generously said
that it was an English bug which he had brought with him rather
than a German bug which had infected him.”
It turns out Churchill had all manner of other health issues, age
48 to 58, but as Jenkins adds, “Like many who achieved great
longevity he was not particularly robust over the middle
stretches.”
So you see, we were close to losing Winston on more than one
occasion. I think you’d agree we were lucky he hung around.
–How about that guy who scaled the White House fence the
other day, thinking the Clintons were still the occupants.
Supposedly he was after Chelsea. Which means one thing; this
fellow doesn’t know the Red Sox and White Sox won the Series!
Nor that Janet Jackson had a wardrobe malfunction.
–So Tiger Woods turns 30 on Dec. 30. He has 46 tour wins and
10 majors, while Jack Nicklaus had 30 wins and 8 majors in his
20s.
–Your heart goes out to New York Knicks forward Quentin
Richardson, who just had a second brother gunned down in a
robbery attempt in Chicago.
–On December 12, 1925, America’s first motel, The Motel Inn,
opened in San Luis Obispo, California. It offered all the
“comfort and convenience of a first-class hotel” for less than $3 a
day. But you didn’t have Weather Channel back then.
–Meg James of the Los Angeles Times had a story on what a
moneymaker “A Charlie Brown Christmas” is. For 40 years we
continue to tune in (personally, I watch it every year on video)
and the program garners $200,000 for each 30-second spot, more
than what advertisers pay for much of the other primetime fare.
When you throw in all the Peanuts merchandise, along with the
fact the strip is still being syndicated in some 2,400 newspapers
five years after Charles Schulz’s death, his estate brings in about
$35 million a year, making him the second-most-profitable “dead
celebrity” next to Elvis. And here’s another figure for you;
Hallmark first offered Peanuts greeting cards in 1960 and has
now sold more than 1.5 billion.
–Betting on NFL games is about $12 billion a year, including
illegal street betting, online betting and casino action. College
football accounts for $6 billion while the NCAA basketball
tournament takes in $2.5 billion in action. And according to the
New York Post, two weekends ago bookies took a real bath on
the NFL as 12 of 16 underdogs won. It’s supposedly been a bad
year for bookies all around. Kids, when placing an illegal bet
with these gentlemen, always make sure you check with your
parents first. Better yet, call your local Better Bookie Bureau.
They’ll be glad to assist you in finding the right bookie to meet
your needs.
–Leave it up to my Jets to go out and win a game, their third of
the season, thus further dampening their chances of obtaining
Heisman winner Reggie Bush. Idiots.
–East Stroudsburg’s Jimmy Terwilliger captured the Division II
player of the year honors, thereby proving that all the ink Johnny
Mac and I have been giving him was not for naught. And he
takes his record streak of 36 consecutive games with a TD pass
into his senior year next fall.
–Johnny Mac also had to comment on the retirement of 16-year
baseball veteran John Olerud. What a class guy he was, and a
pretty fair player. 255 HR, 1230 RBI, a .295 lifetime average, a
batting title and 3 Gold Gloves. And he had a super .398 on-base
percentage. As J. Mac notes, ahead of the likes of Rod Carew,
Joe Morgan and Honus Wagner.
–Roger Clemens may be a helluva pitcher, but he’s still a jerk.
Once again he wouldn’t tell Houston whether he was coming
back for another season so the club didn’t offer him arbitration,
meaning he can’t sign with them until May 1. Clemens did say
he was pitching in the World Baseball Classic, which is shaping
up to be a rather interesting affair. General Managers and team
owners are scared to death some of their stars, particularly the
pitchers, will get hurt. [And back to Roger, now he’s interested
in going back to Boston.]
–We note the passing of the great Pittsburgh Steelers defensive
coordinator Bud Carson, 75. More next chat.
–The World Cup starts June 9 in Germany. The U.S. got a bad
draw and has to face Czech Republic, Italy and Ghana.
–I have to give Brad K. partial credit for passing along the Japan
jellyfish story I wrote of last time, but it was minutes after I had
already posted it. So Brad told me he and his wife, Leah K.,
have been battling to see who gets more references in Bar Chat.
Doh! Sorry Brad. You’re back to one behind.
–There’s already a lot of revisionist history going on in Colorado
over fired football coach Gary Barnett. This guy deserved to be
canned after all the crap that has gone on at that school.
Having said that, the university also looks like a bunch of idiots
because when the team was 7-2 this year, they were negotiating a
contract extension. Then Colorado lost its last three games and
Barnett was let go.
But shed no tears for the coach. He walks away with $millions
and will no doubt get an ESPN gig to occupy his time.
–Buy beer……….oh, sorry. My sis-in-law just called to go over
Christmas arrangements.
–So much for the Duke – Texas match-up, #1 vs. #2. J.J. Redick
torched the Longhorns for 41, including 9 of 16 from downtown.
–This just in….as I go through the newspapers and mail…
“Jersey declares war on Canada geese”
Yesssss!!!!!
“Plan could slash flocks 60 percent”
“A new federal proposal – designed specifically for New Jersey
– recommends destroying 57,000 birds over the next 10 years…
“Once, Canada geese were a migratory rarity in New Jersey,
eagerly awaited each fall. Then they began to stay. And stay, to
the point that the resident population now far outnumbers the
endangered migratory population.”
How the hell do you tell them apart?
“Over the past decade, the density of the goose population in
New Jersey rose to 4.3 birds per square kilometer – more than
twice that of Pennsylvania and four times that of New York.”
Notice how the reporter said “kilometer.” Oh yeah, once you’ve
forced a reporter to go metric, you’re screwed if the story is
about you.
Top 3 songs for the week of 12/14/74: #1 “Kung Fu Fighting”
(Carl Douglas…stupid tune) #2 “When Will I See You Again”
(The Three Degrees) #3 “I Can Help” (Billy Swan…not bad)
SI Sportsman of the Year Quiz Answers: 1) Jackie Stewart is the
only auto racer to win it, 1973. 2) Golfers: Arnold Palmer, 1960;
Ken Venturi, 1964; Lee Trevino, 1971; Jack Nicklaus, 1978;
Tiger Woods, 1996 and 2000. [Patty Sheehan won it in 1987 as
part of that stupid “8 Athletes Who Care” gig. What did that
have to do with superior performance on the field of play that
particular year? Well?] 3) Jerry Lucas won it in 1961.
As a matter of fact, I’ve decided this is a dumb award, period. SI
has messed around with the criteria way too often and it’s lost its
legitimacy. So from here on…no SI Sportsman of the Year
Quizzes!
Next Bar Chat, Thursday.
