[Posted Sunday PM]
Baseball Quiz: 1) Name the top five all time in batting
average… and for this one I’m not including anyone whose last
season was prior to 1920. [Min. 10 major league seasons and
4,000 at bats.] 2) Name the top five, active, in batting average…
minimum 1,000 plate appearances. [This isn’t a trick question.
All five have at least 982 career hits.] Answers below.
The Final Word…Bode Miller and his cast of Malcontents
Bode Miller to NBC’s Tom Brokaw:
“The Olympics is about experiencing the Olympics….I raced in
a way that I believe was true to myself.”
Sally Jenkins / Washington Post:
“For weeks now Nike has advised us to ‘Join Bode.’ Join him
where? At the bar? …
“Miller is the biggest disappointment in the Winter Olympics,
not because of the way he skied the mountain, but the way he
acted at the bottom of it. The fact that he didn’t win a medal at
these Games, going 0 for 5…is beside the point. It’s not the
winning, it’s the trying. The point is that he acted like he didn’t
try, and didn’t care. Failing is forgivable. Getting fatter on beer
while you’re here is not.
“If there has been a weaker performance by an American athlete
on the international stage than that of Miller, I’m hard-pressed to
think of one. To hear Miller tell it, he spent more time in
Sestriere’s nightclubs than he did in actual competition, which
amounted to less than eight minutes. Miller’s final Olympic
event, the slalom, lasted all of 16 seconds. He bulled out of the
start house, did a couple of quick scrimshaw turns, and promptly
straddled a gate.
“Fair enough – Miller has struggled in the slalom this season,
finishing just two of eight races, and it was a tough course. Nine
of the top 29 skiers in the competition did not finish. It was
Miller’s behavior afterward that sealed his reputation…He thrust
his hands in the air, stuck out his tongue, and waggled in mock
celebration. Then he skied off the course, avoiding the cameras
and throngs of people at the bottom of the hill. When Associated
Press reporter Jim Litke found him later, he declared, ‘Man, I
rocked.’
“Then he delivered a disquisition on his Olympic experience.
‘It’s been an awesome two weeks,’ Miller said. ‘I got to party
and socialize at an Olympic level.’
“Let’s review his awesome two weeks. Miller arrived in Turin
sullen and defensive, and blew his chance in the downhill when
he lost time on the bottom of the course, probably as a result of
his lack of fitness. He blew another medal in the combined when
he led after the downhill portion, but straddled a gate in the
slalom. Next, he blew up a gate in the Super-G, and then
insulted his rivals afterward by saying he wasn’t one of those
guys’ who skies 70, 80 percent and gets on the podium.’…
“Now he wants to distance himself from all the hype and
commerce. ‘The expectations were other people’s,’ he told the
AP. ‘I’m comfortable with what I’ve accomplished, including at
the Olympics.’
“The about-face has left Miller so confused that he can’t get his
stories straight. In one breath, he talks about giving it his all, and
in the next, he talks about how hard he drank during the Games.
‘I just did it my way. I’m not a martyr, and I’m not a do-gooder.
I just want to go out and rock. And man, I rocked here.’”
From the New York Daily News:
“The U.S. Olympic Committee doesn’t do psychiatry. It does
funding. And yesterday, team officials were very unhappy with
Miller, even before his latest failure and declaration of war. Jim
Scherr, CEO of the USOC, said the team had ‘taken a little bit of
a hit with the comportment of high-profile athletes.’
“ ‘If they’re not taking the Games seriously, that’s where we
draw the line,’ Scherr said. ‘In Bode’s case, we thought he could
get focused.’
“Miller was too sloshed to focus, and Scherr was quietly fuming
about Miller, the poster child here for indifference. The USOC is
spending more than $45 million on these athletes, trying to
convince sponsors they should continue their investment streams.
These companies would like to think the money and team
uniforms are buying them effort, if not medals….
“(In the case of Bode), he merely took his talent, drank it away in
bars, danced it away with groupies, and threw it down the
mountain.
“He cashed the checks the sponsors wrote for him. He occupied
a spot on the U.S. Alpine team, flexed his pecs for the magazine
covers, and then decided he was done, finished. He scoffed at
teammates who were really trying, a grotesque form of Olympic
cynicism – the glorification of self, the athletes as self-
congratulatory bimbo.”
Steve Politi / Star-Ledger:
“ ‘It’s not about the medals,’ the figure skaters and the skiers and
other obscure Olympic athletes have said again and again these
past two weeks, usually after falling on their backsides or
tumbling down a mountain, trying to convince us that the
experience is all that matters.
“Our reaction to this?
“Yeah, right.
“This is the new motto for Team USA, the rallying cry for our
Olympians. If there is one lasting impression we’ll take from
Turin as the Games crawl to the finish line, it’s that the people
who seemed the least concerned with the American struggles
here were the athletes themselves.
“They are here because they love the process, they said. They
are here because competing on the world stage is so special, they
insisted. Those round thingies with the hole in the middle? You
can keep those.
“ ‘For me, it’s just a medal,’ said Sasha Cohen, who insisted she
had shoeboxes full of them in random places.
“ It’s just a race,’ said Lindsey Jacobellis, after she tried a dumb
trick on her final jump and lost gold.
“ ‘Medals? Screw medals,’ said Steve Nyman, a member of the
U.S. men’s ski team that won just one.
“ ‘It is the other people who want me to win medals,’ said Bode
Miller, the most famous hater of all things gold, silver and
bronze.
“Miller is the one who insisted in his Nike commercials that
winning medals wasn’t important, and then spent the past two
weeks proving his point….
“Please, make them stop. All of them, skiers and figure
skaters….
“No one would have faulted Jacobellis for finishing second, but
she lost while being a poor sport. She tried to show off for the
audience, and then told everyone that winning was no big deal….
“(Chad Hedrick) looked so utterly miserable during the flowers’
ceremony after finishing the 1,500-meter race in third place. He
said it had nothing to do with sharing the moment with his rival,
Shani Davis.
“ ‘I came here to win,’ Hedrick said. ‘If you come here for any
other reason than that, in my eyes you’re wasting your time…
Anything less than a win, second, fourth, eight, 10th, 50th, it’s all
the same thing to me.’
“Arrogant? For sure.
“But refreshing? You bet.”
Steve Politi…continues:
“Miller has etched his name at the top of the list of all-time
failures in the history of American athletics. Can you come up
with a better choice? Has anyone disgraced the Team USA
uniform in an Olympics worse than he has?
“It’s hard to pinpoint what his biggest accomplish here was.
Was it keeping his balance on one ski for several seconds in one
of his three DNFs?…
“Was it having his photo taken with playmate Tina Jordan during
one of his nights out in the Alps? [He’s the one flipping off the
cameraman with one hand, a cold beer in the other.]
“Or was it turning ‘Join Bode’ into the worst marketing
campaign in history, even outdoing the whole ‘Dan and Dave’
thing?…
“The real Olympic downhill will be to see how quickly his
sponsors can drop him as a spokesman. He was a disgrace to all
competitive athletes. Not only did he say he didn’t care about
winning, but he gave off the perception that he wasn’t even
trying….
“ ‘I wanted to have fun here, to enjoy the Olympic experience,
not be holed up in a closet and not ever leave your room,’ Miller
said. ‘People said, “Why can’t you stay in for the two weeks,
three weeks? You’ve got the rest of your life to experience the
Games the way everybody else does.” But I like the whole
package. I always have.’
“This is the whole package, Bode: You have become an
international laughingstock. From now on, when a golfer yips a
2-foot putt, he can look at his playing partner and say, ‘I really
Bode-ied that one.’”
Here’s my own take. I ended up watching pretty much all I
thought I would beforehand and what I saw was a bunch of ugly
Americans and choke artists. Sasha Cohen? No way she
deserved silver (which is why figure skating judges still suck).
Lindsey Jacobellis? One of the great losers of our time. Hedrick
and Shani Davis? Two of the bigger jerks in sports history.
Bode? Dirtball.
Thankfully, we also got to see the awesome performance of the
Austrian alpine team, both men and women’s, that captured a
team-record 14 medals while the U.S. settled for two. And that
of Norway’s Aamodt.
But you also had the sad situation of American speedskater
Kimberly Derrick, who took the ice knowing her grandfather had
died the day before while attending the Games. Darrel Edwards,
74, was there to see his granddaughter skate in her first Olympics
when he collapsed of a heart attack. It doesn’t get any worse
than that.
The real bottom line of these Olympics, though, is that with the
exception of a few pockets of fans, such as those from Latvia,
there aren’t a whole lot of folks who give a damn anymore. The
Olympic movement, whatever that is, is dying and NBC, despite
the fact it turned a profit, must be ruing the day it signed such a
long-term deal to televise future Games; just as cities like New
York that lost out on hosting them should be shouting with glee.
Stuff
–Don Knotts, RIP. How could you not love this guy? In reading
an obituary by Scott Collins of the Los Angeles Times, I didn’t
realize that Andy Griffith was meant to be the comic focus of
“The Andy Griffith Show” when it first aired in 1960. But the
writers, recognizing Don Knotts’ comedic ability, “began beefing
up (Barney) Fife’s role and creating episodes that depended on
the sheriff rescuing Fife from his latest predicament.”
Scott Collins:
“In Knotts’ hands, Fife was a fully realized stooge, a hick-town
Don Quixote who imagined himself braver, more sophisticated
and more competent than he actually was. His utter lack of self-
control led him into desperate jams that usually culminated with
Fife at the end of his rope, bug-eyed and panting with anxiety.
Sheriff Taylor allowed his deputy to carry just one bullet, which
he was obliged to keep separate from his service revolver due to
past trigger mishaps.”
During its 8-year run, “Andy Griffith” never dropped from the
Top 10 in the ratings.
Knotts was born in Morgantown, West Virginia, the youngest of
four brothers. His father was a real piece of work, to put it
mildly, twice threatening his mother with a knife and later
spending time in a mental hospital. Knotts would later say, “I
felt like a loser. I was unhappy, I think, most of the time. We
were terribly poor.”
But he enlisted in the Army, fought in the Pacific during World
War II, was decorated, and then graduated from West Virginia
University.
Knotts borrowed $100, moved to New York, and began pursuing
a career as an actor. In 1955 he appeared in a successful play on
Broadway, “No Time for Sergeants,” featuring a then unknown,
Andy Griffith, and from 1956-60, Knotts became a household
name with his regular slot on “The Steve Allen Show,” where he
played a character named Mr. Morrison, “the nervous man.”
Knotts appeared in a number of movies, including one I was fond
of as a youth, “The Incredible Mr. Limpet” (1964). Many of
today’s comedians now say this film was more path-breaking
than first thought as it was the first picture to mix live action and
animation, a forerunner to films such as “Who Framed Roger
Rabbit?”
And to a latter generation of fans, Don Knotts was best known
for his role of landlord Ralph Furley on ABC’s “Three’s
Company.”
–Actor Darren McGavin also passed away this weekend at the
age of 83. He appeared in numerous films and television shows,
including “Kolchak: The Night Stalker.” But McGavin will
forever be known as the grouchy dad in “A Christmas Story.”
–Best wishes for a speedy recovery from breast cancer surgery
to singer Sheryl Crow.
–The Houston Astros’ Jeff Bagwell reported to training camp.
You’ll recall the 37-year-old possible Hall of Famer is
guaranteed $17 million this season, but the Astros have filed an
insurance claim whereby they collect $15.6 million if it’s proven
Bagwell can’t play. Bagwell is coming off debilitating shoulder
surgery.
And why has Bagwell broken down so? I believe he’s a poster
boy for steroids. Did you see a picture of him on Friday? He
looks like Nicole Richie, he’s lost so much weight. Johnny Mac
thinks Bagwell more closely resembles Johnny Weir. And J.
Mac adds:
“For some reason, Bagwell has flown under the radar, vis-à-vis
steroids. I always thought he was juiced. His arms a few years
ago were just huge. Look at Bret Boone, too. All of these guys
are just breaking down like used Yugos in front of our eyes.
The whole story has yet to be written. In the not too distant
future, someone of more credibility than Canseco or Caminiti
will write the definitive tell-all book and blow the lid off this
whole generation of cheaters.”
–The New York Times’ George Vecsey on Barry Bonds:
“Oh, boo-hoo. One of these years, Barry Bonds promises us, we
are not going to have him to kick around anymore. My response
is, the sooner the better….
“As he tries to pass the home-run totals of Babe Ruth and Henry
Aaron, Bonds is still trying to manipulate the world around him.
The latest farce is that Bonds wants reporters to sign a waiver for
every one-on-one interview (not that he grants many) to satisfy
the legal demands of a reality show he is doing for ESPN, on
company time….
“Bonds made a permanent fool of himself, in grand jury
testimony, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, by saying
that his trainer had assured him that the creams he had given him
contained only flaxseed oil. Bonds is way too much of a control
freak to get away with that silliness….
“It isn’t fun (these days) for Barry? It wasn’t fun for Aaron,
receiving hate mail for passing the Babe. It wasn’t fun for
Mickey Mantle, gasping every time his knee buckled. It wasn’t
fun for Roger Maris, knowing traditionalists were rooting against
him. It wasn’t fun for Jackie Robinson when fans and opponents
shouted vile things at him. It wasn’t fun for Josh Gibson and
Oscar Charleston and Buck O’Neil to watch mediocrities play in
the all-white major leagues. It wasn’t fun for the Babe, feeling
his body falling apart, sensing the Yankees would never let him
manage. It wasn’t fun for Lou Gehrig, dying young.
“It isn’t fun for a lot of us, watching a miserable, bulked-up
egomaniac whine. Barry Bonds wants fun? He could retire in
spring training, leaving Aaron and Ruth at the top of the list. I’d
sign a waiver to cover that.”
–LeBron James was booed in Cleveland the other night. In a
loss to Washington, James went 0-for-8 from the field and 4-for-
12 from the foul line in the second half, including bricking his
final seven. After missing a shot with five seconds to go, “he
angrily ripped off his headband, threw it into the crowd and
walked off the court.” [ESPN.com]
James said he heard the boos. “If these fans want to boo me, it’s
on them.”
Is this the first crack in an otherwise fairytale story? Stay tuned.
–What a great touch at Curt Gowdy’s funeral on Saturday,
having the procession take a last trip around his beloved Fenway
Park, where he broadcast games for the Red Sox for 15 seasons.
Columnist Mike Lupica wrote:
“The great Curt Gowdy never had an act, never shouted, never
came to the booth with silly tag lines, never played to the critics,
never thought the whole thing was about him. He played to us.”
–As I write this, the New York Knicks are 15-40 with a payroll
of around $125 million, the biggest in the NBA. With the
dreadful acquisition of guard Steve Francis the other day,
contemplate the following:
Stephon Marbury…$16.4 million for 2005-06
Steve Francis…$13.7mm
Quentin Richardson…$6.8mm
Jamal Crawford…$6.4mm
Jerome James…$5.0mm
Malik Rose…$6.0mm
Jalen Rose…$15.6mm
Maurice Taylor…$9.1mm
Eddy Curry…$7.3mm
[The first six listed above also have 3-5 years remaining after this
season!]
And the Knicks are still responsible for $39.8mm on Allan
Houston’s contract, $13.9mm on Shandon Anderson’s, and
$12.5mm on Jerome Williams’s.
But Phil W., in discussing the fact the Knicks’ new backcourt of
Marbury and Francis likes to run while coach Larry Brown
attempts to stress defense first, has stumbled on a solution.
Larry Brown to Wake Forest for Wake’s Skip Prosser; the
latter’s teams never caring about the defensive end of the court
while playing an up-tempo game.
Great idea, Phil. Home version of “Bar Chat: The Game” on the
way. [Bar Chat: The Game is not sold in stores…actually, it’s
not sold anywhere.]
–CBS golf commentator Gary McCord:
“You have Tiger, Phil and John Daly and besides those three
players there aren’t any interesting personalities on tour. Each
week I struggle to find something interesting to say about the
current players out there. All the personalities and interesting
players are out here on the Champions (seniors) Tour.”
[GolfWorld]
Oh, how true that is. Hopefully this new wave of bombers such
as J.B. Holmes and Bubba Watson, as well as Jason Gore if he
can play consistently, can inject some life into the sport.
Watching the match play final this weekend of Davis Love III
and Geoff Ogilvy was far from scintillating.
–Jerry Pate won his first tournament in 24 years in taking this
week’s Champions Tour event.
–What a choke job on the part of Seton Hall’s basketball team.
Good thing I didn’t jump on that bandwagon. Oh, I was close to
doing it, no doubt, but no one out there has a video of me
physically getting on the thing.
–Congratulations to my friend Jose Rebimbas, head coach at
William Paterson in New Jersey, for winning another conference
tourney on top of the regular season title. On to the Division III
affair, where he has taken two squads to the Final Four in recent
years.
–Great effort by UConn on Sunday vs. Villanova. I picked Duke
at the start of the season and have to stick by this, but UConn has
it all.
–Jeff B.(UConn fanatic) and I are once again distressed at the
turn of events in the comic strip “For Better Or For Worse.” For
those of you following it these days, I’m suggesting to cartoonist
Lynn Johnston that we need a murder-suicide to liven things up.
Jeff tells me she’s not likely to respond to this one. [In the past,
I’ve also offered up a kiln explosion as a possible plot twist and
she didn’t reply to that one either.]
–The Vocal Group Hall of Fame (I didn’t know this existed) has
been attempting to get numerous states to pass “Truth in Music”
legislation that would allow state attorneys general to prevent
impostor bands from performing, while levying civil penalties of
up to $15,000 against the bands and those who promote them.
This has been a huge problem over the years, with groups
claiming to be the Platters, the Drifters, or the Coasters, for
example, making $thousands off the name despite not having one
original member.
So the legislation proposes that a band must include at least one
member of the original recording group. Tribute bands would not
be affected. Sadly, some of those getting ripped off have but one
original member to begin with these days, a la the Coasters,
where Carl Gardner, 77, still performs when possible.
–Sports Illustrated’s “Sign of the Apocalypse”:
“A Florida middle school gym teacher faces bribery charges for
allegedly letting students skip class if they paid him $1 per day.”
Hey, I liked gym class, but I would have paid my guy $1 not to
have to climb the rope, know what I’m sayin’?!
[Great episode of “The Simpsons” on Sunday, featuring a gym
teacher and his penchant for bombardment.]
Top 3 songs for the week of 2/26/66: #1 “These Boots Are Made
For Walkin’” (Nancy Sinatra…here at Bar Chat we go with
Jessica Simpson and her version, just because) #2 “Lightnin’
Strikes” (Lou Christie…one of the more underrated tunes of all
time) #3 “The Ballad Of The Green Berets” (SSgt. Barry Sadler)
…and…#4 “Uptight (Everything Is Alright)” (Stevie Wonder)
#5 “My World Is Empty Without You” (The Supremes) #6 “My
Love” (Petula Clark) #7 “Don’t Mess With Bill” (The
Marvelettes) #8 “California Dreamin’” (The Mamas & The
Papas) #9 “Elusive Butterfly” (Bob Lind…don’t laugh…I liked
this song) #10 “Working My Way Back To You” (The 4
Seasons)
Baseball Quiz Answers:
1) Top five all time in batting average.
1. Ty Cobb – .366 (last season 1928)
2. Rogers Hornsby – .358 (1937)
3. Joe Jackson – .356 (1920)
4. Tris Speaker – .345 (1928)
5. Ted Williams – .344 (1960)
[Baseball purists will quibble with this list, but I didn’t think too
many of you would get Pete Browning, Ed Delahanty, Willie
Keeler, and Billy Hamilton; all of whom started their careers in
the 1800s and finished up by 1910.]
2) Top five active in batting average.
1. Todd Helton – .337
2. Albert Pujols – .332
3. Ichiro Suzuki – .332
4. Vladimir Guerrero – .324
5. Nomar Garciaparra – .320
[Next on list are Derek Jeter and Manny Ramirez at .314; both
with over 1,900 hits, incidentally.]
*Johnny Mac always reminds me that when Stan Musial’s name
is cited, as in my last chat, I need to note he had 1,815 hits at
home and 1,815 on the road. I’m also reminded of the quote
from Brooklyn lefthander Preacher Roe, who was once asked
how he pitched to Musial.
“I throw him four wide ones, then I try to pick him off first
base.”
Next Bar Chat, Thursday….high school basketball and
wolverines (a new take on an old classic).
