PBA Quiz: Yes, every two years or so I feel compelled to throw
out a Pro Bowlers Tour test question. The last time was Jan.
2005 when Parker Bohn III earned his 30th title. So name the
four ahead of him on the career win list today. Answer below.
The Top 200 Albums
I might have missed this were it not for a piece in the New York
Daily News by David Hinckley, but the National Association of
Record Manufacturers and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame have
released “The Definitive 200,” a list of 200 albums they think
every popular-music fan should own. As Hinckley notes, the
timing is also auspicious as CD sales are tumbling these days.
Here’s a partial list.
1. Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
2. Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon
3. Michael Jackson – Thriller
4. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV
5. U2 – The Joshua Tree
6. Rolling Stones – Exile on Main Street
7. Carole King – Tapestry
8. Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited
9. Beach Boys – Pet Sounds
10. Nirvana – Nevermind
11. Pearl Jam – Ten
12. Beatles – Abbey Road
13. Santana – Supernatural
14. Metallica – Metallica
15. Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run
16. Prince – Purple Rain
17. AC/DC – Back in Black
18. Rolling Stones – Let it Bleed
19. Doors – The Doors
20. Grateful Dead – American Beauty
21. Shania Twain – Come on Over……….ooh baby
22. Who – Who’s Next
23. Stevie Wonder – Songs in the Key of Life
24. Fleetwood Mac – Rumours
25. Pink Floyd – The Wall
29. Outkast – Speakerboxx-Love Below
32. Guns N’ Roses – Appetite for Destruction
35. Eagles – Hotel California
38. Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On….get this one
41. Jimi Hendrix – Are You Experienced?
42. Beatles – Revolver
43. Boston – Boston
45. U2 – Achtung Baby
47. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin II
48. Dave Matthews Band – Crash
54. Aerosmith – Toys in the Attic
60. Van Halen – Van Halen
66. Meatloaf – Bat out of Hell
69. George Harrison – All Things Must Pass
77. Johnny Cash – At Folsom Prison
80. Michael Jackson – Off the Wall
81. Marvin Gaye – Let’s Get It On……get this one too
82. Bob Seger – Night Moves
83. Paul Simon – Graceland…..you’ve got to be kidding me
96. Clash – London Calling
98. Neil Young – Harvest
107. Kenny G. – Breathless………….Aughhhhhhh! [I had a
friend who once told me he went to a Kenny G. concert, said it
was great, and that was the end of our friendship.]
110. Beatles – Rubber Soul
112. Simon & Garfunkel – Bridge Over Troubled Water…more
like it
118. Elton John – Goodbye Yellow Brick Road…appreciate him
more and more as the years pass….his early stuff, that is
119. Police – Synchronicity
121. Rolling Stones – Beggars Banquet
140. Frank Sinatra – In the Wee Small Hours….should be #5
141. Earth Wind & Fire – Gratitude…overplayed this one big
time in school
144. John Lennon – Imagine
150. Dave Brubeck – Time Out….should be much higher
152. Queen – A Night at the Opera….ditto
164. Madonna – Like a Virgin
169. Jethro Tull – Aqualung
175. Curtis Mayfield – Superfly………Yoh, Curtis, my man!
177. George Benson – Breezin’……..brilliant
187. Earth Wind & Fire – That’s the Way of the World….
another masterpiece….should be #4
191. Steely Dan – Aja
192. Willie Nelson – Stardust…should be #20
200. Grand Funk Railroad – We’re an American Band
Stuff
–The latest baseball steroid scandal continues to deepen and
what is emerging is the fact so many former major leaguers’ sons
are being implicated…first Barry Bonds (son of Bobby), then
Gary Matthews Jr. (son of Gary), and now Jerry Hairston (father
also Jerry) and David Bell (son of Royals manager Buddy). The
last three names were revealed to be among those receiving
performance-enhancing drugs in the mail. [Matthews and
Hairston were also teammates at one time of tainted slugger
Rafael Palmeiro.] SI.com also says that former reliever John
Rocker allegedly received steroids from an Alabama pharmacy.
The difficulty in this particular wide-ranging mail fraud case is
that some of the drugs involved, such as HGH, were not banned
by major league baseball at the time the players may have been
obtaining them.
Separately, a Florida businessman and wrestling booster, Joseph
L. Raich, is being investigated by state and federal authorities for
possibly supplying steroids to youth wrestlers. Raich also
sponsored the 2004 U.S. Olympic freestyle wrestling team, with
practices held at a facility he founded. [Duff Wilson and Serge
Kovaleski / New York Times]
Back to Gary Matthews Jr., the Angels, who just signed him to a
$50 million, 5-year deal, are super pissed and they are checking
the contract language to see what kind of recourse they may
have.
–Nightmare…from Fiona Hamilton of the London Times:
“Passengers returning from holiday to Gatwick face being
stranded at the airport after a rogue car parking company went
bust.
“The prospect of driving their vehicles home turned into a
nightmare for holidaymakers after hundreds of keys were
reportedly mixed together and dumped in a box by Pink Meet
and Greet parking operators….
“The airport was plunged into mayhem as officials scrambled to
reunite dozens of cars with their keys, and their owners, after the
sudden closure of the firm.”
The operator was forced out of business after a BBC report
showed its staff racing a customer’s car at more than 100mph.
Valet parkers were “using people’s cars to go for races down the
street and leaving them in residential neighborhoods.”
Now that’s funny.
–Antonio Montagno, 47, was paragliding in Italy last week when
he crashed in high winds into a mountain forest. Montagno then
hung upside down in a tree for three days before he was rescued.
Montagno launched himself off a cliff at about 2,700 feet high
and was found 1,300 feet higher, his right leg all tangled up in
the ropes of his glider. He was found after an intensive search.
But doctors said he’s going to be in some trouble. There is the
risk of cerebral hemorrhage after such a long period upside
down; which is why I never wanted to be a Blue Angels pilot.
[London Times]
–William Anderson, 85, died. Back in 1958, Anderson
commanded the nuclear-powered submarine Nautilus beneath the
North Pole. Millions back then were fascinated by this adventure
at a time when Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under
the Sea” was considered a fantasy, as the New York Times’
Dennis Hevesi notes.
Imagine how dangerous this must have been, attempting to
navigate the ice for the first time and not knowing what you’d
find. Remember, kids, this was when there actually was ice on
the North Pole, instead of the puddles there today.
William Anderson later served three terms in Congress.
–So I saw the headline that one area of China had suffered its
worst blizzard in 56 years, but did anyone (like the Drudge
Report) actually read the story? I did (it was from the South
China Morning Post, the version I first saw) and it quoted
Shenyang Meteorological Observatory as saying “56mm of rain
and snow had fallen in Dalian…68mm in Dandong.” One
emergency official said “Local roads were knee-deep in snow.
It’s the biggest snowfall I’ve seen in my life.”
Do you know how much 68 millimeters is? Try 2.62 inches.
Then again, that amount of snow in Washington, D.C., normally
causes the city to shut down for a week.
–Brad K. passed along this incredible tale from the AP and
Alaska. After being shot with a tranquilizer dart, “a moose
charged a hovering helicopter used by a wildlife biologist,
damaging the aircraft’s tail rotor and forcing it to the ground.
Neither the pilot nor the biologist was injured, but the moose was
maimed by the spinning rotor and had to be euthanized.”
The pilot of the helicopter had been trying to maneuver his
chopper so that the tranquilized moose didn’t collapse and drown
in some water. As Brad K. noted, however, this is yet another
sign of the coming clash between man and animal. It’s not going
to be pretty.
–Speaking of……Michael Sithole, 37, was sitting along a river
bank after doing some fishing in the Letaba River in South
Africa when he suddenly felt a bite on his thigh. According to
the South African Press Association (and Michael Wines of the
New York Times), Sithole said he grabbed the knife he had been
using to slice bread for his lunch but that by the time he opened
the blade, a crocodile had dragged him to the middle of the river.
Sithole kept his wits about him, however, and stabbed the croc in
the stomach, forcing it to flee. What’s not known is if Sithole
was using a Swiss Army knife, because crocs are afraid of the
corkscrew, as you should know by now.
–AP Men’s Basketball Poll
1. Ohio State
2. Kansas
3. Wisconsin
4. UCLA
5. Memphis
6. Florida
7. Texas A&M
8. North Carolina
9. Georgetown
10. Nevada
24. Winthrop!!!!
But I received some distressing news from Phil W. down in
North Carolina; Phil frequently attending contests in the
area. “I have a difficult time rooting for Winthrop,” he wrote.
Turns out the coach, though a great one, is a royal pain in the ass
and his wife sits right behind him, yelling at the referees. This
isn’t good, sports fans. Memo to Johnny Mac. We need to give
Winthrop a short leash come tourney time.
But all eyes are on Winthrop’s seed come Sunday’s selection
show. And thank god I got off the Butler bandwagon early on.
For the second time this season they lost to Wright State…
Wright Freakin’ State! No offense to you Wright Staters out
there, but if you’re Butler and you want to see the program go
big time, this can’t happen. So I hereby hope Butler gets
screwed and doesn’t get an invite. Meanwhile, all those teams
on the bubble are screaming at Butler too. One of them isn’t
getting in because of this travesty, unless the NCAA has the guts
to tell Butler “NIT for you, guys.”
–Story in the Sunday Times Magazine (“Play” edition) on Marv
Albert. It’s unbelievable to think he’s been broadcasting 40
years. Hands down the best play-by-play man ever, as Bryan
Curtis notes in his piece. And those of us of a certain age will
forever remember growing up with him, listening to those great
Knicks and Rangers teams of the late 1960s / early 70s. For the
west coast games the transistor radio was under the sheets as we
stupidly thought we were fooling mom.
It was the equally great Marty Glickman who taught Marv when
the young Albert was a ball boy for the Knicks. As Curtis writes,
“Glickman drilled Albert on court geography – the left corner,
the right elbow – until young Marv achieved a sort of robotic
perfection.” Observing Marv today, it’s as if you can “almost
hear Albert performing a similar scan, searching his brain for the
correct formula: [player name] + [court location] + [catchphrase]
…. ‘Steve Nash, from the top of the key….Yesss!’”
Albert, now 63, looks to broadcast into his 70s but vows he
won’t be carted off, clutching a microphone in his hand.
–Us Jets fans are fired up to obtain Chicago Bears running back
Thomas Jones. He’s turned into a very dependable workhorse;
the 1,000-yard rusher we desperately need. But Johnny Mac told
me not to worry about Jones’ seemingly artificial biceps since
the NFL doesn’t give a damn about cracking down on steroids
anyway.
–50-year old Nancy Lopez announced she would play in five or
six LPGA events this year, including one on April 12-15 in
Reunion, Florida. Lopez hasn’t had a top ten finish since 1997.
“I know I have to get in real good shape to try to compete with
the young girls, but I think I still have the mental capacity to go
out there and play good golf.”
Nancy, I wouldn’t worry about getting in too good a shape,
looking at some of those on the leaderboard these days. They
aren’t all Natalie Gulbis, Michelle Wie and Paula Creamer, if
you catch my drift.
–Tiger Woods played in only 15 events in 2006 and thus far he
has participated in just two on the PGA Tour in ’07. It’s not
likely he’ll do more than 15 or so this year, especially with wife
Elin expecting their first child in July.
As Damon Hack writes in the New York Times, this is causing
increasing problems for tour sponsors of events where Woods
doesn’t show, as some contemplate whether to change the actual
sponsorship of a tournament to Tiger’s own charity in order to
entice him to play it on a regular basis. Such is the case with the
hole in the schedule that was created by the demise of The
International in Castle Pines, Colo. Tiger and his foundation
have teamed up to fill it with a Tiger-sponsored event in
Washington, D.C., for the same July 5-8 dates.
There’s really nothing anyone can do about this. 15 tournaments
is the minimum required to keep your full PGA Tour playing
privileges and as Hack notes, after Jack Nicklaus turned 31
(Tiger’s age), he never played more than 19 events in a season.
–Bloomberg News had a story on golfing in Argentina and how
economical it is following its financial crisis. Some of the
world’s great courses cost $40-$50 to play these days. [Just
$140, including a caddie, to play the plush, Alistair Mackenzie-
designed Buenos Aires Jockey Club.]
But I liked this bit about Craig Stadler. “ ‘The Walrus’ also
takes the opportunity to enjoy Argentina’s traditional barbecues.
‘I love the place,’ says Stadler. ‘I usually come down once a
year.’ Stadler has encouraged other U.S. golf stars…to play the
Argentine Open. ‘I invited (Tom) Watson to play in a
tournament, and we took him hunting,’ says Stadler. ‘He’s been
back several times.’”
After playing in an event or two, Stadler then goes pigeon-
shooting in Entre Rios province or west for wine-tasting in
Mendoza, a province in the Andes. Yes, it’s good to be The
Walrus.
–Back in November 2003, I had this quote from the Star-
Ledger’s Dave D’Alessandro following the basketbrawl between
the Indiana Pacers players and Detroit Pistons fans.
“If you don’t know anything about the Palace (at Auburn Hills),
understand this: Its fans are the most knowledgeable around,
along with being the most foul-mouthed and confrontational. If
you don’t know anything about Ron Artest, understand this: He’s
nuts, and should be watched every minute he’s allowed to mingle
in polite society.”
And so here at Bar Chat we have a new policy. You know how
in some states it’s ‘three strikes and you’re out’? Here, it’s two
times and you get selected for the Dirtball Hall of Fame. Thus,
Ron Artest gets his spot for his latest arrest, this time for shoving
his live-in (some say wife) to the ground a few times during a
domestic dispute the other day. At least the unidentified woman,
who suffered bruises and abrasions, threw a pot at Artest’s
Hummer, shattering its windshield. So whoever she is, we
hereby put her in a special ‘fighting back’ wing of the regular
Hall of Fame. Artest has been suspended indefinitely by the
Sacramento Kings.
–And now….your “For Better or For Worse” update. For
starters, Jeff B. asked an appropriate question. Whatever
happened to Weed’s “party of the century” for Michael?
Well, with the reemergence of Rebecca on Tuesday for a brief
appearance, recall that I felt at some point we’d learn Michael
had an affair with the high-school rock star wannabe. So I’m
imagining a conversation like this at Weed’s party.
“Becky, I didn’t know you’d be here!”
“No one knows about us, don’t worry. I just heard about your
book deal, bumped into Weed, and decided to show up.”
“You can’t let Deanna see us talking.”
“Chill out.”
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, April called out to her mother and
used Elly’s first name when Elly was dropping by school to pick
her up. Incredibly disrespectful. As Jeff B. said, the strip is
“taking on a new dimension in awfulness.” Jeff expects that next
we’ll be back to Mtigwaki for a freakin’ pow-wow. September,
and the end of this strip, can’t come soon enough.
–Bobby Valentine, who managed in Texas when George W.
Bush was owner, told the Times’ Tyler Kepner the game would
have been different had Bush gotten the job he most wanted at
the time, commissioner.
“We might not have interleague play or the wild card. He
listened to other people, but he was a traditionalist. It would
probably be very different.”
Personally, I’m sick of interleague play, even if we do get six
games between the Mets and Yankees each year.
–Bob Hurley became the winningest coach in New Jersey boys
basketball with win number 901 on Monday. He’s 901-100 in
his 35-year career at St. Anthony. He’s also still just 59 years of
age. [Bob Hurley is the father of Bobby Jr. and Danny; the
former one of the best pure point guards this editor ever saw.]
–Ah Ha! No wonder I was sick of Jennifer Hudson. I also have
a confession to make. I’ve been watching “Extra” a lot recently.
My brain needs a break now and then. And on Monday, Extra
put together some video of Hudson’s appearances on “American
Idol” and it turns out Simon wasn’t that bad to her after all.
Hudson keeps bitching that he “never gave her her due.” Well
that’s just not the case. At least three times, in separate episodes,
he was praising her. As Simon notes today, it was the American
audience that voted her out, not him. Go Simon! Take a hike,
Jennifer. [I don’t even watch “Idol”.]
Top 3 songs for the week of 3/7/64: #1 “I Want To Hold Your
Hand” (The Beatles) #2 “She Loves You” (The Beatles) #3
“Dawn” (The Four Seasons)…and…#4 “Please Please Me” (The
Beatles) #5 “Java” (Al Hirt) #6 “California Sun” (The Rivieras)
#7 “Navy Blue” (Diane Renay…never would have got this one)
#8 “Stop And Think It Over” (Dale & Grace…or this) #9 “Fun,
Fun, Fun” (The Beach Boys) #10 “See The Funny Little Clown”
(Bobby Goldsboro…always get Goldsboro and Bobby Sherman
mixed up, but this doesn’t make me a bad person)
PBA Quiz Answer: The top four on the career win list.
Walter Ray Williams Jr. – 42
Earl Anthony – 41
Mark Roth and Pete Weber – 34
Parker Bohn III – 30
Mike Aulby – 27
Don Johnson and Dick Weber – 26
Norm Duke – 25
Brian Voss – 22
Marshall Holman – 22
Dick Ritger and Wayne Webb – 20
Now I know I said years ago that my own personal favorite was
Ray Bluth, who held the ball like no other back then, but Mr.
Bluth only won two titles. Chris Schenkel’s broadcast partner
during those great telecasts of the 1960s and 70s, Billy Welu,
also only won twice. How the hell did Billy get the job, anyway?
Dick Battista (remember him?) only won once.
Other names from my generation; being selfish, you understand.
Mike Limongello – 6 wins
Don Carter – 6
Barry Asher – 10
Larry Laub – 12
Wayne Zahn – 13
Johnny Petraglia – 14
Nelson Burton Jr. – 17
Billy Hardwick – 17
Carmen Salvino – 17
Dave Soutar – 17
And……….. Dave Davis – 18
But wait….I almost forgot New Jersey’s own Teata Semiz! He
won three times, and I just see he won his first in 1968 at an
event in Mountainside, N.J., which must have been at the old
Blue Star Lanes, all of about 7 minutes from my home. There
should be a plaque there, come to think of it.
By the way, Pete Weber won $100,000 for taking the U.S. Open
title last weekend in North Brunswick, N.J.
Next Bar Chat, Monday pm…something on The Spinners.
*I talked on the phone to 1956 Yankees hurler Johnny Kucks
(the Game 7 winner I wrote of last time) on Wednesday. It was a
brief conversation but I’ll have a bit more to say on his career
next week.
**I posted a photo up above of yours truly and the snakes in
Marrakech. It’s hard to see the two I’m holding together, but I
can’t believe I’m smiling. [Just ‘refresh’ until it comes up.]
