Super Bowl Quiz [If you get No. 6 in particular, buy yourself
premium for a week.] 1) Who am I? In SB VII (Miami 14 Wash
7) I carried the ball 22 times for 72 yards for Washington, initials
L.B. 2) Who am I? In SB VII, I caught 5 passes for 50 yards for
Washington, initials R.J. 3) Who am I? In SB VIII (Miami 24
Minn 7) I had 2 receptions for 39 yards for the Vikings, initials
E.M. 4) Who am I? In SB IX (Pitt 16 Minn 6) I caught 3 passes
for 49 yards and a score, initials L.B. 5) Who am I? In SB X
(Pitt 21 Dallas 17), I ran the ball 5 times for 16 yards, initials
D.D. 6) Who am I? I caught the only pass of my entire NFL
career in SB X and it went for a TD, initials P.H. Answers
below.
Stuff
–Tiger Woods won by 8 strokes this weekend at Torrey Pines,
site of the U.S. Open in June, and is now 42-3 on the PGA Tour
when he has a 54-hole lead. Woods’ 62nd triumph ties him for
fourth all time with Arnold Palmer, 20 behind Sam Snead. Tiger
has also now won five of his last six starts on Tour, 1-1-2-1-1-1,
the only loss being a one-shot defeat to Phil Mickelson at the
Deutsche Bank Championship in August.
PGA Tour victories
Sam Snead 82
Jack Nicklaus 73
Ben Hogan 64
Tiger Woods 62
Arnold Palmer 62
And Tiger now has nine victories of at least 8 shots.
–From the Sydney Morning Herald.
“Fisherman attacked by shark”
“A shark’s jaws had latched so tightly onto a man’s leg today
aboard a fishing boat that its head had to be cut off to free him.
“The shark had just been hauled aboard the boat off the Gold
Coast.
“A 20-year old man from Sydney was bitten by the three-meter
mako shark about 7:30 am on a tuna boat more than 100 nautical
miles off Coolangatta.
“The 90kg shark whipped around and bit him on the right calf
when he stepped on its tail.
“ ‘There’s a few hands on the deck and they could not release the
shark from the leg at all until they had cut the shark’s head off,’
said a spokesman for RACQ CareFlight which was called to
airlift the man to the hospital.
“ ‘It was locked on. The bite has gone down to the bone.’”
The man is in stable condition with the bite narrowly missing
major arteries.
Yup, just another reason to always carry your Swiss Army Knife
with the retractable saw blade. Or keep a power saw in your boat
at all times, plus a bazooka.
–The New York Times’ George Vecsey.
“(The) Patriots have rolled through the playoffs with the 35-year-
old Rodney Harrison cavorting in the defensive backfield.
Broadcasters make a big thing about his aged wisdom, but there
is precious little mention that he did a four-game suspension
early this season for receiving human growth hormone.
“And in the conference championship game, the Patriots beat the
Chargers, whose Shawne Merriman had done his own four
games last season for being caught with a precursor to the steroid
nandrolone in his system. He’s going to the Pro Bowl.
“ ‘I don’t know Shawne Merriman. I don’t know Rodney
Harrison. But nothing was made of it,’ Mike Lowell, Boston’s
World Series star, told the Associated Press the other day,
suggesting the two sports are held to different standards.
“(Baseball commissioner Bud) Selig often says the same thing,
and he is not wrong. Why is that?
“The broadest answer is that football has a great appeal because
of the violence – with John Madden chortling ‘biff-bam-pow’ as
300-pound human projectiles crash into each other. Sane people
stay indoors and marvel at the great spectacle from frozen Green
Bay. We also make the assumption that players must need
massive doses of painkillers, stimulants and bodybuilding
chemicals to risk their necks to entertain us.
“I don’t suppose there is one football coach in America – from
junior high school up – who can really afford to ask how his
players grew so big so young. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Then there
are the four former pro players who died young and were found
to have had brain deterioration similar to that generally found
only in boxers with dementia or people in their 80s. Next
Sunday, I don’t expect anybody will much care.
“Another reason football gets off the hook is the anonymity of
the scrum, with 22 varying players out there on every down. Star
players like Julius Peppers and Dana Stubblefield, who
occasionally get attention while tossing opponents out of the way
like Hefty bags full of holiday detritus, have been traced to
bodybuilding chemicals. But the game is largely a group effort.
“Then, too, football does not have statistics of baseball – Barry
Bonds’ 762 career home runs or Roger Clemens’ 354 career
victories, two totals that cannot possibly be neutered with
asterisks, no matter what comes out. Football? The other day, I
had lunch with some fellow baseball writers riding out these last
weeks of hibernation, and we earnestly could not name a single
football record….
“(The) American public is fascinated by the desperation born of
short and dangerous football careers, with players banished for
one missed block or one bad snap. Football is a compelling
weekly event, but I submit that baseball still has a deeper hold on
the national psyche.
“We save more of our moral concerns for what Bonds and
Clemens just might have done. Baseball could consider this a
compliment.”
–William C. Rhoden / New York Times
“The playoff vogue among Giants fans has been to frame the
team’s climb in the context of addition by subtraction: the Giants
are Super Bowl-bound largely because Tiki Barber retired and
Jeremy Shockey broke his leg.
“Critics say that Tiki was toxic in the locker room and that
Shockey, the veteran tight end, was stifling the growth of
quarterback Eli Manning. There are many dimensions to all of
this – and some truth.”
Would the Giants have reached the Super Bowl with Tiki in the
backfield?
“The answer is, probably not. But that has nothing to do with
Barber’s presence in the locker room, specifically about his
calling out Coach Tom Coughlin on his moves and strategy.
Nearly everyone in the organization was second-guessing
Coughlin last year. Barber simply did his in public….
“Why the Giants would not have been Arizona-bound had Barber
still been running is that he had lost his appetite for the game.
He’d lost his passion….End of story. Some players lose their
passion and fake it for a season or two. Barber lost his zeal,
acknowledged it and left the game.”
And Shockey? “Shockey was supposed to be the second coming
of Mark Bavaro, the Giants’ last great tight end. Shockey has
made himself into an outstanding blocker and has become a
colorful character, but he has not fulfilled the promise he brought
with him from the University of Miami.
“The Giants in the last two seasons had become too much about
Shockey. He had become an on-field distraction. There was his
flailing his arms in exasperation when a pass wasn’t thrown his
way. From a distance, it appeared as if coaches had to treat him
with kid gloves. The players seemed to tiptoe around him.
Every time Manning threw the ball, was he wondering what
would happen if he didn’t throw to Shockey? What was Shockey
going to say? Would there be a scene on the sideline?….
“What Giants fans should consider – regardless of where they
stand on Barber and Shockey – is that those players created the
leadership mantle that Manning has been wearing. Barber and
Shockey were strong presences and their absences forced a
young team to fill the void or risk falling apart.”
Mark Bavaro said that when Tiki retired and Shockey went
down, “I think what happened is that everybody looked around
and took account of themselves and they became leaders.”
Rhoden: “Let’s just say the Giants have benefited from good
timing and leave it at that.”
Mike Vaccaro / New York Post
“Could the Giants use Barber’s legs and Shockey’s hands in the
battle against the Patriots in Phoenix two Sundays from now? Of
course they could; only a fool would want to play a Super Bowl
with a golf-style handicap. The problem is, neither Barber nor
Shockey would come in a vacuum. They would bring everything
else with them, too – their personalities, their opinions, their ego-
centric ways.
“And that, the Giants don’t need. That much the evidence – and
the record – has shown us clearly and eloquently.”
–For the Super Bowl, each player receives two free tickets and
can purchase up to 13 more for the face value of $700 apiece.
The NFL forbids selling them for a profit and former Minnesota
Vikings coach Mike Tice was once fined $100,000 after he was
caught scalping some of his personal allotment of 12 tickets for
the 2005 Super Bowl.
–I didn’t know this….the Patriots have failed to cover in their
last seven games. Thus far, according to sportsbook.com (a/o
Friday), 83 percent of the betting on the point spread has been on
the Giants and 17 percent on the Pats. Joe Saumarez-Smith of
Bloomberg says “Expect this number to be much closer to 60-40
in favor of the Patriots by kickoff as generally only the really
serious bettors get their money down more than a week before
the game is played. Every sportsbook manager will tell you that
95 percent of the action booked on a sports contest comes on the
day the game is played.”
–It was super to see former New York Rangers great Brian
Leetch have his No. 2 uniform retired the other night.
–Maria Sharapova…grunt…won her third Grand Slam
tournament championship…grunt…in defeating the equally hot
…grunt…Ana Ivanovic at the Australian Open…grunt grunt.
Meanwhile, Serb Novak Djokovic won his first grand slam title
in defeating Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, a guy I swear I had
never heard of before.
–Phil W. passed along a piece from the Palm Beach Post
concerning Shaquille O’Neal and his divorce filing, which
contains his most costly monthly expenditures.
$156,116 in mortgages on three homes (including his $20 million
mansion on Miami Beach’s Star Island), plus $31,299 in
homeowners insurance.
$110,505 for vacations.
$24,300 for gas.
$17,220 for clothing.
$12,775 for food….and on and on…including a staggering
$6,730 for dry cleaning.
But he also paid $5.41 million in federal income taxes and over
$900,000 in property taxes.
–We note the death of PGA Tour caddie Steve Duplantis, who
was hit by a taxi in San Diego last Wednesday. Duplantis was
featured in the book “Bud, Sweat and Tees,” a story primarily
about Rich Beem. The two had teamed for Beem’s first tour
victory, the 1999 Kemper Open.
–A golf ball at 50 degrees will fly roughly 10 yards shorter than
a ball at 80 degrees.
–Hey New Jersey golf fans…The Barclays, the first of four
events in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs, is being moved
this year from Westchester CC to Ridgewood CC, a super course
in Paramus. And I didn’t realize the event is scheduled to be
played at Liberty National in Jersey City in 2009 as the
tournament will rotate around the area.
–Bode Miller, on whether he’ll ski at the 2010 Olympics after
talking up his party life and not medaling in 2006:
“I haven’t decided. The last Olympics was positive for me, but
for everyone else – the country, the sport, my management team
– it was incredibly negative. It was hard on my family. Nobody
wants to hear that their son is a disgrace and that they should be
ashamed of him. If I think the [hype] around me is too negative,
I won’t do it.” [Sports Illustrated]
Miller is currently in the lead in the overall World Cup standings,
followed by Benjamin Raich of Austria.
–Interesting note in BusinessWeek on how the U.S. and at least
6 European countries will train their athletes in Japan in the
weeks before the event, while another 10 nations will base them
in Korea. Said a spokesman for Japan’s Olympic Committee,
“officials from several countries told us they were worried about
the food and pollution in Beijing.” BusinessWeek further notes
that Tokyo will receive a huge PR boost as it bids to host the
2016 Games.
–2007 final baseball payrolls
Yankees……$218.3 million
Red Sox…….155.4
Dodgers…….125.6
Mets…………120.9
Cubs…………115.9
Colorado……..61.3 [26 of 30]
Florida……….33.0
Tampa Bay…..31.8
–Former Yankee Chuck Knoblauch has been subpoenaed by
Congress after failing to respond to an invitation to give a
deposition and testify in light of the Mitchell report. As of this
writing, federal marshals have been unable to find him.
His mother said “I’m pretty sure he’s on vacation. I don’t know
where and I don’t want to know where.”
Check Deadwood, S.D.
–So last time I noted that Rutgers was among the many
disappointing stories in men’s basketball for New Jersey and
since then the Scarlet Knights suddenly pulled off two upsets of
No. 18 Villanova and No. 13 Pittsburgh. The Pitt contest
represented the highest-ranked team Rutgers has ever beaten on
the road, which is rather amazing….decades of futility, in other
words, since the undefeated Phil Sellers, Mike Dabney, James
Bailey, Hollis Copeland and Eddie Jordan ‘76 squad.
–And remember how I mentioned George Mason’s Dre Smith
for shooting a record 10 for 10 from 3-point land in a single
contest? Since then Smith is 2 for 13 from downtown in his last
two games.
–I follow the NBA during the regular season really only to keep
up on former Wake Forest stars, and while you know I’m not a
fan of Chris Paul, no one can deny he’s helping write a
phenomenal story in New Orleans as the Hornets are a
stupendous 31-12.
–Uh oh. Since I’ve been so proud of the Wake Forest football
team in this space and the quality of the program, it’s only fair I
note that this past week it was revealed a reserve running back,
Luke Caparelli, was dismissed from the team after writing on his
Facebook page that he would “blow up (the) campus.” The note
was posted Jan. 13 and police acted the next day, finding nothing
when they searched his bags and dorm room. Caparelli
acknowledged writing the statements in an affidavit and he
hasn’t been charged with anything as yet.
–So I’m at this party Saturday night and start talking baseball
with a man, Jack K., who is in his 80s and in terrific shape and
he told me of how he used to go to a ton of Negro Leagues
ballgames in Paterson, New Jersey, back in the 1930s. Around
1,000 would attend the games (the majority white, incidentally)
and because the teams were so poor, financially, if you caught a
foul ball you had to give it back, but in return you received two
tickets to a future game.
He also said he saw Satchel Paige pitch a number of times and
one of the better moments was when Satchel called in his
outfielders because he said he was going to strike out the side,
which Satch of course proceeded to do. Jack noted that by 1940,
some were saying Paige was washed up, though he continued to
pitch another 20+ years, including in one of my favorite all-time
baseball stories from 1965. Paige threw three innings of one-hit
shutout ball in a contest for the Kansas City Athletics then, at the
age of 58! That was his listed age. All are in agreement he was
in fact older than that.
–DeeDee Correll of the Los Angeles Times had a story over the
weekend on steroids and the rodeo business, as in it appears
some of the bulls are on steroids.
“Dogged by internal rumblings that bull owners seek an
advantage in the arena by injecting the massive creatures with
steroids, the association recently decided it was time to ferret out
the truth.
“A number of people in the industry speculate that steroids were
used on competitive bulls in the past (at least one owner
acknowledges having done so) but that the practice fell out of
favor as owners realized they were trading short-term gains for
long-term losses.”
Here’s something I didn’t know. It’s not just the riders getting
points for staying on a bull. “Bulls get points for how high they
kick and how tough a time they give the rider – and fame and
fortune come to the animals that do it best. Bull owners can win
bonuses ranging from $1,250 to $20,000 for a world champion.”
Random drug testing of the bulls appears to be in the offing, as
humans move down another notch on the All-Species List.
–Bizarre story in the New York Daily News by Richard Weir.
There is an “automotive Bermuda Triangle” in a five-block
radius of the Empire State Building. Said one tow truck driver
who services the area, “We get about 10 to 15 cars stuck near
there every day. You pull the car four or five blocks to the west
or east and the car starts right up.”
One motorist said, “The lights work, the horn works, everything.
But it won’t start.”
The culprit? The radio tower, which after the World Trade
Center went down has become home to 13 TV and 19 FM
stations mounting antennas on the 203-foot-long spire.
The Empire State Building Co. denies the antennas are the cause,
but experts believe the problem “stems from radio frequency
interference that’s ‘jamming’ the remote keyless entry systems of
cars.”
–Miss Michigan Kirsten Haglund was crowned Miss America.
How many of you knew this was even on Saturday night?
–14-year-old Mirai Nagasu became the second-youngest woman
to win the U.S. Figure Skating Championship, but because she
doesn’t reach 15 until April, Nagasu won’t qualify for the world
championships in March because skaters need to turn 15 by the
previous July. Rachael Flatt, who finished second, missed the
cutoff herself by three weeks. As for defending champion
Kimmie Meissner, she fell apart and finished seventh.
Prior to the event, Dick Button said of the youngsters, “What
we’ve got here is a contest of jumping juveniles having a ball!”
Of skater Alissa Czisny, Button told USA Today, “When she
lands her jumps, she’s delicious!”
Don’t go changin’, Dick.
Evan Lysacek defeated Johnny Weir for the men’s title in a
tiebreaker. Yikes, Weir wore a black-and-white unitard he called
a “sparkly onesie.” Weir also slammed Lysacek, saying “I don’t
really like him.”
–Reminder, Shelby Lynne’s new album is out this week, “Just a
Little Lovin’” with its covers of Dusty Springfield tunes. And
don’t forget, guys, Shelby Lynne is a bad girl….a very baaaad
girl. Ms. Lynne told the Wall Street Journal’s Cynthia Crossen:
“I finished this record a year ago, and the songs haven’t left my
brain. What I do is pick up my guitar, play Waylon or Willie,
and I have a drink.”
Top 3 songs for the week 1/27/68: #1 “Judy In Disguise” (John
Fred & His Playboy Band) #2 “Chain Of Fools” (Aretha
Franklin) #3 “Green Tambourine” (The Lemon Pipers…used
this one in my first radio spots for the site)…and… #4 “Woman,
Woman” (The Union Gap featuring Gary Puckett) #5 “Bend Me,
Shape Me” (The American Band) #6 “Hello Goodbye” (The
Beatles) #7 “Spooky” (Classics IV) #8 “Daydream Believer”
(The Monkees) #9 “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” (Gladys
Knight & The Pips) #10 “If I Could Build My Whole World
Around You” (Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell)
Super Bowl Quiz Answers: 1) Larry Brown was a big running
back for Washington at the time of SB VII. For his career,
Brown had 5,875 yards in 8 seasons, but his body gave out early
after often rushing for 20+ times a game and his career average
slipped big time the last few years to 3.8 per carry. He was
better than that indicates. 2) Wide receiver Roy Jefferson was a
key figure for Washington. Earlier he had starred at Pittsburgh
and Baltimore and for his 12-year career, Jefferson caught 451
passes, 52 for scores, and had a fine 16.7 avg. 3) Running back
turned actor Ed Marinaro. Over six seasons, this former Ivy
Leaguer (Cornell) had 1,319 yards rushing but also 146
receptions out of the backfield. By the way, in SB VIII, Miami’s
methodical 24-7 dismantling of the Vikings, Bob Griese only
needed to throw the ball 7 times, completing 6, as Larry Csonka
carried 33 times for 145 yards and two TDs. 4) In SB IX the
Steelers’ Larry Brown was a featured tight end. Over his 14
years in the NFL, Brown only caught 48 passes as he was a
regular much of the time on the offensive line. 5) In SB X,
Dallas’ Doug Dennison carried 5 times. Over his 5-year career
Dennison had 1,112 yards for a 3.6 avg. Out of Kutztown State.
6) And last, Percy Howard’s only NFL reception was for a TD in
SB X. Pretty cool. Howard was out of Isothermal CC in N.C.
and Austin Peay.
Next Bar Chat, Thursday.
