[Sunday pm from New Orleans]
Baseball Quiz: Name the nine active pitchers with at least 200
wins who are chasing 300, though only one or two have a
realistic chance of reaching the mark. Answer below.
Final Four
Not for nothing, sports fans, but your editor picked the Final
Four, as well as having Davidson in the Elite Eight. As Ronald
Reagan said, not bad, not bad at all.
Anyway, I’m going to be on pins and needles next weekend, and
hopefully the following Monday night, because I entered one of
those national bracket contests and my total score thus far has to
be as good as anyone else’s.
Still Alive
Just a few brief notes as I watch the Memphis-Texas game on
Sunday. I arrived in New Orleans early Saturday afternoon and
immediately hit the French Quarter, which is a block from my
hotel. Seeing as the NCAA tourney games were on early in the
evening, I opted for a major feed and beers at Pere Antoine’s,
watched the UCLA-Xavier contest in my room because I thought
I better pace myself, then went onto Bourbon Street to catch the
Carolina-Louisville game in three different bars, plus I hit a
music spot at halftime…multitasking at its best. Then, since it
was only about 10:00 local time, I came back to my room, took a
15-minute nap, and headed back out. Let’s just say it ended up
being a late night and leave it at that, shall we?
This is my third trip here, the other two being for the 1982
NCAA Final Four, best known as Michael Jordan’s coming out
party, and one time on business in the mid-1990s, except little
official business was actually conducted as my friends
accompanying me from PIMCO then would attest to.
In other words this place has almost killed me, more so than
anywhere else in the world and, today, New Orleans remains,
especially post-Katrina, one of the scariest places. Scary fun, I
guess you could say.
Speaking of Katrina, I’m going to say a few things in my next
“Week in Review” column, but this is a truly depressing city.
This morning I went looking for a place for breakfast that wasn’t
a tourist trap, asked a local to direct me, and his selection was the
only thing open on the entire block (the rest was all boarded up),
and boy there was this super spooky older guy with his James
Dean lookalike companion and I could hardly wait to get out of
the joint. I mean this guy, wearing a black cowboy hat with a
black suit, stared at a tile on his table for what must have been
five minutes. Like he was inspecting it up close.
Anyway, I really came down here to visit the National World
War II Museum, which initially was the D-Day Museum but they
gave it the whole war later. It’s in New Orleans, as most of you
know, because of one man, Andrew Jackson Higgins; the man
who “won the war,” as Gen. Eisenhower was fond of saying.
You see, Higgins’ N’orlins-based company built the Higgins
landing craft that made D-Day and all the invasions in the Pacific
possible. In fact, at the height of the war in 1943, 92% of the
Navy’s vessels of all kinds were built here. I spent 3 ½ hours
in the place and could have easily tacked on another one. It’s
outstanding.
But the other reason why I came down when I did is because a
few weeks ago I realized an exhibit on baseball and the war at
the museum was closing today. You know me well enough by
now…I’m just doing whatever it is I do, as I’m fond of telling
friends and family who still can’t figure me out.
The baseball exhibit had some great photos, like of Bob Feller
playing ball for his Navy team. Can you imagine Bob Feller, in
his prime, pitching against, say, a bunch of guys who for the
most part might have played a little high school ball? No wonder
his team was undefeated.
One of the things I’ll address in that other column I write
concerns the tremendous sacrifices that all Americans made on
the home front, as compared to today when our president has
only told us to keep shopping. Freakin’ pitiful………I’m biting
my tongue.
Baseball did its fair share, holding special promotions such as
“Waste Fat Night.” Yup, if you brought a tin of cooking waste,
you got into the game for free, with the stuff then being reused to
make explosives.
Of course baseball’s players contributed mightily as well. By the
end of the war, 90% of the players on pre-war major league
rosters had served in the military. That’s pretty remarkable. I
need to check some of my sources back home but next chat I’ll
get into some of the individual tales, like that of pitcher Morrie
Martin, who was left for dead when a building collapsed on him
in St. Lo the first day of D-Day. He crawled out and later was
severely wounded at the Battle of the Bulge. But he still
managed to play again in the big leagues.
And I’m embarrassed I forgot that Yogi Berra landed on Omaha
Beach that first, awful day there where the casualties for the
Americans were over 2,000 dead and wounded.
For now, though, I leave you with the story of the 116th Infantry
Regiment of the U.S. 29th Division. They were in the first wave
to hit Omaha Beach and of the 170 men, 91 were killed and 64
were wounded. 35 of the 170 were from little Bedford, Virginia,
which back in 1944 had a population of 3,200. Imagine the
immense sorrow that enveloped the town when they learned 19
of the 35 had died on D-Day and another two would later died of
wounds suffered on that incredibly important moment in our
history. 21 of 35. I’ve been meaning to get down to Bedford,
where the fallen are honored. I’m there before Christmas.
Stuff
–Play ball! I see I’m not the only one picking the Tigers to best
the Mets in the Series this year. That is Baseball America’s
selection as well. But Sports Illustrated has the Tigers over the
Cubs! No way. The Cubs won’t even finish .500.
Here in New Orleans, though, I picked up the Times-Picayune
sports section and they have the Indians over the Phillies, and go
further to say the Mets will only go 77-85. I gotta tell ya, folks,
if my Metsies go 77-85, I’ll commit Hari-kari…and probably by
Labor Day.
But get this. If you didn’t think the New York metropolitan area
was baseball crazy, consider the fact the Yankees have already
sold 3.8 million tickets! That’s already sold! Heck, the Mets
have sold 2.8 million. More than 4 million have gone to Yankee
Stadium each of the last three seasons and now the Mets say
they’ll hit 4 million for the first time ever in ‘08.
–The Los Angeles Dodgers are marking 50 seasons in L.A. and
Ross Newhan has a piece in the Los Angeles Times on the first
stadium where the Dodgers played, the Coliseum. Dodger
Stadium wasn’t opened until 1962 and those first few years,
many questioned whether baseball was really being played in
L.A. because the Coliseum was a truly goofy place to stage the
sport.
You see the dimensions were such that it was 440 feet to the
right-field power alley. It really impacted Duke Snider, who had
hit 40 home runs each of his prior five seasons in Brooklyn, but
then he hit 15, 23, 14 and 16 homers in 1958-61 when he was
still mostly in his prime. Considering that Snider hit 407 for his
career, he certainly would have come closer to 500 playing in a
normal stadium. Then again he wasn’t really the same after a
knee injury in 1957, so in the immortal words of Jesse Jackson,
the point is moot.
As for left-field at the Coliseum? It was 250 down the line so
they put up a 42-foot high fence to prevent cheapies, a la the
Green Monster.
–Kristin Davis, the buxom madam now famous in New York,
had a little black book with 2,000 names in it. As the Daily
News reports (it having obtained it exclusively), there are
lawyers, doctors, venture capitalists and even a professional
poker player, but no Eliot Spitzer.
Davis was rather proactive. As an insider told the News, if a guy
“booked an off-site visit for an hour, she would call them after 50
minutes to see if they wanted to run that credit card again.”
Well, that would kind of suck. I mean who wants to be
interrupted like that?
What has many of the clients scared to death these days,
however, is that some freely gave up their real names and phone
numbers, so these could end up in the hands of prosecutors who
seized Davis’ records.
Davis and her girls also kept detailed notes.
“Girl said that the guy doesn’t want to put the money down and
won’t pull down his pants and left.”
Another client booked three ladies for a single weekend. And
one guy was upset his “Hawaiian dream girl” wasn’t a blond.
Goodness gracious. My childhood buddy, Jeff W., once dated a
Hawaiian Tropic Beauty Pageant winner, but I digress.
One client told the News, “For $3,000 you get three hours;
$1,000 an hour….A couple of Knicks tickets runs that. This is
just easier.” Man’s got a point.
But wait, there’s more….the New York Rangers’ Sean Avery’s
name is in the little black book. When contacted by the News, he
said it was a practical joke. Avery, though, was once described
by Maxim magazine as No. 1 in “Hollywood hookups”.
–16-year-old David Wentz was snorkeling in a river in Michigan
(awfully cold to be doing this) when he thought he saw an odd-
looking rock. Turns out it was a petrified shark’s tooth. But as
Michigan State paleontologist Michael Gottfried noted, this was
no ordinary shark. The 3-inch long tooth was from megalodon!
Megalodon was thought to have gone extinct 2 million years ago.
Reaching a length of 60 feet, or three times the size of the
biggest Great White, Megalodon was said to eat 1,500 pounds of
food a day, mostly feeding on smaller whales. It’s also Trader
George’s favorite prehistoric animal.
–So you think you had it bad as a kid when you walked seven
miles to school in a blinding snowstorm and without shoes?
Well check this out, from the BBC.
“A South African village is demanding that a bridge be built
across a crocodile-infested river to stop children swimming it to
get to school.”
It seems the community’s boat was stolen and it being a poor
town, there are no other modes of transportation. So on school
days, 150 students swim across the river in their underwear,
using rubber tires to keep afloat and their school uniforms and
books dry. Then they sit in class, all wet and cold, and worry
about the swim home with all the crocs. No word on how many
kids have been eaten.
–Also from the BBC:
“Police in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh say they have
arrested 17 villagers over the killing of a woman suspected of
being a witch.
“The 40-year-old woman, Phool Kunwar (don’t know her), was
dragged from her home on Monday night, beaten and burned
with a hot iron, police say.”
Yikes, it turns out this is fairly common in India. And wait till
the villagers get Facebook and the like to spread even more
rumors. “Dinesh is a werewolf!” Then again, there are a ton of
witches here in New Orleans.
–Brad K. passed along a disturbing bit from Aopka, Fla., and the
local television station there.
“A 6-foot, 200-pound bear has been perched high above a
Central Florida neighborhood for hours Friday after it was
chased up a tree by 6-month-old kittens.”
Brad says the kittens should be saluted for helping authorities
nab a bear that was here illegally, but I’m just thinking, how will
the bear face his fellow bruins? It’s not like word doesn’t get
around in that close knit community.
–This is depressing. From BusinessWeek, a new Harris poll of
1,304 U.S. adults revealed that when asked to name the most
influential role models for today’s youth; 31% picked
entertainers (3% named Britney Spears), and 19% named an
athlete. Not one chose a scientist and only 11% could even name
a living scientist, with Stephen Hawking earning the most
mentions, which is only because he appeared on an episode of
“The Simpsons.”
–Uh oh….this is serious. According to the Sydney Morning
Herald, the Berlin Zoo is under pressure to explain the fate of
hundreds of animals that have simply vanished amid claims they
were slaughtered. Now I was just here in December, checking
out Knut the polar bear, if you recall, and I thought it was an
outstanding zoo.
But one animal rights activist in Germany claims to have
evidence that, for example, four Asian black bears and a
hippopotamus were transported to the Belgian town of Wortel,
which has no zoo, but which does have an abattoir. And some
tigers have ended up at a Chinese tiger farm where they are bred
for potency-boosting medicines.
Berlin’s zoo director denies all the claims, saying they work only
with respectable zoo dealers. Personally, I’m not sure I could
identify a respectable zoo dealer myself, not having ever quaffed
a beer with one.
Ah, but Nuremberg Zoo’s director, Helmut Magdefrau, has been
reported as saying: “If we cannot find good homes for the
animals, we kill them and use them as feed.” Supposedly, an
antelope was fed to caged lions recently at Nuremberg, much to
the horror and outrage of visitors who caught the action. That’s
kind of like what you used to see on “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild
Kingdom.” You don’t think that was really filmed in Africa, do
you? They just scrounged up some animals and threw them onto
a sound stage in Los Angeles. Really, there was a reason why
one year on all the nature shows of the 1960s and 70s you
suddenly saw a tag line… “These scenes, whether actual or
created, depict authenticated facts.”
–I’m so confused. I thought Jessica Simpson had broken up
with Tony Romo, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. This is
what happens when you spend too much time reading up on the
credit crisis and which investment banks are likely to bite the
dust. You lose track of what is truly important.
–Former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent has written a book
“We Would Have Played for Nothing,” an oral history featuring
stars of the 50s and 60s (don’t buy this, Johnny Mac…I’ll pick
you up a copy). When asked by Newsweek whether he thought
MLB was immune with all the cheating going on, Vincent
replied:
“The cheating is a very big threat. There is the potential of losing
the belief that it’s a fair competition. I don’t think fans will stay
if the cheating is pervasive. Take the 100-meter dash. Will we
ever again look at women running the dash and not think of
Marion Jones cheating at the Olympics?”
Then again, Vincent concedes fans continue to vote with their
feet, witness the Mets and Yankees’ ticket sales thus far in ’08.
–The British bookmaker Ladbrokes still has Tiger Woods at 8-1
to win the Slam.
–My cabbie from the airport had two comments when I told him
I hadn’t been here in years. “Put your wallet in your front
pocket,” and, “Women aren’t whom they appear to be.” I
learned that last bit in 1982…or rather a friend I was with found
out. Funny story, wish I could tell you.
Top 3 songs for the week 3/29/69: #1 “Dizzy” (Tommy Roe) #2
“Traces” (Classics IV featuring Dennis Yost) #3 “Time Of The
Season” (The Zombies…underrated group)…and…#4 “Aquarius
/ Let The Sunshine In” (The 5th Dimension…their music holds
up with time with the best of ‘em) #5 “Proud Mary” (Creedence
Clearwater Revival…geezuz, I hate this song, in all versions) #6
“Run Away Child, Running Wild” (The Temptations) #7
“Indian Giver” (1910 Fruitgum Co.) #8 “Galveston” (Glen
Campbell…my man!) #9 “My Whole World Ended” (David
Ruffin…another underrated artist) #10 “Only The Strong
Survive” (Jerry Butler…ditto!……now that’s a great week,
‘Proud Mary’ excluded)
Baseball Quiz Answers: Actives with 200 wins, but less than
300.
Randy Johnson…284
Mike Mussina…250
David Wells…239
Jamie Moyer…230
Curt Schilling…216
Kenny Rogers…210
Pedro Martinez…209
John Smoltz…207
Andy Pettitte…201
Next Bar Chat, Thursday. Much more on baseball and the war.
