George Will Baseball Quiz: [For those who didn’t read his
column on Sunday in the Washington Post.] I’m stretched for
time and thus need to rip off his quiz (part of it). Who are the
four players with 10 or more letters in their last names who hit 40
home runs in a season? Answer below.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor
On April 8, Petty Officer Monsoor will be posthumously
awarded the Medal of Honor, stemming from his actions in the
streets of Ramadi in 2006.
From the Associated Press:
“An elite Navy SEAL…Monsoor distinguished himself by
extraordinary heroism on Sept. 29, 2006…
“Monsoor was part of a sniper security team in Ramadi with
three other SEALs and eight Iraqi soldiers, according to a Navy
account. An insurgent fighter threw a grenade, which struck
Monsoor in the chest before falling in front of him. Monsoor
then threw himself on the grenade….
“ ‘He never took his eye off the grenade, his only movement was
down toward it,’ said a 28-year-old lieutenant, who suffered
shrapnel wounds to both legs that day. ‘He undoubtedly saved
mine and the other SEALs’ lives, and we owe him.’
“Two SEALs next to Monsoor were injured; another who was 10
feet to 15 feet from the blast was unhurt. The four had been
working with Iraqi soldiers providing sniper security while U.S.
and Iraqi forces conducted missions in the area.”
Earlier, on May 9, 2006, Monsoor had received a Silver Star for
his actions in pulling a wounded SEAL to safety during a May 9,
2006, firefight in Ramadi.
Monsoor, a 25-year-old from Garden Grove, Calif., is the first
sailor and the third service member overall to receive a Medal of
Honor for actions in the war in Iraq.
Baseball and War
Having just come back from New Orleans and an exhibit on
“Baseball and the War” at the National World War II Museum,
just a few thoughts, now that I have access to my sources here in
the office.
Yogi Berra was a minor leaguer in Norfolk when he joined the
Navy and volunteered for rocket boats, thus virtually ensuring he
would be among the first wave onto the beaches of Normandy,
specifically Omaha, the scene of the deadliest action on D-Day.
Berra recalled that in order to keep the skies over Normandy
clear of Luftwaffe fighters, “ we were told to shoot anything that
moved. I am not sure if he said ‘moved’ or ‘any plane below the
clouds,’ but we all shot at the first plane below the clouds and we
shot down one of our own planes. The pilot was made as hell,
and you could hear him swearing as he floated down in his
parachute. I remember him shaking his fist and yelling, ‘If you
bastards would shoot down as many of them as us the goddamn
war would be over.”
Thankfully, Berra and his fellow soldiers prevailed and he
recalled the scene on the beach once the enemy had been routed:
“When the beach was secured, when we had taken the beach
from the Germans, it was like magic. Hundreds of French people
came out of nowhere. They ran out on the banks and shouted
and waved. Old people, kids, even some dogs. They carried
flowers and bottles of wine.”
When the war ended, Berra resumed his career and in 1946 was
called up by the Yankees. You know the rest. In 1972 he was
inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Then there was Lou Brissie. In early December 1944, Brissie
was with the Eighty-eighth Infantry Division in Italy when an
artillery shell exploded just yards from him, ripping open his left
leg. As noted in Gary Bloomfield’s ‘Duty, Honor, Victory:
America’s Athletes in World War II,’ the “leg was shattered
between the knee and the ankle, his ankle mangled, both feet
broken, and both hands injured. It was seven hours before
anyone searched for the squad, and Brissie was the only survivor
[out of a platoon of 12.]”
Field doctors told him the leg had to be amputated, but he
pleaded with them, “Send me to somebody who may be able to
help me, because I want to play baseball.” He was transferred to
another hospital and surgeons performed the first of twenty-three
operations he would undergo to salvage his leg.
[I read another account that said he lost a leg and was fitted with
an artificial one. I’m going with the above.]
By 1947, Brissie had rehabbed to the point where he went 23-5
for Savannah in the South Atlantic League, and made his major
league debut by season’s end with the Philadelphia Athletics.
Then on Opening Day 1948, Ted Williams smashed a line drive
off Brissie’s mangled leg and the ball caromed almost to the right
field wall, but Brissie stayed in the contest. He went on to go 14-
10 in 1948 and 16-11 in 1949, making the All-Star team that
season, though this would prove to be the high water mark as he
finished 44-48 for his career.
I had a note last time that Morrie Martin, who was left for dead at
Saint Lo the first day of D-Day, “managed to play again in the
big leagues.” I didn’t have my sources at my finger tips when I
wrote this in New Orleans. In the interest of accuracy, Martin
didn’t ‘commence’ his career until 1949, after which he went 38-
34 for seven teams during his 10-years in the big leagues.
Two players with major league experience, albeit brief, died in
the war. Washington Senators outfielder Elmer Gedeon was
killed on April 20, 1944, during a bombing run over Saint-Pol,
France. Gedeon appeared in five games for the Washington
Senators in 1939, going 3 for 15. And the other to be killed in
action was Harry O’Neill. O’Neill, a graduate of Gettysburg
College, appeared in one game for the Philadelphia Athletics in
’39 and died on March 6, 1945, at Iwo Jima.
And there was Jerry Coleman, who had a big league career
spanning 1949-57. Having signed with the Yankees in 1942 as a
17-year-old, Coleman entered the military and flew 57 bombing
missions in the Solomon Islands during WW II. Later, he was
back at it during the Korean War, flying 120 missions.
Coleman’s best season was 1950 when he made the All-Star
team and batted .287 with 69 RBI as New York’s second
baseman.
But Coleman was best known for his broadcasting career,
serving as the Yankees’ play-by-play announcer from 1963 to
1969 before moving over to the San Diego Padres. Just like
Ralph Kiner has his Kinerisms, Coleman had some real gems of
his own….what were then known as Colemanisms. To wit.
“McCovey swings and misses, and it’s fouled back.”
“Rich Folkers is throwing up in the bullpen.”
“Pete Rose has 3,000 hits and 3,014 overall.”
“He slides into second base with a standup double.”
“Grubb goes back, back. He’s under the warning track.”
“On the mound is Randy Jones, the left-hander with the Karl
Marx hairdo.”
“The big ballpark can do it all.”
“They throw Winfield out at second, and he’s safe.”
“Those amateur umpires are certainly flexing their fangs
tonight.”
“We’re all sad to see Glenn Beckert leave. Before he goes,
though, I hope he stops by so we can kiss him good-bye. He’s
that kind of guy.”
“Whenever you get an inflamed tendon, you’ve got a problem.
OK, here’s the next pitch to Gene Tendon.”
[For you none baseball fans out there, it was Gene Tenace.]
“Young Frank Pastore may have just pitched the biggest victory
of 1979, maybe the biggest victory of the year.”
“Gaylord Perry and Willie McCovey should know each other
like a book. They’ve been ex-teammates for years now.”
“George Hendrick simply lost that sun-blown pop-up.”
“If Rose’s streak was still intact, with that single to left, the fans
would be throwing babies out of the upper deck.”
“It’s a cold night out tonight. The Padres better warm up real
good because it’s stiff out there.”
“And Kansas City is at Chicago tonight, or is that Chicago at
Kansas City? Well, no matter, Kansas City leads in the eighth,
four to four.”
And finally, this all-time classic…
“Winfield goes back to the wall. He hits his head on the wall,
and it rolls off! It’s rolling all the way back to second base! This
is a terrible thing for the Padres!”
[Sources: “Baseball: The Biographical Encyclopedia” from the
editors of Total Baseball; “Baseball’s Greatest Quotations,” Paul
Dickson]
–Baseball Salaries
Average salary, 1989…$512,000
Average salary, 2008…$3,154,000
2008 Payrolls
Yankees…$209 million
Detroit…$138.7 mm
Mets…$138.3 mm
Boston…$133.4 mm
White Sox…$121.2 mm
Angels…$119.2 mm
Cubs…$118.6 mm
Dodgers…$118.5 mm
Seattle…$118.0 mm
Atlanta…$102.4 mm
St. Louis…$100.6 mm
Bottom five
Washington…$55.0 mm
Pittsburgh…$49.4 mm
Oakland…$48.0 mm
Tampa Bay…$43.8 mm
Florida…$21.8 mm
To put things in perspective, the Florida Marlins have five
players earning $1 million or more this season, with the peak at
$2.5 mm. The Yankees, on the other hand, have eleven players
making at least $11 million, including the $11 mm earned by
Carl Pavano who may never pitch again.
–Of the 855 ballplayers on major league rosters at the start of the
season, 239 were born outside the 50 states, according to the
commissioner’s office, a slight drop from last year. The
Dominican Republic has the most with 88, followed by
Venezuela with 52.
–With the focus on Yankee Stadium’s final year, one that
promises to be downright morose and morbid at times, us Mets
fans can’t wait for Shea Stadium to also see its last pitch.
Ben Shpigel / New York Times
“At Shea Stadium, five dollars sometimes covers the cost of a
seat way at the top of the upper deck but not the Sherpa to lug the
oxygen tanks. The view is comparable to that from the
ubiquitous low-flying planes, whose passengers, if so inclined,
could reach out the window and take a bite from your Italian
sausage. Buying another one would involve navigating a
concourse roughly the width of a coffee table and sidestepping
the bathroom line that started forming five innings earlier.
“By any objective standard, Shea is bleak and outdated. It has
not aged, shall we say, gracefully, its imperfections and
architectural shortcomings growing more prominent over the
years, particularly as glorious baseball-only parks have sprouted
around the country….
“ ‘It’s a dump,’ said Gary Cohen, the Mets’ play-by-play
announcer on SNY, who grew up in Parkway Village, Queens.
‘But it’s our dump.’….
“The actual size of Shea is perhaps best appreciated from a
distance. Every time, the approach toward the stadium, be it
from the Van Wyck, the Grand Central or from aboard a 757,
inspires the same impression of its size: gigantic. Even in its
heyday, Shea would never win best in show in an architectural
competition – Fredric Bell, the executive director of the New
York chapter of the American Institute of Architects, said the
stadium looked as if it had been designed on an Etch A Sketch.
But when it opened a few days before the 1964 World’s Fair next
door, it stood tall as a symbol of the future and a monument to
progress.”
Yes, hard to believe today, but as former Mets pitcher Al Jackson
said upon Shea’s opening, “This is like going to heaven.”
I was six-years-old in 1964 and vividly remember the World’s
Fair but didn’t get to Shea for a game until the following year, if
I recall correctly. I have lots of memorie, but I’ll reserve them
for this coming September.
–Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN.com writes, “The legend of the
bug-eyed, hyper-intense (Tyler) Hansbrough (of UNC)
mushrooms to the point at which hyperbole and reality have a
nasty breakup. And it is there – when the gushing becomes too
pronounced for some – that the topic of race somehow squirms
its way into the basketball conversation.”
So Wojciechowski quotes a fellow columnist, anonymously, who
says, “I’m trying to remember the last time a black player was
called the face of college basketball.”
Well, I don’t have a bunch of All-American lists in front of me
but I just glanced at one of the Most Outstanding Players from
the Final Four and one name jumps out at you…Duke’s Shane
Battier from back in 2001, who hustled his ass off and was
certainly a poster boy for college basketball.
Wojciechowski quotes a newspaper sports columnist in Chicago,
who writes, “When was the last time you heard a broadcaster talk
about the work ethic and intensity of a black player?”
Wojciechowski goes on to defend Hansbrough, I hasten to add,
and also mentions Battier among others that have been praised
this decade such as Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, but I also can’t
help but broaden the discussion, living as I do in the New York
area, to include former Knicks’ star Charles Oakley. No one in
the NBA that I’ve seen over 40 years of watching the sport
hustled on every play like he did. Period. So cut this racism
crap. Just admit Hansbrough is awesome, will be an NBA all-
star, and leave it at that.
–AP Men’s All-American B-Ball
First team
Michael Beasley, Kansas State, freshman
Tyler Hansbrough, North Carolina, junior
D.J. Augustin, Texas, sophomore
Kevin Love, UCLA, freshman
Chris Douglas-Roberts, Memphis, junior
Second team
Luke Harangody, Notre Dame, sophomore
Shan Foster, Vanderbilt, senior
D.J. White, Indiana, senior
Stephen Curry, Davidson, sophomore
Roy Hibbert, Georgetown, senior
Third team
Derrick Rose, Memphis, freshman
Chris Lofton, Tennessee, senior
Darren Collison, UCLA, junior
Brook Lopez, Stanford, sophomore
Eric Gordon, Indiana, freshman
The Lopez twins, Brook and Robin, already announced they are
turning pro, though what Robin could be thinking I’ll never
know. Should be a very interesting draft, however. Who else is
going out early? Who will the Knicks get?
–It’s always funny during March Madness how one or two big
wins by a mid-major coach catapults them to a much bigger job.
A typical example is Darrin Horn of Western Kentucky, who just
took his team to the Sweet 16 and is now the coach a few days
later at South Carolina, replacing Dave Odom.
–Good story in USA Today by Michael Hiestand on Billy
Packer, who is working his 34th consecutive Final Four.
Goodness gracious, time flies.
Packer was an assistant coach at Wake Forest, his alma mater,
back in 1970 and was hoping to land the Memphis head coaching
job when it went to Gene Bartow instead. Packer then decided
he’d never get a coaching position so he was selling ad time for a
Winston-Salem, N.C. radio station when in ’72 he called a few
syndicated ACC games as a last-minute fill-in. Then he got a
shot on an NBC NCAA game in 1974, and in ’75 he was offered
a slot to work one weekend and he kept getting asked back to
work with play-by-play announcer Curt Gowdy – for $750 per
week – through the NCAA title game. As Hiestand writes, “He
says he never asked why he kept getting called back.”
And another thing…Packer refuses to use the Internet.
–Uh oh, guys. It would seem this spring’s fashions for the ladies
are all about sky-high necklines, or so I read in the New York
Daily News.
–So I pick up USA Today in the airport the other morning and
there is this big story titled “All-American, 17, out of jail but
facing charges.” Al-Farouq Aminu….one of Wake’s big
basketball recruits for next year that I’ve been writing of.
‘Great,’ I mused. Turns out Aminu, who has been profiled as a
model citizen, the kind Wake tries to recruit, was charged with
felony assault as he and two basketball teammates used a BB gun
on a woman and her truck. The only saving grace, if there is one
(and I admit I’m stretching) is that Aminu wasn’t the shooter.
No word on how Wake is going to handle this.
–And I’m just thrilled by Pedro Martinez’s hamstring injury.
Not the start to the season us Mets fans, still reeling from last
fall’s historic collapse, were looking for.
–Columnist George Will:
“The sometimes terrible truth is that being a sports fan is a
physical phenomenon as well as a psychological condition: It
involves observable (with imaging technology) alterations of
brain matter. Jordan Grafman, a senior investigator at the
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, was
born and raised in Chicago, so he knows whereof he speaks
when he speaks, politely, about the “paradox” of being a Cub fan
even though baseball is supposed to provide relief from life’s
problems. Grafman has been to a pleasant purgatory, Wrigley
Field, and returned with good news: Yes, rooting for the Cubs is
a minority taste because it is an interminable tutorial in delayed
gratification, but ‘there is some evidence that being in the
majority (everyone loves a winner) reduces reflective thinking.’
“Rooting for a loser makes one thoughtful, or perhaps neurotic,
which on Chicago’s North Side may be a distinction without a
difference….
“The brain ‘wants’ to see outcomes as connected to preceding
events, so fans get the brain-driven pleasure of thinking that their
rooting, which is prayer in a secular setting, somehow helps
cause their teams’ successes. Well. It is said there are no
atheists in foxholes. There should be lots of them in Wrigley
Field as the Cubs finish the 10th decade of their rebuilding
effort.”
–College Hockey’s Frozen Four:
Boston College v. North Dakota; Michigan v. Notre Dame
–1968 alert….since I recently wrote of Martin Luther King’s
assassination on April 4, 1968, Tom Brokaw is hosting what
should be a good program on King’s life this Sunday, 8 pm, on
the History Channel.
–We note the passing of Big Bertha, a popular sand shark at the
New York Aquarium that lived an amazing 43 years, possibly as
long as any shark of its species ever has in captivity….
admittedly not a great segue there.
Top 3 songs for the week 4/4/70: #1 “Bridge Over Troubled
Water” (Simon & Garfunkel) #2 “Let It Be” (The Beatles) #3
“Instant Karma (We All Shine On)” (John Ono Lennon)…and…
#4 “ABC” (The Jackson 5) #5 “Love Grows (Where My
Rosemary Goes)” (Edison Lighthouse) #6 “Spirit In The Sky”
(Norman Greenbaum) #7 “House Of The Rising Sun” (Frijid
Pink…can’t place this version) #8 “The Rapper” (The Jaggerz)
#9 “Come And Get It” (Badfinger) #10 “Easy Come, Easy Go”
(Bobby Sherman)
George Will Baseball Quiz Answer: Four with 10 or more letters
in their last names who hit 40 home runs in a season…
Roy Campanella, Ted Kluszewski, Carl Yastrzemski, Rico
Petrocelli.
Next Bar Chat, Monday………your EXCLUSIVE full-season
projections based on the first week’s action in baseball. For
example, just because Xavier Nady homered twice and drove in
four for Pittsburgh on Opening Day doesn’t mean I’m prepared
to say Nady will then hit 143 homers and drive in 342 over the
full campaign. Probably not going to happen.
