Baseball Quiz: Name the seven to have played in 1,000 or more consecutive games. [Hint: The initials for two of them are E.S. and J.S., both of whom played in the 1920s.] Answer below.
Another Win for the Irish
Padraig Harrington won his third major and became the first European in the modern era to win the British Open and PGA Championship in succession. Harrington has now won three of the last six majors overall in besting Sergio Garcia and Ben Curtis.
But I have to admit, I was totally disinterested in this one and watched little of the action until Sunday. The sport desperately needs Tiger Woods. I mean think about it. If Greg Norman hadn\’t come out of nowhere to become the story in the British Open, how many would have really cared about that one? So this is one guy hoping Tiger is fully recovered in time for the Masters.
Brett Favre…New York Jet
No, I’m not happy. Not happy at all. And I can’t believe how most of my fellow Jets fans appear to be thrilled that the 38-year-old Favre is our quarterback, even as Johnny Mac, who agrees with my take, said “The more I mull it over, the less I like it. The Jets were at best his fifth choice, behind the Packers, Vikings, Bears and Bucs….and we were the fifth only because there was no sixth one.” Johnny and I were ready to embrace QB Chad Pennington this year. “He played hard, he played smart, and he was a Jet,” as Johnny put it.
But as the story hit at midnight on Wednesday evening, after I posted my last chat, I do want to note the comments of Chris Ballard, writing before the trade in the current Sports Illustrated.
“I don’t know about you, but some unshaven, thick-jawed guy resembling Brett Favre keeps butting in on my summer. I know it can’t be him, though, because he’s been doing stuff Brett would never do. Like hinting that he’d come back for a team other than the Packers. [Try to picture Favre running onto Lambeau wearing number 4 in Vikings purple.] And making his first public comments on unretiring to noted NFL insider Greta Van Susteren. [What, Tucker Carlson was too busy?] And then actually weighing a $25 million offer from the Packers not to play again before showing up at training camp on Monday, the biggest, scruffiest elephant in every room.
“Wait, that is Favre? And this isn’t an elaborate episode of Punk’d in which Aaron Rodgers, Favre’s presumed successor, is going to get it good? [And, boy, would he!] Then what in the name of Paul Hornung has Favre been thinking? Or maybe it’s that he hasn’t been thinking. Because for someone who made a million decisions on the football field, Favre looks clueless on this one. Did he really believe that rumors and leaks to the media were the best way to go about returning? Did he really want to put his teammates in this position, trying to move on but unable to because their old flame keeps hanging around?….
“When he retired in March, at age 38, Favre tearfully proclaimed, ‘It wasn’t about the money or fame or records…It was never about me.’ But what else could this comeback be about?….
“(Once) Favre embraced the role of folk hero, bonding with fans, fostering community, being the guy who might drop by the BBQ, he couldn’t suddenly bail out….
But now it’s about Sept. 7, Jets vs. Dolphins in Miami. Brett Favre vs. Chad Pennington. Who wudda thunk it just about six days ago? After the Jets traded for Favre, Pennington signed with Bill Parcells, who had drafted Chad in 2000 when Parcells was with the Jets. Wow, this could be fun. Plus the Jets play the Dolphins the last game of the season so who knows what could be on the line then as well. But if the Jets do well this year, I’m going to be struggling as a fan. After all I’ve written on the topic, I can’t root for Favre.
–The New York Times’ George Vecsey, reporting from Beijing on the men’s cycling road race on Saturday.
“The fog comes on little cat feet – with homage to Carl Sandburg.
“Actually, this fog did not tiptoe into the Olympics but has been hunkering down over Beijing for years. On Saturday the fog exhaled its hot chemical breath into the noses and mouths of all the cyclists who dared climb the hills near the Great Wall. Whether it affected anybody’s health or anybody’s performance in the 152.2-mile men’s cycling road race is open to debate.
“ ‘I know it looks bad, but I don’t think it’s that bad,’ said Levi Leipheimer of the United States, who finished 11th. ‘I might be coughing later, but right now I’m not.’
“On the other hand, George Hincapie of the United States, who has ridden everywhere, under all conditions, essentially forever, finished 40th and said these were the worst conditions he had ever raced under.
“Jonathan Bellis of Britain, who dropped out, later said, ‘I had trouble breathing all the way up the climb,’ but he would not blame the pollution for his troubles.”
Ah yes, there are all kinds of apologists, including the IOC and some NBC types for the “fog.” Vecsey writes:
“Fog sounds more like the romantic clouds that come scudding in off the ocean in San Francisco every afternoon, insinuating itself into the scenic hills, carrying the scent of coffee and noodles and garlic. This is not exactly what the cyclists were getting free as they rode the course Saturday.”
“The air stinks. It also obscures. Somebody told me that beyond the first ring of the Great Wall there are other mountains, higher and farther away, and that the Wall crowns them, too. The cyclists who were up the hill will never know. Blame it on the fog, or whatever it is.”
C’mon. This stuff takes years off your life. Call it what it is, poison.
–Who will step up with Tiger out? Aside from Padraig, two weeks ago we had the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, the final event in the first ten years of the World Golf Championships. There is no series that displays Tiger Woods’ dominance of the sport than this. At the Bridgestone, for example, Vijay Singh, won his first WGC title. Check this out.
2. Ohio State
8. Texas Tech
Our crack staff here at Bar Chat is working on our own pick to be #1 and we’ll reveal that shortly.
But for now, SI also ranks all 119 Division I teams and my Wake Forest Demon Deacons are #26. I’ll say they end up the season around 16. And SI lists all the potential bowl match-ups and has Wake playing Alabama (#29) in the Chick-fil-A Bowl on New Year’s Eve. That’s held in Atlanta, if I recall. Eh.
By the way, if you are a fan of the following, you have my sympathies.
115. Marshall…boy, did this program collapse
116. Louisiana-Lafayette
117. Idaho
118. Florida International
119. Utah State
I’ll go with Chase Daniel, which may or may not give you a clue as to my pick for #1 team in the country this year.
–Back to Favre (get used to it this season), while he isn’t likely to be around come 2010 and the opening of the new stadium to be jointly used by the Jets and Giants, there is little doubt the move to acquire him helps the Jets sell the personal seat licenses they will be hawking shortly.
“For the second time in six weeks, an Anchorage resident has been mauled by a grizzly bear in Far North Bicentennial Park.
“The woman, who has yet to be identified, was reported to be jogging along Campbell Creek around 6 p.m. Friday evening when she was attacked by a sow with two cubs.
“What is believed to be the same bear has been involved in a variety of aggressive confrontations with people since June. Rick Sinnott, the area’s wildlife biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, believes it was this bear that chased a mountain biker down the Rover’s Run trail earlier this summer and came within inches of sinking its teeth into a University of Alaska Anchorage cross-country runner on the Spencer Loop Trail in late July.
The woman was running near where 15-year-old Petra Davis was mauled during a 24-hour bike race on June 29. Davis is still recovering from her wounds.
The two maulings in six weeks come after 13 years without a serious attack in the Anchorage area. No one had ended up hospitalized since May 1995 when Marcie Trent, 77, and her son, Larry Waldron, 45, died after stumbling on a bear defending a moose kill when it attacked. “That bear was never found.”
I’m not leaving the house the rest of the summer, after one last shopping trip to stockpile beer and Chex Mix. I suggest you do the same.
“Residents of a southern Spanish village have become virtual prisoners in their homes after a herd of 150 cattle invaded their village in search of food.
“The villagers of Prado Negro, near Granada, say the cattle have destroyed trees, flowerpots, property and rubbish bins. Many of the cows had just calved and were therefore unusually aggressive.”
Not exactly the kinds of role models you expect out of these normally placid, and delicious, animals.
“The villagers blame the herd’s owners for not feeding the animals and are critical of local authorities over their failure to respond.”
“A Mexican woman said she fought a 500-pound lion with a machete near the resort city of Acapulco and scared him away. Celsa Aleman said she and her 7-year-old niece were riding a donkey Monday along a road when the lion went after the animal’s legs.
“The 35-year-old woman says she found the courage to fight the lion because she thought it would attack her niece. She hit the animal with a machete until the beast ran away. Aleman and her niece were unharmed.
“The state government said in a statement that the lion had escaped from a private zoo owned by a former local congressman.
“It said the animal killed two dogs and ate a pig before it was sedated and taken back to the zoo.”
“At least 38 Warao Indians have died in remote villages in Venezuela, and medical experts suspect an outbreak of rabies spread by bites from vampire bats. Laboratory investigations have yet to confirm the cause, but the symptoms point to rabies, according to two researchers from the University of California at Berkeley and other medical experts.”
The researchers said “the symptoms include fever, body pains, and tingling in the feet followed by progressive paralysis, and an extreme fear of water. Victims tend to have convulsions and grow rigid before death.”
Heck, these are similar to the symptoms suffered by Mets fans when they see the bullpen go to work.
Vampire bats are a big problem in tropical areas of South America, which is why you so often see them in a Sci-Fi network straight-to-video flick, complete with the obligatory buxom scientist who likes to bathe in lagoons……………but I digress.
I hate researchers who try and be cute. This is a serious topic. As in another researcher, Dr. Clara Mantini-Briggs, “said she started to wonder about her own health Friday while talking with biologist Omar Linares, a bat expert (and switch-hitting shortstop) at Simon Bolivar University.”
“She remembered there was blood on her sheet after sleeping in a hammock in a Warao village two weeks ago. [If you are studying vampire bat cases, why would you sleep in a hammock?] Initially she had dismissed it as an unimportant insect bite or something else, but she remembered her finger hurting that morning and that she saw two small red dots there.
“Confirming it must have been a bat bite, Linares suggested she get rabies shots immediately.
“ ‘I’m sure a bat bit me,’ she said. ‘I remembered and said ‘I’m going to get vaccinated.’’”
–Brad K. passed along a story out of Wellington, New Zealand about “Henry the tuatara” becoming a father at the age of 111. A tuatara is half lizard, half snake, with the latter perhaps the best description of Henry’s character, seeing as the AP story said “He was now enjoying the company of three females and might breed again next March.”
Meanwhile, Brad, about to turn 50, said Henry gives him hope. Maybe Henry could do a Cialis spot, come to think of it.
–Speaking of snakes, a better description you can’t find than for the four singers now passing themselves off as the oldies group The Duprees of “You Belong To Me,” “My Own True Love,” and “Have You Heard” fame. As Guy Sterling of the Star-Ledger reported the other day, there is a nasty legal battle brewing involving the estate of Michael Arnone, one of the five original members, and the impostors.
Arnone was a member along with the late Joey Canzano and Joe Santollo, while the other two still alive are John Salvato and Thomas Bialoglow.
Arnone’s daughter, Isabella, says there is no way the four now passing themselves off as The Duprees – Tony Testa, Phil Granito, Tommy Petillo and Jimmy Spinelli – have the legal right to use the name. I couldn’t agree more, but the Fraud Four say the trademark had long expired. Bottom line, as is the case with so many groups of this era, if you think you are seeing the originals when you attend a concert, you’re sadly mistaken.
[Personally, I saw the real Duprees at a long defunct spot called “Mile Square City” in Hoboken, N.J. Ah, those were the days. I lived there at the time, early- to mid-80s, and you walked over, imbibed a bit, listened to terrific oldies acts, and managed your way home. It didn’t get any better.]
–For those of you watching “Generation Kill” on HBO, there is a chilling scene in the second episode where an American sniper takes out an Iraqi from a great distance. So I’m glancing through the Aug. 4 issue of Defense News and there’s a story of the gun used, the M24. For those of you into this kind of thing, this rifle is effective up to 800 meters…or six times the distance between home plate and dead center field as I try and visualize it. Staggering. But now the Army and Marines are making a change in the gun by using more powerful ammo that would extend the range to 1,200 meters. Goodness gracious.
–After getting shelled for five runs on nine hits in just two innings on Friday night, Yankees rookie pitcher Ian Kennedy said “I’m not going to (read) much into it…I’m not too upset about it…I felt like I made some good pitches and competed, which is all that really matters…I’m just not real upset about it, and I’m going to move on. I’ve already done that.”
Kennedy was also surprised he was pulled from the game. As Ed Price of the Star-Ledger reported, one veteran “said that if other players had seen Kennedy’s comments, they would not have been pleased.”
Price: “Kennedy…has an ERA of 8.17, yet (he) gives the impression he is doing fine.” Kennedy was sent back to the minors on Sunday.
“A motorized wheelchair was stolen and driven out of the Metrodome as its 17-year-old owner watched a Twins game with his parents.”
“A man and a woman found a new use for a barbecue pit – one that landed them in jail. An argument over whether a third guest should stay in the house got so heated that the woman picked up the barbecue pit and hit the man over the head with it, police said.
“The man picked up the barbecue pit and returned the favor and hit the woman in the head, police reported. The woman then told police that she picked up the barbecue pit and hit the back window of the man’s car with it.
“Police admit that the whole situation was confusing, but after medics treated the man and the woman, they were handcuffed, read their rights and taken to jail.
“The man was booked on a charge of aggravated battery and the woman was booked with aggravated battery and simple criminal damage to property valued less than $500.”
Seems clear to me what happened. It was a debate as to who has the best barbecue, Carolina, Texas or Kansas City, with the “third guest” being from K.C.
–Eric Dowling died. He was 92. Dowling played a key role in planning the 1944 escape from Stalag Luft III prison near Sagan in eastern Germany – now Zagan, Poland. As noted by Jill Lawless of the AP, “He forged documents, made maps and helped dig three tunnels codenamed Tom, Dick and Harry.”
Of course it was this breakout that formed the basis for the 1963 classic film “The Great Escape” with Steve McQueen. All but three of the escapees were recaptured, and 50 of them were shot on the orders of Adolf Hitler.
It took almost a year to dig the tunnels 30 feet underground. “Tom” was discovered, Dick was abandoned, but Harry, 300-feet long, was completed.
Dowling was not among the 200 selected for the escape on the moonless night of March 24, and by the time German guards discovered the breakout, 76 had broken free.
Dowling, according to his son, Peter, later found parts of the film realistic, but said Steve McQueen’s attempt to flee on a stolen motorcycle “was well over the top.”
–We note the passing of former U.S. Open golf champion Orville Moody, whose 1969 triumph was his only win on the PGA Tour. Better known as “Sarge,” the Army veteran then found success on the senior tour, winning eleven times. Moody was 74.
–Actor and comedian Bernie Mac, he of the “Ocean’s Eleven” series, “The Bernie Mac Show” and a lifetime of standup died suddenly of complications from pneumonia at the age of 50. Recently at a Barack Obama fundraiser Mac caught some heat for inappropriate jokes.
–Finally, we note the passing of Black Moses, Isaac Hayes, who also died suddenly at the age of 65. Hayes did it all, rapping before there was rap and setting the stage for crooners like Barry White.
Hayes’ visual imagery was his act; shaved head, gold chains and sunglasses.
It was in 1971 that Hayes scored with the No. 1 hit from the film “Shaft” starring Richard Roundtree. Hayes was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. Man, he was coooool.
[Ironically, Hayes was shooting the film “Soul Men” with Bernie Mac.]
Top 3 songs for the week 8/12/72: #1 "Alone Again (Naturally)" (Gilbert O\’Sullivan…most depressing song of all time) #2 "Brandy (You\’re A Fine Girl)" (Looking Glass) #3 "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don\’t Want To Be Right" (Luther Ingram)…and…#4 "Daddy Don\’t You Walk So Fast" (Wayne Newton) #5 "Where Is The Love" (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway) #6 "Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress)" (The Hollies) #7 "I\’m Still In Love With You" (Al Green) #8 "Too Late To Turn Back Now" (Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose) #9 "How Do You Do?" (Mouth & MacNeal) #10 "School\’s Out" (Alice Cooper)
Baseball Quiz Answer: Seven to have played 1,000 or more consecutive games.
Cal Ripken Jr. …2,632
Lou Genrig…2,130
Everett Scott…1,307
Steve Garvey…1,207
Miguel Tejada…1,152
Billy Williams…1,117
Joe Sewell…1,103
Next Bar Chat, Thursday.
*I won\’t be commenting much on the Olympics as there is little to add with the saturation coverage. But the 4X100-meter freestyle relay was one helluva race, that\’s for sure.
