Masters Quiz: 1) Name the seven to win at least three. 2) Who am I? I finished tied for second in 1969 to George Archer, initials G.K. 3) Name the two who finished tied for second to Seve Ballesteros in 1980, initials G.G. and J.N. Answers below.
And Then There Were Two…
North Carolina vs. Michigan State
Most of us just hope it’s a good game, but if you’re an ACC or Big Ten fan it should be all about the conference, as Big East fans lick their wounds. And while it was hardly going out on a limb, I did pick UNC last fall.
But Saturday was perhaps as much about UConn and their coach as it was Michigan State’s stirring win in the semis.
“If this was the end of a Hall of Fame career last night, it was a meek good-bye.
“Jim Calhoun, a coach who attacked every challenge with a mouthful and a wagging finger, looked like a statue at Ford Field, his arms folded, his head down, his face almost pale.
“Calhoun had the better team in the Final four, but for one night, at least, Michigan State had the better coach. And so the favored Huskies, outplayed and outhustled in every way imaginable in an 82-73 loss, lamely faded away in the semifinals.
“He is 67 years old and looks it. He will lose nearly his entire starting lineup to graduation or the NBA. He has battled health problems for years now, and in the coming months, might have to fight the NCAA in a recruiting scandal that could land his program on probation.”
“Next year keeps getting tougher and tougher and tougher because of all the other things besides coming off the pick and roll, ball screens, and trapping in the short corner.”
Alas, Calhoun had a chance to end his career on a high note, becoming just the fifth coach to win three titles, joining John Wooden (10), Adolph Rupp (four), Bob Knight (three) and Mike Krzyzewski (three). It wasn’t to be.
“Hours after arriving in Detroit, the North Carolina point guard hit a downtown casino and left with a little extra cash.
“ ‘We got in last night, and Coach gave us a curfew of 1:30,’ Lawson said when asked if he had visited any casinos. ‘I went over to Greektown and won about $250. So I already had my time there. It’s probably the last time I go there before the games start.’”
Then he said “The only time I lost was in Reno; that’s when everybody on the team lost. The other five or six times I did gamble, I won at least $500.”
Lawson is of legal age to visit a casino, 21, and it’s not a violation of NCAA rules, but NCAA President Myles Brand said he would prefer athletes don’t gamble at the casinos.
Speaking of Brand, when asked to comment on John Calipari’s $31.65 million contract at Kentucky, he replied, “You have to ask some very hard questions, whether this is really in tune with the academic values, whether we’ve reached a point already that these high salaries and packages for coaches has really extended beyond what’s expected within the academic community.”
It\’s been reached.
Two professional malcontents stole the headlines in New York this week, with one coming and one going. First, Plaxico Burress.
“Today, Burress has no football family. On Friday, the Giants released him, ending a productive but often trying tenure that crested when he caught the winning touchdown pass in the 2008 Super Bowl. Back in December, (GM Jerry) Reese left the door open for Burress to return, saying that if he survived a blizzard of legal issues, he could be a Giant in 2009. ‘Provided he plays by Giants rules,’ Reese said.
“But on Tuesday, when his court date was adjourned until June, Burress’s fate with the Giants was sealed.
“Reese said Friday, ‘We hung in there as long as we could in hopes that there could be a resolution to this situation other than the decision we made today to release Plaxico.’”
No doubt, filling Burress’ slot in the Giants offense has been difficult, witness the final month of last season, but as Rhoden writes:
“But let’s talk about accountability. Does Burress’ ability to catch a football justify reckless endangerment, walking into a crowded club with a loaded, unlicensed gun and risking everyone’s life – yours, your child’s, my child’s?…
“Fortunately, the only person injured was Burress or we would have had a much different conversation, and Burress’ ability to catch a football would not have amounted to a hill of beans.
“That’s precisely the message we’ve been trying to hammer home to young athletes in a celebrity culture: the fact that you can throw a baseball or shoot a jump shot does not absolve you from accountability.”
The Giants finally concluded that should they take Plax back, eventually he’d return to his old ways. And Plax cannot be happy he’s losing out on the remaining four years in a five-year, $35 million contract extension signed last September.
Steve Serby / New York Post
"The time for good riddance arrived yesterday, when the Giants finally said: Enough is enough….
“(Plaxico) decided he could be above the Law of Tom Coughlin because he was the indispensable go-to guy without whom the Giants wouldn’t have so much as sniffed a Super Bowl. He wasn’t scared straight by his mindless actions that fateful November night inside the Latin Quarter, when, thankfully, he didn’t kill himself or anyone else. When he looked in the mirror, he saw Plaxico Burress, Super Bowl hero. He didn’t have the decency to return phone calls from the club, or text messages….
“Burress made his bed. Now he gets to lie in it. And there will be no cushy Big Blue blankets where he’s probably headed.”
James Fanelli / New York Post:
“The pistol-packing punk fired a string of profanities at a deputy sheriff two weeks ago after he was stopped for erratic driving in Florida, police said.
“ ‘F— you! You’re going to be in a lot of trouble. I know the sheriff personally,’ the receiver raged at Broward County Deputy Sheriff Donald Harris during the March 18 traffic stop, police said.”
Evidently, Plax followed every question and command with an F-bomb. The driving citation also happened to be his fifth in Florida in a month.
As for Gary Sheffield, some of us Mets fans are going, ‘Why?’ Why do we need an aging 40-year-old slugger who not only hit a whopping .225 last season with the Tigers, but is a disruptive force in the clubhouse? And then you have the issues of starting right fielder Ryan Church and anointed left fielder Daniel Murphy. What happens to them? Plus Sheffield, never a good fielder, has played little in the outfield the past three years. It’s going to be a disaster, though at least the Mets are only shelling out $400,000 while the Tigers pick up $13.6 million, if you can imagine that.
Joel Sherman / New York Post
“Randy Johnson and Gary Sheffield were teammates on the 2004-05 Yankees, glum and glummer.
“Johnson was a Yankee, essentially, because he was the organization’s white whale. They had begun pursuing him earnestly in the late 1990s, thought they were on the brink of obtaining him on a few occasions and had become so blind with lust to eventually obtain him that they failed to notice he was not Randy Johnson any more. He was a 41-year-old with diminished skills, entrenched unhappiness and a long-standing inability to mix well with the other children.
“Sheffield and Manny Ramirez have been the white whales of the Mets and GM Omar Minaya for what feels like a baseball lifetime….
“Now – with Ramirez beyond the Mets’ price range in the offseason – Minaya finally has landed Sheffield, a minimum-wage slugger not worth the cost. Because this 40-year-old version of Sheffield has all of the worst qualities of his past without enough of the stuff that made him tolerable….
“The positive is that at $400,000…Sheffield is even more disposable than Livan Hernandez. If he proves incapable at the plate, in the field or as a human, the Mets simply can toss him out. They can only hope he does not destroy the clubhouse before then.”
I hate this move. And I haven’t even brought up the steroids issue, Gary having testified in the BALCO case, and his role in the Mitchell Report. Or that after he left the Yankees, he called Joe Torre a racist.
–The Sunday Times had some interesting baseball stats. For example, five times a pitcher has won six games through April 30 and only once did that pitcher then fail to win 20.
But before I read the fine print, I couldn’t believe Denny McLain didn’t win six in April 1968 when he won 31 for the season. So I checked out baseballreference.com and that year he was just 2-0 in April, but the season didn’t start for the Tigers until April 10. By May 29, when the Tigers were 26-16, McLain was 8-1 and on his way.
Albert Pujols and A-Rod hold the record with 14 homers in April.
And Times baseball writer Tyler Kepner has the Kansas City Royals winning the A.L. Central, going one step further than your editor’s claim they would shock the world and finish 88-74, but miss out on the wildcard.
–In a preview of my EXCLUSIVE first week baseball predictions, where I fearlessly forecast player stats for the season after just one week’s play (even Kreskin can’t do this), I told Jeff B. that if Ichiro got off to a fast start for Seattle, I would probably put him down for 302 hits and a .475 average. Alas, Ichiro starts the season on the disabled list with a bleeding ulcer and will probably miss at least 7 to 10 games, this after missing only 16 in his eight previous years with the club.
–Billionaire Texas Rangers owner Tom Hick’s holding company defaulted on $525 million in loans after missing interest payments, according to Aaron Kuriloff of Bloomberg News. Hicks Sports Group also owns the Dallas Stars hockey team. He said his problems were just a “business dispute” as he seeks to have the terms on his loans renegotiated. Wouldn’t that be something if in a month or two, players’ checks started bouncing. Hicks bought the Rangers for $250 million in 1998 from a group then headed by George W. Bush.
–Captain Chesley Sullenberger received a huge ovation as he got to throw out the first pitch at the Yankees exhibition game on Saturday. Nice to see. And actor Liam Neeson was in London yesterday to cheer on his beloved Liverpool soccer team against Fulham. Liverpool scored in the final minute of a scoreless contest to gain the victory and Neeson was seen cheering wildly. After what he went through with the death of his wife, Natasha Richardson, sports became part of the healing process.
–There are many in New York who believe Derek Jeter, about to turn 35, is a shell of his former self, and this being New York, there’s already a ton of speculation over what will happen after his 10-year, $189 million contract is up following the 2010 season. He’s an automatic Hall of Famer, but he had just a so-so campaign in ’08 and he’s hardly the fielder he once was.
–Jeff Gordon won for the first time in 48 races at the Texas Motor Speedway, his 82nd career victory, one behind Cale Yarborough for fifth on the all-time list.
–Nice win by Paul Casey, his first PGA Tour triumph, at the Shell Houston Open.
–I wonder how long Clark Kellogg’s contract is for? I can’t imagine there are too many out there in television land that believe he’s doing a great job. Personally, I’m tired of this ‘orange’ crap. It’s a basketball, Clark.
–That Jay Cutler deal was interesting, as in the Bears paid a stiff price to acquire the disgruntled Denver quarterback, exchanging QB Kyle Orton, the Bears’ first-round pick in the upcoming draft – No. 18 overall, their first-round pick in 2010; and a third-rounder this year.
The Bears obviously believe Cutler is the answer to their decades long quarterback woes, while Denver now has two picks in the first round, 12 and 18, and could get a decent QB in the draft to go along with Orton, who now projects as the starter.
Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen explained the decision for trading their franchise quarterback in a letter to season ticket holders.
“Understand this: it remains about team,” he wrote. “Our franchise has gone to the Super Bowl six times, with three different coaches and with many different players. It has never been about one player, and it never will be….If anyone (doesn’t understand this), that person will not be a part of this franchise.”
Cutler got all bent out of shape when he heard Denver was shopping him for New England Patriots quarterback Matt Cassel and immediately requested a trade. Cutler then refused to answer calls from the owner and coach and sealed his fate.
–Golf Digest’s Top Ten Courses in America
1. Augusta National…big surprise given the criticized changes to the course
2. Pine Valley
3. Shinnecock
4. Cypress Point
5. Oakmont
6. Pebble Beach
7. Merion
8. Winged Foot
9. Fishers Island [Fishers Island, N.Y. I’ve lived in the area basically all my life and couldn’t tell you how to get here.]
10. Seminole
For you overseas types, Royal County Down, New Castle, N. Ireland, is No. 1 outside the U.S. I’m kind of proud a course I belong to, Lahinch, is No. 16 on this list. [St. Andrews (old) is No. 2, by the way.]
–One new stat I kind of like is the plus/minus differential for basketball. It was always used for hockey, but if I’m an agent for an NBA player, it can certainly be a plus in contract negotiations, I imagine. It’s an important intangible, even if you’re still dependent on the other four guys on the court.
Anyway, I just thought this was amusing. Wednesday night, Golden State defeated Sacramento, 143-141, in overtime in a score resembling one of those old ABA games. But get this, Kings forward Kevin Martin had 50 points, yet finished the game with a minus 2 points differential. That almost doesn’t seem possible.
–Ah ha! Ticketmaster has received demands for information from the Department of Justice and other government agencies over the company’s activities in reselling tickets. Justice is already looking into Ticketmaster’s proposed merger with concert promoter Live Nation on possible antitrust issues.
—Darryl Strawberry on the number of blacks playing baseball: “I think young black men look at guys like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, and they look at their shoes – they’re addicted to that kind of stuff. Baseball has never had any type of attraction for this generation of young blacks.” [New York Times]
—Tom Braden died. He was 92. I imagine some younger folks may not remember him but he was the liberal co-host on CNN’s “Crossfire,” opposite Pat Buchanan for many years, and a syndicated columnist.
But I have to admit I didn’t realize he was a former CIA operative as well as the author of “Eight is Enough,” a 1975 memoir of his problems raising eight children that then spawned the popular television series of the same name which starred Dick Van Patten and ran from 1977 to 1981.
What an interesting life he had. Braden dropped out of high school during the Depression but ended up at Dartmouth, which accepted kids without high school degrees back then. Then in 1941, he went to England and was among a small group of Americans who enlisted in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps in the British Army to fight in World War II. He later joined the U.S. Army and shifted to intelligence. In 1950 he worked for Allen Dulles in the CIA. Then in 1954, he borrowed $100,000 from Nelson Rockefeller to purchase an Oceanside, California newspaper, the now-defunct Blade-Tribune, repaying the loan in 1967 when he sold the paper for $1 million. Those were different times for that industry, eh?
Braden and Buchanan teamed on “Crossfire” for seven years, 1982-89. I used to love that show, rushing home from work to catch at least part of it. [Elaine Woo / Los Angeles Times]
–Good lord. Did you see the story of the Brazilian diver who accidentally fired a spear gun into his head…yet is expected to make a full recovery? He fired it and it ricocheted off rocks and “penetrated his head so deeply that only the tip was showing.” It penetrated just above the left eye, but somehow missed the most critical areas of his brain. Imagine how risky the five-hour surgery was, and consider he never lost consciousness until he made it to a hospital. [David Byers / London Times]
–Fun facts on cobras…courtesy of Smithsonian.
A spitting cobra can spit blinding venom at prey up to six feet away. And “in a study of spitting accuracy, one species hit its target 80 percent of the time and another never missed.”
So for those of us who still have a real newspaper delivered to the stoop or driveway, if you see a cobra nearby, stay at least six feet away. That’s my advice. And as an aside, if you’re on an ice flow and see a leopard seal, I’d stay at least six feet away from that as well.
–You know it’s pretty amazing that Michael Jackson sold a record $400 million in tickets for his six-month, 50 concert set in London beginning in July. But Rolling Stone asked if he was in good enough shape to pull it off. The promoter said “Michael had to submit to a five-hour physical by an independent, third-party physician picked by the insurance carriers.” That must have been gruesome. I’d get queasy checking out the nose.
–The nightmare continues…Tom Brady\’s marriage to Gisele Bundchen. At the couple\’s nuptials in Costa Rica (again) over the weekend, bodyguards opened fire on paparazzi, blasting out the windows of a photographer\’s SUV, just missing the guy. The Pats will go 6-10 this coming season.
–Kudos to “60 Minutes” for a super segment on Dolly Parton last night. I was always a big fan of hers, now I’m more so…and for those who did catch it, that was an emotional ending, wasn’t it?
–Caught some of the Academy of Country Music award show Sunday. Goodness gracious…Carrie Underwood is beautiful. But I still say Taylor Swift is the halftime act for the next Super Bowl. And I have all my Kenny Chesney CDs out because I’m going to see him in concert later this summer at the Calgary Stampede and I’m determined to know the words…Might even have a premium beer or two while I’m there.
Top 3 songs for the week 4/6/74: #1 “Hooked On A Feeling” (Blue Swede) #2 “Bennie And The Jets” (Elton John) #3 “Sunshine On My Shoulders” (John Denver)…and…#4 “Seasons In The Sun” (Terry Jacks) #5 “The Lord’s Prayer” (Sister Janet Mead…wow, forgot this was a top ten) #6 “Come And Get Your Love” (Redbone) #7 “Dark Lady” (Cher) #8 “TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)” (MFSB featuring The Three Degrees) #9 “Mockingbird” (Carly Simon & James Taylor) #10 “Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me” (Gladys Knight & The Pips)
Masters Quiz Answers: 1) Seven to win at three: Jack Nicklaus (6); Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods (4); Jimmy Demaret, Nick Faldo, Gary Player and Sam Snead (3). 2) Canadian George Knudson tied for second in 1969 along with Billy Casper and Tom Weiskopf. 3) Gibby Gilbert and Jack Newton tied for second to Seve in 1980.
