NFL Quiz: Name the all-time top ten rushers…none are active. Answer below.
Little League World Series
I haven’t watched any…I seldom have the past few years…but I know enough through the coverage of local stories/teams, such as Staten Island’s entry this go ‘round, to know that I share many of the following sentiments of the Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins.
“One of the more disconcerting things Little Leaguers have learned from major leaguers is how to shower the infield with so much spit it registers like precipitation on a Doppler. What does a 12-year-old boy need to spit for, anyway? To get rid of the Laffy Taffy on the roof of his mouth? The answer is, so he can look like a mini-man on ESPN’s telecast of the Little League World Series.
“It’s frightening how easily they pick up the mannerisms of their counterparts in the bigs. After every swing they slide the bat down and grip it manfully by the fat end, and stalk out of the batter’s box. They adjust their batting helmet with one gloved hand, and adjust their lower region with the other. Watching them, you get the same creepy feeling you do watching little girls in beauty pageants, wearing hair spray and wiggling their hips as they belt out Broadway tunes.
“The argument for abolishing the Little League World Series is on display this week on ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN360, every time a 12-year-old does an interview, every time announcer Orestes Destrade calls a 4-foot-8 pitcher ‘a little John Franco,’ every time a skinny pre-adolescent gets a sore arm from throwing too much, and every time a kid imitates Matt Garza by hawking up a glob and spewing it into the dirt….
“Mainly you’ll see a lot of grownups acting out a central hypocrisy, the pretense that winning doesn’t matter, while in the stands and on television they screamingly demonstrate how much it does matter, how much it really, really matters.
“Hardly a second goes by on ESPN without a reference to the majors….
“We learned from the network chatter that Chula Vista had hit 46 homers in just eight games, and that ‘The comparisons to major league teams are astounding!’ because it took the Braves 17 games to hit the same number….
“The founding idea of Little League is a good one: It gives kids of all abilities and sizes a chance to participate equally and to learn the correct fundamentals, which delivers a lot of joy. But the World Series has become a distorting influence, infecting kids and parents alike with major league fantasies that lead to emotional and physical stresses. In a recent New York Times Magazine story orthopedic surgeon James Andrews described an ‘epidemic’ of arm and shoulder injuries to young ballplayers. Andrews has been keeping tabs: in 2001 and 2002 he performed a total of just 13 shoulder operations on teenagers. Over the next six years, he did 241.
“The number of elbow ligament replacement operations he has performed on kids has risen from nine in 1995-98 to 224 between 2003 and 2008. The problem is overwork. Children are playing year-round for multiple teams, and throwing way too much….
“Sports, at their best, are supposed to be contained environments where children experience joy and rehearse success and failure through play, supposedly without the pain and pressures that await them in real life. But in the Little League World Series, kids experience pain and pressure along with their joy – and pick up vulgar habits – all in the quest to act like ‘big leaguers.’ As we all know, being a big leaguer is not synonymous with behavior worth emulating.”
[Only ten who have played in the LWS ever made it to the majors.]
Rolling Stone’s Mikal Gilmore has an extensive inside story on what really tore the Beatles apart 40 years ago in the Sept. 3 issue of the magazine.
“It was a cold January day in 1969, and the Beatles were seated on a vast, even colder, soundstage at London’s Twickenham Film Studios, in the company of the last people in the world they wanted to be with: the Beatles. They had been trying for days to write and rehearse new material for a scheduled upcoming live show – their first since August 1966 – but the task wasn’t going well. The only one among them who had any sense of urgency was Paul McCartney. ‘I don’t see why any of you, if you’re not interested, got yourselves into this,’ he said to the other Beatles. ‘What’s it for? It can’t be for the money. Why are you here? I’m here because I want to do a show, but I don’t see an awful lot of support.’
“Paul looked at his bandmates, his friends of many years – John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr – and they looked back at him with no expression. Moments later he said, ‘There’s only two choices: We’re gonna do it or we’re not gonna do it, and I want a decision. Because I’m not interested in spending my f—— days farting around here, while everyone makes up their mind whether they want to do it or not.’
The rest of the year was basically torture. Actually, many would say it all began to come apart in August 1967, when manager Brian Epstein died from an unintentional drug overdose. And in February 1968, the Beatles went to study TM at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in India, largely at the behest of George Harrison, the first among them to gain an interest in Indian music and philosophies, though the others recognized they needed to reappraise their success with McCartney saying later, “I think we were all a bit exhausted, spiritually. We’d been the Beatles, which was marvelous…but I think generally there was a feeling of ‘Yeah, well, it’s great to be famous, it’s great to be rich – but what’s it all for?”
But then Harrison thought Paul and John were using the retreat to write music. “We’re not here to talk music! We’re here to meditate!” Paul replied, “Oh, yeah, all right, Georgie boy. Calm down, man.” Ringo and his wife, Maureen, left after just two weeks because his stomach couldn’t take the cuisine and Lennon left soon thereafter after hearing a rumor the Maharishi had made sexual advances toward a young woman there. As was later noted, there was something about the whole experience that transformed Lennon and he was always angry afterwards. He also despaired over his music.
“Although I was meditating about eight hours a day,” he later said, “I was writing the most miserable songs on Earth.”
Back in London, Lennon left Cynthia to take up with Yoko Ono and the press and fans had a field day, calling Yoko “Jap,” “Chink” and “Yellow” in public, with Lennon often having to shield her from physical harm.
As Mikal Gilmore writes, the treatment of Yoko helped fuel Lennon’s rage, but it was nothing compared to the reception he got from the other Beatles when he brought her into the recording studio.
“The group had rarely allowed guests (there), and never tolerated anyone other than producer George Martin or perhaps a recording engineer, such as Geoff Emerick, to offer input about a work in progress. But Lennon didn’t bring Ono into the Beatles as a guest; he brought her in as a full-fledged collaborator. When the Beatles began work in May 1968 on their first new LP since Sgt. Pepper, Yoko sat with John on the studio floor; she conversed with him continually in a low voice, and accompanied him every time he left the room. The first time she spoke in the studio, offering John advice on a vocal, the room fell silent. Then Paul said, ‘F— me! Did somebody speak? Who the f— was that? Did you say something, George? Your lips didn’t move!’”
Yoko was constantly pushing Lennon to be more daring, and he liked that. But when the group learned John and Yoko were doing heroin, the other Beatles didn’t know what to do. “This was a fairly big shocker for us,” McCartney said, “because we all thought we were far-out boys, but we kind of understood that we’d never get quite that far-out.”
But despite the turmoil, Lennon and McCartney were able to do some of their stronger, if more diverse, work on the album The Beatles (better known as The White Album). Oh, but it wasn’t easy. As Mikal Gilmore writes:
“They had so much material to record, and so much distaste for each other, that they were recording in three studios, sometimes 12 hours a day. Each of the Beatles treated the others as his supporting musicians – which made for some spectacular performances and some explosive studio moments: Lennon storming out on the tedium of recording McCartney’s ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’; Ringo quitting the group for almost two weeks after Paul berated his drumming on ‘Back in the U.S.S.R.’; Harrison bringing in his friend, guitarist Eric Clapton, just to win rightful consideration for ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’;…When it was finished, The Beatles was regarded as a disjointed masterpiece, the sound of a band in top form that nonetheless no longer had hope.”
But in January 1969, tensions between Harrison and Lennon reached a boiling point.
“After being sidelined for years, Harrison now found that Yoko Ono sometimes had a voice in band matters that equaled or even bested his. Worse, though, Lennon and Ono were now practicing what was known as ‘heightened awareness’ – based on a belief that verbal communication was unnecessary between people ‘tuned in’ to larger truths. Its real effect, however, was to shut down any meaningful or helpful interactions. When crucial issues came up, Lennon would say nothing, deferring to whatever Ono thought – which drove his bandmates crazy,” though McCartney put up with it better than the others just to keep Lennon in the fold.
Then on Jan. 10, Lennon and Harrison got into a fight that they later denied came to blows but it did, as producer George Martin later told biographer Philip Norman. Harrison then said, “I’m out of here. Put an ad in [the papers] and get a few people in. See you ‘round the clubs.” Lennon was nonplussed and suggested later that afternoon bringing in Clapton to replace George.
Two days later the four met at Ringo’s house and patched things up, temporarily, but events were in actuality spinning out of control, helped along by the hiring of accountant Allen Klein, whose hand Brian Epstein once refused to shake and who U.S. financial authorities were investigating. Klein had managed Sam Cooke, Herman’s Hermits, Donovan and the Rolling Stones but by this time Mick Jagger no longer trusted the guy and Mick tried to persuade the Beatles from hiring him. Lennon, though, prevailed on this one.
“This disagreement came at the worst possible time for the Beatles,” writes Gilmore, “when everything was happening too fast. In a matter of months, the Beatles lost their chance to commandeer Brian Epstein’s former management firm, NEMS (costing them a fortune), and, more crucially, Lennon and McCartney lost the rights to Northern Songs, their music publisher. In the course of it all, McCartney married Linda Eastman on March 12, 1969, and Lennon and Ono married on March 20, in Gibraltar. In addition, on the same day as McCartney’s wedding, Harrison and his wife, Pattie, were arrested for marijuana possession (Lennon and Ono had been arrested on a similar charge by the same police officer months before, and the disposition of that case affected Lennon’s life for years).”
Klein didn’t prevent any of the business disasters yet Lennon, Harrison and Starr remained supportive of him. But on May 9, 1969, at a recording session, the three demanded McCartney sign a three-year management deal with Klein and McCartney wouldn’t do it. “He told the others that Klein’s 20 percent fee was too high, but in truth he simply couldn’t reconcile himself to the reality of Allen Klein as the Beatles’ manager. The others grew furious, but McCartney held his ground. ‘The way I saw it, I had to save the Beatles’ fortunes,’ he said. ‘They said, ‘Oh, f— off!’ and they all stormed out.’”
So the other three nonetheless signed with Klein, with McCartney then giving in, but Paul knew what he was doing. He refused to affix his signature to the document. Neither Klein nor the other Beatles believed this mattered, “But in that moment of dissent, Paul McCartney pulled off the only brilliant maneuver that anybody accomplished during the Beatles’ whole sorry endgame: By withholding his signature, McCartney would later convince a court that he was no longer contractually bound to remain with the Beatles and had never been bound to Klein.”
–Richard Sandomir / New York Times…on Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and those video screens that are like three feet off the ground.
“Since April, nearly $3.5 billion in new stadiums have opened in New York and Texas.
“For that money, you’d think they’d be perfect expressions of modern sports architecture.
“But no. At Yankee Stadium, 1,048 seat dwellers in two outfield sections can’t see into the outfield opposite their perches because of a protruding structure between them that accommodates the bleacher café and the Mohegan Sun Sports Bar.
“Over at Citi Field, fans in some far-off outfield sections also have diminished views.
“At Cowboys Stadium, the twin video boards that measure 72 feet high and 160 feet long, and nearly stretch from one 20-yard line to the other, hang too low….
“On Friday night…the Titans punter A.J. Trapasso exposed a flaw in the Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’s concept of a football game as a live experience and a giant living-room set that can fit as many as 100,000 viewers.
“ ‘So it’s like a do-over,’ Fox’s Joe Buck said during the broadcast. ‘Like you’re playing flag football or in your backyard. I’m sure those are words that Jerry Jones didn’t want to hear tonight, that the ball hit the scoreboard.’”
What an embarrassment. But when you look at the Mets, what is equally embarrassing is how balls get lost in the corners, not just for many of the fans (the one game I went to in May, I was field level, down the right field line, and couldn’t see anything near the corner…and not just a small part of the field), but television viewers often can’t see the action in the corners either. It’s pitiful.
–Speaking of the Mets, their injury woes are now bordering on historic…as in if you had to rate the top five key players for their success at the start of the season (with K-Rod being sixth), you’d have Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, David Wright, Carlos Delgado and Johan Santana. With word that Santana needs elbow surgery, all five have suffered serious injuries and been on the DL. In the case of Reyes, Beltran and Delgado, since about June 1, or earlier.
As Johnny Mac noted when it comes to the Mets, “Does the September minor league call-up still exist if in fact your major league roster is already ‘minor league’?” Good question, J. Mac.
–And then there is the specific plight of ace Johan Santana, who us fans have learned is being put on the shelf as he gets his elbow cleaned of bone chips that have been hampering his effectiveness. General Manager Omar Minaya, in a conference call with the press on Tuesday explaining this and the myriad other Mets injuries, revealed he didn’t remember that Santana had an elbow injury in the spring that nearly cost him an Opening Day start. “Spring training…was such a long time ago,” said Omar. Oh brother.
Joel Sherman / New York Post
“Minaya said he could not remember what the All-Star break medical evaluation of Santana’s sore elbow showed. And he also said he had a call in, but had yet to talk to Santana about the results of yesterday’s test.
“But the biggest issue is Minaya really couldn’t explain letting Santana continue pitching with discomfort in his elbow for a non-contender. Minaya offered a combination of gibberish and incompetence that has now become the 2009 Mets soundtrack.”
For his part, Santana defended the Mets’ doctors and downplayed the severity of his injury later on, but as Joel Sherman notes:
“At age 30 and with his team out of contention, Santana was admirable that he wanted to continue to pitch, though he was hurt enough that he had not thrown between-start bullpen sessions in months. The Mets’ front office, therefore, had to be the adult in the relationship and shut him down….
“Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran also were allowed to go back on the field and worsen injuries. Is this about a culture from the Wilpons down that pushes hurting players to keep selling tickets? If not, the Mets must determine why this keeps happening.
“For the item that might be most irreparably injured for these Mets is their reputation.”
Yet Tuesday night, Johnny Mac and I watched this hideous club lose another desultory effort, 2-1, to the Marlins. Today, I’m going to the Mets team doctors myself and asking them to insist I be shut down. I’ll watch the Mets again next April. Typically, Mets management and the medical staff failed to see that I should have been placed on the UWL (Unable to Watch List) months ago in yet another screw up.
–But wait…there’s more! The Mets’ Fernando Tatis is 1-for-35 with runners in scoring position and two outs. 1-35…you’re reading that right. And Johnny Mac points out that early in the season the Mets gave up on reliever Darren O’Day and Texas picked him up on waivers. All O’Day has done is pitch 43 2/3 innings, allowing just 27 hits, while striking out 42 and walking only 13. His ERA is 1.86 and he’s held the opposition to a .181 batting average.
“According to the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, it takes an average U.S. citizen a shade under four years to earn $100,000. Alex Rodriguez does it in six pitches.
“Mr. Rodriguez has seen 1,593 pitches entering Monday’s game, so after prorating his $33 million salary, he earned roughly $15,856 every time he sees a pitch.”
Ben Roethlisberger, going off last season, brought in $100,000 every 3.6 snaps.
LeBron James earns $100,000 every time he passes the 21-minute mark.
–George Willis / New York Post
“This was overheard at the driving range at Liberty National yesterday, where the world’s best golfers were fine tuning their games for the start of The Barclays, the first tournament of the FedEx Cup playoffs:
“ ‘Well, this is the biggest cluster (bleep) I’ve ever seen for a golf course.’
–Shu passed on the funny story that Florida International University (FIU) and its new basketball coach Isiah Thomas are upset that his coaching debut comes on Nov. 9 in the Coaches vs. Cancer tournament against…national champion North Carolina! FIU athletic director Pete Garcia said the Golden Panthers were “bullied” by organizers and that Thomas expected to play the opener against Ohio State. Garcia continued that while FIU wants to play in the tournament, it is examining how to get out of the UNC contest.
But it seems that Garcia signed a contract back in November 2008 stipulating FIU would play either Ohio State or North Carolina and he acknowledges signing the deal. This is absurd.
—Appalachian State is ranked No. 1 for a third straight season in the preseason Football Championship Subdivision Coaches Poll, i.e., Div. I-AA, followed by Richmond, Montana, Northern Iowa, and Villanova. Sept. 12, your intrepid reporter will be in Boone, N.C., with Phil W. to catch superstar quarterback Armanti Edwards lead the Mountaineers against No. 15 McNeese State.
–Nice. A riot erupted involving hundreds of fans at an English League Cup match between West Ham and Millwall with one fan being stabbed in the worst fan violence in years. While the reputation of English fans is awful, the number of disturbances is way down in the last 20+ years since a 1985 incident at the European Cup final in Brussels between Liverpool and Juventus (Italy) that resulted in the deaths of 39 people and led to a five-year ban from European competitions for English fans.
–The Colorado Rockies are at it again. It was back in 2007 that the Rockies were just muddling along, playing out the string with a 76-72 record on Sept. 15 when they suddenly won 14 of their last 15, including a playoff game with San Diego for the wild card, and then extended the streak to 21 of 22 in sweeping both Philadelphia and Arizona to advance to the World Series against Boston, whereupon the Red Sox ended the dream and in turn swept Colorado.
Anyway, this season the Rockies were 20-32, long-time manager Clint Hurdle having been fired with the team at 18-28, replaced by Jim Tracy, but the Rockies have gone a stupendous 52-22 since and now sit at 72-54, comfortably ahead by four games in the wild card race.
—The 1969 Mets, continued…now that the cat is out of the bag, the Mets having celebrated the 40th anniversary of the ’69 edition, we nonetheless plow through the exciting last six weeks and pick up our story with the Mets 68-52 and 7 games behind the front-running Chicago Cubs.
Aug. 22…Los Angeles comes to town for a 3-game weekend set and over 50,000 show up at beautiful Shea Stadium (the toilets still work at this point…a few years later they’d all be busted and patrons were forced to find other alternatives). Jerry Koosman (11-8) goes 6 innings, giving up 3 runs on 10 hits, but gains the victory, 5-3, as Tug McGraw pitches 3 scoreless in relief for his 9th save. Bill Singer (15-8) takes the loss for the Dodgers as Ron Swoboda hits a 2-run homer, his 4th. Cleon Jones has 2 hits to raise his average to .354.
Aug. 23…Mets win 3-2 as Don Cardwell allows 1 earned in 7 2/3, but Ron Taylor (7-4) got the win in relief while L.A.’s Jim Brewer (4-6) takes the loss. For the Dodgers, Jim Bunning went an effective 7. [Jim Bunning? How many remember he was sent to L.A. late in the campaign from Pittsburgh? I didn’t.] Jerry Grote was the hero for the Mets, getting 3 hits and driving in 2, including the game-winner with two outs in the bottom of the 9th as he doubled home Donn Clendenon.
Aug. 26…Mets head out to the west coast and play a doubleheader against the Padres. In the opener, New York wins 8-4 as Tom Seaver (18-7) goes all the way, allowing the 4 runs on just 4 hits. Ollie Brown (No. 16) and Cito Gaston (No. 2) homered for San Diego, while a resurgent Swoboda hit No. 5 and Cleon Jones and Clendenon each drove in 2, with Clendenon’s runs coming on his 8th home run. For the Padres the loser was Tommie Sisk, now 0-9, as he would go on to finish the year 2-13.
Aug. 26…Mets win the nightcap, 3-0, as Jim McAndrew (6-5) scatters 5 hits and walks none in besting Joe Niekro (7-12). Tommie Agee had 3 hits. Actually, McAndrew now has a 23 consecutive scoreless innings streak, tying a club record.
Aug. 27…Mets sweep the Padres, 4-1, as they get their 3rd straight complete game, this one a 2-hitter from Jerry Koosman (12-8). Koosman also singled twice in raising his average to .048! Cleon Jones drove in 2 as the loser was Clay Kirby (3-18). Kirby would finish the year 7-20 but with a highly respectable ERA of 3.80.
Phil Pepe / New York Daily News…8/27/69
“It wasn’t exactly a threat, a promise or a Joe Namath guarantee, but it was the closest thing to an admission Gil Hodges has uttered in a year and three-quarters as manager of the Mets. He had just swept the Dodgers, concluding a 9-1 home stand and inching closer to the top, when the manager of the Mets was asked if he considered his club a contender.
“ ‘Where have you been?’ Hodges questioned the questioner. ‘Yes, we’re a contender.’
“Where the questioner had been was noting that in the spring, Hodges said his goal was 85 victories this year, hardly enough to put him in a contending position.
“ ‘I might have to change it when we get to 85,’ Hodges said the other day.”
So the Mets, in winning six, are now 74-52 and have suddenly slashed the Cubs’ lead to just 2 ½. Our story continues next Thursday.
–We note the passing of Austrian ski great Toni Sailer, 73. Sailer was the first to win three gold medals in Alpine skiing at the same Olympic Games, 1956, Cortina, Italy, as he destroyed the competition; taking the giant slalom by 6.2 seconds, the slalom by 4 seconds, and the downhill by 3.5 seconds. “Less than 15 minutes before the start of the downhill, as he was tightening the straps that bound his boots to his skis, one strap broke. An Italian coach took off one of his own and gave it to him.” [Frank Litsky / New York Times]
Sailer was a huge hero in Austria and put his native Kitzbuhel on the map. After retiring at a young age in 1959 due to uncertainty concerning his amateur status, Sailer appeared in 25 movies and recorded 18 pop albums. He was also the director of the Austrian Ski Federation at a time that saw the development of Franz Klammer and Annemarie Moser-Proll. Sailer was named the sportsman of the century in Austria in 1999.
–Singer Chris Brown was sentenced to six months of hard community labor for beating girlfriend Rihanna, but the court also slapped a five-year communication blackout. Brown can’t phone, text, email or get within 100 yards of Rihanna until 2014. Should Brown violate the rules, he’s sent to state prison.
–Yikes…this Michael Beasley story is disturbing, Beasley being the Miami Heat forward who was the No. 2 pick in the 2008 NBA draft and then had a solid rookie season.
On Friday, it seems, Beasley posted a photo of himself on his Twitter account (since closed), brandishing a new tattoo and what appeared to be a small plastic bag on a table, contents of which weren’t known, and comments of his including “Feelin’ like it’s not worth livin!!!!! I’m done” and “I feel like the whole world is against me I can’t win for losin.”
Beasley is now in rehab, the aforementioned bag on the table probably containing cocaine, some surmise. He was the classic one-and-done collegian.
–A poem I saw in a magazine Ireland of the Welcomes…extolling the admirable nature of the pig.
‘Twas an evening in November,
And I very well remember,
I was walking down the street in drunken pride.
My feet were all a-flutter,
So I landed in the gutter,
And a pig came up and lay down by my side.
Yes, I lay there in the gutter,
Thinking thoughts I could not utter,
When a colleen passing by did softly say,
‘Ye can tell a man who boozes
By the company he chooses,’
At that the pig got up and walked away.
–I saw that Monty Hall turned 88 on Tuesday. [Sean Connery turned 79! And Gene Simmons 60!] Ah, “Let’s Make a Deal.” Back in the day, growing up, I seemed to get at least two bad colds a year and Mom would keep me home for a full week. I actually loved that time because I’d watch all the great game shows of the late 60s/early 70s… “Concentration,” “Truth or Consequences,” and “Match Game,” along with Lucy and “Leave it to Beaver” re-runs. And then at 4:00 it was Mike Douglas.
—Bob Cowsill turned 60 on Wednesday. The Cowsills No. 2, 1967 hit “The Rain, The Park & Other Things” has held up well over the years. You may recall, though, that brother Barry was a victim of Hurricane Katrina, with his body being found four months later. Sister Susan and her family lost everything in the storm as well.
Top 3 songs for the week 8/28/71: #1 “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart” (The Bee Gees) #2 “Take Me Home, Country Roads” (John Denver…loved this one) #3 “Signs” (Five Man Electrical Band)…and…#4 “Mercy Mercy Me” (Marvin Gaye) #5 “Mr. Big Stuff” (Jean Knight) #6 “Sweet Hitch-Hiker” (Creedence Clearwater Revival) #7 “Liar” (Three Dog Night) #8 “Smiling Faces Sometimes” (The Undisputed Truth) #9 “Spanish Harlem” (Aretha Franklin) #10 “Go Away Little Girl” (Donny Osmond…would later be #1 for three weeks…Steve Lawrence’s ’63 version of the song was #1 two weeks…and that’s your “Go Away Little Girl” trivia for today)
*I’ve just learned of the death of the great songwriter Ellie Greenwich. Time doesn’t permit me to do her story justice now but I will next time.
NFL Quiz Answer: Top ten career rushers.
