Baseball Quiz: I wasn’t going to do any more baseball until spring, but Sporting News had a story ranking Aaron and Bonds, plus other sluggers (boring piece) but they had a list of the panelists, all of whom hit at least 200 home runs in the Big Leagues. Which gave me an idea for a quiz that is really for the junkies out there, I hasten to add, and could keep you and your buddies up late one night at the neighborhood tavern. I’ll give you the number of career homers. You give me the player associated with each.
573, 318, 548, 316, 306, 208, 338, 242, 271, 321, 230, 204, 224, 204 (yes, second player), 284, 369, 219, 299, 210, 324, 219 (second one)
Well, about now you’re thinking, ‘Is the editor nuts?’ OK, I’ll give you a few initials, all but the top three in homers re the above (i.e., 573, 548, and 369).
S.B., D.B., T.B., R.C., J.C., R.D., R.G., B.G.,W.J., E.K., F.L., P.N., A.O., L.P., J.P., R.P., T.S., R.S.
So Johnny Mac and I are taking up a collection to get a match race between Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra. Racing needs it desperately. I didn’t have the chance to watch the Breeder’s Cup live on Saturday but did catch it on video. [YouTube Breeder’s Cup Classic / Zenyatta…it’s worth a look] What a show Zenyatta put on.
“Zenyatta is a headstrong girl, and a big one, too. So when she balked entering the starting gate here Saturday, a gasp rippled through the grandstand. As she was awaiting the start of the Breeder’s Cup Classic, against the best male horses in the world at a distance she had never run, did she suddenly not want to race?…
“This was no way to start a mile-and-a-quarter race with a $5 million purse, a perfect 13-0 record and the bursting hearts of Zenyatta’s devoted followers on the line. When the gates finally popped open, Zenyatta stood there alone. It would be the last time the big girl looked as if she did not belong with the best turf horses in North America, a couple of monsters from Europe, and the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes champions.
“In fact, when it mattered most, in the lane, surrounded by a thundering herd, Zenyatta found another gear – no, another engine – and rolled from the rail to the widest path of all. She was large and in charge, and bounded down the Santa Anita Park racetrack as if she was on a trampoline.”
“The crowd of 58,000 was on its feet, and their full-throated roar made it clear that they, too, thought Zenyatta could keep going. In the grandstand, Jerry and Ann Moss, her owners, had tears welling, as did her trainer, John Shirreffs. The chart said Zenyatta won by a length and covered the mile and a quarter in 2:00.62.
“But the tear-streaked faces from the apron to the clubhouse and the sustained ovation said so much more: Zenyatta is a champion, the kind that does not come along very often. Not only was she the first mare to capture North America’s premier race in its 26-year history, but she also did it with an élan not seen by many athletes in any sport.
“Not even the once and perhaps future queen of thoroughbred racing, Rachel Alexandra, could have made a crowd of the most hard-hearted of horsemen and horseplayers swoon as Zenyatta did Saturday.”
We remember…Veteran’s Day
From Army Times’ Hall of Valor…Maj. Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers
“Rogers received the Medal of Honor for heroic actions Nov. 1, 1968, during the Vietnam War. While a lieutenant colonel serving as commanding officer of 1st Battalion, 5th Artillery, 1st Infantry Division, Rogers aided in the defense of a forward fire support base in the Fishhook region of the Republic of Vietnam.
“In the early hours, the base encountered heavy mortar, rocket and rocket-propelled grenade fire, as well as a wave of enemy soldiers that managed to breach defensive barriers.
“Rogers moved through the hail of fire and rallied dazed artillery crewmen to man their howitzers. When an exploding round knocked Rogers to the ground, he sprang back up and led a small counterattack force against the enemy. Though wounded a second time, Rogers continued to lead the attack, killing several of the enemy. Refusing treatment, Rogers reestablished defensive positions.
“When a second attack came, Rogers once again led efforts to beat the charging forces.
“At dawn, the enemy launched its third attack. Seeing an inoperative howitzer, Rogers joined surviving members of the crew to return the howitzer to action. He was seriously wounded by fragments from a heavy mortar round and was unable to continue leading the defenders, but he provided direction and encouragement in defeating the enemy.
“When he was promoted to major general in 1980, Rogers became the highest-ranking black Medal of Honor recipient in history. Rogers died in September 1990 at age 61.”
I didn’t know this last bit. I imagine less than 1% of black Americans know it, too, and that’s a shame. Maj. Gen. Rogers’ picture should be in inner city elementary schools.
College Football Review
1. Florida 9-0
2. Texas 9-0
3. Alabama 9-0
4. TCU 9-0…plays No. 14 Utah, Saturday night
5. Cincinnati 9-0
6. Boise State 9-0
7. Georgia Tech 9-1
8. Ohio State 8-2
9. Pitt 8-1…wow, Panthers got up here awful quick
10. USC 10-2
26. Clemson 6-3…you don’t want to play these guys these days. C.J. Spiller is the best player in college football and your Bar Chat No. 1 pick in the draft. [Can’t say I’ve really analyzed things, and it depends who actually has the No. 1 pick, but work with me here.]
1. Florida .9842
2. Alabama .9516
3. Texas .9234
4. TCU .8620
5. Cincinnati .8580
6. Boise State .8126
7. Georgia Tech .7552
8. LSU .6138
12. Pitt .5628
So what happened this weekend? Iowa was finally exposed as frauds (top ten frauds, that is), as they lost to a very mediocre Northwestern team that cares more about their No. 3 slot in the U.S. News & World Report MBA School rankings than football.
And what happened to my Oregon Ducks? I’ll give them an excuse. Going down to Stanford to play the Cardinal a week after their emotional win against USC wasn’t an easy task and they ended up losing 51-42. So bye-bye BCS title hopes for the Ducks, this after I bought a ton of Duck wear while in Eugene. [Actually, because of their rich track history, I run in Oregon track and Steve Prefontaine t-shirts. “Hey, did you run at Oregon?” “No, but I did finish 13th in a cross country meet between Summit and Verona once.”]
But look at the above remaining undefeateds. Should TCU lose on Saturday, then Boise State is back in the hunt for a BCS berth, but don’t count on it. Florida will be playing ‘Bama in the SEC title game, so that eliminates one of ‘em. Texas, though, has clear sailing the rest of the way, in the humble opinion of your editor. [I’m really trying to jinx them, just don’t tell anyone.] And Cincinnati still has a Dec. 5 date at Pittsburgh, which I’m super-pumped for…as in don’t bother me that day. Cold beer, Chex Mix, crappy weather outside…it just doesn’t get any better than that.
Speaking of Cincy, how about backup quarterback Zach Collaros? All he did in the Bearcats’ way too close for comfort 47-45 win over UConn was throw for 480 yards and rush for 75 more. Collaros is now 76-for-100 passing. Why you don’t even need a calculator to figure out the percentage, know what I’m sayin’?
Elsewhere in college ball, see No. 7 Georgia Tech up there? They had to go to OT to defeat Wake Forest, 30-27, as Wake’s nightmare of a season (4-6) continues. But at least the last two weeks, as we’ve been edged out by ranked teams, the previous loss being to Miami, 28-27, we’ve handily beaten the spread! And at the end of the day, kids, that’s all that really matters. Just ask your father. He’ll tell you.
Finally, Navy beat Notre Dame, 23-21, for the second year in three. Oh yeah, ND coach Charlie Weis is good, real good. What job would you give Charlie? I’m thinking he kind of reminds me of a sanitation boss (not that there is anything wrong with this…better pension than I have, for starters).
North Carolina beat Duke, and in the big battle of the week in Div. I-AA, Villanova beat No. 1 Richmond, 21-20. That must have been intense.
If you are an NBA fan and your teams are in the New York area, you are already thinking about next year…or you’re thinking of college basketball, or, better yet, pitchers and catchers. Because, sports fans, the season is already over, about two weeks into it. To wit:
New Jersey Nets…0-7…dressed 8 players on Saturday due to injuries and one player coming down with H1N1.
New York Knicks…1-6…waiting to sign LeBron but obviously no guarantee he opts for the Big Apple. [Personally, I’d go to L.A. if I were him, assuming Phil Jackson committed to another 3-4 years.]
[I just went online for Nets tickets…curious to see how much they attempt to charge for courtside seats to, say, the Memphis Grizzlies contest on Sun., Feb. 21. Yes, fans, you can still get 2nd row for $500 each! As I noted last week, these seats will be going for $22 by game day.]
Did you hear the Yankees won their professional franchise, world record 27th title? Geezuz, I’m freakin’ sick of it…but that’s what happens when for some reason as a kid you pick one team over another.
I mean I had a choice. My father wasn’t a fanatical baseball fan during my childhood. His best days were spent in the bleachers of Forbes Field when he was going to the Univ. of Pittsburgh. He went to almost every game then, so I knew if Dad had to choose he was a Pirates fan, living in an area with Mets and Yankees.
My brother, six years older, was a Mets fan but that didn’t influence me. No, when I came to understand the sport deeply, beginning in 1967, age nine (I followed it beforehand, of course, but wasn’t fanatical about it), I chose the Mets…and save for 1969, 1973, a good run in the 1980s and 2000 [only two Series titles in that time], I’ve been paying the price for picking the Mets over the Yankees ever since. It’s been hard. It’s undoubtedly taken 20 years off my life, which, come to think of it, doesn’t really give me much more time, does it?
Oh sure, it’s easier to root for a team with an owner who always made sure you had the best players, regardless of the state of the economy or how you might be impacting the spirit of the game, but noooo….I chose a team that has made one dumb move after another, and then, when given a chance to make it back to the top, see 2007-08, they choked like no other franchise in the history of the game.
So I’m not happy the Yankees won! Don’t look to me to say anything good about them, either, in the spirit of New York area brotherhood. I hate the team.
Back when the Yankees won four Series titles, 1996-2000, at least they had some likeable players. And these days I still respect the heck out of Jeter and Mariano, both of whom are not just great but still decent guys, but the rest of them are for the most part sickening in their smarmy behavior and disingenuous tweets.
Pete M. reminded me that after the Yanks wrapped up the Series (at which point I turned the tube off in disgust), there was Mark Texeira telling Ken Rosenthal:
“I’ve been so faithful this entire time, my entire career, praying, praying, praying for God to lead me in the right direction. God didn’t let me down, He led me here.”
Had I seen this live, I would’ve puked. God also had $180 million for Mark, you understand.
And the other day when I talked of A-Rod and his centaur paintings above his bed, Allen H. reminded me that Johnny Damon has a mural of the Last Supper in his Florida dining room – with the image of his face superimposed over that of Jesus. Oh brother.
Yeah, as Pete says, dripping sarcasm, “It’s amazing how Brian Cashman was able to assemble this team with such limited resources while Joe Girardi was able to get so much out of his players.”
[This year the Yankees’ infield was paid $81.225 million, or more than 16 of the other 29 franchises paid their entire team.]
The New York Times’ William Rhoden, who normally writes about how all us whiteys are racists, threw in his two cents on the sudden A-Rod mania, looking back to last spring when Joe Torre was writing in his book that Alex was not the player to lead the Yankees to the championship, while at the same time giving “credibility to what many of the most devout Yankees fans had begun to think: Rodriguez was a phony and a fraud, disingenuous.”
“Torre said Rodriguez became ‘the unmistakable shorthand symbol for why the Yankees no longer were champions and suffered at the rise of the Red Sox.’
“The book conjectured: ‘Whether hitting 450-foot home runs or sunbathing shirtless in Central Park or squiring strippers, Rodriguez was like nothing ever seen before on the championship teams of the Torre Era: an ambitious superstar impressed and motivated by stature and status, particularly when those qualities pertained to himself.’
“Rodriguez is being viewed differently. But it’s not the made-for-TV confessions or the relationship with Hudson that has fans turned on to ‘the new’ Alex Rodriguez. His clutch performances and now a championship have changed minds and attitudes.
“With a World Series title, A-Rod will receive richly deserved adulation and praise. The fans who jeered, who called him A-Fraud, who wanted him run out of town, now toss laurel wreaths his way.
Sorry, Bill. I’ll let Yankees fans speak for themselves, but fact is A-Rod was juiced all those years. Many Yankees fans are indeed phonies, and A-Rod always will be himself. The problem for us baseball purists is there’s nothing we can do about it. And when he holds every record imaginable, that’s what will really suck.
Eric Mangini…a k a “Mangenius…is “a Brown clown”
Gary Myers / New York Daily News
“Mangini is running the Browns into the ground and he could be fired again the day after the season ends. In 10 months, he has turned the Browns into a complete disaster. They are 1-7. They have scored five offensive touchdowns – one fewer than the Saints have scored on defense. Thankfully, they have a bye Sunday.”
Mangini lost his job as Jets coach last Dec. 29 and on Jan. 8 landed a four-year contract with Cleveland at a staggering $3.9 million a year.
“If Mangini is still the coach going into 2010, the Browns are going to have to pay a premium to attract free agents. Consider what’s going on in Cleveland.
“Mangini conducted a quarterback competition between Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson through the offseason and right up until the week before the season opener. He named Quinn the starter, then benched him after 10 quarters. Anderson’s QB rating is 36.2, the lowest after eight games since 1971.
“The Browns have not had a blackout for any of their 83 regular season home games or 22 home preseason games since they re-entered the NFL as an expansion team in 1999. They face possible blackouts in four of their last five home games this season.
“Mangini has done more for the Jets since he left than in the three years he coached them. He traded them Mark Sanchez, a potential franchise quarterback, and Braylon Edwards, a big-play receiver. In exchange, he picked up some draft picks and a bunch of ex-Jets. In fact, Mangini has 10 former Jets with him in Cleveland, about 20% of the roster. None of them has ever made a Pro Bowl….
“After trading down from No. 5 to No. 17 in the first round with the Jets, he traded the pick down two more times and then drafted center Alex Mack at No. 21. Nothing like a center to get the fans fired up about the new regime.”
Speaking of Mangini and his dreadful Browns, it’s time for our weekly review of all that sucks in the NFL.
Washington, 2-6…113 points for, 154 points against*
Detroit, 1-7…133-237
Tampa Bay, 1-7…134-231 [beat Packers Sunday, however]
St. Louis, 1-7…77-221
Cleveland, 1-7…78-209
Tennessee, 2-6…148-238
Oakland, 2-6…78-201
Kansas City, 1-7…126-205
*Incredibly, Washington has yet to score 20 points in a single contest, while its defense has actually given up 20 points less than 7-1 Minnesota. As J. Mac said, this is what happens when you don’t have a quarterback and a coach. What’s also kind of funny is that St. Louis, Cleveland, and Oakland all have a high game of 20 points offensively (Cleveland two).
And…Indianapolis and New Orleans remain the only two undefeateds at 8-0. Former Wake Forest coach Jim Caldwell has done alright for himself in his rookie year. Good for him.
As for the Giants, who’ve lost four straight, while their schedule stiffened the team seems totally in disarray. Jets and Giants fans may not have meaningful games in December at this rate.
—College basketball gets underway this week. Sporting News adds their voice and has the following top ten:
3. Michigan State
10. Mississippi State
18. Wake Forest! What?! Can it really be? Lil’ ol’ Wake Forest? Oh, what the hell. If Al-Farouq Aminu blossoms like some think he will, maybe we surprise some folks.
But now…your EXCLUSIVE pick to click. The Bar Chat 2009-2010 NCAA Men’s Basketball champion will be…WEST VIRGINIA!!!
And your No. 1 pick in next year’s college draft will be…North Carolina’s Ed Davis, who by mid-season will be treating the competition like they are little boys in sailor suits.
–Pssst…I do have something nice to say about the Yankees, specifically Mariano Rivera. Phil W. was telling me he heard ESPN’s Peter Gammons on the radio after the Series and Gammons said that when you look at the all-time Yankees, the top five are easily Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle and Berra. Then it’s Mariano. That’s high praise, but he’s right. Is Jeter No. 7? Probably. I was just looking up Bill Dickey and I forgot that he really had a fairly brief run as his last real good season was at age 32. Nonetheless, I was thinking Dickey gives Jeter a run for No. 7. Whitey Ford? He was 236-106 in his career, all with the Yanks, damn good, but only 10-8 in the Series. Alright, enough of being nice to the Yankees and acting like I give a darn.
—Television ratings for NFL games this year are up a whopping 15 percent from last season and are at a 20-year high. Why? The economy, stupid. Paid attendance is down 2 percent, after all, but then you have some consumers who have cut back on paid cable channels and you can get an ample supply of NFL games for free, which appears to be the substitute for other entertainment.
The ratings for baseball’s playoffs were also way up, but that was more a reflection of matchups. Certainly if the World Series had been Minnesota vs. Colorado, it would have been a different story.
But I’ve been harping on the NFL product this year being rather lousy, yet the ratings are there.
–Sports Illustrated had a blurb from George Plimpton’s reporting from Zaire, Nov. 11, 1974…Ali vs. Heavyweight Champion George Foreman. The unveiling of Ali’s rope-a-dope.
“For one sickening moment it looked as if a fix were on, that since the challenger was to succumb in the first round, it would be best if he went quickly to a corner so the champion could go to work on him. It was either that or Ali was going through the odd penitential rite he seems to insist on for each fight, letting him suffer the best his opponent has to offer. In either case, the consequences were appalling to consider. Ali’s cornermen rose as one, and they urged their man to stop what he was doing and start dancing….
“Foreman stood in front of him and began to punch – huge heavy blows thrown from down around the hips, street-fighter style, telegraphed so that Ali was able to slip and block many of them. Then, with the bell coming up for the end of the round, Ali came off the ropes. While Foreman’s arms were down in punching position, Ali hit him with a series of quick, smart punches in the face, the best of them a right hand lead that knocked the sweat flying in a halo. The vast crowd roared, and perhaps there were a few who began to sense that they were not in for a night of lunacy after all.”
–Here’s a good animal story…unless you are human. Robyn Dixon of the Los Angeles Times writes of the problems some Africans are facing because of the exploding elephant population in the south, said pachyderms being protected. In Botswana there are now 151,000 elephants, for instance, and the population has more than doubled in Zambia, where five people have been killed by elephants this year.
So the gist of the article is that you have the flipside; elephants are destroying crops, kids are afraid to go to school, “and you walk the dusty red paths with fear in your heart.”
To which I can only say that until Man improves his own behavior (and we’re showing zero signs of doing so), I’ve gotta side with the elephants, who until now have been poached and hunted down indiscriminately.
Then again, here’s one tale from Robyn Dixon’s story, that of Albert Mumbeko of Zambia, who “lives in a flimsy house of grass and sticks: That was the only barrier between him and a massive bull elephant that woke the 76-year-old and his wife at midnight a few months back.
“It was gobbling down his small corn crop. Mumbeko crept out, heart beating wildly. ‘I could see its eyes in the moonlight, big and fierce. It looked very angry and aggressive. Its ears were open.’
“ ‘We felt very angry, we felt very sad when we came back and saw our house destroyed.’”
With all due respect to Mr. Mumbeko, sounds like no one taught him the story of The Three Little Pigs. If he had built his house out of bricks, rather than grass and sticks, well, you know the rest of the story. [Plus an elephant can’t fit down a brick chimney.]
–Until reading Phil Mushnick’s column in the New York Post, I didn’t realize Bill Walton has called it quits as a basketball analyst. Walton’s problem is his bad back, which is sad, Bill being only 57, but he’s been battling with a broken body since his days in the NBA, which kept him from becoming perhaps the greatest center of all time, which is the title he deserves to share at the college level with Kareem.
“For those who dismissed him as a West Coast flower child lost somewhere on Ventura Highway between Hakeem Olajuwon and Harry Krishna, he said some very grounded – dare I? – conservative things.
“He once delivered an unrehearsed lecture on NBA players who wear music-connected ear phones in public – through airports, into arenas – as emitting ‘Go Away/Stay Away’ signals to fans and potential fans. Walton felt that such clear and present images fed a cumulative reality that ill-served the NBA.
“That was another thing about Walton: For a guy who was tough to miss and/or go unrecognized – he wasn’t only 6-foot-11; he’s ‘Hey, that’s Bill Walton!’ – no one was more patient, friendly and nourishing to the public. If he wasn’t happy to meet ya, it likely was your fault.
“That’s why it kills me that so many – too many – latter-day basketball fans recall Walton the TV analyst as a say-crazy-stuff act. He was a lot more than that, a lot better than that. All you had to do was read between his lines.”
What I liked about Walton was his love and devotion for John Wooden, which shined through constantly. That’s really all you need to know about Bill Walton. Those two had their moments, that’s for sure, but in the end there’s no better example of “father-and-son” than Bill and Mr. Wooden.
–So last week I was telling you of the tsunami hazard zones along the Oregon coast. Then after I returned home, a few days later there was a terrific storm that pounded the region. Check this out. From The Oregonian, Nov. 6:
“The National Weather Service issued a high surf advisory for the Oregon Coast today, saying waves could tower 50 to 55 feet in spots.
“ ‘These large waves as they hit the coast are very energetic,’ said Shawn Weagle, forecaster at the weather service office in Portland. ‘They can throw things like logs and any debris in the ocean and make it dangerous for anyone near the shore.’…
“ ‘They’re the size of a five-story building. If that falls on you it could easily crush you.’”
Goodness gracious. 50 to 55 feet! Where I was staying in Newport was way up on a cliff, but at high tide the water reached the foot of it. I can’t imagine what it would have looked like this past Friday.
[And I just saw that a place I mentioned I had gone to, Lincoln City, had a tornado on Friday that did a lot of damage.]
–This just in…from the Washington Post…"A deer that jumped a wall at the National Zoo was fatally injured by two lions Sunday as dozens of startled spectators looked on."
" \’Everyone was cheering, \’Go, go, go\’ \’ to encourage the deer to reach safety, witness Josh Shpayher said. \’Everyone was rooting for the deer.\’"
I\’m not so sure I would have, being quite tired of the giant rats these days.
–Thanks to a crash he didn\’t cause, Jimmie Johnson\’s run for a record fourth straight NASCAR/Sprint Cup championship tightened some with two races to go. He needs a fifth in either one to clinch it.
–For the archives, while it was just an exhibition game I do have to note that Division II Le Moyne College defeated Syracuse, 82-79. The two schools are three miles apart and play each other each year, with Syracuse winning last season 85-51. The prior two years before that the scores were 109-59 and 94-54. This isn’t exactly Chaminade defeating Virginia, and, again, it was only an exhibition game, but still…it’s significant at some level. The Washington Generals have had their moments vs. The Globetrotters, after all.
–This is great. Thanks to the research of baseball writer and historian Scott Simkus, Strat-O-Matic has come up with a set of 103 Negro League cards, Simkus having painstakingly gone through as many box scores and articles as he could find to come up with the appropriate player profiles.
—Deflation Watch: The Mets’ Mike Pelfrey came out of college highly-touted and thus received a four-year, $5.25 million contract, which expired at the end of the season. The Mets then picked up his $500,000 option for next season, which amounted to an $800,000 pay cut. Heh heh.
–Did you know that in 1964, Mets outfielder Joe Christopher, then 28, hit an even .300, with 16 home runs and 76 RBI, yet was out of the game two years later? [Sorry, us Mets fans have nothing going on these days so we go looking to the past (and baseballreference.com) for entertainment.]
–We note the passing of Dr. Robert H. Rines, 87, who as the New York Times’ Douglas Martin noted, “took the most convincing underwater pictures of what might or might not have been the Loch Ness monster, so convincing that in the mid-1970s scientists from Harvard and the Smithsonian Institution expressed serious interest. Others were intrigued by his innovative search tactics: He hired a perfumer to concoct a scent to attract the creature and trained dolphins to carry cameras.”
Rines, who in the end believes that Nessie died during his hunt, said he was certain he could convince a jury of her existence. “They can just call me crazy, (but) at least I won’t go to jail for it, like Galileo.”
Rines was a highly decorated scientist, with among his achievements being the development of the radar and sonar images used on today’s Patriot missiles. He also taught at Harvard and M.I.T.
–So I’m in this bar in New York, Saturday, watching a little college football, and I was talking to the bartender about my Oregon trip and somehow we got talking about track and I was telling him my greatest sports moment in person was Michael Johnson at the Atlanta Olympics. Then we got on the topic of Usain Bolt and it turns out the bartender (about 23) went to a high school in New York that races against Bolt’s Kingston, Jamaica school each year, which is a very cool thing. Delmer, a runner, was there when Bolt was, but didn’t run against Usain personally, though he said no one who saw Bolt then had any clue what was to come. He was just a lanky 6’4” or so at the time, no form, nothing special at all. Which is exactly the way all the stories I’ve read portray it.
Get this. You know how I’ve written Bolt should run through the London Games and then try the NFL as a wide receiver? Delmer said Bolt wants to be a running back! At which point we both laughed heartily as I ordered another pint.
–For you Rock and Roll fans, I finally got around to hitting the Hall of Fame Annex in SoHo (NYC) and it’s terrific. Try and catch it before year end, though, because it appears the John Lennon exhibit (which is also great) ends by January (or shortly thereafter).
One of the things I’m always fascinated with are the concerts that were staged in the late ‘50s or ‘60s which is why those old posters are so terrific. Now picture a show at the Copocabana, Christmastime, 1963, with the 4 Seasons and, get this, comedian Pat Cooper. What a blast that would have been. [No doubt more than a few Mob bosses were in attendance then.]
As for the Lennon exhibit, Yoko Ono put it together and there are some super videos, including a very effective anti-war one which kind of catches you off-guard, i.e., it’s a tearjerker…I turned away before I was forced to ask staff for a full box of Kleenex.
Yoko also put on display a very haunting item…John’s last belongings, including his clothing, which was returned to her by the NYPD months after Lennon’s death, in a brown paper bag. She kept everything as is, all of it inside a transparent bag with markings that was part of the processing. As she put it, Lennon was “King of the World” and in the end he was treated like this.
As you know, Lennon and Yoko made New York home for their last years so it’s only appropriate this exhibit be held here. [It should really be a permanent one but as I talked to museum staff it’s clear they just didn’t prepare for its popularity and the space it’s occupying was designed for a rotating exhibit like any other museum.]
Top 3 songs for the week 11/8/75: #1 “Island Girl” (Elton John) #2 “Lyin’ Eyes” (The Eagles) #3 “Calypso / I’m Sorry” (John Denver)…and…#4 “Who Loves You” (Four Seasons) #5 “Miracles” (Jefferson Starship) #6 “Heat Wave” (Linda Ronstadt) #7 “They Just Can’t Stop It” (Games People Play) (Spinners) #8 “This Will Be” (Natalie Cole) #9 “Feelings” (Morris Albert) #10 “The Way I Want To Touch You” (Captain & Tennille…their best…and a pretty darn good week for music)
Baseball Quiz Answer: Homers.
Sal Bando, 242; Don Baylor, 338; Tom Brunansky, 271; Ron Cey, 316; Jose Cruz, 204; Rob Deer, 230; Ron Gant, 321; Bobby Grich, 224; Wally Joyner, 204; Eric Karros, 284; Harmon Killebrew, 573; Ralph Kiner, 369; Fred Lynn, 306; Phil Nevin, 208; Al Oliver, 219; Lance Parrish, 324; Joe Pepitone, 219; Rico Petrocelli, 210; Tim Salmon, 299; Mike Schmidt, 548; Roy Sievers, 318.
Sievers had an interesting career, hitting 20 homers for three different clubs, and his best batting average was .306, 1949, when he was Rookie of the Year for the St. Louis Browns. He also hit exactly .295 on three different occasions. [Don’t worry, I recognize that maybe only Johnny Mac would find this last bit mildly interesting, the .295 angle ……he just told me it’s not in the least.]
Next Bar Chat, Thursday. What’s this? Another look back at America’s most underrated president? Really? Kids, bring your notebooks.
