*Note: Due to family obligations, it being Easter and all, I didn’t quite get to all the golf and baseball I wanted to… next time.
Baseball Quiz: Give the top ten, career, in hits…cut off being 3313. Answer below.
Final Two
Duke vs. Butler…who wudda thunk it?
When the tourney started, USA TODAY’s Danny Sheridan had Duke at 8:1 and Butler 75:1 to win it all.
As for Butler’s 52-50 win over Michigan State in which the Bulldogs shot 30% from the field, incredibly they outscored the Spartans 20-2 off turnovers.
But so long West Virginia, 78-57 losers to Duke. It was fun sticking with them while it lasted, but it’s funny how in college basketball as much as any other sport, a team, no matter how good they’ve been playing, can come out flat. It’s not always coaching, it just happens, and in the case of Saturday’s blowout at the hands of the Blue Devils, West Virginia just didn’t fight through the screens like they’ve been doing all season, allowing Duke one open three-pointer after another.
And it was a sickening ending the way Da’Sean Butler went down. No jokes from me on the scene with coach Bob Huggins, except I do worry about Huggins, a man I came to like this year in watching so many West Virginia contests. He really has to take care of himself.
And I do have to note Huggins’ comments on his team’s run and the relationship with the state of West Virginia, as told to New York Post columnist Mike Vaccaro.
“You have to kind of spend a little bit of time in our state to realize (that) athletics are everything. We don’t have professional franchises. There’s not really anybody else there to root for. I think it’s inherent. I think there’s such a strong bond between the university and the people of West Virginia, and it goes back generations. I can remember sitting on my grandfather’s lap listening to West Virginia football and basketball games. I think a large part, if not all of the state of West Virginia, grew up like that.”
And then there’s the expansion of the tournament to 96 teams from the current 65. It’s a lock, we’re learning. CBS’ Jim Nantz said 2010 “will go down as the year the tournament changed.” This year’s wide-open affair, with Duke the only No. 1 seed left, “is a pretty good argument for expansion.” Partner Clark Kellogg said, “Change is always uncomfortable. We expanded the field back in ’85…There were screams and hollers and kicking and screaming then. It didn’t necessarily make the tournament any worse. It actually helped it grow.”
Boy, I don’t remember kicking and screaming. A lot of very good teams were being kept from the party. Expansion made sense then. It does NOT now…and shills such as Nantz and Kellogg know this. I haven’t talked to a single soul who thinks this is a good idea. But the bottom line is the NCAA can opt out of the last three years of its 11-year, $6 billion TV deal with CBS on July 31, and ESPN is chomping at the bit.
On Thursday, the NCAA held its annual Final Four news conference and the Washington Post’s John Feinstein commented.
“(The assignment of the NCAA spokesman) was to explain how the 96-team field will work and then try to convince people that no decisions have been made. ‘This could all be a discussion about nothing,’ said (Greg Shaheen).
“Right. And coaches get fired for not graduating enough players.
“Here is how the tournament will play out in case you haven’t, like the NCAA, been ‘studying models.’
“The top 32 teams – eight in each region – will receive byes. The remaining 64 teams – seeds No. 9 through 24 in each region – will play first-round games at eight sites on Thursday and Friday after Selection Sunday. The play-in game mercifully goes the way of the Edsel.
“The second round, with 64 teams still playing, takes place on Saturday and Sunday. The round of 32 moves into the second week and in all likelihood is played on Tuesday and Wednesday… The round of 16 is Thursday and Friday as in the past and the rest of the tournament plays out as it has since 1973:
“ ‘This should mean the same travel time and missed class or perhaps less for most student-athletes than in the past,’ Shaheen said.
“Shaheen went on in great detail about the travel schedule for the first week: Teams without a bye would be on the same schedule as teams have been on in the past but, he pointed out triumphantly, the teams with a bye could travel later in the week, arriving on site Thursday night for Saturday games and Friday night for Sunday games.
“That’s where he stopped talking travel schedules, because for all intents and purposes no one who advances to the Sweet 16 is going home at all during the second week. Sure, such games could fall on spring break, but most schools take spring break earlier – in many cases during the first week of the tournament, meaning the extra day or two at home comes when there are no classes.”
Well, in the news conference, Feinstein pressed Shaheen on the second-week scheduling and “he kept referring back to the first-week schedule. He simply refused to answer the question about the second week. Later he said, ‘Well, it wouldn’t affect that many teams.’
“So now it’s okay for some ‘student-athletes’ to miss an entire week of class? This isn’t even taking into account some missed class time during the first week and the four days missed by the two teams that play for the national title during the final week, because the NCAA now requires teams to arrive at the Final Four site on Wednesday night.
“All of this is coming from an organization that won’t even touch the notion of a football playoff because of concerns about the ‘student-athletes’ who would miss almost no class time if there was a football playoff in early January.”
Yes, it’s about money. Everyone knows this. Here comes expansion. But one last point. Phil W. passed along the transcript from the press conference the NCAA held and the last question asked of Greg Shaheen was the following:
Q: Do you really think that people in this country want to watch teams in the 30s play teams in the 90s? Isn’t this going to really water down the regular season even more than it already is?
Shaheen: “Well, throughout the season right now people go watch teams in the 30s play teams in the 90s. Actually, there are a number of sold-out games where you have teams playing in the top 10 that play teams in the 300s, and the room is completely sold. There are about 175 teams that have at or over a .500 regular-season schedule this year, and there are at or over 155 teams that have a .500 record in their conference. [Ed. out of 340 Division I programs] So the notion that going from a 65- to a 96-team championship in some way takes teams that would otherwise be staying at home or would otherwise not be capable of winning a game on any given day, at least relative to the current field structure and quality, I think merits some reexamination.”
No it doesn’t. As the questioner notes, the serious basketball fan, not the brain dead with nothing else to do, can’t possibly care about the coming first-round matchups unless it involves your own school. At least that’s my official position.
And one last item on money. A study by USA TODAY found that “In 2007, one men’s basketball coach whose school had played in the previous year’s NCAA tournament was making at last $2 million, according to a study done that year. This season, a new version of the study finds nine, including Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and Louisville’s Rick Pitino, who made more than $4 million.
“That’s as drops in ticket sales, declining endowments and other issues have translated to increased dependence on subsidies at Division I public schools.”
But now, “With many states making recession-driven cuts in higher education funding, school subsidies for athletics are starting to become a target.”
Between 2006 and 2009, the average pay for a head football coach at the NCAA’s 99 big-time public schools rose 46% to $1.4 million, a fat increase that has caught the attention of Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a former Harvard basketball player.
“ ‘Great football coaches are worth a tremendous amount,’ Duncan says. ‘But at a time of declining revenues and declining financial aid, the coaches are up 46%? In the insular world of high-stakes, very competitive sports, that might make sense. But if you talk to an average parent or an average 16- or 17-year-old and give them those facts, they’d have a hard time understanding why that’s the priority.’
“Athletics directors say they are willing to pay such salaries because men’s basketball and football generate much of their departments’ revenues.
“But paying a winning coach to be a rainmaker won’t do much for the department’s bottom line, because new money is plowed back into the program to keep up with the spending arms race.”
Speaking of the spending arms race, a classic example is Kansas basketball coach Bill Self.
“In 2007, Self was guaranteed $1.6 million. That season, the Jayhawks were a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and advanced to the round of eight. In 2008, they won the national title as Self’s alma mater – rival Oklahoma State – was looking for a new coach. He spurned Oklahoma State, and KU responded with a new deal that this season guarantees him nearly $3.4 million.”
Switching gears, seriously, is there a cooler dog under pressure than Butler’s bulldog, Blue II? What a great touch, literally, as each Butler player pats him on the head during pre-game introductions, and then after the game, there was Blue, conveying an air of, “What did you expect? See you Monday.”
Boy, you watch sophomore forward Gordon Hayward, who I just assumed would be coming back next year, and see how much better he is fundamentally than Wake Forest sophomore Al-Farouq Aminu, who as expected announced he is coming out, and it’s startling. I just had no idea how good Hayward was until the tournament. Imagine when he bulks up a little more. But will he indeed come out? You have this whole NBA potential lockout in 2011 and everyone wants to grab the cash now but there are only so many big money slots available. [I also got a kick out of NBA experts who say Hayward could be good but not great. They will eat their words. Hayward will be great.]
The Star-Ledger’s Andy McCullough reported, “Enough about ‘Hoosiers.’ Seriously. Jimmy Chitwood, Bobby Plump, Gene Hackman…we get it. Let’s talk about butlers. Here are folks who never get credit. They work in the shadows. If anything, Butler should win the NCAA title for all the other butlers who never had the chance to get there.”
Men such as Waylon Smithers.
“Obsessed with his boss, Seymour Burns, Waylon keeps order at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant where Homer Simpson works. In the episode ‘Homer At The Bat,’ it was Smithers who told Burns that most of his dream softball roster – including Cap Anson and Mordecai ‘Three Finger’ Brown – was dead. This, in turn, led to Ken Griffey Jr. saying, ‘There’s a party in my mouth and everyone’s invited’ after drinking radioactive tonic.”
Steve Serby of the New York Post asked new St. John’s basketball coach Steve Lavin the question all men in America have been asking each other.
Lavin: “That’s a great question…For starters, clearly I overachieved. Initially, I think there was chemistry, but then to close the deal, it took persistence and stick-to-itiveness….I wore her down.”
Laving: “In Cancun. On the beach where they had kinda like a cabana, candlelight, with a saxophone player walking up and down the beach. [Ed. Clarence Clemons?] It actually was spontaneous. I hadn’t planned it [at that moment.] But I had planned to do it, [when] the timing was right.”
So it was kind of like those Cialis commercials. It was the right moment. [Not that I’m saying anything happened. I’m just saying.]
I keep forgetting Duke gets Seth Curry next season after sitting out a year following his transfer from Liberty. He’s going to be good. He also had a chance to go to Wake and turned us down.
Of course Seth is the younger brother of Stephen and here’s something I missed. I followed Stephen’s first few weeks with Golden State at the start of the season, and little since, and was shocked to see his season average is up to 16.5. I mean this is a guy who didn’t score more than that in 19 of his first 20 games, as a cursory look at the game log reveals. But since then, through Sun., he had something like 16, 25+ points efforts, and is shooting .428 from downtown. I’d say he’s arrived a little earlier than some might have thought.
The Wall Street Journal had a study on foul shooting in the past 10 NCAA title games and the number of dribbles each player took and the percentage of free throws made. Every player dribbled at least once, some as many as seven times. The result? Far and away, those dribbling four times were the most accurate, 77%. One dribble equated to 60%.
Baseball 2010
A new season is underway. Boston rallied from a 5-1 deficit to defeat the Yankees and their sorry ass pitching staff, 9-7, as Kevin Youkilis had three extra base hits. [It’s too early to project that Youkilis will end up with 300 doubles, however.]
So who is going to win it all? I could take the easy way out and pick the Yankees, or Phillies, as everyone else is, but to have some fun this year I’m going with the Seattle Mariners. Yes, I know key hurler Cliff Lee is starting the season on the DL, but I’m looking for huge things at the top of the order with Ichiro and Chone Figgins. Whether anyone can then drive them home is an admittedly different story. I also hope the Twins have a solid season. Not only because of their locking down hometown hero Joe Mauer, and their new stadium, but also because they continue to have the coolest cap (Pirates second).
As for us Mets fans, it is going to be one dreadful season and the official projection here is that the team will go 64-98. Our pitching is beyond awful, once you get past Johan Santana (and some of us wonder if he’s going to be the Johan of old after what was supposed to be pretty minor surgery). George Vecsey of the New York Times writes:
“(What) has the glut of cable money – the Mets had the second-highest payroll in the majors last year – done for that increasingly sad-sack franchise?
“In my hometown, April is greeted warmly this year if only because it means the Knicks and the Nets will soon go away for many months. But now we have the warm-weather version of those sluggards, the Mets.”
I mean how are the Mets supposed to compete with the Phillies, Braves and Marlins? Heck, I think the Nationals will battle the Mets for last right down to the wire. I can virtually guarantee that by July I’ll be watching someone else now that I have the MLB Network on my cable system.
Here’s something interesting…the impact of power on the game of baseball. The New York Times’ Tyler Kepner notes that “Home runs still matter. A lot. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, teams had a .332 winning percentage last season in games in which they did not hit a home run. The Yankees were 12-24 when they did not homer. The Mets (30-64) lost at about the same rate.
“The difference was that the Yankees hit home runs in many more games than the Mets. The Mets homered in 68 games, winning 40. The Yankees homered in 126, winning 91.
Former manager Bobby Valentine says Atlanta’s Jason Heyward is the best young player he’s ever seen. He also says that Atlanta shortstop Yunel Escobar is the big breakout player for the season (interesting…don’t disagree, just never thought of it), and that forget Stephen Strasburg’s fastball, “His changeups I thought were unhittable.” Lastly, Bobby V. (who many a Mets fan hopes is back managing the club, sooner than later) says he wishes he could have picked the brain of Babe Ruth. “Because he had to see the game a little bit differently than anybody else of his time. Maybe differently than anybody who ever played…and he liked cold beer, I liked that about him.” [Steve Serby / New York Post]
Charlie Brown: Good grief! One hundred and eighty-four to nothing! I don’t understand it… How can we lose when we’re so sincere?!
I hear ya, Chuck. It also needs to be noted that despite the score, the game was still played in under three hours.
Lastly, Shu passed along a piece by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Joe Starkey concerning Pirates prospect Tony Sanchez, the team’s first-round pick last year out of Boston College who received a $2.5 million signing bonus. Sanchez is funny…and endearing.
“I would never even dream of getting paid two-and-a-half-million to play baseball. I would have taken, like, anything. When the Pirates told me they were going to take me with the fourth pick and give me that (money), you should have seen me. I could barely breathe, I was so nervous.’
[He nearly passed out when the first payment arrived, writes Starkey.]
“The first day they direct-deposited that check into my account, it went from, like $200, to $365,000 and I was like, ‘Oh my God!’’ Sanchez said. “The first thing I did, I went to the mall – I never do this – and bought anything I liked. When I got back, I was like, ‘Oh, no, I spent way too much.’ Then, I looked at my account online, and I was like, ‘Holy (cow).’ It was exactly the same.”
Sanchez then describes his first days at spring training.
“You should see me in the locker room. On my first day, I’m about to grab my catcher’s bag, and one of the equipment guys grabs it, and I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ He’s like, ‘We’re taking the catcher’s bags to the field.’ I’m like goin’, ‘I don’t have to carry my bag?’ He’s like, ‘No,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh my God!’”
Golf Bits…and more Tiger
–It was 35 years ago that Lee Elder became the first black player in Masters history. He ended up playing in six of them, 1975-81, with a tie for 17th in 1979 his best finish. “I was fortunate to be the person to kick the last door down of enforced segregation,” he told Golfweek. “It was my contribution to society.”
–It’s easy to forget just how well Tiger Woods was playing before he became an international joke. Try 23 of 45 starts in the win column since Independence Day 2006. As Golfweek’s Jeff Rude put it, “That’s the record he hauled into The Hydrant.”
But of course many of us are more interested in his extracurricular activities. The new Vanity Fair piece I referred to last time notes that it was Bryon Bell, childhood buddy, who helped organize Tiger’s affairs. Jamie Jungers told the magazine: “Every time I would fly out to see [Tiger] or schedule itineraries or anything, I would always go through Bryon.” It’s Bryon who recently got married and Tiger, best man, didn’t show. No word on whether Bell is still together with his new bride.
And Mindy Lawton, the unattractive pancake and sausage girl (what were you thinking on this one, Tiger?) said that when she and Tiger were spotted having sex in a church parking lot at 5:30 a.m. (I’ve already read about six newspapers by this time each morning…but it’s not about me), Tiger told Mindy to call Mark Steinberg, ace agent at IMG Worldwide. ‘Hello Mark? You don’t know me but I’m an unattractive pancake/sausage girl and Tiger just had sex with me in a church parking lot….Mark? Mark?’
Lawton also says that in one year of messing around, Tiger bought her only one thing: a chicken sandwich. I would have asked for a Carolina barbecue platter with hush puppies.
“Tiger Woods asked us a few weeks ago if we could one day ‘believe’ in him again. Perhaps that process begins this week when he returns to the game that made him the most popular athlete in the world….
“Playing his way into contention at the Masters would be a good beginning for Team Tiger. Winning the year’s first major championship would be ideal.
“It would give him 15 majors and rekindle talk of his pursuit of Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18. But no matter how hard he tries or how much he wins, Woods may have blown his chance to equal Nicklaus in esteem and adoration.
“We already have learned records lose meaning without reverence and respect. Barry Bonds owns the career home run record in baseball; but do we put him on the same plateau as Hank Aaron? Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, and even Alex Rodriguez always will be tarnished to some degree because of their connection to performance enhancing drugs….
“Some believe all Woods has to do is win and all will be forgiven. But he could win 18 or 20 majors and never be held in the same esteem as Nicklaus, a family man with a squeaky clean reputation. Woods is damaged goods now.
“Not only will the stigma of all those women follow him for the rest of his career, but his connection to Anthony Galea, the Canadian doctor suspected of giving athletes performance enhancing drugs, is at the very least a sign of questionable judgment.
“Woods wants us ‘to believe in me again,’ but that might be impossible because we will never know whether he’s being honest with us….
“He can…chase down the most coveted record in golf: Nicklaus’ 18 major championships. But years from now when there’s a debate about who is the world’s greatest golfer, the court of public opinion already may have cast its vote. The nod will go to Nicklaus. At least we know who he really was.”
Meanwhile, Elin was seen over the weekend in Florida, attending the Sony Ericsson Open while hanging out with Roger Federer and his wife. Elin, with one-year-old Charlie, was not wearing her wedding ring. Quick trip to Sweden for her, eh? You know, she’s kind of acting strange herself.
Tiger, by the way, will have about 90 private bodyguards protecting him on the course, and off, including former FBI and Secret Service agents. Tiger fears a confrontation with one of his mistresses. One guard told London’s Sunday Mail, “If one photo comes out of a beautiful lady touching him, it would be a disaster.”
But for now, it’s all about Monday’s press conference at Augusta with Tiger, maybe, facing some tough questions. 2:00 p.m. Eastern. Padraig Harrington believes Tiger must face the music and answer questions on his personal life before he is allowed to just get on with his job. “Tiger has to accept that. It’s part of being a superstar.”
–In a shocker, Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was traded, not to, say, Minnesota, but to division rival Washington! That’s how badly Philly wanted to dump the guy with the scattershot arm. Philadelphia gets a second-round pick in the upcoming draft plus one next year.
–In the Women’s Basketball title game, it’s UConn vs. Stanford, as Baylor gave the Lady Huskies a game for a while before going down, 70-50, while Stanford defeated Oklahoma 73-66.
–Great stuff on NBC Saturday afternoon before the Final Four contests as they carried the Santa Anita Derby and Wood Memorial, two of the top races leading up to the Kentucky Derby and in most cases the last chance for a horse to qualify for the Run for the Roses.
All eyes in Santa Anita were on the official Bar Chat 3-year-old, Lookin at Lucky, which Johnny Mac and I watched run an absolutely terrible race. For some reason, Lookin at Lucky’s jockey, Garrett Gomez, decided to allow his horse to get totally pinned against the rail to the point where Lookin was bounced off the rail and was forced to the back of the pack, only to show real glimpses of his potential by rallying to finish third to Sidney’s Candy, which now suddenly becomes a favorite at Churchill Downs. Gomez was furious at Victor Espinoza, claiming Espinoza ran his horse into Lookin at Lucky, but, heck, it was Gomez’s fault. The exchange in the jockeys’ locker room between the two was said to be explosive, though supposedly no punches were thrown. Lookin at Lucky Trainer Bob Baffert said afterwards what was on all our minds. “His ride was horrendous,” speaking of Gomez. “He took him back, and he was fighting him.” Baffert wouldn’t respond to questions on whether he will replace Gomez. “I’m not going to talk about that right now. I cannot believe he rode him that way. It’s ridiculous.” Anyway, Lookin is still going to the Derby and Bar Chat is not abandoning our horse. As Johnny pointed out, we’ll just get better odds.
Meanwhile, at Aqueduct in New York, Eskendereya looked spectacular in blowing away a field of Central Park carriage horses at the Wood Memorial, leaving one certainty…this Derby is going to be fascinating, especially with the Lookin at Lucky / jockey angle.
–Former Baltimore Orioles great Mike Cuellar passed away. He was 72. Over a 15-year career, 1959 and 1964-77, Cuellar won the 1969 Cy Young Award (sharing it with Denny McLain) for the Baltimore Orioles in going 23-11, and then went 24-8 in 1970, winning the deciding fifth game of the World Series that year for the Orioles against the Reds. For his career, Cuellar was 185-130, despite not becoming a regular until he was 29.
“He was a 32-year-old junkball pitcher thought to be past his prime when obtained in a trade from the Houston Astros for outfielder Curt Blefary in 1968. Instead, Cuellar blossomed into a workhorse who helped anchor a storied rotation that carried the Orioles to one World Series title, three American League pennants and five playoff appearances.
“Four times he won 20 or more games. Seven times he pitched at least 248 innings. [Ed. from 1969-71, he threw 290, 297, and 292]….
“In Cuellar’s first three seasons in Baltimore, the club won 318 games, reaching the World Series each year.”
Cuellar was a notoriously slow starter each year, but heated up with the pennant race.
“I belong to hot weather,” he liked to say. “Cold weather no good for baseball or me.”
“Teammates called him ‘Crazy Horse’ for all his superstitions. He always sat in the same spot on the bench. On days he pitched, Cuellar refused to give autographs and wouldn’t budge from the dugout until his catcher donned his shinguards every inning.
“ ‘Mike never stepped on a foul line,’ first baseman Boog Powell said. ‘If his stride was off and he got too close, he used a little ‘chicken hop’ to step over it.’
“(Former manager Earl) Weaver said Cuellar had a lucky cap, which he once forgot to take on a road trip to Milwaukee. ‘We had to call the clubhouse man back in Baltimore to airmail that [bleeping] hat to us,’ Weaver said.”
Of course in any discussion of Mike Cuellar you have to mention 1971, when the Orioles became just the second team in baseball history (the 1920 Chicago White Sox being the other) to have four 20-game winners.
Cuellar, 20-9
Pat Dobson, 20-8
Jim Palmer, 20-9
Dave McNally, 21-5
Alas, that team lost to the Pirates, and Roberto Clemente, in the ’71 Series, with Cuellar losing a Game 7 pitchers duel, 2-1, to Steve Blass.
But here’s a last tidbit concerning Cuellar that is totally outrageous. He became eligible for the Hall of Fame in 1983 and I just looked it up. How many votes did he get? Try zero! ZERO! I’m not saying he deserves to be in Cooperstown, but he should have been treated with a helluva lot more respect than the writers accorded him then.
—Alex Rodriguez spoke to Major League Baseball investigators for “three hours” the other day and A-Rod said, “It went well. I cooperated. They were very happy. And that’s it. I can’t really get into it that much.”
The Daily News confirmed the MLB folks were “satisfied” with A-Rod’s responses to questions about Canadian physician Tony “Two Syringes” Galea. Next up for Rodriguez, the feds.
But I’m pleased to report Bar Chat’s hidden microphone picked up the conversation with MLB.
MLB: So, Alex. Why did you meet with Dr. Galea?
A-Rod: He treated me after my hip surgery.
MLB: Well, he obviously did a good job. You had a helluva season, Alex.
A-Rod: I was sure pleased.
MLB: We are too, Alex. In fact, we’re very happy.
A-Rod: Then I’m happy too.
The next 2 hours and 58 minutes were spent discussing A-Rod’s relationship with Kate Hudson and how she became too clingy. Actually, over 2 hours of that time was taken up by picture taking and the MLB folks getting autographs for friends and family.
As for Ms. Hudson, the Daily News reports she is playing the field…like try three men! Goodness gracious. Can’t say I’d….actually, I’m not going to go there. Anyway, the three are Darren Ankenman, a photographer; a hedge fund manager in L.A. (oh yeah, that one will work out); and golfer Adam Scott. What? He’s back?! Adam, c’mon. She blew you off before! Look at all the Aussie babes you can have. [Scott being Aussie, in case you didn’t know.]
–This is too much…from Chris Broussard / ESPN The Magazine
“On a night when the Denver Nuggets should have been celebrating a much-needed victory over the Portland Trail Blazers, the franchise continued to struggle with off-the-court issues when an April Fools’ Day joke sparked anything but laughter.
“During Denver’s 109-92 victory, a former Nuggets ball boy, Laquan Johnson, got into the club’s locker room, took Kenyon Martin’s car keys and filled the player’s Range Rover with buttered popcorn. The car had a white interior.
“Martin discovered the damage as he was about to exit Denver’s Pepsi Center. At the time, he had no idea who had pulled the prank. Angered, he went back to the locker room spewing profanities and threats at teammates and other members of the organization.
“ ‘That ain’t no [expletive] joke,’ Martin said. ‘I’m going to find out who did it…put my [expletive] hands on one of y’all. I’m going to put my hands on whoever did it. You better believe that. It’s [expletive] personal. You better believe it.’”
Martin then threatened to boycott the postseason unless someone fessed up. A teammate said that his anger was not as much over the prank, but that someone would go into his locker and take his keys during a game. Martin also knew the culprit came from inside the organization because they had to have the security code for the team’s gated parking lot.
Later, Martin discovered it was Johnson, now a driver for teammate J.R. Smith. Johnson apologized and offered to pay for the damages. Everything is OK between Kenyon and his teammates. What a debacle. Can’t say I blame Kenyon in the least.
–ESPN’s Erin Andrews has been receiving death threats, including one e-mail that went he “would love to get close enough to her to show her my suicide vest.” The deranged guy has sent at least 10 such missives to Dan Patrick’s show. He also said, “I would love to see if she can dance away from a hail of gunfire. That would really make my day.” Needless to say, security has been beefed up for Ms. Andrews as she competes on “Dancing With the Stars.” The FBI knows the identity of the man.
–Basketball coach Bob Hurley of St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, N.J., is headed into the Naismith Hall of Fame, just the third high school coach to do so, the others being Ernest Blood of Passaic (N.J.) and Morgan Wootten, the legendary former coach at DeMatha Catholic in Hyattsville, Md. Hurley is the father of Bobby and Danny, who went on to have great success at the college level. I have a little story here. For two years I lived in Jersey City, 1982-84, with a bunch of guys, and we all worked in New York, an easy commute. Directly across the street from us was a high school called St. Anthony’s. I swear to God, all of us were well aware of the success of a St. Anthony High School in basketball in the area, but because there was clearly no gymnasium across the way, we never put two and two together until a few years later.
[Before you get on my case about this, understand I was long gone in the morning before the students arrived, and came home long after they had gone left, so it’s not like any of us were seeing a lot of hoopsters hanging out. The team plays at a gym across town.]
—Kobe Bryant reupped for three years. Bryant, 31, will be a Laker through the 2013-14 season, after which he’ll be nearly 36. You’d think he’d retire then.
–Special thanks to Glenn G. of Boardman, Ohio, for passing along a Micheal* Ray Richardson remembrance of a time he and his younger brother somehow finagled courtside seats in Houston, right after Richardson had been acquired by the Nets. First, Glenn was amazed that at a time when the likes of Nike and Adidas were beginning to shell out major bucks, Richardson had on a pair of Chuck Taylor hi-tops with “Micheal” on one shoe and “Ray” on the other, just like they were doing in high school.
But at halftime of the contest, a fan got a half court shot with a chance to win a Toyota pickup truck. At the same game, a guy comes out of the stands and drains it. The crowd goes wild. When the Nets came out before the second half, Micheal Ray “goes straight to the circle and pops in about 4 out of 5 half-courters, then comes to the table and says, half-seriously, “Where’s my car?” Yup, that was Micheal Ray.
*And, yes, Glenn, you and I have been making the same mistake. It really is spelled Micheal. Glenn also pegs the Indians for 95 losses this season. In fact, June 15, Mets at Cleveland, for the start of a titanic 3-game series. Both teams should be about 25-45 heading into it.
–Remember Kirk Snyder, the hoops star at Nevada Reno who was a first-round selection in the 2004 NBA draft? He was convicted of charges he broke into a neighbor’s home north of Cincinnati and assaulted him. Snyder faces up to 18 years in prison. It also appears he has been treated for mental illness, which explains why he was out of basketball after being with four teams in four dreadful seasons.
–Tragedy down in Panama City Beach, Fla., during spring break as a top 17-year-old football recruit for Notre Dame, Matt James, died after falling from a fifth-floor hotel balcony. Police report the kid was “drunk and belligerent.” James was part of a group of 40 St. Xavier High School (Cincinnati) students and a half-dozen parents on the trip.
An official said James “had leaned over the balcony rail, was shaking his finger at the people in the next room over. He fell over.” The railing met safety requirements. James’ parents issued a statement that read in part, “We would like to thank everyone for their prayers and support during this tragic time, particularly the family at St. X.”
James, 6’6”, 290 pounds, was an offensive lineman and a star basketball player. Another athlete from the school, a wrestler, was struck and killed by a car in September. This was also the second spring breaker to die after falling from a hotel balcony in Panama City Beach. Needless to say, the parents on the trip with Matt James face real scrutiny.
—Charlie Sheen is leaving “Two and a Half Men” after seven seasons to work on his personal life, which is a freakin’ mess.
–We note the passing of actor John Forsythe, 92. A baseball player in college at the University of North Carolina, he spent summers as a public-address announcer at Ebbets Field. Of course he’s best known for his disembodied voice on “Charlie’s Angels” and his role as Blake Carrington on “Dynasty.” Forsythe was also an avid fan of horse racing and owned and bred thoroughbreds at his ranch.
—Dumb animal alert…dumb animal alert…
So I’m reading Newsweek and this story how development in the rural West for wind farming has hit a roadblock in some places and it turns out the culprit is the sage grouse, which heretofore was having a tough time competing with ranchers and miners, but now, it seems, “The bird won’t mate near turbines…and it’s trapped on particular parcels of land by something of a mental block on crossing roads and under power lines.”
Oh for crying out loud! Someone needs to get in their face and say, “Look, how the heck do you ever expect to make the All-Species List if you behave in this fashion? Other species would kill for the opportunity you have. Now buck up and strut across the road. Just remember to look both ways first.”
“John Leslie Ward, 67, was working with his daughter on their Sheffield farm trying to put identity tags onto calves in a barn when he was attacked by the animals.”
Ward was thrown into the air by a bull before being trampled by cows. “When he landed on the ground, a cow, whose calf Mr. Ward had been tagging, began stamping on him.”
“A coyote pounced on an elderly woman’s toy poodle in suburban Rye (N.Y., Westchester County), killing the pet helplessly tethered in the back yard.
“The nighttime attack is yet another sign of the region’s booming coyote population – which has seen the wild animals roam as far south as lower Manhattan.”
I told you recently this was going to be the case. “Something has to be done,” said the aggrieved owner.
Wolf attacks in Alaska, cows in England, coyotes in New York…let alone killer entertainers at SeaWorld. It’s a pattern we can no longer afford to ignore. Make sure your doors are locked and never venture outside alone after 8:00 p.m. Especially because…
–Omigod… “A Nightmare on Elm Street” is coming back! Freddy Krueger! Noooooo!
–The New York Post had a piece on models and for you George Costanza, hand-model wannabes, one leading model, Ellen Sirot, earns between $250 and $500 an hour on shoots. She has a collection of 500 gloves…500…for every activity, and does not take out the garbage or clean the house. She also had a ‘no touching below the elbow’ dating policy before she got married.
—Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez is reportedly getting lots of action in the off-season. The Post’s Page Six notes “He was spotted huddled with a gorgeous brunette at 675 Bar in the Meatpacking District on Tuesday night.” Seems they dined on Kobe sliders and lobster spring rolls. Mmmm, Ko-be sli-ders. [Drool] But, hey…I thought Sanchez was going out with Hilary Rhoda! And others have him with “stunning blonde” Jennifer Mueller.
Then, the next day, Page Six informed us eager readers that Sanchez’s mystery girl, Ms. Spring Roll, is none other than “Macedonian model Katarina Ivanovska, 21.” As for Rhoda, she’s now dating the Rangers’ Sean Avery, which only makes sense if they make the playoffs and it’s going down to the wire on that one. I’m headed to Albania in a week (really), which borders Macedonia, so I’ll do some scouting around.
—Bruuuuuuuce! More from the New York Post on Springsteen’s relationship with Jersey housewife Ann Kelly, 45, and how he entered her life in 2005 – “showering her with concert tickets, serenading her during rehearsals and confessing she was on his mind while he toured – the Jersey girl got lost in a ‘Tunnel of Love,’ court records alleged.” [All part of a nasty divorce proceeding between Kelly and husband Arthur filed last year.]
It all began with chats on the treadmills of a Red Bank, N.J., gym and eventually progressed to a full affair. Springsteen said Ann had the “nicest ass” in the place.
A spokesman for Springsteen said that he and wife Patti Scialfa “continue to have a terrific marriage and are very devoted to each other and their children.”
And that’s your Bruuuuuuce at the gym report for April 5th.
Top 3 songs for the week 4/3/76: #1 “Disco Lady” (Johnnie Taylor) #2 “Dream Weaver” (Gary Wright) #3 “Lonely Night (Angel Face)” (Captain & Tennille)…and…#4 “Let Your Love Flow” (Bellamy Brothers) #5 “Sweet Thing” (Rufus featuring Chaka Khan…in my top 50) #6 “Right Back Where We Started From” (Maxine Nightingale) #7 “Dream On” (Aerosmith) #8 “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)” (The Four Seasons) #9 “Money Honey” (Bay City Rollers…I’ll never forget Howard Cosell introducing them) #10 “Golden Years” (David Bowie)
Baseball Quiz Answer: Top ten, career, in hits.
1. Pete Rose 4256
2. Ty Cobb 4191
3. Hank Aaron 3771
4. Stan Musial 3630
5. Tris Speaker 3515
6. Carl Yastrzemski 3419
7. Cap Anson 3418
8. Honus Wagner 3415
9. Paul Molitor 3319
10. Eddie Collins 3313
