Yankees Quiz: The other day, Mark Teixeira had three home runs in a game. Name the five in Yankees history who have done this at least twice. Answer below.
Miss USA
I told you Lebanese women were the most beautiful in the world. A Lebanese immigrant, Rima Fakih, a k a Miss Michigan, won the Miss USA pageant last night. She also became the first Arab-American to capture the title.
Bar Chat’s Pony Comes Through
The official pony of Bar Chat, Lookin at Lucky, won an exciting Preakness Stakes on Saturday as trainer Bob Baffert enhanced his already sterling reputation with a gutty move to change jockeys, replacing Garrett Gomez with an untested kid, Martin Garcia. But before the race, Garcia was so excited to just be there, Baffert, the Hall of Famer, said, “I think he’s so young, he doesn’t understand the magnitude of this race.”
“As (the 25-year-old) Garcia loped Lookin at Lukcy down the backstretch, however, Baffert’s doubts began to ease. His young jockey had listened to his instructions.
“ ‘I told him once you make the turn, you can’t be more than three paths off the rail,’ Baffert said.
“Garcia did as he was told. Now, he had the colt rolling like a riverboat, and Baffert was starting to feel pretty smart.
And the rest was history. Baffert got his fifth Preakness win, though, surprisingly, it was his first Triple Crown race winner since 2002. No way I would have said that, Baffert being as high-profile as he is. Ever think of the fact that Bob Baffert, thanks to that hair, is perhaps one of the 20 or so most recognizable figures in all of sports? [As long as an accepted answer would be “He’s that horse guy, isn’t he?”]
Back to Garcia, he has been riding for only five years, and prior to that he was making shrimp salad sandwiches at a deli in Pleasanton, Calif. Heck, he still worked at the deli on his off days. Now he can virtually write his own ticket.
But as for the final leg of the Triple Crown, both Lookin at Lucky and Super Saver are out. The two are getting a rest for the summer events and, hopefully, the Breeders’ Cup Classic in November. In other words, officials running the Belmont Stakes are scared to death. They have absolutely nothing in promoting their race.
Even I watched Game 6 of the Celtics-Cavs the other night to see how LeBron James would stand up to the pressure. [It turned out to be the second most watched playoff game ever on ESPN.] Cleveland lost 94-85, giving Boston the upset win in the series, and now it’s all about LeBron’s pending free agency. With his lack of team success, despite the gaudy personal statistics, the questions are being asked fast and furious.
“If you were one of the few who missed last night’s 94-85 inequality, don’t get fooled by LeBron’s seemingly sizzling statistics – one turnover shy of a quadruple double and the need for 21 shots to record 27 points – he hardly looked like a guy playing for a contract.
“For the greater part of Game 6, and definitely the two previous ones, James malfunctioned as badly as his supporting cast. Going into the postseason, if the Cavs lost, everyone expected it would be because the Ohio Players failed to measure up. As it turned out, they followed their leader.
“I can’t imagine LeBron returning to Cleveland. It’s like dating a girl for a while and not knowing that even though you had some good times, it’s just not gonna work out.”
“Kevin Garnett, who had a major role in sending King James on vacation, cautioned the young star about being too loyal. Loyalty, like guilt, can kill. Garnett stayed in Minnesota for 12 seasons and never won a championship.
“ ‘Loyalty is something that hurts you at times because you can’t get your youth back,’ Garnett said. ‘I can say that if I can go back and do my situation over, knowing what I know now with this organization, I’d have done it a little earlier.’…
“For the moment, the critical question for James is not, Where? Or, What? The critical question is, Why?
“Why was Cleveland ousted once again from the playoffs?
“Last season Orlando jettisoned King James and his court in the Eastern Conference finals. James was so distraught – or miffed – that he left the court without so much as shaking hands with his opponents. In 2008, Cleveland was eliminated by the Celtics in the conference semifinals.
“Why? Perhaps it’s the coach. All King James has to do is say the word and Mike Brown will get the royal ax. That may happen without James’ saying a word.
“Perhaps it’s the team’s general manager, Danny Ferry. The Cavaliers, as assembled, are not good enough to reach the N.B.A. finals. Without James, they are barely a playoff team.
“What distinguishes this loss from the others is that James lost more than a series: his crown lost some of its luster. A pair of uninspired performances at home against Boston left a bitter taste in the mouths of many local Cleveland fans. Was it his injured right elbow, or did James simply lose interest? His performance in Game 5 was so detached and uninspired there was speculation he wanted to purposely anger Cavaliers fans to make his departure easier. Fans booed after his 15-point performance. On Thursday night, Celtics fans broke out a derisive ‘New York Knicks, New York Knicks’ chant when James went to the free-throw line….
“After another unhappy ending, the question King James should be asking is not, Where? It’s, Why?”
“I don’t pretend to know what LeBron James is going to do any more than the next guy. But the idea that he’s leaving some ready-made contender if he leaves Cleveland is ludicrous. Riddle me this: If you simply swapped LeBron and David Lee, best player for best player, how many games would the Knicks win? I say 50ish. How many would the Cavs win? I say 30ish.”
“Meanwhile, columnists and Cavaliers fans are enraged James isn’t as apologetic as they’re apoplectic.
“ ‘Cleveland is such a negative town, to begin with,’ one of its citizens replied when asked to explain their stunningly rapid rebuke. ‘Every silver lining has a black cloud. When the savior cracked, it hurt. When it didn’t appear to bother him, whew…that was too much to take. When he didn’t, he didn’t seem to care. ‘I’ve spoiled you’ is all anyone heard.’
“Another perspective is Cleveland’s history, that of having its dreams and teams pulled out from under fans for so long they know how the movie ends: Cavs lose, LeBron leaves, franchise decays.
“So the reaction is the fans’ way of getting up and leaving before the movie ends. They’re leaving LeBron before he can leave them.
“Unrealized expectations get the coach canned every time. The bad news is LeBron might be out the door along with Mike Brown. People thought he’d stay if the Cavs won. The way they lost, so early and decisively, fans are convinced he’ll never commit now if he didn’t do it before. To protect themselves, they’re trying to convince themselves they don’t care anymore, anyway.”
–In the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the West has No. 1 San Jose vs. No. 2 Chicago in the conference finals (Chicago won the opener), but in the Eastern Conference finals it’s No. 7 Philadelphia vs. No. 8 Montreal.
Philadelphia became just the third playoff team to come back from trailing 3-0 in a series, the others being the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs and the 1975 New York Islanders, plus Philly was down 3-0 in the deciding Game 7 before winning 4-3.
Montreal, which upset top-seeded Washington in the first round, defeated the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins in their Game 7, 5-2. In advancing to play Philly, the Canadiens also took out superstars Alex Ovechkin of the Caps and the Penguins’ Sidney Crosby.
Last year, Sports Illustrated put a 16-year-old high school athlete on its cover, Bryce Harper, the next superstar baseball player. A year later he is preparing to be the No. 1 selection by the Washington Nationals in the June 7 amateur draft. Yes, the Nats could bag another franchise maker to go along with Stephen Strasburg, who is considered the best pitching prospect in 40 years. As the Times’ Alan Schwarz wrote of Harper, though, most scouts “insist they have seen no player this good this soon. As far as they are concerned, Harper is a tape-measure-testing, laser-throwing, eyeblack-oozing baseball cyborg.”
Harper is 6-foot-3, 205 pounds, and still filling out. Last year, Baseball America named him high school player of the year…as a sophomore. The kid hit .626 with 14 home runs. No junior had ever won the award. But the reason why he’s eligible for the draft now is because he completed his general-equivalency diploma so he could come out a year early.
This year, playing for Southern Nevada, a junior college, he’s hitting .420 with 23 home runs (the next highest in the conference has 11), and, just as importantly, using a wooden bat. No 17-year-old has ever shown such power. [He hit a 502-foot homer at Tampa Bay’s Tropicana Field.]
Last year, Strasburg broke the draft record by signing a $15.1 million contract. It’s expected that as an everyday player, Harper will command more. If he doesn’t get what he wants, he could always go back to junior college and wait one more year. One guess as to his agent…. Scott Boras.
But what is Harper really like? As the Washington Post’s Dave Sheinin writes, the kid could be in for a rude awakening.
“You’re a scout, and all you know is what you see: Face caked in eye-black and hands bare, the batter strides to home plate and carefully lays his bat down in the dirt, perpendicular to the pitcher. He scoops up some dirt and lets it fall through his fingers. He spits into his hands. He picks up the bat, scoops some dirt over the handle, twists his fingers around it. The pitcher waits.
“ ‘He does that in pro ball,’ one scout behind home plate mutters, ‘the first pitch’ll be in his ear.’
“This is Thursday, in Bryce Harper’s first collegiate playoff game. He steps into the batter’s box. Soft-tossing lefty on the mound. He whiffs at a curveball, takes another one – called strike two. He turns and gives an exasperated look at the umpire. On the third pitch, another curve, he lifts a harmless fly ball to left.
“He bows his head, drops his bat, jogs two-thirds of the way to first base, then peels off as the ball is caught. Walking back to the dugout, he shoots another look at the umpire. He gets to the dugout, rips off his helmet, slams it to the ground.
“ ‘Mmmm, mmmmm,’ another scout intones, shaking his head.”
Houston, looks like we have a real jerk on our hands. A potential “A-hole of the Year” candidate down the road. Needless to say, Bryce also has an overbearing father who bawls his son out (still just 17, remember) in front of his college teammates.
So while Harper has tools few have ever seen, as Sheinin writes, “there is one nagging question, and it isn’t going away. It may not be fair. It may be immaterial to the Nationals’ choice. But it’s there: Is Bryce Harper a bad guy?”
Meanwhile, regarding Stephen Strasburg, 13,766 fans turned out to see him in Syracuse ten days ago, the largest crowd in the 124 years baseball has been played in Syracuse. Curt Schilling said that when he gets to the major leagues, a lock by early June, “he’ll immediately potentially be the best pitcher in the game.” Strasburg did nothing to dispel this notion when in his last start, Wednesday, he no-hit Norfolk over six innings, striking out seven and walking only one. 55 of his 79 pitches were for strikes. So in 12 innings in two starts at Triple A, he has allowed one hit. For seven total minor league starts, the other five being in Double A, he has a 1.06 ERA and 40 strikeouts in 34 innings.
It now seems as if the Nationals will bring him up for a June 4 contest, at home, against the Reds, June being the cutoff that ensures Washington gets another year with the pitcher before he holds them up for beaucoup cash in arbitration, on top of the money he’s already receiving.
–I do not comment on rotisserie or fantasy league goings on because, frankly, I don’t care, but I will make a single exception in the case of Shu and two members of his rotisserie squad, Pirates teammates Andrew McCutcheon and Garrett Jones, who each had five hits in a game on Friday. As Ronald Reagan said…not bad, not bad at all. More importantly, McCutcheon is rapidly developing into a true star, batting .340.
Los Angeles Dodgers’ Andre Ethier is leading the N.L. in hitting (.392), tied for the lead in home runs with 11, and leads in RBI with 38. But now he has a broken knuckle and could face the disabled list.
And then there’s Colorado hurler Ubaldo Jimenez, who is 7-1 in 8 starts with a 1.12 ERA. He is no relation to Jose Jimenez, who used to be portrayed by Bill Dana on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” which looking back wasn’t exactly too politically correct.
—Attendance at Mets games is down a major league-leading 6,852 fans a game thus far in 2010 over last season. [The Indians are second, down 6,585.] And if the Mets don’t get their act together soon, having just been swept in four games by the Marlins, you will see crowds of about 8,000 for games in September. It’s a veritable suckathon for my Metsies.
–The Philadelphia Phillies were caught cheating in a game against the Rockies as bullpen coach Mick Billmeyer was seen using binoculars to peer in on Colorado’s catcher Miguel Olivo, at the same time the Phils’ Shane Victorino was caught in the dugout on the bullpen phone. Manager Charlie Manuel denied the accusations, pitifully, I might add.
–By now you’ve all seen the reports that the “Field of Dreams” in Dyersville, Iowa, is on the block. Owners Don and Becky Lansing are asking for $5.4 million. “It’s really time for us to head to the locker room….We really would just love to become spectators.”
With release of the 1989 Kevin Costner film, the site is a popular tourist attraction, with the family maintaining the field built by Universal. Aside from the diamond, you get a two-bedroom house, six outbuildings, and a 193-acre parcel. But you also have to deal with the ghosts and a lot of folks can’t handle that aspect.
–It’s rough being a coach in the NBA. The Atlanta Hawks had made great strides under Mike Woodson, making the playoffs each of the last three seasons, but he was let go anyway after the Hawks were dismantled by Orlando. General manager Rick Sund said, “The shelf life for coaches and management in the NBA is short, particularly for coaches, maybe two or three years. In Woody’s case, he has gone six.”
Two or three? C’mon, that’s a copout. But at the same time, I can’t really dispute the thesis that perhaps the Hawks had peaked under Woodson. It would also help if they had one or two more good players, yet now they’ll lose free agent Joe Johnson.
—New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, in an interview with the New York Post, “acknowledged his team has more than 10,000 personal seat licenses still unsold just three months before its first game at 82,500-seat New Meadowlands stadium.
“A league source with knowledge of the situation told The Post the Jets’ unsold PSLs numbered a whopping 17,000.”
Johnson said he will refuse to lift the PSLs for the unsold lower-bowl seats on a game-by-game basis to avoid blackouts. “No, we’re not going to do that.”
Well, you can imagine this caused quite a stir. Johnson was then forced to assure the fan base there would be no blackouts, but he still won’t say how he’s going to sell all these seats to prevent them, the last one in these parts being in 1977.
“The Jets learned a harsh lesson this week, but it’s something just about every team in our area already knows: You can do just about anything to a fan, and they will take it. You can raise ticket prices. You can make lunkheaded trades. You can make awful choices in free agency. You can fire a popular manager, retain an unpopular GM, lose year after year.
“Do all of that, the fans will forgive you, eventually.
“But don’t even think of making the games disappear.
“That’s a line in the sand no team and no team owner wants to cross. Just floating the word ‘blackout’ this week caused so many spasms of outrage that all the wattage in all of talk radio couldn’t contain it all…You can hose fans. You can gouge them. You can taunt them.
–Congratulations to 16-year-old Aussie Jessica Watson, the youngest person to sail solo, nonstop and unassisted around the world after seven months. Critics said she’d never make it home alive, but she survived 40-foot waves and sea monsters (the Kraken) to overcome all obstacles. Watching an interview with her, she just seems like a great kid.
However, some sailing enthusiasts say Watson didn’t travel far enough north of the equator for her journey to count as a true around-the-world trek. Her managers say, bunk. Plus the world council discontinued the “youngest” category so the stuffy blowhards can go screw themselves. [That’s me talking, not her managers.]
I mean, imagine…she was going through some of the world’s most treacherous waters and suffered seven knockdowns. She also spotted a blue whale, and had a bird as company for a while, but Ms. Watson won’t discuss the Kraken, who happen to be the sole reason why I refuse to even put my toe in the water these days.
—Tyson Gay set a new world record in a straight 200 meters, 19.41 seconds, on a 200m specially constructed track on the streets of Manchester, England. The record was set way back by Tommie Smith in 1966. Gay thus became the first man to run under 10 seconds for the 100m, 20 seconds for the 200m and 45 seconds over 400m. He ran a 44.89 on April 17 in the latter.
—Mark Webber became the first Australian to win the Monaco Grand Prix since Jack Brabham 51 years ago.
–The Wall Street Journal’s Matthew Futterman reported on a highly disturbing trend. According to the National Golf Foundation’s most recent participation report, the number of golfers age
6-17 dropped 24% to 2.9 million from 3.8 million between 2005 and 2008. At the same time, tennis data shows that from 2003 to 2009, the number of children 6-17 playing tennis jumped to 9.5 million from 6.8 million. For all ages, tennis participation is up 43% since 2000.
As Futterman points out, a major problem for golf is a dearth of family-friendly courses, specifically of the nine-hole variety, which is where I grew up on the sport before being allowed to play on a big course. [That said, I still suck…but enough about me.]
“Want to make an 8-year-old cry? Tee up a ball for him on a 450-yard hole with a green surrounded by bunkers and tell him to hole out before the group waiting to tee off starts complaining to the course superintendent. All the testosterone-induced courses constructed over the past decade just make it worse. Kids need to start on family-friendly facilities where they can be provided with some good old-fashioned self-esteem.”
“There’s a lot of jealousy out there and people will say things but I will just tell you that I spent 110 days a year with Tiger for six years. I spent probably 40 to 50 nights a year at his house. I’ve never seen him do anything. He’s never talked about anything.”
Haney also said he was present for four of the five times Tiger was treated by Dr. Anthony Galea.
“I was there and watched the whole procedure. There was never anything that went into Tiger Woods’ body that didn’t come out of his body. They take blood out, they spin it, they inject the plasma back in. I totally believe that Tiger Woods has never taken any performance-enhancing drugs.”
Actually, I’m feeling very lethargic myself these days. Maybe I’ll do a little blood spinning, know what I’m sayin’?
–Boxer Manny Pacquiao, fresh off his upset win in the Philippines’ congressional elections, now appears set to face Floyd Mayweather Jr. on Nov. 13, though details have yet to be worked out. Promoter Bob Arum seems confident this dream matchup can finally come off and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones wants it at his new palace, where a potential crowd of 120,000 could converge and overload the toilets.
–In just released figures, attendance during the 2009-2010 NCAA basketball season was down 3% from 2008-09, and down 5.5% over two years, plus a 7.5% decline during the tournament.
—Richard Petty, to the New York Times’ George Vecsey, describing a time during the Clinton administration when the Petty jet was trying to land in Miami, only to be told the airport was locked down.
“We got the president down here,” Petty recalled the tower saying.
“We got the king up here,” Petty said his pilot replied.
On accidents, “Anytime you see a car in a wreck, if the car keeps moving, then the driver’s in good shape. It’s the sudden stop that gets you. Like Earnhardt. He hit the wall. The G forces killed him.”
–Holy Mackerel! The world’s largest bony fish, a 12-foot Giant Oarfish, has been found in Swedish waters for the first time in 130 years. Also known as the “King of Herrings,” the dead fish was found floating neat the shore. The Giant Oarfish can grow to 36 feet, and is believed to live in deep waters, where it checks the status of blowout preventers for BP, which is part of the problem.
–I didn’t see it, but Animal Planet’s ‘River Monsters’ featured Alaska and the Iliamna Lake monster…which is indeed a lake, not a river. Whatever. Nothing was found. But in a piece for the Anchorage Daily News, Mike Campbell talks about five real river monsters. You’ve got your piranhas, of course, and bullsharks, which can indeed survive hundreds of miles inland, and there’s the goonch catfish of the Himalayas that “feeds on the human remains from riverside funeral pyres.”
But then you have the candiru. “This vampire-like Amazonian fish, about the length of a toothpick, normally burrows into the gills of a larger fish where it enjoys a liquid feast of its host’s blood. But sometimes it makes a mistake and burrows into a human orifice. Because it has barb-like, backward-pointing spines on its gill covers, it can’t extricate itself and can only be removed by delicate surgery.” That would suck.
And then we have the goliath tigerfish. “This 6-foot cousin of the piranha can reach 100 pounds and will even bite pieces out of crocodiles. Fishermen say they will snack on the dangling extremities of unwary swimmers or paddlers.”
That’s it. The only water I’m coming in touch with the rest of my life is drinking water. More specifically, “still,” not “sparkling.”
–Update: According to a woman who spoke with the 16-year-old girl that accused Lawrence Taylor of raping her, the girl never had sex with him, per a statement given by the 23-year-old who accompanied the kid to a hotel where LT was staying. The woman said, “He’s innocent. She’s lying. She wasn’t raped.”
–So the other day, my Dunkin’ Donuts guy asked me if I liked iced coffee. “I never think to get it,” I told him. “Well this afternoon we’re giving it away if you want to stop by,” he said. I didn’t, even though it’s in my building, but Dunkin’ it seems is trying to cash in on the craze in giving it away (this was a limited offer) in an attempt to get you hooked.
You see, sports fans, iced coffee has become a hot business. As reported in the latest BloombergBusinessweek, in 2001, Americans drank 300 million servings of it. Last year the number was up to 1.2 billion, or one-fifth of all the coffee Americans drink, which is why you’re seeing the likes of Starbucks and McDonald’s putting such a heavy emphasis on it.
“A skinny dip on a picturesque beach in New Zealand ended painfully for a Canadian tourist when he woke up from a post-swim nap to discover that he had been bitten by a venomous spider on his penis.
“The 22-year-old tourist left his clothes in sand dunes when he went for a naked swim at a beach in the Northland area, on New Zealand’s North Island.
“Returning from the water, he lay down for a nap in the dunes but when he woke he discovered that his penis was painful and had a red spider bite mark on it.”
Johnny Jacobs…tell us what kind of spider would inflict such pain.
“Why it was one of the country’s most venomous katipo spiders, Editor.”
The guy lived, but he was in the hospital for 16 days! So let that be a lesson to all of you who like to lie naked in the sand.
[Incidentally, the katipo is related to the black widow.]
–Phil Mickelson is a huge fan of Five Guys hamburger chain, going six straight days while in Florida for the recent TPC. My friend David P. went for the first time up in Boston and is still drooling. I keep forgetting I have one nearby and will check it out this week, if the brain cell responsible for this does its job.
–Uh oh…according to an insider account in Us Weekly, Kate Hudson “hates” Cameron Diaz. “She’s pissed Cameron is dating A-Rod.” We now resume our regularly scheduled programming.
–Johannesburg – “South Africa’s press agency says a giraffe has kicked a woman to death at a game farm in northeastern South Africa.
“The South African Press Agency said Wednesday that the woman took a walk with her two dogs on the game farm in Limpopo province Saturday morning.
“The agency, citing South Africa’s Beeld newspaper, says one of the dogs ran towards a herd of giraffe, scaring them.
“The newspaper says the 25-year-old woman tried to protect the dog, prompting a giraffe to kick her in the neck, killing her.
“Although giraffes subsist on leaves (and domestic), and do not hunt, they are capable of delivering crushing blows with their powerful legs when threatened.”
A number of you wrote in on this one and the bottom line is it’s yet another reason to go to cash, or hoard gold….
–…And buy a bazooka, the “Official Weapon of Choice” for Bar Chat. And to this end we note the passing of Edward Uhl, 92, who helped invent it during World War II, later leading aerospace company Fairchild Industries.
–The music business is getting a real shot in the arm with the release of the Rolling Stones’ remastered “Exile on Main Street,” considered their creative peak from back in 1972. There are a number of options, including a double CD that adds 10 previously unreleased tracks, which is what I’ll go for. You can also get a $160 deluxe edition that throws in a vinyl version, book and a DVD. And signed limited-edition box sets are priced $2,000 to $2,500.
–Lastly, we note the passing of former Black Sabbath singer Ronnie James Dio, 67.
Top 3 songs for the week 5/16/64: #1 “My Guy” (Mary Wells) #2 “Hello, Dolly!” (Louis Armstrong…46 years ago…man, I feel old) #3 “Love Me Do” (The Beatles)…and…#4 “Bits And Pieces” (The Dave Clark Five…my favorite of theirs) #5 “Do You Want To Know A Secret” (The Beatles) #6 “Ronnie” (The 4 Seasons…one of their best as well) #7 “Don’t Let The Rain Come Down” (The Serendipity Singers…hasn’t aged well at all) #8 “Dead Man’s Curve” (Jan & Dean) #9 “White On White” (Danny Williams) #10 “It’s Over” (Roy Orbison)
Yankees Quiz Answer: 3 home runs in a game….Lou Gehrig, 4; Babe Ruth, 3 (twice in the World Series), Joe DiMaggio, 3; Tony Lazzeri, 2; Bobby Murcer, 2.
Hall of Famer Lazzeri (Veterans Committee, 1991) is interesting in that he never hit 20 in a season, yet banged out three, twice. The mostly second-sacker also had 7, 100-RBI seasons as part of the great Yankee teams of Ruth, Gehrig et al.
