Men’s Olympic Downhill Quiz: Name the three American men to medal in an Olympic downhill. [First downhill was held in 1948, but all three I’m asking for were since 1968.] Answer below.
Final Super Bowl Bits
—In the first 37 Super Bowls, the winner’s margin averaged 16.2 points, which is why it was so often called the “Super Bore.” But as Carl Bialik spells out in the Wall Street Journal, the last eight have all been competitive.
For example, the “trailing team last had the ball within a score” no worse than 12 minutes to go, Colts vs. Bears. This year it was 0:57 for the Steelers.
“The Super Bowl had perhaps its worst stretch between 1983 and 1990, when the average margin was 24.6 points. Things didn’t get much better in the 1990s, as just three of 12 games between 1992 and 2003 were decided by single digits.
“It’s not just football that has had spells of one-sided championships. Just two of the past eight World Series have reached a Game 6, and none a Game 7. Both the NBA (1995-2004) and the NHL (1972-1986) had long droughts without a Game 7 in the finals. On the flip side, men’s Division I college basketball thrived during the Super Bowl’s nadir, with seven of eight title games between 1982 and 1989 decided by four or fewer points.”
–As reported by Erik Matuwszewski of Bloomberg, “Las Vegas sports books had their smallest profit from Super Bowl bets in 13 years as the favored Green Bay Packers beat the Pittsburgh Steelers. Nevada’s 183 sports books won $724,176 from the $87.5 million in Super Bowl wagers.”
You see, sports fans, the Packers covered the 2 ½-point spread and the 31-25 final topped the 45-pt. projected over/under. But prop bets – such as Packers’ QB Aaron Rodgers throwing for more than 300 yards or the Steelers’ defense generating a safety now account for more than 50% of all wagers these days.
–Speaking of bets, the over/under on how long it would take Christina Aguilera to sing “The Star Spangled Banner” was 1:54 and she was timed in 1:53.7. However, because of her big mistake, a Sportsbook.com spokesman told CNBC that it was paying off both sides of a bet for the first time in its history.
[Meanwhile, according to the New York Post, Aguilera has rejected pleas from her staff to get help after she drunkenly passed out on a bed at a Hollywood party. And now you’re up to date on Xtina.]
–As you’ve heard the Super Bowl drew the largest television audience ever in America, 111 million, but for the record, four of the top five programs all time are now Super Bowls, with the series finale of “M*A*S*H” being the other. For 27 years it was No. 1 and is now No. 3. Actually, ratings for the NFL this year overall were 24% higher than they were just five years ago.
–But then you have the seating fiasco. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones wanted to break the Super Bowl record of 103,985, set at the Rose Bowl in 1980, by putting up temporary stands above the end zones, along the sidelines and selling standing-room only tickets for stairwells. But about 400 were barred because the work wasn’t completed and it represented a safety hazard.
So imagine you come all the way down for the game and you learn at the last minute you can’t sit where you were slated to.
“We apologize to those fans that were impacted by this,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday morning.
These folks, as it turned out, were offered a place to watch the game on television instead, and then allowed on the field during the postgame celebration, given free food and drink, plus merchandise, and, get this, offered a refund of three times the value of their $800 tickets. Plus they’ll be invited to next year’s Super Bowl in Indianapolis, though I’ve also read they can opt instead to attend any future game at no expense, including airfare and hotel, but they won’t get the $2,400.
[And I just learned that out of nowhere, my cousin Steve (out of Greensburg, Pa.) and his wife were one of the 400! But they got to watch the entire game on the field, behind the Steelers’ bench. There’s a picture in the new Sports Illustrated that shows you how they set it up. The problem was the two couldn’t see that much when the players were standing on the sidelines, so they just watched the action on the big screen and then after the game was over they walked around the field with the players and could have touched Aaron Rodgers if they wanted to. I’ll follow up with him later to see if the NFL keeps its word, though no reason why they wouldn’t]
–How amazing is it that in Green Bay on Tuesday, Lambeau Field was packed for the Super Bowl celebration despite biting cold? 80,000 names are on the waiting list for season tickets.
“The Press-Gazette’s old downtown office was the site of the team’s humble birth on Aug. 11, 1919, when the population was about 30,000.
“That historic meeting was run by Curly Lambeau, a 21-year-old hometown high school star who left Notre Dame after a year under Knute Rockne to take a job as a shipping clerk at the Indian Packing Company (hence the team’s name), and George Calhoun, The Press-Gazette sports editor.
“Lambeau Field, the town shrine where a bratwurst and a beer is the staple, is named, of course, for Curly, a charter member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame as the Packers’ founder, player for 10 years and coach for 30 years with seven NFL titles. And Lambeau Field’s address is 1265 Lombardi Avenue….
“In the NFL’s first season with official standings, 1921, as the American Pro Football Association, several other towns, mostly in the Midwest, had teams that disappeared: Akron, Canton, Rock Island, Evansville, Dayton, Rochester, Hammond, Columbus, Tonawanda, Muncie and Louisville.
“The Packers endured, but for all of their success, the community’s monetary support was needed to avert financial collapses in 1921, 1922, 1934 and 1950. And if Wellington Mara, the longtime Giants owner, had not successfully argued in 1961 for all teams to share television income equally, Green Bay’s small market would surely have been its demise. The franchise would be in a different locale with a different nickname.
“Even worse, pro football history wouldn’t be the same without what Green Bay and its Packers have accomplished.”
College Basketball Review
AP Men’s Top Ten
1. Ohio State
2. Kansas
3. Texas
4. Pitt
5. Duke
6. San Diego State
7. BYU
8. Notre Dame
9. Villanova
10. UConn
20. UNC…plays Duke on Wed.
My San Diego State Aztecs crushed Utah 85-53 on Tuesday, committing just four turnovers! Point guard D.J. Gay had zero for a third consecutive game. But what I really liked was the play of freshman guard Jamaal Franklin who has played little this season. With starter Chase Tapley out with an injury, Franklin stepped up and had 13 points and 10 rebounds in just 17 minutes! As Ronald Reagan would have said were he in attendance…not bad, not bad at all.
It’s asking way too much for both SDSU and BYU to win out before their Feb. 26 rematch in San Diego, but I can dream.
AP Women’s Top Ten
1. Baylor
2. UConn
3. Stanford
4. Tennessee
5. Duke
6. Texas A&M
7. Xavier
8. Notre Dame
9. UCLA
10. DePaul
25. Marist!!!
–So a year ago, my official alma mater, Wake Forest, was heading towards another NCAA tournament bid and coach Dino Gaudio was on the verge of locking up what many saw as one of the top five recruiting classes in the nation; J.T. Terrell, Aaron McKie, Carson Desrosiers, Tony Chennault and Melvin Tabb. But Gaudio stunk it up in the NCAAs, was fired, and well, you’ve seen the results under new coach Jeff Bzdelik with these same recruits…a freakin’ disaster.
Not that some of them won’t be real solid down the road, but for a variety of reasons, including injury, thus far they aren’t exactly the Fab Five. Or make that Fab Four, because now we’ve learned Melvin Tabb has been dismissed “For conduct detrimental to this basketball team,” according to Coach Bzdelik. Before the season started we lost senior center Tony Woods because he decided to play the role of Primo Jerk in assaulting the mother of his child.
But Wake is also now getting publicity of the right kind these days. Just about every major publication in America this week has run the story of Deacon baseball coach Tom Walter. All this man did was donate one of his kidneys to freshman outfielder Kevin Jordan, who was drafted by the Yankees in the 19th round of the 2010 draft.
Jordan first became ill last January, two months after committing to Wake. He had dialysis three times a week this summer but began his fall semester. As reported by Andy Gardiner of USA TODAY:
“Doctors determined Jordan’s kidneys were functioning at 8% of capacity and he needed a transplant as soon as possible. None of Jordan’s family members was a suitable donor. Walter volunteered to be tested and was found to be a strong match.
“ ‘When we recruit our guys, we talk about family and making sacrifices for one another,’ Walter said before the operation. ‘It is something we take very seriously. I had the support of my family, Wake Forest and my team. To me it was a no-brainer.’…
“ ‘Just showing up on our campus was a more courageous act than anything I’m doing,’ Walter said. ‘Now Kevin and I are forever going to be joined at the hip, so to speak.’”
Walter, 42, coached at George Washington for eight years and then Univ. of New Orleans for five, before that school dropped the program to Div. III because of Hurricane Katrina and the inability to fund the program at the top level.
“ ‘I saw some of the things that happened down in New Orleans and how Coach Walter worked through that,’ said Keith Jordan, Kevin’s father. ‘What really sold us is when we met him, you can look a person in the eye and see if they mean what they say. When you look at everything that has happened, to wind up at Wake Forest with a man like Coach Walter, it’s like divine intervention.’”
The operation was Monday and Walter hopes to be discharged Thursday and even travel with the team for its opener, Feb. 18, at LSU. “The biggest thing I’m going to fight is fatigue,” he said. “I certainly don’t see myself coaching third or hitting fungoes anytime soon, but I hope to feel normal again in two months.”
As for Kevin Jordan, the hope is he’ll be released in about a week. Walter’s goals for both he and Jordan are simple: “For Kevin to not be on a dialysis machine and for me to be able to go for a run and play with my kids – getting back to that. If he makes it back to the playing field, that would be a great story. But I just want him to have a normal life and have the chance to be a normal college student.”
A doctor familiar with kidney transplants says Jordan needs to take hope in examples like Alonzo Mourning and Sean Elliott, two former NBA ballplayers who both competed after transplants. Dr. Bryan Becker added, “He should have no reason not to both try and achieve the opportunity of returning to baseball.”
As Mark R. noted, we just may have our “Man of the Year” winner already for 2011.
“Anthony is not truly a free agent, just a discontented star who is wielding an opt-out clause to force a trade. This is pre-emptive free agency, and the rules are different. Anthony cannot overtly court or be courted. All he can do is play hard and keep his statements noncommittal.
“So far, he has succeeded on both fronts, minimizing any damage to his Q rating. Yet the collateral damage in this interminable drama is undeniable.
“At least 12 teams – 40 percent of the league – have been snared in the Anthony intrigue at some point in the last six months. It has rained havoc on locker rooms in Newark and Detroit, New York and Chicago and, of course, in Denver. More than 20 players – Nets and Knicks, Pistons, Bobcats and Timberwolves – have seen their names attached to a rumored Anthony deal.
First it was the Nets and players such as Derrick Favors and Devin Harris who were linked to a potential trade. Then it was the Nuggets’ Chauncy Billups. Detroit benched onetime star Richard Hamilton as part of the fallout. Now it’s the Knicks’ Wilson Chandler and Danilo Gallinari. And suddenly the Lakers entered the picture, with rumors they would swap talented center Andrew Bynum for Anthony. But that report was quickly dismissed.
Back to the Knicks, what should they do? Odds are they can sign Anthony in the offseason. The superstar wants to play in New York and the Knicks then wouldn’t have to give up some of their young talent to get him beforehand.
–Feb. 9, 1971, Satchell Paige was nominated for the Baseball Hall of Fame, officially being selected that June as part of the Hall’s Special Committee on the Negro Leagues. Imagine, he was a 41-year-old rookie with the Cleveland Indians when he made his major league debut and he proceeded to go 6-1 with a 2.47 ERA that year. Later, at age 46, he went 12-10 for the St. Louis Browns. The following season, 1953, was his last but the 47-year-old (technically his birthday was 7/6/06…or so they say), while going only 3-9, still saved 11 games and had a highly respectable 3.53 ERA.
Actually, Paige wasn’t totally finished. In 1965, he appeared in one game for the Kansas City Athletics, pitching 3 innings and giving up but one hit. Of course Mr. Paige threw 20-some seasons in the Negro Leagues and as Matt Kramer of the Hall of Fame noted, while statistics of his exploits are sketchy, “tales of him striking out batters with his infielders casually sitting down are widespread.”
–That was pretty funny during the Super Bowl telecast for Fox to catch Cameron Diaz feeding her love interest, Alex Rodriguez. Joe Buck quickly said, ‘I’m sure Alex doesn’t appreciate us catching that moment.’
We’ve since learned A-Rod didn’t like it one bit; the image portrayed to a mere 111 million. After the two were shown on the Cowboys Stadium screen, A-Rod supposedly demanded Fox not show any more of him and Cameron. A source told the Chicago Sun-Times:
“He really went ballistic – thinking the cameraman was out to get them in a paparazzi-like shot…That’s so crazy.”
Hopefully Cameron told him afterwards, “You know what, Alex? You’re really a jerk. Find someone else!” [Huff huff]
–We note the passing of actress Tura Satana, 72. Satana starred in the Russ Meyer cult film, “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!”
“Satana played Varla, the leader of a ‘daredevil trio of sports car-driving vixens,’ wrote film critic B. Ruby Rich in the Village Voice in 1995. ‘She drove her Porsche like a bat out of hell, delivered her dialogue with an arched eyebrow that let the audience in on the joke and tossed men into the air like they were pancakes.”
Keith Thursby of the Los Angeles Times picks up the story.
“After Varla kills a young man with her bare hands, the three women kidnap his girlfriend and converge on the desert ranch of a wealthy older man and his two sons. ‘The ensuing conflict is like a clash between King Kong and Godzilla,’ wrote Kevin Thomas of The Times in 2004.”
Russ Meyer said the movie was an absolute loser, but it was rediscovered in the 1990s. Filmmaker John Waters even called it “not only the best movie ever made but the best movie that ever will be made.”
Satana was born Tura Luna Pascual Yamaguchi in Hokkaido, Japan, to a father of Japanese and Filipino descent and a mother who was Cheyenne Indian and Scots-Irish. To say she was exotic looking would be an understatement. She was also, err, very well-endowed.
–And regarding the Deadspin.com tale of the 17-year-old girl and Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez, as I wrote last time the girl is at fault for initially stirring things up when there isn’t any story here at all, as Deadspin itself has now had to admit. Age of consent is 17 in New York and 16 in New Jersey.
—Mark Wilson won the Phoenix Open in a playoff on Monday over Jason Dufner. It is really unbelievable that this 36-year-old has already won twice this year and now has four PGA Tour titles in his career. There are a ton of golfers getting far more publicity these days who don’t even have one win yet. Wilson’s problem is he just doesn’t have that charisma thing going for him and there isn’t one fan going through the gates who is at an event to watch him. He’s clearly a good guy, but if he’s going to continue to play this well, we’ll need something more out of him.
At least he’s a big time Packers fan, being from Menomonee Falls, Wis.
–According to our friends at the Univ. of Florida’s International Shark Attack File, the annual report for 2010 shows there were 36 attacks in U.S. waters last year, easily the most in the world. Australia and South Africa were second and third with 14 and eight attacks respectively. Worldwide there were 79 attacks in 2010 vs. 63 in 2009.
Of course the ISAF is grossly misrepresenting the true carnage. Bar Chat can confirm there were over 455,000 attacks, with 143,678 fatalities vs. the ISAF’s stated six. New readers not familiar with our own scientific data need to understand the ISAF shills for the global tourism cartel, GTEC. If the truth was known, no tourist would ever get within 5 miles of the water, thus killing the industry and beachfront real estate.
–“California man killed by armed bird at cockfight”
“An incident in Central California last week was so bizarre that the headlines it generated wouldn’t be out of place in a supermarket tabloid next to tales of alien babies and Elvis sightings: ‘Man Killed by Rooster.’ More specifically, one of the feathered contestants in an illegal cockfight in Tulare County, armed with a blade attached to its leg, apparently stabbed 35-year-old Jose Luis Ochoa in the calf, and Ochoa was declared dead of ‘sharp force injury’ two hours later…
“Although the Humane Society of the United States has long pushed for stiffer penalties for cockfighting and dogfighting in the Golden State, Democratic leaders in the Legislature have placed a moratorium on bills that add new felonies to the penal code because they don’t want to worsen prison overcrowding….
“Cockfighting is appallingly inhumane and, as Ochoa’s case points out, sometimes dangerous for human participants. Ochoa had already been convicted of a misdemeanor for cockfighting, and it’s possible he died of his injuries because he delayed seeking treatment out of fear that he’d face felony charges for a second offense. Yet if he’d been charged with a felony the first time, it might have convinced him to find a different pastime.”
Or as Bob S. put it, this whole episode was “Darwinism at its best…like handing a live grenade to a monkey.”
“The claws are out among sexy models Irina Shayk, Anne Vyalitsyna, Julie Henderson, Christine Teigen and Brooklyn Decker – the front-runners battling tooth-and-nail for the cover of this year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, one of the most coveted jobs a model can land.
“ ‘The girls can get catty over it because everybody wants it. The cover makes you a household name. Any model who wants to make herself a brand knows this is what you need to do,’ said one insider.
“Sources said Russian beauty Shayk, girlfriend of soccer stud Cristiano Ronaldo, and Victoria’s Secret model Vyalitsyna – who models under the name ‘Anne V’ and is dating the editor of Bar Chat [how did this get in here?!] – are favorites for this year’s cover….
“S.I. keeps the cover under lock and key until Monday’s announcement.”
And a DVR alert…ten of the issue’s 17 models are booked for “Late Night with David Letterman” on Feb. 14, when they’ll read the Top 10 list and unveil the cover.
–Tom Brady’s wife, model Gisele Bundchen, appears to have the brain of a chipmunk. London’s Daily Telegraph reported that she called sunscreen “poison.”
Bundchen made this pronouncement as she launched her own skincare product lineup in Brazil. But quickly she was backtracking. “I definitely know the importance of using sunscreen and I try not to look for more natural options.”
I can just imagine the dinner table conversations Brady and Bundchen have. It was last year that Bundchen said there should be a law in the U.S. to make breastfeeding compulsory for the first six months of a child’s life.
“Some people here [in the U.S.] think they don’t have to breastfeed, and I think, ‘Are you going to give chemical food to your child when they are so little?’”
–Guess what I watched Tuesday night? “Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy” on the History Channel. It was O.K. The moonshine, stock car racing bit was good and makes me want to go to Dawsonville, Ga. But I can see the show wearing thin pretty quickly.
Top 3 songs for the week 2/7/76: #1 “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” (Paul Simon) #2 “Love To Love You Baby” (Donna Summer…easily her best…When you’re laying so close to me…there’s no place I’d rather be…than with you here…uh….uhh…) #3 “You Sexy Thing” (Hot Chocolate)…and…#4 “I Write The Songs” (Barry Manilow…and he sung ‘em, too!) #5 “Sing A Song” (Earth, Wind & Fire…they did far better) #6 “Love Rollercoaster” (Ohio Players…say what?….rollercoaster …hoo hooo hoooo hooooo…) #7 “Times Of Your Life” (Paul Anka…I’m getting choked up…The laughter and the tears…The shadows of misty yesteryears…The good times and the bad you’ve seen…And all the others in between…Remember…do you remember…The times of your life…sniff sniff… WAAAAA!…sorry, major flashback issues on my own life that is, err, kind of checkered, know what I’m sayin’?) #8 “Theme From S.W.A.T.”….(Rhythm Heritage…boy, this one hasn’t aged well…) #9 “Convoy” (C.W. McCall…We gonna roll this truckin’ convoy…cross the U.S.A…)#10 “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” (Neil Sedaka…dammit…getting all verklempt again… Remember when you held me tight…And you kissed me all through the night…Think of all that we’ve been through…Being a Mets fan sucks straight through…)
Men’s Olympic Downhill Quiz Answer: Bill Johnson, gold, Sarajevo, 1984; Tommy Moe, gold, Lillehammer, 1994; Bode Miller, bronze, Vancouver, 2010.
