NFL Quiz: ESPN The Magazine examined the 2,046 players on NFL rosters or on the IR at the end of the 2010 season. 1) Name the top ten states in terms of birthplace. 2) Name the top three NCAA conferences in terms of representation. Answers below.
Nothing But Stuff
–Boy, this isn’t good. The FBI is investigating a point-shaving scandal at the University of San Diego (not to be confused with San Diego State). Brandon Johnson, the team’s all-time leader in points and assists (2005-2010), along with another former player both there and at Cal-Riverside, as well as a former assistant coach at San Diego, were indicted on attempting to fix games, including a February 2010 contest where it is alleged Johnson, now in the USD (development league for NBA) took a bribe to influence the outcome. Plus he supposedly was involved in an effort to fix a USD game. It isn’t known who the Feb. 2010 opponent was as yet.
Johnson was a legitimate star and led San Diego to the biggest win in their history, a 2008 upset of UConn in the first round of the tourney. But the program has struggled since and was just 6-24 last year.
The arrests stemmed from a marijuana distribution ring and sports betting operation. Evidently, the NCAA also has people in Las Vegas who notify them of any unusual betting patters.
—Rory McIlroy’s parents did a great job with him. Since the end of the Masters there have been a number of commentaries on how well Rory handled his Sunday meltdown. It turns out he even had to fly to Malaysia for a tournament afterwards with winner Charl Schwartzel and there’s a great picture of the two, arm in arm on the plane. Rory tweeted, “Flying to Malaysia with Charl! Glad one of us has a green jacket on!”
Rory also joked that he had received some tweets to the effect they didn’t know there were houses at Augusta until his tee shot at No. 10 ended up among them. Heck, I had the same thought, too. Houses? At Augusta?
So no doubt Rory has won over even more fans…similar to the way in which Dustin Johnson handled his defeats last year in picking up more support as a result.
As for Tiger…
“You can condone his self-destructive off-the-course behavior as none of anyone’s business or be disgusted by it.
“You can forgive him for his sins or refuse to do so.
“You can believe Woods is the better person he vowed to become or come to the conclusion that he hasn’t changed a damn bit.
“Regardless of what you think of Woods, this much you cannot deny if you are of clear mind: The game of golf desperately needs him in contention and winning tournaments again.
“The final round of the Masters on Sunday at Augusta provided the most tangible evidence of all.
“While Woods was making a stirring front-nine charge into contention, the buzz around the place was palpable. CBS’ final-round TV ratings, though lower than last year’s, when Woods made his return to golf after his sex scandal, were the second highest in a decade.
“You needed to be there to feel the electricity and listen to the roars that reverberated around the grounds…The spectators were breathless, giving Woods standing ovations at every green.
“Had it been Woods, not winner Charl Schwartzel, who birdied the last four holes to win, the victory would already have been given some sort of ‘win for the ages’ title and been deemed ‘an instant classic.’
“Like him or not, the people want to see Woods play awe-inspiring golf again….
“If this Masters was any indication, Woods appears to be 12/14ths of the way back. The only things missing from his bag at the moment are his putter – and the club that carries class and humility.
“He also was visibly rude to CBS’ Bill Macatee in his post-round interview Sunday, ignoring Macatee’s questions and delivering terse, one-word answers. You cannot win over the public by treating people like that.
“Yes, Woods was moments removed from the heat of the competition when approached by Macatee and, yes, he was disappointed about his back-nine performance….
“But his behavior on that TV interview was inexcusable, particularly for a man who begged the world for forgiveness and pledged to become a better person only a year ago….
“He could have taken a cue from 21-year-old Rory McIlroy, who used his Twitter account to deliver this message after shooting 80 and blowing a four-shot final-round lead: ‘Oh and congratulations charl schwartzel!! Great player and even better guy! Very happy for him and his family!’
“Rude or not, changed or not, the game needs Woods to consistently contend in majors again. The buzz Woods created around Augusta on Sunday is like a drug and the sport can’t get enough of it.”
[Ed. note: Woods treated Macatee the same rude way on Saturday, as well. But it also just needs to be said that Macatee, for all his experience in the sport, could not have come up with dumber questions.]
“The best young player anyone has seen in a long time came apart on the back nine of Augusta, but the way he pulled himself together when it was over was one of the more promising things he has done in his short career.
“McIlroy is only 21, so it’s hard to predict how many major championships he has ahead of him. But we all know this much: When we hear a lot of talk from a guy who just lost big about how unfair life is and how he could never get a break, we can be pretty sure he won’t win the next one, either. The real champions don’t complain they got sand kicked in their face. They man up, admit a weakness – and join Charles Atlas.
“ ‘I’ll get over it,’ McIlroy said. ‘I led this golf tournament for 63 holes. Hopefully it will build a little character in me as well.’
“McIlroy came off the course a wreck, his shirttail untucked and his young pudding face flushed and damp from the heat and embarrassment of shooting 80….He might have been pardoned for marching straight to the parking lot and refusing to take questions, or for whining about that ungodly bad ricochet off a tree on the 10th that landed his ball in the uncharted residential landscaping of the cabin area, leading to a triple bogey.
“Instead he wiped his face and answered every question put to him, and had a very candid talk with himself along the way. ‘I totally unraveled,’ he said. After listening to him, you wanted to seize the nearest child prodigy with a behavior issue by the collar and say: ‘Listen up. That’s what a future champion sounds like.’”
–Further fallout on Manny Ramirez’ decision to retire from baseball after being informed he failed another drug test.
“Those who contend that Manny Ramirez isn’t smart completely miss the point. In his own way, he was a genius.
“How else does a high school dropout who was a two-tool baseball player walk away – slink away? – from a game with nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in career earnings?
“Ramirez wound up making more money playing baseball than everybody but Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter even though, unlike those two, he didn’t have anything close to an all-around game. Ramirez was a great hitter, fueled by terrific natural talent, hard work, and, yes, a paucity of ethics.
“He is the only player to have failed three drug tests. He consistently quit on teams. And while he worked hard, it was only on his terms.
“ ‘Everyone always said what a hard worker Manny is. That is true, but only on his hitting,’ one former coach of Ramirez’ said. ‘Do you think he worked on his defense? No. His baserunning? No. He didn’t work on anything but hitting.’
“Everything Ramirez did seemed to be with an eye only on himself and his bottom line. He stopped playing hard in Boston because the Red Sox held the options on his contract, never mind that they were for a whopping $20 million. He quit on the Dodgers last season. And ultimately, he quit on the Rays, who heard about his sudden retirement after he failed a drug test. Ramirez had a warped set of values. He embodied selfishness. Manny-being-Manny took on a more and more nefarious connotation as his career drew on….
“One thing is certain: He isn’t going to the Hall of Fame now….Ramirez is so connected to PEDs that anyone who votes for Ramirez would have to be considered an endorser of drug use.”
“He should have lifted off in a spaceship. That was the way Manny Ramirez was supposed to leave baseball: with a two-armed wave, an inexplicable smile and a slow walk up the ramp to return to his home planet, where every day was the last day of school, money was made out of ice cream and no one ever ran all the way to first base.
“Instead, he vanishes – a serious ending to an unserious man….
“Not long ago, Ramirez was The Player Baseball Wanted to Hate, But Couldn’t. Despite maddening aloofness – half-efforts on the basepaths, recurring trade demands, a comical history of my-dog-ate-my-sick-relative excuses – he floated above the fury. He was coddled, forgiven, enabled. When he disappeared into an outfield wall in the middle of an inning, it was mythologized as a classic office prank. How could you rage against that face? It was not a villain’s face….
“How much of Ramirez’ career can be tossed aside? Some of it? All? A Hall of Fame case, once easy to make, feels like a waste of time. Sports will forgive its wayward eccentrics – look at Dennis Rodman’s act, en route to the Basketball Hall of Fame – but performance-enhancing drugs have become a great unforgivable.
“Now a true baseball original is reduced to a sad, familiar story. Manny Ramirez belonged in another galaxy, but he found his way to earth.”
–April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, 27, becomes the first human in space when he reaches an altitude of 187 miles and orbits the earth in a 108-minute flight aboard Vostok 1. The ship’s return is controlled from the ground – to avoid any effects of weightlessness on Gagarin – and he ejects in a parachute, landing on solid ground. “The sky is very dark; the earth is bluish,” he reported.
“He blasted off in what was then the mightiest rocket ever built, and floated to Earth less than two hours later in an orange suit beneath a silk parachute.
“Fifty years ago, Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space in a feat of engineering that still unites Russians in admiration for the man and the scientists who hurled him into orbit….
“Tapes that have been newly released reveal him joking about salami with the coarse-tongued ‘Chief Designer’ minutes before the launch.
“ ‘There in the flap you have dinner, supper and breakfast,’ Sergei Korolyov, the secretive mastermind of the Soviet space program, told Gagarin by radio, ‘You’ve got sausage, sweets and jam to go with the tea.’
“ ‘The main thing is there’s sausage to go with the moonshine,’ Gagarin replied.
“ ‘Damn, this thing is recording everything, the bastard,’ Korolyov said.”
Gagarin’s flight began with a single word. “Poyekhali” (“Off we go”). Shortly before bailing out in the chaotic reentry, he said calmly: “Everything’s going normally, everything’s fine.”
Gagarin came home a hero and traveled widely. He later retrained as a fighter pilot but died in a crash seven years later. Some said the KGB wanted him dead because of his supposed anti-Soviet opinions, but recently released documents said the crash was a result of bad weather.
“Fifty years ago…Yuri Gagarin flew into space not knowing if, like many of his canine predecessors, he, too, would die in orbit. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said later, ‘if I was the first man in space or the last dog.’ Unlike Laika, the stray sent up on Sputnik 2, Gagarin not only made it back but returned the most famous man on Earth, too precious to Soviet prestige to be allowed to risk space flight again….
“That his name remains one of the most recognizable on the planet reflects not only Gagarin’s status as the world’s first cosmonaut: it reflects, too, the part he played in changing the complexion of the Cold War and in triggering what would become a fevered race to the Moon against the U.S….
“Liked by all, always polite, Gagarin remained humble long after he had little to be humble about….He might have been surprised that, 50 years on, manned space exploration has all but stopped.”
I’ve been to Gagarin’s grave in Moscow and was moved. He is a true hero for all of mankind.
–As expected, Kemba Walker is passing up his senior year at UConn to head to the NBA draft. Walker will be a star, no doubt. UConn coach Jim Calhoun said, “He’s ready to move on…both emotionally and physically. He just completed the finest basketball season in the history of this university.”
Meanwhile, Butler’s Shelvin Mack said he would come out, but, he has not hired an agent and could withdraw his name from draft consideration, depending on what he hears as to where he would go if he came out now instead of waiting another year.
Shelvin Mack, Derrick Williams (Arizona), Jeremy Lamb (UConn…but he needs another year in school), Josh Harrelson (Kentucky).
Josh Selby (Kansas), Nolan Smith (Duke), Keith Benson (Oakland), Scotty Hopson (Tennessee).
–Despite the NFL lockout, the draft goes on. Sporting News has the following at a few key positions.
1. Blaine Gabbert (Missouri)
2. Cam Newton (Auburn)
3. Jack Locker (Washington)
4. Ryan Mallett (Arkansas)
5. Christian Ponder (Florida State)
6. Andy Dalton (TCU)
7. Colin Kaepernick (Nevada…intriguing pick)
8. Greg McElroy (Alabama)
9. Ricky Stanzi (Iowa)
10. Pat Devlin (Delaware)
1. Mark Ingram (Alabama…guy will be awesome)
2. Mikel Leshoure (Illinois)
3. Ryan Williams (Virginia Tech)
4. Daniel Thomas (Kansas State)
5. Jacquizz Rodgers (Oregon State…he’ll be a star; pride of Beaver Nation)
1. A.J. Green (Georgia)
2. Julio Jones (Alabama)
3. Leonard Hankerson (Miami)
8. Jonathan Baldwin (Pitt…will be a star)
“Uncle Mo is healthy despite his lackluster third-place finish in the Wood Memorial on Saturday. The colt’s owner and trainer are still mystified about why he suffered his first defeat in his final prep race before the Kentucky Derby.”
Uncle Mo had a full medical checkup. Maybe he ate some bad sushi or somethin’. Owner Mike Repole is convinced his horse will be back. Here at Bar Chat, having already wagered over $6 million on the pony, we have no choice but to stay the course.
–Billionaire hedge-fund manager Steve Cohen is among those contemplating taking a stake in the New York Mets. I don’t want the guy. Then again, the Mets are giving me zero reason to really give a darn about anything Mets-related these days.
–Texas Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton will miss up to two months with a broken arm when he slid headfirst into home plate, a play he called “stupid.” In the heat of the moment, and disappointment, Hamilton blamed the third base coach for sending him on a foul pop where home plate seemed to be unattended….but after the third baseman caught it he tossed it to the catcher who got back in time to tag Hamilton.
“It was a stupid play. The whole time the ball was in the air, the coach was yelling, ‘Go, there’s no one at home,’ and I was thinking, ‘I don’t want to do this, something is going to happen.’ But I listened to my coach (third-base coach Dave Anderson). It was way too aggressive.”
Rangers’ general manager Jon Daniels defended the decision. I’m disappointed in how Hamilton acted in the matter.
–Former college football coach Homer Smith died. He was head coach at Army, among other places, but earned plaudits as one of the better offensive minds while an assistant at UCLA under Pepper Rodgers and Terry Donahue and then Alabama’s Gene Stallings.
Smith was a taskmaster. Former quarterback Tom Ramsey said of him, “Homer Smith demanded you soak up knowledge. You not only had to know what 11 guys were doing on the field, you had to know what all 22 guys were doing. If you didn’t you weren’t going to be on the roster.” Smith was 79.
–I see in the Wall Street Journal that “Car 54: Where Are You?” is about to become available on DVD for the first time…the two seasons and all 30 episodes. I will definitely pick this one up. Bruce Bennett of the Journal notes that William Faulkner, who “hated television…would go every week to a friend’s house to watch the show” in his last year of life.
The show ran between 1961 and 1963 but despite its popularity and three Prime Time Emmy nominations, it didn’t get a third season.
“Car 54” was created by Nat Hiken (1914-68) on the heels of his popular series “The Phil Silvers Show,” and he co-penned the theme song: “Car 54, where aaaaare yooooou.” Actor Fred Gwynn (1926-93) and comedian Joe E. Ross (1914-82) were cast as officers Frances Muldoon and Gunther Toody. But Al Lewis as Sgt. Leo Schnauzer played a key role and there were guest stars such as Jake LaMotta. The show was filmed in the Tremont Avenue neighborhood of the Bronx which housed Gold Medal Studios, later destroyed by the building of the Cross Bronx Expressway.
Top 3 songs for the week 4/11/70: #1 “Let It Be” (The Beatles) #2 “ABC” (The Jackson 5) #3 “Instant Karma (We All Shine On)” (John Ono Lennon….that was the name then)…and…#4 Spirit In The Sky” (Norman Greenbaum…gets way too much airplay on oldies stations) #5 “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (Simon & Garfunkel) #6 “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)” (Edison Lighthouse…She ain’t got no money…Her clothes are kinda funny…Her hair is kinda wild and free…Oh, but love grows where my Rosemary goes…And nobody knows like me…Sounds like an interesting girl, that Rosemary, though we would have hung out in different circles…just sayin’) #7 “House Of The Rising Sun” (Frijid Pink…forgot this version) #8 “Come And Get It” (Badfinger) #9 “Easy Come, Easy Go” (Bobby Sherman…I’m serious…this song has aged pretty well…funny YouTube video, though…he wasn’t the best lip syncher) #10 “The Rapper” (The Jaggerz)
NFL Quiz Answer: 1) Top ten states in terms of birthplace for the 2,046 players on an NFL roster at the end of the 2010 season.
California…251
Texas…211
Florida…184
Ohio…100
Louisiana…91
Georgia…88
New Jersey…65
Pennsylvania…65
New York…64
Michigan…60
Illinois….55
Virginia…54
South Carolina…54
North Carolina…53
Alabama…52
SEC…308
ACC…278
Big Ten…256
Big 12…221
Pac-10…215
Big East…115
Miami…45
LSU…44
Ohio State…42
Texas…42
