Oakland Raiders Quiz: 1) Name the five rushers to gain 4,000 yards in a Raiders uniform. 2) Ken Stabler (150), Daryle Lamonica (148) and Rich Gannon (114) are top three in Oakland/L.A. history in TD passes. Jim Plunkett (80) and Marc Wilson (77) are Nos. 5 and 6. Who is No. 4 with 92? Answers below.
NFL Review
I’ll go through the chaotic playoff picture in the NFC next time…just some games of note.
Dallas moved to 8-6 with a dramatic 27-24 win over Pittsburgh (7-7) in overtime thanks to a spectacular defensive play by Brandon Carr who picked off a Ben Roethlisberger pass and ran it to the one-yard line to set up the winning field goal.
[As for Dallas’ Josh Brent being on the sidelines, I’m invoking my 24-hour rule because I don’t know enough about the dynamic involving Jerry Brown’s mother and her compassion and how that led to Brent being there despite the fact he was responsible for her son’s death.]
The Giants (8-6) lost to the Falcons (12-2) in Atlanta 34-0 as Eli Manning had another godawful game, 13/25, 161, 0-2, 40.7 rating, and obviously the Giants’ D didn’t show up either with Matt Ryan going a superb 23/28, 270, 3-0, 142.6! You just never know which Giants team will show up week to week.
The Redskins, behind backup rookie quarterback Kirk Cousins, defeated the Browns (5-9) 36-22 to go to 8-6 as Cousins, subbing for the injured Robert Griffin III, threw for 329 yards and two touchdowns in his first NFL start. No one is questioning why Washington chose two quarterbacks in the draft last spring these days.
So Dallas, Washington and the Giants are tied at 8-6 in the NFC East.
Adrian Peterson added another performance for the ages in this remarkable comeback season of his, rushing 24 times for 212 yards to lead the Vikings (8-6) to a critical 36-22 win over the Rams (6-7).
Peterson now has 1,812 yards on the season, or just two 150-yard games away from breaking Eric Dickerson’s NFL-record 2,105 yards for a single season. He also now has four, 200-yard rushing games in his career, two shy of O.J. Simpson’s record six.
If you thought at this point in the season that Peyton Manning would have 31 touchdown passes and just 10 interceptions, while leading the Broncos to an 11-3 record, well, then you’re a far more prescient fan of the sport than moi. Denver defeated the Ravens (9-5) 34-17.
Arian Foster rushed for 165 yards in leading the Texans (12-2) to a 29-17 win over the Colts (9-5).
Green Bay (10-4) defeated Chicago (8-6) 21-13.
Rookie Russell Wilson rushed for three touchdowns and threw for another as surprising Seattle moved its record to 9-5 with a 50-17 win over the hapless Bills (5-9) in Toronto.
Ball Bits
–The Los Angeles Angels were the winners in the Josh Hamilton sweepstakes, agreeing to a five-year, $125 million contract. Ain’t my money, sports fans, but no way would I be shelling out this kind of cash, and for that long, to a guy who has averaged just 123 games a year, hit just .259 in the second half last season, is 31 (which is the beginning of the downside for most major leaguers) and, of course, has a myriad of serious addiction issues, including recent relapses.
“Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno has a hot temper. He has little patience. He has an ego. He’s ultracompetitive.
“And, as we were abruptly reminded Thursday, the man has plenty of money….
“(The Angels) pulled off a devastating one-two punch with the stealth move. They not only prevented the Texas Rangers from bringing Hamilton back at a bargain-basement three- or four-year contract, but the Angels also let the Dodgers know there’s another team in Los Angeles. Well, Orange County. Specifically, Anaheim. But you get the point.
“If the Dodgers can spend a trillion dollars and get the entire Los Angeles market to fawn all over them, the Angels can spend a billion bucks and steal their thunder.”
Torii Hunter is one who was a little miffed. The outfielder spent the last five seasons with the Angels and wanted to stay in L.A. but was not even given a one-year, $13 million qualifying offer. Hunter was told the team didn’t have the money, so he signed with the Tigers.
“I understand it’s a business, but I wish they didn’t lie,” he said. “But when you can get a guy like Josh Hamilton and put him with Pujols – wow! (Hamilton) didn’t even put it all together last year, and he still had 128 RBI. That is just sick.”
Pujols and Trout, that is.
“The Dodgers can spend millions, but the Angels will spend flashier millions. The Dodgers can play hardball, but the Angels are going to play long ball. The Dodgers can steal Zack (Greinke), but the Angels are going to respond with Whack!….
“Yeah, life (with Hamilton) can get pretty messy. Absolutely, he needs to play in a place where his sobriety can be monitored and nurtured, a place where he can avoid the usual baseball pressures and just swing the kind of bat that once hit four home runs in one game in Baltimore and 28 home runs in one round of the home run derby at Yankee Stadium.
“Anaheim is exactly that place, and perhaps now is exactly that time.
“Hamilton will join an Angels’ culture in which the fans are most patient and encouraging, Angel Stadium being the sweet sort of a spot where a baseball game feels like a picnic. Hamilton will also join an Angels team not as their superstar, but as probably the fourth-most-hyped player behind Trout, Pujols and pitcher Jered Weaver. After the initial spotlight fades, he can flex those tattooed biceps in the coolness of the shadows, in the company of friends, far from the Texas heat and national glare.
“It could work. Cheers to Moreno for trying to make it work. If you don’t realize the Angels owner is about more than cheap beer, you’re drinking too much of it.”
For their part the Rangers are very torqued off. The first they heard of the deal was from Hamilton’s agent. GM Jon Daniels said, “I didn’t expect a chance to match it, but I did expect we’d talk before he made a decision.”
–The Tigers signed free agent pitcher Anibal Sanchez to a five-year, $80 million deal after Sanchez went 4-6 with a 3.74 ERA for Detroit after being acquired midseason from Miami.
No doubt, this is a mammoth contract for a guy who is only 48-51 in his career, but he’s been amazingly consistent the last few seasons, pitching to a 3.75 career ERA, and is just 28. This is the sports age we live in, for better or worse. Zack Greinke gets $147 million from the Dodgers (six years) after all.
–The Red Sox signed pitcher Ryan Dempster to a two-year, $26.5 million contract. Dempster went 12-8, 3.28 ERA last season and is 124-124, 4.33 for his career.
–The Yankees were hit with an $18.9 million luxury tax by Major League Baseball, the 10th consecutive year they will pay a penalty for exceeding the sport’s salary cap. Which is why you keep hearing how the team wants to get its payroll below $189 million by 2014, the cap level that season.
$178 million is the current threshold and the Yankees finished at $222.5 million, the only team to exceed the limit, upon which they pay 40 percent on the excess. [There’s a further adjustment for bonuses and cash in trades.]
2012 marked the 14h consecutive year the Yankees were the biggest spender in the game.
This year, though, the Dodgers should emerge the winner as they currently sit at $207.9 million, while the Yankees are at $182 million for 14 players, including the Ichiro deal. [Source: AP]
–Since moving to Citi Field in 2009, the New York Mets have finished fourth four consecutive seasons and attendance has dropped each year. So it’s time to raise ticket prices!
Yup, that’s what the Metropolitans are doing to their fans. Oh, sure, they’re offering discounts on season-ticket packages in return, but for what the Mets describe as marquee games, such as two home games with the Yankees, the cheapest single-game ticket is now $63, 75 percent more than last season.
But don’t worry…you can be sure lots of cheap seats will be available online for just about every game this coming season.
*Meanwhile, the Mets inch closer and closer to dealing Cy Young Award-winning hurler R.A. Dickey to Toronto. If the trade comes about as it’s being presented on Sunday night, I would be very excited, as much as I’d hate to see Dickey go.
–And what’s Ball Bits without mentioning A-Rod. It seems he owns an apartment complex, Newport Riverside, in Tampa, one of 14 he owns through a company he founded, and there are serious issues…specifically, rats. Like tons of them, but he refuses to do anything about it despite a slew of complaints by the tenants.
College Basketball
–Saturday afternoon I was doing some reading, purposefully keeping the television off, but following Indiana-Butler on the net, while doing the same with the Nevada-Arizona bowl game, and turned on both with about ten minutes of action left in their respective contests. What a terrific finish in the Butler game, an 88-86 upset in overtime of No. 1 Indiana. For an early season affair it just doesn’t get any better.
I mean this is not a heralded Butler team at all and out of nowhere, it was a 5-11 sophomore walk-on, Alex Barlow, a kid with a 0.8 career scoring average, with the game winner in the ultimate game for any kid playing hoops in Indiana. Barlow was really just in the game because three key players for the Bulldogs had fouled out.
–Unreal what has happened with the Big East over the past year or so and now the seven basketball only schools are bolting to form their own league, or join the Atlantic-10: Seton Hall, St. John’s, Villanova, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence and DePaul. It’s a great move on their part. As for the schools remaining for football, ask me if I care what happens to them.
Can the seven recruit Butler, which just joined the A-10 (though word is the seven only want Catholic schools)? Xavier? Some say, Creighton? Dayton? Even Gonzaga, as the Star-Ledger posits?
I like Johnny Mac’s idea from long ago to take the seven and add Fordham and St. Francis (N.Y.) to give it a real New York feel. Saint Joseph’s, too, would work.
But it seems the seven will look to add five schools and one list includes the above possibilities plus St. Louis, St. Mary’s and La Salle.
–Strange story at Rutgers as men’s basketball coach Mike Rice was suspended without pay for three games and fined $50,000 for inappropriate behavior that the athletic department said violated policy.
Following an internal investigation, athletic director Tim Pernetti said Rice had used abusive, profane language against his players and there were incidents in which Rice threw basketballs at some players’ heads during practice.
Rice issued a statement, saying in part, “I sincerely apologize to our players, both past and present…My commitment to becoming a better man and coach is only matched by my passion to make Rutgers basketball a great source of pride for the community.”
–I’ve written of the awful attendance at some Wake Forest hoops games this year, but as Greg Bishop of the New York Times points out, college basketball in general has a big problem and that is the early season, November and December, when college football and the NFL rule. Then in January, it’s about the NFL playoffs but at least college basketball begins to gain some traction with midweek games. And finally in February and March the sport can handle the remaining competition, namely the NBA.
That said; attendance at regular-season games has dropped considerably in recent years. Television ratings as well.
But the value of the regular season itself, as Bishop reminds us, is diminished when a team finishing fifth in a power conference can make a long run in the NCAA tournament.
I know the older I get (and this has little to do with how lousy Wake Forest has been recently), the tougher I find it to get into college basketball until February (while my love of college football and the NFL is undiminished from Week One on…ditto baseball, come to think of it). And to put numbers on things, one in every five Division I men’s programs have seen attendance drop by at least 20 percent over the past four seasons.
“So how to fix the regular season, then? The most posited theory is to move the beginning of the season after Thanksgiving or even later, to make basketball more of a one-semester sport.” Shifting the calendar would theoretically draw more casual fans. “Duke could still play North Carolina after the Super Bowl, but that game, among the biggest draws in college basketball, would occur earlier in the theoretical season.
“The approach is not without its limitations. The NCAA tournament would be pushed deeper into April and up against The Masters golf tournament. The NFL and college football’s bowl season would still draw TV viewers and sponsor dollars. Long-term television contracts would need to be amended.”
CBS, for one, would not be happy. They have it made with that final weekend of the NCAA tournament, followed days later by The Masters…a tradition unlike any other….only on CBS…or did I already say that?
College Football
–Meanwhile, in the Arizona-Nevada Billy the Kid Bowl, the Wildcats were down 45-28 after three but rallied with two touchdowns in the final 46 seconds (including recovering an onside kick in the process). The game featured the nation’s top two rushers and they didn’t disappoint. Nevada’s Stefphon Jefferson had 34 carries for 180 and Arizona’s Ka’Deem Carey had 172 yards on 28 carries. I’d comment on Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson coming up with the spelling of their son’s name, but it’s Christmas and all.
[Utah State defeated Toledo 41-15 in the Idaho Creamed Spinach Bowl in Boise.]
—Mount Union, after a three-year absence, is back atop Division III as they defeated St. Thomas of Minnesota 28-10 in the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl. For coach Larry Kehres it was his 11th national title in 16 appearances in the Stagg Bowl, all in the past 20 years. He’s 332-24-3 in 27 seasons. You’re reading that right.
Wisconsin-Whitewater had defeated Mount Union in each of the last three D-III title games.
–Diane Pucin of the Los Angeles Times had a story on the ‘swag’ that participants in college bowl games can take home. The NCAA allows each of the 35 bowls the chance to offer players up to $550 in gifts. Some have a gift suite with numbered gifts that add up to $550 and you can just pick what you like.
Others, like the Sun Bowl, offer specific swag; in their case a coin, a Timely watch, a Majestic fleece, a Top of the World cap and a Helen of Troy hair dryer.
The Holiday Bowl offers players a Best Buy gift card, a Tourneau watch, a gift certificate from Maui Jim sunglasses and a bowl cap.
I’d go with the Holiday Bowl, frankly; not having used a hair dryer in about 30 years.
—Tom Watson was selected as captain of the 2014 U.S. Ryder Cup team, which will be played in Gleneagles, Scotland. PGA of America president Ted Bishop said he was influenced by the late Jim Huber’s book “Four Days in July,” on Watson’s near miss at the Open Championship at Turnberry in 2009.
In going with Watson, Bishop is breaking the mold of picking past PGA champions, with most expecting David Toms to get the nod. Watson is the first to repeat as American captain, having guided the 1993 team to a 15-13 win at The Belfry, the last time the U.S. team won on foreign soil.
One thing Watson will look at is the selection criteria and whether having four captain’s picks is too many. The Europeans team only had two. Go with two, Tom.
–Interesting piece in Golfweek. Out of nowhere, through September, there has been a 7.4% surge in rounds played in this country compared with the first nine months of 2011. No doubt, last year’s mild winter was a big factor, but still, this is encouraging. Less-expensive green fees and pent-up demand helped as well.
–Very quietly, work has begun on the Old Course at St. Andrews. No one knew it was coming and it’s stirred up a bit of controversy. Why change it? Peter Dawson, chief executive of the R&A, said, “The Championship Committee felt there was an opportunity to stiffen its defenses in some places to ensure it remains as challenging as ever to the professionals.”
Changes to holes No. 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 15, and 17 are occurring over the next two winters. For example on No. 17, the Road Hole, the greenside bunker is being widened on the right side and a small part of the front of the green being recontoured to be more receptive to approaches.
The man in charge of the work is British designer Martin Hawtree, who did Trump’s course in Scotland.
“The changes will no doubt work. In the case of the second, fourth and ninth holes, new hole locations will likely produce a few more pars than birdies and ‘stiffen the defenses’ as Dawson hopes. But they will also make the most interesting, undefined course in the world less interesting and more defined. The changes rearrange many ground features created by some force of nature that no man has managed to replicate in the tens of thousands of courses built since.”
—World Cup ski bits: American Steven Nyman won the World Cup downhill in Val Gardena, Italy, his first win since 2006 when he won the same race. We’re talking the guy wasn’t even ranked in the top 30 but he took advantage of a course shortened by heavy snow. In fact, Nyman, wearing No. 39 bib, had the highest start number for a winner since Fritz Stribl wore No. 43 in a downhill in 1996.
Lindsey Vonn admitted she is dealing with depression, telling People magazine that it runs in her family. Her recent failed marriage and unrelated hospitalization hasn’t helped. And then this weekend she skied out at Val D’isere, France, and will now “think hard over the next few days about my plan for the coming weeks and how to get strong again. Trying to stay positive,” Vonn said afterward.
Back to the men, on Sunday, American Ted Ligety continued his total domination in the Giant Slalom with a big win at Alta Badia, Italy; his third win of the season by over two seconds, which is staggering.
–Famed French mountaineer Maurice Herzog died. He was 93. In 1950, he was the first to climb an 8,000-meter Himalayan peak, Annapurna (26,545-feet), despite losing all his fingers and toes to frostbite. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay scaled Mount Everest in 1953, thus taking away from Herzog’s feat, but Annapurna wasn’t scaled again for 20 years and is regarded as more dangerous. [In fact, as of 2009 it had a 40 percent fatality rate.]
Herzog’s book, “Annapurna: The First Conquest of an 8,000-Meter Peak,” has sold millions and was once noted by Sports Illustrated as being among the top 100 sports books of all time.
Herzog was beloved in France, decorated with the Grand Cross in France’s Legion of Honor, and was involved in the French resistance during World War II.
–From Reuters: “A volleyball match between host Levski Sofia of Bulgaria and Olympiakos of Greece was abandoned after home fans threw flares and other objects onto the court. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’ the Olympiakos spiker Boyan Yordanov said. ‘They threw beer cans and even a bottle of vodka at us.’
–This is depressing. The World Wildlife Fund reports that elephant and rhino poaching hit record levels last year and an increase in illegal tiger hunting makes the species’ extinction a serious near-term threat. 2,500 elephants and 448 rhinos were killed in southern Africa alone. There has been no let-up in the killing this year.
–So I’m reading my January/February issue of Sierra magazine and Matt Heid, expert backpacker, says the following about how to treat an encounter with a moose.
“If a moose approaches you, it’s generally trying to drive you off because it sees you as a threat. In most situations, retreat immediately.”
“They say the animals had to be taken out into the bitter cold after the wooden trailer they were traveling in caught fire in the Novosibirsk region.
“The elephants, aged 45 and 48, suffered frostbite to the tips of their ears amid temperatures of -40F.
“But they were warmed up by two cases of vodka mixed with warm water, one official was quoted as saying.
“ ‘They started roaring like if they were in the jungle! Perhaps they were happy,’ the official said.”
–Yet another movie is coming out this week that I vow to see (and of course I haven’t had the time to see all the others I wanted to check out…so I’ll wait for the video), that being David Chase’s “Not Fade Away,” the story of a northern New Jersey Sixties garage band. Little Steven is a producer and musical adviser, while James Gandolfini plays a key figure.
–I did the Rolling Stones pay-per-view on Saturday night and enjoyed it.
Top 3 songs for the week 12/20/80: #1 “Lady” (Kenny Rogers…had original face back then) #2 “More Than I Can Say” (Leo Sayer…just awful…) #3 “(Just Like) Starting Over” (John Lennon…really not a great tune, but Lennon was assassinated on Dec. 8 and this one would go on to be #1 for four week…)…and…#4 “Love On The Rocks” (Neil Diamond…tell me about it…) #5 “Master Blaster (Jammin’)” (Stevie Wonder…this one blows…) #6 “Hungry Heart” (Bruce Springsteen…saves the week…) #7 “Another One Bites The Dust” (Queen… eh) #8 “Guilty” (Barbra Streisand & Barry Gibb… whatever…) #9 “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” (Pat Benatar…I want to go back to the 60s…) #10 “Every Woman In The World” (Air Supply…music was dreadful during this time…and just going to get worse as the decade progressed…)
Oakland Raiders Quiz Answers: 1) Top five rushers. Marcus Allen, 8545 (1982-92); Mark van Eeghen, 5907 (1974-81); Clem Daniels, 5103 (1961-67); Napoleon Kaufman, 4792 (1995-2000); Marv Hubbard, 4394 (1969-75). Go back and look at Hubbard’s career. The guy was outstanding. I miss Marv Hubbard! [Sorry, a little nostalgia seeped in amidst the holiday season.] 2) Tom Flores, 92 TD passes, 1960-66. And then he later coached the Raiders to two Super Bowl triumphs.
Pray for Newtown, Connecticut…the victims, the survivors, their families and the first responders.
