[Posted early Sunday evening, before Tiger has finished up at Torrey Pines…for the record.]
Golf Quiz (pressed for time): Next to Tiger Woods, who has more seconds in a PGA Tour event for anyone currently in their 30s? Answer below.
College Basketball Review
First some of the Wednesday-Thursday games since the last chat…
No. 25 Miami destroyed No. 1 Duke 90-63, the third-worst defeat ever for a No. 1 team. The last time Duke lost a regular-season game by a bigger margin was in January 1984. For Miami it was their first win ever over a No. 1. At one point the Hurricanes were down 14-13, but then went on a 25-1 run. Tyler Thornton, Quinn Cook and Seth Curry combined to shoot 1-for-29 from the field for the Blue Devils. Miami, on the other hand, shot 57% from the field.
“This is the poorest performance I have witnessed from a Duke team in all my years sitting courtside,” adding later, “Warm up the bus, this game is over…(The Blue Devils) have no one to blame but themselves.”
There are times Vitale is good…when he stops shilling for his coaching friends and speaks from the heart. The guy does have more experience and knowledge than anyone else in his position.
I mean I like his take on the stupid rushing of the court for an otherwise ordinary win. Yes, it has become way too commonplace and, yes, someone is going to get seriously injured, or die under a crush of bodies.
No. 9 Butler was upset by La Salle 54-53.
No. 12 Minnesota lost to Northwestern 55-48.
Drake pulled off a stunner in defeating No. 17 Creighton 74-69.
No. 3 Syracuse lost to Villanova (which had defeated No. 5 Louisville earlier in the week) 75-71 in OT.
No. 5 Louisville lost to Georgetown 53-51, the third straight loss for the Cardinals.
No. 11 Kansas State lost to Iowa State 73-67.
No. 12 Minnesota lost again, this time to Wisconsin 45-44.
And my San Diego State Aztecs continued their rebound, knocking off No. 15 New Mexico at home, 55-34, holding Sheriff Lobo and Co. to 25% shooting from the field, even as Aztec star Jamaal Franklin was only 4-of-16 from the field himself.
No. 1 Duke (not next poll) rebounded against Maryland 84-64, while Butler rebounded against Temple 83-71.
But No. 19 VCU lost to La Salle at home 69-61, capping a great week for the Explorers.
I also watched Jacksonville State defeat Murray State for the first time in 17 tries, 65-64, a very bad loss for the Racers who clearly must now win their conference tournament to get into the NCAAs, where, if they could sneak in, they could make some noise.
And not for nothing, but No. 16 Oregon is 18-2, 7-0. We know what the Ducks and their outstanding cheerleaders can do in football…but basketball?! They should move up another 2 or 3 slots this week.
Here I praise them to no end following our upset of North Carolina State last week and the Deaconwear was back out.
Then on Saturday we go down to Georgia Tech to play the winless in ACC play Yellow Jackets. Well, I’ll let the Winston-Salem Journal’s Dan Collins pick up the disaster. [Fellow alum Phil W. passed this on as I was quaffing a beer Saturday night and I almost spit it up all over the keyboard.]
“Wake Forest should have saved and packed some of that toilet paper they used to roll the quad Tuesday in celebration of the 86-84 victory over N.C. State.
“The Deacons could have used it to help clean up the mess they made the next time out, today’s 82-62 debacle to cellar-dwelling Georgia Tech…
“Senior C.J. Harris said the deal had pretty much gone down by the time the Yellow Jackets scored the game’s first 16 points.”
I’ll say. Wake was down 37-7! Coach Jeff Bzdelik is now 1-19 in ACC road play.
Yup, a massive step back for the Deacs. I disgustedly threw the Deaconwear back into the “losers’ sports drawer.”
Then again, did you see the Eastern Michigan-Northern Illinois contest on Saturday? It was a classic MAC football score, only Eastern would have upset NIU 42-25. And this was basketball. Division I college basketball, so they say.
NIU scored four points in the first half. They shot 8-of-61 from the field for the game, 13%. 1-of-33 from downtown.
How bad was it? The Huskies broke the record for lowest field goal percentage in a half of the shot clock era (3.2 percent) and lowest field goal percentage in a game (13.1). In that first half they were 1-of-31. They actually scored in the opening minute for a 2-0 lead and followed that with 29 straight misses.
Miami of Ohio held the previous record for lowest field goal percentage for a game in the modern era, 13.3 percent.
–Johnny Mac and I were exchanging notes Saturday night as we were watching various college basketball games, alerting each other….whether it was Temple-Butler, San Diego State-New Mexico, VCU-LaSalle….
But I was trying to remember if it was local Channel 9 or Channel 11 that broadcast the old Niagara-St. Bonaventure games of our youth in the New York area, which were great fun…Manhattan-Fordham was another…and then I’m watching Dick Vitale do the North Carolina-North Carolina State game and the great Wolfpacker David Thompson was in the audience so Vitale gave his top five college players all time… emphasis on college career. For example (this is me), Randolph Childress of Wake Forest was as good a college player as I’ve ever seen, but obviously didn’t cut it in the pros. Rick Mount of Purdue just popped into my head as well. Spectacular college player, not much in the ABA.
Anyway, Vitale’s all-time top five are Thompson, Lew Alcindor, Larry Bird, Oscar Robertson, and Jerry West.
Can’t argue with that list. He then mentioned Maravich, deservedly so, and then a name I loved to see included in this group…Calvin Murphy.
Boy, there was a great, great college player…and a pretty fair NBA one, too.
But I just looked Murphy up on basketball-reference.com and did you know he averaged 48 a game as a freshman?! [When freshmen were ineligible for the varsity.] He then averaged 38 per game as a sophomore. As Ronald Reagan no doubt said back then…not bad, not bad at all.
One other name I was hoping Vitale would mention (but he limited it to the seven), speaking of Niagara-St. Bonaventure, would of course have been Bob Lanier. In his three years of college ball, he averaged 27.6 points and 15.7 rebounds. As Nancy Reagan, subbing for her husband, said….
Back to the conversation with J. Mac, it devolved into talk about “Babes in Toyland” (or “March of the Wooden Soldiers” as it was also known) and the creepy three little pigs, when Johnny pointed out that it was a very prescient flick. You had same-sex marriage (and Stan Laurel cross-dressing), plus mortgage and foreclosure crises, as well as waterboarding (Ollie being dunked in the pond).
Ray Lewis…the other side
Some of us have been wondering if Ray Lewis’ past would be publicized much in light of the story surrounding his retirement and dramatic run to the Super Bowl for the Baltimore Ravens.
Well, the stories have indeed come out. The stories of that January night in 2000. To wit:
“She disappears into a back room to find her hat and gloves. Nearly 13 years have passed since someone killed Priscilla Lollar’s oldest child, and in that time, she says, she has never visited his grave.
“She has thought about what that moment would be like, and deep down she knows it is something she needs to do. But she’s afraid that pain would soon follow, and so instead, Priscilla has chosen for years to feel nothing.
“Early on Jan. 31, 2000, Richard Lollar and a childhood friend, Jacinth Baker, were stabbed to death in Atlanta. This much is fact. What’s unknown is who killed them, although the Lollar family still believes Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, who’s expected to end his Hall of Fame career at the Super Bowl on Feb. 3, was involved.”
Back then, the 24-year-old Lewis was a rising star when he attended the Super Bowl festivities in Atlanta. In the hours after the St. Louis Rams won the Vince Lombardi Trophy, Lewis’ path crossed with Lollar and Baker’s.
“By the next morning, two young men lay dead; three others, including Lewis, would be charged with murdering them. Traces of Baker’s blood were discovered inside Lewis’ stretch limousine, and the white suit he had been wearing that night was never found.
“ ‘I’m not trying to end my career like this,’ Lewis said that night, according to one witness’ testimony.
“Four months after the killings, murder charges against Lewis were dropped; he pleaded guilty to a much lesser charge, one count of misdemeanor obstruction of justice, and his two acquaintances were later acquitted. Still, Lewis paid millions in 2004 to settle civil suits filed by Lollar’s fiancée and Baker’s grandmother.”
Lewis told Sports Illustrated in 2006, “I got two families hating me for something I didn’t have a hand in, and the people who killed their children are free.”
“Thirteen years since his acquittal on murder charges, Reginald Oakley still doesn’t want to say who stabbed two men to death on Jan. 31, 2000.
“Was Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis involved in the murders?
“ ‘I can’t answer that,’ Oakley told USA TODAY Sports.
“Did Oakley kill anybody and get away with it at trial?
Oakley is preparing a book on the case to be released this summer called “Memories of Murder.” “In the book, he said he will provide those answers and his own eyewitness account of the crime scene that morning outside a nightclub in Atlanta.”
Oakley admits the three of them were there but says they were confronted by the two victims.
Lewis and the two exchanged words, “and it just went from there,” Oakley said.
So, like, Mr. Oakley, then these guys just ended up stabbed to death but the three of you had nothing to do with it?
“Lewis admitted to lying to police in the case, which led to his misdemeanor guilty plea. In his testimony, he also admitted to going to a sporting goods store the day before with Oakley and Sweeting, who purchased knives there. Blood from one of the victims was found in Lewis’ limousine after they had fled the crime scene. The white suit Lewis was wearing that night never was found.
“FBI agent Peter McFarland said at a pre-trial hearing that he found stains on Lewis’ pillow and bathrobe at his hotel room afterward, stains he believed to be blood. At trial, Lewis testified the blood on his pillow stemmed from a football injury, and that he didn’t know how blood got on the robe.”
Maureen Callahan has another damning Lewis story in Sunday’s New York Post…more of the same. Except she adds there were like four big fights at the end of the night at the club.
A-Roid and the Boys
–From the New York Daily News’ I-Team of Teri Thompson, Michael O’Keeffe and Christian Red:
“The Drug Enforcement Administration and Major League Baseball are investigating a Miami-area man named Anthony Bosch – who has worked closely with Alex Rodriguez – for Bosch’s possible links to performance-enhancing drugs, sources have told the Daily News….
“Bosch, a well-known figure among current and former Latin ballplayers in South Florida, has advised the embattled Yankee superstar on nutrition, dietary supplements and training, a source familiar with Miami-area anti-aging centers told The News.
“The source said Rodriguez and Bosch consulted with at least one other expert about blood test results. Bosch, records show, has been affiliated with a number of Miami-area medical companies and clinics.”
Bosch and his father, physician Pedro Publio Bosch, have previously been linked to Manny Ramirez and the father and son have worked extensively with Latin-American ballplayers.
“According to sources familiar with the Miami investigation, MLB is concerned about a widespread ring of suppliers of synthetic testosterone, human growth hormone and other drugs to players who have sought to circumvent MLB’s collective drug-testing program through difficult-to-detect performance-enhancing drugs that players administer through patches or creams or gels on their palms or elbows or under their arms.”
You know, I’m thinking that this might be the year where current players outwardly call out users for the first time.
One thing is for sure, when it comes to A-Rod, the Yankees just wish he would go away. There are stories he may not play at all in 2013 due to his recent hip surgery. The number of fans who care whether he does or not numbers in the single digits.
“(After A-Rod’s second hip surgery in three years), the truth is, the higher-ups don’t know what to expect from him, whenever he does come back, but at 37 and coming off his worst season, one in which he hit only five home runs after July 1 and missed the whole month of August with a broken hand, it is reasonable to assume it won’t in any way resemble the player he once was.
“It is why they gritted their teeth and signed Kevin Youkilis to a $12 million contract to hopefully plug the hole at third base.
“It is also why they would not be at all unhappy if A-Rod never comes back.”
“If, as (GM Brian) Cashman suggested, A-Rod misses the entire 2013 season, the Yankees would be able to recoup much of his $28 million salary from the insurance they have on him. The insurance kicks in only after the player has missed at least four months of the season, and it’s minimal unless he misses the entire season….
“From the Yankees’ standpoint, the best-case scenario would be for A-Rod to never come back, for that would effectively get them out from under the remaining five years, $114 million on his contract. Not only would the insurance kick in for 85% of that, but A-Rod would become a voluntarily retired player with a paid-up contract that comes off the Yankee books (and subsequently would lessen their luxury-tax burden).”
–Then there is former slugger and future Hall of Famer Frank Thomas. He told the Los Angeles Times’ Dan Loumena the other day that he’s glad he thrived through hard work rather than taking performance-enhancing drugs.
During a White Sox’ fan fest, “Thomas said that former stars such as Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens will have to live with the consequences of using banned substances.”
“I wouldn’t say I feel bad for them,” Thomas said. “I respected them on the field, but they chose this. They made their own decisions off the field, and they have to live with it.
“These guys did put up some incredible numbers, but they are fake. Any time you look at the PED situation and Lance Armstrong, you look at stuff like that, and it’s serious out there.”
Thomas is on the HOF ballot for a first time next year with Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine. He was very open with the Mitchell investigation and was the first to volunteer to discuss the topic. It has always been assumed he was clean.
“I just thank God, I’m blessed I did it the right way and have a good family base that made me outwork everyone else, because that’s the only way I made it to the big leagues. I was never that blue-chip prospect. I had to do a lot of extra work to get to the big leagues.”
Ball Bits
“When news of its demise reached the men who will enforce it, nobody mourned. The ol’ fake-to-third, throw-to-first pickoff move, a pitcher’s trick that fooled only the most gullible base runners, will now be a balk.
“ ‘It’s funny,’ the umpire Ted Barrett said. ‘When they presented it to us at our meetings, nobody even said, ‘Why?’’
“Under a rule change imposed by Major League Baseball for this season, pitchers can no longer fake a pickoff throw to third base….
“ ‘The managers say it’s all about speeding up the game,’ said the former reliever Jeff Nelson, now a contributor to MLB.com. ‘I think now, the runner at first might get a little bit of an advantage. All it’s used for is to keep the runner at first close. I might have done it 100 times and gotten two guys on it.’”
I’m a traditionalist but I have no problem with the ban. Though I must say if I’m at a game, the extra time was enough for me to have another beer.
–Quite a trade the other day that brought Justin Upton to Atlanta to join his brother B.J. Combine the two with Jason Heyward and that’s a pretty powerful trio, assuming they live up to their potential. You’d like to think the brothers will push each other. Arizona received Martin Prado, pitcher Randall Delgado and prospects in return. Atlanta also received third baseman Chris Johnson.
All three of the Atlanta outfielders are signed at least through 2015. Three five-tool players, as one scout put it.
–A baseball signed by both Babe Ruth and Al Capone, supposedly the same day at Comiskey Park in 1931, is being auctioned off.
According to the story, Yankee pitcher Herb Pennock first got Scarface to sign, then the Babe. Pennock knew damn well what he was doing…creating a heck of an heirloom, which he passed down to his daughter Jane, who married Eddie Collins Jr., son of Hall of Famer Eddie Collins.
The initial bid is $25,000 but some say it could fetch $200,000. [Michael Walsh / New York Daily News]
—William Howard Taft, “Bill,” or “Chief Bill,” was introduced over the weekend as the newest member of the racing presidents at Washington Nationals games. Given Taft’s girth (when president he once got stuck in the tub), this should provide a rather easy story line. I imagine “Chief Bill” (for his time as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) won’t win for a few years. Teddy Roosevelt finally won at the end of the 2012 season. Taft and T.R. had quite a rift back in the day; 1912, specifically, when T.R. ran as a third-party candidate ostensibly to spoil Taft’s chances, allowing Woodrow Wilson to gain the Oval Office.
Taft, by the way, is a terrific selection as he was the first to start the tradition of tossing out the first ball at a season opener. Some also say he accidentally created the seventh-inning stretch.
The Liar
According to Travis Tygart, the CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, Lance Armstrong repeatedly lied during his “come-clean” interview with Oprah.
As reported by Nico Hines of the London Times, Tygart said Armstrong was wrong to claim he made a drug-free comeback, and that he “lied about the amount of EPO he used in the 1990s, lied about encouraging teammates to take drugs, lied about attempting to make payments to the drug watchdog, and lied about making a clean comeback in 2009.”
Tygart told “60 Minutes” that he was stunned by Armstrong’s performance, especially the moment he described looking up the word “cheat” in the dictionary.
“It’s amazing,” Tygart said. “you could go to almost any kindergarten in this country and find kids playing tag or four square and ask them what cheating is…Every one of them will tell you it’s breaking the rules of the game.
“No real athlete has to look up the definition of cheating. And it’s offensive to clean athletes who are out there working hard to play by the rules that apply to their sport.”
USADA, by the way, has issued an ultimatum. Either Armstrong testifies under oath by Feb. 6 or his lifetime ban will be enforced without the possibility of appeal.
Back to Armstrong’s claim of a clean comeback, Tygart said, “His blood tests in 2009, 2010 – expert reports based on the variation of his blood values – from those tests, one to a million chance that it was due to something other than doping.”
Armstrong also claimed he used only small amounts of EPO early in his career. “He used a lot of EPO,” Tygart said. “You look at the ’99 Tour de France samples and they were flaming positive, the highest that we’ve ever seen.”
Manti Te’o
To me this story has run its course and the only thing that is left is to see where Manti goes in the NFL draft. Ronaiah Tuiasosopo’s young cousin, Tino, was the voice behind the fake girlfriend Lennay Kekua. So it wasn’t Ronaiah faking a woman’s voice.
In an interview with Katie Couric, Te’o provided voicemail messages from Lennay and insisted he had been duped. I believe Manti.
“This Manti Te’o story isn’t funny. It never was funny, even as it inspired jokes and photos, but it has become the opposite of funny, something that should be discussed in funereal tones, if at all. In fact, that’s where I am on this Te’o story today:
“A public, national humiliation of a nice young man who did nothing to deserve it….
“(Every) new development makes Te’o look more gullible, more pathetic, and I don’t say that to mock him. My hope – and my belief – is that his family is protecting him from the media crush, making sure he’s not reading the avalanche of cruelty being written about him. That includes this story. I truly believe, and hope, Te’o isn’t reading this. Because I’m not writing this for him.
“I’m writing it for me, too. This is a lesson I need driven home for my own benefit….Google won’t forget this story. People will search Manti Te’o catfishing stories for a long time, and this one will pop up among the millions of results….
“(Unless) you believe he was behind this hoax from the start – which seems like the most unrealistic scenario possible – Manti Te’o has been humiliated….
“It doesn’t seem like the world is laughing at Manti Te’o.
“And enough’s enough. This has gone on for less than two weeks, but these must be dog years to Te’o, who hasn’t helped himself by giving exclusive interviews to ESPN and then ABC….Te’o needs to stop feeding this story the oxygen it needs to burn….
I feel for my own part I handled the story appropriately, passing along just the facts, as we knew them at the time, and not reaching any conclusions.
Well, I’m finished on this topic and will only bring it up again in context of the draft.
—Victoria Azarenka faced a hostile crowd in Melbourne at the Australian Open. China’s Li Na has become a huge favorite, what with the Grand Slam event being in her general area, China’s economic importance to Australia, more and more Chinese settling in the area, etc.
The Belarusian defended her title, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3. Li suffered a twisted ankle in the second set, hitting her head on the court in the process but came back.
I can’t say I’ve followed Li, the 2011 French Open champion, but she sounds like a breath of fresh air with a great sense of humor. One problem…she’s already 30…ancient for elite tennis players.
Meanwhile, Novak Djokovic defeated Andy Murray to become the first man in the Open era to win three consecutive Australian Open titles. It was Djokovic’s sixth major title overall as he put away Murray 6-7 (2), 7-6 (3), 6-3, 6-2. Murray, who finally broke through in beating Djokovic at the U.S. Open last fall, has now lost three Aussie finals.
—Lindsey Vonn defeated rival Tina Maze in a World Cup giant slalom on Maze’s home turf (snow) in Slovenia. You rock, Lindsey! But Maze clinched her third giant slalom discipline title with her second place.
So Vonn now has 59 World Cup wins, or just three away from equaling Annemarie Moser Proell’s record.
Vonn, after missing a month of action due to her intestinal illness, is third in the overall Cup standings behind Maze and Maria Hoefl-Riesch.
Pretty amazing that of the seven GS races this season, Maze has won four and been on the podium the other three.
And then Maze won the slalom on Sunday.
—President Obama, in an interview for The New Republic:
“I’m a big football fan, but I have to tell you, if I had a son, I’d have to think long and hard before I let him play football.
“And I think that those of us who love the sport are going to have to wrestle with the fact that it will probably change gradually to try to reduce some of the violence. In some cases, that may make it a little bit less exciting, but it will be a whole lot better for the players, and those of us who are fans maybe won’t have to examine our consciences quite as much.”
“The NFL players have a union, they’re grown men, they can make some of these decisions on their own, and most of them are well-compensated for the violence they may do to their bodies. You read some of these stories about college players who undergo some of these same problems with concussions and so forth and then have nothing to fall back on. That’s something that I’d like to see the NCAA think about.”
–I agree with this line from Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News:
“Listen, I know that West Virginia’s Geno Smith faded a bit this season, but he sure seems to fit the current profile for exciting young quarterback to me.”
–Despite falling twice in her free skate program, Ashley Wagner won the U.S. women’s figure skating crown for a second year, defeating Gracie Gold.
John Misha Petkevich won the men’s title.
Actually, I have no idea and don’t care who won the men’s crown. Just had to throw John Misha’s name out there for you old viewers of “Wide World of Sports.” Petkevich was U.S. men’s champ in 1971 and had a 5th and 6th at the ’68 and ’72 Olympics. One of the great names in all of sports, though he was always losing out to Tim Wood.
—Lolo Jones won gold on Sunday in the combined bobsled-skeleton team event at the world championships. She was brakewoman for Elana Meyers. Frankly, didn’t know this event existed, but good for Lolo.
–The New Orleans Hornets officially announced that they would change their name next season to the Pelicans. Louisiana is known as the Pelican State and the brown pelican is the state bird.
So will the Charlotte Bobcats, an expansion team that replaced the Hornets after the team moved to New Orleans in 2002, attempt to reclaim the name?
Were that to occur, the records and statistics of the Charlotte Hornets, 1988-2002, would remain with the Pelicans.
But lest you lose sleep over this, the process to rebrand usually takes two years and by then Iran will have nukes and the world will end shortly thereafter anyway.
–So I’m reading the Sunday New York Post and there is this headline:
“Quinnipiac hockey makes shocking rise to No. 2 in nation”
1. Minnesota
2. Quinnipiac
3. Boston College
4. New Hampshire
5. North Dakota
6. Miami (OH)
7. Notre Dame
8. Yale
9. Western Michigan
10. Denver
Colgate is No. 26 if you carry out the votes.
“In the dark the safest way to attack the lions was to catch them in the headlights of a car and run them over. Once the adults were downed it was easy enough to dispatch the cubs with spears and arrows. When the killing stopped last year in Kitengela, on the plains outside Nairobi National Park, six lions were dead. It was the worst such incident in recent memory.
“Killing lions without a license is a criminal offense in Kenya and the slaughter was witnessed by a trio of park rangers from the Kenya Wildlife Service. Outnumbered, they decided not to try to stop what one of them described as ‘mob justice’ by locals angry that their goats had been eaten. Seven months later no one has been arrested. Whereas elephant and rhino poachers often end up dead or in jail, no lion killer in Kenya has ever ended up behind bars.”
The total number of lions left in all of Africa is said to be 15,000-25,000. A conservation group, LionAid, knows of only 645 still in west and central Africa. Kenya is home to one in ten of the survivors and is losing about 100 a year, most of them killed by herders.
By the way, I think there are only about 358 ‘species’ eligible for my list so ‘Man’ is rapidly approaching the bottom.
“When humans gaze up at the night sky, they may view the fuzzy streak of the Milky Way and contemplate their place in the universe.
“When dung beetles see the Milky Way, their thoughts turn to keeping their food source away from other insects.
“Scientists have found that these inch-long creatures use the glowing edge of the galaxy to guide them as they roll their balls of dung across the African landscape. The report, published online Thursday by the journal Current Biology, provides the first documentation of animals using the Milky Way for navigation….
"Given the importance of (the dung beetle’s) dung balls, it’s essential that the beetles keep them away from any would-be thieves. Hence the importance of rolling in a straight line: If they take a curvy route, they could mistakenly wind up back where they started, giving other beetles a chance to steal it.”
Pretty cool study, actually; conducted at a South African game reserve. As long as the Milky Way was visible, the beetles were efficient in their dung-rolling, but when the sky was overcast, “the insects went every which way but straight.”
Well, add it all up and I think you’d agree with me that the dung beetle deserves to rocket up the All-Species List to from No. 345 to No. 238, leaving “Man” in its wake, err, dung.
—Danica Patrick and fellow NASCAR driver Ricky Stenhouse are an item. Now that is one way to create buzz in a sport desperately needing some these days. Hell, I’ll be more likely to check on a race if I know these two are in contention. She’s 30 and he’s 25, by the way.
Patrick is a master of promotion, of course, so she wrote on Twitter on Friday: “Thanks everyone for all of your nice messages, and the bump drafting jokes are cracking me up! Let the fun begin.”
–Is Tiger Woods dating Lindsey Vonn? That’s what some folks say. But it was just about two weeks ago I saw a story where Tiger wanted to get back with Elin. I’m so confused!
Vonn and Elin do look pretty similar. Tiger evidently went to see Vonn in Austria, and then the two went to Antigua.
–Good lord…did you see the story of the South African crocodile farm that was overrun with flood water, thus allowing 15,000 crocs to escape? More than half are still on the loose, many in the Limpopo River.
“One was found at a school rugby ground 75 miles away,” a local paper reported.
That was 75 miles in one day. At that pace, they could be on the Jersey Shore in about three months, adding to the cleanup woes there.
–“Mad Men” is returning April 7. Yippee!!
Top 3 songs for the week 1/29/66: #1 “We Can Work It Out” (The Beatles…heard of them…) #2 “Barbara Ann” (The Beach Boys) #3 “She’s Just My Style” (Gary Lewis and The Playboys…another excuse to say these guys were underrated…)…and…#4 “No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach’s In)” (The T-Bones) #5 “Five O’Clock World” (The Vogues) #6 “As Tears Go By” (The Rolling Stones…in my top five of theirs…) #7 “The Men In My Little Girl’s Life” (Mike Douglas…yes, that Mike Douglas…and anytime you think Mike Douglas, you think David Brenner…because he seemed to be on every single show…but god that was a long time ago and now I’m rambling like a true old fart…) #8 “A Must To Avoid” (Herman’s Hermits…when this first came out, I thought Peter Noone was singing ‘She’s a natural boy’ which was very confusing, I think you’d agree…) #9 “My Love” (Petula Clark…we love you, Pet!) #10 “Jenny Take A Ride!” (Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels)
Golf Quiz Answer: Charles Howell III has 14 seconds to go with his two wins at age 33; the most seconds for a golfer currently in his 30s outside of Tiger. Tiger, 37, has 74 wins and 28 seconds; a little better closing rate than Mr. Howell. [Source: Golfworld]
But Howell is off to a very solid start this year so maybe he finally breaks through with multiple wins.
*As for Tiger, sure looks good for win No. 75 as I go to post Sunday evening.
