NFL Quiz: Name the six Jets to rush for 1,000 yards in a season. [Gotta get ‘em all to quaff an ale…and I’m guessing some of you will miss one.] Answer below.
Ball Bits
—N.L. Central
St. Louis 93-65
Pittsburgh 91-67…2 GB
Cincinnati 90-68…3
*Pittsburgh and Cincy of course are battling for home-field advantage in the one-game wild card playoff as well.
A.L. Wild Card
Tampa Bay 88-69
Cleveland 87-70
Texas 86-71…1 GB
Kansas City 83-74…4
–Monday night the Pittsburgh Pirates clinched their first playoff berth in 21 years. Back in 1992, the last time they made the postseason, part of a run of three straight N.L. East titles, Barry Bonds was the star, a much slimmer Barry Bonds…much smaller head, too….like 16 hat sizes smaller…but I digress…
The Pirates and Reds face each other for three gigantic games over the weekend in Cincinnati.
Reminder….everyone here at Bar Chat, literally, every reader who is not from Cincinnati, is a Pirates fan the rest of the way. [Except Oakland, Boston, Los Angeles, Atlanta….]
–What a Tuesday night for Cleveland. 42-year-old Jason Giambi hit a two-run, two-out pinch-hit homer in the bottom of the ninth to give the Indians a 5-4 win over the White Sox as Cleveland attempts to make the postseason for the first time since 2007. They have eleven walk-off wins this season. Back on July 29, Giambi became the oldest player to hit a walk-off homer, breaking a mark previously held by Hank Aaron. He is also the 13th player since 1950 with 10 or more walk-off homers for his career.
—Baltimore lost 9 of 13, including Monday’s 5-4 loss to Tampa Bay, and was eliminated from wild card contention. Plus they lost budding superstar Manny Machado to what appeared to be a very serious knee injury, though at least the O’s received some good news in that while Machado has a torn medial ligament, his ACL and MCL are fine, so surgery probably is not needed.
–Yes, it’s not the same Yankees. Not only did they virtually bury themselves in losing to Tampa Bay 7-0 on Tuesday night, but due to a transportation snafu, 18,000 Mariano Rivera bobblehead dolls didn’t show up on time, and then fans were herded into a small area deep in the bowels of the stadium to cash in their vouchers once the shipment arrived. Some waited hours in line (during the game).
Back on the ball field, losing pitcher Hiroki Kuroda was shelled and the one-time ace of the staff has a 6.56 ERA his last eight starts.
—Houston is going to finish up the season as initially advertised, the Astros sitting at 51-107 with a current 11-game losing streak thru Tuesday’s play.
“Mike Trout takes a vicious swing at a 91-mph fastball and an earsplitting crack echoes through the Tampa Bay Rays’ dome stadium. The drive screams off his bat at 112 mph and travels 458 feet, the longest home run this season at Tropicana Field.
“Six days later, the Rays are in Anaheim and Trout hits a grounder that shortstop Yunel Escobar fields cleanly. Just about every other player in baseball would be out.
“Not Trout. The Angels outfielder blazes to first in 3.85 seconds – nearly a half-second faster than average for a right-handed hitter – and beats the throw.”
Yes, I want to revise and extend my remarks when I said around mid-season that if I could take one player to build a franchise around, it would be Bryce Harper, not Trout.
Of course I will for the next two years, for starters, now say Trout. My point on Harper was that I know he will have a monster year of like 54 home runs and 170 RBI.
But Trout is practically a Hall of Famer after just two full seasons. [Not that much of an exaggeration, sports fans.]
In fact, he singlehandedly bumps ‘Man’ from No. 298 to No. 297 on the All-Species List.
–John Feinstein / Washington Post…on the Washington Nationals
“(Now) it can be said, with almost no doubt, that the decision to shut down Stephen Strasburg last September didn’t cost Washington one chance to win a World Series, it cost the team and the city two chances. Because if one thing is clear about the debacle that was this summer it is that it was set up by the disaster of last fall.
“Mike Rizzo has done a remarkable job as general manager since Stan Kasten handed him control of the team in 2009. He has proven himself to be a wonderful talent evaluator and, for the most part, a cool customer when it comes to important decision-making.
“But he blew it on Strasburg. This isn’t a second guess, it was a first guess more than a year ago when Rizzo first announced his intentions. Almost everyone in baseball outside Washington thought Rizzo was making a mistake then – especially when the Nats emerged as a clear championship contender and they believe it even more firmly now….
“The Nats can do two things this offseason: They can claim they were done in by injuries (check the Braves’ or Dodgers’ injury lists for the year before buying that one) or bad luck or near misses or bad calls. Or they can look in the mirror collectively and say, ‘We blew it. Let’s start next spring as if we haven’t won anything that matters.’
“Because, as of this moment, they haven’t. And the fault, sadly, lies within themselves.”
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, St. Louis rookie pitcher Michael Wacha, 21, had a no-hit bid broken up Washington’s Ryan Zimmerman’s chopper over the mound with two outs in the ninth. Wacha won the game, 2-0, but was pulled for the final out because he had thrown 112 pitches. He has just 170 pro innings since signing his first contract June 14, 2012.
And who was the last Cardinals pitcher to throw a no-hitter? Bud Smith in 2001. No way I ever get this. Smith was all of 7-8 in a career that lasted two seasons.
College Football
Wake Forest at No. 3 Clemson….cough cough
No. 21 Ole Miss at No. 1 Alabama…kind of intriguing (6:30 ET ESPN)
No. 6 LSU at No. 9 Georgia…huge…3:30 CBS
No. 14 Oklahoma at No. 22 Notre Dame…I’ll be watching LSU-Georgia
No. 23 Wisconsin at No. 4 Ohio State…important for the Buckeyes to kick ass…8:00 ABC
—Paul Dietzel, the coach of LSU’s first national championship in 1958, passed away at the age of 89.
“He was 29 when Louisiana State hired him, but despite having the services of Jim Taylor, a running back who went on to star for the Green Bay Packers, the Tigers finished with a 3-5-3 record. They went 3-7 in 1956 and 5-5 the next year, despite a backfield with Taylor and a new star, Billy Cannon. Dietzel’s job seemed to be in danger.
“Everything changed in 1958, however, when he found a way to deal with a new collegiate rule that allowed players to return to the field only once each quarter. He created three units. His 11 best players became the White team and played both offense and defense. His next 11 best offensive players became the Gold team and played only offense. His next 11 best defensive players became the Chinese Bandits and played only defense.”
Dietzel explained all this by saying he was an avid reader of ‘Terry and the Pirates,’ the comic strip.
Anyway, that 1958 team went 10-0 and was voted the unofficial national champion. Then they beat Clemson in the Sugar Bowl. Dietzel was coach of the year. Cannon won the Heisman Trophy.
“In the NFL, they’re all mere mortals. The league has long taken pride in its ability to reshuffle the deck each year, mixing up the standings, watching good and bad teams alike flip their records. These early stages of the 2013 season have been especially unpredictable, particularly in the NFC where several reliable, traditional powers find themselves in unfamiliar territory.
“The three most recent teams to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl are all struggling, and only five teams in the entire conference will carry a winning record into Week 4. In the AFC, all six of last year’s playoff teams are above .500 through three games but only one of the NFC’s postseason squads has a winning record. The top four NFC seeds in last year’s playoffs, in fact, are a combined 3-9 entering Week 4.
“At least for now, parity appears to have caught up to several of last season’s contenders: the Green Bay Packers (1-2), Minnesota Vikings (0-3), Atlanta Falcons (1-2), San Francisco 49ers (1-2) and Washington Redskins (0-3) – not to mention the New York Giants (0-3) and the AFC’s Pittsburgh Steelers (0-3) – and these September surprises could alter January’s playoff picture.”
“Two years ago, the 49ers did not allow a rushing touchdown until the 15th game of the season; last year, three of the team’s four linebackers (Aldon Smith, NaVorro Bowman and Patrick Willis) were named first-team All-Pro by The Associated Press, as the run defense finished in the top five in rushing yards, yards per carry and touchdowns allowed.
“This season, the 49ers have allowed six rushing touchdowns. The struggles are not just at the goal line: (Coach Jim) Harbaugh’s 49ers allowed 170 rushing yards just once in his first 38 games (including the postseason). But they have allowed more than that in back-to-back weeks this season against the Seattle Seahawks and the Colts.”
And in turn, San Francisco running backs have a total of just 176 yard on 53 carries in the first three contests.
As for quarterback Colin Kaepernick…he has a 72.5 rating first three games. Enough said.
@ Tennessee
@ Atlanta
Pittsburgh
New England
@ Cincinnati
New Orleans
So ask me about the kind of season the Jets will have after the last one on Nov. 3. I’d be thrilled with 4-5 at that point. 5-4 would be amazing. 2-7, though, is still possible.
–The Jets’ defense is third in all of football in terms of fewest yards allowed behind Seattle and Houston…270 yards / game.
How bad is Washington? They are last among 32 teams…giving up 488 yards / game. Goodness gracious, that blows.
–Gee, Peyton Manning has 12 touchdown passes and 0 interceptions with a 134.7 rating after the first three weeks. Is that good?
–Going back to last season, the Giants have lost eight of their last 11 games. They have just 133 yards on the ground in their first three this season.
–So Lawrence Taylor is not a good guy. One of the greatest football players of all time, no doubt, but a jerk and a criminal.
L.T. is the subject of a new documentary on Showtime that I have not seen, “LT: The Life & Times,” and he is furious that Boomer Esiason is on it, the two not liking each other in the least, to put it mildly.
So as reported by Howie Kussoy of the New York Daily News, LT appeared on Sid Rosenberg’s radio show at 640 WMEN, and let’s just say it was R-rated.
“What the hell you got Boomer Esiason on something that – a piece you do of me? We can’t stand each other, he don’t know a f— about me. What the hell’s he doing on it?
“First of all, Boomer’s a [bad word],” Taylor added. “Hey, listen. I remember when he was there running the streets, screwing all kinds of hoes. Don’t give me that holier than thou s—. I don’t wanna hear that [another bad word]. He gets off on it. He’s still talking about me. I ain’t talking about him.”
Esiason says in the documentary that LT was given preferential treatment by former coach Bill Parcells despite his troublesome lifestyle.
–Rob Tannenbaum of GQ has a piece in the October 2013 issue titled “The 20 Worst Sports Franchises of All Time.”
1. “Every Cleveland Sports Franchise. File Under: Mistakes by the lake. Then more mistakes.
“To the great people of Cleveland: Look, you gave us Harvey Pekar, and apparently you’ve got a world-class orchestra. But facts are facts, and since your city is, even now, synonymous with Akron-born LeBron James, let’s look at the curse of Cleveland sports from his perspective. Between the Browns, the Indians, and the Cavaliers, Cleveland last celebrated a title four years before LeBron’s mother was born – that’s a combined 152 seasons of futility. James ditched the Cavs not because he was Whore of Akron but because he was the Oracle of Ohio. In his formative years he witnessed Cleveland teams suffer The Drive (John Elway beating the Browns in 1987), The Fumble (Earnest Byner sabotaging the Browns in 1988), The Shot (Michael Jordan murdering the Cavs in 1989), and then The Move, when Art Modell decided Cleveland was such a hole he’d rather field his team in Baltimore. James surely knew that if he stayed in Ohio, some kind of ridiculous fate would befall him – The Hangnail, The Cramp, or maybe The Aneurysm. Hence: The Decision.”
“Barry Sanders, the greatest Lion of them all, got so fed up with his team’s chronic ineptitude – playoff record since 1960: 1-10 – that he retired at age 31, notifying the Lions by sending a curt statement to his hometown paper, The Wichita Eagle.”
3. Chicago Cubs
“Q: What does a Cubs fan do after his team wins the World Series? A: He turns off his PlayStation 3.”
6. New York Jets
“Mark Sanchez’ ‘butt fumble’ on Thanksgiving Day last year was no anomaly for the Jets – it was a metaphor for their special breed of creative destruction, a multi-decade roll of suck interrupted only by their shock/blip Super Bowl III upset win over the Baltimore Colts.”
Tannenbaum then gets rather obscure with an early NBA franchise, the Providence Steamrollers, and the WHA’s Indianapolis Racers, the WFL’s Detroit Wheels….
12. New York Mets
“Few teams can boast a tradition of spending fortunes on wrung-dry former All-Stars (Mo Vaughn, Bobby Bonilla) and a legacy of idiotic trades. Meet the Mets! In 1971, they dealt away a young fireballer named Nolan Ryan, who immediately became Nolan Ryan, throwing all seven of his no-hitters after he escaped Queens. So what did the Mets learn from this? In 1977, the team’s chairman, M. Donald Grant (the ‘M’ stood for Motherf—–), spitefully traded Tom Seaver – who was making just $180,000 and had the audacity to ask for a raise – for a photo of Carrie Fisher and a map of the Bermuda Triangle. Okay, that’s not true. More recently, thanks to Mets ownership placing such faith in an investment wizard named Madoff, they worked out a gimmicky contract-deferral plan with Bonilla that requires the team to pay the fat-faced ex-outfielder $1.2 million a year until 2035, when he will be 72 years old.”
20. St. Louis Blues
“The Blues have missed the playoffs only eight times in forty-five years and recently qualified for the postseason twenty-five years in a row – but of the NHL’s twelve active teams never to win a Stanley Cup, the Blues have been around the longest. They’re the sports-franchise equivalent of a hand job, baked chicken, or Sandra Bullock – never awful, but not the least bit exciting.”
–Drat! As I go to post, Oracle Team USA is on the verge of the greatest comeback in America’s Cup history after winning seven consecutive races to knot the competition with Emirates Team New Zealand at 8-8. So, winds permitting, it comes down to one final race on Wednesday.
“Bay Area investment banker Thom Weisel, who financed Lance Armstrong’s cycling teams, knew of Armstrong’s efforts to cover up his doping as early as 1999, according to a sworn affidavit submitted to a federal court in one of the lawsuits against the fallen cyclist.
“Emma O’Reilly, a massage therapist who worked with Armstrong and saw evidence of his doping, says in the affidavit that Weisel was present at a 1999 meeting that followed the discovery that one of Armstrong’s urine samples had tested positive for a banned substance and that the media knew about it….
“ ‘I was giving Lance a massage at the time, and the three of them [including Mark Gorski] were talking about what needed to be done in order to excuse Lance’s positive test.’….
“O’Reilly goes on to say that the group hatched a plan to claim that Armstrong suffered from saddle sores and took a corticosteroid cream for it. She claims the men set out to obtain a backdated prescription from team doctor Luis Garcia del Moral, who has since been banned from sports for his complicity in the team’s doping program.”
I only bring this up because Weisel is a big figure in the financial community. Why you’d do business with someone like this in the future, I don’t know.
His name had previously been redacted in some of the initial documents to emerge as Armstrong’s pleas of innocence were drowned out by the shouts of ‘Guilty!’
–Sorry…Man goes back to No. 298 after this wire service story from Tuesday.
“Zimbabwean authorities say at least 81 elephants have been killed for their ivory tusks by poachers using cyanide poison in water holes in a vast western national park. Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi said more elephant carcasses were discovered after a first count of more than 40 earlier in the month…Wildlife department officials said industrial cyanide, used in gold mining, had been put in the park’s remote water holes, killing smaller animals drinking there and vultures and other predators feeding on the dead animals. Nine accused poachers were arrested after rangers tracked them to a cache of ivory hidden in the park.”
–Note to Mark R. My brother passed on joyous news….for on this day, unto you, we have learned….
YUENGLING’S ICE CREAM RETURNING TO SHELVES!!!
“A branch of the Yuengling family will re-launch its storied ice cream early in 2014, bringing back a cherished Pennsylvania-made product that’s been absent from store shelves and scooping stands for nearly three decades.
“Though the family name is one and the same, Yuengling’s Ice Cream is unaffiliated with the Yuengling brewery.
“ ‘We are extremely proud to be reintroducing such a beloved product,’ said David Yuengling, president of Yuengling’s Ice Cream. ‘Started by my great grandfather, Frank D. Yuengling during Prohibition, our ice cream brand is steeped in history. We plan to build on the family legacy, maintaining the highest standards of quality and value.’”
However, my brother asked if we’d be able to buy a pint of Black and Tan?
Why yes, Bro! It is one of ten flavors. The Black and Tan is chocolate and caramel ice cream.
And where will you be able to get Yuengling Ice Cream? In grocery stores from Pittsburgh to New Jersey, and from Scranton, PA to northern Virginia.
Top 3 songs for the week 9/25/82: #1 “Abracadabra” (The Steve Miller Band) #2 “Jack & Diane” (John Cougar) #3 “Hard To Say I’m Sorry” (Chicago)…and…#4 “Eye Of The Tiger” (Survivor) #5 “You Should Hear How She Talks About You” (Melissa Manchester…I know, I know…) #6 “Eye In The Sky” (The Alan Parsons Project) #7 “Who Can It Be Now?” (Men At Work) #8 “Somebody’s Baby” (Jackson Browne) #9 “Hurts So Good” (John Cougar) #10 “Love Is In Control” (Donna Summer…very bored with this week…time for a domestic…)
NFL Quiz Answer: Six Jets to rush for 1,000 yards –
Curtis Martin – 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 [1,697…tops in franchise history]
Thomas Jones – 2007, 2008, 2009
Shonn Greene – 2011, 2012
Adrian Murrell – 1996, 1997
Freeman McNeil – 1984, 1985
John Riggins – 1975
