Baseball Quiz: Since 1960, only six pitchers have thrown 10 shutouts in a season. Name them. [Hint: All between 1960 and 1985, six different seasons.] Answer below.
College Basketball Review
AP Poll (Feb. 23)
1. Kentucky 27-0 (65 first-place votes)
2. Virginia 25-1
3. Gonzaga 28-1
4. Duke 24-3
5. Wisconsin 25-2
6. Villanova 25-2
7. Arizona 24-3
8. Kansas 22-5
9. Notre Dame 24-4
10. Northern Iowa 26-2…highest AP ranking ever
11. Wichita State 25-3
14. Maryland 22-5
21. SMU 22-5
24. San Diego State 22-6…gotta at least hold this, Aztecs!
25. Providence 19-8
—No. 17 Louisville (21-6, 9-5) has been in freefall and now they’ll enter March Madness without key guard Chris Jones, who was dismissed permanently from the program on Sunday, after an earlier suspension and several disciplinary run-ins with coach Rick Pitino and his coaching staff.
Late Sunday, a source told The Courier-Journal that Jones was going to meet with former NBA player and coach John Lucas to work on his anger management issues. Jones apparently acknowledged he “messed up” and thanked Louisville fans for their support.
Lucas runs a program designed to help athletes overcome issues ranging from drug addiction to anger management.
Jones had served a one-week suspension and then returned for Saturday’s 55-53 win over Miami, compiling 17 points, five rebounds, two steals and two assists in 36 minutes. After the game, he said the suspension “was my fault” and blamed himself for losses while he was out.
Jones said; “I’m not worried about anything that anybody has to say about me. I came a long way, I’m telling you, from (throwing) garbage cans in gyms to wanting to fight every game to keeping it inside. I know how to manage it by just playing hard.”
It turns out among Jones’ transgressions was a threatening text message to a woman with whom he has had a relationship for much of the past year, though I’m confused as to the timeline and Jones being suspended, reinstated, and then dismissed.
Jones had been the junior-college player of the year when Pitino took a chance on him two years ago.
Pitino said of Jones in January, “Chris is the type of guy who always has his hands in the cookie jar, and if you allow his hands to go in the cookie jar, he’ll take all the cookies. He’ll do the wrong things…so you have to make sure Chris does all the right things.”
Playing without Jones on Monday, Louisville moved to 10-5 in the ACC with a 52-51 win over Georgia Tech (12-16, 3-13).
–Also Monday, Kansas State (14-15, 7-9) upset Kansas (22-6, 11-4) at home, 70-63, as the students way overdid it when they stormed the court in celebration. It’s amazing no one was crushed to death.
–Then on Tuesday, Wisconsin fell to Maryland in College Park, 59-53 (as the Terps move to 23-5, 11-4), behind Dez Wells’ 26.
–Also on Tuesday, Villanova torched Providence 89-61. But then Syracuse (18-10, 9-6) upset Notre Dame (24-5, 12-4) in South Bend, 65-60. [Reminder, Syracuse ruled itself ineligible for postseason play but they would have been very much on the bubble anyway.]
There was another upset on Tuesday in the ACC. North Carolina State (17-11, 8-7) beat No. 15 North Carolina (19-9, 9-6) in Chapel Hill, 58-46. Bad loss for the Heels if they harbored thoughts of a 4-seed.
–So here I mentioned St. Francis in a potential 1-16 matchup in the NCAA Tournament against Kentucky and USA TODAY Sports Weekly does have that. Actually, the early projection (and, yes, it’s still early for seeding) is Bucknell/St. Francis in a play-in game to see who goes up against the Wildcats. SDSU is a 7 in this particular projected field.
–Just one main story as I go to post, that being Bulls guard Derrick Rose who is undergoing surgery again, this time for a torn meniscus in his right knee. While there is no word on how long he’ll be out until he has the procedure, Rose and the team said they decided to fix the tear instead of cutting the damaged part out in order to extend his career. It’s the same injury he sustained in November 2013. It was back in Game 1 of the 2012 playoffs that he tore the ACL in his left knee.
So since his MVP season of 2010-11, Rose has played the following.
2011-12…39 games
2012-13…out all season
2013-14…10 games
2014-15…46 of 57
As a story on ESPN.com put it, within the organization there is a feeling of “disbelief and sadness.”
As a Knicks fan, a story like this ticks you off all over again when it comes to Carmelo Anthony playing 30 minutes in an All-Star game, then having what we learn now is ‘major’ knee surgery when a simpler procedure had been talked about all season.
–Wake Watch: Two former Demon Deacons have had nice stretches. James Johnson has hit a stupendous 41 of his last 55 field goal attempts (.745) in his last seven games for the Toronto Raptors, while down in Dallas, Al-Farouq Aminu has had two, 12-rebound efforts in his last three games off the bench for the Mavericks (this as teammate Rajon Rondo is up to his old temper-tantrum tricks).
Man, I’m pumped for baseball, especially because for the first time in years there is a legitimate buzz about my Mets. They are loaded with starting pitchers, including those nearing call-ups, the bullpen seems solid, and I just have a good feeling about the offense, though here it’s about one guy…David Wright. And I’m not concerned about the shortstop situation, though 99% of Mets fans in the area are.
Yup, I’m just real confident. Cocksure. 90 wins, baby! Meaningful games in October! [Or at least mid-September.]
Anyway, USA TODAY Sports Weekly has their power rankings and everyone and their mother has the Nationals at No. 1 of the 30 teams.
1. Washington
2. Dodgers
3. Cardinals
4. Angels
5. Mariners?
6. Giants
7. Tigers
8. Pirates
9. White Sox
10. Red Sox
20. Yankees…they could really, really blow…like 72-90
21. Mets…what?! Who’s ranking these teams?!
29. Diamondbacks…sorry, Shu…but good seats will be available throughout.
30. Rockies…gonna be a long, long season…but the beer is fresher and you have those mountain views.
–Meanwhile, in A-Rod land, he showed up two days early for spring training, which wouldn’t have been a problem except he didn’t tell the team this so the Yankees were caught totally by surprise and the media relations staff was left scrambling for answers when asked about Rodriguez’ rumored arrival. I was watching the local NBC sports guy, Bruce Beck, here in New York and he said he was at Mets camp, heard A-Rod had arrived, and quickly dragged his crew 160 miles over to Yankees camp to cover the story. One baseball executive said of A-Rod’s move: “He’s learned nothing. He’s the same old guy. He just did what he wanted to do.”
For his part, A-Rod, in addressing the press, said, “I cringe sometimes when I look at some of the things I did. But I paid my penalty, and I’m grateful that I have another opportunity.”
Of course he still hasn’t specified just what his mistakes were. Some of us are just smiling that the Yankees are stuck with the final $61 million on the jerk’s contract. It’s going to be great fun all year.
–Interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal by Brian Costa on baseball’s fight with fatigue. “Last year, less than 9% of position players appeared in 150 or more games. That is the lowest such percentage in major-league history, according to Stats LLC.”
Run scoring in September last season was also 7% less than during March and April, “twice as steep a decline as the historical norm.”
Costa points to two developments over the last decade that have hastened the decline of the everyday ballplayer.
“One was the ban on amphetamines that took effect in 2006. The use of such stimulants was an open secret in baseball for decades.
“ ‘There used to be a phrase in baseball: Never go out there alone,’ said former major-league pitcher Ron Darling. ‘That referred to amphetamines. It was an elixir or a friend that could take away all those insecurities you had from being fatigued.’”
The other big change is the prevalence of flame-throwers, the number of pitchers throwing 95 mph or more is nearly double what it was in 2009, according to the website FanGraphs.
One thing the Marlins have done to try to help their players with fatigue is buy a private jet, fitted with all first-class seats, and a training table, plus they hired a chef to make better meals. In the past the Marlins flew on standard United charter planes that had, at most, 16 first-class seats.
–Atlanta outfielder B.J. Upton signed a five-year, $72.25 million contract to play with the Braves after the 2012 season, Upton having had some decent power numbers the previous two seasons in particular in Tampa Bay.
But then he turned into the worst player in baseball, batting just .184 in 2013 and .208 last season, with just 21 home runs combined and 324 strikeouts.
So what does one do after such a debacle? Change your name (the B.J. standing for “Bossman Junior,” “Bossman” a reference to his father, whose nickname was “Bossman”). Now it’s “Melvin Upton Jr.” Shades of Giancarlo Stanton, who used to be “Mike.”
As Des Bieler of the Washington Post wrote, however, if B.J. / Melvin’s stats don’t pick up, “Upton can expect Atlantans to call him all sorts of names.”
–The Red Sox signed 19-year-old Cuban infield prospect Yoan Moncada to a $31.5 million signing bonus, though the cost will be double that after Boston exceeded its international bonus pool allotment.
Moncada worked out for several MLB teams, with the Yankees having made a bid of around $25 million. Scouts project him to be a 20-homer threat at second, third or the outfield.
–Feb. 25 is the 43rd anniversary of the Steve Carlton for Rick Wise trade, which as Craig Muder of the Baseball Hall of Fame notes, at the time “the baseball world didn’t exactly gasp in horror.
“Eight months later – following Carlton’s remarkable 27-win season which put him on the path to the Hall of Fame – the trade was already being called one of the greatest heists in history.
“Carlton was a seven-year big league veteran that winter and was coming off a 20-9 season for St. Louis. Still relatively young at 27, Carlton asked the Cardinals for a salary of $65,000 for 1972. The Cardinals balked, and Carlton held out. But a solution was found, when the Phillies offered to send holdout pitcher Rick Wise to St. Louis in exchange for Carlton.
“Both pitchers received one-year deals from their new teams worth $65,000. Entering that year, Carlton had won 77 big league games compared to 75 for Wise. But after the trade, Carlton went on to post 252 more victories – including 241 with the Phillies – and win four Cy Young Awards. Wise won 113 more games.”
Carlton’s 1972 season was also historic in that the Phillies won only 59 games overall, so Lefty won 45.8 percent of the Phillies’ games.
But Carlton regressed to 13-20 in 1973, and, to be fair, Wise wasn’t chopped liver, going 16-16 in 1972 and 16-12 in ’73.
As for Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, like Rick Wise, Pappas still had a solid career, including back-to-back 17-win seasons for the Cubs in 1971-72…finishing 209-164 for his career.
But back to Carlton, after the trade he was a startling 38-14 against the Cardinals. As Ronald Reagan was heard saying back then, “Not bad, not bad at all.”
NFL Draft Beat
Before the combine, USA TODAY Sports had UCLA’s Brett Hundley as the number 3 quarterback behind Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, but only as a third rounder. In fact the consensus is that after the first two, who did themselves zero harm over the weekend in Indianapolis, the rest of the quarterback group sucks.
3. Hundley…projected 3rd round
4. Garrett Grayson (Colorado State)…4-5
5. Sean Mannion (Oregon State)…4-5…lousy senior season but I can see him becoming respectable
6. Bryce Petty (Baylor)…4-5
7. Connor Halliday (Washington State)…6-7
8. Taylor Heinicke (Old Dominion!)…6-7…never heard of him
9. Shane Carden (East Carolina)…7-PFA (priority free agent)*
10. Cody Fajardo (Nevada)…7-PFA
11. Hutson Mason (Georgia)…7-PFA
12. Anthony Boone (Duke)…7-PFA…lousy senior campaign
I’ll get into running backs and receivers later as warranted, but for now as Mike Jones of the Washington Post said, “West Virginia’s Kevin White may have helped himself more than any other wideout. He clocked a 4.35-second 40 on Saturday. Most scouts expected a 4.4, 4.5 40 from the 6-foot-3, 215-pound wide receiver. White also displayed impressive strength, cranking out 23 reps of 225 pounds in the bench press. He could wind up being the top receiver off the board.”
Everyone has been talking about receiver Amari Cooper from Alabama as one of the top four picks overall, so if White is comparable, Jets fans, that gives us a solid chance at No. 6 to perhaps get him…or Cooper!
After all, Winston and Mariota should be going top six, Southern Cal defensive lineman Leonard Williams has been everyone’s No. 2 pick. Hmmmm….I’m kind of getting excited we end up with, say, White, or even Mariota. Washington, for example, is at No. 5 and they need help on defense, first and foremost, and then the offensive line. Oakland, fourth, is salivating over Williams.
I do have to add for Wake Forest fans that cornerback Kevin Johnson is projected as a 2 or 3 (8th D-back overall at this point). Trae Waynes (Michigan State) and P.J. Williams (Florida State) are the only consensus first-rounders at cornerback. Landon Collins (Alabama) is the lone consensus first-rounder at safety.
–There seems little doubt Adrian Peterson’s days in Minnesota are over and he’s Dallas bound. Peterson has already made it known he wants to play for the Cowboys and then his agent, Ben Dogra, got in a heated verbal altercation with a member of the Vikings’ front office at the combine last weekend, the vice president of football operations, Rob Brzezinski, and the two had to be separated to diffuse the tension.
Peterson is set to make $13 million in 2015 and is signed through 2017, so if he’s not going to play with them again, not sure how this will all play out. For starters, he has yet to be reinstated by the league after his abuse case and can’t be until April 15 at the earliest.
College Hockey (USCHO.com poll, Feb. 23)
1. North Dakota
2. Minnesota State
3. Michigan Tech
4. Boston University
5. Miami (Ohio)
6. Minnesota-Duluth
7. Denver
8. Nebraska-Omaha
9. Boston College
10. Quinnipiac
19. St. Lawrence…ding ding ding! Go Saints Go!*
20. Robert Morris
*Alum Trader George was telling me how much beer they….oops, can’t go there. [I meant to infer the amount of beer the students give to, err, local charities! Yeah, they give beer to charities in upstate New York. That’s exactly what they do…and right before the games.]
“It now seems that (dogs) can sense when a person is untrustworthy. Once a dog has decided a person is unreliable, it stops following the cues they give.
“It’s best known for years that dogs understand what it means when a human points at something. If a dog’s owner points to the location of a ball, stick or food, the dog will run and explore the location the person is pointing to.
“The latest research shows they are quick to figure out if these gestures are misleading.
“In a study published in the journal Animal Cognition, a team led by Akiko Takaoka of Kyoto University in Japan presented 34 dogs with three rounds of pointing.
“In the first round, the experimenters accurately pointed to where food was hidden in a container. But in the second round, they pointed to an empty container.
“In the third round, the same experimenter again pointed to the container with food.
“But now the dog did not respond to the experimenter’s cue. That suggests, says Takaoka, that the dogs could use their experience of the experimenter to assess whether they were a reliable guide.
“After these rounds a new experimenter replicated the first round. Once again, the dogs followed this new person with interest.
“Takaoka says she was surprised that the dogs ‘devalued the reliability of a human’ so quickly.
“ ‘Dogs have more sophisticated social intelligence that we thought. This social intelligence evolved selectively in their long life history with humans.’”
–Some are wondering why Fred Couples, 3-0 as a Presidents Cup captain, wasn’t selected to captain the 2016 Ryder Cup squad rather than Davis Love III. But some items have emerged over his role as Love’s assistant at Medinah in 2012. Golfworld reports Freddie was often missing in action and “it was the loosey-goosey style that has been extolled in Couples’ three successful captaincies in the Presidents Cup that backfired while he was (at Medinah). According to sources, Couples was erratic all week attending captains meetings. Then on Sunday, when Love was required to stay around the first tee, he wanted Couples – who is acknowledged for being gifted in relaxing players – out on the course calming nerves. But for too long, Couples wasn’t reachable by walkie-talkie or cellphone. When the U.S. fell in some early matches and eventually lost, there was the feeling Couples had let the team down.
“Another incident that might have come up was Couples’ admittedly taking ‘the easy way out’ and texting rather than calling Jim Furyk to tell him he wasn’t a captain’s pick for the 2013 Presidents Cup. That’s not an example for future captains Love would have set.”
–Big weekend for golf fans with Rory McIlroy’s U.S. debut this season at the Honda Classic. Mickelson, Fowler and Justin Rose (paired the first two rounds with Billy Horschel and Patrick Reed) are also in the field. Rory is paired Thurs./Fri. with Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka, another rather attractive threesome for the galleries.
–Following is a Phil Mickelson gambling story from ESPN The Magazine, specifically pre-tournament practice rounds.
“Mickelson, the larger-than-life patriarch of today’s money games, is a gambler’s gambler. He’s won huge sums on the Super Bowl and the World Series in the past, and he was actually reprimanded by the PGA Tour in 2001 after winning $500 from Mike Weir in the players’ lounge at the NEC Invitational when he predicted that Jim Furyk would hole a bunker shot. (Mickelson declined to speak to us for this story.)
“So while money matches, on the whole, are less common on tour today than ever before, it’s Mickelson’s manic energy that has kept the games afloat, and his exploits in them are as fabled in golf circles as his five major championships: like the time he predicted his ball would hit the flag on the famed par-3 12th at Augusta National a split second after he made contact. Or the time he holed a big money putt after Azinger taunted him with a cocky ‘Putt it, bitch!’
“More than anything, Mickelson demands his marks match his reckless courage, and not everybody is keen to spend that kind of intensity on a Tuesday. In 2010, Nick Watney joined Mickelson and Dustin Johnson for a practice round at the British Open. There were only the three of them, so Phil proposed a simple stroke-play match, with the highest score paying the winner $1,000 and the middle man walking away scot-free. Watney, knowing the amount could easily increase with presses or novelty bets, told them he preferred to play for less. ‘They started calling me names that shouldn’t be in print,’ he says. ‘So I gave in to peer pressure.’
“Watney lost – it was his first time playing St. Andrews – and Mickelson won. On the 18th green, Watney counted out $1,000 and handed it over with a word of congratulations. Mickelson grabbed the stack of cash, gave it a quick glance and handed it right back. ‘This is Britain,’ he told Watney. ‘I need pounds.’
“Watney stared at him, hoping it was a joke. It wasn’t. He had no choice but to pay Mickelson $1,700 to satisfy the currency exchange. ‘They’ve asked me to play again,’ Watney says with a slight smile. ‘And now I just say ‘f— you’ and walk away.’”
Miracle on Ice
I noted the 35th anniversary the other day as the surviving players gathered in Lake Placid for a reunion, but going back five years, just wanted to note my recap then of the entire 1980 Olympic tourney for those of you looking to jog your memory on a fact or two.
February 22nd is the 30th anniversary of the “Miracle on Ice,” the U.S. beating the U.S.S.R. in hockey at the Olympics in Lake Placid. It was a game that lifted the spirits of all Americans, what with hostages being held in Iran, the Soviets invading Afghanistan and the Cold War in full force. Slava Fetisov, then a rookie defenseman on the Soviet team, recalled from his end, “We were told (we could) lose to anybody but the U.S.”
The year before, in a Challenge Cup Series with the NHL All-Stars, the same Soviet team had won 2 of 3, including a 6-0 finale. In a pre-Olympic appearance, the Soviets beat the Americans, 10-3.
At Lake Placid the U.S. team was seeded 7th, though coach Herb Brooks still thought they might win a bronze medal. In their opener, the Americans salvaged a 2-2 tie with 3rd-seeded Sweden. They then whipped 2nd-seeded Czechoslovakia, 7-3; Norway, 5-1; Romania, 7-2; and W. Germany 4-2. Next up were the Soviets.
You can all probably recall where you were when you watched the game. What I’m forgetting is if I knew the result beforehand because the game was on a 3-hour tape delay. The Soviets led 2-1 when, with one second remaining in the first period, Mark Johnson scored to tie it at 2. The Soviets had the world’s best goalie, Vladislav Tretiak, but he was benched for the remainder of the game after Johnson scored in one of the more controversial decisions by a coach in the history of sports.
In the 3rd period, with the Soviets now up 3-2, Johnson scored again to tie it and then suddenly, on a shift change with 10 minutes to go in the game, Mike Eruzione scored on a screened shot to make it 4-3 U.S. That’s the way it ended. The final 10 minutes were the longest of their lives.
What many now forget is that the U.S. still had to defeat Finland for the Gold Medal. If they lost they’d finish 4th. They won 4-2. Eleven of the U.S. team went on to play in the NHL.
–I missed on Sunday that Mikaela Shiffrin won her 12th career World Cup slalom race in Maribor, Slovenia, thus setting a women’s record for most wins in the discipline by a teenager; a week after retaining her world championships title in Beaver Creek, Colo.
–In Champions League play, the last 16, Barcelona took control with a 2-1 win over Manchester City as Luis Suarez scored twice.
–Last year, Boston College’s Johnny Gaudreau won the Hobey Baker Award, given annually to the top collegiate hockey player, and this year the kid from south Jersey (Gloucester Catholic HS) has had a very solid rookie year in the NHL for the Calgary Flames, with 15 goals and 29 assists.
So BC alum Steve D. pointed out that on Tuesday, Johnny Hockey began a five-city tour of the Northeast, with what proved to be an exciting 1-0 loss to the Rangers at the Garden, followed by games against the Devils, Islanders, Bruins and Flyers. Very likable kid, unlike Johnny Football.
–Ira Boudway of Bloomberg had a piece on the amount of revenue elite European soccer teams are receiving from sponsors wanting their names on the front of jerseys. The value of shirt sponsorships is up 24% over the past year in the Premier League, Germany’s Bundesliga, Spain’s Primera Division, France’s Ligue 1, Italy’s Serie A, and the Dutch Eredivisie. According to market research from Repucom, sponsors shelled out $778 million for jersey deals this season, with Premier League revenues up 36% from last year.
The top five in the Premier League [Chelsea, Man City, Man U, Arsenal and Southampton] took in a collective 122 million euros, while the next five [Liverpool, Tottenham, West Ham, Swansea City and Stoke City] took in 57m.
Actually, much of the growth is driven by one team, Manchester United, which last year signed a seven-year, $559 million deal with General Motors to put Chevrolet on its jerseys..
Real Madrid gets a reported $34-$35 million a year from Emirates airline.
–Yet another study out that concludes marathon runners should not drink too much during a race, with more evidence showing they can suffer severe harm by doing so. There’s a pretty simple rule experts now advocate…drink when you’re thirsty.
Tim Noakes, a sports medicine physician and professor emeritus at South Africa’s University of Cape Town, wrote a 2012 book “Waterlogged” that blames the sports-drink industry for encouraging athletes to drink more than needed.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal’s Rachel Bachman:
“Ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes says he drinks gallons of water while competing in events like the Badwater Ultramarathon, a 135-mile run across California’s scorching Death Valley. At November’s New York City Marathon, however, where temperatures were in the mid-40s, he drank only once: a half-cup of water near the 15-mile mark.”
“Boston Marathon winner Meb Keflezighi drinks 28 to 32 ounces of fluid during a 26.2-mile race, but says via email that he knows runners who have gone the distance without drinking a drop.”
On the other hand, Bachman writes: “Still, the notion of more water being better than less persists. Many runners can recall the hot day at the 1982 Boston Marathon when American Alberto Salazar drank no water and secured a narrow victory. He needed intravenous fluids in the post-race medical tent and observers speculate the race wrecked his running career.”
Granted, I’m only doing a half-marathon these days but I usually stop three times for just a little water….because I know at the end of the race there’s beer!
–I noted the other day that the boxing gloves worn by Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston in their second fight fetched $956,000, as well as a letter written and signed by Shoeless Joe Jackson that brought $179,000.
Well at the same auction, a sweater reading “West Point” across the front sold for $42,000. It was worn by Vince Lombardi and was initially purchased at a Goodwill store in Asheville, N.C. for 58 cents. Sean and Rikki McEvoy just thought it was cool, thinking it was a basketball practice jersey.
But after leaving the store, they noticed the word Lombardi was written in black ink on a cotton swatch sewn inside.
As reported by Matt Bonesteel of the Washington Post, at first the two still didn’t think anything of it until Sean McEvoy watched a documentary about Lombardi and he was shown wearing the same sweater in a photo.
Darren Rovell of ESPN.com reports the sweater was donated to Goodwill by Ann Wannamaker, whose late husband, Bill, coached with Lombardi at Army. The company that ran the auction donated its commission, $4,000, to Goodwill.
–Good lord! An Italian fisherman, Dino Ferrari (don’t think there is a relation) landed what some are calling a world record ‘wels’ catfish in Italy’s Po Delta. 280 pounds, and it looks all of it. 8.7 feet in length! The record, according to the Daily Mirror, is over 300 pounds, but Ferrari may have set a record for the largest catfish to be caught with a rod and reel.
–So I watched Sunday’s “Oscars” telecast until 11:30 ET, or before Best director, actor/actress, and picture awards were passed out. Until then, save for a few moments, it was pretty deadly.
“How unfortunate that, in presenting the award for best director during the Academy Awards ceremony, Ben Affleck chose to quote Frank Capra’s observation that ‘the cardinal sin is dullness.’
“None of the directors nominated, he added, could be accused of committing that sin. But, alas, the same could not be said for Sunday night’s telecast.”
I must say I did love Lady Gaga’s Sound of Music medley and it was a great touch having Julie Andrews there. Some commentators say Gaga has a future on Broadway, and she did once perform in “Guys and Dolls” back in high school.
Meanwhile, John Travolta was a real piece of work. A very, very creepy piece of work.
As for Joan Rivers being omitted from the “In Memoriam” segment, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences issued a statement to the Los Angeles Times.
“Joan Rivers is among the many worthy artists and filmmakers we were unfortunately unable to feature in the In Memoriam segment of this year’s Oscar show. She is, however, included in our In Memoriam gallery on Oscar.com.”
–I missed the passing of jazz trumpet player Clark Terry on Saturday at the age of 94. Terry worked in the orchestras of both Duke Ellington and Count Basie, recorded with the likes of Charles Mingus and Thelonious Monk, and then was one of the first black musicians to hold a staff position at a television network, working for years in the “Tonight Show” band when the show originated in New York.
Top 3 songs for the week 2/27/71: #1 “One Bad Apple” (The Osmonds) #2 “Mama’s Pearl” (The Jackson 5) #3 “Knock Three Times” (Dawn)…and…#4 “Rose Garden” (Lynn Anderson) #5 “If You Could Read My Mind” (Gordon Lightfoot) #6 “I Hear You Knocking” (Dave Edmunds) #7 “Sweet Mary” (Wadsworth Mansion) #8 “Amos Moses” (Jerry Reed) #9 “Mr. Bojangles” (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) #10 “Me And Bobby McGee” (Janis Joplin)
Baseball Quiz Answer: Six to throw 10 shutouts since 1960.
John Tudor, 10, STL, 1985
Jim Palmer, 10, BAL, 1975
Bob Gibson, 13, STL, 1968
Juan Marichal, 10, SFG, 1965
Dean Chance, 11, LAA, 1964
Sandy Koufax, 11, LAD, 1963
