[Posted Sunday p.m.]
NHL Quiz: Name the last five Stanley Cup Champions. Answer below.
The Masters
After three rounds the leaderboard looked like this….
Jordan Spieth -3
Smylie Kaufman -2
Bernhard Langer -1
Hideki Matsuyama -1
Jason Day E
Dustin Johnson E
Danny Willett E
Rory McIlroy +2
—
Thomas Boswell / Washington Post
“A pair of Georgia pines fell on Jordan Spieth’s head on the final two holes of the third round of the Masters here on Saturday. Or at least that’s what it looked like had happened to him after he staggered off the Augusta National course with a concluding bogey and double-bogey. Those totally self-inflicted and utterly unnecessary mistakes – in his view – cut what could have been an imposing, dominant four-shot lead for a green jacket into just one slim, perilous stroke. He didn’t just open the Masters door to a dozen competitors, he kicked it down and sent each one an engraved invitation: Come beat me Sunday.
“Seldom has a player who has been so great so recently suddenly confronted a fresh test that will be so difficult. The man who, with a handful of breaks, might have won the Grand Slam last season, and did win both the Masters and U.S. Open, may face the toughest recovery act of his young career.”
—
As I followed the beginning of the final round online, while watching Tottenham-Manchester United live, just looking at the scores it was clear; as expected, the wind had laid down and we would see some action as is always the case in the final round at Augusta.
But Jordan Spieth began to pull away and after birdies on 6-9, the leaderboard looked like this.
Spieth -7
Willett -2 (thru 12)
Kjeldsen -1 (12)
D. Johnson -1 (10)
I have to believe 90%+ of you thought it was over. I certainly did.
Then suddenly Spieth bogeyed 10 and 11, while Willett was picking up a few birdies, but you still didn’t see it coming. The disaster at No. 12.
Spieth hit his tee shot off the bank and back into the water. Inexplicable. Then he hit his third into the water. And his fifth into the back trap and when it was finally over, Jordan Spieth had a quadruple-bogey on No. 12…bogey, bogey, quad…and the leaderboard looked like this….
Willett -4 (15)
Lee Westwood -3 (15)
D. Johnson -2 (14)
Spieth -1 (12)
and three others tied at -1.
This all literally happened in about 45 minutes’ time.
Willett proceeded to birdie No. 16 to get to -5 and after pars at 17 and 18, he was giddy.
Spieth birdied 13 and 15, but then bogeyed 17 and it was over.
Final scores….
Willett -5
Westwood -2
Spieth -2
The golfing public and Jordan Spieth are shocked. This was one of the all-time choke jobs from a 22-year-old who you thought, while not bullet-proof, couldn’t possibly blow a lead like he had, in the fashion he did, a year after winning the same event in such dominant fashion.
Where does Spieth go from here? He’ll be fine. For a guy who has expressed his love and admiration for Arnold Palmer, who lost more than his share of heartbreakers, Spieth will come back better, though no one should expect a major triumph out of the remaining three in 2016.
You did have the unArnold-like incident as Spieth walked to the clubhouse after completing his round, where he snapped at the photographers, but you saw his maturity when he quickly gathered himself and took questions from Bill Macatee, which few other golfers would have done.
Spieth will view the videotape and remember the attitude and demeanor that got him his monster advertising contracts from the likes of Under Armour.
As for Danny Willett, those of us who follow the sport on a weekly basis have commented on the solid play of this 28-year-old from England and, while we’re not talking crashing the Top 3 just yet, he’s obviously legit.
But, wow…there’s a reason why many of us can’t wait each year, especially during those ugly winter weather months, for Augusta and The Masters…drama more often than not unlike any other sporting event in the world…on CBS.
—
–Pretty cool to see an unprecedented three hole-in-ones on No.16 on Sunday…Shane Lowry, Davis Love III and Louis Oosthuizen on the Minnesota Fats bank shot.
–We’ll see if commentator Ian Baker-Finch is invited back. At one point on Sunday he said, “The crowds are going crazy…[then immediately recognizing his cardinal sin he corrected himself]…“the patrons.”
But it is probably too late. Ian had made what in Saudi Arabia would be an offense punishable by death. Calling Augusta’s “patrons” “crowds” is like Gary McCord saying Augusta used “bikini wax” to make the greens slick. I fear for Ian’s family and I’m expecting a video tape to be released on his demise in the coming days.
–Good lord…Smylie Kaufman didn’t exactly distinguish himself on Sunday. 81! I’d worry more about him than Spieth.
–We’re bound to hear stories on the Spieth-Michael Greller dynamic. Jordan can be a pain in the ass and sometimes you wonder if Greller, who in one year made a gob of money himself, won’t want to go back to his gentile Pacific Coast lifestyle by 2017.
Then again, Spieth would throw a boatload of money at Greller to stay on the bag….never mind.
—We bid farewell to Tom Watson this week as the 66-year-old played in his final major, having said farewell to the British Open last summer at St. Andrews.
Watson left Augusta as one of the best to ever play the game; winner of eight majors, including Masters titles in 1977 and 1981.
Watson only missed the cut by two, shooting 74-78, and parred his last four holes on Friday. Not too shabby.
He leaves as a player who truly loved and respected the game, but wasn’t himself loved as Watson set up a wall when it came to his personal life. In fact his home in Mission Hills, Kansas, has been off-limits to the media and the world.
We loved to watch Watson play but we never rooted for him the same way we rooted for Arnie or Jack. Or more recently, say, Phil Mickelson. [I was going to bring up Tiger at this point, but I need to think about it a little more.]
–Thomas Boswell / Washington Post…on things you won’t hear about during the Masters.
“You know it rains in Georgia in April. But you may not know how miserable rain makes the Masters. In very wet years, and there have been plenty, the whole place stunk like my grandfather-the-farmer’s pigsty. It’s inescapable. There’s fertilizer, mulch, pine needles and sloping hills that get mucked up by thousands of feet. It’s no scandal. But I bet your TV has never said, ‘The Masters stinks this year.’
“Also, there are no birds, squirrels, insects or any other living creature indigenous to planet Earth at the Masters. Nowhere on the property. Well, okay, there must be some somewhere. But the Post’s Dave Sheinin and I made a multi-day quest for a single bird sighting. So far, none. Those bird calls that you sometimes hear on the Masters broadcast? The source remains undiscovered.”
–As for Ernie Els’ six-putts from three feet on the first hole on Thursday, his 9 was the highest score on the hole in the tournament’s 80-year history. Four players – Olin Browne, Billy Casper, Scott Simpson and Jeev Milkha Singh – had recorded 8s.
But I never saw an explanation for why for about 4 hours the 9, +5 for the hole, was recorded as a 10, +6. Then it suddenly became a 9. How could so many people manning the scoreboard, let alone commentators and course officials, have screwed this up for so long?
–No European had won since Jose Maria Olazabal in 1999, even as the Europeans have dominated the Ryder Cup over that stretch and have won the other major tournaments repeatedly…until today.
MLB
–Here is what Bob Gordon of USA TODAY Sports Weekly wrote before Trevor Story’s first game for the Rockies.
“With Jose Reyes’ status up in the air, Trevor Story heads into the season as the club’s opening-day shortstop. He can be overly aggressive at the plate as he hunts for pitches he can drive. When he’s going well, he can be lights-out, but his swing-and-miss approach results in prolonged slumps…. Story was hot in the spring, hitting .353 with six home runs. If Story gets off to a fast start, the Rockies will have a decision to make when Reyes returns.”
So on Friday, Story became the fifth major leaguer since 1900 to homer in each of his team’s first four games of a season, joining Chris Davis (2013), Nelson Cruz (2011), Mark McGwire (1998) and Willie Mays (1971).
But Story is the first to homer in his first four big league games…six homers in total.
And then after going homerless, 1-for-5 on Saturday, Story hit his seventh homer on Sunday, a solo shot, as the Rockies won 6-3 over San Diego. It turns out that this is a record seven in a team’s first six games of the season, besting Larry Walker (6, 1997), Mike Schmidt (1976) and Willie Mays (1964), according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Story is 9-for-27 with 7 HR 12 RBI.
Meanwhile, Commissioner Rob Manfred has said he will rule on Reyes soon. Prosecutors dropped his domestic abuse case after saying Reyes’ wife wasn’t cooperating. But baseball, just as in the Aroldis Chapman case, can still levy its own penalty.
—Big blow for the Chicago Cubs in losing outfielder/catcher Kyle Schwarber for the season after he tore two knee ligaments in a collision in the outfield with teammate Dexter Fowler.
Schwarber hit 16 home runs in just 232 at-bats last season and is destined to be a 35-40 homer guy in the future.
But, he can’t field and the Cubs do have depth so as bad as it is for Schwarber, the Cubbies can deal with the loss.
Sunday, Jake Arrieta improved to 2-0 in throwing 7 efficient innings in Chicago’s 7-3 win over the Diamondbacks, the Cubs now 5-1. Arrieta also homered.
–After posting that other column I do on Friday night, I couldn’t fall asleep so flipped on MLB Network and caught their look-ins at the Dodgers-Giants game and rookie Ross Stripling’s attempt to become the first in baseball history since Bumpus Jones in 1892 to throw a no-hitter in his major league debut.
Stripling had a no-no after seven, but we could see the pitch count was rising, the kid had Tommy John surgery in 2014, and, you get the picture. There was no way he was going to finish the game and Stripling was removed after his 100th pitch, a no-hitter for 7 1/3.
I like the MLB Network’s Harold Reynolds but he was bitching how Stripling should have been allowed to go for it, which is just stupid. No way.
Afterwards, Stripling agreed with the move. [As did his father.]
The sad part was the Giants ended up rallying and winning in 10, 3-2.
Saturday, Clayton Kershaw matched up against Madison Bumgarner, with Kershaw having a 2-4 record, 2.12 ERA in their head-to-head matchups; Bumgarner going 4-2, 2.58.
This time both had no-decisions as the Dodgers won this one by the same 3-2 score, again in 10 innings.
Kershaw allowed two earned in 8, while Bumgarner gave up one in 6, but Bumgarner homered against Kershaw, a solo shot and his tenth in the last 2+ seasons!
As Ronald Reagan would have said, “Not bad, not bad at all.”
–The Dodgers started the year by outscoring the Padres 25-0 in three games, with San Diego setting a major-league mark with 27 straight scoreless innings to open a season. The old mark was 26 innings by the 1943 St. Louis Browns.
But then the Padres traveled to Coors Field and promptly scored a team-record 29 runs on Friday and Saturday in defeating the Rockies 13-6, 16-3, behind Matt Kemp’s three home runs and 10 RBI.
–After Sunday’s action…Baltimore is 5-0, the Reds are a surprising 5-1 after a 2-1 win over Pittsburgh (4-2), and the Twins (0-6) and Braves (0-5) remain winless.
As for my 2-3 Mets, I am very irritated…zero offense. But I said they would get off to a 12-11 start before righting the ship and it appears that’s where we’re headed. [Sign me up for 12-11, by the way.]
–USA TODAY Sports Weekly has their list of all the 2016 MLB salaries and it really is absurd what some of these guys are making.
Like Baltimore’s Mark Trumbo…$9.15m…
Boston…Hanley Ramirez…$22.75m, Pablo Sandoval…$17.6m
Chicago White Sox…Melky Cabrera…$14.0m
Houston…Colby Rasmus…$15.8m!
Kansas City…Alex Gordon…$12.0m…it’s downhill from here
Minnesota…Joe Mauer…$23.0m…you can put him in your top five overpaid players every season.
New York Yankees…CC Sabathia…$25.0m, Jacoby Ellsbury…$21.1m…Chase Headley…$13.0m
Texas…Josh Hamilton…$24.0m
Arizona…Zack Greinke…$31.8m…he’ll be interesting all season, and for years to come
Chicago Cubs…Jason Heyward…$19.55m
Cincinnati…Homer Bailey…$18.0m…and it gets worse and worse in succeeding years…what was Cincinnati thinking?!
Colorado…Jose Reyes…$22.0m…MLB will give him a long suspension
L.A. Dodgers…Carl Crawford…$20.75m, Andre Ethier…$18.0m
Philadelphia…Ryan Howard…$25.0m
San Diego…James Shields…$21.0m
Washington…Jayson Werth…$21.7m
A record 127 major league players will earn $10 million or more, according to salary information obtained by USA TODAY Sports, and no team has fewer players earning at least that much than the defending World Series champions…Kansas City. [Alex Gordon and pitcher Ian Kennedy, who they overpaid for in free agency.]
By the way, the lowest payroll in the majors this year is Tampa Bay at $57.1 million, with Atlanta next (as they’ve promised) at $69.0m.
The Yankees are tops at $222.9 million, followed by the Dodgers at $222.1m.
–The Nationals like to honor landmark fans, so they recognized the 25 millionth fan the other day, Jesse McCormick, who was actually named after former Mets major leaguer Jesse Orosco.
Jesse was attending Thursday’s game with his father and the two won a pair of Opening Day tickets for the next 25 years, a trip to St. Louis to see the Nationals play the Cardinals in late April and a tour of the owner’s box. Jesse also got to deliver the lineup card to home plate. Pretty cool.
NFL
–Former New Orleans Saints defensive end Will Smith was killed in a shooting spurred by an apparent road rage incident in New Orleans late Saturday. Smith’s wife was also shot twice in the right leg.
At about 11:30 p.m., a Hummer H2 rear-ended Smith’s Mercedes-Benz SUV, according to police, causing Smith’s vehicle to rear-end another car driven by one of his friends.
Smith, 34, and the 30-year-old driver of the Hummer “exchanged words” before the driver of the Hummer pulled out a gun and shot Smith multiple times, police said.
Smith died on the scene.
Police are questioning the unidentified driver and recovered the gun used.
Smith played for New Orleans from 2004-2012 and had 67.5 sacks, the fifth-highest in team history. He was a starter on the Super Bowl XLIV championship team and made the Pro Bowl in 2006.
Smith won a national championship at Ohio State and was the No. 18 overall pick in the 2004 draft.
He didn’t play another NFL game after tearing a knee ligament in an exhibition game in 2013.
In addition to his wife, Smith leaves behind two sons and a daughter.
–The New York Jets were looking to renegotiate offensive tackle D’Brickshaw Ferguson’s contract to free up cap space, which wouldn’t have been fair to “Brick,” but then he shocked the Jets by announcing his retirement after 10 successful seasons.
Talk about a stalwart on the line, Ferguson never missed a snap due to injury, never missed a practice and never appeared on the injury report. Including the postseason, he played in 167 straight games* and, in fact, literally missed one snap…one snap…in all that time (he was off the field during a trick play). 10,351 snaps out of a possible 10,352.
*Most regular-season starts since 2006
OT D’Brickshaw Ferguson 160 games
QB Eli Manning 160
QB Philip Rivers 160
TE Jason Witten 159
QB Drew Brees 158
Ferguson made the Pro Bowl from 2009 to 2011.
Yes, Ferguson’s play had diminished the past few years but he was always part of the core. His retirement created nearly $9.1 million in salary-cap space, which they can use in negotiating with free agent quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick.
Ferguson penned a nice farewell letter to the fans.
“I can still remember what it felt like almost 10 years ago as I walked across the stage at Radio City Music Hall. I was selected fourth overall in the 2006 NFL draft [Ed. out of Virginia] and was overwhelmed with the enormity of such an occasion. The loud cheers and clapping hands still echo in my memories….
“I am sure some of you might be pondering: Why now? Well, my goal coming into this league was to become the best player I could be. I never wanted to define myself by the size of a potential contract, but rather by my ability to compete with the best that the game could offer. Though I was successful in accomplishing that feat largely throughout my career, the difficulty in playing at such a level began to increase…
“I am proud of what I have accomplished in this league, but football has also taught me that you can’t do it all alone. Others have sacrificed so much to allow me the opportunity to be where I am today, people who have paved the way before me, people who have invested in my life and willingly worked with me to help me achieve my dreams.”
Ferguson wrote a column for SI.com in December after seeing the movie “Concussion,” saying he felt “betrayed” by NFL medical personnel who tried to downplay the long-term effects of concussions.
The Jets moved quickly to replace Ferguson by agreeing to a trade with Denver for four-time Pro Bowl offensive tackle Ryan Clady and a seventh-round pick in this year’s NFL draft, for the Jets’ fifth-round selection (Denver looking to unload Clady’s big salary).
The problem is that Clady, 29, has been injury prone and has missed 30 of the past 48 games because of foot and knee injuries. He tore his ACL on May 28 in offseason workouts, which forced him to watch the Broncos’ entire Super Bowl season from the sideline. And he suffered a severe LisFranc injury to his foot in Week 3 of the 2013 season and was placed on season-ending injured reserve.
–Buffalo Bills linebacker A.J. Tarpley retired from the NFL after just one season, citing a concern for his health after suffering multiple concussions. In an Instagram post, Tarpley said in part: “I suffered the 3rd and 4th concussions of my career this past season and I am walking away from the game I love to preserve my future health.
“This decision is the hardest I’ve made yet but after much research and contemplation I believe it’s what is best for me going forward.”
NBA
Golden State defeated San Antonio in Oakland on Thursday, 112-101, and then the Warriors edged the Grizzlies in Memphis on Saturday, 100-99, to move to 71-9
So that brought it to Sunday’s rematch with the Spurs; this one in San Antonio with the Spurs a record 39-0 at home.
And wouldn’t you know the Warriors won, 92-86, the Spurs’ first loss at home as Golden State moved to 72-9 behind Steph Curry’s 37.
It’s now down to Wednesday night, the Warriors home to Memphis for the record all by themselves.
CBB
–One more very early look at the 2016-17 College Basketball season.
Just about three hours after I posted last time, Duke’s Grayson Allen announced he was returning and that sewed it up for the Blue Devils. They are not only No. 1 in every early poll I’ve seen thus far, but they will indeed win it all next year, no doubt. You’d expect Luke Kennard to take a major step up and with Allen will form the best backcourt in recent memory…plus Matt Jones, Derryck Thornton, Amile Jefferson, and the No. 1 overall recruit, Harry Giles, who should have gone to Wake Forest but we suck.
Anyway, many of us will be sick of Duke by Thanksgiving. It will only get far worse next March. [Of course my good friends, Ken, Brad and Leah, who all went to Duke, will be fired up, and insufferable.]
2. Kentucky
3. Oregon
4. North Carolina
5. Xavier
6. Villanova
7. Michigan State
8. Virginia
9. Kansas
10. UConn
The ACC has 8 of the Top 25 in this particular survey.
–Valparaiso coach Bryce Drew was hired to be Vanderbilt’s new men’s basketball coach, a nice and deserved step up for Drew, who coached Valpo for five seasons, going 124-49, with two NCAA tournament appearances and most recently an NIT runner-up finish.
—The ratings for the National Championship game were miserable, down 37 percent from 2015’s Duke-Wisconsin final.
But last year was on CBS. This time 17.8 million watched it across TBS, TNT and truTV.
In terms of household rating – the key metric for selling ads – the figure was 13.2, down 38 percent and the lowest-rated National Championship game ever.
From now until the end of the rights deal – through 2024 – CBS and TBS will alternate airing the Championships and Final Four.
It didn’t help Monday’s finale that the two Final Four games on Saturday were blowouts, plus while North Carolina has a massive national following, Villanova obviously doesn’t.
NHL
The NHL’s regular season is over. All I care about is the Rangers play the Penguins in the first round.
The Detroit Red Wings qualified for an NHL record 25th straight postseason.
My sympathies to Bruins fans, who saw their team choke down the stretch.
Sympathies also to any fan of the seven teams from Canada… none of which qualified.
–In college hockey’s Frozen Four, last Thursday, No. 1 Quinnipiac defeated Boston College 3-2 in one semifinal, while North Dakota beat Denver 4-2.
So the two faced off Saturday night for the title down in Tampa and North Dakota’s Fighting Sioux beat Quinnipiac 5-1 for ND’s eighth title and first since 2000. Michigan holds the record with nine.
Quinnipiac will have to wait another year as it seeks the program’s first championship despite a nice stretch of regular-season dominance. The school lost to Yale in the title game in 2013.
As for North Dakota, yes, I know you’re not supposed to call them the Fighting Sioux anymore, but if you watched the game, you saw nothing but Fighting Siouxwear in the stands. And I have a Fighting Sioux shirt myself.
Premier League
Leicester continued to roll, a 2-0 win on Sunday against Sunderland to stay 7 points clear of second-place Tottenham, as the Spurs blitzed Manchester United in the second half for a 3-0 win at White Hart Lane today. [All three goals in the blink of an eye in the second.]
In other key games over the weekend, Arsenal suffered a blow in its battle to stay in the title race with a 3-3 draw with West Ham; a terrific contest where West Ham had a shot to make a move on the fourth and last slot for the Champions League.
Manchester City beat West Brom 2-1.
Standings…38 games in a season.
1. Leicester 33 games – 72 points
2. Tottenham 33 – 65
3. Arsenal 32 – 59
4. Manchester City 32 – 57
5. Manchester United 32 – 53
6. West Ham 32 – 52
7. Southampton 33 – 50
8. Liverpool 31 – 48…can’t get to the fourth slot. No way.
*Of Leicester’s remaining five contests, none of them are against Tottenham, Arsenal or Man City. It does have games against Man U and West Ham (next week).
Merle Haggard
The closest thing that country music had to a real-life outlaw hero, Merle Haggard, died Wednesday on his birthday. He was 79.
Unlike his friend Johnny Cash, Haggard didn’t merely visit San Quentin State Prison to perform for the inmates. He served nearly three years there and spent his 21st birthday in solitary confinement.
Haggard went on to write “Mama Tried,” “Branded Man” and several other candid songs about his incarceration, while many of his other recordings championed the struggles of the working class from which he rose. He was known as the poet of the common man and became one of the most successful singers in the history of country music…38 of his singles hit No. 1 on the Billboard country chart from 1966 to 1987; 71 Top 10 country hits in all.
His influence went beyond country, though, with rock bands such as the Byrds and the Grateful Dead recording some of his songs.
Haggard was an architect of the twangy Bakersfield sound, a guitar-driven blend of blues, jazz, pop and honky-tonk that traced its roots to Bakersfield, Calif. He was perhaps best known for his 1969 hit, “Okie From Muskogee,” a tune that defended conservative heartland values against the hippie counterculture of the time.
We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee
We don’t take our trips on LSD
We don’t burn our draft cards down on Main Street
We like living right and being free.
Merle Ronald Haggard was born on April 6, 1937, in Oildale, Calif. His first years were spent in squalid poverty, living in an abandoned boxcar that his father, James, a railroad carpenter, had converted into a home for his family. James Haggard died of a stroke in 1946, after which Haggard’s mother, a strict and pious member of the ultraconservative Church of Christ, took a job to provide for her three children.
But with his mother being the strict sort, Merle rebelled and got into trouble for breaking and entering, shoplifting and passing bad checks. He made repeated trips to reform school, and then would escape from it.
In 1957, Haggard was arrested and charged with burglary and, by his account, considered fleeing from police custody with an inmate nicknamed Rabbit. The other man proceeded with the escape without Mr. Haggard and managed to elude capture until he was caught after fatally shooting a state trooper.
[Rabbit was convicted of murder and sent to the gas chamber at San Quentin, with Haggard writing a song about him, the death-row ballad ‘Sing Me Back Home.’]
In 1958 Haggard was sentenced to six to 15 years in San Quentin, where Cash’s performance that year prompted Haggard to form a prison band.
The song “Mama Tried,” considered by some to be Haggard’s greatest, is an autobiographical account of his road to incarceration.
I turned 21 in prison doin’ life without parole – exaggerates his sentence as he was paroled after less than three years, but upon his release he worked briefly as a ditch digger and pursued gigs in Bakersfield bars, where the new country-rockabilly music scene was gaining popularity. The high priest, country mavens should know, was Buck Owens, whose ex-wife, singer Bonnie Owens, Haggard would marry after divorcing his first wife Leona (who Merle married at 17).
Haggard’s big break came when he joined Wynn Stewart’s band, before breaking off on his own and unleashing a string of hits, many which became country standards. “The Bottle Let Me Down,” “Sing Me Back Home,” “Mama Tried,” “Okie from Muskogee,” and “Workin’ Man Blues,” all produced from 1966 to 1969.
Okie’s political message made Haggard a darling of conservatives. Richard Nixon sent him a congratulatory note and California Gov. Ronald Reagan pardoned him in 1972.
But while sincere in his conservative views, Haggard didn’t want any political role.
Haggard won a Grammy in 1984 for my personal favorite, “That’s the Way Love Goes.” He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1994.
Through it all, Merle Haggard never stopped writing till the day he died, some 10,000 ballads, he would say. He once wrote an entire song during the walk from his limousine to the stage.
[Jill Leovy of the Los Angeles Times was the source of some of the above.]
Stuff
—Kyle Busch won the NASCAR Sprint Cup race this weekend in Fort Worth, Texas. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was second and Joey Logano third, as Martin Truex Jr.’s crew made an ill-fated decision not to pit at a critical time and he was left in the dust on a late restart as Busch had fresher tires. Truex finished sixth.
Busch, the defending Sprint Cup champ, also won last week at Martinsville for Joe Gibbs Racing.
–The NCAA has shut down satellite camps, effective immediately, requiring all Division I football programs to conduct all clinics at school facilities or facilities regularly used for practice or competition.
Good. This was necessitated by Michigan, ostensibly, which conducted camps in the South, rich for recruiting.
So the ruling is a win for the ACC and SEC, which had banned their coaches from working camps at destinations outside a 50-mile radius from their schools.
–Some big Kentucky Derby prelim races on Saturday and in the most impressive performance, Exaggerator came from way back to win the Santa Anita Derby going away over Bob Baffert’s Mor Spirit.
I mean to tell you, Exaggerator was awesome. So put him right there with Nyquist and Gun Runner, in my book, for May 7.
—Manny Pacquiao was inconclusive about retiring after defeating Timothy Bradley in a unanimous decision at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Saturday night. The two had split two previous bouts, including a highly controversial 2012 victory for Bradley.
Afterwards, Pacquiao, a congressman in his native Philippines, said: “I have a commitment to my family that I am going to retire after this but I don’t know.”
Pacquiao is 58-6-2, 38 KOs. Bradley is 33-2-1, 13 KOs.
–Brad K. passed along this story from Adam Boult of the Daily Telegraph.
“Indonesian pop singer Irma Bule died this week after being bitten by a snake used as an on-stage prop during a live performance on Sunday.
“ ‘The accident happened in the middle of the second song when Irma stepped on the snake’s tail,’ an audience member told local media.
“ ‘The snake then bit Irma on the thigh.’
“Witnesses at the gig in Karawant, West Java, said Bule did not initially seem too affected by the bite, and she apparently ‘refused an antidote from the snake handler,’ said one local reporter.
“It’s thought that Bule believed the cobra had been defanged. She was well known for using snakes during live performances – a relatively common practice in the region – and had previously appeared with pythons and boa constrictors.
“45 minutes after the bite took place, the performance was abandoned as Bule started vomiting and collapsed. She was subsequently taken to hospital, where she was later confirmed to have died.”
So if you’re out to dinner with the family and someone at the table next to you starts vomiting, it may not be because that person has the flu or ate some poorly cooked food. There could be a cobra under the table.
–I didn’t have a chance before posting last time to report on the 15-foot alligator that was fatally shot the other day, but hunters in Okeechobee, Florida, caught and killed the 800-lb. monster after it was reported to be terrorizing cattle on a farm.
The owner of Outwest Farms and a hunting guide discovered the alligator in their cattle ponds and believe it had been feasting on the farm’s cattle; especially after discovering remains in the water.
–Congratulations to Hugh Hefner on his 90th birthday this weekend, though this turned into a sad occasion as his 87-year-old brother, Keith, Hef’s “best friend” as he put it, passed away on Friday.
—Steve Miller was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Friday night and in the press room after his induction, he went into a rant about the whole HOF process.
“It doesn’t need to be this hard. There’s nothing fancy going on out there that requires all of this stuff.”
Miller complained about access to the event. “When they told me I was inducted they said ‘You have two tickets, one for your wife and one for yourself.’ …What about my band? What about their wives?”
Then Miller complained about how the artists they are honoring aren’t respected, and he went on and on.
And of course he is right. I’ve said this a zillion times. The Hall of Fame museum in Cleveland is outstanding. Everyone should go.
But the people who are in charge of ‘the process,’ read Jann Wenner, are total a-holes. And as I documented long ago, it’s a corrupt process, with Wenner, blatantly in the case of the Dave Clark Five, rigging the vote so that they didn’t get in until years after they should have been inducted and after two band members had died.
And this is why Jann Wenner will forever be one of the primo dirtballs of the past 50 years.
—Bruce Springsteen stirred things up by canceling a scheduled weekend show in Greensboro, N.C., to protest North Carolina’s new law that halts antidiscrimination protections for the LGBT community.
Springsteen said of the North Carolina law, “To my mind, it’s an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress.”
Proponents of the five-page North Carolina law, including North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, say the legislation was meant to combat a new Charlotte ordinance that would have allowed transgender people to use the public bathroom of the gender with which they identify. The state law requires people to use the bathroom corresponding with the sex on their birth certificate.
–“American Idol” signed off the other day after 15 seasons. They were first, and it was original, and it produced the likes of Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, but competitors arrived on the scene and Idol’s ratings plummeted.
Top 3 songs for the week 4/10/71: #1 “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)” (The Temptations) #2 “What’s Going On” (Marvin Gaye…love this one…) #3 “Joy To The World” (Three Dog Night)…and…#4 “She’s A Lady” (Tom Jones) #5 “For All We Know” (Carpenters…poor Karen…do you know she left us over 33 years ago?!) #6 “Me And Bobby McGee” (Janis Joplin…a posthumous hit…was #1 two weeks before…) #7 “Doesn’t Somebody Want To Be Wanted” (The Partridge Family…us young guys couldn’t get enough of Susan Dey…and Shirley wasn’t all bad either, sports fans!) #8 “Another Day” (Paul McCartney) #9 “Proud Mary” (Ike & Tina Turner…sorry, just could not stand this song…) #10 “One Toke Over The Line” (Brewer & Shipley…not bad…)
NHL Quiz Answer: Last five Stanley Cup Champions
2014-15 Chicago Blackhawks over Tampa Bay
2013-14 Los Angeles Kings over New York Rangers
2012-13 Chicago Blackhawks over Boston
2011-12 Los Angeles Kings over New Jersey
2010-11 Boston Bruins over Vancouver
2009-10 Chicago Blackhawks over Philadelphia
Next Bar Chat, Thursday. Far more on the Masters, that’s for sure.
