Sports Today – Stocks and News

Baseball Quiz: 1) Most home runs, season, 1942-60? N.L. and

A.L. 2) Major league career leader in relief wins? Answers

below.

Song Quiz: The next few Friday”s we”ll run a little quiz that you

may have fun with during these lazy summer weekends.

First Top Twenty Tune

Name the first Top Twenty / Billboard Pop single for the

following groups. 14 of the 18 were Top Ten. 8 were #1. Some

are easy. Many aren”t.

ABBA, Aerosmith, America, Animals, Association, Bachman-

Turner Overdrive, Beach Boys, Beatles, Bee Gees, Blood, Sweat

& Tears, Bread, Buckinghams, Byrds, Carpenters, Chicago,

Dave Clark Five, Petula Clark, Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Answers below.

Hustle

After watching the New York Mets” shortstop Rey Ordonez jog

to first on a double play ball, when he would have been safe if

he just friggin” ran at three-quarters speed, I asked Johnny

Mac to write a few thoughts on sports in this modern age.

—

Your editor and I could both be described as “old-school.” We

have often bemoaned the current state of affairs in sport, from

the continual arrests, the spate of out of wedlock kids and the

incessant showboating and lack of common hustle. I”d like to

examine the showboating and hustle issue in a little more detail.

First, this is not a blanket indictment of the modern athlete nor is

it a nostalgic look back through rose-colored glasses at the days

of yore. We have our share of truly good guys out there, players

who take the game and the fans seriously. We have also had our

share of dirt bags, right Mr. Cobb? I would like to confine this to

on-field behavior, the kind of thing that wins or loses games.

Too often we get bogged down in the “role-model” discussion,

losing track somewhat of an athlete”s true place in the

culture…which is hero, not role model. Should athletes, as

people in the public arena, comport themselves in a manner as

not to embarrass themselves or their sport? Sure, I don”t think

anyone would disagree that arrests and drug abuse and wife /

girlfriend / mother of my child beatings are not the kind of things

we should blindly accept because someone can turn on a fastball

or hit an open jump shot. On the other hand, we are not

entrusting these guys with anything really serious, are we? I

certainly have a deeper concern for the sobriety and sleep habits

of my pilot or neurosurgeon than my third baseman.

What they are, as I said, are heroes. We marvel at their

expertise, their physical gifts, and the ability to perform under

pressure. And we want them to care about that role, to actually

act as if they give a hoot what we think. This may be selfish, but

that”s the reality. We also want them to understand that it is a

sport after all, not a business, as is so often stated by those with

no real understanding. I turn on the game to watch Mike Piazza

hit, not as an employee of Fred Wilpon, but as a NY Mets player,

wearing the uniform of my team. If it weren”t at its core a sport,

there would be no “business” to conduct, would there? I don”t

know, would you buy tickets to see Orioles” owner Peter

Angelos file his payroll taxes or George Steinbrenner fire another

accountant? [Okay, that may have some amusement value, but

back to our story.] No, we pay our money to see the best at what

they do, perform for us, entertain us, and even break our hearts

on occasion.

Sometimes, I really think Green Bay should be the model for all

professional sports. Sell everyone in the town a share of stock,

elect a board to run the team, and really care about how it affects

the community. Too often these owners start to think that it is

about them, right Mr. Cuban? Too often they run their

businesses in a fashion that would bankrupt them in the real

world. Fortunately (for them) this is not the case. In the real

world, competition would spur them on or drive them out. In

sports, no one can just open a franchise across the street and offer

a better product. They have anti-trust exemptions and profit-

sharing plans and territorial protection and the ultimate in

“greater fool” mentality going for them. By that I mean, let”s

face it, there are more rich guys or corporations who want to own

ball clubs than there are ball clubs to own.

Many years ago, George Argyros bought the Seattle Mariners for

about $17 million. He proceeded to oversee an absolutely

mediocre, boring franchise. He insisted on trading every player

who even looked like he might get good enough to demand a real

salary. A few of those included Mike Moore, Danny Tartabull,

Floyd Bannister, Rick Honeycutt, Dave Henderson and Mark

Langston. They consistently finished at the bottom of the

standings. Argyros sold the team, in all its failure, for over $70

million. Does anyone think he could have made that kind of

profit by being that inept in some other business?

[Note: As a matter of fact, Mr. Argyros was not inept in the true

sense of the word. I think he realized the economic landscape

and used it to his advantage. He was “inept” at building a

winning baseball team, but this didn”t prevent him from going on

to found a business school named for him at Chapman University

in California, or more recently being named by President Bush as

ambassador to Spain. Maybe we could name Mark Cuban as

ambassador to Nepal? Just a thought.]

Getting back to my original thought, now we can concentrate on

the sporting aspects of the problem. We have the right, as

customers of these people, to expect certain behavior as it relates

to their job. From the athletes, we expect them to give an effort

commensurate with their skill level and to make every attempt,

within the bounds of the game, to win. Note I said every attempt

to win, not win. Fans too often take winning as some birthright

and judge everything by the raw result. Remember, in the entire

history of team sports, the aggregate record for all teams for all

the games ever played is .500. We can”t expect winners every

year, but we should expect them to all work towards that goal.

And we should expect them to remember about the team. Maybe

we are losing that these days, with free agency and sneaker

contracts that pay more than the salaries and owners pulling up

stakes and relocating to the highest bidder. But we still care, at

least for now. We root for that jersey or uniform or sweater with

the logo on it, and want desperately to root for the guy wearing

it.

Give us reasons to root, fellas. Don”t stand at home plate

admiring that blast which suddenly bounces off the wall for a

single…we know you hit it good, you don”t need to preen.

Home to first is 90 feet guys, 30 little yards. Run ”em out.

especially when it may count. Look, nobody really bitches when

a beat up catcher hits a one-hopper to second in the late stages of

a 9-1 game and trots down the line. To bust it at that point and

risk pulling a hamstring or something might not make sports

sense. But hustling to first is a lost art even for some of the

speed merchants, particularly on plays where hustle might make

the difference. We saw some of this lackadaisical nonsense in

last year”s World Series, for chrissake.the World Series! More

than once I”ve watched the immensely talented Barry Bonds

standing at home, watching one of his “home runs” not quite

make it out. How many times would this have to happen to you

until you changed that behavior?

It”s all about cool I”m afraid. It”s more important to look cool or

have an image than it is to play your best at all times. It”s about

SportsCenter highlights and the “look at me” mentality at the

expense of the team or the fans or of a simple pride in your craft.

Look, we know you”re good…that”s why we are at the game,

slick. And to just make a point, this mentality can manifest itself

in other ways too. False hustle, like Pete Rose loved to do, is just

another form of “look at me.” Rose understood that his

demeanor would never play as “cool,” so he went for the

opposite, playing up that “Charlie Hustle” hustle. Fans might

have ate it up, to a degree, but running out walks never won a

game and intentionally trying to cripple a guy in an exhibition

game is hardly the stuff of a sportsman (I”m referring to the Ray

Fosse, all-star game incident).

I”m not sure where we go from here. We can boo all we want,

but a guy with a 7-year deal for 10 or 15 large per season is

somehow gonna get over it…so will the guy paying him. I

mean, when is the last time an owner said something like “You

know, I made a big mistake bringing that asshole in here, didn”t

I?” He still needs to keep up appearances, even for the sake of

trade value. The only real hope is peer pressure.somehow the

“good guys” need to take back the game. The old practice of the

Kangaroo Courts, where veteran players fined the upstarts for

bad mental mistakes and lack of hustle might be a good thing to

reinstate. This would at least instill some sense of respect in the

kids, which seems to be sorely lacking. But we need real

veterans to do this and they need the backing of the everyday

guys. They also have to lead by example, playing the game

correctly themselves, right Barry? Rickey? Bobby Bo?

And one more little thing, we know you”re well paid, okay? We

understand that you must negotiate contracts that are suitable to

the marketplace for your talents. But try to do it behind closed

doors. When someone offers you $75 million bucks for 5 years

of service, feel free to make a counteroffer, but don”t come on

TV and call it “an insult.” $75 million might be a lot of things,

but an insult is not one of them, especially when the slob going

to the games is coughing up a week”s take-home pay for the

privilege.

Someone asked Joe DiMaggio why he played as hard as he did in

every inning of every game. Joe said, because somebody in the

stands might be seeing me for the first time. That might not be

the worst motto for an athlete to live by.

—

Gold Club / Atlanta

Back to reality. Well, through the first few days of testimony at

this Atlanta hot spot, the prosecution”s witness against Gold Club

owner Steve Kaplan has fingered the following athletes as

accepting sexual favors from the Gold Club”s strippers. Knicks”

rookies John Wallace, Walter McCarty, and Dont” Jones

(1997), Jerry Stackhouse, Patrick Ewing, John Starks, Reggie

Miller, the Braves” Andruw Jones (now we know why he spelled

his first name wrong; he thought this would throw investigators

off the trail), Dennis Rodman and Terrell Davis. Regarding the

latter, in particular, his remaining endorsement contracts will

undoubtedly be pulled rather quickly. [Campbell”s did before all

this stuff hit the fan.]

If you aren”t on the list, and you should be, I apologize for

the omission.

Philly – Los Angeles, Game #1

I must say, that was as good a pro game as I”ve witnessed in

years. And even U2 worked. Now we love U2 and Bono here at

Bar Chat, but I just thought it was a bad idea to have them at the

half. I bet 99% of you felt the same way. But darned if it wasn”t

a great show as well. Good for NBC. They pulled it off.

But, geezuz, who are those creeps sitting around Jack Nicholson?

That had to be the ugliest crew I ever did see. And wasn”t it

great to have a few Blood street gang members sitting behind

him? Or were they Crips?

Another Opinion – Casey Martin

From commentator John Leo / U.S. News

“Here the justices insert themselves into someone else”s game

and explain what is arbitrary and what is not. But it is not the

role of judges to decide whether baseball”s balk rule or football”s

man-in-motion rule is essential or arbitrary. All rules in all

games and sports are arbitrary, as Justice Antonin Scalia pointed

out in dissent. That is the nature of games. If everything is

arbitrary, on what basis can any court decide what is essential

and what isn”t? And in any case, as Nicklaus and Palmer said

again and again, professional golfers deserve the right to set their

own rules. In this case, the PGA set the rule against carts

because it believes that walking the course as a show of stamina

is necessary under championship conditions. By casually

deciding that the PGA is wrong about its own game, the court

opens up great room for other courts to tinker with other sports to

advance their own notions of social justice. We will now have a

great rush of litigation followed by more sports rules being bent

or repealed by nonplayers who have the advantage of being

judges.”

Leo goes on to bring up the case in Oklahoma of 9-year-old

Ryan Taylor, who was allowed to play in a soccer league while

using a walker! He was placed about ten feet in front of the goal

and basically was stationary. Oh brother.

Top 3 songs for the week of 6/8/63: #1 “It”s My Party” (Lesley

Gore) #2 “Sukiyaki” (Kyu Sakamoto) #3 “Da Doo Ron Ron”

(The Crystals)