[Posted Sunday PM after golf…]
Brief Add-on up top by noon, Tues.
Baseball Quiz: The Yankees announced this week they are retiring Hall of Famer CC Sabathia’s No. 52 jersey in September. He is the 24th Yankee to have their uniform retired. I’ll give you Joe Torre and Casey Stengel. Name the other 21. Answer below.
College Basketball
–Going back to Tuesday, 11 Virginia (25-3, 13-2) whipped N.C. State (19-9, 10-5) 90-61 in an important ACC affair. The Cavaliers could easily make the Final Four. Interesting squad, with a distinct international flavor.
Wednesday, 15 St. John’s (22-6, 15-2) had one of those nights to forget, getting absolutely destroyed by 6 UConn (26-3, 16-2) 72-40, the Johnnies shooting 11 of 56 from the field, 20%! Tarris Reed Jr. had 20 points and 11 rebounds for the Huskies.
Thursday, 13 Michigan State (23-5, 13-4) edged 8 Purdue (22-6, 12-5) on the road, 76-74. I’m surprised how many games Purdue has lost. Early in the season, I thought they’d win it all.
Friday, 3 Michigan (27-2, 17-1) beat 10 Illinois (22-7, 13-5) 84-70, former Illini Morez Johnson Jr. with 19 points and 11 rebounds.
And then Saturday, as proof that I write up comments on games Saturday morning, prior to the weekend action, look no further than what I said about Virginia. Doh! Their run came crashing down against No. 1 Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium, 77-51, UVA now 25-4, 13-3, the Blue Devils (27-2, 15-1).
Isaiah Evans had 19 points, 5 of 9 from beyond the arc for Duke, including three, 3-pointers in the opening 4 minutes. When he shoots the 3 well, they are basically unbeatable.
Meanwhile, the Blue Devils also play defense, holding the Cavaliers to 16 of 55 from the field, 28%, including 7 of 35 from three.
2 Arizona (27-2, 14-2) whipped 14 Kansas (21-8, 11-5) 84-61.
16 Texas Tech (22-7, 12-4) is playing well without JT Toppin, pulling off a big one, 82-73, at 4 Iowa State (24-5, 11-5).
Seton Hall (19-10, 9-9) had a golden opportunity to punch a ticket into the Big Dance, up 8 on 6 UConn (27-3, 17-2) in Storrs with about 9:30 to play, but Alex Karaban (23 points) hit two of his five 3s, the Huskies tied it shortly thereafter and went on to win 71-67, Seton Hall failing to get a call on what would have resulted in three free throws with nine seconds left and that was the game.
Karaban, with two rings in his possession in four seasons at UConn, had his uniform number retired.
15 St. John’s (23-6, 16-2) bounced back after its humiliation against UConn on Wednesday, mauling Villanova (22-7, 13-5) at Madison Square Garden, 89-57, as Zuby Ejiofor, who was totally outplayed the other night by the Huskies’ Tarris Reed Jr., had a triple-double…16 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists. An important game for Rick Pitino’s Johnnies.
–And lastly, my Wake Forest Demon Deacons had an interesting, and imperfect, week.
Wednesday, the Deacs lost at Boston College on a tip-in with 0.5 on the clock, 68-67, wasting a truly heroic effort from Juke Harris, who had 38 points, 12 of 19 from the field, only to have his teammates go a combined 10 of 43. Myles Colvin, who has been a big disappointment after coming over from Purdue, was 0 for 9, 0 for 4 from three.
But then on Saturday, back at home, the same Colvin hit his first seven 3s, on his way to 32 points, Wake 58% from the field, as they beat Syracuse 88-83 in a game that essentially punched their ticket to the ACC Tournament, both teams now 15-14, 6-10.
–But wait…there’s more! Today, Sunday, 8 Purdue (22-7, 12-6) lost again, this time to Ohio State (18-11, 10-8) 82-74. Big-time foul trouble for the Boilermakers.
NBA
–As us Knicks fans say these days, the only consistent theme around the team is their inconsistency. That was on display this week. Tuesday, the Knicks were pathetic in falling at Cleveland, 109-94, hitting just 10 of 37 from three.
But Friday night in Milwaukee, New York (38-22) blitzed the Bucks (26-32) 127-98, hitting 21 of 42 from beyond the arc. Jalen Brunson had 22 of his 27 points in the first quarter. OG Anunoby had 24, 5 of 7 from 3.
Which set up Sunday afternoon’s fascinating contest at the Garden, the Knicks hosting the shocking Spurs, second in the West behind the Thunder at 43-16.
I say shocking because no one expected San Antonio to improve so quickly. But the Spurs come in having gone 10-3 against the Pistons, Celtics, Knicks, Thunder, Nuggets and Rockets combined; one of those losses being in the NBA Cup final to the Knicks.
And after a slow start, the Knicks rolled! 114-89, Mikal Bridges with 25, ending the Spurs’ 11-game winning streak.
[If you were watching the game, near the end ABC’s Ryan Ruocco made a massive mistake; mixing up Rhea Pearlman with Susie Essman, in terms of the shows they starred on. Granted, easy one to make…they look very alike.]
—Detroit now has the best record in the NBA at 44-14, heading into a Sunday night game against the Magic.
Wednesday, they had a big win over the Thunder (46-15), 124-116, Cade Cunningham with 29 points and 13 assists, though OKC was without five of its six leading scorers.
The Thunder rebounded Friday against the Nuggets, 127-121, as SGA made his return following a nine-game absence due to an abdominal strain, scoring 36 points with nine assists.
Golf Balls
After two Signature Events in back-to-back weeks, with two more coming up (Arnold Palmer Invitational and The Players Championship), it was to be expected the field this week for the Cognizant Classic at Palm Beach Gardens would be less than stellar in terms of players in the Top 50 of the World rankings and, sure enough, Ben Griffin (No. 11) and last week’s winner, Jacob Bridgeman, pulled out, as did the popular Adam Scott.
But this creates massive opportunities, especially for those who didn’t qualify the last two weeks for the big money purses. Players, say, around 100-120 on the points list, must take advantage of these weeks, get a top ten, a top five, and move up so they can earn their way into a Signature Event or two.
First, however, you have to make the cut, and one of the game’s potential young stars, Luke Clanton, MC’d for a third time in four tournaments this year, the fourth a WD.
But Brooks Koepka is in the field and after a poor opening round 74, he shot a 66 on Friday to finish T19 at -3.
The leaders after two rounds….
Austin Smotherman -11
Taylor Moore -8
A.J. Ewart -7
Nico Echavarria -7
Joel Dahmen -6
Shane Lowry among those at -5.
Because of thunderstorms in the forecast for Saturday, everyone teed off early, trying to beat the weather, or at least have a shot at finishing the third round in time after any rain delays.
And it was the right decision. Thankfully for NBC, Shane Lowry is tied for the lead after 54….
Lowry -13
Smotherman -13
Echavarria -12
Moore -12
Koepka -4
So, in the fourth round, Lowry was playing great, up three heading to the par-4 16th, part of the Bear Trap (15-17), and he inexplicably put it in the water!
And then his fourth shot (his third being way back because of where he entered the water) landed in the greenside bunker! Oh my. Unbelievable.
He hits a great fifth, however, and needs to sink the short putt to salvage a double-bogey and a one-shot lead. Lowry does…lead is one over Echavarria.
Echavarria birdies 17! Tied with Lowry. Holy Toledo!
Lowry now has to hit the tough tee shot on the par-3 17th.
And for the second hole in a row, with an iron in his hand, Lowry puts it in the water! You cannot make this stuff up. He hasn’t won an individual championship since the 2019 Open title at Royal Portrush!
Lowry doubles, two behind heading to 18. He had never made back-to-back double-bogeys in his career.
Echavarria gets par at 18 to finish -17.
And Lowry finishes T2 with Taylor Moore and Austin Smotherman at -15.
Echavarria, a very likable guy, with win No. 3.
Seriously, an unreal ending.
Brooks Koepka finished -10, T9 (74-66-69-65), very solid for him. We want him playing well.
MLB
—Max Scherzer agreed to return to the Toronto Blue Jays on a one-year, $3 million deal after helping them make the World Series last year. The 41-year-old’s contract includes $10 million in incentives that start at 65 innings pitched and no-trade protection.
After finishing the regular season 5-5, 5.19 ERA in 17 starts, Scherzer was solid in three postseason starts with a 3.77 ERA. He started Toronto’s Game 7 loss in the World Series against the Dodgers, allowing just one run in 4 1/3.
43-year-old Justin Verlander earlier opted to sign with the Tigers, which means both could easily finally retire after the season and then five years later enter Cooperstown together.
Both are 3-time Cy Young Award winners, Scherzer 221-117, 3.22; Verlander 266-158, 3.32.
Premier League
Saturday, Liverpool whipped West Ham 5-2; Manchester City edged Leeds on the road, 1-0.
Sunday, Arsenal won its biggie with Chelsea, 2-1; Manchester United beat Crystal Palace 2-1; and freakin Tottenham lost to Fulham 2-1.
Table…played – points
- Arsenal…29 – 64
2. Man City…28 – 59
3. Man U…28 – 51
4. Aston Villa…28 – 51
5. Liverpool…28 – 48
6. Chelsea…28 – 4516.Tottenham…28 – 29
17. Nottingham…28 – 27
18. West Ham…28 – 25
—The Champions League is down to the last 16…home and away knockout rounds, and I’m shocked the Premier League still has all six entrants in it…Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Newcastle and, shockingly, Tottenham.
Yes, lowly Tottenham, struggling to avoid relegation, having fired its manager a few weeks ago. Makes no sense.
Stuff
—The fallout/backlash from some inopportune comments and a fake video continue to reverberate when it comes to the U.S. men’s and women’s gold-medal-winning hockey teams.
President Trump called the men’s team after they won the gold medal last Sunday, inviting them to the White House, and in the call he said he would have to invite the women’s team as well and would be impeached if he didn’t do so, eliciting laughter from the men’s team.
Hillary Knight, the captain of the women’s team, told reporters: “I thought it was sort of a distasteful joke and unfortunately that is overshadowing a lot of the success, the success of just women at the Olympics carrying for Team USA and having amazing gold medal feats,” Knight said during a Wednesday appearance on “SportsCenter.”
But then we had a doctored TikTok video shared by the White House that made it seem like men’s hockey player Brady Tkachuk was disparaging Canadians after winning the gold medal.
Tkachuk, in his eighth season with the Ottawa Senators, and captain, was rightfully pissed. The video made it look like he was disparaging Canadians after beating them out for the gold, calling it fake and something he would never say.
The video includes fabricated audio of Tkachuk referring to Canadian as “maple syrup eating (expletive),” with the expletive bleeped out. The video carries a note saying it “contains AI-generated media.”
“It’s clearly fake because it’s not my voice and not my lips moving,” Tkachuk said. “I’m not in control of any of those accounts. …I know that those words would never come out of my mouth.”
Meanwhile, the viewership numbers from the men’s hockey championship game between the United States and Canada came in this week and the gold medal game was the most-watched sporting event with a pre-9 a.m. ET start time in U.S. history, according to NBC.
An average of 18.6 million viewers tuned in, with a peak viewership of 26 million for a game that started at 8:10 a.m. ET.
The Olympics saw an increase in viewership overall, NBC said.
The network averaged 23.5 million viewers throughout the competition that lasted over two weeks.
The 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games were the most-viewed Winter Games since 2014, when the competition was staged in Sochi, Russia.
For good reason, NBC wrote in a release: “We can’t wait for the return of the Olympics to the United States with the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.”
—World-class distance runner Jeff Galloway died Wednesday, 80. If you don’t remember him, it was Galloway who first promoted the idea of the “run-walk” method of training, that has allowed scores of marathon, half-marathon and 10-K runners to handily finish their races…maybe not so much in the first one. That’s just survival.
I’m old…but I have got to do this when I get back out there this spring. [I’m a slug in the winter.] In my two marathons, I ran the first 14-15 miles before run-walking to finish. In all my half-marathons (about 15) I took pride in running all of them straight through, except the very last one, about six years ago, when I had to do some walking.
I need to set a goal this year of just getting in good enough shape to do a 10-K by the fall, using Mr. Galloway’s method. It’s so easy, people. [Frankly, I haven’t been running the last few years because I’m scared of ripping my Achilles, so I go on long walks instead.]
–And we note the passing of Neil Sedaka, one of the most beloved songwriter/performers of our time. He was 86.
Sedaka essentially had two careers. He co-wrote and sang some of the definitive teenage anthems of the late 1950s and early 60s, hits of the pre-Beatles rock ‘n’ roll era that included “Calendar Girl,” “Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen” and “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.”
He also co-wrote hits like “Stupid Cupid” and “Where the Boys Are” for Connie Francis and, much later, “Love Will Keep Us Together” for the Captain and Tennille.
As the New York Times’ Peter Applebome wrote:
“He combined a genius for melody, the commercial instincts of a pop savant, a boyish high tenor and an unabashed enthusiasm for performing onstage. And he had a story that was both universal and indelibly rooted in a specific place: the Brooklyn of the 1950s and its Jewish culture, which played a disproportionate role in the early history of rock ‘n’ roll.
“In an interview with the Jewish newspaper The Forward in 2012, Mr. Sedaka reminisced about contemporaries like (Carole) King, whom he dated in high school; Neil Diamond, who lived across the street; and others, like Barbra Streisand and Barry Manilow, who had similar influences.
“ ‘We all lived in Brooklyn,’ he said. ‘It was a wonderful time. It must have been something in the egg cream. We used to hang out in the sweet shop and have egg creams and potato knishes.’”
At an early age, Sedaka displayed a musical talent so obvious he received a scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music prep school in Manhattan. In 1956, he was one of 15 young musicians selected by the legendary pianist Arthur Rubinstein and the violinist Jascha Heifetz and others to perform selections by Debussy and Prokofiev on WQXR, the classical-music radio station then owned by the New York Times.
But while young Neil seemed destined for a career in classical music, a neighbor in his apartment building, Howard Greenfield, then 16, and the 13-year-old Sedaka began writing songs together. Think about that. Sedaka composed the music, Greenfield wrote the lyrics.
They would set up shop in the famed Brill Building in Manhattan, which became a mecca for pop music songwriters.
Then in the summer of 1958, Sedaka, 19, got a hit when Connie Francis recorded his and Greenfield’s “Stupid Cupid.”
But then Sedaka started performing himself, and in 1959 had a No. 9 Billboard hit with “Oh! Carol,” and in 1960, still just 21, had the No. 4 “Calendar Girl,” followed by “Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen” (No. 6), “Next Door to an Angel” (No. 5) and his first No. 1, “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do”.
Alas, it was 1962, and these mop-topped British lads were rising across the pond, the music changing forever when on Feb. 9, 1964, Ed Sullivan declared, “Ladies and Gentlemen…The Beatles!”
But good music is good music and, having moved to England, Sedaka credits Elton John with resuscitating his career in 1975 by bringing Neil to his label, Rocket Records, for which he made two well-received albums, “Sedaka’s Back”* and “The Hungry Years.”
*On the Captain and Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together,” at the very end they sing “Sedaka is back…”
What followed is one of the great songs of all time, the No. 1 “Laughter in the Rain,” along with the No. 1 “Bad Blood,” and a slow version remake of “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” that peaked at No. 8.
Since his passing I’ve been humming “Laughter in the Rain,” non-stop, and that’s not a bad thing. The song will be sung and hummed 100 years from now.
So let’s go back to the week the tune hit No. 1 ….
Top 3 songs for the week 2/1/75: #1 Laughter In The Rain” (Neil Sedaka) #2 “Fire” (Ohio Players) #3 “Boogie On Reggae Woman” (Stevie Wonder)…and…#4 “You’re No Good” (Linda Ronstadt) #5 “Pick Up The Pieces” (AWB) #6 “Please Mr. Postman” (Carpenters) #7 “Mandy” (Barry Manilow) #8 “Morning Side Of The Mountain” (Donny & Marie Osmond) #9 “Best Of My Love” (The Eagles) #10 “Some Kind Of Wonderful” (Grand Funk…B+ week…RIP, Neil Sedaka…)
Baseball Quiz Answer: Twenty-four Yankees to have their uniform numbers retired, after the announcement CC Sabathia was No. 24….
- Billy Martin
2. Derek Jeter
3. Babe Ruth
4. Lou Gehrig
5. DiMaggio
6. Joe Torre
7. Mickey Mantle
8. Yogi Berra & Bill Dickey
9. Roger Maris
10. Phil Rizzuto
15. Thurman Munson
16. Whitey Ford
20. Jorge Posada
21. Paul O’Neill
23. Don Mattingly
32. Elston Howard
37. Casey Stengel
42. Mariano Rivera & Jackie Robinson (league-wide)
44. Reggie Jackson
46. Andy Pettitte
49. Ron Guidry
51. Bernie Williams
52. CC Sabathia
Sabathia, whose big day will be next Sept. 26, was 134-88, 3.81 ERA with the Yankees, including 3-1, 1.98 in the World Series-winning 2009 postseason.
He was 251-161, 3.74, for his career, amassing 3,093 strikeouts in the process, one of just four left-handers to surpass 3,000, alongside Randy Johnson, Clayton Kershaw and Steve Carlton.
Brief Add-on up top by noon, Tues.
