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Bar Chat

06/27/2013

Finding A Gem

Yankees pitching quiz: 1) Name the three 200-game winners. 2) Who is the single-season strikeout leader? 3) Who was the last Yankee hurler to complete 30 games in a season? [modern-day] Answers below.

NBA Draft

Kentucky’s Nerlens Noel, C, would seem to be the consensus No. 1 in Thursday’s draft, despite the fact he’ll be out the first few months because of his torn ACL.

Then you have these potential top ten picks...Ben McLemore, SG, Kansas; Otto Porter, SF, Georgetown; Anthony Bennett, F, UNLV; Alex Len, C, Maryland; Victor Oladipo, SG, Indiana; Trey Burke, PG, Michigan; Michael Carter-Williams, PG, Syracuse; Shabazz Muhammad, G-F, UCLA; and Cody Zeller, PF, Indiana...

But as I said the other day, I’m interested to see where San Diego State’s Jamaal Franklin goes. It could be anywhere between 12 and 19.

Also, I see that the Knicks, selecting No. 24, could look at someone like Murray State guard Isaiah Canaan, who would be a solid pick. Or Kansas center Jeff Withey. I’d be happy with either. And there’s South Dakota State’s Nate Wolters, who the Knicks like but he could go earlier.

Murray State forward Ed Daniel is intriguing. I doubt he gets drafted, but he’ll be playing in the NBA within two seasons. It’s the Bar Chat Guarantee!

Another intriguing player is New Mexico’s Tony Snell; certainly worth a gamble in the second round.

Lastly, I was looking at a Top 100 draft list and San Diego State’s Chase Tapley was nowhere to be found.  Unreal. This guy is a Chauncey Billups clone. It may take Tapley awhile, too, but he’ll eventually make it to the big time.

“Chris Paul is one player. Doc Rivers is a culture.

“Clipper Nation is built on the unrelenting hope of fans in the shadows. Doc Rivers doesn’t settle for hope, and that cloud cover is about to clear.

“That Rivers is Donald Sterling’s new head coach doesn’t mean you have to start cheering or fearing the Clippers, but it does mean you have to start paying attention. For an organization that has held the NBA’s gaze only for as long as it takes for somebody to complete a dunk, this prolonged stare is far more important....

“Rivers is different from other Clippers headlines. Rivers, unlike any other Clippers savior before him, has the juice to not only steal the attention, but steal victories, and steal playoff series, and turn Lob City into Legit City.

“Rivers may have won only one NBA title as a coach, but he’s one of only four active coaches to have won titles, period. He may have won his only championship with three future NBA Hall of Famers, but he did so in a manner that has worked for others in winning virtually every recent NBA title, a simple system of melding egos and demanding grit....

“One of Rivers’ more legendary moments in Boston occurred when he basically told enigmatic Rajon Rondo that none of his teammates liked him. What others say behind backs, Rivers says to the face, a trait that reportedly nearly led him and Rondo to brawl this season during a heated locker room conversation.

“In recent years, devout Clippers fans couldn’t end a sentence without bemoaning that despite all of their progress, they were still saddled with Vinny Del Negro or Mike Dunleavy. That narrative has been drastically changed, and kudos to the Clippers and Sterling for being willing to pay big money to a coach and part with the first-round draft pick to change it....

“The Clippers never really have had (this) sort of guy, but pay attention. They do now.”

--Indiana Pacers assistant Brian Shaw finally got his head coaching gig, with the Denver Nuggets hiring him to replace George Karl.

--LeBron James and his fellow Heat players racked up a $100,000 bar tab Thursday night, according to ESPN.com.

But Shane Battier chose to celebrate in now famous fashion at Denny’s.

Stanley Cup Champs

The Chicago Blackhawks wrapped up their second Cup in four years with a dramatic Game 6 triumph in Boston, Bryan Bickell and Dave Bolland scoring 17 seconds apart in the final 1:16 of the third period to stun the Bruins, 3-2....taking the series 4-2. Two days later, some Bruins fans remain in a total state of shock.

--Very bizarre how the Rangers and Canucks swapped coaches; New York signing Alain Vigneault and Vancouver John Tortorella to identical five-year, $10 million contracts.

Ball Bits

--Jeff B. said once again I was jinxing the Pirates in inferring that they might finally finish over .500 this season, the Bucs being 47-30 as of Tuesday. Yes, they were 63-47 on Aug. 8 last season, as well, but finished 79-83. Can it happen again? Nope.

--Since April 17, Pittsburgh’s Pedro Alvarez has hit a National League-best 19 homers. Alvarez hit a homer in his fourth consecutive game on Sunday.

--Cincinnati’s Jay Bruce recently homered in four straight games, the third time in the past two seasons that Bruce accomplished this feat. By comparison, Miguel Cabrera has done it just twice in 11 seasons.

--Through Tuesday, the Atlanta Braves are 41-9 when they homer, 4-24 when they don’t. In fact, they’ve been shut out 11 times this year yet remain in first with a 45-33 record. Weird season.

--Cubs shortstop Starlin Castro was given Tuesday off after playing in 269 consecutive games. Castro is just 11 for 84 in June, .131, and his overall average has plummeted to .228. The 23-year-old signed a seven-year, $60 million contract last summer.

--Yankees fans and team brass are wondering if A-Rod, who is supposedly nearing his minor-league rehab assignment, will be suspended by MLB before he has a chance to return to the Bronx. Baseball is reportedly close to forcing A-Rod to speak with investigators looking into the Biogenesis/Anthony Bosch matter.

But then on Tuesday, GM Brian Cashman exploded upon hearing that A-Rod tweeted he had “the green light to play games again!”

Cashman had stressed on Monday that the team had not cleared him to play.

“It is the greatest soap opera in all of sports.

“It’s Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson all over again.

“New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman clearly wants Alex Rodriguez to go away, and never come back, unless he promises to play only in the Old-Timers’ games.

“Rodriguez may have a bum hip, a sullied image and a bruised ego, but he desperately wants to return. He wouldn’t have undergone painful hip surgery in January if he didn’t want to play. He wouldn’t be working out every single day. He wouldn’t be subjecting himself to Major League Baseball’s investigation with the Biogenesis clinic and performance-enhancing drugs.

“The man simply wants to play, refusing to believe that his career is over.

“So pardon Rodriguez for getting excited when he visited his doctor and sent out the tweet....

“We see it happen all the time, athletes getting overly excited about their comeback, even when their clubs are much more cautious.

“ ‘You know what, when the Yankees want to announce something, [we will],’ Cashman told ESPN New York. ‘Alex should just shut the f--- up. That’s it. I’m going to call Alex now.’

“Clearly, what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate....

“The Yankees, through Cashman’s outburst, reminded everyone they don’t want Rodriguez wearing a Yankee uniform again.

“They’d rather tell us to shut the (expletive) up, too.

“The Yankees may be filthy rich, and ever so powerful, but, they have no control over this one.

--As for the College World Series, no top-seeded team has won it since Miami in 1999 (The Hurricanes weren’t yet in the ACC). This year unseeded UCLA knocked out top-seeded North Carolina in the semifinals to earn the right to face unseeded Mississippi State.

And then on Tuesday, UCLA won its first NCAA baseball championship, taking out Mississippi State 8-0 behind Nick Vander Tuig’s eight shutout innings.

In fact, UCLA’s pitching staff allowed all of four runs in the five games of the CWS.

UCLA had previously had a Division I-record 108 national championships in 17 other sports before the baseball program broke through.

--Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was taken into custody Wednesday morning as I go to post. Innocent until proven guilty, but some of his actions don’t look good, to say the least.

--At Wimbledon, Rafael Nadal was knocked out in straight sets on Monday by Steve Darcis of Belgium, the No. 135 ranked player in the world, in one of the biggest upsets ever at the tournament. Nadal was clearly struggling with a knee issue that has hampered him on and off the past few years, but he did not use this as an excuse. Last year Nadal was ousted in the second round of Wimbledon by 100th-ranked Lukas Rosol.

--Golfer Bubba Watson’s image took a hit on Sunday in the final round of the Travelers event won by 44-year-old Ken Duke. I missed the end of this one but just noticed the New York Post’s Mark Cannizzaro’s column on what a jerk Watson was.

With a one-shot lead when he got to the par-3 16th tee, “First, while the ball was in the air, Watson barked about a wind gust sabotaging him. Then he proceeded to wear out (caddie Ted) Scott with some blame-gaming jawing picked up by the CBS microphones.

“Watson was clearly blaming Scott for talking him into hitting 9-iron instead of 8-iron.

“Then, after taking the drop about 125 yards from the hole, Watson blew the shot over the green into the rough and snapped to Scott, ‘So you’re telling me that’s the right yardage?’

“After the triple, Watson, who won the 2010 Travelers, picked up his own golf bag – further showing up Scott in a way to suggest he’d be better off without him at all, muttering, ‘There’s just no reason for me to show up.’

“The reality obviously lost on Watson is this: Despite his immense raw talent, without the guiding help of Scott, Watson would not be the player he is and surely would not be a Masters champion.

“When veteran PGA Tour caddie Ron Levin, currently on Erik Compton’s bag and having caddied for David Duval, Anthony Kim and Todd Hamilton – when he won the 2004 British Open – heard about the Watson-Scott exchange, it did not surprise him.

“ ‘Bubba is one of those guys that rationalizes everything [wrong] that happens to him isn’t his fault,’ Levin told The Post yesterday. ‘Some guys always have to make excuses for poor shots. For some reason it makes it right for them in their mind, justifies the reason the shot was not executed properly.”

Watson, as golf fans know, has ADD, and other issues, and Ted Scott has been a calming influence on Bubba.

But on Sunday, Scott, who once threatened to walk away from Watson if he did not behave like a professional, said, “I convinced him to hit the wrong club. I one hundred percent take responsibility for it. It’s totally my fault.”

--You had to give Justin Rose credit for honoring his commitment to play the Travelers just days after winning the U.S. Open, and he did fine, finishing T-13, but clearly was running on fumes after all the media appearances he made following Merion.

So no one can fault him for blowing off this week’s AT&T National, though the tournament, with Tiger Woods’ foundation both organizing and benefiting from the event, had already suffered the loss of Woods, who withdrew because of his strained elbow.

Ah, the plight of a tournament sponsor like AT&T, which now only has 3 of the top 20 players in the world – Adam Scott, Brandt Snedeker, and Jason Day.

--Denise D. reminded me to check out a story by Bill Pennington in the New York Times concerning golf and the law.

Specifically, “the law intersects golf with some frequency” on a par-3 at a busy course.

“Why? Because that’s where the traffic bottlenecks happen, and those make people impatient and short-tempered. Golfers waiting irritably on the tee often don’t wait for the players in front of them to get in their carts and drive away or walk a safe distance from the green after they’ve putted out.

“So these golfers on the tee, who feel aggrieved because they’ve been waiting for several minutes, fire away anyway, even if people are still lingering near the green. Sometimes, this is done with purpose – it’s a warning shot meant to get people to move along faster (even though that preceding group probably had to wait as well).

“Well, guess what? If you hit somebody in your haste – getting hit with a golf ball often causes severe injuries – you are probably going to be found liable by a court and could pay some significant damages to the person you hit.

“ ‘The golfer is responsible for making sure that other golfers are out of the way before they hit,’ said Robert Lang, a New York-based lawyer who has handled dozens of golf-related cases. ‘Yes, it’s true they aren’t responsible for hitting someone one or two holes away because they slice a ball, but if you’re on the tee and someone is near the green of the hole you are aiming at and you hit that person, you’re liable.’”

Pennington adds that another instance where golfers should be ultra-careful is in hitting mulligans.

“There are a lot of lawsuits generated by the act of reteeing and smacking a second tee shot, especially by the last golfer to tee off in a group. That’s because everyone reasonably expects each golfer to hit only one tee shot, and the rest of the group starts driving or walking down the fairway or otherwise does not stand in a protected area.

“The mulligan swinger is often already irritated and, without looking, hurriedly tees another ball and whacks away. When he hits one of his playing partners, nasty injuries have ensued, as have successful lawsuits.”

Attorney Lang, by the way, says yelling “fore” is not a legal defense.

“It might avoid someone getting hit and it might be acting reasonably, but if you shouldn’t have hit your shot in the first place because someone was in your intended flight, you’re still in trouble.”

--Bill Parcells told USA TODAY Sports, “I regret leaving New England...I had a good young team there. I hated to leave that team, because I knew what we could do.”

Parcells was succeeded in New England in 1997 by Pete Carroll, who coached the Patriots for three seasons before he was replaced by Bill Belichick in 2000.

So if Parcells had stayed, would Belichick have stayed with the Jets, who he was with as head coach for all of one day before resigning to take the Pats’ job?

--In a new Washington Post poll of Washingtonians, 61% say they like the Redskins’ name and 2/3s say the team should not change it. Among Redskins fans, 8 in 10 say the team should keep its name.

--James Gandolfini’s funeral is in New York on Thursday, but the New York Post’s Page Six had an item that “the cast of ‘The Sopranos’ is furious at Joe Gannascoli, who played gay gangster Vito Spatafore, for doing a series of glowing interviews about (Gandolfini) – when in fact they were not close friends and hadn’t talked in years.”

Gandolfini and the series co-stars were turned off years ago by Gannascoli’s “grandstanding.” Gannascoli had his own PR team, while Gandolfini, according to one of the co-stars, “was very much a team player, and would only do interviews if it was to help someone in the ‘Sopranos’ family, or as a group.”

--The Calgary Saddledome was being pumped out on Monday, 300 million gallons of water worth, following the catastrophic flooding that swamped the city. Home to the Calgary Flames, President Ken King said, “I’m generally not at a loss for words but I can’t describe it.”

No word on whether the arena will be ready in time for next season, with training camp already less than three months away.

--I posted last time before the conclusion of Nik Wallenda’s high-wire act across the Little Colorado River near the Grand Canyon.

The walk was 1,500 feet...completed in just under 23 minutes. The wind conditions were brutal.

Wallenda had no net or safety harness. He wants his next attempt to be in New York, between the Empire State building and the Chrysler building, but no way this is approved. Something about thousands and thousands of people below him being at risk.

May I suggest for Wallenda that he do the Confederation Bridge between Prince Edward Island, Canada, and New Brunswick....8 miles. [String it up parallel to it.] The bridge scared the crap out of me driving across it about 7 years ago on my way to do the Prince Edward Island Half-Marathon.

PEI, as fellow runner Pete M. and I discovered, was a great drinking spot. [Oops...should have warned the younger readers...go play outside, kids.]

--Willie Nelson, who continues to celebrate his 80th birthday, was asked his advice for longevity: “Keep breathing.”

--The Rolling Stones played Washington on Monday night, the last U.S. show on the band’s 50 and Counting tour, which now goes to the U.K. Was this the last time they’ll play the U.S.? Could be.

If so, for the record, the last song, last of the three encores, was “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”

--We note the passing of Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bobby (Blue) Bland, 83.

Top 3 songs for the week 6/27/81: #1 “Bette Davis Eyes” (Kim Carnes...couldn’t stand this one...) #2 “Medley” (Stars on 45...need I even comment?) #3 “Sukiyaki” (A Taste of Honey)...and...#4 “A Woman Needs Love (Just Like You Do)” (Ray Parker Jr. & Raydio...Alright, I have to be fair...I just listened to it...it’s OK....we move on....) #5 “All Those Years Ago” (George Harrison...love this guy...but this song so-so...good first video on YouTube in terms of photos, though....)   #6 “The One That You Love” (Air Supply...if I heard this one today on XM, I’d immediately turn to Willie’s Roadhouse...) #7 “You Make My Dreams” (Daryl Hall & John Oates...they did far better...) #8 “America” (Neil Diamond....do do do doooo....do do do do doooo....) #9 “Rick Springfield” (Jessie’s Girls...horrid ...) #10 “Elvira” (The Oak Ridge Boys...talk about a song that hasn’t aged well in terms of the Pop Chart...I mean you have to be totally wasted to keep this on...)

Yankees pitching quiz answers: 1) 200-game winners...Whitey Ford, 236-106; Red Ruffing, 231-104; Andy Pettitte, 213-121. 2) Believe it or not, Ron Guidry is the franchise single-season leader in strikeouts with 248, 1978. 3) The last to complete 30 games was Catfish Hunter, 1975, when he went 23-14 and completed 30 of 39 starts. Hunter was the last in baseball to complete 30. Before that, the last Yankee to do so was Carl Mays way back in 1921.

But reminder on Red Ruffing. He was 39-96 with the Boston Red Sox, including seasons of 9-22 and 10-25, and then in 1930, was traded to the Yankees for Cedric Durst, a journeyman if there ever was one, and $50,000.

I mean this is one of the more underrated trades of all time, isn’t it? Ruffing proceeds to win 231 and carve out a Hall of Fame career after that kind of start?! 

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