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Bar Chat

06/09/2014

No Triple Crown

**Folks, Sunday was a nightmare for me. I woke up with the network disabled on my main computer, knew I’d get no help on a Sunday, and I couldn’t access all the work I did on Saturday on stuff like Bar Chat. So with my backup plan, did what I could. I’m posting before Spurs-Heat. Thank you, Verizon.

San Antonio Spurs Quiz: 1996-97, the year before they drafted Tim Duncan, the Spurs went 20-62. David Robinson played only six games due to injury. Who was the leading scorer on the team at 18.2 ppg, his only year with the club? Answer below.

Chrome Flames Out

“The roar began immediately, near 120,000 racing fans pleading for history, screaming themselves hoarse, for a horse, of course, for California Chrome and his date with destiny, and history….

“California Chrome would try to pass The Test of Champions and remind us that if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere….

“A day that ended, alas, with California Chrome in a dead heat for fourth with Wicked Strong, and an anguished Triple Frown for owner Steve Coburn, who sagged forward when his horse had no finishing kick and quickly lashed out at a system that allows the Belmont Stakes winner, 9-1 Tonalist, to sit out the Kentucky Derby and Preakness and show up fresh for the Belmont Stakes.

“ ‘This is the coward’s way out,’ Coburn would rage, not once, not twice, but three times in a Triple Crown rant for the ages:

“ ‘I’m 61 years old and in my lifetime, I’ll never see another Triple Crown winner because of the way they do this. It’s not fair to these horses that have been in the game since Day 1. If you don’t make enough points to get into the Kentucky Derby, you can’t run in the other two races. It’s all or nothing. This is not fair to these horses and to the people that believe in them.

“ ‘Our horse had a target on his back and everybody lays out one and they won’t run in the Kentucky Derby or Preakness: They’ll wait until the Belmont. If you’ve got a horse, run him in all three… Those 20 horses that start in Kentucky are the only 20 eligible to run in all three races.

“California Chrome ought to feed this guy sour grapes back at the barn.”

The thing is Coburn guaranteed a Triple Crown before the race. 

“The last thing he expected was California Chrome, according to trainer Art Sherman, grabbing a quarter out of the starting gate after kicking himself, drawing blood,” writes Serby.

Jockey Victor Espinoza said, “As he come out of the gate, he wasn’t the same.”

“Espinoza could be second-guessed for not taking the lead early, and staying inside and behind and forcing California Chrome to take dirt, but he worried about using him on the first turn.

“The Triple Crown remained the elusive Holy Grail as it has been for the past 36 years. The blue-and-white poll, which measured from its anchorage to the finish line represents the incredible 31 lengths by which Secretariat clinched his Triple Crown, got no meaning from the California colt who had half the population of this sports-oriented country building mental shrines to.

“A colt with so-so credentials named Tonalist won it. When they sorted all that horse flesh out, California Chrome was ruled as having finished in a dead heat with Wicked Strong. But even before they figured that, a great silence swept across the stands. It was as though some giant vacuum cleaner had sucked all the air out of this crowd.”

“(Because of that), the over-the-hill gang we came to admire and love – the two old, hard-working owners and their 77-year-old trainer, the fun-loving image Coburn gave us over and over again, which was punctuated for this particular crowd when he stood down by the rail an hour before the big race, waving his cowboy hat at the crowd and smiling – you can take that image and send it into one of those deep cold storage units.

“Disappointment is something he was clearly entitled to, but lack of grace under pressure at the finish is something very different.

“There is no doubt that three ferocious races in five weeks is asking a hell of a lot for young horses. But both owners and trainers know the rules of the road.

“And if you don’t like it, then don’t enter this marathon dance. The truth is that 11 horses climbed this Everest. It doesn’t matter how long the space between their journeys.

Here’s my take. Just last chat I noted the pressure to move the Triple Crown events to the first Saturday of May, June and July to give the horses more of a rest and encourage trainers/owners to keep them in the Big 3 races.

But Coburn has a point…he was just a jerk about it, though he did have a bigger forum than he’ll ever have.

What is important is for the sport to have a serious conversation and settle on a new regime for 2015, making the announcement at the Breeder’s Cup in the fall. I’d give you some specifics of my own but I can’t access the damn file I wanted to give you.

Look, times change. It’s not as if the sport of racing is doing well. It can be done the right way while maintaining the integrity of the Triple Crown.

--A few post-Belmont factoids, courtesy of NBC. Only 5 favorites in the last 37 Belmont Stakes have now won, and only one Belmont winner in the last 13 years competed in both the Derby and Preakness.

--Boy, Palace Malice sure looked good in the Metropolitan Mile.

--It’s all about LeBron after he sat out large segments of Game 1 against the Spurs, a 110-95 loss, including the final four minutes due to severe cramping in his legs. Of all the athletes in the world, LeBron seems to be the best conditioned, but it was he who suffered the most when the air-conditioning went out in San Antonio. Miami had cut the lead to 92-90 when LeBron had to be carried off near the end.

Athletic trainer Jeff Stotts told USA TODAY Sports afterwards:

“Overexertion, fatigue and an excessive loss of fluids and electrolytes can all cause cramps to occur. In LeBron’s case it was probably a combination of all or some of these factors. For a player with his body type, the associated pain and limitation was likely considerable.”

San Antonio was 13 of 25 from downtown and had 30 assists, which made up for their 23 turnovers. The Spurs were 14 of 16 from the field in the fourth quarter.

James was mocked by Gatorade for not being hydrated enough. James endorses Gatorade’s rival, Powerade, but drinks Gatorade during games because it is the official NBA sponsor.

Prior to Sunday night’s contest, LeBron was bitching he was the world’s easiest target.

“From being an adolescent kid just playing the game of basketball because he loves it as a hobby, to now playing as a professional. To succeeding, going to the top, to falling off the mountain, to going up to the top again. You guys have seen everything that my life has had to offer since I was a 15-year-old kid.

“Half of my life I’ve been in front of this, so it makes me an easy target.”

Whatever. You came up lame, LeBron. As I go to post, he’s OK…for now.

--Shelly Sterling will continue to play a meaningful role in the fortunes of the Clippers as part of the sale negotiated with Steve Ballmer, according to the Associated Press, with the deal allowing for up to 10% of the team to be spun off into a charitable trust that Shelly would run, with both she and Ballmer as co-chairs.

But Donald Sterling has yet to sign off because the NBA won’t revoke its $2.5 million fine and lifetime ban.

--Derek Fisher is not a candidate for the Lakers’ head coaching job, so it seems a virtual certainty he will be the Knicks next coach.

--The Utah Jazz hired Atlanta assistant Quin Snyder to be their new head coach. Snyder, who always struck me as being more concerned with his hair than anything else, received a three-year deal with a team option for a fourth to replace Tyrone Corbin.

--Former Wake Forest star and Memphis Grizzlies forward, James Johnson, was arrested over the weekend for hitting and choking his wife. That could be his career, after resurrecting it this past season.

But while he played great early after Memphis signed him out of the D-League, at season’s end he was out of the rotation and played sparingly in the playoffs. Just reading from afar as a fan, you sensed something was up. Johnson was back in the doghouse. Now it could be forever.

Stanley Cup Playoffs

It hasn’t been easy being a Rangers fan the first two games. Game 1, take a 2-0 lead; lose 3-2 in overtime on a horrible giveaway by Dan Girardi. Game 2, take a 2-0 lead, lead 4-2 heading into the third, and lose 5-4 in overtime; though this time there was a terrible non-call on goalie interference that us Rangers fans are still furious over, let alone goalie Henrik Lundqvist, which got the Kings to within one, 4-3, and they tied it up shortly thereafter. I don’t understand why that couldn’t have been overturned. [I do…just wonder why the heck it couldn’t be!]

Ball Bits

--After Saturday’s game with the Giants, the Mets had 40 quality starts, the second most in the majors, but owned a 28-34 record. The Mets, instead, were 27th in extra-base hits, to give you a sense of why they were six under .500.

Of course they could go out and acquire a bat, like the Minnesota Twins did in signing free agent Kendrys Morales, but noooo….

Kudos to the Twinkies, by the way, for stepping up. It shows their fans everything.

--Us Mets are also very, very tired of catcher Travis d’Arnaud, who was supposed to be a rising star, including being a solid hitter, yet he has been a total bust after the Mets got him as part of the R.A. Dickey trade with Toronto. 14 RBI in his first 227 big-league at-bats, .189 average. Eegads, that sucks.

But Saturday night, d’Arnaud was sent down to AAA… good.  However, Mets lost again, Sunday.  Now 28-35.

--As Joel Sherman of the New York Post asks, will anyone take a flyer on Matt Kemp, who has five years, $107 million left on his contract after this season? Sherman notes three candidates… Seattle, Mets and the Red Sox. This is one I don’t want the Mets going after.

--Poor Johan Santana. His latest comeback attempt with the Baltimore Orioles is over after he severed his Achilles tendon when he was struck by a line drive in extended spring training and fell awkwardly.

Santana, 35, has not pitched in the majors since 2012, having missed last season after undergoing his second major shoulder surgery, but had signed a minor league deal with the Orioles in the spring.

Baltimore said he was rehabbing well and had been slated to move up to Double-A for continued work.

--The Yankees are now just 31-31 after losing to Kansas City 2-1 on Sunday. They have also gone 10 straight games without scoring more than 4 runs.

--The Yankees selected Mariano Rivera Jr. in the 29th round of the MLB draft. He was only 2-6 with a 5.40 ERA in 70 innings at Iona as a sophomore this season. No, he doesn’t have his father’s cutter.

--Cincinnati reliever Aroldis Chapman has made a super recovery from getting hit in the face with a batted ball. In 12 games he has 9 saves and 24 strikeouts in 13 innings, yielding only 4 hits.

--Alex Guerrero, the Dodgers’ future star shortstop who was bitten in the left ear by his Albuquerque teammate Miguel Olivo, is doing pretty well after surgery.

“Doctors have detected circulation and growth in the surgically reattached portion of Alex Guerrero’s left ear, increasing the chances that the ear can be saved, according to his agent Scott Boras.”

Geezuz. Just awful.

“Guerrero has not yet considered whether to pursue legal action against Olivo.”

Guerrero, a Cuban émigré the Dodgers signed last fall, was batting .376 with 10 home runs in 33 games, as they groom him for shortstop or third base.

There’s no word when he’ll be able to play again. This is so sickening.

--Yogi Berra was honored Friday at his museum in New Jersey for his service on D-Day. He appeared in a wheelchair and didn’t say anything during the ceremony, but he did speak to the AP afterwards.

“You saw a lot of horrors. I was fortunate. It was amazing going in, all the guys over there.”

Berra was part of a six-man crew operating a 36-foot LCSS boat (landing craft support, small). Berra has previously joked the letters stood for “landing craft suicide squad.” The mission was to protect the soldiers storming the beach.

Don Zimmer, RIP

The baseball legend died the other day at the age of 83 after spending 65 years in the game he so loved. Commissioner Bud Selig released the following statement that read in part:

“Like everyone in Major League Baseball, I am deeply saddened by the loss of my friend Don Zimmer, one of our game’s most universally beloved figures.

“A memorable contributor to Baseball for more than 60 years, Don was the kind of person you could only find in the National Pastime.

“As a player, Don experienced the joys of the 1955 World Champion Brooklyn Dodgers and the struggles of the ’62 Mets. In his managerial and coaching career, this unique baseball man led the Cubs to a division crown and then, at his good friend Joe Torre’s loyal side, helped usher in a new era in the fabled history of the Yankees.”

Don Zimmer’s major-league playing career extended from 1954-65. His best season was probably ‘58 with Brooklyn when he hit .262 with 17 home runs and 60 RBI. He made the 1961 All-Star team as a Cub, and he was an original Met, though just 4-for-52 (.077) before he was traded.

But of course such statistics are just a part of his story. Imagine, he played alongside Jackie Robinson on the only Brooklyn Dodgers team to win the World Series, and he coached Derek Jeter. At his death, he was a senior adviser for the Tampa Bay Rays. Yes, a baseball lifer.

Zimmer had been a major league coach or manager every year since 1971.

Six World Series rings (4 as coach with the Yankees and 2 as a player for Brooklyn and Los Angeles).

He managed 13 seasons in the Majors, compiling an 885-858 (.508) record with the Padres, Red Sox, Rangers and Cubs.

Zimmer was beaned in a minor league game in 1953 that left him in a coma and doctors had to put metal screws in his head, which was then the endless source of jokes.

“If you wanted to give an outsider an example of a baseball player, you could cite Miguel Cabrera or Mike Trout. But if you needed an example of a baseball man, who better than someone who married his high school sweetheart at home plate of a minor league ballpark?  That was Zimmer, who did it all, his experiences reflecting some of the storied organizations he worked for.

“In the 1950s, Zimmer was the starting second baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers on the day they won their only World Series title. In the 1960s, he served as the inaugural third baseman for the Mets, embodying their futility by going hitless in his first 34 at-bats.

“In the 1970s, Zimmer managed a powerful Boston Red Sox team, only to watch his players blow a sure division crown. [Ed. think Bucky “F’n” Dent, as they say in Beantown, though it’s stronger than F’n.]   In the 1980s, he guided the Chicago Cubs to the playoffs, a triumph quickly snuffed by inevitable October heartbreak.

“In the 1990s, as the bench coach for the Yankees, Zimmer helped Joe Torre lead the team back to glory. In the 2000s, as the glow faded, he quit in a huff, furious at the meddling of the principal owner, George Steinbrenner….

“At age 72, in the 2003 playoffs, he had charged at Pedro Martinez during a fracas at Fenway Park.   The incident deeply embarrassed Zimmer, but that was him – always feisty, always protective of his team.”

“Zimmer’s bulging arm muscles on his 5-foot-9-inch frame (he was about 170 pounds in his playing years) brought him the enduring nickname Popeye when he played for the Dodger teams known as the Boys of Summer. His puffy face seemed like something out of a baseball trading card from the days when dugouts were awash in the juice from chewing tobacco.

“The Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee likened Zimmer to a gerbil for his bulging cheeks. Zimmer did not care much for that description, but he never took himself too seriously.”

We’ll give the final word to Vin Scully. “All I can tell you, when you say Don Zimmer, anybody who knew him will smile.”

French Open

Maria Sharapova won her second title at Roland Garros and fifth Grand Slam overall in defeating Simona Halep 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-4. The 27-year-old Sharapova also won at Wimbledon in 2004, the U.S. Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2008.

On the men’s side it was No. 1-seed Rafael Nadal vs. No. 2 Novak Djokovic, with Nadal having defeated Djokovic 8 out of 11 times in Grand Slams. Make that 9 out of 12 as Nadal picked up his ninth French Open title, fifth in a row, 3-6, 7-5, 6-2, 6-4. His body was a wreck afterwards but he had answered the call in getting his 14th major title, tied with Pete Sampras for second, three behind Roger Federer.

--Colin Kaepernick signed a six-year, $126 million extension with the 49ers; a deal that includes $61 million in guaranteed money.

--Jadeveon Clowney signed his rookie contract with Houston, four years, $22.272 million guaranteed, including a $14.518 million signing bonus.

--I loved this bit from David Morrison of USA TODAY Sports:

“St. Louis Rams defensive end Chris Long stood in a semi-circle of reporters after the team’s organized team activity Friday, answering a question about LeBron James’ Thursday night leg cramps in the NBA Finals.

“Michael Sam’s voice cut into Long’s answer, ringing out over the practice fields from 30 yards away.

“ ‘Michael, how are you?’ Long responded, then turned back to the group of reporters.

Sam admitted he needed to step up his game. I’ve read varying reports. He hasn’t looked particularly good yet on the field, but his teammates appear to be giving him good grades off of it.

--As reported by the Washington Post’s Soraya Nadia McDonald, “At least three movies are in the works that tackle the NFL’s concussion problem, including a project that’s slated to star Will Smith.” That film is based on the 2009 GQ article ‘Game Brain’ by Jeanne Marie Laskas and in it, Smith would play the forensic neuropathologist who first found chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) while conducting an autopsy on Mike Webster, the former center for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Needless to say the NFL will not be happy, especially with someone like Smith playing a leading role in a film that you’d think could be big box office.

The other film projects deal with the book “League of Denial: the NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth,” and an independent film about a retired player suffering from the effects of CTE, which sounds rather depressing.

Golf

--Ben Crane won the FedEx/St. Jude Classic in Memphis, his fifth career win. Wake’s Webb Simpson had a T-3…good to see his game back.

But a Ben Crane win is not what the PGA Tour needs. It needs this week’s U.S. Open to be thrilling…with ‘big names’ on the leaderboard.

Like Phil Mickelson…who shot a mediocre 72 on Sunday to finish T-11. More on the Open next time.

--When Hideki Matsuyama won the Memorial last week, I had no idea how few Japanese winners there have been on the PGA Tour. Just these other three:

Shigeki Maruyama…2003 Chrysler Classic of Greensboro, 2002 Byron Nelson, 2001 Greater Milwaukee Open

--The Wake Forest men’s golf team finished 44th in the final Golfweek / Sagarin rankings. Not good.

Cliché alert: “Not good for this once proud program.”

--Dale Earnhardt Jr. passed Brad Keselowski late to win the Sprint Cup race at Pocono, his second triumph of the year, making it the first time since 2004 he has won multiple times.

--North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams denied accusations made by former Tar Heels player Rashad McCants that he knew of academic shortcuts and wrongdoing in the program.

McCants, the No. 2 scorer on UNC’s 2004-05 championship team, told ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” that he seldom went to class – some of which were bogus – and that tutors wrote his papers.

McCants would have been academically ineligible without the assistance, and he said that Williams knew about the “paper-class” system – classes that didn’t require students to attend; they were instead required to submit only one term paper to receive a grade.

In a statement, Williams said in part: “In no way did I know about or do anything close to what he says and I think the players whom I have coached over the years will agree with me.”

Following the broadcast of “Outside the Lines,” 16 players from the 2005 national championship team issued their own statement: “We are proud of our accomplishments both on and off the floor at UNC. With conviction, each one of us is proud to say that we attended class and did our own academic work…. We also want to make it clear that Coach Williams and his staff operated with the highest level of ethics and integrity within their respective roles….

“In light of the comments made by Rashad…we want to state that our personal academic experiences are not consistent with Rashad’s claims. We know that Coach Williams did not have any knowledge of any academic impropriety, and further that Coach Williams would not have tried to manipulate a player’s schedule.”

McCants told OTL that he even made the Dean’s List in Spring 2005 despite not attending any of his four classes for which he received straight-A grades; taking paper classes from the African-American studies program, which has been at the center of an investigation spurred by Mary Willingham’s whistle blowing.

Julius Hodge, who starred at North Carolina State, said he had to stick up for the Tar Heels (as much as it pained him to do so), having played on a team with McCants in 2012, a Puerto Rico-based squad, in calling McCants the worst teammate he ever had.

Back to Willingham, it was her research of 183 football or basketball players from 2004-12 that found 60% reading at fourth- to eighth-grade levels and roughly 10% below a third-grade level.

By comparison, your editor is at a ninth-grade level, making me smarter than at least 70% of said athletes. But I’m regressing rapidly. Thinking of picking up a Paddington the Bear book instead of trying to decipher the conflicts in the South and East China Seas.

--John Calipari signed a seven-year, $52.5 million contract extension to remain at Kentucky. He will earn $6.5 million next season in base salary, which will rise to $8 million a year for his final three under the contract that runs through 2020-21. If you see him, stick out a tin can and ask for a $1.   Let me know what he does.

--We note the passing of Chester Nez, 93, a former United States Marine and the last surviving member of the 29 original Navajo code talkers, “who at the urgent behest of the federal government devised an encrypted version of their language for wartime use. They and the hundreds of Navajos who followed them into battle used that code, with unparalleled success, throughout the Pacific theater.” [Margalit Fox / New York Times]

As David Hatch, the National Security Agency’s historian, said in an interview last week: “There were no machines or other devices that could scramble voice communications that could be used on the front lines. What the code talkers did was to provide absolute security for the information we transmitted on the radios, denying to the enemy vital information that we were picking up from their communications.”

Nez and his family had been mistreated by the federal government, but in 1942, when a high school student, a Marine Corps recruiter visited his school and said he was looking for young men who were bilingual in English and Navajo. Nez enlisted.

After boot camp, Nez and his cohorts were told to come up with a code based on Navajo, which no Japanese understood and only a handful of non-Navajos did.

So they created a glossary of hundreds of words used in battlefield communications.

For example, “America” became “ne-he-mah” (“our mother”). “Battleship” was “lo-tso” (“whale”).

“Handed a written English message, a code talker took to his radio, relaying that message, encoded, to a compatriot at the front. The Navajo on the receiving end, having memorized the entire code, rendered the message back into English and passed it on. The written English copies were destroyed immediately.” [Margalit Fox]

Amazing heroes to our country who saved countless lives.

--Jeff B. and I are huge “Calvin and Hobbes” fans so it was a shock to us and Bill Watterson’s legions of fans to learn he drew some guest panels on Stephan Pastis’ “Pearls Before Swine” strip last week. Watterson has been virtually a total recluse since ending the strip in 1995. Check out Michael Cavna’s piece in the Washington Post for the details.

And remember, you can get C&H delivered to your email each morning thru GoComics, just as Jeff and I do. Actually, I need to add “Pearls Before Swine.”

--Jeff B. also reminded me that I missed the 40th anniversary of “Ten-Cent Beer Night,” June 4, 1974, which the Cleveland Indians hosted…one of the stupidest ideas of all time, leading to 9 arrests, 7 emergency room injuries, and one sportswriter punched in the jaw.

Actually, as noted in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, the Indians had conducted a five-cent beer night in 1971 that went fairly smoothly.

Dan Coughlin of the Plain-Dealer writes: “(In ’74), the game was scheduled in the wake of the Texas Rangers’ own 10-cent beer night, when fans had beer and food tossed at them. In advance of the Cleveland episode, Rangers manager Billy Martin noted that Cleveland didn’t have enough fans to worry about the same thing happening.

“ ‘Sports radio host Pete Franklin spent an entire week on the radio whipping Cleveland fans into a frenzy over the Billy Martin insult,’ Coughlin noted. ‘The place was full of college kids home from school for the summer. A lot of people showed up already drunk before the game even started.” [The drinking age was 18 back then.]

Top 3 songs for the week 6/7/75: #1 “Thank God I’m A Country Boy” (John Denver…pretty remarkable this became #1…I miss the guy) #2 “Sister Golden Hair” (America) #3 “How Long” (Ace…interminable…)…and …#4 “Bad Time” (Grand Funk) #5 “Old Days” (Chicago… not their best…) #6 “When Will I Be Loved” (Linda Ronstadt) #7 “Before The Next Teardrop Falls” (Freddy Fender) #8 “I’m Not Lisa” (Jessi Colter…I’m not either …) #9 “Love Won’t Let Me Wait” (Major Harris…uhhh uhhh…my temperature’s rising’…) #10 “Philadelphia Freedom” (The Elton John Band)

San Antonio Spurs Quiz Answer: Dominique Wilkins was the leading scorer on the 1996-97 Spurs at 18.2. Others in double-figures were Sean Elliott, Avery Johnson, Vinny Del Negro and Vernon Maxwell.

Next Bar Chat, Thursday. Your World Cup “Pick to Click,” plus tips on avoiding rioters in Brazil!!!

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