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Bar Chat

06/23/2014

USA Still With A Shot

Baseball Quiz: Tony Gwynn amassed 3,141 hits during his 20-year career with the Padres, ranking seventh among MLB players with one team. Name the six ahead of him. Answer below.

World Cup

--Well, that was an entertaining game between the U.S. and Portugal, to say the least; Portugal gaining the 2-2 draw on a last-second extra-time set up by the world’s best player today, Cristiano Ronaldo.

It started out with an absolutely atrocious give-up by American Geoff Cameron, but the U.S. stormed back on goals by Jermaine Jones and Clint Dempsey, only to see Ronaldo’s and goal-scorer Varela’s late heroics.

So the U.S. needs a draw in its match against Germany, OR, a draw in the Portugal-Ghana contest, to advance.

--Ghana and Germany played to an exciting 2-2 draw on Saturday, with the Germans tying it at 2 on Miroslav Klose’s 15th World Cup goal (in 20 matches), tying him with Brazil’s former star, Ronaldo, for most in WC play.

--The best player in the world when he’s healthy, Lionel Messi, bailed out Argentina with a super goal, the lone score in a 1-0 win over Iran, which played very well. Forgetting politics, if it’s possible for a moment, it was cool seeing how proud the folks back in Iran were with their team’s effort. Few fan bases would take a tough loss that well, but the Iranian team deserved the plaudits.

--After I last posted, Chile defeated defending champ Spain, 2-0, thus eliminating the Spaniards. They join Brazil (1966), France (2002) and Italy (2010) as the four defending champions to exit the competition in the group stage.

--Costa Rica advanced to the second round for the first time since 1990 in defeating Italy, 1-0, this after besting Uruguay earlier. England crashed out of Group D, the real “Group of Death.”

--I loved this item from Fox Sports: “Police in Brazil are investigating incidents where supposedly disabled patrons have leapt out of their wheelchairs to celebrate goals.

“Fans were captured on CCTV and social media standing in the disabled section during the opening game at Sao Paulo. Police believe that tickets for the section were illegally transferred.”

Ball Bits

--So it’s Virginia vs. Vanderbilt in the College World Series final, best-of-three, beginning Monday night, 8:00 PM ET.

Virginia defeated Mississippi, 4-1, to advance and has now allowed two earned runs in 33 innings in winning their three CWS games for an 0.55 ERA. The CWS record for lowest ERA in a series, in a minimum four games, is 0.60 by California in 1957.

Vanderbilt advanced by defeating Texas 4-3 in the bottom of the 10th inning on a bases-loaded infield single.

Again, no ACC team has won the CWS since Wake Forest in 1955.

--I went to my first Yankees game on Saturday since 1981. Really. Heck, I hate the Yankees. Why would I go to one of their games? I imagine I’ve turned down well over 25 offers over the years, but this time I couldn’t...a good family friend was going to most likely his last game and it was a lot of fun.

Yes, the beer is expensive...$9.50 to $12.00. But we saved money by eating sandwiches before we entered the stadium.

Anyway, five home runs were hit in Baltimore’s 6-1 win and, it being Yankee Stadium, 3 of the 5 were real cheapies.

So that’s the last Yankee game I’ll go to the rest of my life. Don’t bother asking me in the future, typed the editor with a smile.

--On Sunday, Masahiro Tanaka suffered his second defeat to drop to 11-2 as the Yankees lost to the Orioles 8-0, Tanaka giving up 3 earned in seven, his ERA rising to 2.11.

--Friday night in the Mets-Marlins game in Miami, Miami outfielder Marcell Ozuna threw out two Mets at the plate in a 3-2 win. But both calls, while correct, were controversial because they crossed the line of the idiotic home plate collision rule, or what is now legal and what isn’t in terms of blocking the plate. It’s the one new rule in baseball, put in place because of the experience of one player, Buster Posey, that has frustrated fans and teams alike all season.   You can get by the rest of the regular season and correct it next winter, but it promises to become a gigantic issue in a playoff game, and that will really suck.

--Mets fans can relax a little. Matt Harvey has finally accepted his Tommy John rehab schedule and seems to understand his hopes of pitching in September for the big-league club aren’t realistic, or real smart. The Mets and Harvey have agreed he would not return before 11 months following his surgery, Oct. 22.

--When the great Clayton Kershaw threw his first no-hitter on Wednesday night (after I had posted my last chat), it was No. 283 in baseball history. But Kershaw is the first to have at least 15 strikeouts and no walks. So, yes, the best no-hitter in history. Period. And it’s not like the team he no-hit, the Rockies, aren’t without a few weapons. [In three of his seven no-hitters, Nolan Ryan fanned at least 15, but he also had walks of four, eight and two.]

As Steve Dilbeck of the Los Angeles Times wrote: “There have been some great, dominating games in baseball history. Roger Clemens struck out 20 Mariners on April 29, 1986, but gave up a run on three hits. He struck out 20 again 10 years later in Detroit, but gave up five hits. In terms of pure domination it’s hard to top Kerry Wood’s 20-strikeout, no-walk, one-hitter against the Astros in 1998.”

But Kershaw’s effort was “extraordinarily efficient.... That’s pitching at its absolute finest.” [Just 107 pitches.]

--With the July 31 trade deadline approaching, a prime target is Chicago’s Jeff Samardzija, he of the 2.77 ERA in 15 starts. Samardzija reportedly rejected a five-year, $85 million extension from the Cubbies. He can’t wait to get out of there.

The Yankees are an obvious destination, but they have little to offer Chicago in return...at least that I can see.

--Alex Rodriguez dropped his last remaining lawsuit – a medical malpractice suit against Yankee team doctor Christopher Ahmad and New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center – because A-Rod wanted “no legal distraction of any sort” as he prepares for the 2015 season, according to his attorney, Alan Ripka. A-Rod remains banned for the entire MLB season.

So...Rodriguez continues to gear up for next spring training, expecting to play again for the Yanks. The circus will be back! Then again, after two hip surgeries, there were questions as to whether A-Rod would ever play again regardless of Biogenesis and the subsequent penalty.

Manager Joe Girardi said Friday that Rodriguez is “under contract, so you kind of expect him to be back.”

As the Daily News reports, however, it’s possible A-Rod will show up at spring training, realize he can’t perform at a high level, and then elect to go on the physically unable to perform list, retire and still collect the remaining $61 million in salary he is due.

--Back to the Mets, New York fans have been following the resurgence of catcher Travis d’Arnaud since he was sent down to Triple-A Las Vegas. He’s hitting .453 in his first 53 at-bats (thru Sat.) with six homers and 16 RBI.

Guess who is largely responsible? As a piece from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, passed along by Phil W., has it, Vegas hitting coach George Greer is the man...the same George Greer who was head baseball coach at Wake Forest for 17 highly successful seasons (608-382-4).

“George moved his back foot closer to the plate,” Las Vegas manager Wally Backman said. “He was having a hard time hitting the pitch away, but now he can cover the whole plate. If it was that simple all the time, it’d be great. That’s one of the things he wasn’t doing in the big leagues.”

--Kind of feel bad for Houston. Their top prospect, Carlos Correa, suffered a serious leg injury in a minor league game Saturday night. He is a 19-year-old, 6-foot-4, shortstop with power and speed and ESPN has him as the No. 2 prospect in all of baseball.

--Mark Buerhle lost to the Yankees on Wednesday, 7-3, and the Toronto hurler, 196-146 lifetime, is 1-11 against the Yanks. Plus, he’s 0-3 against the Mets! 1-14 in New York! [I just lost a Pulitzer for back-to-back exclamation points.]

Golf Balls

--Congrats to 24-year-old Michelle Wie, who has been in our sights for 11 years already, but today finally closed the deal, winning her first major, the U.S. Women’s Open at Pinehurst by two over world No. 1 Stacy Lewis.

Wie double-bogeyed No. 16 to cut her lead to just one, but then she birdied 17 and that was it.

It’s a huge shot in the arm for women’s golf, let alone Wie, who wasted years as a teenager attempting to pursue a career on the men’s tour and then missed the cut in all 8 PGA events she entered. Her parents, as well chronicled in these pages, did not help. 

I’ve covered her entire career. In fact, I just put her name in my search engine and there are over 120 references to Wie. Most of which is not good.

But it’s a new day for Michelle. If you want a comparison, think how Tiger Woods changed the economics of the men’s tour. You know all those comparisons of the Top 30 and 60 on the money list between the PGA and LPGA I have done?   [No one else has, by the way.] The ladies, in relative terms, are hoping Wie does for them what Tiger did for the men. The purses exploded with Tiger. They just might for the ladies if Wie keeps it up.

[Lucy Li, the youngest participant ever at age 11, shot 78-78 and missed the cut by seven, which was nonetheless a phenomenal performance.]

--On the men’s tour, Kevin Streelman spectacularly birdied his final seven holes on Sunday to come back and win the Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Conn., besting K.J. Choi and Sergio Garcia by one for his second PGA Tour triumph.

--In the Irish Open, Finland’s Mikko Ilonen won his fourth European Tour event with a one-stroke win over Edoardo Molinari, both serving notice they are ready for The Open Championship. But Rory McIlroy missed the cut.

--Tiger Woods is coming back next week at his own tournament, the Quicken Loans National at Congressional Country Club (which benefits his foundation), joining a field that includes Justin Rose, Jason Day and Jordan Spieth.

But is Tiger coming back too soon? Obviously I have no clue from a medical standpoint and his workouts following his back surgery, but it kind of feels that way. I thought with the progress report we were given the other day, that he was just back to hitting full shots, that Tiger was setting himself up for a return at the British Open at Royal Liverpool, where he won in 2006. Maybe play in the Scottish Open the week before.

But agent Mark Steinberg said Tiger’s doctors “have said you’re ready to go. If the doctors had said you’re still a couple of weeks away, he would not be there (to play).”

Woods wrote on Facebook: “It’s time to take the next step. I will be a bit rusty, but I want to play myself back into competitive shape.”

“That’s some next step, going from just starting to hit full shots to competing for potentially 72 holes of professional golf. That’s like starting to jog one day and running a marathon the next.”

NBA Action...it’s Fann-tastic!

--As the New York Daily News’ Mike Lupica wrote, do Knicks fans really care if Carmelo Anthony bolts for someone like the Bulls or Rockets? I know I don’t. I recognize the team is going to be absolutely dreadful next season but we’re all resigned to looking at 2015-16, when we can hit the free-agent market strong and finally get some draft picks again. With Melo, we’re probably only 36-46.

It certainly seems like Phil Jackson couldn’t care less. Some are saying he has his sights set on Kevin Durant in a few years and then building around him.

Anyway, if Melo opts out, he’s gone.* He can still accept $23.5 million for this coming season from New York and then negotiate a long-term deal with the team next spring or summer, one that fits the Knicks goal of attracting a top free-agent, but that’s taking too big a risk for him, especially for a guy who has had his share of shoulder issues.

*I wrote all of the above Sunday morning...Sunday afternoon it was reported Melo had indeed opted out. Oh, there will be some juicy articles written by the New York scribes. Developing....

--I like this line by Lupica: “If you’re a fan of the Knicks or the Nets, watching the NBA draft makes you feel a little bit like the kid pressing his nose to the toy-store window, right?”

--If Cleveland thinks they have an outside shot at getting LeBron to return this coming season or next, he will certainly be looking at the team’s new choice for head coach, 55-year-old David Blatt, who led Maccabi Tel Aviv to the Euroleague championship.

Blatt has no prior NBA experience, having spent the past 20 seasons coaching teams in Israel, Greece, Russia and Turkey. But he was a point guard under Coach Pete Carril at Princeton from 1977 to 1981 and he is considered an offensive genius.

He also earned a bronze medal coaching Russia at the 2012 Summer Olympics.

I love the selection. But when I mention LeBron and Cleveland, I keep forgetting it’s all about owner Dan Gilbert and whether he could patch things up with LeBron...actually, the other way around after all the awful stuff Gilbert said about James when he left for the Heat.

Meanwhile, Miami team president Pat Riley gave a press conference on Thursday and let loose, addressing the topic of LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, after getting whipped like a rented mule by the Spurs.

“I don’t think we’ve got to recruit Chris, Dwyane or LeBron. I’m not dropping rings on the table for those guys. They could drop their own.”

Riley opened with a rant. “I’m pissed...I think everybody needs to get a grip. This stuff is hard. You have to stay together and find the guts. You don’t find the [exit] door and run out of it.” [This statement clearly aimed at LeBron in particular.]

After four years of reaching the Finals, Riley said a common theme from his players in their exit interviews was that mental fatigue ultimately played a major factor.

“I understand that. I don’t accept it.... If that’s something as an excuse or to use this as a crutch... I saw that in the team. I saw the mental fatigue at times. I thought we were hitting a stride when we beat Indiana in Game 6 [of the Eastern Conference finals]. I said we’re in a good place. Then we ran into a buzz saw.”

Riley also said: “It’s about what we’ve done over four years. It’s about looking around the room now and seeing who is going to stand up. Those four years we’ve had with LeBron, we’re hoping to turn them into eight or 10. We’re not walking around on eggshells anymore.”

--As for Thursday’s draft, why would you take a chance on Kansas center Joel Embiid, at least with a top five pick, after his surgery for a broken foot? The injury takes four to eight months to heal, meaning he probably wouldn’t be ready until the start of 2015. And then you have the history of the likes of Bill Walton, Yao Ming and Greg Oden, big men whose careers were severely limited by injuries, let alone Sam Bowie. Remember him?

Cleveland still has the No. 1 pick...but they could yet trade it.

--The Lakers are trying to acquire Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson for the seventh pick in next week’s draft, part of a three-way trade that would send Minnesota All-Star Kevin Love to the Warriors. I wish the Knicks had Thompson...just 24, he is a real emerging star. If I’m the Lakers, I make this move in a heartbeat. [But it sounds like the deal is falling apart.]

I’ve been on record that the Redskins should face reality and change their name to “Red Clouds.” Enough from me.

But this week the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office canceled the Washington Redskins’ trademark registration so more opinion rolled in, on both this decision and the overriding one.

Jonathan Turley / Washington Post

“The decision this past week...to rescind federal trademark protections for the Redskins may ultimately tip the balance in the controversy over the 80-year-old name of Washington’s football team. If so, that would be a shame. Not because there’s insufficient reason to consider the name ‘disparaging to Native Americans,’ as the patent office determined. Many of us recoil at the reference to skin color as a team identity. The problem is that the Redskins case is just the latest example of a federal agency going beyond its brief to inappropriately insert itself in social or political debates.

“Few people would have expected the future of the Redskins to be determined by an obscure panel in a relatively small government agency. Yet the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board showed little restraint in launching itself into this heated argument – issuing an opinion that supports calls for change from powerful politicians, including President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). The board had at its disposal a ridiculously ambiguous standard that allows the denial of a trademark if it ‘may disparage’ a ‘substantial composite’ of a group at the time the trademark is registered.

“This standard isn’t concerned with how widely offensive a trademark may be now, or with how the general population or even a majority of the group in question views it. It didn’t matter to the patent office that polls show substantial majorities of the public and the Native American community do not find the name offensive. A 2004 Annenberg Public Policy Center poll found that 90% of Native Americans said the name didn’t bother them. Instead, the board focused on a 1993 resolution adopted by the National Congress of American Indians denouncing the name. The board simply extrapolated that, since the National Congress represented about 30% of Native Americans, one out of every three Native Americans found it offensive. ‘Thirty percent is without doubt a substantial composite,’ the board wrote....

“For the Washington Redskins, there may be years of appeals, and pending a final decision, the trademarks will remain enforceable. But if the ruling stands, it will threaten billions of dollars in merchandizing and sponsorship profits for NFL teams, which share revenue. Redskins owner Dan Snyder would have to yield or slowly succumb to death by a thousand infringement paper cuts....

“As federal agencies have grown in size and scope, they have increasingly viewed their regulatory functions as powers to reward or punish citizens and groups. The Internal Revenue Service offers another good example. Like the patent office, it was created for a relatively narrow function: tax collection. Yet the agency also determines which groups don’t have to pay taxes....

“There is an obvious problem when the sanctioning of free exercise of religion or speech becomes a matter of discretionary agency action. And it goes beyond trademarks and taxes. Consider the Federal Election Commission’s claim of authority to sit in judgment of whether a film is a prohibited ‘electioneering communication.’ While the anti-George W. Bush film ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ was not treated as such in 2004, the anti-Clinton ‘Hillary: The Movie’ was barred by the FEC in 2008. The agency appeared Caesar-like in its approval and disapproval – authority that was curtailed in 2010 by the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United. ....

“When agencies engage in content-based speech regulation, it’s more than the usual issue of ‘mission creep.’ As I’ve written before...agencies now represent something like a fourth branch in our government.... Insulated from participatory politics and accountability, these agencies can shape political and social decision-making....

“What is needed is a new law returning these agencies to their core regulatory responsibilities and requiring speech neutrality in enforcement. We do not need faceless federal officials to become arbiters of our social controversies. There are valid objections to the Redskins name, but it is a public controversy that demands a public resolution, not a bureaucratic one.”

“I keep being asked about the ‘tipping point.’ As in, ‘Is this the fork-in-the-road moment, the tipping point that makes the NFL and Dan Snyder realize they have to change the name?’

“The term first came up months ago, and lately it has been coming up more frequently.

“First, after a powerful video made by the National Congress of American Indians against the name of the Washington football team was seen by an estimated 15 million last week at halftime of the NBA Finals.

“Then again on Wednesday when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office canceled six registered trademarks of the team....

“Beyond a very symbolic legal victory for this country’s most underrepresented and marginalized ethnic minority – no small win considering its rights have been trampled in the courts and the halls of Congress for centuries – it’s important because it could eventually hit Snyder in the wallet.”

[Granted, Wise concedes the appeal process could last anywhere from two to ten years....continuing...]

“There is no tipping point for people who can’t be shamed.

“But there is a steady drumbeat – not the wrongheaded tomahawk-chopping, caricature drumbeat that builds to a crescendo at Florida State and Atlanta Braves games. But the kind heard during a sun dance at Pine Ridge or the Crow Agency in Montana, the drumbeat mimicking the thump-thump-thump of a heart.

“And it’s annoying everyone associated with this franchise. Some are angry that their allegiance to an NFL team’s name equates to them being racially insensitive and uncompassionate to the offended. But still more, I’m sensing recently, are just plain worn down....

“There is a palpable fatigue over this issue now. Players are tired of being asked about it. Fans are tired of talking about it. Trust me, even the people against the name, some of whom have spent millions to get their point across, would like to move on toward a future in which fewer of their waking hours are devoted to abolishing a dictionary-defined racial slur.”

From the AP: “A report that scientists are calling one of the most comprehensive studies of great white sharks finds their numbers are surging in the ocean off the Eastern U.S. and Canada after decades of decline – bad news if you’re a seal, but something experts say shouldn’t instill fear in beachgoers this summer.”

Are you kidding me?! Beachgoers shouldn’t be concerned?! Heck, anecdotal evidence has 98% of vacationers cancelling their beach holiday reservations from Florida up through Cape Cod. This will send the U.S. economy crashing back into recession. Or maybe not....

One thing is for sure. If you do proceed to take the kiddies to, say, Cape Cod in August, you’re going to lose a few of them.

In fact, “Shark abundance is now only 31% down from its historical high estimate in 1961, the report states.” Some scientists say the great white population in the western North Atlantic is “between 3,000 and 5,000.”

You’ve been warned. That’s all I can do. I told Brad K., I’m staying west of the Garden State Parkway this summer. He’s already seen a precipitous drop in the value of some shore property he has...like 87% within hours of this report. [Which will have the knock-on effect of lower property tax revenues, municipal layoffs, reduced consumer spending, lower federal receipts, cuts to defense spending and then thermonuclear war. Funny how these things can spiral out of control.]

--Carl Edwards won the NASCAR Sprint Cup road race at Sonoma, his second win of the year, which locks him into the Chase.

--The New York Rangers released Brad Richards, as expected, to create major cap space. They bought out the final six years of a nine-year, $60 million contract and the 34-year-old center will receive $20.67 million over the next 12 years. Richards can then sign with any team as of July 1.

Good guy whose diminished skills just didn’t add up to being paid $6.67 million a year.

--We note the passing of Stephanie Kwolek, the inventor of Kevlar, which has saved thousands of police officers and soldiers shot in the line of duty. She was 90.

Kwolek was a DuPont Co. chemist when she made the breakthrough in 1965 while working on specialty fibers at a DuPont laboratory in Wilmington, De.

Kwolek said in an interview several years ago, “I knew that I had made a discovery. I didn’t shout ‘Eureka,’ but I was very excited, as was the whole laboratory excited because we were looking for something new, something different, and this was it.”

Kwolek is the only female employee of DuPont to be awarded the company’s Lavoisier Medal for outstanding technical achievement.

--Great dog story, courtesy of Deborah Hastings in the New York Daily News:

“After 20 long months in the rugged Tahoe National Forest, a golden retriever named Murphy has found her way home.

“Nathan and Erin Braun were beside themselves after a couple phoned to say they had seen a dog who looked like Murphy wandering around their campsite, which was about five miles from where the dog went missing in October 2012.

“ ‘We had heard the story and there were bulletins posted,’ Janice Watkins told KTXL-TV.

“After she and her husband contacted the Brauns, Murphy’s long-lost owners drove up to the camp and delivered the dog’s blanket and some other family items.

“It took a few days, but lo and behold, after leaving the belongings outside, Murphy followed her nose to the blanket.

“Janice Watkins said they ‘just kinda walked over and grabbed her by the scruff of the neck until we could get a leash on her,’ the station reported....

“ ‘She was very timid. She had her tail tucked most of the time until halfway through Saturday. Then she started wagging it.’

“Murphy was reunited with her owners on Father’s Day.”

I’m guessing Murphy ran off to join the Tahoe Circus, a world-renowned troupe. 

Ah yes, the Johnny Mann Singers, winners of a 1968 Grammy for their cover version of the hit song “Up, Up and Away” and in 1962 for the album “Great Band With Great Voices.”

His group went on to record 40 albums and do a ton of live performances. He was also musical director for “The Danny Kaye Show” and “The Joey Bishop Show” in the 1960s.

Mann had his own series, the syndicated “Stand Up and Cheer” featuring the Johnny Mann Singers, which ran from 1971 to 1974. Mann was very patriotic and as he once said, “I got my TV series on the air because I was fed up with the protesters burning the flag.”

--Gerry Goffin died. He was 75. Goffin and Carole King collaborated on some of the biggest hits of the 1960s, including “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?,” “Up On the Roof,” “One Fine Day” and “The Loco-Motion.”

Goffin and King were students at Queens College when they met in 1958. They married, had two children, divorced, but kept writing. They were inducted together into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, and earlier the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

In terms of their duties, King composed the music, Goffin wrote the lyrics.

Among their other hits was Steve Lawrence’s No. 1 “Go Away Little Girl.” [All together, boys and girls. Steve Lawrence is one of the most underrated entertainers of all time!]

Goffin and King were also responsible for “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” recorded by the Monkees. And what was one of Aretha Franklin’s two or three best of all time, “(You Make Me feel Like) A Natural Woman.”

After they divorced in 1968, King launched her solo performer career with “Tapestry” in 1971.

Lawrence Downes of the New York Times wrote that he used to give a class for Times’ interns on writing and editing and used the Goffin/King “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” to make a point about brevity and beauty: “to show how it’s possible to convey complicated emotions, deep feeling and intricate meanings with the tiniest and plainest of words. You can be also be short and heartbreaking.”

Tonight you’re mine completely
You give your love so sweetly
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes
But will you love me tomorrow?

Is this a lasting treasure
Or just a moment’s pleasure?
Can I believe the magic of your sighs
Will you still love me tomorrow

Tonight with words unspoken
You say that I’m the only one
But will my hearts be broken
When the night meets the morning sun?

I’d like to know that your love
Is love I can be sure of
So tell me now and I won’t ask again
Will you still love me tomorrow?
Will you still love me tomorrow?

Lawrence Downes points out there are 108 words...88 one-syllable, 14 two-syllable. Pretty cool. Simple genius.

Top 3 songs for the week 6/23/79: #1 “Hot Stuff” (Donna Summer) #2 “We Are Family” (Sister Sledge...lots of time spent at Yankee Stadium, Sat., discussing Pops and the ’79 Pirates...) #3 “Ring My Bell” (Anita Ward... awful...)...and...#4 “Just When I Needed You Most” (Randy Vanwarmer...ditto...)  #5 “Bad Girls” (Donna Summer... beep beep...) #6 “The Logical Song” (Supertramp...big hair...) #7 “Check E.’s In Love” (Rickie Lee Jones... descended into her own personal hell after this one...) #8 “She Believes In Me” (Kenny Rogers...glad someone does...) #9 “Boogie Wonderland” (Earth, Wind & Fire with the Emotions...not their best...) #10 “You Take My Breath Away” (Rex Smith...and now we have to deal with the 80s!!! Just shoot me.)

Baseball Quiz Answer: Most hits with one team....

Stan Musial STL 3,630
Carl Yastrzemski BOS 3,419
Derek Jeter NYY 3,380
Cal Ripken Jr. BAL 3,184
George Brett KC 3,154
Robin Yount MIL 3,142
Tony Gwynn SD 3,141

So Jeter will finish up second to Musial...not bad, not bad at all.

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