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Bar Chat

06/30/2014

Monday: Algeria vs. Germany

[Posted Sunday pm prior to Yankees-Red Sox. Geezuz, lot going on...if you’re into the World Cup as I am.]

Baseball Quiz: 1) With Tim Lincecum’s recent second no-hitter (see below), he joins just three others as the only pitchers with two Cy Young awards and two no-nos. Name ‘em. 2) Who is the all-time leader in stolen bases for a shortstop? Answers below.

World Cup

For the archives, the survivors of group play....winners in the knockout round thus far in bold.

A. Brazil, Mexico

B. Netherlands, Chile

C. Colombia, Greece

D. Costa Rica, Uruguay

So thus far in the first games of the knock out round, we’ve had Brazil-Chile...a stupendous 1-1 contest filled with missed opportunities, including Chile’s Mauricio Pinilla hitting the crossbar in the final moments of extra time that would have given Chile the win. [Then again, Brazil may have been robbed by the referee on Hulk’s disallowed goal, ruled a handball.]

In the 3-2 penalty kick shootout, it was Brazilian goalkeeper Julio Cesar who made several crucial saves, while Chile’s Gonzalo Jara hit the post with the final kick, after Brazil’s Neymar notched their 3rd, giving the host the victory. [Pinilla missed one in the shootout as well.] A crushing loss for Chile. Their keeper, Claudio Bravo, was outstanding in defeat.

Colombia beat Uruguay 2-0 as James Rodriguez continued to put his stamp on the Cup, scoring twice, which gives him a leading five goals.

As for Uruguay’s Luis Suarez, he told FIFA’s disciplinary panel that he did not deliberately bite Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini, saying he lost his balance and fell on his opponent, which was presented on Wednesday to FIFA’s appeal panel, thus challenging the nine-match, four-month ban he was handed. However, the appeal panel dismissed the argument.

The bite was “deliberate, intentional and without provocation.”

Back home in Uruguay, Suarez is being hailed as a hero.

Italy’s Chiellini said the punishment for Suarez was excessive.

“Now inside me there’s no feelings of joy, revenge or anger against Suarez for an incident that happened on the pitch and that’s done. There only remain the anger and the disappointment about the match. At the moment my only thought is for Luis and his family, because they will face a very difficult period.”

Suarez is under contract to Liverpool until 2018 but there is a clause under which he can be bought out (at a huge sum). Liverpool is likely to try to sell him.

Sunday, game one had Mexico losing for the sixth straight World Cup in the round of 16, a 2-1 stunner at the feet of the Netherlands. Giovani dos Santos scored for Mexico in the first half, while Guillermo Ochoa was superb in goal, but at the 88-minute mark, Wesley Sneijder connected on a superb kick to knot it for the Dutch at 1-1, and then four minutes into injury time, superstar Arjen Robben created a penalty kick on Mexico’s Marquez and Klaus-Jan Huntelaar (“the Hunter”...should be in “Game of Thrones”) converted it for the 2-1 finale.

No doubt fans in Mexico (and many folks where I live) are crushed, with more than a few questioning the awarding of the late penalty kick, I’m sure, but Robben created it and he was hit, even if lightly (and even if he was already going down). The referee made the right call. But just another superb game.

And in the second game, Costa Rica kept the dream alive, defeating Greece on penalty kicks 5-3 after a 1-1 draw in regulation and extra time. Costa Rica played one man down a good part of the second half on, and goalkeeper Navas was superb throughout. [Otherwise the game was less than scintillating.]

--Prior to the knockout round, what a mess with the Ghana team, as President John Dramani Mahama was forced to fly $3.19 million in cash to the nation’s football team to prevent a boycott of Ghana’s game against Portugal; the players complaining they hadn’t been paid for appearance fees and bonuses.

Earlier, the Ghana Football Association denied it had agreed to fix future international exhibition games, and then it was forced to suspend two of its top players for fighting with Coach James Kwesi Appiah and other managers.

--While I have picked Germany to go all the way, I am pumped for their match with Algeria on Monday. This is the first time the Desert Foxes have advanced to the final 16 and they have a chance to avenge their controversial exit from the 1982 World Cup when West Germany and Austria played out a mutually beneficial 1-0 win for the Germans.

In the first match of Group 2 back in ’82, Algeria faced off against mighty West Germany. Algeria was belittled as a bunch of novices. Out of nowhere Algeria won 2-1.

But Algeria, spent after the effort against the Germans, lost to Austria 2-0 in their second game. The Desert Foxes then recovered to defeat Chile 3-2.

So Algeria was going to advance unless West Germany vs. Austria, played the day after the Chile contest, ended in a one- or two-goal win for West Germany, in which case both Germany and Austria would have progressed at Algeria’s expense.

[Austria had defeated Chile 1-0 and the West Germans prevailed 4-1 in their match with the Chileans. So you had the goal differential situation.]

Germany scored in the 10th minute of its match with Austria and, realizing the 1-0 score benefited both of them, Germany and Austria effectively stopped playing. In the ensuing 80 minutes there were no shots, and barely any action of any kind. It was no longer a contest. It was a conspiracy. There was universal scorn.

There was also disgust in West Germany and Austria.  One German commentator said on television: “What is happening here is disgraceful and has nothing to do with football.” The Austrian commentator told viewers to turn off their sets and refused to speak for the last half-hour. Some former players for West Germany called the current team “gangsters.”

While FIFA refused calls for a replay or to punish the Europeans, there was one good thing that emerged from the fiasco. Henceforth, the last pair of games in every group was to be played simultaneously.

So in this way Algeria left an indelible mark on the World Cup. Now they can leave another. It should be great fun on Monday, 4:00 pm eastern. [Source: Paul Doyle / The Guardian, June 2010]

Ball Bits

--Two losses in a row for Masahiro Tanaka (now 11-3, 2.10 ERA) after he allowed a ninth inning home run to the Red Sox’ Mike Napoli as the Yankees fell 2-1 on Saturday night. Jon Lester (9-7) picked up the win.

So I watched this game and it really is fascinating just how badly Stephen Drew is screwing up. He waited until May 20 to sign a one-year, $10 million deal - a prorated amount of Boston’s $14.1 million qualifying offer, which he turned down last offseason to pursue a long-term, megadeal elsewhere – and since he was called up June 2, he’s batting 7-for-56 (entering Sunday night’s play).

There was a lot of pressure on the Mets to pursue Drew, but for once it appears the Metsies made the right move. Now, unless he has a super second half, who is going to give the guy the contract he thought he was receiving last winter?

--You know how much I like Zack Greinke for earning his six-year, $147 million contract with the Dodgers, signed back in December 2012. Well here’s another reason to respect the guy.  He is 13-2 with a 1.98 ERA in 19 starts following a Dodgers loss. After allowing 1 run in 7 innings in a 9-1 win over the Cardinals on Saturday (following a loss on Friday), Greinke overall is 10-4, 2.78; 25-8 in his 1 ½ seasons in L.A.

As for teammate Clayton Kershaw, he threw another 7 scoreless, allowing 5 hits while striking out 13, in the Dodgers’ 6-0 win over the Cards on Sunday. Kershaw is now 9-2, 2.04.

Better yet, he has a career best 28 inning scoreless streak and finished June 6-0, 0.82.

--One of the year’s big questions was could Cincinnati’s Billy Hamilton hit major-league pitching? Well, he’s hit .333 in June to raise his average to .282, while upping his stolen base total to 34.

-- Derek Jeter turned 40 the other day and I think all Yankees fans would have to agree he is having a very mediocre final season. Yes, he is on schedule to play in 140 games at short, which would make him only the fourth in history to play that many in an age-40 season (Honus Wagner, Luke Appling and Omar Vizquel), but it’s not like the Yankees have a viable alternative at this point, and of course while Jeter is being given the occasional day off, you aren’t getting him out of the lineup.

--Some players do nothing to distinguish themselves in minor-league rehab assignments, but that wasn’t the case with Washington’s Bryce Harper Saturday night. At Class AA Harrisburg, he hit three home runs, one to each part of the field, in a 10-4 win over Akron. [Didn’t realize the Indians’ affiliate is the “Akron RubberDucks.”] Anyway, it would seem Harper is ready to come back.

--As noted above, San Francisco’s Tim Lincecum fired his second career no-hitter on Wednesday, both against the Padres and in less than a year. San Diego remains the only team never to have pitched one itself.

Lincecum thus became only the second pitcher in major league history to twice no-hit the same team, the other being Hall of Famer Addie Joss who did it for Cleveland against the White Sox in 1908 and 1910.

Lincecum also had two hits in his 4-0 masterpiece, thus becoming the first pitcher with two hits in a no-hitter since Rick Wise hit two homers for Philadelphia against Cincinnati on June 23, 1971.

--The Pirates sold out all four of their games against the Mets this weekend, taking 3 of 4, to advance to 42-40. The Mets are 37-45 and the height of blowdom.

--Boy, here is some trivia. Washington Nationals right-hander Jordan Zimmermann has a 1.67 ERA in 25 career starts in the month of June, which for a pitcher with at least 20 starts in any calendar month since 1914 is 3rd-best all time. First and second are Babe Ruth. Fourth is Bob Feller and fifth is Clayton Kershaw.

1. Ruth Sept. 1.30
2. Ruth Aug. 1.55
3. Zimmermann June 1.67
4. Feller April 2.04
5. Kershaw September 2.09 [No doubt the June he just had helps him down the road.]

But as Johnny Mac notes, Zimmermann should really be considered best since the league ERA is at least one run higher than back in Ruth’s day.

However, the above also shows you, as if you needed being reminded, that Babe Ruth is the greatest ballplayer of all time. End of discussion.

--Houston’s Jose Altuve, all of 5’5”, is leading the A.L. in hitting at .347, plus he has 25 doubles. He will be the talk of the coming All-Star game, even over Mike Trout.

--Oakland reliever Sean Doolittle has yielded one walk in 39 innings. You’re reading that right. He also has 56 strikeouts. Some say that is a pretty good ratio. [Though he has blown two saves and his ERA is 2.08, to go along with a 1-2 record.]

--The White Sox’ Jose Abreu has 25 home runs and 64 RBI in 69 games. Remember how I wrote some scouts said he was capable of only 12-15 homers a year?

--After posting my last chat, Vanderbilt took the College World Series in the deciding Game 3 against Virginia, 3-2, as John Norwood hit a tiebreaking homer in the top of the eighth; Norwood’s first home run since April 19 and only the team’s 22nd in 72 games this season (51-21). So Vandy picks up its first title and the Virginia loss means that Wake Forest remains the last ACC team to win the CWS...59 years ago.

NBA Draft...and such...

1. Andrew Wiggins / Cleveland
2. Jabari Parker / Milwaukee
3. Joel Embiid / Philadelphia

--There are conflicting reports out of Miami as to whether Chris Bosh opted out of his contract yet, but Dwyane Wade definitely joined LeBron in doing so and it is expected Bosh will still do the same by Tuesday’s deadline.

LeBron wants to sign for the max allowed and stay in Miami, as long as he is convinced team president Pat Riley is going to improve the roster, while James expects Wade and Bosh to renegotiate their contracts and accept less money in order to give Riley more options.

For starters, James successfully lobbied for UConn guard Shabazz Napier, as Miami obtained the rights to him.

--I love what Phil Jackson is doing with the Knicks. Number one, he isn’t groveling at the feet of Carmelo Anthony, Phil saying he had his meeting with Melo and he won’t meet again before Anthony decides what he wants to do in free agency.

After doing nothing for weeks, Jackson collected seven new players in 36 hours, shipping Tyson Chandler and Raymond Felton to Dallas in the process, and receiving Jose Calderon, Samuel Dalembert, Shane Larkin, Wayne Ellington and two picks (Nos. 34 and 51)...while later adding a third (No. 57).

With the 34th selection, we got one of my favorite players from last year, Wichita State’s Cleanthony Early! Talk about psyched. It’s going to take this kid a little time, but he’s going to contribute in a big way by his second season, at the latest. At No. 51, the Knicks selected a defensive specialist swingman, Thanasis Antetokounmpo, who played last season in the D-League. Then Jackson bought the No. 57 pick from the Indiana Pacers, acquiring the rights to Louis Labeyrie, a 22-year-old center from France, who, if he’s not packaged in another deal, will be stashed in France for a year or two.

Jackson, as the New York Times’ Scott Cacciola put it, ignored the noise in the draft, like LeBron’s lobbying for Shabazz Napier (which I don’t disagree with), and “simply went about his business...the business of building. It might just be Anthony’s most compelling reason to stay.”

Jackson said of the kind of player he was seeking: “We’ve earmarked players who will give the team some of the things we’re looking for – activity, peppiness, guys who get after balls for steals and interceptions. That’s one of the directions we’re going.”

The fans would love that. But there are other opinions, especially on Anthony and his status. Mike Lupica / New York Daily News:

“The more you look at the NBA landscape, the more it becomes clear that Phil should want (Melo) back, just because if LeBron James stays in Miami, the best player out there is Carmelo Anthony. Phil knows better than anybody that without stars you end up looking like a (very tall) jockey without a horse.

“Maybe the way Phil is playing this will work in the end and Anthony will return. Still: It seems like a peculiar negotiating stance for the Knicks’ new team president to act as if Anthony signed some sort of blood oath with some All-Star Game comments about being willing to take less money to help build a winner. Guys say a lot of things. Phil always has.”

--But there is turmoil with the other team in New York, the Brooklyn Nets, as the New York Post’s Tim Bontemps first reported coach Jason Kidd “isn’t satisfied with just coaching the Nets, and it may cause him to leave the franchise.

“A league source told The Post Kidd recently approached ownership with a series of demands, including the role of overseeing the Nets’ basketball operations department in addition to his head-coaching responsibilities. The source said Kidd didn’t want general manager Billy King to be dismissed, but wanted to be given a title and placed above him in the organizational hierarchy.

“Ownership declined to grant Kidd that kind of power, which is rare for any coach in the league to have. The source said ownership felt Kidd wasn’t ready for that kind of responsibility after having only one year of coaching experience...and allowed Kidd to seek other opportunities.

“The franchise then was asked by the Bucks for permission to speak with Kidd about the prospect of hiring him and the Nets consented, making his departure from Brooklyn a sudden possibility.”

Current Bucks coach Larry Drew and the team’s front office were not aware Kidd would be interviewing for their jobs.

The Bucks’ new ownership (the team having been sold for $550 million in mid-May) has extensive ties with Kidd.

This is all par for the course for Jason, one of the big back-stabbers in the game.

“This is Jason Kidd. And if this appalling power play shocks Mikhail Prokhorov and his Russian ownership cabinet, then shame on them. Because even if it seems bold and brazen even by Kidd’s remarkably passive-aggressive standards, it’s simply a standard move from his time-honored (and dog-eared) playbook.

“Goodness, Kidd’s been doing this since his freshman year at Cal, when he led a mutiny that wound up costing Lou Campanelli his job with 10 games left in the season. And never were his Machiavellian methods more on display then the evening of Dec. 5, 2007, when, unhappy with the Nets’ unwillingness to trade him or extend his contract, he conducted a one-man job action, calling in sick and missing a game against the Knicks at the Meadowlands when the only thing wrong with him was a sour attitude.

“Kidd was a genius player, and none of his clubhouse-lawyering and coach-killing will ever change that. But his off-court conniving is every bit as much a part of who he is, who he always has been, as his on-court brilliance. The Nets, of all teams, knew that as well as anybody, and hired him anyway last summer. And then, in case anyone forgot, he chased a reluctant Lawrence Frank for weeks to be his top aide, demanded that the Nets make him the top-paid assistant in the league...then exiled him about 15 minutes into the season.”

So now Kidd has to deal with Prokhorov.

“Prokhorov? You don’t become an oligarch by being a sweetheart of a guy, easily manipulated by an employee celebrating his first anniversary on the job. You know what an oligarch tells such a worker?

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. (If he’s lucky.)...

“Kidd doesn’t just look bad here, of course. He looks like a bad guy, the rookie coach who has gotten so far ahead of himself after one year as an NBA coach that he now thinks he is the King of pro basketball and not LeBron James, this after winning just 44 games and just one playoff series, before getting one game off James and the Heat in the second round....

“Jason Kidd knows he will get cut very little slack around here. He has made terrible decisions in his life, they’re all on the record, and now it looks as if he has made another. He was never a media darling as a player and he sure wasn’t one as a coach and nobody is likely to cut him much slack today.

“The Nets may be happy to get rid of him, as early as today, if that’s how this plays out. But you have to know that if that is the way it does play out, if he is already on his way out the door, whether he ends up running the show in Milwaukee or not, he may be just as happy to get away from them.”

Meanwhile, the Nets, like the Knicks, weren’t supposed to have any draft picks but acquired three, picking up Oklahoma State guard Markel Brown at No. 44, San Diego State point guard Xavier Thames at No. 59, and Baylor power forward Cory Jefferson at 60. Not bad. But with ten players already under contract, and with it looking like Kevin Garnett is returning, I’m guessing Thames is traded before training camp opens, which would be unfortunate. This guy should have a long career in the league.

“They sat through a year of absolute misery, suffering through the tank effort that was supposed to lead to a payoff. Instead, Sixers fans are looking at another year of absolute tanking. The Sixers did nothing to get better for opening night Thursday. Philadelphia’s not a loser, because Joel Embiid and Dario Saric could wind up being very good. Key word: good. We don’t know if Embiid’s injuries will derail his career or if Saric will eventually come over and, if so, what he’ll be. Maybe it’ll work out but they needed to nail this draft and instead they get an incomplete and their fans get a ‘So... who’s excited for another year of Thaddeus Young hating his life?’”

Philly fan Mark R., however, is psyched. Yes, next season will be another hideous one, but Mark is convinced the team’s strategy is going to work in a big way by 2015-16, especially after they develop some of the players they are stockpiling, get another lottery pick next spring, and then hit the free agent market with lots of cap space.

So we’ll be talking about this at our now annual dinner in Bethlehem, PA, next spring, Mark. [Stan N. and Griff included.]

--Boston had an outstanding draft in picking up Marcus Smart with the sixth selection, and my fave of this draft (non-lottery pick), James Young of Kentucky with the 17th. Only one thing to do now...drop Rajon Rondo. He’s a cancer.

--The Los Angeles Lakers stole Kentucky’s Julius Randle at No. 7 and the power forward will have an immediate impact. Free agent Pau Gasol is rumored to be looking at the Knicks.

--Nice moment in Thursday’s draft when NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced the league was “drafting” Baylor’s Isaiah Austin, whose playing career ended when doctors discovered he has Marfan syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that affects the heart, during pre-draft physicals. Austin was expected, by some, to be a late first-round pick.

Austin, by the way, did have an insurance policy of at least $1 million, according to his agent, purchased through the NCAA’s elite athlete insurance program. Normally there is a 12-month wait period as the insurer makes sure the athlete can’t make an attempt to recover, but in Austin’s case, there is little debate over his diagnosis. He can’t play.

The policy would not have paid out if Austin’s career had ended due only to his prosthetic right eye.

--Just as in the case of the NFL draft, the NBA version delivered its highest rating on ESPN, surpassing the mark set 11 years ago when LeBron James was the No. 1 pick.

--But now it’s all about July 1...when teams and free agents can start talking and negotiating. Let the fun begin.

Golf Balls

--Tiger Woods missed the cut at his own tournament this weekend, the Quicken Loans National at Congressional; only the 10th cut he has missed on the PGA Tour, vs. 14 majors, which is rather remarkable. By comparison, Phil Mickelson has missed 70 since turning pro. [For the record, Phil missed another 8 as an amateur.]

Tiger missed by four strokes but he said he was pain free. The thing is he was so rusty, it seems incomprehensible he can compete at his next event, the British Open at Hoylake, even if he did win there in 2006.

Back then Hoylake (Royal Liverpool) was in the midst of a severe drought and Tiger dissected the course with his 2-iron stinger, but as Nick Faldo said this weekend, the reports from Hoylake are it is lush and the rough is up. If Tiger doesn’t drive well, he doesn’t stand a chance.

Or as the Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell put it after watching Woods on Thursday and Friday:

“Tiger is rustier than the Titanic’s rudder. He has no chance at Royal Liverpool in three weeks.”

“Except that in golf, to a greater degree than any sport, you really, truly never know what comes next.”

As for the tournament’s result, Justin Rose captured his sixth PGA Tour title in the first hole of sudden death against Shawn Stefani.

--Bernhard Langer, 56, won his third Champions Tour major in taking the Senior Players Championship.

--Top-seed Serena Williams lost in the third round to Alize Cornet of France, meaning Serena hasn’t reached the quarterfinals in all three Grand Slam events this year, while sister Venus was also ousted, the two having combined to win 10 Wimbledon titles since 2000 (five each). Serena has won the last two U.S. Opens.

No. 2 seed Li Na, who won the Australian Open this year, also failed to reach the quarterfinals, after being upset in the first round at the French Open.

As for the men, the Big Four, Nadal, Murray, Federer and Djokovic, are all still in.

--Brad Keselowski won his 12th career Sprint Cup race at Kentucky Speedway on Saturday night, and then cut his hand on a champagne bottle in the celebration afterwards. He said it’s no big deal. Keselowski led 199 of 267 laps en route to his second win of the year.

I love these Saturday night races...but I keep forgetting they are running more of them these days and I’ve missed most of them! So I’m penalizing myself six Coors Lights...that’s six I can’t drink over the next year. [Granted, this is a vague ruling.]

By the way, the Kentucky race was the first since 1998 not to have a full, 43 car field (excepting the 2001 New Hampshire Motor Speedway race that was moved because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks).

It’s not a great sign in terms of the health of the sport. It’s not a cheap one and some sponsors have been pulling back, plus attendance continues to fall.

Back in the sport’s hey-day, the mid-2000s, NASCAR regularly sent a half-dozen cars home on a weekly basis. Interestingly, the peak was the 2007 Daytona 500, when 61 cars showed up. Gee, that was the year the stock market peaked as well, boys and girls.

--The antitrust trial against the NCAA came to a close on Friday after 15 days of testimony. Lead plaintiff Ed O’Bannon said, “These are huge steps, for the athlete, for the student, for all of us.”

The suit seeks an injunction that would end the 108-year-old NCAA’s prohibition on the ability of student-athletes to license their names, images and likenesses for broadcast, rebroadcast and video games.

The case was first filed over five years ago. NCAA President Mark Emmert was among the witnesses, defending the value of amateurism and the damage the NCAA believes would result if student-athletes are compensated beyond the value of a college scholarship, currently capped at tuition, room and board and books. Though at North Carolina, it seems pretty clear books aren’t part of the equation...but I digress...

In the end this case is about antitrust law and now it’s up to Judge Claudia Wilken and, according to reports, she was focused on which market was being affected – the college education market or the broadcast licensing market.

And with that, you see why I was bored to tears by this whole deal. I’ve stated my own case many times. There is a very viable compromise. More of a stipend for football and men’s basketball players only; ditto, two free plane tickets home for each academic year, for them only; and for all scholarship athletes, medical care for injuries for one year after graduation.

--Former Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs weighed in on the nickname controversy, saying over the weekend, “Never once did I hear anybody ever say anything negative about the name Redskins. I was always prideful, it was courage involved. We have a song, ‘Hail to the Redskins,’ and so everything, everything, about that name has been positive for me and my past.”

--This is cool. The Bicknell’s thrush is a songbird native to the Dominican Republic but it has been discovered on top of Vermont’s highest mountain, Mount Mansfield, twice, thus confirming the endangered bird is choosing to nest and breed in the forests of northern New England, the Adirondacks and eastern Canada, then fly south to winter in the Caribbean. So scientists are working with the DR’s conservation folks to ensure the bird’s status is stable there.

--From the New York Daily News: “Wildlife officials in Alaska’s capital suspect a black bear might have literally crashed a child’s birthday party before he was shot and killed inside a different home.

“The bear had shimmied onto the roof of Alicia Bishop and Glenn Merrill’s home and was walking across a skylight when the bottom fell out Saturday, the Juneau Empire reported.

“ ‘I heard this cracking,’ said Merrill, who was preparing for his son’s first birthday party. ‘And the next thing you know, there’s this bear that, I mean, literally, fell right from (the skylight).’

“He said he and the bear were about 3 feet apart and just stared at each other in disbelief.

“Merrill, 45, had his parents take his son upstairs, and he went into another room and shut the door. Bishop, 33, was standing in the kitchen behind a glass door and watched the bear help itself to some cupcakes intended for the child’s birthday bash.”

Well, the couple were able to shoo the bear out a side door. The animal retreated to the woods when Merrill used bear spray.

But 30 minutes later, Juneau police responded to a report of a bear inside a nearby home and officers shot and killed it.

--I’ve written of tiger attacks in India’s Sunderbans jungle before, but Brad K. passed along a tale that hit the world press.

“The danger of venturing into the prohibited areas of Sunderbans was revealed again on Thursday morning when a tiger jumped from the bank of a creek and leapt back with a man in its jaws. This is the fourth time that a human was killed by a tiger in the Sunderbans this year.”

The 62-year-old victim was fishing, along with his son and adopted daughter, in an area they shouldn’t have been in. The son, 40, later said:

“Shortly after we reached the spot, around 7 am, we got a whiff of a strange odor. We immediately decided to turn back to a safer zone.” As reported by the Times of India, “They were paddling towards a less dense area when a tiger that had been stalking them struck like lightning.”

“Suddenly, my sister cried out: ‘Dada, bagh (tiger).’ I was stunned, and my body froze. All I saw was a flash of yellow. It took me a moment to register the gruesome sight before me. My father was completely buried under the beast. I could only see his legs thrashing about. I shook off my numbness and grabbed a stick....”

Well, it gets even more gruesome, as the tiger shook the victim furiously and then “jumped off and landed on the bank in one giant leap. We saw it disappear into the jungle with my father still in its jaws,” said the son.

Tiger moves up to No. 2 on the All-Species List, behind Dog, which means the Gibbon falls to 3rd. 

‘Beaver’ fans need to remember the home-builder is suspended for one year after recent bad behavior.

--Sad story from the AP out of Sandy, Utah. “A mountain lion that was shot with tranquilizer darts and captured outside a shopping center in suburban Salt Lake City has died, Utah wildlife officials said Saturday.”

“Police say the mountain lion didn’t hurt anybody but had startled people when it was spotted walking across a street toward the shopping center around 8 a.m.

“Officers found the female cat hunkered down at the entrance of a steakhouse.”

The cat clearly didn’t know the steakhouse didn’t open until 11:00 and had it known this, probably would have had its run of the place.

--For those of you who play Powerball or a similar game, you have this story of two men, Salvatore C. and Erik O., who live together in Suffern, New York. The best friends say they threw out a $1 million winning New Jersey lottery ticket, based on outdated information, and have sued the lotto agency over claims it updated the lucky numbers on its website too slowly.

They figure they should get the cash because they hold two other important slips of paper: the tickets issued just before and just after the winner was purchased at a 7/11 store in nearby Mahwah, N.J., on March 23, 2013.

Erik, a Kenyan who has lived in the U.S. for nine years, said in an interview he purchased the tickets for $14 while picking up a pizza. He said he split them up, as he usually does, giving Salvatore what turned out to be the winner and holding on to the other two for safe keeping.

Erik said he looked up the winning numbers on his mobile phone about 10 minutes after they were announced, while he watched a movie at home and read out to Salvatore the old winning numbers over the phone, mistakenly thinking they were new, he said.

“I gave him the numbers that were on my iPhone, only to realize later those were the numbers for the last drawing. The date displayed on the screen is really small.”

By the time the men realized their mistake days later, the trash had been taken out and the winning ticket was gone. Erik, though, still had the two losing tickets.

--We note the passing of Bobby Womack, 70. He did it all, including playing guitar in Sam Cooke’s backup band in the early 60s, writing hits for Wilson Pickett and the Rolling Stones, but never having big commercial success in his solo career, though he was popular in England.

It was in 1964 that the Stones recorded his song “It’s All Over Now,” that rose to #26 on the Billboard pop charts, but was their first #1 in Britain.

Womack said in an interview he was upset the Stones had stolen his song, but then, “I stopped being upset when we got our first royalty check. That changed everything.”

In 1971, Womack played guitar on, and helped produce, Sly Stone’s most ambitious album, “There’s a Riot Goin’ On,” a soul classic.

Womack was just 20 when Cooke was shot to death in Dec. 1964 and his decision to marry Cooke’s widow, Barbara Campbell, turned out to be a bad career move. He ended up doing backup work for the likes of James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. And then his solo career revived in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In 1986, he sang a duet with Mick Jagger on “Harlem Shuffle,” part of the Stones’ album “Dirty Work.”

Womack is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Top 3 songs for the week 6/27/81: #1 “Bette Davis Eyes” (Kim Carnes...dreadful...) #2 “Medley” (Stars on 45...you can’t produce worse garbage...) #3 “Sukiyaki” (A Taste Of Honey...sought heroin after hearing this...)... and...#4 “A Woman Needs Love (Just Like You Do)” (Ray Parker Jr. & Raydio...would have been better had it been Dave Parker...) #5 “All Those Years Ago” (George Harrison...decent...) #6 “The One That You Love” (Air Supply...whatever...) #7 “You Make My Dreams” (Daryl Hall & John Oates...not their best...) #8 “America” (Neil Diamond...not popular in McAllen, Texas these days...) #9 “Jessie’s Girl” (Rick Springfield....looking to hook up a hose to my Honda Accord’s exhaust pipe....) #10 “Elvira” (The Oak Ridge Boys...just doesn’t belong here...)

Baseball Quiz Answers: 1) With his two no-hitters and two Cy Youngs (2008-09), Tim Lincecum joins Sandy Koufax, Randy Johnson and Roy Halladay in this illustrious club. 2) Bert Campaneris leads all shortstops with 649 at that position.

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