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Bar Chat

10/09/2014

Not Again!!!

NCAA Football Quiz: 1) Who holds the single-season rushing yardage record? [From a major conference] 2) Pitt’s Tony Dorsett was the first to rush for 1,000 yards four consecutive seasons, 1973-76. Who was the second to do it? [From a major conference] Answers below.

Baseball Playoffs

World Series

2013...Boston over St. Louis
2012...San Francisco over Detroit
2011...St. Louis over Texas
2010...San Francisco over Texas

2014...NLCS...St. Louis vs. San Francisco

So for a fifth straight year, one of these two is in the World Series. This sucks for about 90% of us.

--The Dodgers lost Game 3 to the Cardinals on Monday, 3-1, as the bullpen blew up in the seventh inning.

“The richest sports payroll in history is now one loss from a second consecutive postseason elimination after trying to win a game with a $240-million question.

“Scott Elbert?

“In the seventh inning of a tie score in a tied division series with the St. Louis Cardinals at thunderous Busch Stadium, the Dodgers chose to place the most tense moment of their season on the shoulders of an injury-plagued, minor league veteran pitcher whose only major league appearances this season occurred during games with an average margin of six runs.

“Don Mattingly not only removed starter Hyun-Jin Ryu even though he had given up only one run on 94 pitches and wanted to keep working, but he replaced him with a 29-year-old pitcher who had a 4.91 earned run average in 18 appearances at triple-A Albuquerque and had worked only one career postseason inning, which led to another question.

“After giving up a double to Yadier Molina on his first pitch, Elbert gave up a sacrifice bunt by Jon Jay on his second pitch, and on his third pitch a booming two run home run to right field to second baseman Wong...to drag the Dodgers to a 3-1 defeat.

“The Dodgers trail the Cardinals 2-1 in a best-of-five National League division series and need to win Tuesday’s game to stay alive. They will send their ace, Kershaw, to the mound to get them that win even though he will be pitching on three days’ rest, instead of the usual four, for the first time this season.”

This is what happens when you have just three reliable starters...Kershaw, Greinke, and Ryu.

And so it was that in Game 4, Kershaw was dominating the first six innings, only to give up a three-run homer to Cards first baseman Matt Adams in the seventh for a 3-2 St. Louis win that propelled them to the NLCS against San Fran.

As Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY Sports notes, “How can a man who went 21-3 with a 1.77 ERA during the regular season, twice get knocked around by the Cardinals, and end up taking responsibility for the Dodgers’ season coming to an abrupt end?

“How can a guy go 44-13 with a 1.67 ERA since July 2012 against the rest of the baseball world, and 1-7 with a 5.69 ERA in eight starts against the Cardinals?

“Kershaw will be awarded the National League Cy Young award next month, along with the MVP award too, but he’ll also carry the burden of a 1-5 record and 5.12 ERA in the postseason.”

And the baseball world wonders how the Dodgers can spend all that money ($256 million officially by season’s end...$40 million higher than anyone else) and not have anyone in the bullpen except closer Kenley Jansen.

St. Louis, on the other hand, aside from winning World Series in 2006 and 2011, has now been in the playoffs 11 of the last 15 seasons and been over .500 14 of the 15.

“The failure happened here, again, the Dodgers being Busch whacked for a second consecutive postseason, eliminated again by a St. Louis Cardinals team that plays baseball like the San Antonio Spurs play basketball....

“The failure was something much broader, much deeper, and much more evident in the Dodgers words than even their play. This was a 94-win team that was favored by many to traipse through October on its way to the World Series, yet their journey lasted all of five days. This was the ugliest postseason elimination for this franchise in 29 years, since the Cardinals did this to them in the 1985 National League Championship Series.”

Again, it goes back to not having a bullpen and, in the case of Kershaw, not having a fourth starter like everyone else in postseason play has.

--As for San Francisco, they defeated Washington 3-2 in Game 4 to take the NLDS 3-1 and once again they won ugly. As Jayson Stark of ESPN.com writes:

“Here, for your amusement, is a rundown of how they scored the three runs Tuesday that propelled them to their latest miraculous October triumph:

“On a ground ball to the first baseman. That was run No. 2.

“And on a wild pitch by a rookie reliever who couldn’t quite launch a fastball that required 60 feet, 6 inches. That was run No. 3.

“You probably don’t need a degree in analytics from Stanford to deduce that those three runs scored on a total of zero hits.”

For Washington it’s another year of ‘what it?’ They had a 1-0 lead with two outs, no one on, in the ninth inning of the critical Game 2 when manager Matt Williams removed starter Jordan Zimmermann after he gave up a walk, even though he had retired the previous 20 batters and had thrown exactly 100 pitches. The Nats went on to lose that heartbreaker 2-1 in 18.

And then in yesterday’s Game 4, Williams brings in rookie Aaron Barrett to face the heart of the Giants’ order with two runners on and one out in the bottom of the seventh with the score tied 2-2. Williams and Don Mattingly can commiserate together in the offseason.

--In the American League, it’s Baltimore and the Royals in the ALCS. We know the story with Kansas City by now, no playoff appearances since 1985, but it’s also the Orioles first ALCS appearance since 1997.

Meanwhile, there is major disappointment in Anaheim and Detroit, the moneyed Angels and Tigers flaming out.

--Baltimore’s Nelson Cruz has hit 16 home runs in 37 postseason games. How good is this? The Wall Street Journal’s Brian Costa compared Cruz’s production to that of Babe Ruth for his first 37 of 41 career postseason games and Cruz has more home runs (16 to 13), more hits (41 to 37) and more RBI (32 to 27) in only two more plate appearances than Ruth had over the same span.

--Steve Wulf in ESPN The Magazine has a story on the fate of Chief Wahoo. As opposed to the debacle over the Redskins name down in Washington, Cleveland Indians ownership is sensitive to the fan base and president Mark Shapiro, for one, is not digging in his heels for what is eventually a losing battle.

“We do not have an intractable position on this,” Shapiro says. “We want to do the right thing for all our fans.”

But a recent Cleveland.com poll has 70% saying they want to keep Chief Wahoo, while 28% were against him. As Steve Wulf writes: “That’s where things get tricky for the franchise. Unlike in Washington, nostalgia for the logo – not just the team name – is strong. The Chief’s nonthreatening smile appeals to kids, and kids grow up to be adults with a connection to the cartoon figure.”

So the franchise’s solution is to “wean the fan base off of Wahoo, making the new block C on the Indians’ caps as synonymous with the team as the Chief has been.”

Personally, Chief Wahoo cracks me up because it is so totally over-the-top politically incorrect these days.

College Football

2 Auburn at T-3 Mississippi State
9 TCU at 5 Baylor
UNC at 6 Notre Dame
12 Oregon at 18 UCLA

Granted the last two are only interesting in that they’ll determine whether Notre Dame, Oregon or UCLA remain in the hunt, but the first two are huge.

Unfortunately, T-3 Ole Miss at 14 Texas A&M starts at 9:00 PM ET....past my bedtime. [Well almost]

--Johnny Mac pointed out I missed a rather significant game last week, lost in all the top ten upsets. California defeated Washington State 60-59, a game in which WSU quarterback Connor Halliday broke the single-game NCAA passing record in throwing for 734 yards (49 of 70), along with six touchdowns. [Cal’s Jared Goff threw for 527 and five TDs.]

Halliday broke the record held by David Klingler of Houston, 716 against Arizona State in 1990, the only other QB to toss for 700.

But in looking at Halliday’s performance thus far in 2014, he has 3,052 yards in the Cougars’ first six games. The single-season record is 5,833, held by Texas Tech’s B.J. Symons.

Well, I said a few weeks ago that the Pac-12 is loaded with QBs and that is obviously the case. J. Mac, you’re in charge of making sure I keep track of Halliday the rest of the way. [I did mention him a few weeks ago after he had a solid performance in defeat against Oregon.]

--Michigan State Athletic Director Mark Hollis was ticked off at his own students on Saturday night as the Spartans defeated Nebraska in East Lansing. Specifically, he tweeted he was embarrassed because of their lack of support, as in lots of empty seats in the student section, adding, “As a program, we are prepared to make the changes that will fill Spartan Stadium with Spartan fans that want to be there.”

To be fair, it sounds like the weather totally sucked, rainy and temps in the 40s, but that meant the noise decreased in the fourth quarter when Nebraska mounted a fierce comeback that fell short, 27-22.

Students purchased 13,000 season tickets this year vs. the total capacity of 75,000.

--Nice game for Seattle QB Russell Wilson Monday night, as the Seahawks defeated the Redskins in Landover 27-17. All Wilson did was complete 18 of 24 passes for 201 yards, two touchdowns, zero picks, while rushing for a career-high 122 yards on 11 carries and a touchdown. Seattle, by the way, has won nine straight on Monday nights and is an NFL-best 21-8. The score would have been a lot worse were it not for Seattle committing 13 penalties for 90 yards. Wide receiver Percy Harvin had three touchdowns called back for penalties.

[For its part, Washington, playing again without Robert Griffin III for a third consecutive game, is 4-15 on Monday nights since 2000.]

--After I posted Sunday night, Tom Brady proved the Patriots’ season isn’t over yet and that he isn’t totally washed up as the Pats took care of the Bengals 43-17. Brady was 23/35, 292, 2-0.

And while there was all this angst among Patriots fans going into Sunday’s contest, the fact is they are now 36-4 in games following a loss since 2003. [Tom Pelissero / USA TODAY Sports]

--‘Sup with Philadelphia’s LeSean McCoy? In five games he has 273 yards on 94 carries, a 2.9 yard average after a superb 2013 in which he ran for a league-high 1,607 yards and 5.1 per carry. McCoy is only 26 and is supposed to be healthy. Darren Sproles, the other back in the Eagles’ backfield, is averaging 6.9 per carry (25 for 172).

--According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Adrian Peterson has more problems than negligently injuring a child. It seems his charity, the All Day Foundation – has filed contradictory financial records. As Josh Katzowitz reports for CBSSports.com, “The paper also writes that a relative of Peterson’s paid for a hotel room that was used for a sex party in 2011 on a foundation credit card.

“The paper reports that the charity’s 2011 financial report showed $247,064 in total revenue but that its largest gift, a $70,000 payment to Straight From the Heart Ministries in Maryland, was never received.

“ ‘There have been no outside [contributions] other than people in my own circle,’ said Donna Farley, the president and founder of Straight From the Heart Ministries. ‘Adrian Peterson – definitely not.’....

“In 2011, Peterson was investigated by police for a sex party that included four women and two of Peterson’s relatives, including his brother” 

Yup, I’d say Adrian Peterson is a bad guy. For his part, he denies the latest allegations.

--Then there is the Jets’ Geno Smith. What came to light following the team’s disastrous 31-0 loss at San Diego on Sunday was that Smith had missed a team meeting Saturday, screwing up the time zone and going to the movies instead.

“This is what it looks like when a player’s coach like Rex Ryan doesn’t have enough players. And when the player – Geno Smith – he needs the most to save his job can’t show up for a team meeting because he was confused about a time change. If the kid thinks he’s confused, imagine how Jets fans feel watching this hot mess of a team and an organization.

“You already know by now that Rex and the Jets think it was an ‘honest mistake’ that Smith didn’t show up for a team meeting in San Diego on Saturday night because he had gone to the movies. The Jets like to keep the players on East Coast time when they’re on the West Coast and for a team right now that doesn’t know where it is or where it is going, that seems about right. They all act dizzy sometimes.

“ ‘It was an honest mistake,’ Ryan said on his conference call Monday night, getting right in line with the company line. ‘He got confused.’”

Ryan then said Geno will start against Denver.

--As expected the Detroit Lions cut kicker Alex Henery after he missed three field goals against the Bills on Sunday, making him the second kicker cut by the team in three weeks.

Get this, as I wrote last time, the Lions have already missed eight FGs and last year, only two teams missed nine for the entire season!

Lions coach Jim Caldwell also announced he may sit superstar receiver Calvin Johnson so he can rest is ailing right ankle. “Megatron” appeared to reinjure the ankle on Sunday and had just one catch for seven yards for the game.

--What was Jacksonville thinking? Specifically, what was their mascot, Jaxson de Ville thinking when he held up a handwritten sign mocking the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Terrible Towels during Sunday’s game between the two at Jacksonville; “TOWELS CARRY EBOLA.”

Jaguars president Mark Lamping said the team had no prior knowledge of the sign and was handling it internally.

The NBA announced a nine-year, $24 billion series of television contracts with ESPN and TNT and LeBron James threw down the gauntlet on any future labor negotiations.

“The whole thing that went on with the negotiation process (three years ago, which led to the lock out) was that the owners were telling us that they were losing money. There is no way they can sit in front of us and tell us that right now.”

Certainly not after television revenues just tripled. Not after, as James said, “you continue to see teams sold for hundreds of millions, two billion.”

James signed a two-year contract at $20 million, knowing he would cash in with the next labor deal.

“I kind of knew something was in the works and something was going to get done, as far as with Turner and ESPN and our league. Everyone should be educated about it.”

What we know is the players will opt out of the collective bargaining agreement in 2017 and negotiations with the owners over increased salaries are going to be highly contentious.

--We note the passing of actor, dancer, choreographer, composer, designer and painter, Geoffrey Holder. He was 84. 

As Jennifer Dunning and William McDonald wrote in the New York Times: “Few cultural figures of the last half of the 20th century were as multifaceted as Mr. Holder, and few had a public presence as unmistakable as his, with his gleaming pate atop a 6-foot-6 frame, full-bodied laugh and bassoon of a voice laced with the lilting cadences of the Caribbean.”

Holder won Tony Awards for direction and costume design for “The Wiz” in 1975, but he said he achieved his widest celebrity “as the jolly, white-suited television pitchman for 7Up in the 1970s and ‘80s, when in a run of commercials, always in tropical settings, he happily endorsed the soft drink as an ‘absolutely maaarvelous’ alternative to Coca-Cola – or ‘the Uncola,’ as the ads put it.” [Dunning / McDonald]

Holder was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. His career started in England, where he performed on television and onstage. He then moved to New York City in 1954, making his Broadway debut that same year. Among the movies he appeared in were the 1973 James Bond film, “Live and Let Die,” where he played a Voodoo villain. He was also in “Doctor Doolittle” and “Annie” among others.

But his biggest fame, aside from the commercial, was achieved in the dance arena, including choreography.

--I meant to note a big development in the shark world last time. Jeff Thomason’s record-breaking catch of an 809-pound mako shark with a bow and arrow. The Texan caught if off Huntington Beach, CA, in August but the Los Angeles Times’ Veronica Rocha just had a story on it because of the criticism on social media.

The shark weighed in at 809.5 pounds, 265 pounds more than the previous record of 544 pounds. Mako sharks can grow up to 12 feet long and live for 30 years, as Ms. Rocha writes.

But as one person wrote to Thomason on Facebook, “Please leave our sea creatures as they are – they’re important for the ecosystem.”

Others urged Thomason to use his knowledge of the ocean to film the animals instead of hunting them.

For his part, Thomason said he had not “finned” the shark, as some attested.

So Director of Shark Attacks for Bar Chat, Bob S., and I agree that this is a worrisome development; Bob going so far as to say the sharks will see this as revenge for recent bear attacks on humans. “The war will escalate,” declares Director Bob.

--A black bear cub was found dead Monday in Central Park. There are no bears there so police suspect foul play...that the body was dumped in the park. [The Central Park Zoo reported no missing bears.]

As I go to post, officials now believe the cub was hit by a car, but how it ended up under a bush in a park at the center of a crowded city is still unknown.

--As payback for the bear incident comes this on Tuesday from NJ.com’s Justin Zaremba: “An aggressive coyote that was killed after biting a hunter Sunday has tested positive for rabies, police said.”

Probably the same coyote, though, bit a cyclist in the leg the day before at the Patriots Path Trail in Chester, and two other park visitors reported being approached by the coyote in the same general area, but neither was bitten.

The hunter, though, was able to kill the animal after being bitten.

Man, if I saw a coyote in the woods while jogging it would scare the (heck) out of me.

--Couch Slouch, Norman Chad of the Washington Post, is greatly disheartened his favored Pabst Blue Ribbon has been acquired by a Russian brewery – Oasis Beverages.

So he is now embracing Yuengling.

“It’s smooth, it’s sincere and it’s America’s oldest brewery, operated in Pottsville, Pa., since 1829.”

--Speaking of beer, Michael Phelps was suspended six months by USA Swimming for his latest DUI.

--Finally, we note the passing of Paul Revere, front man for Paul Revere and the Raiders, one of the more underrated rock groups of all time. He was 76.

As Claire Noland writes in the Los Angeles Times, Revere was “a teenage businessman who found an outlet for his entrepreneurial spirit in the form of a campy rock ‘n’ roll band that capitalized on his name, wore Revolutionary War-era costumes and cranked out a string of grungy hits in the mid-1960s.”

Even at 76, until six months ago, he toured non-stop. Amazing.

“Along with singer and saxophonist Mark Lindsay, Revere, a keyboard player, formed a band called the Downbeats in Boise (Idaho) in 1959. Within a few years they would become Paul Revere and the Raiders...and become fixtures on Dick Clark’s weekday afternoon TV show ‘Where the Action Is.’

“ ‘Just Like Me,’ a 1965 hit written by Revere and Lindsay, made the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list of Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.”

He was born Paul Revere Dick on Jan. 7, 1938, in Harvard, Neb., and grew up on a farm near Boise, and while he learned to play the piano, by age 18 he owned three barbershops! He then sold them to buy a drive-in restaurant and put together the band to attract customers. Love it.

Paul Revere said in a 2000 interview with the Associated Press: “We were visual and fun and crazy and were America’s answer to the British music invasion.... We just happened to be at the right time and had the right name and had the right gimmick.”

Top 20 Hits:

1965 - #11 Just Like Me
1966 - #4 Kicks
1966 - #6 Hungry
1966 - #20 The Great Airplane Strike
1966 - #4 Good Thing
1967 - #5 Him Or Me – What’s It Gonna Be?....my favorite
1967 - #17 I Had A Dream
1968 - #19 Too Much Talk
1969 - #18 Mr. Sun, Mr. Moon
1969 - #20 Let Me
1971 - #1 Indian Reservation

Top 3 songs for the week 10/8/83: #1 “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” (Bonnie Tyler...just shoot me...) #2 “Making Love Out Of Nothing At All” (Air Supply) #3 “King Of Pain” (The Police)...and...#4 “True” (Spandau Ballet) #5 “(She’s) Sexy + 17” (Stray Cats) #6 “Islands In The Stream” (Kenny Rogers with Dolly Parton...don’t know why Dolly did this one...) #7 “Tell Her About It” (Billy Joel...eh...) #8 “The Safety Dance” (Men Without Hats) #9 “One Thing Leads To Another” (The Fixx)   #10 “Far From Over” (Frank Stallone...oh gawd...get me out of this incredibly awful decade for music...)

NCAA Football Quiz Answers: 1) Barry Sanders still holds the single-season rushing record when he was at Oklahoma State, 1988...344 carries for 2,628 yards, 7.6 a carry, 37 touchdowns, and in just 11 games. He was truly amazing to watch. 2) North Carolina’s Amos Lawrence was the second to rush for 1,000 yards in four straight years, 1977-80.

*Just a note while I’m looking at rushing records. The all-time leader in yards per attempt for a single-season (min. 75 attempts) is Army’s Glenn Davis, 1945, 85-930, 10.9. For his career, 1944-46, Davis rushed the ball 266 times for 2,309 yards, 8.7 a carry, also a record (min. 300 attempts). [There is a sloppy career list out there that has different numbers. I double-checked. I’ve got it right.]

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