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Bar Chat

08/28/2014

Odds and Ends for $600

Tennis Quiz: There have been six different men’s and women’s winners of this year’s first six Grand Slam titles heading into the U.S. Open. Name them. Answer below.

Ball Bits

--You know who has had a surprisingly good season? Minnesota’s Phil Hughes. 14-8, 3.65 ERA.

But get this...15 walks in 165 innings. His next start is tonight, Wednesday.

--Peter Keating in ESPN The Magazine wrote of the “shocking” decline of Albert Pujols, 34, whose “skills have decayed in a way that is unique in baseball history.”

“On average, as baseball players age, they lose speed, then power, but maintain or even improve their strike-zone judgment well into their 30s, even 40s. Willie Mays, for example, led the NL with a .425 on-base percentage at the age of 40 in 1971, the only time in his 22-year career that he drew more than 100 walks in a season.”

Here’s the bottom line with Pujols. Keating doesn’t specifically mention what I’m about to, but from 2003-2010, Pujols on-base percentage was never under .414, with walks between 79 and 115 each season. Since then he hasn’t had more than 61 (42 this year as of Monday), with a .330 OBP in 2013, .333 a/o Tues. this season.

[I forgot about Mays’ 1971 season in terms of OBP. He also stole 23 bases in 26 attempts at the age of 40 that year.]

--You know who has had a kind of shocking year? Former Met, Justin Turner, a .256 career hitter entering the season, but having a career year with the Dodgers at .316, 4 HR 31 RBI, in 231 at-bats...the perfect utility player. Turner has made starts at all four infield positions for L.A.

College Football

Thursday...No. 21 Texas A&M at No. 9 South Carolina

Saturday...No. 1 Florida State at Oklahoma State; 5 Ohio State at Navy (Baltimore); No. 16 Clemson at No. 12 Georgia; No. 14 Wisconsin at No. 13 LSU.

Navy will upset Ohio State without Braxton Miller at QB for the Buckeyes.

Meanwhile, Wake Forest opens on Thursday at UL Monroe. If we don’t win this one, it’s a virtual lock we don’t win more than three. [2-10 is a distinct possibility.]

--As of Tuesday, Alabama coach Nick Saban hadn’t decided who his starting quarterback will be in the opener on Saturday against West Virginia; either fifth-year senior Blake Sims or Jake Coker, the Florida State transfer who used to back up Jameis Winston.

--I’m not going to get into the situation with USC cornerback Josh Shaw and his story of how he sustained two high ankle sprains saving his nephew from drowning in a pool. It’s a big deal in L.A., but I couldn’t care less if he’s telling the truth or not.

--With St. Louis quarterback Sam Bradford out for the season in the wake of his second ACL injury in two seasons, there is talk of the Rams acquiring former Jets starter Mark Sanchez from Philadelphia, where he is now the presumed backup for Nick Foles.

But the last thing Sanchez wants to do as he tries to resurrect his career is to be thrown into a totally foreign environment this late in preseason. [Even if St. Louis offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer was Sanchez’s OC with New York.]

For now the Rams are going with 34-year-old career backup, Shaun Hill, who has thrown a whopping 16 total passes the past three seasons as a backup in Detroit.

But Hill had his moments with Detroit in 2010, and San Francisco before that, and when given the chance, he’s actually done OK. So....I can see why the Rams don’t seem to be panicking. Heck, he’s a guy for all of us to root for.

As for Bradford’s contract, which I long ago noted was one of the worst in the history of the planet, it’s the single reason why No. 1 picks these days are paid far less, including the guaranteed portion.

Bradford, recall, was the No. 1 overall pick of the 2010 draft, signing a six-year contract for $78 million....all guaranteed. 

He’ll be owed $14 million this season and $13 million in 2015.

“Now compare that with Cam Newton, the top pick in the very next draft (2011), the first under the new CBA with new rookie contract limits.

“His original contract was worth just $22 million over four years, or about the same amount Bradford made in his first year in the NFL. The Panthers did recently pick up Newton’s fifth-year option for $14.7 million.”

--Michael Sam made the first cut as the Rams pared the roster to 75 players. But all teams must be down to the final 53 roster spots by 4 p.m. ET Saturday.

--The Jets suspended cornerback Dimitri Patterson indefinitely after he skipped Friday night’s preseason game against the Giants and remained out of contact with team officials for 48 hours. GM John Idzik and head coach Rex Ryan met with Patterson Sunday night but offered up no details. They honestly didn’t seem to know what the heck happened.

Prior to his suspension, Patterson told USA TODAY Sports before practice on Monday: “The reports about me going AWOL are totally false. I have my reason for missing those days. I’m not going to go into specifics, but I’ve discussed those reasons with the people I need to discuss them with.”

Patterson’s a 10-year veteran who signed a one-year contract worth $3 million with the Jets in the offseason with the expectation he would start at corner. But now with injuries piling up, the Jets are pathetically thin at the position, a huge hole in an otherwise potentially stellar defense.

The Jets could easily just release Patterson, though for now they said he was suspended only for the final week of preseason, making him eligible to return next Monday.

--Herm Edwards joined Joe Theismann in saying Kirk Cousins has outplayed Robert Griffin III this month.

--I didn’t comment on this last time because all the facts weren’t known, but now we do know that Denver’s All-Pro kicker Matt Prater was suspended for four games for drinking beer during the period between the offseason workout program in June and the start of training camp in later July.

You see, Prater has been in the league’s substance abuse program since he was charged with DUI in 2011.

Missing four games could be big for Denver, as Prater led the league last year by making 25 of 26 field goals, including a record-breaking 64-yarder in December against Tennessee.

--Wake Forest rookie Michael Campanaro had a big game last weekend in Baltimore’s 23-17 preseason win over Washington, as Campanaro tries to make the team. He caught the two balls thrown to him for 24 yards and had a 44-yard kickoff return. I strongly believe this seventh-round draft pick has a ten-year NFL career ahead of him if he makes it through to the opener.

Actually, I think he’s done enough to show other teams he’s worthy of a shot should the Ravens cut him. I’ve said all along he is Wayne Chrebet reincarnate.

--Richie Incognito is eligible to play again in the NFL and free to sign with any team. There are more than a few teams that need help on the offensive line, and he’s a serviceable player. It’s just who wants to put up with his baggage?

Earlier this month, Commissioner Roger Goodell said that the players involved in the bullying scandal in Miami were rehabilitated, as far as the league was concerned.

--Sometimes it’s hard to find an individual for “Jerk of the Year” when I hand out my awards in December, but we have one. San Diego Chargers color commentator Hank Bauer, who was suspended from doing the Chargers’ final preseason game after he had to apologize for an incredibly stupid anti-Semitic remark during Sunday’s game against the 49ers.

In the final minutes of the contest, Bauer, 60, a former Charger and longtime radio sportscaster, made a comment to play-by-play announcer Josh Lewin.

“You know how copper wire was invented?” Bauer asked Lewin.

Well, I’m not repeating the next line. If you’re that curious you can look up Tony Perry’s Los Angeles Times piece.

Lewin responded, “OK, all right. We’ve got, let’s see, 30 seconds mercifully remaining in this game.”

Bauer then said: “I say that respectfully and endearingly, my partner.”

Lewin, by the way, is also a terrific radio play-by-play man for the Mets. 

Golf Balls

--Tiger Woods fired his swing coach, Sean Foley, on Monday and now everyone is wondering who he will hire. His options would appear to be limited. Butch Harmon won’t take him back (Harmon also being Phil Mickelson’s coach, among others), Hank Haney will not be getting a call after the things he said about Tiger in his book, so who will it be?

“If Tiger Woods wants to return to glory and get back to the business at hand – which is winning major championships and chasing Jack Nicklaus’ magic-number record of 18 – he should pick up the phone and call Butch Harmon, patch whatever rough edges remain from their previous relationship and start working with him again.

“—Woods’ stubbornness is legendary and a return to Harmon would indicate he might have made a mistake leaving him in the first place.

“—Harmon, who’s been quietly reducing the stable of players he’s working with, might want no part of a reunion.

“But Woods should at least explore the possibility...because Harmon is probably the best coach out there, in recent years having resurrected Phil Mickelson’s career and pushed the likes of Rickie Fowler and Dustin Johnson toward the elite level.”

Woods won eight majors with Harmon, then six with Haney. Zero with Foley, who he began working with at the 2010 PGA Championship, though he won eight regular events in 55 starts, including five last year.

An Irish bookmaker, Paddy Power, has Harmon at even money, with Chuck Cook at 4/1, David Leadbetter 7/1, and Peter Kostis 8/1. I’ll go with Peter Kostis.

[Some teachers and pros told Golfweek Tiger should go it alone. As Hank Haney said, Tiger only listens to himself, anyway. Separately, Harmon said he’s not interested.]

--The next stop in the FedEx Cup playoffs is the Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston. This one starts Friday and ends on Labor Day, giving us something to watch that afternoon.

As I go to post, 94 golfers are entered, with the field for the FedEx Cup being winnowed down to 70 for the BMW Championship the following week.

Paul Casey, Jason Dufner, Graeme McDowell, Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia and Justin Rose aren’t in...and I haven’t heard as yet whether Phil Mickelson will play.

McDowell, by the way, “decided to follow Rory McIlroy’s example and leave Dublin firm Horizon Sports Management to take charge of his own career,” according to the Irish Independent.

But McDowell, unlike McIlroy, who is involved in one freakin’ legal mess, is leaving on good terms after working together for seven years.

The future of Horizon would seem to be in doubt, though it still has rising Irish star Shane Lowry.

McDowell seems to want to take charge of all his own affairs on and off the golf course. He’s becoming quite the restaurateur, for example. And wife Kristin just had their first child, which is why he withdrew from the Deutsche Bank event.

--Jim Furyk last won in 2010. 

But from 2012-2014, he has six seconds and three thirds.

--Liberty National Golf Course and the PGA Tour agreed to a 25-year deal that will make the Jersey City club the fourth to host the Presidents Cup in 2017. In addition, Liberty National will host as many as 10 other PGA tournaments over the course of the agreement, including undoubtedly as a leg in the FedEx Cup, as it did in 2009 and 2013.

--Steve D. was a marshal at The Barclays and commented the concert with Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes on Friday was deemed a success even with just 3,000 in attendance. Steve noted the crowds at the tournament overall seemed very light, relative to the importance of the event. Ergo, potential Tiger effect.

But, I asked Steve to give me his impression of the players overall and he said “every player went out of his way to sign autographs / take pictures”....which could be related to the absence of Tiger as well.

--In what is called the Capital One Cup, Manchester United was humiliated 4-0 by the MK Dons (Milton Keynes Don), a team that plays in League One, two rungs down from the Premier League.

So another dreadful result for new Man U manager Louis van Gaal, who has also gone 0-1-1 in its first two Premier League matches.

Man U did just spend a record $99 million transfer fee to acquire Angel di Maria, the Argentine star winger from Real Madrid and one of the best players in the world.

--Just one big upset in the first few days of play (thru Tuesday’s action) at the U.S. Open, and it was a stunner. 15-year-old Catherine Bellis defeated No. 12 seed and Australian Open finalist Dominika Cibulkova, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4. Bellis committed only six unforced errors.

Bellis is an amateur and at least for now is saying she wants to keep her options open, re college.

The other two amateur players in the singles draw are Noah Rubin and Danielle Collins, who both lost in the first round.

Rubin received a full scholarship at Wake Forest, though he plans on staying just one year. The school, however, agreed to honor his scholarship even after he goes pro and can no longer compete for the Demon Deacons.

--The Wall Street Journal’s Steven Kutz looked at the pay disparity between professional tennis and other sports. Specifically, since 32 players are seeded at Grand Slam events, the Journal looked at how much the 32ndhighest-paid players were paid. No. 32 in men’s tennis, as of Aug. 18, was Spain’s Fernando Verdasco, 30, who has made $757,446, and Australia’s Casey Dellacqua, 29, who has made $457,429, not including endorsement money.

By comparison, Troy Tulowitzki is the 32nd highest-paid player in Major League Baseball at $16 million for 2014, while Dallas QB Tony Romo is 32nd in the NFL at $12 million. In the NBA, Detroit’s Josh Smith will make $13.5 million.

The closest comparisons would be with golf, where J.B. Holmes was No. 32 at over $2 million. [Actually, WSJ, it’s Ryan Palmer at $2.2 million in the No. 32 slot, but Mr. Kutz didn’t have this information when he went to post, I imagine. The Journal didn’t note that No. 32 on the women’s tour is Morgan Pressel at $280,989.]

--The Basketball World Cup gets underway Aug. 30 in Spain and coach Mike Krzyzewski has a truly pathetic roster. The only hope is that Anthony Davis becomes the breakout star. Otherwise it’s up to the likes of James Harden and Stephen Curry to carry the team. Derrick Rose is back, but no one should expect a heckuva lot from him at this point in the year following his second major knee surgery.

--I didn’t watch any of the Emmy Awards, but for the archives have to note that “Breaking Bad” claimed the award for outstanding drama series a second year in a row, with Bryan Cranston taking the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his role in the series.

ABC’s “Modern Family” won for outstanding comedy series for a fifth year in a row, tying the record of “Frasier” for most consecutive wins.

“Fargo,” the FX adaptation of the Coen brothers film, won for best miniseries.

Jim Parsons won lead actor in a comedy for a fourth time for his role in “The Big Bang Theory,” while Julia Louis-Dreyfus took her third consecutive Emmy for “Veep.” Julianna Margulies won her second lead actress in a drama award for “The Good Wife.”

“The Colbert Report” won outstanding variety series for a second year in a row.

--We note the passing of Richard Attenborough, one of the greatest British actors and directors in history. He was 90. Attenborough’s brother, David, is the well-known television naturalist.

Richard starred in “The Great Escape,” which I didn’t realize was a staple of British television on Christmas (like “Sound of Music” here for Thanksgiving). Attenborough went on to become one of Britain’s reliable character actors.

But then he turned to film-making and his greatest achievement was the 1982 epic, “Gandhi,” for which he won Best Director. As the BBC noted, it took him 20 years to raise the money to make it.

Among Attenborough’s other directorial works was “A Bridge Too Far” and “Cry Freedom,” the story of murdered South African activist Steve Biko.

Later, Attenborough resumed acting, appearing in 1993’s “Jurassic Park.”

His personal life was described as “irreproachable.” His marriage to actress Sheila Sim was one of the longest-running in show business.

But tragedy struck the family in 2004 when the Asian tsunami killed his 14-year-old granddaughter, as well as his daughter and her mother-in-law.

--The other day a friend and I were talking about how much we hate when the person sitting next to you on a flight insists on putting the seat all the way back. I’m one of those who doesn’t recline, out of courtesy to the person behind me when sitting in coach.

So it really was funny that the story popped up about Sunday’s United Airlines Flight 1462 from Newark to Denver, which was forced to land in Chicago because of warring passengers.

A man set up a gadget that wouldn’t let the woman in front of him recline her seat – a gadget that isn’t allowed on U.S. flights – and she got mad and tossed a cup of water in his face. The pilot then diverted the plane.

The guy’s “Knee Defender” device attaches to a passenger’s tray table and stops the person in front from reclining, so when a flight attendant asked him to remove it, he refused, saying he needed the extra room to use his laptop. That’s when the female whirled around and threw the water.

The pilot diverted to Chicago to boot the two off and the plane continued on to Denver – an hour and 38 minutes late. [New York Post]

“In a showdown replete with echoes of gladiatorial battles of yore, a woman, armed only with a sickle and spade, has fought a leopard. And won.

“Kamila Devi, 56, a villager from the Rudraprayag district in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, was fetching water from a canal on Sunday morning when she was attacked by the leopard that had been hiding in nearby bushes.

“ ‘At first, I was terrified. But then I gathered my courage to fight back. I promised myself that this is not my last day here,’ Ms. Devi told the Hindustran Times.

“Armed only with rudimentary farming tools, Ms. Devi was forced into a fight to the death. She bashed the animal on the head with her sickle, smashing its teeth before eventually killing it.”

[A separate piece sent to me by Brad K. adds Devi had to walk a half-mile afterwards to get help.]

Devi suffered two fractures on the right hand and one on the left, according to a doctor who treated her. Also, “There are bite marks all over her body.”

In the past week in Uttarakhand, one other woman was killed and two injured by leopards. Our sympathies to the leopard family in the case of Ms. Devi.

But what is the real lesson here, boys and girls? Buy bottled water, especially in India. [Here in New Jersey, I also buy bottled water because otherwise I’d have to fetch it from the nearby Passaic River and that wouldn’t be real smart.]

Top 3 songs for the week 8/28/71: #1 “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart” (The Bee Gees) #2 “Take Me Home, Country Roads” (John Denver...great tune...#1 was also good, to be fair...) #3 “Signs” (Five Man Electrical Band)...and...#4 “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” (Marvin Gaye...loved this one...) #5 “Mr. Big Stuff” (Jean Knight....song not aging well...) #6 “Sweet Hitch-Hiker” (Creedence Clearwater Revival...not their best...) #7 “Liar” (Three Dog Night...good one...) #8 “Smiling Faces Sometimes” (The Undisputed Truth) #9 “Spanish Harlem” (Aretha Franklin...alright...) #10 “Go Away Little Girl” (Donny Osmond...love the new grandmother, Marie...#NutriSystem)

Tennis Quiz Answers: Men’s Grand Slam winners in 2014 thus far...Australian Open – Wawrinka. French Open – Nadal. Wimbledon – Djokovic.

Women’s Grand Slam winners in 2014...Australian Open – Li Na. French – Sharapova. Wimbledon – Kvitova.

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