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Bar Chat

01/08/2015

Cooperstown Adds Four

Golf Quiz: [The real PGA Tour season commences this week.] How many in the current Top Ten of the World Golf Rankings can you name? [Hint: Four are Americans.] Answer below.

Baseball Hall of Fame

Prelude to the vote...this is about the world’s best archives and so I’m building up to the vote, which comes after the initial commentary.

I forgot to note last time that for those players receiving the required five percent of the vote to stay on the ballot (75 percent needed to gain entry) they now have just 10 years, down from 15, though Don Mattingly (15th in 2015), Alan Trammell (14th in 2015) and Lee Smith (13th in 2015) were grandfathered. The likes of Bonds and Clemens, though, don’t have as many years to build up support as I made it seem last time. They just have ten, or seven more after this vote for these two.

There is also the issue of limiting the ballot to 10 names when there are more than 10 that meet Hall criteria, one way or another. As the Washington Post’s Bary Svrluga pointed out, there are 17 worthy of consideration or debate:

Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Don Mattingly, Mark McGwire, Mike Mussina, Mike Piazza, Tim Raines, Curt Schilling, Gary Sheffield, Lee Smith, John Smoltz, Sammy Sosa and Alan Trammell.

“Maybe, after working through each individual case, you end up with fewer than 10 Hall of Famers. But maybe you end up with more. And if you do, you end up in a conundrum: Who to leave off, and why?” muses Svrluga.

Buster Olney, now of ESPN, has decided not to vote this year because he is limited to 10 choices. In his case he would be forced to leave off Mussina, Raines and Schilling, perhaps. By not voting, Olney automatically increases the percentage of ballots on which those players appear, if only slightly. Just another way the process is broken.

“This year’s Hall of Fame ballot is maybe the most interesting, debate-evoking and controversial in history, if it’s not the most star-packed in decades, and it may be that as well.

“Many ballots – and very likely a majority of ballots – will be impacted by thoughts of steroid evidence, accusations and even supposition. Many – and once again, likely most – voters won’t include the ‘best’ (or at least most-accomplished) players on their ballots, with the result being that the lists of great players left off individual ballots may in fact be even better than those included on some ballots.

“The writers who did a poor job of investigating steroid usage through the so-called ‘steroid era’ of the late 1980s through 2001 (which is just about everyone, and includes yours truly) probably deserve to have this dilemma on our hands.

“More to the point, steroid users and abusers still don’t deserve admission to Cooperstown. Or at least that is the way I still look at it.

“If someone wants to reward the accomplished or super-accomplished steroid guys with Hall of Fame votes, I am OK with it. And I reserve the option to change my mind in subsequent years. (In fact, before the ballot arrived with his name on it I was going to include Barry Bonds, but when it got here I couldn’t bring myself to honor him or any steroid-linked player.)

“For today anyway, I’m not comfortable bestowing baseball’s highest honor on guys who helped themselves to more accolades, trophies, All-Star appearances, MVPs, and as colleague Cliff Floyd – a pragmatist and himself a first-time candidate harboring no illusion of making it – points out, more moolah.

“Not everyone in the Hall is a choir boy, but this has little to do with ethics and everything to do with authenticity. The steroid guys can’t be judged solely on stats that aren’t legitimate. These guys had major help, and it’s fair to say they helped themselves to that help....

“(We) sure as heck can assume, for instance, that McGwire, well into his 30s, wouldn’t have transformed from Jay Buhner to Babe Ruth, and Bonds wouldn’t have gone from superb to superhuman.”

On the issue of greenies, prevalent in the 1950s and 60s....

“That’s an easy one. Greenies were pervasive throughout the sport, are not muscle builders (sluggers of the era resembled normal folks) and they were so out in the open that it was understood the use was widespread.”

So Heyman omits Mike Piazza and Jeff Bagwell from his ballot, and, of course, Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, and first ballot slugger Gary Sheffield, who was tied to BALCO. 

“It has been nearly three decades since the whispers and innuendo began of pervasive steroid use in every baseball clubhouse, and somehow, we continue to remain clueless this time of year.

“We’ve had 113 current or former major league players suspended since 2005 for using performance-enhancing drugs.

“There were 103 players who tested positive for steroid use in anonymous survey testing of major-league players in 2003.

“And 89 major league players were publicly identified as using performance-enhancing drugs in the 409-page Mitchell Report released in 2007....

“What the last 30 years should have taught us, and the Biogenesis scandal reminded us, is that we have absolutely no idea who was clean, and who was dirty.

“Yet we, the members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, somehow keep trying to make that judgment.

“Just 35% of us voted for Barry Bonds last year, far short of the required 75% necessary for induction. Yet, many more had no trouble supporting Mike Piazza (62% last year) or Jeff Bagwell (54%). Both admitted using the now-banned androstenedione, and their bodies and power also swelled to enormous proportions....

“I can’t wait until two years from now and watch writers snub Bonds and Clemens, but turn around and vote for catcher Pudge Rodriguez in his first appearance on the ballot. Yep, just pretend the 30 pounds he lost over the winter of 2004 was a magical weight-loss program, and not a coincidence it occurred at the exact time steroid testing with penalties was implemented.

“There are 34 players on this year’s BBWAA ballot. Just a handful were firmly linked to PED use via the anonymous 2003 test, the Mitchell Report, federal court testimony or their own admitted use.

“Yet 30 of the 34 played the prime of their careers in the heart of the steroid era. Even if the estimates of players using PEDs made by former MVP Jose Canseco (85%) and Cy Young winner Eric Gagne (80% of his Dodgers teammates) are well on the high side, we’d be fooling ourselves to think these Hall candidates are that much cleaner than the norm.

“We act as if Bonds and Clemens tried to ruin our game and everyone else on the ballot was clean.

“It’s time for us to wake up and knock off this absurdity....

“Steroid users have been – and will be – elected to the Hall of Fame. Yet we, the Baseball Writers Association of America voters, are picking and choosing who we want to protect.”

“I can’t comprehend why the Hall of Fame allows me – and all of us – to vote only for no more than 10 players. What a ridiculous rule. What an illogical concept. What an arbitrary number.

“All the Hall should want me to do, as a voter who takes this responsibility as seriously as every player on this ballot took his career, is to answer one question?

“And if I think the answer is yes, I should be permitted to vote for him. Right? Is there something complicated or dangerous about that philosophy that I’m missing?”

[Stark voted for Randy Johnson, Pedro, Smoltz, Biggio, Bagwell, Piazza, Raines, Schilling, Bonds and Clemens.]

Stark said this of Bonds and Clemens: “What is the point of even having a Hall of Fame if it’s going to pretend that players like this never played baseball?

“Bonds hit more home runs than any other player who ever swung a baseball bat. Clemens won more Cy Youngs than any other pitcher who ever smoothed the dirt on a pitcher’s mound. None of their achievements has ever been wiped out of any box score or any record book. They all count. They all happened.”

So then the vote came in Tuesday afternoon....four are in....

Randy Johnson 97.3 percent
Pedro Martinez 91.1
John Smoltz 82.9
Craig Biggio 82.7

Mike Piazza 69.9 [up from 62.2 last year...3rd year on ballot]
Jeff Bagwell 55.7
Tim Raines 55.0 [up 12 percent from last year with two left]
Curt Schilling 39.2
Roger Clemens 37.5 [35.4 last year]
Barry Bonds 36.8 [34.7 last year]

Mark McGwire 10.0 [ninth and next to last year on ballot]
Sammy Sosa 6.6

Prior to the vote’s release, the New York Times’ Tyler Kepner, working on the correct assumption that Johnson, Martinez and Smoltz would all get in, noted that there was one pesky hitter who gave them all a hard time. 

Mickey Morandini. Morandini stepped into the box more than 100 times against these three and hit .352.

Kepner adds this isn’t unusual. “Over three starts in 1965, at the height of his powers, Sandy Koufax was flummoxed by a jocular backup catcher for the Cardinals. The catcher went 5 for 6 with a double and a home run off Koufax in those games, and then Koufax walked him intentionally.

Uecker hit exactly .200 in his career and at least Morandini hit .268 and appeared in an All-Star game.

--Hank Peters, general manager of the Baltimore Orioles who won two pennants and a World Series, died at the age of 90. 

“In 1976, his first season with the Orioles, Mr. Peters was the engineer of a 10-player trade with the Yankees that bolstered both teams. The key players were three veteran Orioles pitchers – Doyle Alexander, Ken Holtzman and Grant Jackson – who helped propel the Yankees to the World Series that season.

“In exchange, the Orioles received five players, including catcher Rick Dempsey and pitchers Tippy Martinez and Scott McGregor, all of whom became fixtures on the team for years to come, including 1979, when the Orioles lost the World Series to Pittsburgh, and 1983, when they won the Series, defeating the Philadelphia Phillies. The Orioles have not won one since.”

But Peters also acquired Reggie Jackson in 1976, in exchange for Don Baylor and Mike Torrez, but Jackson left for the Yankees as a free agent after just one season.

--Former pitcher Stu Miller passed away at the age of 87. Miller played 16 years in the majors for the Giants, Cardinals, Phillies, Orioles and Braves, going 105-103, with 154 saves and a 3.24 ERA in 704 appearances. He twice won 14 games in a season, all in relief.

But he’ll forever be known for his lone All-Star Game appearance in 1961 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, entering in relief of Sandy Koufax, trying to protect a 3-2 lead with runners on first and second and one out in the ninth and Rocky Colavito at the plate.

“Just as I was ready to pitch, an extra gust of wind came along and I waved like a tree,” he recalled. “My whole body went back and forth about two or three inches. The A.L. bench all hollered balk. I knew it was a balk, but the umpires didn’t call it at first. I went ahead and threw the pitch, and Colavito swung and missed. The umpire then took off his mask and motioned the runners to second and third.”

An error allowed the tying run to score and Miller allowed an unearned run in the 10th, but he also struck out the side and earned the win when Willie Mays hit a run-scoring double and scored on Roberto Clemente’s single in the bottom of the 10th. Still, the headline next day proclaimed, “Miller Blown Off Mound.” [Associated Press]

--One side note regarding the great sport of baseball. Brad K. passed on a story from the Daily Mail concerning PBS’ Antiques Roadshow program and the valuation they have bestowed on an 1871 collection of baseball cards from the Boston Red Stockings that was appraised at $1 million for insurance purposes; the largest sports memorabilia valuation in the history of the 19-year-old program.

The current owner of the collection, which includes notes from Albert Spalding, inherited it from her great-great-grandmother, who ran a Boston boarding house where the team lived in 1871-72.

“It was just sitting in here in a desk drawer,” the owner said as she held up a booklet that held the cards.

For security reasons the owner’s identity has been withheld. PBS said the owner once received a $5,000 offer. 

--So I needed to post right after the Dallas-Detroit game on Sunday and didn’t have a chance to really comment on the controversy, which has by now been dissected a hundred different ways.

For the record, in the fourth quarter, with the Lions leading 20-17, the officials originally ruled on a third-down pass play that Cowboys linebacker Anthony Hitchens had interfered with Lions tight end Brandon Pettigrew. Mike Pereira, former head of officiating for the NFL and now an analyst for Fox Sports, said during the game that pass interference should have been called.

But, out of nowhere, after the flag was thrown, and the penalty marked off, the flag was picked up, with the referees ruling there would be no penalty on the play. The Lions then punted, a horrible 10-yarder, and the Cowboys’ Tony Romo engineered a deciding touchdown drive for the win, 24-20.

Monday, Dean Blandino, the vice president for officiating for the NFL, said the Cowboys should have been penalized, but not necessarily for pass interference, rather defensive holding because Hitchens grabbed Pettigrew’s jersey earlier in the play.

Pass interference results in an automatic first down with the ball spotted at the foul. Defensive holding is a five-yard penalty and an automatic first down.

Blandino said the referees should have conferred first before making the call. Throwing the flag and then picking it up was bogus.

Pete Morelli, the head of the officiating crew, said the back judge threw his flag for pass interference, but the head linesman, who had a different angle, thought “the contact was minimal and didn’t warrant pass interference,” according to Morelli. It was Morelli who then reversed the call after the two officials talked, but he never then gave an explanation.

Detroit coach Jim Caldwell said the NFL reached out to him as the team was preparing to take off from Dallas, but by Monday, he was even more frustrated.

“The fact of the matter is it is a controversial call. And without question was one that [was] probably not officiated correctly, in my estimation.”

Caldwell said he “absolutely” agreed with the assessment of the NFL’s Blandino, who said on NBC Sports Radio’s “Pro Football Talk Live” that defensive holding should have been called, but that throwing a flag against Dez Bryant for coming onto the field without his helmet to argue the initial pass interference call wasn’t an automatic penalty because Bryant wasn’t in the game at the time.

“The NFL wanted to put an emphasis on defensive holding this year and, well, you can’t really find a more blatant example of what constitutes the foul. From Rule 8, Section 4, Article 6 of the NFL’s rulebook:

“ ‘It is defensive holding if a player grasps an eligible offensive player (or his jersey) with his hands, or extends an arm or arms to cut off or encircle him.’

“Head ref Pete Morelli’s explanation probably won’t help matters much.

“ ‘The back judge threw his flag for defensive pass interference,’ Morelli explained after the game. ‘We got other information from another official from a different angle that thought the contact was minimal and didn’t warrant pass interference. He thought it was face-guarding.’....

“Morelli and crew treated the whole thing like they were Officer Barbrady at the scene of a huge crime. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along now.

“ ‘Probably, yes,’ Morelli said when asked if he should’ve huddled up first.”

--As I noted last time, Cincinnati quarterback Andy Dalton is 0-4 in the postseason in his first four seasons, with the Bengals failing to score more than 13 points in any one of the four, virtually identical lousy performances.

2011...20 TD 13 INT...80.4 rating
2012...27 – 16...87.4
2013...33 – 20...88.8
2014...19 – 17...83.5

As for Cincinnati head coach Marvin Lewis, now 0-6 himself in the playoffs, in those six losses, his Bengals teams have been outscored a staggering 84-13 in the second half.

“That’s amazing. That’s hard to chalk up to a fluke. (Lewis has) never trailed by more than a touchdown at the half, and his clubs have been destroyed, collectively, in the second half.”

--One more on Joe Flacco’s playoff success. Aside from being 5-0 his last five playoff games, with 13 TDs and zero interceptions, his passer rating has topped 100 in every contest. Only one quarterback has a longer streak of 100-pous ratings...Joe Montana with eight spanning 1988-90.

--Stan Kroenke, the owner of the St. Louis Rams, is planning to build an 80,000-seat NFL stadium on the site of Hollywood Park in Inglewood, California. The stadium would be part of an already massive development that includes office, retail, and residential space, as well as a hotel.

But, while this is the first time an existing owner has controlled a site large enough for an NFL stadium, there is no guarantee the Rams would choose to move to L.A., though the team is not happy with outdated Edward Jones Dome.

So the pressure is on St. Louis to either come up with a new, modern-era facility or face Kroenke taking his team to Los Angeles.

Oakland and San Diego also aren’t happy with their existing stadiums, but no team is moving (and playing in a temporary facility like the Coliseum or Rose Bowl) until a new one can be built in Southern California.

The Kroenke Group plan (which includes other investors), could be put on an Inglewood municipal ballot in 2015. [Sam Farmer and Roger Vincent / Los Angeles Times]

--Yippee! Word is former Bills head coach Doug Marrone’s interview with the Jets the other day “did not go well,” according to CBS Sports’ Jason La Canfora, though a day before he had published a story with the headline: “All signs pointing to Doug Marrone as next Jets coach.”

I saw one story where Marrone was said to be way too arrogant, especially given he hasn’t done anything of real consequence, college (Syracuse) or the pros (it’s not like he took the Bills to the playoffs).

--Former New York Giants coach Allie Sherman died. He was 91. Sherman’s Giants lost to the Packers in the 1961 and 1962 championship games and to the Chicago Bears in the 1963 title game. In eight seasons with New York, he had a 57-51-4 mark.

Sherman, just 5-foot-10 and 160 pounds, played quarterback at Boston College and was a backup for five seasons in the NFL with the Eagles.

College Football

1. Florida State
2. Alabama
3. Oklahoma
4. Ohio State (Braxton Miller was still in the picture)
5. UCLA
6. Michigan State
7. Auburn
8. Oregon

All in all, not awful. Final four among top 8 is pretty good.

College Basketball

AP Poll (Jan. 5)

1. Kentucky (64 first-place votes) 13-0
2. Duke 13-0
3. Virginia 13-0
4. Wisconsin 14-1
5. Louisville 13-1
6. Gonzaga 14-1
7. Arizona 13-1
8. Villanova 13-1
9. Utah 12-2
10. Texas 12-2
11. Maryland 14-1
13. Notre Dame 14-1
18. North Carolina 11-3
19. Seton Hall 12-2
20. VCU 11-3...Shaka has team back on beam
25. Old Dominion 12-1...that’s cool

Then, Monday night, Notre Dame defeated North Carolina in Chapel Hill 71-70, while on Tuesday, in a near stunner, Kentucky had to go to overtime before defeating Ole Miss, in Lexington, 89-86.

Also on Tuesday, San Diego State had a nice win at home over New Mexico, 56-42, as their sterling defense came through, while Winston Shepard had his best game of the season. The Aztecwear was stirring in the sports drawer and woke me up.

--The Lottery Chase....

Knicks 5-32
Sixers 5-28
T’Wolves 5-28

This is going to be exciting the rest of the way. Trust me...just riveting.

The Knicks made a major move Monday night, jettisoning guards Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith in a 3-way trade, these two going to Cleveland, while Cleveland guard Dion Waiters went from Cleveland to Oklahoma City, with OKC sending Cleveland a future first-round pick, and Lance Thomas to the Knicks, while the Knicks also got a bag of donuts and a 2019 second-round selection from Cleveland. Then New York waived center Samuel Dalembert, who only had $1.8 million of his $4.3 million contract guaranteed through Jan. 10. 

Shumpert has seemingly never fully recovered from a knee injury two years ago, while J.R. is simply one of the league’s major head cases who, frankly, would have fit in well in the old ABA with the likes of John Brisker and Wendell Ladner.

The purpose for the Knicks was to continue to clear more cap space. But as the New York Post’s Mike Vaccaro put it:

“Now (Phil) Jackson will actually have to find a use for all of that cap room. It always sounds like a better plan in theory than in practice, the same way tanking your way into the No. 1 pick in the NFL always looks better when it’s Andrew Luck you’re taking when you’re on the clock, instead of JaMarcus Russell.”

So if you didn’t already know it, the Knicks have officially written off 2015. But us Knicks fans still want the maximum number of ping-pong balls for the lottery. It’s about Duke’s Jahlil Okafor. We get him and maybe we can attract a big free agent, if not next summer then 2016.

“This is where we are with the Phil Jackson era, nearly a year into it: The Knicks have turned into the Washington Generals. Or the basketball version of the 1962 New York Mets. That is why, before half the season is over, Jackson turns the whole thing into a great big tag sale. Now the Knicks don’t just lose games. They lose players, two and three at a time.

“First Tyson Chandler, who was an actual asset even after the way he played last season, was traded to the Mavericks along with Raymond Felton and the Knicks got Jose Calderon in return, and Shane Larkin, and Samuel Dalembert and a second-round draft choice that turned out to be Cleanthony Early of Wichita State. Early’s State team went into the NCAA Tournament unbeaten last March. That team could have beaten Jackson’s Knicks.

“Now J.R. Smith is traded to Cleveland, and anybody who thought that was LeBron’s idea of a homecoming, raise a hand. Iman Shumpert, who ultimately became nothing more than a hairdo in New York, goes with Smith. The Thunder are in on this deal, too, and for a few minutes on Monday night, it looked like the talented point guard named Reggie Jackson might be on his way from the Thunder to the Knicks. Then Jackson was out and it turned out the Knicks were only getting more junk in return....

“If Knicks fans will still buy tickets to watch this team play, they will buy anything.”

Golden State 27-5
Portland 27-8
Atlanta 26-8
Memphis 25-9

So how ‘bout them Atlanta Hawks? Who wudda thunk they’d be 26-8?! No one, that’s who. And one man helping lead the way is point guard Jeff Teague, the former Demon Deacon. Talk about a career progression, check this out.

2009-10....3.2 ppg
2010-11....5.2
2011-12...12.6
2012-13...14.6
2013-14...16.5
2014-15...17.4

As Ronald Reagan would have said, ‘Not bad, not bad at all.’

As for the Hawks and their history, there was a story in the New York Times that read, “Since arriving from St. Louis in 1968, the Hawks have yet to reach the conference finals.”

Well I had to check this myself. Technically, I guess this statement is correct, but in 1968-69 and 1969-70, the first two years in Atlanta, the Hawks lost the “Western Division” finals, the last two years before a realignment into two conferences, with two divisions in each.

--The PGA Tour season gets underway in earnest this week in Kapalua with the Tournament of Champions. While some big names are missing, I’m anxious to see how the likes of Patrick Reed and Billy Horschel do and if one of the real rising stars can get off to a flying start in 2015, which the Tour could use.

As for Tiger Woods, he claimed on his Web site over the Christmas holidays that all is good with his back.   Many of us hope that’s the case. But these days it’s as much about his pathetic short game.

--Ronnie Berlack, 20, and Bryce Astle, 19, two prospects from the U.S. Ski Team, were killed in an avalanche while skiing near their European training base in the Austrian Alps at Soelden.

Berlack and Astle were part of a group of six skiers when they left the prepared slope and apparently set off the avalanche. The other four skied out of it and were unhurt.

--Division I College Hockey Poll (Jan. 5)

1. North Dakota
2. Boston University
3. Harvard
4. Minnesota State-Mankato
5. Miami (Ohio)
6. Massachusetts-Lowell
7. Minnestota-0Duluth
8. Michigan Tech
9. Minnesota
10. Denver
17. Colgate...they’ve been sucking wind, notes Pete M., after teasing their fans early.

--From USATODAY: “A man was injured Friday evening, Jan. 2, in Fond du Lac County, Wis., when he was attacked by the deer that he had wounded with an arrow. The 72-year-old man was transported by ambulance to the hospital.

“The man was bow hunting earlier in the day with a crossbow. He wounded the doe with an arrow and went back out later to track the animal, (police) said.

“ ‘Apparently the man was going through some thick brush and the deer leaped out and went after him. The doe struck him in the leg with her head.’”

The man’s condition is not known. The doe got away and is now organizing a deer militia.

--In catching up on some reading, Simon Denyer had a piece in the Jan. 1 issue of the Washington Post on China and its tiger farms. It’s just despicable. As I’ve written probably at least a dozen times on this site, China has this insatiable demand for tiger parts, used in stuff like tiger bone wine, let alone tiger-skin rugs and stuffed animals.

So I wrote the other day about the Sumatran tigress in an Israeli zoo and how there are just 400 left in the wild on Sumatra, but as for tigers overall, there are only an estimated 4,000 left in the wild, half in India.

But there are “thought to be between 5,000 and 6,000 tigers on about 200 farms in China, mostly born into captivity and many kept in appalling conditions,” writes Simon Denyer.

“Chinese wildlife officials have been campaigning for international approval to lift the ban on tiger bone use, arguing that the country has a right to use its ‘domestic natural resources’ as it sees fit, and that tiger bone wine – rice wine in which bones from the big cats have been soaking – is medically effective and part of Chinese culture.”

--The final two episodes of the previous season of “Game of Thrones” are being shown in 150 Imax theaters across the country from Jan. 23 to Jan. 29, the first time television has crossed over in such a fashion.

The coming season of the HBO series starts in April. The fourth season averaged 19 million cumulative viewers, making it the most-watched HBO original series ever.

Top 3 songs for the week 1/9/82: #1 “Physical” (Olivia Newton-John) #2 “Waiting For A Girl Like You” (Foreigner) #3 “Let’s Groove” (Earth, Wind & Fire)...and...#4 “I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)” (Daryl Hall & John Oates) #5 “Young Turks” (Rod Stewart) #6 “Harden My Heart” (Quarterflash...ughh...) #7 “Leather And Lace” (Stevie Nicks with Don Henley) #8 “Centerfold” (The J. Geils Band) #9 “Turn Your Love Around” (George Benson) #10 “Trouble” (Lindsey Buckingham..whatever...a crappy week...)

Golf Quiz Answer: Top Ten in World Golf Rankings....

1. Rory McIlroy 10.89
2. Henrik Stenson 8.00
3. Adam Scott 7.56
4. Bubba Watson 7.33
5. Sergio Garcia 6.58
6. Justin Rose 6.56
7. Jim Furyk 6.51
8. Jason Day 5.69
9. Jordan Spieth 5.67
10. Rickie Fowler 5.39...all of us want Rickie to bust through this year and win a Major. Spieth’s time will come soon enough.

11. Matt Kuchar
12. Martin Kaymer
13. Billy Horschel
14. Phil Mickelson
15. Graeme McDowell

34. Tiger
40. Bill Haas
43. Webb Simpson
64. Arnie

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