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05/29/2023

Josef Newgarden Wins the Indy 500

Add-on posted early Wed. a.m.

NBA

--It is amazing that the only team in baseball to overcome a 3-0 deficit in baseball history was the 2004 Red Sox against the Yankees, and here we were Monday at TD Garden, Game 7 after the Celtics were down 3-0 to the Heat, facing a Game 4 in Miami, when the series turned around dramatically.

But then the Celtics came out firing blanks from downtown, 0 for their first 12 from beyond the arc, 3-for-17, and they ended up 9-for-42, and that’s really all you needed to know.

Unlike Game 6, where the Celtics survived a 7-for-35 night from 3, the Heat, 14-of-28 themselves from downtown, won easily, 103-84, the Celtic faithful shell-shocked.

Jayson Tatum turned his ankle on the very first possession for Boston and was clearly about 60-70 percent the rest of the way, 14 points, while Jaylen Brown was 8-of-23 from the field, 1-of-9 from 3, and he had 8 turnovers.

For Miami, Jimmy Butler got the MVP award for the series, and he was solid, 28 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, just one turnover, but the MVP could have easily gone to Caleb Martin, who was 11-of-16, 4-of-6 from 3, 26 points, 10 rebounds, 1 turnover in 45 minutes.

Miami at Denver, Game 1, Thursday.

--The Philadelphia 76ers are hiring Nick Nurse as coach, to replace Doc Rivers, who was fired this month after a second-round playoff exit.

Nurse, 55, compiled a 227-163 (.582) record over five seasons with Toronto, including leading the Raptors to the 2019 title.  But he was fired lats month after the team missed the playoffs for the second time in three seasons.

--The Knicks are not extending the contract of GM Scott Perry.

NHL

The Vegas Golden Knights reached the Stanley Cup Final for the second time in their six-year history by defeating the Dallas Stars 6-0 in Game 6 of the Western Conference final in Dallas.

Boy, that must have been a rather dreadful game to waste $hundreds of dollars on for Stars fans, it being 3-0 after the first period.

Vegas will face the Florida Panthers, so we’ll have a first-time Stanley Cup winner.

The ratings for this will be awful.  I for one have zero interest.

Game 1, Saturday, in Las Vegas.

MLB

--Monday night in Seattle, Aaron Judge had what manager Aaron Boone described after as “one of the great individual games that you’ll see.

At the plate, Judge had two home runs (giving him 17), a double and a walk, 3 RBIs.  And then he made a majestic leaping catch at the wall to rob Teoscar Hernandez at the right-field wall in the eighth, the Yanks topping the Mariners 10-4.

Tuesday, the Yanks put up another 10-spot, 10-2, now 34-23, Seattle 28-27, as Judge hit No. 18.

--The Mets (28-27) had a nice 2-0 win over the Phillies (25-29) last night as Kodai Senga was brilliant for seven innings, one hit, no walks, 9 strikeouts…Senga now 5-3, 3.44

--The Braves’ Michael Soroka hadn’t appeared on the mound since 2020, owing to two separate tears to his right Achilles tendon, but Monday night in Oakland he made his return…six innings, 4 earned, and the loss as the Braves fell to the A’s 7-2, which was just the 11th win on the season for Oakland (11-45).

But it was really a win for Soroka, giving all he’s been through.  This is a guy who was runner-up for Rookie of the Year in 2019, 13-4, 2.68 ERA for Atlanta, and then came the pandemic and his injuries, first tearing his Achilles on Aug. 3, 2020, and then tearing it again while rehabbing midway through the 2021 season.

Tuesday, the A’s made it two-in-a-row, 2-1, the Braves falling to 32-23.

--The Cubs’ Marcus Stroman tossed a one-hit shutout Monday, Chicago beating Tampa Bay 1-0.  The only hit was a clean single in the 7th off the bat of Wander Franco.  Stroman is having a super season, 5-4, 2.59.

Chicago then beat the Rays again, Tuesday, 2-1, handing Shane McClanahan his first loss, 8-1, 2.07.

--Monday, the Rangers’ Nate Eovaldi improved to 7-2, 2.42, as Texas defeated the Tigers 5-0.

--Last night in the Dodgers’ 9-3 win over the Nationals, Freddie Freeman had four more hits, extending his hitting streak to 19 games.

--The NCAA had its Selection Show Monday for the Div. I baseball championship and Wake Forest was the No. 1 overall seed, facing George Mason, Northeastern and Maryland this coming weekend.  Each regional is a double-elimination format.  Regional winners advance to the best-of-three super regionals, and those eight winners go to Omaha for the College World Series.

Eight of the 16 regional hosts are from the SEC, four from the ACC (Wake, Clemson, Miami and Virginia).

Overall, the SEC has 10 teams in it, the ACC 8, Big 12 6, Pac-12 5, Sun Belt 4, and Big Ten 3.

J. Mac’s Coastal Carolina is one of the 16 regional hosts.

Tulane made the 64-team field with a 19-40 record, after starting off 1-10, because they beat No. 12 East Carolina in the American Athletic Conference championship game. Their first game is overall 5-seed LSU.

Should Wake Forest win its regional, it will meet the winner of the 16-seed Alabama regional.

I swear to God, I’m nervous already, like I haven’t been with a sports team in a long time.  I’ve said it before, Wake has a history of coming up small in big moments when they should have prevailed.  A recent example of this is last fall and the football game against Clemson, at home, that yours truly went to, and that we just should have won and the entire season then sets up differently.

We came up small in the Tim Duncan Era, not making a Final Four.  We’ve come up small countless times in men’s soccer, often when we were the top-ranked team in the regular season.

The men’s golf team has come up small the last few decades.

Which is why I’m hoping the women’s golf national title the other week provides some positive mojo.

Go Deacs!

Premier League

--Chelsea hired former Tottenham and Paris St-Germain boss Mauricio Pochettino as their new manager.  A good get, always liked the guy.

The Argentine, 51, begins the job July 1 and is one a two-year contract, with an option for a third year.

As I noted last time, Chelsea’s 12th place finish this season was their lowest in more than 25 years.

Chelsea said Pochettino was the only manager who was interviewed for the job. He coached the Spurs from 2014 to 2019, making the Champions League four of the five seasons (and the CL final in 2019) but no titles.

Golf Balls

--They are holding the Men’s NCAA Golf Championship and Frank Biondi of Florida won the individual title.

And this afternoon it’s Florida vs. Georgia Tech for the team title.

In the final eight….

Florida def. Virginia
Florida State def. Illinois
North Carolina def. Arizona State
Georgia Tech def. Pepperdine

Florida then defeated FSU in one semi; Georgia Tech def. North Carolina in the other.

Stuff

--Ryan Blaney won the rain-delayed Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Speedway on Monday, breaking a 59-race winless streak going back to 2021.  Blaney held off William Byron, giving team owner Roger Penske a sweep of the Memorial Day Indy-Charlotte doubleheader for the first time.

Blaney entered the crowd after taking the checkered flag, a la Josef Newgarden at Indy the day before.  Blaney said he texted Newgarden after the Indy win, and Ryan said this was the goal, for Team Penske to win ‘em both.

As for 86-year-old Penske, he is hosting an Indy Car event this weekend in downtown Detroit, his gift to the city he calls home.  Then he heads to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, one of the very few events he’s yet to win, which is rather remarkable to think about.

The Charlotte 600 was a marathon, 5 ½ hours, five wrecks in the final 50 laps, including one which cost me dearly in DraftKings.

Blaney’s win was the eighth of his career.

And Tuesday, NASCAR suspended Chase Elliott for one race after wrecking Denny Hamlin.  Officials ruled that Elliott acted intentionally when he made contact with Hamlin.

After the race, Hamlin had voiced his extreme displeasure with Elliott’s action.

--The French Open is underway and Tuesday, a 23-year-old Brazilian, Thiago Seyboth Wild, ranked No. 172 in the world with a tour-level record of 0-0 this season and 9-15 lifetime, upset 2-seed, and No. 2 in the world, Daniil Medvedev.

--Congrats to Mark R. and Notre Dame for winning the men’s lacrosse championship Monday, 13-9 over Duke, after a pulsating semifinal win over Virginia, 13-12 in OT. 

--I was watching BBC News on Monday and they were showing a live celebration from Luton Town, the locals celebrating their boys’ triumph on Saturday at Wembley Stadium as they earned a promotion to the Premier League.

I told you last time it had been 31 years since the club made the top flight, but less than 9 years ago, they were playing in the fifth tier!  Step by step, they climbed one rung, and then another, and another…and now they’ll be a huge underdog to follow next season (which is only months away, the Premier League with little rest between seasons).

First thing Luton has to do is upgrade their ancient 10,000-seat stadium, which is smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

--Another crocodile attack. An Australian man escaped with his life after being attacked by a saltwater croc while snorkeling at an exclusive Queensland resort.

Marcus McGowan, 51, detailed how he managed to pry the predator’s jaws off his head, suffering lacerations.

He was airlifted to a nearby island hospital, and later flown to Cairns for further treatment.

McGown said he was in the water with a group of people about 17.3 miles off Haggerstone Island near Cape York when he was bitten from behind.

“I thought it was a shark but when I reached up, I realized it was a crocodile.  I was able to lever its jaws open just far enough to get my head out,” he said in a statement.

The croc – apparently a juvenile – came back for another go, he said, but he was able to push it away, suffering a bite to his hand.

Queensland’s environmental department says it is hard to track saltwater crocs, who “often travel tens of kilometers per day.”

Haggerstone Island Resort is available for $4,979 a night, by the way.

There have been a number of croc attacks this year in Australia.  Earlier this month, the remains of a 65-year-old fisherman were found inside a 13-foot crocodile, north of Cairns – the 13th fatal attack in Queensland since record-keeping began in 1985.

Since crocodile hunting was banned in 1974, the state’s crocodile population has rebounded from a low of some 5,000 animals to around 30,000 today.  [BBC News]

--A bear was euthanized in Pennsylvania last week after attacking two children, 5- and 14-years-old, who were playing in their driveway, the Pennsylvania Game Commission said in a release on Monday.  The kids were treated for bites and scratches at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital and later released.

It’s unclear what led to the attack.

Next Bar Chat, Sunday p.m. ….might be later than usual, or earlier.

-----

[Posted Sun. p.m.]

Brief Add-on up top by noon, Wed.

Men’s College World Series Quiz: Name the seven schools to win at least four titles (the first CWS conducted in 1947).  Answer below.

Indy 500

What a race.  Josef Newgarden, the 32-year-old two-time Indy Car Cup champ from Nashville, Tennessee, won a crazy green-white flag one-lap sprint after multiple crashes halted things the final 12 or so laps.

Newgarden beat last year’s champ, Marcus Ericsson, out of the third turn and held Ericsson off from there for his first win, No. 19 for team owner Roger Penske, who also owns the racetrack.

Santino Ferrucci, the 24-year-old out of Connecticut driving for AJ Foyt Racing, finished third…my brother and I wanting to see 88-year-old AJ bag the win.

And a fascinating response from all the top finishers as to whether there should have been a green-white-checker final lap to end it, the tires not necessarily warmed up.

Officials could have ended it after the last crash with 3 laps to go, and I would have been OK with it because the thought of a one-lap sprint in these rocket ships is horrifying!

Indy Car, however, clearly was thinking of the fans, the bulk of them, I guess, and got, amazingly, a clean finish.

Had it not ended this way, we are talking so differently right now.

One more thing…for those who watched…to state the obvious, Kyle Kirkwood is dead, had his crash occurred just 20 years ago, maybe 10.  The safety equipment on these cars is remarkable.

[Max Verstappen notched another win at the Monaco Grand Prix, in auto racing’s biggest day of the year, NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 from Charlotte tonight, your editor with his DraftKings lineup locked and loaded.]

NBA

--After the Miami Heat took a 3-0 lead last Sunday in Game 3, 128-102, there was no doubt the series was over.  With Game 4 in Miami, a sweep seemed a certainty, but Boston whipped the Heat, 116-99, the Celtics shooting 18-of-45 from 3 (40.0%).

On to Game 5, Thursday, up in Boston, and you knew that this series was suddenly something different.  Boston prevailed again, 110-97, this time hitting 16-of-39 from beyond the arc (41.0%), with Jimmy Butler scoring just 14 points for the Heat.  Boston had four players with 20 points.

It was now 3-2, Boston looking to become the first team in NBA history to come from down 3-0 to win a series and it now seemed highly possible they could do so.  Especially if they kept it up from downtown.

On to Saturday night, and if you were out partying, mindlessly wasted and missed the game, and I told you Miami was 14-30 from 3, with just five turnovers, and Boston was 7-35 from beyond the arc, you’d say, ‘The Heat must have routed the Celts…and they are partying in Miami.’

Au contraire, mon frere.  Miami was an atrocious 19-for-63 inside the arc, with stars Butler and Bam Adebayo a combined 9-for-37 from the field.  This was the first game all playoffs the Heat really missed Tyler Herro.

But Boston squandered a 98-88 lead with 3:41 left in the fourth and trailed 103-102 after Butler made three clutch free throws with three seconds left.

Boston called a timeout and took the ball out in front court. Marcus Smart rimmed a good look from 3 and here is where we need to pause…the ball in the air under the Miami basket.

When Butler made his three free throws, the clock showed 2.1 seconds left, but referees put 0.9 seconds back on after reviewing the play that sent Butler to the line.  That .9 seconds proved critical.

Also, you know how every single basketball coach from fourth grade leagues on up has told his or her players to box out?  There’s a freakin’ reason for that!  And Boston’s Derrick White, who streaked to the basket, uncontested, after inbounding the ball to Smart, scored on a putback as time expired, 104-103 Celtics, and we have a Game 7 back in Boston, Monday night.

It was a startling finish.

Jayson Tatum had 31 points and 12 rebounds for the Celtics and Jaylen Brown scored 26, as Boston is just the fourth team in NBA history to erase a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-seven series and force a deciding game.  As you all know, the other three lost Game 7, but all were on the road.

So Boston is attempting to become the first team in NBA history to accomplish the impossible.

Miami’s only shot is if “Playoff Jimmy” goes off for 35+.  That’s the bottom line, and role players like Duncan Robinson have to come up big, Robinson, having missed two wide open 3s down the stretch last night.

NHL

--Dallas is trying to pull off its own Boston miracle, the Stars defeating the Golden Knights in Vegas, 4-2 last night to get their series to 3-2 in the Western Conference finals.  Game 6 Monday in Dallas.

The winner meets the Florida Panthers, who swept the Hurricanes, 4-0, all four games decided by one goal.

Florida’s last eight games in these playoffs have been by one goal, the Panthers winning seven, as since they fell behind Boston 3-1, Florida has won 11 of 12. 

The Panthers are in their first Cup Final in 27 years.

MLB

--The Mets were in Denver this weekend and the series got off to a strong start as Max Scherzer went 7 strong, one run, 8 strikeouts, no walks, in a 5-2 win Friday night; Scherzer with three strong starts since his latest injury issue.

So that’s encouraging.  Saturday, the Metropolitans then trotted out Justin Verlander.  Last weekend, Scherzer and Verlander dominated in a day/night doubleheader sweep, Verlander going 8 innings, one run.

But last night, for the second time in three starts, Verlander yielded six runs in five innings, the Mets falling 10-7 after coming back from a 6-0 deficit to tie it at 6-6 on a dramatic Francisco Alvarez 3-run bomb, the 21-year-old catcher coming into his own much quicker than the fans and management might have thought.

The Mets then blew a 6-2 lead in the fourth today, falling 11-10, despite a game ninth-inning rally, so my Metsies finish the first third of the season at 27-27…and boy that sucks, given the money spent and the talent on the team.

But Alvarez hit another 3-run homer, and he’s part of an exciting future on offense.  The pitching, however, is very, very troubling.

--Aaron Boone was suspended for one game by MLB for his recent conduct toward umpires, which has been atrocious.  He served his suspension Friday night against the Padres at the Stadium.

On Thursday, Boone, who was fined an undisclosed amount as well, got ejected for the fourth time this season and the second time in four days.

Speaking before the suspension was announced Friday, Boone said he knows he’s earning a reputation for arguing with umpires, but he does not think it has changed the way umpires are treating him.  Boone has been acting like a jerk.

In action on the field, the slumping and mysteriously mediocre Padres came to town and the teams split their first two, San Diego winning Friday 5-1, the Yanks’ Saturday, 3-2.

And today New York took the rubber game, 10-7, Aaron Judge with home run No. 15. So the Yanks are 32-23, the Padres 24-29!  Eegads.

Gerrit Cole improved to 6-0, but his ERA climbed again, now 2.93, allowing 5 earned in 6 innings, which is his third poor start in his last five, and will have Yankees fans on the airwaves going once again, ‘Hey, what happens in Oc-to-buh!’

For San Diego, Yu Darvish was drilled…giving up 7 runs in 2 2/3.  As they say in France, “Sacre bleu….”

--Streaking Texas traveled to Baltimore for a big 3-game set, and the Rangers took the first two, 12-2, 5-3, now 7 of 8, to move to 33-18, while the Orioles fell to 33-19.

But adjust the records, Baltimore winning this afternoon, 3-2.

--The Dodgers have been in Tampa Bay this weekend, the two potential World Series opponents splitting their first two.  In Saturday’s L.A. 6-5 win, Clayton Kershaw had a no-decision, 5 innings, 4 runs, Max Muncy with home run No. 16 and Freddie Freeman extending his hitting streak to 16 for the Dodgers.

Tampa Bay won the Peacock game today, meaning it started at 11:00 a.m., which is immensely stupid, 11-10, the Rays now 39-16…L.A. 32-22.

Freeman had two more hits, Muncy homer No. 17, in defeat.

--The San Francisco Giants (27-25) are en fuego, 10 of 12, including taking the first three of a 4-game series, 5-0, 15-1, 3-1, at Milwaukee.  In the last one, Saturday, the Giants’ Logan Webb went seven innings, one run, 11 Ks, as he improved to 4-5, 2.75; this after an 0-4 start.

But…the Giants lost today 7-5 to the Brew Crew, so make that 27-26 for San Fran. 

By the way, two weeks ago I wrote of Christian Yelich’s power surge.  Well, it was a brief one.  He has one RBI in his last eleven games.

--It was nice to see Cincinnati’s Hunter Greene have a great game Friday night, the Reds beating the Cubs 9-0.

Greene, whom the Reds recently made a major commitment to, threw six innings of no-hit ball, 11 Ks, for his first win of the year, though he hasn’t been that awful…a 4.18 ERA.

--Saturday, the Angels lost to the Marlins 8-5, though Shohei Ohtani pitched 6 innings, 2 runs, 10 Ks in a no-decision.

--In College Baseball, No. 1 Wake Forest (Baseball America) beat Pitt and Notre Dame in their pool to advance to the semifinals of the ACC Championship against No. 10 Miami and then fell 7-2.  But if you were following the tournament, you knew that’s only part of the story.

The announcers doing the Notre Dame game Friday night said nothing about the Deacs’ very quick turnaround, from a game ending at 10:30 p.m. to a 1:00 p.m. start the next day due to rain moving in, and playing three straight days (including Thursday’s win over Pitt) proved to be a bit too much.

But it doesn’t matter.  When the NCAA tournament selection committee meets Monday, we will be a 1-seed, and then the nail-biting starts.  More in my Add-on, including the strength of the ACC this season.

Clemson took on Miami in the championship game, the Tigers white hot, 15 straight coming in, 20 of 21.

And the Tigers won it, 11-5, 16 in a row, a guaranteed No. 1 seed in the NCAAs.

--Friday in a Women’s Softball Championship Super Regional, Oklahoma defeated Clemson 9-2 to tie the NCAA record for longest winning streak at 47 and moved a win-away from their seventh consecutive College World Series appearance.

The two then met again Saturday and it was the same result, Kinzie Hansen with a dramatic, tying 3-run home run in the seventh inning, Tiare Jennings led off the ninth with a solo blast and Oklahoma set the record with its 48th straight, 8-7, sending the Sooners to the CWS.

Golf Balls

--Entering the final round of the Charles Schwab Cup Challenge at Colonial Country Club, Fort Worth, Texas, we had….

Adam Schenk -10
Harry Hall -10
Harris English -9
Justin Suh -6
Emiliano Grillo -6…was at -10 late Saturday….

Scottie Scheffler -4…after a disappointing 72 in the third round.

And Grillo wins it in a playoff with Schenk, win No. 2 for the Argentinian, first in nearly eight years.

I love it.  A very likable guy, who I was glad didn’t join LIV along with the other Latin Americans.  And what he did awaiting the playoff with the little boy won him a ton of new fans.  Super stuff.

--Michael Block, after his fairytale adventure at the PGA Championship, the club pro finishing T15 and earning $288,000, when his previous best check was $70,000, earned an exemption for this week’s Charles Schwab Challenge and it didn’t go well.  He shot a first-round 81, and then followed it up with a 74, +15, missing the cut by 14 shots…last place.

I have to admit, I was a little uncomfortable with how Block loved the attention at the PGA.  I mean on one hand, he’s 46 years old and you’d think he’d handle it well, but by the finish last Sunday I kind of thought to myself, ‘be careful, Michael.’ 

Block milked it big time…and this week, as Golf Digest’s Joel Beall put it, Block’s “feel-good tale (took) a different tenor (at Colonial).  On the surface, this is due to overexposure, a persona that is a little too performative, and comments that can generously be described as self-assured. And to varying degrees, this is all true.  But the internet’s Block backlash – and the backlash to the backlash, and the discourse that has followed – was inevitable and predictable, just not for the reason you think….

“(Last week) there were undertones in the responses to media entity after media entity promoting Block’s Cinderella narrative at every turn, directed not necessarily at the man himself but the ecosystem as a whole.  We milked his magic until it ran dry rather than appreciating the weekend for what it was and moving on.

“Block’s willingness to partake in the hagiography of his life hasn’t helped, participating in two walk-and-talks during the PGA broadcast and conducting more than 30 interviews between Sunday at Oak Hill and meeting with the media on Tuesday at Colonial.  Certainly those interactions have spurred Block’s popularity, amplifying his everyman demeanor and self-deprecating humor to millions.  Conversely, there is a bit of – how should we say this? – thirstiness to the fame that has the danger of rubbing some the wrong way, because the moment you tell everyone why you matter is the moment you prove the opposite.

“Provoking that agitation were Block’s comments from a recent podcast.  In answering what the biggest difference between his game and Rory McIlroy’s, Block responded, ‘Oh my God. What I would shoot from where Rory hits it would be stupid. I think I’d be one of the best players in the world.  Hands down. If I had the stupid length, all day.  My iron game, wedge game, around the greens and my putting is world class.’  Never mind that’s the exact type of conviction needed to contend at a PGA Championship as a 46-year-old club pro.  Block’s words were seen as cavalier and brash, sentiments that while celebrated in other sports are considered cardinal sins in golf.

“And, sure, his ‘aw shucks’ showmanship can wear quickly.  [Ed. that’s what wore me out first.]  It’s one thing to mug and shrug at the camera like Jim Halpert from ‘The Office’ after a ridiculous save during a major championship weekend, recognizing this is the week of your life so why not enjoy it…quite another to ham it up on every hole after every shot in the first round of a tour event.

“However, there are two incontrovertible reasons for the Block backlash. The first is that golf does not have a sustained appetite for underdogs.  While other games run off upsets, this one often lives in fear of them.  It pulls for its Goliaths, and whatever stage given to the little guys is meant in small doses.  And to an extent, that is true with Block.  The story is warm, the story is endearing…now move aside so we can watch the big men battle it out.  But the only way the Block Party wouldn’t end was for it to continue what started it in the first place.  Specifically, his play.”

And then he shot an 81.

“Without the performance to back his story up, Block goes from a special story to special treatment.  The line is thin and the standards are harsh, but that is the reality….

“After a week off he will return with a sponsor’s exemption at the RBC Canadian Open. And maybe he’s able to rekindle the fire of Oak Hill once more.  Most likely he will not, which is fine.  Block parties are not supposed to last forever.  That’s what makes them memorable.”

--In the LIV event this week, Donald Trump took over, it being held at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, VA.

Barry Svrluga / Washington Post

“LIV Golf is in town, playing its latest event at Trump National Golf Club Washington D.C., which is not, in fact, in Washington D.C.  It all feels farcical….

“Even before the 54-hole tournament along the Potomac River in Loudoun County gets underway Friday, it has a Trumpian feel to it: If you say something enough, you can will it into reality and get people to believe that fiction is fact.

“Like former U.S. Open champ Bryson DeChambeau, on the good LIV does.

“ ‘Over the course of time, like many have said, you’ll see what good and what positive impact we’re having,’ said DeChambeau, who finished tied for fourth, six shots back of (Brooks) Koepka at the PGA Championship.  ‘And what we continue to keep doing every single tournament and growing and helping out the communities and inspiring junior golfers, helping people that are struggling, you’re just going to see more and more of that.’

“Like former president Donald Trump, on his course here.

“ ‘I think it’s one of the best properties anywhere in the world for golf,’ he said.

“Forget the former president for a moment.  It’s such a sham and a shame that a handful of the world’s best players take these faux stances and deliver them with straight faces at vapid tournaments.  They left the PGA Tour for LIV not because of some desire to grow the game or impact communities. They left for the money.  So just say it.

“ ‘I don’t care what anyone says. It’s about the damn money,’ LIV’s Harold Varner III* told the Washington Post’s Kent Babb earlier this year.  At least he’s honest.

*Varner won today.  Phil Mickelson was 44th out of 47 who finished.

“Trump’s professional playing partner for the first nine holes at Thursday’s exhibition round was Patrick Reed, who committed to a Tuesday evening kids’ clinic at Langston Golf Course, a public track in the District – then bailed.  Koepka deservedly celebrated his major victory with three rip-roaring nights at Florida Panthers and Miami Heat games and then Thursday canceled a scheduled meeting with reporters, a development LIV officially chalked up to ‘flight issues.’

“They are beholden to no one other than their Saudi overlords, and they have a keen understanding of that.  LIV may not have a future in the public sporting consciousness. But it might still have a future luring players from the PGA Tour into obscurity, except when they play majors.  How is that?

“ ‘Unlimited money,’ Trump said.  ‘I think the tour made a major mistake by playing games. They have unlimited money, and they love it, and it’s been great publicity for Saudi Arabia.’

“Trump is right about the first part: unlimited money. The murderous regime of the Saudi Arabian government funds LIV with a bottomless pit of lightly laundered cash through its financial arm, the Public Investment Fund.  It’s amusing that LIV stopped releasing its miniscule television ratings on the CW because the ratings don’t matter to the circuit’s bottom line. This isn’t designed to be profitable.  It’s designed to sportswash the Saudis’ heinous record on human rights….

“ ‘To raise the question whether LIV has been good for the PGA Tour is to miss the very human and most important point of the whole issue of sportswashing,’ tweeted Brandel Chamblee, the former pro and longtime Golf Channel analyst who has been a critic of the forces behind LIV.  ‘It is bad for the people who continue to be oppressed by the man who funds LIV Golf. And as I have said many times, like the pollution that hangs over our biggest cities, its darkness is better seen from a distance and its stench is too easily dismissed as the smell of commerce.’

“Did someone say commerce?  LIV will play three of its 14 events this year at Trump courses, lining the former president’s pockets….

“Even with all the blowback, LIV is trying to tightly control its message.  Don’t buy it. No matter what LIV or its players say, the focus just won’t be on whether Phil Mickelson’s HyFlyers can beat Sergio Garcia’s Fireballs in LIV’s weekly (weakly?) team competition.  According to their own website, ‘The HyFlyers are here to transform golf, transcend their opponents, and transport the sport into a new era.’

“Please. The three shotgun rounds over Memorial Day weekend may draw some galleries to this course, which actually is beautiful. The drinks will be cold. The views will be gorgeous.  The golf will be meaningless.

“That’s not because of the players, because through two majors this year, LIV golfers have a win, two ties for second and two ties for fourth.  Some of them can still play.

“It’s because the money behind the entire operation comes from an oppressive regime that has terrorized its own people. LIV isn’t transporting golf into a new era, regardless of how many times its players stand before microphones and argue that point. Rather, it’s tarnishing the legacies of those players who cash those massive, dirty checks.”

Premier League

--As is an exciting tradition, all 20 teams of the PL play their final and 38th game at the same time, Sunday, and it was all about the relegation battle.

After 37 games…

17. Everton 33 points
18. Leicester City 31
19. Leeds 31
20. Southampton 24

Everton took on Bournemouth, Leeds hosted Tottenham, and Leicester was home to West Ham. As I noted last week it sucks that two of these three won’t be coming back next season.

At the half, Leicester was up 1-0 in its game, while Everton-Bournemouth was 0-0, and Leeds trailed Tottenham 1-0.

Then in the second half, Everton scored, 1-0.  They need to win if Leicester prevails, because with a draw, Everton would lose out to Leicester on goal differential.

And in the end, Everton is safe, 1-0 winners while Leicester won 2-1, but all for naught.  Leeds was blitzed by Tottenham, 4-1, Harry Kane with two goals (giving him an under that radar 30 on the season, thanks to the exploits of City’s Erling Haaland, who had a record 36), but a hugely disappointing season for my Spurs, who finish eighth.

Supporters of Leicester and Leeds are shattered.

Everton, promoted in 1954, has never been relegated since, that’s why this was such a huge deal.

And think of Leicester, the greatest Cinderella story in the history of team sports, 2015-16 Premier League titleholders, after preseason odds of 2,000-1 for it to do so.

Meanwhile, PL title holder Man City, Arsenal, Newcastle and Man U make the Champions League, while Brighton and Liverpool are in the second tier Europa League, for Brighton their first time qualifying for European play.

Chelsea, twelfth, is in the bottom half of the PL for the first time since 1995-96.

--With Southampton, Leeds and Leicester being relegated, Burnley and Sheffield Union, in finishing one-two in the Championship League, were ready a few weeks ago to move up.

But you had a playoff between the teams finishing 3 thru 6 in the Championship League for the final spot, and on Saturday, Coventry City played Luton Town. Both teams were looking to return to the top flight for the first time in over two decades.  Yes, the stakes were high.

And in dramatic fashion, Luton defeated Coventry 6-5 on penalties in Saturday’s playoff final at Wembley Stadium, earning a return to the Premier League for the first time in 31 years!

As The Athletic reported, reaching the top flight via the Championship playoff final in 2022-23 will earn the winner an increase in revenue of at least $210 million across the next three seasons.  The figure can rise to $360 million if the club avoids relegation after their first season in the Premier League.

Deloitte estimates one season in the PL will bring additional revenues of at least $110 million.

And there are two years of parachute payments (the extra financial support that the Premier League gives to relegated clubs), worth close to $100 million.

Stuff

--USA TODAY’s Steve Berkowitz had a piece on Wake Forest’s buyout of basketball coach Danny Manning after his firing in April 2020.  The school’s new federal tax returns show they paid him nearly $14.7 million.  Holy Toledo.  The document was provided to USA TODAY Sports after they requested it.

The thing is this buyout is among the largest paid to a men’s basketball coach, according to data collected by USA TODAY, which is why it’s news, given the size of little ol’ Wake Forest.  The school also would have had to pay at least $2.6 million more in federal excise tax due to a 21% levy that applies to the pay of non-profit organizations’ most highly compensated employees and, under certain circumstances, also applies to buyout payments, Steve Berkowitz reports.

In six seasons, six very painful seasons, Manning was 78-111 at Wake, 30-80 in ACC play.

Danny owes all Deac alum a six-pack, at least.

--From the BBC: “A crocodile farmer in northern Cambodia has been torn to pieces by about 40 of the reptiles after falling into their enclosure, local police say.

“Luan Nam, aged 72, tried to move one of the egg-laying animals out of its cage when it grabbed his stick in its mouth, pulling him in, police said.

“ ‘Other crocodiles pounced, attacking him until he was dead,’ police chief Mey Savry told the AFP news agency….

“Mr. Nam’s body was covered with bite marks and one of his arms was missing,’ Mr. Savry said.

“The victim was the president of the local crocodile farmers’ association.”

I have to admit, that’s not a job I ever aspired to.

It’s also a reminder that if a crocodile ever grabs your stick, immediately let go.

Tips for dealing with crocs…another free feature of Bar Chat.

--The killer whales are at it again in the waters off Portugal and Spain, severely damaging a sailing boat on Thursday, adding to dozens of orca attacks on vessels recorded so far this year in these waters.

In the early hours of Thursday, a group of orcas broke the rudder and pierced the hull after ramming into the Mustique on its way to Gibraltar, prompting its crew of four to contact Spanish authorities for help.  The maritime rescue service dispatched a rapid-response vessel and a helicopter carrying a bilge pump to assist the 66-foot vessel, which was towed to the port of Barbate, in the province of Cadiz, for repairs.

At least 20 interactions between boats and orcas have occurred this month alone in the Strait of Gibraltar.

Earlier in May, the sailing yacht Alboran Champagne suffered a similar impact from three orcas off Barbate and the ship could not be towed as it was completely flooded and was left adrift to sink.

This is serious stuff, boys and girls.  So much for my planned swim this summer from Gibraltar to Morocco.  [With my official Coors Light football flotation device.]

--Entertainer Ed Ames died. He was 95.  As soon as I saw he had passed, like all of you I immediately thought of his most famous moment, appearing on the “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Caron, April 29, 1965.

Ames parlayed some bit parts in movies to star opposite Fess Parker on “Daniel Boone” as Mingo, the Oxford-educated son of a Cherokee woman and an English nobleman who joins Boone in his expeditions on the Tennessee frontier.

Ames played Mingo for the first four of the show’s six seasons, from 1964 to 1968.

And so it was that one April night in ’65, that Ames set out to teach Johnny Carson how to toss a tomahawk, using a rudimentary drawing of a sheriff on a wooden panel as his target.  He threw the tomahawk across the stage.  When it embedded precisely in the sheriff’s crotch, the audience reacted with loud, sustained laughter.

Ames tried to retrieve the tomahawk, but Carson grabbed his arm. As another roar of laughter subsided, Carson looked at Ames and said, “I didn’t even know you were Jewish.”

He was.

Ames was born Edmund Dantes Urick in Malden, Mass, the youngest of nine surviving children born to David and Sarah Urick, Jewish immigrants from Ukraine.  In their teens, Ed and his three brothers formed a singing group and won amateur contests in the Boston area.

Originally billed as the Urick Brothers, then the Amory Brothers, they became the Ames Brothers when they were signed by Coral Records.  They began having hits after moving to RCA Records in 1953.  The Ames Brothers sold 20 million records, before Ed broke off in 1960 for a solo career and various roles on Broadway and in film, and then his big one in “Daniel Boone.”

--Celine Dion has canceled all her remaining live shows, telling fans she is not strong enough to tour after being diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder.

The singer revealed last year she was suffering from Stiff-Person Syndrome (SPS), which was affecting her singing.

Dion has canceled all the shows she had scheduled for 2023 and 2024.

In a statement on Twitter, Dion told fans: “I’m not giving up…and I can’t wait to see you again!”

Previously, Dion said the disorder was causing muscle spasms and was “not allowing me to use my vocal cords to sing the way I’m used to.”

--Leonard Greene / New York Daily News

“She was simply the best. Tina Turner, the stiletto-wearing gravel-voiced diva who heroically escaped the creative clutches of one of the most notorious domestic abusers to strike out on her own and become an international music superstar, died at her home in Switzerland after a long illness. She was 83….

“Proud Mary personified, Turner’s glorious career had two musical acts.  First she gained fame as the soul-stirring singer to the innovative guitar-playing band leader Ike Turner as part of the wildly popular Ike and Tina Turner Review.

“Later, she became an inspirational icon, rebounding from a hellish life of domestic abuse to build her own brand of musical dominance with such runaway hits as “Simply the Best,” “Private Dancer,” “I Don’t Wanna Fight” and “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”

“In recent years, after decades of dancing on stage in high-heeled shoes, short, glittering dresses and shoulder-length wigs, Turner suffered a mix of health challenges including a stroke, kidney replacement surgery, cancer and years of post-traumatic stress syndrome from her turbulent marriage to mentor and partner Ike Turner.

“The later-in-life struggle was detailed in a farewell tour documentary called ‘Tina,’ in which the once high-stepping hit-maker reflected on a life filled with glorious highs and rock-bottom lows.

“ ‘I had an abusive life,’ Turner told the camera. ‘There’s no other way to tell the story.  It’s a reality.  It’s a truth.  That’s what you’ve got, so you have to accept it.

“ ‘Some people say the life I lived and the performances that I gave, the appreciation, is blasting with the people. And yeah, I should be proud of that, I am. But when do you stop being proud?  I mean, when do you, how do you bow out slowly?  Just go away?’

“In the documentary, Turner reveals the abuse she suffered didn’t start with Turner. Even before she became his punching bag – disturbingly detailed in the limousine fight scene from the ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It’ movie about her life – she was cruelly abandoned by her parents as a child.

“When she finally reconnected with her mother as an adult, the reunion was filled with pain.

“ ‘Mom was not kind,’ Turner said in the documentary.  ‘When I became a star, of course back then she was happy because I bought her a house. I did all kinds of things for her, she was my mother. I was trying to make her comfortable because she didn’t have a husband, she was alone, but she still didn’t like me.’”

Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on Nov. 26, 1939, in Nutbush, Tennessee.  Her parents were poor sharecroppers and when they split up, they left Turner and her sister to be raised by their grandmother.

When her grandmother died, Turner moved to St. Louis, Missouri to be with her mother.  Going to clubs there, she met rock-and-roll pioneer Ike Turner, who asked her to perform with his group, the Kings of Rhythm.

After their recording, “A Fool in Love,” was a hit on the charts, Anna Mae Bullock was rebranded as Tina Turner.  They married in 1962.

The Ike and Tina Turner Review was a must-see act, and they appeared on Ed Sullivan and opened for the Rolling Stones.

No hit for them, though, was bigger than their slow-to-fast interpretation of the Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary,” with Ike singing the baseline and strumming the guitar before Tina and her hair-flipping backup singers, the Ikettes, twirled across the stage like spinning tops.

But then there was the abuse and Tina Turner left the act and the marriage in 1975 with “36 cents and a gas station credit card.”

She insisted, though, on keeping her stage name – Tina Turner.

Turner struggled as a solo artist and then in 1983, at age 44, she scored a hit with a remake of Al Green’s classic, “Let’s Stay Together.”

And then came “Private Dancer” and “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”  She even starred opposite Mel Gibson in the film “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” to which she contributed the No. 2 pop song “We Don’t Need Another Hero.”

In 1991, Ike and Tina Turner were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But Ike was unable to attend the ceremony. He was serving time in prison for drug possession.  In 2007, he died at age 76 of an accidental drug overdose.

In 2018, Tina Turner was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

--Taylor Swift brought her tour to MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands this weekend…shows Friday, Saturday and Sunday and the weather was perfect.

The cheapest seats on Stub Hub were going for $thousands.

Top 3 songs for the week 5/26/73:  #1 “Frankenstein” (The Edgar Winter Group)  #2 “My Love” (Paul McCartney & Wings)  #3 “Daniel” (Elton John)…and…#4 “Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree” (Dawn featuring Tony Orlando)  #5 “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life” (Stevie Wonder)  #6 “Pillow Talk” (Sylvia…uh, uh…)  #7 “Little Willy” (The Sweet)  #8 “Drift Away” (Dobie Gray)  #9 “Wildflower” (Skylark)  #10 “Hocus Pocus” (Focus….B- week…)

Men’s College World Series Quiz Answer…seven schools to win at least four titles….

Southern Cal 12
Texas 6
LSU 6
Arizona State 5
Arizona 4
Miami (FL) 4
Cal State Fullerton 4

The ACC, despite its strength in the sport, year after year, only has two titles…Wake Forest in 1955, Virginia 2015.  The conference is notorious for coming up short in the CWS.

For example, Florida State has made it to Omaha 23 times without a win, Clemson 12, North Carolina 11.

We have a shot at getting at least three schools into the final eight this year…and then what…

Add-on up top by noon, Wed.



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Bar Chat

05/29/2023

Josef Newgarden Wins the Indy 500

Add-on posted early Wed. a.m.

NBA

--It is amazing that the only team in baseball to overcome a 3-0 deficit in baseball history was the 2004 Red Sox against the Yankees, and here we were Monday at TD Garden, Game 7 after the Celtics were down 3-0 to the Heat, facing a Game 4 in Miami, when the series turned around dramatically.

But then the Celtics came out firing blanks from downtown, 0 for their first 12 from beyond the arc, 3-for-17, and they ended up 9-for-42, and that’s really all you needed to know.

Unlike Game 6, where the Celtics survived a 7-for-35 night from 3, the Heat, 14-of-28 themselves from downtown, won easily, 103-84, the Celtic faithful shell-shocked.

Jayson Tatum turned his ankle on the very first possession for Boston and was clearly about 60-70 percent the rest of the way, 14 points, while Jaylen Brown was 8-of-23 from the field, 1-of-9 from 3, and he had 8 turnovers.

For Miami, Jimmy Butler got the MVP award for the series, and he was solid, 28 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, just one turnover, but the MVP could have easily gone to Caleb Martin, who was 11-of-16, 4-of-6 from 3, 26 points, 10 rebounds, 1 turnover in 45 minutes.

Miami at Denver, Game 1, Thursday.

--The Philadelphia 76ers are hiring Nick Nurse as coach, to replace Doc Rivers, who was fired this month after a second-round playoff exit.

Nurse, 55, compiled a 227-163 (.582) record over five seasons with Toronto, including leading the Raptors to the 2019 title.  But he was fired lats month after the team missed the playoffs for the second time in three seasons.

--The Knicks are not extending the contract of GM Scott Perry.

NHL

The Vegas Golden Knights reached the Stanley Cup Final for the second time in their six-year history by defeating the Dallas Stars 6-0 in Game 6 of the Western Conference final in Dallas.

Boy, that must have been a rather dreadful game to waste $hundreds of dollars on for Stars fans, it being 3-0 after the first period.

Vegas will face the Florida Panthers, so we’ll have a first-time Stanley Cup winner.

The ratings for this will be awful.  I for one have zero interest.

Game 1, Saturday, in Las Vegas.

MLB

--Monday night in Seattle, Aaron Judge had what manager Aaron Boone described after as “one of the great individual games that you’ll see.

At the plate, Judge had two home runs (giving him 17), a double and a walk, 3 RBIs.  And then he made a majestic leaping catch at the wall to rob Teoscar Hernandez at the right-field wall in the eighth, the Yanks topping the Mariners 10-4.

Tuesday, the Yanks put up another 10-spot, 10-2, now 34-23, Seattle 28-27, as Judge hit No. 18.

--The Mets (28-27) had a nice 2-0 win over the Phillies (25-29) last night as Kodai Senga was brilliant for seven innings, one hit, no walks, 9 strikeouts…Senga now 5-3, 3.44

--The Braves’ Michael Soroka hadn’t appeared on the mound since 2020, owing to two separate tears to his right Achilles tendon, but Monday night in Oakland he made his return…six innings, 4 earned, and the loss as the Braves fell to the A’s 7-2, which was just the 11th win on the season for Oakland (11-45).

But it was really a win for Soroka, giving all he’s been through.  This is a guy who was runner-up for Rookie of the Year in 2019, 13-4, 2.68 ERA for Atlanta, and then came the pandemic and his injuries, first tearing his Achilles on Aug. 3, 2020, and then tearing it again while rehabbing midway through the 2021 season.

Tuesday, the A’s made it two-in-a-row, 2-1, the Braves falling to 32-23.

--The Cubs’ Marcus Stroman tossed a one-hit shutout Monday, Chicago beating Tampa Bay 1-0.  The only hit was a clean single in the 7th off the bat of Wander Franco.  Stroman is having a super season, 5-4, 2.59.

Chicago then beat the Rays again, Tuesday, 2-1, handing Shane McClanahan his first loss, 8-1, 2.07.

--Monday, the Rangers’ Nate Eovaldi improved to 7-2, 2.42, as Texas defeated the Tigers 5-0.

--Last night in the Dodgers’ 9-3 win over the Nationals, Freddie Freeman had four more hits, extending his hitting streak to 19 games.

--The NCAA had its Selection Show Monday for the Div. I baseball championship and Wake Forest was the No. 1 overall seed, facing George Mason, Northeastern and Maryland this coming weekend.  Each regional is a double-elimination format.  Regional winners advance to the best-of-three super regionals, and those eight winners go to Omaha for the College World Series.

Eight of the 16 regional hosts are from the SEC, four from the ACC (Wake, Clemson, Miami and Virginia).

Overall, the SEC has 10 teams in it, the ACC 8, Big 12 6, Pac-12 5, Sun Belt 4, and Big Ten 3.

J. Mac’s Coastal Carolina is one of the 16 regional hosts.

Tulane made the 64-team field with a 19-40 record, after starting off 1-10, because they beat No. 12 East Carolina in the American Athletic Conference championship game. Their first game is overall 5-seed LSU.

Should Wake Forest win its regional, it will meet the winner of the 16-seed Alabama regional.

I swear to God, I’m nervous already, like I haven’t been with a sports team in a long time.  I’ve said it before, Wake has a history of coming up small in big moments when they should have prevailed.  A recent example of this is last fall and the football game against Clemson, at home, that yours truly went to, and that we just should have won and the entire season then sets up differently.

We came up small in the Tim Duncan Era, not making a Final Four.  We’ve come up small countless times in men’s soccer, often when we were the top-ranked team in the regular season.

The men’s golf team has come up small the last few decades.

Which is why I’m hoping the women’s golf national title the other week provides some positive mojo.

Go Deacs!

Premier League

--Chelsea hired former Tottenham and Paris St-Germain boss Mauricio Pochettino as their new manager.  A good get, always liked the guy.

The Argentine, 51, begins the job July 1 and is one a two-year contract, with an option for a third year.

As I noted last time, Chelsea’s 12th place finish this season was their lowest in more than 25 years.

Chelsea said Pochettino was the only manager who was interviewed for the job. He coached the Spurs from 2014 to 2019, making the Champions League four of the five seasons (and the CL final in 2019) but no titles.

Golf Balls

--They are holding the Men’s NCAA Golf Championship and Frank Biondi of Florida won the individual title.

And this afternoon it’s Florida vs. Georgia Tech for the team title.

In the final eight….

Florida def. Virginia
Florida State def. Illinois
North Carolina def. Arizona State
Georgia Tech def. Pepperdine

Florida then defeated FSU in one semi; Georgia Tech def. North Carolina in the other.

Stuff

--Ryan Blaney won the rain-delayed Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Speedway on Monday, breaking a 59-race winless streak going back to 2021.  Blaney held off William Byron, giving team owner Roger Penske a sweep of the Memorial Day Indy-Charlotte doubleheader for the first time.

Blaney entered the crowd after taking the checkered flag, a la Josef Newgarden at Indy the day before.  Blaney said he texted Newgarden after the Indy win, and Ryan said this was the goal, for Team Penske to win ‘em both.

As for 86-year-old Penske, he is hosting an Indy Car event this weekend in downtown Detroit, his gift to the city he calls home.  Then he heads to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, one of the very few events he’s yet to win, which is rather remarkable to think about.

The Charlotte 600 was a marathon, 5 ½ hours, five wrecks in the final 50 laps, including one which cost me dearly in DraftKings.

Blaney’s win was the eighth of his career.

And Tuesday, NASCAR suspended Chase Elliott for one race after wrecking Denny Hamlin.  Officials ruled that Elliott acted intentionally when he made contact with Hamlin.

After the race, Hamlin had voiced his extreme displeasure with Elliott’s action.

--The French Open is underway and Tuesday, a 23-year-old Brazilian, Thiago Seyboth Wild, ranked No. 172 in the world with a tour-level record of 0-0 this season and 9-15 lifetime, upset 2-seed, and No. 2 in the world, Daniil Medvedev.

--Congrats to Mark R. and Notre Dame for winning the men’s lacrosse championship Monday, 13-9 over Duke, after a pulsating semifinal win over Virginia, 13-12 in OT. 

--I was watching BBC News on Monday and they were showing a live celebration from Luton Town, the locals celebrating their boys’ triumph on Saturday at Wembley Stadium as they earned a promotion to the Premier League.

I told you last time it had been 31 years since the club made the top flight, but less than 9 years ago, they were playing in the fifth tier!  Step by step, they climbed one rung, and then another, and another…and now they’ll be a huge underdog to follow next season (which is only months away, the Premier League with little rest between seasons).

First thing Luton has to do is upgrade their ancient 10,000-seat stadium, which is smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

--Another crocodile attack. An Australian man escaped with his life after being attacked by a saltwater croc while snorkeling at an exclusive Queensland resort.

Marcus McGowan, 51, detailed how he managed to pry the predator’s jaws off his head, suffering lacerations.

He was airlifted to a nearby island hospital, and later flown to Cairns for further treatment.

McGown said he was in the water with a group of people about 17.3 miles off Haggerstone Island near Cape York when he was bitten from behind.

“I thought it was a shark but when I reached up, I realized it was a crocodile.  I was able to lever its jaws open just far enough to get my head out,” he said in a statement.

The croc – apparently a juvenile – came back for another go, he said, but he was able to push it away, suffering a bite to his hand.

Queensland’s environmental department says it is hard to track saltwater crocs, who “often travel tens of kilometers per day.”

Haggerstone Island Resort is available for $4,979 a night, by the way.

There have been a number of croc attacks this year in Australia.  Earlier this month, the remains of a 65-year-old fisherman were found inside a 13-foot crocodile, north of Cairns – the 13th fatal attack in Queensland since record-keeping began in 1985.

Since crocodile hunting was banned in 1974, the state’s crocodile population has rebounded from a low of some 5,000 animals to around 30,000 today.  [BBC News]

--A bear was euthanized in Pennsylvania last week after attacking two children, 5- and 14-years-old, who were playing in their driveway, the Pennsylvania Game Commission said in a release on Monday.  The kids were treated for bites and scratches at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital and later released.

It’s unclear what led to the attack.

Next Bar Chat, Sunday p.m. ….might be later than usual, or earlier.

-----

[Posted Sun. p.m.]

Brief Add-on up top by noon, Wed.

Men’s College World Series Quiz: Name the seven schools to win at least four titles (the first CWS conducted in 1947).  Answer below.

Indy 500

What a race.  Josef Newgarden, the 32-year-old two-time Indy Car Cup champ from Nashville, Tennessee, won a crazy green-white flag one-lap sprint after multiple crashes halted things the final 12 or so laps.

Newgarden beat last year’s champ, Marcus Ericsson, out of the third turn and held Ericsson off from there for his first win, No. 19 for team owner Roger Penske, who also owns the racetrack.

Santino Ferrucci, the 24-year-old out of Connecticut driving for AJ Foyt Racing, finished third…my brother and I wanting to see 88-year-old AJ bag the win.

And a fascinating response from all the top finishers as to whether there should have been a green-white-checker final lap to end it, the tires not necessarily warmed up.

Officials could have ended it after the last crash with 3 laps to go, and I would have been OK with it because the thought of a one-lap sprint in these rocket ships is horrifying!

Indy Car, however, clearly was thinking of the fans, the bulk of them, I guess, and got, amazingly, a clean finish.

Had it not ended this way, we are talking so differently right now.

One more thing…for those who watched…to state the obvious, Kyle Kirkwood is dead, had his crash occurred just 20 years ago, maybe 10.  The safety equipment on these cars is remarkable.

[Max Verstappen notched another win at the Monaco Grand Prix, in auto racing’s biggest day of the year, NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 from Charlotte tonight, your editor with his DraftKings lineup locked and loaded.]

NBA

--After the Miami Heat took a 3-0 lead last Sunday in Game 3, 128-102, there was no doubt the series was over.  With Game 4 in Miami, a sweep seemed a certainty, but Boston whipped the Heat, 116-99, the Celtics shooting 18-of-45 from 3 (40.0%).

On to Game 5, Thursday, up in Boston, and you knew that this series was suddenly something different.  Boston prevailed again, 110-97, this time hitting 16-of-39 from beyond the arc (41.0%), with Jimmy Butler scoring just 14 points for the Heat.  Boston had four players with 20 points.

It was now 3-2, Boston looking to become the first team in NBA history to come from down 3-0 to win a series and it now seemed highly possible they could do so.  Especially if they kept it up from downtown.

On to Saturday night, and if you were out partying, mindlessly wasted and missed the game, and I told you Miami was 14-30 from 3, with just five turnovers, and Boston was 7-35 from beyond the arc, you’d say, ‘The Heat must have routed the Celts…and they are partying in Miami.’

Au contraire, mon frere.  Miami was an atrocious 19-for-63 inside the arc, with stars Butler and Bam Adebayo a combined 9-for-37 from the field.  This was the first game all playoffs the Heat really missed Tyler Herro.

But Boston squandered a 98-88 lead with 3:41 left in the fourth and trailed 103-102 after Butler made three clutch free throws with three seconds left.

Boston called a timeout and took the ball out in front court. Marcus Smart rimmed a good look from 3 and here is where we need to pause…the ball in the air under the Miami basket.

When Butler made his three free throws, the clock showed 2.1 seconds left, but referees put 0.9 seconds back on after reviewing the play that sent Butler to the line.  That .9 seconds proved critical.

Also, you know how every single basketball coach from fourth grade leagues on up has told his or her players to box out?  There’s a freakin’ reason for that!  And Boston’s Derrick White, who streaked to the basket, uncontested, after inbounding the ball to Smart, scored on a putback as time expired, 104-103 Celtics, and we have a Game 7 back in Boston, Monday night.

It was a startling finish.

Jayson Tatum had 31 points and 12 rebounds for the Celtics and Jaylen Brown scored 26, as Boston is just the fourth team in NBA history to erase a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-seven series and force a deciding game.  As you all know, the other three lost Game 7, but all were on the road.

So Boston is attempting to become the first team in NBA history to accomplish the impossible.

Miami’s only shot is if “Playoff Jimmy” goes off for 35+.  That’s the bottom line, and role players like Duncan Robinson have to come up big, Robinson, having missed two wide open 3s down the stretch last night.

NHL

--Dallas is trying to pull off its own Boston miracle, the Stars defeating the Golden Knights in Vegas, 4-2 last night to get their series to 3-2 in the Western Conference finals.  Game 6 Monday in Dallas.

The winner meets the Florida Panthers, who swept the Hurricanes, 4-0, all four games decided by one goal.

Florida’s last eight games in these playoffs have been by one goal, the Panthers winning seven, as since they fell behind Boston 3-1, Florida has won 11 of 12. 

The Panthers are in their first Cup Final in 27 years.

MLB

--The Mets were in Denver this weekend and the series got off to a strong start as Max Scherzer went 7 strong, one run, 8 strikeouts, no walks, in a 5-2 win Friday night; Scherzer with three strong starts since his latest injury issue.

So that’s encouraging.  Saturday, the Metropolitans then trotted out Justin Verlander.  Last weekend, Scherzer and Verlander dominated in a day/night doubleheader sweep, Verlander going 8 innings, one run.

But last night, for the second time in three starts, Verlander yielded six runs in five innings, the Mets falling 10-7 after coming back from a 6-0 deficit to tie it at 6-6 on a dramatic Francisco Alvarez 3-run bomb, the 21-year-old catcher coming into his own much quicker than the fans and management might have thought.

The Mets then blew a 6-2 lead in the fourth today, falling 11-10, despite a game ninth-inning rally, so my Metsies finish the first third of the season at 27-27…and boy that sucks, given the money spent and the talent on the team.

But Alvarez hit another 3-run homer, and he’s part of an exciting future on offense.  The pitching, however, is very, very troubling.

--Aaron Boone was suspended for one game by MLB for his recent conduct toward umpires, which has been atrocious.  He served his suspension Friday night against the Padres at the Stadium.

On Thursday, Boone, who was fined an undisclosed amount as well, got ejected for the fourth time this season and the second time in four days.

Speaking before the suspension was announced Friday, Boone said he knows he’s earning a reputation for arguing with umpires, but he does not think it has changed the way umpires are treating him.  Boone has been acting like a jerk.

In action on the field, the slumping and mysteriously mediocre Padres came to town and the teams split their first two, San Diego winning Friday 5-1, the Yanks’ Saturday, 3-2.

And today New York took the rubber game, 10-7, Aaron Judge with home run No. 15. So the Yanks are 32-23, the Padres 24-29!  Eegads.

Gerrit Cole improved to 6-0, but his ERA climbed again, now 2.93, allowing 5 earned in 6 innings, which is his third poor start in his last five, and will have Yankees fans on the airwaves going once again, ‘Hey, what happens in Oc-to-buh!’

For San Diego, Yu Darvish was drilled…giving up 7 runs in 2 2/3.  As they say in France, “Sacre bleu….”

--Streaking Texas traveled to Baltimore for a big 3-game set, and the Rangers took the first two, 12-2, 5-3, now 7 of 8, to move to 33-18, while the Orioles fell to 33-19.

But adjust the records, Baltimore winning this afternoon, 3-2.

--The Dodgers have been in Tampa Bay this weekend, the two potential World Series opponents splitting their first two.  In Saturday’s L.A. 6-5 win, Clayton Kershaw had a no-decision, 5 innings, 4 runs, Max Muncy with home run No. 16 and Freddie Freeman extending his hitting streak to 16 for the Dodgers.

Tampa Bay won the Peacock game today, meaning it started at 11:00 a.m., which is immensely stupid, 11-10, the Rays now 39-16…L.A. 32-22.

Freeman had two more hits, Muncy homer No. 17, in defeat.

--The San Francisco Giants (27-25) are en fuego, 10 of 12, including taking the first three of a 4-game series, 5-0, 15-1, 3-1, at Milwaukee.  In the last one, Saturday, the Giants’ Logan Webb went seven innings, one run, 11 Ks, as he improved to 4-5, 2.75; this after an 0-4 start.

But…the Giants lost today 7-5 to the Brew Crew, so make that 27-26 for San Fran. 

By the way, two weeks ago I wrote of Christian Yelich’s power surge.  Well, it was a brief one.  He has one RBI in his last eleven games.

--It was nice to see Cincinnati’s Hunter Greene have a great game Friday night, the Reds beating the Cubs 9-0.

Greene, whom the Reds recently made a major commitment to, threw six innings of no-hit ball, 11 Ks, for his first win of the year, though he hasn’t been that awful…a 4.18 ERA.

--Saturday, the Angels lost to the Marlins 8-5, though Shohei Ohtani pitched 6 innings, 2 runs, 10 Ks in a no-decision.

--In College Baseball, No. 1 Wake Forest (Baseball America) beat Pitt and Notre Dame in their pool to advance to the semifinals of the ACC Championship against No. 10 Miami and then fell 7-2.  But if you were following the tournament, you knew that’s only part of the story.

The announcers doing the Notre Dame game Friday night said nothing about the Deacs’ very quick turnaround, from a game ending at 10:30 p.m. to a 1:00 p.m. start the next day due to rain moving in, and playing three straight days (including Thursday’s win over Pitt) proved to be a bit too much.

But it doesn’t matter.  When the NCAA tournament selection committee meets Monday, we will be a 1-seed, and then the nail-biting starts.  More in my Add-on, including the strength of the ACC this season.

Clemson took on Miami in the championship game, the Tigers white hot, 15 straight coming in, 20 of 21.

And the Tigers won it, 11-5, 16 in a row, a guaranteed No. 1 seed in the NCAAs.

--Friday in a Women’s Softball Championship Super Regional, Oklahoma defeated Clemson 9-2 to tie the NCAA record for longest winning streak at 47 and moved a win-away from their seventh consecutive College World Series appearance.

The two then met again Saturday and it was the same result, Kinzie Hansen with a dramatic, tying 3-run home run in the seventh inning, Tiare Jennings led off the ninth with a solo blast and Oklahoma set the record with its 48th straight, 8-7, sending the Sooners to the CWS.

Golf Balls

--Entering the final round of the Charles Schwab Cup Challenge at Colonial Country Club, Fort Worth, Texas, we had….

Adam Schenk -10
Harry Hall -10
Harris English -9
Justin Suh -6
Emiliano Grillo -6…was at -10 late Saturday….

Scottie Scheffler -4…after a disappointing 72 in the third round.

And Grillo wins it in a playoff with Schenk, win No. 2 for the Argentinian, first in nearly eight years.

I love it.  A very likable guy, who I was glad didn’t join LIV along with the other Latin Americans.  And what he did awaiting the playoff with the little boy won him a ton of new fans.  Super stuff.

--Michael Block, after his fairytale adventure at the PGA Championship, the club pro finishing T15 and earning $288,000, when his previous best check was $70,000, earned an exemption for this week’s Charles Schwab Challenge and it didn’t go well.  He shot a first-round 81, and then followed it up with a 74, +15, missing the cut by 14 shots…last place.

I have to admit, I was a little uncomfortable with how Block loved the attention at the PGA.  I mean on one hand, he’s 46 years old and you’d think he’d handle it well, but by the finish last Sunday I kind of thought to myself, ‘be careful, Michael.’ 

Block milked it big time…and this week, as Golf Digest’s Joel Beall put it, Block’s “feel-good tale (took) a different tenor (at Colonial).  On the surface, this is due to overexposure, a persona that is a little too performative, and comments that can generously be described as self-assured. And to varying degrees, this is all true.  But the internet’s Block backlash – and the backlash to the backlash, and the discourse that has followed – was inevitable and predictable, just not for the reason you think….

“(Last week) there were undertones in the responses to media entity after media entity promoting Block’s Cinderella narrative at every turn, directed not necessarily at the man himself but the ecosystem as a whole.  We milked his magic until it ran dry rather than appreciating the weekend for what it was and moving on.

“Block’s willingness to partake in the hagiography of his life hasn’t helped, participating in two walk-and-talks during the PGA broadcast and conducting more than 30 interviews between Sunday at Oak Hill and meeting with the media on Tuesday at Colonial.  Certainly those interactions have spurred Block’s popularity, amplifying his everyman demeanor and self-deprecating humor to millions.  Conversely, there is a bit of – how should we say this? – thirstiness to the fame that has the danger of rubbing some the wrong way, because the moment you tell everyone why you matter is the moment you prove the opposite.

“Provoking that agitation were Block’s comments from a recent podcast.  In answering what the biggest difference between his game and Rory McIlroy’s, Block responded, ‘Oh my God. What I would shoot from where Rory hits it would be stupid. I think I’d be one of the best players in the world.  Hands down. If I had the stupid length, all day.  My iron game, wedge game, around the greens and my putting is world class.’  Never mind that’s the exact type of conviction needed to contend at a PGA Championship as a 46-year-old club pro.  Block’s words were seen as cavalier and brash, sentiments that while celebrated in other sports are considered cardinal sins in golf.

“And, sure, his ‘aw shucks’ showmanship can wear quickly.  [Ed. that’s what wore me out first.]  It’s one thing to mug and shrug at the camera like Jim Halpert from ‘The Office’ after a ridiculous save during a major championship weekend, recognizing this is the week of your life so why not enjoy it…quite another to ham it up on every hole after every shot in the first round of a tour event.

“However, there are two incontrovertible reasons for the Block backlash. The first is that golf does not have a sustained appetite for underdogs.  While other games run off upsets, this one often lives in fear of them.  It pulls for its Goliaths, and whatever stage given to the little guys is meant in small doses.  And to an extent, that is true with Block.  The story is warm, the story is endearing…now move aside so we can watch the big men battle it out.  But the only way the Block Party wouldn’t end was for it to continue what started it in the first place.  Specifically, his play.”

And then he shot an 81.

“Without the performance to back his story up, Block goes from a special story to special treatment.  The line is thin and the standards are harsh, but that is the reality….

“After a week off he will return with a sponsor’s exemption at the RBC Canadian Open. And maybe he’s able to rekindle the fire of Oak Hill once more.  Most likely he will not, which is fine.  Block parties are not supposed to last forever.  That’s what makes them memorable.”

--In the LIV event this week, Donald Trump took over, it being held at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, VA.

Barry Svrluga / Washington Post

“LIV Golf is in town, playing its latest event at Trump National Golf Club Washington D.C., which is not, in fact, in Washington D.C.  It all feels farcical….

“Even before the 54-hole tournament along the Potomac River in Loudoun County gets underway Friday, it has a Trumpian feel to it: If you say something enough, you can will it into reality and get people to believe that fiction is fact.

“Like former U.S. Open champ Bryson DeChambeau, on the good LIV does.

“ ‘Over the course of time, like many have said, you’ll see what good and what positive impact we’re having,’ said DeChambeau, who finished tied for fourth, six shots back of (Brooks) Koepka at the PGA Championship.  ‘And what we continue to keep doing every single tournament and growing and helping out the communities and inspiring junior golfers, helping people that are struggling, you’re just going to see more and more of that.’

“Like former president Donald Trump, on his course here.

“ ‘I think it’s one of the best properties anywhere in the world for golf,’ he said.

“Forget the former president for a moment.  It’s such a sham and a shame that a handful of the world’s best players take these faux stances and deliver them with straight faces at vapid tournaments.  They left the PGA Tour for LIV not because of some desire to grow the game or impact communities. They left for the money.  So just say it.

“ ‘I don’t care what anyone says. It’s about the damn money,’ LIV’s Harold Varner III* told the Washington Post’s Kent Babb earlier this year.  At least he’s honest.

*Varner won today.  Phil Mickelson was 44th out of 47 who finished.

“Trump’s professional playing partner for the first nine holes at Thursday’s exhibition round was Patrick Reed, who committed to a Tuesday evening kids’ clinic at Langston Golf Course, a public track in the District – then bailed.  Koepka deservedly celebrated his major victory with three rip-roaring nights at Florida Panthers and Miami Heat games and then Thursday canceled a scheduled meeting with reporters, a development LIV officially chalked up to ‘flight issues.’

“They are beholden to no one other than their Saudi overlords, and they have a keen understanding of that.  LIV may not have a future in the public sporting consciousness. But it might still have a future luring players from the PGA Tour into obscurity, except when they play majors.  How is that?

“ ‘Unlimited money,’ Trump said.  ‘I think the tour made a major mistake by playing games. They have unlimited money, and they love it, and it’s been great publicity for Saudi Arabia.’

“Trump is right about the first part: unlimited money. The murderous regime of the Saudi Arabian government funds LIV with a bottomless pit of lightly laundered cash through its financial arm, the Public Investment Fund.  It’s amusing that LIV stopped releasing its miniscule television ratings on the CW because the ratings don’t matter to the circuit’s bottom line. This isn’t designed to be profitable.  It’s designed to sportswash the Saudis’ heinous record on human rights….

“ ‘To raise the question whether LIV has been good for the PGA Tour is to miss the very human and most important point of the whole issue of sportswashing,’ tweeted Brandel Chamblee, the former pro and longtime Golf Channel analyst who has been a critic of the forces behind LIV.  ‘It is bad for the people who continue to be oppressed by the man who funds LIV Golf. And as I have said many times, like the pollution that hangs over our biggest cities, its darkness is better seen from a distance and its stench is too easily dismissed as the smell of commerce.’

“Did someone say commerce?  LIV will play three of its 14 events this year at Trump courses, lining the former president’s pockets….

“Even with all the blowback, LIV is trying to tightly control its message.  Don’t buy it. No matter what LIV or its players say, the focus just won’t be on whether Phil Mickelson’s HyFlyers can beat Sergio Garcia’s Fireballs in LIV’s weekly (weakly?) team competition.  According to their own website, ‘The HyFlyers are here to transform golf, transcend their opponents, and transport the sport into a new era.’

“Please. The three shotgun rounds over Memorial Day weekend may draw some galleries to this course, which actually is beautiful. The drinks will be cold. The views will be gorgeous.  The golf will be meaningless.

“That’s not because of the players, because through two majors this year, LIV golfers have a win, two ties for second and two ties for fourth.  Some of them can still play.

“It’s because the money behind the entire operation comes from an oppressive regime that has terrorized its own people. LIV isn’t transporting golf into a new era, regardless of how many times its players stand before microphones and argue that point. Rather, it’s tarnishing the legacies of those players who cash those massive, dirty checks.”

Premier League

--As is an exciting tradition, all 20 teams of the PL play their final and 38th game at the same time, Sunday, and it was all about the relegation battle.

After 37 games…

17. Everton 33 points
18. Leicester City 31
19. Leeds 31
20. Southampton 24

Everton took on Bournemouth, Leeds hosted Tottenham, and Leicester was home to West Ham. As I noted last week it sucks that two of these three won’t be coming back next season.

At the half, Leicester was up 1-0 in its game, while Everton-Bournemouth was 0-0, and Leeds trailed Tottenham 1-0.

Then in the second half, Everton scored, 1-0.  They need to win if Leicester prevails, because with a draw, Everton would lose out to Leicester on goal differential.

And in the end, Everton is safe, 1-0 winners while Leicester won 2-1, but all for naught.  Leeds was blitzed by Tottenham, 4-1, Harry Kane with two goals (giving him an under that radar 30 on the season, thanks to the exploits of City’s Erling Haaland, who had a record 36), but a hugely disappointing season for my Spurs, who finish eighth.

Supporters of Leicester and Leeds are shattered.

Everton, promoted in 1954, has never been relegated since, that’s why this was such a huge deal.

And think of Leicester, the greatest Cinderella story in the history of team sports, 2015-16 Premier League titleholders, after preseason odds of 2,000-1 for it to do so.

Meanwhile, PL title holder Man City, Arsenal, Newcastle and Man U make the Champions League, while Brighton and Liverpool are in the second tier Europa League, for Brighton their first time qualifying for European play.

Chelsea, twelfth, is in the bottom half of the PL for the first time since 1995-96.

--With Southampton, Leeds and Leicester being relegated, Burnley and Sheffield Union, in finishing one-two in the Championship League, were ready a few weeks ago to move up.

But you had a playoff between the teams finishing 3 thru 6 in the Championship League for the final spot, and on Saturday, Coventry City played Luton Town. Both teams were looking to return to the top flight for the first time in over two decades.  Yes, the stakes were high.

And in dramatic fashion, Luton defeated Coventry 6-5 on penalties in Saturday’s playoff final at Wembley Stadium, earning a return to the Premier League for the first time in 31 years!

As The Athletic reported, reaching the top flight via the Championship playoff final in 2022-23 will earn the winner an increase in revenue of at least $210 million across the next three seasons.  The figure can rise to $360 million if the club avoids relegation after their first season in the Premier League.

Deloitte estimates one season in the PL will bring additional revenues of at least $110 million.

And there are two years of parachute payments (the extra financial support that the Premier League gives to relegated clubs), worth close to $100 million.

Stuff

--USA TODAY’s Steve Berkowitz had a piece on Wake Forest’s buyout of basketball coach Danny Manning after his firing in April 2020.  The school’s new federal tax returns show they paid him nearly $14.7 million.  Holy Toledo.  The document was provided to USA TODAY Sports after they requested it.

The thing is this buyout is among the largest paid to a men’s basketball coach, according to data collected by USA TODAY, which is why it’s news, given the size of little ol’ Wake Forest.  The school also would have had to pay at least $2.6 million more in federal excise tax due to a 21% levy that applies to the pay of non-profit organizations’ most highly compensated employees and, under certain circumstances, also applies to buyout payments, Steve Berkowitz reports.

In six seasons, six very painful seasons, Manning was 78-111 at Wake, 30-80 in ACC play.

Danny owes all Deac alum a six-pack, at least.

--From the BBC: “A crocodile farmer in northern Cambodia has been torn to pieces by about 40 of the reptiles after falling into their enclosure, local police say.

“Luan Nam, aged 72, tried to move one of the egg-laying animals out of its cage when it grabbed his stick in its mouth, pulling him in, police said.

“ ‘Other crocodiles pounced, attacking him until he was dead,’ police chief Mey Savry told the AFP news agency….

“Mr. Nam’s body was covered with bite marks and one of his arms was missing,’ Mr. Savry said.

“The victim was the president of the local crocodile farmers’ association.”

I have to admit, that’s not a job I ever aspired to.

It’s also a reminder that if a crocodile ever grabs your stick, immediately let go.

Tips for dealing with crocs…another free feature of Bar Chat.

--The killer whales are at it again in the waters off Portugal and Spain, severely damaging a sailing boat on Thursday, adding to dozens of orca attacks on vessels recorded so far this year in these waters.

In the early hours of Thursday, a group of orcas broke the rudder and pierced the hull after ramming into the Mustique on its way to Gibraltar, prompting its crew of four to contact Spanish authorities for help.  The maritime rescue service dispatched a rapid-response vessel and a helicopter carrying a bilge pump to assist the 66-foot vessel, which was towed to the port of Barbate, in the province of Cadiz, for repairs.

At least 20 interactions between boats and orcas have occurred this month alone in the Strait of Gibraltar.

Earlier in May, the sailing yacht Alboran Champagne suffered a similar impact from three orcas off Barbate and the ship could not be towed as it was completely flooded and was left adrift to sink.

This is serious stuff, boys and girls.  So much for my planned swim this summer from Gibraltar to Morocco.  [With my official Coors Light football flotation device.]

--Entertainer Ed Ames died. He was 95.  As soon as I saw he had passed, like all of you I immediately thought of his most famous moment, appearing on the “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Caron, April 29, 1965.

Ames parlayed some bit parts in movies to star opposite Fess Parker on “Daniel Boone” as Mingo, the Oxford-educated son of a Cherokee woman and an English nobleman who joins Boone in his expeditions on the Tennessee frontier.

Ames played Mingo for the first four of the show’s six seasons, from 1964 to 1968.

And so it was that one April night in ’65, that Ames set out to teach Johnny Carson how to toss a tomahawk, using a rudimentary drawing of a sheriff on a wooden panel as his target.  He threw the tomahawk across the stage.  When it embedded precisely in the sheriff’s crotch, the audience reacted with loud, sustained laughter.

Ames tried to retrieve the tomahawk, but Carson grabbed his arm. As another roar of laughter subsided, Carson looked at Ames and said, “I didn’t even know you were Jewish.”

He was.

Ames was born Edmund Dantes Urick in Malden, Mass, the youngest of nine surviving children born to David and Sarah Urick, Jewish immigrants from Ukraine.  In their teens, Ed and his three brothers formed a singing group and won amateur contests in the Boston area.

Originally billed as the Urick Brothers, then the Amory Brothers, they became the Ames Brothers when they were signed by Coral Records.  They began having hits after moving to RCA Records in 1953.  The Ames Brothers sold 20 million records, before Ed broke off in 1960 for a solo career and various roles on Broadway and in film, and then his big one in “Daniel Boone.”

--Celine Dion has canceled all her remaining live shows, telling fans she is not strong enough to tour after being diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder.

The singer revealed last year she was suffering from Stiff-Person Syndrome (SPS), which was affecting her singing.

Dion has canceled all the shows she had scheduled for 2023 and 2024.

In a statement on Twitter, Dion told fans: “I’m not giving up…and I can’t wait to see you again!”

Previously, Dion said the disorder was causing muscle spasms and was “not allowing me to use my vocal cords to sing the way I’m used to.”

--Leonard Greene / New York Daily News

“She was simply the best. Tina Turner, the stiletto-wearing gravel-voiced diva who heroically escaped the creative clutches of one of the most notorious domestic abusers to strike out on her own and become an international music superstar, died at her home in Switzerland after a long illness. She was 83….

“Proud Mary personified, Turner’s glorious career had two musical acts.  First she gained fame as the soul-stirring singer to the innovative guitar-playing band leader Ike Turner as part of the wildly popular Ike and Tina Turner Review.

“Later, she became an inspirational icon, rebounding from a hellish life of domestic abuse to build her own brand of musical dominance with such runaway hits as “Simply the Best,” “Private Dancer,” “I Don’t Wanna Fight” and “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”

“In recent years, after decades of dancing on stage in high-heeled shoes, short, glittering dresses and shoulder-length wigs, Turner suffered a mix of health challenges including a stroke, kidney replacement surgery, cancer and years of post-traumatic stress syndrome from her turbulent marriage to mentor and partner Ike Turner.

“The later-in-life struggle was detailed in a farewell tour documentary called ‘Tina,’ in which the once high-stepping hit-maker reflected on a life filled with glorious highs and rock-bottom lows.

“ ‘I had an abusive life,’ Turner told the camera. ‘There’s no other way to tell the story.  It’s a reality.  It’s a truth.  That’s what you’ve got, so you have to accept it.

“ ‘Some people say the life I lived and the performances that I gave, the appreciation, is blasting with the people. And yeah, I should be proud of that, I am. But when do you stop being proud?  I mean, when do you, how do you bow out slowly?  Just go away?’

“In the documentary, Turner reveals the abuse she suffered didn’t start with Turner. Even before she became his punching bag – disturbingly detailed in the limousine fight scene from the ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It’ movie about her life – she was cruelly abandoned by her parents as a child.

“When she finally reconnected with her mother as an adult, the reunion was filled with pain.

“ ‘Mom was not kind,’ Turner said in the documentary.  ‘When I became a star, of course back then she was happy because I bought her a house. I did all kinds of things for her, she was my mother. I was trying to make her comfortable because she didn’t have a husband, she was alone, but she still didn’t like me.’”

Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on Nov. 26, 1939, in Nutbush, Tennessee.  Her parents were poor sharecroppers and when they split up, they left Turner and her sister to be raised by their grandmother.

When her grandmother died, Turner moved to St. Louis, Missouri to be with her mother.  Going to clubs there, she met rock-and-roll pioneer Ike Turner, who asked her to perform with his group, the Kings of Rhythm.

After their recording, “A Fool in Love,” was a hit on the charts, Anna Mae Bullock was rebranded as Tina Turner.  They married in 1962.

The Ike and Tina Turner Review was a must-see act, and they appeared on Ed Sullivan and opened for the Rolling Stones.

No hit for them, though, was bigger than their slow-to-fast interpretation of the Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary,” with Ike singing the baseline and strumming the guitar before Tina and her hair-flipping backup singers, the Ikettes, twirled across the stage like spinning tops.

But then there was the abuse and Tina Turner left the act and the marriage in 1975 with “36 cents and a gas station credit card.”

She insisted, though, on keeping her stage name – Tina Turner.

Turner struggled as a solo artist and then in 1983, at age 44, she scored a hit with a remake of Al Green’s classic, “Let’s Stay Together.”

And then came “Private Dancer” and “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”  She even starred opposite Mel Gibson in the film “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” to which she contributed the No. 2 pop song “We Don’t Need Another Hero.”

In 1991, Ike and Tina Turner were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But Ike was unable to attend the ceremony. He was serving time in prison for drug possession.  In 2007, he died at age 76 of an accidental drug overdose.

In 2018, Tina Turner was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

--Taylor Swift brought her tour to MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands this weekend…shows Friday, Saturday and Sunday and the weather was perfect.

The cheapest seats on Stub Hub were going for $thousands.

Top 3 songs for the week 5/26/73:  #1 “Frankenstein” (The Edgar Winter Group)  #2 “My Love” (Paul McCartney & Wings)  #3 “Daniel” (Elton John)…and…#4 “Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree” (Dawn featuring Tony Orlando)  #5 “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life” (Stevie Wonder)  #6 “Pillow Talk” (Sylvia…uh, uh…)  #7 “Little Willy” (The Sweet)  #8 “Drift Away” (Dobie Gray)  #9 “Wildflower” (Skylark)  #10 “Hocus Pocus” (Focus….B- week…)

Men’s College World Series Quiz Answer…seven schools to win at least four titles….

Southern Cal 12
Texas 6
LSU 6
Arizona State 5
Arizona 4
Miami (FL) 4
Cal State Fullerton 4

The ACC, despite its strength in the sport, year after year, only has two titles…Wake Forest in 1955, Virginia 2015.  The conference is notorious for coming up short in the CWS.

For example, Florida State has made it to Omaha 23 times without a win, Clemson 12, North Carolina 11.

We have a shot at getting at least three schools into the final eight this year…and then what…

Add-on up top by noon, Wed.