NHL Quiz: The following are in the Top 25 all-time for assists
(entering 2001-2002 season). I”m giving you the initials.some
are pretty hard.
W.G., R.B., A.O., B.T., P.E., D.S., B.C., G.P.
Answer below.
[2:30 PM, Tuesday]
Ozzie in…Gary still out
Now excuse the language, but this blows. Gary Carter fell just
11 votes short of being elected to Baseball”s Hall of Fame.
[Shortstop Ozzie Smith was the only player to get in this year.]
It”s a crime, I tell ya. Here are Carter”s stats vs. those of the
seven catchers to be admitted to the Hall by the Baseball Writers
of America thus far.
Johnny Bench 2,048 hits, 389 HR 1,376 RBI .267 BA
Yogi Berra 2,150 358 1,430 .285
Roy Campanella 1,161 242 856 .276
Mickey Cochrane 1,652 119 832 .320
Bill Dickey 1,969 202 1,209 .313
Carlton Fisk 2,356 376 1,330 .269
Gabby Hartnett 1,912 236 1,179 .297
Gary Carter 2,092 324 1,225 .262
[There are other catchers selected by the Veterans Committee]
Carter was an 11-time All-Star and was the best catcher of his
era. Hang in there, Gary. You”ll get it next year.
[I”ll have more on the Hall of Fame, Friday.]
Castor Canadensis.The Beaver
Now you have to understand, folks, that just twenty years ago,
we had little in the way of wildlife in the area in which I live,
about 15 miles from New York City. But first the deer
population totally exploded (as many of our drivers discovered),
then the black bear population grew to well over 1,000. with
some finding our backyards, and, lastly, we just had our first
beaver sighting in 150 years. [Though elsewhere in the state we
are loaded with them.]
And it”s kind of funny watching county officials deal with the
four rodents who keep damming up a stream which is now
threatening to wash out a road. Each time workers remove the
beavers” handiwork it pops back up the next day. So the
community impacted, South Plainfield, has asked the state for
permission to move them and now the environmentalists are up
in arms. And goshdarnit, the enviros are right. Man built the
road in the wetlands, tough scat!
But this simple tale pales in comparison to that of Mickey the
Beaver. I was reading a story in the National Post of Ontario by
Kelly Cryderman the other day concerning Mickey, a famous
resident of Red Deer, Alberta, where the locals want to erect a
monument to it.
It seems that back in June 1939, 9-year-old Doris Forbes (no
relation to Malcolm or Steve) found an injured beaver with a
large gash on its back. Well, Doris”s parents allowed her to take
it in and “Mickey” was nursed back to health and lived with the
Forbes family for 9 years, until the animal”s death in 1948. This
wouldn”t be a story except that a columnist by the name of Kerry
Wood immortalized Mickey in print with constant updates and
soon folks from all over, including overseas, were making the
pilgrimage to Red Deer to check out this special animal.
“Mickey was very clean,” Wood once wrote, however, “the
family had to replace a lot of furniture before they convinced
Mickey that the legs of chairs and tables were not to be chewed.”
Mickey also arranged household articles in dam formation across
the floors, “once blocking the outside door so firmly that no one
could get in.” He would swim in the nearby creek but always
come home to rearrange the house. Good thing Mickey didn”t
block the door during a housefire. Bad beaver.baaad beaver.
And while I”m forcing you to indulge me in this playful exercise,
we have a story from our own Canadian wildlife expert, Harry K.
Here is his beaver account:
Back in the early eighties, when I was in the mineral exploration
business (prospecting, as it used to be known) up around Wawa,
Ontario – we had plenty of beaver problems. One particularly
ornery buck-toothed rodent kept damming up the culvert under
the access road, flooding it. Every day we”d rip out the sticks
and logs, and every night the beaver would rebuild it.
[Ed. I just had the thought that beavers may be useful in our
rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan. Except I”d be afraid the tribal
folks would mistake them for goats.]
We had an elderly, consulting engineer who would visit the
property regularly to provide technical advice, but I think his
main incentive for coming so often was to get to play with
dynamite. “I saw a beaver dam on the way in,” he”d say. “We”d
better go and blow it up.” I guess he was flushed with nostalgia
for his days in the military. Or maybe it was just the rush you
get when you handle products containing nitroglycerine
(handling dynamite is just like taking angina medicine – you get
this huge vasodilation effect).
One time he came to inspect our progress and we were mapping
a steep canyon on the property. Our work had been hampered by
a beaver community: there were dams laid out over a mile up the
valley, in step-like terraces, each holding back six or seven feet
of water. A mile up the valley, the water was a good thirty feet
higher than down at the bottom. Needless to say, the Gaffer was
transfixed. He wanted to blow up all the dams in some kind of
orgiastic explosion. We wanted to drain the valley for a few
days so we could map it, but not cause a drastic flood. So we
just blew up the uppermost dam, which flooded the next one
down the line, which overflowed, causing the next one to flood
and so on. The result was that one by one, the dams gently
failed, ultimately draining the valley. The power of beaver dams
to absorb flooding and create wetlands is a great thing. We got
our mapping done and the dams were rebuilt and filling again
within a couple of days.
Sure, beavers are a pain in the neck when they move in near your
cottage and clear cut your property. But they create plenty of
habitat for other critters, too. If they”re bugging you, the best
thing to do is wait ”til winter when the coats are valuable and trap
”em. You can also pickle the tails and eat them (not
recommended except for those who like the taste of neoprene)
and the glands are quite in demand by the perfume and
flavouring industry. [When you see a soft drink can that says
“artificial flavour enhancers,” they”re talking about stuff from
beaver glands.]
Well, thanks, Harry for the, err, tips on beaver glands. But did
you know that even though the beaver is the national animal of
Canada, no “Beaver” has ever played in the NHL? Actually, a
glance through professional baseball and basketball yields the
same result. But professional football does reveal one Beaver.
Yes, in 1962 defensive tackle Jim Beaver played all of one game
for the Philadelphia Eagles. [He played his college ball at
Florida. lots of swamps to mess around in down there. Also,
Aubrey and Scott “Beavers” played in the NFL.]
Incidentally, it is amazing there are any beaver at all, as you”ll
recall it was during the great “Beaver Wars” of the 1640s that the
Iroquois Indians nearly hunted the animal to extinction.
Actually, the Iroquois also swamped their rival tribes back then,
including the “Kickapoo,” which I”m wondering if that was the
origin for the term, “kicked ass.”
Fred Taylor
Taylor, the former basketball coaching great at Ohio State, died
at the age of 77 on Sunday. He guided the Buckeyes for 18
years, but is best known for his 1960-62 squads, which went a
cumulative 78-6 and played in the title game all 3 seasons,
winning in ”60 and losing to Cincinnati each of the next two
years. The stars of those Ohio State squads were Jerry Lucas,
John Havlicek and Larry Siegfried (no relation to Siegfried and
Roy).
But in scanning through some books, I have to note the
following.
Jerry Lucas, one of the fun players to watch for those of us who
grew up with the NBA of his era, led the NCAA in rebounding
two years in a row (”60-”61 and ”61-”62). This is quite
remarkable considering he was a 6”8″ undersized center who
couldn”t jump more than an inch off the ground. But did you
realize this guy also averaged 15.6 rebounds for his 11-year NBA
career? And here he was, banging with the likes of Alcindor
(ahem), Chamberlain, Russell and Nate Thurmond (my personal
favorite), to name just a few, and he fouled out only 20 times in
829 games.
As for Havlicek, his career field goal percentage was only .439.
Sorry, Hondo fans. Actually, I met him at the ”96 Olympics, a
great guy. And Larry Siegfried, who played a number of seasons
with the Celtics and is best remembered for his jumper, hit only
.409% of his shots.
And I also have to note the Final Top Ten AP poll before the
NCAA tournament in 1960. It”s a little different from rankings
you see these days.
1. Cincinnati 25-1
2. California 24-1.Ohio St. defeated them for the title, 75-55.
3. Ohio State 21-3
4. Bradley 24-2
5. West Virginia 24-4.pretty fair player by the name of West.
6. Utah 24-2
7. Indiana 20-4
8. Utah St. 22-4
9. St. Bonaventure 19-3
10. Miami-FL 23-3
NYU was #12 and Holy Cross #16.
Back to Taylor (who also had a big influence on the career of one
Bob Knight, a reserve on the great teams), if he could have done
one thing he would have quit after the 1972 season because of an
ugly incident in a game with Minnesota.
On January 25, 1972, OSU was leading the Gophers 50-44 with
36 seconds left when Buckeyes center Luke Witte was fouled
hard while driving for a layup. For some reason, Minnesota”s
Corky Taylor then punched Witte in the head. Then, when
Taylor extended a hand to the fallen Witte – as if he was
suddenly remorseful – he used the leverage of Witte”s arm to
knee him in the groin. As if that weren”t enough, the Gophers”
Ron Behagen came off the bench to stomp on Witte”s head.
Witte and two other Ohio State players were hospitalized. The
three Minnesota thugs were suspended for the rest of the season,
but Taylor was distraught that Ohio State didn”t push for
something more severe.
“I still kick myself for not quitting then because that”s what I felt
I should do when nobody really even acted as though they
cared,” Taylor would later comment. [Source: Richard Goldstein
/ New York Times. Also, Sports Illustrated.I first ran the Witte
story in this space two years ago.]
Stuff
–We also note the passing of Dave Thomas, founder of
Wendy”s, who seemed like such a neat guy, as well as that of
comedian Avery Schreiber (age 66), best known for his
partnership with Jack Burns in the 60s and 70s and their many
appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Schreiber also became
familiar to viewers for his Doritos commercials.
–Debra Galant of the New York Times had a little piece on a
housing development that was going up in South Jersey, near the
Pine Barrens. [Think “Sopranos”.] But after a third of it was
complete, it was discovered that the project was built on top of a
timber rattlesnake colony (yes, folks, New Jersey has
rattlesnakes). Well, you can imagine the environmentalist types
got all up in arms and halted construction. Then the Pinelands
Commission insisted that the developer build culverts under the
new roads for the snakes to use, but some wise old-timer pointed
out that snakes really don”t have the ability to reason.
Meanwhile, being scared shirtless of snakes, myself, I”m glad I
didn”t plop down money on one of these units.
–Runner”s World magazine is one of the best and in the
February issue I gleaned the following. First, a Canadian study
found that participants who ran for 30 minutes and then took an
academic test scored far higher than those who didn”t exercise
before taking it. And in a separate study, coffee was found to
contain four times the amount of health-boosting antioxidants as
green tea. Actually, the editor drinks copius amounts of both
prior to 4:30…happy hour.
–And also from Runner”s World, columnist Joe Henderson
writes of Canadian Ed Whitlock. Check this guy out. He is the
oldest marathoner to break 3 hours (2:52:50 at age 69) and the
fastest at age 70-plus (last year.3:00:23). Holy cow, I”ve run
two myself and couldn”t break 4:10. And how does Whitlock
train? He runs around and around a one-third-mile loop in a
cemetery, for two hours a day.
Top 3 songs for the week of 1/11/69: #1 “I Heard It Through
The Grapevine” (Marvin Gaye) #2 “I”m Gonna Make You Love
Me” (Diana Ross & The Supremes & The Temptations) #3
“Wichita Lineman” (Glen Campbell.call me a sap – I”ve been
called worse – but I love this song)
NHL Quiz Answer: Among 25 all-time in assists – Wayne
Gretzky (#1.1,963) Ray Bourque (#2.1,169) Adam Oates
(#9.963) Bryan Trottier (#14.901) Phil Esposito (#16.873)
Denis Savard (#17.865) Bobby Clarke (#18.852) Gilbert
Perrault (#22.814).
Hockey Tidbit: There were 32 penalty shots last season, 9 were
successful.
Next Bar Chat, Friday.
