Update: 1/21 PM
The captain just came on and said don”t go out on deck. The wind
is too strong. So I”ll try not to get blown overboard.
And I met Jack Jones this morning. A delightful person and he
now knows I”m his biggest 44-year-old fan.
Since we were able to finally ”post” our original material, some
of you missed out on my great Blackjack winnings last evening,
$170!
—
NCAA Basketball Quiz: 1) Who holds the all-time regular season
record for points in a game vs. a Division I opponent? 2) Who is the
only player from Providence to lead the nation in scoring? 3) Who was
the last player in Division I to average 40 points a game for a season?
4) Who is the career leader in 3-point field goals? [Major conference
player.] Answers below.
You’re going to have to excuse me, folks. It’s not real easy working
on the QE2, what with the very expensive computer room that they
have…$1 per minute! Yikes. This is my 3rd day, as we head to
Honolulu, and the weather has been so-so. More importantly, I’m
still healthy!
Of course it’s easy to drink and eat way too much on a boat like this.
I’ve managed to do both thus far. But to give you a sense of what is
being served for dinner, here are a few choices.
Steamed Striped Bass with Morels and Turnips on a Lettuce Cream
Blackened Sea Scallops on Creole Tomato Ragout, Dirty Rice, Baby
Corn, broccoli Florets
Grilled Beef Tenderloin Steak with Bordelaise and Choron Sauce,
Pont Neuf Potato and Fresh Vegetable Bouquet
Macadamia Nut Crusted Chicken Breast, Crispy Wok Vegetables
and Ginger Coconut Jus
Ravioli with Veal and Herb Filling in Creamy Morel Sauce
Lots of Caviar, if you are into that kind of thing, and the appetizers
are superb.
And then there is the casino, where I have a new goal. Win enough at
Blackjack each evening to pay for the Internet. I broke even my first
go around. I’m out for blood tonight.
By the way, at 44 years of age your editor is probably among the 30
youngest out of the 1,300 or so on board. [It will get more crowded
after Honolulu.] Not that there is anything wrong with this, mind you,
but no one has written me into their will yet. I have another 22 days
to work on this.
Stuff
–Shaquille O’Neal and 7’5” Yao Ming had their first head-to-head
encounter, with Shap outscoring Yao 31-10. There have been other
famous first meetings on the court. Back in 1959, Wilt Chamberlain
and Bill Russell had their first engagement, with Russell’s Celtics
coming out on top. Check out the individual stats, though.
Wilt: 30 points, 28 rebounds.
Russell: 22 points, 35 rebounds. [The rebound totals in those days
were huge.]
Russell’s teams won 86 of the 143 games (60%) played between the
two, while Russell won 11 NBA titles, Wilt just two.
Lew Alcindor (Kareem) faced off against Wilt for the first time in
1969. Kareem had 23 points, 20 rebounds. Wilt 25 and 25.
Then in 1975, Kareem met Bill Walton in their initial engagement and
Abdul-Jabbar went for 50 (along with 15 boards), while holding
Walton to just 7 points and 6 rebounds.
–USA Today had a piece on the decline of the role of the center in
today’s NBA game. In the now 29-team league, only Shaq is
averaging 20 points a game. [Tim Duncan is a power forward.]
Back in 1968-69, the hey-day of the big men, six of the 14 teams had
centers averaging 20. The big names then were Wilt, Russell, Nate
Thurmond, Willis Reed, Walt Bellamy, and a rookie, Wes Unseld,
who was listed at 6’7”, but was really 6’5 ¾”, as he himself put it.
Finally, this season, not one center is their team’s leading scorer.
–Bet the Red Sox are fired up over Theo Epstein, their new 13-year-
old general manager (he’s really 28). The Yankees just abused him in
a big way in preventing the Red Sox from signing pitching ace Bartolo
Colon, as Colon was dealt to the White Sox in a complicated multi-
team trade. Of course the Yankees denied this was the intent.
–Congratulations to the Lady Huskies of Connecticut for breaking
the Division I women’s basketball record with their 55th consecutive
victory, bettering the mark of 54 held by Louisiana Tech.
–Ernie Els was the first in 14 years to capture the first two PGA
tournaments of the season.
–Over the past decade, prize money on the PGA Tour increased
272 percent, the best growth rate in all of sports. The average NBA
salary over the same period of time was up 200 percent, while the
figures for the NFL and Major League Baseball are 65 and 109
percent, respectively. The Tour recognizes this is all about to change,
though.
When it comes to Tiger Woods’s impact on television ratings, with
Tiger in a tournament the ratings jump 46%, 62.5% if he finished in
the top five.
As for the Senior Tour, now called the “Champions Tour,” prize
money actually dropped last year and ratings were abysmal. The
PGA is banking on the arrival of Greg Norman in 2005 to juice
events. Tiger turns 50 in 2026.
[Source: Golf Digest]
–Former golfer Phil Rodgers, a contemporary of Jack Nicklaus, has
an interview in the February 2003 Golf Digest where he discusses the
role of beer in the days when tour purses were miniscule compared to
today’s standards.
“If you had access to Coors beer in my era, you could negotiate
almost anything. Coors was only available in the Western states, and
you had to keep it cold for it to be any good. Airline pilots were
known for packing it across the country with them. I happened to
make friends with a beer distributor, and if I needed a big favor from
somebody, a case of cold Coors usually got the deal done. I just had
to get it there fast.”
–The music industry estimates it lost $5 billion in sales last year due
to both illegal CD piracy and downloading.
–The other day I mentioned that Mt. St. Mary’s basketball coach
Jim Phelan was retiring after 49 years at the helm. Phelan once
marched in Dwight Eisenhower’s inaugural parade and he tells the
story of encountering Ike years later on a Gettysburg golf course.
“As he played through,” says Phelan, “he shook everyone’s hand and
said, ‘I’m Dwight Eisenhower,’ like we didn’t know.”
–Talk about lousy attendance, the Southern Cal men’s basketball
team is playing before just 3,000 fans on average for non-conference
games.
–Mariah Carey’s record label, Island Def Jam, has created a stir in
the music world because it has been manipulating the ratings of
Carey’s single, “Through the Rain.” Basically, Def Jam bought 60-
second radio spots for Mariah’s album, but 53 seconds of this is the
hit single. What then happens is that the Nielsen computer system
that monitors such things picks it up as a play, or “spin,” not a
commercial. It then appears to the radio stations that the song has all
this momentum so they in turn add more spins to their own playlists.
But if you take out the commercials, her song is losing momentum.
Def Jam denies the charges.
Stuff
Top 3 songs for the week of 1/25/64: #1 “There! I’ve Said It Again”
(Bobby Vinton) #2 “Louie Louie” (The Kingsmen) #3 “I Want To
Hold Your Hand” (The Beatles)
Guess who our entertainment is tonight here onboard? Jack Jones!
My man… “Wives and Lovers” and “Lollipops and Roses” were his
two Grammy-winning tunes, the former being perhaps my favorite
non-rock song of all time. But this crowd is surprisingly
unsophisticated. When it was announced to the audience last night
that Jones would be singing, hardly anyone applauded, except there I
was yelling out, “Alright!” Well, that’s one way to attract attention.
We had a comedian, Dwayne Cunningham, last evening. Boy, talk
about misreading an audience, which due to its advanced age is near
death, this guy did it. Not real funny, to say the least. He did have
one good line…when was the last time you met a “white
Washington?” I got it, but no one else did.
NCAA Basketball Quiz Answers: 1) Kevin Bradshaw of U.S.
International scored a record 72 points in a Division I game. [Frank
Selvy of Division I Furman once had 100 points, but it was against a
small school, Newberry, in 1954.] 2) The only player from
Providence to lead the nation in scoring was Jimmy Walker, 30.4
average, 1967. 3) The last Division I player to average 40 a game
was Ole Miss’s Johnny Neumann, 40.1, 1971. Pistol Pete Maravich
had his 40+ run from 1968-70. 4) The career leader in 3-point field
goals is Curtis Staples of Virginia.
Next Bar Chat, Thursday. Thanks for your patience over the next
few weeks.
Time for a beer!
