Baseball Quiz: 1) Who are the only active pitchers with 200 or
more career wins? 2) Name the four pitchers who finished their
careers in the 1980s who are also in the top ten all time in
innings pitched. Answers below.
President George W. Bush, on the anniversary of the start of
military action in Iraq, 3/19/04
[Excerpts]
In recent years, terrorists have struck from Spain to Russia, to
Israel, to East Africa, to Morocco, to the Philippines and to
America. They’ve targeted Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia,
Jordan and Yemen. They’ve attacked Muslims in Indonesia,
Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. No nation or region is
exempt from the terrorist campaign of violence. Each of these
attacks on the innocent is a shock and a tragedy, and a test of our
will. Each attack is designed to demoralize our people and
divide us from one another. And each attack must be answered,
not only with sorrow, but with greater determination, deeper
resolve, and bolder action against the killers. It is the interest of
every country and the duty of every government to fight and
destroy this threat to our people.
There is a dividing line in our world, not between nations and not
between religions or cultures, but a dividing line separating two
visions of justice and the value of life. On a tape claiming
responsibility for the atrocities in Madrid, a man is heard to say,
We choose death while you choose life. We don’t know if this is
the voice of the actual killers, but we do know it expresses the
creed of the enemy. It is a mindset that rejoices in suicide,
incites murder and celebrates every death we mourn. And we
who stand on the other side of the line must be equally clear and
certain of our convictions. We do love life, the life given to us
and to all. We believe in the values that uphold the dignity of
life: tolerance and freedom and the right of conscience. And we
know that this way of life is worth defending. There is no
neutral ground between good and evil, freedom and slavery, and
life and death. The war on terror is not a figure of speech. It is
an inescapable calling of our generation. The terrorists are
offended not merely by our policies, they’re offended by our
existence as free nations. No concession will appease their
hatred. No accommodation will satisfy their endless demands.
Their ultimate ambitions are to control the peoples of the Middle
East and to blackmail the rest of the world with weapons of mass
terror.
There can be no separate peace with the terrorist enemy. Any
sign of weakness or retreat simply validates terrorist violence and
invites more violence for all nations. The only certain way to
protect our people is by united and decisive action….
Not long ago, we intercepted the planning document being sent
to leaders of Al Qaeda by one of their associates, a man named
Zarqawi. Along with the usual threats, he had a complaint. Our
enemy, said Zarqawi, is growing stronger, and his intelligence
data are increasing day by day. This is suffocation. Zarqawi’s
getting the idea. We will never turn over Iraq to terrorists who
intend our own destruction. We will not fail the Iraqi people,
who have placed their trust in us. Whatever it takes, we will
fight and work to assure the success of freedom in Iraq. Many
coalition countries have sacrificed in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Among the fallen soldiers and civilians are sons and daughters of
Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France,
Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the
Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand,
Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, the United Kingdom and the
United States. We honor their courage. We pray for the comfort
of their families. We will uphold the cause they served….
This task is historic and difficult. This task is necessary and
worthy of our efforts. In the 1970s, the advance of democracy in
Lisbon and Madrid inspired democratic change in Latin America.
In the 1980s, the example of Poland ignited a fire of freedom in
all of Eastern Europe. With Afghanistan and Iraq showing the
way, we are confident that freedom will lift the sights and hopes
of millions in the greater Middle East….
The establishment of a free Iraq is our fight. The success of a
free Afghanistan is our fight. The war on terror is our fight. All
of us are called to share the blessings of liberty and to be strong
and steady in freedom’s defense. It will surely be said of our
times that we lived with great challenges. Let it also be said of
our times that we understood our great duties and met them in
full.
—
NCAA Basketball Tournament
OK… let’s grade your editor on the specific comments he made
prior to the start of the tourney.
I said Manhattan would beat Florida…Grade: A+
I said no #13-#16 seeds would win…superb, A+
I said that Seton Hall would beat Arizona, but lose to Duke… A+
I said Murray State would beat Illinois…B-. [Hey, I had no clue
this was a bunch of druggies before I made my pick. I refuse to
accept a lower grade.]
I said you should mortgage your first two homes and bet on
Western Michigan to defeat Vanderbilt…C. [Err, I’m an easy
grader.]
I said St. Joe’s would go down in the second game…C-.
I had Stanford and Gonzaga in the Final Four, with Gonzaga
winning it all, and neither made it to the Sweet 16….C-. [Look,
it’s not my fault that Gonzaga’s Blake Stepp sank only 3 of 18
from the field. The guy blows, but how was I to know this
sitting in New Jersey? I mean, c’mon. How can you hold this
against me?!]…….I also had Wisconsin in the Final Four, but
I”m hoping you skip right over this.
But then you have my Wake Forest Demon Deacons. Who cares
how we got there, we’re in the Sweet 16. As a fan, I told you
before the season started that I am already looking forward to
next year, so we have accomplished as much as I could have
possibly expected this time. Any more out of this team is
simply gravy. And I’ll make this guarantee…cough cough…if
Justin Gray scores 16, and, Eric Williams gets 10 points and 7
rebounds, we beat St. Joe’s on Thursday. If not, we go down.
Three final thoughts. First, fans of the Pac 10 should be
incredibly embarrassed. I’d use stronger language but California
and Washington are among my top five states in site traffic.
Second, all of us here in the New York area are big time
Manhattan fans and it was really too bad they had to play Wake.
The Times’ George Vecsey had it right. Manhattan is now New
York City’s team, not pitiful St. John’s. Somehow, the Jaspers
have to hold onto Coach Bobby Gonzalez, but this will be
virtually impossible….then again, maybe Manhattan and St.
John’s could switch conferences. No one is mentioning this
obvious solution.
Third, I always look at the Sweet 16 as the benchmark for one
conference declaring superiority over the others. Well, it only
seems fitting that in this year of incredible parity, no one can
make that claim.
3 ACC, 3 Big 12, 3 Big East
Stuff
–Sports Illustrated polled 72 PGA Tour professionals and
following are just a few responses to various issues.
Q: Should women be allowed to play on the men’s tour?
No – 35%, Yes – 28%, ‘only if they qualify’ – 37%. I fall in this
last category.
Q: Where will the Dow Jones be on 12/31/04?
13000 – 53%
10000 – 42%
8000 – 5%……………closer to 9000 is the correct answer.
Q: Will David Duval win again?
Yes – 91%
No – 9%
Q: Who is the cockiest player on tour?
This surprised me. Rory Sabbatini, hands down. Tiger is up
there, but the difference, according to his fellow competitors, is
that he backs it up.
Q: What TV commentator would you most like to strangle?
Johnny Miller – 49%
Curtis Strange – 8%
Q: Beer or wine?
Beer – 38%
Wine – 36%…some don’t drink, others said both.
Q: Best-looking tour wife or girlfriend?
Elin Nordegren (Tiger’s) – 29%
Dana (Tom) Byrum – 16%…for crying out loud, Byrum, start
playing better so the rest of us get a better look!
–Great win for Chad Campbell at the Honda Classic, and an
amazing collapse by Stuart Appleby. There was a 10 shot swing
between the two over the final 11 holes.
–Jimmie Johnson won the week”s NASCAR race at Darlington,
his 7th career victory.
–So you’ve all heard the story of how the Ohio sniper, Charles
McCoy, was captured in Las Vegas by an average Joe. But
what has come out in the past few days is that the Vegas police
ignored Conrad Malsom some 16 times as he kept calling in to
report that he had single-handedly tracked McCoy down and had
him under surveillance. And so it is that we need to make Mr.
Malsom an early favorite for the “Bar Chat Good Guy Award” to
be handed out at year end.
Malsom is an unemployed car and time-share salesman. He met
McCoy at the Stardust Casino and offered him a slice of pizza,
after seeing McCoy reading a USA Today that featured his
photo. Malsom had recognized McCoy from other news reports
and was convinced this was the guy, so Conrad located McCoy’s
car in the motel parking lot, which is when he began calling
police. Following are more details from a report by Ken Ritter of
the AP.
“When McCoy left the casino, Malsom found what he
characterized as ‘written babble’ on an 8 ½- by 14-inch sports
betting sheet the man left behind.
“Malsom said he went to a nearby Kinko’s store and faxed a
copy to Ohio authorities and later gave the original to FBI
officials. He also collected a water glass, matchbook and lunch
wrappers that McCoy left behind and supplied the materials to
authorities, Malsom said.”
It’s people like this, around America, that may one day prevent a
serious terrorist attack. God bless Conrad Malsom.
–According to the FTC and Crain’s New York, the worst major
metropolitan area in the country for identity theft is Phoenix-
Mesa. Los Angeles-Long Beach is second.
–Actress Mercedes McCambridge died. She won a Best
Supporting Actress award for “All the King’s Men,” but was
perhaps best known as the demon voice in “The Exorcist.” Quite
a stink was raised when the film was released because her name
was omitted from the credits and McCambridge was crushed.
The Screen Actors Guild went to bat for her and forced her
inclusion.
–Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned what a farce the
marketing game over bottled water is? Specifically, I noted an
article from the London Times that referred to Coca-Cola’s
bottling of Sidcup tap water from a town that’s a suburb of
London. Well on Saturday it was reported that Coke admitted its
new “pure, still” water ‘has more than double the safe level of a
cancer-causing chemical,’ bromate, and 500,000 bottles of the
brand, Dasani, were quickly removed. Analysts are comparing
this incredible gaff to 1985’s Classic Coke disaster. The level of
bromate is more than twice the allowable limit. Sidcup tap
water, on the other hand, is just fine.
–Harrison McCain passed away. In 1957, this Canadian and his
three brothers started producing frozen French fries and McCain
foods went on to become the world’s largest producer of them.
Today, McDonald’s is one of the company’s biggest buyers and
McCain Foods employs some 18,000 in more than 10 countries.
But the headquarters remains in the little hamlet of Florenceville
in western New Brunswick.
–The NCAA is looking into adopting a new set of standards for
Division I basketball and football programs that would institute a
series of punishments unless graduate rates rose to an acceptable
level. Currently, only 40% of players on D-I basketball teams
graduate, despite their being on full scholarships. Among the
proposals would be first, a warning, then perhaps a loss of a
scholarship, and then a ban on postseason play. Those who
oppose this sort of plan say it could lead to more academic fraud,
such as that which was recently uncovered at Georgia. [Liz
Clarke / Washington Post]
–Headline in the Sunday Times.
“Seal’s Head Is Found in Luggage at Airport”
Oh my goodness, I mused. R&B singer Seal was involved in a
mob hit! But it turns out that a biology professor had found a
dead seal on a Massachusetts beach and, wanting to do some
research on it, packed the head in a suitcase for his flight from
Boston to Denver. He was informed you need a permit for these
things, which he didn’t have, but he was allowed to board his
plane, without the head. Handlers at Logan were then startled
when the seal started barking for mullet.
–A 300-lb. lowland gorilla, Jabari, escaped from the Dallas Zoo
the other day, after scaling a 16-foot wall and breaking down a
door. Jabari was tired of his prison and had a real bad attitude,
so he took it out on society and injured 4 people before police
cornered him. With Jabari about to charge the officers, they had
no choice but to kill this lost soul. Word is spreading fast in the
animal kingdom, however, and the name Jabari is on the lips of
all. This could get ugly and I, for one, will avoid animal parks in
the States for a while.
–Angelina Jolie sleeps with ‘close friends.’ A Newsweek
reporter questioned her.
“There are some guys in my office who want to become your
close friend really badly.”
Jolie: “I don’t have a lot of those friends. It may sound very
provocative, but the reality is that, since my focus is to just be a
parent, everything else about being a woman is separated. I can
have fun with it as long as I don’t take it home.”
Huh.
–In light of the above, it’s probably not a good time to bring
up the National Women’s Hall of Fame, but it is Women’s History
Month, after all, and this particular museum is in Seneca Falls,
New York. According to the outfit’s web site, greatwomen.org,
the mission statement is as follows.
“To honor in perpetuity these women, citizens of the United
States of America whose contributions to the arts, athletics,
business, education, government, the humanities, philanthropy
and science, have been the greatest value for the development of
their country.”
Some of the 207 inductees are: Bella Abzug, Madeleine Albright,
Maya Angelou, Lucille Ball, Pearl Buck, Rachel Carson,
Rosalynn Carter, Shirley Chisholm, Donna de Varona, Elizabeth
Dole, Geraldine Ferraro, Betty Friedan, Ella Grasso, Helen
Hayes, Billie Jean King, Wilma Mankiller (rather apropos),
Margaret Mead, Sandra Day O’Connor, Janet Reno, Eleanor
Roosevelt, Sojourner Truth, and Oprah Winfrey.
But no Barbara Bush, Nancy Reagan, Chris Evert, Jenna Jemison
(how did she get in here?), Kay Bailey Hutchinson (always
thought she was hot), Carol Burnett, Ms. Meskin (high school
teacher of mine), Christie Hefner, or, my pet peeve…No Peggy
Fleming!!! This is a travesty. Or what about Nancy Lopez? Or
Jill St. John? [OK, so this last one is borderline.]
Frankly, I’m shocked Elizabeth Dole was allowed in when you
look at some of the others who were. Now discuss amongst
yourselves.
–J. J. Jackson died of a heart attack at age 62. He was one of the
original VJs on MTV when it was launched in 1981. Always
seemed like a good guy.
Top 3 songs for the week of 3/24/73: #1 “Love Train” (O’Jays)
#2 “Killing Me Softly With His Song” (Roberta Flack) #3 “Also
Sprach Zarathustra…2001” (Deodato…absolutely dreadful)
Baseball Quiz Answers: 1) Active pitchers with 200 or more
wins – Roger Clemens, 310; Greg Maddux, 289; Tom Glavine,
251; Randy Johnson, 230; David Wells, 200. 2) Top ten innings
pitched, including the four who ended their careers in the
1980s.
1. Cy Young – 7,375
2. Pud Galvin – 5,941 (retired in 1892)
3. Walter Johnson – 5,924
4. Phil Niekro – 5,404 *
5. Nolan Ryan – 5,386
6. Gaylord Perry – 5,350 *
7. Don Sutton – 5,282 *
8. Warren Spahn – 5,244
9. Steve Carlton – 5,217 *
10. Grover Alexander – 5,190
[Tom Seaver, another who finished up in the 1980s, is 15th with
4,783. Ryan last pitched in 1993.]
–If a tender moment turns into the right moment…will you be
ready?
Next Bar Chat, Thursday…Three Mile Island.
