**Update: And we congratulate UConn…can the women do it?!**
[Posted before the NCAA men’s basketball title game.]
Masters Quiz: 1) Name the golfers who have won 3 or more
Masters titles. 2) Name the last 3 foreign born golfers to win. 3)
Who finished 2nd to Gary Player in 1978, tied with Hubert Green
and Tom Watson, and has the initials R.F.? [It’s not Raymond
Floyd.] Answers below.
Final Four
Who wudda thunk it before the season started? Georgia Tech as
the ACC representative in the championship game. And to the
Duke fans out there, Coach K didn’t exactly distinguish himself
on the bench Saturday. It was also more than a bit silly to see
UConn’s Okafor crying after being hit with his second foul…but
then he kicked butt in the second half and you’d have to be an
idiot not to take him with the first pick in the upcoming draft.
So here’s your final prediction…UConn 72 Georgia Tech 65.
[Don’t worry, Jeff B. The Bar Chat curse won’t stick this time.]
Next season…it’s Wake Forest or bust.
Baseball
Excerpts from an essay given by former commissioner A.
Bartlett Giamatti to the Massachusetts Historical Society in
1985:
Baseball spans the nineteenth century, its origins and first
examples antebellum, its growth and first golden age
coterminous with Reconstruction and the period through the First
World War. Baseball grew in the surge to fraternalism, to
fraternal societies, sodalities, associations, and aggregations that
followed the fratricide. Baseball showed who had won the war
and where the country was building, which was in the industrial
cities of the North. It was a conservative game, remembering its
origins or even making up origins (as in the myth of Abner
Doubleday and the invention of the game in 1839 in
Cooperstown, a legend created at a banquet at Delmonico’s in
New York City in 1889). In a fashion typically American,
baseball carried a lore at variance with its behavior; it promoted
its self-image as green game while it became a business. That
gap in baseball between first promise and eventual execution is
with us to this day, as it is with us in so many other ways….
Do other American games, also played on green fields, have the
same hold? In part, they do; in part, they cannot because they do
not reach back to our origins the way baseball does. On April
17, 1778, George Ewing, a soldier in the Continental Army at
Valley Forge, records in his diary that he played in a game of
“base.” In 1786, a Princeton student describes a game of “baste
ball” on the campus. How could it be? Because in 1744 John
Newberry published in London ‘A Little Pretty Pocket-Book’
that contained a rhymed description of “base-ball” and a
woodcut showing three boys standing at posts arranged in a
diamond shape. Newberry’s book was reprinted in America up
to 1787. Americans played other ball games, Dutch “stool-ball,”
old cat, old-one cat, towne-ball, round-ball, and, derived from
English rounders, what were called the “New York” and
“Massachusetts” games. “By the early nineteenth century,” says
Harold Seymour in his excellent history of baseball, to which I
am throughout indebted, “these simple, informal ball games were
a common sight on village greens and college campuses,
especially in the more settled areas of New York and New
England, for it was only when communities became established
and enjoyed a certain amount of leisure that ball games could
flourish.”
In 1834, Robin Carver published for children ‘The Book of
Sports’ and called the game “Base, or Goal Ball”; in 1835, ‘The
Boys and Girls Book of Sports’ established that a “feeder” tossed
a ball underhand to a “striker”; if the striker missed three times
with his hoe handle or stick, he was out; if he hit the ball behind
him, he was out, if he hit the ball and it was caught, he was out;
if he was hit by a thrown ball while running the bases, he was
out. The striker ran the bases clockwise. In 1839, the rule
became fixed that one runs counterclockwise. Time does not
matter in baseball.
Thus, people were playing something called base-ball before the
birth of the Republic. Within ten years of Jefferson’s death, the
early outlines of the game and some of its fearful symmetry (3
bases, 3 strikes) were in existence. Within fifty more years, the
modern game in its essentials was set. But back there, before the
Cold War, the new country experimented with the game.
On June 19, 1846, Alexander Cartwright led the Knickerbocker
Base Ball Club of New York to play the New York Nine. We
should regard this as the first modern baseball game. The
Knickerbockers were a social club of young men in various
professions and trades who were as interested in dining well as in
playing well and who had even more elaborate rules for
socializing than for baseball. They did, however, play according
to a set of rules they had established, and thus the New York
game became modern baseball. As Seymour sums up the
Knickerbocker’s contribution, they established: “The four-base
diamond; ninety-foot basepaths; three out, all out; batting in
rotation; throwing out runners or touching them; nine-man teams,
with each player covering a defined position; the location of the
pitcher’s box in relation to the diamond as a whole,” and they
established the absolute authority of the umpire. On June 19,
1846, the Knickerbockers lost 23-1; the contest lasted only four
innings. But the game was permanently shaped. And, given my
view of the congruence between America’s deepest dreams and
baseball, I never cease to marvel that by some splendid
serendipity (or is it Providence?) the lovely, open tract fronting
the Hudson and surrounded by woods, in Hoboken, where the
Knickerbockers played on that June day, and always played, was
called Elysian Field. The Biblical imagery of wilderness and
garden from Genesis, the Canticles, Revelation 12 is caught up in
the image of Elysium. It is meet and right that this place is the
birthplace of our game.
[Ed. Am I the only one who didn’t know ‘meet’ could mean
‘suitable or proper’? Geezuz, I feel like an idiot. Then again,
my math SAT score was 120 points better than my verbal.]
After the Civil War, baseball exploded. Between 1876 and 1902,
there were five, perhaps six, major league circuits – the National
League (including from ’92-’99 the consolidated 12-Club
League), the American Association (1882-1892), Union
Association (1884), Player’s League (1890), and the American
League. There was, therefore, at least one major league club in
Altoona, Baltimore, Boston, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Chicago,
Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Hartford,
Indianapolis, Kansas City, Louisville, Milwaukee, New York,
Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Providence, Richmond, Rochester, St.
Louis, St. Paul, Syracuse, Troy, Washington, Wilmington, and
Worcester. With few exceptions, to the victors of the war
belonged the game.
Baseball became professional, gaudy, rowdy, and exciting.
Skills developed, playing fields appeared everywhere, it swept
the country and invaded the Caribbean and Central America.
Cartwright took the game to Hawaii. The clergy approved, the
president and Congress discovered they were fans, and the
average person could not get enough. Harper’s Magazine, 1886:
“…the fascination of the game has seized upon the American
people, irrespective of age, sex, or other condition.” Sporting
News, 1891: “No game has taken so strong a hold on Americans
as baseball.” Why? What accounts for this love affair between
America and baseball that has matured and changed but never
died?
Mark Twain hints at something when he says of baseball that it
had become “the very symbol, the outward and visible
expression of the drive and push and rush and struggle of the
raging, tearing, booming nineteenth century.” Baseball became
business as Business and wealth and population boomed across
the country, as millions of immigrants poured in, as the tempo of
life quickened and the country flexed its muscles. Baseball,
increasingly played with increasing skill, caught the mood of
America and rode it….
So much does our game tell us, about what we wanted to be,
about what we are. Our character and our culture are reflected in
this grand game. It would be foolish to think that all of our
national experience is reflected in any single institution, even our
loftiest, but it would not be wrong to claim for baseball a
capacity to cherish individuality and inspire cohesion in a way
that is a hallmark of our loftiest institutions. Nor would it be
misguided to think that, however vestigial the remnants of our
best hopes, we can still find, if we wish to, a moment called a
game when those hopes have life, when each of us, those who
are in and those out, has a chance to gather, in a green place
around home.
[Source: “A Great and Glorious Game,” the baseball writings of
A. Bartlett Giamatti]
—
And now……..your EXCLUSIVE picks for the 2004 season. I
was going to jump on the Cubs bandwagon, as best exemplified
by Sports Illustrated, but with news that star pitcher Mark Prior’s
injury may be more serious than initially thought, I can’t pick
them now. No, instead we go with the Houston Astros to win the
World Series, defeating the Kansas City Royals. Betting
windows are open.
As for my New York Mets…ughh. If they don’t get off to a
10-10 start in their first 20 games, it’s going to get ugly, real fast.
[Your editor doesn’t care about the Yankees, incidentally, except
that it’s going to be fun reading the tabloids because the Yanks
are going to be a huge disappointment…85-76 (one game won’t
be made up). And you can take this to the bank… ahem…
cough.]
But when it comes to the steroid issue, I’ve already said my
piece, as much as anyone on the topic, and now I’ll try to only
report on legitimate news or observations (like if Barry Bonds’s
head actually explodes). Speaking of Mr. Human Growth
Hormone, the New York Times reiterated on Sunday that Bonds
is the prime target of the Balco investigation and that prosecutors
are “trying to set a perjury trap.” Let us pray.
Stuff
–Only 40% of 1,266 NCAA members have a profitable athletic
program, according to the Los Angeles Times. Across the
country, especially in California, sports are being slashed,
schedules cut, and scholarships reduced.
–USA Today had a good piece on the quality of college
basketball since the trend of going out early for the NBA draft
took off in 1996. That year, 29 non-seniors left early, and in the
8 years prior to this past season, of the 26 non-seniors selected as
consensus first-team All-Americans, only 6 wore college
uniforms another year. [3 of those 6 were Troy Murphy, Casey
Jacobsen, and Jay Williams, sophomores, who played their junior
season and then took off.] The average number of non-seniors
coming out is now 31, plus 3 high school players.
But no one would deny interest in the game is still sky high,
especially come tournament time. In watching Saturday’s
games, though, I couldn’t help but think, boy, I would hate being
a coach, having to spend so much time on recruiting year round,
only to have your best players leave early…it just never stops.
–Note to Chevrolet and its 30-year-old (or thereabouts)
scholarship program for college football and basketball. Have
you morons ever heard about inflation? I mean for crying out
loud, they’re still handing out $1,000 checks ($2,500 for yearend
major awards) for a school’s general scholarship fund, even
though tuition has risen from something like $5,000 to $30,000
at most schools over the same period. I guarantee the recipients
laugh when handed these. “Bob, put that in petty cash, will ya?”
–Casey Stengel:
“A guy who has orange juice, cereal, bacon and eggs, toast and
coffee, something like that, hasn’t been fooling around all night.
It’s those guys who have double tomato juice and black coffee
who’ve gone out to mail letters at three in the morning.”
“All right, everybody line up alphabetically according to your
height.”
“Don’t’ drink in the hotel bar. That’s where I do my drinking.”
“And in left field, in left field, we have a splendid man, and he
knows how to do it. He’s been around and he swings the bat
there in left field and he knows what to do. He’s got a big family
(six children) and he wants to provide for them, and he’s a fine
outstanding player, the fella in left field. You can be sure he’ll
be ready when the bell rings – and that’s his name, Bell!”
[Trying to remember outfielder Gus Bell’s name prior to opening
day in 1962.]
“He’s a remarkable catcher, that Canzoneri. He’s the only
defensive catcher in baseball that can’t catch.”
[Evaluation on reserve catcher Chris Cannizzaro]
“Well, we’ve got this Johnny Lewis in the outfield. They hit a
ball to him yesterday, and he turned left, then he turned right,
then he went straight back and caught the ball. He made three
good plays in one. And Greg Goosen, he’s only twenty years old
and with a good chance in ten years of being thirty.”
–But the king of misspeaks and malaprops has always been the
Mets’ 42-year broadcaster, Ralph Kiner. The beloved Kiner and
Danny Peary have collaborated on a book “Baseball Forever:
Reflections on 60 Years in the Game” and Sunday’s New York
Times had an example of what’s in it. I’ll pick up the book later,
but for now here are some of Kiner’s finer moments.
“On Father’s Day, we again wish you all happy birthday.”
“The Hall of Fame ceremonies are on the 31st and 32nd of July.”
“If Casey Stengel were alive today, he’d be spinning in his
grave.”
Introducing his new fellow broadcaster Tim McCarver for the
first time. “And here’s my partner, Tim MacArthur.”
After the Mets had acquired catcher Gary Carter, Kiner called
him “Gary Cooper” in his first game.
And there was the time Kiner was breaking for a commercial
with a new sponsor, American Cyanamid….which became
“American Cyanide.”
–So I’m looking through this book “Roadside Baseball” by Chris
Epting and it has the locations of birthplaces, schools, graves,
etc. for the sport’s greats. Not to be maudlin about it, but
knowing where my web traffic is concentrated I thought those of
you in the Rockville, Maryland area might be interested to know
that Walter Johnson is buried in Rockville Union Cemetery, one
mile east of Highway 28 on Baltimore Rd.
Lefty Grove’s resting place is Frostburg Memorial Park, 70
Green St., Frostburg, Maryland.
Or how about Babe Ruth’s apartment? It was 110 Riverside
Drive and West 83rd Street in Manhattan. Ruth and Claire
Hodgson were married at St. Gregory the Great, 144 West 90th
Street. He’s buried at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne.
Billy Martin’s grave is right behind Ruth.
Jackie Robinson is buried in Cypress Hills Cemetery, 833
Jamaica Ave., Brooklyn.
Or how about this one? The marker at U.S. 6 and U.S. 11 in
front of Keystone College, Factoryville, PA, honoring the
hometown of Christy Mathewson.
How many of you knew there never was a no-hitter at Forbes
Field?
Napoleon Lajoie is buried in Daytona Beach, Bellevue Cedar
Hill Memory. [Here I was just down there and missed this.]
Jimmie Foxx is buried in Flagler Memorial Park in Miami.
And Willie Stargell, Oleander Memorial Gardens in Wilmington,
North Carolina.
Tris Speaker was born and buried in Hubbard, Texas. [Fairview
Cemetery]
[Of course I’m writing this knowing some of you just won’t
understand. That’s okay.]
Did you know, Chicago area fans, that Cap Anson and Kenesaw
Mountain Landis are both buried in Oak Woods Cemetery, 1035
E. 67th Street in Chi-town?
There’s a little museum in Baxter Springs, Kansas that comes
highly rated, 10 miles from Mickey Mantle’s hometown of
Commerce, Oklahoma. It was while playing for the Baxter
Springs Whiz Kids in 1948 that Mantle was discovered by
Yankee scout Tom Greenwade. According to baseball lore,
Greenwade was actually there to scout a third baseman, Billy
Johnson, when Mantle proceeded to blast home runs from both
sides of the plate. [Mantle is buried in Hillcrest Memorial Park,
Dallas, TX]
Finally, on May 2, 1939, Lou Gehrig met with manager Joe
McCarthy in the lobby of the Book-Cadillac Hotel, 220
Michigan Ave. (corner of Washington) in Detroit. Gehrig
announced, “I’m taking myself out, Joe.” McCarthy asked why.
“For the good of the team,” said Gehrig. He was hitting just .143
in the season’s first 8 games. “Nobody has to tell me how bad
I’ve been and how much of a drawback I’ve been to the club.”
And thus ended the 2,130 consecutive-games streak. The hotel
closed in 1986, according to the above referenced book, and has
been vacant ever since. But you can go stand there and soak in
the history. [Then again, I’m not sure of the neighborhood….]
–The New York Mets got rid of Roger Cedeno, dumping him on
the Cardinals. Good luck, St. Louis.
–Speaking of St. Louis, I had no idea the St. Louis Blues have
now made the NHL playoffs 25 consecutive seasons, the longest
such streak in major league sports right now. [The Boston
Bruins hold the record at 29, 1968-1996.] The New York
Rangers, on the other hand, have failed 7 straight seasons.
Boooooooooo………Boooooooooooo……
–I was reading an article on superagent Leigh Steinberg in
Business Week and in case you didn’t know this, the agent
normally receives 3% of the athlete’s contract. Not too shabby a
career, if you can nail just 3 or 4 long-term clients.
–Goodness gracious…rabid vampire bats have killed at least 13
in a remote Amazon town. The article I saw said these were also
“thumb-sized.” Kind of makes you not want to stray outside at
night, know what I’m sayin’?
–Annika Sorenstam won her 50th LPGA event.
–Psst…Arnie is going to make the cut at the Masters.
–Poor John Daly. Fulfilling a dream, he is back at Augusta,
having barely snuck into the field, but out of nowhere, on
Monday the trial of his wife Sherrie and her parents on federal
charges of laundering $1.2 million in drug profits begins.
Sherrie could receive up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
[There has never been any indication Daly himself knew of any
of this.] So just imagine what will be going through his mind all
week. Classic Daly, though, I think you’d have to agree.
–Unfortunately, I have never had the opportunity to attend the
Masters, but what a deal it is financially. Only $125-$175 for a
4-day badge, just $1.25-$2.50 for a sandwich, $1.75 for a 14-
ounce beer…more next chat.
–Miss India, Laxmi Pandit, was forced to relinquish her crown
just hours after being selected because it turns out she’s married.
Now she claims that her living with one of India’s top male
models was more a professional arrangement, or something like
that, but she is forever disgraced in a country where beauty
pageants are a huge deal, India having produced 3 Miss World
winners in the past few years.
–Johnny Mac had the following point concerning Paul
Hornung’s troubles. [Hornung suggested Notre Dame needed to
recruit more black football athletes.] Yeah, it was dumb, and
Hornung is no Mensa candidate, but “every time the NCAA tries
to firm up the rules regarding test scores for admission, the usual
suspects cry racism – John Thompson, John Chaney – claiming
tough standards hurt minority kids. Which was kind of the point
Hornung was making. In a way, he was stating a case for
affirmative action.” Well?……….
–You gotta love this one. Justin Timberlake has become a real
hit with African-Americans, that rare crossover…that is until
now. The black community is pissed he didn’t take
responsibility for Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction and
instead let her take all the heat. Queen Latifah told Newsweek,
“He loses a lot of my respect for not taking responsibility for his
actions. I think that was real shady on his part.”
Said one of Jackson’s close friends, “He rolled in both worlds,
living it up. But as soon as something went wrong, we got a
chance to see how white he really was. He left Janet hanging big
time, and she’s still hurt by that.”
Timberlake was supposed to co-host Motown’s upcoming 45th
anniversary show with Lionel Richie, but black activist groups
launched a protest campaign and Timberlake backed out, citing a
scheduling conflict. [Allison Samuels / Newsweek]
–Homer Simpson on job actions.
“If you don’t like your job, you don’t strike. You just go in
every day and do it really half-assed. That’s the American way.”
Top 3 songs for the week of 4/3/71: #1 “Just My Imagination”
(The Temptations) #2 “Me And Bobby McGee” (Janis Joplin)
#3 “For All We Know” (Carpenters)
Masters Quiz Answers: 1) 3 or more titles – Jack Nicklaus, 6;
Arnold Palmer, 4; Tiger Woods, 3; Gary Player, 3; Sam Snead,
3; Nick Faldo, 3. 2) Last 3 foreign born winners – 2003 / Mike
Weir (Canada), 2000 / Vijay Singh (Fiji), 1999 / Jose Maria
Olazabal (Spain). 3) Rod Funseth finished second in 1978.
Next Bar Chat, Thursday…Hank Aaron.
