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—
AP Male Athlete of the Year Quiz: Lance Armstrong just won it
for a third consecutive year. Since the award was introduced in
1948, name the other four who won it at least two consecutive
times. Answer below.
Catching Up…random items from the past few days.
–Artie Shaw, the last of the big band leaders, died at the age of
94, outlasting Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Count Basie, Duke
Ellington and Benny Goodman by decades.
Shaw was born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky on May 23, 1910, on
the Lower East Side of New York City, the only child of Jewish
dressmakers. His first love was writing and at 18 he won an
essay contest that took him to Los Angeles. But by 1936 he had
formed his first band back in New York, creating a sensation
with his own piece “Interlude in B Flat.”
Shaw would become a matinee idol and his version of Cole
Porter’s “Begin the Beguine” in 1938 solidified his reputation
among the jitterbug set as both he and rival Goodman ruled the
stage.
But Shaw had trouble dealing with fame and celebrity. It’s hard
for us younger folks to imagine but the big band leaders were
mobbed by the “bobby-soxers” of that era and they would tear at
Artie’s clothes. Shaw, in turn, called them morons.
And so it was that in 1954, at the age of just 43, he announced
his retirement, never to perform again except for occasional
appearances as a conductor with the Artie Shaw Orchestra in
1983, an outfit formed to play his old arrangements.
Artie Shaw was also well known in his era for his many
marriages, 8 of ‘em, including to Ava Gardner and Lana Turner.
[He had good tastes.]
Back in 2000, The British Medical Journal wrote Shaw to find
out his secret to successful aging. Artie replied:
“I believe it can be summed up this way. Try to leave things a
little better than you found them. Notice the words ‘little better’
– anyone who tries to make a really major difference stands a
chance of becoming a Hitler, a Stalin, a Milosevic. As William
Blake put it some 200 years ago, if you wish to do good, be sure
to do so only in minute particulars.” [Bloomberg News]
–Sports beat:
Wow, there was a stretch on New Year’s Day of about five hours
where the action couldn’t have been better…the end of the LSU
– Iowa game, with Iowa winning 30-25 on a last second 56-yard
touchdown pass, the Kansas – Georgia Tech OT basketball
game, and the Texas – Michigan Rose Bowl thriller. Awesome
performances all around in that last effort.
But earlier we had 10-1 Cal getting humiliated 45-31 by Texas
Tech as the Golden Bears, bitching for weeks about not getting a
BCS bid over Texas, gave up 597 yards. During the year, Texas
beat Texas Tech 51-21 so Cal can shut up for a while. [As can
your editor, who first week into the season said Cal was a BCS
sleeper.]
Now that the college football season is about to reach its climax
with the USC – Oklahoma contest, it’s time to refocus attention
on college basketball once again after a dry two weeks of action
over the holidays.
One game of note that occurred recently, however (on top of the
Ga. Tech – Kansas contest), was the incredibly embarrassing loss
North Carolina State suffered at the hands of pitiful St. John’s in
the Holiday Festival tournament in New York. Us ACC fans
should demand that the Wolfpack be expelled from the
conference after their hideous display in going down 63-45.
I’m assuming many of you missed this, but picture North
Carolina State shooting 13-for-65 from the field, an even 20%.
At one point in the second half they were 3-for-33! State ended
up 2-for-24 from behind the 3-point arc. I mean think about it.
If they had hit just 9 more field goals the game is at worst tied
…and they still would have shot only 22-for-65!
[On Sunday, State lost to West Virginia but at least the
Mountaineers at 10-0 are off to their best start since Jerry West
was there, 1959-60. And my Demon Deacons kicked Virginia’s
butt, 89-70.]
Back to college football, as Johnny Mac noted it’s really a shame
Utah and Auburn couldn’t have matched up. Utah gained
nothing by defeating a Pitt team (35-7) that had no reason being
in the BCS final eight to begin with.
**Speaking of Pitt, the #10 Panthers lost in basketball Sunday
night to Bucknell….freakin” Bucknell! And at home! Nice
weekend for the school, eh?
As for the NFL, the Bar Chat guarantee is off…repeat…the Bar
Chat guarantee is off. The Jets will not win the Super Bowl
since they backed into the playoffs on Sunday. Pitiful. Of
course equally pitiful is the Vikings backing in at 8-8.
But kudos to the Steelers who not only finished the regular
season 15-1, but also knocked the Bills out of the playoff race,
defeating them 29-24 behind a bunch of reserves as Buffalo’s
Drew Bledsoe solidified his reputation as a rinky-dink QB.
Finally, after 12 games Peyton Manning had 44 touchdown
passes and we all thought he’d beat Dan Marino’s record by at
least 8. Instead, Manning finishes up the season with 49, just one
better. But can he now win the big one?
–Seriously, does anyone watch those ice shows that NBC has
while football or college basketball is on the other networks?
Does anyone attend them? Is the crowd digitally pasted in?
Well?
–I’m president of our condo association and with two minutes
left in the Jets game I received a call. “What the —-?” I uttered
to myself as I went for the phone. It was one of my neighbors,
Fred, asking about a minor issue. [I realize only sports fans will
appreciate this last bit……..]
–Did you know there are 550-600 grizzlies in and around
Yellowstone Park? Ex-Alaska, there are 1,200 in the continental
U.S. And this after a stink has been raised because of a relatively
high death toll due to accidents and acts of self-defense, or so the
hunters would have you believe.
–We note the passing of an original Met, Rod Kanehl.
–The Washington Post’s David Ignatius came up with a list of
news stories we won’t be reading in the coming year, three
being:
Putin Changes Name to ‘Input’; Bush Lauds ‘Soulful’ Anagram,
Mulls Changing Name to ‘Hubs’ in Support.
Treasury Officials Admit They Wired Social Security Trust Fund
to Nigeria; $2 Trillion Missing After E-Mail Solicitation for
‘Good Faith’ Deposit.
Bible Translation Shocker; Scholars Say New Scrolls Suggest
God Created ‘Adam and Steve.’
–Jeanna Giese, a 15-year-old Wisconsin girl, is the first person
known to survive rabies without a vaccination. Giese was bit by
a bat in September, but did not immediately seek treatment. She
then began showing symptoms of rabies in mid-October.
According to the AP:
“A team of doctors at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin gambled
on an experimental treatment and induced a coma as part of
efforts to stave off the usually fatal infection.”
–A.J. Richard, the driving force behind P.C. Richard & Son, the
electronics store giant, died at the age of 95. While his father
started the business, A.J. stepped forward in 1924, at the age of
15, to insist on selling a new product, electric irons, alongside the
store’s kerosene lamps and plumbing supplies. The $4.95
product, thanks to A.J.’s ingenuous sales pitch, sold quickly.
Jennifer Bayot of the New York Times wrote in his obituary, “In
the early 1930s, when people seemed content to scrub clothes on
washboards, he sent salesmen door to door offering families $5
to try out washing machines. In the 1950s, he let people watch
Friday-night boxing matches on a television displayed in the
store’s window, and some inevitably bought their own 10-inch
black-and-white set, which cost nearly $400.”
Today, P.C. Richard has annual sales of around $1 billion,
making it the largest family-owned consumer electronics and
appliance operator in the country.
–Johnny Mac reminded me that the receiver on Peyton
Manning’s record-tying 48th TD pass was James Mungro. Now
Johnny and Mungro both hail from East Stroudsburg, PA, so J.
Mac’s excitement is understandable. But did you know that
Mungro ended his scholastic career as the leading rusher in state
history, and that he ended up #2 all-time in rushing at Syracuse
behind Joe Morris, yet ahead of greats such as Jim Brown, Ernie
Davis, Floyd Little and Larry Csonka? It’s true, it’s really true.
–All of you guys who were thinking of going after a slimmed
down Anna Nicole Smith can shelve those plans since a federal
appeals court tossed out a 2002 ruling granting Smith the $88.5
million inheritance from her former hubby, oil magnate E. Pierce
Marshall. Smith was 26 when she married Marshall, who was
freakin’ 89, for cryin’ out loud. He died a year later, setting off a
prolonged court battle.
–Taiwan staged the official opening for the world’s tallest
building the other day, “Taipei 101,” named after the number of
floors. The structure is about 200 feet taller than the previous
record-holder, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
It also boasts some of the world’s fastest elevators, as one can go
from the 5th to 89th floor in 39 seconds. Yikes. But I’ve never
understood why Taiwan would build this when it lies in a major
earthquake zone. According to reports, though, “a huge ball
moves about to counter strong winds and seismic vibrations.”
Seeing as I don’t know squat about physics, I’m having trouble
figuring out what this has to do with anything.
–So you know the food shortage they had at the International
Space Station, until a Russian mission to re-supply the two
residents succeeded the other day? I said it had to be the result
of an alien on board, but now there’s word the previous tenants,
American Michael Fincke and Russian Gennady Padalka, were
allowed to break into the food supply reserved for their
replacements and these two dirtballs didn’t report how much of it
they ate. Nice going.
–I always get a kick out of a good real estate story. Eddie
Murphy has a home in a gated community in Englewood, N.J.,
across the Hudson River from Manhattan. It’s now on the
market for $30 million, which would be the highest sales price
for a single-family home in the state.
And what would you get? Seven bedrooms, 13 baths, a theater,
tennis court and indoor pool. Plus…it has a seven-bedroom
carriage house and a professional recording studio. A seven-
bedroom carriage house?! That ain’t no carriage house…….
[Source: Wall Street Journal]
–Here’s another property-related tale. Sallie Hofmeister of the
Los Angeles Times had a piece on the exclusive Yellowstone
Club located in Big Sky, Montana. While I was out at La Quinta
a few weeks ago for the PGA’s Q-School I met a fellow who had
recently been a guest at this place and now I wish I had taken
his card. “Hi, I’m a friend of a friend who has a friend who is a
member here. Mind if I take a look around?”
The founder of the club is timber magnate Timothy Blixseth, a
high school dropout who grew up poor in small-town Oregon.
He made his fortune in timber, went bankrupt, and made it all
over again before he built Porcupine Creek, a 24-acre private
golf course in his backyard in Rancho Mirage.
Blixseth and his business partners then made a deal with the
federal government, “who wanted to prevent development of
164,000 acres the businessmen owned adjacent to Yellowstone
National Park. In exchange, the entrepreneurs received about
100,000 acres in the Bozeman-Big Sky area.” [Hofmeister]
Blixseth’s associates took the timberland, leaving Blixseth and
his wife a stretch of land they were going to use simply for a
family compound but then they expanded their vision and began
priming the property in the late 1990s for the Yellowstone Club.
So what you now have is a millionaires-only resort, occupying
22 square miles of mostly wilderness, with a world-class, Tom
Weiskopf designed golf club (Tom also being a member) and a
totally private ski mountain that rarely sees use.
Initiation is $250,000 and annual dues are a seemingly
reasonable $16,000 (if you have this kind of cash), but you also
have to purchase property ranging from $1 million to $10 million
and you must prove you have $3 million in liquid assets.
But here’s the real key. You have to “check your ego at the
door.” Blixseth comments, “I’ve given some members warnings.
I’ve returned some checks. Our target member is a good, down-
to-earth, humble person who is thankful for his or her success.
No jerks allowed.”
While Blixseth himself doesn’t name names, employees said one
prospect was asked not to return after he chewed out the club’s
concierge over a scheduling issue and another was shown the
door after he treated the help “like slaves” and let his kids run
wild.
Current members include News Corp. President Peter Chernin,
Comcast President Steven Burke and Bill Gates. But sources say
Oracle’s Larry Ellison was rebuffed because Blixseth basically
thought Ellison was a dirtball. Which is why I told this story,
because it has a truly happy ending.
–So how many of you celebrated New Year’s atop 30
Rockefeller Center at the world famous Rainbow Room? 300
shelled out $1,000 per person, the most expensive ticket in the
Big Apple. For this you received a four-course dinner of caviar,
white truffles, baby lamb and Veuve Clicquot bubbly. Then,
after dancing the night away to the sounds of a 21-piece
orchestra, you received a 3:00 AM breakfast before you departed
with a goodie bag. Man, I would have been crying for my bed
by 11:30.
[Actually, I did make it to midnight this year.]
–I never watched “Law & Order,” but being from the New York
area I was more than a bit familiar with the work of actor Jerry
Orbach who passed away the other day at 69. This was the
quintessential New Yorker and he’ll be missed. Before he got
his defining television gig, Orbach made his name on Broadway,
appearing in plays like “The Fantasticks,” “Promises, Promises”
(for which he won a Tony), “42nd Street,” and “Chicago.”
But I had forgotten his role in the opening night of “42nd Street,”
a bizarre one when producer David Merrick came on stage after
the performance to announce some shocking news; director
Gower Champion had died. Orbach ordered that the curtain
come down.
Back to “Law & Order,” New York City’s own cops loved
Orbach’s portrayal of Det. Lenny Briscoe and showered him
with honors.
–So 166 men suffering from, err, premature ejaculation, have
been repeatedly having sex with women for a research project
looking into the efficacy of a new, potential cure for the problem.
Noted Dr. Mark Stein, a urologist in Manhattan, “In the movies,
everyone lasts for about 20 minutes. In real life it’s about 2 ½
minutes. The drug in question takes it from one to three
minutes.” [Derek Rose / New York Daily News]
Huh.
–The other day in a nasty town near where I live in New Jersey,
a black youth drove over the foot of an off-duty police officer,
working security at a fast-food joint, when the officer asked the
gentleman what he was doing loitering in the lot. The officer
then killed the suspect in self-defense. So the New Black
Panther Party protested the police brutality, etc.
But I can’t help but interject a little social commentary here.
Understand the victim was 20 and the reporter for the Star-
Ledger wrote the following:
“At the rally Fillmore was remembered as a funny, likable man
who was working to finish high school and who hoped to play
professional sports.”
Yeah, right. Calling Bill Cosby.
–Monday Night Football’s ratings were at an all-time low for
this past season, it’s 35th, but to be fair the program has still been
in the top 10 for 15 straight years. What will be interesting,
though, is to see whether ABC retains the rights following next
season, the last of its current contract. The network loses $200
million annually on the telecast.
Top 3 songs for the week of 1/6/73: #1 “You’re So Vain” (Carly
Simon) #2 “Clair” (Gilbert O’Sullivan) #3 “Me And Mrs.
Jones” (Billy Paul…….we got a thinnnnggggggg…..goin’ onnn)
AP Male Athlete of the Year Quiz Answer: Others who have
won the award at least two consecutive years – Tiger Woods
(1999-2000); Michael Jordan (1991-93); Joe Montana (1989-90);
Carl Lewis (1983-84).
Next Bar Chat, Thursday…the Battle of the Bulge and the real
story behind “Nuts.”
