NFL: AP Offensive Rookie of the Year Quiz: [You probably
have to be at least 40 years of age to have a shot at these.]
1) 1963: Initials P.F., wide receiver. 2) 1966: Initials J.R.,
running back. 3) 1967: Initials M.F., running back. 4) 1968:
Initials E.M., wide receiver. 5) 1974: Initials D.W., running
back. 6) 1986: Initials R.M., running back. Answers below.
Saturday
There are only a few thousand of us who are fans of both Wake
Forest and the New York Jets, most of Wake’s alums being from
the south and not my New York / New Jersey area. This was
without doubt the biggest day in history for us.
First, Wake rode an impossible foul shooting effort, an ACC
record 32 for 32, as the Deacs cruised past North Carolina 95-82.
Just a huge win for the program and they’ve clearly put the
Illinois debacle behind them.
So the stage was set for victory #2, Jets over the Steelers. All I
can say is thank God Wake won, or this kid would still be in a
major state of depression. But I’m one of the few Jets fans, it
seems, that is not pinning too much of the blame on kicker Doug
Brien. As I commented to a friend watching with me as the
game was winding down in regulation, “Crap, Herm Edwards is
pulling a Schottenheimer.” Why the hell they didn’t try and get
closer for that second field goal attempt will mystify us all off-
season.
There’s a good piece in the current Sports Illustrated on the life
of an NFL head coach; non-stop 15-17 hour days. [No sympathy
here, by the way.]
Well if you’re a coach and you’re working all these hours, why
the heck don’t you look at the way Schottenheimer blew it for
San Diego two weeks ago and think “I sure won’t make that
mistake if we have an opportunity at the end of the game.”
What’s all the study for, anyway?! Our schoolchildren don’t
know American history these days, our generals don’t learn
from past mistakes, and NFL head coaches don’t learn squat
either. That’s just my opinion, I know I’m right.
Stuff
–I believe Major League Baseball has taken a significant positive
step in reaching an agreement on a new policy towards steroids.
Each player will be tested once, some more often. First-time
offenders will receive a 10-game suspension, second-time
offenders receive a 30-day ban, and three-time offenders are
suspended for 60 days. A fourth positive result warrants a year
suspension.
There are those who say this doesn’t go far enough, but I agree
with the Daily News’ Mike Lupica. First, quoting Rob Manfred
of MLB.
“The driving force from the commissioner throughout this
process was this one idea; no free passes. Meaning there had to
be punishment for first offenders, and that an entry would be
made right away on the transactions wire that so-and-so has
violated baseball’s joint drug policy.”
Lupica concludes:
“The last is the real penalty phase. No lost games or lost money.
Loss of reputation. Like Giambi’s.
“Nobody wants to be Jason Giambi right now, not even with the
$76 million he has coming to him from the Yankees, or all the
money he has made in baseball already.
“How much of that do you suppose Giambi would pay…no
questions asked, to get his good name back?
“You get caught using steroids from now on, the Players
Association can’t protect you because no one can. Your name
just goes in the paper. The shameful part…is that it took this
long.”
–Michelle Kwan won her 9th U.S. Figure Skating Championship
and 8th in a row. And she’s still just 24! I wish I had
remembered to tape this. Sasha Cohen finished 2nd for a fourth
time. Johnny Weir, no relation to Canada’s Mike Weir I’m
assuming (plus we’re talking ‘U.S.’ championship, not Canadian
…but I’m rambling), took his 2nd Men’s title.
–Another Michelle, Michelle Wie, failed in her attempt to
become the first female to make a cut on the PGA Tour since
1945. 15-year-old Wie missed it by 7 strokes at the Sony
Open in Honolulu and she wasn’t able to beat any big names
among her male counterparts. But she should be allowed to tee it
up in this one as long as she wants to, being from the area and
all.
[The amazing Vijay Singh won the Sony, his 25th PGA Tour
triumph. 51-year-old Craig Stadler tied for 9th.]
–Golfer Curtis Strange…random musings from Golf Digest.
“Some pros are harder to play with than others, and the worst
was Seve Ballesteros. To say he was difficult is an
understatement. To a man, every player who went up against
him in the Ryder Cup had a run-in with him. His gamesmanship
was irritating, and he never let up. He’d do outrageous, childish
things like coughing as you got set to swing, and if you objected
he’d act wounded and escalate the situation. When he put
himself into the role of victim, that’s when he’d play his best.
Just knowing he’d use a nasty incident to play well made me so
mad that I’d play worse. There was only one Seve, and a little of
him went a long way. But I’ll tell you this, he could back it up.
If you were 0-5 against a guy, that stuff would hack you off,
too.”
“Proudest moment of my career: winning the NCAA
Championship at Wake Forest. Seriously. We were a great
team. Golf World named us the best college team of all time,
and that’s saying a lot. Jay Haas was there; Bob Byman, who
won at Bay Hill after he turned pro…a lot of great amateur
golfers. We were young, we were cocky and the world was
uncomplicated. Talk to a lot of pros, and they’ll tell you the best
time of their lives was playing college golf.”
–The February Golf Digest has its annual ranking of income
earned, both on-course and off-course.
1. Tiger Woods…$6.4 mm on…$83 mm off
2. Phil Mickelson…$6.3 mm on…$19.5 mm off
3. Arnold Palmer…$0.2 mm on…$23.5 mm off
4. Ernie Els…$8.1 mm on…$12 mm off
5. Vijay Singh…$11.4 mm on…$7.2 mm off
Even Stewart Cink (No. 21), who earned $4.46 mm on-course,
picked up another $900,000 in endorsements; including
tournament-appearance fees, corporate outings, etc.
As for Tiger’s breakdown…
Nike…$25 mm
Appearance fees…$9 mm
Accenture…$8 mm
EA Sports…$7.5 mm
Upper Deck…$7 mm
American Express…$7 mm
General Motors…$7 mm
On-course earnings…$6.4 mm
Disney…$5 mm
TLLC Laser Eye Centers…$3 mm
Warner Books…$2.5 mm
TAG Heuer…$2 mm
Total…$89.4 million
Others…
Auto Racing: Michael Schumacher…$80 million
NASCAR: Dale Earnhardt Jr. …$20.1 mm
Football: Peyton Manning…$42 mm
Oprah Winfrey…$210 mm
Bruce Springsteen…$64 mm
David Copperfield…$57 mm
Howard Stern…$31 mm
Bill Clinton…$6.3 mm
–Incredibly, USC’s Matt Leinart, this year’s Heisman Trophy
winner, has opted to return for his senior year. This is one case
where all of us college football fans are going “Why?” We
always talk of kids staying in school, the Tim Duncan
example, but Leinart appears to be risking far too much,
especially since he’d probably be the first pick in this year’s
draft.
Oh well, he said all the right things; he loves the college
experience and now he wants to accomplish something no one
has ever done before, lead USC to an unprecedented 3rd straight
national title. I’ll be pulling for him. [Reggie Bush will win the
Heisman, though.]
–So you say you want to party? Try Courchevel, France, the new
‘in place’ for wealthy Russians. Some 20,000 gathered in this
alpine resort over the past two weeks to celebrate Orthodox
Christmas and the Russian New Year, some paying up to
$40,000 a week for a luxury chalet, including Vladimir Potanin,
one of Russia’s richest men. Actually, unless you’re into
organized crime and watching your back, this is the last place on
earth you should want to be. So I’m crossing it off my list.
–But speaking of Russia, Moscow has been enjoying its warmest
January in recorded history. Normally, the average temperature
for the month is 16 degrees Fahrenheit, but it’s been closer to 32
the past few weeks, including a record 41 the other day. A few
years back I spent a week there in early November and it never
hit freezing.
I bring this up because I saw a piece in the Moscow Times
discussing the unusual streak and the article compared it to the
weather Hitler faced during the Battle of Moscow on January 3,
1942. Yes, we all should have learned how both Hitler and
Napoleon were defeated by the Russian winter, but did you know
that on 1/3/42 it was, get this, -45 degrees F. air temp!! No
word on the wind chill.
The coldest January in Moscow’s history was 1893 when it
averaged -9 F.
–And now, our irregular feature, “Letters from Sports
Illustrated.”
Today’s comes from Jeremy Brummet of Huntingdon, PA.
“Peter King likes that the NFL has abandoned the idea of playing
the 2009 Super Bowl in a cold-weather city in an outdoor
stadium. I don’t like it. Football is meant to be played outside.
Let’s put the elements into the Super Bowl.”
Wrong. I’ve commented on this topic before. Any football fan
loves sitting in his warm home, watching classic playoff football
in the cold, rain and snow (like Sunday’s New England game).
But you can’t possibly want the ultimate championship decided
in a snowstorm.
Teams play the regular season for the home-field advantage and
the elements have often aided squads like the Steelers, Packers
and Patriots. Certainly warm weather or Dome teams hate
playing in 30 degree, snowy conditions. But once you get to the
Big Game it’s time to even things up.
So, Jeremy, no home version of ‘Bar Chat: The Game’ for you.
But thanks for writing SI so I could use it to make a point.
–And speaking of the Pats / Colts game, do you think Indy will
try extra hard next season to get the home-field advantage? Love
this Steelers – Patriots match-up next Sunday, a football purist’s
delight. As for the other one, McNabb vs. Vick is enticing. And
does it all end in a Pennsy Super Bowl? Why not?
–As noted above, SI’s Charles Leerhsen had a piece on the
workaholics in the NFL coaching profession.
“The all-consuming nature of the job transforms coaches into
empty time capsules, fascinating for what they don’t contain.
(Dick) Vermeil once sent an assistant to investigate the source of
what sounded like explosions around Veterans Stadium; the
messenger returned with the news: Those are fireworks; it is the
Fourth of July. John Madden recalls that when he was coaching
the Raiders, his wife talked to him about buying their son a car.
‘Oh, there’s plenty of time,’ he told her. ‘They don’t let little
boys drive.’ Their child was 16.”
–Most of us college hoops fans have a problem with Dick Vitale
on the air, but you also can see he’s probably a great ‘friend’ in
the truest sense of the word. So Saturday after the Wake – UNC
game I got a call from college buddy Phil W. who was in
attendance. Phil does some work for the ACC and has gotten to
know a lot of the personalities over the year, including Vitale.
So before the game, Phil went up to him and asked if he’d leave
a voicemail for his daughter who had just had four wisdom teeth
pulled and was in pretty bad shape. Vitale couldn’t have been
more agreeable and left an awesome message for Ashley, making
her day. [And Phil, thanks for your help on that other matter.
You da man!]
–Ken S., Nebraska Cornhusker fan, wanted me to mention that
the Lady Cornhuskers defeated #2 Baylor last week, but then as
Ken aptly put it, “the Nebraska women have always helped out
their men.”
[Oops…the #4 Rutgers women stumbled against #5 Ohio State
Sunday.]
–Follow-up on the submarine accident in the South Pacific.
According to a piece by Christopher Drew in the New York
Times:
“The submarine had crashed head-on into an undersea mountain
that was not on the charts. One sailor was killed, and about 60
others were injured. Now, Defense Department officials say they
have found a satellite image taken in 1999 that indicates an
undersea mountain rising to perhaps within 100 feet below the
surface there.
“But the older navigation charts provided to the Navy were never
updated to show the obstruction, they acknowledge, in part
because the agency that creates them has never had the resources
to use the satellite data systematically.”
Tragic.
–I saw the following in the High Plains Journal on the subject of
pecans.
“ ‘Most people don’t realize how long it takes to develop
(them),’ says Bill Reid. Before it was released under the name of
Kanza, this variety was identified by the number 55-11-11. The
‘55’ means that it was bred in 1955….This cultivar was bred in
1955 and not released until 41 years later. After the cross is
made the tree is grown and evaluated for 13 years. ‘It needs to
produce within that 13-year-period to have enough nuts to
evaluate,’ says Reid…. ‘In a man’s career, if he breeds a new
variety when he starts it might be released by the time he
retires.’”
In other words, if you’re the impatient type (like yours truly),
this is probably not the career for you.
–Minnesota’s Randy Moss, interviewed for KARE-TV of
Minneapolis following his $10,000 fine for his end-zone
celebration in the Packers game.
Reporter: “Write the check yet, Randy?”
Moss: “When you’re rich you don’t write checks.”
Reporter: “If you don’t write checks, how do you pay these
guys?”
Moss: “Straight cash, homey.”
Reporter: “Randy, are you upset about the fine?”
Moss: “No, cause it ain’t s—. Ain’t nothing but 10 grand.
What’s 10 grand to me? Ain’t s—. Next time I might shake my
[expletive deleted].”
–The following is from the New York Daily News, David
Epstein and Maki Becker reporters.
“Tryst turns torrid”
“Some early morning hanky-panky nearly proved deadly for a
32-year-old Manhattan woman when a candle ignited a
comforter while she and a neighbor were in bed, witnesses said.
“The victim was having sex with her neighbor, who identified
himself only as Leo, at her first-floor apartment on Broadway on
the upper West Side yesterday.
“ ‘The bed was moving back and forth and then – swoosh – the
comforter’s burning,’ said Leo, who ran from the fire, apparently
leaving her behind.
“He said he then dialed 911 from another neighbor’s place.
“ ‘This is so embarrassing,’ said Leo. ‘We had never done that
before and now she’s in the hospital and my cat’s dead.’
“The victim, whose name is being withheld by the Daily News,
was found unconscious in her bathroom. Leo said he’d brought
his cat over to help with the victim’s mouse problem.
“She was in critical condition…” [Well, we don’t need to take it
any further. That relationship probably won’t last, I think you’d
agree.]
–But here’s one from the Daily News, written by Deborah Baer.
Ms. Baer addresses “The Angelina factor.”
“With rumors swirling that Angelina Jolie’s ‘friendship’ with
Brad Pitt wreaked havoc in his now-defunct marriage to Jennifer
Aniston, women all over the city are examining their own
partner’s platonic pals.”
So Baer cites a few examples. This one is too funny.
“Make sure, for example, that his close friend is not an ex. ‘The
friend should be able to be incorporated into a solid relationship
without a problem,’ says (psychologist) Dr. Zager, ‘assuming
that the friendship is purely and simply just a friendship. Not
‘was’ a romance, ‘might have been’ a romance, or ‘can be’ a
romance.’
“That’s the problem Brynn, a 23-year-old editorial assistant in
Manhattan, is facing. She’s been dating a ‘wonderful, sweet,
thoughtful’ guy for the last four months. There’s only one
problem – he not only keeps in touch with a woman he slept with
for two months back in 2002, she constantly invites him over for
home-cooked meals. Recently, [ed. we interrupt this tale to
remind you, the readers, this is really happening…we now
resume the story] she made him a meatloaf, cooked him a pan of
brownies, and they watched a scary movie together.
“ ‘He said there was nothing to worry about, that he called off
their relationship and that he doesn’t have feelings for her,’
Brynn says. ‘But it’s not that long ago, so it makes me
uncomfortable. It’s like that connection doesn’t always go
away.’
“Instead of breaking up with him over it, Brynn told her
boyfriend that he could still hang out with her, but he wasn’t
allowed to go over to her house anymore. He agreed, but already
once has said he ‘forgot about the rule,’ Brynn says, and went to
her house to eat bagels.
“Obviously, his behavior has created trust issues. ‘Time will tell
if this will be a deal-breaker,’ says Brynn.”
And so we hereby award our first honorary “Idiot of the Week”
award to Brynn. We do wish her well, however, with the rest of
her life.
–Jimmy Griffin, one of the founders of the soft rock group
Bread, passed away at the age of 61. Griffin won an Oscar in
1970 for co-writing the song “For All We Know” from the film
“Lovers and Other Strangers.”
Top 3 songs for the week of 1/17/76: #1 “I Write The Songs”
(Barry Manilow) #2 “Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know
Where You’re Going To) (Diana Ross) #3 “Convoy” (C.W.
McCall)……but there were some really great tunes in the top ten
this week….like #4 “Love Rollercoaster” (Ohio Players… ‘say
what?’) #6 “I Love Music (Part I) (O’Jays) #10 “Walk Away
From Love” (David Ruffin…one of my top 20 all time). Oh,
what the hell, the #9 song wasn’t all bad either…Paul Anka’s
“Times Of Your Life”. Hey, I’m getting old.
NFL Quiz Answers: AP Offensive Rookie of the Year…
1) 1963: Paul Flatley, WR, Vikings…51 receptions (306 for
career). 2) 1966: Johnny Roland, RB, St. Louis…695 yards
(3,750 for career). 3) 1967: Mel Farr, RB, Detroit…860 yards
(3,072 for career). 4) 1968: Earl McCullouch, WR, Detroit… 40
receptions (124 for career…this guy was a speed merchant…but
kind of a bust). 5) 1974: Don Woods, RB, San Diego…1,162
yards, 5.1 avg. (3,087 for career…for the life of me I don’t
remember him). 6) 1986: Reuben Mayes, RB, New Orleans…
1,353 yards, 4.7 avg. (3,484 for his career). Kind of interesting
where all the running backs ended up, yardage wise. Johnny
Mac and I were talking the other day about the revolution in
sports medicine. I’m assuming most of these guys simply wore
down and probably had one debilitating injury, a la the Redskins’
Larry Brown, but how much more would they have done today
with proper care?
**Curtis Strange: “Nothing tastes better than the first beer after a
long day of shopping with Sarah. Or maybe the second beer,
because I drink the first one so fast it doesn’t touch the sides of
my throat.”
Next Bar Chat, Thursday…Inauguration tidbits and some
football oldies.
