New York Yankees Quiz (1901-present): 1) Who holds the
single season RBI mark? 2) Who was a 3-time, 20-game winner
in the 1960s? 3) Who was the last to lead the A.L. in home runs?
4) Who was the last to lead the A.L. in ERA? 5) Who was the
last Yankee to lead the league in strikeouts? 6) Who has the
most career triples? 7) Who is the all-time team leader in innings
pitched? Answers below.
Payne Stewart
This week’s U.S. Open at Pinehurst is of course the site of Payne
Stewart’s last triumph in 1999 before his tragic death that
October. And undoubtedly the coverage of the event will be
loaded with reminiscences. But here are a few that will probably
not be included, from a piece by Jim Moriarity in GolfWorld.
Stewart was an interesting fellow, to say the least. He had a
volatile personality (owing in part to ADD, which was diagnosed
late in his career) and opinion was often divided.
“Two weeks before he died, Stewart played in Fuzzy Zoeller’s
Wolf Challenge, a charity event in Indiana. ‘He was out in
Vancouver, and I sent my plane out to pick him up,’ says Zoeller.
‘We always have this big shindig the night before the
tournament. He said don’t stop the action until I get there. I had
the band Duck Soup there, and he wanted to play his harmonica.
He got there at about 12:30 in the morning and jammed with
those guys until about 2:30. Then he went out. I had to have
him at the golf course at 8:00. He was at the White Castle at six.
Got an hour’s sleep and went out and made nine birdies. He was
a good one, Stewie.’”
“ ‘Our lockers were always beside one another so I saw him
doing his little things to other people,’ says Curtis Strange. ‘He
was the kind of guy that you wanted to slap him upside the head
one minute and the next minute you wanted to hug him for doing
something so generous for somebody.’
“ ‘He would needle you,’ says Payne’s caddie Mike Hicks, ‘and
he did not care who it was. Jack Nicklaus. Arnold Palmer. It
did not matter. And you know what? A lot of guys didn’t like it.
Some guys didn’t mind it, and if they didn’t mind it, they liked
Payne. But if they minded it, they didn’t like him. If they all say
they liked him, they’re lying because he was tough, man. He
would needle you, and he would go overboard with it. He could
take it, too. In fact, he loved it. But he’d get under your skin if
you let him.’”
“On a flight back from Japan there were six caddies and six
players in first class and Strange and Stewart exchanged more
than words. ‘We drank this plane out of beer, playing
blackjack,’ says Hicks. ‘Those two got into it. They ended up
wrestling on the floor. We had to separate them. It got ugly for
a few minutes.’”
“ ‘Miscommunication was a big issue,’ says sports psychologist
Richard Coop. ‘He was teasing, but people didn’t catch on he
was kidding and his remarks cut them a little bit. Someone in his
position, it hurt people more. Some of the people that took his
teasing wrong really were people he liked, and they took great
offense at it. And he didn’t know he was doing it.’”
“ ‘Payne was the inventor of Tour Guide,’ says Tom Anton, who
played with Payne in Asia. ‘Let’s say there was a contingent of
25 Americans. We’d go to one of the stores in Hong Kong and
the “tour guide” would go up to the proprietor and say, “Look,
I’ve got 24 guys with me on a tour. Give me a great price on this
camera, and I’ll make sure these guys spend a lot of money in
your store.” We’d all mingle around and buy a package of film
or something. Meanwhile, Payne is getting a steal on his Nikon
camera.’”
The last words heard from Learjet number N47BA on 10/25/99
were “Three nine zero bravo alpha.” It had departed from
Orlando, bound for Dallas….and hours later landed in Mina,
South Dakota, on Jon Hoffman’s farm. Ironically, Hoffman had
built his own driving range off the back porch of his house so he
and his buddies could while away summer evenings.
—
America’s First Game
I’m in possession of some terrific old books given to me by my
grandfather. Can’t remember if I’ve ever used them, but it’s time
to finally pull them out.
From a 1952 book titled “Pictorial History of American Sports:
From Colonial Times To The Present” by John Durant and Otto
Bettmann, we learn the following.
“The original and most universal game of the American Indians
was a stick and ball game which the French explorers called
lacrosse. The Indians knew it as baggataway, and it was played
from Canada to Florida and west to the great plains. A furious,
bone-breaking affair, the idea of the game was to get the ball into
the other side’s goal by running with it or throwing it – as it is
played today. The Indians, however, often had several hundred
men on a side….
“Lacrosse was only one of the many games played by the
American aborigines….
“(In the days of Jamestown Colony and Captain John Smith), the
colonists were a mixture of idlers, incompetent craftsmen, and
goldsmiths, with neither the time nor the energy for such upper-
class English sports as falconry, upland game shooting, and
angling. Of the 150 men who came to Jamestown in April, 1607,
only 38 were alive when the next ship arrived the following
January. With starvation, malaria, and Indian attacks taking their
toll, there was little time for sports.
“Despite these hazards, the first game played by white men in
America took place in Virginia. It was a game of bowls played
on the streets of Jamestown in May, 1611, and Sir Thomas Dale,
who viewed the contest as he came ashore, was not at all pleased.
Sir Thomas had hastened across the Atlantic in command of a
relief ship to save the starving colonists. The sight of the
players, who apparently didn’t even look up at their savior, so
intent were they on the game, nettled Sir Thomas to such an
extent that he threatened to put them all in irons. Thus ended the
first game recorded in America’s history of sports.”
And, I would add, the first use of the phrase, “Hey, lighten up,
will ya?!”
By the way, “The first reference to golf in America was made in
1657 when a complaint was issued by the sheriff of Fort Orange
(Albany, NY) against three men charged with playing ‘kolven’
on a Sunday. Two years later the Fort Orange magistrates forbid
its playing along the streets because it damaged the windows of
the houses and exposed the people to injury. The game of kolven
was not golf as we know it today but it may have been a
rudimentary form of the modern game. And it may have been a
kind of ice-hockey or field-hockey. No one knows since no
description of the game has come down. But it is certain that the
Dutch lads enjoyed whacking a ball around in a game they called
kolven which some scholars translate as golf.”
Finally, America’s first sports trophy was handed out in 1668, a
hand wrought piece of silver called a porringer that is I believe
still on display at Yale University. The trophy was given to the
winner of a horse race that year at New Market (Hempstead),
Long Island, which was the first race course on the continent;
horse racing being the first organized sport.
Oh, what the heck. As I scan through this book I know that
Mark R., among others, will appreciate that the oldest club of
sportsmen in America is the Schuylkill Fishing Company,
founded in 1732 at Philadelphia. [A Google search shows it to be
loosely knit today.]
Stuff
–There is going to be a ton of talk at Pinehurst over the “course
setup” after last year’s debacle at Shinnecock, where the final-
round scoring average of 78.73 was 5.3 strokes higher (in
relation to par) than any single-day total at a PGA Tour event in
2004. There were 97 double bogeys and 22 “others” among the
66 players who made the cut – an average of 1.8 blowup holes
per man.
[The Shinnecock Indians, by the way, are now suing the town of
Southampton, Long Island…ostensibly for the right to build a
casino. Raise big wampum that way, you know.]
–Sports Illustrated polled 50 Tour golfers and got answers to
some of the following.
Q: Who is most likely to mix it up with a fan?
Jonathan Kaye…44%
Jerry Kelly…19%
Dudley Hart…19%
Q: Who will win the most majors over the next five years: [Ernie
Els, Retief Goosen, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, Tiger Woods]
Woods…58%
Els…34%
Mickelson…4%
Singh…4%
Goosen…0%
Q: Who is your favorite Desperate Housewife?
Gabrielle…53%
Susan…38% [The editor goes with Susan.]
–Four-time U.S. Open champ Willie Anderson (1901, 03, 04,
05) used to winter in Florida but the rest of the year he resided in
the Philly area. In the fall of 1910, just shy of his 31st birthday,
he traveled to the Pittsburgh area for three 36-hole matches with
other leading pros and amateurs. He had a match on Oct. 19, a
second on his birthday, Oct. 21, and a third on Sunday, Oct. 23.
Anderson complained of being tired and returned to his home in
Philadelphia. By the 25th he was dead, ironically the same day
that Payne Stewart would die 89 years later.
Most blamed Anderson’s death on arteriosclerosis, but other
reports at the time say he may have had a brain tumor or he
drank himself to death; drink being particularly popular then
among the golfing set. [Much more so than even today, from
what I’ve read.]
But if you’re in the area of Ivy Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, you
may want to check in on Willie.
[By the way, Willie is the only golfer to win the U.S. Open with
two styles of balls…the gutta-percha and a rubber-core model.]
–Father’s Day was first celebrated in Spokane, Washington on
June 19, 1910. The story goes that Mrs. John B. Dodd wanted to
honor her father, a Civil War vet whose wife had died while
giving birth to her sixth child. As an adult, Mrs. Dodd began to
fully appreciate the strength and selflessness of her father for
raising all these kids as a single parent. With help from the
Ministerial Association and the YMCA, Mrs. Dodd got her
celebration and soon the states began lobbying Congress to
declare it a national holiday, which was accomplished in part in
1924 when Calvin Coolidge made it a national event. However,
it wasn’t until 1966 that Lyndon Johnson declared it the 3rd
Sunday of every June and then Richard Nixon made it a true
national holiday….60 years after Mother’s Day had been
declared one. Of course it’s also the weekend of the U.S. Open
each year…a nice touch.
–I saw this blurb in USA Today. Over the past three seasons,
when American League pitchers have been forced to hit in inter-
league games, they are batting just .115. [90 for 784]
–At the Singapore IOC meeting on July 8, not only will the site
for the 2012 Olympic Games be determined, but the committee
will also decide the fate of some individual sports. Baseball is in
danger because it doesn’t have any European support. But there
is a slim possibility golf will become a medal sport, as it should.
I have a simple plan. If your country has a golfer ranked in the
top 200 in the world as of, say, two months before the Games,
then you can send them. The #1 player in each country would
go…can you imagine if they said ‘no’? And the pressure of
match play would be tremendous. One and out.
–Time for our periodic look at how the highest and lowest
payroll teams in baseball are doing thus far, thru Tuesday.
Highest
1. Yankees ($205mm)…31-32…6 ½ games back (GB)
2. Red Sox ($121mm)…35-29…3 GB
3. Mets ($104mm)…32-32…5 GB
4. Phillies ($95mm)…36-29…10 GB
5. Angels ($95mm)…37-27…1st place
Lowest
26. Indians ($41mm)…32-30…9 GB
27. Brewers ($40mm)…29-35…12 GB
28. Pirates ($38mm)…30-32…10 GB
29. Royals ($36mm)…22-41…19 ½ GB
30. Devil Rays ($29mm)…22-43…16 ½ GB
–Sample NBA draft, as of this writing. [From Chad Ford of
ESPN.com]
1. Marvin Williams (UNC)
2. Andrew Bogut (Utah)
3. Chris Paul (Wake Forest….traitor)
4. Gerald Green (High School…shooting guard)
5. Deron Williams (Illinois)
6. Fran Vasquez (Spain)
7. Danny Granger (New Mexico)
8. Raymond Felton (UNC)
9. Martell Webster (High School….shooting guard)
10. Martynas Andriuskevicius (Lithuania….his name could wrap
around both the front and back)
–Phil Jackson is back with the Lakers for $30-$36 million over
three years. Nice work if you can find it.
–And congratulations to Jamaica’s Asafa Powell for becoming
the world’s fastest human as he ran a 9.77 seconds, 100-meters at
a race in Athens. Powell bested Tim Montgomery’s 9.78 mark
of three years ago that was tarnished by Montgomery’s
suspension for life on charges of steroid use as part of the
BALCO scandal.
Top 3 songs for the week of 6/17/67: #1 “Groovin’” (The Young
Rascals) #2 “Respect” (Aretha Franklin) #3 “She’d Rather Be
With Me” (The Turtles)
And here are some others from that week…
#4 “Release Me (And Let Me Love Again)” (Englebert
Humperdinck)
#5 “Somebody To Love” (Jefferson Airplane)
#7 “Windy” (Association)
#11 “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” (Frankie Valli)
#12 “Sunday Will Never Be The Same” (Spanky and Our Gang)
#13 “Come On Down To My Boat” (Every Mother’s Son)
#15 “Let’s Live For Today” (Grass Roots)
#20 “San Francisco” (Scott McKenzie)
#21 “Creeque Alley” (Mamas & the Papas)
#22 “Alfie” (Dionne Warwick
#26 “Don’t Sleep In The Subway” (Petula Clark)
#27 “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (Marvin Gaye & Tammi
Terrell)
#30 “Society’s Child” (Janis Ian)
#31 “Up – Up And Away” (5th Dimension)
#40 “The Happening” (The Supremes)
#43 “I Was Made To Love Her” (Stevie Wonder)
#50 “Light My Fire” (The Doors)
#73 “Carrie Ann” (Hollies)
#113 “You Only Live Twice” (Nancy Sinatra)
#128 “Apples, Peaches & Pumpkin Pie” (Jay & The Techniques)
Now you know why I’ll always say this era was the best.
[Source: Joel Whitburn’s “Billboard Hot 100 Charts”]
New York Yankees Quiz Answers: 1) Single-season RBI: Lou
Gehrig, 184 (1931…nice season…211 hits, 163 runs scored, 15
triples, 17 steals, 46 HR, 117 walks, .341). Gehrig is also second
and third with seasons of 175 and 174 RBI. Ruth had 171 and
DiMaggio had 167 in 1937 (to go along with his 215 hits, 151
runs, 15 triples, 46 homers, and .346 average). 2) 3-time, 20-
game winner in 1960s: Mel Stottlemyre…1965 (20-9), 1968 (21-
12), 1969 (20-14). 3) Last to lead A.L. in homers: Reggie
Jackson, 1980 (41). 4) Last to lead A.L. in ERA: Rudy May,
1980 (2.45). 5) Last to lead A.L. in strikeouts: Al Downing,
1964 (217). 6) Most career triples: Lou Gehrig, 163. [Also leads
in hits, doubles and RBI… had 1,995 RBI to Ruth’s 1,971.] 7)
Innings pitched, career: Whitey Ford…3,170 to Red Ruffing’s
3,168.
Yankee tidbit: Since 1942, the longest hitting streak is just 21 by
Bernie Williams in 1993.
Next Bar Chat, Tuesday.
