U.S. Open Quiz: 1) How many Open titles did Jimmy Connors
win? 2) How many did Pete Sampras win? 3) What male
finished 1st or 2nd 8 straight years in the 80s? 4) How many did
Steffi Graf win? 5) How many did Chris Evert win? 6) Name
the women’s winner, post-1970, who has the initials H.M.
Answers below.
**Folks, similar to 9/11, it’s kind of difficult writing a column
like this during this rather tumultuous period. Most of you know
I have other responsibilities with the site and it’s just a matter
of carving out time for it all while attempting to keep up with
the events of the day.
For now our thoughts and prayers are with those who are
suffering. As for the looters…well, I’ll bite my tongue for now.
Excess
Last Sunday night, as Katrina was bearing down on the Gulf
Coast, I caught some of the MTV Video Music Awards. Nothing
ticks me off more than over the top displays of wealth, such as
seeing Paris Hilton and some piece of crap rapper up on stage
comparing the size of their diamonds. I can’t be the only one
who felt this way as these two and the others were carrying on
after what Katrina had just done to parts of Florida and knowing
what was to come in the next 12-24 hours.
A lot of this sort of thing is going on these days, from
McMansions to McDiamonds, including on the women’s tennis
circuit. The Star-Ledger’s Steve Politi wrote a terrific column on
this topic as the U.S. Open was getting underway. Following
are some excerpts.
“The perfunctory tennis questions were finally out of the way –
stuff about injuries, the tournament draw, second serves, blah
blah blah – which meant the U.S. Open interview sessions with
Serena Williams could finally turn to something important.
“Earrings.
“Seven straight questions, to be exact, about the $40,000, 15-
karat, ‘chandeliery’ style diamond jewelry, which Williams took
off abruptly during her first-round match yesterday against…oh,
some other tennis player, like anyone cares….
“Someone asked a follow-up about the earrings’ ‘stats’ and
Williams rattled them off, noting she was wearing a 33-karat
black diamond ring on loan earlier this week that she was ‘so in
love with’ before putting on the latest earrings that were ‘really
hot.’
“Which is really all you need to know about women’s tennis
these days. The sport is really hot. As long as, of course, you’re
not talking about the sport.
“Because no one talks much about the sport anymore. New
perfume fragrances? Yes. Designer tennis dresses? Sure.
Boyfriends, the paparazzi, Lower Manhattan condos, TV reality
series and silly little lap dogs – absolutely. These are the things
that are interesting, that sell.
“And take away from the tennis.
“Somewhere during its meteoric rise above the men’s sport,
women’s tennis has become more about marketing and celebrity
than athleticism and competition, less about Grand Slam titles
than glamour magazines….
“This is a potentially fascinating Open for the women, with
anywhere from eight to 10 players who could take the title.
Defending champ Svetlana Kuznetsova lost in straight sets
yesterday. We should be talking about the superior play.
“Meanwhile, Venus Williams revealed she was wearing a
necklace with pearls, turquoise, gold beads and tourmalines.
“ ‘You guys don’t realize,’ her sister, Serena, said this week, ‘but
I have a fashion company. I’m working on a really intense
(clothing) line for the fall. I’m an actress. I’m working on an
animation series. I’m working on so much stuff.’
“Look, we ask the questions. They answer them. The media,
without question, is part of the problem. ‘Us’ and ‘People’ and
something called ’15 Minutes’ have credentials to the Open, and
they’re not here to ask about the disappearing serve and volley.
“But why does Serena, one of the most positive athletic role
models a young woman can have today, carry her little dog to a
press conference at the U.S. Tennis Center? Why does
Sharapova, the No. 2 player in the world, seem more excited
talking about the designer watch she just launched in Tribeca
than her forehand?”
In other words, just shoot me.
Speaking of Russian tennis stars, Kuznetsova was defeated by
fellow countrywoman Ekaterina Bychkova. And, when you
throw in Sharapova and other Russian stars, it’s all part of what
historian Edvard Radzinsky called “The Other Russian
Revolution” in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
Excerpts follow:
“For the greater part of the 20th century, Russia’s population
suffered from the nightmare of wars, repression and perpetual
hunger. There was the famine of the Civil War, the famine of the
years of Collectivization and the famine of the Second World
War. It almost seems as if the relative prosperity of recent years
has engendered a peculiar reaction of the flesh, something almost
akin to gratitude. All across the country, a plethora of beautiful
girls has sprung up.
“With bared midriffs and piercings, they are outwardly very like
one another. In fact, there is an immense gulf dividing this
throng of beauties. One group is astoundingly uneducated; their
lives consist of nightclubs, concerts and narcotics. The other
(and these are many) is just the opposite. They are highly
educated, and have plunged rapturously into the ocean of
literature now being published in Russia – those famous books
by which the world lived in the 20th century and which have only
now come to us….
“There is yet another amazing group among our new youth.
Their fate, as a rule, was chosen by their parents, themselves
generally former athletes. Therefore, they correctly recognized
the value of a very small ball which very quickly helped their
Cinderella daughters turn into real princesses.”
After the Bolshevik Revolution, women were banned from the
power structure. None were to be found in the Politburo, for
example. Stalin “had the wives of many of his closest associates
imprisoned” following his own wife’s suicide.
“Party leaders lived meekly with their ugly old wives who never
appeared in public.”
It all began to change when Mikhail Gorbachev openly displayed
his own wife, Raisa. The first Russian businesswomen hit the
scene shortly thereafter. Radzinsky’s conclusion:
“The role of the Tennis Lolita, of the Beauteous Champion, is
but Russian womanhood’s most public face. Miss Sharapova, or
those new little beauties who are now to be found in every corner
of boundless Russia, have discovered a road to the fairytale. The
Russian Invasion of the tennis Klondike is in full swing. But
there is a world beyond tennis, and they will have it, too. The
Russian girls are coming. They don’t want to change the world.
They want to conquer it.”
[I’ve read some of Radzinsky’s work and it’s terrific. His latest
is due out in October, “Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar.” And
having spent a week in Moscow a few years ago, I can’t help but
agree with his viewpoint.]
Animal Kingdom
–A tiger mauled to death a bulldozer operator this week on the
Indonesian island of Sumatra. According to an official there,
“The tiger attacked the man as he was relieving himself near the
base camp of his company on Monday evening.”
The tiger “continued to appear in the area until late in the
evening, after workers using heavy machinery managed to get it
to drop the body.”
From Agence France-Presse, “Tigers on Sumatra…have killed
about 40 people in the past five years, with 18 deaths in 2004
alone, as their dwindling habitat brings them into contact with
humans, environment officials have said.”
Unfortunately, with the destruction of their habitat as a result of
logging, the remaining 400 to 500 appear to be doomed. Here’s
hoping they at least go out fighting.
–There is an increasing controversy involving the shark-cage-
diving industry, as many scientists and conservationists accuse it
of malicious conduct in terms of how the sharks are being
treated. Some say it is creating a familiarity with humans that
will have increasingly fatal results. Others offer, like this one
marine environmentalist who runs a shark and whale-watching
business, “If the great white wanted to feed off humans, then
there would be carnage in our waters. Compare the figures on
water usage – how many people in the water – to the number of
attacks. The accusations just do not measure up.”
According to the London Times, “A few facts are indisputable.
As shark-cage diving has increased, so has the number of
reported incidents. After almost two decades with virtually no
shark attacks, five – two fatal – have been reported in South
Africa this year.”
Some conservationists say the shark-cage-divers are helping to
cause changes in behavior because they touch the shark on its
highly sensitive nose, against what should be a code of conduct
and all in the name of getting better pictures because the shark
then opens its mouth, baring its teeth.
So is word getting out in the shark community to take out as
many humans as possible as a result of the taunting? At least
four Aussies have been killed alone over the past 9 months. You
make the call.
–Oh, baby. This is exciting. For decades we’ve known that
mountain lions were moving back into California and the
southwest, but there is increasing evidence that leopards are
beginning to make their home in Arizona’s mountains, such as
the Catalina range north of Tucson. In fact the other day a
woman saw a spotted jaguar, which is the world’s third largest
cat and the only one in North America that roars.
From a story by Ken Lamberton in the Los Angeles Times:
“In October of 2002, a black jaguar crossed from Mexico into the
Huachuca Mountains on the eastern rim of the San Rafael Valley
of southern Arizona. Another was spotted in the Patagonia
Mountains to the west. Between 1996 and 2004, on eight
separate occasions, witnesses have documented with photographs
or video jaguars in Arizona.” Some have been caught on remote
motion-sensing cameras set up in the highlands. Developing…..
–Over the years I’ve seen some stories about the coqui frog, but
I had to look up some info following a blurb in my local paper
about the impact the 2-inch-long creature is having on real estate
in Hawaii. The coqui’s shrill mating call is driving folks nuts.
From various web sites I learned:
“They climb up trees at night to sing their mating song and later
parachute down from the trees using their webbed feet.” They
do eat a lot of insects such as mosquitoes.
“Some people fear that the frogs will increase in numbers
indefinitely, taking over the islands. However, just as the
gecko’s population came into a natural balance, the same will
happen with the frogs.”
Well, the coqui initially hitched a ride from Puerto Rico and
elsewhere in the Caribbean and it has attained a density of
20,000 frogs per 2.5 acres (one hectare, for my international
readers) in some spots.
The call is so loud that there are real fears the coqui will not only
impact tourism down the road, but it could cause a slide in real
estate prices.
On this one I come down on the side of humans….squish the
coqui.
–And in the Pyrenees mountains that separate France and Spain,
Alain Reynes is attempting to reintroduce bears. You may recall
that last fall a popular bear, and one of the last remaining,
Cinnamon, was killed by a hunter. Even President Jacques
Chirac called it a “great loss for biodiversity in France and in
Europe.”
So Reynes and his organization have gone shopping in Slovenia
for five females to be let free next spring. The average price,
incidentally, is said to be about $9,000 so I’m thinking, hey, I
could supplement my income by raising bears in the space
between my townhouse and the little creek out back.
Anyway, of course not everyone wants to see the bears return.
We’re talkin’ the sheep farmers are quite upset about the
proposal. Locals raise them in the high mountain passes, where
the rich vegetation along with the exercise they receive on the
steep slopes make them highly delectable. Of course they are
also then quite attractive to bears.
Sheep herder Jean Pierre Mirouz is one who is not enamored of
the bruins. He lost 180 sheep in June after an attack by a bear
stampeded his herd. According to John Tagliabue of the New
York Times:
“Details are disputed, but Mirouz says his father and brother had
earlier spotted the bear in a pasture. The bear attacked while his
father looked on helplessly through binoculars, killing some of
the sheep and stampeding the others. In the end, Mirouz counted
180 (dead ones).”
Well, I always said sheep were idiots. [No offense, Lamb.]
But back to the environmental movement in France, some are
also talking about reintroducing wolves. Were this to be the
case, the farmers themselves would be in danger, I imagine.
Stuff
–Chevalier Nusuyev, who was at the forefront of the 2002
Olympic Games figure skating controversy in the pairs
competition, was shot to death in Moscow, Monday, in an
apparent contract hit. Nusuyev was a wealthy Dagestani
businessman who was accused by U.S. authorities of fixing the
competition that led to Canadians David Pelletier and Jamie Sale
being robbed of the gold. A Russian pair won it despite the
Canadians’ superior performance as Nusuyev bribed a French
judge in return for a French ice dancing victory. There were
wiretapped phone conversations backing this up later. [Moscow
Times]
–Boston Red Sox pitcher David Wells was suspended for six
games following an encounter back in July when he was alleged
to have made contact with two umpires. So Wells appealed and
on Monday lost his case, at which point he blasted Major League
Baseball and Commissioner Bud Selig.
On steroids: “I’ve been tested three times this year, but it’s
obvious that there are guys getting away with doing it. And he’s
not doing a thing….In the Palmeiro case…from what I
understand from a few sources, [Selig] said, ‘Let’s just wait until
the Hall of Fame [induction] is over and then we’ll suspend
‘him].’ He probably did it because he didn’t want the Hall of
Famers or electees to have to answer questions about steroids
because it’s a distraction.”
Palmeiro was suspended a day after the induction ceremonies.
On Wednesday, Wells was called to New York to meet with the
commissioner, according to various sources.
–Speaking of Palmeiro, he has sucked since returning from his
suspension, going just 2-for-26 thru Tuesday’s play. And in
Toronto the fans gave him the business. So Raffy decided to
wear earplugs and refused to talk to reporters afterwards. Said
teammate Brian Roberts:
“You want to be accepted by people. For 99 percent of his
career, he has been and for that to completely change now, I
think is something I don’t know if any of us can comprehend
what he’s going through. By his expressions you can tell that it
is definitely beating him up.”
Good! Roberts continued, “It’s a situation that you wouldn’t put
your worst enemy in. Obviously, none of us will ever know
what the truth is, but I believe him.”
Well, Mr. Roberts, you’re a total idiot. As for Palmeiro, guess he
should have thought about the consequences before using
steroids and then lying before Congress about it.
–Update on Minnesota pitcher Carlos Silva. He has now walked
just 8 batters in 180 innings this season. Incredible…and record-
breaking.
–Then there is Kansas City pitcher Zack Greinke. The 21-year-
old is 3-16. Greinke has allowed 194 hits and 46 walks in 147
innings while wracking up a rather ugly 6.28 ERA. The Royals
organization doesn’t seem to think it will impact his psyche
forever. I would have sent him back to AAA to get his mind
straight, as the warden told Luke.
–I was reading a story in PGA Tour Partners magazine on Tim
Simpson that is pretty amazing. Simpson, you’ll recall, was a
pretty good golfer back in the late 80s, finishing in the top ten on
the money list a few times.
In 1991, though, he contracted Lyme Disease and the slide
started. A few years later he was diagnosed with a ‘benign
essential tumor’ that is a progressive neurological disorder. But
thanks to new medications he opted to launch a comeback.
Unfortunately, he made only five cuts in 15 events on the
Nationwide Tour as at age 48 he geared up for a run at the
Champions / Senior Tour.
His symptoms then got worse and as a last-ditch effort in March,
Simpson underwent brain surgery.
“The procedure, deep brain stimulation, entails sending an
electrical current to a portion of the brain to block the abnormal
nerve signals that cause the tremors. Doctors attach an electrode
to the brain and implant into the chest a neurostimulator [similar
to a pacemaker], which supplies the voltage.
“Simpson spent nine hours on the operating table, all the time
awake, with a penny-sized hole in his skull, as doctors worked on
him. ‘I tell people it took nine hours because they needed eight
hours to find my brain,’ Simpson jokes. But it was no joke, just
pure elation, when his surgeon, Dr. Joseph Smith [Medical
College of Georgia in Augusta], turned on the neurostimulator
and Simpson, holding a cane in his trembling left hand, felt the
current go down his arm and stop the shaking.” [Alex Davidson
/ PGA Tour Partners]
The neurostimulator is lodged in the center of his chest so it
doesn’t interfere with his golf swing. Simpson is back out there,
hoping to be a factor when he hits the Champions circuit in 2006.
–With summer ending, I enjoyed the thoughts of Charles Taylor,
writing in the Star-Ledger the other day about one’s youth and
going back to school.
“You didn’t need to know anything about the Beach Boys to hear
(the) fragility in ‘All Summer Long.’ If you were an American
kid listening to the radio in late August, the tossed-off line,
‘Won’t be long till summertime is through’ made you die a little
inside at the prospect of school starting again. Hearing the
deejay spin ‘All Summer Long’ – almost always late at night, as
if its appearance during the day would have turned the summer
sunshine to darkness – was a yearly ritual that inspired both
bittersweetness and dread.
“I felt that way even though I pretty much hate summertime. I
love the ‘idea’ of summer – warmth and sunshine and freedom
and the promise of fun, fun, fun. But all it takes is one humid
day to start me longing for fall. The truth is I have spent more
summer days in an air-conditioned room with a fat novel than I
have out in the sun. I offer that crabby self-revelation as proof of
the infectiousness of Brian Wilson’s vision. You heard his tales
of surfing and cruising, of hanging out with buddies and girls on
the strip or the beach, and wanted in.”
Top 3 songs for the week of 8/31/74: #1 “(You’re) Having My
Baby” (Paul Anka) #2 “I Shot The Sheriff” (Eric Clapton) #3
“Tell Me Something Good” (Rufus)….and….#4 “The Night
Chicago Died” (Paper Lace) #5 “Feel Like Makin’ Love”
(Roberta Flack…proved to be one of three #1 hits for her… the
others being “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, 3/72, and
“Killing Me Softly With His Song”, 2/73)
*Some of the papers around here had stories on Les Paul the
other day; still performing at age 90. The guitar inventor is
coming out with a new album, “Les Paul and Friends” (EMI) that
includes performances by Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton.
U.S. Open Quiz Answers: 1) Jimmy Connors won five times –
’74, ’76, ’78, ’82, ’83. 2) Pete Sampras won five titles – ’90,
’93, ’95, ’96, ’02. 3) Ivan Lendl finished 1st or 2nd eight straight
years, 1982-89. Lendl won it three times, ’85-’87. 4) Steffi Graf
won it five times – ’88, ’89, ’93, ’95, ’96. 5) Chris Evert Lloyd
won six titles – ’75-’78, ’80, ’82. 6) Hana Mandlikova won in
1985.
*Connors and Sampras with their five men’s crowns have the
most post-1929 and Bill Tilden. Chris Evert’s six are the most
post-1931 and Helen Wills Moody.
Next Bar Chat, Tuesday.
