NHL Quiz: Name the top five career scorers. Answer below.
[I still haven’t watched a minute of hockey this season, but I’m
beginning to glance at the standings and I will give a damn if the
Rangers get into the playoffs. No matter how good the game is
today, though, you’ll never beat the NHL of the 60s and 70s.
Ratelle shoots….SCORES!!!!!]
PITTSBURGH – SEATTLE
Well, I got Seattle right. Should be a good game, after those two
dreadful contests Sunday. But Jeff B., Steelers fanatic, is deathly
afraid I’ll pick the Steelers and with all my relatives out that way
I want Pittsburgh to win.
However, this is very scientific, sports fans…and I need to see
the crime blotter the next 10 days or so before issuing my
EXCLUSIVE pick. Stay tuned.
[And then there were six. Teams that have yet to play in a Super
Bowl, that is. Arizona, Detroit, New Orleans, Jacksonville,
Cleveland, and Houston.]
KOBE SCORES 81!!!!
Goodness gracious. 28 of 46 from the field, 7 of 13 from
downtown, 18 of 20 at the foul line. Count it all up and you have
the second highest point total in the history of the game, next to
Chamberlain’s 100 back in 1962. Kobe had 27 in the third
quarter and 28 in the fourth in leading the Lakers to a 122-104
win over Toronto.
Johnny Unitas, Part II
It was the year 1958 that burnished the Unitas legend forever,
specifically December 28 and the Baltimore – New York title
game; a contest that effectively brought professional football into
the modern era.
15,000 Baltimore Colts partisans journeyed to New York, and as
author Michael MacCambridge (“America’s Game: The Epic
Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation”) notes, the
presence of these fans “gave the game a tension even in the
stands, where the Baltimore faithful made nearly as much noise
as the Giants fans.”
In his pre-game speech, Colts coach Weeb Ewbank singled out
14 of the Colts’ 35 players, each of whom had been released or
traded by another team in the league.
“Pittsburgh didn’t want you, but we picked you up off the
sandlots,” he told Unitas.
To cornerback Milt Davis, Ewbank said, “Detroit didn’t want
you, but I’m glad I got you.”
Seeing guards Art Spinney and Alex Sandusky, Ewbank said,
“You couldn’t play offensive end, and you were too small for
defensive end, but we made offensive guards out of you.”
The Colts took a 14-3 lead into the fourth quarter, but after
stopping Baltimore on fourth down from the Giants’ two
(Ewbank didn’t want to use the Colts’ mediocre kicker, Steve
Myhra), the Giants drove all the way for a score in quick fashion
to make it 14-10.
After then stopping Baltimore on three downs, the Giants struck
in quick fashion again and suddenly it was New York, 17-14.
But with under two minutes to play in regulation, John Unitas
drove Baltimore from their own 14-yard line to the Giants’ 13,
completing four tough passes, all to Raymond Berry, and Myhra
managed to boot the game-tying field goal.
Then in overtime, after the Giants failed on their first possession,
Unitas led the Colts on an 80-yard drive, capped off by Alan
Ameche going over from the one to win the championship.
It was the first title contest to be telecast live across the country
and was viewed by 45 million Americans, including President
Eisenhower.
Michael MacCambridge:
“In the Giants’ locker room, the dominant emotion, next to
disappointment, was awe at Unitas’s otherworldly composure.
‘Everything we expected him to do, and what you absolutely
believed he would do, he didn’t do,’ said the Giants’ safety
Emlen Tunnell. ‘He did exactly the opposite.’….
“The Colts’ headed home to Baltimore, and more proof of pro
football’s impact. There perhaps has never in American sports
been anything quite like the scene that took place on the tarmac
of Friendship Airport in Baltimore that night. As the crowd,
estimated to be at least 30,000 by local police, pushed out of the
terminal and onto the macadam to wait for the victorious Colts,
the planes taxied to a distant hangar in the far east of the runway,
where the players and coaches got into two buses. The first bus
drove over to the crowd for a series of scheduled victory
interviews and was engulfed by the mob, prompting the second
bus to peel away from the scene and take an alternate route to
Baltimore, since the highway leading to the airport was clogged
with fans.
“The police cruiser escorting the bus to the interview platform
was similarly swamped, and as revelers jumped on the roof of
the police car, they demolished it. By the time WBAL-TV
announcer Joe Croghan cut his microphone to seek cover, there
were dozens of people on top of the bus and a huge throng
surrounding it, with everyone leaning forward for a glimpse of
their heroes…
“When the bus was finally extricated from the crowd, there were
more than a dozen people, mostly teenagers, still on the roof. At
a roadblock outside the airport proper, the bus stopped and the
police herded fourteen more off their perch atop the bus.
Temporarily taken into custody, some were pushed into the back
of a police car. ‘I just want to meet some Colts,’ exclaimed one
teen and, eventually, Unitas got out of the bus and went back to
greet the boys, who were released without charges.”
With the 1958 title game, “pro football had arrived as a viable
alternative to baseball, not merely as the most popular sport, but
the one that best defined America. And in Unitas’s high-tops
and laconic manner, the game – and the country – had discovered
a sports metaphor for the Cold War era. With the two long
drives…and the endless dissection of the pressure and strategy
surrounding those marches that circulated through the press
afterward, the myth of the quarterback as ‘field general’ was
virtually complete, refashioned in the image of Unitas’s
distinctive style….
“Millions of boys around the country started scrunching up their
shoulders to simulate Unitas’s pinched profile in shoulder pads,
and throwing with the elongated, fingers-down follow-through
that they’d seen Johnny U. display on television.
“By the time the Colts won their second straight title, after the
1959 season, Unitas had become an authentic American
archetype, the virtual definition of a certain kind of honorable
American manhood, as much of a keystone figure as Bogart’s
hard-boiled characters or Sinatra’s hard-luck crooner. Except, of
course, there was no script and no reshoots, and when Unitas got
up from a blow that broke his nose and gashed his mouth, as
happened against the Bears in 1960, he refused to come off the
field, and threw a game-winning touchdown on the next play.
The quality fans were seeing was similar to what Hemingway
called grace under pressure and what test pilots referred to as ‘the
right stuff.’”
Sports Illustrated’s Frank Deford wrote of finally meeting Unitas
in 1997.
“(We were at a party) and when we were introduced he said, ‘It’s
nice to meet you, Mr. Deford.’ That threw me into a tailspin.
‘No, no, no. Don’t you understand? I’m not Mr. Deford.
You’re Mr. Unitas. You’re Johnny U. You’re my boyhood idol.
I can’t ever be Mr. Deford with you, because you have to always
be number 19, so I can always be a kid.’ But I didn’t explain that
to him. I was afraid he would think I was too sappy. I just said,
‘It’s nice to meet you, too, Mr. Unitas,’ and shook his crippled
hand.
“A couple of years later I went down to Baltimore and gave a
speech for a charity. What they gave me as a thank-you present
was a football, autographed by Himself. When you’re not a child
anymore and you write about athletes, you tend to take ‘em as
run-of-the-mill human beings. Anyway, I do. I have only one
other athlete’s autograph, from Bill Russell, who, along with
Unitas, is the other great star of the ‘50s who changed his sport
all by himself.
“After I got that autographed Unitas football, every now and then
I’d pick it up and fondle it. I still do, too, even though Johnny
Unitas is dead now, and I can’t be a boy anymore. Ultimately,
you see, what he conveyed to his teammates and to Baltimore
and to a wider world was the utter faith that he could do it. He
could make it work. Somehow, he could win. He would win. It
almost didn’t matter when he actually couldn’t. The point was
that with Johnny U, it always seemed possible. You so very
seldom get that, even with the best of them. Johnny U’s talents
were his own. The belief he gave us was his gift.”
[Following Unitas’s death, Sports Illustrated’s football expert,
Dr. Z., Paul Zimmerman, ranked all the great quarterbacks in
game management, two-minute drill, toughness, accuracy, arm
strength, passing yards per game, passing yards per attempt,
completion percentage, passing TDs per game, passes per TD,
and passes per interception. 22 QBs in all, including Montana,
Young, Marino, Tittle, Baugh, Jurgensen, Staubach, Starr,
Aikman, Tarkenton, Griese and Bobby Layne, all either in
Canton or headed there. Unitas was hands-down #1.]
Stuff
–We have another “Jerk of the Year” candidate…the New York
Knicks’ Antonio Davis.
I have watched very little of the Knicks this year but flipped on
their game against Chicago to see Wake’s Darius Songaila and it
ended up being a very entertaining contest.
But during the overtime period, forward Antonio Davis suddenly
went into the stands. At first the announcers thought he was
checking on a family member who may have fallen ill. [The
game was in Chicago and Davis used to play there.] But he just
stood there while it appeared his wife and one of his son’s was
explaining something to him.
What we learned after was that his wife, Kendra, claimed that a
fan behind them, 22-year-old Michael Axelrod, was drunk and
had been verbally abusing Kendra and her two sons.
But that wasn’t the case. Instead, Axelrod sued Antonio Davis
for defamation and claimed that Kendra had tried to scratch him
after he protested a call. Plus, Axelrod had called security on
Kendra because she placed both hands on his face before turning
her venom on another fan. [David Waldstein / Star-Ledger]
Later, Axelrod said he’d drop the suit if Antonio Davis
apologized, but then Davis said on a conference call, following
the levying of a 5-game suspension by the league for entering
the stands:
“I’m not apologizing to anybody for anything.”
Now Davis has a reputation as a stand up guy and is a team
leader, but both he and his wife, who is known around the league
to be a real piece of work, are lying.
The New York Daily News’ Mike Lupica:
“You wonder, from his account of things, if there was a moment
in the middle of everything if Axelrod thought Kendra Davis was
the one who might have had too much to drink, who had gotten a
little too loud. Especially since he was the one who called for
security, according to Sam Smith’s account in yesterday’s
Chicago Tribune.
[Smith wrote]
“TV replays will show (Axelrod, whom Smith knows) still
sitting and turning to an usher for help. It turns out the security
there was watching Kendra and took a seat across the aisle and
merely watched her because they knew she was a player’s wife.
That apparently was unknown to the fans…So there was a
security guard there almost the entire time as a witness, but
Davis didn’t know that. And, seeing his wife agitated, he
(Antonio) interpreted it as someone attacking her…”
“ ‘I thought my wife was in danger,’ Antonio Davis said during
the conference call. ‘I don’t think there was any other way to
handle it.’
Lupica:
“There were a lot of other ways to handle it. Come on.”
After the incident 14 months ago at the Palace at Auburn Hills
during the Pistons – Pacers game, you’d have also thought the
NBA would come down harder on Davis than a 5-game
suspension.
But back to Kendra, as one source told the New York Post’s
Peter Vecsey, “Given the choice of taking on Kendra or Antonio,
I’d rather fight Antonio. She can be real tough on people.”
–After a week with few upsets, Saturday was one of the bigger
days in college basketball history. The last three remaining
undefeateds, Duke, Florida and Pitt, all lost.
Duke, in a disgraceful effort, lost to Georgetown; St. John’s beat
Pitt, and Tennessee defeated Florida.
But the biggest upset actually occurred in Madison, Wisconsin,
where North Dakota State, in the midst of moving up to Division
I from D-II, somehow defeated #13 Wisconsin, 62-55.
Wisconsin shot 22% from the field.
And this is the last you’ll hear of my Wake Forest Demon
Deacons the rest of the year. We lost to North Carolina State,
92-82, after taking a 45-32 lead, and are now 1-4 in ACC play.
We won’t even make the NIT. Time to move on.
Except I keep reading about traitor Chris Paul. I caught his effort
against the Knicks on Saturday night…27 points, 13 assists, 7
rebounds…and of course it further pointed out that if Paul had
stuck around just one more season, Wake Forest would probably
be #1 in the country right now after Duke and Florida went
down. At worst we’d have just one loss. Wake was a Final Four
lock with him manning the point.
Yeah, yeah, I know he made the right decision, witness his NBA
rookie of the year award (just give it to him now), but that
doesn’t mean I have to like it. Wake’s program is now in
freefall…and I’m going to be miserable to deal with for years to
come.
🙂 _]
–Yes, the Big East is the best conference in college basketball.
–Now Tim Duncan….there’s a real hero….stayed four years….
except he had a miserable supporting cast and thus no Final Four
either.
–What’s the deal with Theo Epstein? He turned down a three-
year, $4.5 million offer to remain as general manager of the Red
Sox, left less than three months ago, and has now returned. He’s
a twit.
–We note the passing of Wilson Pickett, 64.
Top 20 Billboard tunes:
634-5789 (Soulsville, USA)…#13
Land Of 1000 Dances…#6
Funky Broadway…#8
She’s Lookin’ Good…#15
Engine Number 9…#14
Don’t Let The Green Grass Fool You…#17
Don’t Knock My Love…#13
“In The Midnight Hour”? Incredibly, it peaked at #21. And
“Mustang Sally” only hit #23.
Pickett was arrested a zillion times for a variety of offenses,
including assault, drug and alcohol charges, and pulling weapons
on people. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
in 1991 and is best known among a younger generation of fans
for being an inspiration behind the film “The Commitments.”
–Sympathies to sexy actress Ellen Barkin who is being dumped
by billionaire Revlon Corp. owner Ron Perelman. Barkin wants
to keep hope alive, but Perelman has other plans. According to
George Rush and Leo Standora of the New York Daily News:
“The hot speculation is that Perelman wants to send Barkin
packing…with $20 million before their prenuptial agreement
expires – which is said to be soon.
“If he blows the deadline, Barkin could ask for more, and
because Forbes magazine lists Perelman as the 34th richest
person in America, it could be a lot more.
“But would the legendary corporate raider be so tight-fisted with
a woman he once loved?
“ ‘Absolutley,’ said a Barkin friend. ‘He’s a very controlling,
tough S.O.B. He can’t get that deal thing out of his mind. The
finances are a huge part of it.’”
Stick him, Ellen. Find a way.
–As we celebrate the 300th birthday of Ben Franklin, a few of his
better known quotations.
“Remember that time is money”
“No nation was ever ruined by trade.”
“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the
stuff life is made of.”
“Here Skugg
Lies snug
As a bug
In a rug.”
[Epitaph for a squirrel, ‘skug’ being a dialect name for the
animal.]
“There never was a good war or a bad peace.”
“In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.”
“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything
else.”
“Well, Doctor, what have we got – a Republic or a Monarchy?”
“A Republic, if you can keep it.” [Reply to a bystander at the
close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787]
“I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative
of our country; he is a bird of bad moral character…like those
among men who live by sharping and, robbing, he is generally
poor, and often very lousy. The turkey…is a much more
respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America.”
“We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang
separately.”
–According to the latest data from the NCAA, 49% of black
men’s Division I basketball players have graduated after six
years (for the four year period, 1995-98) versus 76% for white
players. 54% of black football players graduated vs. the same
76% for whites. But as bad as this looks, it’s an improvement
from the past.
–The New York Jets selected a 14-year-old (some say he’s
actually 34) to be their new coach, Eric Mangini, and normally in
these situations the coaching staff is released to look for other
employment.
But in the Jets’ case, offensive coordinator Mike Heimerdinger
was told he was staying on even though he expressly said he
wanted to be released from his contract. As the New York Post’s
Mark Cannizzaro wrote:
“How could Mangini want an offensive coordinator who doesn’t
want to remain working with the organization? The mess has
raised eyebrows among coaches and executives around the
NFL.”
–The other day an obituary in the Star-Ledger, written by
George Berkin, caught my eye.
“Elizabeth Becker, 84, queen of ‘Concentration’”
It seems that back in April 1964, Mrs. Becker was the winner
eight straight days on the game show “Concentration” that so
many of us grew up with. Becker accumulated $15,000 in
prizes, a huge sum in those days.
[It’s hard for some of you younger folk to understand, unless you
watch the “Game Show” channel, but in the 60s the top prize
was often a washer / dryer.]
Mrs. Becker’s husband convinced her to apply and she was
selected among 150 contestants. During her winning streak she
won trips to Bermuda, Las Vegas and Florida; plus a full-length
beaver coat, a chinchilla stole, three TVs, and a china and crystal
service for 12. Then there was the basset hound, which she
refused to take. Oh, those were the days, my friends.
–I got a kick out of this story in the Wall Street Journal, reported
by Antonio Regalado.
It seems that David Pizer is one of those in the “cryonics”
movement and has made arrangements to have his body frozen in
liquid nitrogen when he passes on; all in the hope he will one day
be brought back to life when science comes up with a way for
him to do so.
But what makes his tale different from others you’ve heard is
what Pizer is doing with his money, some $10 million.
“With the help of an estate planner, Mr. Pizer has created legal
arrangements for a financial trust that will manage his (holdings)
until he is re-animated. Mr. Pizer says that with his money
earning interest while he is frozen, he could wake up in 100 years
the ‘richest man in the world.’”
Well, we wish him luck and I have to admit I’m rethinking
whether or not I should give away my Lew Alcindor rookie card.
–Congratulations to Cuba for finally being admitted to the World
Baseball Classic. Evidently President Bush had much to do with
the Cuban entry being able to circumvent U.S. Treasury
Department sanctions, including the fact any money the nation
makes off the tournament has to now be donated to Hurricane
Katrina relief efforts.
So we wish Cuba luck as your editor’s quest for a defector to fill
out the starting rotation for my Mets is now looking up.
But wait…what’s this? Mets trade Kris Benson to Baltimore?!
Mets thus lose stripper Anna Benson?!
Now you know Anna would have something to say about leaving
the New York limelight. In fact she said in her press conference
following the announcement her husband was traded that she and
Kris look forward to “christening the parking lot” at Camden
Yards, “referring to her desire to have sex at every major-league
park.” [Ben Shpigel / New York Times]
Anna, a royal pain in the ass, added:
“If they traded Kris because of what I’ve done, then that’s a
dirty, nasty, rotten trick.”
That’s exactly what the Mets did, Anna. Good luck in
Baltimore. The owner there is a certifiable nut job himself.
–Jennifer Berry, 22, is the new Miss America. Ms. Berry, an
aspiring teacher in Oklahoma and now a reason for dropouts to
contemplate a return, is no relation to former St. John’s
basketball star Walter Berry…nor old-time baseball player Ken
Berry, who in turn had zero to do with the television star of the
same name back in the 60s. Any link to Chuck Berry, however,
is still being explored.
–That Charles Willson Peale painting of George Washington I
wrote of last time was sold at auction for $21 million (including
commission). It was slated to go for $10 million to $15 million.
I assume you all have been searching your attics.
–I thought I could find something of interest in my vast library
concerning the 250th birthday of Mozart on January 27, 1756, but
alas, I have nothing…except this filler.
Mozart (1756-1791) began playing the harpsichord at age three
and composing at five. At seven, his father took him on a tour of
European courts that would last three years in the hopes of
getting rich. The Mozarts were paid well in Paris and at the
court of Versailles, but were disappointed what they received
elsewhere.
So in 1778, Mozart’s father insisted Wolfgang “get a job or at
least make some money.” But, Wolfie, a real “Jerk of the Year”
candidate if ever there was one, had a bad temper and failed to
make his way in the social world of Paris. A contemporary of
his wrote at the time, “I would wish for his fortune that he had
half as much talent and twice as much tact.”
Mozart moved on to Salzburg, where he was an unhappy court
musician, writing light music that would later be played in
elevators, and he was constantly in debt. In fact he died a poor
man and was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave in Vienna.
But before he caught rheumatic fever, he at least managed to
write some operas, including “Don Giovanni,” “The Marriage of
Figaro” and “The Magic Flute.”
Back in 2000, though, I wrote of a trip I took to Vienna and you
may find the following account mildly amusing.
My first full day there it was about 2:30 p.m., I had already
walked a ton and was lying down in my hotel; resting my weary
feet, plotting the next mission, when it started to rain a bit.
Perfect, I thought. I”ll take a cab out to Mozart”s grave site. It was
way out on the outskirts of the city and a cab was the only way I
could see getting there. So I was duly deposited at this massive
place.
There was a board at the entrance to the cemetery with all of the
key figures buried there, but I only recognized Mozart’s name
and I traipsed off to find him. By now it was raining pretty hard
and I was the only one around.
Well, I spotted Mozart”s site, all by itself with a broken pillar,
and I”m standing there paying my respects. Only one problem.
I”m not a huge Mozart fan and I only had a Hall and Oates tune
in my brain (“Private Eyes”). So I tried real hard to think of a
Mozart one and I think I was coming up with Haydn. I guess I
wasn’t in the moment.
So I walk back to where the cab left me off and that’s when it hit
me. How the heck was I getting back to the hotel? There were
no cabs or buses to be found. And I had left my maps back at the
hotel because I cockily thought, “I know where I”m going.”
Guess how long my walk home was? Two hours. The beer tasted
good that night, though.
But to top it off, I read the next day that I wasn’t even paying my
respects to Mozart after all. All they know is that he was buried
in a mass grave somewhere around that location and they just
chose a memorial spot. As to who I was humming “Private Eyes”
to, if anyone, hopefully they appreciated it.
—-The original draft of lyrics for John Lennon’s “A Day In The
Life” is to be sold at auction soon for an estimated $2 million.
Back in 1992, the estate of Beatles road manager Mal Evans sold
it for $100,000 to an unknown collector; a rather nice investment
for Mr. or Mrs. Anonymous, I think you’d agree.
From BBC News:
“The song, considered to be one of The Beatles’ finest, begins ‘I
read the news today, oh boy’ and was famously inspired by the
copy of the Daily Mail, which included reports of the coroner’s
verdict on the death of Tara Browne.
“The millionaire was killed in a car crash after driving at high
speed through London. It led to the line: ‘He blew his mind out
in a car, he didn’t notice that the lights had changed.’
“A study showing that the streets of Blackburn had 4,000
potholes was also immortalized by the lyrics: ‘I read the news
today, oh boy, 4,000 potholes in Blackburn, Lancashire.’
“Paul McCartney added the middle section, including the line:
‘Found my upstairs and had a smoke, somebody spoke and I
went into a dream.’”
Top 3 songs for the week of 1/24/70: #1 “Raindrops Keep Fallin’
On My Head” (B.J. Thomas) #2 “Venus” (The Shocking Blue)
#3 “I Want You Back” (The Jackson 5)…and…#4 “Someday
We’ll Be Together” (Diana Ross & The Supremes) #5 “Whole
Lotta Love” (Led Zeppelin)
NHL Quiz Answer: Top five career scorers –
1. Wayne Gretzky…894 goals…1,963 assists…2,857 points
2. Mark Messier……694…1,193…1,887
3. Gordie Howe……801…1,049…1,850
4. Ron Francis……..549…1,249…1,798
5. Marcel Dionne….731…1,040…1,771
Active…
6. Steve Yzerman…1,734 (thru Saturday)
7. Mario Lemieux…1,723
Next Bar Chat, Thursday.
