Baseball Quiz: Name the top ten pitchers all time in strikeouts.
[#10 is at 3342. 9 of 10 pitched at least part of their careers in
the 1980s.] Answer below.
Barry Dirtball, Part XXXII
In a poll for CNN / USA Today / Gallup, 478 major league
baseball fans were surveyed on the following.
Q: Would you rather see Barry Bonds…
41% Play…46% Retire…13% No opinion
Q: If Major League Baseball officials conclude that Barry Bonds
took steroids, do you think they should – or should not – take
away his batting records, including the record for most home
runs in a single season?
52% Yes, should…44% No, should not…4% No opinion
Q: Do you think Barry Bonds should or should not be elected to
the Baseball Hall of Fame?
49% Yes, should…43% No, should not…7% No opinion
This story is far from over and I recognize some of you disagree
with my take on Barry. As Dave H. wrote in the other day,
steroids weren’t banned when Bonds allegedly started using
them and, besides, everyone is innocent until proven guilty.
For the defense we call sportswriter William Rhoden of the New
York Times.
“The mob wants (Commissioner Bud) Selig to banish Bonds for
breaking a rule that did not exist. The commissioner cannot and
will not do this.
“The issue is too complex. For starters, Bonds is the greatest
player of his generation and one of the greatest ever. Even his
harshest critics concede that his greatness had nothing to do with
performance-enhancing drugs.
“Beyond that, Selig realizes that Bonds was part of the so-called
steroid era of baseball. Maybe Bonds was the emperor of that
era. Maybe he was a count, maybe he was a non-using, infinitely
talented subject. Who knows? He never tested positive for
illegal substances and has always denied using them.
“We do know this: Bonds competed in an era when Major
League Baseball had no testing and no real rules governing
steroids. If the commissioner goes after Bonds – and he can’t in
his heart of hearts be seriously considering this – he must go
after an entire generation of players who exploited the absence of
rules….
“Granted, there was the law of the land governing illegal
steroids. But ever since Congress granted it an antitrust
exemption in 1922, Major League Baseball operated, if not
outside the law, then very much in its own world. The law of the
land was not necessarily the rule of baseball, where steroid use
was an open secret….
“Go after Bonds, and you go after a generation.
“But all the mob seems to want is Bonds, as if punishing one
player will bring atonement for all. Sorry. That doesn’t translate
to baseball. As the Curtis Mayfield song title says, ‘If There’s A
Hell Below We’re All Going To Go.’
“Speaking of which, a lot of what seems to be driving the
unprecedented resentment of Bonds is the idea that he is getting
away with something. If he did all of the things the book says he
did, Bonds won’t get away. He’ll answer to a greater authority
than Selig. As it is, he’s destined to live a baseball life in limbo.
He will pass Babe Ruth, but won’t catch Aaron and will leave
baseball as the most unpopular superstar the sport has ever
known.
“I’m eager to see how Selig deals with his conundrum. Will he
exercise the wisdom of Solomon and find a way to
simultaneously acknowledge and distance himself from Bonds as
he passes Ruth? Or will Selig yield to hysteria and attempt to
chase Bonds out of baseball?” ….
“If I were the commissioner, I’d read the book, close the book
and move on.”
Hey, again, we’re not talking about just any bloated figure who
may have passed Ralph Kiner or Dave Kingman on the home run
list. We’re talking about a guy injecting himself into the record
book, for crying out loud.
But of course Selig isn’t going to do anything aside from his
stated investigation, which will take forever and at the
conclusion of which Bonds will stand at about 735.
No, Selig has been praying that the Feds would go after Barry for
the myriad of issues outstanding, including potential perjury and
income tax evasion. But for their part the Feds have been slow
to act, for whatever reason, and so we’ve reached this point.
But wait…there’s another book coming out, this one titled “Love
Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero.”
According to the authors, Bonds told Ken Griffey Jr. and three
others at Griffey’s house in the winter of 1998 that he planned to
start taking “hard-core” performance-enhancing substances.
From a story by Bob Nightengale in USA Today, “Griffey…who
is friends with Bonds, said Tuesday that he couldn’t recall the
conversation. He told his agent, Brian Goldberg, that Bonds had
only spoken in frustration about star players using steroids.”
Griffey told USA Today, “Nobody has ever seen him do
anything; it’s all speculation. Wasn’t there 7% of the players
who were caught using steroids for us to even have this drug-
testing program? Was he one of them? No.
“We are accountable as athletes for what we say and what we do.
So how come the media gets to hide behind anonymous sources?
Why can’t they put their names out there? It’s not fair to us.
We’re held to a higher standard, and we understand that, but
people have to understand that some of the anonymous sources
aren’t really anonymous. They’re just made up.”
Oh brother.
Alex Rodriguez weighed in: “We’re supposed to be in a time of
celebration, and all this crazy stuff comes out of nowhere. I
couldn’t care less what people write or about this investigation or
that investigation. Until you are proven guilty, you are innocent.
We are in America, right?”
Until someone tells me the grand jury testimony in the BALCO
investigation isn’t real, I’ll choose to reach different conclusions
than the disingenuous A-Rod.
Or better, in looking up something on a different topic the other
day, I stumbled on Johnny Mac’s commentary from a year ago,
3/1/05, when we were having the same debate. [Barry’s #s aren’t
adjusted for his abbreviated 2005 season.]
“OK, I’m now convinced. I believe Barry Bonds. I believe
everything Barry Bonds says. I believe that Bonds, alone among
all the great athletes who have played major league baseball, is
the one who drastically improved his production after turning 36.
I believe it is ‘hard work’ that has allowed him to hit 209 home
runs in the four seasons since his 36th birthday, 50 more than
Aaron. In fact, his 209 is more than any player has amassed in
total after turning 36. [Mays: 7 seasons, 118 HR; Ruth: 5
seasons, 149 HR; Aaron: 7 seasons, 201 HR; Ted Williams: 6
seasons, 155 HR; Reggie Jackson: 6 seasons, 138 HR; Mike
Schmidt, 4 seasons, 90 HR; Frank Robinson: 5 seasons, 83 HR.]
“I believe that nobody has endured the scrutiny Bonds has had to
endure. No other profession gets the kind of media attention that
athletes get (unless you are, say, an entertainer or politician, but
no matter…I believe Barry). I believe that Barry has been the
victim of racism, regardless of the fact that he has been voted
MVP 7 times and despite being sired by an all-star, held at
baptism by Willie Mays, and spending his childhood in major
league dugouts. I believe Barry hates publicity, despite the fact
he has personal publicists on his payroll.
“I believe Barry when he says steroids don’t help you, that it’s
not cheating, regardless of the fact that admitted steroid users
include MVP Jose Canseco, MVP Jason Giambi and MVP Ken
Caminiti. I believe Barry, that ‘hand-eye’ coordination is what
makes him great, regardless of the fact that he has chosen to
transform himself (naturally, of course) from a lean 175-pounder
into a 235-pound monster for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I
believe.”
—
John Chaney
A little over a year ago I was ripping Temple basketball coach
John Chaney for sending one of his reserves out to commit hard
fouls against a St. Joseph’s player and St. Joseph’s forward John
Bryant had his arm broken. I said Chaney, now 74, had
overstayed his welcome, a la former Ohio State football coach
Woody Hayes.
But Chaney just announced his retirement and after 741 coaching
victories and 17 NCAA tournament appearances (all in the first
19 of his 24 years at Temple), it’s time for a look back at his
entire body of work.
Dick Weiss / New York Daily News:
“Chaney grew up in poverty in South Philadelphia. ‘I didn’t
think about college,’ he said. ‘Blacks at that stage didn’t think
about college. They knew that college wasn’t possible for poor
people. Coming out of a very poor neighborhood, I didn’t know
what I wanted out of life, but I did know what I didn’t want. I
didn’t want to live where there were rat-infested, roach-infested
homes. I wanted to rise above that.’”
It was his hardscrabble upbringing that shaped his persona both
on and off the court.
Ian O’Connor / USA Today:
“Chaney was a living, breathing contradiction, an Old Schooler
who railed against the second and third chances given the likes of
Dennis Rodman and John Rocker and yet one who needed those
second and third chances himself…. ‘I’m going to be mean and
ornery when I see something wrong, and I’m going to try and
right it.’
“He’s as much an American original as Joe Paterno, only more
willing to take a stand. So many of today’s college coaches come
with anchorman hair and soap-opera teeth and speak in say-
nothing, Stepford-coach tones. If you asked Chaney a question
on the social or political order of the day, you needed your
chinstrap buckled tight for the answer.
“ ‘I’m a black (Bob) Knight,’ he once said. Which coach would
have been better for your son? Even if Chaney never made it to
a Final Four, you would have been wise to pick him over Knight
eight days a week.
“Chaney’s redeeming social value was a bigger contribution to
the game than his matchup zone. Before the sun rose, Chaney
had his players in the classroom, lecturing them about codes and
philosophies that didn’t belong on a chalkboard….
“(His) pros outweighed his cons, by a landslide. He weathered
the racism of his day, as a player and young coach, then set a
standard that inspired university administrators to grow color
blind in their pursuit of winning records and sold-out gyms.
“At a time when major college football coaches remain as white
as the stripes lining their fields, Division I basketball has become
a rainbow coalition of rich and famous men, a model for
diversity that serves the bottom line.
“ ‘John Chaney and John Thompson made it possible for the
black coach to get in the college game,’ Syracuse coach Jim
Boeheim said. ‘Administrators need to win to keep their jobs.
So when Chaney and Thompson won games, that’s how black
coaches got hired.’”
Chaney once said, “If you wake up with sunshine in your heart
even when it’s raining outside, you’ll get something
accomplished.”
Sometimes, however, his temper got the best of him; such as the
time in 1984 when Chaney grabbed the throat of Gerry
Gimelstob, then coach at George Washington, or Feb. 13, 1994,
when after a one-point loss to Massachusetts, Chaney threatened
UMass coach John Calipari, saying he wanted to kill him. And
there was the game in ’05 vs. St. Joseph’s.
The Star-Ledger’s Jerry Izenberg:
“(When) you played for John Chaney, you did not matriculate.
You enlisted.
“He was, by his recollection, a product of his time – young, black
and consigned to an emotional scrapheap built by an all-knowing
Philadelphia public school educator who was sure he knew
‘what’s best for the boy.’
“ ‘Think about that,’ he once told me. ‘Here was my counselor
…my school guidance counselor…telling me I couldn’t go to
college…keeping me out of every college prep course.”
But Chaney ended up getting his Masters degree and coaching at
the same school that wouldn’t give him a scholarship even
though he was the best player in the city.
At the press conference announcing his retirement on Monday,
Chaney started off by saying, “I just got a call from (Bill) Cosby
(one of Temple’s celebrated alums and a close friend). He sent
me a watch after I won one of those coach of the year awards
some years ago. I told him I had his watch on. So he sent the
police out to see if he could get it back.”
Dick Weiss:
“One of Chaney’s favorite singers was Frank Sinatra and he
keeps a couple of his records in his office. ‘One of the tennis
players has been trying to teach me to play the guitar,’ he said. ‘I
can’t do the finger stuff, but I can strum. The guys want me to
sing them songs like Snoopy Dog.
“ ‘What is it? Snoop Dogg? I don’t know any of these guys. I
just know Frank Sinatra. ‘Set ‘em up Joe. It’s quarter of two.
There’s no one in the place but me and you.’ And there’s another
song, ‘My Angel Eyes.’ ‘The end of the song goes something
like, ‘Excuse me while I disappear.’’
And with that Chaney walked out of his press conference.
Ian O’Connor:
“John Chaney enriched thousands of lives in his time at Temple
and hurt a couple along the way. It’s a pretty good scoreboard to
take to the grave.”
—
Bernie Geoffrion, RIP
I didn’t have enough time last chat to properly honor the hockey
Hall of Famer who died last Saturday at the age of 75 after a
battle with stomach cancer. In one of the weirder twists in recent
memory, the team where he carved out his legendary career,
Montreal, had long planned a ceremony to retire his jersey – No.
5 – the very same day he passed away yet his wife flew from
their home in Atlanta to join in the honor that evening. Bernie’s
jersey now hangs alongside that of the No. 7 of Mrs. Geoffrion’s
father, Hall of Famer Howie Morenz.
The previous Wednesday, Geoffrion told Rejean Houle,
president of the Montreal Canadiens alumni association, “I’m
going to make it and there will be no wheelchair for me.” But he
also told his family to celebrate his life and career if he didn’t.
So you can picture this was quite an emotional night for fans in
attendance. Dick Irvin, the retired broadcaster who served as
master of ceremonies, said “During the moment of silence, it was
so powerful. There wasn’t a peep. I think the fans appreciated
what the family was going through.”
Bernie “Boom Boom” Geoffrion [the nickname originated
because of the power of his shots as a junior player] joined the
Canadiens in 1950 at the age of 19 and would go on to help them
to six Stanley Cup titles, while winning two scoring crowns and
a MVP trophy himself. He played 16 seasons for Montreal
(1950-64) and the New York Rangers (1966-68), scoring 393
goals and 822 points in 883 regular season games.
But Boom Boom is best known for popularizing the slap shot. It
may be hard for some of you to believe but until he came along,
hockey players didn’t wind up and unleash their shot, choosing
to stick with the less powerful wrist shot. As former Rangers’
coach and general manager Emile Francis once said, “Without a
doubt (the slap shot) turned some 20-goal scorers into 50-goal
scorers.”
Geoffrion was also known as a big practical joker, which
backfired when one day in practice he writhed on the ice after a
minor collision. Everyone was shocked when he was carried out
on a stretcher to have his spleen removed.
And Boom Boom wasn’t always popular with the Montreal fans.
As Bill Beacon writes in the Canadian Press:
“He was booed by Montreal fans for winning the Art Ross
Trophy as the NHL scoring leader in 1955…
“Maurice (Rocket) Richard was leading the scoring race – on
pace for his first Art Ross, when he was suspended for the final
three games of the season and the playoffs for a stick-swinging
incident…
“In the following game against Detroit, Montreal Forum fans
rioted over the suspension.
“Many fans also wanted Geoffrion, who trailed Richard by two
points, and (Jean) Beliveau, who was three points back, to let up
so Richard could win the scoring title.
“Beliveau said Geoffrion, a ‘sensitive guy who was concerned
about his public image,’ fretted over the predicament until
defenseman Doug Harvey told him: ‘We’re going for first place,
Boom, so there’s no question of shooting wide of the net.’”
So Geoffrion ended up one point ahead of Richard and when he
was presented the Art Ross before the opening playoff game the
fans booed. Jerks.
Stuff
–Reminder, while Duke finished #1 in the final AP Men’s
College Basketball poll, only one of the previous ten who ended
the season ranked #1 wound up winning the tournament. [Duke,
2001. Prior to that, UCLA, 1995.]
And I just have to remind everyone that back on 1/12/06 I said
Gonzaga would finish #3 in the final poll and “fail to make the
Elite Eight.” The ‘Zags ended up #5 and it’s the Bar Chat
Guarantee (!) they won’t get beyond the Sweet Sixteen.
Lastly, for the casual fans out there, since the NCAA tourney
expanded to 64 teams in 1985, the #15 seed has won only 4 of 84
first round games (none of the four in the second round), while a
#16 has never won.
–A while back I wrote of the plight of the bears in the French
Pyrenees, as in there were just a handful left…15 to be exact by
last count. But now more than 300 shepherds and farmers are
protesting over the introduction of five Slovenian bears, four of
whom are female, in an attempt to repopulate the bruins; the
folks thinking their livelihood is about to be disrupted by the
coming slaughter of sheep.
Boy, if I were the farmers I wouldn’t press the issue. Recall it
was Slovenia that first faced down Milosevic when he started his
ill-fated Balkan wars. Hell, the Slovenes defeated him with like
one tank.
Ergo, these new bears are tough, real bastards, as America’s
black bears are fond of saying when they’re small talking after
raiding your garbage can. Look for some French farmers to be
taken out in a lightning raid by the Slovene bruins.
–I present the following from an article by Lewis Smith in the
London Times without comment.
“Whatever men and smirking wives may say about size not
mattering, the fossa, a diminutive and distant cousin of the lion,
clearly isn’t listening.
“The creature, dubbed the Pink Panther of Madagascar, has the
largest penis bone of all the cat-like species which, scientists
believe, ensures that it is the real king of its island jungle.
“An adult fossa is about 3 ½-feet long and has a penis of about 7
inches, a sixth of its body length….
“Scientists believe that the fossa is so well-endowed because of
the demands of the female and the need to outdo male
competitors. Lesley Dickie [ed. you’ve got to be kidding me],
presenting a study to the Zoological Society of London
yesterday, said the large penis bone, the bacula, may be the
secret to the fossa’s ability to keep up an acceptable performance
during mating sessions that last for up to eight hours….
“ ‘It’s nature’s Viagra,’ said Dr. Dickie.”
Well, actually I do have to comment, because in reading further
it turns out the fossa is the largest predator on Madagascar.
“Villagers on the island are fearful of it.”
Good god. Perhaps we should move on.
–PGA golfer J.B. Holmes, who has been an instant smash as a
rookie on tour this year with his titanic drives and his win in
Phoenix last month, swears he didn’t change his first name from
‘John’ in order to avoid the inevitable snickering.
[For you younger folks out there, let’s just say the legendary
film, err, porn star of the same name, was the fossa of his
generation.]
–My New York Jets saw quarterback Jon Kitna sign with the
Lions, when the Jets had been interested, so that means we’ll
take Jay Cutler as I had hoped with the 4th pick in the draft,
right? Wrong. Now we want Matt Schaub, the former Virginia
QB who plays for Atlanta. I’m so confused. Just take Cutler!!!!!
[Matt Leinart’s arm strength is being questioned big time around
the NFL, by the way, and we already know Vince Young has his
detractors.]
But I loved this blurb in the New York Daily News considering
All-Pro center Kevin Mawae, who the Jets released for salary cap
reasons.
“(Mawae), who said upon his release that he wanted to play for a
Super Bowl contender, signed with the Titans, who were 4-12
last season. A $4 million signing bonus, part of a four-year, $13
million contract, apparently changed his mind.”
–New York Knicks coach Larry Brown is having problems with
guard Stephon Marbury, who told the press the other day that he
was tired of playing under Brown’s system and would now seek
his “freedom” on the court, meaning he would just run and chuck
and, in his words, “go back to playing like Stephon Marbury, aka
Starbury.”
To which Larry Brown replied.
“We’re 17 and 45. You want to say because we don’t have
freedom that’s why we’re losing? That’s fine, you can say that
all you want. But the reality is, we foul more than any team in
the league, since the fifth week of the season we’re the second-
worst field-goal percentage defensive team in the league, we turn
the ball over more than any team in the league, we’re close to the
fewest blocked shots of any team in the league. Now you want
freedom? How are you gonna have freedom with those stats?”
Now Brown, a former point guard himself, is known for his
problems with those he has tapped to quarterback his myriad of
teams, but my Philly friends will appreciate his praise of one
such pupil, Allen Iverson.
“He came to every game trying to win, as hard as he possibly
could. (A.I.) played hurt, broken down, competed every single
night, and we had a team around him that accepted what he could
do. And they all knew that every single night he’s trying to win
the game…He competed every single minute of every game.”
[New York Daily News]
–I haven’t watched one inning of the World Baseball Classic but
I couldn’t help but see the blown call in the United States – Japan
contest where the Japanese were robbed. Umpire Bruce
Davidson overruled a fellow ump and said Japan’s Tsuyoshi
Nishioka had left third base too soon on a sacrifice fly to left that
would have given Japan a 4-3 lead in the eighth, when the
replays clearly showed this not to be the case. The U.S. went on
to win 4-3. If I’m Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi, who
complained afterwards, I demand compensation at the next G-8
meeting, or threaten to stop financing our deficit.
–The correct pronunciation for PGA sensation Camilo Villegas
is [b-JAY-gahs]. Villegas has to scramble to qualify for the
Masters, needing a big showing at Bay Hill this week; that is
unless Masters officials choose to give him a special exemption.
Golf fans want him there.
–From the AP comes the tale of Haldis Gundersen of
Kristiandsund, Norway, who last weekend turned on her kitchen
faucet and found the water had turned to beer.
“Two flights down, employees and customers at the Big Tower
Bar were horrified when water poured out of the beer taps.
“By an improbable feat of clumsy plumbing, someone at the bar
had accidentally hooked the beer hoses to the water pipes for
Gundersen’s apartment.”
Understand that beer in Norway is incredibly expensive (along
with everything else there) so this could have been quite a coup
for her, but alas she said the beer was “flat and not tempting.”
It turns out the plumber was trying to walk the bartenders
through the process by phone.
–Jason Collins update…the New Jersey Nets’ 7-foot center plays
27 minutes a game and averages 3.5 points, 4.6 rebounds, and
0.5 blocks each contest. For this he is paid $6 million. Is this a
great country or what?!
–From Pam M….for St. Patty’s Day
McQuillan walked into a bar and ordered martini after martini,
each time removing the olives and placing them in a jar.
When the jar was filled with olives and all the drinks consumed,
the Irishman started to leave.
“S’cuse me,” said a customer who was puzzled over what
McQuillan had done, “what was that all about?”
“Nothin’,” said the Irishman, “my wife just sent me out for a jar
of olives!”
–What a fiasco induction night for the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame turned out to be. Two members of Blondie, enmeshed in a
big legal battle, pleaded with Deborah Harry on stage to let them
play, but she replied, “Can’t you see my band is up there?” To
which Frank Infante said, “I thought Blondie was being
inducted.”
And then you had inductees the Sex Pistols, who turned down
the honor in a letter comparing the Hall to “urine in wine.”
Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner invited the band to
pick up their trophies at the museum’s location in Cleveland.
Plus there was Black Sabbath, with founding member Ozzy
Osbourne still upset it took 10 years to honor the group. In
essence, a bad time was had by all.
Top 3 songs for the week of 3/14/70: #1 “Bridge Over Troubled
Water” (Simon & Garfunkel) #2 “Travelin’ Band” (Creedence
Clearwater Revival) #3 “The Rapper” (The Jaggerz)…and… #4
“Rainy Night In Georgia” (Brook Benton) #6 “Give Me Just A
Little More Time” (Chairmen of the Board) #7 “Thank You
Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin” (Sly & The Family Stone) #8
“Hey There Lonely Girl” (Eddie Holman) #9 “He Ain’t Heavy,
He’s My Brother” (Hollies) #10 “Evil Ways” (Santana)
Baseball Quiz Answer: Top Ten strikeouts…
1. Nolan Ryan…5714
2. Roger Clemens…4502
3. Randy Johnson…4372
4. Steve Carlton…4136
5. Bert Blyleven…3701
6. Tom Seaver…3640
7. Don Sutton…3574
8. Gaylord Perry…3534
9. Walter Johnson…3509
10. Phil Niekro…3342
Others / Active
13. Greg Maddux…3052
14. Pedro Martinez…2861
16. Curt Schilling…2832
Next Bar Chat, Tuesday. I’m traveling overseas and not sure on
the Web connection…but I’ll have something up there, I hope.
