Baseball Quiz: [The following was gleaned from some info I
saw in the New York Times.] Bernie Williams will soon play his
2,000th game with the Yankees, but he’s still nowhere near the
top ten all time for games played among those who spent their
entire career with one team. Name the ten heading this list.
[Hints: All are household names and from the modern era,
meaning no tricks from the 1800s or early 1900s, and one is still
active (and incredibly underrated). But I’ll give you perhaps the
hardest…Mel Ott, who played 2,730 games with the New York
Giants and ranks #7 on the list.] So work on the other nine.
Answer below.
The Plot Thickens
It’s time baseball faced up to its past…so that us fans can then
move on. And so the story that broke in the past 24 hours could
be more important than the initial investigation into steroids and
users such as Bonds, McGwire and Sosa.
Federal investigators, led by the IRS agent, Jeff Novitsky, who
spearheaded BALCO, Part I, raided the home of Arizona
Diamondbacks pitcher Jason Grimsley after Grimsley took
delivery of two kits containing human growth hormone (HGH).
The raid, conducted April 19, has just come to light after court
documents were unsealed detailing the action.
HGH is illegal, though long-suspected as being used by players,
but the problem is baseball doesn’t test for it because the only
available testing method is deemed unreliable. For years,
though, it’s presumed to have been more prevalent, especially
after baseball stiffened its steroid policy.
As for the latest episode involving Grimsley, this is huge. At
first he cooperated with investigators and has named names.
They will come out shortly, possibly within days. And what’s
particularly worrisome for players is that Grimsley has played for
Philadelphia, Cleveland, California, the Yankees, Kansas City,
Baltimore and Arizona. In other words, he knows a lot.
Grimsley also evidently blew the lid off the amphetamine
scandal, telling investigators that use was so prevalent, coffee
was marked “leaded” or “unleaded” to indicate which pots
contained the drugs.
The Arizona Republic, which released the affidavit (names
blacked out) notes that Latino players were cited by Grimsley as
the major source for amphetamines, as well as California players
who could easily travel to Mexico to purchase them.
And of course Grimsley is yet another pitcher. The vast majority
of those nailed under the new baseball steroid policy have been
hurlers, even as attention has focused on the sluggers. [Ro-ger…
Ro-ger…]
The Grimsley story broke just as sportswriter Jeff Pearlman
penned his latest. So in light of this, the following should be
taken far more seriously than it otherwise might have.
Phil W. passed along Pearlman’s latest from Slate. He has been
writing extensively on the steroids issue and, prior to the
Grimsley news, referred to the free pass that the Cards’ Albert
Pujols is receiving.
“Is Pujos abusing steroids or human growth hormones? I don’t
know. But what’s alarming in this era of deceit is that nobody
seems interested in finding out. A little more than one year
removed from congressional hearings that produced the most
humiliating images in the game’s history, baseball writers have a
duty to second-guess everything. Instead, everyone is taking
Pujols’ test results at face value. Have we forgotten that Barry
Bonds has never failed one of Major League Baseball’s drug
tests?
“In Sports Illustrated’s baseball preview issue, Tom Verducci,
who has done great work exposing the proliferation of steroids in
baseball, credulously praised the likes of Pujols and Twins
catcher Joe Mauer. Verducci exclaimed that baseball is now ‘a
young man’s game, belonging to new stars who, certified by the
sport’s tougher drug policy, have replaced their juiced-up,
broken-down elders who aged so ungracefully. It’s baseball as it
ought to be. A fresh start.’ In other words: Masking agents?
What masking agents?
“Last year, editors at the Post-Dispatch assembled a task force to
investigate whether Mark McGwire had ingested performance-
enhancing drugs. After a short stretch of fruitless reporting, the
effort died. One would think that Pujols…would at least warrant
a gander, or perhaps a flight or two to his native Dominican
Republic to check out the friendly neighborhood pharmacies.
Yet the paper has lifted nary a finger in examining Pujols’
background. ‘Albert isn’t an enhanced thug like some of the
other suspects,’ explains Rick Hummel, the longtime Post-
Dispatch baseball writer. ‘He hasn’t grown significantly and
he’s always had a lot of power. So what’s there to look into?’
“What’s there to look into? How about this: For the past decade,
baseball has been routinely pulling the bait-and-switch with its
fan base. When McGwire and Sammy Sosa engaged in ‘The
Chase’ for the home-run record during 1998, we were told the
game was being saved, that two great men with selfless hearts
were doing the impossible. Oops, it was all a lie. Three years
later, we were asking to suspend belief yet again as the 37-year-
old Bonds, with a head the size of Jupiter, effortlessly broke
McGwire’s standard.
“Why are journalists so soft in this area? One reason: fear of
being shut out. Over the course of a 162-game season, beat
writers and columnists work their tails off to develop
relationships with players. You grovel. You whimper. You
plead. You tiptoe to a first baseman, hoping he has five minutes
to talk about that swollen toe. You share jokes and –
embarrassingly – fist pounds. Wanna kill all that hard work in
six seconds? Ask the following question: Are you juiced?
“After having been duped by the men they cover, America’s
sportswriters are playing dumb again. One year after being
dismissed as a has-been, steroid-using fibber, Yankees first
baseman Jason Giambi is the toast of New York….At the start of
spring training in 2005, Giambi looked smaller than in seasons
past. Now, he has muscles atop muscles atop muscles….
[Pearlman then says only one beat writer has questioned
Giambi’s performance, but that this particular reporter later
wimped out. But I would have added the Daily News’ Mike
Lupica has been all over Giambi’s case, though technically he
isn’t a beat writer. Pearlman continues…]
“I, for one, don’t believe him. During my six years at Sports
Illustrated, I fell for the trick and covered Giambi as the hulking,
lovable lug who cracked jokes and hit monstrous homers. All
the while, he was cheating to gain an edge. So, why – when
MLB doesn’t administer a test for human growth hormone –
should I believe Giambi is clean?
“Likewise, when I look at Roger Clemens, I wonder: Where’s
the investigative digging?”
Yes, some of the above is more than a bit bitter, but as one who
has written extensively myself on this topic, and questioned
Clemens’ unbelievable performance, you have to be skeptical of
everyone these days.
Stuff
–Yikes, Jeff B. just passed along the story of the death of a
University of Tulsa football player, Devin Adair, 21, from flesh-
eating disease. We both had hoped a certain someone in San
Francisco, with a hat size of 15 ¼, had contracted it instead.
–We note the passing of keyboardist Billy Preston. Some of his
work has handily stood the test of time and is often hummed in
the headquarters of StocksandNews. But I didn’t realize he had
five top-4 Billboard Pop singles as a solo artist. Damn good, I
think you’d agree.
5/72…#2…Outa-Space
5/73…#1…Will It Go Round In Circles
10/73…#4…Space Race
8/74…#1…Nothing From Nothing
3/80…#4…With You I’m Born Again…[With Syreeta Wright,
wife of Stevie Wonder. Of course Stevie couldn’t see that
Syreeta and Billy were messing around.]
Aside from his work with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, as
you all know by now Billy Preston was the first musical guest
on “Saturday Night Live” back in 1975.
–College Baseball Sweet Sixteen. [Just thought some of you
may not be aware your alma mater is still in it.]
South Carolina, North Carolina, Clemson, Georgia, Georgia
Tech, College of Charleston, Alabama, Mississippi, Oral
Roberts, Rice, Stanford, Oklahoma, Miami (which did defeat
Manhattan), Missouri, Cal St. Fullerton, and Oregon State
–Mel Antonen of USA Today wrote a piece on the baseball draft
and I had forgotten about the first-round pick of the Seattle
Mariners in 1997, 6’10” Ryan Anderson, the high schooler with
the 100-mph fastball who was immediately called “Little Unit”
after “Big Unit” Randy Johnson.
Anderson got off to a solid start in the minors but after three
shoulder surgeries he was out of the game and is now, at 26, in
culinary school. [Don’t cry for him…he probably still has a lot
of his $2.175 million signing bonus.]
But here’s what’s interesting. Of the 464 first-round picks since
1990, 95 have been high school pitchers (20%) compared to 147
collegiate pitchers (32%). Of the high school hurlers, 41
reached the majors. But in the 2003 and 2005 drafts, only three
high school pitchers were taken in the first round. More and
more franchises are simply reluctant to take a chance on them
and the Kansas City Royals, with the first pick this year, opted
for a college pitcher who has a better chance to make an
immediate impact at the major league level. [The fellow actually
left school a year ago and had been pitching in an independent
league.]
–Chicago White Sox pitcher Wilbur Wood was part of an
answer to a recent baseball quiz and Johnny Mac and I were
musing about his career. I’ve written of him in the past, how
Wood, a knuckleballer, was just moseying along in his career,
ostensibly as a reliever, when after a 1970 campaign, where he
went 9-13 with 21 saves, the Sox decided to turn him into a
starter at which point he became a real workhorse, the likes of
which we won’t see again given baseball’s current trend of not
having starters go more than seven innings.
1971: 22-13, 334 innings, 1.91 ERA, 7 SHO
1972: 24-17, 377 IP, 2.51 ERA, 8 SHO, 49 starts
*The Sox had a 3-man rotation in ‘72; Wood, Stan Bahnsen and
Tom Bradley. Collectively they started 130 of 154 games (the
schedule was reduced by an early-season strike)
1973: 24-20, 359 IP (381 hits), 48 starts, 3.46 ERA
1974: 20-19, 320 IP, 42 starts, 3.60 ERA
1975: 16-20, 291 IP, 43 starts, but the ERA was now 4.11 and he
finished up his career with three injury-riddled seasons. Overall,
Wood had a mark of 164-156.
But as Johnny pointed out, “Wilbur had to be the happiest guy on
earth when they instituted the designated hitter rule in the A.L.
for 1973. You see, Wood was a freakin’ lousy hitter, as in
dreadful.”
Try 322 career at bats with just 27 hits for a .084 batting average.
Wilbur also whiffed a staggering 189 times. In fact in his last
season at the plate, 1972, he struck out 65 of 125 times, though
he did somehow put the bat on the ball enough to collect 17
of his 27 hits that year, a career best .136 average.
However, you think this is bad? Check out Dean Chance, the
1964 A.L. Cy Young award winner for the then Los Angeles
Angels (they changed their name in ’65 to ‘California’) when he
was 20-9 with 11 shutouts and a 1.65 ERA.
Chance, who pitched from 1961-71, came to the plate 662 times
in his career and had just 44 hits for a .066 average. Plus he
whiffed 420 times…including 63 of 93 plate appearances in
1968!
Well, I had to look up others, simply off the top of my head in
testing my grade school memory.
Dick Ellsworth…1958-71, 115-137 W/L record. 59 of 673 at the
plate for a .088 average.
Hank Aguirre…1955-70, 75-72 as a starter / reliever. 33 of 388,
.085, with 236 strikeouts.
And lastly, Bob Buhl. This guy was a respectable pitcher, 166-
132 in a career spanning 1953-67. But it was in 1962 with the
Cubs that he made his mark. In a 12-14 season on the mound,
Buhl was 0 for 70 at the plate. [He had one at bat, and one of his
losses, with Milwaukee.] Lifetime, Buhl ended up 76 for 857,
.089, with 389 strikeouts.
OK, Johnny, time for you to come up with some other efforts in
futility.
–Former major league umpire Eric Gregg died after suffering a
massive stroke at the age of 55. Gregg, who often exceeded 400
pounds and hung out with fellow ump John McSherry (370
pounds and a man who dropped dead while working behind the
plate at Cincinnati’s season opener in 1996), once said “The
spreads in the umpires’ rooms are fantastic. I’d be attacking
them while I still had my uniform on. Five, six beers, snacks.
Then it’s time to go out and have a big meal. Four, five more
beers, bottle of wine, more food, go to bed.” It was a formula
that killed him. [Richard Goldstein / New York Times]
–So I watched the whole season of “The Sopranos” and it was
so-so, in my opinion, with some genuinely great moments mixed
in. But the last episode wasn’t one of them.
However, for the archives, Christopher (Michael Imperioli) will
overdose in the final episode next year, while Tony is killed by
A.J., Tony lying on a raft in his swimming pool. As he then
closes his eyes…in this pool of blood (get it?)…the ducks land, a
la the premiere episode. The final song is Sinatra’s “It Was A
Very Good Year.”
–Good to see 52-year-old Jay Haas qualify for the U.S. Open at
Winged Foot. It would be a great stage for him to break the all-
time ‘cuts made’ mark on the PGA Tour. And Camilo Villegas
qualified. He could spice things up a bit.
But Michelle Wie failed by five shots in her bid to become the
first woman to qualify. I’m glad I wasn’t at Canoe Brook, here
in Summit, N.J., after all because I would have been disgusted
with what I heard were hundreds of incredibly rude “fans.”
Overall, about 4,000 turned out and it was a total zoo with
spectators walking directly in front of golfers as they were about
to hit tee shots and trampling on the greens; all in their attempt to
catch a glimpse of the 16-year-old hottie who can bomb drives
300 yards.
So where does your editor stand these days on the topic of Wie’s
decision to go for an Open bid, as well as her intended career
track? I’ve changed. But like everything else, it’s not just black
and white.
The U.S. Open is a true “open” event. You can go through a
national qualifying process and if you make it you get to tee it up
alongside the greats of the game. There are no restrictions. If
Michelle Wie can qualify, and she came close, well then good for
her. She’d deserve it.
But there are two other issues. Does Michelle deserve
exemptions on the PGA Tour? It’s not cut and dry. If you’re a
tournament sponsor, particularly of a more minor event, why not
extend one of those precious exemptions to her to juice
attendance? You can hardly blame John Deere, a sponsor that
has already offered her an exemption for later this summer, for
example, but many on the PGA Tour bitch and moan… “Hey,
she’s taking away a spot from a longstanding Tour member who
is struggling to make it.”
Tough. It’s a business. If the guy is struggling it’s because he
sucks and chances are there are all of three people, max, who
would come out to see Mr. Journeyman, versus 10,000 who
would get tickets to be part of Michelle’s gallery.
Having said that, you have the other big issue, that of the LPGA
Tour. If Michelle wants to screw around and try to play with the
big boys before her game is ready to handle it on a regular basis,
she can’t expect a great reception from her fellow LPGA
members when she plays the ladies tour.
Because the bottom line remains…Michelle Wie hasn’t won
anything!
I thought two years ago that she should concentrate on
dominating the women’s tour, first, before taking the next step,
but clearly she’s going to attempt to do both the next four to five
years. But unless she really breaks through, on either side, her
reputation is going to suffer.
Meanwhile, I’m mellowing in my old age.
–But wait….there’s more! Michelle may not have made the
Open, but 15-year-old Tadd Fujikawa did! He is the second
youngest ever to qualify, having gained the lone spot in a 9-
player qualifier in Hawaii. So you might be thinking, why didn’t
Michelle play there? Well, she had to be on the East Coast for
the LPGA Championship in Baltimore this week and Canoe
Brook was convenient.
–I was just glancing at the New Jersey high school track marks
and we’ve had some pretty good athletes in this regard. For
example, Dennis Mitchell still holds the state records for the 200
and 400-meters, set back in 1983. And Renaldo Nehemiah
maintains the 100-meter hurdle mark from 1977.
Then there’s Carl Lewis, still the record holder in the long jump,
26-6, while at Willingboro High in 1979.
But I love this one. Marty Liquori remains the champ in the
1,600-meters with a time of 3:59.8. Liquori set this mark all the
way back in 1967 for Essex Catholic.
–I missed this story the other day, but next time you’re eating a
steak think of Charlie the Cow. The bovine was headed to a
Japanese slaughterhouse when it made a mad dash for freedom.
Two dozen police pursued Charlie (my name…not sure what his
mother called him, actually) as he weaved in and out of traffic.
One slaughterhouse plant worker was knocked over along the
way by Charlie and sent to the hospital.
Masashi Kitabayashi, a police official, told the AP, “The cow
was startled by a loud sound and just ran off.” [Probably a
cleaver.]
Sadly, this story doesn’t have a happy ending. Charlie,
attempting to make like Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Aaron
Rowand (who recently made one of the great catches in baseball
history while smashing into the centerfield wall and breaking his
nose), crashed himself headfirst into a fence and died.
So lift your fork in honor of Charlie and his heroic effort to avoid
making it onto your plate.
–Anna Kournikova turned 25 on Wednesday. Geezuz. She’s
still just 25?! Doesn’t it seem like she should be 38 by now?
And Eddie Haskell, a k a actor Ken Osmond, turned 63.
Doesn’t it seem like he should be only 28?
Top 3 songs for the week of 6/8/68: #1 “Mrs. Robinson”
(Simon & Garfunkel) #2 “Tighten Up” (Archie Bell & The Dells)
#3 “This Guy’s In Love With You” (Herb Alpert)…and…#4
“The Good, The Bad And The Ugly” (Hugo Montenegro…with
Lee Van Cleef…none badder than him, that’s for sure) #5
“Mony Mony” (Tommy James & The Shondells) #6 “Yummy
Yummy Yummy” (Ohio Express…America, swept up with
Vietnam, had clearly lost its head) #7 “MacArthur Park”
(Richard Harris… ditto, because this is easily one of the three
worst songs of all time and an embarrassment for all associated
with the Harris name, including the all-time leader in pinch-hits,
Lenny Harris, as well as Hall of Fame rusher Franco Harris) #8
“A Beautiful Morning” (The Rascals…sanity restored)
Baseball Quiz: Games played, one team, entire career –
Carl Yastrzemski, Red Sox…3,308
Stan Musial, Cardinals………3,026
Cal Ripken, Jr., Orioles……..3,001
Brooks Robinson, Orioles…..2,896
Robin Yount, Brewers………2,856
Al Kaline, Tigers……………2,834…this guy was cool
Mel Ott, N.Y. Giants………..2,730
George Brett, Royals………..2,707
Craig Biggio, Astros…………2,621 [thru Tues.]
Ernie Banks, Cubs…………..2,528
Next Bar Chat, Tuesday.
