Chicago White Sox Quiz: 1) Who are the only three to win the
AL MVP award? 2) Who are the only three to win the Cy Young
award? 3) What two won Rookie of the Year in the 60s? 4)
Who threw a no-hitter in 1967? 5) What outfielder won five
consecutive Gold Glove awards from 1960-64? 6) Pitching,
games won, career? Answers below.
Animal Chat
So back in the days when I was working on Wall Street, I figure I
had at least 15 business trips to Chicago and not once did I stay
overnight. I loved being able to fly home the same day since
often I was back before I would otherwise have been had I done
my normal commute. But earlier this year it hit me, not only
have I not spent any time here, but I also hadn’t seen one site.
Well, I’m remedying that this week.
Today I went to the Brookfield Zoo, one of the bigger ones in the
country, and being an aficionado of these places I had to check it
out. Goodness gracious, it’s huge, in terms of being spread out,
but after I went to the first exhibit, the pachyderm house, I
thought ‘what the heck am I doing here?’ It was awful…a bunch
of elephants and rhinos inside on cement floors. Now this is like
the first zoos ever built back in Europe; designed for the
amusement of humans, but torture for the animals. Zoos in
America, though, are wising up and you’ve seen the stories on
how elephants in particular are being moved to sanctuaries when
suitable accommodations can’t be established at their existing
homes. Philadelphia is one of those shipping its elephants out,
and I thought I had seen that Chicago was doing the same
eventually.
Anyway, as it turned out the rest of Brookfield Zoo was far better
in terms of treatment with some pretty good exhibits. Brookfield
is also a prime breeding ground for some endangered species,
such as the gray wolf.
But did you know gray wolves eat beavers! No wonder beavers
are always building forts. And I have to admit it hit me, walking
around the vast complex, that beavers are partially to blame for
the subprime mortgage debacle. Yes, overbuilding. In fact,
Beaver Homes recently announced it sees no bottom in the
housing market as yet……………………………ah, sorry. I was
just advised it is BEAZER, not Beaver Homes……never mind.
Of course I go to zoos in search of the elusive Yak of Mongolia;
the mangy, yet noble beast being among God’s great creatures.
And the Yak is quite nutritious to boot. But, alas, there was no
Yak exhibit.
I did see a Puerto Rican boa, however. Didn’t know they had
them, and just another reason to stay on the grounds of your
resort and not venture into the jungles when you visit there.
[I’ve just been advised by my attorney that I should properly
label the above… “Puerto Rico boa”…not Puerto Rican.]
I do have to note, though, that I saw one of the grossest things
I’ve ever come across in an exhibit for a pair of Andean Condors.
Now these are simply the biggest birds in existence. I mean they
put a fright in the Nazgul, if you know what I’m sayin’, and I
don’t believe I’ve ever seen them before.
But I just happened by when it was feeding time and the girl
dropped four big rats for the two Condors to chow down on.
Let’s just say you don’t want to share a beer with these guys.
With just the second peck, they had ripped its guts out. We need
to enlist them in the war on terror.
Brookfield is known for its gorilla exhibit, and they appeared to
be quite comfortable with enough room. They were also very
playful as there were two newborns. But I was a bit disappointed
in their eating habits, to say the least. [And that’s all I’m going
to say on this one.]
Finally, you know the little polar bear cub getting all the
attention in Germany? Brookfield has one of their own that was
born in December and it was pretty funny seeing this cute guy
running around. The schoolchildren were absolutely screaming
with joy when it made its appearance.
So that’s your zoo report. Now it’s on to Joe’s Seafood for
dinner with an old friend from PIMCO.
[Absolutely delicious.]
—
Meanwhile, the above is far from the last bit on animals. Back
on 9/13/05 in this space, I had the tale of a vicious grizzly bear
attack on Johan Otter and his daughter in Glacier National Park.
Both survived.
But the other day in the Los Angeles Times, reporter Thomas
Curwen had an extensive interview with Otter. Following are
some excerpts. WARNING: This is not for the faint of heart.
Johan and daughter Jenna had been on the trail above Grinnell
Lake about an hour and were on a narrow ledge. After snapping
some pictures, they walked around a corner and encountered the
worst possible scenario. A grizzly with two yearling cubs. The
bear attacked Johan.
“Johan looked up. Jenna was running toward him. She had
yelled something, he wasn’t sure what. Then he saw it. The
open mouth, the tongue, the teeth, the flattened ears. Jenna ran
right past him, and it struck him – a flash of fur, two jumps, 400
pounds of lighting.”
The bear got hold of Johan’s left thigh and “jerked him back and
forth like a rag doll, but he remembered no pain, just disbelief. It
bit into him again and again, its jaw like a sharp vise stopping at
nothing until teeth hit bone. Then came the claws, rising like
shiny knife blades, long and stark.”
Johan kept his wits about him, amazingly, and purposefully went
over a cliff into a berry patch 20 feet below the trail. But the
bear was now up with Jenna. She followed Johan over the cliff.
The bear heard Johan calling Jenna and jumped down. Johan
tucked into a fetal position. “The bear fell upon him, clawing
and biting at his back.” Then Johan tumbled to another ledge,
and the bear followed again.
“(Johan) grabbed the bear by the fur on its throat. The feeling of
the coarse hair, as on a dirty dog, was unforgettable, and for a
moment the animal just stared at him, two amber-brown eyes, its
snout straight in his face. It showed no emotion, no fear, no
anger. There were just those eyes looking down at him.
“Johan considered fighting. He reached to his left for a rock. A
piece of shale, it crumbled in his fist….
“The bear bit again and again on his right arm….
“Now the bear was tugging at his back. It felt as if someone
were jumping up and down on him, and he found himself
growing angry….
“He felt a sharp pressure on the top of his neck and his head.
The bear was biting into his skull, chewing into the bone. This
could be it, he thought. This could be his death, and his right
hand was useless. He could not push the bear away.”
Johan tried to roll and slid down the slope another 20 feet. The
bear stood above him. Now it went after Jenna nearby. The bear
nipped at the right corner of her mouth. “Her screams split the
morning silence like an ax.”
Johan couldn’t do anything. “He looked at his right arm and saw
exposed tendons. His medical training as a therapist told him no
major nerves or arteries had been cut. They can sew that
together, he thought, and that, and that.
“Then he touched the top of his head and felt only bone. He
stopped exploring. It was enough to know that his scalp had
been torn off. His neck hurt. He wondered if something was
broken.”
Johan couldn’t see out of his right eye. He was afraid his eyeball
was hanging out but it was still there.
Eventually, the bear left Jenna and others on the trail heard their
cries for help. It took six hours, though, for the National Park
Service to rescue them by helicopter. At Kalispell Regional
Medical Center in Kalispell, Mont., the doctors were shocked
that Johan had survived. “His mauling was the worst they had
seen. He had no scalp. From his hairline to the base of his neck,
the bear had torn off everything. There were teeth marks in the
cranium. A muscle was detached from his right eye, where there
was a blowout fracture. He had broken ribs. His body was
pockmarked with deep lacerations and puncture wounds.”
Johan was at risk of a fatal infection because of the bacteria in a
bear’s mouth. He was given a tetanus shot and an antibiotic.
It turns out his spine was broken in two places. He was moved to
another hospital better equipped for all the surgeries that lied
ahead.
“Johan was happy when an orthopedics team brought in the
shoulder harness, halo ring and supporting rods. They pulled the
curtain around his bed, propped him up and started to set screws
into his skull. The pain was instantaneous. Johan gasped. They
had forgotten to apply lidocaine, a numbing solution.”
Three weeks after the attack, Johan finally caught an infection
and only a powerful antibiotic, vancomycin, worked. Incredibly,
by January 2006, four months after the attack, he was back at
work. Jenna recovered well from her own injuries. Johan began
running! Last June, he ran in San Diego’s Rock ‘n’ Roll
marathon and finished in 3 hours, 39 minutes.
Then last summer, 11 months after the attack, Johan returned to
Glacier National Park. He hiked the exact same trail, this time
with his wife and a park ranger who had helped save him. They
saw no bears. He stopped at the ledge where he first had the
encounter and said “It’s done.” Recovery was complete.
Stuff
–Tommy Newsom died. The great backup bandleader on “The
Tonight Show” was 78.
Newsom was, as Johnny Carson labeled him, “the man from
bland” and became the subject of many a joke.
“As a child, one time Tommy got lost and his parents couldn’t
describe him to the police,” Carson once said. Another time,
Johnny said Newsom “wants to come back as a plant, so
somebody will talk to him.”
Newsom took it all in stride and from time to time zinged one
back. He was also an accomplished saxophonist who toured with
Benny Goodman early on.
–Back to animal tales; “A young Australian diplomat was
mauled by lions at a wildlife park in Zimbabwe but survived
because her boyfriend scared the animals away,” according to
Agence France-Presse. The attack was back on March 4 but just
came to light even as she remains too traumatized to talk about
the experience.
“Gemma Huggins, 27, was visiting the Lion and Cheetah park
outside Harare when a lion grabbed her by the head and shook
her…
“The lion’s teeth came within millimeters of her jugular vein.”
Some television reports say she was attacked by more than one
lion.
–Did you see that incident in San Antonio where an 8-foot
alligator found its way onto the freeway, causing an awful tie-
up? “The gator even assaulted a police car, biting a chunk out of
its bumper.” I didn’t even know they had alligators there.
–Another sad death in the world of show business, the passing of
Tom Poston at the age of 85. How could you not love this star of
“The Steve Allen Show” and “Newhart”?
–According to a University of Pennsylvania study, white
referees in the NBA call more fouls proportionally on blacks
than whites, while black refs call more on whites.
But this ‘scholarly’ research is getting way too much publicity.
For starters, the data was taken from box scores and doesn’t
reflect what referee made what call. In other words, it’s bogus.
–Actor Gordon Scott died. He starred in six Tarzan movies in
the 1950s, plus he played “Hercules” in another flick. What’s
interesting is that Scott was just an obscure hotel lifeguard in Los
Angeles when he auditioned for the role of Tarzan, beating out
200 others. And as an associate later put it, “If he had one
weakness, it was women.” Gotta respect that.
–U.S. News & World Report notes that Bush #41 prefers Miller
Lite, while Bush #43 drinks non-alcoholic Buckler. FDR was a
Scotch and brandy man, and Richard Nixon scarfed down rum &
cokes.
–Barry Bonds hit #743. Dammit, hurry up, Feds! [It’s also time
for some waterboarding, like on Bonds’ ex-trainer Greg
Anderson who refuses to talk.]
–I meant to note this a few weeks ago, but for you New York
area folks in particular, remember Tom Carvel, the ice cream
man? He died of a heart attack long ago…but now his niece
wants his body exhumed because she’s convinced he was
poisoned.
You see, it’s come to light that Carvel was about to fire two
employees; his secretary and a company attorney, over
suspicions they had embezzled $millions. The day before he was
to do this, however, he was found dead.
I remember Carvel, a loveable chap with a gravely voice, for a
contest he once ran. You could actually win a pony! And he’d
finish the commercial with “And if your parents won’t let you
keep the pony, we’ll keep it for you at the Carvel farm.” It was
classic.
–The Yankees fired their strength and conditioning coach after
pitcher Phil Hughes blew out his hamstring in the 7th inning of a
no-hit bid in just his second major league start. Talk about
unbelievably bad luck. But it turns out this is the Yankees’
fourth hamstring injury in the young season, far more than
anyone else in baseball, and the coach was a new hire. Everyone
is in agreement…he had to go.
–It’s almost time for me to hop on the New York Rangers
bandwagon…but I’ll do so only if they beat Buffalo to advance
to the semifinals of the Stanley Cup.
–Vanderbilt is still #1 in college baseball.
–Lastly, Jeff B. had already spent the $10 he was convinced he
won on our big money bet with “For Better or For Worse,” but
the self-absorbed Liz, assuming Anthony would be her date for
an upcoming wedding, was floored (as was Jeff) when he said he
already had a date! Ha! Suck it up, Liz.
Now there is still a chance Liz ends up with Anthony before the
strip comes to its merciful conclusion this September, but Jeff
and I are on agreement on one matter. Liz will be arrested at the
wedding, doing drugs she stole from her father’s stash. The two
of us are also hoping Becky and her band are the music for the
affair, thereby pissing off 16-year-old Lindsay Lohan wannabe,
April, who is liable to start smashing furniture in a spasm of
violence not seen in the comics world since Sgt. Rock first took
out an entire city.
Top 3 songs for the week of 5/6/78: #1 “Night Fever” (Bee
Gees) #2 “If I Can’t Have You” (Yvonne Elliman) #3 “Can’t
Smile Without You” (Barry Manilow)…and…#4 “The Closer I
Get To You” (Roberta Flack with Donny Hathaway) #5 “With A
Little Luck” (Wings) #6 “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late”
(Johnny Mathis/Deniece Williams) #7 “You’re The One That I
Want” (John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John) #8 “Lay Down
Sally” (Eric Clapton) #9 “Dust In The Wind” (Kansas) #10
“Count On Me” (Jefferson Starship)
Chicago White Sox Quiz Answers: 1) AL MVPs: Nellie Fox,
1959; Dick Allen, 1972; Frank Thomas (1993, 1994). 2) Cy
Young winners: Early Wynn, 1959; LaMarr Hoyt, 1983; Jack
McDowell, 1993. 3) Rookies of the Year / 60s: Gary Peters,
1963; Tommie Agee, 1966. 4) No-hitter, 1967: Joel Horlen. 5)
Gold Glover, 1960-64: Jim Landis. [This shocked me…because I
just wasn’t familiar with him.] 6) Pitching, wins, career: Ted
Lyons, 260. [260-230…Hall of Fame]
Next Bar Chat, Monday p.m. The editor goes to a slew of
museums and a Cubs game.
