NCAA Basketball Quiz: 1) Who was the last guard to be selected
“Most Outstanding Player” (MOP) in the Final Four? 2) Who
am I? I was MOP in 1993, initials D.W. 3) Who am I? I was
MOP in 1986, initials P.E. 4) Who was UCLA’s MOP in 1975?
[Hints: Walton’s last MOP was ’73 and Sidney Wicks won it in
1970.] 5) In 1966, what player for 3rd place Utah (back when
they had a consolation game) was nonetheless MOP? Answers
below.
March Madness
Let’s look at the few comments I made the last two chats, 3/17
and 3/20.
I said the Final Four would be comprised of all #1s. So far so
good.
I said the only real upset would be St. Joe’s, a #11, over #6
Oklahoma….doh! #12s W. Kentucky and Villanova won, as
well as #13s Siena and San Diego. W. Kentucky and Villanova
then advanced to the Sweet 16.
I said Butler was overrated and by not getting to the Sweet 16,
that proved to be true.
I said Clemson would go down early. Bingo.
I said Vanderbilt was incredibly overrated at a #4. Bingo.
I said “How could Davidson only be a #10 seed?” Then said,
Davidson makes it to the Elite Eight. One win away here. Very
proud of this one…and treated myself to a premium.
[I also said Marquette would exit early, but at least the #6 won
their first round game.]
All in all….as Ronald Reagan would say, “Not bad, not bad at
all.”…………….thus far.
And just a final word on Davidson for the archives. The
Wildcats were down 17, 46-29, to Georgetown, but then went on
a 38-14 run on the way to a stunning 74-70 victory. Stephen
Curry scored 25 of his 30 in the second half; this after going off
for 40 in the first round win over Gonzaga.
–Interesting comments following West Virginia’s win over Duke
on Saturday. When apprised that Duke had eight McDonald’s
All-Americans, WVU star Joe Alexander said “Who?”
The Mountaineers don’t have any high school All-Americans
and Alexander continued, “We don’t care that they’re Duke.
That doesn’t mean anything to us. People look at West Virginia
like we’re this mid-major school playing all these big schools
and upsetting them.”
What’s interesting is that West Virginia is now in the Sweet 16
for the third time in four seasons (they won the NIT the other)
and as Pete Thamel of the New York Times points out, have a
better record of postseason success than Duke.
“Any sports fan who has done their homework on us recently and
knows that we have Bob Huggins as our coach, how can they
pick us 10th in the Big East or to get upset in the first round of the
NCAA tournament?” Alexander said. I have to admit, I
grudgingly respect Huggins a lot myself.
Since winning the national title in 2001, Duke is 5-7 in NCAA
tournament games played outside North Carolina and 8-0 in
NCAA games played in the state.
–Phil W. drew UNC in his office pool. Phil, being a fellow
Demon Deacon alumnus and a hater of all things Carolina Blue
(as opposed to your editor who picked them simply because he
felt they were the best team) said, “They always win when
you’re pulling against them (which is always) and then when you
occasionally need for them to come through they lose. The Tar
Heels screw you either way!” I tried to calm Phil down but he’d
have none of that. It’s tension left over from the Mets collapse
last fall, you understand.
–Mississippi Valley State shot 13 of 66 from the field in its first
round, 70-29, loss to UCLA.
–I’m like a kid at Christmas these days as I await my order of
Usinger’s Brats…that’s Usingers Famous Sausages, from
Milwaukee. Order some today.
–By now everyone has heard of the tragic tale out of Marathon,
Fla., where a 55-year-old woman was killed by a flying stingray,
but it’s necessary to tell the story for the archives, seeing as Bar
Chat is the single best source for animal attacks.
Judy Zagorski of Pigeon, Mich., was just sitting in her boat when
a spotted eagle ray (quite beautiful, actually), weighing 75 lbs.
and with a wingspan of 5 to 6 feet, leaped out of the water and
slammed into the woman, killing her instantly. The stingray also
died on impact. The barb at the end of the tail did not play a role
in Ms. Zagorski’s death.
Of course it was 18 months ago that Bindi Irwin became a star as
a result of her father, Steve’s, death after he was attacked by a
stingray. And in 2006, a spotted eagle ray leapt on to another
boat off the Florida coast and pierced the heart of a man with its
barb, but the fellow survived.
By the way, if you are ever stung by a ray, the treatment includes
scalding water and antibiotics. Then, I’m assuming, skin grafts.
And did you know that in Iceland, eating pickled stingray is a
Christmas tradition? [As an aside, I watched “Beowulf” the
other day; yet another reason to be careful when going out to the
driveway for the morning paper.]
–Holy Toledo! Did you see that scientists conducting a survey
of New Zealand’s Antarctic waters found some incredible new
specimens, including jellyfish with 12-foot tentacles and a 2-
foot-wide starfish?
Now this is pretty cool, too. The researchers also found “fields”
of sea lilies that stretched for hundreds of yards across the ocean
floor, not that you’d ever catch me in one of those little subs,
checking it all out.
No word on whether they found any sea monkeys.
–Pamela Anderson wants to annul her marriage to Slick Rick
Salomon after two months. Pam has also been married to
Tommy Lee and Kid Rock, while Salomon had a nine-month
marriage with Shannen Doherty. Now there’s a fivesome for
you.
So Pam is back on the market, guys!
–I was cleaning out my fridge the other day, looking for expired
items, and I’m wondering if the Federal Reserve will take them
now that they’ve opened the discount window to non-banks.
–Ahem, ahem…..boy I nailed this one, concerning George
Lopez.
From Bar Chat, 1/21/08
“The 2008 PGA Tour season really doesn’t get going until next
week at Torrey Pines when Tiger, Phil and most of the other top
players make their debuts. I can’t get fired up by the Bob Hope
anymore because the field is so poor (that is I can’t get fired up
unless Bill Haas is in contention), but I see how comedian
George Lopez is picking up the role of host as a way of keeping
the celebrity-studded event relevant. My only comment is that if
Bob Hope knew this, I wonder how happy he’d be. I’ve
remarked before that Lopez is not only not funny, his stand-up
act is incredibly dirty and foul; the total antithesis of Hope’s
brand of comedy……And that’s a memo.”
Fast forward to GolfWorld, 3/21/08
“The ousting last week of George Lopez as host of the Bob Hope
Chrysler Classic was, above all, a surprise. From the outside, it
seemed the Hope – which had struggled for an identity after the
death of its founder in 2003 – had gained energy since Lopez
was named official host in 2006.
“No one disputes that during his tenure, Lopez did everything
asked of him to revitalize the event….
“But the tournament’s board of directors, generally
acknowledged as one of the most conservative and parochial on
tour, was another matter. Last week they tried to deflect the
news away from Lopez’s dismissal by hinting they were seeking
Arnold Palmer, who won the first Hope in 1960 and owns a La
Quinta home, to become the host of next year’s 50th playing….
“The bottom line is the board decided Lopez was not the right fit.
Although originally made the host because of the way he
connected with galleries and promoted the event, the 46-year-old
Mexican-American’s brand of humor – though considerably
toned down from his gritty stand-up act – was edgier than the
Hope elders were used to.”
Suffice it to say, Lopez was more than a bit ticked off and won’t
be playing in the pro-am ever again. Part of me feels sorry for
him, but I saw this coming.
–When Tiger Woods is in a PGA Tour event, an extra 2 million
viewers have tuned in the last three years, double the normal TV
audience when he isn’t entered. When he’s in contention on the
final day, tack on an additional 21 percent.
By the way, with Tiger and Ben Hogan tied with 64 PGA Tour
titles, at the point Hogan captured his 64th he had $332,517 in
career earnings. Tiger had $79,909,376 prior to Doral.
–John Daly is one complicated guy. Pat Perez, one of Daly’s
best friends on tour, said “I’ve told him a thousand times he
needs to clean this crap up (his binge-drinking)…and it kills me
that he won’t. The guy absolutely is one of the best guys you’ll
ever meet, and everybody wants to help. But he won’t listen and
make the commitment. The drunk-every-day routine is old.
Alcoholics can’t drink, but I don’t think he thinks he’s an
alcoholic.”
And remember how he was DQ’ed from Arnold Palmer’s event
for missing his pro-am tee time? Daly made it up to what were
supposed to be his amateur playing partners that day by taking
them out on the Sunday of the tourney. [Jeff Rude / Golfweek]
That’s the other side of Daly you hear of from time to time. You
know deep down he means well, but then the Prince of Darkness
comes out.
–We note the passing of the Rev. Jacob Daniel DeShazer, 95.
DeShazer was one of the participants in the historic Doolittle
Raid on Japan during World War II. It was a month after Pearl
Harbor that DeShazer signed up for a secret mission. Then a
corporal, he was the bombardier aboard the “Bat out of Hell,”
one of 16 bombers under the command of Lt. Col. James
Doolittle that launched a surprise attack on Tokyo and other
Japanese targets on April 18, 1942.
DeShazer’s plane dropped bombs on an oil refinery in Nagoya,
before heading toward China, but when the fuel ran out, the crew
bailed. DeShazer was captured and sentenced to life in prison,
where he spent 40 months being tortured until he was liberated.
But during his incarceration, a prison guard handed DeShazer a
Bible. He read it over and over again and vowed that if he were
ever freed, he would share what he had learned with the
Japanese.
So he settled in Seattle after the war, but after graduating from
Seattle Pacific University, a Christian school, in 1948 DeShazer
and his wife, Florence, moved to Japan to work as Free
Methodist missionaries, where over the decades that followed he
evangelized throughout the country. Quite a story.
–Allen Barra of the Wall Street Journal points out that “Take Me
Out to the Ball Game” is 100 years old this spring. Composed
by Albert Von Tilzer, with lyricist and singer Jack Norworth, it
would become the third most performed tune in America next to
“Happy Birthday” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Interestingly, it was at a theatrical revue, not a baseball game,
that the song was first heard by a crowd. In 1909, Norworth’s
wife Nora Bayes sung it. Says Tim Wiles of the National
Baseball Hall of Fame, “It would be hard to overestimate their
fame at the time. They were like a combination of Brad and
Angelina and Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood.”
But did you know the first verse? This is true. As Barra writes:
“ ‘Katie Casey was baseball mad, had the fever and had it bad.’
When her beau asked her to see a show, Katie says no but ‘I’ll
tell you what you can do’; then she launches into the immortal
first line that gives the song its name.”
I also didn’t know this anecdote involving Russell Crowe, who
performed the song with his band in 2003 at Wrigley Field
during a game between the Cubs and Dodgers.
“Mr. Crowe,” writes Barra, “gave special emphasis to the words
‘Root, root, root for the home team,’ as ‘rooting’ is Australian
slang for an activity generally done somewhere other than a
baseball field.”
–According to Republican operative Roger Stone, who we’ve
now learned tipped off the FBI last November to Eliot Spitzer’s
penchant for prostitutes, Spitzer wore calf-length black socks
while bedding his hookers. Stone learned this from a contact at
an adult-themed club. Mike Lupica of the New York Daily
News notes that with the revelations about Spitzer and new Gov.
Paterson, “New York will soon be the first state in the union to
have its own ‘Govs Gone Wild’ DVD.”
–From Stacy Brown and James Fanelli of the New York Post:
“Stiffed by their superstar brother Michael and plagued by
decades of bad fiscal decisions, the once-mighty Jackson family
is barely scraping by, with one brother stocking groceries,
another repairing cars and others living at home with mom while
hoping for sister Janet’s next handout.”
Despite selling more than 100 million albums, as well as their
involvement in a multimedia empire that included TV, cartoons
and magazines, the Post learned in a series of interviews that
Marlon Jackson, 51, stocks shelves at a Vons supermarket in San
Diego and had to temporarily move into an extended-stay hotel.
Randy, 46, does odd jobs, including fixing cars.
Jackie, 56, the oldest, is struggling to manage his son Siggy’s
aspiring rap career.
Jermaine, 54, lives either at his girlfriend’s home or his parents’
mansion in Encino, where Jackie and Randy also live.
Tito, 55, is the only brother making music, but he fronts a jazz
band that occasionally nets him all of $500 a gig.
Meanwhile, Janet, 41, is worth upwards of $150 million, and La
Toya, 52, is said to be a millionaire. Rebbie, 57, the oldest, has
been married 35 years to a successful businessman she met in
Gary, and the two live in luxury in Vegas.
As for Michael, according to the Post, “He’s hiding out in Las
Vegas and repeatedly makes promises to his brothers while
sabotaging any attempts by them to ply their musical trade.”
–Remember those rare mountain gorillas that were executed in
the Congo last year? A senior wildlife park official has been
arrested amid claims he organized the killings. That’s
depressing, but as one official told the BBC, at least it shows the
Congolese Nature Conservation Institute, which overseas the
gorillas home at Virunga National Park, is reasserting control
and purging itself of bad elements. It could also be time to bring
in some of the tigers that have been slaughtering Bangladeshis as
another way of establishing order.
–A couple of years ago I was in Amsterdam for a week and I
loved strolling through the city’s most popular park, Vondel,
which is surrounded by some of the best museums. So I noted
with interest that local authorities are planning to decriminalize
“open-air sex” there, though restricting it to the park’s rose
garden. Eegads.
Well, Amsterdam always had a rather liberal image, to say the
least, what with its open drug use and hookers in storefront
windows (which is being toned down these days), but this is
absurd. The town council wants to make the park “accessible and
pleasant,” and plans include “more waste bins for condoms.”
And then they also want to allow ‘cruising’ after dark. [For you
older folks out there, this isn’t Beach Boys’ type cruising up and
down the boulevard in a souped up Chevy.]
–Speaking of the Beach Boys, the remaining original members,
Mike Love, Brian Wilson and Al Jardine, finally settled their
long legal dispute over rights to the name. What a waste that’s
been, as Jardine has been touring under the moniker “Beach
Boys Family & Friends,” probably ripping off countless
concertgoers who thought they were seeing Mike Love and
Bruce Johnston. [Though I know none of you would have fallen
for this scam.]
–Sometimes you just have to make note of a regular season NBA
game, such as that played between Toronto and Miami the other
night. Toronto won 96-54. It was 58-26 at half as Miami would
shoot 20 of 78 from the field for the game.
–This just in…. “The winner of a prestigious Nigerian fishing
festival has been stripped of his title and thrown in jail after
rivals complained he cheated.
“The 66kg fish that won the competition was already dead when
it came out of the water, officials said.”
It’s a big deal because the fish won Bello Yakub $33,000 in
prizes, including a car and a ticket to go on the Hajj pilgrimage.
Personally, I would have gone for the box that Carol Merrill was
standing in front of, starting off with the year’s supply of Good
Humor Whammy Sticks, not that I have a freezer which could
accommodate all of them, which would mean I’d have to eat
about 94 in one sitting just to make room for the others, but I
digress.
–Goodness gracious….nice time to be Miguel Cabrera of the
Tigers. Cabrera just signed an eight-year contract extension for
$153.3 million, which makes it the fourth-richest in baseball
history, trailing A-Rod ($275 million), Derek Jeter ($189
million) and Manny Ramirez ($160 million). And how old is
Cabrera? 24………twenty-freakin’-four.
But what the heck. He could easily be a Hall of Famer…and it’s
not my money.
–Roger Federer continued to struggle this year, losing to No. 98
Mardy Fish, a 26-year-old American out of Fishkill, N.Y.
–Three-time All-Star catcher Javy Lopez is retiring. How many
of you knew he hit 260 home runs in his career? I didn’t know
that. My apologies to the Lopez family for not appreciating just
how good he was, though we don’t know if he was clean.
–Actually, I have no idea where Mardy Fish is from….just made
sense he could be from Fishkill.
–From a bit in Rolling Stone, “This is Why Mariah Carey is
Hot.”
“You’re fiendin’ to blaze up and taste me / Got flavor like ice
cream” (from “That Chick”)
I’d comment, but I don’t want to be fined by the International
Web Site Association. One thing is clear, Mariah Carey is the
sexiest woman on the planet these days.
–Jeff B. and I are very bummed out by the engagement/wedding
from hell we all now have to deal with in “For Worse…”
Top 3 songs for the week of 3/25/67: #1 “Happy Together” (The
Turtles) #2 “Dedicated To The One I Love” (The Mamas & The
Papas) #3 “Penny Lane” (The Beatles)…and…#4 “There’s A
Kind Of Hush” (Herman’s Hermits) #5 “Baby I Need Your
Lovin’” (Johnny Rivers) #6 “Sock It To Me-Baby” (Mitch
Ryder and The Detroit Wheels) #7 “For What It’s Worth” (The
Buffalo Springfield) #8 “My Cup Runneth Over” (Ed Ames) #9
“Love Is Here And Now You’re Gone” (The Supremes) #10
“Ruby Tuesday” (The Rolling Stones)
NCAA Basketball Quiz Answers: 1) Juan Dixon was the last
guard to win MOP, Maryland, 2002. 2) Donald Williams was
MOP for North Carolina in 1993. 3) Pervis Ellison was MOP for
Louisville, 1986. 4) Richard Washington was MOP for UCLA
in 1975. 5) Jerry Chambers of Utah was MOP in 1966 despite
the fact his team was 3rd. The reason? He averaged 35 points
and 17.5 rebounds in the two contests. Of course if you got this
last one, and No. 4 wasn’t too easy, either, pour yourself a cold
frosty.
Next Bar Chat, Thursday.
