[Note: Posted Sunday a.m. due to travel. I’m heading overseas
for a spell.]
Baseball Quiz: Yeah, it’s an overrated stat, but entering 2008,
how many of the top ten all time in saves can you name?
Answer below.
SHARK!
On Saturday, at a West Australian beach, a man was attacked by
a great white up to 15-feet long. According to Middleton Beach
police, “The witnesses tell us he was having a swim around 80
meters off the shore when he started yelling.” Then Joanne
Lucas, 50, took action.
Lucas was on the beach after arriving for surfboat rowing
practice when she heard 37-year-old schoolteacher Jason Cull’s
screams.
“I just saw someone thrashing in the water and saying, ‘Help me,
help me,’” she said.
“I thought it was just a dolphin [in the water] but someone else
was screaming, ‘He has been attacked,’ so I raced down there.”
Lucas swam 80 meters offshore to retrieve Mr. Cull as the shark,
one of several sighted off the beach, circled. “Just before I got to
him he said, ‘It’s got my leg.’ I grabbed him and swam back to
shore.”
Lucas found “great big chunks” missing from one of Cull’s legs.
She was able to get him to shore and luckily there was a rapid
medical response. As of this writing it’s not known the condition
of Cull but he will survive.
And so for her incredible bravery, Joanne Lucas gets the “Bar
Chat Humanitarian Award” and a home version of “Bar Chat:
The Game,” when we get around to making it. [Source: Sydney
Morning Herald]
Eddy Arnold, RIP
Arnold died last week at the age of 89 and unless you’re of a
certain age, you can’t begin to appreciate his legacy. He was,
after all, the #1 country music artist of the 40s, #2 in the 50s and
#5 in the 60s, with an incredible 28 #1s on the country charts; the
most successful country hit maker of all time. At one time he
had 57 consecutive top 10 hits from 1945 to 1954, including the
1947 tune “Bouquet of Roses,” which logged 19 weeks in the top
spot. He sold 80 million records overall. Arnold’s wife of 66
years, Sally, had died in March.
Born Richard Edward Arnold on May 15, 1918, Eddy Arnold
came from a large farming family in Chester County
(Henderson), Tennessee. Arnold’s father died when he was
eleven and creditors auctioned the family farm, leaving the
family as sharecroppers during the Great Depression. Young
Eddy then started singing at church picnics, earning $1 a gig. At
17, he began work on radio and at beer joints while also serving
as an undertaker’s driver.
Then in 1940, he landed a job as a featured singer with Pee Wee
King’s Golden West Cowboys on WTJS in Memphis and in
1943, Arnold struck out on his own, hitting it big a few years
later. His first manager? None other than Col. Tom Parker.
Well, y’all know who Col. Parker later became involved with;
Elvis himself. It’s been said that all the things Parker did with
the King were a result of the contacts he made in promoting
Arnold.
Arnold’s career slipped in the late 1950s, but in the 60s, despite
the growing popularity of rock ‘n’ roll, he reinvented himself to
become a pioneer of “The Nashville Sound,” a combination of
country and pop styles with the then controversial addition of
strings. His crossover appeal on tunes such as the #6 pop hit
“Make The World Go Away” (1965) paved the way for artists
such as Kenny Rogers.
Most of Eddy Arnold’s hits were done in collaboration with
famed guitarist Chet Atkins and the late Dinah Shore once
described Arnold’s voice as like “warm butter and syrup being
poured over wonderful buttermilk pancakes.”
Arnold once said he never copied anyone. “I really had an idea
about how I wanted to sing from the very beginning.”
If you happen to be in the Nashville area, there is a public
viewing this Tuesday and Wednesday at the Country Music Hall
of Fame, a very nice touch, with a 2 p.m. public funeral service
at the Ryman Auditorium, Wednesday.
Ironically, just two nights before he died, I pulled out my Eddy
Arnold greatest hits CD at home. I’ll be listening to it quite a bit
in the coming months, I imagine.
Stuff
–San Diego pitcher Greg Maddux became just the ninth pitcher
in baseball history to win 350 games on Saturday, an incredible
milestone. He’s also won four Cy Youngs and 17 Gold Gloves.
Cy Young 511
Walter Johnson 417
Pete Alexander 373
Christy Mathewson 373
Pud Galvin 364
Warren Spahn 363
Kid Nichols 361
Roger Clemens 354
Greg Maddux 350
–This would suck.
“A towering plume of ash from the Chaiten volcano in remote
Patagonia could collapse and devastate the surrounding area, a
leading expert has warned.
Geologist Luis Lara “says his models show the vast column of
ash, which has soared 12 km into the air, is at a critical stage. A
sudden collapse would shroud vast areas with hot gas, ash and
molten rock, killing everything in its way.”
“ ‘The volcano is now at its limit…the column could collapse
quickly, generating flows of pyroclastic material down its
ravines,’ Mr. Lara said. Even worse, the flows of ash and fiery
material could reach the fiord Chaiten sits on, sending a series of
small waves toward settlements up to 200 km away.” [Sun-
Herald]
Heck, this baby is only about 70 miles from Santiago. If you
happen to know anyone in Patagonia right now, maybe drop
them a postcard or something……………………………………
………………………………………………………….I was just
informed a postcard probably isn’t the most efficient way to
reach them in an emergency. Never mind.
–Russell Adams of the Wall Street Journal had a piece on
famous rants. Such as the following:
In 1983, Cubs manager Lee Elia called fans booing his team’s 5-
14 start “nickel-dime people” who come to day games at the
ballpark because they don’t have jobs: “85% of the f—— world
is working. The other 15% come out here.”
Or this one, from John McEnroe, when in 1993 at the
International Players Championships in Florida he asked a fan in
the stands, “Do you have any problems, other than that you’re
unemployed and a moron and a dork?”
–The New York Times’ Harvey Araton feels that New England
Patriots coach Bill Belichick should be suspended for a year after
eight more spy tapes were turned over to NFL headquarters.
“Now that the ‘totality of conduct’ for which Belichick was cited
by Goodell has officially expanded to the length of his tenure in
New England, shouldn’t he be further punished as a serial
offender, a con man who not only broke the rules but established
secretly taping opponents as standard operating procedure?….
“Espionage in a sport played and promoted as recreational
warfare would seem to be a natural extension of the
competition….
“But these are the rules set forth by the NFL, enforced by
Goodell and reportedly reinforced in a league memo sent to the
teams in 2006. To which Belichick at the very least responded
by videotaping the Jets in the 2007 season opener that touched
off the so-called Spygate affair….
“In other words: embarrassment to the league in perpetuity,
courtesy of its team of the decade and reigning coaching genius.”
Earlier, Goodell made a point of saying before the latest
revelations, “It was not something that was done on a
widespread basis.” Now we all know better, the only good news
being former video coordinator Matt Walsh apparently does not
have the tape of the St. Louis Rams pre-Super Bowl practice in
2002. But it’s also been established Belichick was cheating
going back to 2000, and then 2007, and probably every year in
between. Yeah, Araton’s right. Suspend the jerk for a year.
Reader Mark R. also has a good point concerning former
Belichick No. 2, Charlie Weiss, who was obviously in the know
and has been called an offensive genius. Well, as Mark points
out, it’s pretty easy to be a genius when you know what the other
team is running and now Weiss is flaming out at Notre Dame.
Good one, Mark. Premium beer for you and the family.
–Yogiism from Bobby Murcer’s book “Yankee for Life: My 40-
Year Journey in Pinstripes.” [If you aren’t a baseball fan, just
know that Murcer has been battling brain cancer.]
Berra got a call from Mel Stottlemyre asking about Murcer’s
condition.
“Hey Carm!” Berra shouted to his wife. “He wants to know if
we’ve heard anything about Bobby’s autopsy down in Houston.”
[Richard Sandomir / New York Times]
–No National Leaguer has won the triple crown in baseball since
Joe Medwick in 1937. No American Leaguer since Yaz in ’67. I
just bring it up because Houston’s Lance Berkman is looking real
strong early on. He’s always had the power numbers and has hit
for a high average a few times so you never know.
Thru Saturday’s play, Berkman was batting .386 with 12 HR and
35 RBI.
–Ryan Howard, thru Sat., is hitting .169 with just 7 HR and18
RBI in 38 games. He’s also struck out 52 times. Kids all over
the Philly area are burning their Ryan Howard jerseys, as is
warranted.
–The pathetic San Diego Padres released 37-year-old Jim
Edmonds, taking a $4.7 million hit in the process after the one-
time All-Star got off to a .178 start.
–And then there’s L.A. outfielder Andruw Jones who is hitting
.170 with one, count ‘em, one home run and four, count ‘em,
four, RBI in 112 at bats. Jones is earning $14.7 million.
–The Mets, also thru Sat., are now 72-72 since last May. So tell
me, just why is my team so freakin’ cocky, like they can just turn
it on any time they want? I’m growing weary, and aging rapidly
over this pitiful display of mediocrity, let alone the fact last
September’s historic collapse took another five years off my life.
–Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News:
“Sometimes I think I’ve got more pop in my bat than (the Mets’)
Luis Castillo.”
Add me to the list, Mr. Lupica.
–Remember Michelle Wie? You know, the cute girl with the big
swing? Golfer Michelle Wie? You remember, don’t you? In
this week’s LPGA event in Virginia, Wie missed the cut by four
strokes and has done nothing all year. Actually, she’s hardly
played.
–My brother’s home backs up to a mini-wildlife preserve and
over the years he’s had a bunch of wild turkeys call it home. So
I’m reading a piece by Brian Murray in the Star-Ledger and it
really is incredible that just 30 years ago, wild turkeys were
considered extinct here and today there are a staggering 33,000,
including 10,000 in the more suburban and urban areas.
The turkeys used to be shy and avoided human contact, but now
they are getting way too close for comfort. You’ve heard those
stories of mailmen getting attacked in Wisconsin and
Connecticut, as well as one in the nearby town of Cranford, N.J.
three years ago.
The problem is they are not only proliferating, they’re becoming
more and more used to us with each generation and these things
are huge.
That’s why we always recommend you carry the official Bar
Chat Bazooka, just in case. [Note to parents. The Bar Chat
Bazooka is not to be handled by children under the age of 12.]
–When the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated in 2003, there
was a melted disk drive amidst the remains and this was turned
over to Jon Edwards of Kroll Ontrack Inc.
“When we got it, it was two hunks of metal stuck together. We
couldn’t even tell it was a hard drive. It was burned and the
edges were melted. It looked pretty bad at first glance, but we
always give it a shot.”
During Columbia’s mission, the drive had been used to store data
from a scientific experiment on the properties of liquid xenon.
Most of the information had been radioed to Earth during
Columbia’s voyage, but Edwards was able to recover the rest,
allowing researchers to publish the experiment in the April issue
of a science journal.
But just imagine. Not only were the drive’s metal and plastic
elements scorched, but the seal on the side that keeps out dirt and
dust also had melted. The spinning metal platters, though, were
not warped. Incredibly, Edwards recovered the data because, as
he put it in a story with the AP, the computer was running on the
ancient operating system, DOS, which does not scatter data all
over drives as other approaches do. Edwards then cleaned the
platters and used them in a newly built drive to capture the
information. Now that’s cool.
–The New York Knicks are in the process of signing Phoenix
Suns coach Mike D’Antoni to a four-year, $24 million contract.
Good god. $6 million a year to coach a bunch of malcontents
and losers. Then again, maybe it’s not enough.
[There are a lot of folks in these parts who are upset the Knicks
didn’t hire former Knick Mark Jackson. I’m one of them.]
–Uh oh. Police on Grand Cayman are looking for criminals who
slaughtered six of the island’s endangered giant blue iguanas.
According to the BBC, “The police are confident the crime was
perpetrated by humans.”
Actually, this is very sad and the people are in tears over it.
They are cared for as young before freed into the wild. There
were only 25 left in 2005, but thanks to the efforts of the
islanders, there are said to be 140 in the captive program and
another 230 in the wild.
So here’s hoping the killers are in turn mauled by tigers and
mountain lions, imported for just such a mission.
–Louis Sahagu of the Los Angeles Times reports that the
government’s $8.7 million relocation effort of 760 giant desert
tortoises has hit a snag. They were airlifted out of Ft. Irwin near
the Mojave Desert because of expanded combat exercises in the
area, but now face an unforeseen menace…….coyotes, who have
killed 28 tortoises. Bureaucratic red tape has delayed the Army
moving in to kill what has been described as a “rogue clan of
coyotes.” And there’s another problem. The tortoises insist on
moving back to their old grounds. It’s a complicated world we
live in these days, sports fans.
–The New York Daily News’ David Hinckley on the upcoming
10th anniversary of Frank Sinatra’s death (Wednesday).
“Promoted by a steady series of reissue compilations, his half-
century of recordings remain as impressive as they always were:
the same flawless taste in songs, the same marvelous phrasing,
the same instinct for enhancing a lyric without stepping on it….
“(What) has lost none of its prominence over the last decade – in
fact, may have gained some – is the Rat Pack, the noun of
collection for the 1950s and ‘60s group that included Sinatra,
Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop.
“Bishop, the last survivor, died last fall at the age of 89. But the
image of these good-time guys drinking and laughing their way
across Las Vegas and America seems, if anything, cooler and
hipper now than it was 10 years ago.
“Maybe it’s just more fun to envision the Rat Pack living that life
in our minds than to watch Britney and Lindsay stumbling
through it in real time.
“But the real reason Frank Sinatra is so vivid a decade after his
death is that we hear his music and get things we get from only a
small handful of other singers, like Ella Fitzgerald.
“Time, as time will, has already started to dim the trappings of
Sinatra’s time. But the music is an eternal flame.”
Top 3 songs for the week 5/15/65: #1 “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got
A Lovely Daughter” (Herman’s Hermits…and how old is she?)
#2 “Count Me In” (Gary Lewis and The Playboys) #3 “Ticket
To Ride” (The Beatles)…and…#4 “I’ll Never Find Another
You” (The Seekers) #5 “Silhouettes” (Herman’s Hermits) #6
“Help Me, Rhonda” (The Beach Boys) #7 “I Know A Place”
(Petula Clark…my favorite ‘Pet’ song) #8 “I’ll Be Doggone”
(Marvin Gaye) #9 “Just Once In My Life” (The Righteous
Brothers…underrated tune) #10 “Wooly Bully” (Sam the Sham
and The Pharaohs…………..now that is a week for music)
Eddy Arnold:
Make the world go away
Get it off my shoulder
Say the things we used to say
And make the world, make it go away
Do you remember when you loved me
Before the world took you away
Well if you do, then forgive me
And make the world, make it go away
Make the world go away
Get it off my shoulder
Say the things we used to say
And make the world, make it go away
Now I”m sorry if I hurt you
Let me make it up to you day by day
And if you will please forgive me
And make the world, make it go away
Make the world go away
Get it off my shoulder
Say the things we used to say
And make the world, make it go away
Baseball Quiz Answer: Top ten all time in saves entering ’08….
1. Trevor Hoffman…524
2. Lee Smith…478
3. Mariano Rivera…443
4. John Franco…424
5. Dennis Eckersley…390
6. Jeff Reardon…367
7. Billy Wagner…358
8. Randy Myers…347
9. Rollie Fingers…341
10. John Wetteland…330
By the way, Goose Gossage, who had 310 saves, also blew an
all-time worst 112 and isn’t in the top 50 all time in save
percentage. Fingers is second in blown saves with 109 so he’s
not top 50 either. But….to be fair, Gossage and Fingers were
from an era where ‘closers’ often went two innings and thus the
greater chance of blowing a save. Today, they only go one, so it
should then be no surprise that the top 12 all time in save
percentage are active relievers. Eric Gagne is #1, entering ’08,
with a 94.65 mark. [John Smoltz is second, incidentally….yet
another reason why he will be in the Hall of Fame. He’s done it
all.]
Next Bar Chat, Thursday, from Amman, Jordan…..if all goes
well.
