Baseball Quiz: The Yankees’ Mike Mussina won his 10th game
on Saturday, extending his A.L. record for most consecutive
seasons with 10 or more wins to 17. This is pretty incredible, as
you certainly don’t think of Mussina as one of the greats, having
never even won 20 in a season, but he is now a sterling 260-148
in his career. Anyway, who are the other five in baseball history
to have 17 or more 10-win seasons in a row. Answer below.
Tiger vs. Rocco
This is posted prior to the U.S. Open playoff, but I can’t help but
say for the 99th time, thank god for Tiger Woods because more
often than not he makes watching the big events a lot more
special than they would be otherwise. Think back, golf fans, to
the 1980s, for example. Talk about dullsville. Greg Norman had
the potential to be great and he choked time and time again, and
two wins in a single year was huge for any tour player in that
decade.
As for Rocco Mediate, seeing as he’s from my mother’s home
town of Greensburg, Pa., he has a few fans amongst the
StocksandNews crowd. Cliché alert…regardless of what
happens Monday, golf is the big winner.
RFK, Part II
[From “The Year the Dream Died: Revisiting 1968 in America”
by Jules Witcover]
It’s primary night in California, June 4, 1968. Robert Kennedy
ends up defeating Eugene McCarthy by only a 46-42 margin, but
as Kennedy prepared to address his followers in the Ambassador
Hotel in Los Angeles, the vote tally appeared to reflect a bigger
victory.
[Names that may not be familiar are either aides or bodyguards.]
Jules Witcover:
“Kennedy, accompanied by his wife, Dutton and other aides,
came down a service elevator into the hotel kitchen, shaking
hands with kitchen workers, and out past a long serving table in a
pantry corridor leading out to the ballroom. The time was about
fifteen minutes before midnight, California time. Walking
behind him, according to a Los Angeles fireman later who had
been standing there, was a dark young man with black bushy hair
gripping a rolled-up poster ‘who was looking all over the area as
he passed by.’
“Bob Healy of the Boston Globe and I were standing there in the
pantry corridor as Kennedy came in, looking smart in a dark blue
suit and striped tie. We congratulated him on his apparent
victory and, in a buoyant mood, he invited us to join a
celebration later at The Factory, a discotheque in which Pierre
Salinger had a part ownership. I kidded ‘Ruthless Robert’ about
his interview with (Roger) Mudd, remarking that I thought he
had been ‘very ruthful.’ He laughed, walked on, then turned and
said: ‘I’m getting better all the time.’
“Then, in a moment, he was out in the ballroom, on the raised
platform jam-packed with friends and supporters behind the
rostrum and a battery of microphones. Ethel, wearing an orange-
and-white minidress and white stockings, was at his side. I
squeezed onto the rear of the platform, next to Dutton. He told
me that when he informed Kennedy about our revelry in his suite
the night before, ‘he was like a little boy who had missed out on
something.’
“Kennedy was in a playful mood as he addressed the cheering
crowd. He congratulated the Dodgers’ Don Drysdale, who had
just pitched his sixth straight shutout, a three-hitter over the
Pittsburgh Pirates that ran his string of scoreless innings to fifty-
four, eclipsing the previous National League record of forty-six
by Carl Hubbell. [In his next outing five days later, Drysdale
was to break the major league record of fifty-six by Walter
Johnson, before yielding a sacrifice fly in the game’s fifth inning
against the Philadelphia Phillies.] Kennedy thanked brother-in-
law Steve Smith for having been so ‘ruthless’ in running his
campaign, and others including ‘my dog Freckles – I’m not
doing this in the order of importance. I also want to thank my
wife Ethel.’ The crowd laughed with him.
“Then he got down to his message. His victories in largely urban
California and rural South Dakota on the same day, he said,
made him confident ‘we can work together [to] end the
divisions’ in the country ‘between blacks and whites, between
the poor and the more affluent, or between age groups or on the
war in Vietnam…’ The country needed change, he said, and it
would come about ‘only if those who are delegates in Chicago
recognize the importance of what has happened here in the state
of California’ and in South Dakota – and New Hampshire.
“The latter reference inferentially paid tribute to McCarthy and
underscored Kennedy’s continuing hope of bringing the
McCarthy forces under his tent. He congratulated McCarthy and
his followers for ‘breaking the political logjam’ and making
‘citizen participation a new and powerful force in our political
life.’ Then he asked the McCarthyites to join ranks ‘not for
myself but for the cause and the ideas which moved you to begin
this great popular movement.’ He added that he hoped ‘now that
the California primary is finished, now that the primary is over,
that we could concentrate on having a dialogue – or a debate, I
hope – between the vice president and perhaps myself on what
direction we want to go in’ at home and in Vietnam. Again he
expressed ‘my thanks to all of you, and on to Chicago, and let’s
win there.’
“As Kennedy finished and waved, the crowd crushed forward
towards him. He was supposed to go out through the crowd and
down some stairs to another spillover reception, where closed-
circuit television had carried his remarks. But Dutton decided
because it was already past midnight, 3 a.m. in the East, it would
be best if Kennedy went right to the press room just beyond the
kitchen pantry area, where we newspaper reporters wanted a
short time with him before our last deadlines passed.
“Barry and Dutton started down the steps off the platform and
through swinging doors into the pantry corridor, believing
Kennedy was behind them. But he was boxed in by the surging
crowd shouting ‘We want Bobby! We want Bobby!’ The
hotel’s assistant manager, Karl Uecker, took Kennedy by the arm
and led him off the platform at the rear and directly into the
pantry corridor, darkened at that end. By the time Barry saw that
his candidate was not behind him, Kennedy had moved out ahead
into the well-lighted end of the pantry area.
“Rushing myself to get to the press room, I walked past a large
floor-to-ceiling ice-making machine to my right and two
stainless steel steam tables to my left. I saw only some kitchen
hands to the left and didn’t look right as I went by the ice-making
machine, where a short, dark young man stood on a low tray
stacker.
“It was thirteen minutes past midnight when the senator reached
approximately the spot where Healy and I had ribbed him about
being ‘very ruthful’ in the Mudd interview. Ethel Kennedy had
been separated from him by the crowd and Barry and Dutton
were only now catching up. Andrew West, a Mutual Radio
reporter, had his tape recorder running at Kennedy’s side and
asked him how he was going to cope with Humphrey’s delegate
strength. Kennedy answered: ‘It just goes back to the struggle for
it…..’
“As Kennedy turned to look for his wife, the young man standing
on the tray stacker stepped down, raised his right hand high over
the crowd and fired a snub-nosed revolver at Kennedy’s head
from only a few feet away. The first sound I heard, walking
about ten or twelve feet ahead toward the press room with my
back to Kennedy, was a quick ‘pop’ like a firecracker or a boy’s
cap gun going off, then a pause and a rapid volley of additional
pops – like the crackling noise when the firecrackers were set off
the previous day in Chinatown. I turned and saw Kennedy
already fallen on his back, his eyes open, arms over his bleeding
head, his feet apart. He was conscious, but obviously very
seriously wounded.
“Uecker, the hotel assistant manager, grabbed at the assailant’s
arm, still holding the revolver, along with the two muscular
athletes in the Kennedy entourage, Rafer Johnson and Rosie
Grier, and then Barry and others. West, the Mutual Radio
reporter, was still talking into his microphone as bedlam swirled
around him, seemingly oblivious of the fact that he was
recording history.
“ ‘I am right here and Rafer Johnson has hold of the man who
apparently has fired the shot! He has fired the shot…He still has
the gun! The gun is pointed at me right at this moment! I hope
they can get the gun out of his hand. Be very careful. Get the
gun…get the gun…get the gun…Stay away from the gun….His
hand is frozen…Get his thumb, get his thumb, get his thumb, get
his thumb, get his thumb…and break it if you have to…get his
thumb! Get away from the barrel! Get away from the barrel,
man! Look out for the gun!…Okay, all right. That’s it, Rafer,
get it! Get the gun, Rafer! Okay, now hold on to the gun. Hold
on to him. Hold on to him. Ladies and gentlemen, they have the
gun away from the man…’
“Finally the gun was wrenched free and it fell. Johnson picked it
up as Grier held the man in a headlock and others came up and
began punching and cursing him. Shrieks of terror filled the air:
‘My God! He’s been shot! Get a doctor! Get the gun! Kill him!
Kill the bastard! No, don’t kill him!’ Jess Unruh pushed
forward, ordering: ‘I want him alive! If anything happens to this
one, you answer to me! We don’t want another Oswald!’
“In the hail of bullets, five others had been hit: Paul Schrade,
forty-three, a United Auto Workers official; William Weisel,
thirty, associate director of the ABC News Washington bureau;
Ira Goldstein, nineteen, of Continental News Service of
California; Elizabeth Evans, forty-three, of Saugus, California;
Irwin Stroll, seventeen, of Los Angeles. All survived.
“Young Stroll later told the grand jury that he had been shot in
the left shin when he ‘got in front of Mrs. Kennedy by accident’
on his way to the kitchen and pushed her down, possibly saving
her from being hit. Goldstein later testified that after being hit in
the left thigh he had staggered to a chair and asked: ‘How is
Senator Kennedy? What happened to him? And this woman
walked by, and she said to me, ‘How dare you talk about my
husband that way?’ and she slapped me across the face. And I
said, ‘I am sorry lady, but I was shot too. I’d like to know how
the senator is.’ And she said, ‘Oh, I am sorry, honey,’ and kissed
me. This was Mrs. Ethel Kennedy. At that time she was not in
tears. She was a little hysterical, though, but she wasn’t crying.’
“The fallen candidate’s wife was brought to his side by a friend.
‘Oh, my God,’ she said in a half whisper. She stepped across
him, knelt and took his hand. By now I had climbed up on a
table and saw her below on both knees on the cold concrete floor,
whispering to him and stroking his brow. All was
pandemonium, but the still photographers and cameramen with
their single-mindedness pressed in. Drayne and another press
aide, Hugh McDonald, shouted, ‘Get back! Get back! Give him
air!’ and Ethel Kennedy looked up plaintively and said, ‘Please
go, please go. Give him room to breathe.’
“But most of the recorders of the bloody scene would not be
deterred. One woman photographer, on the verge of hysteria, put
her camera down and yelled to the others: ‘You can have it! You
can have it!’ When she tried to pull one of them back he kept
shooting, shaking her off and shouting: ‘Get away! This is
history!’ Other print reporters and I scribbled frantically in our
little notepads. Later, when I looked at what I had written, it was
all an indecipherable garble. But what I saw and heard in those
terrible moments was etched indelibly in my mind ever
thereafter.
“As Kennedy lay there, a young kitchen boy named Juan Romero
knelt next to him, took a set of rosary beads from his shirt
pocket, placed it in the wounded man’s hand and prayed. When
young McDonald, overcome by it all, began to sob, Barry turned
to him and said, quietly but firmly, ‘Stop crying and do your
job.’ Somebody had removed Kennedy’s shoes and McDonald
was seen later wandering aimlessly, still holding the shoes. Ted
Kennedy, learning the news as he watched television in his hotel
room in San Francisco, immediately flew to Los Angeles.
“After what seemed like an interminable time but actually only
ten minutes after the shooting, two medical attendants finally
wheeled in a low hospital stretcher and placed Kennedy on it.
‘Gently, gently,’ his wife said. ‘Oh, no, no,’ Kennedy said, in
obvious pain, ‘don’t.’ As the attendants strapped him onto the
stretcher, he appeared to lose consciousness. A young kitchen
worker took a white towel and proceeded to mop up the blood
that had settled under Kennedy’s head.
“After an argument with the attendants about who would ride in
the ambulance, Ethel and Dutton climbed in the back with the
candidate and Barry and Warren Rogers, then Washington editor
of Look magazine and a family friend, got into the front seat next
to the driver. They took Kennedy to the Central Receiving
Hospital a mile away where an emergency heart massage was
applied, restoring his pulse.
“Because Ethel did not know if her husband was dead or alive,
the doctor reported later, ‘when we began to get a heartbeat, I put
the stethoscope in her ears so she could listen, and she was
tremendously relieved.’ A priest friend nevertheless
administered the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church to
Kennedy. He had taken one bullet in his head, in the mastoid
area behind his right ear, on a path to his brain. He was moved at
once to the Hospital of the Good Samaritan a few blocks away
for surgery. Almost at once, a local television van had a
spotlight on the entrance and police set up street barriers, behind
which a massive vigil of shocked and concerned Angelenos had
already formed.
“Back at the Ambassador, Los Angeles police rushed into the
pantry area, took the assailant from Grier and the others pinning
him down, handcuffed him and led him out as stunned onlookers
gawked, many of them sobbing. After they had left, Grier, an
immense man, put his head down on the steam table and cried
softly like a baby. A tough, hard-bitten veteran CBS television
cameraman, Jim Wilson, who had just captured the whole bizarre
scene on film, sat next to Grier and did the same.
“Soon police came in and marked in chalk where Kennedy and
Schrade had fallen, while the floor was swept and scrubbed clean
of blood marks. Several overhead drywall panels were removed
and searched for bullet fragments. On a wall just beyond the
point where Kennedy had been hit, someone had put up a hand-
printed sign that said ‘The Once And Future King,’ a reference to
the book from which the musical ‘Camelot’ had been taken…..
“Over at the Beverly Hilton, McCarthy was in his seventh-floor
suite with Clark and Finney drafting a telegram of congratulation
to Kennedy. Mary McGrory was also there. The draft originally
had talked of Kennedy’s ‘splendid’ victory but McCarthy
changed it to ‘fine’ because, McGrory recalled, he didn’t believe
the margin would be as large as the networks were projecting.
He was correct….
“As they labored over the telegram, Schoumacher rushed into the
room. ‘Senator Kennedy has been shot!’ he said, and ran out to
get more details. As McCarthy’s wife and daughters came into
the room, McCarthy sat in a corner chair, put his hands over his
eyes, then looked up and said, ‘Maybe we should do it in a
different way. Maybe we should have the English system of
having the cabinet choose the president. There must be some
other way.’
“In Colorado Springs, Hubert Humphrey had just gotten to sleep
in the VIP quarters of the Air Force Academy, where he was
scheduled to deliver the commencement address the next
afternoon. An aide, Dave Gartner, woke him with the news. He
jumped out of bed, turned on his television set to verify what he
had been told, then phoned Ted Kennedy at the Fairmount in San
Francisco, who himself had learned only shortly before of the
shooting of his brother. Humphrey asked what he could do to
help. Kennedy asked him to arrange an Air Force plane to fly a
renowned Boston brain surgeon, Dr. James Poppen, to Los
Angeles. Humphrey did so, and also had another plane in
Washington take other Robert Kennedy children and family
friends there.
“According to Van Dyk, however, while the first plane was
headed to Boston to pick up the surgeon, (President) Johnson
phoned Humphrey, demanded to know what right he had to
‘commandeer’ an Air Force plane and canceled the order. If that
was so, Johnson must have changed his mind, because a
government plane did take Poppen to Los Angeles, where he
arrived after surgery had been completed.
“The vice president told Air Force Chief of Staff John
McConnell that he would be returning to Washington in the
morning, and when McConnell protested that he had to deliver a
speech at the academy, Humphrey told him: ‘General, I don’t
have to do anything…Get yourself another commencement
speaker.’ When Air Force Secretary Harold Brown protested to
Van Dyk, the Humphrey aide related later, he told him that ‘the
vice president’s going back to Washington; it would be
inappropriate for him to make the speech’ because Kennedy had
been shot. To which Brown replied, Van Dyk said, ‘What the
hell difference does that make?’”
Some of this last narrative is unbelievable, isn’t it?
On Wednesday, following surgery that lasted three hours and
forty minutes, it was clear Kennedy was slipping away. Not only
had one bullet lodged in the midline of the senator’s brain,
another had hit him in the back of the neck (and a third had
grazed his forehead).
Witcover writes: “The grimmest mandatory exercise of
newspaper journalism, the advance preparation of an obituary,
occupied many of us in these long hours.”
Then, “One day, one hour and forty-seven minutes after the
bullets had struck down the junior senator from New York,
Mankiewicz entered the press room and in a choking but
controlled voice read without embellishment: ‘Robert Francis
Kennedy died at 1:44 a.m. today, June 6, 1968. With Senator
Kennedy at the time of his death were his wife, Ethel; his sisters,
Mrs. Stephen Smith and Patricia Lawford; brother-in-law
Stephen Smith, and Mrs. John F. Kennedy. He was 42 years
old.’ Later he added the name of Senator Edward Kennedy.”
Thursday, Part III…the reaction of LBJ and RFK’s funeral. And
in August, the 1968 Democratic Convention.
—
A Washington Giant
The Wall Street Journal’s Gerald Seib on the death of Tim
Russert.
“Tim looked a little tired Friday morning, but nobody inside his
studio at NBC news headquarters in Washington thought too
much of it. He’d just gotten back from a quick trip to Rome to
visit his son, who was on one of those do-it-while-you’re-young
European tours.
“He told me he had gotten just two hours of sleep on the plane.
So he was entitled to look tired.
“None of that stopped him from hosting an hour-long
conversation with John Harwood and me about a new book
we’ve just published, a book Tim said he loved because it was
about the inner workings of a capital and a political system he
loved.
“There were smiles and handshakes and pictures with Tim’s
interns after our conversation ended, and John and I left saying to
each other the same thing: That was the best interview we’ve
done in a long string scheduled to promote our book.
“A few hours later, Tim was dead, the victim of an unexpected
heart attack.
“The news went beyond shocking, and not just for those of us
who were with him in his final hours. In losing Tim with no
warning, nearly all of Washington understood in a moment just
how large a figure he had grown to be at the intersection of
politics and journalism that carries so much traffic within the
nation’s capital.
“Tim had set standards. He had shown how to hold politicians
accountable for their own words and promises in a way that was
both tough and fair. He reminded all of us on both sides of the
journalism-politician divide, that the point of it all wasn’t to
impress each other but to serve the viewer, the reader, the voter –
the citizen. More than any journalist I know, in print or on air,
Tim harkened back constantly to that central truth: politicians
and those who cover them are responsible not to each other, but
to the common audience of voters to whom they all spoke.”
[An autopsy determined Russert had an enlarged heart and
coronary artery disease.]
I’ve commented on Russert elsewhere on this site. For the
purposes of this column, we note what a terrific sports fan he was
as watching Mets games in Washington the camera always
seemed to pan to Tim, enjoying it with his son or friends, beer in
hand. And of course there was his signature sign-off during
football season, “Go Bills.” Russert was also a huge Springsteen
fan and had recently attended a concert of his in Washington.
[Springsteen dedicated a song to Tim during a concert in Paris,
Sat. night, upon learning of his death.]
Oh, sure, there were many who didn’t like Russert, especially
inside the Beltway. You have to be cutthroat to get the best
guests, after all, and there were those who were jealous of his
power and influence. He was the hardest-working journalist
around, and with that comes access to sources others didn’t have.
And because he had worked with Democratic politicians, in
some circles there was this perception he was biased, like all the
other journalists, say lazy armchair quarterbacks. Of course
there is a liberal media bias, the polls have long proved this
point, but Russert was indeed fair to all sides. Everyone got a
hearing, at least those who had the guts to go on, and it was sink
or swim.
I was a “Meet the Press” junkie his entire 17 years, as I look
back. When I was a regular churchgoer, I picked a mass built
around his program and I have to admit I sometimes walked out
after receiving communion if the priest had given a long-winded
homily, just to ensure I was home in time for the opening theme
music, but I think I’ve been forgiven for that.
Stuff
–Dale Earnhardt Jr. won his first race since May 2006, the 18th
of his career.
–Sources tell the New York Daily News that the feds have
enough evidence to indict Roger Clemens for perjury, but the key
could end up being the bloody gauze pads and needles that
trainer Roger NcNamee provided as evidence, as well as the
testimony of best friend and teammate Andy Pettitte.
According to law professor Peter Keane, “Pettitte will hurt him.
He’s a straightforward guy, and if it comes down to a swearing
match between Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens, the jury will
side with Andy Pettitte.”
–Charlie Jones died. He was 77. Like Tim Russert, Jones was
felled by a heart attack, in Charlie’s case as he was preparing for
dinner with friends at Torrey Pines Lodge, site of the Open.
I’ll best remember Jones for his work doing the AFL games for
NBC after the network picked up the contract in 1965. [My own
first memory is 1967.] Jones was a mainstay on football until
1997. In addition to this, Jones worked a number of Olympics
and about 26 other sports for NBC, as well as doing play-by-play
for both the Cincinnati Reds and the Colorado Rockies. He was
a straight forward announcer who let the game do the talking.
–One of the true jerks on the planet is the New York Giants’
tight end Jeremy Shockey. Here in the New York area, we’re
often treated to his outbursts and one paper reported the other
day that “Shockey and general manager Jerry Reese got into a
‘shouting match’ during minicamp.” Coach Tom Coughlin
conceded “There is an issue.”
The issue is Shockey, who was hurt at the end of the season,
feels he was mistreated, including not being allowed on the
sideline for the Super Bowl. He also now claims he didn’t
request a trade.
Well here are the facts. The Giants went on their incredible roll
after Shockey was hurt. He was a constant distraction when he
was playing, showing up quarterback Eli Manning when Eli
failed to see him on certain plays, and ranting and raving on the
sideline. When healthy, he can still be a force, but he hasn’t
been for years and the team is far better without him poisoning
the locker room.
But wait, there’s more! It’s truly unbelievable that the Giants
win a Super Bowl and you have both Shockey and wide receiver
Plaxico Burress bitching. Burress is unhappy with his contract,
signed in 2005, six years, $25 million. “Me and my agent have
been trying to get a deal done so I could be a New York Giant for
a long time and I personally don’t like the way that it’s going.”
You’re under contract, Plaxico. A nice, generous contract. But
Burress is typical of the a-holes in sports today. Someone signs a
better contract, a la the three year, $27 million extension granted
Randy Moss, and guys like Burress demand they receive the
same.
[Then again, I’m a Jets fan and really don’t care what happens in
Giants land. We have our own problems, you understand.]
–Phil W. offers that Mets GM Omar Minaya must be part owner
of Big Brown….for rather obvious reasons left unsaid.
–I forgot to acknowledge Leah S.G. in Virginia last time, Leah
being the cousin of Leah K., wife of nature contributor Brad K.
[Yes, it’s all very confusing.] The other day when I talked about
Carlos Zambrano’s hitting prowess, Leah offered that it just goes
to show the designated hitter rule is “the dumbest rule in sports.”
No. 2 dumb rule, she adds, is the offsides rule in soccer. “Let’s
find a bizarre way to keep a team from scoring; it’s akin to a guy
stealing the ball from the point guard bringing it up court, tossing
it to a teammate who was hanging back, who then races in for a
lay-up and the official whistles, ‘Stop! You can’t score without
somebody in your face.’”
Thanks, Leah S.G. Home version of “Bar Chat: The Game” on
the way, parcel post, once we get around to making it.
–According to an Associated Press survey, over 5,000
thoroughbred horses since 2003 have died after suffering
devastating injuries on the track. The AP found countless other
deaths were unreported due to lax record keeping. Tracks in
California and New York, which rank first and sixth in
thoroughbred races, combined to average more than one death
for every day of the year. Some states, such as Arkansas, don’t
track deaths.
Last year, 314 horses died at California’s tracks and now the
state has mandated that all its major tracks replace their dirt
surface with a synthetic mixture found to be safer in some
studies.
But on the other hand, just how big is the issue? New York State
broke down the 637 horse deaths on its harness and thoroughbred
tracks over a five-year period: 388 occurred on the track, 60
occurred in training and 189 were nonracing-related deaths that
occurred in the backstretch. The report said, “The 388 deaths
that occurred while racing are out of a total of 521,703 starters
(.07 percent).”
[Sources: Jeffrey McMurray / AP; Joe Drape / New York Times]
–You want a cool Web site? I was looking up some information
on an old-time baseball player the other day and stumbled upon
CheckOutMyCards.com. Why should you? It has a bunch of
baseball cards, as well as a decent selection from football and
basketball, but what I love is you can see the back of the card.
Ergo, you can check out minor league stats, particularly for
players in the 60s when Topps did its best job. I also ordered
some cards the other day and I’ll let you know what kind of
service I received. I’m anxious to get one of my main man,
former Pirates (and briefly, Mets) hurler Bob Friend, one of the
most underrated pitchers in the history of the game, by god!
–I’m listening to XM’s 60s channel and now they’re playing
“Morning Girl” by……………..The Neon Philharmonic. Boy,
you’d recognize the song but there is no way I could have ever
guessed the group. If you knew this, pour yourself a premium!
–John Marzulli of the Daily News reports “Mike Tyson chipped
in $50,000 for a contract to kill members of a Brooklyn drug
gang that murdered his bodyguard in 2000, a government witness
testified Thursday.” Well, at least he was doing something
useful.
–Golf Digest’s U.S. Open Challenge was completed days before
the Open began at Torrey Pines. It all started when Tiger
Woods, during last year’s U.S. Open at Oakmont, said no 10-
handicapper could break 100 there or at any other venue of its
kind. That begat the Golf Digest contest, and John Atkinson’s
“yes-I-can” essay that was selected from over 56,000 entries.
So Atkinson, 39, played in a foursome with Tony Romo (2.2
index), Justin Timberlake (6.0) and Matt Lauer (6.2). Romo shot
84, Timberlake 98, and Lauer 100. Atkinson? 114. Greg
Norman caddied for Lauer (who is attending Norman’s
upcoming wedding to Chris Evert……it’s nice to be rich and
famous)
–From Golf World, take a guess what the highest score ever shot
at the U.S. Open is…………………………………try 157 by
J.D. Tucker at the 1898 Open at Myopia Hunt, South Hamilton,
Mass. W. Collins shot 154 at the same event, then there is a big
drop-off to C.R. Jensen’s 117, also in 1898. Guess the course
was set up kind of tough.
Since WWII, the highest score is John Battini’s 96 at the 1955
Open at Olympic. Of even more recent vintage, Steve Cole shot
93 at Pebble Beach in 1972.
Golf World also discusses the 10 Worst U.S. Open sites.
1. Northwood Club, Dallas (1952)…Following Oakland Hills,
preceding Oakmont, it stuck out like a range ball in a sleeve of
Pro V1s.
2. Englewood (N.J.) GC (1909)…So unmemorable that no one
cared I-95 ran through it in 1960.
4. Baltimore CC (1899)…Not the A.W. Tillinghast gem, but the
original, Roland Park, plowed under long ago. Had a cardiac-
climb closing hole.
10. Hazeltine National GC, Chaska, Minn. (1970)…Back then,
it lacked a lot more than just 80 acres and some cows. [Dave
Hill famously told a reporter, when asked what the course lacked
(a course that was a puzzling and unpopular selection), “Eighty
acres of corn and a few cows. Just because you cut the grass and
put up flags doesn’t mean you have a golf course.”]
–Sportswriter Bob Drum, responding to Arnold Palmer, who
asked him what a final-round 65 would do for his chances of
winning at Cherry Hills in 1960. “Nothing. You’re too far
back.” Palmer shot 65 and won.
–I saw a picture of former New York Knick Allan Houston in
the Sunday Times’ Style Section and it just makes Knicks fans
cringe any time you see him. After all, it was in 2001 that the
Knicks gave the shooting guard a six-year contract extension
worth $100 million and he played all of about two seasons after
that before being shelved by injury. Under the contract, he was
earning $20 million some seasons for not playing. Unbelievable.
Aside from all the other horrible deals the Knicks worked out the
last 7 or 8 years, both trades and contracts, this remains at the
top.
–This is sad. As reported by Jane Macartney (sic) of the London
Times, “Nearly all of China’s endangered pandas are in jeopardy
after the earthquake last month devastated the remote mountain
corner that is their last remaining habitat.”
An official with the forestry administration says the last 1,590
pandas living in the wild face a living environment that is
“completely destroyed. Massive landslides and large-scale
damage to forests…”
“Caves and tree hollows where giant pandas live may be
damaged, water in the habitat is polluted, and some of the
bamboo is buried and smashed.”
A big problem is so many of the roads into the hillsides remain
blocked so there is no way of assessing the true damage. 49 of
the 55 protected panda reserves were affected by the earthquake.
Whole mountainsides have been toppled, probably burying many
of them.
China had taken years to create the reserves, “linked by corridors
along which the pandas can move with the minimum
encroachment by man.”
I do have to add, though, that it’s about time someone sat the
pandas down and explained to them that they need to try some
other foods besides bamboo, or they’re history. Maybe turn
them into cattle ranchers as well.
–Johnny Mac passed along a story from Nature concerning
capuchin monkeys that “can use tokens to ‘buy’ their favorite
food, and can decide whether to trade for one piece of tasty food,
or many pieces of a less appetizing snack.” In other words,
“capuchins, like us, can understand the symbolic value of an
otherwise mundane object.”
Basically, in a study at Italy’s National Research Council, where
they were otherwise just lounging around (the scientists, that is),
musing about what to do next, they played with the idea of using
different size tokens and foods and the “minkeys,” as Peter
Sellers would have said, were able to differentiate between the
value of the token and the food it bought. To which Johnny Mac,
former currency desk head honcho at a large brokerage firm
(now living a life of leisure on his own mountain in the
Poconos…Johnny’s Mountain…where we are all retreating
before the end of the world…Trader George is in charge of
steaks, I’m in charge of premium beer…but I digress….) says, “I
always told the kids who worked for me I could replace ‘em with
a monkey and this proves I was right.” Johnny was a tough boss.
–Ya see this one? “A weedy sea dragon at the Georgia
Aquarium has something to celebrate this Father’s Day. One of
the rare creatures is pregnant for only the third time ever at a
U.S. aquarium…But don’t look for the expectant mom – dads
carry the eggs in this family.”
“Sea dragons, sea horses and pipe fish are the only species where
the male carries the eggs. Sea dragon pregnancies are rare
because researchers don’t know what gets them in the mood to
mate.”
I’ll tell you what doesn’t, these days; watching the Mets.
Anyway, lest you be totally confused, the female still lays the
eggs but then she transfers them to the male’s tail, saying,
“You’re the one that wanted kids….here, they’re yours!”
Female sea dragons are quite moody.
–So I’m reading “Rolling Stone” in my attempt to stay hip and I
see a 4-star review of a 1977 Dennis Wilson album, “Pacific
Ocean Blue.” Turns out Wilson released it in 1977 and it’s been
out of print since 1991 until now. So I’ll have to pick it up. As
RS puts it, “The Beach Boys’ fun-loving drummer proved he was
a serious talent like his older brother, Brian.”
RS also says you should check out “A Day in the Life,” Paul
McCartney’s performance of it live, as found on You Tube.
Why? It’s the first time since “Sgt. Pepper” that Paul performed
it, 41 years ago. [June 1, from Liverpool’s Anfield Stadium.]
Top 3 songs for the week 6/16/73: #1 “My Love” (Paul
McCartney & Wings) #2 “Playground In My Mind” (Clint
Holmes…lives in my home town; at least I think he still does)
#3 “Pillow Talk” (Sylvia)…and…#4 “I’m Gonna Love You Just
A Little More Baby” (Barry White) #5 “Daniel” (Elton John)
#6 “Frankenstein” (The Edgar Winter Group) #7 “Will It Go
Round In Circles” (Billy Preston) #8 “Give Me Love – (Give
Me Peace On Earth)” (George Harrison…still miss the guy) #9
“Kodachrome” (Paul Simon) #10 “Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round
The Ole Oak Tree” (Tony Orlando and Dawn)
Baseball Quiz Answer: Five aside from Mike Mussina to have 17
consecutive 10-win seasons are…Greg Maddux, Cy Young,
Steve Carlton, Don Sutton and Warren Spahn. Pretty good
company for the Moose.
Next Bar Chat, Thursday.
