NFL Quiz: 1) Who holds the New England record for career TDs? 2) Who is the only New England kicker to boot six field goals in a game? 3) Who are the co-holders of Oakland’s career mark for interceptions? 4) Who holds the single game Oakland passing record with 427 yards? [This one is totally unfair. It is not a big name.] 5) Which two Oakland passers have the team record for six touchdown passes in a game? [Neither is the same as No. 4] Answers below.
Hong Kong\’s Airport
Just a quick note to attempt to describe what I’m doing here. This is my fourth trip to this phenomenal place since 2001, though this time I’m doing things a little differently, aside from spending more time in the area than I normally do. I’m staying at the airport hotel, connected by a walkway and literally just a few minutes from the action.
Why would I do this? Looking back, I kind of wish I had done this before. For starters, it’s a lot cheaper and like everyone else in the world these days, I’m in cost-cutting mode. But this particular hotel is no ordinary airport hotel, it’s the best in the world, as rated by a UK travel magazine this year, and has a slew of good restaurants. Plus it’s just a 25-minute high-speed train ride into the middle of the action (and the ride is free because I’m staying at the hotel). And it’s on Lantau Island which I’ve never explored before and will beginning Wednesday.
But the airport itself is also the best in the world. It even has a big movie theater, though nothing of interest to me is playing as yet. So I’m like that Tom Hanks character in the movie whose title I’m blanking out on, only I have a nice room to go back to each night. By the way, if there is a Burger King in America that does more business than the one in the airport here, I’d like to see it.
As I ramble, one of the little pleasures is sitting in the hotel bar and observing all the flight crews check in. They all do, all hours of the day. It’s like you’re watching a marching band or cheerleading contest. Ah, but the Singapore Airlines girls still top them all.
Actually, tomorrow I’m going to Fuzhou, China for a long day trip to check up on an investment. I’m not bringing any bags so I’m all checked in, I’ll roll out of bed and walk over to my gate for the Dragonair flight. Travel made easy. Assuming everything is on time.
Speaking of not being on time, my Continental Airlines flight over here was one of the worst you can imagine. It’s a 16-hour flight to begin with, but we boarded our plane, sat for two hours, and then they said they couldn’t fix the lavatories so they moved us to another plane and all in all we were five hours late leaving. That’s a long day and the plane was packed to make it even more special, he wrote facetiously. So that’s what’s going on in my life. Hope all of your flights are on time and the traffic manageable.
November 11, 1918
Germany, facing advancing Allied Forces on the Western Front and a revolution at home, signed an armistice, ending the Great War. But as Smithsonian put it, “the terms agreed upon in Allied commander Marshal Foch’s rail carriage in Rethondes, France – including Germany’s surrender of armaments and its withdrawal from France, Belgium, Alsace-Lorraine, East Africa and eastern Europe – inspire resentment in Germany that will make the ‘war to end all wars’ a precursor to World War II.”
Robert Graves, ‘Armistice Day, 1918’
When the days of rejoicing are over,
When the flags are stowed safely away,
They will dream of another wild ‘war to end wars’
And another wild Armistice day.
But the boys who were killed in the trenches,
Who fought with no rage and no rant,
We left them stretched out on their pallets of mud
Low down with the worm and the ant.
Carl Sandburg ‘Grass’ (1918)
And pile them high at Gettysburg,
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Stuff
–On Sunday I went to the Hong Kong Museum, a place I hadn’t been before. I had forgotten some of the details of the Opium Wars, 1839-42. Boy, did the Brits make out. Like if I read it right, with the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, the British not only gained Hong Kong (which wasn’t much back then), but they also forced the Chinese to pay them $10 million for their own military expedition.
And did you know an American from Japan introduced the rickshaw to Hong Kong? It’s true. It’s really true.
I’ve been enjoying Tsing Tao beer here. It has the drinkability factor, but it also kind of sneaks up on you.
Sunday night for dinner I ate in one of the fine restaurants here but it had to be the worst meal I’ve ever eaten. I ordered smoked fish with soy sauce, and then fried mandarin fish with soy. Now when I cook on salmon Sunday, I drizzle soy over the fish and marinate for a few hours; the operative word being ‘drizzle.’ Not slather the sucker in soy paste, which is what this restaurant did. I felt like going back into the kitchen and taking over.
Well, after that lousy experience I went to the Heineken Bar in one of the terminals where they had the Chelsea-Blackburn Premier League match on the tube. That was a lot of fun, plus you never saw a soccer game played in more rain. They almost had to “abandon” play, as the announcers put it, because there was so much standing water, the ball would just stop.
Ah, but as one guy said, “These pitches can take an awful lot of rain. They just need a respite for it to drain,” and a respite is what they got in Lancashire.
[So far my weather in Hong Kong has been outstanding. And as opposed to my previous trips, there is blue sky! A big wind came along and, poof! Goodbye pollution.]
–AP College Football Poll
1. Alabama 10-0…squeak by LSU in OT, 27-21
2. Texas Tech 10-0…slaughter OK State, 56-20; Oklahoma on Nov. 22
3. Florida 8-1
4. Texas 9-1
5. Oklahoma 9-1
6. USC 8-1
7. Penn State 9-1
8. Utah 10-0
9. Boise State 9-0
10. Ohio State 8-2
14. Ball State 9-0
BCS Standings
1. Alabam .9814
2. Texas Tech .9715
3. Texas .8798
4. Florida .8640
5. Oklahoma .8444
7. Utah
9. Boise State
We have a long ways to go, with SEC and Big Twelve championship games to decide the final national title match-up. But the way the BCS is structured these days, with four at-large berths, both Utah and Boise State could get into BCS games.
I was 2-2 on the week and actually view that as a comeback of sorts, winning with Oklahoma and Pitt, while losing with USC and Penn State. I’m now 15-16 on the year.
Nice win for Wake Forest, beating Virginia for just the second time in 22 games, if you can believe that. I can’t believe the Deacs still have a shot at the ACC title game. UNC also continued its resurgence in defeating a solid Georgia Tech squad.
Another great win for the MAC conference as Western Michigan defeated Illinois. And how about Tennessee? Goodness gracious. They lose at home to lowly Wyoming.
–Thankfully, there is another Tennessee for folks there to root for, the Titans. However, so much for their ground game. The Titans advanced to 9-0 in defeating Chicago but had only 20 yards on 29 carries.
Hey, the Jets are a solid 6-3 and hitting on all cylinders. Next up the Pats. And congrats to the Miami Dolphins, now 5-4. What a great story.
–In the last official event of the PGA Tour season, Davis Love III captured his 20th career title. Well done, considering he’s 44 and all. Only three active golfers have as many; Tiger, Vijay and Phil.
Vijay Singh won the money title in ’08 with $6,601,094. There are journeyman relievers making that much. Tiger was second on the money list, incidentally, earning $5,775,000 in just six events before he was shelved. Two surprises on the down side were David Toms, just 131st, and Chris DiMarco, 146th.
Now the key is to finish in the top 125 to retain your Tour card for ’09, which makes the last event always a tension convention for a handful of players. Brad Adamonis, for example, missed the cut but learned from a tour official that he would finish top 125. Brad said upon learning this, “I probably won’t look at the standings until the tournament is over. At least that’s my plan. I’d probably throw up if I did.” He ended up 124.
–Compare Vijay’s $6.6 million to some of the following; the NFL’s highest-paid players for 2008, including bonuses.
QB Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh…$27.7 million
DE Jared Allen, Minnesota…$21.1mm
WR Larry Fitzgerald, Arizona…$17.1mm
QB JaMarcus Russell, Oakland…$16.8mm
RB Michael Turner, Atlanta…$16.0mm
G Chris Snee, Giants…$14.8mm
CB Asante Samuel, Philadelphia…$14.1mm
WR Randy Moss, New England…$14.0mm
T Flozell Adams, Dallas…$14.0mm
Oh, what the hell. These guys don’t have long careers so they have to go for it while they can.
–The local China Daily can be hilarious with some of its stories.
“Zoo panda bites the hand that feeds him”
“A tourist in Zunyi, Guizhou province, was injured by a giant panda when trying to feed the animal recently. It was the latest of a spate of incidents in which people have been injured by animals at the zoo.
“A tourist in the panda exhibit was bitten on a finger, a day after a monkey ran out of the cage and injured five tourists. All of the injured have complained about poor management and are seeking compensation.”
I don’t know what they’re complaining about. At least a tiger or elephant didn’t run wild.
“Stray lizard scares wits out of doctor’s clinic”
“Doctors and patients fled in all directions when a big lizard suddenly crept into a clinic in Haikou, capital of Hainan province, on Tuesday.
“The meter-long intruder suddenly appeared in local Zhang Changyu’s clinic around 10 a.m.
“Zhang had to temporarily lock the lizard in his clinic and sought police help after all his patients and staff ran away.”
In case you are concerned, “wild lizards currently enjoy State protection” and this monster was saved.
And this one…
“Thieves forced to shelter in women’s toilet from mob”
“Three thieves had to run into a women’s toilet and call police for help after more than 100 residents chased them in Xinmi, Henan province.”
Police rescued them.
–A number of you wrote in about the Arizona jogger who was attacked by a rabid fox, at which point the woman, with “the animal’s jaws clamped on her arm” ran a mile and then drove herself to a hospital.
The woman was on a trail near Prescott when the fox attacked and bit her foot. “She said she grabbed the fox by the neck when it went for her leg but it bit her arm,” according to the AP.
But that’s not all…
“The woman wanted the animal tested for rabies so she ran a mile to her car with the fox still biting her arm, then pried it off and tossed it in her trunk and drove to the Prescott hospital.”
I can’t tell if the woman was incredibly brave or unbelievably stupid, or both, but as I told Brad K., too bad she wasn’t in the New York City Marathon. That would have been an amazing human interest story.
“Al, where’s that woman with the fox clamped on her arm?”
“She’s at mile 14, Bob. There’s little of her arm left that I can see, but she’s a real trouper.”
“What’s the crowd reaction been?”
“Well that’s where it gets dicey, Bob. Everyone is running in terror when they see her, including those manning the water stations so it’s really had an impact on the other runners as well. I’m thinking event organizers need to step in now and clobber the fox.”
–We note the passing of Michael Crichton, who died just after my last chat was posted at the age of 66. What a career. “The Andromeda Strain,” “Jurassic Park,” “Twister,” creator of “ER.”
Steven Spielberg said of his friend of 40 years, “Michael’s talent out-scaled even his own dinosaurs of ‘Jurassic Park.’ He was the greatest at blending science with big theatrical concepts, which is what gave credibility to dinosaurs again walking the Earth.”
In recent years Crichton was condemned by environmentalists because of his skepticism about global warming.
Crichton wrote “The Andromeda Strain” while at Harvard Medical School and it was sold to Universal for $250,000 in 1969, a fair sum in those days.
–November 10, 1938, Kate Smith premieres “God Bless America” on her radio show. Irving Berlin had written it 20 years before for a musical and then abandoned it. But with war on the horizon in ’38, he reworked it as a “peace song.” Smith then made it a hit, singing it the rest of her days, including in the 1970s as a good luck charm for the Philadelphia Flyers.
–Everyone keeps comparing the Obama family to the Cosbys. What about the Jeffersons? What does George Jefferson think about all this? “We’re movin’ on up! To the White House…”
Top 3 songs for the week 11/12/77: “You Light Up My Life” (Debby Boone) #2 “Boogie Nights” (Heatwave) #3 “Nobody Does It Better” (Carly Simon)…and…#4 “”It’s Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next To Me” (Barry White…we miss Barry) #5 “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” (Crystal Gayle) #6 “I Feel Love” (Donna Summer…her best, even if it’s not the most complicated song in the world) #7 “Baby, What A Big Surprise” (Chicago) #8 “Heaven On The 7th Floor” (Paul Nicholas) #9 “How Deep Is Your Love” (Bee Gees) #10 “We’re All Alone” (Rita Coolidge)
NFL Quiz Answers: 1) Receiver Stanley Morgan is New England’s career leader with 68 touchdowns, 1977-89. His first six years in the league he averaged over 20.0 yards per catch and 19.2 for his career. 2) Gino Cappelletti hit six field goals in a game, 10/64. Cappelletti played for the then Boston Patriots from 1960-70. Aside from booting 176 field goals, he also had 292 receptions and 42 touchdowns. 3) Willie Brown, 1967-78, and Lester Hayes, 1977-86, are Oakland’s career interception leaders with 39 apiece. 4) Cotton Davidson threw for 427 yards in 10/64. He played sparingly with Baltimore in both 1954 and 1957, before suiting up for the Dallas Texans and Oakland from 1960-68. For his career he had 73 TD passes and 108 INTs. A Baylor product. 5) Tom Flores and Daryle Lamonica each threw six TD passes in a game for the Raiders. Flores had 93 TD and 92 INT in a career spanning 1960-69, while Lamonica went 164-138 from 1963-74. Lamonica started his career with Buffalo but became a starter with Oakland in 1967. From ’67-’70, the “Mad Bomber” had 30, 25, 34, and 22 TD passes. Daryle went to Notre Dame.
Next Bar Chat, Thursday.
