J.P. Hayes

NFL Quiz: Chicago/St. Louis/Arizona Cardinals…1) Who is the career passing leader, yardage? 2) Who is the career leader in receptions? 3) Who is the career leader in receiving yards? [2 and 3 are different…a bit tricky] 4) Who is the career leader in interceptions? 5) Who holds the single-game rushing record with 214? 6) Who holds the single-game passing yardage record with 522? [Hint: Both 5 and 6 were accomplished in 1996.] Answers below. 

Incredibly, after 120 of their number had been killed over the past decade, and as civil war rages anew, the rangers of Virunga National Park in the Congo are returning to protect the gorillas there, where one third of the 700 remaining lowland specie survive. [The others are in national parks in Rwanda and Uganda.] Currently, the park headquarters are under the control of rebel leader Nkunda, who forced 240 rangers to leave. 

But Nkunda has suddenly allowed a few back and they are returning, offering a glimmer of hope. Now the rangers are going to conduct a census to check the status of the 200 or so gorillas at Virunga. Keep your fingers crossed. Two years ago, the government-allied Mai Mai militia slaughtered hundreds of hippos for the meat and ivory. 

Then there is the story of golfer J.P. Hayes. Reader Mark R. notes Hayes deserves the year end “Good Guy Award” and certainly J.P. will get consideration. 

You see, during the second stage of the PGA Tour’s Q School, Hayes discovered that on two shots on one hole, “he had unwittingly used a prototype golf ball not approved for competition by the United States Golf Association,” as a wire service report put it. 

No one would have known. A Tour card was on the line. But Hayes, in keeping with golf’s tradition of honor and players policing themselves, turned himself in and was disqualified. 

“It’s extremely disappointing,” he said. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and this is going to be a bad nightmare.” 

It was on the 12th hole of the first round that Hayes’ caddie reached into his golf bag and tossed a ball to J.P, “who played two shots – a tee and a chip onto the green – and marked his ball. At that point he realized the ball he was playing was not the same model with which he started the round – by rule, a two-stroke penalty.” 

Hayes conferred with a rules official, who said the penalty was two shots and that he had to finish the hole with that ball and then change back to the original one. Hayes finished the round and was still in good shape to advance to the final stage of Q School.  

But it was in his hotel room that he realized the ball might not have been on the approved list. 

“It was a Titleist prototype, and somehow it had gotten into my bag,” he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “It had been four weeks since Titleist gave me some prototype balls and I tested them. I have no idea how or why it was still in there.” 

So Hayes had a decision to make. Continue playing, since no one knew of his error, or admit it. He chose the latter. 

Hayes is refusing to blame his caddie for the error. And he admits that if the hole had been a par-4 or par-5, he would have known he had the wrong ball right away because he uses the label to help him align his driver on tee shots. 

“But it was a par-3 and I don’t use the label to line up on par-3s,” he said. “It was my mistake.” 

Hayes, 43, has won twice on tour but had to go to Q School because he finished only 176th on the money list this year. 

And how about Tony Romo? The Dallas quarterback, according to reports, saw a homeless man outside a movie theater Romo was going into and invited the guy to watch the flick with him. Romo and “Doc” ended up sitting together for the film “Role Model.” Doc told the Dallas Morning News that he informed Romo he hadn’t showered in days and Tony said, “Don’t worry about that. I’m used to locker rooms.” 

Romo confirmed the encounter but wouldn’t elaborate. But the above just proves there are still a handful of good people left in the world. 

So Johnny Mac and I were at Trader George’s 50th birthday party Saturday night, Johnny was keeping me updated on Oklahoma-Texas Tech, and then by the time I got home, Oklahoma was up 52-7 on the way to a 65-21 pasting of No. 2 TT. Can you believe OU quarterback Sam Bradford? Just another 14 of 19, 304 yards and four touchdown performance. He’s now thrown 42 TD passes with just six interceptions, is averaging 10.6 yards per attempt (that’s fantastic, if you’re not too familiar with this critical stat), and, get this, has a quarterback rating of 193.7! Assuming Oklahoma defeats Oklahoma State next Saturday night, I’m giving Bradford the Heisman. 

Elsewhere, Penn State secured a Rose Bowl date by whipping up on Michigan State, 49-18, while 81-year-old Joe Paterno told a student pep rally he was coming back next year. I mean for crying out loud, Paterno hasn’t been on the sidelines the past two months because of his bad hip (which he got replaced on Sunday), watching the games upstairs in the press box instead. It’s a joke. He’s the Robert Byrd of college football. [Actually, Paterno shares this distinction with 79-year-old Bobby Bowden, both of whom have said some very strange things the past year or so as they age rather poorly. I am, too, but I’m not coaching a major college football program.] 

Ugly loss for Wake Forest to Boston College as my Deacs fall to 6-5. The offense has totally sucked all year.  And nice loss for Notre Dame, to lowly, freakin\’ Syracuse!  You\’re good, Charlie Weis.

But congratulations to first-year coach Rich Rodriguez, whose Michigan Wolverines secured the school’s first nine-loss season in getting beaten up by Ohio State. Michigan finishes 3-9! 

I finished 3-2 on my bets, thanks to Arkansas State and Middle Tennessee State, to even my season at 20-20. Final week coming up. Time to go for the kill before the Depression sets in. 

1. Alabama .9872
2. Texas .9209
3. Oklahoma .9125
4. Florida .8755
5. USC .7974
6. Utah .7858
9. Boise State .6581 

–Bryan Curtis on Barack Obama’s appeal to scrap the BCS for a playoff system. 

“Yes, Mr. Obama’s proposal would spread the wealth around. Instead of one game that matches two upper-crust contenders like Alabama and Oklahoma [ed. Mr. Curtis was a bit prescient with the Oklahoma reference, having written his Times op-ed before the Texas Tech game], a playoff could include teams from football’s neglected working class, like Utah and Boise State. Unfortunately, it would also ruin what is great about college football. 

“The part of the sport to savor is not the finale but the regular season. In college football, every game has the fierce urgency of now. The uncertainty of what lies at the end makes the 12-game gauntlet all the more nerve-wracking. Lose once, and your team finds itself at the mercy of the voters and the dreaded computers. 

“Mr. Obama’s playoff would render the regular season far less dramatic. Last year, a humbling by Stanford, a 41-point underdog, helped derail the University of Southern California’s title bid. Or to relocate things to the site of Mr. Obama’s first major electoral triumph: Two weeks ago, the Iowa Hawkeyes beat Penn State with a last-second field goal and all but knocked the Nittany Lions out of the hunt. With a playoff, those games would have been meaningless, because both U.S.C. and Penn State would probably be invited to compete for the championship even with a loss.  

“Under the B.C.S., college football is about the pursuit of four perfect months. Under Mr. Obama’s risky playoff scheme, college football would be about the pursuit of three perfect weeks.” 

But when it comes to the 34 bowl games now on the schedule, with the economy in turmoil there is no doubt the slate will be pared back big time in 2009, and it’s going to be interesting to see how small some of this year’s crowds are. I know for one that if Wake Forest is invited to a game, it will be one of the lowest-ranked bowls and I can’t imagine why anyone would go. I sure as hell am not. 

So let’s go back to a bit I did two years ago when there were 32 bowl games. 

College Football Quiz: 1) Name the 8 bowl games from 1963-67. 2) Which was added in 1968? 3) And what bowl was then added in 1971, making it just ten at that time? 

[Pause…while you get a second cold one.]

Answers: 1) 8 bowl games from 1963-67: Liberty, Gator, Sun, Bluebonnet, Cotton, Sugar, Rose and Orange. 2) The Peach Bowl was added in 1968. 3) The Fiesta Bowl was added in 1971.

Tidbit: I totally forgot that in 1961 and ‘62, the 8th bowl game was the Gotham Bowl in New York. From the book “Fifty Years of College Football” by Bob Boyles and Paul Guido, in 1962 the Gotham Bowl was held on Dec. 15 with Nebraska beating Miami, 36-34.

“It’s hard to believe that Miami turned down warm-weather, in-state Gator Bowl chance, lured instead by bright lights of New York’s Broadway and legendary grounds of Yankee Stadium. But, teams found under-financed, poorly-organized bowl in its 2nd go-round. Crowd was held down significantly by New York City newspaper strike and unbearably frigid weather. Miami borrowed warmest overcapes of New York Giants. Hurricanes QB George Mira, native of Key West, Fla., who actually believed Miami weather was too cold; somehow persevered, hitting 24-46 / 321 yards, 2 TDs.” But cold weather Nebraska prevailed.

The Tangerine bowl became #11 in 1973. 

–West Virginia’s Pat White broke the NCAA record for career rushing yards by a quarterback, 4,292, when he rushed for 200 on 21 carries against Louisville. The record had been held by former Missouri QB Brad Smith, who’s now with the Jets. 

–Speaking of New York, how ‘bout them Jets?! Meaningful games in January for us…it’s a lock now. Jeff B. asked if I was warming up to Brett Favre yet…eh. The rest of the team is very likable, though. [I still maintain the Jets would be doing just as well with Chad Pennington.] 

–George Steinbrenner officially walked off the stage after Major League Baseball approved a change in control of the Yankees to son Hal. Mike Vaccaro of the New York Post commented. 

“He is, in truth, an impossible act to follow, because of everything he was and everything he did in his time here. He came in promising absentee ownership and became instead the most hands-on owner sport has ever seen. 

“He came in promising to restore a franchise (which was in shambles when he bought it) and put in place the pieces that won six championships. He hired and fired managers and pitching coaches with abandon, blitzed through PR men like a frat house goes through beer kegs, got himself suspended twice from baseball, made commercials, hosted ‘Saturday Night Live,’ became a recurring character on ‘Seinfeld.’…. 

“And perhaps the most staggering thing of all is to know that in the short course of his stewardship, public opinion about him managed to do the impossible: it did a complete 180. This was a man whose banishment from baseball in July 1990 was greeted with a standing ovation and a vulgar chant at Yankee Stadium. And yet less than a decade later, those same fans would serenade him with a chant of ‘Thank you, George!’ 

“New York has long been the place where men come to find their destinies, and Steinbrenner found his here. It has long been a city that welcomes men to re-invent themselves, and Steinbrenner did that, too. We will never see another like him, and who ever would have thought, back in the day, that this would be a sad thing? 

“So the name of the boss, lower case, changes. Even as everyone knows that the Boss, upper case, will be forever.” 

–Yankee hurler Mike Mussina retired at the age of 39 and after compiling his first 20-win season. Now that’s going out on top. 

The issue with Mussina, though, is does he belong in the Hall of Fame at 270-153, a spectacular 117 over .500? Mussina himself said this year when asked about his Hall prospects, “I don’t think anybody could ever say that I was the best pitcher in the league for any stretch of time. There was always somebody better. But I could match up with those guys. If you put me in there against one of those guys, you knew I was going to give you a chance to win the game.” 

There will be quite a debate with Moose in five years. I’m thinking he gets in, eventually. While he never won a Cy Young award, he was nonetheless a five-time All-Star and seven-time Gold Glove winner, but it’s those 117 over .500 that stands out. 

And while I wasn’t a fan of the man, you have to admire him going out on his own terms and after his biggest season in the win count. He also admitted this week that he had made up his mind 2008 would be his last before it even started. 

–The AP reviewed Michael Vick’s bankruptcy filing and some of the details are startling. Vick earned $11.4 million in 2006 and $6 million in 2007, plus endorsement income, but he spent like there was no tomorrow. [And in a sense for him, perhaps there wasn’t.] 

Vick is currently on the hook for his mother’s $4,700 mortgage payment, more than $2,000 in car payments for her Cadillac XLR and Escalade; a $2,500 mortgage for his fiancé; $1,160 for his fiancé’s Range Rover; $3,500 in monthly support for his young son and the boy’s mother…on and on. Vick once gave his former personal assistant a $45,000 Infiniti and a pair of power boats. 

But we also learned this week that “Michael Vick put family pets in rings with pit bulls and thought it was funny watching the trained killers injure or kill the helpless dogs, a witness told federal investigators during the dogfighting investigation that brought Vick down.” 

I’ve heard the debate as to who will take Vick later on, but I just don’t see it. 

–Leave it up to Paul Newman to have the perfect will, written up five months before he died of cancer. He left his Oscars to his charitable foundation, called for his race cars and airplane to be sold off, left his interest in his food enterprises to the foundation, and gave virtually everything else to wife Joanne Woodward. Just as it should be. 

–Lots of talk in these parts about Citigroup’s $400 million, 20-year contract to name the Mets’ new stadium Citi Field. “We remain committed to our relationship to the Mets; it is important to us,” said a spokesman. No way the deal survives, even should Citi do the same. [The preceding was written Sunday evening, before I knew what the government’s role was going to be with Citi as they negotiate into the night.] 

–On one hand, I couldn’t care less about the NBA, though I still glance at box scores every day to see how former Wake Forest players did. But I also want to be a Knicks fan again, if given a reason to be, and I’m far from alone in this regard.  

Alas, this was a great week if you follow the team as they dumped a ton of salary in the form of Jamal Crawford and Zach Randolph, gearing up for a major run at LeBron James in 2010 when he becomes a free agent. But if not LeBron, they would still be in a great position to reel in two other big potential free agents, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. Now if they could only get rid of Stephon Marbury’s and Eddy Curry’s contracts. 

Speaking of Marbury, because of the Knick trades, they needed him to dress as an 8th man the other night or else they would have had to forfeit. Marbury complied, but when coach Mike D’Antoni asked if he wanted to play, Marbury said no. Actually, in this instance, no one really blames Marbury. 

–Bob Jeter died. Jeter was the great defensive back who played on the Green Bay Packer teams that won the 1965 NFL championship and the first two Super Bowls. He played with Green Bay from 1963 to 1970 and then with Chicago from 1971 to ’73. He was All-Pro in 1967 and ’68 and intercepted 26 passes in his career. With the Pack he played corner opposite Herb Adderley. 

But in reading his obituary, I had forgotten that in the 1959 Rose Bowl, Jeter, an Iowa Hawkeye running back, was the MVP as he rushed for 194 yards on just nine carries, including an 81-yard TD run as Iowa defeated Cal-Berkeley, which was led by Joe Kapp. 

Jeter then was drafted in the second round by Green Bay in 1960, while the Los Angeles Chargers used their No. 1 pick on him, but Jeter chose to play in Canada. After two seasons at Vancouver, he joined the Packers and spent 1962 on the taxi squad. At first he was tried at wide receiver, but it was Vince Lombardi who switched Jeter to defensive back, where he became a starter in 1965. 

I’m just intrigued by his decision to play in Canada first. I don’t recall that sort of move back then before, especially with the emergence of the AFL as an alternative. 

–Very interesting story in the current Sports Illustrated by Matthew Teague titled “A More Dangerous Game…Bears on the Golf Course, Deer on the Windshield, Wolves on the Walk Back Home.” 

Here’s the bottom line. The sport of hunting is dropping, something like 10%, overall. [Small-game hunting is down 31%.] Teague details the gruesome death of a worker at a mining camp in Saskatchewan by wolves back in 2005, a highly unusual act, and there is more and more evidence that what I’ve been writing all these years is true. The animals are definitely changing their behavior patterns. We are slowly becoming the hunted! 

–Phillip Sherman of Arkansas had nude photos of his wife on his cellphone and then proceeded to leave it in McDonald’s. Of course I wouldn’t have written the preceding if the pictures hadn’t then appeared online. So Phillip and his wife are suing McDonald’s, the franchise owner and the store manager. Mr. Sherman claims employees promised to secure the phone until he returned. Mr. Sherman is an idiot. 

“Pitcher Yadel Marti and outfielder Yasser Gomez have been thrown off Cuba’s top league team for ‘a grave act of indiscipline,’ likely ending their hopes of playing in the 2009 World Baseball Classic. 

“Two people close to the team said the action came after the pair was caught trying to defect to the United States.” 

“Governor Sarah Palin has granted the traditional Thanksgiving pardon to one lucky turkey, but the video that shocked some viewers captured what was happening in the background. 

“As she answered questions Thursday at Triple D Farm & Hatchery outside Wasilla, cameras from the Anchorage Daily News and others showed the bloody work of an employee slaughtering birds behind the former Republican vice presidential candidate.” 

Palin didn’t comment on the carnage taking place behind her. “This was neat,” she said of the outing. “I was happy to get to be invited to participate in this.” 

Top 3 songs for the week 11/22/80: #1 “Lady” (Kenny Rogers) #2 “Woman In Love” (Barbra Streisand) #3 “The Wanderer” (Donna Summer)…and…#4 “Another One Bites The Dust” (Queen) #5 “I’m coming Out” (Diana Ross) #6 “Never Knew Love Like This Before” (Stephanie Mills) #7 “Master Blaster (Jammin’)” (Stevie Wonder) #8 “More Than I Can Say” (Leo Sayer) #9 “(Just Like) Starting Over” (John Lennon) #10 “Dreaming” (Cliff Richard) 

NFL Quiz Answers: 1) Career passing leader is Jim Hart with 34,639 yards, 1966-83. 2) Larry Centers is the career leader in receptions with 535, 1990-98. 3) Roy Green is the career leader in receiving yards with 8,497, 1979-90. 4) Larry Wilson is the career leader with 52 interceptions. 5) LeShon Johnson ran for 214 in 1996. 6) Boomer Esiason passed for 522 yards in an overtime contest in 1996.