Baseball Quiz: Name the following pitchers who led the N.L. in ERA during the decade of the 1980s. It’s getting one or two of these that makes this hard. Initials, in chronological order. D.S., N.R., S.R., A.H., A.P., D.G., M.S., N.R., J.M., S.G. Answer below.
I’m back…after seven straight wins, including three straight over the team I was thinking of defecting to, the Pirates, my Mets are suddenly 17-13, have seven straight quality starts from the starting staff, and are beginning to hit in the clutch. And after a solid opening few weeks and an 11-7 start, Pittsburgh has lost 12 of 13. As Pirates fan Jeff B. told me, I applied a reverse hex on the Bucs by talking them up, and the Mets down, the past few weeks.
So I flipped my Pittsburgh home that I had purchased a week ago, for a $100,000 loss, and Johnny Mac and I have a contingency plan, Kansas City, should the Metsies falter after the All-Star break. I have connections in K.C., after all…Willie Wilson and such….but one hindrance. There aren’t any taxi cabs in the darn place so it’s tough to go partying, as I found out a few times last year. Regardless, we’re focused on the Mets for the next 60 games or so.
As for Mets ace Johan Santana, USA Today Sports Weekly had an interesting table on quality starts (six or more innings, three or fewer earned runs allowed) since the beginning of the 2005 season through May 3.
T12. Roy Halladay…81 [kind of surprised by this one…but just looked it up. He was hurt parts of ’04-‘05]
Santana, who is pitching Monday night, has limited hitters to 1-for-21 this season with runners in scoring position. That says it all.
So I went to Citi Field on Saturday. Paid $60 for a field level seat down the right field line. Here are some first impressions. Whatever you do, if you plan on attending a game here for the first time, please send me a note. I have some good advice, and can save you a lot of money. First off, buy the cheapest ticket you can get and then watch the game from the field level concourse. Excellent views of the game…better than what you’ll find in most seats. I was surprised by just how blind some of them were; which was far from the case when they were building Citi Field and the new Yankee Stadium…at least so we were told then.
The food choices are terrific…if you want to wait in long lines. I had a delicious pulled pork sandwich from Blue Smoke (a New York restaurant) for $9. Now that sounds like a lot, but these days you accept high prices for certain products if they deliver and in this case I’m not complaining. I also wanted to get a hamburger from the Shake Shack, but the line was too long there.
As for the beer, a 16-ounce domestic (can) like Bud Light or Coors Light was $7.50. Again, this is expensive, to say the least, but it’s all relative and I was not unhappy. At least these lines were pretty short.
My problem is I just live too far from the place…it’s two hours by car and subway, and a crapshoot taking the car all the way. I had no problem doing this as a kid, but I’m old and cantankerous these days and would rather stay at home and watch it on the tube. What Citi Field really could use, though, is a nice hotel across from the park. That way you could party like it’s 1969 (if you’re a Mets fan) and stumble across the street afterwards….and that’s a memo. Our top story…
“The players connected to performance-enhancing drugs through positive drug tests or hard information have lost the benefit of the doubt. Manny Ramirez was suspended for 50 games for violating baseball’s drug policy. He says he took a substance prescribed to him by a doctor for a personal medication situation. Our response is this: Whatever.
“No, somewhere between Rafael Palmeiro wagging his finger at congressmen and Mark McGwire saying that he didn’t want to talk about the past and Jason Giambi saying he was sorry without saying what for and Alex Rodriguez telling Katie Couric that he didn’t use steroids at all, our obligation to believe any my-dog-ate-my-homework story ended, and now we can assume the worst. Manny made a statement, and in it he stated that a physician gave him a medication, ‘not a steroid,’ that ‘was banned under our drug policy.’ At some point in the future, Manny may also say that he never touched steroids before, and that his production into his late 30s was a complete coincidence. Our response will be this: Whatever.
“But the sad part is that, inarguably, this crime within baseball pays in a big way, as Ramirez has demonstrated, and A-Rod and others demonstrated before him. Manny is a certified user of a banned substance, but he’s going to giggle his way all the way to the bank, and he and others can continue to do so unless Major League Baseball takes what should be viewed as the last necessary step in its battle against PEDs and institute a zero-tolerance policy….
“It’s up to Manny whether he wants to walk away from (his $45 million, two-year) contract after this season, but let’s just hazard an early guess on this point: There is no way he will walk away, because starting today he is an outfielder who will turn 37 later this month and now is connected with the use of performance-enhancing drugs, and no team with any sanity is going to match the money that Ramirez stands to make in the second year of his deal. If you thought Ramirez was a pariah after the way he dogged his way out of Boston, well, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Jose Canseco, on why Ramirez might have used HCG, the female fertility drug.
“It could be that a player used it because he used steroids and went cold-turkey and needed HCG to get his levels (testosterone) back to normal. I had to use it when I quit steroids cold-turkey. I had to go to a doctor to get it and my levels back. Yeah, they may not be taking steroids now, but they may have and now their testosterone level is not back to normal. HCG is one of those chemicals – it works but it takes time.”
“Nothing is simple with Ramirez anymore, not that it ever was. He has long been the moody player who became a genius once he picked up a bat. No matter how slapstick Ramirez’s play was in left field, how clueless he looked on the bases or how uninterested he was in cultivating relationships with teammates, he was an artist at the plate. Ramirez’s hitting absolved him of other baseball sins.
“ ‘I think Manny is as good a hitter as I’ve ever seen,’ Derek Jeter said.
“But Ramirez’s stint as the Rain Man of hitters cannot rescue him from his latest travails. Because documentary evidence tied Ramirez to human chorionic gonadotropin, a fertility drug for women, Ramirez has tarnished his career and stained the titles he helped the Red Sox win in 2004 and 2007. If Ramirez was daring or foolish enough to use performance enhancers now, baseball executives theorized that he probably used them on other occasions.
“Forget Ramirez’s amazing plate discipline, his brutish power, his baggy pants, his flying dreadlocks and his persistent trade requests. As appealing, amusing or annoying as those aspects of Ramirez’s career have been, everything has been muscled aside by what was revealed Thursday. Now Ramirez will almost certainly be first identified as another superb player who cheats.”
Mike Vaccaro / New York Post…on how some Mets fans wanted Manny last offseason. [Not me, you’ll recall.]
“So it turns out that perhaps discretion truly is the better part of valor. In the offseason – it made so much sense to sign Manny Ramirez, to bring the kid from Washington Heights and George Washington High home to close out a Hall of Fame career and provide punch to one of the local nines.
“Writers called for it. Talk radio begged for it. Mets fans demanded it….
“(This, of course, was all in the halcyon days before the reality of $2,500 seats and $9 beers and $19 parking spaces began to settle in.)
“The Mets said no thank you. The Yankees, by all accounts, said nothing. The Mets would settle on Daniel Murphy in left field, with the occasional helping of Gary Sheffield….Manny would stay on the left coast, a dreadlocked icon in Chavez Ravine. L.A., as always, would get all the fun. And the Dodgers would reap the benefits.
“There were plenty of perks to living in Manny’s World. But there was also a down side. A dark side. We heard about the encounter with the traveling secretary in Houston. We saw him amble to first on slow ground balls. We watched him disappear into the Green Monster, and daydream in left field, and Cadillac his way around basepaths, and demand his own set of rules….
“Not funny any more. Not charming. Not in the least. In the epic battle between once-in-a-generation star and forever pain in the neck, the pain has finally scored a decisive knockout. Thank goodness, he’s L.A.’s problem. They could use the rain. We’ve had more than our share.”
Bill Plaschke / Los Angeles Times
“The best and brightest neighborhood in the Los Angeles sports landscape is a very different place today.
“Manny Ramirez dropped a bomb on Mannywood on Thursday, leveling the Dodgers’ spirit, stripping the Dodgers’ psyche, and blowing up the Dodgers’ safe….
“ ‘You have to remember, there’s still a human being behind this thing,’ said Manager Joe Torre.
“Yeah, a selfish knucklehead of a human being who can no longer be trusted.
“The Dodgers can’t build their team on fakery. They can’t march to a championship behind a charlatan. They can’t fall for his act again.”
But as Plaschke adds, there is nothing the Dodgers can do. They can’t release Manny after the suspension is over. Nor can they release him at the end of the season without being responsible for the $20 million he’s owed next year.
[Incidentally, the Dodgers set the modern major league record for home winning streak to start a season at 13 before Manny’s suspension. Since then they have gone 1-3, also all at home.]
John Harper / New York Daily News
“Unless you think that cheating the game shouldn’t matter, you continue to cross the names off the list of future Hall of Famers. Not that deleting Manny Ramirez’s name from consideration is particularly painful.
“It was always going to be hard to vote for someone who quit on his team as transparently as Ramirez did with the Red Sox last year, when he forced his way out of Boston. So in this case, Ramirez’s suspension for using a banned substance just makes it easier to say no….
“In the bigger picture, the news about Ramirez only furthers the growing perception that the percentage of cheaters in the steroid era was higher than anyone wanted to believe for years.
“Remember when we all laughed at Jose Canseco’s assertion that 75% of players were juicing? Should we laugh again at Canseco going on ESPN Radio Thursday and saying he now believes the number was 100%?
“The point is that it’s harder than ever to make judgments on who’s clean and who’s not….
“So who can you believe in anymore as future Hall of Famers? Derek Jeter? Ken Griffey Jr.? Greg Maddux? Tom Glavine?
“Those are the consensus clean guys, but there is no way to know for sure, and so even they can’t entirely escape the suspicion that engulfs their sport.
“Then there are the players who may have escaped the notoriety associated with the Mitchell Report but have been the subject of whispering inside the game, such as Ivan Rodriguez and Mike Piazza.
“Will the voting simply come down to who got caught and who didn’t? Somehow, that doesn’t seem right….
“So it comes down to how much of a moral stance I want to take about a sport in which some forms of cheating (pitchers scuffing the ball, hitters corking their bats) are practically winked at while the use of steroids all but turns players into lepers these days.”
“One way to look at the Manny Ramirez bust is that it will be a whole lot easier to get a hotel room in the Cooperstown area during the Hall of Fame inductions in the next generation….
“Admittedly, I have spent too much time around professional cycling (not to be confused with amateur cycling), where prominent cyclists blame the pollen that blew into their nasal passages while they were laboring uphill in the Alps. (Actually, I’ve never heard that one, but I like it.)
“Baseball has forfeited any right to believability since an entire generation grew larger and started swatting balls over the fence with increased regularity. And I’m not even getting into the chat-room gossip about players who started losing their hair and wound up losing their power.”
David Ortiz, among the many under suspicion, said upon learning about Manny, “you’ve definitely got be careful” but the list of banned substances given to players is “a little confusing.” Teammate Jonathan Papelbon disagreed. “It’s really easy, actually,” he said. “They make a pamphlet for you in Spanish and English and you just read it and you know what not to take.”
When you thought of Jack Kemp, you thought about passion and class. When you think of Chuck Daly, who died of pancreatic cancer on Saturday at 78, there’s but one word, “coach.” Some guys just look like a coach or manager. The Phillies’ Charlie Manuel, for example, is the perfect image of an old-time baseball manager. Or Atlanta’s Bobby Cox. In basketball, when I think coach, I think of Red Holzman. At the college level it’s a different game in this media age, with the flash of a Rick Pitino or John Calipari probably being most fans’ immediate image when you play word association. [North Carolina’s Roy Williams reminds me more of an NBA coach.]
Daly led the Bad Boys of Detroit to back-to-back NBA titles in 1989 and 1990. That was a fun time for the league, as good as any, and I know I was into the game almost as much as I was when I was a kid, watching those classic Celtics-Sixers contests on ABC on Sunday afternoons. [Let alone my Knicks on Friday nights.] Of all the Pistons, led by guards Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars, and a front line of John Salley, Dennis Rodman, Rick Mahorn and Bill Laimbeer, my favorite was sixth man Vinnie Johnson. Just loved the way he played.
Daly of course also coached the 1992 Olympic Dream Team that had the likes of Jordan, Bird and Magic. Bird said, “He handled that team and its talent as well as anybody could. He treated us all with respect and had us all vying for the same goal.” That team also had Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Scottie Pippen, David Robinson, Chris Mullin, Karl Malone and John Stockton.
“Chuck Daly once described himself as ‘a journeyman coach who got lucky with some players in Detroit.’ He didn’t really believe that, of course, but that was part of Daly’s self-deprecating charm, his enduring appeal. He didn’t need to act important all the time, or remind people with pithy slogans how much of a defensive innovator he was.
“Maybe that was because he didn’t become a head coach in the NBA until he was 51, a champion with the Pistons until he was 58. He was a dues-payer and a lifer in the truest sense.”
Daly’s motto was “You want to create an environment where they’ll let you coach them.”
Commissioner David Stern: “Chuck did much more than coach basketball games. He positively impacted everyone he met, both personally and professionally, and his love of people and the game of basketball helped develop the next generation of coaches.”
You have the Manny story, and then you have the brother of the Yankee Clipper, Dominic DiMaggio, a Boston Red Sox center fielder and seven-time All-Star whose fine career was overshadowed, to say the least, by his older brother’s. Dom was 92 when he died on Friday.
Known as the “Little Professor” because he was one of the few players who wore glasses in his era, Dom was the sparkplug and leadoff hitter for the Red Sox from 1940 to 1953. He had more hits in the 10 seasons he played (Dom missed 1943-1945 because of The Big One) than anyone else in the game with 1,679. He scored 100 runs six times (all six of those seasons he was top three in the league), and he was one of the finest center fielders to ever play the game. Broadcaster Curt Gowdy called him baseball’s “most underrated great player.”
Dominic DiMaggio was born in San Francisco on Feb. 12, 1917, and was the youngest of nine children born to Sicilian immigrants. He was the third of his family to play in the majors; the other being Vince, who wasn’t quite as accomplished as his two siblings. Author David Halberstam, in the book “The Teammates” about the relationship among four Red Sox players including Dom and Ted Williams, wrote that of the DiMaggio brothers “it was said that Joe was the best hitter, Dom had the best arm and Vince, who wanted to be an opera singer, had the best voice.”
Growing up in San Francisco, Dom worked on his father’s fishing boat and didn’t play ball until his senior year in high school. After graduating, he worked in a mattress factory and played semipro ball on weekends. Then in 1937 he got a tryout and the minor league San Francisco Seals signed him to a contract. Three years later he was hitting .301 as a rookie with Boston.
After the three years of service in the Navy, Dom helped lead Boston to the World Series in 1946, hitting .316. But here he would write history of a different sort, as the Los Angeles Times’ Jon Thurber describes.
“DiMaggio had a key role in the seventh game of the Series, knocking in two runs in the top of the eighth inning to tie the score, 3-3. But he injured a leg running out the hit and had to leave the game.
“In the Cardinals’ half of the eighth, Enos Slaughter was on first base when Harry Walker hit a ball to DiMaggio’s replacement in center, Leon Culbertson. Culbertson was slow to field the ball and made a poor throw to shortstop Johnny Pesky, whose relay to the plate was late and allowed Slaughter to score what proved to be the winning run.
“The prevailing view was a healthy DiMaggio, with his rifle arm, would have played the ball better and prevented what came to be known as Slaughter’s ‘mad dash’ from first to home.
“Slaughter, himself, later conceded it. ‘If they hadn’t taken DiMaggio out of the game, I wouldn’t have tried it,’ he told reporters.”
Dom’s son, Dominic Paul, said his father died at about 1 a.m. with the Red Sox television replay of Thursday’s night game on in the background. “He was in and out of consciousness, but he was acknowledging it. He was a Red Sox fan until the end.” Dom’s wife of 61 years, Emily, was also by his side.
–CBS golf analyst David Feherty is in a heap of trouble. Feherty, with CBS since 1997 and one of the funnier men on television who the other week got Tiger Woods to admit after a fourth place finish that he was a “loser” (Tiger smiled), does a ton of charity work for the U.S. military and is heavily involved in “Troops First Foundation” which raises money for wounded soldiers. He has been so moved by his trips to Iraq over Thanksgiving the past few years that the man from Northern Ireland has applied for U.S. citizenship.
“From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this…. Despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Osama bin Laden, there’s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death.”
Uh oh. CBS wasn’t telecasting the TPC this weekend so no word yet on how they’ll handle this unfortunate situation.
–Sweden’s Henrik Stenson ran away at the end in The Players Championship, golf’s fifth major (better than being the fifth Beatle). No doubt, like Angel Cabrera and Padraig Harrington, the other foreigners who have won the last four big events going back to last year’s British Open, Stenson is a major factor the next ten years.
But the big question is, “ ‘Sup with Tiger?” Granted, he started the final round five behind Alex Cejka, and hasn’t done well in that situation over his career, but he never mounted a charge in the end, just like in the closing holes at Augusta. Tiger seems lost.
However…before we start writing off his career…understand that in his first tourney back after his major knee surgery, he finished 17th at the Match Play event. Since then, Tiger has gone…
Five top tens, including a win at Bay Hill. Of course Tiger himself is not happy with results that would be all-world for anyone else, including Phil, but the man who should be concerned is Hank Haney, Tiger’s swing coach. We can figure that Tiger will play The Memorial, June 4-7, and then two weeks later at Bethpage for the U.S. Open. I frankly think that Bethpage is a lock for Tiger, a perfect venue to grind it out, his specialty. Should he finish poorly there, though, you can be sure Haney will be out. It’s the Bar Chat Guarantee!
[One guy who benefited this past weekend…Dr. Bob Rotella, the sports psychologist who helped Padraig win back-to-back majors and just helped Stenson, a new client. Dr. Bob’s fees must be skyrocketing. I wonder if he could help me? “What are you trying to accomplish, Editor?” “Dr. Bob, I just want to be able to write pithier comments.” “I can help you.” “Gee, thanks, Dr. Bob. What do you charge?” “$42,000 an hour.”]
–50-year-old Mark Martin won his second NASCAR Sprint Cup race in four weeks at Darlington on Saturday night. His last win here was 1993.
But Saturday was a dark day for the sport. Out of nowhere, Jeremy Mayfield was suspended indefinitely for failing a random drug test, becoming the first driver to violate a toughened policy. Mayfield said, “In my case, I believe that the combination of a prescribed medicine and an over the counter medicine reacted together and resulted in a positive drug test.” It was not alcohol related (which would be rather dangerous). Two crew members were separately suspended for failed tests.
Well, you just know that if Mayfield is guilty, the penalty will be severe. This is one sport that is not going to let a single individual screw around with its clean image. The suspension can’t be appealed, so it’s up to Mayfield’s doctor to convince the head of the testing program, one-on-one, if there was a misunderstanding.
What’s interesting is that as opposed to baseball, immediately one of the sport’s stars, Jeff Gordon, spoke out and said NASCAR must do what it has to do and that the sport comes first. None of this baseball b.s. where the players remain silent or supportive of the offender.
–Suddenly, the Preakness is going to be highly intriguing as Rachel Alexandra is running with Calvin Borel aboard; Borel having won on Mine That Bird at the Derby but the day before having ridden Rachel to a 20-length victory in the Kentucky Oats for fillies. There is a slim chance this won’t come about, depending on Rachel’s workout at Pimlico on Monday, but all indications are it’s a go. It would also seem the first four finishers of the Derby will be in the race. This could be fun, though some of us were dreaming of Mine That Bird winning the Preakness and facing Rachel Alexandra for the first time in the Belmont. Now, our dream scenario is for The Miner (my new name) to edge Rachel by a nose on Saturday, with both moving on to New York. You just can’t imagine how exciting that would be in terms of a buildup. [Unfortunately, these things never pan out the way you want them to because they are, after all, horses, and despite what you may have seen with Mr. Ed, really not all that smart.]
–I apologize I haven’t written much on the NBA playoffs but I haven’t caught much of the action, especially in this second round. But how outrageous was it the way the Mavs were totally screwed by the referees in their Game 3 against Denver, which the Nuggets won on a Carmelo Anthony three-pointer with a second left, 106-105.
The crime was that Dallas’ Antoine Wright tried to intentionally foul Anthony twice, but after bumping Anthony a second time, and with still no call, Wright was out of position and Anthony nailed the jumper.
Two hours after the game, the league office admitted the refs blew it. “At the end of the Dallas-Denver game this evening, the officials missed an intentional foul committed by Antoine Wright on Carmelo Anthony, just prior to Anthony’s 3-point basket.”
Suffice it to say, Dallas owner Mark Cuban was rather upset. He sent an e-mail to the league office. “It’s a shame the game had to come down to this, but that’s the way it goes in the NBA sometimes.”
Earlier in the week, Dallas star Dirk Nowitzki had some personal issues to deal with. A woman was arrested at his home, one Cristal Taylor, after police confirmed the existence of warrants for her arrest in Texas and Missouri.
The warrants were discovered when Nowitzki’s team of legal advisers hired a private investigator to research her background as some of Dirk’s close associates became concerned over the way this woman had suddenly entered his life. She was being held on $20,000 bail after the warrants accused her of violating a probation sentence for two counts of forgery and one count of felony stealing in Missouri and a theft-of-service charge for failing to pay for an estimated $10,000 dental work.
Plus she isn’t really Cristal Taylor, sports fans. She could be Christian Julie Wellington, or Christian B. Travino (no relation to golfer Lee Trevino), Christy Nobles, Kristi Briana Westerhauf, and countless others. [Personally, I like Christy Nobles.]
So let’s assume she gets out, guys. If you answer the door in a month or so and see a good looking woman with a $10,000 smile who announces, “Hi, I’m Kristi Briana Westerhauf, but my friends call me Kristi. Can I check your water pressure?” don’t let her in no matter how attractive she is.
–My friend Renee at the Buford Pusser Home and Museum in Adamsville, TN, reminded me that the 21st Annual Sheriff Buford Pusser Festival takes place Wed., May 20 thru Sat., May 23. There is a carnival each night, 50s Doo Wop, wrestling, the Adamsville Idol talent show (I’d love to see that), a bluegrass show and a 5K run. Gosh darnit, can’t make it this year but I’m thinking I will next time. For you history buffs, Adamsville is close to Shiloh Battlefield and an easy drive to Tupelo, Miss., where the excellent Elvis museum and birthplace are. A great four-day trip, actually, especially during these tough economic times.
–National Shark Director for Bar Chat, Bob S. (I’m giving out new titles in lieu of cash these days), was marveling at the size of the hammerhead shark caught the other day, 1,060 pounds, which I happened to see on the Today Show. But there is a little controversy surrounding Englewood (Fla.) Capt. Bucky Dennis. He set the all-tackle record for hammerhead two years ago at 1,280-pounds, but he believes this one is the record for 80-pound test line.
However, he has received a lot of grief because when scientists dissected his previous record, a 14-footer, they found 55 unborn pups inside. It appeared his recent catch was also a pregnant female. The director of the Center for Shark Research in Sarasota told Dennis “he didn’t want me to ever kill a big shark like this again.”
Now that I’ve learned this part of the tale, does Bucky Dennis deserve the title of dirtball? I think I’ll let him pass this time, but if he takes out another one, he’ll get no mercy from these quarters. Actually, here’s hoping his boat gets rammed by a killer whale, now that we know they can populate the deep Gulf.
–Here’s another shark tidbit. Basking Sharks, the second largest fish in the world at 35 feet and longer, swim all the way from New England to the Bahamas and across the equator to South America, a new study finds. Said a Massachusetts researcher, “This is equivalent to finding polar bears in Kansas. This was a mind-blowing discovery for us.” [Discovery.com]
Oh, the fish a basking shark sees. By the way, no one knows where basking sharks give birth. And that’s your basking shark update for Monday, May 11, 2009.
–Good god, lads. Did you see the story of the “giant venomous spiders that have invaded an Outback town in Queensland (Australia)”?
“Scores of eastern tarantulas, which are known as ‘bird-eating spiders’ and can grow larger than the palm of a man’s hand, have begun crawling out from gardens and venturing into public spaces in Bowen, a coastal town about 700 miles northwest of Brisbane.
“Earlier this week locals spotted an Australian tarantula wandering towards a public garden in the center of town where people often sit for lunch. They called in a pest controller, but not before using a can of insect spray to paralyze the spider.”
The pest guy, Andy Geisler, said he had been inundated with calls from worried locals as the spiders have been pushed out of their natural habitat by heavy rains. With the leg span, they can exceed six inches.
“Despite their common name, they do not eat birds, but can kill a dog with one bite, and make a human very sick.
“They are also known as whistling or barking spiders for the hissing noise they emit when they are disturbed or aggravated at close range.”
This would be a scary conversation, as John and Debbie watch the tele.
John, suddenly eyeing a creature in the corner of the room. “No…Debbie…we…don’t… have…a…dog…RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!” [Sophie Tedmanson / London Times]
–So Brett Favre said he wasn’t going to play after all, and now we’re learning that more than a few Jets are pissed off at how Favre treated the franchise. Safety Kerry Rhodes said “I don’t want to get into it,” when queried about his reaction to Favre’s jerking the team around and then expressing interest in playing for Minnesota. Jerricho Cotchery said, “Before he came to us, the whole thing was he wanted to go to Minnesota. You kind of feel bad if you were the team he settled for.”
Another player, who requested anonymity, told the Daily News’ Rich Cimini, “I’m tired of being part of his soap opera. If he really wanted to win a championship, he’d be right here. Let’s call it for what it is: He wants to play for Minnesota so he can stick it to Green Bay twice a year. He’s just being selfish. I’m not surprised.”
[By the way, while Favre supposedly told Minnesota coach Brad Childress he was going to remain retired this time, another story surfaced that said, maybe not. It all has to do with whether or not his shoulder requires “major” surgery or not. Minor surgery and he could yet play for the Vikings. What a freakin’ jerk.]
–A local man, Darren Worts, 38, of Chatham, N.J., has done something extraordinary. A week ago, Worts won the men’s division of the Self-Transcendence Six Day Race, which involved running around a one-mile loop in Flushing Meadow Corona Park in Queens (next to Shea Stadium, err, Citi Field). Worts and 34 competitors, men and women, just ran as many loops as they could over six straight days. In the end, his total was 420!
“Basically, I ran until 1 a.m. and got up at 4:30 a.m.” He slept fitfully and figures he only got about 10 hours sleep, total. The 420 was 29 more than the next man, but the overall winner was Dipali Cunningham of Australia, who broke her world record for the course by nine miles, running 519!!! The race is in its 14th year.
–The Royals’ Zach Greinke lost a 1-0 duel Saturday night to the Angels’ Joe Saunders, moving Greinke’s record to 6-1 and the ERA to 0.51. [Saunders, a fine pitcher in his own right, is 5-1.]
–And now…Evan Longoria. Longoria, in his second year, had 44 RBI through his first 32 games (but zero Sunday), the fourth most in major league history. He has 20 in May, with the all-time record for the month being 43 by Ty Cobb in 1925 (Cy Williams had 44 in the N.L. with Philadelphia in 1924). The record for a single month is 53 by Joe D. in 1939.
–Say it ain’t so, Jerry! One of my heroes, the great Mets lefty Jerry Koosman, has been criminally charged with failing to file a U.S. income tax return for 2002 and intends to plead guilty on May 22. Koosman, 66, faces one year in prison and a fine of $25,000. I think I’m going to cry.
—Rickey Henderson, who will be enshrined in Baseball’s Hall of Fame on July 26, was in Cooperstown last week touring the museum. Henderson said he was proud he was “clean.” “I was never tempted. I was too fast,” saying he probably wouldn’t have stolen as many bases if he’d bulked up.
–Former Phillies manager Danny Ozark passed away. He was 85. Ozark led Philadelphia to three consecutive N.L. East titles, still unmatched in club history, including back-to-back 101-61 seasons in 1976 and 77. But they lost in the NLCS each time. He was fired in 1979 and then the Phils won the Series in 1980 under Dallas Green.
–It’s Barcelona vs. Manchester United, May 27, for the Champions League title. Similar to the Dallas-Denver NBA playoff game, Chelsea was robbed in its 1-1 draw with Barcelona last Wednesday (Barcelona advancing in the two-game match on away goals), as the referee probably should have awarded Chelsea two penalty shots on fouls before Barcelona earned the draw, and the spot in the final, with a goal deep into injury time. I forgot French star Thierry Henry plays for Barcelona. We try and follow everything, folks, here at Bar Chat. Turning to the battle between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan army….
–I told you Jack Bauer would be arrested by New York City Police after his head-butting incident, though Bauer turned himself in. He’s down to well under 24 hours to live, and only three hours or so to save Washington….five…four…three…two…one…
—Barack moved up to No. 2,409 on the baby name list, up a record 10,126 according to the Social Security Administration. Jacob is No. 1 for a 10th straight year. Emma is the new No. 1 for girls, knocking off Emily after 12 years. My own favorite girl’s name? You’d have to waterboard me to give it up.
–Can’t help but give President Obama credit for the following line at the Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday.
Of Rahm Emanuel: “This is a tough holiday for Rahm. He’s not used to saying the word ‘day’ after ‘mother.’”
–Note for you Buckeyes fans. I’m very familiar with Jeannette High School in Pennsylvania, it being next door to where my mother grew up and the school where quarterback Terrelle Pryor carved out quite a scholastic career. Sporting News asked him some questions for the current issue and I liked his response to this one.
Q: You waited until mid-March (’08) to commit to Ohio State. When you look back on it, are you glad you waited, and how did that extra time benefit you?
Pryor: Waiting was the right thing for me. It allowed me to take care of my responsibilities, including winning state championships in football and basketball. That’s an accomplishment that will last forever at my high school, and I will always be proud that I was a part of it.
[Gotta admit, I’m already looking forward to another college football season. It helps that I think my Deacs will shock the world. Well, 9-3 in our universe is shocking the world. Maybe not in Ohio State’s or USC’s, I have to admit.]
–The last Munchkin, Mickey Carroll, passed away at the age of 89. Carroll was one of more than 100 adults and children who played the natives of Munchkinland in 1939’s “The Wizard of Oz.” It was his only appearance in a film, and was followed by decades of recognition. Carroll played the part of the Town Crier and was the candy-striped Fiddler who escorted Dorothy down the yellow brick road. Somehow, Carroll never seemed to be freaked out by having worked with flying monkeys. I know I myself would never have been the same. [I’ve been having weird nightmares lately. The other night I was the anchor on the four-man bobsled team and I couldn’t get going on the initial push-off. Talk about waking up in a cold sweat.]
–I know I’ve told this story like twenty times before, but the death of Mickey Carroll gives me an excuse to tell it again. When I was about five, I played Toto in a play at Camp Schoharie in the Catskills and got to lie in the lap of Dorothy, who I was later told was at least seven years my senior and rather cute (I remember the cute part). Oh, the memories, but not sure if this has anything to do with my bobsled nightmares, Lake Placid being about 2 ½ hours from Camp Schoharie.
–Donald Evans (“Ean”), bassist with Lynyrd Skynyrd, died of cancer at 48. Evans replaced Leon Wilkeson who died in his sleep in a hotel room near Jacksonville in 2001. Of course decades earlier you had the plane crash…so the bottom line is, if that Cristal Taylor girl shows up at your door and asks if you want to be part of Lynyrd Skynyrd, politefully decline.
Top 3 songs for the week 5/7/83: #1 “Beat It” (Michael Jackson) #2 “Jeopardy” (Greg Kihn Band) #3 “Let’s Dance” (David Bowie)…and…#4 “Come On Eileen” (Dexys Midnight Runners…I kind of liked this one) #5 “Der Kommissar” (After The Fire) #6 “Overkill” (Men at Work) #7 “She Blinded Me With Science” (Thomas Dolby) #8 “Mr. Roboto” (Styx) #9 “Little Red Corvette” (Prince) #10 “I Won’t Hold You Back” (Toto…we’ve been channeling)
Baseball Quiz Answer: N.L. ERA champs, decade of the 80s.
1980…Don Sutton, L.A., 2.21
1981…Nolan Ryan, Hou., 1.69
1982…Steve Rogers, Mon., 2.40
1983…Atlee Hammaker, S.F., 2.25
1984…Alejandro Pena, L.A., 2.48
1985…Dwight Gooden, N.Y., 1.53
1986…Mike Scott, Hou., 2.22
1987…Nolan Ryan, Hou., 2.76
1988…Joe Magrane, St.L., 2.18
1989…Scott Garrelts, S.F., 2.28
*Figured the last two may have been the toughest. Garrelts, 69-53 lifetime, was out of the game two years later at age 29.
Next Bar Chat, Thursday…Minnie Minoso. Thursdays will be ’69 Mets days from here on as well. And Tim, I’ll do B.J.S. at this time.
