NBA Quiz: The 1981-82 Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Philadelphia 76ers, 4-2, to win the NBA title. Name the Lakers starting five, all of whom scored in double figures. Name the sixth to hit double figures who, due to injury, only played in 26 games. Answers below.
Champions League Final…as your editor scrambles to multi-task, it’s almost halftime, Manchester United v. Barcelona in Rome. 1-0, Barcelona….but now I have to run an errand before a place closes, and make it back in time to view the end of the contest.
And we\’re back….brilliant header by Lionel Messi at the 70-minute mark. Barcelona 2-0….and that\’s how it ends…ManU with a very sub-par effort.
As Conan O’Brien prepares to take over for Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show,” and as Leno in September moves over to 10:00 p.m., it was back on May 22, 1992, that Johnny Carson said goodbye, Johnny’s run having lasted 4,531 episodes, going back to Oct. 1, 1962.
Those last shows on Carson were terrific, including the next to last one with Robin Williams and Bette Midler.
For his final monologue, Carson said some of the following, which, admittedly, only Carson junkies may appreciate.
“One of the questions people have been asking me, especially the last month, is, ‘What’s it like doing ‘The Tonight Show,’ and what does it mean to me?’
“Well, let me try to explain it. If I could magically, somehow, (make that tape you just saw) run backwards, I would like to do the whole thing over again. It’s been a hell of a lot of fun. As an entertainer, it has been the great experience of my life, and I cannot imagine finding something in television after I leave tonight that would give me as much joy and pleasure, and such a sense of exhilaration, as this show has given me. It’s just hard to explain.
“Now it’s a farewell show. There’s a certain sadness among the staff, a little melancholy. But look on the bright side: you won’t have to read or hear one more story about my leaving this show. The press coverage has been absolutely tremendous, and we are very grateful. But my God, the Soviet Union’s end did not get this kind of publicity….
“The greatest accolade I think I received: G.E. named me ‘Employee of the Month.’ And God knows that was a dream come true.
“I don’t like saying goodbye. Farewells are a little awkward, and I really thought about this – no joke – wouldn’t it be funny, instead of showing up tonight, putting on a rerun? NBC did not find that funny at all….
“During the run on the show there have been seven United States Presidents, and thankfully for comedy there have been eight Vice Presidents of the United States. Now I know I have made some jokes at the expense of Dan Quayle, but I really want to thank him tonight for making my final week so fruitful.
“Here is an interesting statistic that may stun you. We started the show Oct. 2, 1962. The total population of the Earth was 3 billion 100 million people. This summer 5 billion 500 million people, which is a net increase of 2 billion 400 million people, which should give us some pause. A more amazing statistic is that half of those 2 billion 400 million will soon have their own late-night TV show….
“I am taking the applause sign home – putting it in the bedroom. And maybe once a week just turning it on.”
Johnny’s last audience was strictly family and friends of the staff and crew, including his own.
“My family is here tonight….And I realized that being an offspring of someone who is constantly in the public eye is not easy. So guys, I want you to know that I love you; I hope that your old man has not caused you too much discomfort. It would have been a perfect evening if their brother Rick would have been here with us [ed. Rick died in an accident a year earlier, which shattered Johnny], but I guess life does what it is supposed to do. And you accept it and go on.”
And then the rest of the show was clips and Johnny issuing a simple goodbye at the end, while all of us watching were in tears and, hard as it is for some of you to believe, depressed for weeks after. Really. There was never anyone like him, nor will there be. There can’t, because for starters, television will never be as big as it was in his heyday.
Next January it will be five years since Johnny Carson passed away and I’ll have some good material for that time. For now, though, back in May 1992, Rolling Stone’s Bill Zehme wrote a piece on “Comedy’s Darkest Day,” Johnny’s departure, that concluded:
“A realist King, he has kept two artifacts at his feet behind the Desk all these years: a rubber chicken, now decrepit, symbolizing Comedy, and a wooden arrow, left over from a bad Custer sketch, symbolizing Failure. While no life form fails funnier than Carson, he knows that now he must be going. ‘I don’t envision sitting there in my sixties,’ he told Rolling Stone thirteen years ago, when he was fifty-three. ‘I think that would be wrong.’ As we are bound to discover, not as wrong as Carson not sitting there at all.”
–You know who has the right idea, the Premier League, which after each season relegates the bottom three teams to the Football League Championship, with the top three in the FLC promoted upstairs (assuming the latter three meet certain financial requirements).
This year it’s a bigger deal because Mike Ashley’s Newcastle United team was demoted. This is like owning a Major League franchise and being demoted to the International League. For starters, you’d suffer a serious drop in revenue, like $60 million in broadcast fees.
And who is Mike Ashley? He’s a controversial sportswear retailer (Sports Direct) who bought Newcastle United for about $214 million (in current dollars) back in June 2007, before investing another $175 million. He then put the team up for sale last September, then abandoned it in December, according to the Financial Times.
–I’m getting worried…you should, too. Rachel Alexandra’s owner, Jess Jackson, now says he won’t make a decision on whether to run the filly in the Belmont until next Monday, this after Rachel had a solid workout the other day. But here’s what’s worrisome. Jackson said, “We want to protect her. We can’t just let her eagerness be our guide; she will always be eager.” OK, I’ll buy that. But then, “What else does she have to prove? [The Preakness] was a gamble. We don’t have to gamble anymore.” Uh oh.
–Richard Sandomir / New York Times, explains Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s decision to end the baseball strike in 1995.
“Sotomayor, then a federal district court judge in Manhattan, was faced with a petition filed by the National Labor Relations Board seeking a finding of unfair labor practices by baseball owners. The players had struck over the likelihood that owners would impose a salary cap, which they did. After withdrawing the cap in early 1995, owners tried a new strategy: they abolished salary arbitration, centralized player negotiations with the commissioner’s office and ended an agreement not to collude on salaries, leading to the complaint by the N.L.R.B.
“Sotomayor had to determine if baseball’s leaders had undermined collective bargaining by trying to abandon some of the fundamental ways in which they dealt with the players. The owners’ militancy symbolized their frustrations with player salaries, and with how frequently the union had outflanked management in negotiations and public relations.
“The changes would have essentially let owners fix salaries – less than five years after an arbitrator had fined them $280 million for colluding on free-agent contracts….
“Sotomayor agreed with the N.L.R.B. that the owners could not willy-nilly institute their 1950s-style version of labor relations. If she did not issue an injunction, she wrote, ‘the harm to the players is the very one the owners’ unfair labor practices sought to achieve, i.e., an alteration of free-agency rights and a skewing of their worth.’….
“Sotomayor’s ruling restored the terms of the previous labor agreement so the season could go forward. Randy Levine, who became the owners’ chief labor negotiator five months after Sotomayor’s injunction, said her decision ‘gave both sides an opportunity to take a breath, to take stock of where they were.’ Levine, now the Yankees’ president, added, ‘It led to the good-faith bargaining that produced revenue sharing, the luxury tax and interleague play.’”
And at least there haven’t been any work stoppages since, though yours truly is tired of interleague play.
[By the way, Sotomayor is not related to former hurler Mario Soto, nor current Cubs catcher Geovany Soto.]
–Not for nothing, but Philadelphia’s Raul Ibanez is a legitimate threat for the triple crown. Thru Tuesday’s contests, he was tied for the lead in home runs with 17, led in RBI with 44, and was hitting .347.
–And Kansas City’s Zack Greinke continues on his remarkable roll, tossing his 5th complete game in ten starts in running his record to 8-1. Greinke has thrown 75 innings, walking just 12 while fanning 81, and has yet to yield a home run. As for the ERA, in defeating the Tigers 6-1, Greinke’s ERA rose to 0.84.
Now get this. Zack is the first since Juan Marichal, 1966, to have an ERA after his first ten starts of the year under 1.00. Remarkable. Marichal, incidentally, finished up the ’66 campaign with a 25-6 mark and a 2.23 ERA.
–Superstar catcher Joe Mauer of the Twins was out of action early in the year, but in his first 24 games since coming back, Mauer is hitting .429 (36-for-84), with 11 homers, 31 RBI, and 26 runs scored.
–We have to acknowledge Cleveland’s stupendous win over Tampa Bay on Monday, as the Indians came back from a 10-0 deficit to defeat the Rays with 7 in the bottom of the 9th, 11-10; the first such comeback since 2004.
—Jordan Wiener, the New York City high school pitcher who threw a no-hitter in a playoff game the day after burying his father, who had died of swine flu in a highly publicized case in these parts, struck out 19 (7 innings) in his second start since then, a 10-0 win for RFK against Prospect Heights in a second-round contest.
“It’s been nerve-wracking for me, but I just try to keep my emotions aside. I keep a cool head and just pitch.”
–The 1969 Mets, continued…
May 23…Mets lose 7-0 as Houston’s Tom Griffin (2-2) limits New York to 5 hits and drives in 3 runs himself. Gary Gentry (3-4) was bombed; 2 1/3, 6 R 6 H.
May 24…Mets lose 5-1 as the Astros’ Jimmy Wynn, the “Toy Cannon,” slams home runs No. 10 and 11. Larry Dierker (7-4) bested Jerry Koosman (1-3) in the latter’s return after being out about a month. Kooz was effective; 7 innings, 2 R 3 H.
May 25…Mets lose 6-3 as Astrodome nightmare continues. Tom Seaver (6-3) gets shelled; 4 IP 5 R 8 H. Denny Lemaster (3-5) picks up the win for Houston while the Mets’ Cleon Jones goes 3-for-3, hiking his average back to .378.
May 27…Mets come home to host expansion San Diego, as Union, New Jersey’s own, Al Santorini of the Padres, goes all the way to defeat the Metropolitans, 3-2, scattering 12 hits in the process. Jim McAndrew (0-2) takes the loss as the starter. The Mets have now lost five straight after hitting the .500 mark.
May 28…Mets finally win, 1-0, in 11 innings, on Buddy Harrelson’s game-winning hit. Jerry Koosman went the first 10, allowing 4 hits and striking out 15! The 15 Ks are a Mets record, besting Nolan Ryan’s 14 (May 1968). Tug McGraw (4-1) got the win in relief. Billy McCool (1-1) took the loss. But in reading an account from the Daily News, I see that McGraw was saved in part in the 11th “by an alert play by catcher Jerry Grote, who snatched up a bunt and fired to second to start a double-play.” I can just picture Grote making this play, he being the greatest defensive catcher I ever saw. But Grote’s temper was so bad, he was constantly in trouble with Manager Gil Hodges and his teammates. The Mets are now 19-23 and 9 games back of the Cubs in the N.L. East.
–The Wall Street Journal noted that the ratings for the Saturday Game of the Week on Fox are off 9% vs. last season, and a whopping 23% from 2000.
–Speaking of ratings, Fox executives must have been crying their eyes out on Sunday night as the Coca-Cola 600 was rained out. Granted, the race was then run on Memorial Day (for the first time in its 50-year history), but I couldn’t have been alone in having lost interest by then (let alone almost forgetting it was even on). I always watched this one because the timing, starting early Sunday evening, fit into what has become one of the better days in television sports of the year, especially if your local baseball teams are worth watching.
Anyway, David Reutimann won the rain-shortened event, his first Sprint Cup Series victory.
—John Daly has been reinstated by the PGA Tour and will return at the St. Jude event in Memphis in three weeks. Daly had been suspended six months following a series of off-course incidents.
–Manhattan College (NYC) announced 6’10” center Kevin Laue has accepted a scholarship and will play next season. Not necessarily a story, except for the fact Laue’s left arm ends at the elbow. As reported by Adam Himmelsbach of the New York Times:
“When Laue was born, the circulation to his left arm was cut off by the umbilical cord, stunting its growth. But the rest of his body grew quickly.”
Laue played varsity ball as a junior at Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton, Calif., but after breaking his leg his senior year, went east to enroll in Fork Union (Va.) Military Academy’s postgraduate program. Fork Union Coach Fletcher Arritt has sent more than 150 players to Division I programs.
“Laue, 19, can palm the ball easily with his right hand, and is an effective shot blocker. He uses his short left arm to pin passes against his right hand.”
–New York Mayor Bloomberg has attempted to set up a pedestrian plaza in the middle of Time Square. Andrea Peyser / New York Post:
“Yesterday, as New Yorkers dragged themselves back to work, they found cheap beach chairs thrown into the middle of Times Square, replacing buzzing, honking, vehicular traffic with gas-producing tourists, who really ought to lay off the Starbucks venti chocolate mint frappuccinos, anyway.
“Turning the Crossroads of the World from the vibrant, frenetic, center of the universe into a butt-littered suburban parking lot is an idea so ferociously dumb, it harks of other catastrophic decisions. Such as the moment Eliot Spitzer uttered the fateful words, ‘Of course I’m not married.’….
“As I wandered through Times Square, I was struck by how few people actually sat on the flimsy furniture that littered the streets like a going-out-of-business sale. The sidewalks immediately surrounding the blocked-off areas carried unusually sparse pedestrian traffic, even as the rest of the city was bursting at the seams, and traffic on the periphery was monstrously scary.
“Soon it was clear why maybe half the chairs were in use. The people using the cheapo furniture, including tourists and office workers who sneaked out for a minute, stunk up the atmosphere with fumes from their Rothmans and Marlboros – a kick in the pants to a mayor who has practically turned smokers into outlaws.
“I spied a group of fit, tanned men smoking up a lung, and immediately determined they were from Europe.”
–We note the passing of former NHL center Peter Zezel, who died of a rare blood disease (hemolytic anemia) at the age of 44. Zezel, who played 15 seasons in the NHL and scored 219 goals with 389 assists, had been in critical condition since 2001. By all accounts, he was a terrific teammate and a man of great character.
–John Hopkins / London Times
“The course of true love never did run smooth, and for one of the world’s best golfers it has led him into a deep patch of rough. Sergio Garcia, who was at one point ranked at No. 2 in the world, has revealed that a sudden loss of form since mid-March was the direct result of being jilted by his girlfriend.”
It seems that Sergio is heartbroken over the end of his relationship with Morgan-Leigh Norman, daughter of Greg Norman.
“Ms. Norman broke the news to him ten weeks ago when the couple were in Miami. Garcia, 29, who has previously had a relationship with Martina Hingis [grunt…grunt …grunt], the Swiss tennis player [grunt….grunt…], immediately went into a decline.
“ ‘It hurt,’ Garcia told reporters. ‘It was probably the first time I have been really in love. It took me a while to get over it.’”
Garcia told the press, “Myself, when I am not feeling happy on a golf course and not up for it, that is the way it is….Obviously the break-up with Morgan didn’t help. You get over some things. Others take a little longer.”
Tell me about it. Many of us still harbor scars over the Mets and their last two September collapses. I know I’ve carried the poor attitude over to my writing the past 1 ½ years, for example.
Back to Sergio, he added, “Do I still think of her all the time? No. It is pretty much back in the past now.”
Liar. And you can do better, Morgan! [Morgan hasn’t spoken to Sergio since she realized he’s a spoiled brat.]
“A U.S. man’s decision not to end his terminally ill bulldog’s life has ended up saving his own.
“Scott Seymour said his dog, Brittney, awakened him with her barking early on Saturday in time for both of them to escape from his burning house in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
“The fire came two weeks after a veterinarian discovered the nine-year-old American bulldog had several cancerous tumors.
“The vet said the dog might not survive surgery and Seymour ruled out chemotherapy, believing it would be too hard on Brittney.
“Seymour said he could have had Brittney put down but instead decided to give her medication to blunt her pain until death comes naturally, probably within a few weeks.”
“A rare white tiger has mauled to death a New Zealand zoo keeper as horrified tourists looked on, police said.
“The attack occurred at the Zion Wildlife Gardens in Whangarei (north of Auckland).
“Police said the tiger grabbed a male zoo keeper who was cleaning an enclosure and would not let go despite the efforts of other staff members.” [BBC News]
Sadly, the tiger was destroyed. Another white tiger at the same park supposedly attacked a different keeper earlier this year. White Tiger Nation needs to regroup, it would seem, and try less violent tactics in its ongoing attempt to gain more political clout in the region.
–Doh! Last summer, Nick Prince, then 16, showcased his steer named Pete, where he won grand prize at the Fremont County (Wyo.) Fair, and then best in class at the Wyoming State Fair.
But two weeks later, suspected of cheating, Nick’s prize steer was slaughtered, though no evidence of wrongdoing was found. So now Nick is seeking restitution. Consider that no warrant was issued for the confiscation of the animal, with Nick’s attorney saying it violated his client’s constitutional rights, let alone Pete’s.
It all started the night before Pete won grand champion at the Fremont County Fair. While housed at the fair barn, “Pete got bloat – a potentially deadly gas buildup.” Good lord. At times I’ve felt bloated myself, but never thought it was deadly. But Nick, with help, was able to save Pete, though it seems Pete’s agriculture teacher saw the process of using a “drench gun to get the drug down the steer’s throat” and suspected cheating. Then the necropsy proved such suspicions were off the mark. [AP]
In lieu of flowers, you can send your donations in Pete’s honor to his family.
Fremont County, Wyoming
–I present the following as just a news item and without commentary. Reuters / Moscow Times:
“A baby in the Chita region (Siberia) died from his drunken mother’s breast milk after she downed half a liter of ethanol before feeding him, the region’s Investigative Committee said after sentencing the woman.
“Yelena Sinitsyna [ed. don’t know her] was handed a one-year suspended sentence and a three-year probation period last week for death by negligence of her 4-month-old son in the small town of Sretensk…
“ ‘On April 3 between 2 and 3 p.m., she drank half a liter of spirit alcohol. In her drunken state, she then breastfed her son,’ the Investigative Committee said.
“ ‘The immediate cause of the child’s death, according to a forensic examination of the corpse, was acute ethanol poisoning.”
Sinitsyna was given a light sentence because she must care for her surviving toddler, who needless to say is now scared to suckle the Russian.
–Moving right along…did you see this item? “Play Golf Designs offers up rounds of golf with attractive girls who wear a little less than the usual argyle vests and khaki pants. The idea is for guys to spice up an otherwise dull corporate outing or bachelor party. All of the golfers hired play at the elite level, being members of the LPGA, Ladies European Tour, CN Canadian Tour and more.”
Founder Nisha Sadekar told Time magazine, “When you see these beautiful women, with their smiles, fashion sense and great skill, it rubs off on you.”
Frankly, seeing any beautiful woman, wearing a smile and with a fashion sense, brightens my day…unless she’s driving an SUV, is on her cellphone, and is about to crush me in the crosswalk. [A major topic of conversation at my brother’s house on Memorial Day, where I also treated myself to Harp Lager…in case you were wondering.]
Top 3 songs for the week 5/29/65: #1 “Help Me, Rhonda” (The Beach Boys) #2 “Ticket To Ride” (The Beatles) #3 “Back In My Arms Again” (The Supremes)…and…#4 “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter” (Herman’s Hermits) #5 “Wooly Bully” (Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs) #6 “Crying In The Chapel” (Elvis Presley) #7 “Count Me In” (Gary Lewis and The Playboys) #8 “I’ll Never Find Another You” (The Seekers) #9 “Just A Little” (The Beau Brummels) #10 “It’s Not Unusual” (Tom Jones)
NBA Quiz Answer: 1981-82 champion Lakers –
