Baseball Quiz: 1) Name the three to have 1100 career appearances on the mound. 2) Name the seven to have 250 hits in a season, only one of whom did it since 1930. Answers below.
Alas, in the end, all Heaven didn’t break loose, as the sporting world had desired, and 59-year-old Tom Watson failed to close the deal. It was heart-breaking. Watson himself said afterwards, “It would have been a helluva story. It tears at your gut…as it always has.”
It started on Thursday, as I like any good golf fan started e-mailing friends, “Tom Watson!” as he fired his first-round 65…followed by Friday’s steady play and the two bombs on the green…and then Saturday’s great effort that left him with the 54-hole lead, the oldest golfer by five years to ever lead a major.
But few of us really expected him to win. I couldn’t have been alone in tearing up a bit before he even teed off with that shot of Tom and his wife sharing a tender moment. His body had to be wracked with pressure, I thought. How the heck could he hang in there? And then he hit some awful early putts and found himself two off.
But it wasn’t over…not by a long shot…and suddenly there he was, in the 18th fairway, just needing to hit a solid second shot and then two putts to wrap up the greatest individual sports story in all of our lifetimes.
But Tom, all pumped up, nuked his 8-iron and it ran through the green, down the hill. Just landing the shot one foot shorter would have resulted in a far easier third shot. Or, as he said afterwards, if he had only hit 9 instead, he’s safely on.
So the winner ends up being Stewart Cink, who sunk a clutch birdie putt on the 72nd hole to put himself in position to win and force what would end up being a highly anti-climactic playoff.
Stewart Cink, previously a five-time winner on tour who most would say was one of the two or three biggest underachievers of the past 20 years. But while I’ve never been a fan, there’s also been no doubt he’s a real good guy and he’s acquitted himself well as a Ryder Cupper.
As for Watson, thank you, Tom. None of us will ever forget the performance, and I know I for one can’t wait to get back to Ireland and play some links golf in about two months. It was a huge shot in the arm for the sport.
Finally, a word about Tiger Woods, who missed just his second cut in a major. In his closing essay, ESPN’s Rick Reilly praised Watson’s sportsmanship, for having the same demeanor in good times and bad, while showing a clip of Woods slamming his club after a bad drive, an all-too familiar scene with Tiger. Good for you, Rick Reilly. Granted, you may never get another interview with the guy, but it needed to be said.
And what of Tiger and his quest to beat Jack and his 18 majors, Tiger still stuck on 14? Look at all the budding superstars out there…look how freakin’ young they are! 16-year-old Manassero, 17-year-old Ishikawa, 19-year-old McIlroy, 21-year-old Wood, 24-year-old Kim. Let alone all the others (Donald, Westwood, Cabrera, Stenson, Dustin Johnson, a rising Ross Fisher), including what is bound to be a very hungry Phil Mickelson when he gets back into action.
But the sports fan also says, thank god for Tiger and this story. It’s going to be a fascinating five or so years coming up in the world of golf.
Neil Armstrong
I can’t believe how fast time flies. I wrote the following almost nine years ago and it’s certainly appropriate today, the 40th anniversary of man walking on the moon. Maybe it will also encourage some of you to visit the place.
So a friend of mine told me I needed to see the great All-American City of Bluffton, Ohio. I thought, “What the heck, I might as well see it at Christmastime.” So your intrepid editor ventured out to Columbus, OH, Sunday night, and then spent Monday driving 2 hours to…Wapakoneta. Nope, didn’t make it to Bluffton. Something about the storm that was pounding Chicago and heading east, coupled with icy roads. And, I must say, I never drove as far in awful fog as I did on Monday morning.
Anyway, I had to get at least a Bar Chat out of the whole trip and I knew that Wapakoneta was the home of Neil Alden Armstrong, All-American Boy and the first man to walk on the moon. It was also the home to a terrific museum in honor of Armstrong and the space race. And, hard to believe, for two hours I was the only one out of 270 million people in this country who seemed to have the same idea.
Armstrong was born on August 5, 1930, on his grandmother’s farm near this charming town. He was fascinated with aviation as a child and actually received his pilot’s license before he could drive at the age of 16.
The museum had a great collection of articles that I wish I could have spent more time going over. But his high school yearbook was pretty funny. Armstrong’s senior quote was, “He thinks, he acts, ‘tis done.” Actually, the fellow right across from him (the yearbook wasn’t alphabetical; they were rebellious back in 1947) is one Donald Frame. Frame’s quote was, “Not too serious, not too gay, but a very good fellow in every way.” I wish I could have broken the glass and looked at some of the others. It was a more simplistic time, that’s for sure. [On the other hand, my senior quote from 1976 had to do with my love for spice cookies, perhaps the most moronic verse in the history of high school yearbooks, and thus probably precluding me from ever running for political office.]
After high school, Armstrong attended Purdue on a U.S. Navy scholarship before serving as a fighter pilot in the Korean War. Neil received three combat citations for his 78 missions.
After the war he finished up his degree and did some graduate work, settling down at NACA, the forerunner of NASA in Cleveland (where our own Dr. Bortrum did a little work as well). Armstrong was a test pilot. And in 1962, he was selected as part of the 2nd group of astronauts.
Neil took part in the Gemini program, one that tested some of the maneuvers that would be used in the upcoming Apollo mission. Commanding Gemini 8, Armstrong performed the first docking in space. This was almost a disaster as the module they were docked to began to spin out of control when they separated from it.
On April 14, 1969, the Wapakoneta Daily News ran the lead headline: “Neil probably first man on moon.” Just imagine the excitement in this small town. As part of the normal rotation of astronauts, Armstrong’s name was simply next in line to command the historic mission.
But Armstrong had already developed a reputation for being rather aloof. He shied away from the publicity. I read the following quote from reporter William Furlong in the 7/6/69 edition of The National Observer newspaper. Furlong had interviewed Neil.
“It slowly became evident that the man who will be first to touch the surface of another body in the universe is not simply an unemotional, robot like man in whom the flesh is perfectly subjugated by the intellect. He has other interests. Only he doesn’t care to talk about them.” And Furlong added, “He does not display any sense of personal destiny.”
And so on July 16, 1969, commander Neil Armstrong was at the helm of Apollo 11. Accompanied by Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins, the crew was headed for its rendezvous with history.
The purpose of this article isn’t to describe the mission in any detail, but I had forgotten a few things. One being that as the lunar module approached the surface, warning lights began to go off (which NASA told Armstrong and Aldrin to ignore) and then, just a few hundred feet above the intended landing site, Armstrong sighted some huge boulders. He maneuvered the craft at the last second and Eagle touched down on more level ground. Just 30 seconds of fuel was left. A billion people were to hear his famous words when he finally emerged. When Aldrin set foot, he spoke of the “magnificent desolation.”
[Armstrong’s mother, incidentally, was worried her son “would sink in too deeply.”]
President Nixon addressed the men on the moon.
“Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man’s world. And as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility it requires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to earth.
“For one priceless moment in the whole history of man all the people on this earth are truly one – one in their pride in what you have done and one in our prayers that you will return safely to earth.”
When the astronauts returned, Buzz Aldrin’s wife was asked how her faith sustained her.
“I talked to my minister today and asked him if he had been saying a lot of little prayers. He said, just one big one. That’s what I said I had been doing. So, maybe God can take a rest now.”
These were incredible times. Often it seemed like the country would be torn apart. And the concerns on the international front were stupendous. If you ever get depressed, just remember what our space program accomplished back then. I guarantee you your heart will well up with pride. Sitting alone in this theater in Wapakoneta, Ohio, mine sure did.
Assorted Space Tidbits
–Teach your children: The original Mercury 7 astronauts were Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, Deke Slayton.
–Initially, astronauts were selected using the following strict criteria: Due to size constraints, they couldn’t be more than 5 feet 11 inches tall. They also had to be under 40 years of age, have 1500 hours of flight time, and be military personnel.
–Freedom 7: Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space, going up and down without orbiting, 5/5/61. This was just 23 days after Russia’s Yuri Gagarin, 4/12/61. John Glenn then went up 2/20/62, orbiting 3 times and spending almost 5 hours in space.
–On January 27, 1967, Gus Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chafee were performing preflight tests for Apollo 1. While sitting in the capsule on the launch pad, an electrical fire filled the cabin. They were asphyxiated. [Grissom had followed Shepard with a sub-orbital flight in 1961. Ironically, he almost drown on this mission when his capsule sank into the sea upon landing.]
I’m going to come up with something a little different to honor Uncle Walter next time. For now, the New York Times’ Richard Sandomir reminds us of an aspect of Cronkite’s career I had forgotten about.
It was at the 1960 Winter Olympics, Squaw Valley, the first to be televised in the United States, with CBS having paid a mere $50,000 to show it. $50,000!
“So there he stood in a snowstorm on Feb. 18, 1960, his back to the television audience. This might have been what passed for a dramatic entrance 49 years ago: the first human seen in CBS’s coverage of the ’60 Games observed from behind, his parka hood flipped up. Then he whipped around to greet viewers (on tape delay).
“ ‘From Squaw Valley, Calif., February 1960, the eighth Winter Games,’ he said. ‘This is Walter Cronkite reporting.’ Then just 43, Cronkite added, ‘If there had been any illusion in four days of sunshine out here in Squaw Valley that these were the Winter Games, they have been dispelled in the last several hours with a blizzard blowing across our valley, depositing in just a few hours a foot of snow. But that’s the Winter Games for you.’
“It was the Cronkite that viewers revered: friendly, unpretentious, authoritative and well-prepared….
“In Squaw Valley, he was the leader of a small group of announcers (among them the future ABC Sports Olympic host Chris Schenkel, Bud Palmer, Art Devlin, Dick Button, Art Linkletter and Lowell Thomas) who called the action from the outdoors during the 11-day Olympics. Cronkite narrated the opening ceremony….
“Cronkite thus became the first Olympic host…he preceded Jim McKay and Bob Costas, and others in between, like Curt Gowdy, Bryant and Greg Gumbel, and Jim Nantz.
“It’s a cinch that Costas has never stood beside a bulletin board with the next day’s events, or the medal standings as Cronkite did.”
[Ed. I forgot the story that the reason Jim McKay wasn’t host is because he had suffered a nervous breakdown, though McKay would recover to host the Rome Games that summer, but from a studio in New York.]
Of course we’ll also remember Walter Cronkite for being a great sportsman, yachting being about as pure as it comes when you think of the true definition of the term (and I have been on a sailboat all of about two times in my life and still say this), but Cronkite was a huge follower of all sports and way, way back had recreated college football games on the radio.
–The world’s oldest man, Henry Allingham, died at the age of 113. Allingham served with the Royal Naval Air Service in WWI, seeing action in Ypres in 1915. Amazing. Allingham has been revered in Britain for the past few decades. Henry Patch, 111, now becomes the last British survivor of the war to end all wars, so they thought.
Allingham once joked his longevity was due to “cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women,” but later admitted he’d taken care of himself.
—Carolyn Bivens was forced to resign as LPGA Tour commissioner, replaced by Marsha Evans, a retired rear admiral in the Navy who also led the American Red Cross, on an interim basis. Bivens tenure was an absolute disaster and the tour has lost seven tournaments since 2007. She also was excoriated for attempting to install an English-only policy for tour players that was never instituted, the LPGA having 45 from South Korea, for example.
“Bivens’ downfall can be traced to one word: Relationships. For a solitary sport, golf is as much about people as anything else. Bivens underestimated that fact, and, in trying to do business, left a line of angry people in her wake.
“In her uncompromising quest to fix the tour’s broken financial model, Bivens insisted that tournaments had to pay their fair share to stage events. But making those demands, often callously, at a time when events were struggling with declining sponsorship revenue outraged event organizers and players….
“Players had grown weary of stories illustrating Bivens’ poor negotiating tactics. Critics say Bivens neglected the heart and soul of the tour: Small-town tournaments with decades of support….
“Laura Davies recently asked a sponsor whom she considers a longtime friend whether the company pulled out because of financial difficulties.
That says it all. The LPGA’s product on the course has never been stronger, but you can’t just blame the financial crisis for its problems. The issue with the number of foreign players who speak zero English, though, is a legitimate one but Bivens couldn’t have handled it more poorly. And when you look at the PGA Tour, it’s weathering the storm fairly well, certainly far better than the LPGA. As more than one player said of the departing commissioner, “Good riddance.”
“Just plain hideous.” That’s how the New York Post’s Bart Hubbuch described the Mets’ performance on Friday night in Atlanta, an 11-0 demolition by the Braves, “an embarrassment from virtually start to finish.”
There was a bit in the Daily News the other day reminding us Mets fans that for the $12 million we are paying Oliver Perez this season…$12 million! MILLION!!!… “not to mention the $24 million over the next two years – the Mets could have signed Bobby Abreu, Orlando Hudson and Randy Wolf.” The player that bothers me most is Hudson. Not only is he an All-Star, but he’s just a terrific guy and is a huge fan favorite. He’s also no small reason why the Dodgers are doing as well as they are this season, L.A. having had the foresight to sign him while the Mets dithered.
My buddy Phil W., a fellow Mets fan, traveled to Atlanta this weekend to catch them and I asked him his plan of action for Saturday’s game.
Alas, the Mets actually won the game and Phil was forced to stay.
Then you have the issue of the Mets and their injuries. The following is typical, from Adam Rubin / New York Daily News:
“Jose Reyes may have suffered a setback in Port St. Lucie yesterday, although the Mets have denied it.
“After trainers placed a ladder on the ground for Reyes to do agility drills, the shortstop reportedly pointed to his balky hamstring and indicated he didn’t want to proceed.
“A team spokesman denied the eyewitness account by the St. Lucie News-Tribune, saying Reyes wasn’t scheduled to do that type of activity because he had a demanding workout the previous day.
“ ‘He had a heavy workload,’ the team official said, referring to Thursday’s activity, which included facing John Maine in a batting practice setting.
“However, the Mets have had a spotty track record with injury disclosures, and players have been getting upset.
“A source yesterday relayed a recent conversation between two players. One player noticed swelling in the other’s knee and asked why he wasn’t getting it treated. ‘They don’t want to hear about it,’ the injured player replied, according to a source. Reyes has been on the DL since May 26. He recently received a cortisone shot and has been sprinting, but the shortstop has yet to run the bases to test his strained right hamstring tendon by cutting.
“The Mets have vastly underestimated the severity of many of their top players’ injuries. A source said that Carlos Beltran is upset with how the bone bruise in his right knee has been handled. Beltran was allowed to play with the injury for a month after receiving a cortisone shot, and he estimated that resulted in the injury doubling in size.”
By the way, a Marist poll revealed that 53% of registered voters in the city support the Yankees, 36% the Mets. When they do the poll next year, it’s likely to be 75-15, with the other 10 choosing the Red Sox.
And speaking of the Yankees, on July 2, the first day that major league teams are permitted to sign international free agents, they signed 16-year-old shortstop prospect Damian Arredondo of the Dominican Republic to an $850,000 bonus. Only one problem. With all the identity fraud issues recently concerning players from here, Major League Baseball now does a vigorous check on each prospect and it turns out Arredondo is not the player’s real name, let alone he is older than 16. The Yankees did not lose any money since the funds aren’t disbursed until MLB says it’s OK. So what do you know? For once ‘the system’ works.
Only four players reached the 300-homer mark in fewer at bats than Adam Dunn, who did it in 4,145; Babe Ruth (3,830), Mark McGwire (3,837), Ralph Kiner (3,883), and Harmon Killebrew (3,928).
But Ryan Howard is on track to beat Ruth when he hits his 300th. Howard is averaging a home run about every 12 at bats thus far and in slugging his 200th the other day, he did it in fewer games than any player in major league history, besting a mark previously held by Ralph Kiner. Upon learning this, Howard said, “Uh, he’s the guy whose record I broke. Not to be disrespectful or anything, but he was before my time.” Johnny Mac and I were disgusted Howard knew nothing about a man who has been in the game for over 60 years.
Some of us are continually amazed how today’s athletes, in all sports, know so little about the history of the very game in which they are making $millions. It’s beyond being inexcusable. It’s just another reason to lose a lot of respect for the jerks. But then again, when it comes to history, across the board, I can tell you from experience that Americans are the very worst in the world, and it’s not even close. [I had a few conversations in the bars of Calgary over this one.]
Garrett Jones, a career minor leaguer with some big power numbers, was called up by the Pirates and had seven homers in his first 12 games, exciting Bucs fans like Shu. When I saw Jones hit one against the Mets before the All-Star break, I remarked to Johnny Mac, why can’t us Metsies have someone like this in our farm system. In fact, the Mets cupboard is so bare, and with owner Fred Wilpon having been fleeced to the tune of $700 million by Bernie Madoff (according to Larry King), our only hope for the future, like the next ten years, is for the Wilpons to sell the team. [I’m heading down to the basement to get a rough idea of how much money I have in my ten coffee cans of coins…….oops, to paraphrase Bob Uecker, juusst a little short.]
—Joe Paterno is pleading for his friend Bobby Bowden that the NCAA not take away as many as 14 victories from the Florida State coach as a result of the academic fraud scandal at the school that has involved 61 athletes in ten programs. Paterno has 383 wins, Bowden 382. As noted by ESPN.com, the NCAA “found no evidence that Bowden and other Florida State coaches played a role in the scandal or knew that cheating was occurring.” I’m with Paterno. Forfeits in sports such as this are absurd unless you are talking sports betting, which isn’t the case here. The NCAA has already been taking away scholarships and placed FSU on four years’ probation. That’s more than sufficient.
“ ‘In my opinion, he had all the signs of a classic psychopath,’ said Kevin Coughlin, a former executive at Dykstra’s magazine, The Players Club, which folded amid nonpayment of bills.
“Even harsher views are held by plaintiffs in more than 20 lawsuits against Dykstra, who claim they got conned, hustled, manipulated, lied to and stiffed for millions.
“When one check he wrote to a jet-charter firm for $7,000 bounced, he scoffed at inquiring reporters that it was only a trifle. ‘That’s my f—ing ashtray money, bro.’
“ ‘Even in baseball he was always rude, crude and a hustler – but that just got worse,’ said one former colleague who knew Dykstra from his glory days playing for the Mets and the Phillies.
“ ‘He lived off his reputation, that he was entitled to get everything free. He hustled everybody for money, and when they’d ask for it back, he’d go into a rage.’”
And so we place Lenny Dykstra’s name in the December file for “Dirtball of the Year” consideration. Same with the following…
—Richard Jefferson…Neel Shah and Jeane MacIntosh / New York Post:
“Now that’s a flagrant foul.
“Former New Jersey Net star Richard Jefferson bailed on his stunning fiancée – pulling the plug on his posh Manhattan wedding at the 11th hour without even alerting some of the guests.
“The cold-footed forward’s decision to ditch onetime Net dancer Kesha Ni’Cole Nichols was so last-minute that some of his oblivious friends had already shown up last Saturday at the swank Mandarin Oriental in Columbus Circle (N.Y.) for the $2 million wedding that never happened.
“Jefferson – who was traded in June to the San Antonio Spurs [Ed. in a trade praised by your editor] – dumped Nichols just before the weekend, according to sources.
“She immediately called her family and friends to say the ceremony was off. But Jefferson waited much longer, his friends told The Post.
“ ‘He called about two hours before the wedding. It was nuts,’ said one Jefferson pal.”
Turns out Jefferson gave his best friend his Black Amex for the night so his guests partied on his dime.
And The Post later learned that Jefferson informed Nichols by e-mail that the wedding was off, following a tense Fourth of July weekend. Jefferson did agree to give her a “six-figure” settlement so she can start a new life.
Jefferson then told the paper, “I’ve made my mistakes in this relationship, 100 percent. But at the end of the day, there were some people who were responsible for the demise of it.” He insisted a rumor he’s gay had nothing to do with the breakup. He ended up flying to Paris with some basketball buddies.
RJ is one of the more complex athletes to ever grace the New York scene; highly intelligent, super sarcastic, good looking…but I have to admit, hadn’t heard the rumor before.
Just a week earlier, Jefferson was interviewed for Sports Illustrated by Dan Patrick, who asked about the wedding. “Do you have to invite your Spurs teammates now?” RJ: “The guest list is pretty much set.”
–Then there’s Dirtball Emeritus Adam “Pacman” Jones. ESPN uncovered a video of Jones’ infamous evening at a Vegas strip club, Feb. 19, 2007, where a fight outside resulted in a shooting that left one victim, a club employee, paralyzed for life. Check it out (off the ESPN home page). It’s beyond despicable…and makes you want to loath this generation’s hip-hop culture athlete even more.
–And Tony Romo dumped Jessica Simpson the night before her 29th birthday, Romo breaking her heart, according to reports. [Been there…both sides, unfortunately.] But of course Simpson was bad news for Romo’s career, earning the nickname “Yoko Romo,” so Cowboys fans are ecstatic.
“The more Jada Pinkett Smith brags about her incredible sex life with Will Smith, the more it makes us wonder whether she doth protest too much. Why the sales job? What are we buying? Jada’s most recent over-sharing comes in Shape magazine, where she gushes: ‘When you have three kids, you’ve got to take your opportunities when they come. In a limo, on the way to the Academy Awards this year, Will started looking at me in this way that drives me wild. We started kissing passionately, and the next thing I knew, well, let’s just say we missed the red carpet and I ended up with almost no makeup on.’”
Good lord, Jada. Show a little class. Your husband normally does.
–NASCAR said Jeremy Mayfield once again tested positive for methamphetamine and asked a federal judge to reinstate a ban he had lifted. As reported by SI.com, “The positive result from a July 6 random test was included in a U.S. District Court filing Wednesday that included an affidavit from Mayfield’s stepmother, who claimed she personally witnessed the driver using methamphetamine at least 30 times over seven years….
“Lisa Mayfield said she first saw the driver use meth in 1998 at a race shop in Mooresville, N.C. She said Mayfield cooked his own drugs… ‘I saw Jeremy use meth by snorting it up his nose at least 30 times during the 7 years I was around him.’”
For his part, Mayfield said, “Now they got this lying [expletive] to tell lies about me,” and he claims an independent test clears him.
–We note the passing of former cornerback Nelson Munsey, 61. He died of heart disease. Munsey played with the Colts from 1972 to 1977. I forgot his younger brother was Chuck Muncie, who changed his last name.
–The actor who played drug dealer Marlo Stanfield on “The Wire,” Jamie Hector, said he had nothing to do with gunfire outside his wife’s baby shower in Brooklyn which killed one and wounded two others. But the two who were wounded had attended the shower and were fired upon when they left the party, at 1:30 a.m., meaning it wasn’t exactly the kind of baby shower our mothers were thrown for you and me.
–Attention New Jersey racing fans…Rachel Alexandra is definitely running in the Haskell Invitational, Aug. 2, at Monmouth Park.
–And attention Boston hockey fans…looks like you get the Winter Classic NHL game this year on New Year’s Day at Fenway Park. This event has been a wild success and watched by yours truly because no one gives two blanks about the early bowl games that day. It’s looking Boston vs. either Philadelphia or Washington. The first two contests were held in Buffalo and Chicago.
—Notre Dame and Army will play the first football game at the new Yankee Stadium in 2010. The two hooked up 20 times at the old park. It was there in 1928 that Knute Rockne invoked the memory of the late Ronald Reagan, err, George Gipp, during a halftime speech as the Irish went on to prevail over an undefeated Army squad, 12-6.
–BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) – “A Colorado man used a chain saw to fight off an apparently starving mountain lion that attacked him during a camping trip in northwestern Wyoming with his wife and two toddlers.
“Dustin Britton, a 32-year-old mechanic and ex-Marine from Windsor, Colo., said he was alone cutting firewood about 100 feet from his campsite in the Shoshone National Forest when he saw the 100-pound lion staring at him from some bushes.”
Britton “raised his chain saw and met the lion head-on as it pounced – a collision he described as feeling like a grown man running directly into him.”
“ ‘It batted me three or four times with its front paws and as quick as I hit it with that saw, it just turned away,’ he said.”
Poor lion. It reportedly had a 6- to 8-inch gash on its shoulder while Britton only suffered a small puncture wound on his forearm. The mountain lion was shot and killed Monday after it attacked a dog brought in to track it.
After the confrontation, Britton and his wife and kids spent the night in their pop-up camper rather than risk packing up with the lion still on the loose.
–London Times: “A one-ton hippo that escaped from a zoo that belonged to the drug baron Pablo Escobar has been shot dead….
“Two more of his hippopotami are still being hunted by wildlife authorities in Colombia after complaints that they have damaged crops and livestock and endangered the lives of fishermen.”
The three had escaped from the zoo that was given to the State after police killed Escobar in 1993. The hippos have been fugitives ever since, living off the lush vegetation and running drugs to New York, through Miami.
Incredibly, Escobar’s private zoo had far more hippos and there are said to be 22 still remaining there, aside from the two survivors.
–Brad K. passed along the important story of Ozzy Osbourne’s pet dog, “eaten by a coyote in the grounds of his family’s Los Angeles mansion.”
“It is believed the 60-year-old ‘Prince of Darkness’ and his wife Sharon were watching the Michael Jackson memorial on television when the attack happened and did not hear the dog’s yelps.
“The couple’s daughter, Kelly Osbourne, said in a Twitter message that her father – who has a history of animal abuse including biting the heads off live bats and doves – ‘is devastated – she was his other woman.’ [The Pomeranian, that is.]
“In the late 1970s, Osbourne was removed from the offices of a record company after he bit the head off a live dove and spat it on the ground to get the attention of executives.
“He also famously bit the head off a bat he thought was rubber while performing at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1982.”
L.A. authorities, by the way, have issued warnings to homeowners to be on the guard for coyotes. Brad K. notes, “Is there no end to celebrity deaths?”
–But then you have this story of the giant squids off San Diego that Johnny Mac first brought to my attention and has since been on the national news this weekend.
“Thousands of jumbo flying squid – aggressive 5-foot-long sea monsters with razor-sharp beaks and toothy tentacles – have invaded the shallow waters off San Diego, spooking scuba divers and washing up dead on tourist-packed beaches.”
Good lord. This has been a problem in the past but never like this.
“The carnivorous calamari, which can grow up to 100 pounds, came up from the depths last week and swarms of them roughed up unsuspecting divers. Some divers report tentacles enveloping their masks and yanking at their cameras and gear.”
The Humboldt squid are native to the waters off Mexico, “where they have been known to attack humans and are nicknamed ‘red devils’ for their rust-red coloring and mean streak.”
Similar invasions took place in 2002 and 2005 and now researchers believe a year-round population has established itself off California in waters 300- to 650-feet deep. [Gillian Flaccus / AP]
I was thinking of going into the water again around 2014, but not now. I’m through.
–We note the passing of Frank McCourt, author of \’Angela\’s Ashes.\’
–Sports Illustrated asked the Chicago White Sox’ Gordon Beckham to complete this sentence, “I wish I could transform into…,” and Beckham answered, “Megan Fox’s bed.”
Brilliant answer, Gordon! We’re sending you the home version of “Bar Chat: The Game,” whenever we get around to making it. [The Yankees’ CC Sabathia, when asked the same question, said, “A Cadillac Escalade.” Sorry, CC. Dumb answer. Very, very dumb.]
—Phoebe Cates turned 46 the other day. Ooh baby. Every guy’s dream girl after “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
—Paul McCartney played two concerts at Citi Field this weekend and by all accounts killed it. You can see some videos on YouTube, as Paul recreated the magic of 44 years earlier at Shea Stadium. A review in the Daily News stated, “Sir Paul remains the premier tunesmith of the last half century, and when he performs those tunes with verve, as he did Friday night, their fluidity never ceases to excite.”
Just amazing he is 67 and his voice has held up so well, compared to virtually every other rocker at that stage when you see some of these reunion concerts on PBS. It also helps that Paul has had the same kick-ass band for years now.
I was reading a Canadian paper the other day, reviewing McCartney’s first-ever concert in Halifax, Nova Scotia, two Saturdays ago and he performed for three hours straight, with the highlight for the heavily Scottish-influenced crowd of 50,000 being his rare performance of Mull of Kintyre, the 1977 Wings song that is so popular in England it outsold the Beatles’ She Loves You.
Top 3 songs for the week 7/22/78: #1 “Shadow Dancing” (Andy Gibb) #2 “Baker Street” (Gerry Raftery) #3 “Miss You” (The Rolling Stones)…and…#4 “Still The Same” (Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band) #5 “Last Dance” (Donna Summer) #6 “Grease” (Frankie Valli) #7 “The Groove Line” (Heatwave) #8 “Use Ta Be My Girl” (The O’Jays) #9 “Take A Chance On Me” (Abba) #10 “Three Times A Lady” (Commodores)
Baseball Quiz Answers: 1) 1100 appearances: Jesse Orosco (1252), Mike Stanton (1178), John Franco (1119). 2) 250 hits in a season: Ichiro, 262 (2004), George Sisler, 257 (1920), Bill Terry, 254 (1930), Lefty O’Doul, 254 (1929), Al Simmons, 253 (1925), Rogers Hornsby, 250 (1922), Chuck Klein, 250 (1930).
Next Bar Chat, Thursday….I’ll resume the ’69 Mets story and have all kinds of baseball stuff.
