NBA Draft Quiz: In 2009, Blake Griffin was the overall top selection in the draft. In 2008, it was Derrick Rose. In 2004, it was Dwight Howard. Name the No. 1 pick for the three years in between. Answer below.
Luke Easter
My friend Mark R. spent a lot of time in Buffalo in his early days and he’s often said the longest home run he ever saw, anywhere, was hit by Luke Easter when he played with Buffalo of the International League, back in the 1950s. So who was “Luscious” Luke Easter?
From the book “Crossing the Line: Black Major Leaguers, 1947-59” by Larry Moffi & Jonathan Kronstadt:
“Luke Easter was the biggest thing to hit the West Coast since celluloid. Wherever the towering first baseman went in 1949, huge crowds followed. In the first 10 games he played for San Diego, crowds averaged over 34,000; and this was the minor leagues. In San Francisco, 5,000 fans were turned away from Seals Stadium, and another 1,000 climbed on top of cars to get a look at the Pacific Coast League’s new box-office star. Ballparks opened their gates earlier than usual so fans could watch Easter take batting practice. They came to see a man who could hit a baseball about as far as anyone who ever tried.
“Sacramento manager Del Baker, whose playing career lasted 22 years, said, ‘For sheer ability to knock the ball great distances, I’ve never seen anybody better than Easter.’ Hollywood manager Fred Haney was more concerned with the balls Easter hit that stayed in the park. ‘I wish they’d get him out of here before he kills every infielder in the Coast League,’ he said.
“In his first 15 games in the PCL, Easter hit .436 with five home runs and 23 runs batted in. By July 1, he had dipped to .363, but he had 25 homers and 92 RBIs in just 80 games. And as it turned out, Easter had been playing with a broken kneecap he suffered in spring training until the pain became unbearable, forcing him to undergo surgery.”
Of course this was a time before the Dodgers and Giants headed west so the Pacific Coast League was huge. In 1949, Oakland signed its first black player, and later Portland and Los Angeles followed. Easter’s injury cost owners $hundreds of thousands in gate receipts.
“Easter’s popularity came largely from his unbridled hitting power but was enhanced by his demeanor. Jules Tygiel wrote that at 6’4” and 240 pounds, Easter ‘was a figure of Bunyanesque proportions…yet he charmed people with his gentle manner and humor.’ He once drew a suspension while playing in the minors for tossing baseballs to young fans in the stands. He had a penchant for pinstripe suits and big diamond rings. Newspapers wrote editorials praising him, and his words to San Diego owner Paul Starr before the season proved prophetic. “Mister Starr, everybody likes me when I hit that ball,’ was Easter’s response to Starr’s warning that he would likely be booed because of his race.
“Integration in the PCL went quickly and smoothly, and Easter deserves much of the credit. ‘History cannot ignore the fact that Big Luke was an important contributor to the cause of integration,’ Doc Young wrote in Jet. ‘His most important donation was proof that when an athlete hits home runs and plays a Titanic game, fans quickly lose sight of his color.’”
But six weeks after his knee surgery, Easter was sold to the Cleveland Indians, with who San Diego had a working relationship. He hit only .222 in 45 late-season at bats following his call-up to the big league club. The Sporting News wrote at the time that Easter was “the most booed player in the history of Cleveland Stadium.”
Geezuz, talk about a bunch of a-holes. 45 at bats. And get this. Luke Easter was getting his first shot at the majors at the age of 34…or maybe 35. You see, no one really knew when Luke Easter was born. It started out as 1921, but he conceded it was Aug. 4, 1915…or maybe it was 1911. He kept changing the date. Baseballreference.com uses Aug. 4, 1915. Moffi and Kronstadt also use that year so we’ll go with that.
Well, you get the picture. Luke Easter was no spring chicken but after a slow start in 1950, he ended up hitting 28 home runs and driving in 107 for the Indians, giving Cleveland the most powerful black duo in baseball as they also had Larry Doby. Easter became “wildly popular” with the fans. He would follow up his 1950 campaign with two more awesome seasons on the power front, 27-103 in ’51 and 31-97 in ’52. Both years he played less than 130 games to boot. Easter had burst on the scene at the supposed age of 34 and clouted 86 homers in three seasons.
But let’s go back to his childhood in St. Louis (he was born in Jonestown, Mississippi). Easter left school after the eighth grade to work for a paint company. Then, according to Moffi and Kronstadt, “In 1941, one day before he was to enter the army, he went to Memphis to see a softball game along with a few friends, one of whom was future big leaguer Sam Jethroe. On the way home, Jethroe fell asleep at the wheel and crashed the car, killing one passenger and leaving Easter with two broken legs. Thirteen months in the army and a few jobs later, Easter found himself hanging around Chicago’s Washington Park hoping to get a chance to play for one of the city’s all-black teams. He homered the first time he got up, and a spectator named Ben Lindts offered him $18 a week to play on his traveling team. The team was so bad, ‘we changed our name most every day so we could book games,’ Easter said, but his hitting exploits got around.
“He played with the Cincinnati Crescents in 1946, then jumped to the Homestead Grays in 1947 where he filled the power void left by the retirement of Josh Gibson. Bill Veeck heard about Easter from his friend Abe Saperstein, owner of the Crescents and the Harlem Globetrotters, and flew to Puerto Rico to sign Easter while he was playing winter ball after the 1948 Negro National League season.”
What a story. And how far could Luke Easter hit a baseball? Try a 477-foot shot into the second deck in right field at Cleveland Stadium, the longest ever hit there.
But Easter had to return to the minors following a 1953 season in which his playing time for the Indians was limited by knee and ankle injuries.
At the ages of 40-42, 1956-1958, Easter then posted power numbers of 35-106, 40-128, and 38-109 for the International League’s Buffalo franchise and, yes, Mark R., you were right. Moffi and Kronstadt state that in ’57, Easter hit “a 500-foot blast over the scoreboard at Offerman Stadium in Buffalo. It was the first ball to clear the scoreboard in the stadium’s 33-year history.” Mark was there.
Easter actually continued playing minor league ball, his last few seasons with the AAA Rochester Red Wings, until he was 48.
His home run shots were so legendary that fans all the time came up to him saying they saw his longest. His response normally was, “If it came down, it wasn’t.” Pat Doyle, who wrote “Minor League Baseball History, A Look Back,” notes that while Easter was in the Negro Leagues, he allegedly hit the first ball into the center field bleachers in New York’s Polo Grounds in any league at any level [dead center there being 455’.]
But as Doyle writes, Easter’s life ended tragically. “Employed as the chief union steward for the Aircraft Workers Alliance, on March 29, 1979, Luke was approached by two robbers in a Euclid, Ohio, bank parking lot. Refusing to hand over $40,000 in union funds, he was shot in the chest with a shotgun blast and died immediately. The same loyalty and integrity he gave to baseball remained with him throughout his life.”
Said Buffalo baseball historian Joe Overfeld, “Never in the city’s sports history has an athlete made such an impact on the community.”
–As I go to post I’m awaiting Slovakia-Netherlands in the World Cup. But what a disgraceful performance by the referees in both of Sunday’s matches. While you can say that Germany and Argentina would have handily defeated England and Mexico anyway, the disallowed goal for England would have knotted the score at 2-2 and obviously changed momentum in a game where momentum is as critical as that in any sport. England’s manager, Fabio Capello, summed up the feelings of soccer fans. “It is incredible that there is no (video) technology.” [Germany ended up winning 4-1.] Meanwhile, Argentina, a 3-1 winner over Mexico, scored a goal when their player was clearly offside.
As for the U.S. effort against Ghana, it was rather pitiful, though Ghana’s second score by Gyan was a thing of beauty…pure athleticism.
Ball Bits
–It’s UCLA and South Carolina in the finals of the College World Series (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights…the last one if necessary) as the two dispatched of TCU and Clemson, respectively, so once again the ACC goes titleless. 55 years and counting
–Quite a performance by Arizona Diamondbacks hurler Edwin Jackson on Friday night as he threw a no-hitter, the fourth in the majors this season, against Tampa Bay, 1-0.
But the story was the number of pitches thrown by Jackson as he walked eight. 149! No one even sniffs that number anymore, most starters being yanked after 100, 115 max. It was the most pitches since Livan Hernandez threw 150 for Washington, June 2005, and was another case of how baseball is slowly returning to its roots. You certainly see more complete games today than just 3 years ago.
–Seattle’s Cliff Lee has walked 4 in 86 innings, while fanning 76. 4 walks! In 2004, he walked 81 in 179 innings, but by 2008, it was only 34 in 223.
–Johnny Mac pointed out that Detroit closer Jose Valverde has allowed just 11 hits in 32 1/3, along with only 2 earned runs for a 0.56 ERA while saving 17. 40-year-old journeyman Arthur Rhodes has given up but one run in 32 innings, 0.28 ERA.
–It just needs to be done…write Tampa Bay’s B.J. Upton and tell him what a jerk he is for his tirade on Sunday against teammate Evan Longoria, this after Longoria confronted Upton for not hustling after a fly ball to the wall that became a triple. Even the Mets announcers were ticked off because Upton just doesn’t get it.
–The following scandalous remark was found in Sunday’s New York Post concerning Prince Harry. Amber Sutherland reported that the Prince, in New York for some charity work, was at the Mets’ Citi Field on Saturday and threw out the first pitch, which “barely crossed the plate.”
Well Johnny Mac and I, as well as tens of thousands of other Mets fans watching on television, let alone those in attendance, saw just the opposite. We saw a confident Harry take the mound and fire a pitch that, while it would have been called a ball, was high and inside. He not only handily crossed the plate, Ms. Sutherland, but as J. Mac and I commented later, he showed more heat than starter Johan Santana did in his pitiful performance afterwards. If I’m Harry, I sue Sutherland, but Harry, who totally rocks, has too much class for that. [I don’t.]
–Speaking of Santana, goodness gracious…what a dirtball.
This week reports broke of an episode last Oct. 27 in Fort Myers, Fla., that just came to light. A woman claims she was raped by Santana in an open field near a golf course by his home, while he says the sex was consensual, i.e., he’s not denying what happened.
Now understand that Santana, who is married with three kids and has always held himself up as a family man, is in the third season of a 6-year, $137.5 million contract and he’s pitching like crap recently, this after offseason surgery. For the first time, Mets fans lustily booed him after a lousy performance on Saturday and no doubt we’re all thinking the same thing.
You’re a jerk, Santana…plus now you suck. The love affair is over unless he rights the ship quickly.
But back to his sexual encounter with the unidentified woman that he had met all of ten days earlier, Santana told police at the time that she “seemed very excited and forward towards me…I told her I was about to…” OK, I need to stop here. It’s rather descriptive and not material for the younger folk perusing the site.
–The New York Post’s Steve Serby conducts a weekly Q&A and this week’s topic is Mets folk legend R.A. Dickey, the 35-year-old knuckleballer who has burst on the scene for the Metropolitans, going 6-0 in seven starts since being called up in May. It turns out Dickey is quite a spiritual man (you have to be to hang in there after what he’s been through…hell, he doesn’t even have an ulnar nerve!), and he’s convinced he can now go on to win 100 games, like fellow knuckleballers Charlie Hough, Tim Wakefield, and Phil Niekro did between the ages of 35 and 42.
But here’s what I love. Serby always asks his subjects the three dinner guests question and Dickey answers, “David from the Old Testament, Robert Frost, Gen. George Patton.”
That’s about the most interesting answer to this question I’ve ever seen, though I’m not sure Frostie offers much in terms of scintillating conversation.
–The NBA draft has come and gone and one of the surprises was how Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds became the first AP All-American since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976 not to be selected. The other four on the AP list were all taken in the first round; Kentucky’s John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins, plus Ohio State’s Evan Turner and Wesley Johnson of Syracuse (all in top five picks). [I was at a picnic on Saturday and a friend’s daughter was in attendance, she currently a student at Villanova and an athlete in her own right. Let’s just say I heard the team may have a slight problem with pot-smoking, not that this doesn’t happen everywhere these days.]
But when looking at the pre-draft forecasts, to some it was a mild surprise Butler’s Gordon Hayward went as high as No. 9 (by Utah). Dereck Caracter (58 by the Lakers) and Stanley Robinson (59 by Orlando) dropped way down.
Wake Forest’s Al-Farouq Aminu did go off at No. 8 as expected, taken by the Clippers, and this guy is guaranteed to have a 10-year+ career if for no other reason than he’ll be a rebounding machine and a former Deac I’ll root for, as opposed to Chris Paul.
But if there’s one guy to really pull for, it’s former West Virginia star Da’Sean Butler, selected by Miami with the No. 42 pick. Butler, you’ll recall, tore up his ACL in the national championship semi-finals and his rehab will be extensive, but if he can make it Miami will have a special player. Having watched virtually all of WVU’s games last year, he was the one guy in the country who most fit the description of ‘warrior.’
–If the Chicago Bulls sign both LeBron James and Chris Bosh, as reported, talk about a blow to the New York Knicks in particular. I think most Knicks fans thought, well, we won’t get LeBron but at least we’d get Bosh. So, if you have game, you may want to head to Madison Square Garden because the Knicks have a lot of cap space. [Without a big signee, the Knick season ticket base will plummet. Thanks to Isiah Thomas, they didn’t even have a first round draft pick. And note to management…don’t sign Joe Johnson!]
–So the New Jersey Nets have a new owner, Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, and it was only a matter of time before stories emerged of spies in the front office, which the Daily News reports is one of the reasons why team president Rod Thorn is leaving in a few weeks.
“According to sources close to the team, Thorn had quickly grown tired of having to answer to associates of (Prokhorov).”
Thorn denied there was a problem, but a mystery woman, Irina Pavlova, was appointed by Prokhorov to be president of the parent company. She’s the daughter of a Russian diplomat and a former Google executive, yet no one seems to have a reputable picture of her, though I’m guessing she’s not exactly Moms Mabley. [Boy, did I just date myself.]
–Meanwhile, across the river, the New York Knicks have another problem on their hands. An arrest warrant was issued for center Eddy Curry “after he reportedly missed a $200,000 hush money payment linked to his six-month sexual relationship with an underage girl.”
Cook County, Illinois, authorities say Curry missed the last payment in a sealed personal injury suit, one that was filed in 2007 between Eddy “and a 14-year-old sex partner.”
14! It started and ended in 2001 when Curry was 18 and a first-round pick of the Chicago Bulls. Despite an annual salary of $10.5 million, Curry is deeply in debt.
–50-year-old Corey Pavin fell just short of winning this week’s PGA Tour event in Hartford. Pavin, the Ryder Cup captain, lost a three-way playoff to Scott Verplank and winner Bubba Watson. It was Watson’s first win on tour after four second-place finishes. As J. Mac pointed out, what a great sport where you have two guys shoot the same final-round 66s, Pavin and Watson, even though Bubba is bombing his drives about 80 yards further than Corey’s.
–The football Giants suffered yet another devastating offseason blow. Two weeks ago they lost receiver/return man Domenick Hixon when he ruptured his ACL on the first day of practice at the new stadium. On Friday morning in New Orleans, Chad Jones, a recent third-round draft pick who was being counted on as a key figure in the secondary and possible return man to replace Hixon, crashed into a streetcar pole and tore up his left leg. The injuries were so serious, both arteries and nerves were exposed and the emergency surgery was first all about restoring the blood flow to his foot. I know where he crashed (Toulouse and Carrollton) and it’s hard to picture what happened but police are running toxicology checks. Jones is known for winning national championships at LSU in both football and baseball.
[Just saw former Wake Forest QB Riley Skinner was waived by the Giants. He was battling it out for the 3rd slot. Hopefully he latches on with someone else.]
“For 45 or so minutes on Saturday night we remembered what it was like to have Woods in the hunt. That electrifying sense that he could do anything at any time and lift us all with him replaced the creepy knowledge that he could do anyone at any time.”
–By the way, I forgot to mention this factoid during the Open. Ever wonder if that trophy you see is the real one? It isn’t. As Dr. Bortrum and I saw while visiting Golf House in Far Hills, N.J. the day before the Open started, the real one sits there. And now you know…the rest of the story.
–For all the good feeling generated by the John Isner-Nicolas Mahut match for the ages, some of it was dissipated the next day by the performance of Romanian Victor Hanescu, who during a match on the same court where Isner and Mahut had distinguished themselves, “Hanescu, the No. 31 seed, quit at 3-0 down in the fifth set to the German, Daniel Brands,” as reported by the London Times.
“Having sacrificed four match points in the third set, after he had won the first two on tie-breaks, the Romanian suffered an injury and began to self-destruct.”
Hanescu was upset at the crowd reaction and was warned by the chair for unsportsmanlike conduct.
“Hanescu then went into meltdown, trying outrageous drop shots and appearing deliberately to foot-fault four times to lose those first three games. He soon chose to forfeit the match, allegedly spitting at spectators before leaving the court.”
An investigation could lead to Hanescu’s forfeiture of nearly $50,000 in prize money.
As for the Isner-Mahut match, for the record it went 11 hours and 5 minutes before Isner prevailed, 70-68, in the fifth set. It was no surprise then that Isner lost his next one, 6-0, 6-3, 6-2 to Thiemo de Bakker in all of 74 minutes.
–Jeff B.’s Old Man’s Tennis squad suffered its first defeat, dropping its record to 17-1 as the Weston (Ct.) Field Club squeaked out a win in 90+ degree heat, with Jeff convinced his team’s sports drinks were spiked because his boys proceeded to play like drunks. Further investigation, though, showed it was not the opponents’ spiking of drinks the led to the loss, but rather Jerry and Lee’s penchant for Coors Light. Don’t they know alcohol dehydrates you? This is disgraceful behavior! [Your editor lost $175,000 on the match, thus his disgust.]
–Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated had this interesting tidbit.
“USC’s two-year postseason ban raises the possibility that a low-end bowl could be stuck with a 5-7 team. The NCAA approved 35 bowl games for the next four seasons, despite the fact that just 71 teams reached eligibility (.500) in 2007 and ’09.”
–There was a tragic story at the Central Park Zoo on Saturday when a 6-month-old baby was killed by a falling tree branch, with the mother being hurt though she’s in stable condition. Some are saying it’s been clear for a long time there were dead trees in the area and they haven’t been taken care of. This was also the second death by tree this year in the park.
–And then you have the case of a pair of coyotes attacking a 6-year-old girl in Rye, New York (Westchester County). The kid was playing with her sisters and friends in their front yard when the coyotes picked on the girl, the smallest of the five. The victims’ mother came tearing out of the house and scared them away. Authorities say they have to be rabid and they’ve been traced to a nearby golf course but not killed as yet.
–I commented on a disturbing study of chimpanzees in my “Week in Review” column the other day but here’s a further tidbit I didn’t mention, from John Mitani of the University of Michigan and The Economist.
“Between 1999 and 2008, Dr. Mitani and his colleagues shadowed a group of chimpanzees called the Ngogo, who live in the Kibale national park in Uganda. Most of the time, the Ngogo chimps were anything but model soldiers – squabbling, foraging and lolling about their domain. But on 114 occasions Dr. Mitani’s colleague Sylvia Amsler watched large groups of males strike out on silent, single-file patrols to the fringes of their territory.
“These forays often turned violent. All but one of the 18 fatal attacks Dr. Amsler witnessed occurred during boundary patrols. In each case, males colluded to kill chimps from a neighboring group.”
–OK, who wants to be depressed? Guess what is 20-years-old today, Sunday, as I write. The film “Days of Thunder.” As reported by the AP, the film had a lot of truth in it, from characters built on Dale Earnhardt and Tim Richmond, to team owner Rick Hendrick and NASCAR’s Bill France Jr. I haven’t seen the durn thing in 20 years….gotta pull it up again.
–According to a study by Kwai Garlic, by your 45th birthday you probably won’t care much about sex anymore. The study adds that as people approach 50, they worry they may have a heart attack while having sex, what I’d call the Rockefeller syndrome, so they don’t even try.
Now discuss amongst yourselves because at 52, I need to stay out of this one, know what I’m sayin’?
“Summer’s here, but apparently looking trendy is more important to stars than beating the heat. Forget flip flops, everyone who’s anyone is getting leggy in dominatrix-inspired thigh-high boots, humidity be damned!”
“A 22-year-old Mexican bullfighter was arrested for breach of contract and fined after twice fleeing the ring in fear last week.”
—Sign of the Apocalypse, part deux:
Mike (The Situation) Sorrentino of Jersey Shore fame is launching a clothing line.
–We note the passing of former Kinks bass player, Pete Quaife, 66. Quaife was the original bassist, playing on all their early hits… “You Really Got Me,” “All Day and All of the Night,” “Tired of Waiting for You” and the rest. Dave Davies said of Quaife’s passing, “Without Pete there would have been no Kinks.”
Growing up in north London, Quaife was a schoolmate of Ray and Dave Davies and began playing rock ‘n’ roll with the brothers in 1961. In his 1996 memoir, “Kink,” Dave Davies wrote, “We drew lots to see who would play bass guitar, and Pete lost.” The three, along with drummer Mick Avory, officially formed in 1963 and it was their third single, “You Really Got Me,” that rocketed them to stardom.
But Quaife would grow tired of playing peacemaker in the legendary disputes between the two brothers (once he was whistling a Beatles tune in 1965 in a limo which precipitated a fistfight among band members) so he left the band for good in 1969. He did rejoin the Kinks for a single concert in Canada in 1981 and appeared with the band at its 1990 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Top 3 songs for the week 6/26/76: #1 “Silly Love Songs” (Wings…next to “Ebony And Ivory” the absolute worst McCartney ever did…he should be ashamed of himself) #2 “Get Up And Boogie” (Silver Connection…stupid) #3 “Misty Blue” (Dorothy Moore…not bad)…and…#4 “Sara Smile” (Daryl Hall & John Oates…perhaps their best) #5 “Shop Around” (Captain & Tennille) #6 “More, More, More” (Andrea True Connection…not bad for this genre…not bad at all) #7 “Afternoon Delight” (Starland Vocal Band…as Jeff B. would say, a song that belongs in the Crapfest Hall of Fame) #8 “Love Hangover” (Diana Ross) #9 “I’ll Be Good To You” (The Brothers Johnson…great tune) #10 “Kiss And Say Goodbye” (Manhattans)
NBA Draft Quiz Answer: 2007 – Greg Oden (Ohio State); 2006 – Andrew Bargnani (Italy); 2005 – Andrew Bogut (Utah).
