College Basketball Quiz: Entering this season, what five men’s teams have the highest winning percentage from 2000 to 2009? [Hint: 3 are not in major conferences…not that easy.] Answer below.
TV Alert…Sat. Dec. 11, 8 PM ET…HBO… “Lombardi” [They always do a terrific job with their sports films. This should be no exception.]
J-E-T-S…Jets Jets Jets…suck
Goodness gracious, kids. As coach Rex Ryan admitted after the Patriots dismantled and dismembered the Jets 45-3 in what many of us thought was going to be the “game of the year,” the Jets owe the NFL an apology “because they deserved a better game.”
Really all you needed to know was that the Pats’ Tom Brady threw for 326 yards and four touchdowns (with a 148.9 rating), while the Jets’ Mark Sanchez threw three interceptions and had a rating of 27.8.
And to add insult to injury, Danny Woodhead, cut by the Jets earlier in the season, caught four passes for 104 yards. The former Chadron State star should still be a Jet, for cryin’ out loud! Sucks.
So now the Jets host Miami at home this Sunday (and the weather forecast sounds horrible so anything could happen if the predicted monsoon develops), before going on the road to face the Steelers and the Bears. If they win Sunday they’re fine. If they lose, talk about Panic City.
As for New England, they have now won 26 straight at home and are 30-5 in the month of December dating back to 2002.
[Meanwhile, a Bill Belichick disciple, Josh McDaniels, was fired as coach of the Denver Broncos. McDaniels started off 6-0 last year but had gone 5-17 since.]
Philadelphia 8-4
Giants 8-4
Chicago 9-3
Green Bay 8-4
Atlanta 10-2
New Orleans 9-3
St. Louis 6-6
Seattle 6-6
Note: Seems pretty clear wild-card going down to last game, but at least the first two weeks of the playoffs we’re going to have some good winter football, until a potential NFC Championship Game indoors down in Atlanta.
New England 10-2
Jets 9-3
Pittsburgh 9-3
Baltimore 8-4
Jacksonville 7-5
Indianapolis 6-6
Kansas City 8-4
San Diego 6-6
Oakland 6-6
Notes: I’m still amazed how many on the sports airwaves locally discount the Chiefs. Yeah, I thought San Diego would roll after starting off 2-5, but then they got whipped by Oakland last Sunday.
And what the heck is the deal with Peyton Manning? In the last 20 years, only three other quarterbacks have had three consecutive games of at least three interceptions and now Manning has 11 in three, including back-to-back four-pick games…with four of the 11 being returned for scores!
Want another example of how important turnovers can be? The Giants are 5-0 when they have more takeaways than turnovers. 2-0 when turnovers are even. 1-4 when there’s a negative differential.
Lastly, you have the case of Washington Redskins defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth, he of the $100 million contract who was suspended for the final four games of the season without pay.
“This week, Haynesworth turned in one of his worst practices to date. It was so bad that (head coach Mike) Shanahan called him into his office. ‘We’ve got to pick up the pace,’ Shanahan warned Haynesworth. ‘To give yourself a chance to play well on the weekend, you have to have a better practice.’ Now, you might expect one of the highest paid defensive players in the NFL to bear down, what with the playoffs on the line. Instead, Haynesworth was unresponsive. The next day, guess what? He didn’t practice at all. He said he felt sick.
“The Haynesworth apologists will say there are two sides to this story. But there aren’t. There is only one: Haynesworth is the very definition of ‘conduct detrimental to the team.’ He’s a daily affront to every dedicated player in the locker room, out to do the least amount of work while collecting the most amount of money. He cheats on his contract and he cheats his teammates. Indolence is written all over him, and so is insubordination.
“ ‘Let’s be honest, this is an easy decision,’ Shanahan said in a phone interview Tuesday evening. ‘This isn’t even hard. When I get rid of a guy, I do it because it’s in the best interest of the team, and I consider everybody.’….
“Redskins observers can judge for themselves whether Shanahan has asked too much of Haynesworth. What’s more important is the judgment of other Redskins players. And it’s not good. Trent Williams played on Sunday with a hurt shoulder. Phillip Daniels practiced all week even though he was sick. Haynesworth was well enough to go out late Thursday night, yet too sick to practice Friday? And then – miracles! – well enough to want to play on Sunday? They don’t buy it. It’s not often you hear teammates unload on a fellow player, but to listen to Haynesworth’s teammates, they sound sick to death of him.
“ ‘If I can come out and do this, don’t tell me you can’t do it,’ Daniels said after the Giants loss. ‘…If you ain’t all in, you don’t need to be here….’
“ ‘In the NFL as a player, you want to be respected by your teammates, that’s all you can ask for,’ Vonnie Holliday told ESPN. ‘And right now, he doesn’t have that respect because a lot of times it seems like he’s playing for himself.’”
Bowl Games of Interest to Moi
There are actually more than normal, not that I’ll watch ‘em all. But…
Dec. 22…MAACO…Las Vegas…ESPN 8 p.m. ET…Utah (10-2) vs. Boise State (11-1)
Dec. 23…Poinsettia…San Diego…ESPN 8 p.m. …San Diego State (8-4) vs. Navy (8-3)
Dec. 28…Insight…Tempe…ESPN 10 p.m. …Missouri (10-2) vs. Iowa (7-5…assuming Iowa decides to show up…but I’ll be in bed anyway)
Dec. 28…Champ Sports…Orlando…ESPN 6:30 p.m. …N.C. State (8-4) vs. West Virginia (9-3)
Jan. 1…Capital One…Orlando…ESPN 1 p.m. …Michigan State (11-1) vs. Alabama (9-3)
Jan. 1…Rose…Pasadena…ESPN 5 p.m. …Wisconsin (11-1) vs. TCU (12-0)
Jan. 1…Fiesta…Glendale…ESPN 8:30 p.m. …Oklahoma (11-2) vs. UConn (8-4)
Jan. 9…Starve to Death…San Francisco…ESPN 9 p.m. ..Nevada (12-1) vs. Boston College (7-5)
Jan. 10…BCS Title…Glendale…ESPN 8:30 p..m. …Auburn (13-0) vs. Oregon (12-0)
Don’t bother me on any other games…like Troy vs. Ohio; Syracuse vs. Kansas State; Illinois vs. Baylor; Clemson vs. South Florida ( would be worth watching if the game was played in a warmer clime than Charlotte, if you catch my drift); Miami (Ohio) vs. Middle Tennessee State; Pitt vs. Kentucky; BYU vs. UTEP; Louisville vs. Southern Miss…I mean there are simply some hideous games where, per my previous articles, the schools will lose a ton of money for the ‘privilege’ of showing up.
–Meanwhile, Boise State President Bob Kustra is at it again. As reported by the AP, “Kustra dashed off an e-mail to fellow university presidents and conference commissioners Tuesday, one day after analysts discovered an error in the final BCS rankings. The glitch caused BCS officials to revise the computer rankings, moving Boise State up one spot to No. 10 and dropping LSU to No. 11.”
While the mistake didn’t impact Boise’s MAACO Bowl bid, it was an opportunity for Kustra to blast the BCS and the NCAA for the system’s lack of accountability.
“How many times have we heard calls for transparency on our campuses and how many times have we shared our governance and communicated with our faculties and other constituencies in transparent fashion. Yet, in intercollegiate athletics, with the NCAA standing silently on the sidelines, we allow the BCS to work its magic with no idea of how accurate its rankings are on a week to week basis.”
Turns out one of the computers used forgot to include an FCS playoff game involving Appalachian State and Western Illinois, both of whom had games against Div. I-A schools over the course of the season.
–Speaking of App State, here are this week’s Div. I-AA playoff matchups…leading to a Jan. 7 title contest.
New Hampshire at Delaware
Villanova at Appalachian State
Georgia Southern at Wofford
North Dakota State at Eastern Washington [re NDSU…someday gotta get me some Bisonwear …not to be confused with North Dakota’s Fighting Sioux, yours truly being the proud owner of Siouxwear.]
–USA TODAY had a piece on coaches’ salaries, as in 59 out of 120 Division I-A head football coaches make $1 million or more annually plus bonuses. But Fresno State’s Pat Hill is accepting a $300,000+ cut in guaranteed pay in 2011, his 15th season at the helm.
By contrast, Texas’ Mack Brown is guaranteed $5 million, Alabama’s Nick Saban will hit almost $6 million this year. Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops and Florida’s Urban Meyer will earn more than $4 million. The national average is $1.36 million.
Hill, who guided Fresno State to an 8-4 record and the 11th bowl in his tenure, will make a guaranteed $952,000 in 2010 plus he’ll receive another $46,000 from a contract with Nike and other sources. But a new three-year deal that takes effect in January will cut his salary to about $650,000.
“I didn’t do it to be a hero or a martyr. I did it because it was the right thing to do in this situation,” Hill says, pointing to layoffs, furloughs and program cuts across the cash-strapped Fresno State campus. The athletic budget was cut $1.1 million this year. Hill can also make up the difference through various incentives and he has a generous pension plan.
Mac Brown, by the way, despite a terrible 5-7 season, will receive $5 million+ guaranteed through 2016.
[Pssst….name-dropping alert. Thanks to Jill M., I met Steve Spurrier the other day in New York. He was still smarting over the SEC title game.]
Army-Navy on Saturday…
“Nov. 29, 1890, saw the birth of one of the great U.S. sports traditions, the Army-Navy football game.
“The idea for the game is credited to an Army cadet named Dennis Mahan Michie, son of a prominent U.S. Military Academy faculty member and Civil War veteran, according to the Army’s history website. Michie learned football at Lawrenceville Prep school in New Jersey and brought a love of the game with him when he entered West Point in 1888.
“Michie soon sought a way to bring about the first Army-Navy game. The Naval Academy’s football team was started in 1879 by a group of pioneering midshipmen who footed the bill for the expenses, according to the Naval Academy’s website.
“Michie was able to convince West Point’s higher-ups to allow the game once the Naval Academy had issued an official challenge. The very pride of the institution was at stake, he argued.
“The first game went poorly for the young Army squad pitted against the more-experienced Navy team, ending in a 24-0 rout.
“Michie didn’t like the result much. Neither did then-superintendent John Wilson, who authorized a trip down to Annapolis, Md., for a rematch the next year. The cadets practiced hard, acquired a good coach and won the second annual match in convincing fashion, 32-16.”
Michie was killed in 1898 in the Spanish-American War and the West Point football stadium is dedicated to him. Navy’s quarterback from that first contest, Worth Bagley, was also killed in the war.
Marvin Miller Screwed Again
A few days after Ron Santo died, Santo having been denied entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame time and time again, another man who deserves a spot in Cooperstown, longtime players union chief Marvin Miller, failed by one vote to gain election through the Veterans Committee, which released its tally on Monday. [Long-time general manager Pat Gillick was the lone man to gain enough support.]
Miller was the driving force behind the players gaining free agency and salary arbitration. This was the fifth time the 93-year-old was denied and he was not happy, issuing the following statement:
“The Baseball Hall of Fame’s vote (or non-vote) of December 5, hardly qualifies as a news story. It is repetitively negative, easy to forecast, and therefore boring.
“Many years ago those who control the Hall decided to rewrite history instead of recording it. The aim was to eradicate the history of the tremendous impact of the players’ union on the progress and development of the game as a competitive sport, as entertainment, and as an industry. The union was the moving force in bringing Major League Baseball from the 19th century to the 21st century. It brought about expansion of the game to cities that had never had a Major League team. It brought about more than a 50% increase in the number of people employed as players, coaches, trainers, managers, club presidents, attorneys and other support personnel, employees of concessionaires, stadium maintenance personnel, parking lot attendants, and more. It converted a salary structure from one with a $6,000 a year minimum salary to a $414,000 a year salary from the first day of a player’s Major League service. The union was also the moving force for changing the average Major League salary from $19,000 a year to more than $3 million a year, and the top salary from $100,000 to more than $25 million a year. The union was a major factor in increasing the annual revenue of all Major League clubs, combined – from $50 million a year before the union started in 1966 to this year’s almost $7 billion a year. That is a difficult record to eradicate – and the Hall has failed to do it.
“A long time ago, it became apparent that the Hall sought to bury me long before my time, as a metaphor for burying the union and eradicating its real influence. Its failure is exemplified by the fact that I and the union of players have received far more support, publicity, and appreciation from countless fans, former players, writers, scholars, experts in labor management relations, than if the Hall had not embarked on its futile and fraudulent attempt to rewrite history. It is an amusing anomaly that the Hall of Fame has made me famous by keeping me out.”
What a travesty. The 16-member committee was comprised of four team executives, eight Hall of Famers (including Whitey Herzog, inducted as a manager), and four writers, so it’s hard to believe any of the Hall members or writers would have voted no, but at least one apparently did.
For its part, a spokesman for the Hall said that contrary to what Miller has said, they had a year-long exhibit on labor that featured Miller back in 1998. Miller won’t be eligible again until 2013.
Don Meredith, RIP
“Life is too short to wish you were living in the past, but sometimes, it’s hard not to be a little jealous.
“My father’s generation had The Rat Pack, as the definition of cool. My generation got stuck with the Backstreet Boys. My father’s generation had Marilyn Monroe as its blond bombshell.
“And my father’s generation had Howard Cosell and ‘Dandy’ Don Meredith on its ‘Monday Night Football’ broadcasts. Who did we get? Dennis Miller and Tony Kornheiser.”
Meredith died Monday at 72 after suffering a brain hemorrhage.
Joseph Donald Meredith was born on April 10, 1938, Mount Vernon, Tex., where his parents owned a dry goods store. Starring at Southern Methodist University, the fledgling Dallas Cowboys were anxious to sign the Texas hero and he would star in Dallas over a career that spanned 1960-68, though he retired at age 30 due to injuries. He was an All-Pro the last three years and threw 135 touchdown passes.
But even though he was the league’s MVP in 1966, he had his tough moments and was booed in Dallas after the Cowboys lost heartbreakers to the Packers in 1966 and 1967, including the Ice Bowl.
[Former teammate Dan Reeves told the story of Meredith showing up for the 1966 title game with his face covered in stitches. He told everyone he’d been shopping with his wife, got tripped and went through a plate-glass window. He couldn’t play. “You could’ve heard a pin drop,” Reeves said. “Then coach Landry walked in and he peeled it off. It looked so real! He had a makeup artist put it on. We all wanted to choke him to death for scaring us like that. But we all just cracked up.”]
It was after the Ice Bowl that a bloodied Meredith poured his heart out in an interview with none other than Frank Gifford, who would later recommend Meredith to Roone Arledge of ABC. Arledge, in the planning stages for a new prime-time football program, wanted a former player with lots of personality.
Meredith, though, had already agreed to work for CBS. But after meeting Arledge, the two agreed on a contract for MNF for $30,000. He left after the 1973 season, but then returned in 1977 and stayed through the 1985 Super Bowl.
“To say that Don was an instant success would be a gross understatement. He occasionally would try his hand as an actor, but it wasn’t long before he realized that for millions of football fans, he would always be the one who ‘topped’ Howard Cosell with one-liners or a simple, ‘Come on, Howard.’”
“There was the time that Spiro Agnew, then the country’s vice president, visited the Monday Night booth. ‘I didn’t vote for you,’ Meredith told him, ‘but you do have a nice suit on.’
“Or the time when, discussing what it was like to play for Dallas legend Tom Landry, he said, ‘He’s such a perfectionist that if he were married to Dolly Parton, he’d expect her to cook.’
“Or his assessment of teammate Walt Garrison: ‘If you needed 4 yards, you’d give the ball to Garrison and he’d get you 4 yards. If you needed 20 yards, you’d give the ball to Garrison and he’d get you 4 yards.’”
“(It was Meredith’s) sparkling, fun-loving personality that seemed to define him. As a quarterback he sometimes irked the buttoned-down Cowboys coach, Tom Landry, by breaking into a country tune in the huddle, and as one of the first two color commentators on ABC’s ‘Monday Night Football’ he made his down-home ribbing of the loquacious Howard Cosell, one of his two broadcasting partners, a hallmark of the show.
“Their spirited banter helped make ‘Monday Night Football’ one of the most popular programs on television, one that soon took its place in the television pantheon, alongside classics like ‘M*A*S*H,’ in terms of longevity, ratings and cultural influence. The weekly clash between an opinionated intellectual and a freewheeling spirit drew women to watch football games and caused restaurants and movie theaters to report lower traffic during broadcasts.
“ ‘I’d just wait for Howard to make a mistake,’ Mr. Meredith said in an interview with Sports Illustrated in 2000. ‘Didn’t usually take too long.’
“In fact, the whole act was planned, by Mr. Cosell. ‘You wear the white hat, I’ll wear the black hat,’ he said to Mr. Meredith in a rehearsal before the premiere of ‘Monday Night Football’ on Sept. 21, 1970.
“Mr. Meredith offered a taste of his breezy, even risqué, humor in that first broadcast. In talking about the Cleveland Browns receiver Fair Hooker, Mr. Meredith said, ‘Fair Hooker – I haven’t met one yet.’
“He later referred to President Richard M. Nixon as Tricky Dick and made what seemed to be a joke about his own marijuana use at a Denver Broncos game. ‘Welcome to Mile High Stadium – and I really am,’ he said.”
For Cosell and Meredith, blowouts were when they had the most fun.
“The Houston Oilers were on their way to a 34-0 loss to the Oakland Raiders in 1972 when a camera zoomed in on a disgruntled fan at the Astrodome. He made a one-finger salute and Meredith quipped, ‘He thinks they’re No. 1.’”
And when a game’s outcome was officially decided, Meredith burst into what has become a trademark line for so many American sports fans, from a Willie Nelson song. “Turn out the lights, the party’s over.”
When Meredith retired from MNF, he left the limelight forever and became a recluse. But for those of us who got to enjoy him those many years, the mere mention of his name will always bring a smile.
—Derek Jeter and the Yankees officially announced on Tuesday that the shortstop had signed a $51 million, 3-year deal, with an option for a fourth. Jeter said “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t angry how some of this went.” He said he didn’t appreciate the attacks on his character and how he was made out to be the bad guy, and when you watched Jeter make these statements it was clear he just doesn’t get it…a common occurrence among today’s way overpaid athletes.
Sure, the Yankees didn’t have to play hardball in such a public fashion, but Jeter made things worse with his outrageous initial demand of $150 million for six years. [Jeter said it wasn’t a “demand,” he was just “negotiating.”] But he could have taken the negotiations underground from the start and failed to do so.
“The bottom line is that the Yankees made Jeter face reality – they’re paying him more than his market value as a shortstop who will turn 37 next June and they weren’t going to make the same mistake they made on Alex Rodriguez’s contract.
“And that probably made the captain as angry as anything.
“Jeter, as has been well-documented, can be very unforgiving when he feels he has been betrayed. And though he wouldn’t single anyone out Tuesday, he clearly feels that way about (GM Brian) Cashman challenging him during the negotiations to go get a better deal from another team if he didn’t like the Yankee offer.”
And get this. Jeter is convinced he’ll be playing beyond age 41 for the Yanks. He’s going to be fun to watch this coming season…lots of Bar Chat, I suspect.
—My Mets received some potentially bad news as the trustee in charge of distributing money to victims in the Bernie Madoff case, Irving Picard, who I praised in another column I do for going after J.P. Morgan Chase (and later HSBC), is suing the Mets and the Wilpon Family. Noooo!
You see, according to the New York Times, one Mets fund, “Mets Limited Partnership,” actually profited to the tune of over $47 million in its investments with Madoff. Picard’s actions could, if nothing else, force management to retrench even further amidst the uncertainty of what they are really on the hook for. I mean by year end we could be talking everyone making over the Major League minimum might be dumped. [I’m only being half facetious.]
–Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci on the Washington Nationals’ signing of outfielder Jayson Werth:
“I warned you a month ago: when it comes to Werth, beware paying middle-of-the order money for a guy who is not a middle-of-the-order hitter. The Washington Nationals went ahead and made the mistake of rating a very good player as a great one and a franchise cornerstone. It could be Bobby Bonilla with the Mets all over again.
“It’s great for Washington that it added Werth, a valuable player who should age well, but wrong-headed to pay $126 million over seven years and expect a complementary player to bat third or fourth, influence the clubhouse and be a face of the franchise.
“ ‘Don’t ask him to be the guy,’ one Phillies source said. ‘He’s not that kind of player. He doesn’t respond well to that. We know that.’….
“Weth never has driven in 100 runs and he is a .272 career hitter who is noticeably worse with runners in scoring position (.260) and much worse yet with two outs and runners in scoring position (.239). His splits in 2010 were even more extreme: .296 overall, but .186 with RISP and .139 with two outs and RISP.”
–Give the White Sox credit. They not only signed free-agent Adam Dunn, they also re-signed slugger Paul Konerko. Should be an exciting duo, launching 80+ homers between the two of them.
—AP Men’s Basketball Poll
1. Duke
2. Ohio State
3. Pitt
4. Kansas
5. Kansas State
6. UConn…the shocker of the early season
7. Michigan State
8. Syracuse
9. Georgetown
10. Baylor
14. San Diego State…I’d be very happy to finish the season right here, maybe No. 12, and get no worse than a 4-seed before taking the NCAA crown! Aztec Fever…catch it!
23. Notre Dame…sop to Mark R.
182. Wake Forest…but we did sign a big football recruit, a 6’4” quarterback from Lake Nona, Florida, Kevin Sousa, who had initially committed to Michigan. And what’s this? We got even more good recruits it seems. Will it be safe to put Deaconwear back on next fall?
–The NBA took over the ownership of the New Orleans Hornets after a sale to a local businessman fell through. And with the Hornets falling short of an attendance target, they will be free to move, with most speculating it could be Seattle and perhaps a bid by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who recently sold over $1 billion in company stock, thus fueling the rumor mill. The NBA has placed the value of the team at $300 million. But it’s doubtful anyone will rush to the rescue with a work stoppage looming.
—LPGA vs. PGA
Per my Bar Chat of 11/18, and then the subsequent admission by yours truly I was ignoring the LPGA Championship, which occurred afterwards….I just want to amend my money list comparisons for the LPGA and PGA Tours.
No. 30 for the LPGA finished up at $402,498 vs. PGA Tour’s $2,387,687
No. 125 for LPGA was $22,558 (unchanged) vs. PGA’s $786,977
Animal Bits…and Bites
–These days the big story is not just the Euro financial crisis or the tax cut debate in the U.S. Congress, it’s about the Jaws-like killer shark that is wreaking havoc in the waters of the Red Sea and the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, heretofore best known for being a place where Mideast peace talks have taken place.
Following the fifth attack by an oceanic whitetip shark that killed a German woman last Sunday, the Egyptian tourism minister was trying to assure all it was safe to swim in the waters, even though the woman was killed snorkeling just 20 meters from shore.
Zuhair Garan’s said that diving was being allowed. “We are advised that sharks will not attack divers. One of the main reasons for people coming here is to dive and to see sharks – not be attacked by one of them.”
The German woman’s body washed ashore after the attack, in what must have been a rather gruesome scene. “Officials said the shark had taken a chunk out of her right thigh and bitten through her right elbow.”
Egypt had just lifted the ban on swimming in parts of the area after a few days earlier, three Russians and a Ukrainian had been mauled by presumably the same shark.
The thing is, officials then killed a whitetip and mako and tried to convince all that these were the ones that had attacked the other four, but then the fatal attack occurred.
Some said the shark is being drawn to the area by Australian livestock that is being dumped overboard (once found to be dead on the journey), but the Aussies said dead sheep carcasses were not allowed to be thrown over so close to land. Others, I kid you not, have blamed Mossad, saying it is a plot to disrupt Egyptian tourism.
Biologists believe it could be a single shark whose sensory system has been damaged and it can’t tell the difference between a human and a fish. What’s also spooking some is the fact that unlike most shark attacks where the shark bites once and leaves the area, this one isn’t satisfied to rip an arm off and is seeking others right away.
British tour operators were warning their clients to stay out of the water, even as no red flag warnings were posted on the beaches Tuesday.
By the way, a diver had taken a picture of the shark responsible for the second attack which is why when authorities showed off the whitetip they had killed, everyone knew it wasn’t the same shark. Then…womp! The killer struck. He is still out there…crazed…and clearly loves Europeans.
But sounds like we have a movie in the can, right sports fans? Throw in some hot Russian and Ukrainian women, with some obligatory, you know, stuff, and add the tagline… “Based on a true story”… and it’s straight to video!
–Actually, the globe has been convulsed with a series of fatal animal attacks, and on Tuesday we had yet another.
“Elephants trample man to death”
No, not in India, but this time, “A herd of elephants trampled a fruit picker to death in a remote Malaysian jungle in the first such case in years….five men looking for fruit were surprised by a herd of up to nine elephants.”
–With release of the next All-Species List in mid-January, Dog’s hold on No. 1 is not a lock following the incident on a US Airways flight from Newark to Phoenix where a 12-pound Manchester terrier was riding in an approved carrier with its 89-year-old owner.
Mandy, the dog, became agitated, a passenger tried to calm her, and Mandy bit the fellow and then broke out of its cage, whereupon she bounded down the aisle and bit a flight attendant who tried to grab it.
While the bites weren’t serious, the pilot landed the plane in Pittsburgh. Bar Chat is trying to ascertain if Mandy had been called a certain name and that this may have precipitated the whole fracas.
“An airline passenger carried a bag filled with snakes and other animals on an eight-hour flight from Indonesia to the UAE, Abu Dhabi police have said.
“The menagerie, including four snakes, two parrots and a squirrel inside a box, was found in the transit area.”
No word on how they all got past security in Indonesia, or how the parrots and squirrel survived! Geezuz…talk about a stressful flight for them.
–Tim L. passed along a piece on the Pen-tailed Tree Shrew, who like some elephants and monkeys, appears to love his liquor. From cracked.com:
“The pen-tailed tree shrew isn’t all cuteness and innocence….it eats only one thing: The fermented nectar from the bertam palm plant of Malaysia. This nectar is naturally fermented inside the plant to have an alcohol content of around 3.8 percent, roughly equivalent to one (cheap) human beer. Now, these shrews aren’t the only animals on Earth that drink alcohol…but they consume only one thing: booze. That is their sole sustenance. They do nothing but get blasted, every hour of every day of every year of their lives.”
Basically, the pen-tailed tree shrew drinks the equivalent of “about 10 to 12 glasses of wine for a human, all in one sitting.”
Tim and I agree we’d have trouble handling such a pace. I’d also advise everyone not to be standing or having a picnic below them.
—Rolling Stone interviewed some musicians/songwriters, asking them for their favorite playlists. Here are a few.
Jimmy Webb: Songs I Wish I’d Written
1. “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling’”…Righteous Brothers
2. “Anyone Who Had a Heart”…Dionne Warwick
3. “Goin’ Out of My Head”…Little Anthony and the Imperials
4. “Gentle on My Mind”…Glen Campbell
5. “Baby I Need Your Loving”…The Four Tops
6. “Penny Lane”…The Beatles
7. “Crazy”…Willie Nelson
8. “The Boxer”…Paul Simon
9. “Let It Be Me”…Everly Brothers
10. “These Dreams”…Heart
Ozzy Osbourne: The Beatles
“I feel so privileged to have been on this planet when the Beatles were born,” says Ozzy. “They are and will forever be the greatest band in the world. I remember talking to Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols. He said, ‘I didn’t like the Beatles.’ I said, ‘There is something f—ing wrong with you.’”
1. “She Loves You”*
2. “I Want to Hold Your Hand”
3. “I Am the Walrus”
4. “A Day in the Life”
5. “Hey Jude”
6. “Help!”
7. “Eleanor Rigby”
8. “Something”
9. “Strawberry Fields Forever”
10. “The Long and Winding Road”
* “This is the one that sucked me in,” says Ozzy. “ I was a 14-year-old kid with this blue transistor radio. I heard ‘She Loves You,’ and it floored me. It was as if you knew all the colors in the world. Then someone shows you a brand-new color, and you go, ‘F—in’ hell, man.”
Brian Wilson: The Beatles
“The first real mind-blowing Beatles record I heard was Rubber Soul. I was so blown away that I went to my piano and wrote some of the melody of ‘God Only Knows.’ It wasn’t about competition – it was a mutual-admiration thing.”
1. “Hey Jude”
2. “Get Back”
3. “All My Loving”
4. “Let It Be”
5. “She’s Leaving Home”
6. “I Want to Hold Your Hand”
7. “She Loves You”
8. “With a Little Help From My Friends”
9. “Here, There and Everywhere”
10. “Good Day Sunshine”
Tom Petty: The Best of the British Invasion
“In the mid-Sixties, the British had a more romantic view of rock & roll than the States did,” says Petty. “We didn’t take it as seriously. The energy that came with the British Invasion was the difference – these guys brought the guitar to the fore. You weren’t getting guitar off the Shirelles.”
1. “I Want to Hold Your Hand” b/w “I Saw Her Standing There”… “The Beatles were superior to everything. This came on the radio, and overnight everything was different. If you weren’t there, it’s hard to believe. But everything changed instantly. In ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’ John and Paul are singing the lead vocal in unison. It almost makes another voice – just a sonic pleasure.”
2. “You Really Got Me”…The Kinks
3. “We’ve Gotta Get Out of This Place”…The Animals
4. “She’s Not There”…The Zombies
5. “When You Walk in the Room”…The Searchers
6. “I’m Alive”…The Hollies
7. “I’m a Man”…The Yardbirds
8. “Anyway You Want It”…Dave Clark Five… “They were badass. This song sounds like a runaway train, with that sax honking down low. That was a big step, to blow the echo out that heavy. I’d go crazy every time I heard it.”
9. “I Can’t Explain”…The Who
10. “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”…The Rolling Stones… “It’s hard to talk about ‘Satisfaction’ because everyone knows it so well. But it’s a great moment in rock history. Just the phrase is worth a million bucks.”
–Did you see who is opening for Kid Rock and his 26-city Born Free tour? My man Jamey Johnson. Says Rock, “Jamey is one of the greatest guys with the purest [expletive] heart.”
On the tour, Rock said he’ll have more reflective moments – for acoustic numbers, he’ll take the stage with just a guitar.
“The plan is to definitely strip it down,” he says. “And have strippers.”
–The full last interview with John Lennon, three days before he was assassinated, is being released by Rolling Stone this week for the first time. Lennon said in part:
“These critics with the illusions they’ve created about artists – it’s like idol worship. They only like people when they’re on their way up…I cannot be on the way up again.
“What they want is dead heroes, like Sid Vicious and James Dean. I’m not interested in being a dead [expletive] hero…So forget ‘em, forget ‘em.”
Top 3 songs for the week of 12/6/80: #1 “Lady” (Kenny Rogers…ughh) #2 “More Than I Can Say” (Leo Sayer…ditto) #3 “Another One Bites The Dust” (Queen…did better)…and…#4 “Woman In Love” (Barbra Streisand) #5 “Master Blaster (Jammin’)” (Stevie Wonder) #6 “(Just Like) Starting Over” (John Lennon) #7 “Love On The Rocks” (Neil Diamond) #8 “Hungry Heart” (Bruce Springsteen) #9 “I’m Coming Out” (Diana Ross) #10 “Dreaming” (Cliff Richard)
College Basketball Quiz Answer: Top five men’s winning percentages, 2000-2009.
Duke .829 (291-60)
Kansas .803 (282-69)
Gonzaga .800 (264-66)
Utah State .764 (252-78)
Memphis .759 (267-85)
