Golf Quiz: Name the six foreign golfers in the top ten of the latest world rankings. Bonus points for knowing the top five, overall. Answer below.
Post-Mortem…the Jets et al
Time just didn’t allow me to get into some aspects of Sunday’s games when I posted the last chat, and the commentary from others had yet to be written. Suffice it to say, the Jets game seemed over after the Steelers outrushed them 135 yards to one in the first half. And then when the Jets mounted their comeback, us fans will forever wonder what the heck offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer was thinking when, with 1st and goal from the Pittsburgh 2 and down 24-10, he passed on second and third down and was stuffed on fourth with LaDainian Tomlinson, not the more powerful Shonn Greene. So it’s now been 42 years since the Jets last went to a Super Bowl…and counting.
As for Steelers-Packers, Green Bay is favored, surprisingly to some of us, by 3 (the line has been shifting from 2 ½ to 3), the narrowest spread for a Super Bowl in 27 years. The pick of Las Vegas, incidentally, has won 32 of 44 games.
Yes, it should be good, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to listen to any of the pre-game stuff. This is the longest two weeks in sports.
“The Jets tried to seem swaggering, even in the cold and forbidding environment of Heinz Field. The game-time temperature was 17 degrees with a wind chill of 5 degrees, and the field was a dead looking dull brown-green. Outside of the stadium, ice floes drifted by in the Ohio River, which was the color of iron. Jets receiver Braylon Edwards announced his toughness by jogging out for his warm-up in no socks, no sleeves, and with his jersey tucked up under his pads exposing a bare midriff….But maybe the Jets should have dressed warmer, judging by the way they were about to get run over.
“The Steelers had the real substance to back up their own swagger. They are a tight and deeply experienced bunch in big games: 11 of their starters played for the Super Bowl XL champions five years ago. They basically lined up and charged at the Jets like a team of snorting bulls, issuing great white plumes of exhalations from their mouths in the cold air. They were backed by an immense noise from the crowd of 66,662, which made Heinz Field into a dark, frenzied-seeming hive. Fans swathed in black and gold issued a relentless hum of boos and swirled their yellow Terrible Towels.
“When they opened the game with a grinding 15-play scoring drive that ate up 9:09 of the first quarter, it was just a sample of how they would wear the Jets out all game. There went Rashard Mendenhall, bouncing off tacklers like a bumper car, picking up third-effort yards. Then here came Ben Roethlisberger, like a tree that had grown legs, high-stepping into the end zone just before the two-minute warning in the second quarter, for a two-yard touchdown. That put the Jets at their largest playoff deficit ever under Ryan. And it was about to get much worse.
“On the next series, the Jets were simply overrun. The protection for Sanchez collapsed like a sand castle wrecked by an oncoming wave, Sanchez fumbled when Taylor blind-sided him, and cornerback William Gay scooped up the ball at the 19 and raced it into the end zone. A shaken up Sanchez lay on the field huddled in a fetal position.
“Sanchez may have been tempted to stay there. To his credit, he climbed back to his feet, and it was only thanks to his dash and some spearlike throws that the Jets made the fourth quarter interesting.
“But in the end the difference was that the Jets are a team still seeking enough muscle to back up their big words, having now lost twice consecutively in the AFC title game, while the Steelers are a fully matured force, going to their third Super Bowl in six years.”
Jay Cutler
The Chicago Bears announced on Monday that quarterback Jay Cutler did indeed have a knee injury and that’s why he didn’t come back into the game against the Packers. Bears coach Lovie Smith said Cutler suffered a sprain of the medial collateral ligament in his left knee.
“MCL sprain. That’s what the injury was. We knew that. We had an idea at the time that that’s what it was, and that’s what we’re saying now. If things had gone our way and we had made it to the Super Bowl, it would have been questionable if he could have gone in.”
Bears legend Mike Ditka said on a sports radio show, “I don’t know if anybody can play the game when they’re not 100 percent or not well. I can’t speak for Jay Cutler. I can’t speak for anybody. Myself, I would have had to have been paralyzed to come out of the game. I don’t want to say that word. I would have had to be completely knocked out to come out of that football game.”
So the nation saw Cutler just standing on the sidelines after completing 6 of 13 passes for 80 yards early on and the Fox sideline reporter was saying no one, including Cutler, knew how he got hurt. Lovie Smith said Cutler wanted to go back in. Opposing players tweeted derogatory comments about Cutler’s toughness. Teammate Brian Urlacher, though, said of his QB, “He’s tough as hell. He’s one of the toughest guys on our football team….He goes out there and plays his ass off every Sunday.”
“The only thing older than the Bears-Packers rivalry is the Bears’ failure over most of that time at quarterback. Great linebackers, running backs and linemen the Bears have plenty of; quarterbacks are another matter entirely. And perhaps never has there been more despair in Chicago over quarterback incompetence than in the wake of the loss to the Packers in the NFC Championship Game on Sunday. Forbidding the mention of the name Jay Cutler may be the best way to cope with winter. Only a Bears quarterback could stink out the joint and then get worse while sitting on the sideline.
“Look, you’re not going to read in this space any suggestion from me that Cutler’s knee injury wasn’t serious enough to send him to the sideline or that Cutler was a complete baby for not going back on the field with a trip to the Super Bowl at stake. But any credible analysis of the NFC Championship Game, especially of the Bears’ performance, has to start with Cutler, the pivotal figure in the game whether we’re talking about his first-half incompetence or his second-half absence.
“The absence, without question, infuriated more people. In 30 years of covering professional football I’ve never seen a front-line player crushed by his peers the way Cutler was Sunday in real time….
“Deion Sanders said, ‘I never question a player’s injury, but I do question a player’s heart.’….
“During a postgame radio show, a person closer to home, Steve McMichael, perhaps the toughest of the 1985 Bears, said that Cutler, for his own sake, needed to be legitimately injured….
“A lineman who played more than a dozen years and won multiple Super Bowls told me after the game that he was stunned Cutler was standing on the sideline, not on crutches, receiving no treatment while his team played on. And, the player said, what made it worse was that Cutler didn’t appear to be counseling his backup, Todd Collins, or (Caleb) Hanie….[Ed. That’s what stood out to me]
“(And) we don’t hear those Peyton Manning-like stories about Cutler, how he comes early to practice and stays late and works systematically and demonically at getting better. What we hear, even from teammates in both Denver and Chicago, is that Cutler is an arrogant, pouting player who rates himself quite highly….And because it’s believed wholly that Cutler is a guy with a big arm, an overrated sense of himself and little if any heart, precious few people in Cutler’s own fraternity had any sympathy for him during the game.”
“(NFL analyst and former player Mark Schlereth) railed after Fox television cameras caught Hanie leafing through photos after throwing an interception that was returned for a touchdown, with Cutler positioned nearby, lending no insight.
“Schlereth also wondered why there appeared to be no medical treatment of Cutler, not even an ice bag to the sore knee. ‘Did everybody throw in the towel?’ he asked. ‘To me, it says [Cutler] tapped out. I know he’s got a sprain and there are varying degrees, but a first-degree MCL sprain by NFL parlance is a boo-boo.’….
“Fans have been merciless, posting a picture of Cutler in panties on the Internet, and bashing him for cutting an uninspiring, statue-like appearance in such a huge game when emotion should be oozing – as it did from Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who could be seen spitting blood from his mouth after being struck in the facemask, and kept playing.
“Terry Bradshaw threw a winning touchdown pass in Super Bowl X to Lynn Swann just as Dallas defensive tackle Larry Cole bore down to deliver a hit that would knock the Pittsburgh quarterback unconscious.
“Washington’s Joe Theismann spit out three front teeth after being hit in a 1982 game against the New York Giants and stayed in the game.
“Y.A. Tittle and Johnny Unitas stamped the NFL’s reputation for warrior efforts by failing to yield, bloody body parts and all. And Brett Favre continued the tradition proudly, starting nearly 300 consecutive games despite a long list of injuries.
“ ‘I understand the vitriolic acid being spilled because this is a gladiator sport,’ said Schlereth, who underwent 20 knee surgeries as a Denver Broncos offensive lineman. ‘Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning and Brett Favre finish that game. That’s what bothers guys about [Cutler]. It looked bad…He looked disinterested from the word go…’
“ESPN analyst Trent Dilfer, who was the winning quarterback in Super Bowl XXXV when the Baltimore Ravens beat the Giants, 34-7, is not surprised by the outrage.
“ ‘Did he show the passion, the fight, the will they feel they deserve to see? Is he fighting as hard as he should?’ Dilfer asked. ‘A complete sacrifice of will for your team – passion – is the expectation.’
“Dilfer recalled the words of former Jets defensive lineman Dennis Byrd, paralyzed after being hit in a game: ‘The guys who are respected most by the players and fans are the guys whose will overcame their bodies shutting down and their mind saying no. A champion’s will pushes through that.’”
Others, such as Dick Butkus and Joe Theismann, defended Cutler. But here’s what I fall back on. Michael Wilbon hit the nail on the head. Jay Cutler is not a well-liked guy to begin with. He’s “an arrogant, pouting player,” and the fact he wasn’t even trying to help Haine on the sidelines speaks volumes.
Foot-Ball Bits
—Green Bay entered the season as the sixth favorite to win the Super Bowl behind Indianapolis, New Orleans, Dallas, San Diego and New England, with odds of 10-1. Pittsburgh was 11th among the 32 teams at 20-1 to win the Big One.
–The collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the NFL Players Association and the owners expires March 4, at which point there is either a new CBA or a lockout.
But I didn’t know how the April 28-30 NFL draft works if there is a lockout and the New York Post’s Bart Hubbuch explains:
“This year’s draft is a go whether there is a lockout or not because it is part of the existing CBA and excluded from the negotiations on a new agreement.”
–Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie, he of the foul mouth, went off on the state of negotiations in the NFL (Cromartie being particularly concerned because he is a free agent).
“I mean, you’ve got our head union reps acting like a—holes, and they got their guys acting like a—holes. They just need to get their [stuff] together and get it done.
–Meanwhile, among the many decisions the Jets have to make is whether to keep both receivers who are free agents, Braylon Edwards and Santonio Holmes. Seeing as they can only afford one, I’m hoping they keep Edwards. Regarding Holmes, the New York Post’s Mark Cannizzaro talked to a prominent NFL coach, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“The problem you have with Santonio Holmes and Braylon Edwards is they can be such a—holes if they don’t get the ball that you have to get them the ball just to have order and sanity.”
–The Steelers-Jets game was the most-watched AFC championship game in history, 54.9 million viewers, CBS said; pretty impressive seeing as the previous most-watched AFC title game was way back in 1982, Cincinnati vs. San Diego. Part of the explanation for the high ratings was the fact it was an evening game, but even Packers-Bears was seen by an estimated 51.9 million, according to Fox.
–Wonder what the cost of a Super Bowl ticket is? The face value of tickets in the upper bowl of Cowboys Stadium is $600 to $800. Lower bowl seats are $900, while club seats go for $1,200. But of course ticket prices soar in the aftermarket, with some listed on StubHub at over $20,000 for a lower-level 50-yardline seat, which is incredibly absurd.
As to how the tickets are distributed, Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times writes:
“The NFL distributes 17.5% of the tickets to each of the Steelers and Packers; 5% to the Cowboys, the host team; 1.2% to each of the remaining 29 teams; and 25.2% to the league.”
Jack LaLanne, RIP
Talk about an American original, LaLanne, the founder of the modern physical fitness movement, died of complications from pneumonia at the age of 96.
When LaLanne was 15, his mother forced him to go to a lecture by a nutritionist, Paul Bragg, because mom was concerned Jack was a “sugarholic.”
“I was demented! I was psychotic! It was like a horror movie!” LaLanne said of this time.
Bragg confronted young Jack as to what he ate. “He said, ‘Jack, you are a walking garbage can,’” LaLanne recalled.
LaLanne took Bragg’s message to heart and by all accounts, as incredible as this may seem, he never had another sweet from that day forward, nor did he drink a single cup of coffee or tea.
He started working out with a passion and all his maladies disappeared. When he was 22 he opened what is believed to be the first health club in the nation, in Oakland; LaLanne’s Physical Culture Studio.
Business started slow but then he would pick out kids from high school he knew he could transform and word spread. By 1952 he had a television program in Oakland and he used stunts to market himself, such as in 1954, age 40, when he swam the length of the Golden Gate Bridge – underwater (with two air tanks). Also in his 40s, he swam from Alcatraz to Fisherman’s Wharf wearing handcuffs; and he once swam the Golden Gate Channel while towing a 2,500-lb. cabin cruiser.
By 1959, “The Jack LaLanne Show” was aired nationwide. Personally, I, like many kids in this era, was taken with the guy, and his dog. “His short-sleeved jumpsuit showing off his impressive biceps, his props often limited to a broomstick, a chair and a rubber cord, Mr. LaLanne pranced through his exercise routines, most notably his fingertip push-ups.” [Richard Goldstein / New York Times]
87-year-old Bob Barker of “Price is Right” fame was a good friend.
“He never lost enthusiasm for life and physical fitness,” Barker told the AP. “I saw him in about 2007 and he still looked remarkably good.”
LaLanne once said, “The only way you can hurt the body is not use it. Inactivity is the killer and, remember, it’s never too late.”
This is what LaLanne ate every day; two meals and no snacks.
“Breakfast, following his morning workout, usually included several hard-boiled egg whites, a cup of broth, oatmeal with soy milk and seasonal fruit. For dinner he took his wife, Elaine, to restaurants that knew what he wanted: a salad with raw vegetables and egg whites along with fish – often salmon – and a mixture of red and white wine. He sometimes allowed himself a roast turkey sandwich, but never a cup of coffee.” [Richard Goldstein / New York Times]
I read this, admitting I’m a total slug in the winter, and I know I’m screwed.
—AP Men’s College Basketball Poll
1. Ohio State*
2. Pitt…then lost to Notre Dame at home on Monday
3. Duke
4. San Diego State*
5. UConn
6. Kansas
7. Texas
8. Villanova
t-9. Syracuse…then lost to Seton Hall at home, 90-68! Yikes.
t-9. BYU
SDSU at BYU, Wed. night. 10:00 p.m. Be there.
You know what I just noticed? Cornell is 4-12. This is the same Cornell that went to the Sweet 16 last year in going 29-5. Granted, they lost their coach to Boston College and key players obviously graduated, but still…
And how far has Wake Forest fallen? I just looked up the Sagarin rankings and as of Wednesday, Wake was no. 249, behind 248 Louisiana Tech, 247 Bethune-Cookman, and 246 St. Francis-NY. Johnny Mac went to St. Francis and I should have been more sensitive as to when I informed him of the Terriers being ranked higher than the Deacs because he went into a state of shock and hasn’t come out of it yet. I guess I owe him a case of premium (which is Yuengling in his parts…the domestic that tastes like premium) just on principle.
“The six conferences with guaranteed berths in college football’s Bowl Championship Series will get $145.2 million, almost six times what is paid to five non-qualifier leagues.
“The $24.72 million going to the non-qualifying conferences that share revenue from the postseason bowl games is a record, about $720,000 more than the mark set a year ago. The payments for the BCS conferences jumped $30 million, from $115.2 million.”
TCU’s appearance in the Rose Bowl juiced the non-qualifiers. The Big Ten, SEC and Pac-10 each received $27.2 million apiece as each sent 2 teams to BCS bowls. The ACC, Big East and Big 12 receive $21.2 million.
—A UConn donor, Robert G. Burton, who has given more than $7 million to the Huskies’ football program, wants a recent $3 million gift returned and his name taken off a new on-campus facility because he can’t stand the athletic director and he’s upset over former football coach Randy Edsall leaving. But get this, Burton said he had asked to be “kept in the loop” on the hiring process for Edsall’s replacement when he left to go to Maryland. Burton didn’t support the hiring of replacement Paul Pasqualoni. Of course it’s guys like Burton who Cam Newton’s father hoped to deal with. The whole process sucks.
–Fun PGA Tour event this week at Torrey Pines as both Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson make their 2011 debuts. Tiger is being paired with Rocco Mediate (along with Anthony Kim) the first two rounds in a rematch of their titanic 2008 U.S. Open battle at Torrey.
And just a note on last week’s Bob Hope Classic, which I didn’t get a chance to write up. Venezuelan Jhonattan (sic) Vegas won in just his fifth event in a three-way playoff, thus becoming the first from his country to capture a PGA Tour title. I’m dying to hear what Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said after learning this, seeing as how he has been expropriating golf courses all over his country and giving the land to the poor.
Speaking of the Hope tournament, despite its great history it is one of only three tour events without a title sponsor and the prize money is greater than only seven others. Couple that with the 5-round format, four of which are played with amateurs, and only four of the top 50 in the world rankings played last week.
Bill Dwyre of the Los Angeles Times had the following observation:
“The Hope was once a tour flagship event. Movie stars and celebrities showed up in droves. TV loved the blue skies and palm trees, and so did large TV audiences, much of them watching from snow piles back East. The Hope and the Rose Bowl may be responsible for 20% of the current population of California.”
I never thought of it that way, but I bet Dwyre isn’t too far off. As for how the Hope can manage to survive without a sponsor, Dwyre fills in the details regarding the unique format that pays the bills sponsors normally pick up.
“The Hope charges between $8,000 and $25,000 per amateur to play four days, depending on the player’s status. The $25,000 players are part of an elite group willing to pay that for the benefit of the Hope charities. With 384 amateurs – about 340 paying and the rest celebrities – the tournament generates close to its $5 million purse on the amateurs alone.
–As reported by ESPN.com, John Stone, a car salesman in suburban Chicago, claims he was fired on Monday when he refused to remove a Green Bay Packers tie, saying he wore it to honor his late grandmother, who was a big Green Bay fan. His boss, Jerry Roberts, asked him to take it off three times and when Stone refused, Roberts fired him. “If he loves the tie more than his job, he’s welcome to keep wearing it – elsewhere,” Roberts told the Chicago Sun-Times. Both are extreme jerks and I have a hard time buying that Stone wore it for his late grandmother.
—Milton Levine passed away. He was 97. And who was Mr. Levine? He was the creator of Uncle Milton’s Ant Farm!
“The creation of a toy that would become an American classic was triggered in 1956 by a Fourth of July parade of ants at a Studio City picnic.
“While gazing at the industrious insects, novelty-toy entrepreneur Milton Levine was transported back to childhood and his uncle’s farm, where he collected ants in jars and watched them ‘cavort,’ Levine told the Times in 2002.
“ ‘We should make an antarium,’ he recalled announcing.”
It was the fad-crazy 1950s and he would go on to sell 20 million in his lifetime. Initially it sold for just $1.98.
“Because ants won’t survive on the store shelf, they are obtained by mailing in a coupon that comes in the box, which added to the toy’s mystique,” said toy historian Tim Walsh.
“Part of the thrill of the ant farm was that you had to wait and check your mail every day for the 25 or so ants to arrive in a vial.”
Actually, the original glue for the ant farms was toxic to the ants, which was the original genesis of the Environmental Protection Agency (not really, but it makes for a better story).
Levine was born in Pittsburgh, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia. He led a platoon that built bridges in France and Germany, plus there is this: “He met his future wife, Mauricette, when the French citizen was playing classical piano at a USO in Normandy.”
“After the war, Levine followed the advice of a newsletter that said the best businesses to go into were toys or bobby pins, both of which were in short supply, he later recalled.”
—“Big George” Crowe died. He was 89. Long ago, George Crowe was a professional basketball teammate of Jackie Robinson, but Crowe, a former Negro League ballplayer, was 26 when Robinson reached the major leagues with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and felt like he still had a shot himself. Crowe received it in 1952 at the age of 31 and he had some good moments with the Boston/Milwaukee Braves, Cincinnati and St. Louis until his retirement in 1961. In ‘57 for the Reds, the slugging left-handed batter and first baseman hit 31 homers and drove in 92. The following year he made his lone All-Star team on the way to hitting .275 with 61 ribbies. For his career, Crowe hit .270 and had 81 homers and 299 RBI. In 1960, he hit his 11th pinch-hit home run which was the major league record at that point.
Before signing with the Braves in 1949, he played in the Negro Leagues for the New York Black Yankees and New York Cubans, and he also played for the Harlem Renaissance, an independent black professional b-ball team. But it was with another pro basketball team, the Los Angeles Red Devils, which folded after one year, that Crowe played with Robinson.
–Follow-up to some of the Barry Larkin fans wondering how their boy can’t be in the Hall of Fame after his first two years on the ballot, while I say, relax, he’s in there in another 2 or 3. I just saw that Jimmie Foxx, only one of the best hitters in baseball history, didn’t get in until his 7th year. The great Al Simmons didn’t get in until his 8th on the ballot.
And did you know that Foxx is buried at Flagler Memorial Park right next to Miami International Airport? So next time you have some time between flights, or there’s a delay, hop in a cab and pay your respects. Just understand he liked to imbibe a bit so bring two beers, one for you and one for him.
–Yippee! The Mets promoted Wally Backman to manage the Double-A team in Binghamton. Hang in there, Wally. You’ll get your shot yet.
But former Met Darryl Strawberry made the New York papers Wednesday for his statement that his former teammate, Backman, should have been selected over Terry Collins for the job running the big club. Why?
“Because he played on the ’86 Mets. Were you around when ’86 happened? He was one of our fiery players, a gutty type of guy who did everything. He would scrap, get on base and played the game the right way. When you see guys playing the game the right way, you know they understand the game.”
–This is a story from a few weeks ago I’ve been meaning to pass on, via Will Pavia of the London Times, concerning Vladimir Putin and the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Nic Iljine talks of an incident in The Hedonist’s Guide to Art, a collection of essays by curators, collectors and critics. As Iljine tells Pavia:
“We got Putin to open this big show of ours in September (2005). We timed it to parallel the United Nations General Assembly.”
Putin addressed a black-tie audience at the Guggenheim, after which he joined the director of the Foundation, Thomas Krens, for tea in his office. Krens noted that visiting Russians often left gifts, and pulled out a large wooden case with a vodka-filled glass sculpture shaped like an AK-47 rifle, as an example.
“Mr. Iljine says that the Russian leader held the sculpture for a time while talking – ‘then put the thing back into its wooden case and handed it to one of his bodyguards, who proceeded to exit the office at lightning speed with our vodka-gun tucked neatly under his arm.”
Iljine says: “I was about to scream ‘Stop!’ but thought better of it, and kept shtoom.”
Iljine was asked if there was any way Putin misinterpreted it as a gift. “His English is good enough.”
This wasn’t the first time Putin had acted in this fashion. That same year, a few months earlier, Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, was at a forum in St. Petersburg and showed Putin his diamond-encrusted 2005 Super Bowl ring. Putin put it on, then slipped it into his pocket and walked away!
–Can we talk? Monday night I caught the last 15 minutes of “Jersey Shore” as it led into “Skins,” which I vowed to watch. I last saw “Jersey Shore” over a year ago and, well, it’s kind of obvious what I thought because I haven’t watched it since. But it turns out the 15 minutes I saw the other night were critical, critical, I tell ya, because I had read earlier about J- Woww’s (Jenni’s) problems with her ex-boyfriend taking nude photos from her hard drive and some judge said Tom better not release them or he’ll be in deep trouble.
Huh, I thought at the time. But on the program us viewers got to see how Tom, the dirtball, stole everything from Jenni’s home. Very exciting.
Actually, I didn’t mean to imply we got to see Tom in action stealing everything. Jenni and Snooki went to check on J-Woww’s dogs and it’s then we learned Tom stole Jenni’s favorite watch and had broken into her computer.
And that’s the last time I watch “Jersey Shore,” sports fans!
Good gawd! Within five minutes ‘Tea,’ the lesbian (I had to read this part later in the Daily News’ recap) was, err, you know, with another high school girl she picked up at a club where Tea had used fake ID. I mean, seriously, what the hell is this on TV for? And the kids at this particular school are such a-holes and totally unlikeable (unlike say “Room 222” to date myself severely) that I’ll be damned if I’m catching anymore of it.
OK, to fess up I only watched about 20 minutes before turning it off.
And that’s your first, and last, “Jersey Shore” / “Skins” update.
–As for adults partying down, the New York Post’s Page Six reported that Jets QB Mark Sanchez, after flying back from Sunday’s game in Pittsburgh, arrived at New York’s Juliet Supper Club (Chelsea) at 3 a.m., with teammate Braylon Edwards already there. Edwards and his buddies drank tequila shots and he ordered a $1,100 bottle of Ace of Spades Champagne [Ed: I hate champagne], while Sanchez and a male friend “headed straight to the bar and knocked back a shot with the attractive brunette bartender.” After chatting with Edwards briefly, Sanchez “was back at the bar flirting with the bartender, a gorgeous South American girl, busty with long, dark reddish hair….He looked pretty enamored.” Sounds like I might have been [oh, never mind…].
Anyway, Sanchez went home alone but the two had exchanged numbers. Edwards’ bill came to around $2,500. Braylon, after his DUI in September, had a chauffeur-driven Escalade take him home.
Following the Jets…yet another free feature of Bar Chat.
Top 3 songs for the week of 1/30/65 (as I backtrack to pick up this year from before): #1 “Downtown” (Petula Clark…the one and only ‘Pet’) #2 “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” (The Righteous Brothers) #3 “The Name Game” (Shirley Ellis)…and…#4 “Love Potion Number Nine” (The Searchers) #5 “Hold What You’ve Got” (Joe Tex) #6 “How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You” (Marvin Gaye) #7 “This Diamond Ring” (Gary Lewis and The Playboys…still say they were an underrated group…it wasn’t all Daddy’s influence!) #8 “Come See About Me” (The Supremes) #9 “Keep Searchin’ (We’ll Follow The Sun)” (Del Shannon) #10 “All Day And All Of The Night” (The Kinks)
Golf Quiz Answer: World Golf Rankings…
1. Lee Westwood, England 8.69
2. Martin Kaymer, Germany 8.09
3. Tiger Woods 7.13
4. Graeme McDowell, Northern Ireland 6.42
5. Steve Stricker 6.02
6. Phil Mickelson 5.99
7. Rory McIlroy, Northern Ireland 5.93
8. Jim Furyk 5.65
9. Paul Casey, England 5.63
10. Luke Donald, England 5.42
Next Bar Chat, Monday.
Jan. 28, 1986…the space shuttle Challenger, just one minute 13 seconds after liftoff, is engulfed in a fireball of leaked hydrogen fuel, breaks apart and falls to Earth. Among the dead was schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, the first “teacher in space.” Schoolchildren around the country were watching. I was working in Manhattan at the time, heard of the accident, and went to a bar to get to a television and like everyone else was in a state of shock.
President Ronald Reagan was scheduled to give his State of the Union Address that very evening. Instead he addressed the nation on the tragedy.
We’ve grown used to wonders in this century. It’s hard to dazzle us. But for 25 years the United States space program has been doing just that. We’ve grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we’ve only just begun. We’re still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.
And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle’s takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It’s all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It’s all part of taking a chance and expanding man’s horizons. The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted: it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we’ll continue to follow them…
I’ve always had great faith in and respect for our space program, and what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don’t hide our space program. We don’t keep secrets and cover things up [Ed. referring to the Evil Empire…the Soviet Union]. We do it all up front and in public. That’s the way freedom is, and we wouldn’t change it for a minute. We’ll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here: our hopes and our journeys continue. I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA or who worked on this mission and tell them: “Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it.”
There’s a coincidence today. On this day 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, ‘He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.’ Well, today we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake’s, complete.
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’
