Uniform Numbers Quiz: USA TODAY Sports Weekly recently conducted a poll on uniform numbers and who was ranked as the ultimate to wear each one. So, for example, Ozzie Smith was selected as the ultimate to wear No. 1 by a leading 46%. Give me the leading vote getter for Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12 and 13. [3 different sports are represented.] Answer below.
College Basketball
AP Men’s Poll…heading into the tournament
1. Ohio State
2. Kansas
3. Duke
4. Pitt
5. Notre Dame
6. San Diego State
7. North Carolina
8. Texas
9. UConn
10. BYU
Women’s Poll
1. UConn
2. Stanford
3. Baylor
4. Tennessee
5. Xavier
19. Marist
[In the women’s tourney, the first four above are the No. 1-seeds in the 64-team field (as is the case with the men’s field). What cracks me up is Marist is ranked #19, so you’d expect them to get a 5- or 6-seed, but noooo. They’re a 10. If I was a Red Fox, I’d be very upset. Of course if the late Redd Foxx was the Red Foxes’ mascot, every other word would be bleeped….just sayin’.]
–Is Duke’s Kyrie Irving ready to play after being out since Dec. 4 when he injured the big toe on his right foot? Since there is no way Irving is staying around for four years there was no reason to redshirt him and now he’s ready to go. So you figure if he gets a few minutes in Duke’s first two games to get his feet wet, by Sweet Sixteen time he should be ready to make a significant contribution. Unfortunately for me that means if San Diego State keeps advancing, they’ll face a reinforced Blue Devils’ squad, assuming my dream of Oakland making it to the Elite Eight, and defeating Duke, doesn’t pan out.
–I’m not one to give a damn about the final at-large bids and those who were left out, like Virginia Tech for a second straight season (on the bubble five straight, but the last two snubs were the worst). The Hokies, after beating then No.1 Duke, inexcusably lost to Boston College at home by 15 the next game and then lost to Clemson (who got in with an identical 9-7 conference mark). If Va. Tech beats B.C., they’re dancin’. They didn’t get it done.
But it was kind of interesting to see Colorado not get a bid after beating Kansas State three times, even as K-State received a 5-seed! [That’s what’s really screwed up in this case.] And Alabama got nixed, even though they beat Georgia twice; Georgia getting in. Actually, I didn’t think either of these two deserved a bid.
You see, there was an issue I didn’t bring up last time due to time constraints and that is Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith, the selection committee chairman and a man already severely tainted because of his role in the Jim Tressel mess.
“The problem is accountability – specifically the committee’s lack of it. Without it, we have no way of knowing whether the process was fair or not.
“Through the years, the tournament selection committee, especially whomever is chairman, has mastered the art of the non-answer. Ask a committee member whether the sun will set in the West today, and you will be told that a very careful study will be done on that question and the committee will do a great job coming up with the answer and that the sun is extremely well-coached but it may or may not have enough votes to set in the West.
“This year’s committee chairman, Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith, who probably should have resigned that position last week to tend to his day job in Columbus, wouldn’t answer the simplest and most obvious questions Sunday night.
“Why didn’t Virginia Tech make the field? Smith’s answer, once you filtered out all the babble…The Hokies didn’t get enough votes.
“When Smith was asked whether the ACC tournament championship game between Duke and North Carolina had decided who got the final No. 1 seed, he went off on a body-of-work tangent [Ed. stream of crapola] and claimed one game didn’t decide the last No. 1 seed.
“Does he seriously think anyone believes that? Is he saying that if North Carolina had beaten Duke for the second time in the past eight days and had lost one game in two months, Duke still would have been the last No. 1 seed? If so, then the committee is doing an even worse job than people think.
“The committee’s hypocrisy is in trying to keep all its decision-making processes secret while at the same time claiming ‘transparency.’….
“If members of Congress have to vote publicly on tax increases or whether or not to go to war, why in the world shouldn’t tournament selection committee members have to explain why they voted for or against teams?….
“Anyone familiar with the term ‘Watergate’ knows the cover-up is always worse than the crime. After the past week, Smith should know better than anyone. (See: Tressel, Jim).”
Feinstein has a great point. He’s also too kind to Smith. I mean did you see this inarticulate clown on Sunday? The whole time I was thinking, “How the hell did this guy get to become an athletic director at a major school like Ohio State?” You just knew Clark Kellogg and Jim Nantz, who interviewed Smith for CBS Sports, were thinking the same thing…and Kellogg went to OSU himself. [Of course some would say Kellogg isn’t exactly George Will, or Barack Obama, but I digress.]
Speaking of Obama, I do like that we have a president who is a great sports fan. I imagine some will cry, “With everything else going on in the world and with his supposed focus on jobs, jobs, jobs…how does he have time to fill out his tournament bracket?” These will also be the first to bitch when Obama hits the links this spring, though I must say there is a fine line here. Once every two or three weeks, on a weekend, no problemo. Doing so during the week, major issue, by my way of thinking.
[Yeah, I know how George W. Bush refused to go golfing during a time of war, but I for one wish he had. It certainly didn’t help that he abstained.]
Anyway, what I have a real problem with is Obama once again picking all four No. 1 seeds (I have three No. 2s and a 1). I mean, c’mon. What a wus. [Obama picked Kansas to win it all.]
But I just picked up my Sports Illustrated and they have a Final Four of San Diego State!, Ohio State, Kansas, and Pitt, with Ohio State defeating Kansas.
–Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel appeared before fans at a luncheon on Monday and apologized in his first public speaking engagement since being fined for violating NCAA rules.
While starting out saying he could not talk about the case due to an ongoing investigation, Tressel did say:
“But I can tell you this. I consider all of you a part of the Buckeye Nation. I sincerely apologize for what we’ve been through. I apologize for the fact I wasn’t able to find the ones to partner with to handle our difficult and complex situation.
“I also apologize because I’m going to have some sanctions. But the mission doesn’t change. That’s the pledge I have to you. The mission I’ve always had is we make sure we help young people change their lives.”
Good gawd. What a piece of garbage. For starters, what is this “what we’ve been through,” as if Buckeye Nation was complicit. And what’s the deal with finding “the ones to partner with to handle” the situation? Of course some jerks in the audience gave him a standing ovation when he entered the room.
George Dohrmann in the March 21 issue of Sports Illustrated.
“For followers of NCAA jurisprudence, Ohio State’s handling of Tressel is the clearest signal yet of a shift in how schools address rule-breakers. Determined to retain winners, they are now forgiving severe offenses that in the past almost always resulted in a dismissal or resignation….
“Tressel’s explanation for why he did nothing with information that players such as star quarterback Terrelle Pryor were trading memorabilia for tattoos at a local parlor: He was afraid his players might be dragged into a federal drug trafficking investigation of the parlor’s owner. He also said he wanted to respect his source’s confidentiality. It had nothing to do with the fact that losing those players would imperil the Buckeyes’ national title hopes, he said.
“It was a line of reasoning that even Ohio State’s student newspaper, The Lantern, didn’t buy. In a column, that paper called for Tressel’s dismissal. There is little chance of that. Nothing, not even a school’s reputation, appears to be as precious as a coach who wins.”
–Regarding the NFL lockout, the first hearing on the players’ request to unblock it is slated for April 6. At this point the issue bores me and I’ll have little to say in the weeks to come.
But I did drive by the Jets’ headquarters in Florham Park, N.J. on Monday and the employee parking lot was full. Players are not allowed in the building. The 96 employees involved in the business side of things must take one week of unpaid leave each month there’s no agreement. Everyone in the organization, including coaches, is under this effective 25% pay cut. Of course some in the organization are involved in the upcoming draft that will take place regardless of the labor situation. And, if no preseason games are lost, the organization will repay the lost wages, as reported by Greg Bishop of the New York Times.
In terms of workouts, if you’re a free agent you need to be careful not to get hurt.
–As I go to post, there are four races left in the World Cup ski season and out of nowhere, Lindsey Vonn is just 23 points behind Germany’s Maria Riesch for the overall title after Riesch finished 29th in a giant slalom race and then crashed in the slalom last weekend.
Vonn said, “I think it’s going to be a lot to do with the mental side of skiing. There’s a lot of nerves right now, and both of us really want to win the overall title.”
The last four races are being held in Lenzerheide, Switzerland. What a pisser it would be to attend these. I don’t ski…but I’m a helluva après ski partier!
Just two weeks ago it was assumed Riesch had an insurmountable lead. So we wish Bar Chat Hall of Famer Vonn good skiing!
–After losing back-to-back games to the Indiana Pacers (with Tyler Hansbrough getting career highs of 29 and 30 points in the two contests), the Knicks are just 6-6 after the Carmelo Anthony trade. Denver, which acquired Danilo Gallinari, Raymond Felton and Wilson Chandler from New York in the deal is 8-2 entering Wednesday night’s play.
You see, kids, the Knicks are incapable of playing any kind of defense.
–Update: Kevin Love’s double-double streak ended at 53, the longest since Elvin Hayes’ 55 in 1973-74. And Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby practiced on Monday for the first time since missing 29 games with a concussion. But Crosby said “I have no clue” when it comes to his return. “I just want to get better….I’m just kind of taking (this) step and seeing how it goes.”
Crosby has obviously been feeling a little better and said he had no symptoms while riding an exercise bike before hitting the ice.
–A major event fell victim to the Sendai quake and tsunami…the World Figure Skating Championships were slated to begin next Monday in Tokyo and it’s just impossible to go on with it at this point. No word yet on whether it will be moved. The last time the championships were canceled was 1961, after the entire U.S. figure skating team was wiped out in a plane crash.
–As opposed to the gloomy feeling in Mets camp, if I was a Yankees fan I’d be fired up over the combination of experience and youth that is going to make this season highly interesting in the Bronx. For instance, you have this guy in camp, Eric Chavez, who has appeared in just 66 games the past three years while with Oakland.
The thing is, Chavez is now healthy after suffering back, neck and shoulder injuries, and this is a six-time Gold Glove winner who had six straight seasons with 25 homers, as well as four 100-RBI campaigns.
–Another former Oakland A’s player, Mitchell Page, died the other day. He was 59. Page broke in with a bang in 1977 and was runner-up in the Rookie of the Year voting to Hall of Famer Eddie Murray as Page hit 21 homers, knocked in 75 and hit .307. He followed that up with 17-70, .285, and seemed to have a solid 8-10 career ahead of him but it wasn’t to be. He finished up with just 72 home runs and 259 RBI.
–The Fennville High School (Mich.) basketball team’s run ended on Monday night in a Class C state playoff game, 86-62. Afterward, Wes Leonard’s parents broke their silence for the first time since their son died earlier this month after making a game-winning shot for the then-undefeated team.
Jocelyn Leonard told the AP, “You won’t get over it, but you’ve got to get through it. We couldn’t get through it without everybody helping us.
“He’s what every parent would wish for,” Gary Leonard said. “Losing him so sudden is just so hard.”
In a further touching gesture, members of the basketball team have been sleeping in the Leonard’s house. As Jocelyn said, “They don’t want us to be alone.”
–Former jockey Angel Cordero Jr. is the agent for Uncle Mo’s rider, John Velazquez, and Cordero told the New York Times’ Joe Drape that Uncle Mo, the official Triple Crown Pony of Bar Chat, reminds him of Seattle Slew “because he has a lot of gas. He doesn’t have to be in the lead. He has a lot of potential.”
Johnny Mac and I have been scoping this pony out for some time now and we are putting together a syndicate of some $43.4 million to bet on the Moster. Granted, Mo will be going off at 2-5 in all three races, it can be assumed, but it’s better than what you get in a money market account these days, right sports fans?!
–I subscribe to Army Times and they rate movie releases so I couldn’t help but note the review for last weekend’s top winner at the box office, “Battle: Los Angeles.”
“Even by current standards of Hollywood mindlessness, it would be tough to come up with another recent big-budget film as shallow and simplistic as ‘Battle: Los Angeles,’ which can be summed up in three words:
“At a punishing two hours, it starts to feel like a seven-month vacation in The Suck well before it ends – and not just for its shallowness: the film is also stuffed with war clichés:
“ ‘I didn’t get this far on my good looks – I’m ready for payback!’
“By the time a grunt tells an 8-year-old boy, ‘I need you to be brave for me…I need you to be my little Marine,’ I was looking for a popcorn bucket to Ralph into.”
–Daisuke Wakabayashi and Eric Bellman / Wall Street Journal
“ARAHAM, Miyagi Prefecture – When the tsunami warnings sounded after the massive earthquake that struck Japan on Friday, Masaki Kikuchi sprinted upstairs to grab his sleeping 12-year-old daughter before racing away to escape the rushing waters.
“In the backyard tied to a small shed, Mr. Kikuchi left behind two dogs: Towa, a two-year-old Sheltie and Melody, a one-year-old Golden Retriever. Mr. Kikuchi assumed the giant tsunami that flattened his neighbors’ homes and whisked away their cars probably killed Towa and Melody too.
“Koya Kikuchi, the 20-year-old daughter of Mr. Kikuchi, was riding the bus home from her job at a local restaurant. When the earthquake struck, a power line fell in front of the bus and passengers started filing out.
“She rushed to her cousin’s house, which was nearby. She asked her cousin to drive her back home because she wanted to go save the dogs that she had begged her father to get. Within a half-mile of her home, police stopped the car. They told Ms. Kikuchi that a tsunami was coming and she could not go any farther.”
“But Towa and Melody had other ideas. They somehow broke free from the ropes tying them to the shed and ran up outdoor stairs to the second floor of Mr. Kikuchi’s house. And then they waited and waited. ‘I don’t know how they survived,’ said Mr. Kikuchi.
“Two days after the earthquake, Mr. Kikuchi ventured out from the evacuation center where his family had reunited unharmed….
“When he finally got to the house, sidestepping a car that had shifted to block the entrance to the driveway, he could hear the barking.”
The neighborhood is a mess, as was the inside of the Kikuchi’s house, owing to the dogs’ needing a spot to go to the bathroom. They can’t bring them to the shelter so the dogs will stay in the house for now and the Kikuchis will check on them daily.
“There are lots of people dead and it’s too much to ask to bring the dogs. It would be inconsiderate to other people’s sadness.”
–In Britain, a massive lobster, 3 feet in length and weighing 4 kg (9 lb.), was saved from the pot and moved to the Blue Reef aquarium in Portsmouth. The lobster was caught by an angler in 14 feet of water. Needless to say it was a compassionate angler. It’s assumed this particular lobster is around 80 years of age. But from a story by Reuters’ Stephen Addison we learn:
“The aquarium said the heaviest recorded crustacean is an Atlantic lobster nicknamed Mike who was caught in 1934 and tipped the scales at an awesome 19 kg.” That’s almost 42 lbs.!
—Celine Dion is starting a new run at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas at the special Colosseum built just for her when she sold out more than 700 consecutive performances from 2003 to 2007. [The place holds 4,200.]
Dion brought in more than $400 million for her shows and this time, as Newsweek put it, “She’s being touted as a one-woman stimulus bill – worth at least $114 million a year and thousands of jobs, according to UNLV.”
“As she takes the stage in her sparkling ivory Armani Prive gown, the audience leaps to its feet. Several fans sob uncontrollably, and the singer fights tears of her own.”
Sorry. I never got the whole Celine Dion thing, nor Michael Bolton for that matter. But I’m sure her show is great.
—Robert Marcucci died. He was 81. Marcucci was a legendary talent manager who, coupled with songwriting partner Peter DeAngelis, owned Chancellor Records, a small independent label in Philadelphia that the two started with a $10,000 loan from Marcucci’s father. As Dick Clark said, “Bob was the promoter, manager and dreamer,” while DeAngelis supplied the musical direction.
It was Bob Marcucci who launched the careers of the likes of Frankie Avalon and Fabian. Avalon, a Philly-born 16-year-old trumpet player and singer in a small rock ‘n’ roll band called Rocco and the Saints, signed with Chancellor Records. It was Marcucci who saw Frankie as a solo artist. Avalon told the Los Angeles Times’ Dennis McLellan this week, “He said to me, ‘Kid, you got it, and I think you can become a star.’”
Starting with a song Marcucci and DeAngelis wrote for Avalon, “DeDe Dinah,” a string of hits followed, including 1959’s chart-toppers “Venus” and “Why.”
After launching Avalon, Marcucci found Fabian, a handsome Philadelphia teenager who Marcucci spotted sitting on a stoop. I love these kinds of stories.
Dick Clark was doing “American Bandstand” in Philadelphia at this time and in his 1976 book “Rock, Roll & Remember,” Clark recalled telling Marcucci to bring Fabian to a Friday night record hop he was hosting.
Clark writes, Marcucci “had Fabian dressed in a blue sweater, tight-fitting pants and white bucks. Fabian gave me a smile as I introduced him, pushed back a few strands of his pompadour, and crooned into the mike, lip-synching to an acetate Bob had brought of his first record, ‘I’m a Man.’
“The little girls at the hop went wild. They started screaming and yelling for this guy who didn’t do a thing but stand there. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Fabian went on to have the top ten songs “Turn Me Loose,” “Tiger,” and “Hound Dog Man,” all in 1959. By spring 1960, it was over. He was still only 17.
The 1980 film “The Idolmaker,” starring Ray Sharkey, is more or less based on Marcucci’s career and is the tale of a Marcucci-like character “Vinnie” Vacarri who molds two young teen idols. Fabian was ticked off with the film, filed a huge lawsuit, charging defamation of character and invasion of privacy, and supposedly received a good settlement.
“Rabble-rousing Irish band the Pogues will play what they say will be their last-ever live shows in the U.S. this week at Terminal 5 on West 56th Street – fittingly ending with what promises to be a roof-raising gig on St. Patrick’s Day.”
These guys are great, but I never saw them live. [I think my brother was once a Pogues’ groupie.] Among their hard-core fans are Johnny Depp and NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. Time to pull out some of their music.
May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
the rain fall soft upon your fields
and, until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.
Top 3 songs for the week 3/16/85: #1 “Can’t Fight This Feeling” (REO Speedwagon) #2 “The Heat Is On” (Glenn Frey) #3 “Material Girl” (Madonna)…and…#4 “California Girls” (David Lee Roth) #5 “One More Night” (Phil Collins) #6 “Too Late For Goodbyes” (Julian Lennon) #7 “Careless Whisper” (Wham! Featuring George Michael…don’t shake his hand….you don’t know where it’s been) #8 “Lovergirl” (Teena Marie) #9 “Private Dancer” (Tina Turner) #10 “Relax” (Frankie Goes To Hollywood…fun dance tune, though you won’t find me in the kind of place Frankie did the videos for this song in…and I’m getting back to the 60s!!)
Uniform Numbers Quiz Answer: 3. Babe Ruth, 72%. 4. Lou Gehrig, 52%. 5. Joe DiMaggio, 61%. 6. Bill Russell, 43%. 7. Mickey Mantle, 72%. 8. Cal Ripken Jr., 44%. 9. Ted Williams, 48%. 12. Terry Bradshaw, 30%.* 13. Wilt Chamberlain, 67%.
Next Bar Chat, Monday. Did my San Diego State Aztecs make it through the weekend, meaning they won their first two NCAA tournament games, ever?!
