**Note: I’m playing catch-up and I recognize some of the following is a little dated but had to get it in.
All-Star Break Quiz: USA TODAY had a listing of stats for the period July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012. 1) Name the only two in baseball to hit .340 during that period. 2) Name the only three to hit 40 home runs in this span. 3) What shortstop hit 31 home runs? 4) Who is the only pitcher to win 20 for the 12 months ending June 30? Answers below.
Federer Dials 717
I did watch the entire Wimbledon men’s final between Roger Federer and Britain’s Andy Murray, including that touching piece on Dunblane, Murray’s home town and the site of the tragic 1996 school shooting, during the rain delay. The pressure on Murray was unreal, Andy being the first Brit since 1938 just to make the finals at Wimbledon. And after Federer dismantled Murray 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-4, Fred Perry remains the last Brit to win in 1936.
As for Federer, 30, who had defeated defending champion Novak Djokovic in four sets in the semis, it was Wimbledon title No. 7, tying him with Pete Sampras (and Willie Renshaw…who won all his titles in the 1880s, three against Ernest Renshaw, his misshapen twin brother) and the No. 17 overall Grand Slam singles title, extending his own record. The only active players with five or more are Rafael Nadal (11) and Djokovic (5).
[Also, very nice to have Pippa and Kate in the stands…if I may say so myself.]
Serena…5 and 14
Serena Williams won her fifth Wimbledon and 14th major championship in defeating Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland 6-1, 5-7, 6-2 and you couldn’t have paid me to watch a second of this one; your editor, for starters, not being a real big Serena fan. Williams, 30, became the first woman in her 30s to win a Wimbledon title since Martina Navratilova did it in 1990 when she was 33. Serena also joined sister Venus as a five-time winner, which is pretty remarkable. As the New York Daily News’ Mike Lupica commented over the weekend, it’s not likely we’ll ever see successful siblings like both the Williams’ and Eli and Peyton Manning ever again.
In a story for Sports Illustrated by Phil Taylor, Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson opened up.
“Over a plate of seafood at an Oceanside restaurant in Monterey, (Jackson) casually mentions that he plans to bring up the issue of undeserving members of the Hall of Fame at the next members-only dinner in Cooperstown. He believes that the Baseball Writers Association of America, whose members vote for the Hall, have adopted too low a standard. ‘I didn’t see Kirby Puckett as a Hall of Famer,’ he says. ‘I didn’t see Gary Carter as a Hall of Famer. I didn’t see Phil Niekro as a Hall of Famer. As much as I like Jim Rice, I’m not so sure he’s a Hall of Famer.’ What about Bert Blyleven? ‘No. No, no, no, no, no,’ Jackson says. ‘Blyleven wasn’t even the dominant pitcher of his era – it was Jack Morris.’…
“He isn’t silent on the subject of steroids in baseball either. Jackson makes no secret of his displeasure that since his retirement in 1987, he has been passed on the home run list by seven players, five of whom, Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa, have been linked to performance-enhancing drugs. ‘I don’t think the fans really count them, and I agree,’ he says. ‘I believe that Hank Aaron is the home run king, not Barry Bonds, as great a player as Bonds was.’ Jackson was a supporter of Bonds as recently as 2007, when he said, ‘They tried to get this guy more than anybody…and they’ve got nothing on him.’ But he says now that the volume of evidence against Bonds is so great that he has changed his mind.
“And A-Rod? ‘Al’s a very good friend,’ Jackson says. ‘But I think there are real questions about his numbers. As much as I like him, what he admitted about his usage does cloud some of his records.’
“There is little need to ask whether Jackson thinks any of the PED-linked players should be inducted into the Hall. ‘If any of those guys get in, no Hall of Famer will attend,’ he says. There is only one player in that category for whom he might make an exception. ‘The question is going to be a guy like Andy Pettitte, who admitted that he got involved for a while, but who is so universally respected in the game. I think he’ll get in, but there will be a lot of [members] who won’t go.’ Would Reggie? Jackson takes a deep breath. ‘He’s an awfully good friend,’ he says. ‘I’ve known Andy since he was 20. I’ll leave it there.’”
So…needless to say, some of the above targets were none too pleased. A-Rod earlier this year declared Jackson to be his “press secretary,” designated to speak for him to the media. This weekend, A-Rod declined to say whether the two would remain friendly. “With friends like that, who needs enemies?” was A-Rod’s only reply, except to add that Jackson had reached out to him and Rodriguez said he’d keep it private.
As for the Carter comment, that was totally out of line. Former teammate Ron Darling said:
“Reggie is entitled to his opinion. There are other players in the Hall of Fame that baseball historians may not feel as though they should be in. That being said, the timing sucks.”
I will give Reggie credit at least for not pretending he was misquoted by Phil Taylor, nor did he claim his remarks were off the record.
As for his relationship with the Yankees as a special team adviser, it seems that role is about to end, especially now that King George, his main fan, has passed from the scene.
I’ve always liked guys like Reggie Jackson, athletes who backed it up. I obviously have no problem with anything he said, save for the Carter remark, knowing my take on the steroids issue all these years.
I also have to add, though, that having heard about the article before I picked up the hard copy, at first I thought, why is Reggie getting so much ink at age 66? It’s not like he’s been invisible all these years.
Ball Bits
—Mets fans are happy with the team’s 46-40 start when some, namely your editor, thought they would struggle to win 40 all season. [Though they are 4-8 against the three worst teams in the N.L. …Cubs, Rockies and Astros.]
But the big story of the first half from a team standpoint is obviously the Pittsburgh Pirates, who after 19 consecutive losing seasons find themselves in first in the N.L. Central at 48-37. After a 20-24 start, they’ve gone 28-13 and the fans are starting to come back to that great park of theirs. I have assured all Pirates fans that I will not order tickets as I did last season when they were 51-44, only to finish 72-90. Should they clinch a playoff spot, however, I reserve the right to do so.
—Assuming all six teams below make the playoffs, which has to be the first criteria, my MVP selections at the All-Star break:
1. Mike Trout
2. Josh Hamilton
3. Miguel Cabrera
1. Andrew McCutchen…18 HR 60 RBI .362
2. Joey Votto
3. David Wright
–With Bryce Harper replacing the injured Giancarlo Stanton (who is out 4-6 weeks with a knee injury), Harper becomes the first 19-year-old position player to make the All-Star Game in the 79-year history of the contest. From what I read, though, Harper seemed to want to go home to Las Vegas for four days of decompression. Or rather he was shocked he was asked. Only Bob Feller and Dwight Gooden made the All-Star team as a teenager.
*Harper, at .282 with 8 HR and 25 RBI does not deserve to be going to Kansas City.
–The bigger story thus far in 2012 is the Angels’ Mike Trout. The 20-year-old ‘almost superstar’ not only leads the A.L. in batting (.341), but on top of his 12 homers and 40 RBI out of the leadoff spot, has 57 runs in just 64 games, plus he was the first player in franchise history to log at least 10 homers and steal 25 bases before the All-Star break. [Trout has 26 steals in 29 attempts.] And he’s from South Jersey!!!
–Diamondbacks fans are getting all over 24-year-old past All-Star centerfielder Justin Upton and boy I’m hoping it fuels a trade to the New York Mets. Any team would be foolish not to go after this guy, who clearly needs a simple change in scenery to recharge the batteries, though it’s pathetic that at his age we have to be talking this way. The other day Upton said:
“You know what? To be honest with you, I don’t care anything about what the fans think of me,” after he was booed vociferously during a loss to the Padres, who completed their first-ever three-game sweep at Chase Field.
“My teammates, my coaches, they know I come in here and I bust it every single day. I come in here and try to do everything I can to help this team and my teammates have my back.”
–The Washington Nationals’ Stephen Strasburg has suddenly lost three decisions in a row, dropping his record to 9-4, though he still has an excellent 2.82 ERA and has fanned 128 in 99 innings while walking 28.
But the team remains very much prepared to shut him down after about 160 to 170 innings, so roughly nine more starts at 7 innings apiece, which would take him to around Sept. 10.
Many are saying that with the Nats a legitimate World Series contender at this point, screw the limits, let him pitch.
But I side with the Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell who wrote the other day the team should not take any chances. He’s coming off Tommy John surgery, after all, and has never thrown more than 123 innings in any season, at any level.
“You want fear, here’s fear. In the last two weeks, Kyle Drabek, son of Doug Drabek, and ex-Nat Todd Coffey, have both learned that they’ll need a second TJ surgery. Usually, that means The End. You get one shot, one new elbow. Except for a few Chris Capuanos, there are no second TJ successes.
“This won’t-die Strasburg fuss is a testament to the age, its gift for screaming about fake issues, its defiance of fact and its shamelessness when confronted with the simplest common-sense ethics. Who believes this stuff?
“Luckily, the Nats and General Manager Mike Rizzo don’t.
“ ‘We know what’s right for us. And we have the guts to stick with it,’ Rizzo said. ‘We’re an organization that prides itself on proper development of players. That’s what we explain to every parent about their son and every agent about a player. What’s changed? What’s different than it was with [Jordan] Zimmerman? Oh, a Washington team is in the race. I guess people are shocked. We’re building a team that we think will be good for a lot longer than one season.’”
[Zimmerman had TJ surgery exactly one year before Strasburg and is pitching great this year. He was put on the same 160 inning leash in 2011, pitched 161, and this season has thrown 110 innings with a 2.61 ERA.]
“Strasburg deserves a square chance at a full career. The Nats deserve a fair chance to build a successful franchise for many years, not just a bid to make the fans and pundits (who have no skin in the game) giddy by ‘going for it’ in ’12.”
–Back to Harper…you can buy “Don’t be a clown, Bro” t-shirts at UA.com… I think I failed to get the story down for the archives, so forgive me for the 99% who already know it, but Bryce Harper was asked an idiot question on his first trip to Toronto, when the Nationals played the Blue Jays. A member of the Toronto media wanted to know if the 19-year-old would go out for a beer, Ontario having a 19 drinking age (it’s actually 18 in selected other provinces), not the 21 in the U.S., to which the Mormon Harper responded, “that’s a clown question bro.” Simply brilliant.
“If 2012 is another year of the pitcher, someone forgot to tell the game’s sluggers.
“The prevailing story of the season has been the dominance of pitchers. In a little more than three months, there have been two perfect games and three nonperfect no-hitters, and strikeouts have come at the highest rate in baseball history….
“In numbers that seem straight out of the steroids era, 10 batters were on pace for 40 or more home runs entering Wednesday’s games. Another five were on pace for 35 or more. Both would be the highest totals since 2006 and would crack baseball’s top-10 seasons.
“Last season two players surpassed 40 home runs and six others topped 35.”
Ordinarily I wouldn’t like this development, but in Jose Bautista, Adam Dunn and Josh Hamilton you have three guys who no one can bitch if they hit 50.
The guy who stands out, though, is Minnesota’s Trevor Plouffe, who had 10 home runs in his first 327 career at-bats prior to this season but has 19 in 224 in 2012 [not including Sunday’s action.]
–I read all the stuff about the Washington Nationals’ Ian Desmond opting out of the All-Star game because he wants to heal an oblique injury, though he was in the lineup and homered on both Saturday and Sunday, and I was prepared to blast him. Instead, I’m giving him a pass because I think his statements have been sincere.
–I have to admit I had frankly forgotten about the Red Sox’ Carl Crawford, he of the seven-year, $142 million contract who in the first year of it hit .255 with a .289 on-base percentage in 2011.
You see, Crawford hasn’t played this season, owing to various injuries, but he was in the news the other day when he said he had to tune out a heckler who Crawford claims uttered “a racial slur” in making his feelings known about the contract and whether Crawford was earning it.
Crawford said ‘He was the only one I had a problem with. People in Boston don’t even do that. So I now know what that was about.”
–How much of a joke is some of the All-Star voting? I had no idea until listening to Mets announcer Gary Cohen on Sunday that the Braves’ Dan Uggla, the starting second baseman for the N.L., is in the midst of a 9 for 92 skid (catastrophic slide) that has him at .221. Thankfully, for the Uggla family, he at least has 12 homers and 45 RBI.
–I didn’t realize the Phillies are on a pace to become the first major league team to win 100-plus games one season and lose 90 the next.
[Ryan Howard finally returned this weekend and went 2 for 8.]
–Despite shaky starts in two of his last three appearances, the Mets’ R.A. Dickey, at 12-1, is just the third pitcher since 1980 to have a record that good at the break. The others were Ubaldo Jimenez (15-1 in 2010) and Roger Clemens (12-1 in 2001).
–I won’t repeat for the umpteenth time what I wrote of Tim Lincecum last winter (though I will another 3 or 4 times this year). Suffice it to say it was one of my better comments in the 13 ½ years of Bar Chat.
Lincecum finished the first half, after getting pounded by the Pirates on Sunday, with a 3-10 record and 6.42 ERA. Remarkable. Or maybe not.
On the other hand, congrats to the Pirates’ A.J. Burnett for winning No. 10 on Sunday. 10-2.
–On Saturday, Milwaukee starter Zack Greinke was ejected when in disputing a call at first base he spiked the baseball. Greinke had thrown all of four pitches.
So the Brewers started him on Sunday, but he threw an ineffective three innings before being pulled.
As I go to post, the team is still planning on starting him this coming Friday, the Brewers’ first game after the break, which would mean Greinke had started three straight games. Should this come to pass, it would be the first time since Hall of Famer Red Faber of the 1917 Chicago White Sox accomplished the feat.
[Looking at Faber’s career record…he’s borderline HOF…apologies to his descendents.]
–From the AP: “The 84-year-old baseball has been sitting in Elizabeth Gott’s drawer for years, but now she’s hoping it will pay off her son’s medical-school debt.
“New York Yankees slugger Lou Gehrig smashed the ball into the bleachers for a home run during the 1928 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Gehrig hit the homer off Hall of Fame pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander while teammate Babe Ruth was on base and called it his most significant home run at the time, according to a newspaper account.
“Hunt Auctions plans to sell the ball Tuesday at the All-Star FanFest in Kansas City, Mo., and predicts it could fetch $100,000 to $200,000. Online bidding has already begun, with the top bid at about $37,000 as of Thursday.”
The ball was a gift to Michael Gott, 30, from his uncle, “who received it from other relatives of Buddy Kurland, who is Elizabeth Gott’s great-uncle. Mr. Kurland had gone to the game with his friend Scotty Stevenson. Mr. Kurland nearly caught Gehrig’s three-run homer, but a fan knocked his cap over his eyes and he dropped the ball, according to a newspaper account. Mr. Stevenson picked up the ball and gave it to Mr. Kurland.”
Jeremy Lin…Stay or Go? Rise of the Nets?
Each time I feel like taking a long break from the NBA, it’s found a way to keep the interest; this time the whole free agent process…especially if you’re a fan in this area…or Los Angeles…or Miami…or Boston…or Phoenix…
First, the Nets pulled off a bit of a stunner in trading for Atlanta six-time All-Star swingman Joe Johnson. Now I’m not a fan of the guy’s play, having watched him a fair amount this year because of my interest in seeing how well teammate Jeff Teague (Wake Forest boy) played. In fact I was pretty unimpressed with Johnson, plus he is vastly overpaid at $90 million the next four years.
But he does know how to shoot and he’s averaged 18 points a game for his career and with the right point guard, he can certainly be a major contributor.
So the Nets pick up Johnson and that proved to be the kind of move superstar point guard Deron Williams wanted to see out of the franchise as it gears up for its first season in Brooklyn. So Williams signed a five-year, $100 million max contract to stay and now the Nets have a pair to build on, regardless of what Dwight Howard does. I respect that Williams knew enough that he can be as much a face of New York City as anyone the Knicks can counter with. A true rivalry between the two would also be exciting.
But what will the Knicks do with Jeremy Lin? Lin signed a four-year, $28.9 million offer sheet with Houston, which the Knicks can match, but they were shattered when Steve Nash suddenly accepted a sign-and-trade to play with Kobe in L.A. The Knicks thought they were first for Nash’s services. Heck, Nash may be 38 but he’s led the league in assists the last three seasons.
[Lin’s running mate, shooting guard Landry Fields, who is hardly my idea of a real shooter, signed a three-year, $19 million offer sheet with Toronto and I hope the Knicks let him go.]
With Nash unavailable, the Knicks quickly turned to 39-year-old Jason Kidd. As a bit in the Journal by Michael Salfino pointed out, “Of the 406 players (Kidd) began his career with, just two remain (Juwan Howard and Grant Hill…with Howard expected to announce his retirement).
Now I like Jason Kidd and what he can bring to the Knicks (the guy is a flat-out winner), but they signed him to a three-year deal! Why not two? Plus we only want the guy playing 20, no more than 25 minutes a game, after all. He is supposed to mentor Lin.
But now the debate is over just how good Lin is, or can be? By all accounts it seems the Knicks will match the offer and move on with a Lin-Kidd tandem.
“What is the price for a point guard who averages 18.5 points and 7.6 assists?
“What if those averages were accrued over just 26 games?
“What if those games turned the player into a global phenomenon?
“The resume is incomplete, though certainly spectacular in parts. And Lin’s value goes far beyond the court – he is thought to be worth millions in sponsorships, sales and ratings.
“But billboards do not win basketball games, and the Knicks are much more desperate for playmaking skills than they are for dollars….
“The Knicks have examined Lin more closely than anyone, and they are still uncertain how to process the data. Lin is probably not a top-10 point guard, but could he be in the top 15? Top 20? Or in the bottom 10? Even the true believers are not sure.”
Everything can become official on Wednesday, or will shortly thereafter. I must say from a management standpoint this is one of the more interesting decisions that we’ve had in these parts in quite some time. And I don’t know what I would do if I were in the Knicks’ shoes. [Former Knick Raymond Felton being an option at point…with Felton desperately wanting to return.]
One other item back to Brooklyn. As the Times’ Richard Sandomir put it, “Barclays picked an awful time to be caught in a scandal and for its chief executive to resign.”
You see, the Brooklyn Nets will be playing in the spanking new Barclays Center. Ha! Yet another naming rights disaster, though this should be a passing one, kind of like with the Mets’ Citi Field. I mean it’s not yet Enron Field, or Adelphia Communications putting its name on the home of the Tennessee Titans.
Lastly, how about Ray Allen dumping the Celtics for Miami, where he’ll sign a deal for $3 million per when he could have gotten double that from Boston?! Boy, I’d be ticked. Allen also could have gone just about anywhere else, except for the Knicks for rivalry reasons, but Miami?! That’s wrong. He is indeed a traitor.
—Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson missed the cut in the same tournament (this week’s Greenbrier Classic) for the first time ever, with Tiger missing a cut for only the ninth time in his PGA Tour career. Tiger missed it by one, Phil by three strokes; Tiger having won the week before at Congressional. Woods will be fine.
But Mickelson is really struggling these days with just one top ten in his last six events; not the kind of momentum you want heading into the final two majors…The Open Championship and the PGA.
62-year-old Tom Watson made the cut at the Greenbrier, however. [A quadruple bogey on No. 16 in the last round ruined what would have been a solid 72 holes.] Every time I write his name I flash back to the British Open of three years ago and what should have been the sports story of our lifetimes. You feel so sorry for Tom, knowing how that continues to eat at him, that last nine-iron into the 18th green. [Rather what should have been a nine-iron…he hit eight over the green and never recovered.]
Meanwhile, what a choke job by Webb Simpson on the back nine as he pushed one short putt after another. I won’t be donning Deaconwear this week, that’s for sure. [Got me some good new Duckwear to jog in when I was out Eugene way…ya know, Oregon Trackwear.]
So while Potter and his “lady friend” celebrate his first win, and Kelly celebrates that he’ll have a Tour card in 2013 as a result of the money he just made for finishing second, their family and friends will point out that for the first time both have made Bar Chat…which I can tell you from the notes I’ve received is a career capper.
And one last note on the PGA Tour…I had no idea 43-year-old Ken Duke has a 16-inch steel rod in his back as a result of Scoliosis. Good lord. Duke has never won…but someone to root for, definitely. [He finished T-7 with Simpson on Sunday…though like Webb had a bad finish.]
–NASCAR’s AJ Allmendinger was “temporarily suspended” for an alleged violation of the sport’s substance-abuse policy just 90 minutes before the start of the Sprint Cup race Saturday night at Daytona. And this is incredible…somehow Penske Racing was able to get Sam Hornish Jr. down from North Carolina with literally just minutes to spare before the race started. Can you believe that? [It helps Daytona has their own private airstrip next to the track.] Hornish said he “grabbed a sandwich and tried to hydrate as much as I could.” He ended up finishing 33rd. Tony Stewart won the race, his third of the year. No word yet on Allmendinger’s test.
—Blake Griffin, Andre Iguodala and James Harden have been selected for the U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team, joining LeBron, Kobe, Carmelo, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Tyson Chandler and Kevin Love.
–So last Monday, I and a few others were preparing to watch the women’s 100-meter runoff between Alysson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh to determine the third spot on the U.S. Olympic team after the two deadlocked during the Trials in Eugene.
But hours before, Tarmoh pulled out in what a friend of mine, Lani A., called a true “hissy fit.”
“I felt pressured into having to make a decision,” Tarmoh said in her comments to NBC Sports. “They said, ‘Do you want to concede or do you want to run?’ I was like, ‘Are those my only two options?’ They said yes. So I said, “Yes, I will run.’
“But then as I was going throughout the day, I thought about it and I ran that 100m, I took my victory lap, I went through the press conference, I got my medal, and then they tell me I have to run again, after I ran six rounds of the 100 and 200?
“I just had a whole lot of emotions and I was heartbroken because, in my mind, I felt like my joy was kind of taken after hearing that I got third. My legs were also really tired. With that said, it was more the emotional part. It would have been unfair to myself if I went out there not wholeheartedly.”
The two are teammates and said to be friends, but in an earlier statement Tarmoh said, “In my heart of hearts, I do feel like I earned that third spot. I feel that I was almost kind of robbed by them putting my name on the (video) screen….[Ed. blah blah blah]”
Look, no doubt the USATF could not have handled the tie any worse than it did. But Tarmoh has no idea how much she has damaged her brand. She’s now an alternate on the team for the 100 and it’s assumed she would run the 4 X 100, but if I was the coach I’d have second thoughts on selecting her for the latter.
I do have to admit that as much as I like Felix, at first I thought she’d give the 100 to Tarmoh after Alysson won the 200 at the Trials, with the understanding Felix would run in the 4 X 100.
But then I thought, why should Alysson just give it up when she definitely has the potential to medal in the 100?
—Michael Phelps dropped the 200 freestyle from his Olympic program so he’ll be going for ‘only’ seven golds, not the eight he won in 2008. Phelps and his coach, Bob Bowman, decided that with the crammed schedule, he needed to devote more energy to some of the relay events.
—Michael Johnson, the first man to win gold in both the 200- and 400-meter sprints in a single Olympics (1996), said in a documentary for the U.K. (where’s a track and field analyst for the BBC):
“Over the last few years, athletes of Afro-Caribbean and Afro-American descent have dominated athletics finals. It’s a fact that hasn’t been discussed openly before. It’s a taboo subject in the States but it is what it is. Why shouldn’t we discuss it?”
You discuss it…I won’t. But can you believe it’s already been 24 years since long-time football broadcaster Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder was fired by CBS for making similar comments on blacks in sports?
“The slave owner would breed his big black (man) to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid…That’s where it all started.”
Johnson discusses the history of slavery in the documentary.
–Meanwhile, Usain Bolt pulled out of a July 20 meet in Monaco with “a slight problem” that occurred during the recent Jamaican Olympic trials, according to his coach. I didn’t realize at the time of my last column that Bolt had been defeated by teammate Yohan Blake in both the 100 and 200. Bolt appears to have a hamstring issue but has vowed he’ll be fine when the first-round 100 heats at the Olympics are held Aug. 4. Michael Johnson thinks Bolt can lower his 100 world record of 9.58 seconds to 9.40.
—Oscar Pistorius will be competing at the Olympics after all, becoming the first amputee to do so after being selected to run both the 400 meters and the 4 X 400 meters relay for South Africa.
—Russian athletes who win a gold medal for their country will earn $123,000; lesser amounts for silver and bronze.
—Lance Armstrong accused the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s chief executive Travis Tygart of waging a “vendetta” against him after reports several of Armstrong’s former teammates received reduced suspensions for admitting to doping in return for testifying against Armstrong.
“So let me get this straight…come in and tell them exactly what they wanted to hear and you get complete immunity AND anonymity? I never got that offer,” Armstrong wrote in an email. “This isn’t about Tygart wanting to clean up cycling – rather it’s just a plain ol’ selective prosecution that reeks of vendetta.”
–Want to know the impact of a big-time college football program? Try the University of Oregon. In the fall of 2011, a record-breaking 4,529 Californians enrolled at the UO. The figure was 1,592 in 2002. About one in five students is now from California. Of course the UO loves it because out-of-state students pay more than in-state; triple, to be exact.
Said one student, “In Southern California, in particular, students want to go to school where they are winners.”
So I meant to say that with all my experience hanging around the campus the last four years, including a trip for a UO-USC football game, first off, Oregon has a beautiful campus and terrific athletic facilities for students, starting with as good a set of running trails as you’ll find anywhere. Every student is running there. Downtown Eugene is also adequate (not great), but at least you can quickly walk a ways and feel like you’re ‘off campus.’
The drawback is the weather can suck…and the student body takes a little getting used to if you’re from the East, South or Midwest. It’s a West Coast student body, that’s for sure.
[Looking back to schools I’ve been to the past ten or so years, I liked Univ. of Nebraska in terms of the kids. Lincoln is also a great college town.]
–We note the passing of Big Ben Davidson, 72, the former Oakland Raiders defensive end and television pitchman. He died of prostate cancer.
Davidson spent 11 years in the NFL, starting with Green Bay and Washington before joining the Raiders in 1964. At 6’8”, Davidson stood out and coupled with his raspy voice and handlebar mustache, he helped personify the Raiders of that time.
“He was a tough, gutsy ballplayer, team-oriented with enough meanness in him to be feared and enough talent to be effective,” said former Raiders teammate Tom Flores.
Davidson did not play football until going to East Los Angeles Community College. He then went to the Univ. of Washington, where he helped the Huskies win Rose Bowls in 1960 and ’61.
Taken in the fourth round by the Giants, he played his rookie season with Green Bay, winning the NFL championship with the Packers in 1961.
Then it was two years with Washington before joining Oakland. He was a second-team Associated Press All-AFL selection in 1965 and a first-teamer in 1967. [Pro Bowls 1966-68]
Davidson would later act in films such as “M*A*S*H” and “Conan the Barbarian,” while also gaining notoriety for playing himself in Miller Lite commercials.
–Ordinarily I wouldn’t comment on such things, but while I know zero about their relationship, the breakup of New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton’s marriage after 20 years is hardly a surprise. Imagine being Beth Payton and all the conflicting emotions she’s been going through since the bountygate investigation that cost Payton his job for one year. ‘Who is this guy I’ve been with 20 years? Do I really know him?’ It’s tough enough being married to a big-time football coach. I wish Mrs. Payton and her children the best.
–In announcing a new 12-year agreement between the ACC and the Orange Bowl, it’s been determined that the game will be played on Jan. 1 at 1 p.m. ET – even when it’s a national semifinal under the new BCS arrangement that begins with the 2014 season. If the champion of the ACC is chosen to play in the four-team playoff, a replacement team from the ACC would play. I like the new game time.
–The University of Maryland formally announced seven athletic programs would be eliminated after they couldn’t raise the funds necessary for survival.
Men’s and women’s swimming; men’s tennis, women’s water polo; acrobatics and tumbling (formally known as competitive cheer); and two men’s track programs, cross-country and indoor track and field.
Now some of these such as women’s water polo and tumbling are absurd…they are club level sports. But men’s and women’s swimming? Men’s tennis? Cross-country?
Men’s outdoor track and field was saved for the time being thanks to a successful fundraising campaign, but why would I go to Maryland if I couldn’t also run indoor track, which is a great way for the athletes to stay competitive before the outdoor season?
Yes, it’s a sad, sad day for Maryland. The problem is rapidly declining revenues from its football and basketball programs. The school spent over $50 million expanding Byrd Stadium in 2006 and has seen attendance fall at football games every year since until this past season.
According to data supplied by the NCAA, however, only 22 of the 227 Division I public universities managed to turn a profit within their athletic departments.
–I missed the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Championship on the Fourth of July for the first time in years but for the record, Joey Chestnut won his sixth consecutive title, tying Takeru Kobayashi for the most in the competition’s history, while also equaling his 2009 record performance of 68 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes in perhaps his most truly disgusting effort, from the tape I saw. “Jaws,” as he’s called, picked up $10,000 along with the coveted mustard yellow champion’s belt. Tim Janus finished second in eating 52 wieners.
On the women’s side, Sonya (Black Widow) Thomas swallowed 45 tube steaks whole in besting her own prior best of 40.
[I do have to note that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in doing his annual promotion of the Coney Island event the day before, couldn’t stomach the corny lines his staff wrote for him. I was watching a news report where he’s reading things such as he wanted to be “perfectly frank” and calling the competition a “dog fight,” and it went on and on in that vein when he went “Who wrote this s—?”]
–Uh oh…attention Southern California homeowners. The brown widow spider, first spotted in Torrance in 2003, is really spreading and now far outnumbers its more famous cousin, the black widow; like 20 times more, according to the latest research.
Check this out…from Eryn Brown of the Los Angeles Times.
“Cheap patio furniture is great stuff. They love it,” said (Richard) Vetter (of UC Riverside and co-author of a paper dealing with the topic), who has upturned a single molded plastic chair and seen five to eight brown widows hanging out in the niches underneath. “They like a solid top. If you have a mesh top, or fabric mesh, I don’t know if it’s the air or the light, but they don’t like that.”
At least they didn’t find brown widows in houses and, it needs to be noted, the brown widow’s bite is not as dangerous as that of the black widow. You might actually live.
–While I was in Oregon, I missed the passing of Don Grady, “Robbie” on “My Three Sons.” He was 68.
Grady sang and danced as a Mouseketeer on “The Mickey Mouse Club” when he was in middle school but left for a part on “My Three Sons” when he was 16. That show aired from 1960 to 1972, one of the longest-running family sitcoms of all time (and a favorite of yours truly). Fred MacMurray as Steve Douglas and Hugh Beaumont as Ward Cleaver were the two best television dads for me.
Leonard Maltin once said, “America loved this family. It represented stability and continuity.”
After the show ended, Grady turned to songwriting, writing the theme song to Phil Donahue’s talk show among other tunes.
–And of course we note the passing of another great TV dad, Andy Griffith. Who didn’t like “The Andy Griffith Show”? For eight years until its last season in 1968, it was never out of the Top 10. In fact it went out on top in ’68. 249 episodes. As the New York Times’ Douglas Martin wrote:
“The show imagined a reassuring world of fishin’ holes, ice cream socials and rock-hard family values during a decade that grew progressively tumultuous.”
And what a cast…Barney (Don Knotts), Gomer (Jim Nabors), Opie (Ron Howard), Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier), Goober Pyle (George Lindsey, who also just died).
His show’s 35 million fans would have been pleased to learn that even at his peak, Griffith bought his suits off the rack and drove a Ford station wagon.
Back to TV dads, Griffith was No. 8 on TV Guide’s list of the “50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time” in 2004, with Bill Cosby’s Dr. Cliff Huxtable being No. 1.
But it was pretty startling that while “The Andy Griffith Show” was nominated three times for an Emmy, Griffith himself never won one. Don Knotts won five, however.
After the show ran its course, Griffith appeared in a slew of made-for-TV movies, with one, “Diary of a Perfect Murder,” serving as the pilot for a new series, “Matlock,” which ran successfully from 1986 to 1995.
Emily Langer of the Washington Post concludes her remembrances of Andy Griffith by noting a popular episode of the show “when Opie wallops a bird with his slingshot, Andy makes the boy raise its offspring before releasing them into the wild.
“ ‘Cage sure seems awful empty, don’t it Pa?’ Opie says.
“ ‘Yes, son, it sure does,’ Mr. Griffith responds to the boy. ‘But don’t the trees seem nice and full?’”
–I just saw that actor Ernest Borgnine died, age 95. Like Andy Griffith, who didn’t like him? It was way back in 1955 that Ernie earned an Oscar for the drama “Marty,” but he displayed his comic side in “McHale’s Navy.”
You know, I just have no time for movies but I’ve had a copy of “Ice Station Zebra” lying around for years (I buy movies and then never open them) and it’s about freakin’ time I watched it.
–Professional poker player Antonio Esfandiari, 33, became the biggest winner in poker tournament history when he took first-place in a charity event of the World Series of Poker, $17.3 million, excluding a $1 million buy-in. Hedge-fund manager David Einhorn took third, winning around $3.4 million after the buy-in. He pledged to donate the money to an education non-profit.
—Five climbers, all from Germany, plunged to their deaths on Tuesday in the Swiss Alps. They had reached the summit of the Lagginhorn, near the border with Italy, but tumbled several hundred meters as they began their descent. It was the biggest loss of life on a European mountaineering expedition since an avalanche on Mont Blanc killed eight in August 2008.
–Three German women were killed on a golf course when lightning struck a shelter they fled to during a violent thunderstorm.
—U.S. album sales for the first half of 2012 slumped after seeing growth last year, while digital track sales rose, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Album sales were down 3 percent, with digital sales rising 6 percent. Adele’s “21” is the only set to have sold more than 1 million copies this year and hasn’t been out of the top 10 since debuting in February 2011. Adele’s “19” (which debuted in 2008) is the tenth best-selling album this year.
But did you know Lionel Richie’s country album “Tuskegee” is the second biggest-selling album of 2012, with 912,000 copies sold since its release in March? WTF?
Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Hits” is No. 4, by the way. She’s dead, you know.
–PBS had a terrific documentary on the Beach Boys, Fourth of July, which I’m sure you can watch on the PBS website or elsewhere. Their album “That’s Why God Made the Radio” debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard chart, their highest-charting studio LP since 1965! Shu saw them in concert the other night and said they sounded great. Even Brian was “not bad, not bad at all.”
The documentary contains a good version of one of my favorites, “Sail on Sailor.”
Top 3 songs for the week 7/8/89: #1 “Good Thing” (Fine Young Cannibals….wouldn’t have been #112 in 1965) #2 “Baby Don’t Forget My Number” (Milli Vanilli…fraud alert…part of Libor scandal later on) #3 “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” (Simply Red…pathetic rip off of far superior Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes version from 17 years earlier…Simply Red should have put in prison for ten years for doing this) #5 “Toy Soldiers” (Martika) #6 “I Drove All Night” (Cyndi Lauper…couldn’t stand her) #7 “Miss You Like Crazy” (Natalie Cole…still miss her father) #8 “Satisfied” (Richard Marx…goofy hair…plus he truly sucked) #9 “Buffalo Stance” (Neneh Cherry…so incredibly bad, I’d threaten your kids who are home for the summer that if they don’t cut the grass for free, you’ll make them listen to this for six weeks running) #10 “What You Don’t Know” (Expose…just tried to off myself after listening to this one but only had Flintstones vitamins in the medicine cabinet…I’m heading back to the 60s ASAP)
All-Star Break Quiz Answers: 1) .340 from July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012: Melkey Cabrera, .343; Adrian Beltre, .342. 2) 40 home runs: Jose Bautista, 45; Curtis Granderson, 43; Josh Hamilton, 42. [Ryan Braun, 39.] 3) Shortstop J.J. Hardy hit 31 homers over that span. Troy Tulowitzki and Asdrubal Cabrera had 23. 4) Justin Verlander is the only one to win 20…21.
