Chicago White Sox Quiz: 1) Since 1912, name the White Sox pitcher who is the single-season leader with a relatively meager 215 strikeouts (actually think post-1960). 2) In the modern era, who are the only two ChiSox hurlers to win 24? [neither an answer to No. 1] 3) Nellie Fox had 201 hits in 1954. Since then, who is the only White Sox batter to have 200 hits in a season? 4) Who is the franchise single-season record holder in both home runs and RBI? Answers below.
Penn State
The NCAA slammed the school hard.
A $60 million fine.
Four-year postseason ban.
Players may transfer and play immediately at other schools. [Now or after the 2012 season.]
The reduction of 20 total scholarships each year for a four-year period. [65 instead of the typical 85 beginning with the 2014 season.]
Athletic department on probation for five years.
Vacation of wins from 1998-2011*
*Joe Paterno’s record is now 298-136-3; fifth on FBS all-time list, not first with 409 wins.
The NCAA didn’t give Penn State the death penalty but the breadth of the penalties was just as debilitating.
“In the Penn State case, the results were perverse and unconscionable. No price the NCAA can levy will repair the damage inflicted by Jerry Sandusky on his victims.”
As I noted last Bar Chat, the NCAA acted with unprecedented speed, aided by former FBI director Louis Freeh’s report and what it said about Paterno and the rest of the Penn State leadership.
“It’s really simple: I am frankly outraged as a member of the board of trustees that the university entered into a consent agreement without discussing it with the board in advance of signing. If I’m going to be held accountable, I feel like I should’ve been part of that process. I think it’s fair to say that a number of board members are upset…It really wasn’t much of a negotiation (but) everything’s negotiable. My view is that we rolled over and played dead. (The board members) want to put Paterno behind them.”
Chuck Smrt (sic) of the NCAA enforcement staff said the bottom line is: “You have a report that the school has agreed to and based upon that report, these penalties were imposed.”
“The decision will test the commitment of the players, coaches and recruits tied to the Penn State program, which is almost certain to enter a period of irrelevancy on the field. Penn State Coach Bill O’Brien, set to enter his first season, pledged his commitment to the program.
“ ‘I will do everything in my power to not only comply, but help guide the university forward to become a national leader in ethics, compliance and operational excellence,’ he said in a statement. ‘I knew when I accepted the position that there would be tough times ahead. But I am committed for the long term to Penn State and our student-athletes.’….
“The fine was equal to the average annual gross revenue of the football program. The money will be placed into an endowment for programs that work to prevent child sexual abuse and assist victims. No programs at Penn State can be financed by the money.
“While the NCAA opted not to shut down the program for a year, the penalties will essentially prohibit Penn State football from having a full complement of scholarship players until 2020.
“Penn State will be limited to 65 scholarship players starting in 2014, but will most likely fall below that number because it will be able to award only 15 scholarships a year starting in 2013.* Those penalties are much more severe than the ones currently imposed on Southern California for its rules violations during the Pete Carroll era. The Trojans are limited to 75 scholarship players and were barred from the postseason for two years.”
*As former Miami coach Butch Davis, who faced a similar situation with scholarship reductions, told the New York Post’s Lenn Robbins, “the number (65) is going to be lower. Kids get hurt. Kids decide they don’t want to play anymore. Kids don’t keep up their grades. We had two kids die in tragedies unrelated to football. We petitioned the NCAA to get those scholarships back. We didn’t get them.”
“This is more than just a statue of Joe Paterno coming down now, this is Penn State football coming down with it. This is the end, once and for all, of all the old ideas about Paterno and Penn State football, how everything was somehow better and different and more noble there.
“It is also about the young men like Silas Redd (junior running back) who now pay the price for the failures of powerful old men, just more collateral damage from all the coverup, the lies, the need to protect the institution rather than Jerry Sandusky’s victims.
“NCAA president Mark Emmert said on Monday morning, in announcing his profound sanctions against the school and its football program, that this wasn’t the death penalty. But it was. Paterno has been dead six months. Penn State football, everything we thought it once meant in college sport, officially died on Monday morning….
“And football players like Redd who had nothing to do with this scandal, who went to Penn State, even as Paterno was growing old and frail not knowing of the coming storm involving Jerry Sandusky, can now transfer, play immediately for another school if they’re eligible….
“(Redd) gained 1,241 yards last season for Paterno and scored seven touchdowns and is already being discussed as a Player of the Year candidate. Redd is one who bought into all those old ideas about Paterno and Penn State and now he has to decide whether to go or stay….
“ ‘None of these players, Silas included, did anything wrong,’ Silas Redd’s high school coach, Danny Gouin, was saying Monday afternoon. ‘Now they’re being punished for the work of bad men with no morals.’
“But those players were still declared free agents by Emmert on Monday, can be recruited all over again from Penn State the way they were once recruited out of high school….
[Redd is apparently thinking of transferring to USC.]
“(It) felt like the NCAA saved its leveling blow for Joe Paterno, whose memory took a bone-jarring hit over the weekend. First, on Sunday, his famed statue outside Beaver Stadium was removed. Yesterday, the final 111 victories of Paterno’s career were erased from the record book, dropping him from first place to 12th on the all-time victory list. [Ed. all divisions]
“For it was Paterno who created this football fortress in the Pennsylvania countryside, who led us to believe for so many decades that this was the most noble experiment in college sports. It was he who used to decry the foul likes of Barry Switzer and Jackie Sherrill, the bandits of football, who, he believed, put winning above all else.
“And it is he who will bear the brunt of this into eternity. Yesterday’s sanctions guarantee that. On his watch, on the watch of every Penn State administrator at the time, a child molester was allowed to roam free on campus grounds and perpetuate his vile avocation. The Freeh Report made that perfectly clear.
“And the NCAA, yesterday, made this perfectly clear. It is well to espouse yourself as the conscience of college sport, as Paterno’s Penn State did for so many years. But you’d better mean what you say. And if you don’t, there will be fire and brimstone to pay for that breach of faith.
“It wasn’t the death penalty. But Penn State football will not look like Penn State football for a good, long while.
“And in a place where football has reigned for 45 years?
“After no one went to off-campus police at Penn State when they knew a kid of maybe 10 was raped in the showers, after those same people never even tried to find out what became of that kid, the prism through which we view all evil in college athletics changed forever.
“That’s why the façade of Pleasantville needed to go away. Having football Saturdays return to campus in any fashion was giving the university back its most sacred possession, the main commodity that made grown men protect a program before a child.
“ ‘There are no actions we can take that will take away their pain and anguish,’ Emmert said of the victims, rationalizing later the decision to let football continue at Penn State.
“This was his moment. And he and the NCAA, no matter how unprecedented the sanctions appear, failed when they didn’t take away one football season from the university.
“His organization stood toothlessly on the sideline, while a former FBI director’s law firm did his homework for him, amassing millions of documents and testimony that showed a star chamber of men covered up child sexual abuse at a big-time college football powerhouse.
“All the things deemed so consequential in Emmert’s world – appeasing the anti-BCS jihad, expanding the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, making sure every kid accused of getting a free breakfast or his parents’ free airline tickets was investigated to the fullest – now seemed trite compared to what happened in Happy Valley.
“In their little world, Emmert and the NCAA were seen as stern. In the real world, they cowered at the idea of taking Penn State off all those 2012 Big Ten schedules. Sadly, they let the season go and made sure college football remained king.”
“The NCAA’s most personal slash Monday at the legacy of Coach Joe Paterno was to force Penn State to vacate every one of his victories back through the 1998 season, when the first investigation of possible sexual abuse by his former top assistant, Jerry Sandusky, was said to have occurred. That put Paterno’s victory total at 298 and left Grambling’s Eddie Robinson with the Division I record at 408 and Florida State’s Bobby Bowden with the major-college record of 377.
“ ‘There is no rejoicing in the Bowden household,’ Bowden said in a statement. ‘Nobody would want to have a title given to him this way.’
“Among some distasteful details about the list is the fact that Bowden rested at his number after the NCAA docked him 12 victories in 2009 after finding Florida State guilty of an academic cheating scandal. And while Robinson’s tenure at Grambling was free of such controversies, it was a bit unseemly that the Grambling, La., city attorney wrote a letter in conjunction with the mayor last week imploring the NCAA to take away Paterno’s victories so Robinson would rise back to the top of the list.
“The NCAA did just that, slicing 111 victories off Paterno’s record…That also made Paterno’s last official victory a 35-10 win over Wisconsin on Nov. 22, 1997, a game in which the Nittany Lions were quarterbacked by Mike McQueary, who became a witness to a sexual assault by Sandusky of a young boy and who played a central role in the eventual prosecution of Sandusky and Paterno’s downfall.
“The decision also opened another trap door in the messy business of vacated victories. The NCAA has used the vacating of victories as a way to punish those who actually committed infractions, instead of just the current players and coaches. But vacating does not have the same effect as a forfeit, which would award the victory to the other team. Instead it just leaves the game in a strange limbo in which it is treated as if it wasn’t officially played. This creates bizarre and unsatisfactory moments like Kentucky Coach John Calipari celebrating his third trip to the Final Four despite the official record book not recognizing the first two.”
Back to the recruiting angle, just minutes after the NCAA levied its sanctions, Ross Douglas, a class of 2013 cornerback from Ohio, rescinded his commitment to the university following the NCAA’s announcement.
Recruiting experts say the big one to watch is Adam Brenemen, a blue-chip tight tend from Camp Hill, Pa.
Scout.com’s recruiting analyst Brandon Huffman said, “If they lose a guy that solid, that’s all-in on Penn State, then the kids from out of state (will likely leave too). He holds the key to this entire class.”
[Breneman evidently told Coach Bill O’Brien he would be staying. Another player, aside from Redd, drawing attention is 2013 top quarterback prospect, Christian Hackenberg, who it seems will take his time mulling over his choices.]
Huffman says that among the schools that will benefit from the chaos will be Michigan, Ohio State, Pitt, Virginia and possibly Maryland.
“The NCAA has stipulated that other programs must notify Penn State of their interest in a player, and that a player must request permission to seek a transfer. If those conditions have been met, teams may travel anywhere to visit a player, or call the players at any time – both of which would normally be against NCAA rules – until Penn State’s first day of classes on Aug. 27.
“The players will be allowed to transfer before this season, at any time during the season if they haven’t competed for Penn State, or prior to the 2013 season. They will be allowed to play immediately for their new universities, which will be permitted to exceed scholarship limits in taking on the Penn State players if they deduct that amount for the next season.”
Needless to say, it’s chaos. The 2013 recruits “have only verbally committed to the university and can renege without repercussions until next February, just like all recruits around the country.”
Coach O’Brien is scrambling as well; reminding his players all their games will still be televised.
One last item, timing is everything…like as Julie Bosman wrote in the New York Times, the timing for Joe Posnanski’s book “Paterno,” scheduled for release next month, couldn’t be worse.
The book was announced in March 2011 as “a biography of America’s winningest college football coach, who changed the country one football player at a time.” Simon & Schuster acquired the book for a reported $750,000 and had scheduled an extensive book tour, which is being drastically scaled back, if not canceled outright. Total costs, including printing, will probably reach $1 million.
Posnanski had “the full cooperation of Joe Paterno and his family” but the author caught major heat when in a January piece for Sports Illustrated, he was seen as overly sympathetic to Paterno. Posnanski maintains it’s a “balanced biography.” Many bookstores say they don’t want to see a single copy.
Ball Bits
–In a totally unexpected move with rumors only surfacing hours before, the New York Yankees acquired 10-time All-Star and future Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki from the Mariners for two minor leaguers and cash. Granted, Ichiro is a shell of his former self, hitting just .260 this season (and .268 since the start of 2011), but he’s still fast and gives the Yankees the speed they’ve been missing with the loss of Brett Gardner and his balky elbow. Ichiro requested a trade, which saved the Mariners the embarrassment of having to cut ties with an aging star as they build for the future.
Ironically, his first game on Monday night as a Yankee was against the Mariners in Seattle and the Seattle fans gave him a warm ovation.
Ichiro is a free agent at the end of the season so the Yanks are clearly renting him for the playoffs. A smart move. He’ll obviously be reenergized and should contribute.
–But then the day after the Yankees acquired Ichiro, the Dodgers stunned the baseball world in acquiring three-time All-Star Hanley Ramirez from the Marlins. Ramirez is signed through 2014, adding about $38 million in financial commitments for the Dodgers’ new ownership. Ramirez, the 2009 N.L. batting champion, is only hitting .246, but he has 14 home runs and 48 RBI. He’s a career .300 hitter with pop and just 28. This will be a classic case of a change of scenery working wonders. The Dodgers also get a serviceable lefty reliever in Randy Choate while they give up rookie starting pitcher Nathan Eovaldi and minor league pitcher Scott McGough.
–And back to the Yankees, they suffered a big blow on Tuesday when Alex Rodriguez broke his hand on a pitch from Seattle’s King Felix, Felix Hernandez…the third batter Hernandez hit in the game. A-Rod will be out at least four weeks, it appears. He leaves the lineup with just 15 homers and 44 RBI and would have struggled to drive in 80.
–As for Phillies star hurler Cole Hamels, he signed a six-year, $144 million extension with Philadelphia. Good move all around…especially since it isn’t my cash.
–And Justin Upton? It seems as if Arizona will wait until the offseason to deal the 24-year-old star outfielder, who is signed through 2015. I don’t disagree with the move.
–Heading into Wednesday afternoon’s game against Stephen Strasburg and the Nationals, the Mets were 1-10 since the All-Star break, the worst since their inaugural season in 1962. The bullpen’s ERA of 5.10 for the year is a franchise worst as well. The pen in 1962 threw to a 4.76 ERA. Crowds will begin to dwindle to a precious few. I’ll be watching the Olympics the next few weeks, not the Mets.
The London Olympics
“A you tune in to the Summer Olympics – I’ll explain in a moment why I won’t – there are just two things you need to know:
“1. China had the most gold medals in 2008 and probably will eclipse the United States this time around in total medals.
“2. While our days of world dominance are over, there is one area in which the United States again might be the top dog – the decathlon!
“Best I can tell, we are now behind China in everything: Population, productivity, athletic prowess, cheap Chinese carry-outs and, of course, the flow of money. China is America’s biggest creditor. We owe the Chinese $1.2 trillion, and that doesn’t even include the juice on Donald Trump’s latest real-estate scams….
“(I’m done with the Olympics, my friends. They once seemed special as a quadrennial event; now, with the Summer and Winter Games rotating in even-numbered years, it seems as if another Olympics starts every eight months. The thrill is gone – it’s just a piece of pricey programming that NBC stretches out every evening as far as it can before giving you a winner.)….
“On the other hand, on the 100th anniversary of the modern decathlon’s inclusion in the Olympics, that event might lift U.S. spirits….
“(The) United State will have a one-two punch to totally restore decathlon dominance here: Ashton Eaton, who broke the world decathlon record last month at the U.S. Olympic trials, and defending world champion Trey Hardee….
“Anyway, though I will not be watching, I’m rooting for Eaton and Hardee. The decathlon once symbolized America’s ability to be the best across the board in multiple areas. Now we’re only good at one thing – reality TV, which, more or less, is what the Olympics have become.”
Well, that is a rather cynical take, isn’t it? But everyone is different. I’m focused on all the track events, and I do want the U.S. to kick ass in basketball.
The most fascinating story to me is Usain Bolt and whether or not he can defend in either the 100 or 200. Will compatriot Yohan Blake defeat him in both? Is Bolt really hurt? Aug. 5, 4:50 pm ET is the 100M final.
–R&A chief executive Peter Dawson is in discussions with the U.S. Golf Association over the fate of the belly putter, strongly hinting a decision could come soon, as three of the last four major winners, Ernie Els, Keegan Bradley and Webb Simpson all use it.
Dawson said, “I think you’re going to see us saying something about it one way or the other in a few months, rather than years.” But this doesn’t necessarily mean they will ban them.
Tiger Woods has a simple solution. The putter should be the shortest club in the bag. Els said back in October, “As long as it’s legal, I’ll keep cheating like the rest of them.”
If a rule change is made, though, it would not become effective until 2016, as the Rules of Golf are updated every four years.
At The Open Championship, there were 27 long putters and 16 belly putters in the 156-man field.
–NASCAR suspended driver A.J. Allmendinger indefinitely following confirmation his backup urine sample came up positive like the A sample.
Allmendinger admitted he tested positive for a stimulant, but denied knowingly taking a banned substance. Allmendinger is known to be a fitness freak and there was speculation the positive result came from a supplement or energy drink.
–Yippee! The New York Rangers acquired a legitimate goal scorer in Columbus Blue Jackets winger Rick Nash, a player who has averaged 33 goals a season and is just 28. The Rangers didn’t give up much in return in what looks to be a real steal. [Can you tell I’m trying to erase the Mets from my memory?]
—Chad Ochocinco is back to being Chad Johnson after four years of being known as a bigger jerk than he was initially.
–Johnny Mac wondered if Penn State has to vacate the name Happy Valley.
—Sherman Hemsley, aka George Jefferson, died on Tuesday. He was 74. It was in 1971 that the Jeffersons were introduced as Archie Bunker’s neighbors in Queens on “All in the Family” and the rest is television history. As Mel Watkins wrote in the New York Times, “George was conceived as a black version of Archie, as distrustful of white people as Archie was of black people (and almost everyone else).” The character proved to be so popular, “The Jeffersons” was spun off and its debut in 1975, “moving on up” to Manhattan’s Upper East Side in the opening episode owing to George’s successful cleaning business. “The Jeffersons” finished its initial season fourth in the Nielsen ratings. The show remained a hit until it left the air in 1985.
It was while a member of the Broadway musical “Purlie” that Norman Lear happened to be looking for an actor to play Archie Bunker’s neighbor and he remembered seeing Hemsley in that show.
“The cocky energy of the guy was totally in sync with the offstage image we had created of George,” Mr. Lear later said.
–And we note the passing of actor Chad Everett, 75. Everett played Dr. Joe Gannon on the TV drama “Medical Center” which aired on CBS from 1969 to 1976.
—Mariah Carey is joining “American Idol” as a judge next season. She is said to be receiving nearly $18 million for a one-year contract. Not bad…not bad at all.
—Bruce Springsteen revealed he has been battling depression since 1982 but as he put it, “Look, you cannot underestimate the fine power of self-loathing in all of this,” he told the New Yorker in admitting to seeing a shrink since 1982. “You think, I don’t like anything I’m seeing. I don’t like anything I’m doing, but I need to change myself, I need to transform myself. I do not know a single artist who does not run on that fuel.”
Steve Van Zandt said that Bruuuuce is “the only guy I know – I think the only guy I know at all – who never did drugs.”
Biographer Dave Marsh says that in 1982, Springsteen “was feeling suicidal. The depression wasn’t shocking, per se. He was on a rocket ride, from nothing to something, and now you are getting your ass kissed day and night. You might start to have some inner conflicts about your real self-worth.”
—Brian Wilson in Rolling Stone on the topic of new music from the Beach Boys as they explore hours of unheard recordings, plus demos by the late Dennis and Carl Wilson.
“There has been talk of a new record, which I would love to do. This reunion is blowing my mind.”
–As part of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, Paul McCartney will be singing “Hey Jude,” which certainly sounds like an appropriate tune to end the evening.
Top 3 songs for the week 7/23/66: #1 “Hanky Panky” (Tommy James and The Shondells” #2 “Wild Thing” (The Troggs) #3 “Lil’ Red Riding Hood” (Sam the Sham and The Pharaohs)…and…#4 “The Pied Piper” (Crispian St. Peters) #5 “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me” (Dusty Springfield) #6 “Paperback Writer” (The Beatles) #7 “Hungry” (Paul Revere & The Raiders) #8 “Red Rubber Ball” (The Cyrkle) #9 “I Saw Her Again” (The Mamas & The Papas) #10 “Sweet Pea” (Tommy Roe)
Chicago White Sox Quiz Answers: 1) Gary Peters, 1967, struck out 215, the highest total since 1912. Pathetic. 2) 24-game winners: LaMarr Hoyt, 24-10 during his 1983 Cy Young Award-winning season; Wilbur Wood, 24-17 in 1972, 24-20 in ’73 as the knuckleballer pitched 376 and 359 innings, respectively. 3) Albert Belle had 200 hits in 1998, the only Chicago player to get 200 since 1954. 4) Albert Belle also set the single-season marks for home runs, 49, and RBI, 152, that same 1998 season.
