Pittsburgh Steelers Quiz: Name the five to throw for 10,000 yards in their Pittsburgh careers. Must get all five to be able to drink a six-pack of Rolling Rock. Otherwise, you’ll be forced to drink a six of Iron City, poured down the throat like a goose being force fed that is later served as pate. Answer below.
Ball Bits
“I really don’t need an entire column to explain that the Washington Nationals shutting down Stephen Strasburg before season’s end is the dumbest decision in contemporary times since Decca Records passed on the Beatles in 1962, but I’m paid for 800 words, so what the heck.
“In the thick of a magical season that may not come around again for 50 years, the best interests of the Nationals are for Strasburg to pitch until his arm falls off.
“(By the way, if it does fall off, with modern medicine it can be surgically reattached and – at most – he misses two starts.)
“As for Strasburg, his best interests are to pitch as long as he can as well as he can, for we may never pass this way again. Yes, his career might be shortened, but as the eloquent Rupert Pupkin once stated, ‘Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime.’
“(And, hey, didn’t Strasburg see ‘The Natural’? Roy Hobbs was bleeding from the abdomen, through his uniform, taking a swing at one moment of glory.)
“So spare me all the doctors and experts and pundits and custodians of the game….
“To quote the great William Goldman on Hollywood, ‘Nobody knows anything,’ and that applies to most of life….
“(Incidentally, why is it called ‘Tommy John surgery’? Shouldn’t the procedure be identified by the doctor who first performed it, Frank Jobe? After all, the Heimlich maneuver isn’t named after the person who was choking.)
“In defense of the Nationals’ decision, there is plenty of historical precedence for their handling of Strasburg:
“Michelangelo, suffering from ‘artists’ elbow,’ was limited by Vatican doctors to 33,500 painting strokes per annum; as a result, it took him four years to complete the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
“Inveterate explorer Ferdinand Magellan got seasick if he sailed more than 21 consecutive days, so when he led the first around-the-world expedition, he docked frequently at various ports, his favorite being – oddly enough – Atlantic City.
“God, of course, famously rested on the seventh day; without that 24-hour hiatus, I can’t even imagine the shape the world would be in today.”
–On Aug. 8, the Pirates were 63-47 and not only a lock to have their first winning season in 20 years, but were playoff bound. Now, after a 9-22 skid, they are just 72-69. And it doesn’t look as if your editor will be able to make a trip out to Pittsburgh to put them over the top.
Meanwhile, who wudda thunk both the Phillies and Milwaukee would be sitting at .500, 71-71, and suddenly just 4 back of a wild card spot? As Mark R. and I were just chatting, with the Phillies’ staff rounding back into form, if somehow they sneak in, they could make some noise.
–The Mets’ R.A. Dickey needs to win 20 games to win the Cy Young Award, or so it seems, but in a 5-3 loss to Washington on Tuesday in which Dickey gave up three of the runs, once again the Mets provided zero run support for their starter at home. In fact, it was the 12th consecutive home game the Mets failed to score more than three, setting a franchise record. In Tuesday’s same game, the Mets did finally end another ignoble streak when they scored two runs in the fifth inning. Until then, they had gone 110 innings at home without a multi-run inning, the longest such streak since the 1909 Washington Senators went 119 innings without one. Seriously. Since the All-Star break, the Mets are 4-20 at Citi Field. 4-20! At home! The 1979 Mets hold the record for worst post-All-Star break home record at 6-32. [The Astros are 5-20 since the break at home, but then they’ve sucked all year.]
–As Michael S. Schmidt and Juliet Macur of the New York Times report, questions are being raised about baseball’s Mitchell Report on steroids in the game; specifically, why was there no mention of agents Sam and Seth Levinson despite the fact some of their clients were mentioned? The two main sources for Mitchell, a convicted steroids dealer and a trainer, confirmed they told Mitchell about the Levinsons. A spokesman for Mitchell said he wouldn’t comment on the matter. The Levinsons are in the news today because they represent Melky Cabrera.
But a key figure in the Mitchell report, former catcher Paul Lo Duca, has told investigators the Levinsons provided him with the illegal substances, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation (as reported by Schmidt and Macur). Mitchell, though, had “redacted the information on checks written by Lo Duca to purchase drugs. Those checks belonged to an account Lo Duca jointly had with ‘Samuel W. Levinson/ACES’ and also included the address of the Levinsons’ office in Brooklyn.” [ACES being the name of the agency they run.]
The Levinsons represent some of the game’s most well-known players, including the Mets’ David Wright.
“As far back as June 2007, the trainer, Brian McNamee, told the prosecutors that the Levinsons were obtaining drugs from the dealer, Kirk Radomski, and providing them to their client, the reliever Mike Stanton.”
–Houston Astros owner Jim Crane said there is a possibility Roger Clemens could pitch for the team this year, but added, “We haven’t heard from Roger, so that’s still up in the air.”
For his part, Clemens said he would pitch this season only against a contender. “Pitching against somebody that’s not in contention wouldn’t be any fun for me.”
College Football
–Just a few games of note this week, though last time I said that there ended up being a slew of them.
No. 1 Alabama at Arkansas…though after the Razorbacks’ loss to La.-Monroe, should be a ‘Bama rout.
No. 2 USC at No. 21 Stanford…will the Trojans be tired after their East Coast trip last weekend?
Wake Forest at No. 5 Florida State…Go Deacs!
No. 20 Notre Dame at No. 10 Michigan State…very interesting early season matchup.
–Speaking of ND, as rumored, the Fighting Irish have settled on the ACC for all sports except football, though they will play five games annually vs. ACC schools. [Notre Dame also will move to Hockey East in that sport.]
So this means 15 schools for basketball. Further betting opportunities, at least, for yours truly with the likes of Mark R. Otherwise, I am bored by all this conference garbage.
–I wore Deaconwear a second straight day as I was golfing Monday, though none of those playing with me commented. Probably because one of them, Steve D., is my Boston College rival and I’ve been winning lunches from him recently.
But in exchanging notes with booster Chris K., he reminded me that even with a loss to Florida State this coming Saturday, the Deacs could be 5-1 after Week 6 following games against Army, Duke and Maryland. At least that is our dream.
As for the FSU contest, the Seminoles being ranked T-5 in the AP, Wake is a 24 ½ point underdog, last Chris saw. I hesitate to take the points in this one.
–The Oregon Ducks have suffered two key blows as senior safety John Boyett, who tied a Rose Bowl record with 17 tackles against Wisconsin last January, and starting senior guard Carson York have been lost for the season with knee injuries. Yet another reason to hedge your Duckwear with some Oregon State Beaverwear, much as we do here at StocksandNews.
“With 8 minutes 59 seconds left in the third quarter and the Seminoles leading (Savannah State) 55-0, the rest of the game was called off by lighting. Even though FSU Coach Jimbo Fisher was apparently prepared to play everyone in the student body, a 60-minute game might very easily have produced a WORSE outcome than the one suffered by Savannah State a week earlier. [An 84-0 loss to Oklahoma State.]
“This is what Savannah State had to show for its trips to Oklahoma State and Florida State: $860,000 for the athletic department’s budget and two losses by a combined margin of 139-0, which was that ‘close’ only because lightning struck. The yardage difference on Saturday, in a 36-minute game, was 413-28. Guess which team had the 28?
“Games like this shouldn’t happen. If the NCAA isn’t going to ban games between Football Bowl Subdivision Schools and Football Championship Subdivision schools (previously known as Division I-A and Division I-AA) it should at least declare that when the new playoff system begins in 2014 that playing a team from a lower division makes a team ineligible for the playoff.”
Well, Mr. Feinstein goes on to talk about all the I-AA schools that lost last Saturday, like Georgia State to Tennessee, 51-13, and then points out exceptions to the rule (though he failed to note the best one, Appalachian State’s famous win over Michigan a few years ago), and, frankly, gets twisted in a pretzel over the whole issue, concluding:
“That’s why such games shouldn’t be banned, they should simply force a true power school to think twice before scheduling them.”
Hey, I said before Wake Forest played Liberty that I hated filler games like this, but then Liberty almost beat us. There’s one easy way to eliminate these games, if that is your goal. Go back to an 11-game schedule. I don’t know why we went to 12 in the first place…oh, I know…money.
But I don’t feel sorry for the Savannah State players. If the worst thing that ever happens to them in their lives is to get pasted by Oklahoma State and Florida State, well they’ve been very, very lucky indeed. I must say, however, I am curious to see how they fare this week against North Carolina Central.
By the way, back to the Deacs, in 1974 we went 1-10 and had the following five-game stretch.
North Carolina…0-31
Oklahoma…0-63
Penn State…0-55
Maryland…0-47
Virginia…0-14
We also lost to William & Mary that season and the only win was the final game against Furman, 16-10.
But the following year we defeated North Carolina, North Carolina State and Virginia and as far as I know the players all survived the beatdowns from the previous season. So, no, I’m not too concerned about Savannah State.
Andy Murray
I caught just a little of the Andy Murray-Novak Djokovic dramatic U.S. Open final, won by Murray, 7-6 (10), 7-5, 2-6, 3-6, 6-2; specifically the third set as I had a dinner meeting. [One fellow, George L., works on ice flows in the Arctic for Shell…we were talking about his time on Sakhalin Island, which is pristine in the winter but you don’t want to be there in the summer when all the garbage is exposed.]
“The waiting ends for Britain, a nation that suffered for generations, for 76 years and through 287 majors.
“Monkeys descended from backs. Elephants left the room, and then the National Tennis Center. An entire, self-flagellating sports nation wakes up Tuesday morning knowing how Ranger fans felt in 1994 and how Red Sox diehards greeted the dawn in 2004.
“One of their men, a Scot, captured a major championship for the first time since 1936. The name Fred Perry can be retired from the daily, summer vocabulary of the London sports sections. That headline in the Daily Mail from years ago, ‘We’re Rubbish,’ no longer applies to the sport of kings.
“Murray, a fine player born at the wrong time, at long last climbs through his window of opportunity.”
“It was a joyous occasion for Murray…and yet there was an awful moment in the fifth set that very nearly ruined everything.
“Incredibly, when Djokovic required a medical timeout for a massage, down 2-5 in the fifth set, the crowd booed him. They jeered the man who would play 315 points, who had come back from two sets down and 22-point tiebreaker loss, who had fought through the gusts of wind, who had limped after balls to keep rallies alive.
“Ashe Stadium can be a classless joint. Djokovic gave it right back to the hecklers. While his thighs were being massaged by a trainer, he clapped his hands and put thumbs up, sarcastically responding to the detractors.
“It’s a terrible shame that American fans at the U.S. Open never seem able to embrace Djokovic as a personable champion. He smiles, he sings, he impersonates other athletes. He plays remarkable tennis and there is no quit in him anywhere. He applauds his opponents’ best shots. He says the right things on court after matches.
“ ‘I really tried my best,’ Djokovic told the crowd on Monday, after he lost. ‘Thank you all for staying so late.’”
As Bondy correctly observes, there has always been a cultural bias against Eastern Europeans among the Open set, unless you are a Russian female beauty. Being half-Slovak myself, hey, New Yorkers…shove it up your….[Just kidding! Maybe…]
–I didn’t realize David Akers of the 49ers tied the NFL record with a 63-yard field goal on Sunday, just before halftime of the game vs. the Packers, your editor watching golf at that moment. Sebastian Janikowski kicked one for the Raiders last season, and of course you have Tom Dempsey’s famous 63-yarder all the way back in 1970 in a game many of us still remember because it was on television at a time when few games were. Jason Elam also kicked one that length in 1998 for Denver. There have only been nine field goals of 60 yards or more in NFL history.
–The United States won its rematch with Jamaica in World Cup qualifying, 1-0, in Columbus, Ohio. The Americans are tied with Guatemala and Jamaica at 7 points with the top two advancing to the regionals, but Jamaica trails on goal differential. There is one more set of matches next month.
–I forgot to mention last time that in winning the BMW Championship Sunday, Rory McIlroy joined Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus as the only players to win at least six times at age 23. [Four of Rory’s six are this year.]
–The Harvard cheating scandal appears to have claimed men’s basketball co-captains Kyle Casey and Brandyn Curry. Harvard was 26-5 last season and made its first trip to the NCAA tournament since 1946. They were looking strong this coming campaign.
–And there is another scandal at North Carolina. As reported by Zach Braziller of the New York Post:
“Former star quarterback and chief fundraiser Matt Kupec resigned Sunday after an in-house investigation revealed school fundraiser Tami Hansbrough, the mother of former UNC star Tyler Hansbrough, has taken personal trips at the university’s expense, Chancellor Holden Thorp announced on Monday, as first reported by the News & Observer.
“Divorced from her two sons’ father, Tami Hansbrough has been placed on administration leave from her $95,000 job.”
Tami had been hired to serve as a fundraiser when her son was a senior, with the Tar Heels winning the national championship that season.
Controversial college basketball promoter Sonny Vaccaro told USA TODAY that the NCAA doesn’t have the guts to go after North Carolina or Duke.
“Pull back the curtain and the wizard is not there. They are all the same…The NCAA does not have the guts to do the right thing for everyone. They do it for a chosen few.”
In the case of Carolina, it’s about the academic scandal, while at Duke you suddenly have the case of Lance Thomas and the expensive jewelry. Did Duke knowingly know they were competing with an ineligible player; receiving credit for his purchases because of his status as a basketball player?
–I didn’t realize last Sunday at Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Paula Creamer and Jiyai Shin held the longest playoff – nine holes – in LPGA history as Shin defeated Creamer in a match extending to Monday morning…which is why I missed it.
–I was reading Golf World and saw that Deutsche Bank CEO Seth Waugh has a son who is going to play golf at Wake Forest next year. I hope the kid is a superstar, Mr. Waugh!
By the way, there is only one athlete in the world that I will never, ever criticize and that is Bill Haas. I just can’t. But if you watched last Sunday’s event, just understand when it comes to his play, I’m not always going to be objective.
–I saw a blurb in this week’s Barron’s on a special collection that is now available online, for free. If you like to look at classic maps, mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries, check out davidrumsey.com. You can examine them in minute detail. His collection numbers over 150,000 and includes items such as AT&T’s 1891 map of communications lines in the Northeast. I just glanced at the site and it is very cool. Rumsey said he will be donating his entire collection to Stanford University by 2014. You can also superimpose satellite images on antique maps though a partnership with Google Earth.
–Good lord. Reader Shu, a Pirates, Steelers and Carolina fan down in Phoenix, was bemoaning the Buccos’ collapse when on Monday night, “I got stung by a scorpion on the bottom of the foot walking barefoot in the living room.” [Not exactly a good promo for visiting AZ.]
“The pain is unbelievable…was on the phone with disease control on and off a few times through the night as they monitored my symptoms. They said ‘I need to ride it out.’”
Shu said the pain goes from the bottom of the foot up to the knee, throbbing pain, and his toes “feel like a 1,000-lb. sledge hammer is hitting them over and over.”
So, sports fans…you do not want to step on a scorpion. Wear hiking boots, even in the shower.
—Director of Tennis for Bar Chat, Jeff B., completed his annual tennis immersion at Kiawah Resort and Jeff reported, “No one would fess up to the alligator rumors. I asked several resort staff point blank, ‘Why haven’t we heard more about the gator attacks that occurred on the Ocean Course during PGA Championship week?’ and was met by blank stares, with one mouth dropping open in disbelief a la Jacob Marley in the Alistair Sim version of ‘A Christmas Carol.’ Suspicious? You bet!”
Jeff then noted that when he and his wife, Kathy, were biking, they saw a gator that was clearly very well fed. I suggested the gators are holding the bodies in the marshes for future dining. Kind of like deer hunters packing away their kill in the freezer for winter.
Thanks for the reporting, Jeff. We will learn the final truth later in the year when I head back down there for my half-marathon and golf.
–Researchers appear to have discovered “living” mammoth cells in remains discovered in Siberia that could be used to clone the ancient mammal. Others express skepticism.
But should the woolly mammoth be cloned, it would immediately jump to No. 2 on the All-Species List behind Dog and ahead of the Gibbon.
–Johnny Mac just passed along word of a second beaver attack in Fairfax County, though this time the Beav didn’t bite anyone, including a group of children who had gathered for a fishing competition. So to be accurate, it was more a chase.
Nonetheless, the beaver was gunned down in a hail of bullets by animal control officers, Bonnie and Clyde style, and it was found to have rabies.
Just the other day I said I suspended the rodent for 50 days and a second offense would cost it 100. The species is in major trouble, to say the least, with the folks who comprise the All-Species List committee very close to issuing a special Pete Rosesque lifetime ban should this abhorrent behavior continue.
Bottom line, the Beaver doesn’t seem to be a good listener, and as Johnny says, just because they are having trouble getting credit like the rest of us these days, that doesn’t mean they have the right to go rabid and scare little children and the elderly.
But I’m just wondering if there is a tie in to the Levinsons. Perhaps that explains their behavior.
Your editor: “R.A. Dickey is 18-5…” “What did you say?! I’m outta here!”
Top 3 songs for the week of 9/15/79: #1 “My Sharona” (The Knack…just awful…) #2 “After The Love Has Gone” (Earth, Wind & Fire…one of their better ones…It was my senior year at Wake Forest and I was trying to figure out how I could graduate…so I thought, hey, maybe I’ll take piano for one credit, your editor once being a decent player, and I spent the whole semester trying to master a Rachmaninoff piano concerto, a famous one whose title escapes me because I killed that brain cell at a fish place in Istanbul…I actually practiced a ton, a lot more than I worked on any one class in four years, but I got a B+ if I remember right, not an A…However, I did end up graduating in four years and no one was hurt!) #3 “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” (The Charlie Daniels Band…they did such good stuff, including my favorite, “Carolina,” but this one sucked)…and…#4 “Don’t Bring Me Down” (Electric Light Orchestra…sorry, Bob B., mega ELO fan from my dorm…they made my brain hurt…) #5 “Lead Me On” (Maxine Nightingale) #6 “Sad Eyes” (Robert John…voice disturbingly high…not in a Frankie Valli way…) #7 “Lonesome Loser” (Little River Band…great group…lousy tune) #8 “I’ll Never Love This Way Again” (Dionne Warwick…supposedly a real pain in the ass to deal with…got this from an informed source…) #9 “Good Times” (Chic…whatever…) #10 “Sail On” (Commodores…not bad considering the year really blew as we were stuck in the malaise of Jimmy Carter…waiting for Ronnie to arrive! I asked Gov. Reagan what he thought of the tune at the time… “Well, not bad…not bad at all.”)
Pittsburgh Steelers Quiz Answer: Five with 10,000 yards passing.
Terry Bradshaw 27,989
Ben Roethlisberger 26,824
Kordell Stewart 13,328
Neil O’Donnell 12,867
Bubby Brister 10,104
