[Note: Posted 12:30 p.m., Wednesday ….should something happen with the lockout subsequently.]
Baseball Quiz: Getting a combination of 70 doubles and home runs in a season is pretty rare. Consider that Mickey Mantle only did it twice. George Brett never reached the mark. Miguel Cabrera, though, has done it seven of the last eight years, including 2012. [He missed in 2009 with 34 doubles, 34 HR.]
So name the two to hit the 70 number 11 times. And then the next two with nine such seasons. Answer below.
NFL Blows It
Yes, the story is reaching the saturation point, but as I go to post the lockout continues and I have to get some of this down for the archives.
Tuesday afternoon, the NFL issued an unsigned statement from the officiating department admitting Seahawks wide receiver Golden Tate should have been called for offensive interference for shoving Packers cornerback Sam Shields – a penalty that would have ended Monday night’s historic contest.
But the league then claimed the subsequent ruling that Tate had simultaneous possession of Russell Wilson’s pass with Packers safety M.D. Jennings was correct – despite abundant proof to the contrary.
“The NFL Officiating Department reviewed the video today and supports the decision not to overturn the on-field ruling following the instant replay review. The result of the game is final.”
Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers called the league’s statement “garbage” and said they were “still covering their butt…I mean, come on! That’s embarrassing.”
Thad Williamson (professor at the Univ. of Richmond) / New York Times
“Monday night’s blown call during the Seattle Seahawks-Green Bay Packers game – in which a Seattle receiver clearly shoved a defender to make a disputable catch that, nevertheless, was ruled complete and thus resulted in a last-second win by Seattle – is already one of the most infamous moments in the history of the National Football League.
“But it is only the latest in what has been three weeks of near chaos at the start of the NFL season: thanks to a lockout against the league’s regular referees, replacement referees have overseen game after game scarred by bad calls, inconsistent judgments, misunderstanding of the nuances of the rules and, too often, a failure to rein in player and coach conduct.
“Don’t blame the referees, though – blame the league leadership. The most basic standard of ethical leadership demands that leaders act with a concern for the good of the whole. By that standard, the handling of the NFL’s labor dispute with its referees has been an epic failure. In response, the league’s commissioner, Roger Goodell, must step down….
“It’s estimated that the owners’ proposal would allow them to save $3.3 million a year in pension contributions – savings that amount to pocket change for an organization that generates over $9 billion a year in revenue.
“By playing hardball with the referees, the league has jeopardized something far more precious than $3.3 million: the integrity of the game itself. The NFL has prioritized getting tough on labor over protecting the value of its core product….
“Over the decades, the NFL has been an innovator in professional sport worldwide in the use of instant replay, precisely because it recognized the importance of getting things right.
“That worthy tradition has been disgraced over the past three weeks. Indeed, it is stunning to witness the lack of understanding NFL leadership has of the nature of its own sport.”
“Let’s see: The count in the NFL is now one ripped-off earlobe, one case of knocked unconscious for 10 minutes, one utter Monday night travesty and five coaches who have gone all ‘Jerry Springer Show’ on incompetent officials. You wonder when the shirt-jerking is going to escalate to completely berserk and a ref will get cold-cocked. The foaming rage against replacement refs has reached such a peak the NFL should dub this Please Don’t Beat a Zebra Week.
“NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and his owner-masters have lost control of what they so smugly refer to as their ‘product’ – as if pro football is an Amana toaster oven. Regardless of right or wrong in the labor dispute with officials, the league is guilty of gross malpractice: Before they locked out the refs, they should have made sure some replacements were halfway decently trained.
“What, exactly, did they expect when they threw these sad sacks on the field in the midst of two teams running at each other with violent intentions? Do the owners now know the history of their own game, the lesson of which is that in a vacuum the players will always bend rules and play more physically?….
“The responsibility for this lies solely with the league for employing crews that are hapless to the point of endangerment. The underpinning of football is to gain a physical edge and move the opponent out of the way. The difference between a clean, play-stopping hit and an illegal one is a split-second of self-control. But if players and coaches sense the refs are unreliable, then they do everything more physically in order to try to impose some certainty on a crapshoot of a contest….
“The failure of the owners to anticipate how teams would respond to weak officiating is telling. It tells us how ignorant of the game they really are, how insulated and above it, how spoiled by their skyboxes and bottles of Caymus Select. They planned for four years and built a war chest for last year’s lockout of the players. But they apparently were so haughty, they were blind to the repercussions of a ref lockout, to the fact that men who fight for a living would respond to blown calls with explosive rage….
“Both sides share blame for the prolonged labor dispute, but the failure to have an adequate plan in the meantime rests in only one place: the commissioner’s office. Goodell failed in his main responsibility. He is the keeper of the rules. If this is not his job, then what is it?”
“Roger Goodell didn’t end up in Stupidville overnight. Neither did his owners. They just look stupid now, as if they all just showed up from throwing flags in the old Lingerie League, as if they are all as bad as their own replacement referees.
“And the longer they go with replacement officials working NFL games – games for which they are spectacularly unqualified – the worse they look, the more they make a mockery of a $9 billion-a-year sport, continuing to lock out their regular officials over what amounts to tipping money….
“You know what passes for good news these days in the National Football League? That there hasn’t been a riot yet, something out of European soccer, because of one of these blown calls. Sunday night in Baltimore, a questionable field goal in the last seconds is called good, so that ending went against the road team, the Patriots.
“Then came Monday night in Seattle, mall-cop refs stealing a game from the Packers because of an obvious blown call at the end, the mall cops clearly afraid, being in Seattle, to overturn that call.
“One of these days, and soon if Goodell and the NFL owners don’t bring back their regular officials, one of these endings will go against the home team. Then it won’t just be a breakdown in civility in the NFL, it will be a breakdown of law and order.”
“How do you like this fraudulence that your stubbornness – and the greed of your henchmen owners – has brought, and wrought? How do you like the fact that in the Parthenon of pro football commissioners, you now officially reside south of Vince McMahon?
“Your scabs have now bled all over your product. Congratulations….
“If there is one benefit to come from the outrage of this calamity, it is this: unless Goodell is even more of an empty suit than he appears, unless he chooses to spit in the face not only of his league but of the fans who support it, this has to be the end of this ruinous, hideous lockout.
“Which means the only motivator that seemed to be looming – a player with a broken neck, a crushed vertebrae, a lethal brain scan – may be avoided. Maybe you don’t blame the scab refs themselves, even though they’ve willingly taken jobs of union employees who were locked out (not striking, remember)….
“The iron-headed league and its ham-fisted leader, Goodell – a man whose professional mission is clearly to supplant Gary Bettman atop the list of worst commissioners, all-time – have proven throughout this rock-headed ordeal that they will not be swayed by outrage, by buffoonery, by the mishaps that have grown to ransack their game. They are unmoved by the scabs’ inability to grasp the game’s complex rules, or to even ponder bending in compromise to end this disgrace….
“(What) we’ve seen are games that have descended to lawless anarchy because you can’t force respect on anyone. Certainly not scabs in zebra stripes. So maybe this will spare Goodell that. Maybe the cartoonish picture of one scab ruling touchdown, and another scab ruling interception, can finally force the right thing.
“It isn’t about credibility anymore; that lies in tatters. Now it’s about saving face for Goodell. Both of them.”
Meanwhile, the impact of the Packers-Seahawks game was felt far and wide in gambling land. According to Las Vegas bookmakers, the disputed ending may have swung $150 million in bets worldwide. The Packers were 3 ½-point favorites and held a 12-7 lead before the final play. One Vegas sportsbook operator said about 85% of the wagers were on Green Bay, who described the postgame scene at his joint as “chaotic disbelief.”
As for Patriots coach Bill Belichick, who grabbed line judge Esteban Garza after Baltimore’s disputed game-winning field goal, he commented on Monday that “I have never meant any disrespect or in any way tried to abuse or be disrespectful to the officials and the job that they do.”
–As feared, us Jets fans suffered a probable mortal blow to our season with the confirmation cornerback Darrelle Revis had torn his ACL. My predicted 6-10 looks better than ever. Revis is simply irreplaceable.
–Pretty amazing the last two weekends that Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees are a combined 0-6.
Ball Bits
–Since Carl Yastrzemski won the triple crown in 1967, 47 times a player has led in two of the three categories.
And suddenly Josh Hamilton came back from his sinus/eye issue and through Tuesday’s play retook the home run lead over Miguel Cabrera, 43-42, while Cabrera leads Hamilton in RBI, 133-124, and Joe Mauer for the batting title, .329 to .326.
As for the playoffs, no races in the N.L. this season as the Braves clinched the first wild card and St. Louis is 4 ½ ahead for the second slot.
But in the A.L., the White Sox and Tigers are tied in the A.L. Central at 82-72, while the Angels are 2 behind in the wild card at 85-69, trailing Oakland (87-67) and Baltimore (88-67). Baltimore is 1 ½ back of the Yankees.
Back to Hamilton, after missing five games due to blurred vision and a balance issue, an optometrist told Hamilton he was dealing with ocular keratitis, a drying of the cornea caused by too much caffeine and energy drinks.
Hamilton said, “I was loading up on caffeine, and I’m out there in the bright lights. I can’t control my eyes. They are stuck.”
–Former Dodgers relief pitcher Eric Gagne, who long ago admitted his 2003 Cy Young Award performance, when he saved 55 games, was in part fueled by human growth hormone, says in a forthcoming biography that 80% of his Dodgers teammates also used performance-enhancing drugs.
“I was intimately aware of the clubhouse in which I lived. I would say that 80% of the Dodgers players were consuming them,” Gagne writes.
This shouldn’t be a surprise, seeing as how some of Gagne’s teammates were publicly identified users like Paul Lo Duca and Guillermo Mota. Others in the Mitchell Report from that Dodgers era include pitcher Kevin Brown, catcher Todd Hundley and reliever Matt Herges.
–Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY had a piece on former Mets batboy and clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski, who pleaded guilty in 2007 to one count each of money laundering and distributing steroids and was a key figure in the Mitchell Report.
“Radomski secretly met last week with Major League Baseball investigators – including Dan Halem, senior vice president of department of investigations – to detail his relationship with player agents Sam and Seth Levinson…
“ ‘Baseball is pissed beyond belief,’ Radomski told USA TODAY Sports. ‘These new (MLB investigators) are working with the government. It’s not like the old regimen. Before, the government never wanted me to talk to anybody in baseball. They didn’t trust them.’”
Radomski adds, “Baseball used to hate me…They’re playing nice with me now. They really need my help.”
Former big leaguer and admitted steroid user David Segui said of Radomski it was common for players to “stiff him…I know who the guys are, and I’m embarrassed for them.”
“He can even pick them out. He sees the taut sinews in their necks. The skin texture. The spike in performance as the season endures.
“ ‘It’s not as bad as it was, but I know what’s going on,’ Radomski says. ‘I always tell people, ‘Somebody getting stronger and stronger when the season goes on, that just never happens.’ I don’t care who it is. That has to raise red flags.”
Interestingly, Radomski says of investigator Jeff Novitzky:
“He was the easiest guy to deal with. Honest. He told me the way it was. If I was honest with him, he would be honest with me. We had a really good working relationship. He was never vindictive. I never took it personal.”
–On Tuesday night, Angels hurler Zack Greinke fanned 13 in five innings, tying the live-ball era record for strikeouts thrown in five innings or less. The bullpen then followed up with seven more to close out a 5-4 win over the Mariners. So the 20 ties the all-time record for a nine inning game. The other three times were solo efforts, two by Roger Clemens (1986, 1996) and Kerry Wood (1998)
–What a bizarre ‘comeback’ season for Adam Dunn…from 11 homers and 42 RBI to 41 and 94. But the batting average is just .209 and he has only 47 singles. He is also the first person in history to have at least 100 walks, 200 strikeouts and 40 homers in a season.
–Aug. 8…Pittsburgh Pirates are 63-47. Through Tuesday, they are 13-31 since. According to ESPN’s Jayson Stark, no team has ever been 16 games over .500 after 108 games and finished with a losing record. Last season, before your editor went to Pittsburgh and unintentionally put a curse on them, they were 53-47 on July 25 before finishing 72-90, or a 19-43 finish.
–The Wall Street Journal decided to take a look at all of baseball’s broadcast teams for “announcer-bias” and as Jared Diamond reports, it’s not even close. For homerism, you can’t beat the White Sox’ tandem of Ken “Hawk” Harrelson and Steve Stone, who “make more nakedly biased statements during a single game than every other TV broadcast team in the American League combined.”
I got a kick out of this because earlier in the year I watched some ChiSox games and frankly couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was a bit over the top for my taste.
The Journal, by the way, found five broadcasting teams showed zero bias, including usage of words like “we,” “us,” and “our.” The Blue Jays, Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers and Mets.
Curt Gowdy Jr. is the senior vice president of production for Mets broadcasts on SNY and he offered that in a “highly opinionated” market like New York, fans wouldn’t take well to announcers being blatant homers. “The ‘we’ and ‘our’ cannot be in the vocabulary,” he said.
–Major yawner of a Saturday in college football. The best game might just be at noon, No. 25 Baylor vs. No. 9 West Virginia.
Tennessee at No. 5 Georgia is on at 3:30 but I just don’t think Tennessee will be in this one come fourth quarter.
No. 12 Texas at Oklahoma State may be OK, but Texas is overrated.
And the Saturday night game on ABC, think Brent and Herbie, is Wisconsin at No. 22 Nebraska. Sorry, fans of these two, but this one looked much better before the season started than it does now.
So the real game to catch…online…is 3-1 Duke at 3-1 Wake Forest!!! The line I’m looking at has the Deacs by three. Steer clear of this one, boys and girls. It’s too dangerous.
—Notre Dame announced it is ending its series with Michigan after 2014, thus canceling games scheduled for 2015-2017 as the Fighting Irish begin to meet their commitment to the ACC to play five games against that conference, starting no later than 2015.
“Whatever one may say about Bill Snyder – crusty, difficult to deal with, decidedly media-unfriendly – the guy can coach. Snyder took over a perennially awful program at Kansas State in 1988 – he was 1-10 his first season – and reeled off four straight 11-win seasons from 1997 to 2000. When the program began to slip a few years later, he retired. But after back-to-back losing seasons got his successor Ron Prince fired in 2008, Snyder came back. He’s now in his fourth season of Era II (the stadium is named for him) and is 27-15, including 4-0 this season after the Wildcats blew up another Oklahoma season with a 24-19 win in Norman on Saturday night. Snyder turns 73 in two weeks. He may coach until he’s 90…”
–Bruce Feldman, senior college football columnist for CBSSports.com, picks Oregon State as the No. 1 surprise after the first third of the season (though the Beavers have only played two contests). Beaverwear is selling briskly.
Ryder Cup
U.S. Keegan Bradley, Jason Dufner, Jim Furyk, Dustin Johnson, Zach Johnson, Matt Kuchar, Phil Mickelson, Webb Simpson, Brandt Snedeker, Steve Stricker, Bubba Watson, Tiger Woods
Europe Nicholas Colsaerts, Luke Donald, Sergio Garcia, Peter Hanson, Martin Kaymer, Paul Lawrie, Graeme McDowell, Rory McIlroy, Francesco Molinari, Ian Poulter, Justin Rose, Lee Westwood
Bradley, Dufner, Simpson and Snedeker are rookies. Colsaerts is the only Euro rookie.
For the Americans, Furyk is 8-15-4, Mickelson is 11-17-6 and Woods is 13-14-2.
Arnold Palmer 22-8-2
Lanny Wadkins 20-11-3
Jack Nicklaus 17-8-3
Joe Maria Olazabal 18-8-5
Nick Faldo 23-19-4
Colin Montgomerie 20-9-7
Seve Ballesteros 20-12-5
Lee Trevino 17-7-6
Billy Casper 20-10-7
Tom Watson 10-4-1
I see the U.S. choking on a lot of short putts and Europe winning comfortably this weekend at Medinah, 16 ½ to 11 ½.
–At 4 a.m., Sunday, on Mount Manaslu in Nepal, more than two dozen climbers were sleeping in their tents when an avalanche hit. At least nine were killed and six remain missing as I go to post. Ten survived but were all injured. For the ten, I can’t imagine how they can ever have a restful sleep. Mount Manaslu, at 26,760 feet, is attracting scores of climbers (230 being on the mountain overall when disaster struck) because it is seen as one of the easier peaks to climb. But while avalanches there are rare, one in 1972 killed 16.
“A routine trip to the vet ended in heartbreak for a Massachusetts family when their healthy pet cat was mistakenly euthanized.
“Jesse Conway took his mother’s 8-year-old cat, Lady, to get a flea bath at Broadway Animal Hospital in Gardner last week when he unknowingly signed forms agreeing to have the kitty put to sleep, Fox 25 reported.
“The vet, Dr. Muhammad Malik, gave Conway the wrong forms by accident, Conway told the local news station.
“ ‘I made the mistake of signing those papers but I didn’t know what I was signing, nothing was explained to me,’ he said.”
And so with this…Man drops another notch on the All-Species List to No. 270. House Cat remains stuck at No. 87.
–A Cornell University research project analyzing 247 death row prisoners’ last meal choices found that meat was the most common request, 83.9% of the meals; with chicken being No. 1, followed by hamburger.
Surprisingly, pizza was selected just 5.3% of the time.
What would you go for? I’m thinking a slice of double cheese and two Big Macs, plus a Taco Bell burrito. [Assuming I can’t get veal cutlet with spaetzle.]
–I admit to not being a big Quentin Tarantino fan, but…on Dec. 28 his new film, Django Unchained, comes out. This could be fun….Tarantino’s stamp on spaghetti Westerns! As reported by Army Times, “(A) bloody saga of slaves, slave owners and bounty hunters set just before the Civil War. Jamie Foxx, Christopher Waltz, Leo DiCaprio, Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson…oh, yeah.”
–I didn’t watch a second of the Emmys last Sunday night, but as an avid “Mad Men” fan, was ticked to hear they didn’t get one award despite a record 17 nominations.
–Forgot to mention I was the first kid on my block to get Dwight Yoakam’s first album in seven years, “3 Pears.” It’s excellent.
–Finally, we note the passing of Andy Williams, who died of cancer on Tuesday though it was just announced Wednesday morning and thus I don’t have a chance to do his career justice as I go to post. He was born in Wall Lake, Iowa, Dec. 3, 1927 and along with his brothers began singing in a local Presbyterian church choir. Soon they were the Williams Brothers, landing a regular gig on WHO radio in Des Moines in 1936 when Andy was 8.
I’ll do a little more on him next time but for now I’m humming my two favorites of his… “Days Of Wine And Roses” and “Can’t Get Used To Losing You.”
Top 3 songs for the week 9/24/83: #1 “Tell Her About It” (Billy Joel) #2 “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” (Bonnie Tyler…make it stop!!!) #3 “The Safety Dance” (Men Without Hats)…and…#4 “Maniac” (Michael Sembello …godawful) #5 “Making Love Out Of Nothing At All” (Air Supply) #6 “Sweet Dreams” (Eurythmics… depressing…) #7 “Human Nature” (Michael Jackson) #8 “Puttin’ On The Ritz” (Taco) #9 “(She’s) Sexy + 17” (Stray Cats) #10 “Don’t Cry” (Asia…what an awful week…what an awful decade for music…80s weren’t my best personal decade either. 60s was my best, ages 2-11…)
Baseball Quiz Answer: 70 doubles and homers…Babe Ruth and Albert Pujols have done it 11 times. Lou Gehrig and Manny Ramirez did it nine times.
