Note: Posted early Wed. p.m., before the baseball playoff games.
Detroit Lions Quiz: 1) Name the only quarterback in Lions history to throw 100 TD passes. 2) Gail Cogdill, 1960-68, is No. 5 on the all-time Detroit receiver list with 5,221 yards (on 325 receptions). Name the four ahead of him, all of whom played from 1990 on. 3) Barry Sanders is of course the Lions’ all-time leading rusher with 15,269 yards. Name Nos. 2 and 3, over 10,000 yards behind. Answers below.
Ball Bits
–You know what cracks us baseball fans up? The trend over the past 6-8 years to only speak positively about one’s players or teammates. As in after a player has stunk up the joint in the playoffs, ‘We wouldn’t be where we are without Joe Yablowski…’
So after Game 1 of the ALDS, which the Yankees won 7-2 over Baltimore, New York manager Joe Girardi was asked to comment on Alex Rodriguez’ 0 for 4, 3 strikeout performance.
After Game 2, which the Yankees lost 3-2 and in which A-Rod went 1 for 5, including striking out to end the game, Girardi said:
“He squared up two balls tonight. You look at the ball he hit in the first inning, he squared it up. And then he had the other hard single. I don’t have any plans to make any changes.”
And therein lies the big controversy in these parts. Why doesn’t Girardi move A-Rod down in the lineup?! A-Rod is a shell of his former self yet has hit 3rd or 4th in the lineup all season. You can hide it in the regular season as long as the team is winning, but not in the playoffs.
Since A-Rod clubbed six homers and drove in 18 in 15 games in the 2009 playoffs, he is hitting .169 in the postseason, 10 for 59, with zero home runs and six ribbies. For this he has received $94 million from 2010-2012 as part of his $300 million contract. Further, A-Rod is 1 for 16 with runners in scoring position.
Teammate Nick Swisher has an equally pathetic playoff record. With the Yankees, Swisher is hitting .160, 17 for 106, with six RBI, four on solo homers. Swisher is now 1 for 33 with runners in scoring position – and the one hit did not even produce a run. Staggering.
–For hitters with at least 25 games in postseason play, the batter with the best home-run ratio in history is Carlos Beltran; 7.23 (AB/HR). Babe Ruth was at 8.60. After his two home runs in Monday’s Game 2 of the NLDS, Beltran now has 13 in 94 playoff at-bats, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. Closest to Beltran is Jim Leyritz, who homered every 7.6 times at the plate for the Yankees and Padres, though he had only 61 total ABs.
—Pete Rose weighed in on the topic of Derek Jeter potentially passing Rose’s 4,256 career hit mark, telling author Joe Posnanski:
“What does he have now?…3,303 hits? [3,304] I don’t think he will break the record. First of all, I don’t think he wants to leave the Yankees. And the Yankees, they’re about winning. Jeter had a great year this year, but he’s what? Thirty-eight years old? And he’s a shortstop? How many 40-year-old shortstops you see walking around? Not too many, right? And they can’t put him at third because A-Rod’s there. They can’t put him at second ‘cause Cano’s there. He don’t help them in left field – he’s got to be in the center of things, you know what I mean? What are they going to do? Put him at first base?”
“He still needs 950 (952 to tie Rose) hits, right? He had a great year this year, but you think he can do it again? At 39? A shortstop? Let’s say he does it again. Let’s say he gets 200 more hits next year. And let’s say he gets 200 more hits when he’s 40, though I don’t think he can. OK, can he get 200 more hits when he’s 41? You think he can? I don’t think he can get 200 more hits at 41, but let’s say he does. OK, now he’s 42. He’s gonna get 200 more hits then? At 42?…I don’t think he will. And even if he does all that, he’s STILL 150 hits short.”
–How pathetic was it that two Maryland state troopers assigned to the Yankees’ security detail in the dugout in Baltimore asked Derek Jeter and Nick Swisher for autographs during Sunday’s game.
–According to reports, the Mets’ David Wright is going to seek a seven-year deal worth $125 million.
–Fun story by Hillel Kuttler in the New York Times on Carolyn Thomas, 89, whose father is the great Hall of Famer, Walter Johnson, of Washington Senators fame. “Big Train” won 417 games in his career (417-279, 110 shutouts, 2.17 ERA) as well as the decisive Game 7 of the 1924 World Series, the capital’s lone World Series championship.
Carolyn is following the Washington Nationals closely these days and has a photo of Bryce Harper on her living room mantel. Of manager Davey Johnson, she said, “He’s a baseball man. He knows the game.”
She says of her father: “He was a good role model: not judgmental, pious, just a nice guy. We just adored him.” [Thomas’ mother died when she was seven of heatstroke in 1930, so Walter raised the six children.]
–Speaking of old-time baseball, Craig Muder had a piece in the Baseball Hall of Fame “Clubhouse” link, an “instant classic.”
“Eighty-six years ago this week, 39-year-old Grover Cleveland Alexander (“Old Pete”) came out of the bullpen to tame the powerful Yankees lineup and give the St. Louis Cardinals their first World Series title.
“Few observers thought Alexander would get anywhere near the mound on the afternoon of Oct. 10, 1926 at Yankee Stadium. The day before in Game 6, Alexander tossed a complete game eight-hitter, holding the Yankees to just two runs in St. Louis’ 10-2 win, tying the Series at three games apiece.
“It appeared to be the culmination of a dominant career that bridged the Dead Ball and Live Ball eras. Alexander had won at least 20 games in a season eight times at that point and three times had eclipsed the 30-win plateau. He owned four earned-run average titles, and had led the National League in wins six times….
“But in the seventh inning of Game 7, Cardinals manager Rogers Hornsby summoned Alexander from the bullpen with the bases loaded, two outs and future Hall of Famer Tony Lazzeri at the plate – and St. Louis clinging to a 3-2 lead.
“Lazzeri missed a grand slam by the slimmest of margins with a blast down the left-field line, then struck out to end the inning.
“ ‘Less than a foot made the difference between a hero and a bum,’ Alexander later said.”
Alexander then set the Yankees down in order in the eighth, then Earle Combs and Mark Koenig to start the ninth. Up next, Babe Ruth – who walked on a 3-2 pitch.
“Bob Meusel came to the plate, with Lou Gehrig on deck. But Ruth took off for second base on the very first pitch to Meusel – and Cardinals catcher Bob O’Farrell gunned Ruth out, ending the World Series. It is still the only time in history that the World Series has ended on a caught stealing.”
Except, Alexander’s effort seemed to rejuvenate him and he went 21-10 for the Cardinals in 1927 at the age of 40, then 16-9 the following year.
Alexander finished his career 373-208, tied with Christy Mathewson for third place all-time in wins behind Cy Young and the aforementioned Johnson.
[In 1905, Mathewson had his own World Series heroics, as he hurled three shutouts in the span of five days, Oct. 9, Oct. 12, Oct. 14, with his New York Giants defeating the Philadelphia Athletics, 4-1. Mathewson allowed just one walk and 13 hits in 27 innings.]
No. 6 Kansas State at Iowa State…I’m guessing this is a great one
Duke at Virginia Tech…just curious to see if Duke has really turned the corner
No. 17 Stanford at No. 7 Notre Dame…3:30 ET
No. 3 South Carolina at No. 9 LSU…8:00 ET
–How bad does Georgia Tech suck? They not only are 2-4 (1-3 ACC), but they’ve given up 40 points in each of their last three games, all defeats, for the first time in school history, including the embarrassing 49-28 loss at home to Middle Tennessee.
So coach Paul Johnson fired the defensive coordinator, 68-year-old Al Groh. The same Groh that coached at Virginia, Wake Forest and one year with the New York Jets.
You know your program is in deep merde when you’re firing staff at mid-season, especially at the college level.
–Follow-up. Suspended TCU star quarterback Casey Paschall is leaving school for the rest of the semester to enter drug rehab. Paschall was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving, his second brush with the law in eight months. Paschall could come back to school next spring and rejoin the team for his final year.
—Jerry Sandusky received a minimum 30 years in prison after being convicted on 45 counts of sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years. The potential sentence was between 10 and 400 years.
Sandusky issued a despicable recording, broadcast over campus radio at Penn State the day before sentencing. I hope this is the last time I type his name. I certainly won’t be covering his appeal.
–Pretty amazing the Giants just have 8 sacks in the first five games after tying for third in the league last season with 48. Osi Umenyiora (2) and Justin Tuck (zero) will get their games together on this front, says the editor.
[Jacksonville has three sacks, total, in five games. Good gawd, that’s awful.]
–Man, I admit to having seen very little of Houston’s J.J. Watt, but the 23-year-old defensive end out of Wisconsin is playing spectacularly this year and could not have looked better on national television vs. the Jets on Monday night. I wish we had him!
As for the Jets’ 23-17 loss to the Texans, yes, we showed up and played a superior team tough. But we’re still now 2-3, heading straight for my predicted 6-10. Regarding the play of quarterback Mark Sanchez, who completed less than 50% of his passes for a fourth straight week and is now the 31st rated passer out of 33 (Tenn. has two who have qualified), the New York Daily News’ Gary Myers wrote the following:
“Sanchez is playing with Triple-A receivers, but the great quarterbacks make the players around him better.
“Do you think Eli Manning had something to do with Victor Cruz going from free-agent unknown to superstar? How does Manning make Ramses Barden a star one week and Rueben Randle a star another week? It happens because great quarterbacks demand every player take his game to a higher level.
“Sanchez just doesn’t do that and he always seems to make deflating mistakes.”
So it begs the question, just what is Eva Longoria thinking?! And there were rumors this week she has a baby bump…Oh brother.
–Back to the action on the field, the Jets’ No. 1 running back, Shonn Greene, is averaging a whopping 2.9 yards per carry. Very strong.
Thank god there is college football or us Jets fans would go nuts.
–Big loss for the undefeated Texans as star linebacker Brian Cushing suffered a torn ACL injury in the Jets game. Cushing was hurt on a chop-block by Jets’ lineman Matt Slauson.
–For the archives, I forgot to mention New England’s (3-2) win over Denver (2-3) last Sunday, 31-21. Both Tom Brady and Peyton Manning played well.
But I have to admit I was a Manning skeptic entering this season, what with Peyton’s neck issues. All he’s done is complete 66% of his passes with 11 TDs and just three interceptions. He’s the fourth-rated passer in the NFL, behind Alex Smith, Matt Ryan and Brady.
Did I tell you Mark Sanchez is No. 31? Sanchise gets one more game, at home against Indianapolis. If the Jets lose but Sanchez plays OK, he’ll keep his job. If they lose and he sucks wind, it will be Tebow time at New England the following week. [A copout would be to keep Sanchez at QB until after the Miami game, Oct. 28, after which the Jets have a bye, so wouldn’t be surprised to see the team opt for change at that point and not before. On Thursday, Jets owner Woody Johnson said Tebow will be on the team the next three years.]
–Last Sunday night I forgot to note the NASCAR race at Talladega (Ala.), which ended with a massive, 25-car pileup in the final lap and Matt Kenseth emerging the winner.
Talladega, at 2.66 miles, and Daytona, 2.5 miles, are NASCAR’s two super speedways and the governing body ruled that they would be “restrictor plate” races, which levels the field more than for the other tracks, limiting the speed so you aren’t flying into the crowds and thus you’re often racing in big packs; which is even more dangerous, let alone Talladega has a history of huge wrecks.
So Tony Stewart, by his own admission, accidentally caused a huge wreck on the last lap Sunday that most of you have seen and amazingly no one was hurt but it left the racers totally disgusted.
“If this is how we raced every week, I would find another job,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. “It’s not safe. Wrecking like that is ridiculous. It’s bloodthirsty, if that is what people want.”
Brad Keselowski said: “I feel like we walk a line in this sport between daredevils and chess players. When we come to Daytona and a track like this, we’re maybe more on the daredevil side of the line. And then we go other places where I’d say we’re more on the chess-player side of the line. I think it’s important to have tracks like this that maybe average it back out a little bit.
“Ideally, we’d like to just walk straight down the line all the time. But from a standpoint of the sport and the health of it, I think not a lot of people watch chess matches, and I’ve never seen one televised.” [Ed. Keselowski was born about 20 years after the Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky matches were heavily covered on PBS.]
And it’s not like the crowds are flocking in. Sunday’s at Talladega was 88,000, the smallest there since NASCAR began putting estimates in its box scores in 2003. 190,000 were at Talladega in April 2003.
—Lindsey Vonn, the four-time women’s World Cup champion as well as five-time downhill titleholder, asked skiing’s governing body, FIS, for permission to compete against men in their downhill race Nov. 24 in Lake Louise, Alberta, which is the men’s season opener. Now I see this story in the New York Times and immediately think of Michelle Wie and her attempts to compete against men on the PGA Tour, but Vonn was thinking of someone else.
“I’d like to have one chance in my life to race against them. Annika Sorenstam did it in golf and paved the way for women. I’m not asking for World Cup points. I’m not asking for any of that. I just want the chance to compete.”
Now I love Lindsey Vonn. And frankly I had already forgotten that Annika competed against the men years ago at Colonial. I just looked it up. Did you realize Annika played there over nine years ago? Geezuz. I was thinking like six.
Well, regarding Lindsey, the bottom line is there are rules regarding the World Cup, specifically one that reads: “No training shall be allowed on World Cup racecourses during the last five days prior to the first training run or competition.” Meaning it would be against the rules for Lindsey to ski with the men when the following week the women are going to Lake Louise for their first speed events of their season.
Vonn said she’d forego two of the practice runs and she herself says: “There’s two downhill races and a super G, so for the downhill title, for the overall title, those are very important races for me and I wouldn’t want to jeopardize that.”
Vonn has won the Lake Louise downhill 9 times in 11 years. But here’s the thing. While the men’s and women’s downhills there aren’t exactly the same courses, her time of 1 minute 51.35 seconds in the second downhill of the series last year, while two seconds ahead of the second-place finisher, would have put her 64th in the men’s race – third from last.
Vonn said, “I’d like the chance to compete against them and see where I stand. I’d definitely like to be inside the points, in the top 30.”
What the hell. I can’t even comment further because what do I know when it comes to the sport. If this actually occurs, though, I’ll resurrect my old Annika columns.
–Hey, Johnny Mac. I saw an early point standings for the Kentucky Derby next spring. The first three are Shanghai Bobby (trained by Todd Pletcher), Joha, and Power Broker (Bob Baffert). We now wait for the Breeder’s Cup Juvenile, I guess. And then all the big races in the months leading up to the Derby and the special day you all look forward to…Bar Chat’s Official Pony Selection for the Derby.
“The winner of a roach-eating contest in South Florida died shortly after downing dozens of the live bugs as well as worms, authorities said Monday.
“About 30 contestants ate the insects during Friday night’s contest at Ben Siegel’s Reptile Store in Deerfield Beach about 40 miles north of Miami. The grand prize was a python.
“Edward Archbold, 32, of West Palm Beach became ill shortly after the contest ended and collapsed in front of the store, according to a Broward Sheriff’s Office statement released Monday. He was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead….
“ ‘Unless the roaches were contaminated with some bacteria or other pathogens, I don’t think that cockroaches would be unsafe to eat,’ said Michael Adams, professor of entomology at the University of California at Riverside, who added that he has never heard of someone dying after consuming roaches. ‘Some people do have allergies to roaches,’ he said, ‘but there are no toxins in roaches or related insects.’
“ ‘We feel terribly awful,’ said store owner Ben Siegel… ‘He looked like he just wanted to show off and was very nice.’….
“A statement from Siegel’s attorney said all the participants signed waivers ‘accepting responsibility for their participation in this unique and unorthodox contest.’”
Yes, as Director of Shark Attacks and Vice President of Map Applications for Bar Chat, Bob S., said, we have us a primo candidate for “Idiot of the Year.”
–Congratulations to Mila Kunis for being named Esquire’s sexiest woman alive. She looks quite good on the cover, I must say.
Top 3 songs for the week 10/13/1962: #1 “Sherry” (The 4 Seasons…it all started with this one, boys and girls…good lord…50 years ago!) #2 “Monster Mash” (Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers…forgot the full title of the group) #3 “Ramblin’ Rose” (Nat King Cole…the one and only…)…and…#4 “Let’s Dance” (Chris Montez…four years later he had the No. 22 “Call Me” and No. 16 “The More I See You,” both produced by Herb Alpert. I love both of them and have one of those music memories concerning the second tune that I’m flashing back to now, but I can’t tell you why…nope, wouldn’t be prudent…) #5 “I Remember You” (Frank Ifield… unique tune…pretty good…only top 40 for the British lad…) #6 “Green Onions” (Booker T. & The MG’s…staple of “The Sopranos”…) #7 “Do You Love Me” (The Contours) #8 “Patches” (Dickey Lee…totally forgot this one…very lame song upon refreshing my memory …) #9 “Alley Cat” (Bent Fabric and his piano…talk about lame!…geezuz, this sucked…poor Bent had no clue he was about to get steamrollered by the British Invasion …not to offend some of you older folks, than moi, who played this at your wedding receptions… when I heard it, I knew it was time to hit the bar…) #10 “If I Had A Hammer” (Peter, Paul & Mary…not a fan of this trio…also I’m not very handy…)
Detroit Lions Quiz Answer: 1) Bobby Layne, 1950-58, is the only Detroit QB with 100 career TD passes… 118. Greg Landry is next with 80. Scott Mitchell had 79. Matthew Stafford will overtake Layne in about two years, Stafford having 63. 2) Top four receivers, yards: Herman Moore, 1991-2001, 670-9,174; Johnnie Morton, 1994-2001, 469-6,499; Calvin Johnson, 2007-2012, 395-6,295; Brett Perriman, 1991-96, 428-5,244. Moore is the all-time leader with 62 TD receptions. 3) Following Barry Sanders, Billy Sims, 1980-84, had 5,106 yards rushing and Dexter Bussey, 1974-84, had 5,105. I would have whiffed badly on Perriman and Bussey. I apologize to all Lions fans for this.
Speaking of the Lions, we just learned of the passing of the great Lions defensive end, Alex Karras, at the age of 77 from cancer and other issues, including dementia.
Karras was a four-time Pro Bowler for Detroit in a career spanning 1958-70, after being selected in the first round out of Iowa. His career was interrupted in 1963 when the NFL suspended him for a season over his association with gambling and organized crime figures that hung out at a Motown bar he had a financial interest in, with Karras later admitting to placing bets on NFL games. Green Bay running back Paul Hornung was suspended at the same time.
Karras always had an interest in acting and following his retirement from football, he went to Hollywood and his most memorable role was as “Mongo” in Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles.” He later starred in the ABC sitcom “Webster,” which I didn’t catch a single episode of.
And Karras was alongside Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford for three seasons of “Monday Night Football” from 1974 to 1976.
I may dig up a story or two over the weekend for next time.
