*Posted before reaction poured in over Darrelle Revis trade….I’ll have it all next time.
Playoff Quiz: 1) Post-1970, the two longest streaks for making the playoffs in the NBA both ended with the 2002-03 season, 21 and 20 consecutive seasons. Name the teams. 2) Who holds the NHL record for consecutive seasons in the playoffs at 29, ending with the 1995-96 season? Answers below.
Nothing But Ball Bits
—Teams that stand out thus far….good and bad.
Red Sox 12-5 (prior to Game 2 on Sunday night)
Rockies 13-5
Marlins 4-15
Astros 5-13
Padres 5-13
Cubs 5-12
—Battle of New York: Yankees 10-7….Mets 9-8
–The Mets’ Matt Harvey is off to a truly historic start. According to Elias Sports Bureau, he is the first pitcher in the modern era (since 1900) to win his first four starts while allowing no more than 10 hits (29 innings). 0.93 ERA. The walk-up attendance at his starts this season will be huge.
Of course Harveymania was front and center on Friday night at Citi Field when he outdueled the Nationals’ Stephen Strasburg, 7-1. Mets fans initiated a chant they hope to repeat many a time over the next ten seasons… “Har-vey’s bet-ter! Har-vey’s bet-ter!” [Strasburg dropped to 1-3, but with a fine 2.96 ERA.]
As for the Mets’ performance when Harvey isn’t on the mound, sacre bleu!
Fri. April 12…in Minnesota…Mets win…35 degrees
Sat. April 13…in Minnesota…Mets win…35 degrees
Sun. April 14…in Minnesota…snowed out…
Mon. April 15…in Colorado…snowed out…
Tues. April 16…in Colorado…Mets lose doubleheader, temps between 30 and 35 degrees
Wed. April 17…in Colorado…snowed out
Thurs. April 18…in Colorado…Mets lose…temp 28 degrees, the coldest game in the major leagues since 1991.
In the team’s history, they never had a weather stretch like that.
–The other week I was talking about Derek Jeter and how 4,000 career hits is no longer a sure thing; Jeter at 3,304 while turning 39 in June.
Heck, he may not get much over 3,500, now that he was diagnosed with a small crack in his surgically repaired left ankle, which will keep him out until after the All-Star break, by all accounts. It also seems a virtual certainty his days at shortstop are numbered, if not finished.
“The great ones can’t stay great forever while the rest of us get old. Even sour cream has an expiration date.
“The truth is that Jeter will never be back. Oh, there will be a body inside that No. 2 uniform that one day will be retired alongside other single-digit Yankees greats like Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle, but it won’t be the Jeter we remember.
“The Jeter that returns won’t resemble the one with the handful of World Series rings, the one diving into the stands and bloodying his chin, the one leading the major leagues, at age 38, with 216 hits, or the one making that signature jump-throw from shortstop.
“We are left with an aging star who will be 39 when he steps onto a field again, with a future as a designated hitter, not a shortstop….
“Gone are Jeter’s hopes of one day achieving 4,000 hits or even chasing down Pete Rose’s all-time hit record.
“Gone are our hopes to celebrate his Hall of Fame career in New York at the All-Star Game this summer, with the game at Citi Field.
“This won’t be Willie Mays stumbling in the New York Mets outfield or Rickey Henderson playing for the Newark Bears.
“Still, this won’t be Jim Brown leaving at the height of his greatness. Or Sandy Koufax walking away while still the best lefty on the planet…..
“General manager Brian Cashman calls Jeter ‘Superman,’ the toughest player he’s known, but now that the cape is ripped off, reality sets in.”
Meanwhile, the Mets’ catcher of the future, Travis d’Arnaud, fractured his foot while playing at AAA, the second straight year he’s suffered an injury that will keep him out for an extended period.
–A few weeks ago, the Washington Post’s Mike Wise had a piece on some of the great seasons in baseball history as performed by 20-year-olds, wondering how Bryce Harper will match up. Mike Trout’s year last season obviously comes to mind, but technically Trout turned 21 in August (nonetheless, 30 HR 83 RBI 129 Runs 49 steals, .326 BA).
So among the 20-year-old performances Wise mentions are:
Mel Ott, 1929: 42 home runs, 151 RBI, .328 average (and only 38 strikeouts….Wise’s piece had 36, but in double-checking it was 38). I was surprised to see this was Ott’s lone 40-homer season as well.
Ted Williams, 1939: 31 home runs, 145 RBI, .327 (though Williams turned 21 on Aug. 30)
Al Kaline, 1955: 27 HR, 102 RBI, .340 (he was 20 all season…and this was the best year of his entire career)
Others who fall just short of the above but were great nonetheless at 20 were Ken Griffey Jr., Mickey Mantle, Frank Robinson, Johnny Bench and Jimmie Foxx.
Wise mentions Alex Rodriguez’ 1996 season, 36 HR, 123 RBI, .358; but A-Rod turned 21 that July and, he being A-Rod, I don’t want to include him in this discussion because the odds he was already juicing are obviously very strong.
Actually, I’m going through a pile of older stuff I was saving for use later on and the Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell addressed the Harper sophomore season a month before his fellow scribe Wise did. ‘Sup wit dat?!
There are others who played at an exceptionally high level at age 20….
Orlando Cepeda (he turned 21 in September), 1958… 25-96, .312.
My man, Vada Pinson (21 in August), 1959…20-84, .316, 131 runs scored (loved the Reds hat of that era)
Tony Conigliaro led the A.L. in homers with 32 in 1965 at the age of 20.
Anyway, every baseball fan should enjoy watching Bryce Harper progress this season. After Sunday’s contest against the Mets, he is batting .369 with 7 home runs and 14 RBI in 18 games.
–Atlanta’s Justin Upton leads baseball with 9 homers, but he has just 13 RBI.
–Miami’s Giancarlo Stanton has 1 RBI in 13 games. This is a guy who is a surefire future member of the 500 lifetime home runs club.
–Boston’s Clay Buchholz is 4-0 like Matt Harvey, but with an even better 0.90 ERA.
–One of my two non-Mets favorites, Adam Dunn (Ichiro being the other), homered on Sunday. But he is still just 7-for-65, .108, with 3 homers and 6 RBI. Yikes. Shades of 2011. Even more distressing, Dunn has only 3 walks; this from a guy who normally walks about 100 times a year.
Detroit pitcher Rick Porcello gave up 9 earned runs in 1/3 of an inning in a 10-0 loss to the Angels. Houston hurler Philip Humber yielded 8 runs in 2/3 of an inning in a 19-6 loss to Cleveland.
But Cleveland starter Scott Kazmir, staked to a 14-0 lead in the second, couldn’t go five for the win. Nope, he was out after 3 1/3, giving up 6 runs.
–So Reggie Jackson was going to auction off the game jersey he claimed to have worn during his three-home run game in the 1977 World Series, but SCP Auctions pulled it when a photo of Jackson taken during the game emerged that clearly showed the striping configuration differs from that of the jersey he was offering.
Jackson claimed he kept the jersey for 35 years, but with video evidence, the auction house was forced to release a statement saying there are “subtle inconsistencies between this jersey and the one he wore on the field.”
Most are saying they don’t think Jackson was trying to pull a fast one and that it’s possible he wore the jersey in the clubhouse after the game, but it was not the one worn on the field. [OK…that’s a stretch….I know…]
NBA Fever….catch it….
—Knicks coach Mike Woodson has obviously done a great job in his year-and-a-half at the helm (72-34 regular season), but his single best job is in getting the mercurial J.R. Smith to consistently play at a high level.
Carmelo Anthony 28.7
Kevin Durant 28.1
Kobe 27.3
LeBron 26.8
James Harden 25.9
—Tim Duncan had a super season, especially for a guy turning 37 this coming Thursday. 17.8 points, 9.9 rebounds, 2.7 blocks….in 30 minutes per.
–I’d say Golden State’s Stephen Curry had a breakout season, 22.9 ppg, .453 from downtown (setting an NBA record for 3s in the process).
–I love this idea from ESPN The Magazine’s Howard Bryant.
“It’s unclear which of the Ten Commandments dictates that the NBA season must be 82 games. But this new trend of coaches resting perfectly healthy players – a beautiful example of civil disobedience initiated by San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich – reinforces the truth that the road to the Finals is an extended wasteland in need of reinvention.
“The players must pace themselves, which means, for the sake of actually winning in June, they cannot always give maximum effort in the regular season – and probably shouldn’t bother anyway when 53% of the league (16 of 30 teams) makes the postseason. The coaches, like Popovich and Miami’s Erik Spoelstra, recognize the season’s illegitimacy too, risking fines and the wrath of David Stern, who really should direct his anger at the closest mirror because he created this system….
“The NBA spectacle only gets more bloated in the playoffs, which last a full two months….After six months, it shouldn’t take another 60 days to crown a champion. The first round in particular is the biggest waste of time in sports…Stretched for TV, it can take as long as two weeks, and it leaves underdogs with virtually no chance of a sustained run. The last time a team seeded sixth or lower won consecutive series was in 1999, when the Knicks made it to the Finals as a No. 8 seed [Ed. strike-shortened season…a little deceptive]….
“What the NBA needs is the courage to revolutionize. The best solution is to go English soccer and split the league into a Championship and a Premier League, so the best teams play one another exclusively and the weaker teams must improve to graduate to the adult table. The length of season could remain the same, but only the upper-division teams would be eligible to contend for the NBA championship. Suddenly, every game would actually mean something.”
—Graeme McDowell defeated Webb Simpson in a playoff at Hilton Head.
–After the Tiger Woods ball drop debacle at The Masters, Mark R. and others all had the same reaction… ‘Can you imagine Steve Williams allowing Tiger to take an improper drop? Surely, he would have reminded him of the rules.’
So Williams himself, having been on Adam Scott’s bag and given Scott a critical read on the decisive winning putt, said of Woods’ drop that Tiger didn’t knowingly violate a rule and “wasn’t trying to gain anything on the field,” but, Williams added:
“From what I can gather, he took an illegal drop, signed a scorecard and left the course. Under most circumstances that would result in disqualification…If the rules of golf are upheld, I believe he should have been disqualified.”
But some of us still wonder if Stevie would have said anything.
–Michigan guard Tim Hardaway Jr. joined the growing list of those announcing they would go out early for the NBA draft, but teammates Mitch McGary and Glenn Robinson III, two talented freshmen, said they were staying another year. Smart move for both.
—Eddie Jordan agreed to become coach at Rutgers, a good choice to get the Rutgers basketball program back on the right track.
–Baylor’s 6-foot-8, three-time All-America center Brittney Griner acknowledged she is gay. Whatever.
–We note the passing of former NFL kicker, Errol Mann, 71. Mann spent 11 seasons in the NFL, eight with the Lions. But he was also the place-kicker for the Oakland Raiders team that won the 1977 Super Bowl, having moved over from Detroit at mid-season (1976). Mann, a product of the Univ. of North Dakota, converted 177 of 276 field goal attempts in his career.
–In reading some other obituaries on the great Pat Summerall, I want to add this bit I hadn’t known about, from Steve Wulf, ESPN The Magazine.
“Summerall was so much more than a broadcaster. His athletic resume rivaled Bo Jackson’s. Born with a club foot corrected by surgery, he was all-state in football and basketball at Columbia High School in Lake City, Fla., as well as the 16-and-under state champion in tennis. He was recruited by Adolph Rupp to play basketball at Kentucky, but he elected to go to Arkansas because the Razorbacks allowed him to play football, basketball and baseball. He was good enough at baseball that the St. Louis Cardinals signed him as a first baseman, and he gave that a try for a while….
“He was a scholar, as well, an education major who later got a master’s degree in Russian history just because he loved the subject. In the NFL offseason, he taught eighth-grade English in Lake City.”
–Golf World had a piece on Gary Player by Bill Fields and in it we learn the 77-year-old still does hundreds of sit-ups a day (sometimes 1,000), he can squat 200 pounds, and, thanks to modern-day technology, he can drive it 250, which is what he did in his prime.
Player, the greatest bunker player in the history of the game (according to most), also says the quickest way to improve is to spend two hours on your short game for every hour spent on the long game.
–If you had any doubt why Dog is No. 1 on the All-Species List, hopefully you caught the “60 Minutes” segment on the Special Ops dogs. If not, look for it on the CBS website.
–That was a great moment on Saturday at Fenway with Neil Diamond singing “Sweet Caroline.” It peaked at #4 all the way back in the summer of ’69.
Top 3 songs for the week 4/25/64: #1 “Can’t Buy Me Love” (The Beatles) #2 “Twist And Shout” (The Beatles) #3 “Do You Want To Know A Secret” (The Beatles)…and…#4 “Hello, Dolly!” (Louis Armstrong) #5 “Suspicion” (Terry Stafford…sounded exactly like Elvis…) #6 “Glad All Over” (The Dave Clark Five) #7 “Bits And Pieces” (The Dave Clark Five…extraordinary week for these British lads as well…) #8 “Don’t Let The Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man)” (The Serendipity Singers….hasn’t aged well…) #9 “My Guy” (Mary Wells) #10 “Dead Man’s Curve” (Jan & Dean…awesome week, I think you’d agree…)
Playoff Quiz Answer: 1) Portland Trail Blazers, 21 (1983-2003); Utah Jazz, 20 (1984-2003). 2) The Boston Bruins had a 29-year playoff streak, 1968-96. The Blackhawks are next at 28 (1970-97).
Next Bar Chat, Thursday.
