NCAA Quiz: Saw this one in the Wall Street Journal about two weeks ago. 1) Name the top three major-conference schools with the biggest all-time plus/minus differential between football and men’s basketball winning percentages. 2) Top three basketball over football. [For example, in the first one, Oklahoma has a 111 point better winning percentage in football than basketball, No. 5 in that category.] Answers below.
Ball Bits
A.L. West
Texas 80-58
Oakland 79-59…1 GB
A.L. Wild Card
Oakland 79-59 —
Tampa Bay 76-61 —
New York 74-64…2.5
Baltimore 73-64…3
Cleveland 73-65…3.5
Kansas City 72-66…4.5
N.L. Central
Pittsburgh 81-57
St. Louis 79-59…2
Cincinnati 78-61…3.5
N.L. Wild Card
St. Louis 79-59 —
Cincinnati 78-61 —
Washington 70-68…7.5
–Today, we are all Pirates fans, unless you are from St. Louis, Cincinnati, Los Angeles or Atlanta. Aside from them, who won’t be rooting for Pittsburgh? They last had a winning record, and made the playoffs, in 1992, as noted for years now, the record for North American professional sports futility.
But Tuesday, in defeating Milwaukee 4-3, they clinched their first non-losing season in winning Game No. 81. New acquisitions Marlon Byrd and Justin Morneau combined for five hits.
–So I was reading a piece in the Los Angeles Times by Kevin Baxter and through Tuesday, it’s pretty extraordinary how well the top four in the Dodgers rotation have pitched.
Clayton Kershaw, 14-8, 1.89
Zack Greinke, 14-3, 2.78
Hyun-Jin Ryu, 13-5, 3.02
Ricky Nolasco, 7-1, 2.27 [11 starts since being acquired from Miami]
Further, through Sunday’s contests, the top four had a combined 1.91 ERA in the second half.
But these four are also starring at the plate. Through Monday, a combined .231 batting average with 20 runs batted in, 10 by Kershaw. Greinke is hitting .347!
–Detroit’s Max Scherzer fell to 19-2 as he was outdueled on Tuesday by Boston’s Jon Lester, 2-1.
–The Mets signed Daisuke Matsuzaka, Dice-K, to help out with their depleted starting staff the rest of the season in order to ensure that young guns Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler could finish the season without going over their innings limits. Harvey of course then got hurt. Jeremy Hefner and Jenrry Mejia were lost to surgery. Dice K would need to eat some innings for the Metropolitans.
But in three starts he has been shelled and is 0-3 with a 10.95 ERA. 19 hits in 12 1/3. Opponents are batting .365 against him.
It’s going to be a long month. The Mets don’t want to bring up one of their other rising stars from the minors who have reached their innings limits. So they signed another veteran stiff Aaron Harang, who had a 5.76 ERA in 22 starts with Seattle this season.
Did I ever tell you how much it sucks being a Mets fan? Or a fan of the following?
–It’s so easy to make copy of the dysfunctional Jets. One week before the season starts, coach Rex Ryan went to Clemson to see his son, Seth, a freshman walk-on, and his Tiger teammates take on Georgia Saturday night. As reported by the New York Daily News, to many of the Jets players it was a “big F.U.” To me this is unheard of.
What I loved about Rex in his first few years was how he had his kids going to Summit High School (my alma mater) instead of one of a number of big private schools in the area, and Rex could be seen at Tatlock Field watching his boys play on the Summit football team when the Jets weren’t on the road. It was only taking a few hours break and the Jets’ team headquarters is all of fifteen minutes from here as well.
But to go to Clemson, where he posed for pictures at the tailgate parties there? One week before the start of the NFL season? With all the issues the Jets have?
This wasn’t the bye week, where almost everyone, including coaches, gives themselves one or two days off, as much as you can ever get away from being a coach in the NFL.
“It was the exact wrong move at the exact wrong time for a man supposedly fighting for his head coaching life.”
Oh, and it was cut-down day! So instead of bidding farewell to those who didn’t make the squad, GM John Idzik, who excused Ryan, and his confidantes spent Saturday finalizing cuts and formulating plans to put in waiver claims.
An NFC executive told the Daily News, “I’ve never heard of that before. It’s crazy.”
Son Seth was “active” (and only because it was a home game, no doubt) but didn’t play. [The kid was far from special in high school, by the way.]
Ryan said on Monday that he had talked to some of the players who would be waived on Friday, but he didn’t talk to backup quarterback Greg McElroy, who played last year but was cut.
A source close to the situation told Mehta, “He’s got zero influence. (He) doesn’t care and he is letting everyone know. He just shows up for his check… It’s a big F.U. to all the players.”
But wait…there’s more! The Jets signed quarterback Brady Quinn, he of the 4-16 career record as a starter, 12 TD passes, 17 INTs, 64.4 rating. Quinn will backup Geno Smith, as Mark Sanchez’ shoulder injury is worse than the team is letting on.
Suddenly, there is talk of releasing Sanchez, despite the fact the Jets owe him $8.25 million for this season.
“His chances of being the starting quarterback ever again for the New York Jets can best be described as a wing, and a wounded one at that, and a prayer….
“The Grim Reaper stands over Sanchez now as the conspiracy theories gain new life about the inevitable death of his Jets career, fueled by the arrival yesterday of Brady Quinn.
“That’s all it takes these days, the signing of a journeyman former first-round bust who could conceivably serve as a preferable mentor for Smith – if for no other reason than he would not be perceived as a threat to him….
“Sanchez, of course, made the bed he sleeps in with his reckless disregard for the football over these last two seasons, those ghastly 52 crimes against Jets Nation.
–It’s official…one of the worst kept secrets around…Robert Griffin III will start for Washington against the Eagles next Monday night. Griffin received his clearance from orthopedic surgeon James Andrews last Thursday, but coach Mike Shanahan held off on declaring this until Labor Day. The game will mark eight-months since Griffin’s surgery to reconstruct his right knee. He has been practicing without limitation the past two weeks.
–Couch Slouch, aka Norman Chad of the Washington Post, is picking this season’s “Teams of Destiny”… Dallas and Kansas City.
Well I don’t agree, but Mr. Chad does bring up two interesting factoids. Dallas has one playoff victory in the last 16 seasons, while the Chiefs haven’t won a playoff game in 20.
College Football…including more on Johnny Jerk
1. Alabama
2. Oregon
3. Ohio State
4. Clemson…up from 8…very important in order to begin setting the BCS stage
5. Stanford
6. South Carolina
7. Texas A&M
8. Louisville
9. LSU
10. Florida State
11. Georgia
14. Notre Dame
–Redshirt freshman quarterback Jameis Winston had a rather solid debut for Florida State Monday night, completing 25 of 27 passes for 356 yards, including four touchdown passes and another on the ground in the Seminoles’ 41-13 win over the Pitt Panthers in Pittsburgh. Tight end Nick O’Leary, Jack Nicklaus’ grandson, had three of the touchdown receptions.
–As CBSSports.com’s Bruce Feldman points out, Georgia’s Aaron Murray is a very good quarterback. [Clemson’s Tajh Boyd “is a great college quarterback.”] But Murray is now 1-9 against top 15 opponents.
–I also have to give credit to Feldman for mentioning Buffalo linebacker Khalil Mack prior to the Bulls’ game against Ohio State on Saturday, because all Mack did in the 40-20 loss to the Buckeyes (hey, the beat the spread!) was have 9.5 tackles, 2.5 sacks, and an interception for a score. He has NFL scouts drooling.
So how did Mack end up at Buffalo, of all places? He had torn his ACL prior to his junior year in high school and had no junior film.
“It was hard to watch Johnny Manziel on the sideline Saturday – not from any sense of sympathy or frustration, just exhaustion from the countless shots of Johnny Manziel on the sideline. That’s not his fault.
“Yet it was so much harder to watch him play football. How does a guy who won the Heisman Trophy as a freshman nine months ago become so reviled so quickly? Teams are sometimes hated collectively by everyone but their alumni. Coaches are sometimes hated by lots of fans of teams other than their own. Players? Not that often.
“Manziel went into Texas A&M’s game Saturday against Rice with a chance to do a little damage control to his reputation and instead moved himself to the top of the college football hate parade after one week.”
“They started calling him ‘Johnny Football’ as a kid because, when things didn’t go his way on the playground, he took his ball and went home.
“Now hit me with a rim shot and a ‘piling on’ penalty.
“Unlike the paid psycho-babble experts on ESPN, I actually haven’t quite figured out Johnny Manziel.
“Lump me with the linebackers who also have yet to get their arms around Johnny.
“I sort of liked him in a crazy way, but not as much after Saturday.
“Joe Flacco, quarterback of the Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens, told USA Today that Manziel is ‘quickly becoming my favorite player in college football.’
“Yeah, just wait until Manziel spits in somebody’s face.
“I thought the Texas A&M quarterback showed remarkable comportment and maturity in the first half of Saturday’s game against Rice.
“Then they put him in the game, where he made ‘air signatures,’ rubbed his fingers together – ‘show me the money?’ – and ultimately got benched for taunting.
“We handed him the Heisman Trophy at age 20 and now wonder what went wrong?
“It was decided in kindergarten, not Saturday that no parent, teacher, coach or university was ever going to stand in the way of Johnny Meal Ticket.
“After Saturday’s behavior debacle…the school again kept Johnny from a postgame interview that might have muffled a full-blaze controversy. Manziel could have borrowed the line Phil Mickelson used after he pulled driver on No. 18 at Winged Foot.
“It’s hard to watch young people grow up on television, especially when they don’t.”
“I now fear for Johnny Manziel. I fear for his safety on the field because his attitude and conduct are overshadowing his magnificent talents.
“I fear that some amped-up defender – targeting rule or not – is going to take his (cheap) shot. You know, try to level Texas A&M’s mouthy Heisman winner with a completely inappropriate and career-threatening blow. It has happened before. The NFL said the New Orleans Saints were once advocating that type of conduct. We would be stupid to think something similar doesn’t go on at some level in college….
“We’ve seen both brilliance and crap from Johnny Football. The word ‘ethical’ has rarely been attached to it. If he can’t keep from getting into it with those renegades from Rice, how is he going to comport himself at Arkansas, at Ole Miss. Those are games after Alabama.
“ ‘Can you imagine Tom Brady or Roger Staubach doing something like that?’ veteran NFL talent evaluator Gil Brandt said after watching Manziel get yanked from Saturday’s game by A&M coach Kevin Sumlin.
“Opponents have to see a mental hole now in Johnny Football’s shining armor. The same guy who didn’t see anything wrong with walking into the belly of the beast at a Texas frat party can’t keep himself from jawing with Owls.”
—Roger Federer made his earliest exit from the U.S. Open in 10 years, going down to 19th-seeded Tommy Robredo of Spain. He simply didn’t look good. ESPN commentator John McEnroe said, “I almost don’t believe what I’m seeing. It’s not that he’s missing it. It’s the lengths he’s missing it by, the amount.”
This summer Federer had three losses to players ranked outside the top 50 before Robredo.
Separately, I mentioned in my last chat how the rain that often plagues the U.S. Open is a major downer and how it’s difficult for the casual fan, such as yours truly, to get into the event until literally the finals.
Case in point, Monday. As one fan who paid $75 for her ticket told the New York Times, she saw only one match in six hours due to the 4 ½-hour rain delay. Federer’s match was moved from center to a smaller side court, which precluded many from seeing it.
The U.S.T.A. later said those who had tickets for Monday’s afternoon session could exchange their tickets for a comparable session at next year’s Open.
Of course we could all be dead by then…owing to a surprise meteorite strike. Just musing.
–What a stretch for Sweden’s Henrik Stenson, who won for the third time on the PGA Tour in taking the Deutsche Bank Championship on Monday, the second leg of the FedEx Cup, which resumes in two weeks with a field of 70 vying for the final 30 slots and the Tour Championship at East Lake. For Stenson it was his first Tour win since the 2009 Players Championship.
But in just the past eight weeks, he had finished second at The Open Championship, T-2 at the WGC-Bridgestone, and third at the PGA. Then this. Not too shabby.
1. Alabama
2. California
3. Texas
If you carry out the votes, Wake Forest is No. 42. Pathetic. And the Deacs have no one on the “Top 50 Male Players to Watch.” Top three on that one are:
1. Cory Whitsett, Alabama, Sr.
2. Patrick Rodgers, Stanford, Jr.
3. Julien Brun, TCU, Jr.
To show you how much the college golf game has changed, the ACC only has four players in the Top 50.
The Women’s first few:
1. USC
2. Alabama
3. Duke
Top three individuals:
1. Stephanie Meadow, Alabama, Sr.
2. Annie Park, USC, Soph.
3. Sophia Popov, USC, Sr.
[No Wake women listed in top 50, nor are they among Top 25 teams.]
–Congratulations to 64-year-old Diana Nyad for becoming the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without the help of a shark cage.
When she merged on the beach at Key West, she said, “I have three messages. One is, we should never, ever give up. Two is, you’re never too old to chase your dream. Three is, it looks like a solitary sport, but it is a team.”
She stopped from time to time for nourishment but never left the water. The support team also had equipment that generated a faint electrical field around her that kept sharks away, plus a boat dragged a line that helped keep her on course.
And wasn’t that an attractive mask she wore to keep away the jellyfish that had torpedoed her prior attempts? No wonder they stayed away.
Australian Susie Maroney successfully swam the Strait in 1997 with a shark cage, which adds a drafting effect to help pull a swimmer along, aside from offering protection.
Back in 1975, Nyad first made a name for herself when she swam the 28 miles around Manhattan.
“Cycling does the body good.
“New data from Tour de France cyclists finds that those athletes live an average of six years longer than their counterparts in the general population and die from heart-related ailments less often, damping concerns that extreme, intense exercise increases the likelihood of death from cardiovascular causes.
“The new study, (presented) Tuesday at an Amsterdam meeting of the European Society of Cardiology, examined 786 French cyclists who competed in the Tour de France between 1947 and 2012 and the cause of death for those who died.
“The data also give limited reassurance that doping with ‘Epo’ (erythropoietin) doesn’t appear to dramatically increase the risk of heart attack or early death among elite cyclists – at least in the near term….
“The results ‘laid to rest’ concerns over exercise intensity with cycling, though the results don’t necessarily generalize to marathon running” and some small studies on that group that “found some detrimental signs on the heart immediately after races, prompting some doctors to worry that there may be drawbacks to such extreme exercise.”
—Boxer Tommy Morrison, who back in 1993 scored a unanimous decision over then 44-year-old George Foreman to capture the vacant WBO heavyweight title, and later won the IBC title in 1995 over Razor Ruddock, died at the age of 44. The cause of death is controversial. It may have been the result of AIDS, though his wife had recently said Morrison suffered from Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disorder.
Morrison was one of those ‘Great White Hopes’ in the sport, a protégé of Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa in 1990’s “Rocky V.
But in 1996, while preparing for a potential fight with Mike Tyson, his career collapsed when he tested positive for H.I.V. At first he accepted the finding, saying that he had lived a “permissive, fast and reckless lifestyle” and that he would never fight again.
Morrison did however box a few more times in places that didn’t require a test for H.I.V.
“A New Zealand kayaker prayed for his life as a giant crocodile he feared would devour him at any moment kept him hostage on a remote Australian island.
“Ryan Blair had an amazing escape after he was trapped by the massive crocodile on the Governor Islands in the Timor Sea off the northern tip of Western Australia for more than two weeks.
“The 37-year-old had been exploring the WA coast near Kalumburu…when he ended up stranded at the twin islands of East and West Governor… The nearest settlement, Kalumburu, is about 40 kilometers south.
“Once alone, the Kiwi realized he didn’t have enough supplies and tried to paddle the four kilometers to the mainland.
“But he immediately caught the eye of a six-meter saltwater crocodile that’s lived in the area for years.
“Every time he tried to leave, the crocodile would stalk Mr. Blair, leaving the adventurer fearing for his life and stranded for more than a fortnight.”
Finally a local spotted a light on the island and checked it out.
By the way, it’s a long story how Blair ended up here in the first place. He traveled from Queensland on a yacht whose owner was jailed in the Northern Territory, leaving Blair stranded for two months. He hitched a ride with a solo yachtsman who then dropped him on Governor Island with minimal supplies.
Every time he got in the kayak, the monster chased him.
—Gator hunting season opened in Mississippi and on the first day, two record-setting alligators were caught…the first 13-feet, 5.5 inches and 723 pounds, only to be followed later by a 13-footer at 727 pounds.
Top 3 songs for week of 9/4/76: #1 “You Should Be Dancing” (Bee Gees…one of the worst songs of the century…) #2 “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine” (Lou Rawls…underrated as an entertainer…) #3 “Let ‘Em In” (Wings…moronic…)…and…#4 “I’d Really Love To See You Tonight” (England Dan & John Ford Cooley…but not when the Mets are on…) #5 “(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty” (KC & The Sunshine Band…pre-Shakira….) #6 “Play That Funky Music” (Wild Cherry) #7 “A Fifth Of Beethoven” (Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band…see #1…Beethoven scowling at this horrific effort…) #8 “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” (Elton John & Kiki Dee…whatever…) #9 “Lowdown” (Boz Scaggs…great album…) #10 “This Masquerade” (George Benson…super tune…thank you, George…)
NCAA Quiz Answers: 1) Football over basketball: Nebraska +173 winning percentage differential; Michigan +155; Georgia +129. 2) Basketball over football: Kentucky +263; Duke +230; Kansas +224. [Indiana +221; Temple +200]
