Baseball Quiz: The other day the Wall Street Journal’s Jared Diamond had a piece talking about the Mets claiming 28-year-old pitcher Ryan Reid off waivers from the Pirates. Reid, it turns out, has one of the better ERA’s in baseball history! Well, that is for those throwing a minimum of 11 innings. John Dagenhard is the leader…11 scoreless innings, 1943, for the Boston Braves. Reid threw his 11 innings with Pittsburgh last season, 2 earned runs, 1.64 ERA.
Anyway, looking at the list there is a certain position player Hall of Famer who qualifies for the list and pitched to a 1.52 ERA. Who is it? [No, it’s not Babe Ruth.] Answer below.
A-Roid Will Never Learn
Just when you thought Alex Rodriguez couldn’t be more of an idiot, he showed us he is a lock already for “Idiot of the Year” for 2014 when he and his legal team not only sued Major League Baseball, as long expected, but also the Major League Baseball Players Association, the very union that has been largely supporting him throughout this entire debacle.
A-Rod’s legal team filed suit in U.S. District Court alleging arbitrator Fredric Horowitz was biased in his ruling and for his refusal “to entertain evidence that was pertinent and material to the outcome,” calling the 162-game ban “wholly unjustifiable.”
In Rodriguez’ 42-page complaint, he names Major League Baseball and the MLBPA as defendants, alleging the latter breached its “duty of fair representation” while charging MLB and MLBPA with imposing a suspension without just cause.
In his 34-page report, Horowitz wrote: “While this length of suspension may be unprecedented for a MLB player, so is the misconduct he committed.”
“The report, attached to the legal filing Monday, relies on the testimony of (Anthony) Bosch, as well as his phone records, his patient notes, text and BlackBerry messages….
“The report emphasizes how close Rodriguez and Bosch – who is referred to in the decision as ‘a drug dealer’ – appeared to be. In 2012 alone, they spoke on the telephone 53 times and exchanged 556 text messages. (At one point Rodriguez told Bosch to ‘erase all these messages.’)…
“The independent report describes in detail the shadowy life – and complicated diet – of a big-league doper who juggled four injections with two muscle treatments, two skin creams, two lozenges, and six oral doses. And that was just ‘PHASE 1,’ according to the report….” Referring to the league’s joint drug agreement, Horowitz said that Rodriguez had ‘committed the most egregious violations of the J.D.A. reported to date.’”
For his part, MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said in a statement: “It is unfortunate that Alex Rodriguez has chosen to sue the Players Association. His claim is completely without merit, and we will aggressively defend ourselves and our members from these baseless charges.”
“Alex Rodriguez has remained pugnacious, fighting MLB and the Yankees and anyone else he sees as the enemy in a way befitting a person with deep pockets and a deeper sense of victimization.
“If he is innocent of taking illegal performance enhancers the past few years – as he has said in a few forums, but never under oath – then fight on he should.
“But if he is guilty and all this has been an exercise in finding a loophole through which to escape, then he has made a mistake in overvaluing the advice of his lawyers and his own sense of float-through-all-crisis entitlement. And made a huge mistake in underestimating the capacity of the country and the sport for forgiveness – if you give those groups reason to provide second or third chances.
“Perhaps he was too immersed in his own case to notice, but the regular season ended with his now former teammate, Andy Pettitte, hailed into retirement despite his PED past.
“Since the conclusion of the season, Matt Williams – he of the prominent spot in the Mitchell Report – has been hired as Nationals manager. Jason Giambi, once a BALCO All-Star, signed yet another minor league contract with the Indians, whom he serves as resident sage and manager in training.
“Jhonny Peralta and Bartolo Colon, despite their naughty ties to the same Biogenesis scandal that has felled A-Rod, signed four- and two-year deals, respectively, as free agents. Carlos Ruiz and Marlon Byrd, also with PED-related suspensions in their recent pasts, signed three- and two-year free agent deals, respectively….
“We can argue whether MLB was overzealous or even unscrupulous in how it went about accumulating evidence and aligning itself with Bosch – and it is a discussion to continue about how far we want MLB to go to try to defang the use of performance enhancers in the game.
“But A-Rod, who once denied even knowing Bosch, clearly was in cahoots with him, exchanged hundreds of text messages with – again – someone he claimed not to know, at one point, and was taking advice what to put in his body from someone with all the airs of a ‘Scarface’ extra and, again, no medical degree and a strip-mall address….
“If this offseason did not tell him the value of speedy acceptance and admittance, how about the lesson of Pete Rose, who denied, denied, denied until his tell-all a decade later and, well, how has that worked out for him? Or Lance Armstrong, who did the pugnacious legal thing, too, costing himself plenty of dough and whatever lingers of his reputation.
“Look, maybe there is even still time for Rodriguez at this late date to try what seems so difficult for him – honesty, self-reflection, a more righteous course. It will not stop the suspension or the tarnish to his name. Maybe, however, he can still find out it is a forgiving country and a forgiving game – but first you have to give folks reasons to offer forgiveness.”
“Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez has earned, to date, $353,416,280 strictly from playing baseball, his salaries in full from the Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers and New York Yankees.
“It is a figure even someone with the unparalleled vision of Marvin Miller could never have dreamt up back in 1967, when he left the steelworkers union and within a year had hammered out his first collective bargaining agreement for the MLBPA with baseball, the core of which raised the minimum salary for a major leaguer from $7,000 to $10,000 ($69,781.14 in today’s dollars).
“In many ways, Alex Emmanuel Rodriguez is the living embodiment, the final evolution, of everything Miller fought for in the days when the owners treated him as a gnat, trying to ignore him, hoping he’d just go away. Rodriguez is the yield of all those work stoppages, all those strikes and lockouts, all the contentious meetings across the last five decades….
“And remember: Baseball is the one game that has forever shown rank-and-file unity. Football players, the second time they struck, wound up running across picket lines as if they were being chased by pitchforks and shotguns. A lot of hockey players and basketball players sought financial refuge overseas, letting others fight their labor battles for them.
“Not one of them ever crossed – and when scabs replaced them in 1995, there were the same hard feelings directed at them as any Teamster or iron worker has ever sent to a replacement worker. Fans may have hated them for it, but baseball players really did embrace the brethren of their union activity. Because they knew they were a part of something bigger. Because while Rodriguez wantonly claims he’s fighting this one-man fight for ‘the kids who come after me,’ the MLBPA members really DID do that.
“(Rodriguez) has such little shame that, in the complaint, he actually slanders a dead man. ‘His gratuitous attacks on our former Executive Director, Michael Weiner, are inexcusable,’ Tony Clark, the PA’s new chief – and a former Yankees teammate of A-Rod’s – said.”
Separately, Tony Clark added: “The Players Association has vigorously defended Mr. Rodriguez’ rights throughout the Biogenesis investigation, and indeed throughout his career.”
Seahawks fans, however, have to be a little worried over Russell Wilson’s recent lackluster play. Through the first 12 games of the season, Wilson’s passer rating was 108.5, but in games 13-16 it fell to 79.1. [Ryan Wilson / CBSSports.com] And then he was only 67.6 last weekend. He needs to pick it up a bit…not a lot, just a bit.
I’ll say, though, that at the end of the day, whoever has more carries, Marshawn Lynch or Frank Gore, will be on the winning team.
As for New England at Denver, as you know Tom Brady is 10-4 against Peyton Manning, 2-1 in the playoffs. Manning desperately needs this game for his legacy. Brady’s is secure, but he obviously also has pride and he’s just 4-5 in his last nine playoff starts.
The game is indeed all about them. In essence, the rest should just stand on the sidelines and let Manning and Brady shoot it out with one of those Dr. Pepper contests, throwing balls into a hole in a barrel. Like 25 passes each from 10, then 15, then 20, then 30 yards. Maybe have Beyonce entertain after the first 50 passes. Ring card girls before each pass. I mean it can still last three hours so CBS can get all their commercials in.
–A federal judge in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania rejected the proposed $765 million settlement between the NFL and more than 4,500 retired players who sued the league over the concussion issue, with Judge Anita B. Brody saying the league and the plaintiffs’ lawyers had not produced enough evidence the $765 million was sufficient. More documents will thus need to be produced to convince Brody otherwise, or the NFL will have to kick in a lot more money.
—Ken Whisenhunt was hired by Tennessee as their next head coach. He had been San Diego’s offensive coordinator this season, after six years as head coach of Arizona, 2007-2012, where he went 45-51 and led them to the 2009 Super Bowl (following ’08 season).
–I can’t believe the Detroit Lions hired Jim Caldwell to be their next head coach. He’s a good guy and all, but he’s 59 on Thursday.
Yes, in reaching the Super Bowl in his first season at the helm in Indianapolis, 2009, he won two playoff games, thus giving him more than the Lions organization has over the last 55 years combined (1-10 since winning the title in 1957), Caldwell just doesn’t excite you.
–The Giants tabbed Ben McAdoo, the quarterbacks coach at Green Bay, to be their new offensive coordinator. McAdoo, 36, has been one of the more coveted coaches this off-season.
–Forbes.com reported that ticket sales for Super Bowl XLVIII are up to $4,012 per, up from last year when it was $2,525 at this point, less than three weeks before the game.
A buyer from Brownsville, Texas, bought the most expensive tickets at $10,000. According to StubHub, 80% of tickets for last year’s Super Bowl were purchased after the AFC/NFC Championship games.
College Basketball
AP Poll
1. Arizona 17-0 (61 first-place votes)
2. Syracuse 16-0 (4)
3. Wisconsin 16-0…then lost at Indiana (12-5, 2-2) 75-72 on Tues.
4. Michigan State 15-1
5. Wichita State 17-0…Shocker Nation must be pumped
6. Villanova 15-1
7. Florida 13-2
8. Iowa State 14-1…then lost to No. 15 Kansas, Monday, 77-70*
9. Oklahoma State 14-2
10. San Diego State 14-1…wow…
16. UMass 14-1
20. Creighton 14-2
22. Pitt 15-1
23. Duke 12-4
24. Saint Louis 15-2
* The Cyclones’ DeAndre Kane, who had severely sprained his ankle over the weekend, was in the lineup on Monday and had 21, but was only 8 of 16 from the foul line.
–Big game in the Atlantic-10 on Tuesday as George Washington (14-3, 2-1) defeated VCU (13-4, 1-1) 76-66 in D.C. My “Pick to Click” Rams had been getting it together but there’s obviously something missing this season. At this point they need to finish no worse than fourth in the conference and win two games in the A-10 tourney to secure perhaps a 9-seed. Just get in and then you never know.
–The state of Maryland filed a $156.8 million counter-claim against the ACC, alleging the conference broke its own rules in inflating the exit fee it says the Univ. of Maryland must pay for leaving the conference to join the Big Ten. Maryland’s Attorney General’s Office also alleges Wake Forest and Pitt “each contacted a Big Ten university in an attempt by the ACC to recruit at least two Big Ten schools to leave the Big Ten and join the ACC.” [Bloomberg]
[It’s the five-year anniversary, Jan. 15, 2009. I wrote the following in this space on 1/19/09]
“Just after US Airways Flight 1549 took off from La Guardia co-pilot Jeff Skiles, who was at the controls, caught a glimpse of a pack of Canada geese off the right side of the nose of the plane, ‘perfectly lined in formation.’ But it was too late.
“Pilot Chesley Sullenberger looked up to see his window covered with the ‘big, dark brown birds,’ Skiles told National Safety Board members yesterday.
“ ‘His instinct was to duck, but he didn’t,’ agency spokeswoman Kitty Higgins said.
“The geese, which never appeared on the radar of the air-traffic controller who cleared the jet for takeoff, slammed into the Airbus A320 with a devastating thud that destroyed both of the plane’s engines.
“A silence ‘like being a library’ spread throughout the cabin along with the smell of ‘burning birds’ and singed electronics.
“Hurtling towards the earth from more than 3,000 feet above the Bronx Zoo, Sullenberger took the controls from his first officer.
“ ‘Aaah, this is Cactus 1549, we hit birds,’ he radioed in. ‘We lost thrust in both engines. We’re turning back towards La Guardia.’
“Despite rapidly losing altitude, the quick-thinking ‘Sully’ lowered the nose of the plane in a desperate attempt to stay airborne.
“But he soon realized he didn’t have enough juice to make it back.
“ ‘No, too low. Too slow. Too many buildings. Too populated an area,’ the captain told the tower.
“Sullenberger also nixed the idea of flying to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey saying, ‘it was farther away’ and he ‘didn’t think he could make it.’
“All the while, Skiles was desperately trying to restart the damaged engines, while checking off emergency landing procedures on a three-page list that the crew normally begins at 35,000 feet. But there wasn’t enough time.
“ ‘We can’t do it,’ Sullenberger radioed in his final transmission to the tower. ‘We’re gonna be in the Hudson.’
“ ‘He was concerned if he didn’t make it. It was a populated area,’ Higgins said. ‘The consequences would have been catastrophic if he didn’t make it.’
“Sullenberger nimbly guided the 123-foot-long jet over the George Washington Bridge, scanning the water below for a spot with boats that might be able to help rescue his passengers.
“ ‘Brace! Brace! Head down!’ the flight attendants screamed to the 150 passengers.
“Just six minutes after the 3:24 p.m. takeoff Thursday, the plane plowed into the icy water.
“In the midst of the chaos, the crew didn’t have the chance to throw the aircraft’s ‘ditch switch’ – which seals off vents and holes in the fuselage to make it more seaworthy.
“But the quick-thinking flight attendants kept the low-lying rear doors closed, helping to keep the plane afloat long enough to safely unload everyone on board the Charlotte, NC-bound flight.”
“The former Air Force fighter pilot remained cool, calm and collected both before and after successfully ditching his US Airways flight into the Hudson River.
“ ‘That pilot is a stud,’ said one police source. ‘After the crash, he was sitting there in the ferry terminal, wearing his hat, sipping his coffee and acting like nothing happened.’….
“ ‘Brace for impact,’ he warned the passengers before ditching the plane, a voice of lone calm in the seconds before they crashed.
“Sullenberger wasn’t done once his plane was down. He undid his safety belt and walked the length of the plane to make sure all the passengers were safely outside, Mayor Bloomberg said….”
Family friend Jim Walberg said being called a hero isn’t likely to please Sullenberger.
“ ‘Sure, he’s a hero, but he’s also a humble man,’ said Walberg. ‘Hero isn’t a name he’ll take to very easily.’
“One of the first rescuers on the scene said Sullenberger seemed impervious to the chaos around him.
“ ‘He looked absolutely immaculate,’ the rescuer said. ‘He looked like David Niven in an airplane uniform. He looked unruffled. His uniform was sharp. You could see him walking down the aisles making sure everybody got out.’”
Sullenberger was well known in the industry before Thursday, as it turned out, being not only an Air Force graduate, but also in holding two masters degrees and having served as safety chairman for the Airline Pilots Association.
“Although flanked by worshiping cops, firefighters and city officials after the crash, Sullenberger remained detached and low-key.
“ ‘That guy is one cool customer,’ said a police source. ‘He was a rock star. He had saved everybody and was behaving like it was just another day at the office.’”
Craig Muder of the Baseball Hall of Fame wrote of a historic communication between Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis and President Franklin Roosevelt just weeks after Pearl Harbor. Landis wrote FDR to ask for his advice.
“If you believe we ought to close down for the duration of the war, we are ready to do so immediately,” Landis wrote. “If you feel we ought to continue, we would be delighted to do so. We await your order.”
Thank you for yours of January fourteenth. As you will, of course, realize the final decision about the baseball season must rest with you and the Baseball Club owners – so what I am going to say is solely a personal and not an official point of view.
I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going. There will be fewer people unemployed and everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before.
And that means that they ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off their work even more than before.
Baseball provides a recreation which does not last over two hours or two hours and a half, and which can be got for very little cost. And, incidentally, I hope that night games can be extended because it gives an opportunity to the day shift to see a game occasionally.
As to the players themselves, I know you agree with me that individual players who are of active military or naval age should go, without question, into the services. Even if the actual quality of the teams is lowered by the greater use of older players, this will not dampen the popularity of the sport. Of course, if any individual has some particular aptitude in a trade or profession, he ought to serve the Government. That, however, is a matter which I know you can handle with complete justice.
Here is another way of looking at it – if 300 teams use 5,000 or 6,000 players, these players are a definite recreational asset to at least 20,000,000 of their fellow citizens – and that in my judgment is thoroughly worthwhile.
Golf Balls
–I posted last time prior to the end of the Sony Open so for the record, Jimmy Walker won his second tour title and is one to watch for 2014.
–Golf Magazine gave 50 Tour pros anonymity and among the questions they asked, “Kate Upton or Holly Sonders?” 66% said Ms. Upton. 18% Ms. Sonders. 16% ‘No comment.’
Well, I don’t sign this column so I’m really anonymous. I’ll go with Ms. Sonders.
Joe LaCava and Jim “Bones” Mackay are ranked as the best caddies.
38% yes, 60% no. Off the record: “I don’t care what they tell you, literally every guy out here would.”
–Golf Digest came out with their first ranking of the “World’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses.” [Other magazines have done this while GD focused on domestic rankings, or rankings outside the U.S.]
1. Pine Valley
2. Cypress Point Club
3. Augusta National
4. Royal County Down G.C., Newcastle, N. Ireland (played it twice about 17 years ago. Yes, awesome.)
5. Shinnecock Hills
6. Royal Dornoch (Championship), Scotland
7. St. Andrews Links (Old)
8. Muirfield, Gullane, Scotlland
9. Royal Melbourne G.C. (West)
10. Oakmont
12. Sand Hills G.C., Mullen, Nebraska…what an honor! Would kill to play there (as well as Cypress Point). I mean not really ‘kill’ anyone, as in then serving life in prison, but, err…you know….
15. Pebble Beach
21. Bandon Dunes (Pacific Dune)
22. Cape Kidnappers, Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand….would love to play this one, too
27. Ballybunion (Old), Ireland…a favorite of mine
42. Cabot Links, Inverness, Canada (Nova Scotia)…wow, want to go here, too…and this course is just a few years old…super honor…
56. Trump International, Aberdeen, Scotland…anxious to see what The Donald and Gil Hanse did with Doral
60. Kiawah Island (Ocean)…ah, yes, Dr. W. We know this one well. Love it. But bring your ‘A’ wedge game. [I only have a ‘D’ game, which creates a bit of a problem.]
64. Lahinch…my one and only in County Clare, Ireland…and I’m very depressed. In the current Golfweek, there’s a blurb talking about storm damage to some of the holes along the ocean (Ireland and Britain, as you’ve noticed, have been pummeled with one storm after another) and I’ve heard from some friends in town there that it is not good. For starters, 30-foot waves crashed over the seawall. Lots of businesses in town were severely impacted, so that means no work for a lot of folks I know. Very sad.
Tiger Woods is still handily No. 1 with total earnings of $83 million for 2013. $12.1 million on course (worldwide) and $71 million off course.
Phil Mickelson is second at $52 million, including $45 million off course.
And Arnold Palmer is third…still taking in $40 million off course.
Meanwhile, Henrik Stenson earned $18,594,670 with a club in his hand last year. Seeing as he was swindled in the Stanford Financial Group Ponzi scheme, no one deserves it more.
Back to Tiger, Golf Digest has added up his on course and off course earnings since turning pro in 1996 and it’s a cool $1,316,270,600. As Ronald Reagan would have said…not bad, not bad at all.
Meanwhile, the best commissioner in professional sports, Golf’s Tim Finchem, made $5.5 million for the last year there are records, 2011. He’s underpaid. Mark Russell, head of the rules and competitions (a figure all golf junkies know) earns just $422,800 and this is a guy who never has a week, or day, off.
–In Golfweek, Curtis Strange says of Tiger, “I don’t think he’ll break Jack’s record. If he ever reads that, he won’t like me at all for that, but I just don’t think he will.
“But let me ask you this: Say he wins 16 or 17 (majors), doesn’t even tie Jack, but he smashes Sam Snead’s record. Is he the greatest?”
Woods enters the year at 79 career PGA Tour wins to Snead’s record 82.
Strange makes the point, “Why are wins de-valued? It’s hard to win now; there’s a thing called the talent level.”
–The Knicks (15-23) and Nets (15-22) have gotten their acts together early in 2014 and should be in the playoff mix the rest of the way in the incredibly weak Eastern Conference. But both had their five-game winning streaks ended in back-to-back performances, thereby further proving it’s not easy winning on consecutive nights in the NBA.
–Pretty amazing that Lionel Messi had been named FIFA’s world player of the year four straight years. But for 2013, the award goes to Ronaldo.
Ronaldo scored 66 goals in 56 games, but did not win a team trophy, while Franck Ribery, the French midfielder for Bayern Munich, won five. But Ronaldo did lead his Portugal national team to a place in the World Cup, scoring all four of Portugal’s goals in the deciding two-leg matchup with Sweden.
As for Messi, who finished second in the voting (Ribery third), he was hurt on and off throughout the 2013 campaign.
–Little news on Michael Schumacher’s condition, though he had an operation to remove a small part of his skull in another bid to relieve pressure on his brain, according to a Zurich paper.
“Frederic Rossi, a Swiss neurosurgeon, told the Zurich Tagesanzeiger that the risks of such an operation ranged from swelling to bleeding to the accidental opening of the brain’s outer membrane.”
Which is why good neurosurgeons deserve every penny they make.
A hospital source told the Daily Telegraph that doctors are trying to determine which parts of Schumacher’s brain were damaged and which are still functioning. Further information may not come for weeks, or even months. He remains in an artificially induced coma.
Investigators have ruled out faulty skis, inadequate signage and excessive speed as possible causes of his accident.
—“Surge in shark attacks causes alarm in Hawaii”
Thus read the headline in a Los Angeles Times piece, Wednesday, by Maeve Reston. The state is particularly concerned that most of the 14 attacks in Hawaii’s waters in 2013, including two fatal ones, were caused by tiger sharks. So a study is being done “to determine whether tiger sharks spend more time in areas used for ocean recreation around Maui than the other islands,” Maui’s Makena State park being the area where the German snorkeler and Washington state kayak fisherman were killed.
–So I dumped HBO a while ago but I’ll re-order it in April now that I see when a new season of “Game of Thrones” begins, April 6.
Top 3 songs for the week 1/11/64: [British Invasion about to hit…] #1 “There! I’ve Said It Again” (Bobby Vinton) #2 “Louie Louie” (The Kingsmen) #3 “Popsicles And Icicles” (The Murmaids…ughh…)…and…#4 ”Dominique” (The Singing Nun…I swear, my first ’45…I wasn’t six yet, you understand…this doesn’t make me a bad person…really…) #5 “Forget Him” (Bobby Rydell… guys like him about to get steamrollered by what is approaching from across the pond…) #6 “Since I Fell For You” (Lenny Welch…this tune is timeless…will sound great 200 years from now…) #7 “Surfin’ Bird” (The Trashmen…. as opposed to this one….) #8 “The Nitty Gritty” (Shirley Ellis) #9 “Talk Back Trembling Lips” (Johnny Tillotson) #10 “Midnight Mary” (Joey Powers…one-hit wonder out of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania…produced an exercise show for NBC-TV…wrestling instructor at Ohio State…)
*So two weeks later, the Beatles entered the top ten with “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” The next week it hits #1 and stays there for seven weeks. February 9, the Beatles appear on “Ed Sullivan.” I’ll have lots on this around that date. Amazing…50 years.
Baseball Quiz Answer: Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx threw 23 2/3 innings with a career ERA of 1.52. He tossed a single scoreless inning in 1939, and then in 1945, his final year, he threw 22 2/3, actually starting two games, and allowed 4 earned runs on 13 hits, 14 walks, 10 Ks…1.59.
Babe Ruth was 94-46 on the mound with a 2.28 ERA in 1,221 innings. It’s important to remember this when you’re at your neighborhood watering hole and the discussion of greatest ever comes up.
