[Posted Sunday PM prior to conclusion of Virginia and Arizona games, though neither appears in doubt]
NCAA Basketball Quiz: The 1975-76 Indiana Hoosiers went 32-0, the last NCAA champion to complete an undefeated season. They were ranked No. 1 at the start and never lost that position. All five starters – Kent Benson, Quinn Buckner, Scott May, Bob Wilkerson and Tom Abernethy – went on to play in the NBA. Four were drafted in 1976, Benson was the overall No. 1 pick in ’77. Give me the name of the team selecting each one of them. Answer below.
March Madness
Well, after just 25 games in the NCAA tournament, the $billion challenge was already history. Going into the evening contests on Friday, just three clean brackets remained and all three had George Washington over Memphis.
It all started badly with the very first contest as 84% had Ohio State beating Dayton. Then 97% picked Duke over Mercer. [Hoops fans, you know who those three percent were in your office.]
Me? I was blown out of the water with the Dayton win, but had a solid 13-3 opening day despite the North Carolina State Wolfpack’s epic choke against Saint Louis. I had Harvard and was feeling good about myself.
But Friday I went a stupendously bad 9-7. So much for staying in the hunt, though as I go to post it appears my Final Four is still intact.
“The worst part of college basketball is the seemingly endless months of over-analytic prattle over rankings, Ratings Percentage Index, conference strength, all crescendoing toward the incessantly annoying finale of ‘perceived seeding injustices.’
“The best part is now.
“The worst part is TV experts who coached (or played) at elite colleges lobbying for the 11th-placed team in the Big 12 getting a bid over a mid-major runner-up.
“The best part is Gonzaga, from the two bid (barely) West Coast Conference, beating Oklahoma State.
“Nate Silver is an expert at predicting election outcomes, yet his lively FiveThirtyEight blog, after running the numbers, gave Mercer a 7% chance of beating Duke on Friday.
“The best part is rolling out the balls in March and a chimp picking as many winners as Jay Bilas.
“The sport is truly compelling when Ohio State can’t dodge Dayton any longer, and it becomes No. 6 vs. No. 11 at neutral-site Buffalo, N.Y.
“And Dayton wins, 60-59, when Vee Sanford scores the game-winner over Ohio State’s Aaron Craft, the best on-ball defender in the nation….
“No. 14 Mercer’s win over No. 3 Duke on Friday almost blew up the Internet.
“The best tweet came from the handle @LehighSports, which posted: ‘Welcome to the club.’”
–In Duke’s loss, 78-71, the Blue Devils were 15 of 37 from three-point land, which is very good, but Mercer shot 55.6% from the field (25-45) and Duke’s Jabari Parker was held to 14 points.
The New York Post’s Mike Vaccaro commented: “Maybe next year Mike Krzyzewski can spend less time worrying about how many Atlantic 10 teams are worthy of the NCAA Tournament and more time making sure his own team shows up for the party on time.”
–4 Michigan State senior forward Adreian Payne had a rather spectacular opener against 13 Delaware, 41 points on 10 of 15 shooting from the field, 17 of 17 from the foul line. Spartans won 93-78.
—4 Louisville got all it could handle from 13 Manhattan before the Jaspers succumbed 71-64; Manhattan having the lead with five minutes to play before the Cardinals’ Luke Hancock scored 8 consecutive points to give Louisville the lead.
—12 Harvard beat 5 Cincinnati 61-57, which wasn’t a surprise to anyone who follows the sport.
—5 Saint Louis rallied from 16 back in the second half to defeat 12 North Carolina State. Talk about a choke job. Heck it was 14 points with just five minutes to play! And the Billikens were down 8 with 3:02 left.
Yet, with just 91 seconds left, N.C. State was still up 65-57! They then missed four more free throws, going 20 of 37 for the game, but more importantly 8 of 18 in the final three minutes. The game went into overtime and the Wolfpack lost 83-80. All-American T.J. Warren was just 6 of 14 from the foul line. Just one more make, from anyone, those last three minutes and it’s game over.
—7 New Mexico fell to 10 Stanford 58-53, after falling behind 20-4 at the start. Lobos guard Kendall Williams, who averaged 16.4 points per game this season, was 1 of 9 from the field and missed all six of his threes.
There were six overtime games Thursday and Friday…great stuff.
Saturday / Sunday
—3 Syracuse shot just 38.9% from the field, 0-10 from three, in being upset by 11 Dayton 55-53. [This was the sixth time Syracuse has lost to a double-digit seed in the NCAA Tournament under Jim Boeheim, including the historic loss to 15-seed Richmond in 1991.]
—7 Oregon may have fallen short of 2 Wisconsin, 85-77, but junior guard Joseph Young had his national coming out party with a sensational 29 points for the Ducks.
–In losing to 4 Michigan State 80-73, 12 Harvard at least beat the spread, which I had as 7 ½. And at the end of the day, boys and girls, that’s what’s important. [Paid for by “Bring Sports Betting to New Jersey!”] Meanwhile, where will coach Tommy Amaker end up? Boston College fired Steve Donahue and there is talk he could go there.
—2 Villanova fell to 7 UConn 77-65 as Shabazz Napier had a super game, 25 points on 9-13 shooting (4 of 8 from three).
—4 San Diego State held the nation’s best shooting team, 12 North Dakota State, to 31.3% from the field (15 of 48) when the Bison hit 51% all season. For the Aztecs, Xavier Thames was spectacular with 30 points, almost half the team’s offense in a 63-44 win.
—5 Saint Louis lost to 4 Louisville 66-51 as the Billikens were a record-worst 0 for 15 from downtown (21-38 from 2-point range).
–Sunday, 10 Stanford upset 2 Kansas 60-57, the Jayhawks’ fourth loss to a double-digit seed in the last 10 years, as Kansas “phenom” Andrew Wiggins had a whopping four points with four turnovers. He now says bye-bye to the college experience and heads for the NBA, cuz that’s what such kids do these days. Kansas shot just 32.8% from the field and clearly missed center Joel Embiid, out with an injury.
–In a super contest, 1 Wichita State was upended by 8 Kentucky 78-76, with the Shockers nonetheless hitting 55.1% of their field goal attempts and the Wildcats 54%. For Wichita State, Cleanthony Early was spectacular, 31 points on 12 of 17 shooting (4 of 6 from three), while Ron Baker had 20. For Kentucky, Julius Randle had 13 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists, while the Harrison twins combined for 39 points.
But the Shockers could have prevailed at the end, only guard Fred VanVleet’s 3-pointer at the buzzer was badly off the mark.
That said, Wichita State, in suffering their first loss of the season, and with skeptics on their case all year for their easy schedule, did themselves proud. They didn’t lose the game as much as Kentucky won it. It was great basketball.
–In another nailbiter, 3 Iowa State pulled it out over 6 North Carolina, 85-83. The Cyclones were playing without third-leading scorer George Niang, who broke his foot Friday night in the win over North Carolina Central, while the Tar Heels lost their third-leading scorer, Brice Johnson, early on in Sunday’s contest. Iowa State was led by guard DeAndre Kane, who had 24 points, 10 rebounds and 7 assists.
—14 Mercer’s Cinderella run ended at the hands of 11 Tennessee, 83-63, as the Vols’ Jarnell Stokes had 17 points and 18 rebounds.
—4 UCLA ended 12 Stephen F. Austin’s dreams, 77-60.
—6 Baylor burst 3 Creighton’s bubble, destroying the Bluejays 85-55. Doug McDermott was obviously a non-factor…15 points. I had zero respect for Creighton, having predicted they’d lose their first round game to ULL. But McDermott will have a nice career in the NBA and he was a credit to the college game.
Finally, Friday night, 5 VCU lost a heartbreaker to 12 Stephen F. Austin. My “Pick to Click” Rams, from the beginning of the season until I went with Virginia for the bracket, were up 10 with 3:40 to play and blew it. They missed some critical free throws down the stretch but with the clocking running down on the game they were still up four, only freshman JeQuan Lewis inexplicably committed a foul on the Lumberjacks’ Desmond Haymon as Haymon hit a 3-pointer with 3.6 seconds remaining. Haymon then hit the foul shot, the game went into overtime, and the Rams ended up losing 77-75.
As the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Tim Pearrell put it, “This one will haunt VCU for a while.”
Lewis’ play was one of the worst in NCAA Tourney history, flat and simple. The game was over.
So I watched VCU Coach Shaka Smart in the post-game press conference. Your heart went out to him. This is a great coach, seemingly good man, who has done wonders with the program and can write his own ticket for any opening in the country the rest of his career. He was shattered. Who knows how far VCU would have gone. Maybe UCLA would have knocked them out on Sunday, maybe not. But each Tourney win validates a program, and legacy, further and you just knew some of those thoughts were coursing through Shaka’s brain as he searched for answers, only there weren’t any.
I’ve written (and now tweeted), countless times how I wish Shaka would end up at Wake, but that seems highly doubtful. I’ve also urged so many of these coaches, like a Gregg Marshall, to stay where they are…the grass is not always greener, sports fans.
But then I watched the post-game coverage on TBS and the panel, which included Seth Davis, didn’t call the four-point play for what it was…one of the bonehead decisions of all time.
Now I wasn’t expecting them to use the language a fan would, but you have announcers like Greg Gumbel and Dan Bonner talking of “horrendous” and “stupid play,” as they should in describing the action. Only this late crew, in dissecting the VCU game, refused to do so.
So I tweeted the following…exactly… “Tired of CBS crew making excuses for VCU’s Lewis. There are none. Brutal loss for the program & Shaka. Come to Wake, Shaka!”
I sent it to Seth Davis, who I like, but I just felt the network needed to be called out on it. He replied to me, dressing me down for having no “empathy” and how I needed to learn to show it.
Oh brother. Well, almost instantly a bunch of folks jumped to Seth’s defense, it was retweeted a few times, one guy said I shouldn’t use such “vitriol” (as I’m thinking, ‘what vitriol?’), but such are the ways of Twitter.
Hey, you want to play the Twitter game, and I have chosen to do so for various reasons, you have to take the heat if you are leaving yourself open to it. What’s funny is that I later started to get some support.
Here’s my final say. Don’t insult the fans’ intelligence. We all saw the play. It was pathetic. All the hard work Shaka Smart, and the rest of the team, put into the season went down the drain. So tell it like it is.
Some in the Twittersphere, though, used the argument that I should lay off the kid. Spare me. First off, what I said was tame. Second, these aren’t high-school players. They are young adults. But we live in an era where everyone gets a trophy.
I also didn’t write anything about Lewis and his missed attempt to hit a final 3-pointer for the win in overtime. That’s not a mistake, that’s just basketball. VCU’s Burgess missed two free throws with 10 seconds left, after all. That was a choke.
Shaka Smart, in the post-game press conference: “I couldn’t really see (the foul). It doesn’t really matter. They called a foul. In that situation, you’ve just got to lay off the guy. You cannot even make it close. It’s a tough pill to swallow for a freshman and a valuable lesson to learn. You don’t want to learn it that way, but he did tonight.”
Again, that’s a coach, a distraught one at that. He can’t dump on his players. I’m a fan. The announcing crew for the Tournament is supposed to be addressing us.
“Sometimes teams win games with outstanding performances. Sometimes teams play poorly and lose games.
“Rarely are there games where one team deserves to win and the other team managed to lose a game it had won….
“VCU lost in overtime, lost when it had a four-point lead with four seconds left in the game, lost when they needed to do one thing, make free throws, and not do one thing – foul an opponent while he was taking a 3-point shot.
“But they missed critical free throws. And freshman guard JeQuan Lewis fouled Desmond Haymon as Haymon released a desperate 3-point attempt….
“There was no silver lining for VCU. There was no moral victory in the loss. Nothing was gained. Even the tournament experience VCU’s freshmen gathered was tainted by the game’s ending and their uneven performance.”
—Wake Forest finally parted ways with Coach Jeff Bzdelik. Four very long years in which Wake was 51-76, 17-51 in the ACC, including a stupendously awful 2-32 in ACC road contests. [Only five of the road losses being closer than 10 points.] Athletic Director Ron Wellman, who chaired the NCAA Selection Committee for the tournament this year, said in a press conference that the leading candidate for the job was probably still coaching in the tourney. That was Thursday, so not sure if that remains the case today.
As the Winston-Salem Journal’s Dan Collins wrote, speaking for all of us, one can only ask after this nightmare, “What in the wide, wide world of sports was that all about?” The fan base still has no clue why Dino Gaudio was replaced by Bzdelik, other than Wellman and Bzdelik were said to be friends from way back.
–A Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that only 33% of the general public supports paying college athletes. 64% oppose. Nearly every demographic and political group opposes it except non-whites, for whom 51% support paying them. [Whites oppose by a 73-24 margin.]
“(Advocates) of a ‘pay-for-play’ model remain the most vocal, pointing to the discrepancy between a free-market employment system within athletics departments, in which universities can hire coaches and administrators for salaries reaching millions of dollars, to a capped economic system for athletes, whose earnings are limited to the value of scholarships, no matter how much money their success – and likenesses – may generate for the schools they represent.
“Over the past two months, the NCAA has been sued in an antitrust claim that called the organization an ‘unlawful cartel’ and has encountered the attempted formation of a student-athlete union by members of the Northwestern University football team, all while defending the longstanding concept of ‘amateurism’ an essential to the college academic experience.
“ ‘It’s laughable, but it’s not funny,’ ESPN analyst Jay Bilas said. ‘They pay the scholarship, which is the amount the school pays to itself. They’re not out a nickel. The athletics department pays the school. Then they claim that they’re poor. Then they pay themselves these outrageous salaries that are market-based, but they say they don’t have any money to give to the players, but they have $8 million to give to a football or basketball coach and $1 million to give a baseball coach.’”
—Jets fans have known since the start of last season that quarterback Mark Sanchez was going to be released at year end to save cap space. But until recently we never thought we’d have to support Michael Vick instead. The Jets said goodbye to Sanchez and hello to Vick on Friday.
Vick, in a conference call that night, said: “I came to New York to play football. That’s what I came to New York to do.”
He signed for one year at $5 million and reminded everyone that while he knows Geno Smith is first on the depth chart, “From this point on, we’re going to compete each and every day,” he said.
Vick turns 34 in June and hasn’t played a full season since 2006. One thing in his favor is his familiarity with offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg, the two having spent four seasons together in Philadelphia, including 2010 when Vick was the NFL’s comeback player of the year.
Of course the Vick signing means much, much more. Many of us fans are once again left scratching our heads. A lot of us detest the guy. I’ve mellowed a little on the topic, but wonder what the heck the front office is thinking from a purely football standpoint. I was getting beer on Saturday and Beer Man, a Raiders fan, and I were chatting and he was all fired up. I didn’t realize Oakland had picked up quarterback Matt Schaub from Houston for just a sixth-round draft pick. That’s the perfect kind of backup for Smith; a solid starter who could slide in if Smith didn’t have a good camp or gets hurt. But noooo!
“The Jets looked smart trading for Brett Favre six years ago until his right arm fell off down the stretch and cost them the playoffs. It took two seconds for Peyton Manning to reject the Jets’ free-agent sweet talk in 2012, but they had the right idea as he has thrown about 1,000 TD passes for the Broncos the last two seasons.
“The Jets do have a thing for older quarterbacks, don’t they, especially since they can’t get it right in the draft.
“This would have been a good idea about 10 years ago.
“The Jets have a quarterback controversy: Vick, who may be over the hill, vs. Geno Smith, who has the look of a career underachiever.
“Vick is a nearly broken down soon-to-be 34-year-old who arrives with some forgettable baggage from his former days as a dogfighter. Off the field, he has now become a strong voice for the prevention of animal cruelty, but on the field, he takes way too many bone-crunching hits, gets hurt all the time and is in the twilight of a very strange injury- and scandal-plagued career….
“The Jets’ new motto is ‘sustainable success.’ How does a QB drafted in 2001 fit into that model? As one NFL source said of Vick the other day, ‘Do I want to give the keys to Michael Vick? Depends how fast you want to go in reverse.’”
The back of Saturday’s Daily News had a photo of Vick with the caption: “Stupid Jet Tricks.”
The New York Post’s back page read: “Vick of the Litter”… “Gang Growl Ink QB…feed Sanchez to the Dogs.”
[For his career, Vick has a 58-48-1 record, with 128 TD passes and 85 interceptions. Plus he’s rushed for 5,857 yards and a 7.1 average.]
–The Jets are also interested, it would seem, in Philadelphia wide receiver DeSean Jackson, after Jackson had a falling out with coach Chip Kelly. The Eagles will try to trade him before releasing him, with the Patriots, 49ers and Panthers also said to be interested. Jackson is just 27 and a three-time Pro Bowler.
But the Jets have a history with this kind of addition…Santonio Holmes, which proved to be a disaster in the end.
And back to Sanchez, yes, I agree with those saying he deserved better. The Jets clearly knew since last fall they were going to release him, so why wait this long, which limits his options? It’s just a classless move (from a crappy organization). For his many faults (52 of ‘em, turnovers, in 2011 and 2012), he was a team player and never said a word against the organization. So I also join those hoping Sanchez gets another solid opportunity.
–Mark Maske of the Washington Post reports that when NFL owners gather in Orlando this week, there will not be a vote on expanding the playoff field from 12 to 14 teams beginning in the 2015 season. [Others say there could be.] The competition committee backs it and there seems to be support for it league-wide, but since it’s not scheduled to take effect in the 2014 season, there’s “no pressing need for the owners to take an official vote next week.”
Separately, it is highly unlikely the season will be expanded to 18 regular season games owing to strong opposition by the players’ union.
–In 2012, Phil Jackson, new president of the New York Knicks, told HBO Sports that “Carmelo (Anthony) has to be a better passer and the ball can’t stop every time it hits his hands.”
This season the Knicks are 18-7 when he has at least four assists, 10-32 when he has three or fewer, including Sunday night’s brutal 106-100 loss to the Cavs, breaking an 8-game Knicks win streak. [Stuart Miller / Wall Street Journal]
Speaking of Jackson, Mike Lupica writes in the New York Daily News that if he really wants to change the culture of the Knicks, the best way to do so is coach the team.
“Jackson may be able to begin building the kind of infrastructure that Gregg Popovich did when given control of the Spurs, or that Pat Riley did in Miami. But if you are a Knicks fan, you should remember that it took Riley a decade to win his first title with the Heat….
“You know why Popovich has become a coaching giant over the past 20 years? Because his first important move as the team’s executive vice-president and general manager was to hire himself as coach.”
But whereas Lupica remarks, “If Phil Jackson has the energy to rebuild an organization, he has the energy to coach,” I just believe Jackson is physically hurting. Heck, he was wincing getting out of his chair when he attended his first Knicks game on Wednesday.
–The other team in New York, the Brooklyn Nets, continue to play inspired ball with an impressive overtime win Sunday in Dallas to go to 27-10 this calendar year and 37-31 overall. There’s your “Pick to Click” boys and girls. Doesn’t look that stupid anymore, does it?
Ball Bits
–As the northeast prepares for a potential whopper of a storm this week, at least in New England, the Major League Baseball season is officially underway as the Dodgers swept a two-game series from the Diamondbacks in Sydney, Australia; Clayton Kershaw pitching into the seventh in a 3-1 opening win, and then Yasiel Puig* powering L.A. with three hits and two RBIs in a 7-5 victory Sunday. In that second contest, Arizona’s Trevor Cahill came in at 6-0 with a 2.01 ERA in 10 career starts against the Dodgers, but gave up five runs on eight hits in four innings.
The Dodgers now resume regular-season play next Sunday, while the Diamondbacks resume their season on Monday, March 31. In between, after a rest, both will play a few more exhibition games.
As for the show the Aussies put on, I just saw the first game but the park, a converted cricket ground, looked great and nearly 80,000 attended the two games.
*Puig is already pissing off Manager Don Mattingly, as Puig was removed from Sunday’s contest late after appearing to injure himself on a swing. From Mark Saxon of ESPN Los Angeles and Alan Schwartz:
“Before the game, Mattingly told reporters that Puig ‘grabs something every time he takes a swing and misses.’
“Asked what injury caused Puig to leave Sunday’s game, Mattingly said, ‘I guess his back.’ He then seemed to react sarcastically when asked about the severity of the injury.
“ ‘Shoulder yesterday, back today, so I’m not sure if they’re going to get him tests or get him to the MRI Monday or a bone scan on Tuesday, maybe,’ Mattingly said. ‘I’m not quite sure what we’ll do. We may not do anything. I’m not sure.’
“Puig showed up to Dodgers camp this spring 26 pounds heavier than he was at the end of the 2013 season and he made two ugly baserunning gaffes in Sunday’s game,” despite his three hits.
–Since my last chat we had the very scary incident with Cincinnati closer Aroldis Chapman, who was drilled in the face with a ball off the bat of Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez. Yes, he could have been killed.
Chapman suffered a broken nose, broken bones above his left eye that required a titanium plate that will remain in his head, and a concussion. He is not expected to pitch for the Reds until at least June. But on Sunday, he walked into the Reds’ clubhouse saying he felt much better than he thought he would, a super encouraging sign.
But also on Sunday, Tampa Bay hurler Matt Moore was hit in the mouth with a line drive, though his glove partially blocked it. He suffered a bloody lip but we’ll know more Monday as he left the game at least walking off the field before they put him in a golf cart.
So many are asking, “Whatever happened to those protective pitching helmets?”
As Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY Sports notes, two months ago, manufacturer isoBLOX “trumpeted the news that a protective cap was approved for use,” but some clubs have yet to see it.
Now, granted, the helmet would not have protected Chapman, but if the helmet can help, pitchers want to be able to try them out.
One who is complaining loudly is Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Alex Cobb, who suffered a concussion and missed two months last season after getting hit in the head on a line drive.
“I thought it was implied when they passed an MLB-ready cap,” Cobb said, “that it would be in the locker room, available, accessible…. It just seems like a gimmick just to cover their (ass).”
I can’t help but note that Cobb fanned 12 in seven innings in his exhibition game start on Saturday.
But back to Chapman, all baseball fans pray for a speedy recovery.
–I am not in the least bit optimistic about my Mets in 2014, though at least our two first basemen, Ike Davis and Lucas Duda, are back on the field after sitting out weeks with frustrating spring injuries.
And 40-year-old Bartolo Colon threw 6 2/3 on Saturday, allowing just two runs and walking none, his specialty. One of the umpires came up to manager Terry Collins during the contest and said the Mets made a great move in signing him. If he can perform, he’ll become a folk hero in New York.
The thing is, we don’t have a shortstop, and our supposed budding superstar catcher, Travis d’Arnaud, while finally homering, Saturday, is hitting like .136, after failing to impress in his call-up last year.
By the way, Jayson Stark reported that the Tigers are entertaining the thought of activating 46-year-old first base coach, former shortstop Omar Vizquel. The 11-time Gold Glove winner, who turns 47 April 24, last played in 2012 with Toronto and can still pick it, according to reports.
So I suggest the Mets sign him, if Detroit keeps him in the coaching box. Really.
By the way, did you know Vizquel finished his career with 2,877 hits? He’s a lock Hall of Famer.
–The New York Daily News reports that Alex Rodriguez racked up legal bills of $4 million in his battle with Major League Baseball and while he has paid some of them, “he still owes his attorneys and private investigators as much as $3 million for the work they did.”
The thing is, while A-Rod plans on returning to the Yankees for the 2015 season, the News’ source “said Rodriguez will be unwelcome in ballparks from Seattle to Miami if he does not pay up because his attorneys and private investigators will take him to court for their money. And they will file documents that outline how and why Rodriguez pursued his scorched-earth legal strategy against MLB.
“ ‘If he resists paying, he will pay anyway and he will suffer,’ the source said. ‘If he forces people to prove he owes them money, the issues that he discussed with his attorneys will be made public – and Alex doesn’t want people telling the truth.’”
—Matt Every took his first PGA Tour title at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. Keegan Bradley finished second as Adam Scott blew a 7-shot, 36-hole lead and finished third.
–On Tiger Woods’ absence from Bay Hill this week, Sally Jenkins / Washington Post:
“It’s impossible to know how serious Tiger Woods’ back problem is, whether it’s a temporary twinge or a serious herniation. But something more is going wrong with his game than back spasms. Woods is having cramps between the ears as well, the kind that come with fraying nerves, the betrayal of aging, and mental self-doubt.
“Woods would not have withdrawn Tuesday from his favorite seasonal fire-starter of a tournament, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, unless he was in genuine physical distress. Bay Hill has long been his favorite tune-up, and obviously he sacrificed it because he’s concerned about his ability to be healthy for the Masters.
“The problem is that Bay Hill has always been the place where Woods gets his mind right for Augusta. With eight victories in 16 entries, it’s where he convinces himself he’s in good enough form. The larger and more worrying context to his withdrawal is that, at 38, Woods seems increasingly unable to pull together his game, his body, and his head all at the same time in order to compete for major championships. A bad back, for example, isn’t why he’s become so susceptible to three-putts.”
–I watched Arnold Palmer on Saturday’s telecast and he looked and sounded great. I tweeted that out. Then, in writing this column, I went through a story from earlier in the week that he is having back surgery right after Augusta “to help me enjoy the game a little more,” Palmer said.
–In the Champions Tour event in Mississippi, Jeff Maggert won his senior debut, defeating Wake Forest’s Billy Andrade.
—Jack Fleck died. He was 92. Fleck authored one of the great upsets in sports history at the 1955 U.S. Open, Olympic Club, San Francisco. At the time he was just trying to decide if he should keep trying to make it on the PGA Tour. He was a professional at two municipal clubs back in Iowa, after all.
So he drove all the way to San Francisco for the Open, having qualified at a Chicago sectional. He had just two wins as a pro in minor tournaments.
All Fleck did was then stare down Ben Hogan in an 18-hole playoff, denying Hogan a record fifth Open championship. Fleck’s goal had been to somehow finish in the top ten so he wouldn’t have to go through qualifying the following year.
He shot a 76 in the opening round but a second-round 69 left him just one back of the lead. And as Richard Goldstein of the New York Times noted:
“The last two rounds were played on a Saturday in those days. As Fleck often told it, he was alone in his motel room on Saturday morning, shaving, when he heard a voice saying he would win. ‘I got goose pimples, like electricity was going through my body,’ he said.”
In the fourth round, Hogan was in the clubhouse, initially two shots ahead of Fleck who was still on the course. Fleck needed a birdie on 18 to get in a playoff and sunk a 7-foot downhiller to force it. The next day, Fleck won by three as Hogan double-bogeyed the final hole.
What did Fleck win? $6,000. But he got an audience with avid golfer President Dwight D. Eisenhower and a spot on “Today”.
Fleck would go on to win two more PGA Tour events and two Senior P.G.A. Championships.
In reading his obituary, it’s interesting he was a disciple of yoga back in his playing days, which he said long afterward was “the secret to my good health.”
Fleck had served in the Navy during World War II and was involved in the invasion of Normandy.
—Frank Hannigan passed away. He was a former executive director of the USGA who also appeared on golf telecasts for a number of years after retiring from his position. Among other things he was responsible for bringing the U.S. Open back to Shinnecock in 1986. Hannigan was 82.
–Lastly, the World Golf Hall of Fame changed its selection process this weekend. The most important change is that now a male player will require 15 wins (PGA, European Tour, etc.) or 2 majors or Players Championships before being considered. Induction will be every two years as well, rather than annually. More later.
Big moment for the sport on Saturday as 21-year-old prodigy Kyle Larson won the Nationwide Series race in Fontana, Calif., after a thrilling duel with Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch.
Then on Sunday, in the Sprint Cup race, Kyle Busch picked up his 29th career victory as he bested Kyle Larson!
“An Austrian tourist was attacked and killed by a shark while swimming at a beach in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, the National Sea Rescue Institute said on Sunday.
“The 72-year-old received fatal wounds in the attack at Second Beach in Port St. Johns, where he and his wife were part of a tour group, the institute said in a statement.”
The species wasn’t identified, but the area is known for its great whites.
In October, a man was killed while snorkeling off the Eastern Cape coast.
The Evil of the Outdoor Cat
“The National Audubon Society tracks 20 common North American bird species – Eastern meadowlarks, field sparrows and the like – that are now in decline. Their numbers have dropped by 68 percent on average since 1967, because of a variety of factors. In Britain, likewise, farmland bird populations have plummeted just since 1995, with turtle doves, for instance, down by 85 percent, cuckoos by 50 percent, and lapwings by 41 percent.
“If these were stock market numbers, people would be leaping from buildings. But the peculiar thing about what biologists have called ‘the second Silent Spring’ is that people tend not to hear it.”
Well you know where this is headed. In the United States, there are 84 million owned cats, and anywhere from 30 to 80 million feral or stray cats.
“When all of them do ‘what’s natural’ in a fragmented natural world, it adds up. Using deliberately conservative assumptions, federal researchers recently estimated that free-ranging cats killed about 2.4 billion birds annually in the Lower 48 states, a substantial bite out of the total bird population. Outdoor cats also kill about 12.3 billion small mammals a year – not just the proverbial rats and mice but also chipmunks, rabbits and squirrels – and about 650 million reptiles and amphibians. In some cases, they are pushing endangered species toward extinction.
“But here is the number that sticks in my mind: Letting my own cat, Lucky, outdoors may have consigned as many as 33 birds and dozens of mammals to death every year.”
Oh…and if all this isn’t bad enough, “Cats are three to four times more likely than dogs to carry rabies, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They also share many other parasites or infectious microbes with humans, including roundworms, hookworms, giardia and campylobacter. When cats live outdoors it is almost impossible to predict what they will bring home next….
“Most insidiously, outdoor cats are the primary hosts of toxoplasmosis, which is estimated to infect almost 30 percent of all humans worldwide. Toxoplasmosis produces lifelong parasitic cysts in the brain, and though it is generally asymptomatic it has been linked to neurological impairments, depression, blindness and birth defects.”
As Mr. Conniff concluded, having lost his own outdoor cat to a bobcat, of all things, he knows “that I will never own an outdoor cat again.”
One side bar: In a story by Pete Bacinski that I read in the Star-Ledger, with the cooperation of New Jersey Audubon, he talks about one of the most frequently asked questions he receives at the society; why were robins spotted in New Jersey this winter?
Well, “A fact unknown to many is that the robins that nested and spent the summer with us are not the same birds that are now present in winter….
“The robins currently wintering with us probably spent their summer nesting in northern Canada.”
By the way, only about 40% of robin nests are successful, while most American Robins don’t live more than two years.
“They also produce about a dozen different calls to communicate with each other, since they are highly gregarious.”
–The New York Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist recorded his 50th career shutout on Saturday, 2-0 over Martin Brodeur and the Devils. Lundqvist thus breaks the Rangers’ record, set by Eddie Giacomin. The Rangers are in good shape in terms of securing a playoff berth and they have the second-best away record in the league, 23-13.
–31-year-old Dallas Stars forward Rich Peverley had a successful procedure to correct an abnormal heart rhythm at Cleveland Clinic. Peverly, who collapsed on March 10 as he skated to the bench in the first period of the Stars’ game with the Columbus Blue Jackets, won’t play the rest of the season and it’s far too early to know if he’ll ever play again.
–I was reading a piece in the Wall Street Journal by Jacob Gershman on the problems Idaho is having with wolves and it is kind of startling that in the mid-1990s, “nearly three dozen gray wolves captured in Canada were ferried south on planes, trucks and snowmobiles to the wilderness of Idaho, where wildlife biologists set them loose as part of a federal ecological experiment.”
The problem (though I personally don’t see it as such) is that there are more than 650 in the state today, “according to low-end estimates by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.”
So it’s the old story of ranchers and hunters being upset that the wolves kill elk and livestock, and now the state is looking to wipe out three-quarters or more of the population so conservationists are upset.
The elk population has fallen about 15% since the wolves arrived, and they’ve killed over 2,500 sheep, 610 cows and a bunch of dogs.
Actually, this is pretty gruesome. At a ranch owned by a state senator, 176 sheep died in a single attack last summer when the animals trampled each other as they fled. Guess they hadn’t seen a wolf before…or a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
–Idaho isn’t the only place having problems with wolves these days. France has them. It has a wolf population of 250 to 300, and growing, according to a Bloomberg piece by Gregory Viscusi. In fact they’ve advanced within a 100 miles of Paris, “a few days’ walk for a wolf,” according to a researcher. But in France, wolves are a protected species.
By the way, according to the International Wolf Center in Ely, Minnesota, there are 1,000 wolves in Italy, 2,000 in Spain and 50 in Germany.
Top 3 songs for the week 3/22/80: #1 “Another Brick In The Wall” (Pink Floyd…never understood the popularity of this one…they did so many tunes that were lightyears better…) #2 “Longer” (Dan Fogelberg) #3 “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” (Queen)…and…#4 “Desire” (Andy Gibb) #5 “Working My Way Back To You/Forgive Me, Girl” (Spinners…eh…) #6 “On The Radio” (Donna Summer) #7 “Him” (Rupert Holmes…liked this one…) #8 “The Second Time Around” (Shalamar) #9 “Too Hot” (Kool & The Gang….liked their classic early R&B better…) #10 “How Do I Make You” (Linda Ronstadt)
NCAA Basketball Quiz Answer: Teams selecting the five Hoosiers….
Scott May, No. 2 pick, first round, 1976…Chicago
Quinn Buckner, No. 7 pick, first round, 1976…Milwaukee
Bob Wilkerson, No. 11 pick, first round, 1976…Seattle
Tom Abernathy, third round, 1976…Los Angeles Lakers
Kent Benson, No. 1 pick, first round, 1977…Milwaukee
By the way, Maryland guard John Lucas was the No. 1 overall selection in the ’76 draft, taken by Houston.
