Baseball Quiz: OK, we all know Bob Gibson’s 1.12 ERA in 1968 was the lowest in the modern-era, but give me the second-best ERA in the N.L. since 1920 and the best in the A.L. since that same year. Bonus question: In 1968, only one other National Leaguer had an ERA below 2.00. Name him. [If you get this one, you are good….very, very good.] Answers below.
Ball Bits…and one chaotic Thursday…
Wow…Jon Lester to Oakland, David Price to Detroit, John Lackey to St. Louis, Yoenis Cespedes to Boston, Allen Craig to Boston, Austin Jackson to Seattle, all at the trade deadline Thursday.
“The Boston Red Sox may accomplish something never done before in major league history. If they hold their current place in the American League East standings, they will be the first team ever to zig from last place to first place to last place across three seasons.
“When the Red Sox gathered on Friday at Fenway Park, where their 2013 championship flag still flies above center field, Manager John Farrell insisted that their flurry of trades was all about this season….
“ ‘It’s still about us going out and winning. This isn’t a group of prospects that were brought in. These are established big leaguers.’
“Some of them, at least. The Red Sox…added outfield thumpers in Yoenis Despedes and Allen Craig. In Joe Kelly, they acquired the pitcher who would have started against them if there had been a seventh game of the World Series last fall.
“But the number of veterans chopped so swiftly from a championship roster is staggering, especially for a team with Boston’s financial might. Twelve of those 25 players are gone – from Jacoby Ellsbury and Jarrod Saltalamacchia last winter to the seven sent away in the last week, including two stalwarts of the rotation.
“John Lackey brought back Craig and Kelly from St. Louis. Jon Lester and Jonny Gomes brought back Cespedes from Oakland. The loss of the homegrown Lester stings; he won two titles here and beat cancer along the way. But Farrell barely acknowledged any special connection to him on Friday….
“ ‘(There’s) a business side of this, and changes happen. I really don’t know any specifics of the negotiations that precipitated the trade, so this is where we are.’
“The specifics have been widely reported: Lester said last winter he would take a discount to return; the Red Sox offered him about half his market value; Lester turned it down; and talks never advanced much. Rather than risk losing him to free agency, the Red Sox traded him.”
But Boston certainly hasn’t quashed rumors that they will seek to get Lester back this coming offseason.
–As Geoff Foster of the Wall Street Journal notes, the turnover in the Red Sox “represents more drastic change than the 2003 Marlins, who suited up on Aug. 1, 2004 with 16 players from its World Series team the year prior.”
“It is almost unimaginable…that the tradition-rich Red Sox, with a devoted and emotional fan base that clings to its heroes like socks cling to towels coming out of the dryer, were in the position they were Thursday. Lester – cancer survivor, two-time World Series hero, homegrown product, ace – became the fulcrum of baseball’s trade deadline.
“Yet the deal that sent the 30-year-old from Boston to Oakland…perfectly exemplifies where baseball is at the moment: In any given season, any franchise could be either buyer or seller. NFL-style parity is upon us, and might be here to stay.
“Consider this, first, from the Athletics’ side. Oakland, with the best record in baseball, has told rival executives that it believes it has a two-year window to win it all. The A’s acted as such earlier this month when they traded prized shortstop prospect Addison Russell to the Chicago Cubs for right-handers Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel. The message they delivered throughout baseball: Win now.
“Thursday’s move to add Lester simply puts that message in boldface. Wednesday night, Hammel pitched poorly – again – with Oakland. He has yet to complete six innings and has a 9.53 ERA with the A’s, who have lost each of his four starts. Thursday morning, he had a new teammate that bumped him to the back of the rotation.
“And take a look at that rotation now. Before Lester even arrives, Oakland’s starters lead the American League with a 3.32 ERA. Sonny Gray is 12-3 with a 2.65 ERA, a second-year stud who has just 31 major league starts – and no longer has to carry the burden of being the staff leader. Scott Kazmir, a reclamation project at 30, is 12-3 with a 2.37 ERA, one of the best stories in baseball.
“Add Samardzija, who has 27 strikeouts and four walks while allowing hitters a .203 average in his first five starts for Oakland, and Lester, who has a 2.11 ERA in 13 postseason appearances and a nearly 5-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio this season, and suddenly Hammel doesn’t have a spot in a postseason rotation.”
—Billy Beane, GM of the Oakland A’s, has now acquired Jeff Samardzija and Jon Lester, two All-Star pitchers, but with the acquisition of David Price, the Tigers have the last three A.L. Cy Young Award winners. Price (2012), Max Scherzer (2013) and Justin Verlander (2011) in a rotation that also includes Anibal Sanchez and Rick Porcello. Plus, the Tigers have the last three winners of the A.L. Most Valuable Player award, too. Verlander won it in 2011, and Cabrera won it the last two years.
So are Oakland and Detroit on a collision course for a rematch in the postseason, after the Tigers took out the A’s in 2012 and 2013? Certainly the Angels and Orioles will have something to say about this.
[Lester won his first start for the A’s on Saturday, going 6 2/3 and allowing 3 earned runs. He’s now 11-7, 2.59, for the year. Lackey won his first for the Cards, going 7 innings, two earned, in a 3-2 win over the first-place Brewers. Exactly why they got him. David Price throws for the Tigers for the first time on Tuesday.]
–The Yankees acquired shortstop Stephen Drew from Boston, and Martin Prado from Arizona, and it’s like whoopty-damn-do. Drew has sucked, while Prado is going to play right field, when he’s best in the infield, though Prado is a nice player overall.
–The Washington Nationals made what could be a stellar move in acquiring infielder Asdrubal Cabrera from the Indians for a bag of donuts.
Cabrera wasn’t having a good season, but he’s a two-time All-Star and just 28. Most of his career has been played at shortstop, but at least for the remainder of this year he’ll play second. The Nats had to make this move after learning Ryan Zimmerman will be out for at least the remainder of the regular season, with Anthony Rendon manning the hot corner the rest of the way.
–Shu passed along a comment by Arizona Diamondbacks executive Tony La Russa, who said of the team’s dumping a few players at the deadline, “I like some of the guys on the club, but I like the flexibility that we can get financially.”
As Shu noted, that statement “must give great confidence to ‘some’ of the guys on the roster, eh?”
[Arizona lost Paul Goldschmidt, their star slugger, for the season to a broken hand when he was struck by a pitch in a game Friday night against the Pirates. He has 19 home runs, 69 RBI, and was hitting .300.]
–Philadelphia lefty Cliff Lee was on the trading block, though no one would have bitten unless the Phillies picked up a large amount of his salary. He’s owed $25 million next season and has a vesting option for the following year at $27.5 million with a $12.5 million buyout.
Alas, the Phillies are stuck with the contract because Lee hurt his elbow and is out for the year, after missing two months earlier due to the same injury.
–Seattle superstar Felix Hernandez was outdueled by Cleveland’s Corey Kluber last Wednesday night, 2-0, but in going seven, King Felix ran his streak of consecutive starts where he pitched at least seven innings and allowed two runs or fewer to 14, a major league record, passing Tom Seaver, who had 13 in 1971.
It really is extraordinary, when you think Mike Scott is third at 12, 1986, and before that you had to go back to Chief Bender and 1907, Bender also at 12. [Elias Sports Bureau]
—Clayton Kershaw next throws on Tuesday, having won his 10th straight decision Thursday, and is now 13-2, 1.71. According to Elias, Kershaw is the first pitcher with an ERA below 2.00 through the end of July in consecutive seasons since Greg Maddux in 1994 (1.69) and 1995 (1.64). [Maddux finished those seasons at 1.56 and 1.63, respectively. Kershaw’s ERA was 1.87 end of July last year on his way to 1.83.]
And along the lines of King Felix’s streak, Kershaw now has the second-longest streak in the last 100 years with 7 strikeouts and 3 or fewer runs allowed. He is at 13. Randy Johnson had 14 consecutive such starts in 1999. [Mike Scott had 12 in ’86.]
–Larry Brooks of the New York Post wrote of New York Mets ownership and how there is zero reason to trust them; to trust that this coming offseason, they will actively pursue high-priced talent, such as the Rockies’ Troy Tulowitzki.
“It is all but impossible to trust this ownership will cash the checks its front office writes, to mix a particular Metaphor. And when an ownership loses the trust of its fan base the way this Wilpon operation has here, both pre- and post-Madoff, you get a half-empty ballpark more than half the time and you get well-earned eye-rolls on another idle (trading) deadline day….
“(With the Mets’ plethora of pitching arms, they) might not be more than a piece or two away when the calendar turns to winter. The Mets might not be more than one or two shrewd moves away, either.
“The problem comes with trusting that the Wilpons will be willing or able to authorize them when the time comes. The problem with the Mets is that the void in trust in ownership is larger than the void in the middle of the order.”
–Well, at least the Metsies have rookie hurler Jacob deGrom, who has gone 6-1, 1.52, in his last eight starts and has thrust himself into the rookie of the year conversation. DeGrom and San Francisco’s Jake Peavey had dueling six inning no-hitters at Citi Field on Saturday night, before deGrom prevailed 4-2.
[Peavey, by the way, is now 0-11 since winning on April 25 while with the Red Sox.]
Friday, the Giants’ Ryan Vogelsong two-hit the Mets in a 5-1 victory that took just 2:06, the second-shortest game in the majors this season.
And then Sunday, Madison Bumgarner two-hit the Mets…so New York had eight hits in three games this weekend.
Uh oh, forgot these two play again Monday. This blows.
–Before being held hitless on Saturday night by Minnesota, the White Sox’ Jose Abreu had hit in 21 straight, 39 of 40 games!
–The Washington Post’s Des Bieler wrote of a recent Twins signee…Brandon Poulson.
The 24-year-old right-hander stands 6-foot-6, weighs 240, and has a 40-inch vertical leap.
Good lord. Oh, one other thing. He can throw a fastball 100mph.
Yet this is a guy who played just a little high school ball, played football at Santa Rosa (Calif.) Junior College, left school to work for his father in the excavation business, decided to give baseball another try and last year joined the Prune Packers, a team in a Northern California “Wine Country” league. That’s when his life changed.
The manager of the Prune Packers is Joey Gomes, the brother of outfielder Jonny Gomes.
Poulson pitched sparingly because as he put it, “I was busy working,” but people saw enough to give him a scholarship with San Francisco’s Academy of Art University.
Never knew such a place existed, let alone that it had a baseball team, but I guess this gives new meaning to the phrase “painted the corner.”
Anyway, Poulson had an 8.38 ERA at the school, striking out 24 but walking 24 in 19 1/3.
The Academy of Art did have a pro day, though, and Poulson ran a 60-yard dash in 6.6 seconds, in his socks.
Back in the Wine Country league, his velocity climbed to 100, and he struck out 31 in 12 1/3.
So even though he wasn’t among 1,215 players drafted in June, the Twins just signed him for $250,000. Said Twins scout Elliott Strankman: “He’s a physical specimen. He’s got the best pure arm strength I’ve ever seen.”
As to the big contract, it seems a bunch of teams suddenly caught on to Poulson and thus the price ran up.
–Saturday marked the 35th anniversary of Thurman Munson’s death. Amazing it was that long ago. What a depressing day. He was 32 and had just helped lead the Yankees to two consecutive World Series titles. [25 for 67, .373, in three World Series, incidentally.] Rookie of the Year, MVP (1976).
[I have all kinds of stories on Munson in my archives.]
Dustin…and some Golf Bits
Like many of you, I was initially stunned, then not so much, on hearing that golfer Dustin Johnson, one of the more charismatic figures on the PGA Tour and an 8-time winner who always seems on the verge of greatness, was taking a leave of absence.
“I am taking a leave of absence from professional golf, effective immediately. I will use this time to seek professional help for personal challenges I have faced. By committing the time and resources necessary to improve my mental health, physical well-being and emotional foundation, I am confident that I will be better equipped to fulfill my potential and become a consistent champion.
“I respectfully ask my fans, well-wishers and the media for privacy as I embark upon this mission of self-improvement.”
Johnson, 30, thus wouldn’t be available for the PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup, at a minimum.
It’s no secret that Johnson had a troubled childhood and enjoys having a good time.
He’s also engaged to Paulina Gretzky, and I’ve commented in this space that I thought her father, Wayne, The Great One, could be a hugely positive influence on Dustin, who has had trouble closing out majors, for example.
But then when I first saw that Dustin was leaving the tour, and with nothing else known, I figured he had also broken up with Paulina.
Apparently not. She posted an Instagram photo (since taken down) last Monday of her putting, with Johnson’s help, the caption reading, “Best caddy ever.”
So Golf.com issued a report Friday afternoon that revealed Johnson was suspended by the Tour for a third failed drug test. It also added, “He is often seen in bars near his home in Jupiter, Fla., and is also known to have had a sexual indiscretion with at least one wife of a PGA Tour player.”
“With regard to media reports that Dustin Johnson has been suspended by the PGA Tour, this is to clarify that Mr. Johnson has taken a voluntary leave of absence and is not under a suspension from the PGA Tour.”
The PGA Tour has a policy of not making public its suspensions or fines – for any breach of conduct, but as part of a libel suit that John Daly failed to win recently, we learned that Daly has a file full (five suspensions), and it’s thought that in 2012, the time of Dustin’s second alleged failed drug test (cocaine), he took off for a few months, citing a bad back, but may have been actually suspended.
“For years, the PGA Tour has been insulting us with the ridiculous cloak-and-dagger, closed-door manner in which it handles matters that should be public knowledge to the fans who follow the sport and pay the money to support it.
“The time is long overdue for the PGA Tour to show some transparency in its business of suspending players who have violated Tour policy, whether by testing positive for drugs – which Dustin Johnson has for the third time according to a source – or some other indiscretion, such as the various off-the-course issues John Daly has had over the years.
“It is an insult to the legions of golf fans who are responsible for boosting the tournament purses that pay the players these astronomical paychecks each week – not just for winning but for finishing tied for 30th – not to mention line the pockets of the suits inside the plush offices at PGA Tour headquarters in Ponte Vedra, Fla., with enough money to pay for oceanfront mansions and country-club dues.
“Every other major sport in America has the respect and decency to announce suspensions of its athletes, making it public to the fans who support their respective sports. The fans who pay the money to see these players deserve that.”
“For some around the game and who know Johnson, the news did not come as a shock.
“ ‘It’s one of the least-kept secrets on Tour how much [Johnson] likes to party,’’ one PGA Tour source told The Post.
“ ‘He’s always lived fast,’ another Tour source told The Post. ‘Maybe he realizes now it’s time to slow down.’….
“In May 2012, a month after Johnson withdrew from the Masters and with speculation of a possible drug suspension by the PGA Tour running rampant, Johnson’s agent, David Winkle, insisted Johnson had not been serving a drug suspension. The Tour’s policy is to announce violations of the anti-doping policy for the use of performance-enhancing drugs, but suspensions stemming from recreational drug violations are not made public.
“This incident led one veteran PGA Tour caddie to speculate Johnson had failed a drug test and might be suspended this time since, in his statement, he defined the tournaments he would miss, including the Ryder Cup.
“ ‘Even though [the PGA Tour] doesn’t announce these things, the first time is a slap on the wrist, the second time is three months and the third time is a year,’ the caddie said. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if [Johnson] is gone for a year.’…
“In 2011, Butch Harmon, coaching Johnson at the time, delivered perhaps the strongest public hint about Johnson’s off-the-course life when he described an ultimatum he issued to him.
“ ‘We had a come-to-Jesus conversation about getting his personal life in order,’ Harmon said at the time. ‘I was very blunt. I told him he needs to figure out who he is and how committed he is to utilizing his talent and that when he’s playing tournaments he needs to eliminate some of the, shall we say, extra-curricular activities. He’s a fun-loving guy, I realize that. But there’s a time to play and a time to work.’”
Way back, in 2001, Johnson was involved in a high-profile situation that turned very tragic. He was among five teens involved in a burglary where a gun was stolen. As Cannizzaro described it:
“Johnson was persuaded to buy bullets for the gun by a friend’s older brother. Later that month the brother, Steve Gillian, was charged with murder after shooting the victim multiple times in the head with that gun.”
Johnson agreed to testify at the murder trial because of his connection to the crime. “Gillian is serving life without parole.”
Another story exploded on the Sunday golf scene…Tiger Woods withdrawing from the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational after hitting his tee shot on the ninth hole. He reinjured the back he had surgery on March 31.
Many questioned Tiger’s quick return in June, after just 11 weeks, and he’s been miserable since, including at Hoylake in The Open Championship.
Tiger hurt his back on his second hole, Sunday, and he said in comments after he pulled out, “I just jarred it, and it’s been spasming ever since.”
To his credit, he tried to hang in there. But there will be tons commenting in the next 24 hours and I’ll have it all next Bar Chat.
In the event itself, Rory McIlroy followed up his British Open title with a win at Firestone, his 8th career PGA Tour title, in besting Sergio Garcia, still without a WGC win, but three seconds in his last three PGA events (8 top tens in 12 this wraparound season). Next week is going to be fun. Rory can officially cement the title of Reigning King with a win.
–Since the WGC is an invitational, that means there was another PGA Tour title on the line at a different venue, this one the Reno-Tahoe Open, or rather, renamed Barracuda Championship in Reno. Geoff Ogilvy won the modified stableford event, a very important ‘W’ for him, his eighth tour title but first since 2010.
–In the Champions Tour event, Kenny Perry took his seventh senior title, besting Bernhard Langer by one with a birdie on 18 at the 3M Championship in Blaine, Minn., one of my favorite non-major events on the senior tour. Just looks like a fun, playable course.
But to me the big story is Hale Irwin. The 69-year-old, with 45 Champions Tour wins under his belt, shot under his age all three rounds….68-66-68…the first since Gary Player did so in 2009. Irwin finished T-9. What a remarkable career. [College classmate Gary Hallberg also finished T-9.]
—Commissioner Roger Goodell addressed the two-game suspension handed down to Baltimore running Ray Rice for a first time on Friday in Canton, Ohio, as part of Hall of Fame weekend.
“Our policy is clear on this. We have a very firm policy that domestic violence is not acceptable in the NFL and that there will be consequences for that.
“When we’re going through the process of evaluating the issue and whether there will be discipline, you look at all of the facts that you have available to us. Law enforcement normally has more – on a normal basis – has more information, facts, than we have. We’ll get as much as we possibly can. And then you also have the opportunity to sit down with the individual, and maybe others, to determine how that individual is reacting to it.
“I think what’s important here is that Ray is being accountable for it. He recognizes he made a horrible mistake and he knows what he did is unacceptable by his standards and by our standards.
“I was also very impressed with Ray in the sense that Ray is not only accepting this issue but he’s saying, ‘I was wrong.’ I want to see people, when they make a mistake, I want to see them take responsibility and be accountable for it.”
Goodell said Rice’s previous history was taken into account when determining the length of the discipline.
“Ray Rice did not have another incident,” Goodell said. “There were other cases, and we take them into account. We have to remain consistent. We can’t just make up the discipline. It has to be consistent with other cases and it was consistent with other cases.
“In this case, there was no discipline by the criminal justice system, he was put into a diversionary program.”
As Lorenzo Reyes of USA TODAY wrote: Critics of the Rice suspension point to “the apparent discrepancy between suspensions that result from violations of the league’s drug policy, versus those incurred through the code of personal conduct.”
Goodell said: “When we have a drug program that is collectively bargained, it takes four incidents before you actually reach a suspension.”
“It’s hard to believe that two years ago Goodell told CBS.com that ‘some of the numbers on DUIs and domestic violence [in the NFL] are going up and that disturbs me. When there’s a pattern of mistakes, something has got to change.’ He’s right. Something has to change, beginning with the attitude toward domestic violence in the league office. Another day, another example of a woman’s mistreatment. It didn’t end in that elevator.”
–Defensive end Michael Strahan, punter Ray Guy, linebacker Derrick Brooks, offensive tackle Walter Jones, defensive back Aeneas Williams, defensive end Claude Humphrey, and receiver Andre Reed were inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times had a bit on Guy, the first true punter to earn his bust in Canton, and the only punter selected in the first round when the Raiders made him the 23rd overall pick in 1973. I forgot he had been an all-conference safety at Southern Mississippi in addition to his punting.
“The first day of padded practice, after I’d watched him punt, everyone was ooo-ing and ahh-ing and wow-ing,” said (Coach John) Madden. “So we’re out there and we switch to defense. Ray Guy goes out there and lines up at strong safety.”
Unwilling to put his prized punter in harm’s way, Madden kicked him off the field.
But when you look back at Guy’s career punting average, 42.4, that doesn’t seem so special these days, but it was then (1973-1986). He also led the league in yardage three of his first five seasons and was top five in ten of them.
“Ray Guy had a thundering leg, sure, but did he really have the power to punt a football from one end zone to the other?
“ ‘When we scouted him I saw a film that he kicked the ball 100 yards,’ recalled Madden, coach of the Oakland Raiders at the time. ‘He kicked it out of his own end zone into the other team’s end zone. I said, that’s the definition of a guy that could really flip field position. And I looked at the film so many times and I thought it was trick photography. In those days it was real film, and we had a splice an editor could make himself.’
“Madden painstakingly went through the reel frame by frame.
“ ‘I thought it had to be two punts,’ he said. ‘I looked and looked, then realized it was real. Then when we were getting ready for that draft, I looked at that tape every day and thought what he could do for our team.’”
The thing about Guy wasn’t just how long he kicked it, though, but the tremendous hang time, unlike what anyone had ever done at the position before. He was the first to plunk the New Orleans Superdome scoreboard, 90 feet above the field.
As Farmer writes: “The whole concept of using a stopwatch to measure ‘hang time’ began with the Raiders timing Guy’s punts to make sure they had a coverage team that was fast enough to get downfield and make plays.
“ ‘He would kick it so high and so long, and all the pundits would be around saying he’s going to out-kick his coverage,’ Madden said. ‘That’s when I said, ‘Let’s time how long it is, so we can time how fast the guys have to be to get down there. Because I’m not going to get rid of Ray Guy. If we have trouble out-kicking the coverage, I’m going to get some new coverage guys.’’”
[Jan Stenerud, by the way, is the only true kicker in the Hall of Fame.]
–The league began an experiment for the first two weeks of the preseason, whereby the extra-point attempt will be moved back from the 2-yard line to the 15-yard line, thus creating a 33-yard attempt. Two-point conversion attempts will remain at the 2-yard line.
Over the final three weeks of the preseason and throughout the regular season, the extra point will be returned to the 2.
This offseason, NFL owners vetoed a move to place the extra point attempt on the 25-yard line, with Commissioner Goodell suggesting the NFL get rid of the extra point altogether. It was instead decided to experiment with the 15 and revisit the idea next offseason.
Last season, kickers made 90 percent of their field-goal attempts between the 30- and 39-yard lines.
–We note the passing of former NFLer Ed Sprinkle, 90. Sprinkle was a four-time Pro Bowler with the Chicago Bears, 1944-55, who gained a reputation as “the meanest man in football” for his pass-rushing skills.
“Even by the NFL’s roughhouse standards of his era – the 1940s and ‘50s, when players like Chuck Bednarik and Bucko Kilroy of the Philadelphia Eagles and Hardy Brown of the San Francisco 49ers were notorious tough guys – Sprinkle stood out.
“He weighed only 200 pounds or so, but in his 12 seasons with the Bears, he flattened quarterbacks with a powerful forearm delivered to the nose, jaw or throat, a legal tactic at the time that earned him the nickname the Claw.
“ ‘I never really played dirty football in my life, but I’d knock the hell out of a guy if I got the chance,’ Sprinkle told Stuart Leuthner in the oral history ‘Iron Men’ (1988).”
Hugh McElhenny, the Hall of Fame halfback for the 49ers, told the New York Times in 1985, “Sprinkle would drive you 10 yards out of bounds and the official would be taking the ball away from you, but Sprinkle would still be choking you.”
In the 1946 NFL championship game, “Sprinkle forced two Giants running backs to the sideline, George Franck with a shoulder separation and Frank Reagan with a broken nose. He also broke the nose of Giants quarterback Frank Filchock with his claw move, an illegal clothesline tackle in today’s game.” [Goldstein]
College Football
USA TODAY Preseason Coaches’ Poll
1. Florida State…defending champs
2. Alabama
3. Oklahoma
4. Oregon
5. Auburn
6. Ohio State
7. UCLA
8. Michigan State
9. South Carolina
10. Baylor
16. Clemson
23. North Carolina
Barring a preseason training camp injury, it will come as no surprise that I’m going with my Oregon Ducks and your 2014 Heisman Trophy winner, Marcus Mariota.
–Phil W. passed along the news that Wake Forest running back Dominique Gibson was suspended from the team for violating undisclosed team rules, one day before preseason camp under new coach Dave Clawson was to open.
I only bring it up because I forgot he was the leading returning rusher from last season with a whopping 138 yards on 53 carries.
So I’m reducing my predicted Wake win count for the season from 3 to 2, as this is yet another indication of how pathetic our offense will probably be. No fault of Clawson’s…he’ll need time to bring this program back to respectability.
–I owe Phil W. a beer because he also notified me Sandy Barbour is the new AD at Penn State. She graduated from Wake Forest a year after I did. Can’t recall partying with Barbour, but I knew of her. She was a field hockey and basketball jock and I was more interested in…..
Oops…better stop before I lose my International Web Site Association license. [Always look for the IWSA label, kids, for your assurance of Web quality.]
Anyway, Barbour had been the athletic director at the Univ. of California, and according to the piece Phil W. passed on (Phil was a Wake classmate and didn’t date Ms. Barbour either), she had a spotty record at Cal; 18 team national titles in her 10 years at the helm, but an abysmal failure in other areas, including a putrid graduation rate for Cal’s football and men’s basketball programs. She was also dismissed.
So Penn State, after the highly questionable selection of James Franklin to be the new football coach, has, err, picked a Demon Deacon to head up the entire athletic program!
[In the interest of being fair and balanced, long-time readers know I barely graduated from Wake, needing to take a PE course, as well as piano, to get my degree. Well I aced PE, because the exam was a mile run and I kicked the class’s butt, and in piano I spent the whole semester on a Rachmaninoff piece and pulled out a B.]
NBA…the Paul George injury…
–Two-time All-Star forward, Paul George of the Indiana Pacers, one of the top all-around players in the game, suffered a gruesome injury heard round the world on Friday night during the U.S. national team’s intrasquad scrimmage at UNLV.
George suffered an open tibia-fibula fracture, though reports are there didn’t appear to be additional damage besides the fractures. George will no doubt miss the entire NBA season.
George’s leg landed and then buckled at the base of the basket stanchion after he fouled James Harden on a drive to the basket.
Immediately fingers were pointed at the facility and the fact the stanchion was 3 feet, 11 inches from the baseline when the NBA requirement is it be at least four feet away, with many NBA arenas having it well beyond that to prevent this very thing. When you see the video, maybe an extra inch wouldn’t have made a difference. Certainly 3 or 4 probably would have.
“The severity of Paul George’s injury – the sight of his right leg bent grotesquely – has sent a jolt through the NBA.
“USA Basketball issued a statement overnight Friday indicating that George…had undergone successful surgery to repair a fracture of the bones in his lower right leg sustained in a scrimmage.
“Larry Bird, the president of basketball operations for the Pacers, said Saturday that it was premature to speculate on how long George’s recovery might take, but that he was likely to miss the upcoming season.
“It was a devastating setback for George, 24, one of the league’s brightest young stars. And it created a new flash point in the discussion about the value of NBA players’ participation in off-season international basketball competitions….
“ ‘Nothing has given me more satisfaction or been more meaningful than having ‘USA’ on my shirt,’ said P.J. Carlesimo, who has coached four NBA teams and has worked with the national program since the 1980s.
“Carlesimo said players who went through a national team training camp often improved. He said the camp setting was more controlled and thus safer than the pickup games, charity events and personal training sessions many players take part in during the summer.
“He noted, as have others, that no other major injury had been sustained by a player in a USA Basketball setting since the first Dream Team was formed in 1992.”
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is one who doesn’t like the international team structure.
“We are so stupid that we are willing to commit what amounts to more than a billion dollars in salaries to help the Olympics line their pockets so we can pretend that the Olympic Games are about national pride,” Cuban said.
Larry Bird, however, expressed strong support for the national team.
“We still support USA Basketball and believe in the NBA’s goals of exposing our game, our teams and players worldwide. This is an extremely unfortunate injury that occurred on a highly visible stage, but could also have occurred anytime, anywhere.”
George had signed a five-year, $90 million extension with the Pacers last fall that was set to kick in this year.
“It is one bad landing in a basketball scrimmage in Vegas.
“Or there is a bad fall for a jockey like Ron Turcotte, who rode Secretariat once, and ended up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
“Or a pitcher brings his arm forward the way he has thousands of times before and something goes wrong inside his shoulder or his elbow, and things are never the same for him.
“Paul George, all the gifted Paul Georges of professional sports, lead lives of great fame and great wealth, all of which you better believe they earn.
“But the next time you are talking about how they make too much money, go back and look at that landing in Vegas on Friday night, and see how fragile everything is.”
–So reports say it’s a done deal…Kevin Love going to Cleveland. Forget Chicago, to me it was always about Golden State refusing to give up Klay Thompson, which I would never do either.
The only thing holding a deal up is the fact Andrew Wiggins can’t be part of the deal to the T’Wolves until Aug. 23 because of the 30-day wait period after a rookie signs a contract.
But the NBA said there can be no acknowledgement of a trade until the 30 days has passed.
That said, it’s still going to be Wiggins and last year’s overall No. 1 Anthony Bennett, plus a future first-round pick for Love.
–I have to admit I was a little surprised Tony Parker signed a multi-year contract extension. Next year was the last on his current contract and I thought he might retire and go back to Paris, where I’ve seen some of his business interests. [Taxes there are a different matter, admittedly, these days.]
But the 32-year-old signed an extension for three years, $43.3 million that will take him through 2017-18.
Kawhi Leonard and the Spurs will also no doubt agree on an extension. The best organization in all of professional sports just quietly goes about its business.
—Dale Earnhardt Jr. won his third NASCAR Sprint Cup event of the year at Pocono Raceway, thus sweeping the two races at Pocono (his other was the Daytona 500), and the most in a season since he had six wins in 2004. Go Jr.! [Understand, NASCAR’s most popular driver had only wins combined from 2005-2013.] Great for the sport as it approaches the Chase.
—UCLA will have to replace the entire wooden floor at Pauley Pavilion following the catastrophic flooding after a water main broke last week.
So much for the $134 million renovation in 2012. The eight to 10 inches of water that flooded the floor caused the wood to buckle and warp. But at least it seems the arena will be open and ready for use in time for the start of the basketball season in late October.
The total cost of the damage on the UCLA campus, including Pauley, will run into the $tens of millions. Four buildings and two parking structures were flooded. 400 vehicles were submerged in the latter.
–A crowd of 109,318 watched Manchester United defeat Real Madrid 3-1, at Michigan Stadium on Saturday, setting a record for the most fans to see a soccer game in the United States.
–Phil W. passed along a surprising Wake Forest tidbit. Our men’s tennis program has a new addition, 18-year-old Noah Rubin, ranked No. 1 in his class by the Tennis Recruiting Network, the first top-ranked recruit ever to join the Wake tennis program. He is also the first junior Grand Slam winner to play college tennis since 2005, Rubin having just won the Wimbledon singles junior championship in July.
However, in Sunday’s New York Post, I read a story on John McEnroe’s nonprofit, the Johnny Mac Tennis Project, which promises to serve scholarships to “expose young athletes…to the sport of tennis” and touts its programs in city schools.
“(The) real beneficiaries are elite players on the junior circuit who are getting their lessons and travel costs comped at Sportime, the for-profit Randalls Island tennis club where the John McEnroe Tennis Academy is located.
“Sportime started the Johnny Mac Tennis Project in 2011 to create a cash stream to subsidize its top players…
“ ‘It’s really a scam,’ said the insider. ‘All the money goes to the for-profit business. Now we get reimbursed for our good deeds.’
“The Johnny Mac Tennis Project raised $266,826 in 2012, and $242,625 of that was lobbed to Sportime so it could fund lessons for 20 players, tax records show.”
McEnroe earns $750,000 a year to teach at Sportime’s 20-court facility on Randalls Island.
“Among those who have benefited from the fund-raising is Noah Rubin, the 18-year-old Rockville Centre, LI, player who just won the junior title at Wimbledon.
“Rubin received $32,000 from the Johnny Mac Tennis Project in 2011 alone, records show.”
—BEAR ATTACK!!! Goodness gracious…I just saw this one in Army Times. It seems that on July 20 in Alaska, Sgt. Lucas Wendeborn had an encounter with a brown bear and his life was undoubtedly saved because of a safety briefing beforehand.
“I’ve had better days. I got my ass chewed out by a bear, but I’m doing OK now,” he said in a video provided by his mother to KTUU-TV.
“Wendeborn, 26, crossed paths with a brown bear and her two cubs during a land navigation exercise at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. He made eye contact with the animal and immediately fell to the ground, playing dead, according to a news release from the base. The bear ‘picked him up by the hip and tossed him,’ the release states, also biting and swatting Wendeborn before wandering off.
“The sergeant, assigned to 1st Squadron, 297th Cavalry Regiment, stayed down for 15 to 30 seconds, according to the release, then blew his safety whistle and headed out of the dense woods where the exercise took place.
“Medics on the course stabilized him and transferred him to the base hospital, where he was treated for wounds to his shoulder, back, chest, ribs and other areas. He was in ‘stable, non-life-threatening condition,’ according to the release.
“ ‘Sgt. Wendeborn said this was a textbook example of a worst-case scenario,’ Sgt. Maj. Alan Feaster, commandant for the 207th Multi-Functional Training Regiment, which oversaw the training, said in the release. ‘He said, ‘I remember exactly what I was told [in the safety brief] and I did exactly what I was told, and it probably saved my life.’’”
Remember, this was no black bear. It was a brown bear, No. 7 on the All-Species List. [Black Bear is No. 22.]
–Story by Jason Dearen in the Associated Press on the booming Florida panther population and the problems with ranchers, who are ticked off the protected panthers are killing their calves.
What’s been a problem is finding the calves the ranchers claim are being killed because researchers say, “when panthers kill they drag the prey into the forest and cover it with brush to hide them from scavengers.”
Kind of makes you want to treat them with more respect, doesn’t it?
The state estimates there are 100 to 180 panthers in the state. I’m now placing the Florida panther No. 14 on the ASL, with a bullet.
–This was an awful story from the Sydney Morning Herald:
“A young giraffe has died from head injuries sustained while being transported, blindfolded, in an open truck along a South African highway, an animal welfare agency said.
“The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ Rick Allan said on Thursday he suspected the giraffe died after hitting its head against an overhead bridge.”
I saw some photos of the animals being transported (it wasn’t clear if they were wild or being transported to a zoo), and you can see how it would happen. Those responsible face possible criminal charges.
Rick Allan said, “There are lots of projectiles flying around on the highway [and] especially leaving an animal with its head sticking out, blindfolded, is looking for problems.”
Absolute idiots… ‘Man’ falls to No. 334 on the ASL.
–Great story involving an aging black lab in Kansas and a Wrigley chewing gum heir, Helen Rich in Florida.
As reported by Nina Golgowski of the New York Daily News:
“If all dogs go to heaven, Lady’s will be a heaven on earth.
“The senior black lab who walked an astonishing 30 miles to find her way home – only to be refused by her former owners and sent back to a shelter – has found a new home at a 120-acre sanctuary in Florida.
“On Thursday, Lady was whisked away from her Kansas animal shelter by a private jet and to the lavish estate of (Helen Rich).
“It was while Rich was away in Hawaii that the philanthropist and animal lover read about Lady’s tragic story of being moved from one home to another after her owner died in 2012, reported KCTV.
“After her owner’s death, Lady was fortunately taken in by a family in Sedan and for the next two years life seemed OK.
“But they gave up Lady for adoption…and then she was adopted by a woman in Independence [Ed. note…I once spent a strange night in this town back when I was selling books door to door in 1978] earlier this summer. But, proving her sad longing to be back with her old family, Lady escaped and walked nearly 30 miles back to Sedan.
“Despite her incredible effort, when she arrived, the family still didn’t want her, so back to an animal shelter she went.”
Well, a volunteer at the shelter described Lady on Facebook, the story was picked up by the Examiner and brought to the attention of Rich. Her assistants immediately flew out to pick Lady up.
“ ‘We don’t mess around here,’ her assistant, Barbara DiCioccio, told the Tampa Tribune of their efforts.”
And so we place Helen Rich in the December file for nomination for “Person of the Year.”
–According to the New York Post, Jay Z. is worth about $550 million and Beyonce $300 million. But, as the couple prepares to split following the completion of their current tour, a source tells the Post there is no pre-nup.
—Manny Roth, owner of the Greenwich Village nightclub “Café Wha?” died. He was 94.
Jan. 24, 1961. Bob Dylan made his debut there. He had hitchhiked to New York from Minnesota and went to Café Wha?
“Just got here from the West,” the 19-year-old told Manny Roth. “Name’s Bob Dylan. I’d like to do a few songs? Can I?” That night happened to be one where Roth allowed anybody to get up and sing a song or two so Dylan eventually took the stage and sang some Woody Guthrie songs. The crowd loved it.
Dylan didn’t have a place to sleep that night, so Roth asked if anyone had a place for Dylan to crash and someone did.
Café Wha? was at 115 Macdougal Street and it was here young performers Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor got early chances to showcase their skills.
It was a place where “folk singers, artists, poets, beatniks and anarchists came…and so did far greater numbers of tourists, eager to observe those exotic breeds,” as Douglas Martin writes in the New York Times.
Mary Travers, before she was the Mary of Peter, Paul and Mary, was a waitress there.
Roth gave up the club in the late 1960s, but today it operates under the same name.
Roth was famously tight lid on expenses for his club that sat up to 325.
“By the time he got finished with a penny, you could no longer see the Lincoln on it,” the folk singer Dave Van Ronk once said.
Dylan once recalled, “You got fed there, which was actually the best thing about the place.”
–I saw a band, Moonalice, last Wednesday night in Gotham at The Cutting Room (cool place). If they are ever in your area, check them out. Tech guru, investor Roger McNamee is among the band members and these guys were really terrific.
Top 3 songs for the week 8/6/66: #1 “Wild Thing” (The Troggs) #2 “Lil’ Red Riding Hood” (Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs) #3 “Summer In The City” (The Lovin’ Spoonful)…and…#4 “The Pied Piper” (Crispian St. Peters) #5 “They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!” (Napoleon XIV…I never did understand how this incredibly depressing song attained such heights…) #6 “I Saw Her Again” (The Mamas & The Papas) #7 “Hanky Panky” (Tommy James and The Shondells…should be in the Hall of Fame…a freakin’ crime they aren’t….) #8 “Sweet Pea” (Tommy Roe) #9 “Mothers Little Helper” (The Rolling Stones…heard of ‘em….) #10 “Somewhere, My Love” (Ray Conniff and the Singers…think “Lara’s Theme” from Doctor Zhivago…)
Baseball Quiz Answers: Aside from Bob Gibson, Dwight Gooden has the best ERA in the N.L. at 1.53, 1985. In the A.L., the best since 1920 is Luis Tiant’s 1.60 in ’68.
As for the only other N.L. hurler to have an ERA under 2.00 in ’68, the year of the pitcher, aside from Gibson, it was San Francisco’s Bobby Bolin, a spot-starter who had a 1.99 ERA in 176 innings, thus qualifying for the ERA title.
Next Bar Chat, Thursday….probably a very brief one as I play part-time care-giver these days.
StocksandNews is IWSA approved.
