Golf Quiz: So I’m reading this interview in Golf Magazine and this guy won a lot of European Tour events, and then I decide to look at the Euro PGA Tour career wins list and I guarantee you won’t guess who the top five in European PGA Tour victories are. Name ‘em. [Yes, this is partly a trick question, but in retrospect isn’t…and that’s your big clue. Importantly, the Euro Tour had its official debut in 1972, so we aren’t talking folks prior to then.] Answer below.
College Basketball Review
AP Poll (Feb. 9)
1. Kentucky 23-0 (all 65 first-place votes)
2. Virginia 21-1
3. Gonzaga 24-1
4. Duke 20-3
5. Wisconsin 21-2
6. Villanova 21-2
7. Arizona 20-3
8. Kansas 19-4
9. Louisville 19-4
10. Notre Dame 21-4
12. North Carolina 18-6
13. Northern Iowa 22-2
25. SMU 19-5
–No big upsets Monday or Tuesday, though Kentucky once again survived a nail-biter, 71-69, at LSU.
–In women’s hoops, No. 2 UConn defeated No. 1 South Carolina on Monday, 87-62, in Storrs, Conn. UConn is 17-3 in No. 1-versus-No. 2 matchups. As Ronald Reagan would have said, ‘Not bad, not bad at all.’
Further thoughts on the passing of Dean Smith
“Smith won two NCAA titles – eight fewer than UCLA Coach John Wooden, and half as many as arch-rival Mike Krzyzewski at Duke – yet his contributions to the game were considered second to none.
“ ‘I think Dean is the best teacher of basketball that I have observed,’ Wooden once said.
“Many celebrated coaches were weaned under Smith, including (Larry) Brown, (Billy) Cunningham, Roy Williams, Doug Moe and George Karl.
“But he believed in more than X’s and O’s. He was an articulate advocate for social causes, a Democrat in the conservative South who opposed the death penalty and the wars in Vietnam and Iraq.
“ ‘I tried to be careful which torches I carried, as well as judicious in the comments I did make,’ Smith wrote in his 1999 memoir, ‘A Coach’s Life.’
“Smith fought to integrate Chapel Hill restaurants and, in 1966, signed Charles (Charlie) Scott, the first African-American athlete to receive an athletic scholarship at North Carolina.
“ ‘Coach Smith showed us something that I’ve seen again and again on the court,’ President Obama said Sunday. ‘That basketball can tell us a lot more about who you are than a jump shot alone ever could.’
“Smith was a progressive Baptist who guarded his privacy, a chain smoker who didn’t curse publicly but enjoyed adult beverages and, on the court, occasional dust-ups with opposing coaches.
“He preached selflessness, and it applied to everyone.
“(Michael) Jordan, one of basketball’s most prolific scorers, averaged 19.6 points per game his junior year at North Carolina, prompting the joke that Smith was the only man alive who could hold him to under 20….
“Smith’s deployment of the Four Corners stall offense often drew ire, particularly when he used it in a 21-20 loss to Duke in the 1966 Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament.
“ ‘We heard a lot of boos, and some debris was even thrown on the court,’ Smith recounted in his memoir. ‘…We didn’t want a good game. We wanted to win.’
“Tar Heel basketball found its footing under Smith in 1966, a 26-6 season that started a streak of three straight Final Four appearances. It was also the year North Carolina broke the color divide by signing Charles Scott.
“Scott, who became a trailblazer for minority athletes in the South, recalled two coaching assistants having to restrain Smith when someone at a game with the University of South Carolina hurled a racial slur.
“ ‘It was the first time I had ever seen Coach Smith visibly upset, and I was shocked,’ Scott told Sports Illustrated. ‘But more than anything else, I was proud of him.’
“Smith had earlier helped integrate a Chapel Hill restaurant by walking in with a pastor and a black student and ordering a meal….
“In the spring of 1997, Smith was fast approaching Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp’s all-time mark of 876 wins, a record Smith had so little interest in breaking he had to be talked out of retirement before the season.
“ ‘I don’t think they should even keep coaching records,’ he said in his memoir. ‘The records belong to the players.’
“Smith beat Rupp’s mark in March 1997 against Colorado in the NCAA Tournament. He retired the following October, at age 66.”
“Sure, winning 879 games and two national championships while making 11 Final Fours will forever be important bullet points on Smith’s Wikipedia page, as they should be. But what he did away from the court, in his personal life, is maybe more impressive.
“Smith was instrumental in desegregating Chapel Hill, then in desegregating the entire Atlantic Coast Conference. He used his position of power to essentially force restaurants to serve black customers at a time when some establishments in Chapel Hill would not, helped a black man buy a home in an all-white neighborhood, and, in 1966, enrolled Charlie Scott, who became the first African-American scholarship athlete at North Carolina.
“Furthermore, Smith protested, among other things, the Vietnam War, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the death penalty. In 1998, according to a story in the University Gazette, Smith appeared at a clemency hearing for a death-row inmate and told then-Governor Jim Hunt, right to his face, ‘You’re a murderer. The death penalty makes all of us murderers.’
“In other words, yes, Dean Smith was a basketball coach. But he wasn’t just a basketball coach. He’s a man who touched the life of the greatest basketball player to ever live…and also millions of other lives in countless and crucial ways. He never settled for a whistle and a ball, never stayed in his so-called lane, never stopped trying to make things better until a cruel disease robbed him of his mind.
“So was Dean Smith an even better man than he was a coach?
“Honestly, that’s hard to say, if only because he was a damn fine coach.
“An amazing man, actually.
“And the world feels like a lesser place without him.”
“Two personal encounters with Smith showed me all I needed to know.
“The first came in 1993, when North Carolina’s campus was embroiled in a controversy over the construction of a free-standing black culture center.
“That year, in which the Tar Heels won the NCAA tournament, one of Smith’s players wanted to wear a patch on his uniform or his shoes as a sign of solidarity with the students demonstrating in favor of the culture center. I cannot remember whether the player, George Lynch, followed through and wore the patch; what I do remember is that Smith, out of respect for Lynch, told him that it was his decision – if Lynch felt that strongly about the issue, Smith would allow it.
“Smith’s defining moment, for me, however, came in March 1995, during the NCAA tournament.
“North Carolina, along with Georgetown and Kentucky, was placed in the Southeast Region of the bracket, with games to be played in Birmingham, Ala. The arena was close to the 16th Street Baptist Church, where four young black girls had been killed when the church was bombed in 1963.
“(John) Thompson, Georgetown’s coach, took his players to the church for a tour as soon as they arrived in Birmingham. Smith, after a North Carolina practice, asked me whether Thompson had taken his players there. Upon learning that he had, Smith said – mostly to himself – that he should have taken his players, too. We were struck by the symmetry: Three teams that in 1963 would not have even recruited black players were competing down the street from a symbol of racist intransigence.
“The next morning I made copies of the eulogy that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had delivered at the girls’ funeral and gave some to Smith and some to the sports information director at Kentucky, who I knew would pass them on to Coach Rick Pitino.
“About a week later, after North Carolina had won its game, Rasheed Wallace, then a Tar Heel, walked over before practice. He said that Smith had passed out the copies and that the gesture was appreciated.
“My respect for Smith deepened knowing that he had felt compelled to help players put place and time in context.
“Many coaches are just coaches, concerning themselves with education only as far as maintaining their players’ eligibility. Smith was an educator….
“Many coaches might feel it is not their place to try to influence social consciousness. (I learned later, for instance, that Pitino did not share the eulogy with his team.) Smith, although part of a different era, was cut from a different cloth….
“Smith…felt that his players’ moral development was his moral responsibility…..
“But Smith was more than any sum, and that is why he will be missed so dearly.”
“Above all, Dean Smith was the ultimate teacher. Sure, he taught on the basketball court. All the extraordinary numbers he produced are testament to that. But his teaching went way beyond that. He taught loyalty – by being loyal, often to a fault. He taught passion – not just about winning games but about doing the right things in life. He was outspoken on issues that often didn’t make him very popular in the state where he lived, including the death penalty, a nuclear freeze and the Vietnam war.
“The story about his involvement in desegregating restaurants in Chapel Hill, N.C., in 1958 – when he was still an assistant coach – now has been told often, but for many years no one knew it had taken place. Not surprisingly, the first person to tell the story publicly wasn’t Smith but the Rev. Robert Seymour*, the minister at the Binkley Baptist Church, where Smith worshipped from 1958 until his death.
“When I asked Smith to fill in details on that night, he said, ‘Who told you that story?’ I told him it had been Seymour. He shook his head and said, ‘I wish he hadn’t done that.’
“Surprised, I said, ‘Dean, you should be proud of doing something like that.’
“He looked me in the eye and said, ‘John, you should never be proud of doing the right thing. You should just do the right thing.’
“He was one of the great innovators basketball has ever seen. His use of the four corners delay offense made opponents crazy, but it led to college basketball putting in a shot clock in 1985 – which was exactly what Smith wanted. As successful as he had been at slowing the game down, he knew playing the game faster would be to his advantage because he almost always had the best players. The more possessions there were in a game, the more time there was for that talent to take control…..
“Smith never cursed – not in practice, not in a game – never. But he could cut people down in an instant without ever raising his voice.
“ ‘In practice, he’d say, ‘Buzz, do you really think that was a good shot you just took?’’ said Buzz Peterson, who was Michael Jordan’s roommate at UNC. ‘Before I could say anything, he’d say, ‘Let’s ask your teammates what they thought. Or do you just want to tell me if you think that was the best shot we could have gotten right there.’ There was no hole deep enough to crawl into at that moment.’
“All his players remember those moments, but they also remember the late night phone calls after they graduated, checking up on them or offering help when someone might be out of a job or when a marriage had gone south or a relative had been lost. It often has been said – accurately – that there was nothing Smith wouldn’t do for a member of the North Carolina basketball family.
“That said, it often went beyond that. Smith recruited Bobby Hurley when he was in high school, but Hurley went to Duke, where he helped the Blue Devils win two national championships. After Hurley had played his last college game, he received a letter from Smith telling him how proud he should be of what he had accomplished in college.”
*Fellow Wake Forest alum, Dr. W., reminded me the other day that the pastor in Chapel Hill who was so influential in Dean Smith’s life, the above-mentioned Robert Seymour, is the father of a fraternity brother of ours. Aside from helping to integrate the restaurants in Chapel Hill, it was Pastor Seymour who convinced Smith to recruit Charlie Scott.
Dr. Seymour attended Yale Divinity School as a navy chaplaincy candidate, later being awarded a doctorate from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. His son, a year older than me, was easily one of the nicest people I met on campus.
–San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich won his 1,000th game on Monday as the Spurs came from 14 back in the fourth quarter to defeat the Indiana Pacers 95-93.
Tim Duncan has played in 929 of Popovich’s wins, easily the most of any player-coach duo in NBA history. Second-best is Jerry Sloan and Karl Malone, who had 775 together at Utah.
–One of the more detested sports owners in the country, James Dolan, was told by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver he would not be punished for a controversial email to an unhappy fan of the New York Knicks, calling Dolan a “consummate New Yorker.”
Irving Bierman, 73, was all over the local airwaves on Monday after Deadspin broke the story of his email, and Dolan’s reply.
Bierman said he wrote the owner because “I just felt enough is enough is enough,” as he told ESPN. Bierman said he has rooted for the Knicks since 1952.
Bierman wrote in part that he is “utterly embarrassed by your dealings with the Knicks” and accused Dolan of “a lot of utterly STUPID business things with the franchise.” Bierman also requested Dolan sell the team.
So Dolan replied (grammar and spelling are correct):
“Why would anybody write such a hateful letter. I am just guessing but ill bet your life is a mess and you are a hateful mess. What have you done that anyone would consider positive or nice. I am betting nothing. In fact ill bet you are negative force in everyone who comes in contact with you. You most likely have made your family miserable. Alcoholic maybe. I just celebrated my 21 year anniversary of sobriety. You should try it. Maybe it will help you become a person that folks would like to have around. In the mean while start rooting for the Nets because the Knicks don’t want you. Respectfully James Dolan.”
“Pardon me, wasn’t this the season James (Guitar Jimmy) Dolan vowed to distance himself from the Knicks?
“And didn’t some of his media lackeys actually applaud his proclamation early on, going gaga when he didn’t show up for the team’s home opener? Yeah, with Phil Jackson in the house a change was going to come….
“Anyone skeptical of Dolan, anyone who knows he’s all about irrational ravings (just ask anyone who has worked for him), knew his alleged hands-off policy was just another con. Dolan can’t help himself.
“Now not only does he, and the corporation he runs, wind up embarrassed, so does the National Basketball Association, which should fine and suspend him. Unless, of course, commissioner Adam Silver supports and defends Dolan’s cockeyed decision to willfully trash a loyal fan using bizarre accusations….
“(The) timing of the revelations…cannot be any worse for Dolan and the NBA. With All-Star week getting under way here, and the national hoops media converging on the city and the Gulag, Dolan…is now on the front burner….
“Does anyone think Charles Barkley, a harsh Knicks critic, or Marv Albert, an equally tough Dolan critic, are going to ignore Dolan’s twisted email to Bierman during TNT’s All-Star coverage?”
Bierman told the New York Post, “I’m not looking for an apology, all I want is improvement and to win a championship. We’re not even competitive. They have not won one in [42] years. You think they’re going to turn it around in six months?”
–Speaking of the Knicks, Carmelo Anthony finally opened up on his knee issue and said surgery would likely keep him off the court for two months, should he choose to have it. Tuesday, he said it was too soon as to whether the injury would keep him out of Sunday’s All-Star Game, which will be played at Madison Square Garden. Anthony was selected to start.
As I’ve been writing all season, this whole situation is beyond absurd. Anthony isn’t proving a thing by playing a few games, then sitting a few, witness the league-worst 10-42 record. The Knicks would have that record if he had sat out for a few months, though I have to note the team is 0-12 in games without him. So we would have more than clinched the top slot in the NBA Draft Lottery, which is what this season has been all about, boys and girls!
Golf Balls
–According to the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook, Tiger Woods is 50-1 to win the Masters. In two weeks he has dropped from 12-1 to 20-1 to 50-1. On the other hand, Rory McIlroy is 4-1 to complete his career Grand Slam. Jason Day has moved up to 15-1.
Meanwhile, in terms of world rankings, Tiger is now No. 62, his worst since his first year on Tour, 1996, which means in order for him to make the upcoming WGC event at Doral, he probably needs a top-10 finish at the Honda, assuming he is healthy enough to play in it.
—Ed Sabol, the founder of NFL Films, died. He was 98. During his tenure at NFL Films from 1964-1995, the organization won 52 Emmy Awards.
Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement: “Through his determination and innovative spirit, Ed Sabol transformed how America watched football and all sports.”
Working with his son, Steve, Sabol introduced innovations such as super slow-motion, blooper reels, and reverse angle shots. NFL Films put microphones on players and coaches, set highlights to music and recorded pregame locker room speeches.
And it was Ed and Steve who made one of their most important decisions in hiring the “Voice of God,” John Facenda, to narrate it all.
Ed Sabol won the rights to chronicle the 1962 NFL championship for $3,000 and the rest is history. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2011.
Steve Sabol, who succeeded his father as NFL Films’ president in 1985, died in 2012 at age 69 of brain cancer.
—Tony Dorsett said he is “in a battle” with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and that he had no idea “that the end was going to be like this.”
Dorsett was first diagnosed in November 2013 by researchers at UCLA, but the other day he told radio station 1310 in Dallas, “I signed up for this when, I guess, I started playing football so many years ago. But, obviously, not knowing that the end was going to be like this. But I love the game. The game was good to me. It’s just unfortunate that I’m going through what I’m going through.
“I’m in the fight, man. I’m not just laying around letting this overtake me. I’m fighting….I’m hoping we can reverse this thing somehow.”
–Hall of Fame receiver Jerry Rice admitted on Saturday that he used stickum during his playing career, 1985-2004, which is a bit of a problem since stickum was banned by the NFL in 1981.
But fellow Hall of Fame receiver Cris Carter, who played from 1987-2001, sent several tweets over the past few days saying all players did not do this.
It’s an issue because it was Rice who called out the Patriots for cheating when Deflategate hit. Rice, in an interview with Jim Rome on Jan. 22, said if the Patriots won the Super Bowl, it should have an asterisk attached to it.
Rice then added, “I’ve always wanted to do things the right way. I didn’t want to take any short cuts or anything like that.”
–Interesting move by the Oregon Ducks to in essence pick up Eastern Washington quarterback Vernon Adams to play for one year. Adams has had three stellar seasons at the FCS school. But while there are already five quarterbacks set to battle to replace departing Marcus Mariota, including primary backup Jeff Lockie, Adams would be the favorite to take the starting job.
The deal is, Adams will graduate this spring and then enroll immediately at Oregon as a grad student and use his remaining year of eligibility.
Some are questioning the transfer rule that allows Adams to play right away, but you’ve seen it used fairly frequently in college basketball (Wake Forest has been employing it the last few years), and it is what it is…until it’s changed.
In three years at Eastern Washington, a perennial Div. I-AA power, he had 110 touchdowns with 31 interceptions. But as Kyle Bonagura of ESPN.com points out, in his games against Pac-12 teams, he has excelled, including 31 of 46 for 475 yards and seven touchdowns without an interception in a 59-52 loss at Washington last year. In 2013, Adams had 411 yards and four touchdowns in a 49-46 win at Oregon State.
Ball Bits
–The San Diego Padres signed pitcher James Shields to a four-year, $75 million deal, completing one of the great makeovers in recent years. The Padres had previously totally revamped their outfield, which is now comprised of Justin Upton, Matt Kemp and Wil Myers. Derek Norris is the new catcher. Will Middlebrooks potentially the new third baseman.
“The Padres, in their wildest and most fascinating offseason in franchise history, have morphed from a dull, pedestrian franchise into one of the most intriguing teams in all of baseball….
“Now, the range of opinions from Major League Baseball’s finest talent evaluators cover the board, with some believing the Padres may be the favorites to win the NL West, to some convinced that they will be nothing more than an underachieving mess….
“Whether it works, or doesn’t work, at least they’re trying.”
As for Shields, he has thrown more innings than anyone in baseball since 2007. 33-34 starts seven consecutive seasons. At least 227 innings each of the last four.
I’m frankly shocked the Yankees didn’t go for him. Their starting rotation is riddled with health issues. Shields isn’t a superstar, but he’s reliable and All-Star quality.
–The Yankees and Alex Rodriguez finally met, which A-Rod has been asking for, and he apologized to owner Hal Steinbrenner and team executives for his year-long suspension for PED use, as well as the hostile nature in which he defended himself.
The Yankees made it clear to A-Rod they are not going to pay his home-run bonuses, such as the $6 million he is scheduled to earn if he hits six more homers to reach Willie Mays’ 660. The team feels that now that the truth is known about A-Rod’s history with steroids, the mark is worthless, especially from a marketing standpoint. The Yankees also want Rodriguez to talk to the media prior to the start of training camp, Feb. 20.
Not counting the home run bonus money, the Yankees still owe A-Rod $61 million over the next three seasons.
–The Tigers may have caught a break. Victor Martinez’s surgery on his left knee was successful and it is said he’ll be ready to resume full activities in 4-6 weeks. So with that timetable, he’d be ready for Opening Day. At first it was feared he might miss the lion’s share of the regular-season. [Technically, his meniscus was “trimmed out of his knee,” not repaired, thus the shorter recovery time.]
“Sharon Bowen thought her late husband was a bit crazy for buying a scrapbook filled with black and white photos of Cleveland ballplayers from the early 1900s – but not anymore. It turns out that book held what may be the only autographed photo of Shoeless Joe Jackson, the Holy Grail of baseball signatures.
“Jackson, who was tossed out of baseball for throwing the 1919 World Series and remembered in the movie ‘Field of Dreams,’ was illiterate and rarely signed anything but paychecks and legal documents, making his autographs among the rarest in sports….
“(This) is the first signed photo authenticated by autograph experts, according to Heritage Auctions, which is handling the sale….
“It could fetch at least $100,000….
“Bowen’s husband, Bill, first saw the scrapbook about 10 years ago.
“It was stored in a barn near Cleveland and belonged to a couple whose family was friends with Frank W. Smith, a photographer with The Plain Dealer newspaper. He shot the photo of Jackson along with those of Hall of Famers Christy Mathewson and Napoleon Lajoie during spring training in 1911.
“The family offered to sell the scrapbook five years ago to Bowen’s husband because they knew how much he treasured the 60 photos. The price tag: $15,000.
Bill died last April and the family thought someone else should enjoy the photos, which will be sold in New York City on Feb. 21. An online bid has already been received for $42,000, which as these things go is just a starter.
“A baseball bearing Jackson’s shaky signature brought $78,000 in 2011.”
This particular photo has been analyzed by different memorabilia experts and all have reached the conclusion, it’s real.
While there are about four dozen legitimate Jackson signatures out there, including of balls and bats, this is the only known photograph.
–This just hit as I was about to go to post, from ESPN.com:
“Little League Baseball has stripped the U.S. championship from the Chicago-based Jackie Robinson West team and has suspended the coach for violating a rule prohibiting the use of players who live outside the geographic area that the team represents….
“The Jackie Robinson West team, the first all-African-American team to win the championship, must vacate wins from the 2014 Little League Baseball International Tournament – including its Great Lakes Regional and United States championships.
“The team’s manager, Darold Butler, has been suspended from Little League activity….
“The organization found that the Jackie Robinson team used a falsified boundary map, and that team officials met with neighboring Little League districts in Illinois to claim players and build what amounts to a superteam.
“As a result, the United States championship has been awarded to Mountain Ridge Little League from Las Vegas.”
College Hockey
USCHO Poll (Feb. 9)
1. Minnesota State
2. Notre Dame
3. Boston University
4. Nebraska-Omaha
5. Michigan Tech
6. Minnesota-Duluth
7. Miami (Ohio)
8. Bowling Green
9. Denver
10. Boston College
20. St. Lawrence!!! Go George Go!
World Alpine Championships
Tina Maze did it again, winning the combined event on Monday for her third medal, second gold, that firmly cemented her as Number One in the world.
Lindsey Vonn was fifth after the downhill, but was disqualified from the slalom after skiing out in the top section.
Maze leads the World Cup overall standings by 184 points over Austria’s Anna Fenninger. The Slovenian is one of only six women to have won in all five disciplines.
“Dozens of rescue crews are scouring the NSW (Ed: New South Wales, which includes Sydney) north coast for a shark, believed to be a great white, that fatally attacked a surfer on Monday morning.
“Tadashi Nakahara, 41, a Japanese national who lived in the area and was popular in the local surfing community, died at Shelly Beach, a well-known tourist spot in Ballina, just before 10am, police said.
“Surfers who were in the water at the time said they saw the shadow of the shark and estimated it to have been between 3.5 and four meters long, the Northern Star reported.
“Two close-by surfers pulled Mr. Nakahara from the water and administered first aid but he died on the sand.”
It was hopeless. The shark bit off both of his legs, though police declined to confirm this.
Ballina Shire mayor David Wright said, “For a shark to take the board and the person sitting on it, it’s got to be very big,” he said.
Police are trying to determine if it was the same shark responsible for an attack about 15 miles away on Sunday. That one was non-fatal. [Bites “to the right side of his back and puncture marks to his buttocks.”]
A man by the name of “Richard,” who works at a surf shop in the area, told Rachel Olding that the frequency of shark attacks in the area was “getting crazy.”
“Every week we get someone knocked off their board or nipped, it’s getting ridiculous,” he said. [This was the fourth fatal shark attack in Australia in just five months.]
Ms. Olding reports: “Australian Ironman and Olympian Ky Hurst took to social media to warn off using the attacks as a basis for a shark cull.
“ ‘It’s tragic there have been [two] attacks in the last day in NSW,’ he wrote. ‘But understand that it’s [sharks’] back yard not ours.
“ ‘If people don’t like the thought of sharks or the possibility of being attacked then it’s very simple, stay out of the ocean.’”
Well that’s what I try to do, folks. I love the beach…I love the shore…but I’m not into getting swallowed by a killer whale. [Admittedly an exaggeration when dipping your toe into the surf. But it’s “Web Sweeps Week” and I need to be dramatic in order to get a score of 9.5 out of 10, which ensures I keep my International Web Site Association license.]
–Also in Australia, scientists at Charles Darwin University claim no other nation has had such a high rate of loss of land mammals as Australia has over the last 200 years in what conservationists describe as an “extinction calamity.”
There are two main culprits…the feral cat and the red fox, both introduced from Europe. Large scale fires used to manage the land also have had an impact.
According to a survey published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, since 1788, 11% of 273 native mammals living on land have died out, 21% are threatened and 15% are near threatened, the study found.
It is estimated there are 15 to 23 million wild cats living on the continent. [Helen Briggs / BBC News]
But there was one bad one we really didn’t know the full details of until after the show ended. That being Kanye West’s interruption of Beck’s award presentation for Album of the Year. Kanye ran up on stage, shades of 2009 when he startled Taylor Swift, only this time Kanye smiled and quickly left the stage…an attempt at humor that fell very flat but I think we all thought, ‘whatever.’
Afterwards, however (after I had posted), he said: “You all knew what it meant when ‘Ye stepped on that stage.”
So Kanye wasn’t joking. Instead he went on a tirade, saying, “Beck needs to respect artistry and he should’ve given his award to Beyonce,” adding the Grammys were “playing with us.”
What a jerk. Kanye added the only reason he didn’t take the mic from Beck was because of Kim, daughter North and his “clothing line.”
“…I am here to fight for creativity. That’s why I didn’t say anything tonight, but you all knew what it meant when ‘Ye stepped on that stage.”
And… “I just know that the Grammys, if they want real artists, to keep coming back, they need to stop playing with us. We ain’t gonna play with them no more,” he said. “And Beck needs to respect artistry and he should’ve given his award to Beyonce.
“Because when you keep on diminishing art and not respecting the craft and smacking people in their face after they deliver monumental feats of music, you’re disrespectful to inspiration,” he said. “And we as musicians have to inspire people who go to work every day, and they listen to that Beyonce album and they feel like it takes them to another place.”
Sarah Thomas of the Sydney Morning Herald replied: “Righto, dear. Quite what Beck, the trail-blazing, endlessly inventive and widely acclaimed multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter with a 30-year career behind him, has made of West’s claim of ‘diminishing art’ is not yet known.”
For my part, it just needs to be said ‘Ye’s two performances Sunday night sucked.
“They do all kinds of things that they want to do, are comfortable doing. That turned out to be a fun moment at the end of the day.”
So we throw Portnow’s name in the December file as well.
After the Crickets’ 1958 breakup, Mauldin continued to perform occasionally with the group’s alumni and he became a recording engineer in Los Angeles.
It was as a 14-year-old that Mauldin started playing the bass and joined a group called the Four Teens. He then got to know fellow student Jerry “J.I.” Allison, a drummer who invited him to play at a dance at the Elks Lodge in Carlsbad, N.M., with Holly. As Steve Chawkins writes in the Los Angeles Times, “Decades after (that dance) on March 2, 1957, celebrated British rocker Keith Richards called the Crickets ‘probably the first global, international rock band of all time.’
“ ‘There would probably be no Beatles or Rolling Stones without them,’ Richards said.”
The success of Buddy Holly and the Crickets was stunning. From August 1957 to August 1958, seven of their songs hit the Top 40. “That’ll Be The Day” topped the charts in September 1958, but then the stresses of touring took a toll. Holly and Mauldin once got in a fistfight over Mauldin’s having lit a cigar in the dressing-room.
Mauldin later told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, “The night that Buddy was killed, J.I. and I had been trying to call him. Our agreement was that if anyone ever wants to get back together, all it takes is a phone call.”
Top 3 songs for the week 2/11/67: #1 “I’m A Believer” (The Monkees) #2 “Georgy Girl” (The Seekers) #3 “Kind Of A Drag” (The Buckinghams…fan of these guys)…and… #4 “Ruby Tuesday” (The Rolling Stones…in my top five of theirs…) #5 “(We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet” (Blues Magoos) #6 “Tell It Like It Is” (Aaron Neville…pretty timeless tune…) #7 “98.6” (Keith…love this one…framed the ’45 jacket…) #8 “Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron” (The Royal Guardsmen) #9 “Love Is Here And Now You’re Gone” (The Supremes) #10 “The Beat Goes On” (Sonny & Cher…I actually think 1967 this was the best year in the 60s…)
Golf Quiz Answer: Top five Euro Tour wins….
Seve Ballesteros 50
Bernhard Langer 42
Tiger Woods 40
Colin Montgomerie 31
Nick Faldo 30
Ian Woosnam 29
Ernie Els 28
Jose Maria Olazabal 23
Lee Westwood 23
Miguel Angel Jimenez 21
Sam Torrance 21
*The deal with Woods is not only are majors considered Euro Tour wins, but also World Golf Championship (WGC) events, and Tiger has 18 of them.
