NFL Draft Quiz: The last running backs to be selected in the first round were in 2012. There were three of them. Name ‘em. [One is out of the game for good…another will have a tough time getting a job next fall.] Answer below.
–I will comment on the Baltimore Riots in that other column I do later in the week. But for the record and the archives, for the first time in major league history, a baseball game is being played without any fans, today, after the Orioles were forced to cancel games Monday and Tuesday night. Those two games are to be made up as part of a single-admission doubleheader on May 28.
–Yankees manager Joe Girardi said he was “shocked” to learn ace Masahiro Tanaka is being shelved for at least a month after an MRI revealed elbow tendinitis and a mild forearm strain in his right arm.
Girardi said the right-hander hadn’t shown any troubling signs in the days leading up to his scheduled start on Wednesday, but everyone in baseball knew this was going to happen. I’ve only said it about ten times already this year.
The guy needs to just have Tommy John surgery and get it over with. It’s also obviously a big blow for the Yanks, who after a 3-6 start are now 13-8.
The Yanks spent $175 million on Tanaka before last season and have gotten 24 starts and a 15-6 record out of him. He’s under contract through 2020. Get it done now and hope he’s 100% 2017-2020.
–In a rematch, World Series MVP, Madison Bumgarner, beat N.L. MVP and Cy Young winner, Clayton Kershaw, 2-1, on Tuesday. Bumgarner threw eight innings of one run ball (1 BB 9 SO), while Kershaw threw 7, allowing 2 runs (0 BB 8 SO). Both now have identical 3.73 ERAs, Bumgarner 2-1, Kershaw 1-2.
Meanwhile, with injuries to outfielders Yasiel Puig and Carl Crawford, it appears Alex Guerrero will get some playing time in the outfield, Guerrero going 0-for-3 vs. Bumgarner.
–Kind of funny the Mets still have the best record in the N.L., 15-6, while the Houston Astros are off to a 13-7 start; Mets fans having suffered through six straight losing seasons, while Houstonians have had to put up with this:
2011: 56-106
2012: 55-107
2013: 51-111
2014: 70-92
But Houston has methodically been rebuilding and it appears it’s beginning to pay off.
As for the Mets, on Monday they beat the Marlins 3-1 in a game noteworthy for the time it took to play it…1:58…the shortest game for the Mets in 13 years.
–The odds-on favorite to win the World Series, the Washington Nationals, are off to a dreadful 8-13 start, but Tuesday’s stirring comeback against the Braves may be what the Nats need to kickstart their season. Washington was down 9-1, but with three in the ninth, prevailed 13-12.
–As I noted when the season started, Texas’ Prince Fielder said he felt great after a neck injury shelved him for most of last year; the slugger requiring surgery.
But the thought was the injury may have sapped him of his power and thus far in the first 20 games, Fielder, while hitting .350, has just one home run.
–Ryan Hatch / NJ.com: “The New York Times reported Monday night that the Yankees are trying to avoid paying Alex Rodriguez his milestone bonus (660 career home runs, which would tie him with Willie Mays), partly because it might actually cost them double the originally agreed-upon $6 million, jumping the figure to $12 million.
“Why? Because they’d be taxed 100 percent on the bonus payment, the Times said, since the Yankees are over the luxury-tax threshold and the money would factor into their 2015 payroll.
“ ‘The contract that Rodriguez signed after the 2007 season stipulates that the Yankees ‘have the right but not the obligation’ to establish the home run milestone and market it, said one of the officials who provided details of the contract on Monday.’”
Of course the original intent when the contract, and the bonuses, were agreed to in 2007 was to do some marketing around A-Rod and his targets and the Yankees have done none whatsoever.
Once A-Rod hits No. 660, the team has 14 days to either pay him or not; if the latter, he would likely file a grievance through the players’ union, at which point an arbitrator would be appointed.
–The Texas Rangers welcomed back Josh Hamilton. During a news conference on Monday, Hamilton said of his troubled two seasons with the Angels:
“I played, and played hard when I was there. I worked my butt off to be that guy this year going into this season for the Angels. They just didn’t want that to happen for some reason.”
In continuing his rehab from right shoulder surgery in February, Hamilton is expected to be playing in the big leagues again come latter part of May.
“It’s one thing to overpay for aging first basemen or stumbling outfielders, it’s quite another to plunk down about $60 million for intolerance and insensitivity.
“Yet, that’s what those fallen Angels did Monday in ridding themselves of their demon Josh Hamilton, shipping him and his addiction problems back to the Texas Rangers while eating nearly half of his $125-million contract just to get him out of their sight.
“Only the expensive stench of Angels owner Arte Moreno’s anger remains….
“In the end, the result is a good one, a winning one, for the Rangers and their troubled former star. Hamilton is in good hands. It is questionable whether the same can be said for the Angels.”
“This is it. This is Josh Hamilton’s last chance at redemption. No more excuses. No more slip-ups. No more relapses.
“One more time, and Hamilton is likely gone from baseball, no matter what any arbitrator rules.
“The Texas Rangers have been anointed as Hamilton’s savior, giving him a chance to not only revitalize his baseball career but also resurrect his life.
“Hamilton, 33, is a troubled man. He’s a recovering drug addict and separated from his family, filing for divorce in February from his wife, Katie, with whom they have four daughters.
“The Rangers…are accepting this flawed man for who he is, promising to love him again, knowing all of the risks involved.
“No one expects Hamilton to be the same player who dominated the game when healthy and drug-free. Yet there’s no reason he can’t be a productive player, a role model, and beloved once again deep in the heart of Texas.
“Without drugs, this man might have become the greatest player of his generation. Veteran scouts swear he and Alex Rodriguez are the two greatest high school players they’ve witnessed. Hamilton showed a glimpse of that potential in 2010, hitting .359 with 32 homers and 100 RBI in just 133 games, numbers last accomplished by Lou Gehrig in 1934.”
But then the Angels inexplicably signed him to a five-year, $125 million contract. I remember writing at the time this was nuts. As Nightengale points out, why not three years, as the Rangers, “who knew him better than anyone, were offering?”
So now he’s back in Texas, where he’s kept a home, and where, as Nightengale writes, “he still has friends, neighbors, former teammates and folks who still love him.
“He’ll be embraced, accepted by his old organization, with no real pressure or expectations.”
It also needs to be pointed out the Rangers always stood by Hamilton; he just decided to chase the money.
–So the other day, Washington’s Max Scherzer reignited the debate about adopting the DH in the National League in the wake of Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright’s torn Achilles tendon while batting. To which San Francisco’s Madison Bumgarner said, no way.
“I guarantee you,” he said, “some of the things you’re seeing in the American League wouldn’t happen if pitchers had to hit. They’d be a whole lot more polite.”
Bumgarner referring of course to the wave of fights and beanballs we’ve seen in the A.L. thus far this season.
“Pitchers are injured all the time, of course. It’s the nature of the beast. Matt Harvey, Yu Darvish, Jose Fernandez and Zack Wheeler have all missed time with arm injuries in recent years. But they were injured performing duties generally related to pitching.
“Having N.L. pitchers continue to hit is a part of the game whose time has passed.
“There is risk enough in pitching and fielding the position. Why add to the risk by having the pitcher hit?”
Rhoden then brings up Max Scherzer and his comment that both leagues should have the DH.
“If baseball ever dies, the cause of death will be complications caused by tradition….
“Manager Terry Collins needed only one name to make his point about wanting to see the designated hitter in the National League.
“ ‘Chien-Ming Wang,’ Collins said, referring to the former Yankees pitching star who injured his foot in 2008 while running the bases in an interleague game against Houston. Wang was 8-2, and he had won 46 games in the previous three seasons.
“But the Yankees suspected the injury led to a change in his delivery and then to shoulder problems, which prematurely derailed his career.” [He only won eight more games in the majors and is in the Braves’ system.]
–Former player and manager, Kirk Gibson, announced he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He is just 57.
Gibson, currently working as an analyst on Tigers telecasts, has not appeared since Opening Day, but said he would return soon.
—College Baseball Poll (Apr. 27)
1. LSU
2. UCLA
3. Texas A&M
4. Louisville
5. TCU
11. UC Santa Barbara (just like typing this and dreaming of sun, suds and girls on the beach)
14. Missouri State
15. Dallas Baptist
NBA Playoffs
–The Rockets wrapped up their series with the Mavericks on Tuesday, 103-94, to take it in five. But at least Wake Forest’s Al-Farouq Aminu got to start the last two contests for the first time in his postseason career and he acquitted himself well…16 points and 12 rebounds in the Mav’s lone win in Game 4, and then 14 pts., 9 rebounds and five steals in Game 5. Dallas was hurt on Tuesday by Dirk Nowitzki’s 8 of 23 from the field, including 0 for 6 from three-point land.
–In Los Angeles, the Spurs prevailed in Game 5, 111-107 over the Clippers to take a 3-2 series lead as Tim Duncan had 21 pts. and 11 rebounds. [Bazooka Joe says: “Timmy D. went to Wake Forest!]
The Clippers are getting killed by DeAndre Jordan’s free-throw shooting. He was 7 of 16 on Tuesday, and is now 18 of 49 from the foul line for the series.
–Out of nowhere, the Brooklyn Nets have evened up their series with the Atlanta Hawks at 2-2, following a 120-115 overtime win on Monday in Brooklyn. The Nets are an enigma, with on paper a solid Big Three in Brook Lopez, Joe Johnson and Deron Williams, but the last few years you’ve seen more ‘Bad Deron’ than ‘Good Deron,’ with injuries playing a major role.
Williams doesn’t turn 31 until June 26, so he should hardly be washed up, but most of the time he seems like a shell of his former 2007-2011 self…a four-year stretch where he made three All-Star teams and averaged 18.7+ ppg and 10.3+ assists as one of the premier point guards in the league.
So that’s why the Nets got him from Utah in 2011, gave him a huge contract extension, but he’s been largely booed ever since.
Well in Game 2 of the Hawks series, Williams was 1 of 7 from the floor for just two points, but I felt he kind of got a bad rap because he also hauled down 10 rebounds and had 8 assists. Those rebounds stand out. It’s not like he wasn’t trying. Choking? Maybe. But there was some effort.
In Game 3, though, even as the Nets bounced back at home, Williams was just 1 of 8 from the field, 3 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists.
But then in Game 4, ‘Good Deron’ reemerged…35 points, including 7 of 11 from three-point land. From five points in two games, combined, to 35. Good for him.
–For Cleveland, it seems a certainty Kevin Love is out for the remainder of the playoffs with his dislocated shoulder. This as guard J.R. Smith was suspended two games for striking the Celtics’ Jae Crowder in the face.
Boston’s Kelly Olynyk was suspended one game (served next season) for locking Love’s arm as they both tried to grab a rebound, which resulted in Love’s injury. Olynyk maintains he wasn’t trying to hurt Love; Love feels otherwise.
–So I watched some of the Toronto-Washington series and it just needs to be said, the Raptors really sucked and I feel for their fans, perhaps the best in the league. Sunday they were blown out by the Wizards, 125-94, as Washington completed the four-game sweep and I go back to my comments from Game 1, when Toronto’s Greivis Vasquez acted like a total jerk after hitting a tying three in regulation and from then on the series was over, as the Raptors got rolled in overtime and Washington never looked back.
And what was it with Toronto coach Dwane Casey not playing Wake’s James Johnson?! All the guy did this season coming off the bench was shoot a career best (by far) .589 from the field and provide terrific energy on defense.
But then he played just 12 minutes total in the playoffs as Paul Pierce shredded the Raptors’ ‘D.’
–We note the passing of Mike Phillips, who formed the “Twin Towers” with Rick Robey on the Kentucky basketball team that won the 1978 NCAA title. Phillips was just 59 and a television report said he died after a fall at his home in Madisonville, Ky.
Phillips, 6’10”, played alongside the 6’11” Robey on the team coached by Joe B. Hall, that went 30-2 and beat Duke in the NCAA final behind Jack Givens’ 41 points.
After college, Phillips was drafted by the New Jersey Nets but never played in the NBA, playing in Spain for several seasons. Robey played eight seasons in the NBA and was a member of the 1981 Boston Celtics’ championship team.
Stanley Cup Playoffs
–I’ll have lots to say next chat as the Rangers-Capitals gets underway on Thursday; Washington having won Game 7 against the Islanders on Monday, 2-1. New York had a whopping 11 shots the entire freakin’ game!
Incredibly, the Islanders last won a playoff series 22 years ago and it’s also bye-bye Nassau Coliseum after 43 years; the team moving to Brooklyn next season. The local news on Tuesday showed some fans hanging out in the Coliseum parking lot and a few of them were basically in tears.
Seriously, what was touching was a couple girls talked of growing up, going to all the games with their dads.
[The Red Wings and Lightning are playing a Game 7 tonight.]
NFL Draft
I’ve said enough on this topic…now we just wait to see what happens on Thursday.
One top prospect, Missouri defensive end/outside linebacker Shane Ray, probably just blew $millions of dollars as he was cited Monday for marijuana possession. Ray doesn’t face any league discipline but he’s now enrolled in the NFL’s substance abuse program, where he is subject to random drug testing. I heard a guy today, Steve Mariucci, say he could drop as far as the third round when everyone had him as a top-10 pick earlier.
Ray also has a turf toe injury that could be as costly to him in the draft as the marijuana arrest. Ray says he doesn’t need surgery, but others think he does.
“The change will mean the NFL’s head office, which earned revenues of about $327 million in 2013, will have to pay taxes on its income. But the (league) will no longer have to file yearly tax forms that publicly disclose details like executive pay, including for commissioner Roger Goodell, who made $44 million in 2012.
“In a letter dated Tuesday to team owners and members of Congress, Goodell called the decades-old tax-exempt status a ‘distraction’ that has ‘been mischaracterized repeatedly,’ and whose end ‘will make no material difference to our business.’
“ ‘The fact is that the business of the NFL has never been tax exempt,’ Goodell wrote. ‘Every dollar of income generated through television rights fees, licensing agreements, sponsorships, ticket sales, and other means is earned by the 32 clubs and is taxable there.’
“Since 1942, America’s biggest sports empire has qualified as a 501(c)(6) non-profit, the same designation given to business leagues, trade groups and organizations like the American Medical Association.”
It’s estimated the league will shell out about $10 million in taxes, which is nothing given the overall revenues.
The death toll on Mount Everest last I saw was 18, though some still haven’t been rescued after the earthquake unleashed a number of avalanches, some as a result of aftershocks.
One Singapore-based climber George Foulsham told AFP news agency that he was knocked off his feet by a “50-story building of white.”
“I ran and it just flattened me. I tried to get up and it flattened me again. I couldn’t breathe, I thought I was dead. When I finally stood up, I couldn’t believe it passed me over and I was almost untouched.”
Needless to say, the video of that 50-story wall was unbelievable.
But on the issue of the science of the earthquake, Kate Ravilious of BBC News had the following:
“In a sadly prescient turn of events, Laurent Bollinger, from the CEA research agency in France, and his colleagues, uncovered the historical pattern of earthquakes during fieldwork in Nepal last month, and anticipated a major earthquake in exactly the location where Saturday’s big tremor has taken place.
“Down in the jungle in central southern Nepal, Bollinger’s team dug trenches across the country’s main earthquake fault (which runs for more than 1,000km from west to east), at the place where the fault meets the surface, and used fragments of charcoal buried within the fault to carbon-date when the fault had last moved.
“Ancient texts mention a number of major earthquakes, but locating them on the ground is notoriously difficult.
“Monsoon rains wash soils down the hillsides and dense jungle covers much of the land, quickly obscuring earthquake ruptures.
“Bollinger’s group was able to show that this segment of fault had not moved for a long time.
“ ‘We showed that this fault was not responsible for the great earthquakes of 1505 and 1833, and that the last time it moved was most likely 1344,’ says Bollinger, who presented his findings to the Nepal Geological Society two weeks ago…
“When Bollinger and his colleagues saw this historic pattern of events, they became greatly concerned.”
Lincoln’s Final Journey
150 years ago, Abraham Lincoln’s final journey, a 1,700-mile funeral, was well underway. The train carrying his body went from Washington to Baltimore, then Philadelphia, where, as Adam Geller writes in the Army Times, “lines to view Lincoln’s body stretched three miles from Independence Hall. In Jersey City, New Jersey, German immigrants mourned so vigorously their songs were heard across the water in New York – where 120,000 later filed past the coffin.”
Then the 9-car procession continued north, retracing Lincoln’s 1861 route to the White House.
“There was no social lines, no boundaries between condition separating those who, in solemn pageant, moved past the coffin that held the mortal parts of Abraham Lincoln. The banker and merchant walked side by side with the laborer, the lad of fashion and estate with the lowly kitchen maid…”
From the New York Herald, April 30, between Columbus, Ohio, and Indianapolis:
“Along the road the people appeared to the number of thousands, carrying torches and kindling bonfires to enable them clearly to see the funeral car, or as if to light it on its way.”
“But Illinois when she saw her Lincoln made President, and now, when she receives his cold ashes, contrasts (as) widely as heaven and hell. And yet she finds some balm for her grief in pride that he in whom they first saw virtue and greatness is now reckoned by the whole nation as greatest and most worthy.”
One side bar on Lincoln’s long journey home. The final few weeks were more than a bit maudlin for a number of reasons; perhaps first and foremost being the fact the condition of his body began to deteriorate badly.
“I’m usually hesitant to compare stuff from different eras, but I recall in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, I paid $440 a semester in tuition at the University of Maryland, which covered five-hour-long courses each taught three times a week, plus parking. Thirty-five years later, they want ne to pay $99.95 just to watch two guys punch each other in the head on TV for maybe an hour.
“(In reality, nobody gets punched in the head that much in most Mayweather fights. It’s amazing how much money he has made in the ring, usually just by avoiding getting hit. Mayweather’s specialty, actually, is hitting people outside of the ring, usually women.)….
“For a hundred bucks, I need Pacquiao to knock out Mayweather, then come over and spackle the cracks in my rec-room wall before preparing some crunchy almond-crusted duck breasts with chanterelle salad for me and Toni.
“The smart thing to do, if you insist on ordering the fight – considering this is the land of Andrew Carnegie and Mark Zuckerberg – would be to capitalize on it by charging your friends, like a nightclub. I would suggest a $10 cover, two-drink minimum, plus provide complimentary popcorn and salty pretzels to spike beverage sales….
“You also might want to emulate a real fight card and give your guests an ‘undercard’ – maybe a ‘Game of Thrones’ episode or two before the big bout begins.”
Meanwhile, Mayweather said the other day that he was “the greatest.” To which Muhammad Ali took to Twitter, without mentioning Mayweather by name, to proclaim:
But George Foreman sided with Mayweather, telling TMZ that, “pound for pound, Floyd is better than me and Muhammad Ali ever were. This is a better generation [of fighters] by far. They’re smarter, they’re stronger, they’re overall just better fighters.”
You’d have trouble convincing me today’s group of heavyweights is anywhere near what we had in the Golden Era, mid-1960s to mid-1970s.
Mayweather told ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith: “No one can ever brainwash me to make me believe that Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali was better than me.” [Cindy Boren / Washington Post]
Personally, I haven’t decided whether to get the fight or not. I’m going to be at a Kentucky Derby party all Saturday afternoon and being of advanced age and mind, I’m guessing I’ll be passed out by 9:00 p.m.
As for the race itself, the official Bar Chat “Pick to Click” is American Pharoah, though Johnny Mac said as a side bet, he’s going with a Frosted and Materiality quinella.
–A shark attack that took place on April 13 in the Florida Keys just came to light as a videographer got too close to an 8-foot oceanic blue shark that proceeded to rip his left shoulder and bicep to shreds…58 stitches worth.
I had no clue oceanic blue sharks were in our waters. This is the species suspected of killing a number of swimmers and divers in the Red Sea a few years ago.
This particular shark, by the way, was in less than six feet of water. Yet another reason to never stick a toe in the ocean.
—Black bears have been spotted five minutes from my home, near Baltusrol Golf Course. The Star-Ledger offered one of these tips.
“The bear may utter a series of huffs, make popping jaw sounds by snapping its jaws and swat the ground. These are warning signs that you are too close. Slowly back away, avoid direct eye contact and do not run.”
If I’m jogging in the park I go to and see a bear that starts making popping sounds, I know I’ll be history.
–New Jersey estimates there are 3,000 coyotes in my state. In the three most recent cases of attacks on humans, the coyote has been found to be rabid.
–We note the passing of Jayne Meadows, 95. Meadows was the longtime wife of Steve Allen (her second marriage), Allen being one of the great entertainers of all time, including as the first host of NBC’s “Tonight Show.”
As the Los Angeles Times put it: “In 1952, Jayne Meadows was a broke, newly divorced film actress when she got a job she didn’t really want. It ended up making her a household name.
“On the game show ‘I’ve Got a Secret,’ Meadows joined a panel of four celebrities who were supposed to guess a funny or embarrassing hidden fact about guests. Throughout the 1950s it was one of the highest-rated shows in the fast-growing medium of television.”
Meadows met Allen through the show and they were together until his death in 2000. The two used to hold joint interviews, she playing the part of the chatty, fashionable partner to Allen’s tireless Renaissance man.
Jayne Meadows’ younger sister, Audrey Meadows, rose to fame as Ralph Kramden’s (Jackie Gleason’s) long-suffering wife on “The Honeymooners.”
—Jack Ely, the lead singer of the Kingsmen, died at the age of 71. Ely’s incoherent singing on “Louie Louie,” which peaked at #2 in 1963, led the FBI to investigate the famous track on the grounds it might be obscene. The Kingsmen, one of the premier garage band acts of the 60s, also had a #4 hit in 1965, “The Jolly Green Giant.”
—Suzanne Crough Condray, the youngest daughter on the hit 1970s show “The Partridge Family,” was found dead Monday at her home in Laughlin, Nevada. She was just 52. The circumstances of her death are not suspicious, according to police, but an autopsy is planned.
Crough played Tracy Partridge, with David Cassidy and Shirley Jones doing most of the singing. Crough once said in an interview, her contribution was playing “anything they put in my hands,” including a tambourine, triangle and cowbell.
When the show went off the air in the spring of 1974, Crough continued to appear on television, but as an adult she stayed out of the limelight. She was married for nearly 30 years to William Condray.
At the 40th reunion of the series’ premiere, she told MSNBC that she was often asked whether she had the same swooning reaction to David Cassidy as did much of the rest of the country’s teeny-boppers when “The Partridge Family” first went on the air.
“All my friends were going, ‘I love David. Don’t you love David?’ and I would say, ‘No. He’s like my brother. That’s creepy.”
Top 3 songs for the week 4/30/66: #1 “Good Lovin’” (The Young Rascals) #2 “(You’re My) Soul And Inspiration” (The Righteous Brothers) #3 “Monday, Monday” (The Mama’s and the Papa’s)…and…#4 “Sloop John B” (The Beach Boys) #5 “Secret Agent Man” (Johnny Rivers) #6 “Kicks” (Paul Revere and The Raiders featuring Mark Lindsay) #7 “Time Won’t Let Me” (The Outsiders) #8 “Bang Bang” (Cher) #9 “Daydream” (The Lovin’ Spoonful) #10 “Leaning On The Lamp Post” (Herman’s Hermits….years ago I did a comparison of particular weeks in the 60s and I know I concluded ’66 and ’67, overall, were the best….this is but one example…not one bad song in the bunch…)
NFL Draft Quiz Answer: Last first-round picks as running backs were in 2012. No. 3 Trent Richardson, Cleveland; No. 31, Doug Martin, Tampa Bay; No. 32 David Wilson, Giants.
