Baseball Quiz: 1) King Felix Hernandez is one of the best in history at his age, having just turned 29 on April 8. In the categories of most games started through age-28 season since 1970, as well as most strikeouts through age-28 during the same period, Hernandez is second in both categories. Who is first in both? 2) If you watched the Mets game Saturday night, you’re ineligible for this one. The Mets’ announcers had a reason to talk about pitchers and hitting (as I discuss below) and they noted the last major league hurler to have 5 hits in a game did so way back in 1964. He was a quality pitcher but this was his rookie season. Name him. Answers below.
The Preakness
Here we go again. American Pharoah is the latest to win the first two legs of the Triple Crown, the 14th since the last Triple Crown winner, Affirmed, in 1978. But if you were unimpressed by the colt’s performance in the Kentucky Derby, you had to be impressed by Pharoah on Saturday.
“The rain was gushing sideways out of a deep gray sky as Victor Espinoza threw his left leg over American Pharoah and took his mount 10 minutes before post time for the 140th Preakness Stakes. Behind him, the beer-soaked infield at Pimlico Race Course, drenched in sunshine moments earlier, was being evacuated, and the giant white corporate tents were bulging and collapsing in the stiff wind. Thunder rumbled overhead. From the grandstand, the track’s backstretch was all but invisible.
“Everyone seemed to be waiting for someone to pull the horses off the track, but no one did, so Espinoza and his remarkable horse went to work. From the dreaded No. 1 post position along the rail, Espinoza sent the Kentucky Derby champ and Saturday’s odds-on favorite almost immediately to the lead, sparing him the indignity of a face full of mud and daring any of the other seven horses and their jockeys to come catch them.
“None could. What followed, as American Pharoah roared to a seven-length win over long-shot Tale of Verve in conditions that bordered on surreal, will be remembered here for years – especially if Pharoah, with two legs of the Triple now to his name, makes history in three weeks in the Belmont Stakes….
“ ‘He’s just an amazing horse,’ said trainer Bob Baffert, who has now won six Preakness. ‘Everybody talks about his greatness, and it’s just starting to show now. To me, they have to prove it. Today, he did it. It was like poetry in motion.’….
“Baffert trained three of the 13 horses since Affirmed who went to Queens with a shot at the Triple Crown but came up empty, losing with Silver Charm in 1997, Real Quiet in 1998 and War Emblem in 2002. For the next three weeks, the sport will be dominated by a single question: Is American Pharoah the one? The wise guys will say the Preakness, with its fluky conditions and the slowest winning time in 59 years, proved nothing – but Pharoah’s connections believe otherwise.
“ ‘The sign of a good horse is no matter what is thrown in his face he finds a way to win,’ said Ahmed Zayat, American Pharoah’s owner. ‘God willing, he comes out of this race well, and we could be talking about history.’”
Meanwhile, Maryland Jockey Club officials are giving serious consideration to moving the Preakness Stakes to refurbished Laurel Park and to holding the race on a Sunday for the first time in its history. This could happen as early as next year.
Laurel Park is between Baltimore and Washington, with officials saying Pimlico is simply old. Another factor is the contract with NBC is ending.
Stanley Cup Playoffs
Let’s Go Ran-gers! Yup, they did it again…another 2-1 victory, this time Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Madison Square Garden.
“The score was 2-1, because of course it was, and anyone who expected otherwise – or a wider margin of victory – must not have been paying attention to the Rangers’ postseason joy ride.”
It was the Rangers seventh victory of this postseason by that 2-1 score and the 13th consecutive game of these playoffs decided by a single goal, 15th over the past two postseasons; New York having long set the NHL record in this regard.
The Rangers also now hold the league record for most victories when tallying two or fewer goals in a single postseason. It helps to have King Henrik, Henrik Lundqvist, in goal.
This time the deciding goal was scored on a deflection by Dominic Moore with just 2:25 to play. In Game 7 against Washington, it was Derek Stepan in overtime, Stepan scoring the first goal on Saturday as well.
The Rangers have now advanced to their third conference final in four years and are 14-3 in elimination games since 2012, 6-0 in Game 7s. [10-0 at the Garden since 2008 in elimination games.]
Meanwhile, out west, Anaheim defeated Chicago 4-1 on Sunday in their first contest of the Western Conference finals.
Finally, for all his greatness, the Washington Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin still has never played in a conference finals. His guarantee of a Game 7 triumph over the Rangers fell flat.
—Clayton Kershaw finally picked up career win number 100 (100-51) in the Dodgers’ 6-4 win over the Rockies on Friday night, but he failed to complete the seventh inning for the sixth time in eight starts, after shutting Colorado out the first six. Kershaw is just 2-2 with a 4.24 ERA, after being charged with three runs in 6 2/3. By comparison, in the 27 starts he made last year, he pitched seven or more innings 22 times.
But none other than Sandy Koufax said the other day, not to worry when it came to Kershaw. Over his last four seasons, Kershaw was 72-26 with a 2.11 ERA. Sandy said, “Before the season is over, those numbers are going to be right where they always are.”
Koufax, in case you forgot, finished his career with one of the greatest six-year stretches in baseball history, as the Los Angeles Times’ Steve Dilbeck reminds us…129-47, 2.19 ERA. In his last four seasons, Koufax was 97-27, 1.86, and also won three Cy Youngs and an MVP, just as Kershaw has his last four.
[Last season, Kershaw was 3-2, 3.57, in his first six starts, but went on to finish 21-3, 1.77.]
–The Rangers’ Adrian Beltre hit career home run No. 400 Friday night, his fifth of the season. Thru Friday, Beltre has 400 HR 1,397 RBI and 2,641 hits to go along with a .284 career average. As Ronald Reagan would have said of the four-time All-Star, ‘Not bad…not bad at all.’
It’s also good to see teammate Prince Fielder warm up a bit on the power front as he now has five to go with his .340 average. There were fears that following his neck surgery, Fielder’s power was gone.
–But wait…there’s more! Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera hit his 400th home run on Saturday in a 4-3 win over the Cardinals. Cabrera finished the game with 1,398 RBI and is a lifetime .320 hitter. His plaque is already made and locked away in storage in Cooperstown.
Cabrera would also appear to be quite healthy after an injury-riddled campaign last season, one in which he still hit .313, with 25 HR and 109 RBI. This year, thru Saturday, he is .333, 10-29.
–The Mets finally busted out on Saturday, scoring 10 runs in the fourth inning against Milwaukee on the way to a 14-1 win. The 10 runs equaled their total of the previous five games, all losses, and represented just the fourth time in franchise history they had double digits in a single frame.
Pitcher Jacob deGrom had two hits in the inning, three for the game, and allowed one run over six innings to even his record at 4-4. Remarkably, in his last 11 starts at Citi Field, he is 9-1 with a 1.32 ERA.
–After almost being no-hit on Sunday, the Marlins, 16-22, fired manager Mike Redmond. Atlanta hurler Shelby Miller came within an out of the no-no and settled for a two-hitter.
–Since my last chat was posted Wed. morning, I have to note the performance of Cleveland’s Corey Kluber Wed. night, Kluber having won the A.L. Cy Young Award last year for the Indians.
He was off to a miserable start this season until he went 8 innings against the Cardinals, shutting them out on one hit, while striking out 18, the most in the A.L. since 1998. The 18 also ties the club record held by Bob Feller for a nine-inning game.
Cleveland went on to win 2-0 for Kluber’s first W of the season (1-5, 4.27), but if you’re wondering why he didn’t pitch the ninth, he had already thrown 113 pitches.
–Note to high school classmate Bobby C., the fire-balling (others say ‘crafty’) lefty who was one of the great pitchers in Summit history. I had no idea Naval Academy grad (Bobby went to Navy) Mitch Harris, a 29-year-old rookie reliever for St. Louis, recently became the first Navy ballplayer to pitch in the major leagues in nearly a century. Understand, he was away from the game for five years serving in the fleet, after being drafted by the Cardinals as a 21-year-old junior at the academy in 2007. He was allowed to leave a few months early to attend 2012 spring training and is now a reservist assigned to Navy Reserve Southern Command in Miami.
So a guy to root for, unless he’s throwing against my Mets. Or against your Padres, Bobby C.
–Pretty funny how the other day, Jorge Posada took a swipe at former Yankee teammate Alex Rodriguez. Appearing on “CBS This Morning,” Posada said A-Rod and Roger Clemens should not be allowed into the Hall of Fame due to their ties to steroids. “I think the guys that need to be in the Hall of Fame need to be a player that played with no controversy.”
The thing is the interview was conducted at “Alex Rodriguez Park” at the University of Miami, the stadium having been built following a donation by A-Rod.
And of course Posada later tried to walk back his comments, saying he was “really caught off-guard.”
A-Rod took the high road: “I consider Jorgie a friend,” he said. “…I have nothing bad to say about Jorgie. I have nothing but good things to say about Jorgie. He was a great player and a good teammate and we won a championship in ’09 together.”
Posada has been whining about how he was treated end of his career, which is ridiculous. Plus the Yanks are retiring his number this summer.
–I do have to note that the slumping Yankees, having lost five of six to drop to 22-17, have the best 1-2 bullpen duo in the game these days…Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller.
Betances has thrown 21 scoreless innings, with 32 strikeouts and 9 walks, while Miller has thrown 17.2 without allowing a run, yielding just three hits, with 29 strikeouts and 8 walks, as well as 13 saves.
—Josh Hamilton said the Angels front office prevented him from talking to owner Arte Moreno.
“I told everybody from MLB to [manager] Mike Scioscia, even when I was there and wasn’t playing in 2013, I wasn’t being the guy that I was supposed to be,” Hamilton said before a rehab game on Saturday. “In 2014, same thing. I tried to reach out to the owner, Arte, and talk to him and tell him, ‘You know what? I’m working my butt off, and I want to be the guy that played against you for all these years.’ I was always turned down by the general manager and team president. They said they would let him know.”
Hamilton added he reached out again after admitting to MLB that he had a drug and alcohol relapse in late February, which eventually led to the Angels trading him to Texas.
“I did what I needed to do to be a responsible man and employee and reach out to him, and I was always denied that opportunity, so my hands are clean.”
Hamilton is going to be evaluated during this coming week to determine if he’s ready for the big leagues. Sounds like he’ll be up in 7 to 10 days.
–We note the passing of outfielder “Downtown” Ollie Brown, who played for numerous teams from 1965-77, with his best seasons in San Diego, 1969-70, when he homered 20 and 23 times. The Padres had claimed him with their first pick in the 1968 expansion draft.
Brown would hit 102 homers and drive 454, while batting .265 for his career, and he had a cannon of an arm. Former catcher and teammate Chris Cannizzaro said Brown had the second best he had ever seen in a right fielder, “Next to Clemente.”
Brown was born in Tuscaloosa, Ala., but the family moved to Long Beach, Calif., early on. Ollie and his two brothers spent all their time at the playground, and older brother, Willie, played football and baseball at USC and three seasons in the NFL, while younger brother, Oscar, played baseball at USC and spent five seasons in the majors with the Atlanta Braves.
Ollie signed as a teen with the San Francisco Giants and Brown once told the story of a road trip in West Virginia while playing in the Appalachian Rookie League. As told by the L.A. Times’ Gary Klein:
“(Brown) and other African American players were informed by their manager that they would not be allowed to stay in the team hotel but would be taken to the home of an African American family.
“ ‘We were raised in Long Beach,’ Willie Brown said. ‘We had not been around segregation. He was not used to being treated that way.’
“When the team returned to Salem (Va.), Ollie Brown told his manager to tell the Giants to move him to another team and location or he would quit baseball.
“He was sent to an affiliate in Decatur, Ill., and later flourished for Fresno in the California League, where he hit 40 home runs. Some of the blasts were so prodigious they earned him the nickname ‘Downtown.’
“ ‘I hit a lot of balls to center field,’ he told MLB.com in 2012. ‘And the way the ballpark was situated, when you did it over the fence, the ball was going the direction of downtown.
“ ‘One day, after I hit a home run, the radio announcer said the ball was going downtown. That’s how I got my nickname.’”
Deflategate, part trois….
“You know who knows everything about those 11 under-inflated footballs at the AFC Championship Game and Deflategate? Jim McNally and John Jastremski, that’s who. They’re the equipment guys who used to work for the New England Patriots, who continue to say this is all one big misunderstanding.
“But if it really is just a big misunderstanding, then why were McNally and Jastremski suspended, and not just for four games, suspended indefinitely, by the Patriots?
“McNally and Jastremski were suspended the day Ted Wells’ report on Deflategate was released. Only now that the Patriots have rebutted the Wells Report with a document that seems longer than the Pentagon Papers, and the NFL Players Association has appealed, and there is at least the suggestion that this whole thing might end up in federal court (as if federal courts just drop everything when pro sports can’t figure things out), you have the right to ask a question:
“If McNally is innocent of any wrongdoing and Jastremski is innocent of any wrongdoing and Tom Brady is innocent, why were McNally and Jsatremski suspended? Maybe it was just because of the text messages between the two that were supposed to be some kind of laugh riot, including the parts where we’re supposed to believe that they’re talking about weight loss when they talk about a ‘Deflator.’
“McNally and Jastremski, pawns in this thing, pawns and collateral damage treated like nobodies, they aren’t talking. For now. Brady is talking only through his reps. The Patriots, through one of their attorneys, did plenty of talking in that rebuttal, which occasionally lapsed into unintended self-parody, especially when it tried to explain away those text messages between McNally and Jastremski as just, well, locker room hot air.
“From the Patriots’ rebuttal, written by attorney Daniel Goldberg:
“ ‘Mr. Jastremski would sometimes work out and bulk up – he is a slender guy and his goal was to get to 200 pounds. Mr. McNally is a big fellow and had the opposite goal: to lose weight. ‘Deflate’ was a term they used to refer to losing weight.’
“Well, there you are and here you are, with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell – people now act as if Goodell took the air out of those footballs – saying he will be the one hearing Brady’s appeal of his suspension and the players’ union demanding that Goodell step aside in favor of an independent arbitrator. In so doing, of course, the people running the players’ union in pro football look and sound and act like the biggest phonies around. They also make people who are sick of this story actually start rooting for Goodell in something.”
“The Patriots’ rebuttal to the investigative report compiled by Theodore V. Wells Jr. also said that McNally used a private bathroom at Gillette Stadium before the AFC championship game for one minute and 40 seconds not to take air out of footballs, as the Wells report suggests, but to relieve himself. The Patriots’ rebuttal argues that 100 seconds is the length of time consistent for ‘a gentleman to enter a bathroom, relieve himself, wash his hands, and leave.’
“From the Patriots’ standpoint, the science is indisputable. So is the fact that with each passing day it becomes harder to take the matter seriously.
“This whole affair first veered toward farce before the Super Bowl, when Patriots Coach Bill Belichick said in a news conference that he was not the Mona Lisa Vito of air pressure in footballs. The saga has now slipped further, to the point that the most important issue now facing the NFL would seem to be why a middle-aged employee chose to enter a bathroom – and not painful allegations that the league overlooks domestic violence, drug use and the long-term physical effects of the game.”
–In a poll of football fans for ESPN/ABC News, some of the following questions were asked.
Do you support or oppose the NFL’s action against Tom Brady and the Patriots?
All fans: Support – 63%. Oppose – 26%
Avid fans: Support – 73%. Oppose – 24%
Do you think Brady cheated or not?
All fans: Cheated – 54%. Didn’t – 35%
Avid fans: Cheated – 69%. Oppose – 29%
Is the Patriots’ Super Bowl victory tainted because of this incident?
All fans: Tainted – 46%. Not – 49%
Avid fans: Tainted – 42%. Not – 58%
Would you support or oppose Brady being elected to the Football Hall of Fame at some point?
All fans: Support – 63%. Oppose – 28%
Avid fans: Support – 73% 0ppose – 24%
–We note the passing of former NFL kicker Garo Yepremian, who died of cancer at the age of 70 in Media, Pa.
Yepremian, a native of Cyprus, came to the United States at age 22 and kicked in the first NFL game he ever saw. He broke in with the Detroit Lions, signed as their first soccer-style kicker when that was a novelty. As a rookie in 1966, he set a league record with six field goals in a game at Minnesota.
But he is best known for his years in Miami, making the Pro Bowl twice.
His 37-year-old field goal in the second overtime ended the longest game in NFL history, the famous playoff victory over Kansas City on Christmas Day in 1971, and he helped the Dolphins win back-to-back Super Bowls in 1972-73.
But Yepremiam’s gaffe in January ’73 nearly spoiled Miami’s bid for a perfect season.
With the Dolphins up 14-0 and on the verge of finishing 17-0, Washington blocked Yepremian’s field-goal attempt. Garo proceeded to pick up the ball and tried to throw it but fumbled, and the Redskins’ Mike Bass picked it up and ran 49 yards for the score that made it 14-7 with minutes still in the game.
“I thought, ‘Boy, this will be great if Garo kicks this field goal and we go ahead 17-0 in a 17-0 season. What a great way that would be to remember the game,’” Shula said. “And then Garo did what he did, and it’s 14-7 with still a couple of minutes to go. I’m looking for Garo, and I’m ready to kill Garo, and I couldn’t find him. He went down to one end of the bench, and I haven’t seen him since.”
Yepremian said in a 2007 interview: “Every airport you go to, people point to you and say, ‘Here’s the guy who screwed up in the Super Bowl.’ After a while it bothers you. If it was anybody else he would go crazy, but fortunately I’m a happy-go-lucky guy.”
NBA Playoffs
–The Atlanta Hawks were down 2-1 to Washington when they won Game 4 106-101, then won Game 5, 82-81, on Al Horford’s buzzer-beater.
So Friday, in Game 6 at Washington, Atlanta prevailed 94-91 as a tying three-pointer by the Wizards’ Paul Pierce at the buzzer was disallowed because the ball was still in Pierce’s hands when the clock struck 0.0.
The difference for the Hawks the last three, aside from Horford’s solid all-around play, was Wake Forest’s Jeff Teague, who penetrated time and again for easy buckets or dish-offs for scores; Teague scoring 20 points with 7 assists in the clincher, even as Kyle Korver was going 0-for-7 from three.
For Washington, John Wall returned to play the final two games with a broken hand and we’ll never know if the Wizards somehow would have been better off without him, seeing as they were up 2-1 series without their All-Star point guard. Wall was just 7-of-21 from the field on Friday night.
Road teams, by the way, are 6-0 in Game 6s in these playoffs.
Make that 7-0, after Golden State wrapped up their series against Memphis, at Memphis, 108-95. Steph Curry had 32 points. Like with Teague, Curry rallied his team back from a 2-1 deficit when Steph got his three-point shot back. After going 4-of-21 from downtown in Games 2 and 3, the last three he was 18-of-35 from behind the arc. Game, set, match, when Curry lights it up like that.
Anyway, your editor is now very fired up for Atlanta-Cleveland, the Cavs having put down the Bulls, 94-73, on Thursday to take their series 4-2.
But back out west, the Clippers were forced into a Game 7 after a startling collapse in Game 6 at the Staples Center on Thursday.
Leading by as many as 19 points in the third quarter and 13 early in the fourth, the Clippers were outscored 31-7 to end the game…with Rockets star James Harden on the bench!
So in Game 7 in Houston (road teams were 24-95 in Game 7s in league playoff history heading into this one)…the Rockets prevailed, 113-100. It was the third time the Clippers failed to close out a second-round playoff series. In 45 years, the franchise has never advanced to the conference finals.
This also means the Clippers have never made it past the second round with Chris Paul. It doesn’t matter how well he might play individually, the fact is, going back to his days at Wake Forest, Chris Paul is a loser.
Jeff Teague? He’s already done something Paul never did. And Teague doesn’t have Blake Griffin.
—Shaquille O’Neal’s boy, Shareef O’Neal, is said to be very good at basketball. Shareef is a 6-foot-7 freshman at Windward School in Los Angeles
College Basketball
The NCAA men’s rules committee announced a range of proposals Friday – including a 30-second shot clock, an extension of the restricted-area arc and fewer second-half timeouts – in an attempt to generate more scoring and cut down on the deadly final few minutes of stoppages.
The shot clock was last reduced, from 45 to 35 seconds, in 1993-94.
As for timeouts, they would be reduced from 5 to 4, with no more than 3 being carried over into the second half. Plus there would be stricter enforcement of resumption of play coming out of timeouts and after a player has fouled out. Also, team timeouts within 30 seconds before media timeouts will become media timeouts, with the exception of first team timeout in second half.
There are other changes, including stricter enforcement of physical play rules that were put in play for 2013 but gradually not adhered to, especially perimeter defense on the dribble and physicality in post play.
The changes should be approved at an NCAA meeting in June. Sounds all good to me.
—Bill Guthridge passed away. He was 83. Guthridge was a longtime assistant to Dean Smith at North Carolina and replaced him as head coach when Smith retired.
Guthridge had been alongside Smith for 30 years, and, inheriting a team that was ranked fourth in the preseason AP poll, he led the 1997-98 Tar Heels to a 34-4 record and the Final Four. He also guided them to a surprise Final Four appearance in 2000, his final year on the bench in Chapel Hill.
Golf Balls
–Wow…Rory McIlroy won the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow in Charlotte by seven shots, a performance that included a record 61 on Saturday…11 birdies!
Rory picked up his 11th PGA Tour title having just turned 26. He also now has four straight Top 8 finishes (2 wins). I’d say he’s answered the challenge of Jordan Spieth.
So we wait to see what the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay brings. It’s going to be interesting, visually spectacular, but highly controversial.
–Meanwhile, Wake Forest pulled a major choke job, a la Chris Paul, in finishing 10th in the NCAA Chapel Hill Regional, failing to qualify for the NCAA Championship. [Top five advancing…which was Charlotte, Stanford, Florida State, Florida and Clemson.]
Yes, we were playing three freshmen and one sophomore, but this is a team that had risen to No. 8 in the country last fall. Every year it’s the same thing.
[And Wake’s Webb Simpson, while finishing T-2 at Quail Hollow, missed countless short putts that otherwise would have had him right up there with Rory.]
Premier League
—Manchester United clinched the final Champions League spot* when Liverpool lost to Crystal Palace, 3-1, on Saturday in Steven Gerrard last appearance at Anfield, his 709th match for Liverpool as he now joins the Los Angeles Galaxy.
*Man U is joined in the Champions League by Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal.
–Meanwhile, Newcastle’s Premier League status remained in doubt because of a 2-1 loss at Queens Park Rangers, which had already been guaranteed relegation.
Hull was also closer to relegation after losing, 2-0, at Tottenham. Hull has one game left, at home to Man U next Sunday.
17. Newcastle 36 points…West Ham final match
18. Hull 34…Man U
19. Burnley 30…relegated
20. QPR 30…relegated
Mount St. Helens…35 years later
–Amazing…35 years ago, Mount St. Helens erupted, killing 57. I’ve told you in the past that one of the cool flights in the world is the approach (on a sunny day) into Portland, Oregon airport with Mt. St. Helens on the right (Oregon’s Mt. Hood on the left if you forget where to sit), plus the gorgeous Columbia River valley down below. It helps you put things in perspective.
“Within minutes of a 5.1 earthquake that hit at 8:32 a.m. on May 18, 1980, the volcano’s north flank collapsed, triggering the largest landslide in recorded history. That set off powerful explosions that sent ash, steam, rocks and volcanic gas upward and outward. The lateral blast scorched and flattened about 230 square miles of dense forest.
“Soon after, a plume of volcanic ash rose over 80,000 feet and rained down as far as 250 miles away in Spokane. Pushed by winds over the next few days, the ash cloud traveled east across the U.S. and encircled the globe in 15 days….
“Scientists say Mount St. Helens is the most active volcano in the Cascades and the most likely to erupt again, perhaps in this generation, but they can’t predict years in advance when or how big it will be.”
May 18, 1980, Mt. St. Helens blew. A few days earlier, your editor picked up his sheepskin from Wake Forest University despite an incredibly checkered academic career. [To be honest, all the squares were black.] Are the two events related? Probably not. But what is amazing is the comeback the Mt. St. Helens area itself has made in the aftermath.
Writing in Smithsonian, David B. Williams captured the scene from that dark day in the state of Washington.
“The eruption blew away the top 1,314 feet of the mountain, reducing the once symmetrical, glacier-covered summit to a horseshoe-shaped crater. An avalanche of rocks plugged the Toutle River Valley at the base of the mountain and created a 23-square-mile zone of barren, hummocky land. A 300-mile-an-hour lateral blast of hot air and debris flattened the surrounding forest. A cloud of ash climbed to 80,000 feet in 15 minutes and circled the globe in 15 days. Torrents of superheated air, gases and rocks – a mixture known as a pyroclastic flow – surged down the mountain’s northern face for hours, destroying everything in its path. All told, the eruption blasted more than 230 square miles of forests, lakes, meadows and streams. It killed 57 people, making it the deadliest eruption in U.S. history, and millions of animals and plants. ‘Death is everywhere,’ the Oregonian newspaper reported. ‘The living are not welcome.’”
[I would have added the eruption spawned a ton of dreadful movies.]
However, as Williams notes, today “life has returned with a vengeance.” Scientists have counted some 150 species of wildflowers, shrubs and trees. And 11 species of small mammals, including squirrels, mice and shrews, now inhabit the land. “Each has sped up the area’s recovery by catching seeds, burrowing through soil and luring predators such as raptors and weasels.” [Editor: Never trust a weasel.]
And then there are the toads. Williams writes:
“As luck (for the toads) would have it, the amphibians are abundant here because they happened to be hibernating underground when the volcano exploded in 1980. By the time the animals emerged a month or so later, the eruption had blasted down all the trees around the lake. More sunlight hit the water, making it unusually warm and especially rich in the aquatic organisms toads feed on. The blast also killed off most of the toads’ predators. Intriguingly, the western toad is declining in most of its range beyond Mount St. Helens. ‘It may be a species that prospers with disturbance,’ says (the scientist), ‘which no one had suspected.’”
So I’m thinking; you know how we believe the only thing left after a nuclear exchange would be a bunch of cockroaches? Don’t count out the toads.
Speaking of the end of the world, Rick Weiss of the Washington Post had a recent piece on the ongoing danger the United States faces with all its volcanoes, many of which we are not listening to, certainly not as intently as at Mt. St. Helens or Kilauea in Hawaii.
“The United States is among the most volcano-rich nations on Earth – home to 45 eruptions and 15 cases of notable unrest at 33 volcanoes since 1980. But while a handful of hazardous mountains are relatively well-laden with monitoring equipment, many dozing giants are beyond scientists’ electronic eyes and ears, posing a significant threat to thousands of people.”
Now, granted, half the 169 U.S. volcanoes we know of (not sure whether this includes George Steinbrenner, by the way) are in remote regions of Alaska, but one of the big ongoing dangers involves the issue of aircraft.
“That is because the plumes of ash that can spew undetected for many hours from unmonitored volcanoes are largely invisible to commercial airline pilots and their radar but can quickly cause jet engines to fail.
“Nearly 100 commercial jets are known to have inadvertently flown into volcanic ash plumes since 1980 at altitudes as high as 37,000 feet, including eight in which one or more engines shut down. Three 747s lost all four engines.
“In every case, pilots managed to restart their engines – albeit after harrowing drops in altitude. But those warnings should not be ignored, said geologist John Ewert. ‘Three 747s have been turned into gliders, OK? And they are really lousy gliders.’”
By the way, geologists are most concerned about 32 high- or moderate-threat volcanoes, again, most in Hawaii or Alaska, while another 21 in California, Washington, Oregon and Yellowstone pose lesser threats.
—Bill Simmons has made his last appearance at ESPN, four months before his contract expires in September. ESPN had previously announced it would not negotiate a new contract with him, after Simmons demanded a deal at $6 million per year.
Simmons wasn’t shy about dissing folks, especially Roger Goodell, who he called a “liar” last fall, which cost him two weeks’ pay.
But the final straw for the network was last week, when on the “Dan Patrick Show,” Simmons said Goodell lacks “testicular fortitude.” President John Skipper cut Simmons loose.
“In the end, one could say with minimal originality, but considerable accuracy, that Bill Simmons simply flew too close to the sun. He miscalculated how much value ESPN put on him and on his unique abilities and talents. He might also have forgotten a cardinal company rule that remains sacred whether it’s ESPN’s Old Guard talking or its new one: Nobody, but nobody, can be bigger than those four initials.
“On the other hand, it could be said that Bristol forgot a kind of cardinal rule itself: In an era where fans can get not just scores but highlights, and a ton more, on their smart phones, distinctive and original content is the way to engage and hold onto an audience plopped in front of big 99-inch screens. That content often comes with a big price tag – and with a requirement that the people with unique abilities and talent who create it be treated like the stars you’ve paid for.”
–Voiceover legend Harry Shearer announced he was leaving “The Simpsons” after 26 years, taking the voices of Montgomery Burns, Ned Flanders, Seymour Skinner and Kent Brockman with him.
Can the show survive? It is already preparing for what is assumed to be its final two seasons, Nos. 27 and 28. Showrunner Al Jean told CNN, “We do not plan to ‘kill off’ his characters, but replace them with the most talented members of the voiceover community.”
Shearer, 71, reportedly turned down $14 million to stay with the Fox show. The sticking point seemed to be Shearer’s demand that he be allowed to do outside projects, but according to reports, the proposed deal would have given him that freedom.
He was the only cast holdout left in signing a two-year contract extension.
–The entire United States 4x100m relay team have been stripped of their London 2012 Olympic silver medals as a consequence of Tyson Gay’s drugs ban.
Former 100m and 200m world champion Gay was suspended for a year after testing positive for a banned anabolic steroid.
Gay, 32, returned his London 2012 medal when his suspension was announced in May 2014. Now the International Olympic Committee has told U.S. Olympic bosses that the whole team must return their medals.
In a statement, the USOC said, “We will begin efforts to have the medals returned, and support all measures to protect clean athletes.”
This sucks, but I guess I get it. The American team finished second behind Jamaica.
–There’s a blurb in the May 16 issue of The Economist concerning a paper just published in the Lancet, by Darryl Leong of McMaster University in Canada, which “reports that a simple way to assess how likely someone is to die in the next few years is to test the strength of his grip.”
Leong and a team of collaborators around the world used a device to test the grips of 140,000 people aged between 35 and 70 in 17 countries. “Three of these countries – Canada, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates – were rich. Four – Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Zimbabwe – were poor.” Ten were defined as middle-income, like Colombia and Poland.
Bottom line, “Swedes, it seems, have the world’s firmest handshakes, and Pakistanis the limpest. But, overall, the strength of someone’s grip was indeed a good predictor of how likely he was to die during the course of the study.”
Seems to me this is why Swedes are great hockey players and Pakistanis aren’t….though they are good field hockey players, which requires more of a gentle touch.
–Not for nothing, but there have been three scary crashes in practice at Indy this week as the running of the 500 is next Sunday (first year without Jim Nabors…sniff sniff…). All three cars were Chevys. Hopefully this doesn’t portend similar experiences in the race itself.
–My local high school, Summit, has a good distance runner, Leland Jones, who won the 1,600 in the Union County Track and Field Championships the other day, but instead of defending his 3,200 title, ran the 800 and won it with a personal best. He thus became one of the few runners in Union County history to have won the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 at the outdoor championships.
But the only reason why I write this is because you know why he ran the 800 instead of the 3,200? “He had to hustle off to his prom.”
Love it. And congratulations, Leland. Not only for your storied career on the track, but for making Bar Chat!
–But speaking of high school distance runners, last weekend, Matthew Maton became just the sixth American high-school student to run a mile under four minutes! Ironically, it was 50 years ago Friday that Jim Ryun became the first to do so, breaking the tape in 3:58.3 at a Kansas high-school track meet in Wichita, his hometown.
But as the Wall Street Journal’s Kevin Helliker notes: “(Of the other five), four did so at non-high-school events, meaning they benefited from older and often-faster competition. In breaking four minutes last Friday night, for instance, Maton finished third behind two University of Oregon runners. The fifth student to break four, Lukas Verzbicas, ran 3:59.71 at the 2011 Adidas Dream Mile, an annual competition between the nation’s fastest high-school milers.”
Ryun’s time stood as the high-school mile record for 36 years until Virginia’s Alan Webb ran 3:53.43 at the Prefontaine Classic in 2001, finishing fifth behind some world-class stars.
Ryun’s mark is still the fastest in a race between high-school milers, which is amazing. 50 years!
The other two to break 4 minutes were Tim Danielson in 1966, and Marty Liquori of Cedar Grove, N.J., in 1967.
–“Entourage” the movie premieres June 3rd. I’m very curious to see how this does at the box office. I loved this show, but I can’t see it doing well. “Entourage” was kind of an insider hit, not a mammoth one like “Game of Thrones” or “The Sopranos.”
Speaking of ‘GoT’, hard to ignore the dragons when it comes to the All-Species List (ASL). Just sayin’.
Back to summer movies, you know what flick Rolling Stone is giving a good early review to that is kind of surprising? “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” (Aug. 14). “In a summer of CGI marvels, the sight of two nonsuperheroes bumping heads and leaving bruises is downright revolutionary.” [Henry Cavill plays Napoleon Solo, while Armie Hammer plays Illya Kuryakin. Loved this show growing up.]
–Back to the All-Species List (also coming to a theatre near you this summer)….
From the AP: “A 16-year-old girl was airlifted to a hospital with serious injuries after she was gored by a bison in Yellowstone National Park while posing for a picture.
“The victim, an exchange student from Taiwan, was visiting the park with her host family.
“She was near the Old Faithful geyser and less than 6 feet from the bison when she turned her back to the beast to have her picture taken shortly after noon Friday, according to the National Park Service.
“The bison stepped forward and gored her. Her wounds were serious but not life-threatening, officials said.
“The Park Service advises visitors to stay at least 25 yards away from bison in the park.”
And this was 6 feet?! What was the host family thinking? And, boy, I wouldn’t want to be the one to have to explain to the girl’s family back in Taiwan how this all went down.
‘Man’ remains No. 323 on the ASL. ‘Buffalo,’ being as stupid an animal as there is, but quite tasty when prepared properly, is No. 142.
Separately, Director of Shark Attacks for Bar Chat, Bob S., reported on the University of Central Florida student, Josh Green, who was swimming alone at Cocoa Beach on May 7, when a shark grabbed onto his leg and immediately received a rapid succession of swift, accurate and powerful punches to its shark face.
According to Josh Green, it was a 4-5 ft. black tip shark.
After unloading the series of punches, Green swam to shore and later received a total of 18 stitches in his calf, foot and ankle.
Ah, youth. I would have been eaten whole before I knew what was happening.
“A Russian woman has been buried alive by a bear which was apparently saving her for its next meal after attacking and seriously injuring her.
“Natalya Pasternak, 55, had a miracle escape after her friend managed to flee the forest near Tynda in the Amur region and raise the alarm.
“Having left her with serious injuries, the bear mistakenly believed the postal worker to be dead and partially buried her beneath a pile of leaves – apparently planning to return later and eat her.”
The woman was rescued but was near death with very serious injuries and it’s not known if she is still alive, having been taken to hospital.
“The bear evidently thought the woman was dead and sought to bury her and hide its prey, as reported by The Siberian Times.
“When rescuers arrived at the scene, the bear attempted to attack them too.”
The bear was killed…and that’s when they discovered the woman, her arm poking out of a pile of leaves and sticks.
ASL Director Brad K. also passed on another story out of Russia, this one involving ‘Beaver,’ who as you know has been suspended for bad behavior, though we were thinking of reinstating him. Well, the suspension remains in place after this one.
“A woman in Russia who had her leg ripped open by an angry beaver was saved after a neighbor came running over and stabbed it in the head.
“Evgenia Eliseeva, 24, was at home in her village in southwest Russia’s Lipetsk region when she went outside to get a better phone signal to call her mum.
“But as she started dialing she felt a terrible pain in her leg and looked down to see a large animal had bitten into her calf.”
Miss Eliseeva said she had no idea what it was because it dark, “but it seemed to be standing on its tail as it was so tall.”
Ack! A Giant Beaver!
“Then he got on all fours and charged at me again. Its teeth were in my leg and it was furiously shaking its head from side to side.”
Evgenia was screaming and a man appeared out of nowhere after hearing the commotion.
“I didn’t stop to think what it was,” said Hleb Yefremov. “I just pulled out my knife and plunged it into the creature’s back. It was only later I realized it was a beaver and not a dog.”
Beaver expert Alexsander Saveliev told local media: “The only deadly beaver attack I can recall happened in Belarus when one attacked a fisherman.”
Worrisomely, this beaver did not appear to be rabid. “Beaver Nation” could be rising up over the ASL action.
You know my stance on this one. At one point ‘Beaver’ had vaulted into the top ten for avoiding the subprime crisis; quite an accomplishment for a rodent. But now the species needs to remember where its priorities lie. Building quality homes, with a water entrance, for Toll Brothers and not biting the hand that feeds it.
–So I’m reading this travel story in the New York Times on Medellin, Colombia, and there is this blurb on a recommended place to stay, the Charlee Hotel, which “is the city’s top boutique hotel, with plush rooms and a gym where you can spot Colombia’s top models posing for selfies between workouts.”
Huh. Kind of makes me want to start hitting the gym in Medellin.
–Rolling Stone had a list of artists and their favorite songs, and it was great to see country star Kacey Musgraves select Ray Price’s “For the Good Times” are her personal favorite. I’ve often said it’s easily one of the best tunes of all time. No.6 on her list is Glen Campbell’s “Gentle On My Mind,” another super selection.
You know what Brian Wilson’s favorite tune of all time is? George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” Now how cool is that?
Wilson commented: “ ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ is the first song I ever heard. When I was a little boy, very young, I heard it and said, ‘Mom, Mom, play it again!’ I loved the part where the violins came in. I just got this overwhelmingly beautiful vibe from the music.”
“This is the song that inspired me to produce records….I thought it was the greatest record I ever heard.” Brian is not alone in this assessment.
–Louis C.K. was his usual great self on SNL this week. Rihanna was awful.
–Finally, B.B. King died. He was 89.
“Mr. King married country blues to big-city rhythms and created a sound instantly recognizable to millions: a stinging guitar with a shimmering vibrato, notes that coiled and leapt like an animal, and a voice that groaned and bent with the weight of lust, longing and lost love.
“ ‘I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions,’ Mr. King said in his autobiography, ‘Blues All Around Me’ (1996), written with David Ritz.
“In performances, his singing and his solos flowed into each other as he wrung notes from the neck of his guitar, vibrating his hand as if it were wounded, his face a mask of suffering. Many of the songs he sang – like his biggest hit, ‘The Thrill Is Gone’ – were poems of pain and perseverance….
“B.B. stood for Blues Boy, a name he took with his first taste of fame in the 1940s. His peers were bluesmen like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, whose nicknames fit their hard-bitten lives. But he was born a King, albeit in a sharecropper’s shack surrounded by dirt-poor laborers and wealthy landowners.
“Mr. King went out on the road and never came back after one of his first recordings reached the top of the rhythm-and-blues charts in 1951. He began in juke joints, country dance halls and ghetto nightclubs, playing 342 one-night stands in 1956 and 200 to 300 shows a year for a half-century thereafter, rising to concert halls, casino main stages and international acclaim.
“He was embraced by rock ‘n’ roll fans of the 1960s and’70s, who remained loyal as they grew older together. His playing influenced many of the most successful rock guitarists of the era, including Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix….
“By his 80th birthday he was a millionaire many times over. He owned a mansion in Las Vegas, a closet full of embroidered tuxedoes and smoking jackets, a chain of nightclubs bearing his name (including a popular room on West 42nd Street in Manhattan) and the personal and professional satisfaction of having endured.
“Through it all he remained with the great love of his life, his guitar. He told the tale a thousand times: He was playing a dance hall in Twist, Ark., in the early 1950s when two men got into a fight and knocked over a kerosene stove. Mr. King fled the blaze – and then remembered his $30 guitar. He ran into the burning building to rescue it.
“He learned thereafter that the fight had been about a woman named Lucille. For the rest of his life, Mr. King addressed his guitars – big Gibsons, curved like a woman’s hips – as Lucille.
“He married twice, unsuccessfully, and was legally single from 1966 onward; by his own account he fathered 15 children with 15 women. But a Lucille was always at his side.”
As noted above, King was an indefatigable performer, and even in his later years kept a schedule that would test the endurance of musicians half his age. He once told the Los Angeles Times, “People thought I was truly a workaholic. But I never got the exposure in my kind of music [given to] other types of music that are exposed daily in the media… I’ve had one record that was played like other records. It was called ‘The Thrill Is Gone,’ the only one I ever had that was played on radio stations like other types of music, unless I was playing with somebody else.”
Riley B. King was born Sept. 25, 1925, on a cotton plantation between Itta Bena and Indianola, Miss. As a young teenager he could pick nearly 500 pounds a day, earning 35 cents for every 100 pounds.
King then learned to drive a tractor, upping his pay to $22.50 a day. He served briefly in the Army during World War II, but he was discharged because tractor drivers were more valuable as civilians.
King often cited the plantation owner, Johnson Barrett, as one of his key role models of his youth, and it was Barrett who advanced him $30 so he could buy his first guitar. [Randy Lewis / Los Angeles Times]
King would move to Memphis, where he started performing with musicians including singer Bobby “Blue” Bland and pianist Johnny Ace and soon caught the attention of blues man Sonny Boy Williamson, who had a radio show
In 1951, King connected with Sam Phillips, who was just building his own recording studio that eventually would become Sun Records, where Phillips discovered Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, and Carl Perkins, among others.
But before Sun went rock, Phillips was signing up blues musicians including King, Howlin’ Wolf and James Cotton.
“B.B. King was quick to tell anyone who asked that he was not the most skilled bluesman of the 20th century.
“But no one did more to spread the blues into the American mainstream than Riley ‘Blues Boy’ King…
“Some blues fans would argue that B.B. wasn’t even the most skilled bluesman named King – that Albert or Freddie or even Earl may have at times wrung more intricate music from their guitars than B.B. coaxed from the Gibson ES-335s, later ES-355s and ES-345s, that he called Lucille.
But no one – not Muddy Waters, not Howlin’ Wolf, not Robert Johnson himself – did more to lift the blues from the juke joints of the Mississippi Delta to White House ceremonies and center stage at the Grammy Awards.
“Equally gratifying, B.B. King lived to enjoy the rewards of a music that so often seemed to make everyone rich except the people who created and played it.”
While he didn’t eat well at all, King quit smoking after the first alarming Surgeon General’s report, and he later quit drinking. “People aren’t coming to see a drunk,” he used to say.
But one of his true regrets about working so hard is that he never saw his many children.
So I was going through one of my music books that I’m constantly referring to, this one Joel Whitburn’s “The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits,” and under B.B. King, it starts out, “The most famous blues singer/guitarist in the world today.”
Only one artist was awarded that label. Hopefully in his dying moments, King had one last thought; that he had led a pretty darn good life. He left his mark…and the world was a better place for it.
Top 3 songs for the week 5/15/71: #1 “Joy To The World” (Three Dog Night) #2 “Never Can Say Goodbye” (The Jackson 5…probably my favorite of theirs…) #3 “Put Your Hand In The Hand” (Ocean…eh…)…and…#4 “If” (Bread…if the Mets had some good middle infielders …) #5 “Me And You And A Dog Named Boo” (Lobo) #6 “Brown Sugar” (The Rolling Stones) #7 “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (Aretha Franklin) #8 “Stay Awhile” (The Bells) #9 “I Am…I Said” (Neil Diamond) #10 “Chick-A-Boom” (Daddy Dewdrop)
Baseball Quiz Answer: 1) Bert Blyleven has the most starts, 350, and most strikeouts, 2,082, through age-28 season since 1970. [Source: ESPN The Magazine] 2) The Yankees’ Mel Stottlemyre went 5 for 5 at the plate on Sept. 26, 1964, while also pitching a complete game shutout. Not a bad day. But overall that season, he was just 9 for 37, .243, and .160 for his career, though he did clout seven home runs.
