Detroit Pistons Quiz: Name the eight in the rotation who scored at least 7 points a game for both the 1988-89 and 1989-90 NBA champions. Answer below.
NBA Finals
Thursday night, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr shook things up and started forward Andre Iguodala for the first time all season and it worked, as “Iggy” helped hold LeBron James to just 20 points on 7 of 22 shooting, including a scoreless fourth quarter, while scoring 22 himself, with four 3-pointers. Warriors win, 103-82, to even the series at 2-2.
Afterwards, LeBron complained that coach Dave Blatt wasn’t playing veterans like Mike Miller and Shawn Marion enough, as players like James and Matthew Dellavedova have nothing in the tank by the fourth quarter.
LeBron commented after Game 4, “I was hoping our team could buy me a few minutes. I mean, it’s difficult. You want to be out there, but also you want to be effective. …I was gassed out.”
Well, in Game 5, back in Oakland, LeBron came through with a 40 point, 14 rebound, 11 assist effort, including 16 points in the fourth quarter, but with the score at 85-84 Golden State with 5:00 to play, the Warriors and Steph Curry went off on a 19-7 run to close the game, final score 104-91. Curry finished with 37, including 7 of 13 from downtown, 17 of the 37 in the fourth as he drained three tremendous threes down the stretch.
[And I just have to add, how much of an idiot is Iman Shumpert for giving up the layup at 91-84?]
–The consensus seems to be the Lakers will take Jahlil Okafor with their No. 2 pick, after Minnesota takes Karl-Anthony Towns with the first overall selection.
Ohio State guard D’Angelo Russell is praying the Lakers tab him with the No. 2, and it’s clear he doesn’t want to go to the Philadelphia 76ers, who have the third pick.
Magic Johnson went on Twitter to announce “I love Okafor because he’s won a state championship in HS, NCAA Title at Duke and he can bring that championship pedigree to the Lakers.”
ESPN’s Chad Ford has the Sixers taking Russell, and the Knicks, Emmanuel Mudiay, with the fourth pick. But clearly Phil Jackson (and the rest of the league) is becoming enamored with 7-footer Kristaps Porzingis out of Latvia, who is just 19 and a project, but is drawing comparisons to Dirk Nowitzki. I’d have no problem if the Knicks took him.
At the same time, Jackson could opt for a ‘sure thing’ in Duke swingman Justise Winslow.
Meanwhile, Murray State’s Cameron Payne has been rocketing up the board and is No. 11 on Ford’s list.
On a different issue, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, NJIT, finally found a Division I conference to join, the Atlanta Sun Conference, with the other seven members in the south, including four in Florida (North Florida, Florida Gulf Coast, Jacksonville and Stetson), along with South Carolina Upstate, Lipscomb (Tenn.), and Kennesaw State (Georgia).
And Phil W. passed on some good hoops news concerning our Wake Forest Demon Deacons. We picked up a nice transfer, Keyshawn Woods, who played his freshman year for Charlotte, averaging 8.4 points a game. The 6-3 guard, who will sit out a year and then have three years of eligibility left, shot 47% from downtown.
Stanley Cup Final
Chicago eked out a 2-1 victory Saturday night down in Tampa to take a 3-2 series lead. It’s the first time since 1951 the first five games of the finals have all been decided by one goal.
Ben Bishop was back in the net for the Lightning after his still undisclosed injury, but he played the happy wanderer in the first period, taking a stroll as if at a farmer’s market, and Chicago scored with the net unattended.
Monday, the Blackhawks can win their third Stanley Cup in six seasons in Chicago.
Saturday, it was the Blackhawks’ defense that shine, led by Niklas Hjalmarsson and his seven blocks. Antoine Vermette had the game-winner two minutes into the third period and Chicago goaltender Corey Crawford staved off a late Tampa Bay charge.
Last Wednesday, the Blackhawks evened the series at 2 with a 2-1 win in Chicago
–The Mets blew a 3-1 ninth-inning lead against the Braves on Saturday, wasting another sterling effort by Jacob deGrom. Last year’s Rookie of the Year has a 1.24 ERA in his last six starts, 53 strikeouts and five walks in 43 1/3. DeGrom (7-4, 2.33 overall) left after 7 yesterday, 1 run, 9 Ks. The Mets had been 30-0 in games they led after eight innings, but stellar closer Jeurys Familia was unavailable after the birth of his son.
Meanwhile, there is still a bit of buzz over Matt Harvey’s last four starts, in which he sports a 7.20 ERA, giving up a whopping 8 home runs. Overall, Harvey has yielded 12 homers in 79 innings this season, vs. just 7 in 178 in 2013 before he went down with Tommy John surgery. His velocity is fine, but his location sucks.
But the Mets are still over .500, 34-30, after a very solid comeback on Sunday from an 8-3, fourth-inning deficit, to beat Atlanta 10-8. Familia was back for a four-out save. Fans just want meaningful games in September, at least thru mid-month, for crying out loud.
–But next up for the Metropolitans are the 34-30 Toronto Blue Jays, four games; two in New York, then two there. All the Blue Jays have done is tie a team record with 11 straight wins, including Sunday’s 13-5 win over the Red Sox*.
Toronto has outscored the opposition during this streak by an amazing 88-40!
*For the Red Sox, rookie Eduardo Rodriguez came crashing down to earth, giving up 9 earned in 4 2/3 to send his ERA up to 3.55.
–The Washington Nationals placed first baseman Ryan Zimmerman on the DL the other day with plantar fasciitis issues, the fourth starting position player to hit the disabled list in a little more than two months; joining Jayson Werth, Denard Span and Anthony Rendon, who have all lost significant time this year. Pitchers Doug Fister, Stephen Strasburg and Craig Stammen are also currently out.
But as Manager Matt Williams said, “Nobody could give a darn [about our injuries].”
And on Sunday, Washington’s Max Scherzer threw a one-hitter, striking out 16, as the Nats defeated the Brewers 4-0. Scherzer is 7-5, 1.93, but he should be 10-2.
—“King Felix” Hernandez had his worst start ever on Friday, giving up 8 earned runs in just 1/3 of an inning as the Astros blanked the Mariners 10-0. So Hernandez’ record moved to 9-3, with the ERA ballooning to 3.38.
But after an 8-1 comeback win on Saturday over the Astros, Seattle then lost 13-0 on Sunday to fall to 28-35. Dreadful, given the pre-season expectations. Robinson Cano is hitting .237 with 2 home runs and a piddly 19 RBI.
–The White Sox lost to the Rays 2-1, Sunday, but Chicago hurler Chris Sale had another 12 strikeouts in just 6 2/3. He thus became the first pitcher since Pedro Martinez in 2001 to strike out 12 or more four straight games.
–Pittsburgh’s Gerrit Cole became the majors first 10-game winner (10-2, 1.71) as he allowed 1 earned in six innings in a 4-3 win over the Phillies Saturday.
–Oakland’s Sonny Gray improved to 8-3, 1.60 ERA, with 7 2/3, 0 earned, in the A’s 8-3 win over the Angels on Sunday. Where would the 26-39 A’s be without Gray?
–The Pirates’ A.J. Burnett and Philadelphia’s Cole Hamels hooked up Sunday, with the Pirates winning 1-0 in 11. Burnett went 9 scoreless to lower his ERA to 1.89. Hamels, 5-5, 2.96, went 7, striking out 12. The Phillies are a pathetic 22-42. The Bucs improved to 35-27.
–Michael O’keeffe and Christian Red / New York Daily News
“Just when he thought he was out, they pull him back in.
“It’s been months since Alex Rodriguez completed his season-long suspension and he insists he just wants to focus on baseball, but the steroid-stained slugger can’t seem to escape his Biogenesis nightmare.
“In a bombshell lawsuit filed in Miami state court, Lazaro Collazo – a former University of Miami pitching coach and a defendant in the Biogenesis criminal case – alleges that Rodriguez, a business associate and the private investigation firm A-Rod used in his bitter arbitration battle with Major League Baseball violated Florida law by buying confidential medical records and sharing them with third parties, including federal prosecutors and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“ ‘Defendants bought and obtained the Biogenesis documents, including Plaintiff Collazo’s confidential medical records/information, in an effort to protect Defendant A-Rod from MLB discipline that would have resulted in major financial losses to Defendant A-Rod and jeopardized the remainder of his career and earning potential,’ the lawsuit said.
“The lawsuit…claims that A-Rod paid $200,000 via wire transfer to an ex-con named Gary Jones for Biogenesis documents, including Collazo’s medical records.”
–Meanwhile, A-Rod crossed the 2,000 career RBI mark over the weekend and now sits at 2,001, behind Hank Aaron’s 2,297 and Babe Ruth’s 2,214.
Yeah, yeah…I know. The official Major League Baseball stats, as composed by Elias, don’t recognize RBIs before 1920, but, c’mon. We aren’t talking Cap Anson and his probably bogus 2,075. If Ruth’s total isn’t accurate, it is off by like 2 or 3, max. [Think Hack Wilson and his 191-RBI season, which for decades was listed as 190.]
But A-Rod is also up to 2,995 career hits after an 0-for-4 on Sunday.
–Finally, Saturday I did something I’ve been meaning to do for years; go to Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, NY, south of Chappaqua, to pay my respects to Babe Ruth; Babe being buried there in section 25.
So Ken P., who hails from the area and is a huge baseball fan, and I had a perfect day for traipsing all over the beautiful grounds…where we also found the grave sites of Jimmy Cagney (he’s in a “drawer” as they call it), famous journalist and society writer Dorothy Killgalen, actor Sal Mineo (these two weren’t easy to find, both being mere slabs on the ground), and Yankee great Billy Martin, who I didn’t realize until we checked in at the office was buried directly behind the Babe!
You can find photos on my Facebook or Twitter pages, but Babe’s site was pretty much as you’d expect…some beer cans/bottles, a baseball card, a rubber hot dog, cigars, and a Baby Ruth candy bar, plus tons of baseballs. I can’t say it was kept up well, but then that’s part of its charm.
Billy Martin, on the other hand, clearly has family in the area taking care of his plot. It’s immaculate, with just some stones allowed on the monument, plus a matching marble bench directly across…a very nice touch.
Well before venturing to Hawthorne, I glanced through Lawrence S. Ritter’s “The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It,” one of the best books of its kind, just to see what some of his teammates and competitors said about Babe Ruth.
Jimmy Austin (1909-1922): “The Babe was always friendly, a real nice guy who’d go out of his way any time to do you a favor….What a warmhearted, generous soul he was…always time for a laugh or a wisecrack. The Babe always had a twinkle in his eye, and when he’d hit a homer against us he’d never trot past third without giving me a wink.
“The Babe would give you the shirt off his back. All you had to do was ask him. The big fellow wasn’t perfect. Everybody knows that. But that guy had a heart. He really did. A heart as big as a watermelon, and made out of pure gold.”
Harry Hooper (1909-25): “Babe Ruth joined us [Boston] in the middle of 1914, a nineteen-year-old kid. He was a left-handed pitcher then, and a good one. He had never been anywhere, didn’t know anything about manners or how to behave among people – just a big overgrown green pea. You probably remember him with that big belly he got later on. But that wasn’t there in 1914. George was six-foot-two and weighed 198 pounds, all of it muscle. He had a slim waist, huge biceps, no self-discipline, and not much education – not so very different from a lot of other nineteen-year-old would-be ballplayers. Except for two things: he could eat more than anyone else, and he could hit a baseball further.
“Lord, he ate too much. He’s stop along the road when we were traveling and order half a dozen hot dogs and as many bottles of soda pop, stuff them in, one after the other, give a few big belches, and then roar, ‘OK, boys, let’s go.’ That would hold Babe for a couple of hours, and then he’d be at it again. A nineteen-year-old youngster, mind you!
“He was such a rube that he got more than his share of teasing, some of it not too pleasant. ‘The Big Baboon’ some of them used to call him behind his back, and then a few got up enough nerve to ridicule him to his face. This started to get under his skin, and when they didn’t let up he finally challenged the whole ball club. Nobody was so dumb as to take him up on it, so that put an end to that.
“You know, I saw it all happen, from beginning to end. But sometimes I still can’t believe what I saw: this nineteen-year-old kid, crude, poorly educated, only lightly brushed by the social veneer we call civilization, gradually transformed into the idol of American youth and the symbol of baseball the world over – a man loved by more people and with an intensity of feeling that perhaps has never been equaled before or since. I saw a man transformed from a human being into something pretty close to a god. If somebody had predicted that back on the Boston Red Sox in 1914, he would have been thrown into a lunatic asylum.”
Rube Bressler (1914-32): “Ruth (was) totally different – easygoing, friendly. There was only one Babe Ruth. He went on the ball field like he was playing in a cow pasture, with cows for an audience. He never knew what fear or nervousness was. He played by instinct, sheer instinct. He wasn’t smart, he didn’t have any education, but he never made a wrong move on a baseball field.
“One of the greatest pitchers of all time, and then he became a great judge of a fly ball, never threw to the wrong base when he was playing the outfield, terrific arm, good base runner, could hit the ball twice as far as any other human being. He was like a damn animal. He had that instinct. They know when it’s going to rain, things like that. Nature, that was Ruth!”
Of course you have the stats, and they’ve all been covered in this space over the 16+ years of Bar Chat. But one of my favorites was his performance in a 1928 4-game sweep of St. Louis in the World Series. Ruth was 10 for 16, 3 doubles, 3 home runs, 4 RBI, 4 BB, 9 runs scored!
As Ronald Reagan would have said, ‘Not bad, not bad at all.’
In reading Ritter’s book I uncovered a few other nuggets I’ll parcel out over the next few weeks.
So for all you baseball fans in the New York area, here’s my tip. Go pay the Babe a visit…and Billy too. Maybe in October. Leaves turning, the Fall Classic in the air….
Golf Balls
—Fabian Gomez of Argentina picked up his first PGA Tour win at the FedEx St. Jude Classic. Phil Mickelson finished T-3 with a closing 65, which bodes well for next week and the U.S. Open.
–On the Champions Tour, 57-year-old Bernhard Langer (yikes, just realized he’s my age), won his fifth Champions Tour major at the Seniors PGA Championship, 24th senior win overall, by a whopping six strokes over Kirk Triplett. Langer had an eight stroke 54-hole lead. Talk about being in great physical condition.
“For several years, many have said: Can we please stop obsessing over Tiger Woods, giving him the attention that other players, now in their prime, deserve?
“But if you aren’t watching Woods now, then you would probably, out of good taste, also turn away from live footage of a large meteor crashing into the earth.
“Right now, he’s the most morbidly fascinating one-man car wreck in American sports in at least a half-century. When have so many people, such as me, felt so sorry for a former best-athlete-in-the-world, while others almost gloat at his plight?
“From one week to the next, you don’t know whether Woods will walk off the course with another injury, show up in public with a mysterious missing front tooth, shoot an 85 (last Saturday), break up for unstated reasons with Olympic star Lindsey Vonn after three years or show up (for a blink) on the top 10 leader board at the Masters two months ago. He’ll arrive at the U.S. Open next week ranked 181st in the world.
“And through it all, Woods acts like nothing terribly unusual is happening. He’s a man going over Victoria Falls in a barrel yelling: No problem. Just a few swing tweaks. I’ll be better than ever. See you at the bottom!….
“Woods doesn’t need to quit golf just because he stinks right now. But he would be wise to stop trying to con us about how bad his game is….
“No great golfer ever has been hurt so much, blown up his game so often and also been scrutinized and pilloried so harshly. How much can one man take? Once, he was breathtaking. Now Tiger Woods is hold-your-breath.”
–Back to Tiger’s glory days, specifically 1999-2000, Mark Broadie has a piece in the July issue of Golf Magazine and an amazing feat that should be ranked right up there with Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. The greatest golf record you’ve never heard of.
The PGA Tour’s accurate scoring data dates back to 1983 and Broadie did some digging. There have been about 1,500 Tour events played since then.
A beat-the-field streak is the number of consecutive rounds in which a player’s score is better than the average score of the field for that round. For example, if a player shoots 69 when the field average is 70.8, the player has “beaten the field.” Stringing together a long run of fine rounds is a great measure of dominance and consistency.
Broadie: “Considering all players at all PGA Tour events since 1983, what would you conjecture is the record for the longest number of consecutive rounds beating the field? I put the question to dozens of golfers, fans, and Tour professionals, and their estimates ranged from 15 to about 35 rounds.”
Mark O’Meara has the second-longest beat-the-field streak, with an impressive 33 consecutive rounds in 1992. Steward Cink is next at 32, Peter Jacobsen, 30, and Luke Donald, 29.
But from August 1999 through November 2000, Woods beat the field’s average score in an astounding 89 consecutive PGA Tour tournament rounds.
Broadie: “O’Meara, Cink, and Jacobsen had exactly the same one-word response when I told them of Woods’ staggering stat: ‘Wow!’”
Woods also holds the record for consecutive made cuts at 142, but this doesn’t require consistency round after round.
By the way, David Duval holds the record for most consecutive drives missing the fairway at 18, set in 2012.
Joe Durant holds the record for most consecutive drives hitting the fairway, 52, in 2006.
Luke Donald holds the mark for most consecutive sand saves from greenside bunkers at 19, 2004-05. He’s also second with 18, set in 2010.
—Andrey Pavlov of Russia started his second round at European golf’s Lyoness Open with a near-record 17 on a par 5, hitting his ball into a water hazard six times. The 28-year-old went on to shoot 90 . The 17 tied Pavlov for the second-most strokes on one hole ever on the European tour with Chris Gane, who had a 17 at Gleneagles in 2013. Philippe Porquier holds the record for the worst ever, 20, at the 1978 French Open.
Hope Solo
“U.S. Soccer and Hope Solo brought this on themselves. All of it.
“The senator asking U.S. Soccer to explain its response – or lack thereof – to Solo’s arrest on domestic violence charges last summer. The head of the U.S. Olympic Committee expressing his concerns. The endless stories that spare no detail about Solo’s many instances of distasteful behavior.
“Most of all, the relentless barrage of criticism and ridicule from all comers at a time when the U.S. women’s team should be celebrated. It is Solo and the federation that have made the mistakes, but it’s the 22 other women on the World Cup team who are paying the price.
“Instead of the focus being on the Americans’ quest to win a third World Cup title, something no country has ever done, all of the attention is on Solo’s poor behavior and how badly the federation has botched its response to it. Because U.S. Soccer blew it so badly last summer, this summer brings a new soap opera every day.
“Take Friday. That 0-0 draw with Sweden, not exactly an insignificant game in the battle to win Group D, may as well have happened in a black hole.
“The afternoon brought a USA TODAY Sports report that USOC CEO Scott Blackmun had called U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati to express concern about the Solo situation. Around the same time, Gulati was responding to a letter from Sen. Richard Blumenthal sent a day earlier, questioning the federation’s sincerity in addressing domestic violence and calling on Solo to be suspended.”
Anyway, the U.S. women are 1-0-1, 4 points, and leading their group with a match against Nigeria on Tuesday. They automatically advance to a round-of-16 contest with a victory or draw, and could still move on with a loss.
–I caught some of the action from Churchill Downs Saturday night, as 30,000 came out to watch American Pharoah paraded down the main straight.
Patrick Maks / New York Times
“For 45 minutes, fans oohed and awed over American Pharoah as if he were a newborn. Some cried for him to trot slower so they could take photos. Others appeared mesmerized by the horse. ‘Oh my God!’ one woman yelled from the crowd. ‘It’s gorgeous.’”
Trainer Bob Baffert, rider Victor Espinoza, and the Zayats were all there to accept their Derby trophy.
Pharoah, who has a stall at Churchill Downs, is scheduled to return to his base in Southern California on Thursday. Baffert said he’s amazed how good the horse looks after his grueling stretch so there is no reason to believe he will veto the Zayats’ desire to race him some more.
Your editor is of course praying he gets to see the legend at The Haskell on Aug. 2.
–Argentina and Barcelona star Lionel Messi saw his latest appeal on tax evasion charges rejected by a Spanish high court, so Messi and his father Jorge are headed to trial, both being accused of defrauding authorities of more than $5 million.
The court ruled that Messi should not be granted a waiver, essentially, for not knowing what was happening with his finances.
—Usain Bolt ran in New York on Saturday at Randalls Island in the Adidas Grand Prix, an event I attended a few years ago, and Bolt won the 200 but in a very disappointing time of 20.29, far off his world record of 19.19 in 2009, and his slowest 200 since 2006.
At the same meet, former New York Giants football player David Wilson attempted a comeback in track but fell well short of his personal best in the triple jump. Wilson was sixth in the event at the NCAA championships when he was at Virginia Tech and is attempting to make the U.S. men’s team for the world championships.
Lee made his name playing Dracula and Frankenstein in the Hammer horror films, and appeared in more than 250 movies.
In recent years he became well-known to a newer audience by playing Scaramanga in the James Bond flick, “The Man With the Golden Gun,” as well as the evil wizard Saruman in The Lord of the Rings. And he was Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels.
Born into affluence in London, Lee could trace his ancestry back to Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor. He served in the Royal Air Force during World War II and he acting when that ended.
–Al Jean, the executive producer and showrunner for “The Simpsons,” sought to reassure fans that rumors of Homer and Marge’s divorce in Season 27 are being exaggerated. Variety had reported the pair will legally separate, but Jean told the fans not to freak out and he never said “divorce,” nor did Variety, actually, and viewers will learn more when the first episode airs September 27.
–I know many of you have seen the escape from the Tblisi, Georgia zoo as massive flooding hit the city, killing scores. Residents were told to stay inside as tigers, lions, hippos and all kinds of potentially lethal animals were on the loose, though at last word they are being rounded up.
But in western Germany on Saturday, a circus elephant escaped his tent and killed a man who was on an early morning walk. The poor guy was walking through a neighborhood when a 34-year-old African elephant apparently charged at him. [Sydney Morning Herald]
No word on how the elephant got out. This does not impact Elephant’s No. 2 standing on the All-Species List.
More on the ASL next chat. The European cuckoo goes down….and a defense of the sand crab, kind of.
Plus, why aren’t Canada geese part of the immigration debate in the 2016 campaign? Who said they could stay in the first place?
–A 13-year-old North Carolina teen suffered foot lacerations when a shark bit through her boogie board as she swam off Ocean Isle Beach. The girl is fine but the shark did a number on the board with two huge bites.
“A heroic beagle has died after lunging at a charging black bear to save his owner.
“Max the eight-year-old beagle had to be put down after the mother bear grabbed him by the throat during the attack outside a home in Wexford County, Michigan last week.
“Speaking to WWTV, max’s owner Jeff Hanna recalled how he and his wife, Renee, had been watching a movie inside their home when their other beagle, Pete, started barking.
“Mr. Hanna, 61, took a flashlight to investigate outside and found that a bear had ripped down a bird feeder – but there was no sign of it near the home.
“Then at around 11:30pm, he was taking the two dogs out for the last bathroom break of the day when suddenly he came face-to-face with the bear.
“ ‘I spotted a bear coming around the shed,’ Mr. Hanna said. ‘I seen it and, at that point, I could tell it was charging. I just yelled, ‘Get out! Get out! Get out! It’s here!’
“But Max ran towards the bear in a bid to protect his owner.”
Mr. Hanna believes Max saved his life. “I do know that if that dog wouldn’t have been there it probably would have been me.”
As Brad K. notes, sadly, Max was in his final year at UNC and on track to graduate with distinction. [Information you won’t find anywhere else…we call that…the Bar Chat Advantage.]
–“Jurassic World” pulled in $82.8 million on Friday night, the third-biggest Friday opening in history. And for the three days, the take was a stupendous $204.6 million. So this is the second-biggest opening weekend ever, behind “Marvel’s The Avengers” in 2012. It was only expected to take in $100 million over this time.
Plus “Jurassic World” collected $307.2 million in 66 territories.
Meanwhile, the Disney pick “Tomorrowland” starring George Clooney is slated to lose $120 million to $140 million.
Top 3 songs for the week of 6/16/79: #1 “Hot Stuff” (Donna Summer…ughh…) #2 “We Are Family” (Sister Sledge…great for the Pittsburgh Pirates, but I couldn’t stand this one…) #3 “Ring My Bell” (Anita Ward…dreadful …)…and…#4 “Just When I Needed You Most” (Randy Vanwarmer…should have changed his name to Bunwarmer after this tripe…) #5 “Love You Inside Out” (Bee Gees) #6 “The Logical Song” (Supertramp) #7 “Chuck E.’s In Love” (Rickie Lee Jones…and then she was gone…) #8 “She Believes In Me” (Kenny Rogers…she’s after your money, Kenny…don’t be fooled…) #9 “Reunited” (Peaches & Herb) #10 “Boogie Wonderland” (Earth, Wind & Fire with The Emotions…just an awful week…I was in summer school at Wake, trying to pick up some credits so I could graduate on time the following spring and, instead, almost failed one of the classes, thus sending the GPA plummeting below the Mendoza Line before senior year…)
Detroit Pistons Quiz Answer: 1988-89 rotation (beat the Lakers in the finals 4-0): Isiah Thomas (18.2), Joe Dumars (17.2), Bill Laimbeer (13.7), Mark Aguirre (15.5), Vinnie Johnson (13.8), Dennis Rodman (9.0), John Salley (7.3), James Edwards (7.3), Rick Mahorn (7.0). *Aguirre was acquired midseason from Dallas for Adrian Dantley.
1989-90 rotation (beat Trail Blazers in finals 4-1): Isiah Thomas (18.4), Joe Dumars (17.8), Bill Laimbeer (12.1), Dennis Rodman (8.8), James Edwards (14.5), Mark Aguirre (14.1), Vinnie Johnson (9.8), John Salley (7.2). [No Mahorn]
Those teams were fun to watch and my favorite was Vinnie Johnson.
Next Bar Chat, Thursday. The U.S. Open at Chambers Bay….the looming fiasco.
