[Posted Sunday p.m.]
***Note: We are migrating to a new server this week, so a brief outage or two is possible.
NCAA Basketball Tournament Quiz: Time for my annual one. Name the seven 15-seeds to upset a No. 2. Answer below.
College Basketball
*** I wrote the following before the announcement of the brackets….
–A few important scores from Saturday….
1 Kansas over 9 West Virginia 81-71 in Big 12 final.
7 North Carolina over 4 Virginia 61-57 in the ACC championship. Great game.
Seton Hall over 3 Villanova 69-67 in the Big East final…a terrific win for a local team. New Jersey, for good reason, is hopeful.
8 Oregon destroyed 12 Utah 88-57 in the Pac-12 championship. Wow, Ducks played great down the stretch. Cheerleaders’ game in top form as well.
–In the Big Ten, Saturday, 2 Michigan State defeated 18 Maryland 64-61 in the semis, while 13 Purdue beat Michigan 76-59.
Michigan State then defeated Purdue 66-62, Sunday.
–In the SEC, 17 Texas A&M defeated LSU and Ben Simmons 71-38 in the semis of that tournament, which I only bring up because LSU was 13 of 63 from the field, 20.6%, with their three guards going a collective 5 of 36. LSU finished 19-14. Simmons clearly went to the wrong school, but a few months from now after he is the number one overall pick, he certainly won’t give a damn about this mistake.
A&M then took on Kentucky in Sunday’s SEC finale (the Wildcats having defeated Georgia 93-80), but Kentucky prevailed 82-77.
–In the A-10, Saint Joseph’s whipped VCU for the title 87-74.
–Jeff B. was rather excited his UConn Huskies pulled out their four-overtime ‘game for the ages’ against Cincinnati on Friday in the quarterfinals of the American Athletic Conference Tournament, 104-97, after freshman Jalen Adams tied it at the end of the third OT with a 3-pointer from beyond half court with no time left.
Saturday, UConn defeated Temple 77-62 in the semis, while Memphis was beating Tulane 74-54.
UConn then won it 72-58, completing another great run.
–In the America East Tournament final on Saturday, Stony Brook gained its first NCAA bid with an 80-74 win over Vermont behind Jameel Warney’s superb 43-point effort, 18 of 22 from the field!
What made it all the sweeter for the Seawolves (cool nickname), was the fact they had been to the finals four of the last five years without success.
–The Mountain West conference had sent at least two teams to the NCAA tournament every year since 2002. But with my “Pick to Click” San Diego State’s unbelievably awful loss to Boise State two weeks ago, I noted the Aztecs definitely had to run the table in the Mountain West tournament and, alas, they lost to Fresno State, who they had split with during the regular season, 68-63, as SDSU put on another pathetic offensive display and their best-in-the-nation defense failed them in crunch time.
–Earlier in the week I watched the Patriot League final, Lehigh vs. Holy Cross, and the Crusaders shocked the Mountain Hawks in Lehigh, 59-56.
Holy Cross thus enters the NCAAs with a whopping 14-19 record, having won four straight in the tournament. Great coaching by Bill Carmody.
So an old high school friend’s nephew, Matt Husek, gets to fulfill a dream of all D-I college players. Pretty cool.
—Yale hasn’t played in the NCAA tournament since 1962. But the excitement of the 54-year wait finally being over is taking a back seat to the departure of senior captain, Jack Montague, who suddenly left the university last month without a public explanation from anyone associated with Yale athletics or the administration.
Montague has been connected to a sexual misconduct accusation and protests against the basketball team have been growing, especially after his teammates wore shirts with his name and number during a game and made hand gestures signifying his number.
Since then, the team issued a statement that said it “supports a healthy, safe and respectful campus climate where all students can flourish.” Many student groups aren’t satisfied.
Separately, the Ivy League announced Thursday that it is becoming a little like the other conferences in holding a four-team tournament to determine its automatic entry into the Big Dance. The Ivy has been the only Division I conference to give the bid to its regular-season champ.
–So then the brackets were announced…..
I will give you my upset selections next time, but for now we have the following No. 1 seeds….
Kansas, North Carolina, Virginia, Oregon
Like many of you, I imagine, I was surprised the ACC got two 1s and Michigan State was given a 2.
I was also shocked Tulsa got in. I’m not surprised San Diego State didn’t get a bid, but Tulsa?!
All you need to know about the disrespect for the Mountain West Conference this year is that Stony Brook received a 13 and conference tourney champ Fresno State got a 14. That’s just stupid.
As for Monmouth, I told you what would happen.
Meanwhile, the Beaverwear in my sports drawer is stirring with Oregon State’s 7 seed.
—USA TODAY’s All-America team….
Buddy Hield, Sr., G, Oklahoma; Brice Johnson, Sr., F, North Carolina; Jakob Poeltl, So., F, Utah; Tyler Ulis, So., G, Kentucky; Denzel Valentine, Sr., G, Michigan State.
Second Team
Grayson Allen, So., G, Duke; Malcolm Brogdon, Sr., G, Virginia; Perry Ellis, Sr., F, Kansas; Yogi Ferrell, Sr., G, Indiana; Jamal Murray, Fr., G, Kentucky
–As expected, Rutgers fired coach Eddie Jordan, one day after the Scarlet Knights ended their season in the Big Ten Tournament with a 89-72 loss to Nebraska, finishing at 7-25, 1-17 in conference play and 3-35 overall in the Big Ten since joining it.
Jordan’s teams were 29-68 in three seasons. Now all the talk is of Danny Hurley, currently the coach at Rhode Island, though Hurley has a potential top 25 there next season.
—Illinois point guard Jaylon Tate was arrested after a domestic battery arrest early Saturday morning, hours after the Illini’s season ended when it was eliminated from the Big Ten tournament with an 89-58 loss to Purdue. He was immediately handed an indefinite suspension from the team.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t mention something like this except Tate is the third player to be arrested and suspended from the basketball team this season! Forward Darius Paul was arrested in August for vandalism, public intoxication and resisting arrest on an overseas exhibition trip in France and kicked off the team. Forward Leron Black was arrested for allegedly puling a knife on a bouncer at a Champaign night club.
Nice program!
NBA
Golden State 59-6 (30-0 at home)
San Antonio 56-10 (32-0 at home)
Cleveland 46-18…best in Eastern Conference
–Friday night, in a 128-112 victory over Portland, Golden State extended its record regular–season home winning streak to 47 as the Splash Brothers, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, went off for a combined 71 points and 15 of 25 from downtown.
Thompson joined Curry as the only players with 200 3s in four straight seasons.
The Warriors and Trail Blazers combined for a record 37 3s. The likes of Oscar Robertson and Kareem were no doubt apoplectic.
–Saturday, the Warriors needed a big fourth quarter to defeat the lowly Suns 123-116 in Oakland, extending the home streak to 48.
Meanwhile, San Antonio was defeating the Thunder 93-85 in San Antonio, thus extending the Spurs’ own home winning streak to 41, the third best in NBA history. Pretty remarkable. San Antonio is a lock for the 2-seed in the Western Conference.
–So you know how I have ‘hated’ on Chris Paul all these years because of what he did when he was at Wake Forest, probably costing us a Final Four appearance?
Wednesday night, as the Clippers played the Thunder, Paul did it again.
While going up against Kevin Durant on a second-quarter possession, Paul freed himself and hit a 15-foot jumper. However, as the film showed, he got so open because he punched Durant in the groin, momentarily incapacitating the Thunder star.
What an amazing asshole Paul can be.
As Des Bieler of the Washington Post wrote:
“That could have been an accident, but Paul’s history indicates that it probably wasn’t. Going all the way back to his days at Wake Forest, he was suspended for an ACC tournament game after he punched N.C. State’s Julius Hodge in the, as they say, groin. Years later, Hodge publicly rejoiced in Paul suffering a groin injury of his own.”
And he’s done it time and time again since in the NBA.
What Bieler didn’t know enough about, but what Wake fans do, if they are honest, is that Paul’s move cost a #1 seed in the NCAAs that year and that meant everything in terms of seeding as we ended up losing a very tough 2-7 matchup against West Virginia. But I’ve only gone over that depressing season finale a million times before.
–I’m not the only one tired of LeBron James’ act.
Bill Reiter / CBSSports.com
“Four words increasingly sum up LeBron James as his second season back in Cleveland veers from Finals sure-thing to angst-ridden drama: Here we go again.
“Too much of what’s happened despite the Cavaliers standing atop the Eastern Conference feels like some kind of vile déjà vu, as if we’ve melded LeBron’s 2010-11 season in Miami with his previous and unsuccessful stint in Cleveland.
“There’s the under-fire but capable coach (though this one, David Blatt, actually got fired), the petulance, the mounting frustration, the way-too-obvious passive aggressiveness (this time a trip to Miami during some time off), the shots at his teammates (on Twitter) that he later pretended was just, you know, nothing to see here. Nothing at all. Keep moving. How dare you question the King.
“I’ve seen this movie before, and it doesn’t end well.
“Five years ago, when I lived in Miami and covered LeBron and the Heat, the story was eerily similar: Superstar arrives with huge expectations, things get tough, superstar blames coach, then media, then (passive aggressively) teammates. Then he and the team fail under the brightest and harshest of lights. Then after some deep soul-searching, LeBron gains a large measure of self-awareness and goes on to great things.
“That happens in life, and especially in the NBA. They learn, they rise, they falter, they grow from their failures and the best – Bird, Isiah, Jordan – go on to better and bigger things. Part of their greatness was they didn’t revert to old, bad habits. But the fact LeBron James might be repeating the same mistakes that five years ago crushed his image, cost him a championship and required him to admit to people like me he made mistakes should initiate long, serious concern in Cleveland.
“As they say: People don’t change.
“Here’s hoping, for Cleveland’s sake, that that’s so very not true….
“The biggest threat to LeBron’s pursuit of greatness, glory and a championship for Cleveland is not the Warriors, not the Spurs, not the supposedly mediocre coaches or unreliable players surrounding him.
“The East is open. The Boston Celtics and Toronto Raptors, good as they are, do not glint with a championship sheen. And last year’s Finals show a Chosen One can rise to unheard of heights in pursuit of a ring.
“It’s the thing each of us faces every day when we wake up that threatens the most: That face, LeBron, staring back at you in the mirror.”
NFL
—Mark Sanchez was traded by Philadelphia to Denver for a conditional draft pick, as the 29-year-old will have a shot at supplanting both Peyton Manning and the departed Brock Osweiler, which is a pretty amazing thought. I would expect the Broncos to come up with another option for sure and have Sanchez as insurance.
John Elway tweeted, “He brings veteran leadership & will compete. This is the 1st step in our process.”
Sanchez did lead the Jets to the AFC Championship his first two years by winning four road playoff games, but for his career he has 86 TD passes and 84 interceptions, an awful ratio, plus a hideous 74.3 passer rating, though those numbers improve to 9-3, 94.3, in his six playoff games.
He has a 37-35 record as a starter, compared with Sam Bradford’s 25-37-1, just sayin’.
Philadelphia had just signed Chiefs longtime backup Chase Daniel to be Bradford’s caddy, making Sanchez expendable.
Meanwhile, the NFL is still buzzing that Osweiler received $72 million over four years ($37 million guaranteed) to go to the Texans, after Denver reportedly offered him $45 million over three years. The Texans also signed former Dolphins running back Lamar Miller to a four-year, $26 million deal ($14 million guaranteed).
—Colin Kaepernick isn’t a free agent, so he’s relying on the San Francisco 49ers to find a new home for him per his request. He has expressed an interest in playing for Cleveland, which has many of us scratching our heads, seeing as this is the most dysfunctional organization in sports these days. I mean the Browns, with all kinds of cap space, just let four starters walk in the first few hours of free agency. Denver and the Jets are said to be interested, with the Jets waiting to see if Ryan Fitzpatrick will end up crawling back to the team for less money than he initially expected to receive.
–Speaking of Cleveland, they finally released Johnny Football. Johnny Manziel’s exit after two tumultuous years came with a brief statement and no comment.
Manziel not only doesn’t have a team, he’s still facing possible criminal charges for a recent domestic incident involving his ex-girlfriend.
The Browns selected the Heisman winner in the first round in 2014 and it was hoped he would revive a crappy franchise. Instead it was nothing but lies, parties and distractions.
In 14 games for the Browns, Manziel passed for 1,675 yards with seven touchdowns and seven interceptions.
–I was psyched to see my Jets re-sign running back Bilal Powell to complement Matt Forte. Then they brought in RB Khiry Robinson, who has been a solid reserve at New Orleans.
–Giants fans were thrilled that in the first day of free agency, the worst defense in football became better, they hope, and far more expensive. Former Miami defensive end Olivier Vernon for $85 million ($52.5 million guaranteed), Vernon joining a defensive line that includes Jason Pierre-Paul, who signed a one-year deal reportedly worth as much as $10.5 million; former Jets defensive tackle Damon “Snacks” Harrison, five years, $46.25 million ($24 million guaranteed); and St. Louis cornerback Janoris Jenkins, five years, $62.5 million ($29 million guaranteed).
–We note the passing of former Giants and Rams lineman Gary Jeter, 61. Former teammate Beasley Reece was disconsolate on the news.
“This is a great loss for the Giants. We lost one of the good guys. A quality guy. A giant of a man who could not have been nicer. This defies all reason.”
The cause of Jeter’s death is unknown at this point.
Jeter played in the NFL from 1977-89 (his final season in New England) after being drafted fifth overall from Southern Cal by the Giants.
Reece mentioned how Jeter “defied the stereotype of a football player as he was well read and would engage in debates in the locker room. He was an eclectic individual.”
As a local fan of the sport, that’s how I remember Jeter; one of the more intelligent pro athletes of our time.
Jeter was a dominant star in college but inconsistent in the pros, ending up with 52 sacks, though he played some of his best football at the end of his career with the Rams.
–And Bill Wade died. He was 85. Wade was a quarterback with the Rams (1954-60) and the Bears (1961-66) after being the NFL’s No. 1 overall draft pick in 1952 out of Vanderbilt. He then served two years in the Navy before joining Los Angeles.
Wade threw for 124 touchdowns and 18,530 yards, including 2,301 yards and 15 touchdowns in the Bears’ 1963 championship season as Chicago beat the Giants 14-10 in the title game, Wade rushing for the two Bears’ scores.
MLB
–The Pirates made a nice move, signing infielder David Freese to a one-year deal for $3 million.
Freese is still just 32 and a former All-Star with St. Louis back in 2012. Last year with the Angels he hit .257 with 14 homers and 56 RBI. For his career he is a .276 hitter and has always been known to hit in the clutch.
–Washington Nationals superstar Bryce Harper told ESPN The Magazine that baseball is “a tired sport, because you can’t express yourself. You can’t do what people in other sports do. I’m not saying baseball is, you know, boring or anything like that, but it’s the excitement of the young guys who are coming into the game now who have flair.”
So then Hall of Fame reliever Goose Gossage called Toronto Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista, one of the guys with flair, a “disgrace to the game” and blasted “nerds” for turning baseball into a “joke” during a 10-minute interview Thursday with ESPN.
“Bautista is a f—ing disgrace to the game,” Gossage said. “He’s embarrassing to all the Latin players, whoever played before him. Throwing his bat and acting like a fool, like all those guys in Toronto. [Yoenis] Cespedes, same thing.”
Bautista is known for his bat flipping after a big home run.
After being informed of the comments, Bautista replied, “He’s a great ambassador for the game. I don’t agree with him. I’m disappointed that he made those comments, but I’m not going to get into it with him. I would never say anything about him, no matter what he said about me.”
Cespedes said pitchers shouldn’t be the only players on the field who are allowed to celebrate.
“Whenever a pitcher strikes someone out, they get to celebrate too and have their moment and revel in it,” he said. “Why can’t the batters get a chance to enjoy their success, too?”
Back to Harper: “When I said it was the tiredness of the game, I don’t care what people say, but it wasn’t like the game is tired, that I don’t like baseball, because I absolutely love baseball,” he said. “But it’s the fans in the stands that get tired of watching a game that is very boring. ‘It’s a pitcher’s duel.’ Well, what’s fun about a pitcher’s duel unless it’s Max Scherzer and Matt Harvey, guys who play with emotion? That’s fun. That’s legit.”
“You just have to understand how to do it,” he said. “If a 10-year-old’s flipping his bat and doing stuff, I don’t like that. He needs to learn how to play the game and how to go about it to get to the next level. But should he have fun doing it? Absolutely.
“Little kids don’t want to play the game of baseball because they’re bored. They get bored. They’re like, ‘I want to go play basketball or football,’ because at that young of an age, it’s fun. And they see that, Cam Newton and all these guys, they’re running the ball and having fun and doing all these touchdown things. As a young kid, that’s fun. Going onto a baseball field, until you’re about 12 to 13, that’s when you can really start to understand baseball better, the fact of knowing, ‘Hey this is fun, I enjoy coming out and learning and playing the game of baseball.’ But there has to be a balance.”
Back to Goose, now 64, he said he does not like people who never played at the highest level running the game.
“The game is becoming a freaking joke because of the nerds who are running it. I’ll tell you what has happened, these guys played Rotisserie baseball at Harvard or wherever the f— they went and they thought they figured the f—ing game out. They don’t know s—.”
Gossage continued: “You can’t slide into second base. You can’t take out the f—ing catcher because [Buster] Posey was in the wrong position and they are going to change all the rules. You can’t pitch inside anymore. I’d like to knock some of these f—ers on their ass and see how they would do against pitchers in the old days.
“Ryan Braun is a f—ing steroid user. He gets a standing ovation on Opening Day in Milwaukee. How do you explain that to your kid after throwing people under the bus and lying through his f—ing teeth? They don’t have anyone passing the f—ing torch to these people.
“If I had acted like that, you don’t go in that f—ing dugout. There are going to be 20 f—ing guys waiting for you.”
Gossage is down in spring training with the Yankees, acting as an adviser. Needless to say, the organization was not happy with him and apparently read Goose the riot act.
Thomas Boswell / Washington Post
“When Bryce Harper says, ‘Baseball’s tired’ and needs a jolt of joy from a new generation of more extroverted stars (like…well…Bryce himself), he isn’t fighting a new battle. In fact, in his attention-grabbing comments in the latest ESPN The Magazine, Harper is wrestling with an ancient issue: Should any sport, especially summer-tempo baseball, have an unwritten code of conventional conduct for the sake of a dubious decorum? Call it a self-imposed layer of boredom. For generations, when given a choice between exuberance and the possibility of ‘showing up’ a foe, baseball has too often said: Go crawl in a hole.
“From Willie Mays basket catches to Pete Rose sprinting to first on a walk to Dennis Eckersley fanning his finger-pistol at hitters he had struck out, baseball needs all the authentic extroverted individuality it can get. As the NFL bangs its head against horrific brain-injury issues that may linger for decades, MLB could be the league best positioned to gain market share – if it can speed its pace, boost its energy and publicize young stars….
“Many of us grew up grinning at Muhammad Ali’s ‘I am the greatest’ or rooting for Joe Namath to pull off his Super Bowl ‘guarantee.’ As long as you aren’t just a self-promoting fake, as long as your public persona resembles your real personality, we’re good to go. Takes all kinds. If you can pull it off, it’s also good for your sport. If you can’t, you look like a fool – which is okay, too. We’ll judge our reaction case-by-case.
“However, just so Bryce knows, there’s often a price for extremely ‘free’ speech. And for getting in the last word, too. Jonathan Papelbon will learn of Harper’s latest comments. The Nats’ reliever will know to which person, out of the 7.4 billion on Earth, those comments most perfectly apply: him. And the smoldering embers of the nearly extinguished Harp-Pap-Fan-Appreciation-Day strangulation cage match will have just a teeny tiny chance to reignite.
“Papelbon, who threw at (Manny) Machado’s head (twice) for hot-dogging a home run trot (and got suspended for it), is the oldest of old-school code enforcers. Harper, who showed up Papelbon after that game by saying what Pap did was ‘tired’ and that now he would probably get drilled in retaliation, is the newest of the new school. That famous fight in September – entirely Papelbon’s doing – was 99 percent about their publicly exposed disagreement about the don’t-show-me-up code.
“So while Harper has the high ground on the general issue, he also has picked a touchy time – spring training with a new manager after a horrible Nats season and with Pap still in D.C. – to say this: ‘Jose Fernandez will strike you out and stare you down into the dugout and pump his fist. And if you hit a homer and pimp it? He doesn’t care. Because you got him. That’s part of the game. It’s not the old feeling: Hoorah…if you pimp a homer, I’m going to hit you right in the teeth. No…I mean, sorry.’
“If Harper said he thinks the future of MLB should be pitchers such as Fernandez facing hitters such as him, then where does that leave Pap? Hint: in the late Neolithic, polishing a stone.”
–I wasn’t going to write about former Mets reliever Jenrry Mejia ever again, seeing as he had cooked his goose with Major League Baseball in fighting his lifetime ban for failing a third drug test.
But on Friday, Mejia, back in the states from his native Dominican Republic, said at a news conference with his attorney that he was not guilty and that he claims MLB concocted his expulsion because after failing his first test in April 2015, he refused to implicate another player the league was allegedly investigating.
Mejia’s attorney talked about witnesses coming forward, “not people off the street but people who have tangled with MLB’s drug program before, (sharing) allegations that, among things, the league has hacked player accounts, hiring third-party contractors to get into their social media.”
For its part, MLB responded: “Sadly, the comments made by Mr. Mejia and his representatives today continue a pattern of athletes hiring aggressive lawyers and making wild, unsupported allegations about the conduct of others in an effort to clear their names. Mr. Mejia’s record demonstrates that he is a repeated user of banned performance-enhancing substances. As such, per our collectively bargained rules, he has no place as an active player in the game today.”
Mejia can’t seem to get it in his thick head that had he kept his mouth shut, he’d be able to come back in two years. He has talent and he’s just 26.
Curiously, he hasn’t appealed any of his three drug-related suspensions. He has tested positive for both Stanozolol and Boldenone, which Don Catlin, the CEO of Anti-Doping Research, Inc. said “every lab in the world tests for.” [Wall Street Journal]
Golf Balls
—Charl Schwartzel finally won his second PGA Tour title at the Valspar Championship in a playoff over Bill Haas, Schwartzel’s first win in the U.S. since the 2011 Masters. Yes, I am a little depressed with Bill’s loss. You can count on him being close like five times a year. His fans just wish he could finish the deal a few more times than he does, but he’s still young.
–Following his opening 76 on Thursday, Jordan Spieth responded to an Instagram user who posted: “If his putter is not working, he’s garbage. Every other aspect of his game is very average.”
Spieth repliled: “Couldn’t be further from the truth troll. Go do research before hating.”
Jordan then expressed regret for reacting this way, admitting he should never respond to stuff like this.
–In the latest Golfweek Men’s Coaches Poll, Wake Forest plummeted from 2nd to 13th after a rough tournament.
1. Illinois
2. Auburn
3. Florida State
4. USC
5. Georgia
Premier League
With all the different Cup competitions taking place, the PL schedule has been irregular.
This weekend the two biggies in terms of the standings were Manchester City’s 0-0 draw with Norwich, and Tottenham’s 2-0 win over last-place Aston Villa on Sunday. Harry Kane had the Spurs’ two goals, giving him 19 on the season, tied for tops with Leicester’s Jamie Vardy. More impressively, Kane has 18 in his last 21 Premier League appearances.
I have to hand it to Norwich, which is on the relegation line. They have played some great football their last five (and I’ve seen like four of them), but just two draws to show for it. Hope they can somehow grab the 17th position.
Standings (games and points)
1. Leicester 29 – 60
2. Tottenham 30 – 58
3. Arsenal 29 – 52
4. Man City 29 – 51
5. West Ham 29 – 49…big surprise
6. Man U 29 – 47
7. Southampton 30 – 44
8. Liverpool 28 – 44
Sir George Martin
Martin died literally hours before I posted last time so just a few more notes on the passing of the music giant and creative genius behind the Beatles.
Paul McCartney: “I’m so sad to hear the news of the passing of dear George Martin….He was a true gentleman and like a second father to me. He guided the career of The Beatles with such skill and good humor that he became a true friend to me and my family. If anyone earned the title of the fifth Beatle it was George. From the day that he gave The Beatles our first recording contract, to the last time I saw him, he was the most generous, intelligent and musical person I’ve ever had the pleasure to know….
“It’s hard to choose favorite memories of my time with George…but one that comes to mind was the time I brought the song ‘Yesterday’ to a recording session and the guys in the band suggested that I sang it solo and accompany myself on guitar. After I had done this George Martin said to me, ‘Paul I have an idea of putting a string quartet on the record.’ I said, ‘Oh no George, we are a rock and roll band and I don’t think it’s a good idea.’ With the gentle bedside manner of a great producer he said to me, ‘let us try it and if it doesn’t work we won’t use it and we’ll go with your solo version.’ I agreed to this and went round to his house the next day to work on the arrangement.
“He took my chords that I showed him and spread the notes out across the piano, putting the cello in the low octave and the first violin in a high octave and gave me my first lesson in how strings were voiced for a quartet,” McCartney said, adding: “When we recorded the string quartet at Abbey Road, it was so thrilling to know his idea was so correct that I went round telling people about it for weeks. His idea obviously worked because the song subsequently became one of the most recorded songs ever with versions by Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye and thousands more.”
Up until the Beatles, no group per se had been a big success, only individual singers such as Elvis had been. But when he ventured to Liverpool to see the Beatles rock the Cavern Club, Martin understood they had the energy that might make them stars. He was also instrumental in getting them to replace drummer Pete Best with someone who would be a steadier presence in the recording studio.
Martin also learned to break free from EMI. In 1963, his annus mirabilis, as described in the Daily Telegraph, when records produced by him had been at No. 1 for 37 weeks out of 52 and had made EMI profits of 2.25 million British pounds, he was even refused a traditional Christmas bonus. The next year he left to set up his own studios, AIR (Associated Independent Recording), taking with him several colleagues as well as artists such as Adam Faith, Manfred Mann and Cilla Black.
With EMI being afraid he would take the Beatles, they agreed he could continue as their producer, though at a pitiful royalty rate. Even so, he was the first producer to get one.
Martin would soon have a true collaborative relationship with Lennon and McCartney, one which reached its creative peak with the inventiveness in the making of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967.
“Perhaps the most notable example of this was his realization of the ‘tremendous buildup of expanding sound’ with which Lennon wanted to end A Day in the Life. It was Martin who scored that for the orchestra, gradually proceeding over 24 bars from the lowest note to the highest for each instrument, and he who instructed the musicians – radically – not to listen to their neighbors while playing the piece. It was also Martin who determined the crashing piano chords with which the song ends, and who synchronized the four Beatles and himself as they pounded them out simultaneously on three pianos, an upright and a grand in the Abbey Road studios.”
George Martin remained immensely proud of his work with the Beatles, though he was sad it ended too soon.
“We could have gone on from ‘Abbey Road,’” he said in a 1994 interview. “It was showing the way that rock ‘n’ roll and classical music could have joined forces to become something really important. And because we didn’t go on, punk came along and put everything into reverse.”
Martin’s last Beatles project was a collaboration with his son, Giles Martin, on the 2006 soundtrack for “Love,” the Cirque du Soleil show for which Beatles recordings were remixed and recombined.
Stuff
—Kevin Harvick nipped Carl Edwards in a thrilling finale at Phoenix International Raceway in this week’s Sprint Cup race. Harvick has now won a record eight times on the track.
–In World Cup ski action, with Lindsey Vonn’s absence for these final weeks a real bummer, American Steven Nyman picked up a third in the downhill at Kvitfjell, Norway, Nyman’s third straight platform finish in the event. As Ronald Reagan would have said, ‘Not bad, not bad at all.’
Both the men and women finish up this week at St. Moritz. Lara Gut has overtaken Vonn for the women’s overall.
–Four days after admitting she failed a drug test, Maria Sharapova played defense in a lengthy Facebook post.
Addressing her fans, Sharapova disputed a media report that said she was warned five teams about the ban on meldonium. She said she received an email Dec. 22 she didn’t pay attention to, adding information about changes to the anti-doping program weren’t easily accessible.
“In other words, in order to be aware of this ‘warning,’ you had to open an email with a subject line having nothing to do with anti-doping, click on a webpage, enter a password, enter a username, hunt, click, hunt, click, hunt, click, scroll and read. I guess some in the media can call that a warning. I think most people would call it too hard to find,” she wrote.
Separately, Ben Nichols, a spokesman for the World Anti-Doping Agency, told the New York Times’ Christopher Clarey in an email, “Regarding the number of meldonium positives, I can tell you that it was at 60 adverse analytical findings (since January 1st) recorded on Monday and that number is growing.”
That’s more than 60 athletes, including Olympic medalists and world champions. Many of these have yet to be identified because their cases are being adjudicated.
–The Wall Street Journal’s Jim Carlton had a piece on coyotes and American cities’ aggressive action toward them. Laguna Beach, Calif., for one, has declared war as they have been killing pets, Chihuahuas being popular fare.
Four children in Irvine, Calif., were attacked by coyotes last year and suffered minor injuries.
Coyotes are now prevalent in New York City’s Central Park, while Cook County, Ill., which contains Chicago, has as many as 4,000! [Compared with none in the 1960s.]
The only known human death from a coyote was in 1981 when a 3-year-old girl was killed in Glendale, Calif.
–Also in California, on March 3, one of the Los Angeles Zoo’s koalas went missing. As reported by the Los Angeles Times:
“Down the road from its enclosure, a tuft of its hair was found. About 400 yards farther down, zookeepers made a grisly discovery: bloody marsupial parts.
“Something must have been able to carry it that far, park employees figured.”
After examining the park’s “trap cameras” – surveillance devices with motion sensors, they found some photos of a suspect: P-22, Griffith Park’s famous mountain lion (though P-22 wasn’t seen with the koala).
How is the mountain lion getting into the zoo, and out? Lock your doors, Angelenos.
–But then there is the worst of ‘Man.’ From the BBC:
“A dog has been killed and several others injured after a snowmobile was deliberately driven into two dog-sled teams competing” in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska.
“Race marshals said a man on a snowmobile first attacked one sled and later hit the sled that was following behind.”
Arnold Demoski, 26, faces charges of assault, reckless endangerment, reckless driving and criminal mischief, Alaska State Troopers say.
–And this awful story from the New York Post:
“A tourist has killed a swan – by dragging it out of a lake for a picture.
“The woman, reportedly from Bulgaria, was snapped grabbing the bird by its wing before dragging it out of the lake in order to pose for photographs with the distressed bird.
“Once the unidentified woman had her fun, she then left the winged creature to die alone on the beach.
“Appalled witnesses spoke to local media about the event.
“They described how the swan did not respond to the woman approaching it, as the birds are used to tourists visiting the lake.
“Despite the swan being clearly upset at being manhandled as it struggled against the woman’s grip, she did not let go.”
This incident comes just weeks after a baby dolphin was passed around in Argentina for photos and then died.
After all the above, Man plummets to No. 387 on the All-Species List. [Dog remains No. 1, followed by Elephant. Beaver, long off double-secret probation, is No. 9.]
—Man’s ranking could easily be even worse, as according to new findings by researchers from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the mass slaughter of rhinos has increased for the sixth year in a row. At least 1,338 of them were killed for their horns in Africa last year; the greatest loss in a single year since this intense era of poaching began.
Since 2008, as many as 5,940 rhinos have been killed, though scientists believe this is probably an underestimate. [BBC]
–One more on the topic of ‘Man.’ Investigators in Maryland have determined that 13 bald eagles killed in the state in recent months was the work of humans. No suspects as yet.
–That was funny seeing Mr. T at Nancy Reagan’s funeral but the two shared an authentic friendship going back to her soliciting his help for her “Just Say No” drug campaign in 1983.
Mr. T, now 63, said, “That was the highlight of my career to be asked to work with the First Lady on such a great cause.”
–The Most Interesting Man In The World, actor Jonathan Goldsmith, is blasting off on a one-way trip to Mars as Dos Equis ends his reign and prepares for a new campaign with a new actor.
–I was shocked but Ariana Grande came off as highly likable on “SNL.”
—Keith Emerson, the co-founder and keyboardist for progressive rock group Emerson, Lake and Palmer, died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head at his home in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 71. His body was discovered by his girlfriend.
Inspired by Jimi Hendrix’s theatrics with the guitar, Emerson was famous for his showmanship.
ELP was particularly popular in Britain and Japan, but surprisingly had only one top 40 in the U.S., #39 “From The Beginning,” which I’m shocked didn’t chart higher but this was a time when DJs (read station managers) were just getting used to playing longer album cuts.
The other founders of ELP were Greg Lake and Carl Palmer.
Top 3 songs for the week 3/16/63: #1 “Walk Like A Man” (The 4 Seasons) #2 “Our Day Will Come” (Ruby and The Romantics) #3 “You’re The Reason I’m Living” (Bobby Darin)…and…#4 “The End Of The World” (Skeeter Davis) #5 “Rhythm Of The Rain” (The Cascades) #6 “Ruby Baby” (Dion) #7 “Hey Paula” (Paul and Paula) #8 “Blame It On The Bossa Nova” (Eydie Gorme…my mom wasn’t a fan of hers…) #9 “What Will Mary Say” (Johnny Mathis) #10 “He’s So Fine” (The Chiffons…and so we gear up for the British Invasion…the Beatles, under George Martin’s guidance…were bursting on the scene in the UK in ‘63, and soon Ed Sullivan would begin to hear of them and think, ‘we’ve got to get them over here.’)
NCAA Tournament Quiz Answer: Seven 15-seeds to pull off an upset.
2013: Florida Gulf Coast over Georgetown 78-68
2012: Lehigh over Duke 75-70
2012: Norfolk State over Missouri 86-84
2001: Hampton over Iowa State 58-57
1997: Coppin State over South Carolina 78-65
1993: Santa Clara over Arizona 64-61
1991: Richmond over Syracuse 73-69
Next Bar Chat, Thursday.
