[Posted Sunday night…prior to Game 6 of Stanley Cup Playoffs…]
*Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and the injured, as well as the friends and families impacted by the Orlando massacre.
Cincinnati Reds Quiz [batting]: 1) Who are the only two Reds with more than 50 doubles in a season, both with 51? [modern day, post-1920…actually these two are post-1950] 2) Who is the only Red to hit 50 home runs in a season? 3) Who are the only three Reds to drive in more than 140? 4) Who is the modern-day (post-1920) single-season leader in stolen bases with 80? Answers below.
Cavs-Warriors
Well, I thought it would be a sweep, but then out of nowhere the Cavs showed up in Game 3 in Cleveland, Wednesday, blasting the Warriors 120-90 behind LeBron’s 32 and Kyrie Irving’s 30 (J.R. Smith also chipping in with 20). Of course it was no coincidence that the Cavs played their best without Kevin Love, out with a concussion.
So Love returned for Game 4, though he didn’t start, and Golden State held a slim 79-77 lead after three but pulled away in the fourth quarter for a comfortable 108-97 victory to go up 3-1 and send the series back to Oakland for the clincher on Monday. It’s the Bar Chat Guarantee! [Cough cough]
I should mention for the record that on Friday, Steph Curry lit it up for 38, hitting 7 of 13 from downtown, while running mate Klay Thompson had 25. For the Cavs, Kyrie Irving had another solid offensive game, 34 points, but his defense sucks. And LeBron was a total jerk near the end of the game, getting in a minor tussle with Draymond Green, who is a major jerk himself.
But what’s this? Draymond was just suspended one game because upon review he was assessed a flagrant foul 1, his fourth of the playoffs, as he took a swipe at LeBron’s groin, something Green is wont to do and thus the automatic penalty.
Does the editor thus change his prediction? Of course not.
MLB
–A few days ago the Yankees looked dead at 26-30, with an anemic offense, save for Carlos Beltran, but after Friday night’s 4-0 win over Detroit at Yankee Stadium, New York was suddenly 31-30 and one of the big surprises of the season has been pitcher CC Sabathia, 35, who while his record is now just 4-4 after throwing seven scoreless, Friday, has a 2.28 ERA…and an ERA of 0.71 over his last six starts.
Shockingly, this is the best ERA CC has had after the first ten starts of a season in his career.
From 2013-2015, Sabathia had a 4.81 ERA, the third-worst in the major leagues during that span among qualifiers.
Since 1900, only four pitchers age 35 or older have finished a season with an ERA below 3.00 after coming off a three-year span with at least 400 innings and a total ERA of at least 4.50, according to Stats LLC.
But on to Saturday, and we have yet another veteran pitcher story as Justin Verlander and the Tigers bounced back for a 6-1 win over the Yanks.
Verlander, 6-5, has been pitching terrifically of late, winning four of his last five starts while lowering his ERA to 3.77, shades of the Verlander of old.
And then on Sunday, the Yanks lost to Michael Fulmer, 4-1, so New York is back under .500 at 31-32.
As for Fulmer, this is the guy the Tigers insisted on in the trade with the Mets for Yoenis Cespedes at last year’s trade deadline. Detroit knew what they were doing, Fulmer being the Mets’ top pitching prospect.
So all the kid has done this year since being called up is go 7-1 with a 2.52 ERA.
–Friday, Clayton Kershaw won again, 3-2 over the Giants and Johnny Cueto, thanks to a Justin Turner home run in the top of the ninth.
Kershaw allowed two earned in 8 innings, struck out 13 and walked none to move to 9-1, 1.52 ERA, with a stupendous 122 strikeouts against just six walks.
He is also now 18-7 lifetime against the Giants, while the Dodgers are 12-1 in games Kershaw has started this season.
–One other from Friday…Washington’s Stephen Strasburg is now 10-0 in this season of spectacular pitching performances. Strasburg gave up 4 earned in 7 innings, striking out 10, as the Nationals beat the Phillies 9-6.
–Continuing on this theme, the Cubs’ Jake Arrieta got back on the winning track as Chicago beat the Braves 8-2 on Saturday, Arrieta throwing 7 innings, allowing 2 earned, as he’s now 10-1, 1.86.
–The Pirates suffered two blows…catcher Francisco Cervelli will be out 4-6 weeks with a broken bone in his right hand, while ace Gerrit Cole has a strained right triceps and the team is awaiting word on the extent of the injury.
–The White Sox, who got off to that super 23-10 start and then went into a tailspin, designated both Jimmy Rollins and veteran pitcher Mat Latos for assignment, effectively releasing them. Rollins will surface somewhere, while you’d think Latos would as well, though he had given up 31 runs his last 36 innings.
Chicago signed veteran Justin Morneau for the balance of the season, and brought up top prospect Tim Anderson to play short.
—Major League Baseball suspended Kansas City Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura for nine games and Baltimore third baseman Manny Machado for four games due to their bench-clearing incident on Tuesday. Both appealed and can play until they are heard.
So Ventura was back on the mound Sunday and he threw 7 innings of 1 run ball as the Royals defeated the White Sox 3-1. [For his part, Machado has been playing every day awaiting his appeal too.]
–The flip side of all the great pitching performances has been last season’s A.L. Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel. Keuchel was 20-8, 2.48 ERA for the Astros last year, but talk about struggling mightily, he is 3-9, 5.54, after the Rays beat the Astros 5-0 on Sunday.
–As for the MLB Draft…it didn’t exactly go as some experts planned.
1. Phillies…Mickey Moniak, OF, Carlsbad, CA, HS (high school)
2. Reds…Nick Senzel, 3B, Tennessee
3. Braves…Ian Anderson, RHP, Clifton Park, NY, HS…also lead singer and flautist with Jethro Tull
5. Brewers…Corey Ray, OF, Louisville
6. A’s…A.J. Puk, LHP, Florida
10. White Sox…Zack Collins, C, Miami
11. Mariners…Kyle Lewis, OF, Mercer
12. Red Sox…Jason Groome, LHP, Barnegat, NJ, HS
19. Mets…Justin Dunn, RHP, Boston College
22. Pirates…Will Craig, 1B-3B, Wake Forest
So a lot of folks had A.J. Puk or Kyle Lewis going first, with Jason Groome a consensus top three. Moniak was in everyone’s top ten, I was just surprised the Phillies selected him because we were told they wanted a college player, someone who could help them more quickly at the big-league level.
Corey Ray went right where everyone had him.
But the Red Sox got a steal with Groome, while with the Mets, my heart wanted them to take Will Craig for selfish reasons, but going for Dunn makes sense. But happy Craig went to the Pirates. He’ll be in the big leagues in two years…and might be good trade bait with an American League team because he is probably better suited for 1B-DH.
Speaking of drafts, I saw a piece on the 2011 draft and talk about a great one, Boston’s last under then-general manager Theo Epstein – now with the Cubs. The Red Sox selected:
Jackie Bradley Jr., 1st round
Mookie Betts, 5th round
Travis Shaw, 9th round
As Ronald Reagan would have told Tip O’Neill, ‘Not bad, not bad at all.’
And now Jason Groome fell into their lap.
–The New York Daily News’ John Harper notes the significance of the Mets taking African-American Justin Dunn. It’s part of an encouraging trend and a hoped for reversal of a troubling aspect of Major League Baseball that has seen the percentage of African-Americans on major-league rosters plummet from 19% back in 1986 to 8.3% at the start of this season.
But over the last five years, 34 of 168 first-round draft picks – 20.2% – have been black players; and at least half of those have some connection to MLB’s inner-city initiatives to promote the sport. What’s shocking, though, is that only five of the 34 were pitchers and only 14 of the 449 pitchers on major league opening-day rosters – or the disabled list – are African-American.
Well I’ve been saying the past few years that football’s concussion issue will redound to the benefit of baseball and while this probably doesn’t explain the 20.2% number, it certainly should be part of a positive pattern going forward.
–Speaking of Justin Dunn, in the Super Regionals of the NCAA Baseball tournament, in the first game of a best of three against Miami this weekend, Dunn allowed 5 earned in 5 1/3 as the Eagles lost to the Hurricanes 12-7. They would end up losing in three, Miami joining UC-Santa Barbara, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, and Arizona, with three more bids for the College World Series to be determined as I go to post Sunday night.
Gordie Howe (1928-2016)
Randy Miller / Star-Ledger
“Before Wayne Gretzky came along, there was Gordie Howe.
“Howe was big, strong and could do it all on the ice as a right wing who was feared as much for his toughness as he was for his scoring ability. All the way, he was loved by generations of hockey fans for his sweet side.
“Howe was so great in his day and so beloved by fans that everyone came to know him by a nickname that was befitting: Mr. Hockey.”
Howe died Friday at the home of one of his three sons, Murray Howe. Murray said his father died peacefully and simply from old age, not another stroke (he had suffered two in 2014).
Howe entered the NHL in 1946 at the age of 18 for the Detroit Red Wings and didn’t retire until 33 years later, 1979-80, when he was 52! That last season, playing for the Hartford Whalers, he had 15 goals and 26 assists to finish with 801 NHL goals and 1,049 assists for 1,850 points. If you count his years in the WHA, tack on another 174 goals and 334 assists. Only Wayne Gretzky at 894 goals has more than Howe.
In 1998, The Hockey News ranked Howe the third best player of all time behind Gretzky and Bobby Orr, but because Orr really only played seven full seasons (stretching the definition a little), I would rank Orr third and Howe second.
The Hockey News found a 1960s Red Wings program in which an anonymous opponent summed up Howe this way:
“He is everything you expect an ideal athlete to be. He is soft-spoken, self-deprecating and thoughtful. He is also one of the most vicious, cruel men I have ever met in a hockey game.”
Wayne Gretzky appeared on the “Dan Patrick Show” on Friday to discuss Howe. Gretzky entered the NHL the same year Howe was playing his last for Hartford.
Gretzky said: “He was a special person. He was a great ambassador for the game of hockey and was a wonderful father and great grandfather and to me he was the greatest hockey player to ever play.
“I tell people this all the time – the two greatest players ever were Gordie Howe and Bobby Orr. In my mind, Howe was so special because he was strong, fast and he was tough and he loved to play hockey.”
Howe was born on March 31, 1928, in a farmhouse in Floral, Saskatchewan, but grew up in the largest city in the province, Saskatoon, where his father was a laborer.
Howe took up hockey at age 8, and was talented enough that he tried to make the New York Rangers at age 15*, but the experiment ended during training camp when he got homesick. After starting his career with the Red Wings, he fractured his skull in 1950 when he hit the boards headfirst at a time when players didn’t wear helmets.
*Never knew this…or killed that brain cell in a gin mill in Istanbul…
Howe initially retired at the age of 42 and the Red Wings retired his sweater number, No. 9, as Howe joined the team’s front office.
But a year later he was back on the ice as a member of the Houston Aeros of the year-old World Hockey Association. Howe resumed playing because his oldest sons, Marty (then 19) and Mark (18), had both signed with Houston. The Howes helped Houston win two consecutive Avco Cups, the WHA’s equivalent of the Stanley Cup, while Gordie Howe was league MVP his first season, scoring 100 points (31-69).
Howe was truly beloved in Detroit and former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper – a big time hockey buff who wrote a book on the history of the sport – said Howe in his time in Detroit helped build “extraordinary goodwill between our two countries.”
It was announced last year that a proposed new international crossing connecting Canada with Detroit would be named after Howe… The Gordie Howe International Bridge is expected to be completed and in service by 2020.
Golf Balls
—Daniel Berger, another kid with major talent, picked up his first PGA Tour win on Sunday at the FedEx St. Jude Classic in Memphis. I was surprised they got it in after a rain delay.
–On the seniors circuit, 58-year-old Bernhard Langer won his third straight Senior Players Championship, his seventh senior major overall, at the Philadelphia Cricket Club in Topeka (just making sure you’re paying attention, sports fans!)
–Next week…the U.S. Open at Oakmont. Phil Mickelson recently spent two days there preparing and came away with this observation:
“I really think it is the hardest golf course we’ve ever played.”
Mickelson so desperately wants this one, after a record six runner-up finishes at the Open, the one major title eluding him.
–So the other day I wrote about Stanford All-American Maverick McNealy, who doesn’t know yet if he wants to turn pro or go into business, which would make him the first Player of the Year to not turn pro since 1971, if I remember correctly.
Well now we learn he is pulling out of this month’s Arnold Palmer Cup, a big amateur event where America’s best college players take on Europe’s top collegians. McNealy helped lead the U.S. to victory in it last year.
“After discussing with my parents, coaches, and doctors, we think that it would be best for me to stay home and get this taken care of,” only we haven’t been told what ‘this’ is.
NASCAR
–History was made at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday as Joey Logano, 26, won the Sprint Cup race, the 15th of his career. The history was in the average age of the top three, the youngest ever for a Sprint Cup race. Chase Elliott, 20, finished second and Kyle Larson, 23, was third.
–Saturday, Daniel Suarez became the first Mexican-born driver to win a NASCAR national race, passing Kyle Busch to win the Xfinity Series race at Michigan.
Busch led 88 of the 125 laps, but he couldn’t stay ahead of Suarez for the final two.
Suarez, 24, from Monterrey, Mexico, is the first non-American to lead any of NASCAR’s three national series in points.
–Robert Channick of the Chicago Tribune had a piece the other day on Craig Breedlove, the former holder of the land speed record. I remember this guy growing up, thanks in large part to my race car loving older brother, but the story is about how Breedlove, now 79, had his jet car “Spirit of America” returned to him after 50 years at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry for restoration and Breedlove found extensive damage to it, so he’s suing the museum, seeking to have them pay for the repairs.
But setting that issue aside, here’s the tale, as told by Channick.
“A high school graduate and self-taught engineer, it took four years for Breedlove to construct the car in his father’s Culver City, Calif., garage. Running out of funding, he pitched Shell Oil and Goodyear as sponsors, completing the sleek Spirit of America for about $150,000.
“In 1963, Breedlove took his car to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and became the first man to cross the 400-mph threshold. The accomplishment was immortalized by the Beach Boys, who recorded the tribute song ‘Spirit of America’ for their 1963 album, Little Deuce Coupe.
“In 1964, he set a new record, clocking in with a speed of more than 526 mph. The historic run ended with his parachutes failing to deploy, and he crashed into a saltwater pool far beyond the course. It was the last time he drove the car.
“Breedlove went on to break the 600-mph barrier in a new car, the Sonic 1. At the urging of his sponsors, the Spirit was cosmetically repaired and sent to the Museum of Science and Industry for exhibition – minus the jet engine.”
Breedlove thought the museum would display the car for a year or two and there was an oral agreement that the car be returned when it was no longer on stage, so to speak.
Then last July, the museum said it was returning the car, in “mint condition,” but Breedlove found that wasn’t the case. A professional restoration shop estimated the cost at $395,000.
Goodyear, which owned the Sonic 1 car, donated it to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, where it is on display.
Euro 2016
Amid intense security, Europe’s big soccer tournament got underway in Paris, 80,000 at the Stade de France on Friday to see the home town boys defeat Romania 2-1 on a stunning 89th-minute goal by Dimitri Payet. France is looking to win its third European Championship after its 1984 and 2000 triumphs.
But Stade de France is where the first suicide bomber struck in the Paris attacks, claiming the first of 130 lives back in November as a friendly between France and Germany was taking place inside.
Well on Saturday, there was terrorism of a different sort. Russian thugs went after England fans both before and after a 1-1 draw in Marseilles. You could hear flares going off during the contest, and the announcers were tense, and then at the end of the game the Russian fans broke through barriers to go after England’s supporters.
Rebekah Vardy, the new wife of Leicester City strike Jamie Vardy, tweeted that she was caught up in the “horrific” violence before kick-off.
She wrote: “That has to be up there with the worst experience EVER at an away game! Teargassed for no reason, caged and treated like animals! Shocking!”
UEFA is poised to sanction Russia, with Saturday’s action coming after two prior days of violence in Marseilles between supporters of the two teams, with at least 20 England fans injured, some seriously. But UEFA also told England it must control its fans better too or both squads could be sent home early.
As for the game itself, once again England choked. They have now won just one opener in their last eight major tournaments.
After taking a 1-0 lead at the 73-minute mark on Eric Dier’s superb free kick, minutes after Wayne Rooney had missed up close on a terrific save by the Russian goalkeeper, Russia tied it in extra time when England just gave it away. It was only Russia’s second chance of the entire contest.
Meanwhile, England’s rival, Wales, prevailed over Slovakia 2-1 for Wales’ first win in major competition since the 1958 World Cup! England and Wales face off on Thursday in a titanic matchup.
Copa America
The star of the tournament, Lionel Messi, made his debut Friday night as Argentina routed Panama 5-0 in Chicago, with Messi getting a hat trick, even though he didn’t enter the contest until the second half! It took him 19 minutes to score all three.
But we’ll see if Argentina can ride Messi to its first major title since the Copa America in 1993.
As for Team USA, it prevailed 1-0 over Paraguay on Saturday night, Clint Dempsey scoring the lone goal, to advance to the quarterfinals, but when Costa Rica shocked Colombia, 3-2, that meant the U.S. is playing Thursday in Seattle (opponent to be determined after I post) rather than the Meadowlands on Friday; Colombia now going there instead.
Maria Sharapova
Sharapova was suspended by the International Tennis Federation on Wednesday for two years for an antidoping rule violation; specifically meldonium, a heart medication that is said to improve blood flow and allow athletes to recover faster that was added to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s prohibited list in January after the agency monitored its usage for a year.
The tribunal ruled: “The contravention of the antidoping rules was not intentional as Ms. Sharapova did not appreciate that Mildronate contained a substance prohibited from 1 January 2016. However, she does bear sole responsibility for the contravention, and very significant fault, in failing to take any steps to check whether the continued use of this medicine was permissible.”
As part of her appeal, Sharapova said: “I cannot accept an unfairly harsh two-year suspension.”
Christine Brennan / USA TODAY Sports
“If this is it for 29-year-old Maria Sharapova, and it certainly could be, it’s such an inglorious ending.
“It’s also a well-deserved one.
“When one of the world’s iconic athletes willfully disregards repeated email warnings that a drug she has been taking for 10 years is being banned, and continues to use it after the ban, and hides the fact that she is taking it from her doctors, there’s only one word for that kind of behavior: cheating.
“The International Tennis Federation suspended Sharapova for two years Wednesday for testing positive not once but twice in 2016 for the banned substance meldonium. She immediately said she will appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, hoping to lessen her suspension.
“We’ll see how that goes, but either way, she will not be able to represent Russia at August’s Olympic Games in Rio, and will likely miss the entirety of the 2016 Grand Slam season as well. Her ban is retroactive to the 2016 Australian Open, where she first was caught using the drug, so she would be allowed to return after the 2018 Australian Open, when she will be approaching her 31st birthday.
“Since her last Grand Slam victory came at the 2014 French Open, and since she hasn’t played since a quarterfinal loss to Serena Williams at the Australian Open, and since she now has dropped to 26th in the world rankings, it’s entirely possible we have seen the last of Sharapova as an elite tennis player….
“Maria Sharapova, five-time Grand Slam champion. And now, sadly, world-class cheater.”
Muhammad Ali…final thoughts…
“Ali told Playboy in 1975 that he’d like to be remembered this way: ‘As a black man who won the heavyweight title and who was humorous and who treated everyone right. As a man who never looked down on those who looked up to him and who helped as many of his people as he could – financially and also in their fight for freedom, justice and equality.’
“He spoke of his religion, and then he concluded this way: ‘And I wouldn’t even mind if folks forgot how pretty I was.’
“Nobody did, though. And nobody will.” [Howard Megdal / USATODAY Sports]
In her eulogy on Friday, Lonnie Ali said, “When a cop talks to an inner city kid, miracles can happen,” referring to that special moment when 12-year-old Cassius Clay approached a white cop, Joe Martin, when Clay’s red bicycle had been stolen. And so it was Joe Martin who introduced Cassius to boxing.
Lonnie Ali:
“His timing is once again poignant. His passing and its meaning for our time should not be overlooked. As we face uncertainty in a world and divisions at home as to who we are as a people, Muhammad’s life provides youthful guidance. Muhammad was not one to give up on the power of understanding, the boundless possibilities of love and the strength of our diversity. He counted among his friends people of all political persuasions, saw truth in all faiths and the nobility of all races as witnessed here today.
“Muhammad may have challenged his government, but he never ran from it or from America. He loved this country and he understood the hard choices that are born of freedom. I think he saw a nation’s soul, measured by the soul of its people.”
Stuff
—Creator, ridden by Irad Ortiz, Jr., ran down Destin in the final stretch of the Belmont Stakes to win the third leg of the Triple Crown by a nose, just the fourth time in the race’s history there has been such a close finish.
Creator is trained by Steve Asmussen, who is being inducted into racing’s Hall of Fame in Saratoga this summer and has won 7,300 races, including the Preakness with champions Curlin in 2007 and Rachel Alexandra in 2009. But he was taken off the Hall of Fame ballot last year over allegations made by PETA regarding the way he treated his animals, though he was later cleared after an investigation by racing officials in Kentucky and New York.
The favorite, Preakness winner Exaggerator, seemed poised for the stretch run but then he faded badly to 11th in the 13-horse field.
Creator went off at 16-1 and paid $34.80. Lani was third.
For Ortiz it was his first win in a Triple Crown race.
So one thing is for sure, the Horse of the Year contest is wide open and will depend probably on the Travers Stakes as well as the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Not exactly the kind of year the sport needed after the heroics of American Pharoah juiced crowds a bit.
—We won’t have Mike Carey to kick around anymore. CBS Sports canned the NFL former referee who was the rules analyst the past two seasons. According to Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News, it doesn’t seem as if he’ll be replaced either.
Let’s face it, Carey just wasn’t good and he was heavily criticized on social media, but for this I feel bad for the guy as you can imagine much of it got way too personal and he didn’t sign up for that part of the gig.
As Raissman said, however, “Carey came up small in big spots” and there is no comparison between him and another former NFL ref, Mike Pereira, who is entering his seventh season as Fox’s rules analyst.
–The great Jackie Stewart turned 77 on Saturday. Stewart was a three-time Formula One World Driving Champion (1969, 1971 and 1973). He won 27 races on the F1 circuit before going out on top in ’73.
–“Man” fails again…from the South China Morning Post:
“A greyhound racing body in Australia has charged 179 people in the industry for potential breaches relating to the alleged unauthorized export of Australian greyhounds to Macau.”
It was revealed after an extensive investigation that greyhounds deemed too slow for racing in Australia were exported to Macau’s Canidrome – Asia’s only greyhound track. The dogs’ living conditions in Macau are horrendous; and they are killed if they are not profitable. Specifically, they are put down if they fail to place in the top three in five consecutive races.
–A 55-year-old woman was killed on Wednesday after being struck by a wind-tossed beach umbrella at Virginia Beach, Virginia, officials said. Police believe the woman was hit with the tip of the umbrella and she went into cardiac arrest. In 25 years with the Virginia Beach police, a spokesperson said she had never heard of such a thing.
–What a tragedy Friday night, as singer Christina Grimmie was shot to death after performing a concert in Orlando. Grimmie and her band were signing autographs at a merchandise table when a man armed with two guns walked up and opened fire on her.
Grimmie’s brother was right there and wrestled the assailant to the ground, but the suspect managed to fatally shoot himself. The brother probably saved others from harm, while it’s unclear how the man was able to enter the venue with two guns.
Grimmie, from south Jersey (Marlton), came in third on NBC’s “The Voice” in 2014, season six. She was very popular on YouTube.
–A few weeks ago, Neely Tucker of the Washington Post had a piece I’ve been meaning to relay. “Whatever happened to Bobbie Gentry?” No, there isn’t a dramatic ending, but it was back in summer of 1967 that then-23-year-old Gentry, a child of Mississippi, penned and sang the #1 Southern gothic ballad “Ode to Billie Joe,” the story about an unnamed young woman and her family sitting around a farm dinner table discussing the suicide of Billie Joe McAllister.
The song sold tens of millions of records and knocked the Beatles off the charts. It spawned a 1976 movie and made Gentry a hot Vegas star, even though she only had a few minor hits afterwards. She hung out with Tom Jones and Elvis and briefly married casino magnate Bill Harrah. [She also married and divorced singer Jim Stafford in the late 1970s.]
The thing is, by the early 1980s, Gentry went kapoof. As Neely Tucker writes: “She made Harper Lee look chatty. She went full Garbo.”
“It’s most often reported that she is living in seclusion in Los Angeles, as if she has morphed into a Southern-fried Norma Desmond holed up in a creepy mansion on Sunset Boulevard.
“That isn’t true.
“And Gentry spoke to a reporter, for this story, apparently for the first time in three decades. We caution you not to get too excited about that. It’s one sentence. Could be two.
“Then she hung up.”
It turns out Gentry returned home, “hidden in plain sight, known perhaps to a few friends and neighbors, but nobody who ever blabs….
“The short answer to one of pop’s great mysteries:
“Bobbie Gentry lives about a two-hour drive from the site of the Tallahatchie Bridge that made her so famous, in a gated community, in a very nice house that cost about $1.5 million. Her neighbors, some locals and some real estate agents know who she is, although it’s not clear which of her many possible names she goes by.”
So Neely Tucker said the day before he wrote his article that he was staring at a phone number on his computer screen, understanding no reporter had spoken to Gentry in seemingly forever.
“I punched the numbers.
“After a few rings, a pleasant woman’s voice said: ‘Hello.’
“I introduced myself and my newspaper. I said I was looking for the person whose name appears on the property owner’s record.
“There was a dead pause of several seconds. My fingers clenched open and closed.
“ ‘There is no one here by that name,’ she said, finally.
“I apologized and started to read back the number, to make sure I had dialed it correctly, and she hung up.
“But there isn’t really any doubt.
“I talked, for about 13 seconds, to Bobbie Gentry.
“Some mysteries can be solved. What Billie Joe and his girlfriend threw off the Tallahatchie Bridge? No. That can’t.”
Top 3 songs for the week 6/13/70: #1 “The Long And Winding Road” (The Beatles) #2 “Which Way You Goin’ Billy?” (The Poppy Family) #3 “Everything Is Beautiful” (Ray Stevens…I liked this one…doesn’t make me a bad person…)…and…#4 “Get Ready” (Rare Earth) #5 “Love On A Two-Way Street” (The Moments) #6 “Cecelia” (Simon & Garfunkel) #7 “The Letter” (Joe Cocker) #8 “Up Around The Bend” (Creedence Clearwater Revival) #9 “Make Me Smile” (Chicago) #10 “The Love You Save” (The Jackson 5)
Cincinnati Reds Quiz Answers: 1) Frank Robinson (1962) and Pete Rose (1978) are the single-season doubles leaders with 51. 2) Yes, an easy one. George Foster is the only Red to hit 50 home runs in a season, 52, in 1977. 3) 140 RBI: George Foster, 149, 1977; Johnny Bench, 148, 1970; Ted Kluszewski, 141, 1954. 4) Eric Davis is the modern-day leader in stolen bases for a single season, 80, 1986. Dave Collins had 79 in 1980.
Next Bar Chat, Thursday.
