[Posted Wed. a.m.]
NFL Quiz: With Ryan Fitzpatrick throwing nine interceptions the last two games, as a Jets fan, I find myself waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, having thrown a pick myself in my latest nightmare. Ergo, I can’t help but ask, which five QBs in NFL history had the highest single-season totals in INTs, minimum 32? All are from 1960 and beyond. You get the initials. G.B., V.T., F.T., J.H., F.T. (different one). Answer below.
Ball Bits
—Toronto won an exciting wild card game against Baltimore on Tuesday at Rogers Centre. Edwin Encarnacion had a three-run walk-off home run off Ubaldo Jimenez in the bottom of the eleventh.
O’s manager Buck Showalter will be second-guessed for not using star closer Zach Britton.
The game was marred by a fan who threw a nearly full can of beer at Orioles left fielder Hyun Soo Kim while Kim was reeling in a fly ball in the eighth. Thankfully, the can barely missed striking him
–Us Mets fans are stoked for tonight’s wild card game, Noah Syndergaard vs. Madison Bumgarner. But should Mets fans be satisfied, seeing as how in mid-August, we didn’t even know if we’d have meaningful baseball on Labor Day, let alone in October? [Especially given the knowledge Bumgarner has a 2.14 career ERA in 88 1/3 postseason innings. Even better, he has a 0.60 ERA on the road in the playoffs, and a 0.62 ERA at Citi Field.]
I have to admit, I don’t see myself being too distraught if we lose, unless it’s through some egregious late-inning error that costs us the game, or another Carlos Beltran, circa 2006, type at bat to end it. I kind of get the feeling a lot of Mets fans feel the same way. It’s not like we have the horses in the starting rotation we had last fall, pitching being everything come postseason.
Joel Sherman / New York Post
[Sherman writes about how Yoenis Cespedes didn’t want to celebrate the Mets’ clinching a spot the other night because he wants to go to another World Series and recognizes the Mets have no chance unless they win tonight.]
“It accentuates the interesting place the Mets are in. Have they already – regardless of what happens against Madison Bumgarner – had a season worth toasting in 2016? Or does a team that went to the World Series last year have to do more than just clinch a wild card to feel this season was a success?
“ ‘In some ways, I can’t believe they even got into the playoffs,’ Phillies bench coach Larry Bowa said. ‘I think Terry Collins should be Manager of the Year. You are not talking about Joe Schmo starting pitching going down. You are talking about elite starting pitching and it all went down.’
“That would be the opening statement for those who feel the Mets could take a well-deserved victory lap now.”
Well, as Bowa adds, and as all of us feel, “To me they are a dangerous team, because if they get by the first game, they are playing with house money.”
Ah yes, the potential for Mets-Cubs…all the pressure on Chicago.
Just do your best tonight, Metsies.
–With the Texas Rangers one of the teams in the spotlight now, I was looking up Adrian Beltre and have to admit I was surprised at his 2016 numbers, seeing as, frankly, I just haven’t followed Texas at all. [This has been one of my weaker years in knowing what’s going on in the A.L., I hate to admit. I’ve been N.L. centric.]
Anyway, I looked up Beltre on baseballreference.com, really to see how much closer to the Hall of Fame he is, and aside from a superb 32 homer, 104 RBI, .300 season at age 37, I was startled he is up to 2,942 hits! Heck, he should be first ballot now that’s he’s going to be a member of the 3,000 hit club.
I have no problem with Texas in the World Series, as much as that would upset my Red Sox friends. One of their other rather fascinating stories is Ian Desmond.
From 2012-14 as Washington’s shortstop, Desmond had three straight years in the 20/20 club (home runs/stolen bases), but he turned down a $106 million, 7-year extension from the Nationals, which would have kicked in after the 2015 season, when he was going to be paid $11 million.
Desmond, 31, then proceeded to slump to .233, 19 HRs, 13 SBs, and all last year, those of us focused on the N.L. East couldn’t believe his stupidity.
Desmond then turned down a one-year qualifying offer from the Nats for 2016 at $15.8 million, thinking that he’d receive a big free agent contract from some unsuspecting schlub.
But nothing was forthcoming and finally he accepted a one-year, $8 million deal from Texas, though he had to play the outfield, not short.
So what did he do? He hit 22 home runs, drove in 86, batted .285 and stole 21 bases. Oh, but while he claims he is very happy, and I’m sure he is, being financially secure and perhaps heading to a World Series, he still should have taken that $106 million deal on the table.
–Update: Baltimore’s Caleb Joseph finished the year with zero RBIs in 132 at-bats, easily smashing the record for most ABs without an RBI, as I chronicled the other day.
–The White Sox confirmed Rick Renteria will replace Robin Ventura as manager. Ventura was 375-435 in his five years at the helm, but after a respectable 85-77 first year, the rest of his time was marked with disappointment. It’s too bad…he’s one of the good guys.
Ventura said after the season finale, “I’m not going to be back. I just feel it’s the right thing… It’s not like they’re going to be building a statue out on the concourse.”
—Walt Weiss was fired as manager of the Rockies after four seasons, during which time the team went 283-365, including 75-87 this year, which was actually their best mark since 2010.
–The Marlins fired hitting coach Barry Bonds after just one season, as apparently manager Don Mattingly tired of him, specifically calling Bonds out a few times for a lack of effort, with one report noting Bonds’ “commitment level dwindled” during the summer.
The New York Post’s Kevin Kernan spoke with one MLB coach who said “Mattingly would have gone so far as to step down as manager if Bonds returned for another season.”
–How good was the Angels’ Mike Trout’s season? As Buster Olney of ESPN points out, he was the only player to bat .315 with 100 RBIs, 100 runs and 100 walks and is the first American Leaguer to do so since Miguel Cabrera in 2011.
There have also been just two instances in American League history that a player has amassed 300 total bases, 100 walks and 25 steals in a single season: Trout in 2016 and Trout in 2013.
When you look at Trout’s baseball card, what I love are the five straight seasons with 100 runs scored. [Olney believes Trout is the A.L. MVP. The Cubs’ Kris Bryant in the N.L.]
–Bill Plaschke / L.A. Times…on Vin Scully’s last game.
“He spoke to the game, to its history, to the unique situation of being honored at a retirement party disguised as a baseball game.
“He spoke to the adoring folks who filled San Francisco’s AT&T Park, to the admiring announcers sitting in the next booth, to family members who surrounded his chair and wrapped him in a giant midgame hug.
“Then, finally, after three hours of a brilliant final broadcast that will rank among his finest, Vin Scully stripped away all the decorations and did what he has done best for 67 years.
“He spoke directly to the hearts of Dodgers fans.
“He spoke simply, and we understood exactly.
“With the camera focused on the celebrating Giants after their 7-1, wild-card clinching win against the Dodgers, the retiring Scully uttered his final live call of a baseball game.
“ ‘I have said enough for a lifetime and, for the last time, I wish you all a very pleasant good afternoon,’ he said.
“Moments later, at the end of a postgame message taped earlier from the broadcast booth, he signed off for good.
“ ‘There will be a new day, and eventually a new year, and when the upcoming winter gives way to spring, ah, rest assured, once again, it will be time for Dodgers baseball!’ he said. ‘So this is Vin Scully wishing you a very pleasant good afternoon, wherever you may be.’
“Silence. Chills.
“In the coming years, wherever Dodgers fans may be, it will not be the same without him, a fact that rang true again Sunday when Scully officially ended the most legendary career in sports broadcasting history with his usual smarts, humor, and grace.
“While nothing will ever compare to his emotional ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ home farewell at Dodger Stadium a week ago, this final broadcast – which aired on radio, free TV and cable TV throughout Southern California – reminded Dodgers fans of what they will be missing.
“He was as sharp as he’s ever been. He was as smooth as he’s always been. By the end of the broadcast, viewer sentiment was likely filled with a little frustration. Seriously, he’s only 88, why does he have to leave now?….
“He described the weather by saying, ‘The temperature here is 62 degrees, kind of an angry sky at about 6:30 this morning, but it’s softened up a bit…and the sky has punctures in it with a little bit of blue overhead.’….
“He said jittery Giant Hunter Pence ‘would make coffee nervous.’….
“He noted that a curveball from the Dodgers’ Kenta Maeda ‘floated up there like a soap bubble.’….
“In the seventh, with prompting from Giants announcer Mike Krukow, a swaying Scully helped lead the crowd in the singing of ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game.’
“In one of his final moments before his formal farewells, he dropped a final word of wisdom, a slight rewording of a quote from Dr. Seuss.
“ ‘Don’t be sad that it’s over,’ Scully said. ‘Smile because it happened.’
“Los Angeles is indeed sad, yet Los Angeles is truly smiling.
“Godspeed, Vin Scully, wherever you may be.”
Arnie… “A life well played”
If you didn’t get to see Arnold Palmer’s memorial service on Tuesday, catch it on YouTube or through the Golf Channel. It is very touching and an appropriate final salute to the King, with terrific eulogies from Jim Nantz and Jack Nicklaus, among others. Arnie’s grandson, Sam Saunders, also related how he talked to Arnie on the phone about an hour before he died on Sept. 25. It’s a tearjerker.
Jack left us with: “Remember when Arnold Palmer touched your life, touched your heart and don’t forget why.”
Vince Gill, an avid golfer and family friend, did some musical selections and everyone had a few funny anecdotes.
Personally, it brought back a lot of memories, mostly from my childhood and trips ‘home’ to the area. The memorial was at St. Vincent College basilica in Latrobe, on the campus of St. Vincent where the Steelers have trained for 51 consecutive seasons, a place that is also just a stone’s throw from Latrobe Country Club. I’ve been on the campus many times.
I’ve saved a few articles on Arnie over the years, this from a March 22, 2013 Golfweek article by Adam Schupak on the enduring friendship of Arnie and Dow Finsterwald, who first met in 1948 at an event at Raleigh Country Club in North Carolina, when Finsterwald played for Ohio University and Palmer for Wake Forest.
“Finsterwald (whose lone major was a PGA Championship…so the two friends completed the Grand Slam) had two legitimate shots to win the Masters, only to be beaten by his best buddy. He never dwelled on what could’ve been. ‘What’s the expression?’ Finsterwald said. ‘It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ In 1960 he finished two strokes out of a playoff with Palmer when he was assessed a two-stroke penalty for practice putting during the first round. Two years later they were locked in a tense duel when Palmer reeled off birdies on two of the last three holes to force an 18-hole playoff. He defeated Finsterwald and Gary Player the next day.
“ ‘Dow was always one of my best friends, but I wanted to beat him every time we played,’ Palmer said.
“The depth of their friendship may be best measured during two of the lowest moments of Palmer’s career. After losing the 1962 U.S. Open to Nicklaus in a playoff, a disconsolate Palmer phoned to check on Finsterwald, who was grieving the loss of his father. On the eve of the tournament, Palmer had shouldered the responsibility of breaking the news to him that his father had suffered a heart attack. And after Palmer’s most heartbreaking setback, a playoff defeat against Billy Casper in the 1966 U.S. Open, Palmer flew directly from San Francisco to spend time with Finsterwald in Colorado. When they went to dinner that night, Palmer attracted a crowd.
“ ‘Dishwashers were coming out of the kitchen to get his autograph,’ Finsterwald said. ‘He accommodated them in such a gracious manner you would’ve thought he had won. I don’t think in all the years I’ve known him, I’ve ever seen him be rude to anybody or be short in any form.’”
Last spring I wrote of how sad it was at Arnie’s tournament at Bay Hill. As Jaime Diaz wrote for Golfweek at the time, we knew the end was near. Palmer was unable to hold a press conference for the first time at the tournament he has hosted since 1979. And he announced he wouldn’t be joining Jack and Gary Player in hitting the ceremonial opening tee shot at the Masters the next month.
I saved a portion of Diaz’ column for when the inevitable happened.
“Palmer’s magnetism is such that every golfer who ever saw him in person vividly remembers the first time. Mine was as an 8-year-old at the 1962 Lucky International in San Francisco. My uncle took me, and we quickly joined Arnie’s Army. On the sixth hole at Harding Park, after Palmer’s drive kicked up dust and left a broken tee, my uncle ran out and got the splintered remnants for me to keep.
“After the round, my uncle prodded me to ask for Palmer’s autograph amid a crowd of people. Palmer stayed long enough to get to me, but after looking down kindly pointed out that I hadn’t given anything to sign. As Arnold waited, my uncle quickly searched his pockets, came up with his checkbook and tore away a sheet. ‘Oh, oh, a blank check,’ Arnold said with feigned concern before chuckling. Then he signed the back and handed it to me with a smile.
“PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem recently noted about Palmer: ‘He has this other dimension that you can’t articulate. It’s just that people see him and they love everything about him.’
“Great as it was, Palmer’s legacy is larger than just his gift for people. He has had an underrated wisdom. His ‘swing your swing’ commercial for Dick’s Sporting Goods was a reminder that for all the new influence of science-based teaching, even the best players have to incorporate and value their repetitive idiosyncrasies….
“When Charlie Rose in 2011 asked Palmer if he thought Tiger Woods would re-ascend, Palmer looked deeply into his experience and confronted the game’s mystery with a soulfoulness that exceeded Haultain’s (golf’s only other notable Arnold). ‘Not sure about that,’ he said. ‘Once you vary, and you lose that thing… What is it? Sometimes it’s hard to put in place. What is it? I’m not sure I know. I’m not sure Jack knows… When you have a disturbance in your life that’s major, can you get it back, can you get that thing you can’t put your finger on and get hold of it and choke it and keep it? Boy, that’s a tough deal. …It could be a psychological thing. You say, ‘Well, I’ve done it.’ Then you say, ‘I want to do it again.’ But it isn’t there. You can’t find it. You can’t grasp it. You can’t hold on to it.’
“Words every golfer who aspires to No. 1 should remember.
“As much as his triumphs continue to be celebrated and his losses still mourned, and as much as 62 PGA Tour victories and seven majors are all-time stuff, Palmer is far bigger than his record. That in his prime he was one of those perfect specimens, whether on television or in person, is beyond doubt. But what triggered the connection – and gave golf a more seductive lure – was the force of a gifted man doing what he so loved, so well. Although the ferocious competitor in him would disagree, whether he was winning or losing major championships (or even playing in the weekday ‘Bay Hill Shootout,’ where for years he joined his buddies in putting 50 bucks in the pot on the first tee), with Palmer it was more about how than how many.
“My favorite sentences about golf are the final ones in my favorite book about golf, The Dogged Victims of Inexorable Fate. Dan Jenkins, who is three months younger than Palmer, wrote this as they both turned 40:
“ ‘This is true, I think. He is the most immeasurable of all golf champions. But this is not entirely true because of all that he has won, or because of that mysterious fury with which he has managed to rally himself. It is partly because of the nobility he has brought to losing. And more than anything, it is true because of the pure, unmixed joy he has brought to trying. He has been, after all, the doggedest victim of us all.’
“Arnold Palmer will always matter. What’s beautiful is that with the passing years, he matters even more.”
We all will be talking about Arnold Palmer for generations to come. Personally, as a Wake Forest alum, we couldn’t be prouder to call him our own. I saw him a few times during my years in college. He would come to football games, and a hoops game or two as he was heavily involved as a trustee in those days. I remember every time we saw him, us students, and the rest of the crowd, would just burst into “We love you, Arnie!”
Ryder Cup…final thoughts….
Dave Shedloski / Golf World
“Call it a victory for process as well as performance….
“Formulated by the much-maligned U.S. Task Force in the wake of a thorough drubbing two years ago in Scotland, the game plan that emerged in the 41st Ryder Cup at Hazeltine National – stressing teamwork and commitment – energized and unified a determined American squad, facilitating their largest winning margin since 1981. Overall, the U.S. has won for just the third time in the past 11 meetings and first since 2008 at Valhalla. America improved to 26-13-2 in the series, which moves to Le Golf National Park in 2018.
“Grand designs aside, the Americans needed more pugnacity, too, and the embodiment of that spirit was impassioned Texan Patrick Reed….
“ ‘Anytime I can wear the red, white and blue, play for our country, and it happens to be match play, it kind of all just fits together,’ said Reed, 26, who led the U.S. with 3 ½ points, while Brandt Snedeker and Brooks Koepka won three apiece.
“ ‘Patrick is a wonderful player at any time, but he’s been our titan for the last two Ryder Cups,’ said U.S. vice captain Jim Furyk. ‘For him to go out against Rory, who is the best player in the world when he is playing well, and to beat him in a tight match…he’s got some guts, more than we’ve had in a long time.’
“ ‘I’ve said that we need more Patrick Reeds on the team,’ U.S. captain Davis Love III said.”
All 12 U.S. players won at least one match, the first time that happened since 1975 under captain Arnold Palmer.
Reed told vice captain Tiger Woods, his pod master, “You are not sitting me on any matches,” and Woods and Davis Love III listened.
Jaime Diaz / Golf World
“You’ve got to hand it to Phil Mickelson. He backed himself into the tightest of corners before the 41st Ryder Cup…one that he was very worried he wouldn’t be able to escape.
“Of course, Mickelson’s mouth has put him in lots of corners that he has had to fight his way out of. Like a lot of high-risk achievers, maybe he’s drawn to brinksmanship as a way to MAKE himself perform.
“At this must-win Ryder Cup for the U.S., Mickelson had a lot to lose. Being beaten by Europe for the ninth time in the past 11 matches would have vindicated the aggrieved-by-Lefty Tom Watson, invalidated the owned-by-Lefty task force and basically put know-it-all Lefty flat on his behind.
“But Mickelson hasn’t piled up 42 PGA Tour wins including five majors by shying away from challenge. Putting an emphatic exclamation point on the year-long play that, at 46, made him the third-leading point-getter in qualifying for this team, Mickelson came up huge at Hazeltine. While shouldering his self-imposed (and David Love III-validated) role as on-field leader, he went 2-1-1, concluding with a 10-birdie Sunday singles performance against Sergio Garcia that, considering the stage and the occasion, will rank with the best rounds of his career. Doing it when it had to be done was a validation of greatness….
“Mickelson’s most important victories have been marked by the highest level of opportunism. After long dry spells and disappointments, he has seized the biggest moments. He did so in finally winning his first major at the 2004 Masters, where he birdied five of the last seven holes to nip Ernie Els.
“To be sure, Mickelson has had his share of tough losses. Many of them are found in his record six runner-up finishes at the U.S. Open, the most painful at Winged Foot in 2006, when a par on the final hole would have won him his third straight major, and finally gotten the U.S. Open that is keeping him from the career Grand Slam….
“And amid the U.S. team’s nightmare finish at the 2012 Ryder Cup, Mickelson suffered one of the most painful Sunday singles loses ever when Justin Rose holed long birdie putts on the final two holes at Medinah to beat him, 1 up.
“But just when an aging Mickelson seemed like he had no more serious ammunition, he bounced back to improbably steal the 2013 Open Championship at Muirfield with a brilliant last-round 66….
“Mickelson…seemed to have a good handle on his leadership and his game on the eve of the Ryder Cup. But that’s when the brinksman within kicked in, and Mickelson chose at the Wednesday press conference to use an open-ended general question about the importance of the captain to settle an old score having to do with his feeling that captain Hal Sutton had given him too little time to prepare for his partnership with Tiger Woods at the 2004 Ryder Cup.
“Almost immediately, it was clear to his team and most important, to Mickelson, that he had created a distraction that could disrupt chemistry and potentially, his legacy. To his credit, he issued a self-effacing apology to Sutton and admitted to his team that he had been wrong. And then he overcame what he called the most profound nervousness in his first match, in which he and Rickie Fowler came from 2 down with four to play to defeat Rory McIlroy and Andy Sullivan, 1 up….
“Going 2-1-1 for the week, Mickelson gained the satisfaction of having had a tangible impact on the outcome of this redemption Ryder Cup….
“Said (vice captain Tom) Lehman: ‘Afterward I told him, ‘Phil, when history judges you, you are going to be regarded among the 10 best players who ever played the game.’ Because what he did under the kind of pressure he put himself under was incredible. There are very few people who have ever played this game who could have done that.’
“You have to hand it to him.”
—Euro captain Darren Clarke selected his close friend, 43-year-old Lee Westwood, as one of his three captain’s picks, Westwood playing in his 10th Ryder Cup, entering with a 20-15-6 record while contributing to seven European victories.
But as I wrote when the choice was made, there was criticism because of Westwood’s putting issues, and because Russell Knox, a two-time winner on the PGA Tour this year, as well as Luke Donald, was available.
The choice bit Clarke in the ass, particularly on Saturday afternoon in Westwood’s match with Danny Willett against Ryan Moore and J.B. Holmes when Westwood missed three short putts on the final three holes, the last a 2-footer on 18 that would have salvaged a crucial half.
Clarke is also taking heat for playing rookies Matthew Fitzpatrick, Chris Wood and Andy Sullivan only once, and on Friday, before Sunday’s singles.
BBC golf correspondent Iain Carter:
“This was a victory long in the planning and entirely merited for the U.S., who tore into the competition on Friday morning and finished it at similar speed in Sunday’s singles.
“In between Europe had dared to dream of another unlikely comeback, but with Patrick Reed the fist-pumping, roaring talisman and too few of Darren Clarke’s 12 men matching the rookie magic of Thomas Pieters and Rafa Cabrera-Bello, by the end the expected fierce battle became a romp. It may be just what the competition needed.”
–As to Patrick Reed and his histrionics after a birdie or eagle, Christopher Clarey had this in the New York Times:
“(McIlroy and Reed) would then both birdie the next three holes to remain all square, but the transcendence was in the finger-wagging, chest-thumping details that were not to all the elders’ taste.
“ ‘Come on, Patrick,’ said the veteran coach Butch Harmon, working as an analyst for Sky Sports in Britain. ‘Show some class.’
“It was certainly not the way Nicklaus or his old rival Tony Jacklin would have played it, and surely not entirely in the spirit of Arnold Palmer, whose shadow has been long at this tournament in the wake of his death last Sunday night.
“But all the loud body language on Sunday was, in truth, much more in tune with the modern Ryder Cup, one in which Europe’s emotional leader has been Ian Poulter. Reduced to a vice captain’s and Sunday spectator’s role this year, he was so often a bug-eyed, in-their-face tormentor of Americans in recent years.
“Though McIlroy gave it his best shot, Europe ultimately had no one who could replace Poulter’s wire-to-wire intensity. The Americans sure did, though.
“And though Reed and McIlroy both looked just about punched out as they made their final climb of this Ryder Cup to the 18th green on Sunday, Reed still had enough left to deliver the knockout blow: one last 8-foot birdie putt followed by – what else? – one last double fist pump.”
—Danny Willett originally distanced himself from his brother, Pete’s, pre-Ryder Cup comments in National Club Golfer magazine, who wrote: “Team USA have only won five of the last 16 Ryder Cups. Four of those five victories have come on home soil. For the Americans to stand a chance of winning, they need their baying mob of imbeciles to caress their egos every step of the way.
“Europe need to silence the pudgy, basement-dwelling, irritants, stuffed on cookie dough and pissy beer, pausing between mouthfuls of hotdog so they can scream ‘Baba booey’ until their jelly faces turn red.”
The piece was condemned by both the Americans and the Europeans but following Sunday’s singles collapse, Danny Willett stoked the flames by Tweeting:
“Very strange week here at the Ryder Cup…Tried my best but played poorly…Unfortunately some American fans showed that @P_J_Willet was in fact correct…Nothing to blame my bad play on…But still shows that sometimes fans don’t know when to call it a day…Shame really!!”
No doubt a significant number of fans were total jerks, but Willett had initially taken the high road and now, after going 0-3, used the fans as an excuse, which is poor form.
I wrote last time, not having seen his tweets yet, that he would be treated better at Augusta, and he still might because it’s a different crowd. But he shouldn’t expect great treatment at other venues.
One thing is for sure. 2018 in France is going to get ugly, especially seeing as the political tone on the entire continent is only going to worsen for a number of big-picture reasons.
–Golf Digest has a bit on Andrew “Beef” Johnston in its October issue. If you watched the Ryder Cup you saw Beef’s commercials for Arby’s, which are both funny and a brilliant move by Johnston and Arby’s.
Jerry Tarde: “A golf pro walks into a bar. Well, not just any golf pro – Beef Johnston, this summer’s juggernaut, who’s ranked 86th in the world, made three out of three cuts in America, finished eighth at the Open at Troon and won the Spanish Open on the European Tour. He’s wearing a Pittsburgh Pirates flat-brim cap and a Wu-Tang hip-hop T-shirt. He’s talking to everybody, and everybody wants to talk to him.
“We’re there to video Beef giving lessons in a London pub. It’ll get almost 300,000 views on Golf Digest’s Facebook Live.
What’s your best advice for 10 more yards, Beef?
Stand a bit wider, give yourself a good balance, make a big turn and give it a rip. Really pummel it out there.
“Earlier in the day, he posed for our cover story. ‘He clambered into the studio like he’s arrived everywhere else the last few months,’ says Senior Writer Guy Yocum. ‘Incredulous that so much fanfare is being directed at a middle-class kid from north London. He’s like Dorothy in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ opening the door into a world of color, new friends everywhere, first-time experiences around every corner. He’s up for all of it.’….
“Senior Staff Photographer Dom Furore shot him in a studio loft, in a portal overlooking Tower Bridge, and inside a London taxi cab. Somebody asks if Adele lives in the neighborhood. ‘I don’t know; let’s find out,’ Beef says, rolling down the window and shouting to a bloke on the street: ‘Pardon me, but does Adele live nearby?’ The man inanely replies, ‘Adele can live anywhere she wants.’ Beef laughs uproariously. ‘Brilliant!’ he says.
“He has that toothy smile and a belly laugh that knocks him off balance. A barmaid is pulling one draft after another behind him. Patrons come up to get an autograph. Pints are emptied at an astonishing rate. He turns no one away.
“After the eight-hour shoot, Beef takes Director of Photography & Video Christian Iooss and crew to his favorite BBQ joint in London, HotBox, where he rhymes to the ‘90s hip-hop on the sound system.
“Now he’s back in Europe after setting a record for selfies with fans on the PGA Tour.
“We like him. He’s a smart young man of 27 who hopes to play about four events early next year in the U.S., and wouldn’t it be fun if he qualified for the Masters?
“Golf could use more Beef.”
NFL Bits
—Not looking like a good year for New York area football fans. The Giants lost on Monday night to the 4-0 Vikings, 24-10, in Minneapolis.
The story increasingly is receiver Odell Beckham Jr., who after 90+ receptions,12/13 TD seasons in his first two years, has an ineffectual 22 receptions and zero TDs in the first four games; Beckham with just 3 for a measly 23 yards Monday.
Beckham has been losing his control as the prima donna is making it all about him. When he received a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for taunting, Odell said after: “It’s a man sport. You have to protect yourself at all times. Things got that way and I’ve just got to know where I’m at. I’ve got to know it’s all against me. It’s going to be that way. I have to assume that I’m always in the wrong, no matter what.”
Beckham went on and on in the postgame press conference, bitching about this and that, so then GM Jerry Reese apparently had a long chat with him after his statements.
Eli Manning said Beckham needs to be aware that officials will be quicker to throw flags on him. “He has got to play smart.”
But then Beckham said in an interview with ESPN on Tuesday, “Football is my sanctuary. It’s where I go to escape. It’s where I’m most happy. I’m not having fun anymore.”
Oh brother. What a jerk.
Beckham took a shot at coach Ben McAdoo, saying, “I’m not getting the opportunities to contribute, and that’s frustrating to me.”
Meanwhile, the Giants lost the turnover battle for the fourth straight game (2-0 in this one).
The Giants are third from the bottom in the league with a +/- takeaway ratio of -8*. The worst is the Jets, -11.
*Minnesota is the top ‘D’ in the league thus far in this category, +10.
Speaking of which….
…What kind of start are the Jets off to? Right guard Brian Winters, after a play in the second quarter was over, took offense to Seattle defensive end Michael Bennett hovering around the pile, so Winters head-butted Bennett, incurring a 15-yard penalty for unnecessary roughness, but also giving himself a concussion. Some of these guys are flat-out idiots.
With the Jets 1-3 and facing road games at Pittsburgh and Arizona (an equally troubled Cardinals squad), receiver Brandon Marshall, in backing his quarterback, the guy with the 10 interceptions and putrid 57.6 rating, said:
“I am…going down in a boat with Ryan Fitzpatrick, OK? You got it? So can you not ask me any more questions about that?
“I am…going down…in the boat with No. 14.”
Or as the late Michael Ray Richardson famously said, “The ship be sinking.” When asked by a reporter, “How far can it sink?” he replied, “Sky’s the limit.” [Never get tired of this one…even though we all use it like ten times a year.]
–Dallas police have completed an investigation into a June 5 shooting of Denver Broncos cornerback Aqib Talib and have concluded that he shot himself in the leg, according to a local television station. Both Talib, who has started all four games this season, and the team are staying mum.
CFB
–Just a few big games of note this coming week….
9 Tennessee at 8 Texas A&M. 25 Virginia Tech at 17 North Carolina. 1 Alabama at 16 Arkansas. 23 Florida State at 10 Miami (can Miami finally step up in this one?).
And Syracuse at Wake Forest.
[If you missed it, the new AP poll was in the last Bar Chat.]
NASCAR
The Chase for the Sprint Cup is down to 12 drivers from 16, following Martin Truex Jr.’s triumph on Sunday at Dover International Speedway, the Jersey boy’s second win in three weeks.
The four who missed the cut were Tony Stewart, Kyle Larson, Jamie McMurray, and Chris Buescher, the longshot who needed to win the race to advance.
The survivors: Truex, Austin Dillon, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Chase Elliott and Jimmie Johnson.
Stuff
–After I wrote my bit on the Knicks’ Joakim Noah and his problem with West Point and war, I saw this by Phil Mushnick in the New York Post:
“New Knick Joakim Noah is another wise fool who thinks the world began on the day he was born.
“His refusal, Thursday, to attend a team dinner with West Point cadets on the grounds that war kills the young was as staggeringly short-sighted as it was colossally naïve.
“Noah is the son of a black Frenchman, the tennis great Yannick Noah, the latter born in 1960 – 16 years after the free-world’s military, including West Point men, drove the Nazis out of France at a cost of thousands of dead or wounded young men.
“The likelihood of Noah’s father being born, or born free and to achieve any kind of success in Nazi/Vichy master race France, is incalculable but tiny. Perhaps the best Yannick Noah could have hoped for was a life as a slave laborer.
“Yes, young men die in war. The World War II U.S. military cemetery in Normandy, on France’s western coast [Ed. northwest], contains the graves of 9,387, mostly young Americans. St. James, the U.S. military cemetery in nearby Brittany, contains the remains of 4,410 mostly young military men. The vast majority, some so shattered in combat as to be identified as ‘Known Only to God,’ were killed from the start of D-Day, the start of the liberation of France.
“There are many more killed-in-action young American WWII military buried throughout France.
“And Joakim Noah owes to them his very existence.”
Noah has a hamstring injury now and could be out awhile as exhibition season has begun. Guard Derrick Rose has left the Knicks to join a $21.5 million civil trial for alleged sexual assault in Los Angeles. Rose has said he won’t settle.
–The Premier League is known for chewing up and spitting out coaches (managers) and after just seven games, Swansea City sacked its head coach, Francesco Guidolin, following a 1-1-5 start (W-D-L), which has them 17th in the table.
I wouldn’t bring this up, except it was interesting the club replaced Guidolin with Bob Bradley, the former USA manager, who was coaching a French second-tier team, Le Havre. Bradley is thus the first American manager in the Premier League.
Pretty brutal that Guidolin’s sacking was announced on his 61st birthday on Monday. I’m guessing he didn’t even get a sheet cake.
Following the international break this week, Bradley’s first match will be against Arsenal. Good luck.
[I didn’t realize Swansea has American owners, who are being heavily criticized by the Swansea fan base for the club’s problems.]
–The Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced the suspension handed down to Maria Sharapova from two years to 15 months, which would make her eligible for next year’s French Open. Sharapova had been banned by the International Tennis Federation in March for twice testing positive for the banned substance meldonium. She argued that she was unaware it had been added to the list of banned substances.
Sharapova will be 30 when play begins at the 2017 French Open.
–Regarding my All-Time Television Show list from last chat, I imagine Steve G. isn’t the only one curious about two programs I didn’t list.
The Rockford Files was No. 47 and The Fugitive No. 80.
I’ll throw some others I didn’t note the first time:
32. I Love Lucy
36. Law & Order
41. The Honeymooners
50. ER
62. Sex and the City
65. Happy Days
70. Roseanne
81. Dallas
81. The Jeffersons
90. The Dick Van Dyke Show
94. Jeopardy!
96. Gunsmoke
98. The Golden Girls
–From the New York Post:
“A man on a hike in southwest Montana survived two consecutive grizzly bear attacks and drove himself nearly 20 miles to a hospital after capturing his gruesome wounds on camera. [Ed. And boy are they gruesome.]”
Todd Orr, of Bozeman, was on a hike scouting for elk in Madison Valley.
“ ‘Yeah, life sucks in bear country,’ he said in a video viewed more than 20 million times. ‘Just had a grizzly with two cubs come at me from about 80 yards. And, uh, I sprayed the s—t out of her with bear spray and then I went on my face and protected the back of my neck.
“ ‘She got my head good – I don’t know what’s under my hat – my ear, my arm, uh, pieces of stuff hanging out. I don’t know what’s going on in there. And then my shoulder. She ripped up, I think my arm’s broke, but legs are good, internal organs are good, eyes are good. I just walked out three miles, now I got to go to the hospital, so be safe out there. Bear spray doesn’t always work but it’s better than nothing.’
“In shock and maimed but alive, Orr then began heading back down the trail. But within minutes, the bear was back.
“ ‘She either followed me back down the trail or cut through the trees and randomly came out on the trail right behind me,’ Orr wrote on Facebook. ‘Whatever the case, she was instantly on me again. I couldn’t believe this was happening a second time! Why me? I was so lucky the first attack, but now I questioned if I would survive the second.’….
“ ‘She slammed down on top of me and bit my shoulder and arms again,’ the post continued. ‘One bite on my forearm went through to the bone and I heard a crunch. My hand instantly went numb and wrist and fingers were limp and unusable.’….
“Orr said a gash opened above his ear, nearly scalping him, when the bear bit him another few times in the head.”
Orr laid motionless “hoping it would end.”
Then, the bear suddenly stopped.
Somehow, Orr made it to his truck and drove himself 17 miles to the Madison Valley Medical Center in Ennis.
Unbelievable.
‘Grizzly Bear’ remains No. 6 on the All-Species List. ‘Man’ is mired in the 330 slot.
–I couldn’t give a damn about Kim Kardashian and have never watched a minute of her reality show, but I’m sure not piling on about her incident in Paris. James Corden tweeted: “People making jokes…tonight would do well to remember that she’s a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend. Be nice or shut up.”
And so the world carries on…though I do have to add it’s another black eye for Paris. [This could easily have been another heist on the part of the notorious Pink Panther gang, with roots in the Balkans.]
—Sarah Jessica Parker is starring in a new HBO comedy series Divorce that premieres this Sunday, Oct. 9. She plays a mother of two living in Westchester County.
Top 3 songs for the week 10/9/65: #1 “Yesterday” (The Beatles…pretty good tune…these guys were alright…) #2 “Hang On Sloopy” (The McCoys) #3 “Treat Her Right” (Roy Head)…and…#4 “Eve of Destruction” (Barry McGuire…Think of all the hate there is in Red China…hmmm…interesting line given today’s politics and Mr. Xi…carry on…) #5 “The ‘In’ Crowd” (Ramsey Lewis Trio…good dinner party song…wine more than beer…not that I have been to or hosted a real dinner party in about 20 years…) #6 “Catch Us If You Can” (The Dave Clark Five…the one and only…) #7 “You’ve Got Your Troubles” (The Fortunes…quality tune…) #8 “Baby Don’t Go” (Sonny and Cher…easily in my top 20 all time…) #9 “You Were On My Mind” (We Five…look it up….not bad…) #10 “Do You Believe In Magic” (The Lovin’ Spoonful…only peaked at #9 the next week…deserved better…)
NFL Quiz Answer: Five single-season leaders in INTs….
George Blanda, 42, 1962, HOU
Vinny Testaverde, 35, 1988, TB
Frank Tripucka, 34, 1960, DEN
John Hadl, 32, 1968, SDG
Fran Tarkenton, 32, 1978, MIN…final season for the Hall of Famer; interesting he led the league in yards passing the same year, too. [3,468…different game then.]
Next Bar Chat, Monday.
