Add-on posted early Tues. a.m.
PGA Championship, a final look…..
Adam Kilgore / Washington Post
“Standing on the 18th green, the final putt holed, Scottie Scheffler lifted his arms above his head and smiled. Flashbulbs lit his face against the dusk. His wife, Meredith, snuggled their 1-year-old son, Bennett, in front of the nearby grandstand. Scheffler lifted the white hat off his head, and suddenly a contented man revealed the unholy drive just beneath the unruffled surface. Scheffler stepped forward, drew back his right arm and spiked the cap off the manicured grass.
“ ‘Just a lot of happiness,’ Scheffler said. ‘It was a long week. I felt like this was as hard as I battled for a tournament in my career.’
“Scheffler’s coronation at the 107th PGA Championship took an unexpected detour Sunday, mostly through the dense rough left of Quail Hollow’s front-nine fairways. His majestic ball-striking deserted him, a world-class player charged at him, and his pre-round lead evaporated by the turn. The kind of scar that lasts forever had started to form. Scheffler unleashed not only the full extent of his talent but also a fierce competitive will.
“Scheffler further cemented himself as an all-time player at the peak of his considerable powers. He seized his third major – and the second leg of his career Grand Slam – with an incomparable back nine that closed out a round of even-par 71 and finalized his scored at 11 under par. He finished five shots clear of Harris English, Davis Riley and Bryson DeChambeau after Jon Rahm, the star who pressured Scheffler most by tying him with seven holes remaining, melted down on the final three holes.
“One major after Rory McIlroy completed the career Grand Slam at the Masters, Scheffler reasserted himself as the best golfer in the world. First, he dug deep. And then he dominated so thoroughly with a back-nine 34 that he could bogey the last hole and still win by five.
“ ‘I’ve played him in a few sports, and I’ll tell you what – I don’t want to compete against him,’ caddie Ted Scott said. ‘He’s a killer.’”
Scheffler has finished T2, 4, T8, 1, 1 his last five tournaments. He won his last two by eight and five strokes. The last to do that is Tiger Woods.
On to the U.S. Open at Oakmont and then the British Open at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland.
Said Scottie last evening… “Winning is a lot of fun. And I think winning as often as I can is a lot of fun.”
For some perspective…over the last 75 years only two other golfers have won three majors and 15 PGA Tour victories before their 29th birthday. Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.
Stanley Cup Playoffs
—Poor Toronto Maple Leafs fans…their team had a Game 7 Sunday night at home against the defending champion Florida Panthers and laid an egg of epic proportions.
Toronto was crushed, 6-1. Florida now faces the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference finals…Game 1 is Tuesday in Raleigh.
Toronto has now last six straight Game 7s and remains without a Stanley Cup since 1966-67.
The Oilers play the Stars in Dallas in their Game 1 for the Western Conference crown on Wednesday.
NBA Playoffs
—Knicks…and Pacers…fans are just sitting around, waiting for Wednesday’s Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals.
But what a matchup we have in the West…the Thunder vs. the T’Wolves, starting Tuesday in OKC…Shai Gilgeous-Alexander vs. Anthony Edwards, for starters.
Go Deacs!
The Wake Forest men’s tennis team won the NCAA championship Sunday night in Waco, TX, beating TCU 4-2.
Wake, in winning its second national title, the other in 2018, is one of just two ACC schools to win multiple men’s titles. [Virginia the other.]
But an interesting list for most titles in the tournament.
USC – 21
Stanford – 17
UCLA – 16
I guess this shouldn’t be surprising at all.
MLB
–It was 2-2 in the bottom of the eighth inning Sunday night at Yankee Stadium, Mets-Yankees, and first baseman Pete Alonso made a wild throw to home, attempting to nail a runner, the floodgates then opened, Cody Bellinger hit a grand slam and the Yanks took the rubber game of the 3-game series 8-2. It was truly pathetic. Plus, earlier, third baseman Mark Vientos’ error helped lead to the first two runs for the Yanks.
As in, fielding is an issue with my Metsies, 29-18.
For the Yanks, Bellinger is red-hot (3-for-3, 6 RBIs Sunday) and I said at the time when New York picked him up in a trade it was a terrific move. Bellinger is made for the little bandbox and he’s now getting comfortable playing in New York.
–The Angels are having another miserable season, 20-25, but they swept the Dodgers (29-18), completing it 6-4 on Sunday.
–The Mets then moved on to Boston Monday, and lost 3-1…they have scored 10 runs in their last six. And Juan Soto isn’t hustling. The Mets faithful will turn on him when he returns to face the Dodgers this coming weekend.
Meanwhile, the Phillies beat the Rockies (8-39) 9-3 to take over first place in the NL East.
Philadelphia 29-18
Mets 29-19
Stuff
—Auto racing fans have an exciting Sunday coming up…the Indy 500 and the Charlotte 600, if the weather will cooperate. The early forecasts for both cities is OK…but we know that can change, and one pop-up storm in Indy in particular can ruin Kyle Larson’s shot at doing the double…driving every lap of both races.
Larson is starting on Row 7 in the first one.
The pole was won by Robert Shwartzman, who became the first rookie in more than 40 years to win it. This is the 25-year-old Russian/Israeli’s first career oval race, his experience being in endurance racing and a former Formula 1 test driver.
He was born in Israel and raised in Russia and Italy.
I have to admit, I’ll be very scared for the guy those first few critical laps. He averaged 232.790 mph over his four qualifying laps to become the first rookie to qualify for the pole position since Teo Fabi in 1983.
I’ll be rooting for Marco Andretti, again, but he’s starting on the last row, barely qualifying.
Next Bar Chat, Sunday p.m.
—–
[Posted Sunday p.m.]
Brief Add-on up top by noon, Tuesday.
Rookie of the Year, Mets/Yankees Quiz: 1) Name the six Mets to win the award in the N.L. 2) Name the seven Yanks to win it in the A.L. since 1960. Answers below.
PGA Championship
As we entered the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, N.C., Rory McIlroy was still celebrating his win at the Masters, giving him the career Grand Slam. All the pressure was off him, freed up from the burden of trying to achieve the career slam.
“Look, I have achieved everything that I’ve wanted – I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to do in the game,” Rory said in a pre-tournament presser. “I dreamed as a child of becoming the best player in the world and winning all the majors. I’ve done that. Everything beyond this, for however long I decide to play the game competitively, is a bonus.”
“I feel like I sort of burdened myself with the career Grand Slam stuff, and I want to enjoy this. I want to enjoy what I’ve achieved, and I want to enjoy the last decade or whatever of my career, and I don’t want to burden myself by numbers or statistics. I just want to go and try to play the best golf I can.”
As for the first round, I noted last time that the course was going to be soaked after days of rain (five inches as it turned out) and the PGA of America, which runs the event, decided the night before that there would be no lift, clean and place that is almost always in order on the PGA Tour in such a circumstance.
So after Thursday’s action we had….
Jhonattan Vegas -7
Ryan Gerard -5
Cam Davis -5
Scottie Scheffler -2
Justin Thomas +2
Rory McIlroy +3
Vegas, the first Venezuelan to win a PGA Tour event, was also the first to lead a major.
The supergroup of Scheffler-McIlroy-Xander Schauffele was a bust. And Scheffler opened some eyes when he blasted the PGA of America for its decision not to play lift, clean, place for the opening round.
As an example, Scheffler and defending PGA champion Schauffele, both hit tee shots in the middle of the fairway on the 16th hole and had mud on their balls.
They both hit their approach shots hooked to the left and into the water and took double bogeys.
Scheffler: “This is going to be the last answer that I give on playing it up or down,” he began, sounding more chafed than you ever hear him. “I mean, I don’t make the rules. I think when you’re looking at the purest forms of golf, like if you’re going to go play links golf, there’s absolutely no reason on a links golf course you should play the ball up. It doesn’t matter how much rain they get. The course could be flooded under water and the ball is still going to bounce somehow because of the way the turf is and the ground underneath the turf.
“In American golf, it’s significantly different. When you have overseeded fairways that are not sand capped, there’s going to be a lot of mud on the ball, and that’s just part of it. When you think about the purest test of golf, I don’t personally think that hitting the ball in the middle of the fairway you should get punished for it.”
And he went on and on and on…..and Scottie was right.
Yup, it was hardly a scintillating leaderboard. In fact, for the first time in at least 30 years, none of the top 10 players in the world ranking could be found in the top 10 of the leaderboard after 18 holes at a major.
After Friday’s second round…Vegas was still in the lead….
Jhonattan Vegas -8
Matthieu Pavon -6
Matt Fitzpatrick -6
Si Woo Kim -6
Max Homa -5
Scheffler -5
Rory +1
Xander Schauffele +1…both making the cut on the line….
We had a slew of good players who did not make the cut, including Jordan Spieth, Seth Straka, Shane Lowry, JT, Ludvig Aberg, Hideki Matsuyama, Rickie Fowler, Jason Day, Patrick Cantlay, Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Justin Rose, and Phil Mickelson.
Saturday’s third round was delayed by more weather, players teeing off around 11:40 a.m. off two tees.
And then Scottie Scheffler took over, firing a 65 to take a 3-shot lead heading into Sunday’s finale….
Scheffler -11
Alex Noren -8
Davis Riley -7
JT Poston -7
Jon Rahm -6
Si Woo Kim -6
Vegas -6
And after six holes, Scheffler had a 4-shot lead, though with a leak or two….
Scheffler -10
Rahm -6…thru 6
DeChambeau -6…9
Finau -6…9
Scott -6…10
Riley -6…6
Noren -6…6
Vegas -6…8
Scott -6…10
But then….
Scheffler -9…9
Rahm -9…11
Noren -7…9
Poston -7…10
Fitzpatrick -7…14…wow….I like his position….
Rahm is feeling it…Scottie leakin’ oil….
But Scheffler birdies 10…-10
And it’s….
Scheffler -10…11
Rahm -9…13
And….
Scheffler -10…13
Rahm -9…15
Scheffler birdies 14…-11
Rahm -9…15
Rahm bogeys 16…-8…and puts his approach on 17 in the water…
Scheffler birdies 15…-12
On to the difficult 16, 17 and 18…as Trevor Immelman just said, “Keep it dry…”
But Rahm puts his tee shot on the par-3 17th in the water…game over…double bogey
Scheffler -12…15
Poston -7…16
Rahm and others -6
Rahm falls apart…puts tee shot on 18 in the water…double bogeys it…-4. 5-over last three holes.
And Scottie has major No.3; win No. 15 on the PGA Tour. Anytime he is up on the leaderboard is a good thing for the tour…and ratings….
DeChambeau, Riley and English second at -6. [Huge round for English…and Riley, tentatively 94 to 44 in the FedEx Cup standings.]
As Trevor put it succinctly, Scottie “restored some order.” The final two majors should be delicious.
Great stuff! Great for the game.
NBA Playoffs
–Going back to Wednesday night in Boston, the Knicks looked to close out the Celtics in Game 5, Boston star Jayson Tatum having torn his Achilles tendon in Game 4, but after a 59-59 score at the half, Knicks fans thinking they could avoid a Game 6, the Celtics rolled, 127-102.
New York was pathetic in the second half, Jalen Brunson fouling out, OG Anunoby 1-of-12 from the field, and Karl-Anthony Towns with another disappearing act. Boston, on the other hand, played inspired ball, none other than Luke Kornet who was spectacular on both ends of the court, 10 points (5 of 5), 9 rebounds and 7 blocks!
On to Game 6, the Garden crowd pumped to finally get it done, and after the Knicks led 26-20 after the first quarter, in a flash it was 47-27, 64-37 at the half and game/series over…New York demolishing Boston 119-81, four starters with 20+ points.
But it was the play of Josh Hart and Miles McBride that stood out for the Knicks, Hart with a triple-double, 10-11-11, and McBride with ten points off the bench in the first half, +24 at the intermission.
The Knicks are now on to their first Eastern Conference finals in 25 years, and waiting for them will be a familiar foe, Indiana.
Importantly, the Knicks get some time off before Game 1 at MSG, Wednesday.
“The goal was always to win a championship,” said Coach Tom Thibodeau after Friday’s night’s closeout. “We’ve got eight wins. You need 16.”
As for the future of the Celtics, it is an absolutely crushing development to lose Tatum for probably all of next season, the typical recovery timeline for a ruptured Achilles is 8 to 12 months, though it can take longer (see Kevin Durant). And with a huge potential payroll for 2025-26, salary-cap hell, the Celtics will likely be shedding some payroll this summer. Plus they are undergoing an ownership transition.
—Wednesday, the Timberwolves beat the Warriors, 121-110, to take the series 4-1, Golden State without the injured Steph Curry, while Julius Randle continued his stellar play for Minnesota, 29 points, 13-of-18 from the field.
—Thursday, the Nuggets evened their series against the No. 1 overall Thunder at 3-3, 119-107 in Denver, forcing a Game 7 in Oklahoma City Sunday afternoon.
And the Thunder obliterated the Nuggets, 125-93. ‘Nuf said. SGA with 35.
T’Wolves at the Thunder, Tuesday.
MLB
–We had a Subway Series at Yankee Stadium this weekend and the Mets fell in the opener Friday, 6-2, a most miserable effort, Mets starter Tylor Megill (3-4, 3.74) walking five in 2 2/3.
Yankee starter Carlos Rodon got the win, now 5-3, 3.17, but he needed the help of five New York relievers.
Saturday was a much different story, a real thriller, the Mets with a Francisco Lindor sacrifice fly in the top of the ninth to give them a 3-2 lead, and then Edwin Diaz saved it, dramatically striking out Aaron Judge on a 99-mph rising fastball for the final out.
Judge went 0-for-5, his average now .402.
Yankees fans have had a field day booing Juan Soto in his return to the Bronx after shunning the Yanks’ contract offer for a slightly better one by the Mets; Soto 1-for-6 with four walks in the two games, including making the final out Friday.
The Mets (29-17) and the Yanks (26-19) play the rubber game tonight on ESPN.
Earlier in the week, the Yankees confirmed Tuesday that infielder Oswaldo Cabrera was diagnosed with a fractured left ankle suffered in Seattle, but that he also has ligament damage, so a long, long road to recovery.
—Entering Sunday’s play, the Mets had just a 1 ½-game lead over the Phils (27-18) in the NL East, Philadelphia beating the Pirates Saturday 5-2, Zack Wheeler (5-1, 2.67) with six shutout innings.
The Phillies then beat the Pirates Sunday, 1-0, as Mick Abel, in his major-league debut, pitched six innings of shutout ball, 9 strikeouts, outdueling Paul Skenes, 8 innings, the lone run, to fall to 3-5, 2.44.
But the Phillies lost reliever Jose Alvarado for 80 games, suspended without pay for violating MLB’s drug policy.
Alvarado was taking a weight loss drug, which is so freakin’ stupid. As in stupid because he didn’t think a weight loss drug might contain a banned substance…in this case exogenous testosterone, a performance-enhancing substance?
So bye-bye $4.5 million, half his contract. He is eligible to come back around Aug. 20, but he is ineligible for the postseason.
Alvarado was 4-1 with a 2.70 ERA in 20 appearances.
–The Dodgers continued to have problems with their starting rotation and injuries, rookie Roki Sasaki landing on the IL with right shoulder impingement. His velocity had been falling and he was no longer the 100 mph fireballer he was in Japan.
But Clayton Kershaw returned Saturday. He had had knee and toe surgeries soon after the Dodgers won the World Series last fall and has not pitched this season.
Well, Kershaw was not very good…4 innings, 5 earned, as the Dodgers (29-17) fell to the Angels (19-25) for a second straight game, 11-9.
–The Giants (27-19) took the first two over the A’s (22-24) this weekend in San Francisco.
Friday, Wilmer Flores slammed three home runs, 8 RBIs, in a 9-1 win, and then Saturday, Flores won the game with a bases-loaded walk with two outs in the 10th, 1-0.
Wake Forest’s Nick Kurtz is in the first slump of his young career for the A’s, 0-for-12, average down to .232.
–The Rockies won their eighth game Saturday, 14-12 over the Diamondbacks (24-22) in Arizona, Colorado 8-37.
–But then you have the stunning Minnesota Twins. They started off the season 13-20 and are now 26-20, yes, 13 wins in a row after Saturday’s 7-0 triumph over the Brewers in Milwaukee.
The pitching staff is on a roll unlike any before in team history, yesterday the third straight shutout, the scoreless innings streak at 33, longest ever for the franchise.
The Twins won 15 straight in 1991, the year they won their last World Series championship.
They now have the third best ERA in baseball, behind only the Mets and Royals.
–The Orioles, after making the playoffs the past two seasons, fired manager Brandon Hyde on Saturday. Baltimore fell to 15-29 after Saturday’s 10-6 loss to the Nationals.
Third-base coach Tony Mansolino will take over as interim manager.
Hyde had a deceiving 421-493 record at the helm. He led the team during their teardown phase, 100-loss seasons in 2019 and 2021 (Covid in between), but then the O’s won 101 in 2023 as their new talent began to emerge.
But this season they have been the most disappointing team in MLB.
–And lastly, we had the big story of the week…Pete Rose and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson were reinstated, along with others, paving the way, potentially, for the two to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
It was a seismic decision by Commissioner Rob Manfred, under pressure from none other than President Donald Trump, that Rose was removed from the permanently ineligible list that had banned him from entry into Cooperstown.
Rose, baseball’s all-time hist leader, died last year at 83. A committee dedicated to reviewing the Hall of Fame candidacies of players who starred before 1980 will vote on Rose and Jackson at its next scheduled meeting in December 2027.
Manfred, in a letter to the Rose family’s attorney that was released by MLB, wrote:
“In my view, a determination must be made regarding how the phrase ‘permanently ineligible’ should be interpreted in light of the purposes and policies behind Rule 21, which are to: (1) protect the game from individuals who pose a risk to the integrity of the sport by prohibiting the participation of such individuals; and (2) create a deterrent effect that reduces the likelihood of future violations by others….
“In my view, once an individual has passed away, the purposes of Rule 21 have been served. Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game. Moreover, it is hard to conceive of a penalty that has more deterrent effect than one that lasts a lifetime with no reprieve.”
There was widespread condemnation of Manfred’s move.
Bob Nightengale / USA TODAY
“Apparently it’s OK to gamble on baseball now, even those involving your own team, while making a mockery out of the sport’s most sacred rule.
“You want to cheat, lie, go to prison for tax evasion and be accused of statutory rape, hey, all is forgiven.
“You learn in journalism school that you can’t libel the dead.
“Who knew that once you’re dead, all could be forgiven too?
“Pete Rose, who gambled on baseball as manager of the Cincinnati Reds and lied about it for 15 years before dying September 2024 at the age of 83, had his Hall of Fame chances resurrected by Commissioner Rob Manfred….
“Manfred, while ruling that the permanent ineligibility of players ends upon their death, also cleared everyone from the 1919 Black Sox scandal, who deliberately fixed games during the World Series.
“ ‘It’s a serious dark day for baseball,’ Marcus Giamatti, the 63-year-old son of late former commissioner Bart Giamattti, who permanently suspended Rose in 1989, told USA TODAY Sports. ‘For my dad, it was all about defending the integrity of baseball. Now, without integrity, I believe the game of baseball, as we know it, will cease to exist. How, without integrity, will the fans ever entrust the purity of the game. …
“ ‘The basic principle that the game is built on, fair play, and that integrity is going to be compromised. And the fans are losers. I don’t know how a fan could go and watch a game knowing that what they’re seeing may not be real and fair anymore. That’s a really scary thought.’
“If Rose, who produced a record 4,256 career hits, winds up in Cooperstown, Giamatti says, what stops Shoeless Joe and anyone else from the Black Sox? Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, come on in. Alex Rodriguez, let’s forget about your year-long drug suspension. The 2017 Houston Astros? You had immunity anyway….
“Said a former GM who also is a candidate to be on the (Classic Baseball Era) committee: ‘This guy was jeopardizing players’ careers to win bets as a manager. He could care less about their health. And now you’re going to validate someone like this, someone who’s also accused of statutory rape.
“ ‘You let Pete get away with this, you’re opening yourself up to the biggest gambling scandal in baseball history. It makes Rule 21 (prohibiting players, umpires, and other league officials from betting on any baseball game) a complete joke.’”
Rose’s election through the Classic Baseball Era Committee would be far from a slam dunk. He would need the votes of 12 of 16 members, 75%. Barry Bonds failed to reach that plateau in his first year under Contemporary Era Committee review in 2022. Ditto Rafael Palmeiro and Roger Clemens.
George Will / Washington Post
“Does anyone believe that Major League Baseball would be reinstating Pete Rose if one of the president’s whims had not demanded it? Never mind MLB’s lawyerly rationale that the rule against gambling by baseball people need not protect the game from deceased gamblers. MLB has aligned baseball with the zeitgeist, which is no longer persnickety about lying and contempt for norms. Exhibit A is Rose’s twice-elected rehabilitator….
“Donald Trump’s ukase (an appropriate, because czarist, term) was for MLB to ‘get off its fat, lazy ass’ and elect Rose to the Hall of Fame. Trump’s due diligence missed a detail: MLB elects nobody. It does not run the Hall of Fame, whose Classic Baseball Era Committee will decide Rose’s membership.
“Doing so, it will decide whether the Hall of Fame is more than a museum – whether it is about more than numbers. It includes plenty of scoundrels: e.g., Ty Cobb, whose career-hits record Rose broke, was as racist as his contemporary Tris Speaker, a member of the Ku Klux Klan and a Hall of Famer. The Hall should be primarily about numbers achieved in competition. Rose, however, was a gambler and a scofflaw whose behavior jeopardized competitive integrity.
“When Trump promised ‘a complete PARDON’ of Rose, he mentioned only Rose’s gambling, not the tax evasion for which Rose was imprisoned. Rose, who played mostly for the Cincinnati Reds and then managed them, never, Trump assures us, bet against the Reds. Trump’s only evidence for this is that Rose said it during the 15 years he lied about betting on baseball. Until Rose’s second autobiography refuted the first by confessing.
“ ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson is also made Hall-of-Fame-eligible by MLB’s action reinstating deceased players. He has the third-highest career batting average (.356) in MLB history, and batted .375 – with a then-record 12 World Series hits – in the 1919 Series he allegedly conspired to lose. Maybe he did. Certainly he and others were convicted in no court. And they were denied due process by baseball’s grandstanding commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the bourbon-drinking former judge who sentenced Prohibition violators to prison and tried to extradite Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II.
“We do not know what Jackson did. We know that Rose, a monster of self-absorption, put at risk the game’s dignity, which is inseparable from the ideal of excellence within rules. MLB’s gravest rule, its proscription against gambling, protects baseball’s integrity because a gambler within baseball communicates inside knowledge about games he does – and does not – bet on. Players whose numbers came from performance-enhancing drugs engendered a related risk and are excluded from the Hall.
“When in 1989 MLB Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti, former president of Yale University, orchestrated the settlement that made Rose permanently ineligible, Giamatti provided the nation an example of ethical standards taken seriously, an example never more needed than presently. Rose’s principal advocate has other priorities….
“In two years, when baseball’s collective bargaining agreement has expired, the 2027 season will be jeopardized because team owners and the players union will be at loggerheads over a salary cap. Trump will still be bellowing from the nation’s bleachers, and MLB should not count on him cheering for the owners. He does know how pliable MLB is.
“Danny Murtaugh, Pittsburgh Pirates manager (intermittently 1957-76), said he would love to have a player who homered in every at-bat, and as a pitcher struck out every batter, and always thought two innings ahead. The challenge, he said, is to get this paragon ‘to put down his cup of beer, come out of the stands and do those things.’ Trump, the all-star in the bleachers, should occasionally stay there, and stay silent.”
Sally Jenkins / Washington Post
“Banning someone from baseball’s Hall of Fame is not a sentence to the electric chair, much as the worshipers of the emerald chessboard like to frame it so. It’s not a guillotine. It’s not denial of a second chance in life. It’s just a simple statement that says, ‘We will not enshrine you.’ We will not exalt and consecrate you, we will not immortalize you, we will not memorialize and reverence you under glass.
“Pete Rose was a rotter. So was ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson. Contrary to the convenient illogic of MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, dead people can certainly damage the integrity of baseball. ‘Reputation survives death,’ protests John Dowd, who wrote the original report on Rose’s gambling and bitterly contests Manfred’s decision to make him and 16 others posthumously eligible for the Hall.
“Rose, Jackson and the others are now eternal examples that you can get away with the long con, that you can not only outrun larceny but ultimately be lionized for it if you’ve got a pol in your corner….
“As for Rose, in 1989 he placed bets on the Cincinnati Reds while he was their manager, and he was further exposed in 2015 by a gambler’s notebook that showed that he had bet on them while he was an active player in at least the 1986 season. Rose not only fatally compromised himself – risked consciously or unconsciously underperforming, abused inside information and potentially influenced the final scores – he consistently lied about it. Not until 2024 did he admit betting on the Reds, and even then he didn’t tell the full story, which raises the question of just how compromised he felt himself to be….
“Rose was a habitual degenerate who never showed remorse for a thing – not for gambling on his own games or malicious cheap shots such as fracturing Ray Fosse’s shoulder in the 1970 All-Star Game. He even showed zero contrition after he was accused in a sworn statement of having sex with a girl who said she was no more than 14 or 15 years old at the time, excusing himself by claiming he thought she was 16 and ‘Who cares what happened 50 years ago?’ Why should baseball show reverence to someone who had no reverence of his own for anything?
“ ‘Enshrinement’ is the term used by the Hall of Fame in its mission statement; its purpose is to honor those who made ‘outstanding contributions to our national pastime.’ These men did not make contributions to the game; they did the opposite – they negated and degraded it. By citing their death as an excuse for potential inclusion in the Hall, Manfred has brought their transgressions back to life and lifted a moral blockade. He, too, has degraded the game.”
Stanley Cup Playoffs
—Saturday, the No. 1 overall Winnipeg Jets (Presidents Trophy winners), announced before Game 6 in Dallas against the Stars that No. 1 center Mark Scheifele’s father, Brad, had died unexpectedly the night before.
Scheifele told the team he was going to play to honor his father. And not only did he play, he opened the scoring in the second period.
But the game went into overtime, Thomas Harley scored for the Stars, and Dallas took the series 4-2.
So Wednesday, Dallas hosts Edmonton in the Western Conference finals.
–Going back to Thursday, the Hurricanes eliminated the Capitals in Washington, 3-1, taking the series in five.
Friday, the Maple Leafs defeated the Panthers 2-0 in Florida to force a Game 7 tonight in Toronto. This will be dramatic for long-suffering Maple Leafs fans. The winner then takes on Carolina in the Eastern Conference finals.
Preakness Stakes
The 150th running of the second leg in the Triple Crown was a memorable one. If you were watching, you no doubt thought entering the stretch, ‘No way Journalism is pulling this off.’ But he did.
Journalism was being jostled by multiple horses, bumped by Goal Oriented near the quarter-pole, and it looked like another runner-up finish, at best, after finishing second to Sovereignty in the Kentucky Derby.
But Journalism broke through, running right by leader Gosger to give trainer Michael McCarthy his second win in a Triple Crown race.
Gosger finished second, Sandman was third and the Baffert-trained Goal Oriented was fourth in just its third race as a 3-yr-old.
Umberto Rispoli became the first jockey from Italy to win any of the Triple Crown races.
It was thrilling, and now we wait to see if Journalism will be cleared to enter the Belmont and a rematch with Sovereignty, which skipped the Preakness to target the third leg on June 7.
Back to Gosger, Shu first reminded me the colt was named after former major leaguer, and New York Met, Jim Gosger.
The colt is owned by Harvey Clarke Racing Stables and they named the horse Gosger thanks to a random Facebook connection with Donna Clarke, whose family owns the horse.
Needless to say the real Jim Gosger, 82, who played for 10 years in the big leagues with five teams, batting .226 with 30 career home runs, was thrilled to learn his namesake was in the Preakness and then the colt finished second as a long shot.
“It’s amazing,” the human Gosger told Paulick Report. “I’m so darn excited about something like this. I had a good career playing ball. I was very fortunate. But this ranks right up at the top.”
Despite his lackluster stats, Jim Gosger was the last batter to face Satchel Paige, and he was once declared dead by the Mets!
If you were a baseball card collector in the 1960s, early 70s, it seemed that a Jim Gosger card was in every pack.
Premier League
The season ends next Sunday when everyone plays at the same time, and it’s a tension convention for the final three Champions League slots.
To wit…the Table…Played (of 38) – Points….
- Liverpool…36 – 83
2. Arsenal…37 – 71
3. Newcastle…37 – 66
4. Chelsea…37 – 66
5. Aston Villa…37 – 66 …CL line….
6. Manchester City…36 – 65
7. Nottingham…37 – 65
City is playing Bournemouth on Tuesday and should get at least a point.
The big one next Sunday will be Nottingham hosting Chelsea. Nottingham wins it, that’s 68 points, passing Chelsea. But what else will happen that day?
Stuff
—No. 1 Wake Forest advanced to the finals of the NCAA Men’s Tennis Championship and tonight faces No. 2 TCU in Waco, TX.
Go Deacs!
—Max Verstappen took his second victory of the season today at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in Italy as McLaren teammates Landon Norris and Oscar Piastri finished second and third.
It was Verstappen’s 65th career victory, and the guy is still like 15. [OK, 27.]
I was irritated it wasn’t called the Italian Grand Prix, until I realized there is an official Italian Grand Prix later on.
–San Francisco 49ers QB Brock Purdy snagged a five-year, $265 million contract extension Friday. Not bad for the former “Mr. Irrelevant.”
–We note the passing of actor Joe Don Baker, 89. Baker delivered his most memorable performance as the crime-busting Sheriff Buford Pusser in the 1973 film “Walking Tall.”
Baker appeared in dozens of films and television shows over half a century, but it was in “Walking Tall,” directed by Phil Karlson, where Baker made his name, starring in the real-life story of a sheriff who took on gambling, prostitution and bootlegging in McNairy County, Tenn.
Writing in the New York Times, critic Vincent Canby described the film’s appeal as a “relentlessly violent, smalltown American melodrama” that “cannily allows its audiences to have it both ways.”
“They can identify with its hero, a southern sheriff who wants to be a man of peace, a sort of down-home Serpico with a Tennessee accent,” Canby added, “while they enjoy the spectacle of deep-dish blood and guts he is the center of while fighting for the underprivileged.”
According to an obituary published in the Hollywood Reporter, “Walking Tall” was made for roughly $500,000 – and grossed $40 million. Hitting theaters amid the Watergate scandal, the film appealed to viewers, Baker later remarked to the Los Angeles Times, who were “sick of crime and politicians like Richard Nixon.”
“They just wanted to take a stick” – much like the club wielded by Sheriff Pusser – “and beat up on the government,” he said.
Joe Don Baker grew up in Groesbeck, Texas, not far from Waco. He was raised by an aunt after his mother died. A good athlete in high school, he enrolled in North Texas State College (now the University of North Texas) where he received a bachelor’s degree in business administration.
He began acting in college and after a stint in the Army, he moved to New York and performed with the Actors Studio. He landed his first (uncredited) movie role in the prison drama “Cool Hand Luke” (1967) starring Paul Newman, easily in my top ten films of all time.
Baker appeared on scores of TV shows like “Bonanza,” “Gunsmoke,” “Mod Squad” and “Mission: Impossible.”
And he was in “Charley Varrick,” a 1973 film with Walter Matthau. He would later appear in three James Bond films.
Although he was not known for romantic roles, Baker did have a few love scenes, including one with actress Linda Evans in “Mitchell.” “And that,” he remarked, “makes up for a lot.”
Love it.
Yours truly is the only kid on his block to have gone to the Buford Pusser Museum in Adamsville, Tenn., years ago (2006), on a trip where I also went to nearby Shiloh Battlefield and Tupelo, Miss., to see Elvis’ birthplace.
For a number of years, I kept in touch with Renee, the granddaughter of Pusser’s deputy, Jim Moffett, aka ‘Grady’ in the movie I was told, who gave me a personal tour of Buford’s home.
By the way, Renee (as I go back over my Bar Chat from that trip), showed me the clubs that were used in the first two movies, though Buford never actually employed one. But one time he smashed three guys with a fence post so the producers took that story and turned it into a club. Renee handed me the one used in “Walking Tall II” (with Bo Svensson) and it was a lead pipe painted to look like a club. I mean to tell ya, that was one heavy weapon.
Buford and his wife Pauline settled in Adamsville where Buford took his first job as a law enforcement officer working with his father Carl.
In 1964 he was elected sheriff and it was then he decided to clean up the lawless State Line, and by all indications it was bad stuff. The entire community was fearful of the activities down this way and law enforcement wasn’t doing much to combat it until Sheriff Pusser took charge.
But this brought Buford a lot of enemies and on Aug. 12, 1967, he and Pauline were going on vacation to visit Pauline’s family in West Virginia, when Buford got a call to handle an issue on the State Line. Pauline decided to go with him, to make sure he didn’t tarry, with the thought they’d then head directly up to West Virginia after Buford was finished with his business. But driving down he was ambushed near New Hope Church. Buford was hit in the chin, a wound that would take three years of plastic surgery to fix, and Pauline was killed.
As it turned out, Buford was hit some eight times in his career, stabbed six or seven times, and he killed two people.
But the 6’6”, 250 lb. lawman had a gentle side to him, which was part of his charm, and his reputation for upholding the law spread far and wide until the film industry approached him and asked if he would help with a movie of his life…the result being “Walking Tall” with Joe Don Baker.
Buford was sheriff until 1970; then traveled the world promoting his film projects, only to decide to run again for sheriff in 1974, but this time he lost.
Pusser was still a big star, though, and on Aug. 20, 1974, he attended a press conference in Memphis to announce that he would play himself in a movie titled “Buford.” From Memphis, he went to the McNairy County Fair where he met his daughter, Dwana, now 13. Poor Dwana was only six when she learned her mother had been killed. Now she was about to go through another tragedy.
Dwana later related how she played carnival games with her father and how Buford won all kinds of stuffed animals for her.
But there was a little confusion on how she would get home, with Dwana choosing to go with friends while Buford said he’d see her later. Dwana’s car left first, but soon her father was screaming past her in his Corvette, his big toy.
Buford loved to drive fast, and it’s estimated he was doing well over 100 mph on Rt. 64 when he crashed. [I drove the route he took after learning this story and couldn’t imagine his speed.] Dwana came upon the accident and she cradled her daddy’s head, but it was too late. No alcohol or drugs was involved, it was just the way Buford Pusser lived his life.
So I looked at his latest Wiki page this weekend and it says while no autopsy was conducted, the state trooper who worked the case and later became McNairy County Sheriff, said Pusser was drunk and wasn’t wearing a seat belt. I can see the latter being true, but the former, from what I know, seems like slander.
By the way, I later met Renee’s mother, Jim Moffett’s daughter, and the two regaled me with all kinds of local tales. Heck, I was the only one there.
The same day I then drove to Tupelo to see Elvis’ birthplace. The tiny house where he spent his first three years, was built for all of $180 in 1934 by his father and uncle. As the uncle said, “That was a lot of money in those days.” After Elvis hit the big time, he purchased the house and 15 surrounding acres for a park. Otherwise, the place would have been destroyed and we all would have been the worst for it.
–Brad K. passed along the tragic story of a 56-year-old zoo employee who was found dead in a kangaroo enclosure last week.
Eric S., known to “roughhouse” with the ‘roo at 5 Star Farm, a small park outside of Myrtle Beach, S.C., was found dead in the kangaroo and wallaby pen at the petting zoo owned by his brother, WBTW said.
Horry County Councilman Mark Causey told The Post & Courier that the victim had a history of playing rough with the animal and was believed to have been doing that at the time of his death. An autopsy was ordered to determine the cause of death.
The owners of 5 Star Farms said on Facebook that the kangaroo is not aggressive. They do not want to euthanize it, and South Carolina officials do not plan to force them to.
This is believed to be the first kangaroo killing in North America in nearly a century. However, attacks are not unheard of, and despite their cuddly appearance, the animals have several weapons at their disposal.
Dr. Mark Eldridge, Principal Research Scientist at the Australian Museum, told Australian Geographic that kangaroos should be handled with caution.
“They’re extremely large and powerful animals with robust weaponry at their disposal,” he said. “Their claws are long on both their front and hind legs, and on the latter, they have very long toenails that are quite blade-like. They’re designed to injure.”
So I told Brad that when I was in a game park in Tasmania eons ago, you were allowed to walk among the kangaroos (the same park having koala bears and Tasmanian devils…which are truly vicious little guys).
But some of the kangaroos were at eye level, and it totally scared the crap out of me. I was right next to them, and I kept thinking, ‘Don’t let them sense you’re scared,’ which of course I was! And boy, they aren’t smiling at you.
—Songs That Never Made the Top Ten (Nos. 11-30, 1960s/70s)…and thus never hit my list, cont’d….
The Castaways…#12 Liar Liar
Sonny Charles…#13 Black Pearl
Chicago…#24 Questions 67 and 68; #14 No Tell Lover
Dave Clark Five…#11 Do You Love Me, #15 Everybody Knows, #14 Any Way You Want It, #12 Try Too Hard
Petula Clark…#11 Sign Of The Times, #15 Kiss Me Goodbye
Roy Clark…#19 Yesterday When I Was Young…[This should have been a No. 1!]
Nat King Cole…#12 That Sunday, That Summer…[My favorite of his]
Creedence Clearwater Revival…#11 Suzie Q.
Bob Crewe…#15 Music To Watch Girls By
Crosby, Stills & Nash…#21 Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, #11 Woodstock, #16 Teach Your Children, #30 Our House…[Kind of remarkable]
The Cyrkle…#16 Turn-Down Day
Mac Davis…#11 One Hell Of A Woman
Paul Davis…#17 Sweet Life, #11 Cool Night (1981)
Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods…#15 Who Do You Think You Are
Doobie Brothers…#1 Listen To The Music, #15 China Grove, #13 Takin’ It To The Streets
The Doors…#12 People Are Strange, #25 Love Me Two Times, #11 Love Her Madly, #14 Riders On The Storm
Eagles…#12 Take It Easy, #22 Peaceful Easy Feeling
Earth, Wind & Fire…#12 That’s The Way Of The World, #39 Can’t Hide Love
Rookie of the Year, Mets/Yankees Quiz Answers: 1) Six Mets: Pete Alonso (2019), Jacob deGrom (2014), Dwight Gooden (1984), Darryl Strawberry (1983), Jon Matlack (1972), Tom Seaver (1967). 2) Seven Yanks (post-1960): Luis Gil (2024), Aaron Judge (2017), Derek Jeter (1996), Dave Righetti (1981), Thurman Munson (1970), Stan Bahnsen (1968), Tom Tresh (1962).
Brief Add-on up top by noon, Tuesday.
