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Bar Chat

06/12/2017

The Bronx Bombers

[Posted Sunday p.m., before conclusions of Pittsburgh-Nashville and USA-Mexico...I need to enjoy these two.  Awesome start for Team USA...go Michael Bradley! Shoot, Mexico just tied it.]

Baseball Quiz: Recently, Mets manager Terry Collins became the 8th to manage on their 68th birthday. Name the other seven.  Answer below.

NBA Finals

So I was working on that other column I do, Friday night, and thanks to President Trump it’s not easy putting things together these days and frankly Fridays blow for moi.

But I had Cavs-Warriors on in the background, along with the Mets, and I was like, 86-68 Cleveland at the half?!  Yes, a Finals record for points in a half, Cleveland hitting a Finals record 24 3-pointers for the game in a 137-116 victory that prevented a sweep, Game 5 now back in Oakland, Monday.

In the first half, Kyrie Irving had 28 points and LeBron James 22, plus 6 rebounds and 8 assists, as the Cavs were 13-22 from three on their way to the record.  [Irving finished with 40, LeBron 31-10-11.]  But this was hardly the full story.

Fred Kerber / New York Post

“What was more confusing in Game 4 of the NBA Finals Friday night: How the heck the Cavaliers did what they did against the NBA’s premier defense or what was going on with the officiating?

“Yeah, right. We voted for the officiating, too.  When Game 4 ended with the Cavaliers having crawled back into the series at 3-1 and having averted a Finals sweep with a 137-116 victory over the Warriors, seven technical fouls had been assessed against the two teams.

“Perhaps the biggest head-scratcher of the game came when Draymond Green was assessed a technical foul at 6:18 of the third quarter by ref John Goble.

“Green, whose emotional outburst complete with flagrant foul and a Game 5 suspension helped turn the Finals last year, seemingly had received a technical in the first quarter. Two and you’re out.  The box score said Green had a first quarter ‘T.’

“But he didn’t. That technical had been on Golden State coach Steve Kerr.”

Kerr thought the first one was on Draymond, “So then I thought the second one Draymond was going to get kicked out, but they explained the first one was on me.”

It didn’t matter, but what an embarrassment for the NBA.  And then you had LeBron getting into it with Durant, each earning a technical.

Last Wednesday, the Warriors had taken a 3-0 series lead with a 118-113 win in Cleveland that appeared to wrap it up, the Cavs blowing a 113-107 lead with 3:10 to play, the Warriors closing it out with an 11-0 run.    Kevin Durant had 31, in another outstanding all-around game (8 rebounds, 8 assists), while Klay Thompson added 30 on 11 of 18 shooting from the field.

For Cleveland, Kevin Love was a putrid 1 of 9, while LeBron did have 39 points, 11 rebounds and 9 assists (but 5 turnovers).

The key to me was a play near the end when Kyrie Irving, who otherwise was electric in dropping 38 points, pounded the ball into the court, looking for a shot, was defended well, finally missed it from his favorite spot, and Golden State closed it with four free throws.

But then Cleveland came back on Friday to prevent a celebration on their home court.

--In college hoops, Ohio State settled on Butler coach Chris Holtmann to replace fired Thad Matta in a selection that is being universally praised.  It sure doesn’t seem as if Holtmann was the first choice, but at 45, he has quickly become one of college basketball’s rising stars.

Earlier, the Buckeyes had offered the job to Creighton’s Greg McDermott, among others, but he opted to stay in Omaha.

Stanley Cup Finals

So much for Game 5.  Thursday, the Penguins destroyed the Predators 6-0 in Pittsburgh, taking a 3-2 series lead back to Nashville, where the Penguins hoped to become the first franchise in 19 years to win back-to-back Cups.

The game got a bit chippy, with Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby trying to dribble Nashville defenseman P.K. Subban’s head on the ice near the end of the first period, more than a few saying Subban deserved it.

MLB

--It’s all about the Yankees. They’ve righted the ship after a stretch of mediocrity with five straight, including a 16-3 pounding of the slumping Orioles at Yankee Stadium on Saturday, New York slamming five home runs, including two from Gary Sanchez and No. 19 from Aaron Judge that was the hardest hit ball in all of baseball this season.  Luis Severino continued to pitch superbly with another 7-inning, 1-earned run effort that moved him to 5-2, 2.75.

And look at the other Yankees starters...

CC Sabathia: 7-2, 3.66; Michael Pineda: 7-3, 3.39; and Jordan Montgomery: 4-4, 3.55.

The fly in the ointment has been Masahiro Tanaka, 5-6, 6.55.

But you wouldn’t be about to find a single New York baseball fan who could have predicted the early production from the other four.

Sunday, the Yanks scored five in the bottom of the first, three on another Gary Sanchez home run, and they cruised 14-3, as Aaron Judge hit two more, now up to 21, in going 4-for-4 with 3 ribbies to bring that total to 47.  And his average is up to .344.  Yes, he’s your MVP thus far.  [He’s also leading all Triple Crown categories.]

Oh, and Judge’s first blast was 495 feet!!!  4-9-5!!!  And he’s a good guy (it seems). I only wish the lad the best the next 10 years...even though I can’t stand his team.

New York leads Boston by 3 ½ heading into Sunday night’s Red Sox-Tigers contest.  [I am so sick of Sunday night baseball.  Which is why I watch Anthony Bourdain and “Silicon Valley” instead...but soon, “Game of Thrones”!!!]

--Mets fans, in a deep state of depression after losing to the Braves, 3-2, Friday night in Atlanta to drop to 25-33, were provided some hope on Saturday when Yoenis Cespedes made his first start since April and hit a grand slam in the first game of a doubleheader, New York winning 6-1 behind Robert Gsellman’s 6 2/3 of shutout ball.  And then the Mets won the nightcap, 8-1, as Steven Matz made his 2017 debut, 7 innings of one-run ball.

Yippee!  Sunday, Seth Lugo equaled Matz in his first outing of the season, 7 innings, one run, and the Mets held on 2-1.  So three in a row with outstanding starting pitching...the way it was drawn up all winter.

--Entering Sunday’s contest, the Cubs were 30-31 with their starters having an ERA of 4.66.  Last season, the Cubs after 61 games were 43-18 and the starters had an ERA of 2.30.

--Today, the Nationals’ Max Scherzer lost to the Rangers 5-1, though he was effective, 2 earned in 7 1/3, striking out 10...but in fanning the 10, he became the third-fastest to reach 2,000 for his career (in terms of innings pitched, 1,784, trailing only Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson).  That said, the Rangers swept the Nats.

--Saturday, the Red Sox beat the Tigers as Chris Sale improved to 8-2, 2.97.

--Wednesday, the Dodgers beat the Nationals 2-1 in Los Angeles, Clayton Kershaw (8-2, 2.20) besting Stephen Strasburg, (7-2, 2.80).

But Kershaw was pissed the Dodgers took him out after seven and just 95 pitches, as management attempts to preserve his arm for the postseason. The Dodgers didn’t handle it well, as they let Kershaw bat in the bottom of the seventh, then they told him he wasn’t going out for the eighth.

More next chat....

--Johnny Mac passed along another Tim Tebow tidbit.  Recently, the Hagerstown (Maryland) Suns, a Washington Nationals affiliate, played a 3-game set at home against the Delmarva Shorebirds, the Orioles’ farm team.  As Johnny said, you’d think this natural rivalry would be fairly well attended with both MLB teams not far away, but attendance was 800, 345 and 862.

Then Columbia and Tebow followed Delmarva into Hagerstown and the attendance was a little better...6,217...6,351...5,894...4,116.  Yet another example of what a boon Tebow has been to local economies.

However, he is batting just .223 with three home runs in 175 at-bats thru Saturday’s play.

--In the NCAA Baseball Championship, Texas A&M punched its ticket to the College World Series after being eliminated by TCU in the prior two super regionals, beating Cinderella story Davidson, 7-6 and 12-6.  Friday night’s 7-6 affair went 15 innings, the longest super regional game in NCAA history.

Louisville advanced to the CWS with two wins over Kentucky.  Sunday, Cal State-Fullerton advanced with a Game 3 win over Long Beach State.

But the rest of the schedule was hit with weather delays, including Wake Forest-Florida, Game 2 suspended this afternoon due to rain.

Wake lost a heartbreaker 2-1 in 11 innings on Saturday, despite a truly heroic performance by starter Parker Dunshee. 

Picture, he allowed one run in four innings before the rain hit, the Gators up 1-0, but then after a nearly four-hour stoppage, he came back and threw four scoreless!  You just don’t do that at this level.  [No major leaguer sure as hell would be allowed to attempt it.]

No. 1 seed Oregon State also advanced to the CWS with a sweep of Vanderbilt.  But the past few days the story has been OSU pitcher Luke Heimlich, the top pitcher on the nation’s No. 1-ranked team, a certain major league prospect.

He’s a registered sex offender, having pleaded guilty to a single charge of molesting a 6-year-old family member in his home state of Washington when he was 15.  Prosecutors there initially charged him with two counts of molestation – a Class A felony in Washington – over incidents that took place from September 2009 through September 2010 (when the victim was 4 years old) and from September 2011 to December 2011.  Heimlich pleaded guilty to one count of molestation as part of an agreement to have prosecutors drop the other charge.

But he was supposed to serve 40 weeks of detention at a juvenile rehab facility, and instead he entered a diversion program, received two years of probation and was ordered to attend sex offender treatment for two years.

Heimlich was ordered to register as a Level 1 sex offender in Washington state, which categorizes the offender as having “the lowest possible risk to the community and their likelihood to re-offend is considered minimal.”

But Oregon law mandated that he was required to register as a sex offender in that state when he arrived at Corvallis to play for the Beavers in September 2014.

Heimlich, though, failed to update his status as required this year and in April he was charged with a misdemeanor, a charge later dismissed because prosecutors agreed that he did not have sufficient knowledge of Oregon reporting requirements.

But because of the misdemeanor being filed, the Oregonian newspaper learned of Heimlich. Heimlich then asked to be removed from the team as it approached the NCAA Baseball Championships because he did not want to be a distraction.

Baseball America had listed him as the 43rd-best prospect in the nation with the draft coming up.  He was projected as a first- or second-rounder, after a campaign that saw him go 11-1, 0.76 ERA and 128 strikeouts in 118 1/3 innings.  Baseball America then removed him from its All-America team. The publication said MLB people already knew about his past. 

So that’s what the 54-4 Beavers are dealing with, but of course many are asking, just how much did OSU know and when?

Oregon State won back-to-back World Series titles in 2006 and 2007.

French Open

--In a shocker, unseeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia stunned No. 3 Simona Halep in the women’s final on Saturday for the first title of her career, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.  She is the first Latvian to win a Grand Slam event and the first unseeded player to win the title at Roland Garros in the Open era.

Just imagine what an incredible hero she is back home. We are so jaded in the U.S., that we forget in many countries sports heroes are few and far between, though Latvia does have the Knicks’ Kristaps Porzingis to root for.

--As for the men, world number one Andy Murray lost to 3-seed Stan Wawrinka in the semi-finals in an epic, 6-7 (6-8), 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (7-3) 6-1 in four hours and 34 minutes.

Former champion Wawrinka (2015) then faced 9-time winner Rafael Nadal in today’s final after Nadal beat Dominic Thiem from Austria, 6-3, 6-4, 6-0.

And Nadal made it an incredible 10, with an easy straight set win, 6-2, 6-3, 6-1, becoming the only player to win 10 Grand Slam titles at the same tournament in the Open era.

Wawrinka, the 32-year-old Swiss player, was the oldest men’s finalist at Roland Garros in 44 years and he’d won his three previous Grand Slam singles finals.  [Nadal is 31.]

Nadal now has 15 major titles overall, breaking a second-place tie with Pete Sampras, and three shy of Roger Federer’s 18.

At Roland Garros, Rafa is an astounding 79-2.

--Earlier in the French Open, 2-seed Novak Djokovic went out in a surprisingly lopsided 7-6 (5), 6-3, 6-0 quarterfinal loss to Thiem.

It was just a year ago that Djokovic was on the top of the tennis world, having become the first man in nearly a half-century to claim a fourth consecutive major championship at Roland Garros, completing a career Grand Slam in the process, but he has been way off since then, and now it’s four majors in a row without a trophy.

Djokovic had appeared in a record six consecutive French semifinals until this week’s effort.  The guy is lost.  John McEnroe called his performance in the quarters “appalling.”

--Maria Sharapova announced she wouldn’t participate in Wimbledon after all, due to an injury she suffered in Rome.

Golf Balls

--24-year-old Daniel Berger won his second PGA Tour event, both at the FedEx Memphis Open, as he defended his 2016 title with a final-round 66 and a one-shot victory over Charl Schwartzel and Whee Kim as the tour now heads to the U.S. Open at Erin Hills.  Can’t wait.

Amateur and newly-crowned NCAA champion Braden Thornberry finished T-4 with a 65 today!  As Ronald Reagan would have said, ‘Not bad, not bad at all.’

--Brandt Jobe won his first Champions Tour event in Des Moines.  College classmate Gary Hallberg was T-25.

--The July issue of Golf Digest has a ranking of the “Top 30 Good Guys” on tour, with players graded on multiple criteria, including being “nice when no one is looking.”

1. Jordan Spieth
T-2. Tony Finau & Adam Scott
4. Stewart Cink
5. Rickie Fowler
6. Billy Hurley III
7. Geoff Ogilvy
8. Brandt Snedeker
9. Justin Rose
10. Andrew (Beef) Johnston...wish he would play better
11. Aaron Baddley
T-12. Matt Kuchar & Rory McIlroy
27. Bill Haas

Curiously, Phil Mickelson is not in the top 30.  Hmmm.  Phil is still going to attempt to play in the Open following his daughter’s high school graduation, but as he said Sunday, he needs a first-round weather delay of like four hours.

NASCAR

Ryan Blaney won his first Monster Energy Cup Series race over Kevin Harvick at Pocono, the first win for the legendary Wood Brothers since Trevor Bayne took the 2011 Daytona 500.

I was watching when Jimmie Johnson had a bad crash but he was just shaken up. 

Darrell Wallace Jr., the first African-American to start a first-tier Cup race since 2006, finished T-26.

[After finishing T-3 in DraftKings last week, I was 18,844 out of 22,058.]

Soccer

--Huge World Cup qualifier for the United States tonight in Mexico City.

For the people of Mexico, though, it’s not just a soccer game.

“President Trump has offended us, he is threatening us with his wall,” Mario Lopez, 38, a t-shirt salesman, told the Los Angeles Times, echoing a common refrain these days there.

Federico Gonzales, a 50-year-old doctor in Mexico City, told the Times’, “President Trump has fomented hatred against Mexicans.”

--Thursday, the U.S. defeated Trinidad & Tobago 2-0 in a WC qualifier behind Christian Pulisic’s two goals.  Just 18, and playing for Borussia Dortmund in the German Bundesliga, Pulisic is the new face of USA soccer for years to come and it would seem he’s ready.  Folks are already saying he could be the best U.S. soccer player ever.

--England Captain Harry Kane secured a point for the boys in a superb 2-2 tie with Scotland Saturday at a WC qualifier.  Scotland’s Leigh Griffiths had given the home team a 2-1 lead at the final minute, 90, with his second of two late spectacular free kicks, but then Kane scored from close range three minutes into extra time to seal the draw and keep England on top in its draw and in line for a place in Russia next year.

--Chelsea striker Diego Costa, who scored 20 goals in 35 Premier League games to help the Blues win the title, was told he is no longer in the club’s plans.

Stuff

--Tapwrit, ridden by Jose Ortiz, overtook favored Irish War Cry down the stretch to win the Belmont Stakes by two lengths, as trainer Todd Pletcher picked up this third victory in the final race of the Triple Crown.  It was the first Triple Crown win for Ortiz.

Tapwrit had finished sixth in the Kentucky Derby and skipped the Preakness. Five of the last nine Belmont winners followed that same path.

[Classic Empire, which was fourth in the Derby and second in the Preakness, would have been the solid favorite but he was forced to pull out Wednesday with an abscess in his right front hoof.]

--Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops shocked the college football world when he announced he was stepping down after 18 years, announcing at a Wednesday afternoon news conference, “I feel like I’ve been absolutely the luckiest, most fortunate guy in the world and incredibly blessed to have experienced what we have over the last 18 ½ years.  I felt I just didn’t want to miss the right opportunity to be able to step away and hand this baton off to Lincoln Riley and to help this all just keep going in a great direction.”

Riley, 33, will become the youngest head coach at the FBS level after two seasons as OU’s offensive coordinator. Stoops will remain as a special assistant to the athletic director.

Stoops said he did not base his decision on health reasons and that he has “had no incidents that would prevent me from coaching.”

A source told ESPN that Stoops’ father, Ron, suffered a heart attack and died while coaching a high school game in Ohio in the late 1980s and that Stoops has always had that in his mind. Stoops also didn’t want to get to the point where he was forced out, and his move had apparently been in the works.

Stoops is the all-time winningest coach at Oklahoma, compiling a 190-48 record and taking the Sooners to bowl games in all 18 of his seasons.  He guided the team to the 2000 national championship and had 14 seasons with double-digit wins, including 11-2 in 2016.  Importantly, he was also 11-7 against rival Texas.

--How much does a top Formula 1 driver earn in salary each year?  I was reading a piece on the BBC site about Fernando Alonso, the two-time F1 champ who acquitted himself so well at the Indy 500, and Alonso said he will leave McLaren-Honda at the end of the year if the team isn’t more competitive.

But it won’t be easy finding another job, as the other teams already have drivers under contract, or they can’t afford him. Try $40 million per!

--We note the passing of Adam West, the original Batman. He was 88.  West became an overnight sensation with the TV series, which debuted in 1966.  Like all similar stars of his era, he hated being typecast, but in his later years he embraced that he had been part of American pop culture.

West was a Warner Bros. contract player, appearing in television commercials to pay the rent, when he did several spots for Nestle’s Quik chocolate powder – parodies of the James Bond movies in which West played a dry-witted character called Captain Q.

A producer at 20th Century Fox TV, William Dozier, liked what he saw as he was looking for someone to play the role of Gotham City millionaire Bruce Wayne and his crime-fighting alter ego, Batman, in a new series for ABC.

“Batman” debuted in January 1966 and was a twice-weekly half-hour program – 7:30 p.m.  West had the feeling his life would never be the same as the first episode was heavily promoted.

West told Esquire in 2004, “I stopped at the market on the way home.  I thought, ‘Tonight, I just want to be alone.  I’ll stop, get a steak and a six pack, whatever, then go home and watch the debut of the show.’

“As I walked through the checkout line, I heard people saying, ‘C’mon, c’mon, hurry up.  ‘Batman’ is coming on!’  And I said to myself, ‘Goodbye, anonymity.’”

“Batman” became an instant phenomenon in a decade filled with them.

“This whole thing is an insane, mad fantasy world,” West said of the show in an interview before the show debuted.  “And my goal is to become America’s biggest put-on.”

Think of the guest stars on the show. Frank Gorshin as the Riddler, Burgess Meredith as the Penguin, Cesar Romero as the Joker and Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt as Catwoman.

West told London’s Independent in 2005, “What I loved about Batman was his total lack of awareness when it came to his interaction with the outside world.  He actually believed nobody could recognize him on the phone, when he was being Bruce Wayne, even though he made no attempt to disguise his voice.”

In the first episode of the series, West recalled: “Batman goes into a nightclub in the cowl, cape and bat gloves.  When the maître d’ says: ‘Ringside table, Batman?’ he replies, ‘No thank you.  I’ll stand at the bar.  I would not wish to be conspicuous.’”

In 1966, the Los Angeles Times reported that West was getting fan mail “by the wagonful” – as were requests for everything from personal appearances to locks of his hair.

For the 1965-66 season, both nights of “Batman” were rated in the top-10.  But by the fall of 1967, the series was cut back to once a week and then it was canceled in March 1968.

After “Batman” ended, it was a bleak time for West. As he told the Orange County Register in 1989: “I was almost to the finish line for a lot of big, leading-man type roles that I really wanted, but I’d always come in second or third.  Somebody in charge would always say, ‘Hey, what are you guys doing?  You can’t put Batman in bed with Faye Dunaway.’”

So it was a lot of guest shots on shows like “Fantasy Island”, though he did get some movie roles, just no big ones.

But later on, West embraced Batman.

“The reaction has been so positive and good for me that I love it now,” he told the L.A. Times in 2009.  “How could I not?  I would hate to be a bitter, aging actor.  I’ve been so fortunate to have this opportunity to bring Batman alive on the screen.”  [Dennis McLellan / Los Angeles Times]

--Last Saturday I got a phone call from Mark R., sitting in a bar in Greeneville, N.C. with his wife, the lovely Judy R., and he goes, “You’ve got to get this article I’m reading into Bar Chat.”

It’s from Impressions magazine, the current issue, “12 Benefits of Drinking Beer...in moderation, of course.”

Of course.

1. Beer keeps kidneys healthy.  [Beer reduces kidney stones, according to a Finnish study.]

2) Beer for digestion.  Talkin’ soluble fiber, boys and girls.

3) Beer to lower bad cholesterol. 

4) Beer increases vitamin B levels.  [Conversation at some American households.  “Honey, did you take your vitamins today?”  “Yes, dear.  Drinking my vitamin Beer right now.”]

5) Beer for stronger bones!

6) Beer as a cure for insomnia.

7) Beer reduces risk of heart attack.  Significantly so.

8) Beer helps prevent clots.  [Unless you’re drinking Blatz.]

9) Beer boosts memory.

10) Beer helps combat stress.  [Unless you’re drinking it while watching the Mets.]

11) Beer as a cold remedy.  Huh.  “Warmed up barley and four tsps of honey improves circulation, eases congestion, as well as provides joint relief and boosts immunity.”  Never tried this.

12) Beer for beautiful skin! “Vitamins in beer can regenerate skin...and make skin smoother and suppler.”

So there you have it.  Pop a cold one...unless you’re in your office cube and it’s just 10:05 Monday morning.

--Brad K. first reported on the bobcat that snuck into a Long Valley, N.J. home Wednesday evening, trapping a mother and her two young children inside of a bathroom, Washington Township police said in a statement.  [Brad K. lives in this area and hasn’t left his home since.]

When police arrived, they found the bobcat sitting in the first floor living room.  Officers opened the doors and a window and finally after an hour, the bobcat jumped out the window and ran into the woods.  No one was injured and there was zero damage.

But wait...there’s more!

The next day a possibly rabid bobcat was captured a short distance away after a dog was attacked.

Uh oh...Brad, I could do some shopping for beer if you want.

Meanwhile, the same day, coyotes fatally attacked a dog in the Bloomingdale, N.J. area.

--Don’t go swimming in Monmouth County, New Jersey’s Shrewsbury River, sports fans.  The Department of Environmental Protection has found a significant number of “clinging jellyfish,” which have a sting so dangerous it can cause “excruciating pain,” muscle weakness and serious medical problems, including kidney failure.

According to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the clinging jellyfish has a red, orange or violet cross across its middle and can trail 60 to 90 tentacles that uncoil like sharp threads and emit painful neurotoxins. But get this...they are the size of a dime.

Last year a Middletown man was hospitalized after being stung while swimming in the Shrewsbury.  The only good thing is the jellyfish prefer calm water, so they aren’t likely to be found on coastal beaches.

--A recent story by Aaron Elstein of Crain’s New York Business on the Gotham music scene these days talked of how since 2000, nearly 25% of the city’s live-music clubs have closed, due to a combination of factors like rising rents, changing tastes and tougher regulations.  Plus, while there have been lots of new clubs springing up to replace the likes of the East Village’s CBGB and Midtown’s Roseland Ballroom, these tend to be much smaller and can’t pull in the revenue needed to pay performers a decent wage.

What to do? Well, after years of technology-fueled turmoil, the city’s music economy is once again thriving, with the Grammy Awards returning to New York next January for the first time in 15 years, and Spotify announcing it is relocating its headquarters from Stockholm to the World Trade Center, while the number of New Yorkers working in music – including musicians – has grown by 5,000 to 31,000 since 2000.

Yet how do New York’s 12,000 musicians make a living?  Be creative.  In a field where the median yearly pay is just $30,000, a fair number of artists are hitting the “health care circuit,” yes, playing the nursing homes. One guy featured plays nearly 30 times a month and gets paid around $150 for an hour-long set, better than triple the rate small clubs and bars typically offer, often performing several shows a day. The only thing the musicians often have to do is learn a little Sinatra and Gershwin.

Top 3 songs for the week 6/15/68: #1 “Mrs. Robinson” (Simon and Garfunkel)  #2 “This Guy’s In Love With You” (Herb Alpert)  #3 “Mony Mony” (Tommy James and The Shondells...they should be in the Hall!!!...)...and...#4 “Yummy Yummy Yummy” (Ohio Express...kind of funny, burst into the Top Ten at #4, stayed there three weeks, then fell out...nothing in between...which is how the music game worked back then...)  #5 “MacArthur Park” (Richard Harris...I always thought that playing this godawful tune was more effective than waterboarding as an interrogation tool... “I’ll tell you where Zawahiri is!  Just make this stop!!!”...)  #6 “Tighten Up” (Archie Bell & The Drells...brings back good memories of Wake...popular song in certain bars, especially down at Myrtle Beach...)  #7 “Think” (Aretha Franklin)  #8 “A Beautiful Morning” (The Rascals)  #9 “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” (Hugo Montenegro...underrated anti-war scene in this one...)  #10 “The Look Of Love” (Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66...great song...)

Baseball Quiz Answer: Eight to manage a big league club at the age of 68: Terry Collins, Casey Stengel, Leo Durocher, Tommy Lasorda, Felipe Alou, Frank Robinson, Joe Torre and Bobby Cox.

Next Bar Chat, Thursday.

 

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