|
|
Articles | Go Fund Me | All-Species List | Hot Spots | Go Fund Me | |
|
|
Web Epoch NJ Web Design | (c) Copyright 2016 StocksandNews.com, LLC. |
06/05/2017
Talkin' Base-ball....
[Posted Sunday p.m., prior to second half of Cleveland-Golden State, and conclusion of Wake Forest’s NCAA baseball championship contest...mused the Demon Deacon fan.]
Baseball / Yankees Quiz: Name the 8 to have 1,200 RBIs in their Yankees’ careers. Answer below.
MLB
--Miami Marlins right-hander Edinson Volquez pitched the first no-hitter of the season in the majors and the first of his career during a 3-0 defeat of the Arizona Diamondbacks Saturday in Miami.
Volquez won just his second game of the season (2-7, but 3.79 ERA), striking out 10 and walking two, though he faced the minimum 27 batters over nine innings on 98 pitches, 65 for strikes.
Volquez, 33 and in his 13th major league season, dedicated the game to Jose Fernandez and Yordano Ventura, who both died tragically last year; Volquez and Ventura playing together on the Royals’ 2015 World Series team.
For Miami, it was their sixth franchise no-hitter and they’ve been around only since 1993. [The Mets have one since 1962. San Diego has zero since inception, 1969.]
The last no-hitter in the major leagues was April 21, 2016, Jake Arrieta of the Cubs over the Reds.
--Albert Pujols hit his 600th home run Saturday night, a grand slam, to become the ninth major leaguer to reach the mark.
Pujols connected off Minnesota ace Ervin Santana in the fourth inning as the Angels won 7-2. At 37, he is the fourth-youngest to hit 600 behind Alex Rodriguez, Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth.
It’s nice he was able to do it at home, Anaheim, where he has been playing the last 5 ½ seasons. Teammate Mike Trout, once again showing what a great guy he is, went to the ballpark right after having surgery on Wednesday on his damaged thumb and has returned every night to see Pujols make history.
Pujols has indeed had quite a career, among his many achievements being he was the first to hit at least 30 homers in his first 12 big-league seasons.
Unfortunately for the Angels, they haven’t won a playoff game since giving Albert a $240 million free-agent contract in December 2011.
Pujols is now 141 RBIs away from 2,000 and 125 hits away from 3,000. Only Aaron and A-Rod finished with 2,000 RBIs, 3,000 hits and 600 homers.
--Friday night, Dodgers great Clayton Kershaw notched the 2,000th strikeout of his illustrious career, fanning a season-high 14 in seven innings in a no-decision at Milwaukee, L.A. winning 2-1 in 12. [The Dodgers tied a major league record for one game with 26 strikeouts, as reliever Kenley Jansen set a major league mark for striking out 39 batters to start a season without allowing a walk. Now 40 entering Sunday’s play.]
Kershaw is the third-fastest to 2,000, doing so in just 1,837 2/3 innings. Only Pedro Martinez (1,715 1/3 innings) and Randy Johnson (1,734) got there faster. For the season he is 7-2, 2.28.
--I have to keep reporting that after the Yankees’ shocking 21-9 start, they’ve been mediocre and after Sunday’s 3-2 to the Blue Jays in Toronto, they are 11-13 since, 32-22 overall, but still ahead of the slumping Orioles. [New York blew another fine effort by Luis Severino today, 7 innings, two earned.]
But Saturday, the Yanks did win 7-0 in a game marked by four New York home runs in the eighth inning, tying a franchise record. The Yankees had just eight hits, all for extra bases, as rookie Jordan Montgomery threw six shutout innings for the win.
Meanwhile, the Yankees have to be concerned over the health of outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury. He suffered a concussion and sprained neck after making a spectacular catch of a May 24 game against Kansas City. He was expected to miss just the seven-days mandated by the concussion protocol rules, but this weekend he began experiencing headaches again and no telling when he’ll be back.
As for Toronto, after their own shocking start, but for the wrong reasons, 6-17, they are 22-12 since and right back in the conversation at 28-29, 5 ½ back of New York.
--The Houston Astros are 41-16 through today, with Dallas Keuchel a stupendous 9-0, 1.67 ERA, after six scoreless in a 7-1 win over Texas on Friday.
Houston is a staggering 13 ½ games ahead of second-place, 29-31 Los Angeles in the AL West.
--Joe Sheehan has a piece in the June 5 issue of Sports Illustrated on the first two months of the season and trends. For example, starters were averaging 5.63 innings per game, “which would be the lowest figure in history, besting the previous low (5.65) set last season.”
Pathetic. Last season, only 15 pitchers threw at least 200 innings, the lowest ever in a non-strike year.
No pitcher has started 36 games since 2003.
I’d tell you who the last pitcher to throw 250 innings was, but I’m saving that for a future quiz.
The rate of home runs over the last two seasons is actually higher than the peak of the steroid era, 1999-2000. I agree with those who say it’s not necessarily about a juiced ball (MLB insists it isn’t), nor the velocity pitchers throw at these days (though this is a factor), but more about the new theory of hitting that has become the wave. What I wrote of recently, the Ted Williams school...hit it as hard as you can and get it in the air.
That said, through the first 1/3rd of the season, only Aaron Judge (18) is on track to hit 50 homers, so the stats aren’t cartoonish. We’ll just have a lot of 20- and 30-homer hitters, perhaps record levels, I imagine.
--I was reading a piece in USA TODAY Sports by Tim Sullivan on Hall of Famer Jim Bunning, who recently passed away, and according to retrosheet.org, “he struck out Mickey Mantle 23 times in 58 at-bats, held Willie Mays to a .213 batting average, allowed Hank Aaron one home run and laid waste to luminaries Harmon Killebrew (.191), Eddie Mathews (.122), Brooks Robinson (.190) and Will Stargell (.190).”
But when it came to the Hall of Fame, twice, Bunning asked for his name to be removed from the ballot after years of disappointment. Bill James wrote in the 2001 edition of his Historical Baseball Abstract: “Anything but a glad-hander, Bunning wants you to respect him, but much like Kevin Brown...doesn’t seem to care whether you like him or not. He comes off as very cold, very arrogant.”
When Bunning gave his farewell address in the U.S. Senate in December 2010, he told his colleagues: “I have been booed by 60,000 fans at Yankee Stadium standing alone at the pitcher’s mound, so I have never really cared if I stood alone here in Congress as long as I stood by my beliefs and my values.
“I have also thought that being able to throw a curveball never was a bad skill for a politician to have.”
--Jason Gay / Wall Street Journal...on the firing of Mr. Met for giving a fan the middle finger Wednesday night after a Mets loss in Queens. The team issued an apology Thursday, saying: “We do not condone this type of behavior. We are dealing with this matter internally.”
More than one person occupies the Mr. Met head during the course of a season.
Gay: “OK, I have a couple of problems here. The first is obvious and bodily: though the much-shared video does appear to show Mr. Met flashing an aggressive hand sign at a fan, a creature with four fingers is physically unable to flash a middle finger. This is why a bobcat isn’t able to flip you the bird, but your golden retriever is when you forget its breakfast. Were the case of Mr. Met vs. Aggrieved Fan ever to enter a courtroom, all Mr. Met would need to do is flash his bulbous, white underfingered hands in the air, and the case would be immediately dismissed.
“But my second issue is cultural: as a resident of the full-contact, dog-eat-rat environment of New York City, I do not believe people in this town should ever apologize for flashing a middle finger. I’m sorry if that offends, but New Yorkers apologizing for middle fingers is like Miami people apologizing for sun tans, or Boston people apologizing for rattling on about how great the Patriots are.
“Trust me: In this town, the middle finger is not a ‘lewd gesture’ as it’s being described by the Chicken Littles in the sports media. Rather, it’s a cherished, common and utterly useful component of the local lingua franca. Between the traffic, the subways, the elevators and the awful line at the not-very-good coffee shop, if you haven’t flipped a stranger off before 10 a.m. in New York, you’re doing something wrong. Old people, young people, pedestrians, drivers, cyclists, musicians, clergy – we all do it. It’s our version of saying, ‘hello,’ and both the flipper and the flippee know it isn’t a serious act....
“You notice that Mr. Met hasn’t said anything about this himself. This may have more to do with the fact that he doesn’t have an operative mouth, or he’s in big trouble with Mrs. Met, but I’m guessing he feels sandbagged by the ball club. The poor guy gets forced to endure lousy baseball and he can’t respond like a proper New Yorker?”
Meanwhile, my Metsies, at 24-31 and 11 games out of first, are boring as hell and I’m thinking of taking graduate school summer classes just so I won’t have to watch them every night.
NBA Playoffs
--Well that was a lousy Game 1 of the much-anticipated series between the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers. The Warriors led 60-52 at half, with LeBron James having 19 points and 11 rebounds, Kyrie Irving 17 points and Kevin Love 8 points and 12 rebounds, while for Golden State, it was about Kevin Durant’s 23 points, 4 rebounds, and 6 assists.
The thing is it was 33-20, Warriors, in the third, game over as Durant finished with 38-8-8. LeBron had 28. 113-91 was your final score. Whoopty-damn-do.
--Earlier in the week, after I had posted my last Bar Chat, we learned that LeBron James’ home in Los Angeles had been vandalized with racist graffiti spray-painted across the front gate. James and his family live here in the offseason and no one was home at the time.
James then used a news conference on the Finals to give a somber soliloquy on race in America.
“No matter how much money you have, no matter how famous you are, no matter how many people admire you, being black in America is tough. We’ve got a long way to go, for us as a society and for us as African Americans, until we feel equal in America.”
If somebody of James’ stature is not immune to a potential hate crime, he reasoned, the graffiti showed the pervasiveness of hate.
“But I look at it as, if this can shed light and continue to keep the conversation going on my behalf, then I’m okay with it. ...It just goes to show that racism will always be a part of the world, a part of America.”
I am not going to comment on how Fox Sports’ Jason Whitlock fired back at LeBron for evoking the memory of Emmett Till, and other issues, but I’m uncomfortable about one thing. We don’t know, as I go to post, who did this. I’m the ‘wait 24 hours’ guy, after all. Many of these cases, including cemetery desecrations, end up not being what our gut reaction says it must be.
--In his press conference prior to the Finals, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said both the league and the NBA Players Association want to change the league’s age-limit entry rule, which currently prevents players under age 19 from entering the draft. Now, Silver said both sides agree it should be changed, raising it to 20, which would end the era of one-and-dones, and forcing players to spend at least two seasons in college.
The league introduced the age limit in 2006, amid concerns about unripe players entering the league directly from high school.
The rule has hurt college basketball big time, except for Kentucky which has mastered the current rules.
The union actually wants to go back to 18, but perhaps requiring those 18 and 19 to enter its developmental league, which would indirectly force a lot of them to stay in school until 20. So it’s not total consensus yet, but expect a change, perhaps in time for next season.
--We note the passing of former Detroit Pistons general manager Jack McCloskey, 91. McCloskey directed the Detroit Pistons to their first two NBA championships, in 1989 and ’90.
McCloskey first joined the Piston in December 1979 as the team was on its way to the worst record in the NBA, 16-66. The franchise was also on its 19th coach since it joined league as the Fort Wayne Pistons in 1948. The Pistons had not played in the finals since 1956.
So he was hired to turn the team around and it took four years, as McCloskey drafted future Hall of Famers Dennis Rodman, Joe Dumars and Isiah Thomas.
McCloskey also engineered a string of trades, earning the nickname Trader Jack, acquiring rugged center Bill Laimbeer, power forward Rick Mahorn, center James Edwards and dependable sixth-man Vinnie Johnson.
I loved watching this team and Vinnie Johnson was my favorite player in basketball during this era.
Pistons fans, though, were furious when McCloskey traded six-time All-Star forward Adrian Dantley to the Dallas Mavericks for Mark Aguirre – until the Pistons won the championship the next season.
McCloskey was also responsible for hiring coach Chuck Daly in 1983, Daly another future Hall of Famer, as Daly molded the Pistons into the Bad Boys.
Under McCloskey, Detroit made the playoffs nine times in a row. In 1988, the Pistons made the NBA finals for the first time in decades before losing to the Lakers, 4-3, but the next year, Detroit had the best regular-season record, at 63-19, then went 15-2 in the playoffs, this time sweeping the Lakers (Magic Johnson was injured during the series) to win the first championship in franchise history.
The Pistons repeated the next season, defeating Portland in five games. McCloskey left in 1992 for the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Jack McCloskey was born in Mahanoy City, Pa., a coal mining town, his father being a miner, and he played football at the University of Pittsburgh before serving in the Navy at Okinawa during World War II.
After the war he finished his education at the University of Pennsylvania, playing three varsity sports and played one game in the NBA with the Philadelphia Warriors, before becoming a high school basketball coach.
He became the head coach at Penn in the mid-1950s and stayed there until he took over the Wake Forest program in 1966, where he remained six seasons, before moving on to be head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers.
--Oklahoma City Thunder center Enes Kanter said on Friday that his father had been arrested by the Turkish government and again called Turkish President Erdogan “the Hitler of our century.” Kanter has been a supporter of Fethullah Gulen, a cleric who is accused of being the mastermind behind last summer’s failed coup in Turkey. Kanter’s family disowned him, with the father, Mehmet, writing in a pro-government newspaper last summer: “I apologize to the Turkish people and the president for having such a son.”
Turkey has issued a warrant for Kanter’s arrest, which prohibits him from traveling internationally.
Stanley Cup Finals
--So I thought Nashville would bounce back from its crazy Game 1 defeat to Pittsburgh, and instead, they lost Game 2, 4-1, despite outshooting the Penguins 38-27.
Well, Saturday the series returned to Nashville and their rabid fans and after Pittsburgh took a 1-0 lead after one, the rest of the contest was all Predators...Nashville winning 5-1.
Game 4 Monday night. I’ll be focused on this. [I have to admit I caught little of last night’s action. Stupidly watched the Mets most of the time.]
Golf Balls
--Jason Dufner shot a record 130 for the first 36 holes, besting the previous mark of 131 set by Scott Hoch and Rickie Fowler at Memorial, but neither of them went on to win the tournament. Dufner then shot 77 on Saturday and went from five shots up to four behind.
But Sunday he came back with a 68 and won his fifth PGA Tour event by three! Kind of remarkable. More on him next chat, and the mini-controversies I’ve alluded to before.
--Phil Mickelson, who finished T-22 this weekend, shocked a lot of us when he announced he plans to skip the U.S. Open at Erin Hills so he can attend his daughter Amanda’s high school graduation ceremony near their San Diego home. He did say he hadn’t officially withdrawn from the event, which begins June 15, in case there was a change that would allow him to play.
“I wanted to make sure they had enough notice to accommodate it,” Mickelson said of his call to the USGA’s executive director Mike Davis. “So that’s why I’m saying something today, but it doesn’t look good for me playing. But I’m really excited about this moment in our family’s life.”
Amanda, who turns 18 this month, is Mickelson and wife Amy’s oldest child. She is giving the commencement speech June 15, the day of the opening round.
Mickelson said the only thing that would change his plans was if the tournament was delayed due to weather, or the ceremony was changed – both unlikely, he said.
Phil said he’s known of the probable conflict for six months, so give him credit for not pressuring the school to accommodate him, but....they should have! He’s 47 and if time hasn’t already run out on him winning the U.S. Open title that eludes him and prevents him from winning a career grand slam, it’s soon.
Mickelson said of Amanda, “She’s always been, ‘Dad, I know you love the Open.’ She’s always been very supportive. But it’s one of those things you just show up. You just need to be there. It wasn’t really something that we discussed, because it really wasn’t much of a decision.”
Amanda is attending Brown University in the fall. Doesn’t she know they have a crappy sports program? Good grief.
It was in 1999 that Mickelson famously competed in the U.S. Open at Pinehurst and contended, with Amy due any day with Amanda. He was going to leave the tournament if she went into labor, with caddie, Jim Mackay, carrying a beeper in his golf bag.
Mickelson finished second to the late-Payne Stewart.
Mickelson: “Yeah, I go back and, every year at the U.S. Open, I think back about ’99....
“And I always think about...Payne Stewart (who died later that year in a plane crash), and I can’t believe how quickly time has gone by.”
--Martin Kaymer took to Twitter on Thursday to defend Tiger Woods in the aftermath of his DUI arrest, imploring his detractors to “stop being so nasty.”
Kaymer, who is from Germany, posted a 2-minute video on his Twitter account in which he said in part:
“Obviously, a lot of people know what happened to Tiger Woods the last few days, few weeks,” Kaymer said. “There’s so many comments, so many opinions. They are so unfair and so disrespectful, in my opinion.”
Kaymer went on: “(Tiger) inspired kids, teenagers; he inspired all of us. I find it so nasty that people just kick him while he’s already on the floor, and at the end of the day it’s just using someone else for your own sadness. Yes, he’s in the public eye, he’s in the spotlight a lot, so of course people will talk about him.
“But why so nasty? Why don’t you try to do the opposite and help him now in the way he inspired us?”
No doubt the video of his arrest and at the police station that has emerged since my last Bar Chat is deeply disturbing. Thank god he didn’t hit anyone. Tiger obviously has a serious problem.
But as Jim Nantz, Nick Faldo, and Jack Nicklaus said on Saturday’s telecast of The Memorial, Tiger most needs the support of his fellow tour players, who owe everything to the man, and they all know it. I’ve documented countless times over the years the impact on purses just because of Tiger, plus the endorsements the best golfers now receive that they hadn’t before, and I’m not going to engage in any of the trash talk myself. [I haven’t said a peep on social media.]
Forget a comeback in golf. Just get better, Tiger. You have a long life ahead of you and the resources to do some incredible good, as you already have.
[A toxicology report from the urine test is expected back in about two weeks and we’ll learn a lot more at that time.]
--The great Argentinian golfer Roberto De Vicenzo passed away at the age of 94 on Thursday. DeVicenzo was his country’s finest international golfer, 231 titles worldwide, according to the World Golf Hall of Fame, as well as taking the British Open and the first United States Senior Open. But he will forever be known for one of golf’s most storied gaffes at the 1968 Masters.
Shooting a final-round 65 on his 45th birthday, De Vicenzo had apparently gained a playoff with Bob Goalby, who finished moments ahead of him with a 66, both at 277 for the tournament.
But Masters officials were stunned to find that De Vicenzo’s playing partner, Tommy Aaron, had marked Roberto’s birdie-3 on No. 17 as a 4, and De Vicenzo hastily signed the scorecard without double-checking to see that Aaron had marked it correctly.
The 4 had been marked in pencil, but tournament chairman, Clifford Roberts, and his aides, after discussing the mistake with Bobby Jones, maintained that it could not be erased, according to the Rules of Golf, since the card had been signed. Goalby was the champion, De Vicenzo runner-up by a shot.
Afterward, De Vicenzo famously said, “What a stupid I am.”
41 years later, De Vicenzo watched back home in Argentina as Angel Cabrera became the first Argentine champion.
De Vincenzo won his British Open at Hoylake in1967, besting Jack Nicklaus by two shots at the age of 44.
Tommy Aaron told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2008, “Roberto never looked at it. He had bogeyed the last hole, and he was upset, and he was just sitting there, and I said, ‘Roberto, here’s your card.’ I was getting ready to say, ‘Take your time with it,’ when he just signed it and threw it on the scorer’s table.’”
Unfortunately, Bob Goalby received mail from fans who accused him of being an unworthy champion.
“I’ve always felt like a victim, as much or more than Roberto,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1989. “None of the problems with scorecards were my fault. But I have forever been singled out as the guy who won the Masters because of some damn clerical mistake. I don’t think I ever got credit for what I did that week.”
De Vicenzo told Sports Illustrated in 2008 that he had earned lucrative appearance fees as a result of the mistake. “I’ve gotten more out of signing the card wrong than if I had signed it correctly,” he said.
“Every now and then,” he added, “I will drop a tear, but I’ve moved on. I got to see the world through golf. No one should feel sorry for me.”
--WESH-TV in Orlando obtained court documents pertaining to Arnold Palmer’s estimated $875 million estate and Palmer’s widow, Kathleen, was left $10 million, with the bulk of his estate – including multiple homes and golf courses – being divided equally among his two daughters, Peggy and Amy Palmer.
“Arnie’s Army Charitable Foundation,” which began in 2015, is seeking $10 million, which is expected to be paid by the estate, and there is no doubt the daughters will take care of some of Arnie’s other charitable endeavors, such as the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children and the Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies, both in Orlando.
Another $5 million was set aside to satisfy creditors, and $25,000 was allotted to each of eight employees.
Technically, the will remains in review until July.
--Oklahoma won the NCAA men’s team championship, defeating Oregon, last year’s champion, 3-1-1.
NASCAR
It was an historic day at Dover today, with Jimmie Johnson winning his 83rd Cup race, thus tying Cale Yarborough for No. 6 on the all-time list. Kyle Larson was second, Martin Truex Jr., third.
Which was important to yours truly because this gave me T-3 in the DraftKings contest as I had my biggest win ever in golf, football or NASCAR. Let’s just say I beat about 20,545 out of 20,588, to which Ronald Reagan would have commented, “not bad, not bad at all.”
[If David Ragan hadn’t crashed out with four laps to go, I would have been first or second. Really.]
I had to tell my race-fanatic brother of my good fortune and he was watching the Detroit Grand Prix (Indy Car), so I flipped that on for the finish and Graham Rahal won, after winning a formal race on Saturday at the same place (Belle Isle).
What is worth noting here is that Indy 500 winner Takuma Sato finished 4th and Scott Dixon 6th.
Imagine, years ago Dixon is dead instantly from the crash he went thought at Indy just 7 days earlier, and yet there he was today, driving as hard as ever.
And some folks say these guys aren’t athletes?! You’re freakin’ nuts.
Futbol
--As expected, Real Madrid captured another Champions League title so they remain the kings of Europe with a 4-1 win over Juventus in Wales. Madrid thus became the first team in the Champions League era to win back-to-back titles and it’s now 3 of the last 4, 12 overall.
Madrid started the competition, then known as the European Cup, with five straight, but since the 1992-93 season, when it was rebranded, no team has been able to successfully defend until now.
Cristiano Ronaldo led the way with two goals as Madrid, after an entertaining 1-1 first half, took control and cruised.
In the overall Champions League competition, Ronaldo had 12 goals, making him the leading scorer a fifth straight season. He also became the first man to score goals in a final three times, the others being in 2008 and 2014.
It was the second Champions League title under manager Zinedine Zidane, the former French great who took over at his old club last season.
--Arsene Wenger signed a new two-year contract to return to Arsenal as manager. Wenger, having failed to make the Champions League (for next season) for the first time in 20 years with the club, was on the chopping block, it seemed, numerous times this past year but he delivered a third FA Cup triumph in four years last weekend in defeating Chelsea 2-1. At 67, he convinced majority owner Stan Kroenke he could still do the job.
--How much money are teams paid in the Premier League? 2016-17 was the first season of the latest television deal and the money is huge.
The figures are based on broadcast and commercial deals plus prize money. Funds from the Premier League’s central commercial deals and overseas broadcast rights are shared equally – as is half of the domestic broadcast income.
A quarter is paid out in prize money based on each club’s league position and the other quarter in “facility fees” for each game broadcast on UK television.
Bottom line, Chelsea received about $194 million in total payments, which will certainly allow it to buy some players, with Tottenham at $186 million. It then goes down to last-place Sunderland, which still took home $120 million, giving it a solid shot as a relegated club to bring in new players and hopefully get back to the PL in 2018.
Contrast Sunderland’s $120 million with the fact that last season’s Premier League champion, Leicester City, won just about the same amount. Yes, that’s the impact of the new TV contract.
By the way, as BBC Sports points out, the ratio between the highest and lowest totals paid by the Premier League to its clubs in 2016-17 was 1.61 to 1, the lowest among Europe’s top leagues, which means the PL is more equal than its rivals in sharing revenue.
Stuff
--Union Catholic High School is just about 15 minutes from where I live and for the past few years, we’ve had quite a budding track star in our midst, Sydney McLaughlin. She’s in the process of wrapping up her senior year and on Saturday, running at the NJSIAA Group Championships, she led her team to their first championship.
In the same meet, she also broke her own national record and the World Junior record when she ran 54.03 in the 400 hurdles, a time that is currently the third fastest in the world, regardless of age! She then doubled back to run 51.87 in the 400, breaking her own state record.
The next day, after those two events, she ran a 22.96 in the 200 to break a 24-year-old state record. What a performance!
One more, next week’s Meet of Champions. Recall, the high schooler went to the Rio Olympics.
So where is she going to college? Kentucky! Why there? She said when she made her choice last fall that she just connected with more people at the school (she only looked at one other, Southern California) and a big reason she chose the Wildcats is the presence of Kendra Harrison, who broke the world record in the 100 hurdles last summer and is now an assistant coach at Kentucky. You go, Sydney!
--I was reading a piece in the Los Angeles Times by John Cherwa on one of Bob Baffert’s horses, 5-year-old Argentine-bred mare Vale Dori, who had won six in a row and seven of nine since Baffert got the horse on U.S. soil, and I caught her act at the Beholder Stakes in Santa Anita yesterday. Vale Dori lost by a nose in a terrific match race against another star, Stellar Wind.
But I only mention this because while Baffert has been absent from the Triple Crown races this year, having lost out on early-line favorite Mastery not being able to run due to an injury, he nonetheless has had a helluva season. While he doesn’t have a big barn compared to some of the other trainers, until Saturday he had won 34% of his 32 starts. He’s been in the money two out of every three times. [The trainers at the top of the standings have started horses at least 70 times.]
--Former Penn State President Graham Spanier and two other ex-administrators were sentenced Friday to at least two months in jail for failing to report a child sexual abuse allegation against Jerry Sandusky a decade before his arrest.
Spanier was sentenced to four to 12 months.
Former athletic director Tim Curley received a sentence of seven to 23 months, and former vice president Gary Schultz was given six to 23 months. They pleaded guilty to child endangerment.
All three apologized in the courtroom to Sandusky’s victims before sentencing.
Judge John Boccabella said of the three, and former head coach Joe Paterno, “They ignored the opportunity to put an end to (Sandusky’s) crimes when they had a chance to do so.”
The case hinged on assistant coach Mike McQueary’s claim that he witnessed Sandusky molesting a boy in the team showers in 2001. McQueary recounted what he saw, but the three administrators decided not to report it to authorities to protect the university’s reputation.
Joe Paterno also became aware of McQueary’s report and Judge Bocabella noted that both he and McQueary could have called police.
Joe Paterno’s son, Jay, said that his father had followed the law, and that prosecutors have no evidence Paterno tried to protect Sandusky.
A lot of us are really tired of Jay.
--‘Man’ remains mired in the 368-slot on the All-Species List as it emerged in southwest China the other day, a young man deliberately destroyed an historic stalagmite at a cave in Songtao county, Guizhou province, “adding yet another entry to the list of Chinese tourists’ obnoxious behavior, the Beijing Youth Daily reported on Friday.” [South China Morning Post]
“Surveillance cameras caught the white-shirted man trying to kick off the stalagmite on the side of the main path in the cave, while other tourists were taking photos of the natural marvels. He made three attempts to knock off the tip before doing so and then walked away without taking it, the footage showed.”
A cave enthusiast told the newspaper that it takes thousands of years for a stalagmite such as this to form from the ground up, drip by drip (stalactites form downwards from cave ceilings), and they can hardly be restored.
This isn’t the first time such an act has occurred in China’s parks. Feed him to the tigers at one of their tiger-breeding farms. They could use the amusement.
--Carl Reiner has done a new HBO documentary, “If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast,” featuring Betty White, both being 95.
The title refers to Reiner’s daily ritual of waking up, grabbing the newspaper and...turning to the obituary page.
“I’ve been doing it for many years,” says Reiner. “It starts at a certain age, when you read that somebody you know or an actor you admire has passed.
“So then you keep checking [the obits]....And I have a little agenda now: I look at the dates of people when they passed and say to each one, ‘I got you. I beat you.’”
Reiner’s advice when you are elderly, get up and start moving...and have interests that you can’t leave until you finish it.
“If You’re Not in the Obit...” premieres Monday (8 p.m.) on HBO.
--Finally, Gregg Allman was laid to rest Saturday afternoon at a memorial service in Macon, Ga., that drew friends and family, including ex-wife, Cher, and former president Jimmy Carter.
Carter said in a statement: “Gregg and the Allman Brothers Band were very helpful to me in my 1976 presidential campaign. Gregg Allman was better known than I was at that time. The band got the campaign political attention and raised much needed funds.
“Gregg Allman was there when I needed him, and Rosalynn and I have always been grateful to him.”
Just last year, Carter was on hand to present Allman with an honorary doctorate from Mercer University.
I did see that Gregg was buried in Rose Hill Cemetery near his brother, Duane.
Top 3 songs for the week 6/4/66: #1 “When A Man Loves A Woman” (Percy Sledge) #2 “A Groovy Kind Of Love” (The Mindbenders) #3 “Paint It, Black” (The Rolling Stones)...and...#4 “Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind?” (The Lovin’ Spoonful) #5 “I Am A Rock” (Simon and Garfunkel) #6 “Monday, Monday” (The Mamas and the Papas) #7 “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” (Bob Dylan) #8 “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World” (James Brown) #9 “Green Grass” (Gary Lewis & The Playboys) #10 “Strangers In The Night” (Frank Sinatra)
Baseball / Yankees Quiz Answer: 1,200 RBIs....
1. Lou Gehrig 1,995
2. Babe Ruth 1,978
3. Joe DiMaggio 1,537
4. Mickey Mantle 1,509
5. Yogi Berra 1,430
6. Derek Jeter 1,311
7. Bernie Williams 1,257*
8. Bill Dickey 1,209
9. Tony Lazzeri 1,157
10. Don Mattingly 1,099
*Williams is the classic example of a great career, deserving of a plaque in Yankee Stadium, but just not Hall of Fame caliber. 5-time All-Star, but no MVP top 5s. One batting title, 2,336 hits, .297 batting average, .381 OBP...but only hit .208 in 120 World Series at-bats.
Next Bar Chat, Thursday.